Tag Archives: spirit

Written version: self-understanding and healthy results

Posted on by
Reply

Happy TUESDAY interntians,

I took a bit of a leap for this week’s blog-o-the-week by posting a video blog… of me… standing in front of a camera… shirtless… and headless (I blame the camera guy who’s name we won’t speak but it starts with a J and ends with a D)… rambling on about how I was able to achieve a resulted body as a manifestation of my mind. Idiot-approach aside, I sound like a professional wrestler during a pre-fight interview who just thinks he’s the shit. Not my intention + poor delivery = May have come off that way. So, by the looks of my daily hits, I’m ballparking that the video didn’t go over well. It didn’t go over well not because I look like a jackass. No. It didn’t go over well because I realized today… Monday… the same day that said blog was posted… that people enjoy my blog because of my WRITTEN perspectives… not my spoken perspectives. I’m certainly better behind the keyboard than my projected voice and shirtless attire (my stylist is on vacation). And, in the past, I’ve been told from peers that my blog is an easy and enjoyable read on the way to work or during down time. You would think something would click prior to a trip to devalue-city? Not this guy. I realized that I need to stick to what I’m good at, which is delivering an eloquent hot-mess every monday as a pile of words with a side of boomshakalaka. Plus, I can’t look past the fact that these days, without a decent established viewer demographic, AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR AN 8-MINUTE MARATHON VIDEO.

Ahem, the written version:

The purpose of my video was to put an image to the author, to put my talk into my walk, to physically portray how I am able to manifest my thoughts into a physical reality… a.k.a standing shirtless and talking about myself… and elaborate on  that manifestation: I achieved my healthy results by simply understanding myself, what I’m all about, why I’m all about, and what makes me… me. Obviously that understanding wasn’t really all-that-simple over the past however-many years, but I did eventually put into perspective the opposite of simple… complicate. I learned to stop complicating things, which then opened the doors for simple as a more direct path to the results and happiness that I desire. If I’m not complicating I can only be simplifying! For years I complicated the hell out of what I thought “health” was. My biggest issue was that I thought health was an external achievement, i.e. physique, diet, and exercise programs. No way in hell did I ever consider my current mental and emotional state nor the years of buried mental and emotional states that play an important role in this sweet life-o-mine. I constantly reached out externally, neglecting the ONLY thing that mattered in a pursuit of health… mahself. Along this pursuit I learned some things. I learned a few life lessons. I learned different ways of thinking that shed light on things that have been in the dark for years. I learned that I need to be happy with myself on the inside in order to be happy with myself on the outside. I learned that I am an absolute asshole when I think I’m right and that there’s only my way or the highway. I learned who I am by clarifying why I am sans [what I thought to be my] reality (hint: self responsibility regarding ev-ery-thin-g). I learned that health is so much more than my physical self!

I did not achieve these results because of a strict diet… I have my definition of healthy and unhealthy foods but I also need to live my life without self-imposed boundaries. “The world can expand when walls do not exist.” (Robert Fritz) I did not achieve these results because of any one superfood… I do have my preference of cooking oil, protein supplement, salt, et cetera but there will never be ONE food that is the be-all-end-all to health. I did not achieve these results because of a specific fitness program… I constantly try out different exercise programs and piece together what works for me, for my goals, and for my lifestyle. I am not healthy because I spend 5+ days in the gym… The world is my gym as long as gravity and my extremities exist.

THIS is how I feel when people see me and immediately inquire about my workout program or diet… Dude, how many days a week do you lift? What program do you do? What’s your diet? I enjoy the look on their face when I say that I might work out 3 days a week (4 at THE MOST), that I’d rather sleep than work out, that I drink soda, I eat bread, I eat full-fat ice cream, I eat saturated fat, I consume sugar, I drink coffee with cream and REAL sugar, I drink whole milk, I drink sugar-infested juice, I eat red meat, I eat fries, or that I rarely eat vegetables. Sure, I went through phases of insane workout programs and strict diets but I do not consider that to be healthy for me at this point in my understanding. I work out sporadically and consume “junk foods” because I truly believe they’re healthy by my definition of “health and happiness.” More importantly, I stopped defining health as just diet and exercise to create a better-fitting idea of what it means for ME to be healthy.

My mentality, my emotional well-being, and my spirituality are far more important than any physicality I possess. My body is nothing without my mind, heart, and spirit. These three are the foundation of my healthy results because THEY are my first priority, because THEY are healthy, because THEY are given the attention that they deserve, and because I have given myself the opportunity to understand why they are so important in my life. My body, my face, and my eyes will always show where my head, heart, and spirit are at.

