Eating Right Makes Me Fit for the Destination

Fasting and Eating

This is the first Sunday of the Month of March. Every month, usually on the first Sunday of the month, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints celebrate a period of fasting. Those who can,  abstain from food and drink for two consecutive meals. They donate the value of those meals to be used to directly help the needy in their area. They typically refer to this day as "Fast Sunday."

Because today is Fast Sunday, I am thinking about food, and what we eat. What I eat. Or what I should eat (more on that later).

Fit or Fat

With the advancement of medical sciences we have gained a lot of insights into how diet affects our health. We know that too much food, in excess of what we need to fuel ourselves for the day, tends to make us fat. We know that some foods, regardless of the quantity or our caloric needs then to make us fat. We also know that being fat, carrying excess weight, tends to produce some very bad health outcomes, most of which culminate in suffering and death at an earlier age than might otherwise be the case. The medical studies citing the role of excess weight in heart disease, strokes, joint failure, liver failure, and other issues are too numerous to cite, or refute.

The "get skinny" and the "get fit" industries (the two overlap but are not the same) capitalize on these facts to promote a variety of products and processes. Most of those products and processes have dubious benefits and some are more harmful to our health than being fat.

Junk Food

All this is a roundabout way to make the point that if I feed myself a steady diet of junk food, I can only expect to suffer weakness, ill health, and untimely death. In contrast, if I eat a reasonably healthy diet, ensure I have at least some moderate regular exercise (walking is exercise), I can expect to enjoy physical strength, mental acuity, and moderately good health until my body wears out, or I exit mortality from some abrupt misfortune. Of course, fat or fit, I have no guarantee that some ailment or accident won't somehow wreck me.

Now that I am thinking about the effects of my diet on my physical body, I'm going to s switch gears and consider the diet and exercise I am feeding my spirit.

Natural Diets

For all the advancements of medical and physical sciences none of the sciences can identify what animates a living being and is then absent from the deceased. They can measure and track the evidences of animation, and they can even note many things which directly result in the cessation of animation. However, they are unable to see, even with the most powerful of microscopes or other medical imaging devices, the source of what animates our minds and bodies. Natural sciences can only reveal nature.

Spiritual Diets

To gain insight into the world which science is unable to penetrate requires reliance on sources that are outside of nature. The supernatural. God is, by definition, a supernatural being. He does not appear to be bound by the same laws of nature which we observe. Fortunately for us, He has deliberately revealed himself to humanity on many occasions throughout time. Although it is not my purpose here to delve into those occasions, it is relevant to note that He has repeatedly revealed some key facts which we could not discover on our own:

1. He exists
2. He is more powerful and wise than we can imagine
3. He cares about us
4. Each of us has both a spirit and a body

He has revealed a lot more than this, but these are the relevant points for this essay.

What animates our minds and bodies is our spirit. 

Spiritual Junk Food

My question today is, what happens if our spirit has the same kind of diet and exercise routine as we give our bodies? And what does a good, or bad, spiritual diet and exercise routine look like?

I believe that if I feed my spirit a steady diet of spiritual junk food and give it very little spiritual exercise, it makes my spirit weak and sickly. It may even bring me to a form of spiritual death, perhaps before I am ready to leave mortality.

On the other hand, if I feed my spirit healthy spiritual diet and at least moderate spiritual exercise I will enjoy a more robust physical and spiritual life. This leads to some important questions:

1. What is a good spiritual diet or a bad spiritual diet? 
2. How can I know the difference between them?

Seeing Good and Bad

I am going to start with the last question. How can I know the difference between things that are good for my spirit and those that are bad for my spirit?

The answer is simpler, and harder, than people may imagine. It is encompassed in the teaching that "by [its] fruits you will know [it]"

Good Fruits

In my experience, a good spiritual regimen has the following effects or fruits:

• I have more energy
• Gratitude - My appreciation and enjoyment of the good things in your life is enhanced, making the bad things in my life more tolerable.
• Patience / Tolerance - I feel more peaceful because I know that getting things wrong is a necessary part of growing and learning, both for me and others. I am inclined to kindness toward others who may not be able to anything for me. I am more patient with stupid people, selfish people, and mean people because I understand that I have my own flaws, which may not be the same as theirs and we are all trying to get through this life wearing a spiritual blindfold most of the time.
• Optimism - While a good spiritual regimen doesn't give me an unrealistic outlook on the world, it makes me a more optimistic person. If God is real, and He cares about me, then, although I may not see what he does or understand it, I can trust that He is working for my well-being. And, if I have God in my corner rooting for me, how can I not get back on my feet when I have been knocked down and push forward when everything else seems to be trying to hold me back and drag me down?
• Attractive - It attracts people who want or who have a good spiritual regimen. It is a natural fact that "birds of a feather flock together."

Bad Fruits

In my experience a bad spiritual regimen has the following fruit (and yes, I do have experience with bad spiritual regimens of myself and others):

• Depression - a lack of energy
• Pessimism - the expectation and outlook that good things don't stay in my life
• Anxiety - the constant fear of getting it wrong and bringing extra pain and embarrassment into my life.
• Impatience / Perfectionism - Life is too short to get anything wrong and others are constantly stealing my most precious and unrenewable resource in this life, my time. If they can't help me to get what I want, then they need to get out of the way and stop slowing me down. Also, I hate it when I get in my own way by not doing something perfectly and getting the exact outcome I desired.
• Self-Righteousness / Intolerance - Anyone who doesn't see the world the way I do lacks the intelligence to be worthy of life and liberty or my time and attention. They will just waste their own and steal my time. Their biggest sin is their stupidity in not sharing my opinion.
• Ingratitude - What I have is never enough. There is always more out there that I don't have in my grasp.
• Envy and Covetousness - The worst part of life is that I can see that others, who aren't as deserving as me, have more and better in their life than I. I cannot celebrate their success, I can only mourn that theirs isn't mine.
• Repulsive - Ironically, although like attracts like, no one truly enjoys the company of consistently negative or toxic people. Although I may accrue some power and followers, and some may love me despite myself, no one will enjoy being around me for long.

