A Balanced Life is a Happy & Healthy Life

As any mother will tell you, being a mom is a constant balancing act—and that’s without even trying to achieve a balanced life. Mariel Hemingway believes that finding balance has not only helped in her own life’s journey, but it has also brought balance to the lives of her two daughters, now 18 and 20 years old.
“As a parent, the only thing you can do with your children is model them. You have to show by example,” says Hemingway, who is dedicated to holistic and balanced living and shares her insights about yoga, meditation, nutrition and home. “But, by a certain age, they’re making their own choices,” she cautions, explaining how even though she had her daughters meditating at an early age, they gave it up. “Now they’re back,” she says, “because they know the effect it has.”
Reflecting on her own childhood, Hemingway reasons that parents need to set a blueprint and when the time is right children will use it. “My life was about as balanced as it could be, coming from a fairly crazy background,” she recalls, “but it made me who I am.”
The granddaughter of esteemed author Ernest Hemingway, the actress was thrust into the sometimes blinding spotlight at a young age. At 13, she was recognized in her own right when she made her acting debut in “Lipstick,” followed by her Oscar-nominated role in Woody Allen’s “Manhattan.”
Living on her own since she was 16, Hemingway says her life has been about personal discovery and finding her roadmap for health as she related in her inspiring memoir, Finding My Balance. Her current book, Healthy Living From The Inside Out, is a guide to help others find balance and health through self-empowering lifestyle techniques.
While her daughters always saw the benefit of healthy living thanks to their mother’s example, Hemingway admits her husband was the inspiration for her new book. “He asked for my help when he had his second bout with cancer and we made it a family journey,” she says, noting his terminal melanoma had spread to his colon.
Hemingway asserts there are four areas to consider when looking to create a healthy and balanced life—food, home, exercise and silence—and she credits simple changes in each for healing her husband. “He’s totally cancer-free without chemo or radiation,” she says.
Change doesn’t have to be sweeping to be meaningful. There are logical issues that are very basic for everyone in the family, says Hemingway using sugar, salt and processed foods as glaring examples of “noisy” foods that need to be cut out—but not necessarily all at once, she says. “Take baby steps and you’ll gradually retrain your taste buds,” she recommends.
For some simple food changes, Hemingway suggests using SweetLeaf SteviaPlus in place of sugar in beverages, cooking and baking. Calling it her number one pantry staple, she says it’s not about depriving yourself of something you like, but replacing it with something better. It’s an all-natural, zero calorie, chemical- and carb-free way to satisfy cravings for sweets.
Next, Hemingway says, clean your fridge! Let your instincts tell you what to toss and don’t be derailed by leftover pizza and desserts. If you have the proper food in your house and take the time to live right, your children will sense it, she assures. (Recipes for some of Hemingway’s family favorites follow.)
For exercise, Hemingway advocates yoga because, “Yoga taught me to be present,” she says, but what’s more important is that you let yourself see exercise not as something else to fit in to an already busy life, but as a tool that will help you handle it better.
Hemingway recommends walking with intention. That is, walking without the distraction of music, cellphones and the like so you can stay focused on your breathing and your environment. Also, exercise for better body awareness at work, she says. Every 20 minutes, stand up, stretch arms to your sides, then pull them back by squeezing the shoulder blades. Flex your wrist backward as you do so. Lift and drop your shoulders 10 times. Breathe.
“Look at your home and see that it serves your spirit and supports who you are,” says Hemingway. Visual clutter in the home is just another form of “noise,” according to this expert. Streamline your environment by dealing with new clutter as it arrives. Open mail and recycle junk immediately. Don’t keep old newspapers, and answer emails before they pile up, are just a few of her suggestions.
Then, pick three things in your home that you’ve had for years yet serve no purpose, and donate or toss them. If that feels good, keep going, says the actress.
Finally, “Silence is key,” says Hemingway. “It is one of the most important components of balanced living. Finding silence helps you to reflect, to go inside, and to listen to your breath,” she explains, adding that it is the most powerful tool of healing and balance.
When you’re ready, take Hemingway’s challenge: Pick one day to be without your phone and email. Avoid checking the time, and let every task take its own course. Eat when you’re hungry, not when the clock says “lunchtime.”
Once you get rid of the noise, you start to become your true self, says Hemingway, and so do your children. “It’s about becoming aware of the way you live your life. It’s about perspective and being present.”
By exposing her daughters to the balanced life to which she is so dedicated, Hemingway is confident it has also become a way of life for them as young adults, especially when compared to their friends who are not as calm and lack their energy, she says.
“The best way to parent is by taking care of yourself,” says Hemingway. “We’ve been programmed to beat ourselves up and not be kind to ourselves,” she adds. “Once we are aware we are constantly judging and criticizing ourselves for our very nature, change can start with just these four principles.”