I know it’s a little short and a bit jumbled, but it’s 1am and there’s 8-minutes worth of jabroni-talk that may have some more insight.

jdperryhealth.com
jdperryhealth.tumblr.com
jdperryhealth@gmail.com

Comparing self to others

Posted on by
1

Do we benefit or lose when we compare ourselves to others? Is it good to compare to get a better sense of self or does that act simply push us further away from self [and others]?

  • We compare what we are not… I’m not strong enough. I’m not smart enough. I’m not pretty enough. I’m not skinny enough. 
  • We compare what we don’t have… I don’t have a car. I don’t have an outlet. I don’t have a good job. I don’t have a significant other. I don’t have friends. I don’t have energy. 
  • We compare where we are not… I’m not as successful as my peers. I don’t have a place of my own. I am not where I predicted I’d be at this point in my life.
  • We compare our present to our past… Life was easier. I was healthier. I could run for miles. I could eat anything and not gain a pound. I was happier. Growing up sucks.

Any type of comparison is negative – it builds, defends, or hurts the Ego. You are not your Ego… the Ego is a part of you and it’s good to know when you are calling the shots and when your Ego takes charge. The Ego is a culmination of expectations, assumptions, judgements, predictions, and shameful events of the past. The Ego can protect us, but it can also blind us. Even those comparisons where we label ourselves above self and others – I am stronger, I am smarter, I am healthier, I am prettier – are all ego-boosting judgements and don’t really help anything in the long run. To think that you are better than someone else or better than your past self pushes you further away from a true reality – we are all equals and you are equal to your past self because it is a part of who you are, not who you aren’t.

  • Are you able to accept yourself the way that you are? If not, why?
  • Are you able to not judge, not assume, not expect, not predict, and not shame self or others? If not, why? Can you take note of when you do and why that occurs?
  • Are you able to be happy regardless of who, where, or what you are? If not, why?
  • How do you define happy? What makes you unhappy? What isn’t enough? What are you lacking? What are you comparing? Why are you comparing?

It’s good to take perspective on yourself and others. It’s good to know who, what, and where you are not, but that should not define who you are. We all grow, evolve, and mature at different rates, times, and ages. Don’t let your Ego prevent you or your perspective of others from being.

jdperryhealth.com
jdperryhealth.tumblr.com
jdperryhealth@gmail.com

We assume that what we see is what is real

Posted on by
Reply

To try to change outward attitudes and behaviors does very little good in the long run if we fail to examine the basic paradigms from which those attitudes and behaviors flow. (p28)

Suppose you wanted to arrive at a specific location in central Chicago. A street map of the city would be a great help to you in reaching your destination. But suppose you were given the wrong map. Through a printing error, the map labeled “Chicago” was actually a map of Detroit. Can you imagine the frustration, the ineffectiveness of trying to reach your destination?

You might work on your behavior – you could try harder, be more diligent, double your speed. But your efforts would only succeed in getting you to the wrong place faster.

You might work on your attitude – you could think more positively. You still wouldn’t get to the right place, but perhaps you wouldn’t care. Your attitude would be so positive, you’d be happy where ever you were.

The point is, you’d still be lost. The fundamental problem has nothing to do with your behavior or your attitude. It has everything to do with having a wrong map.

If you have the right map of Chicago, then diligence becomes important, and when you encounter frustrating obstacles along the way, then attitude can make a real difference. But the first and most important requirement is the accuracy of a map.

Each of us has many, many maps in our head, which can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps. We seldom question their accuracy; we’re usually even unaware that we have them. We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. 

And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions. The way we see things in the source of the way we think and the way we act. (p 23, 24)

Excerpts from Steven R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

jdperryhealth.com
jdperryhealth.tumblr.com
jdperryhealth@gmail.com

Being provides advantage, nonbeing provides usefulness

Posted on by
1

Tao Te Ching - Chapter 11

Thirty spokes share a hub;
In its nothingness
Rests the carriage’s usefullness.
One burns clay to make a pot;
In its nonbeing
Rests the clay pot’s usefullness.
One cuts out doors and windows;
In its nonbeing
Rests the room’s usefullness.
Therefore, being provides the advantage;
Nonbeing provides the usefullness.


