Mental fitness over physical fitness

I was lost in the past two weeks about what to write.

There was no clear idea bugging me like in the past when I wrote about confidence for the first time shortly after I began.

Then on the Friday before I post, it dawned on me, I should go in depth about something that I recently tweeted about.Because you read my long form, you are one of my most treasured friends.I want to help you understand not only how I view my own mental fitness, but how you can attain a more mentally fit version of yourself.

True story time:

I wrote this newsletter in one sitting at 1 am for one reason.My youngest son woke me up again.

This in itself is part of parenthood and should not cause negativity.

What if I told the people who can't stop preaching to get 8 hours of sleep every night that on a consistent basis I was not able to sleep 8 hours and it was because of something that I cannot control?

Their heads would spin.

This is some form of negativity, a resistance to what is.

The best way I can handle it is with care and being helpful to my child, that's it.

When he is back in bed, then it's my turn to try.

But, when I can't get my head to stop racing, the next best thing is to make use of the situation.

How to build mental fitness

You can push against what is. be non-accepting, and remain "in control" as long as you want, but it won't make you any stronger.

This is a list of what will make you weak (especially when you lose it):

• money

• fame

• attention

• getting your way

• respect due to your position

It's funny that the things we hold to a high standard are the ones that make us most vulnerable to feeling like life is not as it should be when they are stripped away from us.

It's the elderly generation that clings to youth as a tool to remain relevant in their own minds instead of embracing what they have become to remain present.

Strong mental fitness is defined by these characteristics:

• awareness

• presence

• acceptance

• non-identification

• humility

• enlightenment

Don't worry, I'm not going to leave you hanging with a list of things to do without how to do them or how they help. that's what this newsletter is for.Giving you all the knowledge you need to feel like you want to live in a place you are at now for free.

Awareness

You wouldn't even be reading this if you weren't seeking awareness of yourself.

Most people can't see a glass ceiling above them because from their perspective it's just air above them, not themselves standing in the way of attaining new heights.

When you become aware of yourself, you fairly judge what you like and don't like.

Once this truly occurs and you recognize that you're not all that you want to be, you have two choices.

Willful blindness (this is the most popular choice) or conscious reconstruction.

The latter takes a good amount of work.

Picking apart your personality, your values, your understanding of what you don't currently know.

Imagine if you knew everything about yourself now but at the age of 10.

Now, instead of wishing for something that can't happen, make the choice to go read a book about why you feel the way you do instead of accept it as "who you are".

This is meditative, and healing, to your mental fitness (it's a big deal).

This also leads you to the next level of premier suffering.

Suffering being the challenge you face, chosen or not.

Presence

What is the ultimate achievement of presence? Being there and only there, not in another space.

You are not wishing for something that you cannot have such as more time or time fast forwarded.

When you do not accept the moment for what it is, you are using it as a means to get to the end which does no favors for you in the now.

Yes, you can only make money at your job working more hours.Yes. you can only play with your kids when you have time to play.Yes, you can only drink when you don't have outside responsibilities.

What you can't do is have only one thing all the time, and you would hate it even if you could.

This is why retirement in the form of drinking on a beach is a pipedream for most that does not hold weight.

Your whole life has meaning, but it won't hold an important weight unless you choose to give every part the share it deserves.

You can't work all hours without sleeping, eating, or taking care of yourself.You can't play with your kids all day without being able to provide for them.You can't drink all day everyday without turning into a hollow shell of yourself.

Every part is important, but when you don't remain present for every moment, you make that part of your life something to resist.

The next lesson teaches you how to be present.

Acceptance

It is the opposite of resistance.

Most believe they can control a set of circumstances by use of force, negativity, or believing that they are right when others are wrong.

When you accept what you can't control as something to let go of instead of cling to, you give your anxious nervous system the rest it really needs.

Think about this:

When you get upset that life doesn't work out in the way you expected, you're resisting the outcome of that situation.

It is forced acceptance, the death of the idea that you did not want to let go.

Let go of that notion that your negativity can balance out the scales and give into what is.

Non-identification

This is answered with a simple question:

What are you?

The answer should be more complex than some title given to you by your job, a position you hold in life like "married, single, parent, child, sibling"

It should define the attributes your mind exudes.

This is why most people would rather use a man-made title because their behavior are not in line with who they would like to be.

Even some ideas such as "powerful, intelligent, popular" are ones of external validation that do not truly define you.

These are the ways to identify who you are:

Habits of:

• behavior

• action

• value

If you are constantly getting your way, you are not very cooperative.If you take advantage of peoples emotions by forcing a trigger to get some sort of reaction, your actions are inflammatory.If what matters most to you is getting more external validation through money, you are more vain than you might understand.

Identifying with the best version of you takes work, and a lot of deprogramming of what you have been taught someone like you should be.

Try to identify with something real with this next step.

Humility

It's one thing to say you're humble (this is what validates your actions when you're boastful) but it is an entirely different thing to express humility.

An act of humility is one of lowering yourself before someone as less than the belief they hold of you.

In fact, when you lower what people expect from you, you give up the weight of your identity so that people can speak to you as freely as they need to without their own resistance.

Identification works both ways in fact.

When you see a celebrity in person, if you hold them in high regard, you will view them as greater than you and feel lesser than them when they are actually just as human as you are.

Speak with humility, don't call yourself a doctor, just use your first name.

Enlightenment

This concept is so simple yet we complicate it by thinking it's some level we have to work at for years to achieve.

This quote from my favorite book, The Power of Now:

The story of Ban San: Before he became a great Zen master, he spent many years in the search of enlightenment, but it eluded him.

Then one day when he was walking in a marketplace, he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.

"Give me the best piece of meat you have" said the customer.And the butcher replied "every piece of meat I have is the best, there's no piece of meat here that is not the best"

Upon hearing this, Ban San became enlightened.

This is acceptance that every moment is the best thing you will feel because it all you have now.

When you attach yourself to outside circumstances being in your favor, you will resist what life is giving you in this moment because it is not the thing you like the most.

Learning to appreciate all moments for what they are, something to be grateful for, is a practice that develops when you make a habit of bringing yourself back to the present moment consciously.

When you live unconscious to the fact that you dislike parts of your life so much that they control you, you do not hold that enlightenment as a truth.

You deny that this moment could be as good as Christmas morning.

The Power of Now is the definitive book for teaching all these lessons, this is simply what I have pulled from it and other teachings to understand how I can see the world with far less suffering.

If you haven't read the book yourself, I am always raving about how much it has changed my perspective on life so I can't recommend it enough.

If you still struggle to find peace within, please DM me on Twitter.

Thank you for reading-Thanson