Writing is a tool for thinking.
Adam Grant. Instagram post.
This week’s blog connects an Animal Spirit card deck, the Adam Grant writing quote, Stutz netflix documentary, and the Orange Theory Fitness 8-week transformation challenge.
The Adam Grant quote, ‘writing is a tool for thinking’ often pops into my mind. Mostly, the quote resonates because it is true (for me). At times I feel defeated when I consider the time I put into creating content and the observable/measurable results. And then I whiddle it back to my why : the creative process helps me understand big ideas in a way that is meaningful and transferable.
Sometimes I wish the only thing I thought about on a Saturday or Sunday morning was where I was going to have brunch and who with…
✅ Adam Grant Quote
…the Earth creatures represent our relationship with fears and habits.
Kim Krans
According to my Animal Spirit deck, the Earth creatures represent our relationships with fears and habits.
If you’re wondering why I am referencing ‘my Animal Spirit deck’, you can read deck. for context.
For fun, I picked twelve cards to guide my 2023 blog year.
The first two cards I picked are Earth creatures: Spider (January) and Horse. According to Kim Krans, creator of the deck: ‘Several Earth cards indicate that consciousness remains rooted in the material plane… This means practical concerns (money, home, work, and family) are at the forefront of the mind, not leaving room for much else.’
She also writes: ‘Movement and exercise are especially helpful to counter the stagnation or “stuck-ness” that can accompany excess Earth element.’
Our February card is Horse. Kim Krans says Horse represents momentum, freedom, expansive energy, and force.
Sit with that for a moment, and now lets connect to the Stutz tool shared at the end of last weeks post (insert post).
✅ animal card deck
The following is taken from last week’s post physical.
I brought up the morning movement because one of the first things Stutz references is what he calls the Life Force. He draws a pyramid with three horizontal lines. He says that one must get in touch with their Life Force when they desire different outcomes. On the bottom is the Physical. This is food, movement, sleep and rest. He says when he first begins with a client who presents with depression, 85% of moving toward different outcomes begins with getting into the physical and developing a relationship with your body: give the big energy an action.
The middle space is relationships with others. As it relates to depression, he considers the mood the mountain one is climbing. He says others are the handholds of the poles that support you as you get to the top of the mountain.
And then last is relationship with self. You need the first two, to ultimately grow the last.
This brings us to the Orange Theory Fitness 8-week transformational challenge.
There is an irony here.
I use the 8-week series as an opportunity to grow self-awareness. The irony is that OTF is hosting the challenge to grow one’s relationship to physical movement. Afterall, it is a fitness business not a self-awareness gym.
This brings us full circle to the storyitell which is the basis of my connection to the 8-week transformational challenge.
When it comes to physical needs (sleep, rest, food, digestion, movement) what story do you tell? One consideration is to be curious about whether or not you are in opposition to yourself. For example, do you monitor your physical needs in a way that is patronizing? Do you punish yourself with negative self talk: ie. criticize? compare? judge?
Phil Stutz was diagnosed in his young (twenties?) life with a condition that affected his observable physicality. Yet, it appears his personal and professional discovery to emotional ‘freedom’ (ie. relative term) is developing a relationship to the body’s physical needs first.
Questions to consider about physical needs:
🧐 Why do you desire to add intentional movement to your daily routine?
🧐 Why do you desire to create intentional time to rest in your daily routine?
🧐 Why do you desire to eat/consume in a way that nourishes your physical body?
🧐 What does it feel like to be fit, strong, active?
🧐 What does it feel like to be nourished?
🧐 What does it feel like to be rested?
🧐 Does the story you tell about physicality create opposition to your desired outcome?
Opposing forces create tension. Tension is stress. When one force lets go, the energy can move -flow.
Are you the one creating the tension by the story you tell?
✅ Orange Theory Fitness 8-week transformation challenge
For me, one of the main takeaways from the Stutz documentary is his premise that no one is exonerated from three things: pain, uncertainty, constant work. He intuits that once we understand our relationship to pain, uncertainty, constant work, it’s then we let go of the tension we create around the story we tell about our value and worth as it relates to pain, uncertainty, constant work.
…when one force lets go, the energy can move – flow…
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