Hi there,
Have you ever put your fitness program on hold because your muscles are sore, given up on Qi Gong because Muscle-Tendon Changing makes your back hurt, or stopped meditating because it makes your thighs ache?
If you’ve ever cut short any kind of personal development program because of physical discomfort, you need to read the uncomfortable truth here and find out how to get back on track…
Okay, So I Didn't Hurt it Skydiving ;-)
As I was off travelling last week, I did my best to maintain my minimum daily fitness routine that includes, among other things, 100 push-ups and 100 squats.
I had a sore right shoulder when I left home – not sure where it came from. And I was tempted to give the push-ups a rest for the week. Then I remembered a key lesson I learned some years ago…
…in many cases, training THROUGH the pain is the only way to make the pain go away. It sounds counterintuitive, yet it’s often the case. Let me give you an example.
Years ago I wrenched my right knee. I’d like to pretend I did this doing something sexy like skydiving. If fact, I did it getting up from a picnic table! Yes, my shoe lace got caught on a wing nut and that’s how I wrenched my knee. Nothing honourable about it ;-)
I never sought medical attention for it, since it wasn’t that serious. But after that I always had to treat that knee gently when exercising, doing martial arts or even sitting for meditation. It became one of those little annoyances of life that you just learn to live with.
Then, some years later, I changed my fitness program by adding squats (in this case, the ‘Hindu Squats’ that Matt Furey recommends in his program, ‘Combat Conditioning’ – a program that we recommend as the world’s best in the Warriorship Black Belt Program).
After about two weeks of squats, the problem went away and has NEVER returned. That made me realize the error of my ways. You see, the continued pain I was putting up with was not simply the result of the original injury; it was the result of my own failure to STRENGTHEN the injured soft tissue so it could heal property and completely.
The fact is, we’re in a culture that’s taught us to coddle ourselves to a degree that’s often ridiculous and counter-productive. The moment something hurts, we
think, ‘Oh, I must be ‘over training’. Perhaps I should give this a rest.’ The TRUTH is that there’s hardly ANYONE among us who’s in the remotest danger of ‘overtraining’.
On the Other Hand... Use Common Sense!
The caveat, of course, is that you need to know when continued effort will in fact aggravate an injury and delay healing. And that discernment only comes with time, experience and the insight that consistent training gives you into your own body and what your body is trying to tell you.
When I had lunch yesterday with Marc, my oldest friend (we met in grade 6!), he told me about how he had once started to play a university basketball game out of town, assuming that the leg injury he’d just suffered was only a Charlie-horse.
Well, about half way through the game the pain was too much and he walked off the court. When he had the leg x-rayed, it turned out the bone was cracked! So there’s an example of when it’s time to stop training!
However, for most of us in most situations, that’s not the case. Most of what you go through will resemble my knee more than Marc’s thigh. So keep training and don’t be thrown off by every little discomfort or you’ll never get anywhere.
And, at the same time, use your common sense.
- Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Friday, 27 March 2009
Why You MUST Think About What You DON'T Want
Please forgive my silence this week – I’ve been on the road all week and the victim of a very poor internet connection at my hotel.
And I won't even go into the flat tire that happened while I was on my way to catch a train yesterday... (made it with10 minutes to spare ;-)
Rest of the trip was great, though!
Today I’d like to address a ‘mindset debate’ that can have a huge impact on your life, and here it is…
You know all those Law of Attraction (LOA) programs that insist you should never think about what you don't want because thinking about it will produce those unwanted results in your life?
If you’ve been trying to use the LOA at all, you’ve probably puzzled about this very question. Should you think about what you don't want as a motivator, to light a fire under your butt, or is it just too risky?
This was Marie’s question too, and here’s what she wrote:
"How does your program mesh with the Law of Attraction teachings? In particular I am talking about focusing on what you don't want. You mentioned in your book that you must have sufficient revulsion to a situation in order to change it. Yet my law of attraction coaches tell me that is resistance and focusing on a "don't want," which I will get more of. Yet I make choices all the time to notice an environment or situation is something I don't want and I move away from it. I get opportunities and people coming my way all the time and I say no to them because they feel like a waste of time and energy. I was unable to vibe my way out of my job until I stopped focussing on the positive aspects of it and realized it was really draining me. So my question to you is how do you reconcile these two concepts?"
