Chapter 10 - The Health Continuum
Step 1 - Establish Where You Are
If you’re in pain from life and exercise without addressing the pain you’re doing yourself a disservice. This is because you are working at a deficit and ignoring your body’s needs. Pain is a signal from your body that something is wrong. Pain can also be an indication that something in your life is changing but you are resisting this change. You are out of balance if you are in pain.
Additionally, your exercise efficiency, freedom of movement and possible enjoyment of exercise is virtually eliminated if you’re in pain. A body in pain does not want to move. Pain also closes down the mind.
The goal of this work is to help you create a new association and relationship with your body based on pleasure and/or your highest path. “No pain no gain” has its place but not if you’re already in pain.
You can address many physical aches and pains through the following exercise.
Step 2 - Intentional Relaxation
Intentional relaxation is an art requiring you to actively focus your energy into your body. The purpose is to help it relax and attain balance. It involves tuning into what already exists in your body/mind and learning how to let it go.
During the trial and tribulations of life, we may encounter a moment when someone tells us to “let go” of some mental or emotional matter currently troubling us. This “issue” prevents us from moving forward in our lives. Oftentimes, this is easier said then done. Spiritually, we often use the term “letting go” as a means of attaining a higher state of awareness by releasing an aspect of ourselves that no longer serves us.
In my experiences, letting go is very powerful tool we can use to deepen our self-connection and find peace within our body/mind. It, like any other tool needs to be used as often as possible to remain sharp and effective. The key word here is practice. The more you practice “letting go” the better you will get at it. Then when a pivotal professional or personal moment occurs in your life, you will be able to respond to the moment rather than be overwhelmed by it.
How Does One Practice Letting Go?
I have been repeatedly asking this question for many years and have discovered the most powerful (and clearest) way of letting go involves practicing with the tool that is the interface between the realms of our internal and external worlds: our bodies.
Our bodies are more than just chemical bags taking in air, liquid and substance. As previously described, your body is a beautiful and unique sophisticated bio-supercomputer holding your essence. I believe the body is one aspect of your essence. Therefore, every experience you have becomes part of who you are. We have all heard the saying, “You are what you eat.” Let’s add, “You are what you experience.”
To me, the magic of my life is realized through each experience we have. The more we allow each experience to affect us, the more we are moved, shifted, deepened, inspired and motivated. We then are more aligned with those experiences that bring us more life. Each experience becomes a teacher that informs us more about our life and our relationship to it.
By choosing to be fully aware of the affects each experience produces in our body/mind, the more we have the opportunity to release what gets in our way or does not serve us.
Once the obstacle is released, we can replace it or “re-program” our bio-supercomputer with a more updated and fulfilling life program.
Your ability to let go provides you the opportunity to observe your behaviors. This empowers you to choose to engage only in behaviors that serve your life while no longer choosing the ones that harm yourself and/or others. The idea here is to instill into your body/mind that letting go is more desired than being negative, angry, or overwhelmed. Your body is a learning machine and the more you reinforce the behaviors you wish to develop the more you will strengthen those behaviors while the older, less sophisticated behaviors will be cleared out.
FYI – we have developed a special program called The Letting Go Project email course, which focuses on 10 specific topics such as letting go of judgment, guilt, weight loss and more. We have had great success helping others transform with this program. To learn more go to: www.lettinggoproject.com.
Here are the principles: Pain (contraction) causes the body to close down, and pleasure (expansion) causes the body to open. The more pain your body experiences, the more negative emotion arise and cause your mind to become clouded. The more pleasure you provide your body causes your mind to open, your outlook to improve and your world to expand. Pain = contraction. Pleasure = expansion. Therefore, experiences that produce body/mind contraction are to carefully considered (avoided) and those that provide body/mind expansion are to be embraced.
How to Apply Letting Go to a Workout
This simple procedure will help to reduce a great deal of stress and inner tension in your life while creating space for health and vitality. This technique can be practiced anywhere but for the purposes of applying it before a workout you need to find a quiet area before you begin your workout. You will receive the most benefits if you practice while lying on the floor. You can practice at home before you try this in the gym setting. Depending upon your gym there may be an empty studio or a stretch area quieter than the rest of the gym. If not, and your coming from work, sit in your car and practice before going in.
The goal is to connect to yourself and calm your mind from your day.
