The Tightrope of Health

Happy Monday!

In my blog today, I will share:

1. My Weekend
2. The Tightrope of Health video blog presentation.
3. Updates from CHEK Institute Advanced Training Program completions.
4. Show-N-Tell with Paul and Angie

My Weekend

Wow, did I ever have a fantastic, much needed three-day weekend.

I was happily lazy with gym training since I did a heavy deadlifting session on Thursday to put a tail on a three-day workout streak.

Friday, I finished off a painting I’d started the week previously and did lots of great reading.

I’m really enjoying The Secret Life Of Nature, by Peter Tompkins (co-author of The Secret Life Of Plants).

The book is beautifully written, and nicely offers both left and right brain explanations of what nature spirits are, what Angels are, and how they function.

I think any of the CHEK Institute students, but particularly HLC students will not only love it, but find that it is very supportive of my teachings in general.

In the late afternoon, I went to the local Chinese Massage Center and had a massage.

After my massage, Angie and I saw a great Movie Penny recommended called “Self/less”, which featured Ben Kingsley.

It is really quite an interesting look into what people are willing to do in attempt to live forever! Penny, Angie and I all really enjoyed it (available on Amazon).

Saturday, I started and completed another painting inspired by my work with my amazing client Marya. We are working on her myth together and painting has become her tool for self-exploration and self-expression.

I’ll share what I created below. It was an interesting experience for me because The Art Spirit was flowing beautifully, moving my brushes effortlessly as though I was simply a medium for something special that “wanted to be expressed in the world” – yet all the while, I kept hearing an a little voice saying, “don’t forget to get into the gym or lift some rocks today!”

I kept thinking, “yes, it is time to do something new in my stone circle”… “but I’m having SO MUCH FUN right now….I’ll get to it in a bit…”

I’d look at the clock and think, “I’ll just finish this part and go outside”…and the next time I looked up, an hour or more hand gone by…

Well, that little dance went on all day and into the night but I felt so fulfilled, I can’t imagine how my day could have turned out any better!

But it did get better. Penny found a really great, fun movie titled “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” (also on Amazon) that was a very fun spy movie.

It featured two James Bond-like guys that had a funny, entertaining love-hate relationship (one American and one Russian) that had to be overcome for a much bigger challenge; and some very beautiful women in this one guys, and from the feedback in my house, the men were just as sweet to the eyes…

Sunday I enjoyed a nice long morning read, continuing to enjoy The Secret Life Of Nature before I got out into the garden to finish a tall rock stack I’d started the week previous.

After that, Angie and I went into the gym and had a great lunging workout together.

I was lucky enough to get another massage with my favorite therapist at the Chinese Massage Center only a few minutes from my house, but this time went for a 90:00 treatment.

I left feeling awesome, which only got better when I meditated and astral traveled in my Health Mate IR sauna.

Now…all this is just my way of saying that I really hope you all had just as great a weekend as I did!!

The Tightrope Of Health

Today, my video blog explores what it takes to stay balanced as we walk the inevitable tightrope of health…which we are all on, like it or not…

Being at risk of people interpreting my teachings to imply that “we should always be in balance,” I’d like to state up front that life is a long string of “falls from the tightrope of health,” from which we tend to want to recover.

After all, I don’t know of anyone that likes to be sick, loves the idea of having a disease, doesn’t want a healthy sex life, or doesn’t naturally want to express their creative energy – to play!

My teachings are not anti-play, anti-party, anti-sex, nor anti-exploration.

I feel that whatever it is that inspires you to love and care for yourself enough to learn, grow, and try and try again (to get back on the tightrope of health) is exactly what is needed.

Life is experienced in polarities, not as a flat line experience. No one would appreciate health without illness experiences, freedom of body without having experienced limitation of their body, and happiness would have no meaning without it’s complementary opposite of sadness, etc.

Whenever people avoid the natural turbulence of life’s experiences, for all intensive purposes, they stop living, which leads to suppression of wants, needs and feelings, ushering in depression, leading to numbness, and finally to the loss of a willingness to live.

As evidence, we now have the highest rates of childhood and teenage suicide ever, and the globe is fast becoming covered with people that accept poor health and vitality as “normal.”

Interestingly, in our age of “instant gratification”, we have created millions of people that have lost their inner-strength and capacity to improvise and adapt to life’s natural undulations.

