Soul, Mind, Body: Getting it done.
In 2017 I made a commitment to fighting and winning a battle with depression I had been going through since 2014.
I was so deep into it that I did not know that I could win, but I knew that I had to try if I was ever going to have a shot at a good life. So that’s what I did, I tried. For a while nothing was working, I felt like I was on an endless loop that was making me weaker internally and externally with every lap.
I cannot remember how I started, but I do remember that it changed my life.
Within a year, distance running was slowly healing me.
I did, and continue to, experience some hiccups along the way that challenge my commitment to staying in shape and training my mind for life’s greatest feats. But in a way, I think I have found a mastery system that helps me both in running and every branch of my life.
Soul
The start of my workout journey required me to tap into my soul. To me, your soul defines how you behave in the world and how you will contribute to humanity. In essence, it is the determinant of strong vs. weak and how you respond to different situations.
My soul was weak when I started and therefore, I could not sustain my workouts initially.
What I quickly found was that without a clear understanding of the character of your soul, you can never fully understand your capability.
So how do you tap into your soul? You observe.
When you know you have a workout day, do you quickly quit and avoid your responsibilities, or do you fight and not waver from what you committed to do. From understanding how you respond to difficult tasks; you understand your values.
For example, if you are met with a decision between working out, knowing it will help you to be mentally sound, and going out for drinks knowing your friends would want you there then that gives you a clear understanding of who you are in that moment.
Do not get me wrong, sometimes plans change, that is normal. But when you consistently choose the route that does not serve you, then you will soon understand that internally (in your soul) your commitment is not to be your best healthy self. Instead, it is to be comfortable.
Now, this is easier said than done. But soul healing and finding is a determinant of consistency.
People often think that the mind is the powerhouse. I do not subscribe to that theory. Your mind helps to keep you alive. But your soul helps you to thrive. That is why consistency in working out is much more difficult than people would like to believe. The healthiest people have found a clear understanding in the value that physical and mental health provides for them.
Do not confuse my advice with a definitive map on how you should live your life. I cannot tell you that. What I can say is, anyone looking to dig in deep, to commit to a healthier lifestyle, should start the journey within.
“Your why”
I am sure many of you have heard of your “why”. If you have not, essentially it is a term people in the mental and physical health profession use to lead people to understanding why they are embarking on their fitness journey. It is the thing that gets you up and working, even when everything in your mind and body is telling you to quit. To do less.
Your why is constructed in your soul and conceptualized in your mind. When my soul was weak, I could not get out of my head and my head limited my power. My thoughts told me I couldn’t, and my soul was too weak to challenge that.
As I started the internal work, I got out of my mind and into my “why”. Because I now understand my values and goals out of life, my struggles and strengths, I know why I have to do it anyway.
The best way to tap into you core, is to disappoint yourself. As I continued to quit and allow my mind to control and torture me, I understood that I needed to expect more. To be stronger. The hardest, most lucrative lessons are the ones we learn when our weakness limits our growth.
So, dig into your core. Figure out who you are, what you love. What makes you quit, what makes you go harder. And that is how you can control your thoughts and evolve.
The best way I have found to train my soul is to meditate and track my every thought. Both of these helped me to look inward.
Mind
I like to think of the mind as a processor. It processes what it is given without any determination of whether or not the information will be good or bad for your health. That is why the soul is fundamental to the mind.
Think of your soul as an instructor and your mind as a listener. Your mind can only do what it has been trained to do.
That is why when trying to start any task, specifically your fitness journey, you should commit to training your mind to operate in a way that will serve your goals.
For example, if you want to be fit or mentally healthy, ask yourself why you want those things and then use that why to train your mind.
I will use myself as an example:
I wanted to fight my depression.
Why? Because I wanted to be kinder to myself and other people.
How did I use that information? Every day I trained my soul to value kindness and mental soundness. Once these were important values for me, my brain naturally operated in a way that prioritized mental soundness and kindness and that in turn made physical fitness my muse.
Without an understanding of why something is important to you, and how it will feed your soul, your brain will not understand its importance and will subsequently dust it off as junk.
The best way to train your mind is to observe your thoughts and assess whether or not they reflect what you want to put into the universe.
Body
I think of the body as the tangible representation of who you are. When I look back on my fitness journey, my goal was never to be “fit”. My journey was always dictated by a desire to be my best mentally.
In the event that I was looking to become fit I would stray away from using the desire to lose weight as my why. Sure, it is important to be physically fit, but fitness is a never-ending commitment. Therefore, losing weight can get you to start but it cannot sustain you. This takes me back to the soul. When you are right within, and intentional about what you want out of life and how you are going to get there, the difficult tasks become worth it and the easy stuff becomes pointless.
Moving Parts
The bigger picture is the most important thing.
I have an equation of at least two but never miss the middle.
The soul is the most important, I like to focus on the soul work continuously. Humans are ever changing, so the work within can never really end. My mindset determines my thought patterns and external behaviors. So, though the soul is the most important in the totality of it all. The mind is the processor and therefore can keep everything else in check.
When I think about my mindset it tells me everything I need to know about the rest of my body. If I have negative thoughts and no motivation, I automatically assume that there is some internal soul searching that needs to happen. If my body isn’t right, I assume that I have not been eating right, thinking right, or living right and as a result I need to go back to my mindset and subsequently back to my soul.
I like to think that the soul work is what keeps us present and consistent. It helps us to see ourselves outside of our ego and as mechanism in a greater ecosystem. So, it is a never-ending battle. I still have not tapped into my soul’s greatest potential; I do not think many people have.
But I think of soul recognition and healing as peace. You come to a place where though everything is not perfect, and you understand you have work to do, everything is working in service of one another.
It is when your body’s systems and survival modes stop working against each other and start working for each other.
When you stop surviving all the time and start thriving.
Your soul and your spirit are one and as a result when you become connected with the soul you get closer to the divine. What I like to call, perfect peace.
So, in any endeavor you are looking to take on remember this:
Soul trains the mind, mind trains the body, and together they determine the value of your lived experiences.
