Get Fit Quick

If you only have a few minutes to exercise and you want to engage in a cardio and strength exercise at the same time…then grab a jump rope and hop to it! You’ll burn about 10 calories per minute, more or less, and activate your major joints (shoulders, wrists, knees and ankles) while incurring the benefits of strength, balance and coordination during your next jump rope session. Check out this Web-MD link for safety tips and technique: http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/skipping-rope-doesnt-skip-workout

 


Work and Believe

One spark of revelation, one creative flicker of intuition, one passing image of possibility. That’s all it takes to potentially move ourselves forward into a better place: physically, mentally, spiritually. We all have moments where an idea, or hope or inspiration springs upon our consciousness and invites us to embrace the vision as our reality. The only thing this revelation lacks now is muscle! Work! Movement! Action! It must be acted upon in order to become a reality. Newton’s first Law of Motion can be applied to our thought life: objects at rest, stay at rest; objects in motion, stay in motion unless acted upon by another force. So today if you have been inspired by a vision of possibility, don’t let your logic help you procrastinate. If you have seen the fleeting possibility, then work towards that today possibility today! Give yourself 10 minutes of real work on the vision. Is your inspiration a fitness goal, then get your body moving for 10 minutes. Is it a work related or creative goal, then do that one thing that you want to put off, and do it now! You can put the work aside after you’ve committed yourself to 10 minutes of purposeful attention. String enough days together of these 10 minute bouts of purposeful work and you’ll soon see your dream taking on form and dimension.

James 2:26 The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

 


The Best Way Out

We can have plans for today, but we do not always have the privilege of seeing our plans completed as we desired from the start. Some days the sun shines bright, the wind blows light and there is an ease in the air that gives us a sense that the day will unfold with gentle dependability. Other days begin with blustery winds from the east, brooding clouds to the north and such general upheaval that we can be easily coerced to stay under cover until the day’s tumult blows over. Most of us do not have the luxury to be fair weather travelers and we must sojourn through each micro-season that we find ourselves cast into. For those whose Captain is the Lord, we have a trustworthy guide who has gone before us in the day’s journey and who comes alongside as we plow through the stuff of our busy work days. If we live in such a mindset, that our Captain holds us and our future in his hands, then this belief will make our travels more beneficial to us. As we rest in Him, we can be certain that we are indeed safe from each and every storm that comes upon us; we can save our energies to not fight against the storm, but rather, go through the storm while holding fast to the One who travels with us, through us, before and after us. As Paul the Apostle taught us, regardless of our traveling conditions, keeping a cheerful focus on the One who leads us will safely deliver us from the ruts and rocks, the ups and downs of this day’s journey. We can pace ourselves in this knowledge today!

2 Corinthians 5:8-10 ~ Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming. But neither exile nor homecoming is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that’s what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

“The best way out is always through.” Robert Frost

 


KEEP GOING! KEEP PRACTICING!

It’s nearly the end of January, this first month of 2015. I hope we haven’t completely put aside those New Year’s resolutions we cast for ourselves less than 30 days ago. Even if you didn’t make an official ‘resolution’ for the coming year, I hope you made some thoughtful intentions or at the least had some ideas about what you’d like to accomplish in 2015. If you proposed for yourself to become more physically fit or to eat better, I want to take this moment to remind you (and myself) that today is the day we choose to stay the course. Never mind that yesterday had some failings or shortcomings…it is finished…it is over…it cannot be re-written. But today? Today abounds with possibilities; it is a NEW DAY! Embrace the clean slate with enthusiasm and get ready to put forth some effort (mental, social, physical, spiritual) into your intentions so you can accomplish a positive step forward toward your desired goal. If we were to approach our big resolutions with the little work of taking baby steps every day, we could look back on our yesterdays with satisfaction and accomplishment rather than disappointment. In her book, The Happiness Project, Gretchin Rubin reminds her readers that, “Enthusiasm is more important to mastery than innate ability, because it turns out, that the single most important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice.”

I am an artist at living, and my work of art is my life. Japanese philosopher Suzuki