Turns out the best way to balance your money choices has nothing to do with your thinking; it’s actually a body thing.

By now most of you know that I love metaphors and analogies, but this is actually a literal thing, unless maybe it isn’t.  Brigham Young University has done a study about shopping, and they discovered that if people physically experience the sense of balancing right before or during shopping, then they make better choices.  By better we mean more “balanced” and less extreme.  Neither too little nor too much; just right.

Of course the buzz is to wear Stiletto shoes while shopping.  Personally I find those a challenge to stand in, let alone walk!  They would create stress for me, not balance.

Lots of magazines and newspapers have been having fun with this idea.  The study talks about doing yoga poses, riding the escalator, wearing wobbly shoes; things that have your body experience balance.

This resonates for me as both a metaphor and a literal thing.  As you find physical balance, you remind your brain about balance.  You become in balance.  Balance becomes natural and desirable.  You get to “be” and exude balance.

It seems also likely to me that this sensation of balance is also a way our right brain would communicate balance to our left brain.  Right brain thinking uses sensation and metaphor, not English, so it “speaks” to us through our bodies.

Maybe it’s as simple as this: when your body is in balance it’s pretty hard to have your brain go to one extreme or another.  Maybe, and somehow many people haven’t gotten this yet, our bodies and brains are actually connected?

So before you buy something, spend a moment or two in Flamingo pose.  Find your balance and see what it tells you.