This also shows up as impotence in men and women, which has led to a massive medical industry for inducing pregnancy.

Is it wise to help unhealthy people create babies when anyone with common sense knows that sick people are hardly likely to produce healthy children?

How do we make of the scores of women now opting for cesarean section to avoid the work and pain of labor – the natural process of being “a woman”?

What do we do when our nations are full of young men that want to enjoy sex, but shun responsibility for their creative power to create life?

What do we do when the world is populated by people that are willing to eat garbage as they watch their bodies become deformed, succumb to eating, sexual, and psychological disorders, all the while being told “this is normal” without ever realizing that the word “normal” really translates to “highly profitable!”

Among athletes, these issues show up in some very interesting and unique ways as well. Some examples I see are:

• Constantly looking to win or succeed without doing the legitimate work of training and development.

• Perpetually seeking magic pills to make them bigger, faster and stronger, while at the same time, paying little or no attention to basic health and performance factors such as hydration, nutrition, sleep, breathing, thinking effectively, and developing well-rounded movement skills.

• An unusual, and dangerous willingness to take performance enhancing drugs, even in situations where the risks far outweigh the rewards; research shows, for example, that 13% of elementary school boys playing (American) football are on anabolic steroids.

The investigators found that the most common motive for, and source of steroids in children was a big brother, or parents that want a pro athlete in the family.

• Repeatedly having the same injuries over and over, yet never taking the initiative to study their own challenge and see if they can get to the roots of the problem.

For example, I have worked with athletes that have had as many as five surgeries on the same knee or shoulder for the same problem without ever considering that the issue isn’t “something wrong with their body,” but how they are using it.

• An unusually high willingness to cheat, or take ANY short-cut they can find or conjure up, even at the cost of losing their own dignity.

A good example are the cases of athletes betting against their own teams, and using their ability to shift game outcomes so they can make potentially huge payoffs for their lack of performance.

Within this vein, we also see an uncanny willingness for athletes to act violently toward referees and officials who are there to maintain some sense of order and fairness in sports, expressing an unwillingness to do the work of wining fair and square.

As a teacher, I see this day in and day out among some of my students around the world, expressed in such ways as:

• Repeatedly showing up to progressively more advanced training programs without any evidence of having implemented the requisite teachings of prior training.

• Not turning in key learning assignments and making perpetual excuses as to why they couldn’t.

• Expecting to be progressed just because they can parrot the teacher’s words, while quaintly ignoring that they display no objective signs of mastery.

• Being unwilling to be honest about addressing their own body-mind imbalances, yet convincing themselves they can be effective coaches, therapists and doctors for others – a problem that is rampant in all branches of professional exercise and healthcare in general.

• Hoping that God will somehow miraculously “fix them”, which is often coupled with some form of confused religious conviction; a conviction that polarizes them against a huge number of other people.

They seem to be completely unconscious of the fact that such religious biases are a MAJOR BLOCKING FACTOR when working as a coach, therapist or physician for others; how many parents today would feel comfortable with a Catholic priest babysitting their children?

• Perpetually arguing with teachers to defend the very ideas that have made them unhealthy, burned out their adrenal glands, and left them with monkey minded behavior and lack of mental clarity or focus.

A great example is students trying to convince instructors that “coffee is good for them and new research says there are nutrients that are good for the brain in coffee, and that it helps them diet (or eat less) and have more energy.

Yet, when such students are asked, “What is it that inspired you to take Holistic Lifestyle Coach training?”, the answer is, in every case I’ve witnessed, “because I’m having this and/or that problem and I want to feel better.”

Which translates to “I want to feel better without paying attention to what I’m learning or having to do any work to change.”

• Students jumping out of their CHEK Institute training to take functional medicine courses.

These courses largely teach how to use a wide variety of hormonal and related testing procedures to “diagnose” the condition, resulting in the sales of, and use of hormones, and a variety of other pills – in other words, an allopathic approach.

With many years of observation as to which students take this path, I can assure you that most of them turn out to be the very students that are unwilling to – paradoxically – master the basics of health in their own life.

What I observe in these particular students is an unconscious suppression of their own shortcomings through the acquisition of pseudo-knowledge that gives them the impression of power; they think they will be able to “fix people.”

