Wholistic Fitness

This Actual Student Exchange is typical of precisely why most conventionally trained fitness
people steer well, well away from the Fire of WF which is so confrontational with our egoic masks.
I have designed the Practice of WF to bring each one of into the yogic fire of self-cultivation by self-examination
in myriad ways. This Noble Student’s beautiful photos of wildness confirm the essential need for the spiritual grounding
and elevation derived by getting out and sweating among Nature.

***

Dearest Coach,

This DL Teaching from you hits very close to home.

“Taking life seriously does not mean spending our whole lives
meditating as if we were living in the Himalaya Mountains or in the
old days in Tibet. In the modern world, we have to work to earn our
living, but we should not get entangled in a nine-to-five existence,
where we live without any view of the deeper meaning of life.

Our task is to strike a balance, to find a middle way, to learn not to
overextend ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations,
but to simplify our lives more and more. The key to finding a happy
balance in modern life is simplicity.”

Sogyal Rinpoche

***

I think a lot about my life(style), as a working dad and husband, and
wonder, is it really what life is all about? There is so much extraneous
activity and material stuff in my life, it drives me batty. My greatest
pleasures in life are spending quality, balanced time with my kids, my
wife, and my friends.

I feel chained to a 9 to 5 existence, four weeks vacation, bonuses if I
work extra hard. The work of my life right now between my job, my kids,
my house, my relationship with my life, is relentless, non-stop, barely a
moment to truly breathe and smell the flowers. Even my pursuit of
physical fitness feels relentless at times; always striving for more,
better, stronger, faster.

So I continually ask myself, is the workaday life what I want for the next
10-20 years until I “retire”? No, it is not. And yet I see all these
(successful) people around me at work who seem to love what they are doing
and thrive on the furious pace, leaving their families at home, traveling
the world, and constantly working their ass off. Corporate America is
full of people like this. What is wrong with me? Why do I find it a bit
empty, pointless? While I like many aspects of my work, I continually
have this underlying feeling of discontent, like I am missing something.
Maybe it is just my psychosis, or maybe not … ????

How can I make a rewarding living, and support my family, without being
chained to a desk and a 9 to 5 existence? That is the question of the
year for me.

While on assignment recently, I was treated with this one weekend,
as me and some workmates hiked it up into the wildness, an amazingly
beautiful and soulful place. This is the stuff of life.

Love, your warrior student
wt