In response to Marie’s EXCELLENT question, here’s my answer…
There’s a nasty psychological tendency we humans have that makes it imperative for us to think about what we don’t want in order to break free from it…
And that psychological tendency is our nearly infinite ability to become perversely comfortable with the most monumentally uncomfortable situations. Witness the prison inmate who’s terrified of freedom and would prefer to remain behind bars, despite the violence, ugliness and restrictions of that life.
We may be shocked by the inmate’s refusal of the freedom we all enjoy, but we then turn around and do the very same thing in our own lives. That is, we continually recreate patterns of failure because, no matter how much they hurt, we're as comfortable with them as with a well-worn shoe.
So I’m here to tell you the plain and simple truth – unless you get rid of that feeling of comfort with your lousy finances, your empty relationships or your dismal health, you will NEVER take the action you need to transform the situation.
You won’t change your current situation until you despise it. And for all those who think that anything other than an unending feeling of sweetness and light is bound to wreck your life, I have news for you…
…all Authentic Ancient Traditions have thousands of years of data to say you’re wrong. The recent New Age tendency to go into a cold sweat at the mere mention of emotions like anger is wrong. Ironically, that knee jerk response is perilously close to the very attitudes that led to our mind-body split in the Western world in the first place.
One of the most recent Orthodox Christian holy men went so far as to say that there’s no progress in spiritual life until hatred [for the inner obstacles to that life] reaches its maximum. And millennia of data are there to support his assertion.
Likewise, in any area of your life that you want to transform, you must pick yourself up by the scruff of the neck and shake yourself until you recognize just how much you detest where you are.
You may remember my talking about Napoleon Hill’s statement that you’ll never get what you want until you work yourself into a white heat of desire for it. The opposite is equally true….
…You’ll never get out of what you don’t want until you hate it with all your heart.
Now notice something very important: the quality of thought that goes into obsessively dwelling on what you don’t want is totally different from the quality of thought that goes into despising what you don’t want. Read that sentence again and think about it.
In the first instance, which is what most people do and what causes them to re-create the same destructive patterns in their lives over and over again, the predominant emotion is fear. Fear is a victim’s emotion. It disempowers you, makes your feel defenceless and helpless.
When you despise your situation, on the other hand, the situation is very different. The emotion of despising is the emotion of the predator, not the prey, so you no longer feel helpless, defenceless or disempowered. Instead, you have the initiative.
In other words, so called negative emotions are not entirely negative at all. Yes, they can become very destructive to ourselves and others if and only if we use them inappropriately, but they’re not inherently bad.
And if we don’t leverage the ‘negative’ emotion of hatred to break through our perverse sense of comfort with misery, we’ll stay in misery forever.
I know for a fact that lots of people failed to progress in this or that area of their lives until they detested where they were. And, as far as I can see, this has also been true for Marie.
This approach has the added advantage of keeping the horror of where you’re at very fresh in your mind and of helping you to understand your current reality better.
It also sets in motion the psychological law of contrast – the greater the difference you can see in your mind between your current reality and where you want to be, the greater and more decisive will be your efforts to move toward the latter.
So don’t be a victim of the LOA ‘dogmatists’ who are telling you that any thought of what you don’t want is dangerous. Just the opposite is true.
You’re entirely responsible for the quality of your thoughts, so start now to put some high quality "hate" onto what you don’t want. Just make sure that before you start to do this, however, you also know precisely what you would love to see. And spend at least twice as much time visualizing your desires as you do on your current, lousy situation.
And many thanks again to Marie for this very timely question!
- Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
What's Behind the 21 Day Challenge?
Hi there,
By now you've probably heard all about the "21 Day Challenge" in my recent emails and you may be wondering what it's all about and whether you should participate.
Well, I don't know about you, but I have a very busy life and when things get REALLY busy, it's vital to stay on track and make progress in your life. My tactic for doing this is to concentrate on only ONE thing as far as Personal Growth is concerned.
So the more the world around me is demanding I focus on paying bills, changing web pages, buying the groceries and 95 other things at once, the more I put my whole inner focus on one thing. That could be cultivating gratitude, working on some aspect of fitness or whatever else.
And you know what? When I'm not focused on the 95 things that need doing, they seem to get done a lot faster... probably because the one thing I'm really focused on keeps me calm and centered.
The purpose of the 21 Day Challenge is to let you PROVE to yourself you really do have the power to change your life. Why 21 days? Because, as you may already know, if you do any one thing consistently for 21 days, you'll ingrain it as a HABIT. And once it's a habit, it develops a force of its own and your results in life start to improve.