I don’t know about you, but when I first read these words I had to read it a few more times and just sit back in awe of how simple-yet-profound of a perspective it provides. I think it’s flipping awesome.

jdperryhealth.com
jdperryhealth.tumblr.com
jdperryhealth@gmail.com

Osho’s 10 Commandments

Posted on by
Reply

“You have asked for my Ten Commandments. It’s a difficult matter, because I am gainst any kind of commandment. Yet, just for the fun of it, I write:”

  1. Never obey anyone’s command unless it is coming from within you also.
  2. There is no God other than life itself.
  3. Truth is within you, do not search for it elsewhere.
  4. Love is a prayer.
  5. To become a nothingness is the door to truth. Nothingness itself is the means, the goal and attainment.
  6. Life is now and here.
  7. Live wakefully.
  8. Do not swim – float.
  9. Die each moment so that you can be new each moment.
  10. Do not search. That which is, is. Stop and see.

jdperryhealth.com
jdperryhealth.tumblr.com
jdperryhealth@gmail.com

Video Clip: The Cure is U – Love

Posted on by
2

A clip from “The Cure is U” – Love (self love and its possibilities to heal)

Love is a feeling that doesn’t require another human at all. Love is a feeling that thee system – your biology – is taking whatever you’re looking at (your interpretation) and saying whatever that “thing” is, “that is so in harmony with me; that I will release the chemistry of harmony.” Love: What you’re feeling are the emotional chemicals that say, “what I am interpreting in this world around me is fully supportive and in harmony with the desires and wishes of my life.”

One of the most powerful tools – and not one that the mind would think of – is self love. Love is what is happening constantly. The question is to what degree am I allowing myself to participate in it. We’ve always associated feeling loved by being loved by something outside of ourselves, and when we do that we constantly set ourselves in a state of fear. “What happens if you stop loving me?” “What happens if I never find someone to love me?” “Well, no one ever did love me – parents didn’t love me, my family and siblings didn’t love me” – all kinds of absence of love has been existing. In the empowered state that you actually are – what do you think you were interested in when you came into this life and you landed in those kind of circumstance? You must have been interested in finding it in [the womb] and bringing it out in some way. When it wasn’t delivered or isn’t consistently delivered today, there’s a reason for that and when we begin embracing that perspective we being to access our empowerment.

If I am not extending love, I am projecting fear. It is as though we live in two parallel universes, and in a very real way you decide which universe you want to live in – the universe that is dominated by fear or the universe that is dominated by love. You choose the one dominated by love, your chances of physical healing are a whole lot increased.

So the more loving I can be with myself the more likely I am to access this heartspace, and it is in this heartspace that my intuitions, and my inspirations, and my gut feelings, and the wisdom that I have inherited from the ages come together. And in that heartspace is where we allow ourselves to access our unlimited power and our infinite possibility.

jdperryhealth.com

jdperryhealth.tumblr.com

jdperryhealth@gmail.com

Question: Part 1: Self-Esteem Advice?

Posted on by
3

In recent months, I’ve realized how much self-hate I have been dealing with from a young age. As a result, I have little self-esteem and I was wondering if you had any advice?

Perspective:

First off, thank you for sharing this with me (and with those who are reading this). It takes courage to admit that you are unhappy with yourself, and it takes even more to express that unhappiness to others. So, please understand and appreciate how profound of a leap you are taking just by being aware of and open with yourself.

We all have troubled pasts and very often past experiences can still have an impact years or decades later in our lives. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this instance because there are no wrongs in life – there are only moments and our reactions to those moments. It is up to each of one of us to take our current situations into perspective by asking:

  • Who am I?
  • How do I define myself?
  • Who do I want to be?
  • Why do I want to be?
  • Who was I?
  • How did I get here?
  • Why am I here?
  • Where do I want to be?

All-too-often people will run away from their past or bury it deep within themselves because what they experienced at a younger age was traumatizing. With each day that pain is not addressed, it only amplifies the original experience that much more. Yet, there’s something more “comforting” about acquiring new pain than facing an old one because it gives us a sense of existence, attention, or feeling (whether we want to be noticed or unnoticed – our ego’s goal is to draw an outside awareness in our direction).

I believe that you are already on your way towards accepting your past so you can be fully present with your current self. Here are some more perspectives that may help…

Your past experiences were necessary for you to be who you are today

Each and every single experience is necessary for your path. For example, I would not be here providing you with my perspective if I did not experience my share of hardships and internal battles. They were not easy to experience at a young age, but I’ve come to realize that those experiences are part of who I am – they helped shape who I am today and who I desire to be tomorrow.

