Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Losing weight should't be expensive or complicated. The ideal process would reduce our stress while driving results. Dr. Z weaves together his perspective on physical and mental health and the powerful way that fasting can connect these two spheres of our lives. Let's move toward total wellness and a holistic vision of health and healing. Learn more at SimpleFasting.com
Perseverance. One of the most powerful and underappreciated qualities that can propel us forward in weight loss and in life. And anything we're doing. I want you to be strong and resilient, growing in your ability to thoughtfully step forward in health in a graceful and gentle fashion that brings life and health and vitality, encouragement, joy, peace and contentment in everything you do.
And we're going to step toward that process together. That's what we're doing here. And fasting space. Really nice to have you here. I'm Doctor Z. If we haven't met and this space is an opportunity to come together, focus on a fasting space as a lens that can help to focus all of our health practices. Build a total health practice of wellness for a lifetime of health is what we're looking forward to striving toward.
And today we're going to be dialing in specifically perseverance, that quality that helps us move through difficult seasons with a quiet strength and grace that is helping us realize the most effective path, the most durable, sustainable process that can help us arrive at our destination. Describe our weight loss goal. Our health goal. It's like a point on the horizon, the peak that we're looking toward.
Any journey that's worthwhile in life. Has this been your experience? The road isn't always straight, of course. We can work to make it as straight as possible, but if we're picking a distant place on the horizon, we're walking toward it. That's a journey. It's going to be obstacles in that journey. Do we persevere on that course? Let's build that ability today.
Increase our ability. Take the perseverance we already have, and we've developed. And take another step forward. We will center ourselves on this concept of perseverance with this image. Take a look at this. So this is Horseshoe Bend in Arizona. What an incredible image. I thought I'd see that river just coming all the way around that bend. Almost back where it started back there.
Isn't that amazing to see flowing through that space. So here's an incredible visualization of what I'm saying, that this river is on a path. It's on a journey that water is flowing and it's not a straight path, but it works its way there. And isn't it the case? Wouldn't it be nice? The water says, I wish I could just flow straight through there.
But here it encountered an obstacle. It encountered struggle. It flowed through the space. And in the end, isn't it so beautiful? This is what we want to do in life. To take our difficulties, take the struggle, the challenges persist. Flow through the space despite any difficulty, and carry on gracefully like this river toward our destination. Here's a couple definitions just to frame it, to frame our thinking.
Perseverance. Persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. There's one definition from Oxford Dictionary. I'll tell you a big focus that I have. I don't want any difficulty for anyone. Huge part of what we're trying to do. Remove the difficulties. Remove the barriers. Minimize the obstacles. Minimize the delay in achieving success. Celebrate small wins. Keep ourselves moving forward.
Absolutely. Fasting does have the potential of reducing a delay. I will tell you that a very powerful process and everything that we're doing here bring in every good part of health together into a process that moves us forward. I would say health isn't something we achieve so much as something we are something we are healthy, we be healthy, we practice health.
And in that way you can experience health, the being of health today. Now, despite illness or whatever is happening, is a mindset as much as anything. We really got into that yesterday that our mindset is flowing out through the body. We're a mind body, one unified thing, and as we change our mind and our thinking, okay, that changes the physical as much as the mental.
That's why building a mindset of perseverance is a strength that will then flow out of our mental space into the body. Here's another one. Perseverance. Continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition, the action or condition, or an instance of persevering. Also, steadfastness. I love these words. I think just to speak these words is like speaking strength into our being.
We said the other day, we're heading toward a mountain in the distance. You can see it. We're trying to make it over to those distant hills. That's our journey. That's our life as we're heading there, as we're exploring this topic, health as a way of being, we say, wouldn't it be nice? Sometimes we say, wouldn't we like to just teleport to the top of the mountain?
But the joy is in the journey, the joy. This is the paradox. The joy can be in the struggle of learning and growing and accomplishing and moving through an obstacle, mastering it. There's a deep satisfaction that can come from that. I want that for you. Want it for myself. We're on this journey together. Take a look at this quote.
As water carves through stone, those who persevere will win. Think of this process of water carving through the stone that is formed. This incredible canyon. Another, formulation of this saying was that was over time, the softest water carves, the hardest stone. What has your health experience been? Do you feel like the goal you're trying to accomplish is like the hardest stone?
If you're struggling to accomplish a goal, if you're working on a process, not seeing the results you want as fast as you want, just dive in a little bit to this river and think about this process. The patience, the quiet strength of the river carving through this entire canyon hundreds of feet through stone. The power in the process is not in the force, not a giant firehose, just pressure wash in the entire canyon.
