How do you define the soul? Is it definable? If your intuition is divine guidance, where is it tapping into? What is your wellspring of divinity?
Each week I’ll be posing questions to take us deeper. Feel free to answer below, write them in your journal, use them as prompts for discussions in your spiritual groups, etc. This is a great year for a bit of introspection.
Love and Light
Michael A. Brazell CFT CSN MAT PAT
Here is your spiritual fitness and nutrition tip! Enjoy, get moving, and create the best you possible!
Fitness: The fitness world can be an overwhelming place to step into. Just like any new addition to your life you’ll want to take some time to educate yourself on what fitness is and how you can best apply it to your life. Reading books about fitness, other people’s journey into fitness, blogs, and even watching you tube videos on fitness can be a great way to get the ball rolling. This is a time you want to really activate your discernment. Trust your intuition when it comes to the things you are reading. The one true axiom in fitness is: “If it is too good to be true, it probably is.” Do not trust quick fixes and promises. Skip over advertisements and read about processes, workouts, and application of techniques. Even reading a few books on anatomy to learn about how the body works can help you understand the process your body goes through when moving into a greater state of health. Often we go running into new things without arming ourselves with the information necessary to be effective in our pursuits. Take a few moments to read and grow. I’ll post some resources in the next few days, so stay tuned!
Nutrition: Sugar. Most of us have a love hate relationship with it. It creeps in to areas of our lives, and in some ways can be addictive. We also need to take caution with the fruits we are eating. Many of us give up cakes and cookies and make a transition to heavy fruits. This is a good thing, but if you are eating too many fruits that are high in sugar you can also create the same overload effect. This is especially important if you have sugar issues like diabetes or high blood sugar. You’ll want to supplement your diet with fruits that are low in sugar. You can check this on the glycemic index. Even healthy foods have limitations as to quantity you want to consume. Having a good mixture of low glycemic foods in the body keeps the insulin levels balanced out, which will also keep you feeling satiated.
Mahayogi Das CFT CSN MAT PAT
michael@michaelbrazell.com
Here is your Tuesday Tips for living a life of fitness on all levels!
Fitness: Rest. It’s a word that I typically do not personally invoke enough when it comes to my workouts. Rest days allow us to reconnect into our bodies, and it also allows us to give the body a break from a structured workout routine. During your rest days take time to meditate, or if you MUST do something active let it be something that is less impact than your usual workout. It also allows the body to heal. The act of working out is breaking down the physical to rebuild it brand new. Days off, and rotating the body parts you are working is an important way to avoid injury. Meditation is a workout for the mind, it allows us to be present, but it gives the physical body a bit of a break. Take time to allow yourself moments to rest, and pencil them into your workout schedule.
Nutrition: Keep a food journal! No, not one of those little online applications. The electronic versions are great and personally use one, but there are other things that you should also log when you are connecting to your food for greater health. We of course look at calories, fats, carbohydrates, proteins. You’ll also want to log how you feel when you eat. If you are reaching out for unhealthy foods due to an emotional upset, this will give you a few moments to detach from the action of reaching for food in a negative way. It allows you to also see where your emotions are during the day. You can also write positive affirmations for yourself that are more personalized than something you’d get online. The action of taking time to physically write something out in itself is an act of spiritual connection. We are holding something tangible, and its a more “real” connection. It slows us down. Which is very important when looking at how we are connecting to not only our food but to the world around us.
Much love and light, and happy Valentine’s Day!!!
Mahayogi Das CFT CSN MAT PAT
www.michaelbrazell.com
Michael@michaelbrazell.com
Here is your Tuesday Spiritual Fitness and Nutrition Tip!
Fitness: Affirmations are powerful in how we connect or disconnect from moving into fitness. We have to take caution as to what we say less we create the experience or emotion. If we were to say, “I have no time to workout, life is just too busy”- it becomes our reality. If there is time to complain about there not being enough time, you just wasted time you could have been doing push ups, squats, or jumping jacks. “I am too tired to workout”– in the time it took you to plop down on the bed, turn on the TV, and find the perfect show to watch you could have run a few times around the block. We have to listen to what we are affirming. Some of these affirmation are stored in the subconscious (I’ll be doing an entire blog on this in the next few days). Some we speak daily.
