If the Buddha Got Stuck_ A Handbook for Change on a Spiritual Path - Charlotte Sophia Kasl [79]
I know that exercise, getting sleep, and eating well can sound like a boring cliché. It’s such an unglamorous aspect of taking action—no pills, fancy trips, or excelling at something. But it’s like fine-tuning the instrument of your body and spirit so, again, as Charlie Parker said, you can “just play.” Many people have overcome long-term back pain with yoga; others have healed from depression with exercise, diet, and finding work they enjoyed. Most of all, your heart—the pulse beat of your life—thrives on exercise, healthy eating, loving connections, and rest.
We know that if there were a pill that could lower blood pressure, help maintain bone density, improve our circulation, digestion, breathing, blood flow, energy level, metabolism, flexibility, sleep, and ability to learn, boost our immune system, and improve our mental outlook with no side effects, everyone would want it. But they don’t take it. You know the answer. It’s called a thirty- to sixty-minute period of moderate to intense exercise four or five times a week—brisk walking, biking, swimming, weight training, martial arts, aerobic workouts—along with stretching or yoga to keep the body flexible. It’s also about eating the right amount of fresh fruits, vegetables, protein, and grains to resonate with your particular body and blood type, and less sugar, refined foods, and artificial anything. Why is it so hard? Several reasons come to mind. It takes effort, pushes at our comfort zone, and means giving up short-term gratification. It also may mean cracking through our sense of deservedness or limiting thoughts such as “That’s what other people do,” or “I can’t believe my life could be different.”
Notice connections. You can deepen your awareness and hopefully your motivation when you notice the connection between diet/ substances, exercise, rest, and and your ability to concentrate, stay healthy, focus, and be energetic. Our eating or exercise habits can create a domino chain. For example, getting hooked on sugar and caffeine to the exclusion of healthy food can make you restless, cause your blood sugar to drop, break your concentration, lower your energy, cause you to feel irritated with others, and lead to needing more sugar and caffeine to stave off feelings of lethargy. Eventually it can lead to illness.
As a starting place, do something small. It’s better to do a relatively short, easy walk, add greens to your diet, and keep at it even after you’ve missed a few days than to start with super-high goals that fade away. Said another way, it’s better to be steady over the long haul than spectacular for a few weeks. While lack of self-care has some direct relationship to the intensity of our false core beliefs—believing deeply that you are worthless, powerless, and a loser—in looking through my interview notes I’ve found that that’s not the whole story. People who do get into healthy exercise, eating, and sleeping routines tend to be able to mobilize themselves in spite of false core beliefs. Here are some shared experiences:
On Health Clubs
I asked some women in the locker room, “How do you get yourself here?”
“I can’t get here on my own, so I take a water aerobics class. I need the peer pressure—I don’t want to hear people saying, ‘hey, where were you?’ ”
“I never came on my own so I hired a personal trainer—this way I know I’ll show up.”
“I meet a friend at 6:45 a.m. and I’d be too embarrassed to call and wake up her husband to cancel, so I just get here.”
“My husband and I come together, so there’s always one of us to say, ‘come on, let’s go,’ if the other is feeling lazy. It’s a wonderful way to be together. Also . . . it’s great for our sex lives.”
“It’s not hard; I just love coming. But if I’m tired, I tell myself I don’t need to force myself—just do something