If you have been with me for a while, you will recognize that my three keys to wellness include nutrition, corrective training, and mindset. In other words, I really do subscribe to the whole Mind/Body/Spirit ideology, but in case you haven’t been with me for a while, let me tell you I do this ideology differently. We are all unique, and that’s how I approach my clients, myself, and my training. Sure, there are key standards and practices that you will recognize but my wellness, and especially YOUR wellness, is not a one-size-fits-all kind of model, and the way you approach your health and wellbeing shouldn’t be either. Although I have read, skimmed, certified, and trained myself in a myriad of different wellness principles, techniques, and what have you, I recognize that not all of these are going to be applicable to you. And they shouldn’t be. How we get to where we are going is full of those ebbs and flows we keep coming back to. How you approach mindset is going to be especially unique to you because some of you have faith, some of you have science, and most of us are somewhere in the middle trying to figure out how to hold our shit together. The fun part about fitness training and mindset is that it creates this amazing controlled environment where you get to practice shifts in your behavior with a controlled amount of stress/change presented to you (like during our personal training sessions, or when you and I talk nutrition and lifestyle changes).  Pretty darn cool, if you ask me. These shifts can then be applied to your entire life.

Just to be clear, I am not about to preach religion to you. What I’m about to do is go full circle as to why mindset is important in pretty much everything you do, because the way you do something and the type of experience you decide it is (negative or positive), is because of your mindset.

Stay with me.

I used to be a pretty angry person, and reactionary with my anger. Hello, I’m Sam, and I am a recovering yeller. So the thing about yelling is that it’s not really helpful, and also, although it can feel physically good (go ahead, scream FUCK at the top of your lungs….see, that felt good 😁), in the long run, yelling at myself (inside my head – lots of self-judgment) or at others (hello, sweet family of mine) was very draining. It is a heavy toll to pay to constantly rage. I got tired of it, it was hard. So, here we are, hating life and spinning out on rage, and research tells us that our strong drive to hold on to pre-existing beliefs and convictions is what often makes us feel anchored in the world.  On top of that, the fear of change is ingrained into our biology – way back in the day (like way, way long ago, caveman times), if you changed, you might be excluded from your tribe, and that exclusion led to whether or not you would survive the time. Those cavemen that had different opinions usually kept quiet but were probably tormented inside, because when we understand that we need to change but are also afraid to change, we are lead into cognitive dissonance, which is a fancy way of saying that the fear you feel at the thought of change can cause you to hold inconsistent beliefs that are easy to deny or downplay because that’s easier than reshaping your worldview, or like……making lifestyle changes…..LIFE-changes (holy balls, Batman… those are some huge shifts). And on top of all this, when you do move forward with change, having doubts about whether you can do something can actually lead to what is commonly referred to as the backfire effect, or our capacity to double down rather than reflecting when given the opportunity to change (but yelling feels good, and also why the fuck are people not doing shit like me….I’m ALWAYS right… so why are you not listening to me… or something like that 😜).

Here is when I could say I was angry and yelled because I didn’t have mindset awareness…..or spirituality (one and the same, in my opinion), but I’m going to be really honest with you and say that’s bullshit because I grew up following a spiritual path, and I still choose to follow this spiritual path today. Spirituality, or a fancy way of saying “being able to deal with the ebbs and flows of life”, was already a part of my life, which should reiterate to you just how hard change is, in whatever it is you decide to do or think. It is also my hope that I can inspire…. dare I say motivate you, in joining me in shifting our mindsets, together, we can continue calling each other on our bullshit or use fancy words like “that sounds like the backfire effect, Sam.”

So where was I, oh yes….anger, yelling, all that jazz, and then in comes Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., a nationally renowned psychiatrist, researcher, spiritual teacher, and lecturer. His book, Letting Go: The Path to Surrender, shifted how I approach life. Now, I’m not saying you have to read this book, but what I am saying is that finding your own soul-practice, alongside your nutrition or fitness practice can be empowering, and it is the very reason why I decided to incorporate mindset into this year’s holiday challenge; it’s why I want you to pick a self-help/spirituality/self-care book, read it, and just see if anything resonates with you. It’s ok to reflect and not double down, I won’t tell anyone, I promise.

