Ram, Ram, Ram and Qualifying Your Dream/Change (Pt. 3)

Happy Wednesday!

I hope you are all experiencing well-being today.

I had a very busy, productive day coaching clients yesterday. I got a little tai-chi breathing session in before my first client, and got into the gym after my last client.

I wanted to go out and play with this big 400 pound rock I’m rolling about 100 yards up a hill to my new “big stone” working spot. I love being barefooted and barehanded when working with stones, but my new property is loaded with very sharp sticks, stones, thorns, and there’s poison oak here (which I’ve gotten twice!).

I’m using the back area of my turn-around spot as my outdoor stone gym. Soon, I’ll have enough big stones there to make Charles Atlas tired looking at them.

When I got to the gym yesterday late afternoon, it was very stormy and rainy here. I opened the doors and it felt like I was in Jamaica during a torrent with water running from the roof, and wind blowing through my gym.

The air was cold, fresh and strong. The view was incredible. It was as though I was on top of a mountain in the center of the storm, and all was happening, changing, all around me.

In that atmosphere, I did 4 circuits of 10 reps for the lung per leg, followed by Swiss ball Supine Lateral Ball rolls, followed by Swiss ball Forward Ball rolls. It was late in the day and getting dark as I finished, which is long after my optimal hormonal window has closed, but I enjoyed the beautiful experience and opportunity to love and care for my body, my temple!

LOVE HEALS PAIN – RAM-RAM-RAM

Almost two years ago now, I created a video titled, Love Heals Pain for my youtube channel. In that video, I shared a method I use with myself and others to teach them how to practice being in a state of love and joy that escapes the socially-contrived ego-self.

When I was filming it, some of my buddies chuckled and said, “you know that will get a lot of people gossiping about you”!I just smiled and said, “good, at least I’ll be creating awareness around an undeniable truth for them.”

Sure enough, after I put that video up there, I got a wide variety of nasty-comments, but, I’m happy to say that I got many times more beautiful responses.

Since I put Love Heals Pain up on my youtube channel, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a number of people that shared their experiences of doing the Ram Ram Ram chant with face painting and rattles or other instruments. They were all very grateful and said their children really loved it. Some said they still do it regularly. If you’d like to see the clip, you can watch it here:

This past Sunday, Eric and Elliott Hulse, two budding leaders in the holistic health, conditioning, and spiritual development community came to interview me on video on a few topics; Eric is on my left and Elliott on my right in the photo above.

Eric is an HLC1 and a schoolteacher that teaches music. Elliott, HLC1 is a strength and conditioning coach, was a professional strong-man, and is now developing a significant following of people inspired by his no BS, straight to the core approach to health and fitness.

While we were talking, Eric mentioned that he really loved my “Ram Ram Ram” video on my youtube channel.

I giggled and said, “I’m glad you loved it. That video really stirred the pot and got me put on a few prayer lists ☺.

Then he really surprised me. Eric said he’s a music teacher in elementary school and that he has them chant Ram and rattle with him and they love it! I really got a kick out of that and asked him to film if for me to share next time he does it the kids.

Well, he did it and here it is for you to see. It’s so beautiful to see how naturally expressive the children are, particularly the little boy closest to the camera.

Have a look at what happens when people emulate the kind of craziness that gets me all sorts of nasty email messages:

Eric has a beautiful web site with lots of great information, and he’s a very cool guy too! Have a look at what Eric offers on his website: https://erichulse.com/ and his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/EricHulseWellness.

Tomorrow, I’ll share links to some excellent video clips from my interviews with Elliott; Eric was his camera crew. Elliott is a very interesting, motivated, intelligent young man, who I predict will become a recognized leader in the filed of holistic body-mind integration.

QUALIFYING YOUR DREAM/CHANGE (Pt. 3)

In my first post on qualifying your dream/change, I encouraged you to look at the story I was sharing about my buddy, Ryan Hughes.

I asked you, as a component of qualifying the dream/change process, to look at your life right now.

I then suggested to ponder what it would be like to have an unexpected accident that is highly debilitating (like a broken back/neck), and be in the same life and lifestyle you are living right now?

This was an exercise to help you determine if you may qualify for change now.

For example, if you life is chaotic, finances unstable, and relationships unstable, having a significant life-challenge could easily force so much change upon you that the injury or illness may suddenly seem secondary to the stress and pains of changing.

If we look at our life honestly, and as objectively or rationally as possible, we can usually sense when change is needed to create more stability, more ease. Sometimes, we have to use a good contrast medium to get clear, and this was an example of that principle at work.

Next, I suggested applying the 50% rule when setting goals in the change process. I suggested that research into goal setting showed that goals of greater than 50% of prior achievements have a high failure rate for achievement. Therefore, being more objective, and therefore more realistic, is important to facilitate long-term success with the change process.

The Energy For Change:

The next means of qualifying change in your life is how much energy you realistically have to commit to any change process. This is an essential, often overlooked qualifying aspect in any change process.

