One thing I've learned over the past year is the importance of not letting it all fall apart.

Once you are past your twenties, and even your thirties, and as aging takes its toll, there is a tendency to relax, go with the flow, and let it all hang out. There are all kinds of seemingly good excuses for this. After all, isn't it natural to fall apart with age, bit by cruel bit? If the senior members of your family are carrying some spare baggage... well, then it must be genetics, right? And who can fight that?

This is a long way of saying that I had not been taking the best care of myself physically these last few years. I'd got into that workaholic rut of just whacking away at the keyboard, doing all sorts of seemingly important tasks, but leaving the most important task of all - my own health - to the ravages of natural decline. I'd put on some weight, got into some unhealthy eating habits, and basically started to let it all hang out.

It's not that I was not into exercise, or at least the idea of it. As a teenager and into my early twenties, I had been very active indeed and in extremely good physical health. More recently, although the mind was still committed to the idea of doing exercise and maintaining health, the body was a lot less convinced. If you have ever tried to turn the tide, and been unsuccessful, then you will know what I mean. Whenever the time comes to do the workout - be it multi-gym, yoga, aerobics or whatever - the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak! It is either too cold, or too hot, or you feel tired, or you're too busy... or, you just don't feel like it right now!

That was my dilemma and so all efforts to turn the tide were sporadic and eventually doomed to failure as the long arm of conditioning took control, and restored the status quo. I might persist for several days, but the thermostat would eventually kick in and order would be restored. Eventually, I realized that if I were ever going to be successful with this, then my exercise schedule would have to be the FIRST thing I did in the day, i.e. before I did absolutely anything else. That's a nice theory.

However, when you are already an established coach potato like I was, getting up at the crack of dawn for a well-intentioned workout was not my idea of a good time! I had been pondering this idea for quite some months without ever doing anything about it. However, I do believe that when you are committed to an idea, an idea whose time has come, that idea will find a way! So it was that I was listening to an excellent Tony Robbins program, Get The Edge! (highly recommended, if you have not already studied it), and this was precisely what he was talking about in one of the first sessions. Tony Robbins calls it the “Hour Of Power”, and recommends that everyone should establish this routine in their lives. In fact, he even said that if you act on nothing else from the course but this one idea, it would totally transform your life beyond all recognition.

Of course, he was preaching to the converted, at least mentally anyhow. The thing that finally got me to really sit up and pay attention though was when Anthony Robbins mentioned how his wife had been letting it all slide, but she kept telling herself that she was not too far gone, and could always "turn it around" if she really wanted to. That was a real wake up call for me, because that was EXACTLY what I had been telling myself! (Maybe you are doing the same?...) Anyway, that night I resolved to do the Tony Robbins Hour Of Power the very next morning. Without going into too much detail here, there is more to his system than just exercise, although physical exercise is definitely a key component of it. There is also expressing gratitude, visualization, stating affirmations, and deep breathing.

Sure enough, I arose early the next morning and before I did anything else, even breakfast, I went out and did the Hour Of Power. Of course, I felt great afterwards, and much inspired to do it again. I think that what made it really possible for me to keep this up though is that before you do anything else, you first have to go out for a walk for 10 minutes. If I had had to start exercising right away, it would have been hard to find the motivation to fall out of bed just for that. However, what is nice about beginning with the walk is that it really IS a very pleasant thing to do.

Where I live, and depending upon the time of year, you are either walking in the early dawn to the loud chorus of chirping birds, or else actually strolling in eerie silence under the moon and stars (in winter)! Either way, it is an extraordinarily enlivening experience. Hence, even if you feel too tired to exercise when that alarm rings, you can just persuade yourself to do a pleasant leisurely walk. By the time you are time I am done with that, the body is then awake and lively enough to give the exercise session a go. I personally alternate; one day I will do Yoga and the next will work out with my little exercise machine.

Now, according to the findings of Maxwell Malz in his famous Psycho-Cybernetics, we have to persist with a new practice for 21 days or more in order for it to become established as a habit. Hence, despite a heck of a lot of resistance at times (including having to do my walk with an umbrella at least once), I DID make it through the 21 days. Happily, one year later, I am still doing my Hour Of Power exercise schedule most days of the week. I say most, because I do not feel it necessary to be legalistic. If I feel too tired one morning, I will definitely lie in and miss it. Yet, I think it's fair to say that I do it at last 3-4 times a week at a minimum.

Moreover, I am definitely a lot fitter and healthier now than I was just one short year ago, with a lot more energy and positive motivation. A new habit and paradigm have been established and this new way of doing things is almost certainly permanent. So how about you?...

If you are someone who is in the same dilemma that I was in a year ago, you may wish to take heart from all of this. What I can do, you definitely can do too. What is key is finding something that will work for you. I personally found the Tony Robbins, Get The Edge! Hour Of Power to work well for me. You may too. However, it’s not essential to do THAT specific routine, just so long as you find SOME routine that you like and commit to it.

Sometimes, just the fact that you "ought" or "should" do something is simply not enough. You need more positive motivation; more reasons to do it. For me, the fear-based reason was that I wanted to stay healthy and well to be able to still be around for my two lovely cats (okay, in your specific case, replace with "my family"!). The pleasure-based reasons were to feel better and more energetic... AND, I came to look forward to the early morning walk!

