How many times a day are you ready to explode? Explode with happiness, explode with joy, explode with anticipation? Yeah, I was not talking about exploding at the guy who cut you off in traffic or exploding at your boss. What do you do every day that reminds you that you are really alive? How do you strive to exceed limits in your mind, your body, your life?
We all want to live our lives to the fullest every day. Personally, there are some days I seem to be dotting I’s and crossing T’s all day, running a groove in to a rut on auto-pilot, not feeling energy coursing through my veins. While life (and fitness) depends on consistency and routine, when routine turns in to rut, I get uninspired. So how do I snap out of it? To me, it’s blasphemy to waste life, a beautiful day or precious time just going through the motions.
I’m a spiritual guy. To be truly spiritual, I need my body to be tuned in so I can trust it to be sending me the right signals about what is going on. My spirituality is abetted when the systems of my body are working in harmony. Total fitness incorporates acts that we can control, things we make decisions about, ways we can change ourselves for the better or worse. The outcome of informed thoughtful decision is a system receiving and performing its best. When practiced consistently, you know and feel the difference. When you can feel the fullness of your existence through your body, the effect is spiritual. It becomes the channel through which you are able to inspire yourself and others, through the greater energy you have and create.
The crazy thing about working out is that you expend energy, yet the process of working out actually gives you more energy. It’s like a perpetual energy machine. At the cellular level, you are pumping oxygen through your system, pumping blood through your veins, through your muscles. You are effecting change in your own body, your own little system. This gives you the new power and energy to effect change around you. Stagnant energy, stagnant air, stagnant body, stagnant mind. Working out helps you transcend that trap. Your mind can grow and expand. Neurons grow, oxygen is pumped to your brain. You get smarter. You learn to avoid the negative energy sucking that tells you that you can’t do it.
Obviously, for each person, total body fitness is a very unique thing. Think about the analogy of creating art. Some painters use spray paint and some use fine-haired brushes to create their unique masterpieces. It’s all a matter of choice and style. Similarly in the workout world, each individual has their unique route to total fitness. Though the underpinnings of reaching your fitness goals are the same as others’ – a system fueled by healthy food and clean water, fresh air, and moving the body to promote optimum functioning – how you best fine-tune this is up to the individual. There is no prescription that will best work for everyone. If you have not found yours yet, keep looking. Your failures will inform your path to future success. It’s a blessing to know what does not work for you, so you don’t continue to go down the wrong path.