Address your self-esteem

Ask yourself why you have low self-esteem and try to trace that pattern back to its original source/your first (or several) experience(s). It may be hard because the mind has the ability to block out traumatizing experiences for the sake of survival, yet the journey back in time to find that hurt, inner child is possible (and often necessary).

Overcome your fears

Fear is an illusion that we build up within our thoughts. Children are scared of the dark because they believe that their imagination can become real… but what’s real, anyway? Our thoughts, emotions, and reactions create illusions of a [physical] reality. So, in essence, fear is not real.

Have patience

Time is only a factor when you make it one. Do not force yourself to grow, heal, or find freedom. Adopt “the law of least effort” in this case – a tight muscle cannot be forced to stretch to a ego-desired length otherwise it may pull, but a tight muscle that is allowed to elongate at its own pace through a minimal/slow-paced effort will always achieve progress.

Do not have expectations

Expectations are a self-made boundary system. We predict outcomes before they even occur through our own definitions of “right” and “wrong.” When those outcomes do not develop in our favor or are not “right,” then we experience a set back that can truly effect our well-being. Be open and detach yourself from every experience. That’s not to say you shouldn’t care or put forth an effort, but to not become too attached to a desired outcome in the case that it may not come true on your expectation’s watch.

Trust in yourself

Learn to trust in your efforts and trust that they will be met accordingly. Good will return good and bad will return bad – Karma!

Unconditionally accept yourself because you are who you are 

You are an accumulation of your past and present self. You cannot change the past, you can only influence the present, and you can put trust in your future. Take one step at a time towards a path that you wish to travel. It will truly be the road less traveled, but understand that you have been destined from day one to travel that road – to experience and learn from those experiences solely for your gain.

Love yourself and love others

Thank you for your question!

 

jdperryhealth.com

jdperryhealth.tumblr.com

jdperryhealth@gmail.com

Chopra: Reaction

Posted on by
Reply
Taken from Chopra’s “Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul” pg 182

Instead of focusing on your reaction in the moment, step back and restart who you really are. The real you has no agenda. It lives in the present and responds openly to life… Let fear, anger, jealousy, resentment, victimization, or any conditional reaction arise. Don’t oppose it. Yet the minute you become aware of it, say, “You’re not me.”

If your soul is the real you, then it posses the power to transform you, once you open yourself to it. You will know that you are responding from the soul level whenever you do the following:

• Accept the experience that’s in front of you.

• Approve of other people and yourself.

• Cooperate with the solution at hand.

• Detach yourself from negative influences.

• Remain calm in the face of stress.

• Forgive those who offend or wrong you.

• Approach the situation selflessly, with fairness to all.

• Exert a peaceful influence.

• Take a nonjudgmental attitude, making no one else feel wrong.

Then…

1) Remain centered.

2) Be clear.

3) Expect the best.

4) Watch and wait.

Find Your Spirit

Image

1

Ever wonder what it would be like to see yourself for who you truly are?

Go in a secluded room. Light a candle and place it in the middle of the room. Turn off all the lights and draw curtains over the windows. Place yourself in between the candle and a blank wall with your back to the candle.

What do you see?

No, not a shadow…

You should see your spirit. You should see a non-judging, non-shaming, non-flawed version of your physical body – because that’s who you really are.

When we were born into this world we were born into innocence. As we grow up we learn about ourselves, others, and the world through our perception of those experiences. And as we begin to form ideas, opinions, egos, judgements, and shame through experiences, it is easier to stray away from who we began. Every day and everything we experience is physical, but have you ever considered that your thoughts, your emotions, your desires, your reactions, your opinions, your ideas, your judgements, your shame are aspects of a non-physical you? And that those non-physical aspects can be easily manifested into a physical reality?

Interesting stuff, huh?

Foundation: Who, What, How

Posted on by
Reply

Who am I?

What do I want?

How can I contribute?

Take 15 minutes each week to ask yourself these questions. Sit with each question for five minutes. Ask yourself each question in a relaxed state. Concentrate on your breathing and allow your mind/body to answer without any bias.

Having a set foundation will encourage you to have set goals and a desired path. The idea is to re-evaluate yourself each week because our world is constantly changing and our lives must change with it, but our foundations should remain strong and true.

You may find that your answers/definitions/perspectives change over time, and that’s perfectly fine. I believe we’re all on a path to find ourselves and this is a guiding perspective for just that.

 

jdperryhealth.com

jdperryhealth.tumblr.com

jdperryhealth@gmail.com