A friend and I recently talked about what our core messages as coaches are when she said: "Caroline, you really are all about balance."

I love when people reflect back to me what they see as a theme in me. Of course it doesn’t mean they are always right, but sometimes you yourself are so close to your own thoughts and ideas that you don’t see the most obvious things.

So, yes, go and tell your friends what you see in them generously… just make sure you do this constructively with a focus on the positive… but that should be obvious ;)

Once my friend said this to me, I immediately knew she had a point because I could sense little butterflies fluttering around at the mention of BALANCE.

Let me be clear, my favorite terms in my life coaching practice are mind-body, yin-yang, masculine-feminine, light-dark, drive-ease, push-relax, positive-negative etc.

Why is that? Because I believe that all of us exist on a spectrum and have a wide variety of needs, sources of fuel, and paths of expression. We are wild, amazing, colorful, complex beings after all and we need various sources of fuel and expression in order to feel whole.

All of us have a mind and a body to decipher information and feedback from. We all have a masculine and a feminine side regardless of gender. We all need fire, drive, and passion, but without ease, relaxation, and reflection, we are not sustainable.

In sum: Opposites are never in opposition to each other. Rather they are enabling one another to function optimally. Opposites are buddies.

So how does this relate to being strict and one-sided with yourself?

Many of the women who come through my life coaching doors are caught up in a very narrow definition for how they permit themselves to exist.

Most of my clients push themselves extremely hard and feel guilty about relaxing (personally speaking, this used to be a major issue for me as well!).

They are all ambition and no ease and wonder why they still feel like they are not doing enough.

They are all masculine and estranged from their feminine while wondering why their love life feels empty or the spark in their relationship is missing.

They are all yang without indulging in yin and suffer adrenal fatigue as a result.

They are all mind and never drop into the wisdom of their bodies while at the same time over-analyzing everything and claiming they don’t have very good intuition.

These are some examples only, but my point is that so many of us strictly define one small window for ourselves in which we allow ourselves to exist and demand ourselves to be successful in.

In reality what we are doing is this: we are cutting ourselves short. We are preventing ourselves from living out and flourishing into our own unique shapes. We resist the colorfulness of our own being that exists along a whole entire spectrum of self-expression. We prevent ourselves from being wild and alive!

You deserve to live out the entire rainbow of your own personal being. That is what will eventually lead to authentic happiness, wild sexy romance, deep trust and personal freedom.

In the comments below, I’d love to hear from you: What part of yourself are dying to indulge and show to the world more (even if it feels scary)? In what area do you want to tune up the volume and express yourself a bit more? How are you planning on having more fun, feeling a tad bit more playful and sassy, and giving yourself permission to invite more ease and relaxation into your life?