Going back to ME 😁, as much as Letting Go really helped push me in the direction of self-awareness and learning to work through the crappy feelings and emotions coming up in my life, The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer was a game-changer.

I read The Surrender Experiment when I decided to start my business, Rush into Fitness. When first embarking on this change in my life, in my head, all I was going to do was train a few people per week and that’s it. I had no intention of getting a website, a logo, a blog or running a weekly bootcamp. Now, here we are, and there are days where the overwhelm is well….HELL. Singer has helped to reinforce Dr. Hawkins’ teachings by phrasing and explaining, basically the exact same things, but different enough that something clicks and resonates with me so I can have a deeper understanding of these teachings. The main idea behind these teachings is the need to surrender. Surrendering is the change. Remember about all the ways our mind works against us when we want to change (if not, that’s cool, maybe you are in the midst of cognitive dissonance with a splash of the backfire effect)? Well, surrender is the antidote to our own immunity to change, and more specifically, Singer offers a practice he calls R&R, or Relax and Release, to be able to give us that space in the midst of our pushback (or even tantrum) to change – this practice is engrained for me in my life at this point because it is super applicable to any situation I am in, it is in the moment, it keeps me grounded, in a healthy way – physically and emotionally.

When we feel that moment of frustration or anger (cough cough, Sam, looking at you), we can first relax into that feeling, this is where we are aware that something is up, and then, by giving it that space and allowing it to be there, we can release it. It’s also an amazing self-compassion practice because we recognize that we are human and mess up, but we don’t have to let it be all-consuming. When we are aware something’s up, we have the ability to address it, to deal with it, and let it go. It also helps to know we are not the only ones who go through this. There are other people out there struggling, too.

This is my path to finding that grounded, present state where I am in my flow, whether that is working out, training clients, or being with my family (all these parts of my life require my attention, and not just like, yeah, great job, whatever you said there;  but like, real-deal, I want to be here and do this, kind of attention). Complete self-awareness, that’s initial the goal.

This practice, Relax and Release, and the flow state that follows allows me to be a better trainer, a better wife, a better mother, and pretty much here for whatever comes next. This has been HUGE for me, because not everyone does life like me, and that at times was super hard and frustrating for me to accept. It used to make me angry, and it used to make me yell. Giving myself that space to accept that I’m frustrated and move forward also helps me to understand that this is possibly how YOU feel in your journey, for instance, when you just can’t get a certain movement, or you feel like your weight has plateaued, or you just can’t seem to get through that extra mile. Shit is hard. Shit is even harder when we throw the rest of life alongside our goals and expectations for our fitness and wellness outcomes. That may seem small, but let me contextualize it for you for your own wellness journey.

Say you have a fitness goal, are doing my holiday challenge, or just want to “feel” better – so these are all great things, go you 👊🏼, but every day isn’t going to be a basket of sunshine, and once you actually get into the doing and past just dreaming or planning, then change is going to smack you in the face, and it’s going to be hard. Working out – that’s simple, eating right -yep, simple, I got you, but these things are not easy. What makes them positive and a really neat experience- your mindset. Let me remind you: YOU’VE GOT THIS!!!! Don’t slow, Don’t quit!!!!!

Right here, with me, this is where you get to choose to hang in there, surrender to shitty stuff going on in your head… and maybe, just maybe run that extra mile, do those 3 unassisted pull-ups, accept that today is “treat day” (nope, not cheat, but t-r-e-a-t) and be OK with where you are at in your journey. You need to be OK with your dog doing downward dog better than you, and you need to be OK with only having only 20 minutes at a time to workout because….kids….work….obligations….you know, LIFE. Today is going to be hard, and tomorrow probably isn’t going to be much better, but at some point you are going to notice real change, lasting change, and you have to surrender to what is right now in order to get to the fun part, the goal achievement, the willingness to challenge yourself, and the choice to dedicate yourself to well, yourself. So go ahead, choose you. It’s ok!

One more time for the people in the back there…..motivation is only going to get you so far. I can only get you so far. You have to learn about the challenging, uncomfortable parts of yourself, be open to them, and then have compassion for yourself throughout the whole change part. Ebbs and flows my friend… ebbs and flows.

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