Fortunately, many of them, usually after two or three years playing this game come to the realization that they are both attracting patients/clients which mirror them, their mindset, and their behaviors.

What was a miracle cure turns out to be but a stepping stone to higher and higher doses to suppress greater and greater symptoms of the onset of disease.

Eventually, the very test methods they use becomes a report card that they as therapist, physician, or guide cannot ignore.

In fact, many have completely gotten out of any form of care-giving, the most common reason for their exit being, “people frustrate me…they never do what I tell them to do”…

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. No one can escape mastery of the basics.

The only true healing power there is, for the long run, is mastering what health is founded upon, which includes honest self-observation and participation in one’s own life, without which authenticity always lacks, and cover-up strategies abound.

With even basic powers of observation, one can go to most any conference for MDs, Osteopaths, Chiropractors, Nutritionists, Dietitians, nurses, and yes, personal trainers and see abundant evidence of the “do as I say, not as I do” approach to leadership.

The blind leading the blind is exactly why, in the presence of the amazing powers of science, we are getting sicker, fatter, and more sedentary by the day.

And, the further Western ideologies like this spread, the more degeneration we see among once healthy tribal societies, as is well documented in “Nutrition And Physical Degeneration,” by Weston A. Price, and “Pottenger’s Cats,” by Francis Marion Pottenger, and many other such books.

Fortunately, there are enough students who are ready to learn, grow, and lead by example that beneficial influences for those they will inspire are cultivated and expressed.

I feel sad for those who have lost themselves to the influences of corporate religion, healthcare, and predatory marketing of all sorts, but there is a limit to what any teacher can do without participation from the student.

As a general overview of what I cover in today’s video blog presentation (about 27:00), I highlight the 6 Foundation Principles we all have to be aware of and balance as taught in CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coach training (join us at HLC 1 for an amazing learning experience).

I explain that “homeostasis” means functional balance and “allostasis” means that we are experiencing stress of a magnitude that pulls us out of homeostatic balance.

By being aware, we can make beneficial, dream-affirmative changes at the level of body, emotions, mind, or even our dream so we enjoy our life more fully.

To help us have a broader spectrum of awareness, I expand on Jung’s four modes of conscious expression (thinking-feeling, and sensation-intuition) and show how they can be used fruitfully in concert with your 4 Doctors.

I demonstrate how we can find the Tao te zen of our dream process, which means, The Way of our creation in zen – the most efficient way.

By identifying the yin/negative and yang/positive polarities for love, mind, emotions and body, we can be more objective in our subjective assessments of ourselves as we seek to “stay on the tightrope of health.”

I conclude by offering the following tips for effective implementation of my teachings for today:

1. Use Your Heart To Feel What You Know

2. Balance: Your Body Never Lies! Just look, listen, and feel and it will always guide you to health.

Listen to my MP3 audio program: Identifying Your Primal Pattern Diet

3. Choices: Means = ends…The way you go about accomplishing anything (or not) always determines the end result.

As the old saying goes, “The way you do anything is the way you do everything” …and there’s a lot of truth in that statement if we look at life honestly.

4. 4 Doctors/Guides to FREEDOM!

Here I explain that each dimension (be it the dimensions expressed in and as the 6 Foundation Principles or Your 4 Doctors) we have functional awareness of, the more information, and opportunity we create for ourselves.

When you have information, you can use it to make choices. If one isn’t paying attention, they are unlikely to be aware of the options available to them, and feeling stuck or becoming stuck is more likely.

I hope you enjoy my vlog today.

CHEK Advanced Training Program Completions

Exercise Coach San Francisco with Tomi Toles

Tomi Toles has been doing a beautiful job of sharing his wisdom with his CHEK Exercise Coach students in San Francisco this past week.

Tomi was assisted by Carl Weston from Toronto, and I was really excited to see Carl going through instructor training because he’s a “real deal CHEK Professional.”

I’m sure the students were aware of the amount of wisdom shared between Tomi and Carl. I am grateful for Tomi and Carl and for all the lovely students that have put their trust in my life’s work and teachings.

Keep of the great work, ALL of you! Congratulations on completing CHEK Exercise Coach!

While Tomi was in SF, he had a chance to go visit my superstar athlete, Mike Salemi and share some time and space together.