This technique, which involves observing your breath, can also help you get to sleep at night and is great for helping you to remain relaxed and connected to your body when traveling for long periods.
Connection to Inhale
Connecting to Your Exhale
Letting Go
Once you have finished relaxing stay quiet within and rest. Eventually you may recognize how good you feel and how clearer your mind has become.
When you are ready, slowly transition from a lying position to a sitting position. Rest and breathe, allowing your body time to adjust before finally getting to your feet.
Pay attention to the feeling of support you feel beneath your feet. The more weight you give to your feet and the floor, the more the floor supports you. Allow yourself to be fully supported by the floor. Relax all your muscles as the floor supports you through your skeleton. Allow the floor to support you through your feet, your ankles, your lower legs, your knees, your hips, each spine of your vertebra, your neck, and lastly, your head.
Once you are supported in standing, notice your posture. Are you standing straighter? Does it feel good? Pay attention to how your posture feels and continue giving your weight to the floor until you feel good to great in your posture.
To make this procedure easier we have created a product to help train you and your nervous system to release its accumulation of tension from stress. It is called DeStress Therapy and you can purchase it online. The product is a 5-week course complete with audios and a manual. To purchase this visit, www.energybasedhealth.com/products/dt.
Once you feel fully supported and grounded you are now ready to work out.
Note – If at any time you feel lightheaded, go slow. Allow your body time to adjust before moving quickly. Sit back down and pay attention to how you feel. Please take care of your needs and do not continue if you feel uncomfortable.
Practice of this technique can be performed anywhere at anytime and provides:
The more time you spend practicing letting go in this fashion, the more you will integrate this behavior into your daily life. The deeper you are able to connect to yourself where you are, improves your ability to let go. Eventually your body/mind will adopt it as a natural part of your life.
Step 3 – Melting Tension, Aches and Constant Pain
If you have aches and pains that never go away, this step is for you to perform.
The built up tension or tightness in your body can be dissolved. Pain and pleasurable sensation all have the same characteristic of coming and going. That is, no sensation is permanent. They do not last. Every feeling and sensation you have had eventually ended. What determines the period of time you experience a particular sensation is based on your internal resistance to feeling or experiencing it. As you relax your internal defenses and breathe with the part of yourself in pain, the pain will lessen and eventually disappear.
The challenge is to be able to face your pain and remain calm in the presence of it.
Begin by scanning the body and observing any tightness or tension you may find. It may be a subtle sensation of tightness or an obvious discomfort. Upon finding your pain begin to observe it. Do not try to do anything with it. Just allow it to be as it is. Be with the reality of it. Then answer the following questions:
Now that you have a rating, a size and a shape, give it room to be as it is. Continue to calmly and neutrally observe it and offer it acceptance. Surrender to its presence. Most importantly, relax the muscles surrounding this area. Eventually you will find the pain will begin to change. Follow the changes with your awareness. Allow the changes to happen as they happen. If it moves to another part of your body, calmly follow it. Stay with it, offering it space to be by relaxing everything around it until it has completely dissolved.
Continue to scan your body and work with the areas that require your attention until your body releases its pain.
Dissolving pain is a skill that requires practice. Our last product for this series is our Reduce Your Pain program. The product is a 5-week course complete with audios and a manual to guide you to train your body to release its pain. To purchase this visit, www.energybasedhealth.com/products/reduce-your-pain.
FYI - A word about observation: observation in this sense means opening yourself to your body and listening to what it tells you. Have no expectation as to the method of how it may communicate with you. Just remain open to every sensation and feeling that comes your way.
Step 4 – Maintaining an Open and Flowing Body During Exertion
The length of time you can perform any exertion is based on intensity. High intensity exercises can only be maintained a short period while lower intensity can last much longer.
What I have discovered is that by training yourself not to close down upon the pain of exertion by remaining calm and open, you will experience tremendous benefits such as:
The practice of intentionally relaxing before you begin a specific exercise will help you to focus upon staying calm within your mind and body while you exert. As you exercise, the sensations of exertion rise within your body. Face them head on and continue to remain calm and open. Maintain a connection to your body and keep your muscles calm and open as you push your limits whatever they may be. This practice will enable you to produce more results as your become more comfortable being uncomfortable.
FYI – if you have lived long enough you know that being comfortable while being uncomfortable is an extremely valuable skill, which will help you for the rest of your life.