Here are a few common negative fitness affirmations:
“I’ll never reach my goal weight”
“The gym frightens me”
“I’ll never have the perfect body”
“I’m too busy to workout”
“My life is too chaotic to spend time in the gym”
—What all of these are saying is simply this: “I do not have time to take care of the body that will allow me to be part of this wonderful physical experience. My temple is in shambles, and will not take part in its restoration. I willfully damage my connection to this divine vehicle.”
This is basically what you are saying by not committing to moving into greater states of health. What will it take for you to show up to your life?
Here are some positive fitness affirmation to add into your day:
“I make time for my body, my health and my well being”
“I am committed to my health in all areas of my life”
“My body is the temple of my life, I am committed to its upkeep fully.”
“Each day is a new opportunity for me to connect to my body through fitness”
“Fitness comes easily to me”
“I am perfect, and all my imperfections add beauty to my experience”
—You get the hint, now right a few of your own.
Nutrition: Simple, fresh and easy. Nutrition needs to be simple. This can be one of the most overwhelming areas when looking at making lifestyle changes. Start with micro shifts into more sound nutrition choices. Instead of eating fries or chips with your meal, have an apple. Keep fruit, nuts, and veggies 
handy through your day if you are a chronic snacker. Keep a food journal for a few days to see how many calories you are actually consuming. Not eating enough calories can be just as bad as eating too many. Many smart phones even have some useful apps that can help keep track of your daily intake.
Mahayogi Das CFT CSN MAT PAT
michael@michaelbrazell.com
www.michaelbrazell.com
www.deviantyogi.com
Every Tuesday I’ll be bringing you a fitness and nutrition tip to help move you your week. Subscribe, share and don’t miss out!
Nutrition: Don’t tell yourself that you “can’t have something”. We are programmed from a very young age that when someone puts a limitation on us we will rebel and do it anyway. Someone saying “Don’t push that red button”, just makes us want to push it. The same works with nutrition and diet. When we tell ourselves that we will never have sweets, carbs, etc. we only create a stronger desire for them. This is affirmation work at its best. Affirmations can work both ways, so we have to use a positive affirmation to eliminate the buried negative one.
Negative Affirmation:
“I will never have sugar again, its what is causing me to gain weight”
–This makes all sugar negative, and when we inevitably have something containing sugar, we hold onto more guilt.
“I allow myself to enjoy all aspects of eating. I am in complete control of what fuels my body to be at its very best”
An affirmation like this one still gives me permission to have that cupcake, and without the guilt, and with more enjoyment. Life is about enjoying what we have in front of us. Allow yourself to engage in treats, but give yourself permission to be in control. If you get a cupcake, eat 1/2 and give the other to a friend, or save it for another day.
Our relationship to food is 90% psychological, learning to balance this relationship will help you moving forward, and will be the focus of future blog posts.
Fitness: “I don’t have time to workout”. Well, I don’t have time to listen to limitations. There is always time. We find time to watch TV, we find time to go to Starbucks, we find time to complain about not working out. All you need to do is consciously connect to your day and find spots to add in a little fitness. Take the stairs instead of the escalator, if you are going to Starbucks pick one that is further away (and if it means you’ll be late getting back to work, more reason to move faster–adding in cardio). See how easy it is to simply add in a few moments here and there.
Here is a personal example: So we are stuck at my shop doing in inventory this week. I’ve been off my personal routine, but I am not going to let that stop me. Every hour my phone buzzes, I take a break, go into the back and do 25-30 push ups. In 8 hours I’ve done over 200 hundred push ups, an each time it only takes me 30 seconds.
There is NO EXCUSE not to add some fitness into your day. Connecting to the body is one step in connecting to the soul. So, stop complaining and start doing!
Mahayogi Das CFT CSN MAT PAT
www.michaelbrazell.com
michael@michaelbrazell.com
