Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to The Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host. Today we're going to be talking about a new way of looking at health and fitness. And it's kind of a part two to the last episode, which was about aging gracefully. In this episode, we're going to have a little bit of a, it's the same principle, but give, hopefully give you some new ideas. And before we get started, please consider like sharing and subscribing. As you know, it's very important to do to get us to grow the channel and also to have other people get this content. And then please consider sharing with your friends and family. Also comment and give your opinions and maybe we can also help each other through the comments. So today we're going to talk about health and fitness. And I wrote down a couple of ideas because I'm sure many of us are working on this already and we're trying different ideas. And I think after doing the aging episode, I kind of realized that in order to get that perfect sweet thing going, there's a few things that need to be balanced. So in terms of health and fitness, I'm going to start with science. We know that there's a lot of science in terms of health and fitness. We all know there's some kind of basic understandings of what the body needs, what types of foods the body needs, exercise that the body needs, thinking about physical therapy, and there's been sciences like completely based on the body's physical needs, the performance of the body, also bodybuilding and everything, and all of these areas have like a whole universe of information in them, right? So I'm not gonna you know, endorse one way of thinking or another or one bit of science or another. I do feel that there are some fundamental things that the body needs and maybe we can agree on that. The body needs rest. The body needs sleep. The body needs water. The body needs food. The body needs exercise. That's basically it, right? The body needs care, like care of the teeth, care of the hair, care of the skin. Like to care for the body, clean the body. Care for, clean, feed, rest, water, exercise, right? I mean, it's not that many things. It's about six things. that the body itself needs for us to do. Now, how we do that, when we do that, what is our formula for doing it? How often do we do these things is, I feel like is just as individual as the stars in the sky. And we have so much information to follow here. So I feel that what I'm about to share might help us to balance all that information with some other considerations that will help us create like a formula that works for us, that works for me, right? So we have the science. The second thing is self care and, and our feelings. So we need to bring our self care and our feelings into the equation. And I'll give you an example. So, as a nurse, I would often be counseling patients on their diet or let's say the patient has diabetes or this is a matter of health, like I'm talking to them about their diet. Maybe I have their lab work in front of them and now I'm going to talk to them about their diet. So, one of the things I realized when talking to people about their diet is everybody really like their diet. Nobody wants to change their diet and when you start talking about changing diet, every, most people start getting very uncomfortable. And it's kind of like they're hearing you in one ear and out the other. And it's just like, not going to happen. Why is it that we're so connected? I believe that. out our taste, our sense of taste, what we grew up with, there's a nostalgia attached to food. There's what we like. There's also what the body can handle, which we're going to talk about next. But um, definitely what we like and what we're gravitating towards, what we wish to eat, that all has to be taken into consideration. Just like in the aging episode, we talked about, you know, if I don't like, I went and got my nails done. And is that, is that right or wrong. No, but it made me feel better, right? So there's something to be said for wanting to be happy in the area of health and fitness. I have to do something or I'm suggesting that we add in with the science, which is the discipline and everything we have to do. We're going to add in our authentic feelings, self care, likes and dislikes, that kind of thing. So what I would do with the patients. Was I would say to them, okay, well, what do you eat for dinner or whatever? And they would tell me what they eat. And I say, okay, I'm not going to tell you not to eat that, but can you adjust it to make it a little more healthy? Like if they like, chili burgers and fries. I would say, well, can you have a hamburger without the chili? And can you have no fries, but have a salad? I mean, at least that's moving in the direction of more healthy. I'm just giving one example that I hope everybody can, can accept as a reasonable thing. Like if someone's eating a lot of fat, like you would, you would try to say, well, I know you like that, but can you try it this way? So you're not. You're not denying the person's feelings, we're not denying what we like, we're not denying our history or our background or cultural background. Every culture, I'm going to say my experience is that every culture has healthy versions of their food. So there's definitely healthy versions of, food and again, using the science, right? like, a salad is probably more healthy than a milkshake. That doesn't mean you never have a milkshake, but you, but it has to be, there has to be kind of an overview of what is healthy. And we're talking about food, but it also applies to exercise and exercise is interesting because, again, in the past, it's been like going to the gym and doing this and doing that. And then, and I was never able to be consistent. And now what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to go with how I feel and what I like, but, but the discipline is that, I have to exercise. Like, it's not a question of, oh, I don't want to exercise now. The discipline is I have to exercise. But how I exercise, I'm giving some room to my likes and dislikes or how I feel, but I definitely have to do something. Whether it's walking or swimming and I have my defaults, like if I do nothing else, at least I'll walk or whatever, all of us can come up with a formula. But the idea is along with the thing that the body needs and the science of what's good to eat or bad to eat or what kind of exercise I should be doing and so forth, I'm going to add in my. Feelings, my feeling of self care, my feeling of being happy with it also. Like I should feel proud of the way I take care of myself. The third thing is the body itself. So we have to let the body factor in, meaning digestion, how the body handles different foods, and also how the body handles exercise. I may love to run, but if my knees can't take it, I really can't run. So the body needs to be factored in also with digestion. I remember listening to one of the gurus, the big famous gurus. I won't say which one, but one of the people in the audience asked him what should we eat? What should we eat? And his answer, I really liked his answer. He said, eat whatever your body can tolerate. Interesting. Right. So then you could say, okay, if I eat five gallons of