FitBEYONDform: what does that mean?

I have a multitude of definitions, but the nutshell version would be the understanding that while focusing on and working out your body will most certainly bring about positive changes to your body, prioritizing your entire BEING will bring positive changes to your body while also affecting every facet of your awareness in being.

EVERYTHING affects your body, and everything is affected by your body and your mind, which then either enhances or diminishes your experience in being.

I can only speak for myself, but I’d prefer not to diminish my experience, so blessedly the once default know-it-all facet of myself was shown that the surest way not to do so is keep these 3 words at the forefront of my brain: I DON’T KNOW.

Oh wait, add in these 13 more: AND I KNOW I DON’T KNOW, SO TEACH ME WHILE I SHUT UP.

While I’ve always been well aware of how much I needed to learn, my journey has taught me that as much as there is to learn, it has been equally as necessary to UNlearn. Or, to quote Adam Grant:

“Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to re-think and unlearn.”

Adam Grant

Re-think and unlearn; two skills I’ve been working on that have given my fitness trainer/transformation coach mindset a real run for it’s money.

As in: how do you maintain a belief in your ability to teach and motivate others while simultaneously operating with an openminded, I don’t know mentality?

I don’t know.

You saw that coming, right? 😁

That’s the thing. I don’t know and it’s been revealed to me that what I don’t know, I don’t NEED to know, at least not until I’m meant to, if I’m meant to.

We’re not meant to know what we’re meant to be perpetually learning.

As the spiritual realm likes to remind me, necessary information will come on a need-to-know basis.

Information is continuously being updated and changed and remaining open is key in receiving continual downloads.

We don’t need to spend energy in a futile chase for answers that will be revealed in their own time. Not knowing allows us the clear lens required to see each person, each situation, each moment as the individual event it is without the possible blur of preconceived notion.

As freeing as the I don’t know mentality has the capacity to be, don’t expect to grasp it immediately. After all, most of us have been conditioned to know, and when we didn’t, we learned very quickly not to make it known that we didn’t know.

Or we’d play along like we did know, only to convince ourselves that we actually knew what we certainly did not know but had been faking for so long that we were no longer aware that we were faking and now believed we DID know.

And subsequently, though most likely unconsciously, closed our minds to incoming information beyond what we first “knew”. Which is why we’re essentially opening those minds back up for business when we engage in the process of re-thinking and unlearning.

Just as Ursula Le Guin reminds us about love’s need to be “remade each day, baked fresh like bread.” so too does our attitude regarding what we believe we already know.

It’s subject to change. And so are we.