Posted by admin on Mar 11, 2011 | 2 comments
The new fitness revolution is … Stress Reduction.
If you’re not working on your stress you’re missing the boat. You’re adding intensity each and every day to an already overburdened system, only making it work harder, increasing the chances of that it may break down.
Lowering your stress is really the fountain of youth. Your panacea of pleasure. The road towards longevity.
Every time we “pick up” another additional stress we add it to an already full plate. We have so much to deal with during our day that adding even the most minor, simplest thing may fill our bucket to the brim and put us over the edge. Why did you get that cold last week? Stress.
When we are stressed our body enters an unhealthy state of “fight or flight, shunting its attention and the majority of blood to our core, our spine, and our vital organs. It leaves any areas that need repair behind and just focuses on deep inner protection. This means that a system like digestion gets weakened, skin looses elasticity, and the immune system is no longer a priority (Why would your body care to avoid a cold when it believes you are about to run from a man eating tiger, needing to put the energy into immediate survival?)
We just screw ourselves.
But the problem is … reducing stress is difficult because it is one of the most inactive things we can possible do. It is the act of “not doing” anything.
“So let me see (a client says to me)…. Everything else that I want to accomplish in life I have to put energy into, can attack with a bit of aggression, and make it happen. I can acomplish whatever I want that way. For this I have to do nothing? How do I do that??!”
Exactly.
The art of turning off your stress is a delicate process. Hitting it with a hammer to kick it into gear will not work. You must use the most delicate instrument. And the center piece of this is your inner attention. You inner eye.
Using your inner eye you will be looking to see how you “code” intense moments and thoughts in your life. Each time we experience a stressful moment we “code” what has made us stressed as either meaningful or as unimportant. If it is unimportant we do not take it on as additional stress. It becomes a moment in time that we rise to, one that we meet with some stressful energy, and then it falls away when it is over. It “disappears” as meaningful from our inner programming. If it codes as important inside (whether it actually is or isn’t) then it stays with us, becomes a part of our ongoing stress, and contributes to our aging and breakdown. Can all stressful events be coded as important? Yep. And in that case we get overloaded very quickly, and avoid handling anything else so that we don’t become overloaded again.
How can you tell if you have coded a stressful moment as important or not? If it churns in your mind. After a stressful situation do you spend time and energy thinking about it? Or does it just disappear into the many events of your day? This will give you your answer.
What a game this all is for us. We can overcome the effects of stress if we find out how we relate to each event. Then we can decide if it really has importance, or is completely unworthy of our continued attention and stress. And you will probably find out that most things are just that…. not worthy of any ongoing stress.
Read More
Posted by admin on Jun 18, 2009 | 0 comments
I’ve watched many many people go through their machinations with spirituality. They are looking to explore it, but the explosion of information that is now available is so incredibly overwhelming that it leaves most with a lack of direction and focus.
The world today has embraced the phrase “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” A total knee-jerk reaction towards the all-encompassing “accept-our-way-of-life-beyond-all-others” world religions that have often flexed their authoritative arm, bringing with it an incredible lack of freeflow in spiritual thought, as any exploration is confined to the dogmatic box of the religion. This attracts those that appreciate such things, but frightens those who shy away.
So many are left with a vague idea of what is spiritual, but not any practical appreciation or application. Many are left with a simple issue, whether they actually know to address it or not: “What is the difference between fantasy and spirituality?” ” What really is spiritual?”
There are many definitions of spirituality we can look at and research, though my favorite is that spirituality is simply “our experiential walk through life.”
Our “experiential walk.” This cleans up alot of extraneous parts of our experience. It leaves out the physical, the psychological, the material, and the social. And yet it somehow includes them. Our experiential walk is made up of 3 portions: our sense of self, where our attention is at the moment, and what acts on us to make up the details and changes in our experience. So while we can disregard the physical as being “our experience”, if our attention is in the physical world at that moment, then our spiritual experience is there as well. Each moment of our experience makes up our walk as a whole. This is the starting point for spirituality.
How that experience is guided is the next angle to approach. That guidance may come from other individuals, from a book or DVD, or from the self. There are benefits to each, and drawbacks. The danger is that if the information that is at the root of the spiritual practice is not grounded in some real aspect of reality, it quickly flies off into fantasy. It easily leaves the realm of being useful and life enhancing, and instead splits the person further from reality, taking them into the perception of higher levels of spirit, yet disconnecting them from their healthly walk.
A spiritual path that is not grounded in reality is fantasy. The more reality that one stands and immerses themselves in, the more one can explore the true possibilities of spirituality, the possibilities where they can expand themselves and become more.
If your practice at its very root is based on assumptions and fantasies, merging with reality will be very difficult. Reality abides by sets of rules and laws, and if a person is not grounded in those rules suffering occurs. As step #2 on the Take Giant Steps Steps Ladder™ states “Reality wins… every time.”
Once we determine reality the best we can we are able to merge with it and be in oneness with it. From that place we can begin to explore the possibilities that spirituality has to offer, bringing our experience of reality to higher levels, with less suffering and without the possibility of things falling apart. Anything created that reduces suffering is useful. The greater the “less suffering” created the more viable the practice. Choose your directions, your teachers, and your practice wisely with this is mind.
