Authenticy & Physical

The speaker discusses the importance of aligning their true self-authenticity with their actions and how they live their life. They highlight the spiritual dimension of viewing the body as a gift and not abusing it. They emphasize that taking care of the body is essential for achieving an authentic life in other areas such as emotions and mental well-being. The speaker also discusses the benefits of being healthy, including emotional happiness, higher energy levels, mental focus, and disease prevention. They believe that being healthy should not be a battle of willpower but rather a conscious choice. They mention the importance of sleep, healthy food choices, and regular exercise. The speaker concludes that they want to be physically healthy and respectful of their body and that conscious living is the key to achieving this. They emphasize that it is not about sacrifice but rather incorporating enjoyable activities and consciously making choices. I wanted to talk about who I am in a physical sense and how my true self-authenticity, how I can kind of match that up with my actions and how I actually live my life. So I think there's a few parts to it. I think in a spiritual sense, in this quest for self-authenticity and the ultimate reality with the body, that it is a gift to us. Our body is this gift which enables us to live our lives. And I think most people, when they haven't realised their lives are aligned with God, they tend to let the ego just abuse the body in some form or other by eating too much. That's kind of the spiritual dimension, I think we should always have an awareness that our body is a gift. And similarly, we can't achieve our full authentic life in other areas, in emotional and mental and so forth, unless we look after our body because it all is interlinked. So that's the sort of spiritual dimension, seeing the body as an actual gift to be treasured and not necessarily something we own, rather than it's just something that we can abuse at our will, as for the ego. And that even sort of blends into sexuality as well, but that's a different topic, or maybe it is the same topic. But why do we want to be really healthy, I think, I mean everybody knows this, but if you just look at being healthy in terms of our eating, our sleeping and our exercise, it makes us happier emotionally, it brings endorphins, it gives us higher energy levels it allows us to focus mentally on our tasks, so it helps us at work, it gets rid of the aches and pains, and I already have aches and pains in my lower back and legs, and it helps with disease and longevity, and we don't think about it too much, but the body does start falling apart and deteriorating, and living healthy is the best way to have the chance to reach our full potential. The thing about, I think the key that I've found in my experience so far is that being healthy shouldn't come down to a battle of willpower, it's that old Presbyterian, we've got to suffer and sacrifice, I just think that's completely irrelevant and the wrong way I look at it, in fact I think the creator did a clever thing in that he actually made it really easy for us to be healthy, couldn't have made it easier. I look at what's healthy, I look at the three things that basically make up health, sleeping, well I love sleeping, love that feeling of just relaxing and going to bed early, knowing I'm going to have a good night's sleep. The ego wants us to stay up late and to push our body and not respect it and watch the TV show, feed the fear or whatever, but our authentic self actually just wants to be healthy, wants to relax, half an hour before bed and get an early night, so we enjoy sleep and sleep healthy. Food, healthy food tastes great, I think the whole thing about food, and for me there is no difference in enjoyment, really in having a conscious healthy food intake and not, and I think that the trick here is it's all about consciousness and habits, so I find it relatively easy to eat healthy in day to day life, just because I buy healthy, so when I'm at the shop I buy healthy. And I think we need to, here's where it gets into the old Presbyterian sacrifice, I think diets are actually quite inhumane, because it's forcing this battle of willpower and sacrifice and it makes us make feasts of the ego, but we don't have to do that, I think we just live consciously with our food choices, six days a week, and then when we go out to dinner that one night or have that special treat, then we just live consciously and we say, you know what, I'm going out and having a big night, I'm going to have a few drinks, or I'm going to Bali for a six or seven day holiday, I'm not going to go crazy, but I'm going to enjoy my food. So we're able to live consciously and treat ourselves and love ourselves with food, but it's not just habitual ego taking over, and in terms of comfort food, I think again there's a conscious place for it every now and then, I think sometimes, but it shouldn't become the key avenue, we need to look at healthier ways, whether it's exercise, listening to music, talking with friends, having a hot bath, doing yoga, there are other ways to give ourselves comfort, and it's okay for food to do it every now and then, consciously, but not just this unconscious. So that's sleep and food, and the other thing is exercise, and exercise is great, I love walking, I love swimming at the beach, swimming in the pool with my nephews, I like yoga, I like playing sport, so they're all things we like doing, and it's just a matter of, it's the habit formation, unless we commit to actually incorporating that, and again I've been through this the last nine months, I've been able to do some form of exercise every morning, just about every morning, sometimes it is just walking and doing some stretching, but, and that's really important, so I think, so I suppose who I am, I want to be physically healthy and respectful, that is the authentic me, I've lived a lot of my life just letting the ego dictate how I should treat my body, but just my natural drive I suppose to at least have some help has got me out there and being active and doing things, so it's been a mix for me, I'm a relatively healthy person, I've got a good base, but I think it's just, it's about the spiritual aspect of realising that my true self is a healthy person, and then just being very conscious with my life choices, it's not about the big sacrifice that doing 15 hours of weights to look great, or going to these pump classes, or telling myself I'm hopeless and I should feel guilty, because I, it's none of that, just pick things I enjoy, build the habit, the early morning exercise habit into my life, eat consciously, sleep well, and that's, it's really easy and authentic, and that's who I am, I don't need to have this lifelong battle that a lot of people have with diets and health issues, it's just there for me, I love exercise, I don't love all exercise, but I love the sorts of exercise I mentioned, walking, stretching, swimming, doing a quick set of weights, and sports, so it's just a matter of incorporating those things into my life, and it's not about sacrifice at all, it's about conscious living, we can occasionally go out and have a beautiful meal and dessert, and we can treat ourselves, we can even have the odd bit of comfort food, as long as we just do it consciously, it's not just some conscious action or the ego taking over.