Are You Creating Your Habits Or Are Your Habits Creating You?

Growth and change can happen in two ways – although one will inevitably lead to the other if cultivated to its complete fruition; as one is ultimately a reflection of the other. Growth can manifest from the inside out or can be influenced from the outside in. And as inside and outside are just two sides of the same coin, normally both are happening simultaneously, although our conscious attention may only be directed at one or the other at any given time. You can change your thoughts, perspectives, and beliefs (inside) and allow that to reflect itself in your outward actions, habits, and behaviors; or you can make an attempt to modify your actions, habits, and behaviors (outside) and allow that to create the catalyst to change your thoughts, perspectives, and beliefs. But as I’ve said, even though these seem like two separate paths, both must ultimately occur in conjunction if there is to be lasting change and true growth.

The first step to growth is making the decision that you want to make a change. Often this is the most difficult step because it requires admitting to yourself that the way you’ve been going about things has been wrong and you are the one responsible for where you are at in life and therefore you have the power to create a new reality for yourself. The ego loves the illusion of certainty and consistency and does a great job upholding the story it has built about itself (yourself), so being confronted with a potential story change can feel like a degree of death that most of us have been conditioned to fear out of our forgetfulness of what we are and consequent illusion of separateness.

Normally it takes a lot of pain in your life – physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually – to finally get to a place where you’ve had enough of your own bullshit to take that first step. And/or you must have a big enough Dream for yourself to willingly embrace the inevitable challenges of life and see them as stepping stones to your own growth – which is fundamentally a remembrance of what you actually are as one with Oneness itself.

One of the most important things you can do for yourself once you’ve taken this first step is to create and establish healthy rituals in your life. These are sacred habits/practices that you’ve intentionally created for yourself that act as guideposts to keep you aligned and moving towards your Dream.

The purpose of these rituals is twofold: Firstly, the practice itself will have a positive effect on your being. And secondly, you can choose practices that will help to strengthen certain aspects and attributes of your self that will aid you in becoming the type of person you need to be to do and have the things you say you want for yourself. A daily meditation practice of at least 20 minutes, for example, can not only help you grow your awareness of your Self and your thought and behavior patterns that may be Dream-affirmative or Dream-negative, but can also help you to develop the discipline required to pursue other meaningful goals.

A healthy ritual can be as simple as making your bed, taking a cold shower every morning, or drinking half your bodyweight in ounces of clean water every day. The important thing that it needs to be something you can commit yourself to and be consistent with long enough to form a habit. I like to commit myself to 100 consecutive days to gain the full experience of any practice before I decide if I want to maintain it or not. If you miss a day you must start back at day 1. This is called a Gong.

The beautiful part is that once you’ve proven to yourself that you can implement one healthy ritual into your life, it makes it much easier to add more. Since your habits ultimately shape your life, the more healthy habits you can implement, the more likely you are going to be on the path of growth towards your Dream. The reverse is also true: if you don’t take the time and effort to create intentional habits, you will likely fall into habits that are a result of your unconscious programming or the path of least resistance (which often leads to nowhere), which will ultimately result in pain of some form that you can either use constructively to grow your awareness and make better choices or fall into the self-destructive trap of blaming, numbing, running, and distracting yourself from the pain.

These rituals should be a part of your value system and therefore are “non-negotiables” – like breathing. When you create these rituals for yourself – like getting to sleep before 10:30pm every night – you can trust that even on your worst days, as long as you’re upholding your values and the rituals you’ve created for yourself, you’re still on track and getting better. These rituals act as the glue to hold everything together.

Change is an inevitable part of life no matter how much you try to control everything. But instead of working against that fact and creating more pain in your life, you can work with it and choose to change on purpose to be more in line with Change itself which is inherently Changeless. The more you choose to show up and do the hard work of remembering that you forgot, the more you can do your part in not only actualizing your own potential, but being a source of guidance and inspiration for others on their own growth journeys. What you do on the inside for yourself you are ultimately doing on the outside for everyone and everything else. The reverse is also true.

Implementing healthy rituals into your life is one of the best ways you can approach from the outside to help you make lasting change and growth on the inside. And the more you grow within yourself, the more fruitful and abundant your external reality will reflect itself back to you.

Why Individual Design is for Everyone

From cell phone cases and mattresses to beach towels and neck ties, everything in 21st century American can be customized and curated to match your individual desires. In the last 5 years, the prevalence of subscription-based services has given rise to monthly “boxes” which purport to recommend the best wine, whisky, coffee, cigar, or fashion to match your preferences (just take our quick 5-minute quiz to find out!) In the age of customization and individualization, the health and fitness industry has lagged. Certainly, there are more options today than ever before to choose from when thinking about an exercise or nutrition program, but if all those programs purport to be “for everyone”, then how do you know which one is for you? Individualized fitness programs can benefit anyone.

Individualized fitness programs allow coaches and clients to explore how exercise can serve them and their lives. The lives of a college student, a young professional, a middle-aged mother, and an empty nester all carry different experiences and expectations. A college student may find she has plenty of time for exercise in the evenings and a desire to compete in a sport while a mother may only have a few spare hours per week to try to maintain the figure she once took for granted. Each of these prospective clients will find success in different levels of engagement with fitness. The college student may find that she wants to compete in long distance races while the empty nester may find that resistance exercises a few times per week allow her a freedom and independence which she has never experienced. However, if these unique individuals were all forced into the same template or mold of exercise (I.e. bodybuilding template, 1 hour CrossFit class, cardio bootcamp, etc.) they may never have the opportunity to explore different modalities which best serve their lifestyle. Individual fitness programs allow coaches and clients to explore a diverse range of fitness experiences in the context of the clients' schedule and goals.

