Friday, October 1, 2010

Your own personal trainer

I have thought many times, that I wished I had the money to hire a personal trainer. Someone that could look at my body, and tell me what I need to do to get it working properly (and to it's greatest potential, I might add). Of course that has never happened, but I do believe that I have found something close with my Physical Therapist ( who specializes in the spine and back ). Today was a particularly hard day, because once again my muscles that are suppose to be doing one thing, are doing something totally different. She mentioned today at how complex my physical limitations are, but then also told me that she was glad that I was very in tuned with my body, and truly understood the whole MIND/BODY connection. She said many people don't believe or understand that the Body and Mind, do go hand in hand. And so I continue to learn more and more about my body, muscles, ligaments, scar tissues, nerves and on and on. She is by far, the first person who has really picked me a part to see what is going on, and why. I am so grateful to the other health professionals who have helped me too, and directed me to her.

As I was thinking about this subject today,  I remembered reading in the book ARMOR by Kim B. Clark, and he  compared this whole concept with a scripture in Hebrews 12:1-2 It talks about how we are exercised (shaped and developed) by the things that happen to us. Whether they are sins that we have committed, weaknesses we have, or trials in life, they still make us who we are. I liked the part in verse 2, when it talks about Christ and how He truly is the finisher. It goes on to say that the word finisher here ...means one who completes or perfects, Christ truly is our greatest teacher and example. He is like having a personal trainer for our lives and all the trials and problems we face. He faced them all, He suffered them all and did it ALL for us! Careful study of the scriptures, shows us how He has developed a plan of discipline, and by applying this divine program, we can receive all the help and peace we need. The Lord never has promised that life would be easy but...He did show us the way. And that is exactly what my Physical Therapist is showing me. Little by little she is taking me apart, finding out why I have pain here, when the muscle that should be effected is there. The problem that makes things a bit worse is that so many parts of my body have compensated for other areas and for so long, that now my muscles don't know how to do their proper job and so..... I continue to retrain and exercise each one, over and over again until is it relearned.

I believe that problems and struggles in our life are just like that. If there is a sin, or habit or weakness that we have, we try to compensate by doing something else, keeping busy or pretending everything is all right. When the whole problem is that we really aren't getting to the root of our problems, we are just going by the feelings and reactions we are having at the time. Many times in our life, we get too busy to have a PERSONAL TRAINER (spiritually speaking ) look at our life, and be honest enough with them to tell us what the REAL PROBLEM is! Maybe we have ignored it so long that we really don't know any more?  But thank goodness there is a way we can know. We can pray to find out what is going on and why? And better yet...how to fix it!  It is our life, our problem, our body, our mind, our everything, so we would be the one to get the inspiration on how to fix it. But that might take a lot of ( visits )  prayers and a lot of hard work, patience and the help of others along the way. That does sound an awful lot like a problem at the gym doesn't it... hard work and patience?

Yes, life is hard and hard on the heart, unless we are willing to turn everything over to our Heavenly Father and truly trust that He knows perfectly how we can be in the best shape of our spiritual and physical lives. I will continue to add ice to my aching body today, and try to remember this great analogy by this impressive author. Hope it makes us all slow down, take a look at our lives and see when we can make time for our PERSONAL TRAINER, to start helping us progress right away!

"Every passion, every emotion, has its effect upon the mind. Every change of mind, however slight, has its effect upon the body."     ~Hazrat Inayat Khan

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