One of the concepts I learned during my time spent studying with Buddhist monks and nuns has been really useful in my quest for moderation. The middle path or middle way as it sometimes known is all about moderation and finding the middle ground.
The middle path generally refers to the avoidance of two extremes. Buddha himself started life as a prince and renounced his luxury lifestyle, to embrace the other extreme as an ascetic practicing severe austerities.
Eventually landing between those two extremes ultimately realising both indulgence and deprivation were equally useless, even detrimental to his goal of achieving awakening.
I like to think of this and apply it to my work as moderation. Finding the middle ground between excess and scarcity. I use it with perfectionists to allow for our overestimated goals and expectations. With failure at the other end so we can find a middle ground that’s realistic and excellent between failure and perfection.
It's great to use in health goals and routines too. I might not want to run a marathon but I don’t want to be a couch potato either. I don’t want to be overweight but nor do I want to be starving. Even where stress is concerned we have the middle way of eustress, positive motivational stress which sits between boredom and burnout.
It’s why sometimes you’ll see me enjoying a burger and a beer and other days I’ll be on a juice detox. It’s why I can be sleeping in on a Sunday or up at 6am Tuesday to do yoga and meditation before a big gig. I can enjoy a family BBQ or late night out (not as often these days to be fair!) and then on a silent meditation retreat the following weekend. I believe in everything in moderation being the key to finding the joy without beating ourselves up.
There’s too much pressure on us these days to be perfect. Social media has increased this sense of everyone else being a wellness warrior and us failing at life because we had a piece of cake. The quest for perfection has been exacerbated and the middle way can help us find our way back. Our excessive expectations push us to the extremes and that can be detrimental to our performance (and our general happiness and wellbeing). When we return to the middle and find the middle way it can be the secret to success and reduce the pressure we so often, unnecessarily, put on ourselves.
I think this can also be a useful strategy in negotiations and team collaborations too. When dealing with opposing views asking the question “what’s the middle path here?” can be one of the most useful conversations to reach a consensus.
So what’s your middle path and how might this concept be useful for your moderation goals?