It is always exciting when the great minds in my life get together and share their lives and their love. Thanks for sharing the Love!

Show-N-Tell with Paul and Angie

Angie painted our babies aura as she sees and feels it emerging from within her.

She’s now 23 weeks pregnant with our son, Mana. He is very active in her womb, and being a shaman-healer, Angie is both sensitive to, and capable of seeing subtle energies.

I love this paining because when I look at, and connect to her belly and Mana, I get the same basic feelings and inner-impressions I do when connecting to her painting.

Angie says: “This is my recent art piece. I felt it was the energy of Mana. It spirals and swirls and rotates left and right. It’s energy radiates out with a gentle pulse.

This picture also reminds me of my belly button and what is happening “behind the scenes.”

Penny recently gave Angie a cool book she thought Angie would enjoy, and since I’ve hard a perpetual stream of giggles and laughter from Angie since she started reading it, I thought she may want to share some her thoughts about the book:

“I recently received this book as a birthday gift from Penny. It’s a very light, easy read that I found very entertaining. This book is full of information that I think all new moms should read.

The author, Dawn Dais, has a very funny sense of humor that made me laugh out loud many times. I ended up finishing this book in just a few days and it made me chuckle chapter after chapter. I haven’t laughed that hard reading a book in a very long time.

If you don’t take this book too seriously, I think you will laugh just as hard as I did.”

For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I began having visions of a beautiful white flower with purple in it. Usually when I get repeated visions like that, it feels as though my soul is communicating something to me.

When I paint or draw such images, I get the feeling that I’m taking some form of guidance, instruction, or being inspired to balance my more rational work life with creative self-expression.

When I have these experiences (which admittedly, can be up to 5 times weekly), and act on them by expressing them, I often have profound inner experiences.

I feel as though something beautiful, peaceful, joyful, and serene is moving through me. I feel the joy of adding life to life. I had that experience painting this flower.

In the past several years, those closest to me (and I myself) have noticed that my art is expressing much more feminine energy. I feel this inspired by my own soul as a necessary stage of my growth and development as a human being and a teacher.

As I paint more from my feminine essence, I feel that I’m also learning to better feel and understand the nature and importance of empathy, compassion, and nurture.

As I’ve grown in this way, I’ve witnessed myself being more patient with clients that would previously been challenging for me to coach.

I still maintain a healthy sense of logic, practicality and leadership, but when I become more like this flower, I am more receptive and accepting of the fact that each soul is doing the best it can to love based on the experiences it has had in life.

Oddly, I’m becoming more of a man by becoming more of a woman.

This is my client and student Marya sharing a mandala she did as part of her inner-discovery process. She is a very powerful “go getter”, and like me, is learning to master the use of her masculine energies.

As part of our work together, we are working on the development of Marya’s personal myth, and mastering her working archetypes.

To facilitate the inner-work of harvesting Marya’s myth and putting it down into artistic and written self-expression, I encouraged her to paint “The Tree Of Life” because it was relevant to what she was uncovering within herself.

To help Mary, as I often help my clients and students, I decided to join her in her process by doing the same work myself in tandem with her.

I wanted to support her with the awareness that “she’s not alone in this process” and that I would do this work with her. She’s working on her Tree Of Life and I’m really looking forward to seeing what she creates.

After years of studying and practicing art therapy, I can see, interpret, and understand a lot about a person by connecting to and reading their art.

This really helps me to understand, for example, what they want to express to themselves or others, but often can’t, either because it hurts too much, or because it is repressed in their unconscious.

This is the Tree Of Life I painted as participation with Marya over the weekend. There is still work to be done to fulfill my vision of The Tree Of Life, but I’m excited to do that this upcoming weekend.

I love learning and growing with my clients and my students, and they keep me inspired to be authentic in my own living, practices, healing, growing and teaching.

Thank you Marya for being an inspiration to me.

Thank you to all my patients and students for inspiring me to learn and grow with you each day.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my blog for this week.

I’d love to see you at one of the CHEK Institute’s Advanced Training Programs.

My entry level programs begin with CHEK Exercise Coach, teaching you to master the science of exercise in a holistic living context, and Holistic Lifestyle Coach Level 1, which guides you to mastery of the essential principles and practices that underlie health and wellness for anyone.

Love and chi,
Paul Chek