Individualized fitness programs encourage individuals to take responsibility for their own fitness. Traditional fitness templates, group classes, or one-size-fits-all programs are structured with the goal of fitting as many clients as possible into the same program. When Sally’s shoulder bothers her during push-presses or Billy can’t quite get strict pull-ups, it can feel like a failure of the client to live up to the expectations of the program. This mindset is completely backward and can cause a great deal of harm if left unchecked. Conversely, if Sally presents to her individual design coach that her shoulder is bothering her, he will ask questions, perform an assessment, refer her to a specialist if needed, and design an exercise program to strengthen and rehabilitate her body. Likewise, if Billy presents to his coach that he cannot yet perform a strict pull-up, his coach will design a program with the specific goal of progressing Billy from where he is to where he wants to go. Individual fitness programs (when done correctly) flip the narrative from “client failing to perform” to “client progressing toward goal”. When clients are empowered to take responsibility for their own fitness journey, exercise becomes an exciting lifetime pursuit rather than a daily dose of feeling like they can’t measure up.

Individual fitness programs can benefit anyone by empowering clients to take responsibility for their own fitness and allowing them to explore different expressions and opportunities within their journey. Empowered clients are more likely to stay engaged in fitness and pursue physical activity over a lifetime. Knowledgeable, caring, and enthusiastic fitness coaches are ready to guide the next generation of individuals through their lifetime pursuit. In a world where every pen and coffee mug is carefully crafted to the individual it was designed to serve; why should you be forced into a fitness program designed for someone else?

Salads and Cheeseburgers: Is One Really Healthier Than The Other?

There is no such thing as a “bad” food.

Whenever we think of foods in the terms of “good” vs “bad” we usually accompany those labels with certain types of foods we’ve learned to label as “good” and certain types of foods we’ve learned to label as “bad.” For instance, most people – especially in our westernized cultures – would consider a salad to be “good” or healthy food, whereas a cheeseburger would be labeled as “bad” or unhealthy. The issue with these labels is that they are just that: labels that we have put on food (another label) that have no meaning behind the meaning that we have ascribed, or have been conditioned to ascribe. A salad is just a salad just as a cheeseburger is just a cheeseburger. The difference lies within the choice we make to consume or not to consume these different types of food. What makes a particular food an optimal choice vs a suboptimal choice ultimately comes down to the effect that that food has on our body and ultimately on our ability to live the life we say we want for ourselves – your Dream. The effect that a particular food has on your body has to do with where that food came from, how it has been processed, and your body-mind’s own unique needs at the particular time of consumption. Depending on these variables, a salad could leave you inflamed and gassy, just as a cheeseburger could be the perfect meal your body-mind needed to feel satiated, alert, and ready to continue creating your Dream. We are as different on the inside as we are on the outside. What may be a perfectly balanced meal for one person may send another on a blood sugar roller-coaster and straight to the bathroom. Also, there’s a big difference between a salad made from organically-raised, local, in-season vegetables with a dressing made with minimal, whole, natural ingredients vs a salad made from conventionally-raised, potentially pesticide-laden vegetables with a highly-processed, “Frankenfoods” dressing. The same can be said about the cheeseburger: The effect a grass-fed, grass-finished beef burger with raw, unpasteurized cheese and organic vegetables on a homemade sourdough or minimally-processed, gluten-free bun on your body-mind vs a McDonald’s Big Mac is going to be completely different. A salad is not just a salad and a cheeseburger is not just a cheeseburger. Food quality matters more than the food itself. Our bodies have evolved to consume whole, natural, minimally-processed foods that have been raised without the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This all comes down to creating balance. Your body-mind knows exactly what to do if given the proper resources at the right time to help maintain functional homeostasis. If we consume things or take part in activities, thought patterns, or belief systems that create disharmony in our body-minds, ultimately this is what leads to dis-ease. When I work with athletes it’s not about hitting a certain caloric-intake goal within a certain macronutrient range. Although this can be a helpful practice at times, my main goal is to teach people how to choose the highest quality foods possible and how to re-establish the long ago outsourced sacred relationship with our body-minds so that we can become aware of and decipher the many signals and symptoms our body-minds are giving us on a constant basis. Once we can learn what our body-minds need and where and how to get it, we are able to create the best opportunity for harmony and balance within our body-minds that will ultimately manifest itself in the other choices we make in our lives, leading to harmony and balance in all aspects of our lives. Healthy people make healthy choices. Healthy choices make healthy people. What you do to/for yourself, you’re doing to everyone and everything else. What you do to/for everyone and everything else, you’re doing to yourself. It is all one and the same with an infinite number of unique expressions. And once you realize how to make optimal choices for yourself, it’s easy to be an example and an authentic source of guidance for others. You have the free will to eat whatever you want. Even though there is no such thing as a “good” or “bad” food, every choice you make has a consequence. The question is if that consequence is aligned with your Dream and helping you to create more balance and harmony in your life or if that consequence is something you say you don’t want. When you focus on food quality and developing a relationship with your body, you are much more likely to make choices that are aligned with your Dream and what you say you want for yourself, whether that’s a salad, cheeseburger, pie, wine, chocolate, coffee, peanut butter, apple, or pig testicles.