The 2 Point System of Holistic Fitness
As previously discussed, the purpose of exercise is to connect to and improve the way you use your body. You have now been given the tools to push your comfort zone and keep yourself calm and open. Now we need to push your envelope and create some results.
Point 1 – Push Your Comfort Zone
If results are produced by adaptation caused by stress then the most efficient way to elicit change is to fatigue your muscle to the point where they grow stronger. This means in order to create change, you must push your personal comfort zone.
This is where “no pain, no gain” comes in.
FYI - However, if your body is still in pain and stressed, you should only impose a limited amount of “no pain, no gain” on your body. The goal is to listen to your body and only push it when it’s ready.
If you can push yourself to this point, your body will change, grow, and get tighter and leaner before your very eyes.
I recommend discovering for yourself where the edge of your comfort zone lies. The more familiar you are with this edge, the more you can safely push it.
What About Reps and Sets?
Reps and sets are great ways to organize a workout or are they? If you like the structure it imposes and the need to have a goal, then they are great.
There is another way. The following suggestion requires a great deal of self-honesty and a desire to push your limits.
On a scale of 1-10, pick a level of workout intensity at which you wish to train. The higher you go, the more focus you will need, the more energy you will expend and the more results and benefits you can expect to achieve.
What’s that? You want to work out at an 8? Great! Okay, that will get you good results! Let’s begin with a simple exercise. How about a bicep curl? (1 -You can use any traditional exercise or non-traditional exercise like a yoga pose or Pilates. 2- Only do this exercise to this degree you feel comfortable. Doing these exercises without a certain degree of safety is completely contradictory to the point I am trying to convey regarding listening to your body. So, please tune in and listen to your body. Pick any exercise or movement you like. Bicep curl is only an example.)
Pick a weight (resistance or time to hold the pose) you know will challenge you based on your commitment of an 8. Begin to curl the weight, both arms at the same time. Don’t stop until you get to the point where you cannot do another (Be sure to have good, safe form). Good job!
Now assess… did you give an 8? Could you have done another rep? My guess is you probably could. (Once again, I remind you to listen to your body. This is where brutal self-honesty comes in. Either your body could do another rep or it could not. Only YOU know the truth. Also, form is important but we will get to that later.)
Try another again and push yourself to where you cannot do another rep. It does not matter what number you reach as long as you go until you cannot do another (all the while maintaining good form).
If you exercise in this manner, pushing your limits while listening to your body, you are guaranteed to safely fatigue your muscle and obtain results. If it takes you 1 minute to get to fatigue, you probably need to add more weight/resistance. If it takes you 2 seconds to get there then lighten the load. The beauty of working out this way is it ensures variability for each day that you have different energy levels. This way you don’t have to worry about reps and sets. All that is required is you do the best you can for each exercise and focus completely on what you are doing. If you want to do two sets, do them as intently and intensely as you want. If you want to do four sets, go for it, as long as your body has a positive response without pain.
By practicing exercise in this way, you will learn your limits, improve your endurance, deepen your commitment and stay true to your word (integrity). See how this works?
The point here is to become comfortable pushing your level of comfort to the very edge of tolerance. Having this information about yourself is invaluable in your daily life. Knowing what you can take on and what is too much for you can be the difference between a good business decision and a bad investment.
Once you develop your ability to recognize your limits you can choose whatever level of exertion you wish to perform for a workout keeping in mind the following:
Point 2 – The Practice of Good Form Provides More than Just Increases in Strength
I have found with every activity, no matter if it’s running, sitting at lunch, performing leg presses, squats, or bicep curls, or even doing something as simple as drinking a beer, good posture is always desired. The more you practice good posture, the more you body will remember and your posture will improve. Posture is such an important aspect of self-image. How important is posture to you?
Good form is good posture! Remember our posture exercise where you relaxed into the floor…the more you perform this exercise the better your posture will become. The more you understand what good posture feels like, the more you can bring it into the gym environment. Practicing good form means head held high, shoulders back, core tight, and legs planted on the ground while doing your exercise (if that is what the exercise calls for) and staying focused on (or committing to) maintaining this form regardless of how much it hurts. If you focus on giving 100% of your energy to doing as much as you can until you cannot do anymore with good form/good posture, you will be addressing a whole slew of things including the following positive outcomes:
The benefits do not stop there because you also achieve the following side benefits:
The key here is to completely focus upon the experience as it is happening. No distraction, no excuses, just you and your body.