“Every minute you’re alive you’re energising your ‘truth’ or your ‘not truth,’ and the more you energise your ‘not truth,’ the stronger your shadow becomes” – Paul Chek

 

In his book, The Last Four Doctors You’ll Ever Need, Paul Chek speaks about your ‘truth’ as being your ‘core values’: “Core values represent the needs that must be met in order for us to live a fulfilling life – they define the way we want to live our lives, and shape the goals we set ourselves. It is only when our lifestyle is in alignment with one’s values that we are truly happy. When we don’t live by our values, the stressors we encounter become genuinely distressing; this is precisely when we trigger our fight or flight system.”

At Move Strong Gym, we go beyond just ‘training the physical body’. We also put a huge emphasis on ‘training the mind’ – and not just to accomplish big goals in the gym, but also, and more importantly, to accomplish big happiness, health and success in your life.

So let’s look at values, truth, health and happiness.

Paul Chek’s surmise suggests that unhappiness – a life of conflicting values, a life where you become a shadow of yourself – may be at the route cause of ill health and disease. Even if you eat well, move well, sleep well, if you’re not living a life true to your core values, your quest for true health and wellbeing will continue to be out of reach. Long-term activation of your ‘flight or fight’ biological response is the source of much of the aches, pains and illnesses that we suffer. Symptoms that arise when you’re not living your core values, are those symptoms that can be traced back to the chronic activation of the ‘flight or fight’ response, including:

  • Fatigue
  • Mood swings
  • Depression
  • Pimples
  • Nervousness
  • Poor sleep
  • Upset stomach
  • Diarrhea
  • Neck/shoulder pain
  • Headaches
  • Poor concentration

It makes sense, that ‘happiness’ greatly affects our health – our physical, mental, emotional and our spiritual health. But in the fitness industry, this important element of health is often forgotten. Sometimes happiness is trampled down by trying to be skinnier, musclier, the strongest, the fittest, stressing about how many calories you ate that day, or beating yourself up because you missed a training session, or ate sugar, or because you’re not as good as that person, etc., etc.

Do you sometimes feel as if you have become a shadow of yourself? Perhaps you should take some time out to consider why. Are you energizing your ‘not truth’ rather than your core values? What are your core values? (Believe it or not, some people don’t actually know). You could consider what sort of characteristics you want to emulate, what sort of people and organisations you’d like to associate with, the way you want to be treated by others around you. Ultimately, you could consider what is it that makes you happy? Once you work out what exactly your core values are – what makes you happy – then you can decide what you can do today to realign yourself with your truth.

For example, you might truly value (or what makes you truly happy) family, friends, love and kindness. Ethical hard work. Real food – and knowing where it comes from and how it can fuel your body. Maybe you value nature. Or competitive sport. Or succeeding after real effort. Maybe you value peace and quietness. Maybe you value religion or a higher being. These values are not exhaustive – there could be many more, and very different for each person.

Here’s a challenge: this week, write down all the things that you really value (or what makes you truly happy). You might have to dig deep to find this out. In fact, you may even need a Whiteboarding Session with Coach BigDog to really dig deep to find out who you truly are, what you value, what your goals are, and how to change your life so that you can  realign with your truth and gain beyond-high-level happiness and success.

If this is something that you need, get in contact with us, or call Coach BigDog directly on: 0402 733 944. There’s no better time than today – right now – to step outside of your shadow and into your big person shoes!