Of course, the 4 strategies I'm presenting in the 21 Day Challenge are quite simple and straightforward. However, it's often the simplest strategies that are the most effective, and that's the case here.
Naturally, the Warriorship Black Belt Program gives you a larger framework and more advanced methods to work with, and you can learn more about it here:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/BlackBelt/
So, unless you're in that program, I'd encourage you to try one of the 4 strategies in the 21 Day Challenge. Remember, you should do ONLY one of the four.
I'll be doing one myself, though for various reasons I'm not going to start until March 30. I can't wait to share my results with you!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
By now you've probably heard all about the "21 Day Challenge" in my recent emails and you may be wondering what it's all about and whether you should participate.
Well, I don't know about you, but I have a very busy life and when things get REALLY busy, it's vital to stay on track and make progress in your life. My tactic for doing this is to concentrate on only ONE thing as far as Personal Growth is concerned.
So the more the world around me is demanding I focus on paying bills, changing web pages, buying the groceries and 95 other things at once, the more I put my whole inner focus on one thing. That could be cultivating gratitude, working on some aspect of fitness or whatever else.
And you know what? When I'm not focused on the 95 things that need doing, they seem to get done a lot faster... probably because the one thing I'm really focused on keeps me calm and centered.
The purpose of the 21 Day Challenge is to let you PROVE to yourself you really do have the power to change your life. Why 21 days? Because, as you may already know, if you do any one thing consistently for 21 days, you'll ingrain it as a HABIT. And once it's a habit, it develops a force of its own and your results in life start to improve.
Of course, the 4 strategies I'm presenting in the 21 Day Challenge are quite simple and straightforward. However, it's often the simplest strategies that are the most effective, and that's the case here.
Naturally, the Warriorship Black Belt Program gives you a larger framework and more advanced methods to work with, and you can learn more about it here:
http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/BlackBelt/
So, unless you're in that program, I'd encourage you to try one of the 4 strategies in the 21 Day Challenge. Remember, you should do ONLY one of the four.
I'll be doing one myself, though for various reasons I'm not going to start until March 30. I can't wait to share my results with you!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
I Accept the Challenge! Do You?
Welcome back,
Just wanted to let you know that people sent in some amazing comments with the Warrior Assessment Tool over the past week or so.
Strangely enough, the one the hit me right between the eyes was also one of the shortest. This person wrote:
“I have told you my goals. Now it’s up to you to guide me to achieve them.” [emphasis mine]
Well, the gauntlet has been thrown down! I do love a challenge, and my real passion is for helping people to achieve their goals. That’s what gives me personally the most personal happiness and that’s why I do this stuff. If it weren’t so, I sure wouldn’t be here ;-)
“Well,” I thought, “how can I help this person? I don’t know who they are since the Tool is anonymous. How can I at least find out what their goals are?”
Fortunately, Survey Monkey does have a feature that helped me to locate this person’s goals. I still don’t know who they are, or where, but I do know this. So here are their goals:
1. Improve my relationship with my spouse / partner
2. Increase my income
3. Detoxify my body
4. Overcome my fears
Now I was even more intrigued! Why? Because I’ve had to deal with all four of these issues in my own life. At one point or another every one of them has been a major challenge. So it’s not surprising that the Warriorship Black Belt Program has at least one unit dealing with each of these challenges.
What we often lose sight of when we start to write down our major challenges or even our goals is that each of us is a total person, a single whole, without separate “parts”. So we can easily get off track looking for a separate solution to each problem without ever noticing that what we need to “fix” is the total ME.
To whoever wrote this, I accept the challenge. Will you?
If you will accept it, you really need to join us tomorrow night, Thursday March 12 at 9pm EDT / 6pm PDT. You’ll find the sign-up link with the phone numbers at http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/090312 .
And for everyone else, remember to mark that in your calendar! I look forward to speaking with you then!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Just wanted to let you know that people sent in some amazing comments with the Warrior Assessment Tool over the past week or so.
Strangely enough, the one the hit me right between the eyes was also one of the shortest. This person wrote:
“I have told you my goals. Now it’s up to you to guide me to achieve them.” [emphasis mine]
Well, the gauntlet has been thrown down! I do love a challenge, and my real passion is for helping people to achieve their goals. That’s what gives me personally the most personal happiness and that’s why I do this stuff. If it weren’t so, I sure wouldn’t be here ;-)
“Well,” I thought, “how can I help this person? I don’t know who they are since the Tool is anonymous. How can I at least find out what their goals are?”
