Wholistic Fitness

“You better know the Spiritual Priority and Purpose behind the podiums and the practices that you undertake. A lot of fitness endeavors can be like gossip for the ego; satisfying for the moment yet lacks spiritual majesty. Most conventionally trained athletes spend all their lives training, training, training. . . . Only to meet the next life unprepared.”
– coach ilg

photo by Ananda after winning the 2008 State Nordic Championship. As a New Daddy, i’ve already re-structured and released plenty of training and so far two winter events from my athletic Schedule…in so doing, i’ve keep my Priorities crystal clear; to be a present, loving, and conscious new father as well as keeping my spiritual rituals as my Priority…not competing in races which take me away from being a father/partner warrior. i have to Trust that my Sangha understands the difficulty and respects the appropriateness of ‘losing’ a bit of the ‘competitive ilg’ for the sake of Wholeness and personal maturation.

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i, like many of you, am dealing with Resolution Fallout.

it’s okay.

inDeed, it’s Par For The Spiritual Course.

like a challenging yoga posture, we may fall from our Resolutions 10,000x before we ‘get it.’

each yoga posture has a spiritual life which must reStore our natural elegance.

each Resolution too, has a spiritual life which must be Lived through Direct Experience before that Resolution results in the needed spiritual revolution of our egoic grooves and attachments.

ilg will state it again:
falling from our Resolutions – regardless how sincerely we made them (see Wednesday, December 31, 2008 DL: MY “INFAMOUS” NEW YEARS EVE WORKOUT RITUAL) is Par For The Spiritual Course.

it strikes me as very non-sanguine to immediately get depressed or dejected about falling from a Resolution.

the Journey – YOUR Journey Higher – is not about getting bummed about failing…hec,
i fail all the time because i’ve chosen to set my personal bar at the Enlightenment Level.

it’s not about not falling.
it’s about cultivating elegance in Beginning Again.

and…Again.

and 10,000x Again.

when we Begin Again enough,
we realize the spiritual life of that “again” Word Choice;

“a Gain”

***

A Proven Cure For Resolution Fallout

Most people make afflicted Resolutions.

We tend to focus on the less-important Priorities; namely the physical body and her actions.

How many times have we Heard it?
“My Resolution is to lose 15lbs!”
“My Resolution is to get organized!”
“My Resolution is to be a more Conscious Parent/Person!”

Those are afflicted Resolutions based in an imaginative quest that is as ungrounded
as a snow squall.

It’s like an athlete being possessed of podiums and training for them
that they do not reStructure their lives for Love, Light, or Trust.
at my age, and having lived the life i have, it’s incredible to see how many athletes
come up void, in a spiritual perspective, after a lifetime of training that
has been dead-ended by injury, age, or burnout.

To avoid Resolution Fallout start with non-afflicted thinking:
“There is nothing more priceless than my spiritual well-being,
both for myself and for my loved ones and for the UniVerse.”

We began by Spirit,
We are sustained by Spirit,
We will one day return to Spirit.

right?

right.

okay, so why the Heaven aren’t more of our Resolutions spiritually-grounded?

let me illustrate with more lower chakra vernacular:

Stupid Resolution: “I’m going to the gym three times each week this year.”

Spiritually Smart Resolution: “I’m going to do the WF Early Morning Ritual three times per week.”

Priority shifts from the egoic/body-centered choice to instead, prioritizing the energetic foundation our of spiritual body; an EMR Practice if done only 3x per week develops subtle anatomical fitness which recharges and inspires the mental, emotional, and physical selves. The result? A far more approachable Resolution that begins to create a natural m(om)entum for positive changes in our Wholeness.

Other Spiritually based Resolutions that have been Proven include making a commitment to reading DL each day; be a fresh entry or one from a DL Archive.

How about making a Resolution to get on the SUNRIDER HERBS; Coach Ilg’s Phase One and/or the MAP Amino Acids instead of the stupid Resolution of “losing 15lbs.”

Smart, Proven Resolutions begin with the spiritual, cellular level and then let the physical level begin shifting for itself. think of a Tree Being: she starts from her spiritual (wind-blown seed) source, establishes her sense-of-self through her cellular rooting, and then explodes into a beautiful, life-giving Tree! all the Gunas are there; Tamas in the seed, Rajas in the rooting, Sattwa in the growth

sadly, most people make Resolutions like fires, instead of trees. fire is all Rajas…and like sexual fluid, only depletes Wholeness if wasted.

Spiritual Fitness is integral to personal Wholeness.

Prioritize those rituals which nourish our spiritual/energetic self.
Then our cellular self.
Then, enjoy observing and working within mental and emotional selves which have become trainable.

With time, our physical/gross Resolutions will be more deeply rooted within Mother Earth and we’ll have Wise Discrimination step in before we reach too far into Father Sky. Over-Reaching is a great way to lose balance and weaken roots. So is Over-Sinking into moods.

to call back a lower chakra metaphor;
your 2009 Spiritual Fitness is like a sewer.
what you are going to get out of it
depend upon what you CHOOSE to put into it.

head bowed to a Divine 2009,
your mountain yogi along the NavanYoga Path of WF