Bring Balance to Your Life
Often times in our day to day lives we wonder, “how am I going to fit everything in?" I need to go to work, exercise, take care of the kids, and now I’m supposed to try and eat well too? How am I going to do all of this? Why should I even care?”
Unfortunately all too often the answer to these questions is to drop one or more thing(s) from our To Do list to make room for the others. What if I told you there’s a way to do everything you need and feel less stressed while doing it? The trick here is simple, you must learn the principle of living A Balanced Life.
See, easy as that, right? Nah, I won’t leave you hanging. So what does it mean to live ‘A Balanced Life’? Let’s break it down.
The term “balance” according to Webster’s dictionary means “an even distribution of weight enabling someone or something to remain upright and steady” or “a condition in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions”. For us to apply this in our daily lives that means we need to to have all of the various aspects and departments not only equal but - and here’s the true secret - they need to be working together as well.
I like to remind my athletes that the major elements of our foundation are the body, the mind, and the spirit. We hear these terms mentioned in almost every cinematic representation of martial arts… Think of the Karate Kid: “wax on… wax off”. However, our lives are not best depicted by a Hollywood movie, despite how badly we may want them to be. The real world is slightly more complicated than that... or is it?
Body, Mind and Spirit might have a bit of a Kumbaya feel at first. But it is the root of our wholistic approach to health and fitness here at Forged Warrior Fitness. To understand better what’s behind this Kumbaya attitude, let’s look quickly at each element:
Body- the “body” represents everything physical about us. This is the category that most of think about when we think health or fitness. Being mindful of exercise, nutrition, cosmetics, and hygiene are common facts that we all are aware of but sadly tend to be some of the first things to go in a busy and stressful situation.
Mind- the “mind” represents all of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Separate from the physical brain, although the mental does scientifically come from the physical, our mind is more of a projection than something we can point to. In science, we tend to lump the “mind” in with the body as part of the scientific process of neurotransmitters and hormones and such. But before I bore you with too much science, let’s just say the mind is the way you feel and the thoughts you have.
Spirit- the “spirit” represents everything about ourselves we can not quantify or is hard to explain no matter how hard we try. It is our beliefs, our morals, our “code”. Simply put, our spirit is who we are as a being.
Now that we have simply defined the body, mind and spirit, let’s look at how we can bring each into balance and unify our focus in life. Your first and foremost thought needs to be, as simple or selfish as it may sound, “How can I take care of myself”? As much as we may want to do thing for others - especially since we were taught from a young age to put the needs of others before ourselves - we must first realize that if we ourselves are not taken care of (ie. happy, healthy, BALANCED), how are we going to be able to properly give help to anyone or anything else?
The common denominator of the body, mind and spirit is that they all begin and end within ourselves. Once we realize that we are the root cause of everything else that happens around us, we can then begin to add value to ourselves and thus our lives. At the very surface, if we train our bodies to function at the highest levels, and we train our minds to conquer the toughest of tasks, and we train our spirits to stay strong in the toughest of adversity, then we can bring balance to our lives.
Understanding the value of our own self - that everything begins and ends with our own capabilities - can lead us down a path of extreme success and rewarding accomplishments without the confines of worrying about how the world acts upon us.
It is you versus you. You are the only person who has any semblance of control on your life. Live your live with focus on your body, mind, and spirit. Learn how these things can and should work together to form an unbreakable, peaceful balance to your life. What you put into your own self is the biggest predictor of what you will get out of it. Maybe it is as simple as “wax on… wax off.”