Fortunately, Survey Monkey does have a feature that helped me to locate this person’s goals. I still don’t know who they are, or where, but I do know this. So here are their goals:
1. Improve my relationship with my spouse / partner
2. Increase my income
3. Detoxify my body
4. Overcome my fears
Now I was even more intrigued! Why? Because I’ve had to deal with all four of these issues in my own life. At one point or another every one of them has been a major challenge. So it’s not surprising that the Warriorship Black Belt Program has at least one unit dealing with each of these challenges.
What we often lose sight of when we start to write down our major challenges or even our goals is that each of us is a total person, a single whole, without separate “parts”. So we can easily get off track looking for a separate solution to each problem without ever noticing that what we need to “fix” is the total ME.
To whoever wrote this, I accept the challenge. Will you?
If you will accept it, you really need to join us tomorrow night, Thursday March 12 at 9pm EDT / 6pm PDT. You’ll find the sign-up link with the phone numbers at http://www.warriorcoachinginternational.com/090312 .
And for everyone else, remember to mark that in your calendar! I look forward to speaking with you then!
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Do Others Share YOUR Pain? Find Out Here...
Hi there,
I know you’re here today to get the scoop on what all of your fellow Warriors and Mindset students are going through, what their wants and needs are, what obstacles they face and more!
Well, here’s the basic statistical breakdown so far for the top 5 answers to Question 1:
“What are your HIGHEST priorities over the next 12 months?”
68% said “Increase my income”
53% said “Overcome self-limiting beliefs”
52% said “Get in better physical shape”
48% said “Get clear on what I really want”
45% said “Build excellent health and immunity”
Those answers may seem very “physical”, but the more “spiritual” side of the equation was strongly represented too, with 38% saying “Acquire deep inner peace” and 37% saying “Build a stronger spiritual life”. Likewise, those who say they want to become proficient at meditation or prayer adds up to 38% as well.
And when we talk about overcoming self-limiting beliefs, it’s worth noting that “Get more self confidence” and “Overcome fears” came out at 30% EACH.
A combined 39% want to find a soul mate OR improve the relationship they have with their current partner.
Of course, you're probably curious to know where we came out with the question on eliminating stress and anxiety. Well, 27% listed that as a top priority – a bit lower than I expected, actually. If you're not part of that 27%, you must be practicing your Hara!
That gives you a pretty good idea of where we’re at so far. Tomorrow, I’ll share some of the comments people have sent in. Gotta run! Have a great day!
- Dr. Symeon Rodger
I know you’re here today to get the scoop on what all of your fellow Warriors and Mindset students are going through, what their wants and needs are, what obstacles they face and more!
Well, here’s the basic statistical breakdown so far for the top 5 answers to Question 1:
“What are your HIGHEST priorities over the next 12 months?”
68% said “Increase my income”
53% said “Overcome self-limiting beliefs”
52% said “Get in better physical shape”
48% said “Get clear on what I really want”
45% said “Build excellent health and immunity”
Those answers may seem very “physical”, but the more “spiritual” side of the equation was strongly represented too, with 38% saying “Acquire deep inner peace” and 37% saying “Build a stronger spiritual life”. Likewise, those who say they want to become proficient at meditation or prayer adds up to 38% as well.
And when we talk about overcoming self-limiting beliefs, it’s worth noting that “Get more self confidence” and “Overcome fears” came out at 30% EACH.
A combined 39% want to find a soul mate OR improve the relationship they have with their current partner.
Of course, you're probably curious to know where we came out with the question on eliminating stress and anxiety. Well, 27% listed that as a top priority – a bit lower than I expected, actually. If you're not part of that 27%, you must be practicing your Hara!
That gives you a pretty good idea of where we’re at so far. Tomorrow, I’ll share some of the comments people have sent in. Gotta run! Have a great day!
- Dr. Symeon Rodger
Friday, 6 March 2009
Saving the "City" from "Disaster"
Hi all,
It's taken me the last 24 hours just to "decompress" from this course! What a blast (no pun intended)! And really educational too.
So there were 50 of us in two different "ops centers" running very realistic simulations of how to respond to a major disaster. We saved a ficticious city from disasters caused by an airliner crashing into a residential neighborhood, a train derailement that spilled chemicals into the water supply and a multiple tornado strike.