Read More
Posted by admin on May 16, 2008 | 1 comment
This is the preliminary view of inner self awareness. Deeper thoughts will be included in following articles. But it is important that we begin someplace to have an overview. So this is it…. welcome to it.
Many thoughts are around us now in the new holistic universe. We are seeing an east meets west merging that is quite sexual in nature. The Yang West has actually been penetrated by the Yin East. What this alliance is forming no one knows. It is in it infancy. but growing day by day. Many fields are blossoming out of it like little children. And like little children direction and efficiency is not their priority, but exploring their world is, and seeing what its capable of in so many ways.
What East really is adding to the West is the deepness of self awareness that Eastern philosophy provides. Eastern awareness started on the mountain top. In silent contemplation of who one is, what one is, where one is externally and internally, how one functions, with some why.
Eastern though really is from that place of aloneness. That waiting to experience what is for the inner self without putting overlays on it. What I mean by an overlay is that you can have some idea of how reality is, how it functions, first, then start your contemplation. What you’ll get is the idea/overlay that you originally thought enhanced and slightly morphed through self awareness into a concept that explores its reality, and at the same time fortifies the initial thought. Where that initial thought comes from and if it has any foundation in reality or not is then not a question at that point. But it should be! Its a question that cannot be answered once the enhancement has begun. It is “too late”.
So real contemplation is from the deep state of unknowing into the known. That’s what the initial concept is. But don’t think and don’t worry that all eastern thought has it. Plenty of Buddhist and Eastern thought have plenty of overlays too. Its just that the original concept came to earth without it. Now that’s clean meditation. And gladly many a keen meditator often finds their way back to that pure point as well.
Patience is something else that Eastern thought comes with. Extreme and sometimes supreme patience. Sitting for hugely long extended periods of time. Standing sometimes. Endurance events. Allowing the body and being to just be while they monitor the self and relax. Western thought has little time for patience such as this. Its too busy creating.. to notice what is happening.
Silent contemplation though is not always good. It is not always useful. It is an avenue to one area of the being. But since it is so incredibly rare in our Western experience it is a necessary way to get in touch with all the parts of ourselves that exist there. There are parts of ourselves that exist in noisy reality, and parts that exist in silence. Both are huge. Both are accessible through their individual channels. So one must use the appropriate channel, the appropriate access to gain entry it. Then changes can be made. Voices can be heard.
Combine the two and you get an awesome life.
See ya next week!
Read More
Posted by admin on May 10, 2008 | 0 comments
I’ve recently been “hired” by a local gym to discuss management and communication techniques. This is good. I’ll be teaching the trainers there how to find out more effectively what their clients want, what’s holding them back, and what will motivate them to get more involved in their health, wellness, and fitness.
It’s no small task. Trainers are q-u-i-c-k. They work intimately with their clients and people in general. They already understand pretty advanced techniques when it comes to training and relating. They are doing it every day. So it will be a tall task to give them information above and beyond what they already know.
No problem.
Most of the issue occurs around purpose and motivation. Here NLP is a good (although not the sole) technique to use.
First identify what is the exact issue in their way.
Then what type of personality style does that person function underneath? Do they respect more powerful ideas, more intelligent ideas, more heartfelt, or selfish…. ? I’ll teach them how to identify these and then the languaging to use around it.
Then there’s NLP. Here I’ll teach them to understand how to have their client do a simple technique to regain their state of motivation and how being present at their session gets them to their goals. It becomes a direct correlation from action to achievement.
The trainers should be thrilled to receive this. There is nothing more frustrating than to have half a client available during a session, and between sessions. Remember the more you put into your session, the more you get out of it. It is that simple. The more tools a trainer has to elicit and achieve this the better for them and their client.
Plus, I’m going to teach them how to be better employees! But that’s for another blog.
Till next time!
Read More
Posted by admin on May 3, 2008 | 0 comments
Very excited to be opening this new door. I’ve had Take Giant Steps officially opened for a year now. It’s in great motion but I’ve needed a better way to reach out and share the ideas that make it what it is. Even now as this is being created I am creating my first newsletter. So new mediums mean more information and more information means more evolution for everyone.
Southern california is a hotbed of fitness. People are very aware of the need for Cardio-Vascular health as well as pulmonary. With the air quality being what it is, its no wonder. Making your lungs able to absorb more oxygen and release CO2 (no worries about it being a greenhouse gas) is VERY important here. Not everybody realizes this though. There are many things that get in the way of people accepting exercise into their life.
Caring about the self is a weird animal. Not everyone prioritizes it. This always hits me as strange, being someone that LOVES the exploration of the self and bringing it to its heights of ability. That’s why I work so well and detailed with NLP and depth coaching. It makes it much easier to quickly identify where the conflict is, satisfy it, and slide right past it to what truly is desired.
But what the hell. We can’t have everybody striving for excellence… (I guess?)
Acclimating to SoCal is one hell of an exciting time. Parties are all around, and to be avoided. I’m just not there any more. Too many other important priorities. And that’s just the way I like it.
For the first time I am at one with what I want to do, what I have to do, what I should be doing, and what is my elation here on earth. So next is making a success of it all!
So to sum it up….
here
We
Go!!
Read More
