Living Without Force

“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.
Lao Tzu”

This can be applied to all aspects of our daily lives, but I want to focus on the ever-continuing pursuit of health and fitness. Being that these are extremely relative terms I want to explain a way to cultivate more of the two for each individual. Our society has taught many different ways or ideas regarding how we are to go about achieving these, whether it’s fad dieting, fad fitness or a combination of both. There is always a new gimmick on the market proposing to be the panacea to reaching your goals. While some of these things may or may not help, it’s important to realize that these things should be a lifelong journey that is continuously woven into our daily lives without force. We are taught from a young age to ‘try’ harder and we will be ‘better’. We are taught to force many things, overriding what our bodies are telling us in the name of health and fitness dogma. What happens is merely temporary, if that. As Dr. Dyer states “force creates a counterforce which goes on until there’s an all out battle”, which is true if you think about it. I see it often in my industry whether it’s in the form of injury or yo-yo dieting. Often times those who step out on that journey end up with much resentment and hostility and truly give up.
I am here to help promote a new philosophy or trend... a realization that it doesn’t have to be hard. We must first learn to cooperate with ourselves in order to succeed, and not compete. Start with baby steps, not to force, and to take the path of least resistance. Take action, big or small, knowing that you are on the way to creating the healthy life you want. As my business partner Craig Keaton says, “weight loss and performance are by-products of health and not the other way around.” Think about that for a second. It makes sense that when we strive for health and do not try to force weight loss etc, those things that we want are naturally going to occur.

Steps to create the healthy mind/body that you have always wanted –

-Eat ‘clean’ foods!
Wherever you are in the spectrum, start. Simply focus on taking small steps. Maybe that’s buying one more piece of organic fruit next time you’re at the store, or researching meat’s that are locally produced and grass-fed. Or it could be something as simple as reading this blog!

-Drink ‘clean’ water!
I would like to do a whole post on water, but you can start now by simply adding more filtered water to your diet. Or bodies are majority water, so it makes sense to get the best you can find. I prefer not to contribute to landfills with bottles but if that is your best alternative I recommend choosing reverse osmosis or artesian (fiji, evian etc). Spring water is always a decent alternative as well.

- Move your body

-Learn to relax
Take time to de-stress. Meditate, read a book, or go for a walk. It’s amazing how these simple things can improve our physiology.

For more tips on how you can become as healthy as possible please email me at brian@themovementdallas.com and visit www.themovementdallas.com.