Spiritual Fitness

Growing up the phrase 'you are what you eat' never held much significance. In fact, as children, we would often joke about that phrase and call each other pigs, cows, chickens, and turkeys because one of those meats was more than likely on our dinner tables every night.

Studying to become a certified health coach in 2017, I got to learn the science behind food and the role it plays in your energy levels, your mood, and your motivation to go after your goals in life. I studied the seven main nutrients including carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. I learned why some foods left me feeling sluggish compared to foods that kept me energized. I even got to learn when my body was low on certain vitamins and minerals and how it prompted me to go after certain unhealthy foods like potato chips or ice cream to compensate for it; all of which inspired me to go vegetarian and become more mindful of what I fed my body.

However, as I got older and started approaching 40, I started looking at food and the phrase 'you are what you eat' from a more spiritual lens. I thought to myself, if I am what I eat, that has to include anything I feed my spirit and mind and not just my body. This inspired me to start a journey of becoming spiritually fit.

Spiritual Fitness is an essential aspect of our overall health that is often overlooked. It include your ability to maintain beliefs, principles, and values that provide support during times of stress. It also involves the development of personal qualities that help sustain you during hardship. These qualities form the foundation of your character, disposition in life, decision-making, and integrity.

The development of your spirit is a crucial aspect of Spiritual Fitness. It provides you with an understanding of your core values and your identity in God, which contributes to consistent behavior in line with your beliefs and living within your truth. Developing Spiritual Fitness can help you cope better with stress, find meaning in your life, and lead to a more fulfilling existence. With so much going on in the world, you'd better be able to protect your spirit, and everything connected to it such as your peace of mind and your will-power. This will help you stay on the path of fulfillment and avoid the distractions of the world.

Physical fitness is typically achieved through proper nutrition, physical exercise, and sufficient rest along with a recovery plan. Just like physical fitness, spiritual fitness is also achieved through proper spiritual nutrition and spiritual exercise, sufficient rest along with recovery. I will discuss the first two; spiritual exercise and nutrition.

Nutrition plays an integral role in our survival and overall well-being. What we consume, or neglect to consume, shapes our being in ways beyond measure. The power of balanced spiritual nutrition is a delicate dance, for too little or too much of certain substances that provide nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of life (nutrients); can lead to a host of afflictions that affect our emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical selves, resulting in Spiritual Malnutrition.

You are what you eat. This pertains not only to physical food but also to what you feed your spirit and mind. When you are malnourished you lack the proper energy and nutrients to help you grow and heal from minor and major stresses, challenges, difficulties, trials and tribulations. When life starts life-ing and you’re spiritually unfit it can cause an imbalance in the four core areas of your life: resulting in chaos and confusion, lack of peace and joy, unfulfillment, unproductivity, and sometimes depression and anxiety.

I like to compare these core areas or pillars of your life to a four-course meal. When you go to a restaurant you are usually given an appetizer first, then a main entrée, a salad, and lastly dessert. This four-course meal usually results in you feeling full and satisfied when you are done consuming; so much so that you leave an amazing tip.

When you E.A.T. proper nutrients in these four core areas of your L.I.F.E. (which is an acronym for Living In Full Excellence), you become FULL-filled. (fulfilled), you start to walk with purpose, while sharing tips or contributions to others as a way of service. This is how you Edify and Testify or what I like to call... E.A.T.

Your appetizer course of L.I.F.E. corresponds to your Health and Wellness What you feed this area of your life will enhance your relationship and overall health around yourself. This includes mental, physical, and emotional health, self-love and self-care, self-development, self-awareness, self-confidence, and more. In a restaurant, the appetizer is the first course to get the party started. You can usually tell if a restaurant is on to something from how good the appetizer course is. If this course is lacking, it can be a reflection of how nourishing and good the other courses may or may not be.

Your main course of L.I.F.E. corresponds to your Spirituality. What you feed this area of your life will enhance, strengthen, and grow your relationship with God the Creator of your LIFE. This course pours into your spiritual health. It reflects your moral, spiritual, and soul compass; including your values, beliefs, thought patterns, your subconscious, spirituality, religion, and just your overall connection to that which is Greater than YOU.

Unlike the other courses, this is the only course that you can consume by itself and still become FULL-filled. If you ONLY eat from the other three courses, you will still feel hungry and thirsty for more out of life. The other three courses cannot and will not sustain you by themselves. Your Main Course is the foundational course and is usually discovered after you get a taste of who you are...it has always been there but your Appetizer Course leads you back to it.

Your salad course of L.I.F.E. corresponds to your Finances and your consciousness around wealth and poverty. What you feed this area of your life will determine your relationship with currency and your financial health. Currency is the ability to find productive, lucrative, and righteous currents that help your cash flow for the betterment of you and those around you. This course includes your financial literacy and stability, career, entrepreneurship, investments, assets, and more. How do you steward and grow this area of your life?

Your dessert course of L.I.F.E. corresponds to your Relationships, Creativity, and Imagination. This course is what makes life sweet (pun intended). What you feed this area of your life, pours into the ships of your life. Ships are vessels that carry you from one place to another. They can carry you to a place of love, laughter, empowerment, healing, and prosperity, or they can carry you to a place of trauma, anxiety, resentment, bitterness, poverty, and so forth. These include your friendships, familialships, companionships, partnerships, and overall relationships. This course also includes the power in which you use your imagination, creativity, gifts, and talents for the betterment of the world.

In addition to spiritual fitness being achieved through nutritional food, you must also include spiritual exercises. As you may know, exercise is any intentional activity to enhance and maintain your fitness and overall health. Spiritual exercises are different for everyone but may include prayer, reading the word, meditation, affirmations, laughter, massive action towards your goals, spending time in nature, yoga, listening to music, spending time with loved ones, reading, writing, drawing, gardening, taking care of plants, setting healthy boundaries, resting or anything that brings joy, peace, hope and strengthens your faith.

Spiritual fitness pertains to your beliefs and practices that enhance your connection with sources of hope, meaning, and purpose. It connects you to God and It is an essential aspect of developing overall wellness, peace, and equanimity. You are what you eat and what you feed yourself in the form of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual food has the power to leave you hungry and malnourished or heal-thy, well-thy and full-filled.

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