Slow, consistent, dedicated, persistent effort over time shaped the experience. This is the type of mindset that I would love us all to develop gentle, unrelenting, persistent perseverance despite the changing of the seasons, despite the passage of time, the River keeps flowing. We've been talking lately, okay? We want a flow state. Flow state is what we want to go to.
That's why the river is such a powerful analogy. River isn't struggling. Water isn't struggling. We want to get ourselves into this flow state. This is how we persevere as part of how we persevere. Not struggling. Finding the line okay to do something difficult to challenge ourselves. To stretch into something new is a line where I would define struggling as where it is feeling overwhelming, feeling unsustainable.
Feeling something we aren't enjoying. A process of a flow should be a satisfying state thoughtful, encouraging, curious rivers flowing somewhere we've never been before that can feel different. The opportunity to embrace that as a space to learn and grow flow into a new space with grace. Think about a river right? It's not in a hurry. Our society is in a hurry.
We're in a hurry to do just about everything.
We can certainly be in a hurry to lose weight and I can relate to it sometimes. I've thought about doing a video on the channel. I think I've said this before. Like how to lose weight fast. You know, that would be the clickable title and fasting can help you lose weight fast. I will, I will tell you if you really dial in on it.
Very aggressive. It's just I've never done it though, because it's not, you know, it's not my style. It's not my vibe. It's not what I think is the most thoughtful approach for most people. I've definitely seen people over the years who want to lose weight fast and have even done it. Huge weight loss in a short period of time by cranking the intensity up to a level that was really, really, really high.
It's rare, even with a process that I love, like fasting, rare that people sustain something like that. The thing that I want least of all is as someone dials into a space that really could be a very long term process that can bring health over a lifetime incredibly valuable to me. A process like that needs a very thoughtful container in order to help you persevere with it.
River helps us see that course of a river is a long process. Our life is a long process. We're not. We're not trying to be a firehose blasting out the intensity in a few moments. Try to be like this gentle river flowing through the canyon. Carving through the stone means doing something difficult. Look at the experience of health in our modern society.
We're kind of in a river is like flowing in a direction. We say, I don't know if this is really the right way to flow. Been diving into these psychological processes, say we want to shape our experience, bring that flow into a direction, is taking us toward our goal, navigating our obstacles through the process of doing that. Carve through the hardest stone the thing that we really want.
That's what we did yesterday. Our intention, our deep desire that is moving in action. Perseverance is the quality that takes our intention and our purposeful action and solidifies. It helps push it forward.
Even in the face of difficulty, water, basically, when you think of it that way, it's basically unstoppable. Say some monumental force, enormous amount of effort, build up a dam to stop it. Not really stopping it is building up energy, building up, building up in the big picture never going to stop it. This is the type of mindset that we want to build for ourselves.
The strength, the power, the indomitable human spirit. Say I cannot be stopped. This is the mindset that we get to with perseverance. Say we have set our intention. We are stealing our resolve. We are steadfast in our determination. We're strong and resilient, and we are pressing on in the face of any difficulty, always showing kindness and grace for ourselves and flowing onward, stepping onward every day.
One step in our journey. We're on our journey toward 2026 right now as we're recording this and even this step a couple months through the fall, the early winter, through the holiday season, this is our step now. That's like just another step on the broader path of health of our life. So much of society effort is chasing, you know, the next thing, the next thing.
Always looking so much time looking for the thing. It's going to be the quick fix. How much time do people spend for a quick fix and a quick fix and a quick fix is like all of a sudden, well, we we did this for two months, that for two months here, we spent a month on that and then a month on that.
Now all of a sudden like eight months has gone by. Like, what if we just pulled back? Hey, let's sink in to some core physiology of the body. Body cares for us. Body stores energy for us to power our body and life. If we are fortunate enough, find the gratitude in the obstacle. We are fortunate enough to encounter more energy than we need.
Our body stores it for us as a resource to power us through, to help us persevere. In the midst of difficulty, we encounter a lean season, a traumatic experience, a disaster, the brutal winter, the scorching famine. The body has reserves. It has energy to power us through. Now we live in this incredible time of abundance. We find immense gratitude for it.
The body and fasting. It shows us the pattern, the opportunity that we have to voluntarily open up space, use these perseverance pathways that the body has, the deep physiology and the power of the human body. Open up the space and let the energy flow out. That's the fasting space. The body never stops. Metabolism never stops. There's an engine that is powering us that is always running that flow of energy, just like it came into the body.
