Would you spend one dollar to get three bucks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLxwtwYPkHU
I'm sharing this video on Intermittent Fasting to bookmark it. If weight loss was a serious issue for me? With a doctor's permission I'd do a stricter Intermittent Fasting routine, strength training, and about 12 minutes of Tabatas every other day. Drink plenty of water, get plenty of sleep. Keep my goals in mind--all the positive things I will get.
This is important, because it is your EMOTIONS that drive your behaviors. And since the core of weight loss is the PHYSICS: getting the output below the input, the rest is behavioral. And since we can start with the notion that all animals and humans seek to move away from pain toward pleasure, it is easy to see that the process might be easy in terms of physics, but it is COMPLICATED AF on the emotional level. The human race has changed drastically in the industrial world, and IMO, those changes are responsible for the obesity epidemic.
Of the three major human arenas, BODY is the one requiring the least cooperation from others. Sure, you still need some, and it can be hella difficult to maintain an eating or exercising plan in the wrong company. But it is still easier than finding a soulmate, which requires not only YOU getting your shit together, but finding another human being on your frequency..
Money? In general, you need LOTS of clients, customers, employees, and so on. In general, the more money you make, the more people you are serving. Wanna be a professional writer? You need the cooperation of what…5k people?
So the body, however difficult it is, SHOULD be the easiest of the three to get right. If you focus on "getting the calories under the output": which involves nutrition, exercise physiology, perhaps hormone balancing, stress management, and other things. It is COMPLICATED. So you need to keep your eyes on the simple part.
Because the same things that devil you in one arena of life will bite your @## in others. Hawaiian Huna suggests that "the body is like a black bag, where you store your unprocessed emotions." I'd like you to consider the implications if this is true. If emotions can interfere with our ability to create an alive, healthy sexy body (what kind of bodies are you attracted to? That tells you what you really want to be.) then how much more could they damage our ability to connect with our hearts, find love, or built a business and financial security.
THE EMOTIONS ARE YOUR POWER…UNLESS THEY ARE YOUR BURDEN.
If I know exactly what I need to do to get my body where I need it, for Manila, for Hollywood, and for my family, and getting that next-level result will be a matter of MY BEHAVIORS, nothing else. NOTHING else (sure, I’m aware that there are external factors that can enter the equation. But I have to focus on what I can personally affect. Losers focus on the obstacle, winners on the gaps between them.)
So I need behaviors. To perform the behaviors I need my emotions aligned with them, and to do that I need to know exactly WHAT I'm trying to do.
Or to do that in reverse, I need
MIND (what I desire to accomplish, and the strategies to do it.)
HEART (WHY I desire it. Focus on love for the future I’m creating)
BODY (the actions that will take me there)
And we connect these with the Three Centers viewed as physical energy aspects:
Belly Brain (Body) controls movement up and down
Heart Center controls movement forward and back
Head Center controls movement left and right.
What I just said above is a decade's worth of work, but we can give you a glimpse of a different world if you connect your goals as described (what, why, how), connect them to the moving centers, then while performing your Tai Chi you bring your mind to those centers and keep one aspect of it thinking about what combination of centers, in what order, creates the movement.
You are turning a physical technique into a mental/emotional/energetic technique. You are touching magic at this point, and only those who have actually created such body-mind connections will really understand what I mean.
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So in my own practice, I now know that the next level of performance will be found not in the actions per se, but in the emotional and mental alignment that drives and directs those actions. Answering questions like "Who am I?" and "What is true?" and "How do the Three Gates connect to the actions, the results, the life I am creating? Who am I serving? What is the pleasure I am multiplying in my life? What is the pain I’m avoiding?"
I want TOTAL CLARITY of intention--knowing exactly what I intend, what I need to do, and how I need to do it. This will include observation of results--because you want to divide your task into tiny chunks, and risk failure with them EVERY DAY. That way, a failure is just stubbing your toe, not breaking your neck. NOTICE THE RESULT, AND CONTINUALLY MODIFY BEHAVIORS UNTIL YOU GET THE RIGHT RESULTS. Then, double down.
