A Culture of the Impossible

"Exercise doesn't make you tired.  That's your mind giving up because your body is uncomfortable."


My words and my belief.  My inspiration?  Laurent Piemontesi, and the morning we spent in Lisses/Evry.  He showed me precisely how much my mind gets in the way of my movement.  I'm writing this because I'm not the only one with this challenge.  What does your mind do in your life?

 Face Yourself   
What do you accept about yourself?  What stares back at you in a mirror, in silent meditation or prayer, what guides the talking in your mind?  The things I can do were in the "never" category in my mind, just a few years ago.  I don't accept the limits of my mind anymore.  I accept the scant limits of my body, and I also understand that I do not know my body as well as I would like.  Every day, we talk ourselves out of something that is difficult or uncomfortable.  We deceive the person we should care for the most.  People say terrible things to themselves, in an effort to avoid facing who they are.  Pharmaceutical companies have entire product lines built around helping us "deal with" pain instead of facing it and learning what it teaches.  Pain, sadness, depression, it exists to remind us we have to face ourselves.  There might be something about your body that intensifies the feeling.  There's nothing wrong with that.  You are only "unhealthy" if you deceive yourself. 

When you deceive yourself, you live in a smaller world of possible.  When you face yourself, impossible is a direction for development.  No one who cares about you is going to say you are unable to do something.  A doctor may advise against certain kinds of movement due to an injury.  A trainer may suggest working on other movements first.  Master your internal dialogue, and what other people say can be accepted as advice, or recognized as occasions where what you are doing or thinking of doing pushes into the impossible, and it makes them face themselves.  Your courage may very well create fear in others, and they may try to deter your courage to avoid their own pain.  Pain is a lesson.  Restart your life as a student: learn only from teachers.

 Teach to Learn  
When you can explain or show something until others learn, then the knowledge has gone from something you keep to yourself to something you share and something that excites you.  The role of student and teacher is interchangeable.  Everyone has something to teach everyone else.  If you live as a teacher, you perceive value in your own existence; if you live as a student, you perceive value in the existence of others.  This balance of respect for self and others is crucial to the culture of the impossible. 

If you live solely as a student, however, it is selfish.  There is a giving in knowledge and wisdom, it is not hoarded like gold.  Conversely, living solely as a teacher ends your life as a learner.  No one has learned everything; the value of the knowledge of others is limitless.  Not living as a student breeds disrespect for others, and it also can be dangerous, because the learning process can be forgotten by teachers. 

 Words are Victory   
Language is the hammer against the iron of our minds; what we say to ourselves is as important as the words we use to say them.  A dear friend of mine decided to stop smoking.  She didn't quit.  She just stopped.  It was amazing.  She sacrificed a worn-out pleasure.  Her language was vital to her respect for the transformation.  Quitters need patches and plans, and they never own a change, they force it into the hands of another.  Reducing the fat level in a body isn't the same thing as losing weight.  Losers don't bring about valuable transformation, they bring loss.  Someone else I know has trimmed her body weight by 65 pounds.  She didn't lose anything.  She gained knowledge and interest in good foods, and saw her previous diet as apathy and pleasure-seeking.

Release yourself from a habit; gain freedom and ability through change.  Words of a conqueror breed an indomitable spirit.  This spirit is the heart of those in the culture of the impossible.
 
As much as we speak to ourselves victoriously about the changes we desire, we must also respect the changes sought after by those around us.  This is being a teacher for words of victory to those around us.  Bring the culture of the impossible to your life and the changes you desire, share this culture with others, teach them what you have learned in your life, and always be a student of those whose lives bring you knowledge and wisdom.