A big part of mindfulness training is exploring where thoughts and emotions manifest in your body. So despite not needing anything in this section of the store, rather than avoid it, I made the conscious decision to not only go out of my way to visit the beer aisle, but to be fully present while there.
In his book Ego Is The Enemy, Ryan Holiday delves into why and how ego can be both our greatest asset and biggest liability. As an asset, ego drives us to succeed in a competitive world. Alternatively, it can at the same time become the undercurrent that drags us down and becomes our eventual undoing.
What these meditation experiences have impressed upon me is the power of the mind to heal itself through its ability to create powerful visualizations. Through these we are able to make peace with all kinds of things we didn’t even realize we were still dealing with.
According to WebMD’s article How to Gain Muscle Mass After 50, most people see their muscle mass decline 3-5% per decade after their 30th birthday! I had no idea that between age 30 and 50, I’d lose up to 10% of my muscle mass.
I began my journey to rewire my brain and rebuild my body with a BMI over 30. And that was after I had already lost around eight pounds. So, it goes without saying I was healthily (or unhealthily) in obese territory and trending upward!