Functional Solutions For Living

Greetings everyone!

Todays post is going to be a short and quick one…

The sun is smiling, the ocean is calling and after the two challenging days I’ve just had, I need to practice some self-care and hit the beach for some much needed rejuvenation.

So let’s get down to it…

Although it is much more involved and complex than “just doing it”, we really only need to do two simple things to achieve optimal health.

When I refer to health, I include the mental, physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions of ourselves and our lives.

These dimensions cannot be separated and encompass the totality of who we are and ultimately determine the quality of our experience on this planet.

Imbalance in one will, sooner or later, subvert the whole system.

For example, you could eat right, exercise, sleep well and have a clean bill of health from your doctor (physical) but be disconnected from your values and any kind of purpose in your life (spiritual), have no real relationships of depth or conflict with your wife, lover, kids (emotional) and be a very unhappy, unsatisfied or lonely person.

Or…

You could have an amazing spouse or lover in your life, lots of friends, a great job, but be completely out of shape or physically unhealthy and unable to fully enjoy these hard earned blessings.

Or…

Have a deep and rich spiritual life with a clear and powerful sense of purpose and mission but not have the energy to effectively share your gifts with the world.

It’s about balance…

So it is important to attend to the emotional and spiritual as well as the mental and physical.

So what are these two things?

Drum roll please…

1. Out with the bad – remove or improve the bad things in your life.
2. In with the good – add good things to your life.

“What!”  ”That’s it?”  ”I want my money back chump!”

Yep, that’s it!

Would you like me to be a little more specific?

Removing or improving the Bad

When I say bad, I am referring to anything that causes any kind of burden on the four categories of your health. These can include but are not limited to:

• Unnecessary stress
• A nutrient deficient, processed diet
• Allergens
• Toxins in your body, home or at work
• Infections
• Unresolved conflicts with others that are ongoing
• No sense of direction of purpose
• No clear idea of what is TRULY important to you
• Unhealthy relationships

This list can obviously go on and on but it is important to identify and eventually remove or improve everything.

We just can’t take out a thing or two but most of us can’t do it all at once either.

Take on too much too soon and you will likely fail.

Adding the good

The next thing to do is to put in the good things.

These include:

• High quality, whole foods
• Good, clean, PH balanced water
• Exercise and movement
• Love
• Healthy relationships
• A sense of purpose and direction
• Relaxation
• Meditation
• Good stress (things that challenge us and help us grow by testing us, pushing our unseen buttons, exposing our blind spots and raising the bar of what we can handle)

Obviously, this list could go on and on as well but when we add these good things our bodies and Life itself will take over and do the rest.

That is it!

This seems like common sense and is so simple but we often don’t do so good with simple.  Note that I didn’t say easy?

Change is not what we are trying for, change is something that is continually happening and does not need our help.

What we are ultimately moving towards is transformation and that is an ongoing process.

It bears repeating over and over that there are many things that are good for all of us, but we must also remember that each person has a unique biology and biography and therefore their own particular triggers and needs.

What harms me drastically or holds me back from being my best may not harm you at all.  In fact it may help you!

Again, this is an intentionally short post and there is so much more to this.

In the coming weeks, I am going to go into more detail and do a post on each of the four aspects of health – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual and how we can understand how they specifically support and feedback on one another.

That way we can learn to leverage them in the service of living a happy and authentic life.

Until next time…

Kind regards,

Anthony