Let me share a couple examples of how a realistic evaluation of your available energy becomes critical when implementing change successfully is your goal:

1. You find yourself unhappy with the way you look and feel. You don’t have much more knowledge of how the body-mind of a human being functions than the average person on the street, or in a gym.

You pick up a magazine and see a 12-week body transformation contest being run. There are many pictures of people that were overweight and out of shape that looked incredibly better 12 weeks later. You see what’s possible and set your sights on making this transition in 12 weeks.

You begin following the 12-week transformation guidelines (and maybe even hire a personal trainer). Initially, you are all excited and you feel motivated.

Two weeks later, after your first six workouts, you notice you are having a hard time sleeping, you are constipated, you are waking up tired with swelling and discoloration under your eyes. Your sex drive is getting worse, not better. Your body is aching, and you are now having to really dig deep to get to, and through your workouts.

By the 12th workout, you are starting to notice that you need much more coffee and are struggling to resist the urge to snack on sweet stuff. You are getting so tired in the afternoon; you can barely keep your eyes open, even after your second coffee.

You notice that you aren’t losing weight any longer and you or your trainer conclude that you’re being lazy and need to work harder at it!no pain, no gain! You push a little harder in the gym. The next day, you wake up in the wee hours of the morning to pee, and as you get up from your bed, you have a lightening bolt of pain go through your low back, dropping you to your knees.

You go to a doctor and find that you’ve got a bulging L5-S1 disc, and that you must stop your conditioning, and therefore, your participation in the body shape transformation contest.

What went wrong here?

This is a very common story occurring around the world literally every minute of every day in one field of endeavor or another.

This person was completely unaware that they suffered from chronic sleep deprivation, moderate to high levels of nutritional deficiency, unresolved orthopedic injuries from the past, and exhausted adrenal glands.

If you were this person’s friend, and you’d called to ask them if they’d be willing to help you move this weekend, you can almost rest assured the answer would have been something like, “Sorry, I’ve really got to get some rest. I’ve been feeling pretty run down lately and haven’t been getting enough sleep.”

They were able to dis-qualify themselves from the change process represented by helping a friend move their home because they have adequate knowledge and experience of what’s involved. They could easily assess their level of energy in the moment, and assume that they would be too taxed to participate effectively.

They were NOT able to qualify their change/dream process because they didn’t have a realistic perception of how much effort, energy, and discipline is involved in a 12-week body shape transformation contest.

They were also very unlikely to estimate the effects all the supplements and other traditional gym garbage would have on their physiology and overall energy levels.

Be Realistic and Ask Intelligent Questions

Change takes a tremendous amount more energy than repeating old behaviors because the nervous system is constructed such that with each repeated thought, word, or action, it gets easier to express via neuro-mechanical (thought action) systems of the body. (Just think of how water flows more easily down hill as more and more flows down hill and you’ll have the basic concept)

When we decide to implement change, we have to over-write the existing pathways. This sets up somewhat of a tug-of-war between the old pathways and the new ones being implemented.

If the body doesn’t have the energy to deal with the change, then it reacts, typically, by decreasing motivation or creating distractions.

If the person in the above body shape transformation example were to have had any CHEK Practitioner or CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coach evaluate them in the beginning of the process, they would have told them right up front that they didn’t have the available resources to make it through a 12-week body shape transformation without first achieving baseline health and vitality.

They would have most likely suggested spending 4-6 months progressively making small changes with diet, exercise and lifestyle factors. Then, when they were sleeping well, digesting and eliminating effectively, and had good posture and a functional body, they would have been encouraged to go ahead if they still wanted, or needed to.

When you are about to make a change of any significance, having enough energy to implement the change and deal with all the relationship ripples that generally occur is critical.

If you want a simple example of how even a small change can be very energy demanding, try eating with your non-dominant arm for a day.

Therefore, before committing yourself to the change process, ask yourself, “Can I implement this change process without losing my vitality and sanity, and therefore potentially creating even more problems than when I started?”

If the answer is “NO”, then you have qualified the change relative to your capacity for change.

Now, you don’t necessarily have to give up on the change process, you may simply have to extend the time to achieve the goal and make more, small goal-steps to get you there; the 12 week body shape transformation contest becomes a 40 week body transformation experience in the hands of someone that actually knows what they are doing as your coach.

If you are unsure of who to ask questions of this nature regarding the choice you desire to make, simply search for people that have successfully implemented change of that type or nature and consult them.

Just make sure they embody the change effectively before taking their advice; don’t ask sick people for health advice!

Tomorrow, I’ll continue in Pt. 4 with a few more tips for qualifying change.

I hope you enjoyed the video clips today.

Tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to Elliott Hulse so you can experience the yang to Eric’s yin! And, thanks to Troy Casey, The Certified Health Nut for hooking me up with these two budding geniuses!

Love and chi,
Paul Chek