What do I need emotionally to do that? Faith in myself. A sense that I deserve it. Clarity on how my success will help my family, friends, and community…as well as make Little Stevie the happiest kid in the world.
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Let's apply this practically. I wake up, and wait until my body feels totally rested before getting up. Then I sit up and meditate. Follow the breathing to its root. Listen to the heartbeat. Clarify the space in my head. I will sit there until breath, heartbeat, and headlight all coordinate just a little. Some days they are HUGELY aligned instantly. Other days it takes me almost an hour to get just a thread connecting them.
But do you understand how efficient/effective it is to make this connection? I hope so. You need body, emotions, and mind all working together, every day.
Then get up. Joint mobility. Then bathroom stuff. Then the first Tibetan. Then Tai Chi.
And the chanting, visualizing, and emotional flooding are aimed directly at my three major arenas. Today that's fasting and yoga, connecting with family, and working on the Niven project, clearing my head out for the Star Wars book if that contract actually comes through.
For each major goal, I have to see how it connects with the other goals. To see myself LOVING the life I create and the good I can do.
See it. Feel it. Speak it. Who are the role models who can help me, who could do the different aspects of this plan effortlessly? Larry, Steve, Dawn…those three at a minimum could handle it. If I have fear around an aspect, or have had problems in the past…who could kick the @#$$ out of this challenge? BKS Iyengar could. Oh, yes.
Fasting becomes a basic starting point, because it is under my control, but very very close to the basic survival stuff that drives us as human beings. Not much less critical than breathing. Mastering THAT aspect of existence gives you power everywhere. Connecting with family heals my heart. Staying on track with goals (like "a sentence a day") keeps me on track money and career-wise.
Even if I don't manage to get full fasting, can I squeeze my caloric intake into a 2-3 hour slot? Yes? Then I get at least a "1" in that category. Do my Tibetans as well? Even just three reps of each, distributed through the day? I get a "2".
Giving thanks for my capacity, my positive future opportunities, for the people in my life (centrally Jason, Nicki, Tananarive, my sister Joyce. Then mentors and role models) implies all of my goals and purposes.
Then my closing affirmation is some variation of "all I need is within me NOW." And because the entire practice is structures around the "M.A.G.I.C. Formula" this is the place where I can address another pattern. I love Brendon Burchard's "High Performance Six": Clarity, Energy, Urgency, Productivity, Influence, and Courage.
So: "All the CLARITY I need is within me now. All the ENERGY I need is within me now…"
Doing all of that, while breathing and moving properly (if you don't think I can get crossed up, you are nuts!) is like juggling eggs. All those moves, and thoughts, and feelings, and images! Wow. Why, why…
That's almost as complicated as life itself! And you know what, if you practice this, there will be days when you want to SCREAM because you just don't want to deal with it all.
So…ask yourself…what part of yourself do you want to leave behind today? Your emotions? Your body? Your mind?
Go ahead. I'll wait.
That's right: YOU CAN'T LEAVE ANY OF THEM BEHIND. So you might as well wake them up and align them CONSCIOUSLY.
And here's another thing: it doesn't take much time. This entire morning program takes MUCH less than an hour. Often less than 20 minutes. But if you fast? You're getting back the time for 2-5 meals every two days. What is that? 2-4 hours? 6-12 hours a week? What? Investing 20 minutes gets you back at least 60 minutes? Spending one dollar to buy three?
Now you can't complain about time. Its just you, and your capacity to love yourself enough to keep your word. Take the actions. Keep your eyes on the ball..day after day after day. That's FIREDANCE, the ONLY practice I do every single day, six days a week. I'd be a mess without it.
If YOU would like to greatly increase your energy, efficiency, effectiveness, and joy in life…please join us at: www.firedancetaichi.com
It is the very best I've ever found, the crown jewel of all my teaching, and everything else spreads out from there, the "Soulmateprocess.com" and "magic4teens.com" and so forth--all connect to the physical, because if you engage your body you engage the mind…but when you engage the mind you can leave your body behind, and the results can be catastrophic.
Namaste
Steve
