I have been thinking about this for a long time, I have also attempted to answer the question before. The question is why? I was recently listening to an audio book (because I can't concentrate on a physical book long enough to get any decent information out of it) which mentioned the 'why' part of the brain is completely separate from the language part of the brain. This was both frustrating and a relief as I have found it incredibly difficult to articulate but I desperately want to get my point across and I'm not sure that it is entirely coming through.
My previous attempt came up with this answer: I want to empower people to be strong, creative, inspire others and chase their dreams, to be themselves and be free. This is why I want to help people.
What I missed was trying to explain what that would actually look like both from an individual level and as a society. On further reflection I think it also fails to grasp the absoluteness of my hunger for change. There is something missing in that statement that I feel compelled to communicate more clearly. Whether I can or not remains to be seen.
If I could put the real reason for why I am a personal trainer, why I am here, what I am passionate about in one word I think that word would be connection. I want to connect people to themselves, their thoughts and emotions but, currently as a trainer, especially their body. As children we move freely, with passion and energy and joy. As we become adults we lose that ability through lack of movement and we suffer for it. This is what I want everyone to reclaim! The mind and the body are intimately connected so if the body suffers, so will the mind. Does the body stop moving freely or the mind, which is first?
I want to connect people to each other, not like a social networking site but like the love shared by a closeknit family or two best friends who share everything with each other - hopes, dreams, fears and regrets, ideas and knowledge, food and resources. True connection, acknowledging the person in front of you and the community around you. I want to connect people to the earth and to nature and to remind everyone of our role in nature and that we are a part of nature not the ruler of it. It is not ours to dominate.
I want to connect people to their senses, all of them... sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. We all know the first 5. There are actually many others, including temperature and balance. However the one I would like to talk about may not even be acknowledged as a true sense, but we all have the experience of it; feeling. The best way to describe feeling sense is when you have a gut feel for something, love, compassion, anger and other emotions are things you feel; you can feel or sense something apart from the other senses. We can walk into a room or be talking to someone and feel that something isn't right, equally we can be drawn to something without obvious reasoning. I feel like this sense is often ignored.
Lastly I want to connect people with now, the present moment. Not who you were or who you could be but who you are. Removing yourself from past or future troubles and dealing with them in the moment without making them into a problem. "There are no problems, only situations" - Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. A great book that covers this in great depth. We live in an incredible time, but we're too busy trying to figure out what's next or put energy into thinking about who wronged us in the past. Stop and smell the roses comes to mind, but how many of us actually do it?
So what would that all look like? What does empowering an individual or a culture to be those things even mean?
What is a strong person or a strong society? What does a free individual or society behave like?
How does being intimately connected to everything around us change our reality?
I guess these are incredibly hard questions to answer or we'd surely be doing it already. This is what I would like to imagine; A strong and free individual is completely independant and resourceful, able to physically and mentally adapt to and manage any situation, although interdependant in being unconditionally willing to help and be helped, teach and be taught, share and be shared with whether that's food, shelter, protection, knowledge... you get the idea. There is no impressing others, everything is done as an expression of wonder and enjoyment of life. There is no shame of the past or anxiety of the future. Everything is done right now, nothing is taken for granted. This individual is grateful purely to be alive and acts with the utmost integrity and love towards everyone and everything. (Sounds pretty cool to me... but I did invent this person)
A free society is complex (and I am certainly not the expert) but to put it simply it is to be equal and ensure future generations have the same rights. We are not equal, there are inequalities across age, race, gender, culture, sexuality, class and more. And as a society, we are not ensuring our future, the health of our children and our planet is getting worse and will continue with our short sighted approach. A free society is based around things like participatory democracy (check out this and this) and worker co-ops (TedTalk) or even complete autonomy without any democratic system but also an unwaivering commitment to leave future generations and the planet better than we had it. It's the only book I've read (listened to) on the topic but Russell Brand's 'Revolution' seems to cover most of it among many other topics and I tend to agree with him on just about everything.
The what could and no doubt has taken up whole books, but I'll leave it there for now... How is through working on the inner self and becoming a leader to inspire others to do the same.
How I like to achieve my why (creating strong, empowered individuals) is through challenging people to get the most out of themselves physically but also to challenge people to think outside the box, question everything and figure out their own answers. That anything is possible. I like to challenge people to move in ways that we haven't since we were children, to play. Teaching that the body needs REAL movement almost as much as it needs REAL food, water and oxygen.
At the beginning of the post (and I realise it's getting long, I'm the one typing it!) I mentioned about the why part of the brain. The book it came from actually inspired me to write this post. It's called "Start With Why" by Simon Sinek. The big message is that people don't really connect with what or how others do things but why. The real purpose of this post is because I want you to connect with my why, my belief. I want more people to connect with this and similar messages to continue a shift towards sustainability, peace and love on this planet. The belief I have in the human body and spirit to overcome any and all obstacles is what drives my why.
I truly believe the body can overcome almost all disease and injury naturally. I have heard stories of doctors and others *curing cancer, MS, spinal injuries and even growing back a finger through nothing but nutrition, movement and mindset/psychological work (I think the finger may have involved pig stem cells or something...). Many people dismiss such stories as unscientific but I'm sure those who have done it aren't bothered with what the science says. If a drug ever cured 1 in 20 (or anyone at all for that matter) terminal illnesses I'm sure science would hail it as a wonder drug.
*(I know cure seems to be a dirty word these days but that just shows how far we've moved away from connection with our bodies)
I am beginning to have my doubts about science (not the process, but because it is in the hands of man and we are fallible). For instance most people have accepted germ theory to the point that it is the cornerstone of modern medicine and treatment of disease. This was famously championed by Louis Pasteur. Not many people know however that there was a competing theory at the time called the terrain theory (which I happen to think makes a lot of sense) proposed by Antoine Bechamp, a rival of Pasteur. The fact Pasteur's theory won out may well have been due to him being a better promoter rather than the science being right although I am just postulating of course.
The truth is they are probably both right, in non-communicable diseases I strongly believe the terrain is the most important, I also believe for healthy individuals it is important to be exposed to germs through soil, etc, however if there is an open and/or infected wound or a compromised immune system it is probably very wise to manage germs.
It may be hard for some people to comprehend but there are things that science can not and perhaps never will explain, such as consciousness.
I really believe in balance. In nature there is balance everywhere, day and night, organisms and micro-organisms, male and female, life and death, predator and prey, the perfect combination for ecological systems to thrive. Humans naturally are part of that system but we have removed ourselves from it. We need balance but we have become disconnected.
That is what I want to be part of changing, that is why I show people how to get strong and move freely - to believe, to connect. In themselves, in each other and in life itself.
This video gives me goosebumps, this is the disconnection I am talking about. While it was a book that inspired me to start this post, this video inspired me to finish it.