ice cream a day, my body can tolerate that. Right. My digestion can tolerate that. But obviously if you take the science in there, that's not going to be good. So you see how we have to use all three. All three have to be balanced. We have to have the science. We have to have our likes and dislikes, our feelings and our self care attitudes and maybe happiness and maybe some, room around what I eat and how I exercise. And then finally, how does the body respond to all of this? Am I listening to my body? Am I watching my body? Am I able to accept the changes that happen as time goes on? Maybe what I used to eat before isn't going to work anymore. Any, anybody who's in menopause or after menopause knows what I'm talking about, right? Whatever I used to do in my twenties and thirties and forties, all of a sudden doesn't work anymore. But now what am I going to do? I, I have to factor in the body, right? I feel that that's a very balanced approach. But all have to be involved. If I let any of those fall out, there's going to be a problem. If I only follow my likes, then I'm going to end up eating, all these things that are going to maybe make me gain weight or make me unhealthy or so forth. So we have to have the science there. If I have all science and no joy, then you get the diet and then you quit and then you go binge and eat whatever you want, right? And then the body, if I, I have to push the body on one hand like to exercise and so forth, but also I have to be understanding with the limitations of the body as well. So that's the main premise I was thinking of. But then the other thing, where do we add in, the spirituality piece? And I'm going to say the spirituality piece allows us to balance all those three things. and not get involved in one or the other and let one or the other take over. All three have to be considered. And how do we do that? Well, I'm practicing meditation. I'm learning how to observe my mind. I'm beginning to become less emotional. I'm, learning how to observe my thinking, how to observe different influences. And this also, we can take a look at what influences do I have? What kind of experiences have I had? Maybe with the science part, maybe with diets. Have I been heartbroken over diets? Have I been disappointed over diets? Have I spent a lot of money on, on the science of weight loss and things like that? Have I been on medications? Have I been, take a look at where I've been in that side of the journey. The self care part, have I denied myself? Have I overindulged myself? Where am I at on that scale? And then the body, am I reasonable for where the body is and what it can do? Or am I lazy? Am I not pushing it? enough. So when we meditate and we learn how to observe the mind, we also learn how we can spin three plates at one time in this case. Like all three of these areas have to be in balance. So the last part about this is self respect and happiness. And I'm going to say that If any of these areas are not, in place for me, there's a chance that I'm either going to not feel in my self respect or I'm not going to be happy. So for instance if the self likes and dislikes part comes out of control and I'm just eating and I'm not paying attention and I start gaining weight and I start getting unhealthy and I have no energy, how can I be happy? And my self respect is going to take a hit. If I'm overly forcing myself to follow the science or follow a program or whatever and I'm really, um, disciplined, disciplined, disciplined, disciplined with no room for my feelings or no room for my authentic, you know, likes or dislikes or no room for myself as a person, as a human being, then that's going to cause me pain, right? And then I fail and I spent the money and now I don't feel good about myself either. Also, the thing with the body, with self respect and happiness. At the end of the last episode, I talked about gratitude for the body and I'm going to put gratitude here also. Health and fitness is about me and my body. The body is here supporting me. So I have to support the body, giving it the right food, giving it the right exercise and so forth. But I also can still, there's still room enough. For me to have my authentic feelings to see what I like and to actually be happy. Why can't I be happy and be healthy and fit? I mean, you see people out there that are healthy and fit and they look happy, but I don't know. For me, it's always been kind of like a, I don't want to say struggle, but I follow one thing and then I get disappointed and then I'm kind of rebounding into the feelings and likes and dislikes again. And now, you know, but now I think I'm starting to balance the three. Like, okay, now the body's talking to me. Now I got to do a little more science. Now I got to do a little more self care. I feel a little deprived. Maybe let me have a little bit of this and somehow it's creating like it's getting better, it's getting better. It feels like less pressure and it feels more like happy. And then this gratitude for the body practice gratitude for your body. We cannot live without the body. There's no life. The soul is alive. It's living. The consciousness is living, but there's no communication. There's no experience without the body. I think part of the reason that we maybe didn't take care of our body is because we went too far into one of these, into one of these three things. too far into the science, too far out of the science, too far into the likes and dislikes, too far away from it. You know, we didn't, we weren't looking at it with a, with common sense or with a, with a sober understanding. And I think spirituality gives us that possibility of looking at something with a little bit of detachment so that we can actually make a difference in that area. So practicing meditation, learning how to observe the mind and understanding now that it's not just one thing that I have to do to be healthy and fit. I actually have to take care of myself too. And also be grateful toward the body. So I didn't give any physical tips there much, did I? But all of us know what we're supposed to do, but I really can't tell anybody what to do because I don't know what your feelings are. I don't know what's important to you. I only know what's important to me. So I want to say, take a little bit of time and look at these three areas. The science area, the self care and feelings area and the body area. Maybe make a little list and see where am I at body wise? Where am I at? Self care wise? Where am I at? Science wise? Have I totally burnt myself out with the science? Well then take a little break and you know, see how you can kind of balance this out. And then I would suggest start meditation practice again. We have to learn how to. Identify as a peaceful, powerful being, number one. And number two, learn how to observe the mind. Get a little detachment, a little perspective. So I'll leave it there. I hope that gives you something to think about in this area. Remember, our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. And again, as we begin to get better, and we begin to use our mind and intellect, and we start to experience new things, and we get happier, and we get more peaceful, everyone around us benefits. So we'll leave it there. Until next time, take care. Um, uh,