We had to track down the mayor and persuade him to declare an emergency, coordinate with the fire, police, ambulance and health services (and more) and make decisions in the midst of a high tempo scenario with constant interruptions, communications disruptions and sometimes info that was plain wrong. And then there was dealing with the media - always a treat (not).
We weren't perfect. We made lots of mistakes. But better here in the classroom than in real life ;-) And by the third scenario we were a pretty well-oiled machine.
It's amazing what it does for your confidence when you've assumed command in a situation like this. Even though the situations weren't real, the whole set up was so realistic and the action so intense that you "forgot" that part while the scenario was running.
Anyway, you too will profit from this as I digest the valuable info and procedures from this course over the next few weeks. As I said in the previous post, there are lots of real life lessons here for us all.
Now it's time for a cold beer... (more decompression therapy ;-)
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
It's taken me the last 24 hours just to "decompress" from this course! What a blast (no pun intended)! And really educational too.
So there were 50 of us in two different "ops centers" running very realistic simulations of how to respond to a major disaster. We saved a ficticious city from disasters caused by an airliner crashing into a residential neighborhood, a train derailement that spilled chemicals into the water supply and a multiple tornado strike.
We had to track down the mayor and persuade him to declare an emergency, coordinate with the fire, police, ambulance and health services (and more) and make decisions in the midst of a high tempo scenario with constant interruptions, communications disruptions and sometimes info that was plain wrong. And then there was dealing with the media - always a treat (not).
We weren't perfect. We made lots of mistakes. But better here in the classroom than in real life ;-) And by the third scenario we were a pretty well-oiled machine.
It's amazing what it does for your confidence when you've assumed command in a situation like this. Even though the situations weren't real, the whole set up was so realistic and the action so intense that you "forgot" that part while the scenario was running.
Anyway, you too will profit from this as I digest the valuable info and procedures from this course over the next few weeks. As I said in the previous post, there are lots of real life lessons here for us all.
Now it's time for a cold beer... (more decompression therapy ;-)
~ Dr. Symeon Rodger
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Welcome to Our New WARRIORSHIP Blog
Hi and welcome to our new Warriorship Blog!
This will give us a chance to communicate in a more relaxed way than email usually allows, since you'll be able to post YOUR thoughts here too.
And it will give you a bit more insight into what I'm up to from week to week.
At the moment I'm away on a very special course that has a definite "warrior's edge" to it. I'm learning to run an operations center to handle disasters on the scale of a 9/11 or a Katrina.
It's fun, I admit, but it's a real challenge too. Tomorrow the real fun begins as our group of 50 or so students starts to run simulated disasters. We're all given specific roles to play and tough decisions to make, often with too little time and too little information - distressingly like what happens in real life incidents.
It's great information and a surprising amount of it can be directly applied to anyone's daily life - all the decision-making and communication skills, the planning methods, preparedness training and much more.
Next week we have a special event coming up, and I'll tell you more about that later.
Meantime, if you haven't already had a chance, go take advantage of our free Warrior Assessment Tool to help you get a handle on where your life is at and what you most want to achieve. You can find it at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7RiJR6cGhDNW4kQtsme0lA_3d_3d
Gotta get some sleep... after spending all day on this course, I'm beat!
~Dr. Symeon Rodger
This will give us a chance to communicate in a more relaxed way than email usually allows, since you'll be able to post YOUR thoughts here too.
And it will give you a bit more insight into what I'm up to from week to week.
At the moment I'm away on a very special course that has a definite "warrior's edge" to it. I'm learning to run an operations center to handle disasters on the scale of a 9/11 or a Katrina.
It's fun, I admit, but it's a real challenge too. Tomorrow the real fun begins as our group of 50 or so students starts to run simulated disasters. We're all given specific roles to play and tough decisions to make, often with too little time and too little information - distressingly like what happens in real life incidents.
It's great information and a surprising amount of it can be directly applied to anyone's daily life - all the decision-making and communication skills, the planning methods, preparedness training and much more.
Next week we have a special event coming up, and I'll tell you more about that later.
Meantime, if you haven't already had a chance, go take advantage of our free Warrior Assessment Tool to help you get a handle on where your life is at and what you most want to achieve. You can find it at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=7RiJR6cGhDNW4kQtsme0lA_3d_3d
Gotta get some sleep... after spending all day on this course, I'm beat!
~Dr. Symeon Rodger
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