The point is that at some point in your life, you have to realize that if you do not do something to stop the slide, it will not stop. It will just continue until you are past the point of no-return. The sad thing about the point of no-return is that you do not really know when you are past it... until you are. In theory it is never too late to do something, but in practice it often is. So, if exercise has been on your mind but not in your body of late, make it a MUST. Devise strategies to make it happen. I suggest first thing in the morning before you do anything else, because then you CANNOT defer it for something "more important" because once this is a part of your routine, nothing else happens - period - until you have done this!

If his style works for you, try out the Hour Of Power from the Anthony Robbins program, Get The Edge!, or else simply devise what makes sense to you. Read appropriate health magazines (e.g. Prevention) and books that give you ideas on how to eat and exercise properly. Get yourself the education you need in the most important subject of all - your health and wellbeing. The important thing is that you do SOMETHING. It is when you do nothing that the slide continues by default. The most important leverage that you can get personally and professionally is the leverage of your own health. So, do it now, for your sake as well as for the sake of your family.

Copyright 2008. Asoka Selvarajah. All Rights Reserved.

Let me say that I have always been a big fan of Brian Tracy’s personal development material, which has to rate as some of the very best transformational self-help material available anywhere.

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Head over now and take a look for yourself. I think you will find something that can really change your life for the better.

Regards,

Asoka Selvarajah

An amazing thing happened the other day…


As the preamble to this, I think I should mention that I am VERY protective of my two cats, Hermes and Shelley. Anyone who knows me probably thinks I go to absurd lengths. However, they are basically my sons, and I’m not ashamed to say it.

One thing is that they never go outside by themselves. I take them for walks in the garden with a collar and lead. The rest of the time, when they want to be outside, they can stay out on the two balconies of the house’s upper floor.

Anyway, here’s what happened…

It was close to midnight, and I had just changed into my pajamas to go to bed. I’d left Hermes, my eldest, out on the front balcony by himself and so I went out to call him in. However, he was nowhere to be seen. Then I saw to my horror that the balcony gate, opening onto the staircase down to the garden, was ajar.

Hermes had disappeared in the middle of the night!

I rushed frantically back in and got dressed. With torch in hand, I rushed down to the garden and started calling for him. We have a pretty big garden, and I searched everywhere to no avail.

I thought, maybe he has gone down to the main road (which would be dangerous with all the cars, and the fact that he had never been down there by himself). So, in pitch darkness, and with the torch failing already, I made my way down there.

My state of mind was anxious. Not only does Hermes not go out by himself, he does not know the area outside of our garden well, since we moved to this house from elsewhere. By contrast, Shelley DOES, because he came to us from this area one night, as a stray or abandoned cat.

Anyway, no Hermes.

I returned to the house, getting really anxious by then. And then, just as I came through the entrance drive, I saw him crouched down at the corner of the house. He’s an incredibly smart boy, and had probably never left in the first place. As he saw me coming, he disappeared again, which prompted another minute of concerned searching until I finally located him on the staircase leading back to the balcony.

He led me back up, I closed the gate, and all was well. He got a big hug and kisses, and a mild telling off about how worried I had been. When he came into the house, Shelley rushed to greet him. Hermes then lay down full length on his side in the corridor and remained like that for five minutes or more. I imagine that it had been stressful for him too, or else he was concerned by the level of agitation he had caused me.

However, here’s the eerie thing, and the whole reason for telling you this story…

I was thinking about how dark it was outside, and the fact that I would never have found him out on the land. Then I asked myself, but isn’t there a moon today? Then I recalled that the news had said there would be a total lunar eclipse that night.

I wondered if it had begun or was still on, or was finished. So I searched for the moon and, sure enough, there it was… a dim red color.

Then I realized something really amazing. I had been searching for Hermes precisely during the period of totality of this lunar eclipse.

Now, apart from the fact that the gate being open remains a total mystery to me, as it definitely hardly ever happens… apart from the fact that the last time Hermes had been accidentally out by himself was in October 2003 (i.e. almost never)… and apart from the fact that total lunar eclipses are extremely rare… and apart from the fact that there just happened to be one that very night…

Hermes had gone missing and I had gone hunting for him precisely during the period of totality! What are the odds of something like that happening by chance?!…

And as if that was not enough, it just so happened that March 3rd 2007 was my mother’s 75th birthday too! It’s also the day her own mother was buried thirty one years ago.

Honestly, this is synchronicity at its most uncanny.

It’s like every so often, the universe decides to remind you that there is more to it than meets the eye. It’s like I’m being reminded that this is truly a universe of meaning, of intelligence, of inter-connection. Perish the thought that it is just a random bunch of molecules and energy, governed purely by the laws of chance!

If you have eyes to see, you can truly open to the psychic nature of the universe.

This incident was a reminder to me of all of this, as well as the need to take the time to value those we love as, at any minute, they could be taken away… even by the most unlikely sequences of events.

I share this story with you in order to give you some inspiration that we do live in a universe of meaning. Ponder it for yourself.

This means that it is capable of responding to you, in line with your predominant thoughts and wishes. A story like this, and those you experience for yourself, will hopefully inspire you to live with a sense of wonder and appreciation for the mystery that surround us in every moment of our lives.

Copyright 2007. Asoka Selvarajah. All Rights Reserved.