So, look at the fruits above. Which list resonates more? Those fruits are the effects of a bad spiritual diet and exercise regimen.

The Good Food Diet

This leads me to the first question: What is a good spiritual diet or a bad spiritual diet? 

I know, that is really two questions, but I will deal with them as one. They are one because the bad spiritual regimen is most often the absence of a good spiritual regimen. My spiritual regimen, good and bad, is what I do everyday, even if I am unaware of it.

I am naturally more aware of my physical diet and exercise because it is right there front of my eyes. My spirit is unseen and I am often blithely unaware of my spiritual diet and exercise. Unlike my body which promptly gets my attention when I neglect it, the neglect of my spirit doesn't make me visibly collapse and put me in the hospital because I abused it.

Confessions and Disclaimers

So, what is a good spiritual regimen (diet and exercise)? Before sharing this I must confess to whomever reads this two things:

1. I do not perfectly practice a good spiritual regimen. I am not perfect. I have my flaws, some of which I enjoy and shouldn't. I am trying to want to be the person I should be.
2. I am an unapologetic believer in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ and the Only Begotten Son of God. I believe that Jesus was telling the truth when he said, "I am the way, the truth, and the light." He said "the" not "a" way. I also believe that the truths that lead us to Him are seeded in all the religions of the world. Because of that, regardless of your religious affiliation, a good spiritual regimen will bear good fruits for you.

Good Eating

Here are the parts of a good spiritual regimen, as I and many others have experienced them:

• Wake up to what I am "eating." 
• A diet of emotionally, sexually, and mentally numbing movies, video games, music, reading, and other entertainment is the spiritual equivalent of junk food.
• In a physical diet, exercising the "table muscle" of pushing yourself away from the table before I feel full is an important part of not overeating. Likewise in my spiritual diet, I exercise my table muscle and push back from the junk food buffet being pushed at me by media and society. Instead of mindlessly eating what is being served up, I try to push back from the table. I take a look at what is available, and replace junk food with healthy food.
• Deliberately start putting good things into my spiritual diet.
• Try to make time each day to read (or listen to) the scriptures. Whether the scriptures of my religion are called the Quran, Bible, Torah, Shastras, Mahayana, or the myths of my ancestors, I need to make time each week (or daily at best) to read them.
• While I am reading and listening, I think about how it might apply  to my life and to my challenges and I write down or record my thoughts and impressions.
• I have made (or borrowed) a list of the books which have been around for decades or centuries as  examples of great literature and important reading. I pick one. I read it. I write down, or record, my thoughts as I read it and after I am done reading it. 
• Make time to think about what I am reading and listening to. I think about how it might apply  to my life and to my challenges.
• Then, I pick another book from the list and do it again. If I finish all the books on my list, I make another list and do it all again.
• Wake up to what I am thinking.
• Thinking is the spiritual equivalent of chewing. When I chew my food, I break it up into smaller pieces and taste it with my mouth. When I think, I am tasting with my  imagination, my mind, and my spirit. 
• Are my idle thoughts filled with bitterness, revenge, self-indulgence, or self-pity? Or are they filled imaginings of me acting like the kind of person I want to become?
• Your thoughts will become your words. Your words will turn into your deeds. Your deeds will make your destiny.
• I want to be the hero of my story, not the victim, and certainly not the villain.
• Take more control of my thoughts.
• Meditate. I periodically make time to be still. Silence the noise and activity around me. I clear my mind for a time, focusing on slow and steady breathing and releasing the tensions in my body. 
• Build inner self-awareness.
• I have tried to learn what are my "buttons" that others use to manipulate and control me. I pick up one thought, word, or action of my own in my life, recent or long past. Something I have thought, said, or done. I decide if is it something I am proud of and pleased about, or uncomfortable with. I seek to understand what seemed to compel  me to think, say, or do that. Was that the only course I could have taken in that situation? I examine if my thought, word, or deed was the result of me letting something (or someone) control and compel me, a reaction? Or, was it a deliberate choice I made after quickly considering the alternatives and choosing the one that would likely have the outcome I desire most.  
• Decide what kind of person I want to be.
• I strive to learn lessons from my past. If I could relive a moment, would I make the same choice? If not, then I decide how I want to handle any similar situation that may occur in my future. I imagine myself making the clear choice and imagine the probable outcomes of that choice. Do I like those outcomes? If not, then I do it again in my mind and make different choices.

Conclusions

Making conscious choices for ourselves is the most important part of maturity. Choosing the kind of person I want to become is the single most important choice I can make in my life. Everything else, every other choice is more chance than choice until I make that big choice. 

I am convinced that choosing the kind of person I want to become, for it to be worth the prices I pay, must be made for myself. To please me. It is foolish for me to choose what to become to please my spouse, children, parents, friends, or even God. Although all of those may have my best interests at heart, if I don't choose because that is what we want, I will never be happy or content either in my journey or my destiny / destination.

For my part, I want to want to be like God. I struggle because there are moments when I want to do things that aren't at all godly. Every time I fail and fall down, I can hear God in my corner urging me on saying, "It's not over and you're not finished. Consider the lesson you just learned. Make it a part of you. Get back up on your feet. Face forward and press on. It's the journey that will make you fit for the destination I have prepared for you."

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Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

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