Soul Fuel

So I was at the gym tonight doing cardio, I was doing my usual crank-the-music-and-zone-out routine to pass the minutes and daydreaming about our upcoming WBFF show and it got me thinking. What do other people do to fuel their inspirational fire? Does everyone motivate themselves like I do? What keeps people going? So to answer this question I thought I would first try to explain and articulate how it works for me, so here goes.

Throughout the day, years, your lifetime even, you will come to experience things that evoked a strong emotion within you, be it positive or negative. They can be seemingly insignificant fleeting moments, like someone cutting you off in traffic, or monumentally powerful ones, like getting married. Our lives are made up of all these big and small events, if you think about it the events that lead up to this moment as you're reading this are the events that made you what you are. Love them or hate them, they've helped define you. So how does this tie into what I mean by 'soul fuel'? Let me explain.

As I go throughout my daily business I, of course, run into obstacles here and there, some bigger than others. When these things happen I let myself feel that emotion in the moment to validate my feelings, be it anger, sadness, frustration, whatever, and then I mentally write it down on a little note and store it in the back of my brain. I let myself feel the emotion in the moment because I think it's vitally important to allow yourself to react and to vent a little, and to never repress what you feel. As the day goes on I compile a little stockpile of mental notes, mostly to do with minor irritations but occasionally bigger issues that I've been dealing with on a more consistent basis. The bigger and more difficult issues can sometimes have a whole pad of paper dedicated to them, whatever it takes for me to quantify my feelings on the situation. For you it could be a failed relationship that still stings every now and again, a family members illness, or the loss of a friend.

One of my priorities lately has been, obviously, training and going to the gym. So every time I get to the gym (or sometimes before) and I feel myself struggling to stay motivated, I try and remember the little notes I wrote down that day. Remember how mad you felt when that guy took your parking spot? How it felt to hear fill-in-the-blanks name earlier today? I think about it, and I burn it. I visualize throwing those little notes into the fire burning inside me, and the flame burns brighter. I feel that emotion and I use it to keep going. Some notes take longer to burn and a little extra effort to let go of, maybe it's that extra five minutes of cardio or two more reps. Some of them burn today only to return with a vengeance tomorrow, life's funny that way.

They don't always have to be negative either. Do you sometimes get the feeling that things are going along too smoothly? Like there is NO WAY things are going to stay at this pace, things are too great right now! Sometimes you get really, really lucky (for those of you that know me, you know how particularly relevant this is today) and you just can't shake the feeling that you can't possibly get that lucky again. Write it down on your mental note and use it to fuel whatever you're working on that day, it doesn't have to be a fitness goal. Maybe it's your job or your family that needs a little extra care, all I know is that the universe is ultimately fair. If you feel like the scales are tipped in your favor, work a bit harder to pass it on and even things out. If you don't, things have a strange way of evening themselves out with or without your input.

Use any tool you can get your hands on. Gratitude, empathy, sadness, jealousy. Write them all down. If you read a heartbreaking story and you feel so sad and yet so very grateful that it isn't you, write it down. If your boss overlooked you for a promotion again, write it down. If you look at your baby and you can't believe how lucky you are and how incredibly beautiful they are, write it down.

The next time you have a goal and you feel like you're struggling to get there, take a deep breath and pull all of your mental notes from the recesses and throw them mercilessly in the fire of your soul. Use them to reach your goals, exceed them even, and when you're done, (and this is important) let them go. Don't waste energy loosing your cool in the moment, use that energy for something that counts and I guarantee you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish. When the soul is fed, the heart and body will flourish.

Burn on my friends.

-Meg
xoxo