When it comes to life balance , the most common question I get asked is: “Where do I start?” My answer is always: “If you don’t feel good, nothing else matters!” In this article, I share with you the reasons why fitness is important and how to balance mind, body and soul.
I always suggest to start by working on your fitness.
Think about it. If you’re sick in your body or your mind, every other aspect of life is affected.
Good health is something many people would give millions to acquire, if only it could be purchased with money. The truth is; billions of dollars are spent every year in North America in an attempt to treat the symptoms of our sick society. Unfortunately most of those dollars are spent on disease treatment instead of health care.
Generally people who don’t feel well want to get better immediately. You can live without your family, without your friends, even without your money. You can’t live without your health.
Health is one of those things we take for granted as long as we think we have it and become enormously concerned about as soon as we think we’re going to lose it.
The public in general believes they are healthy if they are not experiencing symptoms of illness. However, the absence of symptoms doesn’t necessarily mean we are experiencing health . Disease is usually present in our bodies long before the symptoms show up.
You can be free of symptoms and have a stroke or heart attack tomorrow. The presence of disease is the harvest we reap from sowing the seeds of an unfit life. Our bodies have been created to live in harmony, integrity and balance .
Living a life of mental and physical fitness will result in a harvest of wellness . By focusing on what our human needs are instead of the things that are bad for us and we need to quit doing, we can achieve balance much more quickly.
Mention the word fitness and most people conjure up the image of hulking figures pumping iron, or competing in triathlons, or simply jogging at the neighborhood Y. Granted, physical fitness is extremely important, but when I talk about fitness being important to keeping our lives in balance, I’m speaking of several different types of fitness.
The three types of fitness I speak about include mental, physical and emotional (spiritual) fitness, since humans are tri-dimensional. Fitness is a combination of strength, endurance, and flexibility. To be fit we need a balance between all three.
There is a connection between our mind, body and spirit. The thoughts we sow in our mind will affect our physical well-being. The way we look after our physical body will determine our emotional (spiritual) well-being.
In each area we are what we are because of the seeds we have sown, seeds we have sown in our mind, in our body and in our spirit. We always reap what we sow. The seeds we’ve planted are the causes of our disease; the symptoms we experience are simply the harvest.
Mental Fitness
The average adult thinks about 60,000 thoughts per day. It is our thoughts that lead to our actions. We can be totally transformed or changed by renewing our minds .
In order to renew our minds we must focus on that which is good and pure and pour those things into our minds until that which occupied it previously is diluted and eventually replaced with the new. Whatever we focus on gets bigger.
Likewise, if we focus on those things we don’t want, they also increase. The condition of our minds is determined by the diet that we feed our brain, just as the shape of bodies is determined by the diet that we feed our stomachs.
Just like our bodies, our minds require exercise and rest as well as nutrition in order to grow and maintain fitness.
Mental nutrition is the food you feed your mind. As soon as you wake up in the morning, begin feeding your mind with positive life-changing information. Information fed to the mind within 15 minutes of awakening is digested very quickly and efficiently.
Just as you have a dining room to feed your body, you need a dining room to feed your mind. A place of solitude where you go every morning as soon as you awake.
The place I feed my mind every morning is my reclining chair in the family room. That is where I spend 30-45 minutes feeding my mind during my Power Hour. I also feed my mind by listening to some great podcasts that educate, motivate and inspire me.
How about you...are you feeding your mind, body and soul a healthy daily diet? Are getting some exercise every day? If not, will you commit to begin today?
“If you don’t feel good, nothing else matters.”