By opening up the space, we let it flow out. That's how we overcome the obstacle. We say we have extra weight. We can't get rid of it. The obstacle is there. It's like a giant stone.
The energy is like the flow of a river that can carve through the stone. And as we do that, think of it. Think of those canyon walls.
Smoothing them down is wearing it down. That's a process of weight loss in our body, in our life, as we allow that energy to flow out. Don't burn yourself out. That's what I will tell you.
We have like, we've called it, on the channel, a hustle culture, hustle culture, wherever it is coming from, trying to tell people you only have value in so much as you produce. You're only good enough if you're cranking out every last drop of productivity.
00;16;19;19 - 00;16;58;17
Unknown
In service of something is all do, do do. And where is the space for being? We spent some time in that session yesterday just being open up the space, that space. Being in a space, finding peace and contentment is a core of helping us persevere through us. If we are expending every last drop of mental capital, always in a doing, and we're finding all of our value through that leave us depleted.
Think of this flow of energy. Think of the river, okay? Think of it filling ourselves up. How are you feeling right now? Are you feeling depleted? Are you feeling filled up emotionally? There's a core way we have to take care of ourselves. Building our perseverance means like filling our own bucket. If we are always handing water out of that bucket and is depleted, we want to fill ourselves up first.
Let that overflow when we're in that place overflowing of abundance, energy, vitality, positivity. That is a space of health. When you're in that kind of flow, health is springing forth. Want to encourage all of us to get into that sort of space? So as reflecting on this topic over the day, I was thinking perseverance over perfection. Our culture, as much as it is driven toward doing it's also driven toward perfection.
People judging themselves, saying, hey, everything has to be perfect. The lesson of perseverance is that perfection is not really a part of that system. Think of our beautiful river as it's flowing through. There's no perfect course. You see, you could draw a straight line, but would it even be perfect? I think the beauty is in the imperfection, if you think of it that way.
If you're someone who is a perfectionist, who struggles with how I can't do anything unless it is like just so fast in giving us a pattern of openness to seeing, there's no rules, there's no judgment, there's just openness and the opportunity to move toward our goal along a path that might be winding. As we think more about building perseverance, it can help us realize perfection is not required.
Progress does not require perfection. Help us move gently, sustainably, and powerfully in the direction that we're looking toward. What might it look like? What might some examples of perseverance look like? Maybe make your own list. Think about where are areas in my life where I need to increase my perseverance, somewhere where maybe I have been overwhelmed? And how does the flow look like to navigate that?
Maybe you've committed to a process of a fasting process like we're talking about, say, can you hang on to that in the space of difficulty recognizing we never push ourselves into any space where we feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed? But on that edge, can you find that edge and hang on to it? So now is this is something that is really meaningful to me.
I see it's helpful for me. I hang on to it. Like where saying, how do you hang on to nothing? This is the nothing that is something, because it's the process that is opening the space in the body to allow the energy to flow out. You can hang on to it. Stay, engage in a process if your motivation is low.
We've talked about motivation. I've talked about the emotional side of it, that our emotions can be an illusion. Someone told me once the the real work begins when the motivation ends. When the excitement ends, anyone can start something new. Anytime we start something new, say it's exciting. Okay, this is new.
We talked about complacency from our psychology book, how complacency is pretty much the default of almost any process. We get into a situation. It's new, it's exciting. We get in a space with it, and then we acclimate. Renormalize perseverance is the deeper process that isn't reliant on excitement or emotions. How we strip the emotion out and get to that deeper layer of flowing through a space is what our intention that we were talking about sets that course and perseverance helps us move through it.
Despite the emotional state we saw in that picture the other day. Yeah, our emotional state, what we are dealing with, these things don't look the same every day. Therefore, for our motivation level, our 100% does not look the same every day. And that is okay. Perseverance is the process that lets us look at that situation and take the best step in each situation that we can.
Given our circumstances. I'd like to give you an opportunity here in this space to take a moment of reflection. A little mindfulness moment to center yourself for the rest of the day. Persevere through this space to move forward in a path of strength and health.
If you're open to it, encourage you. Take just a moment here. Close your eyes.
Take a deep cleansing. Inhale.
Deep exhale. Let all the tension out. Get into a very calm, focused space. And then picture a river flowing over the stone. Doesn't stop when the path is blocked. It's finding a way. It doesn't rush. Simply keeps moving forward and gentle course toward its destination.
See that that river is you patiently.
Shaping your health day by day.
Growing in strength and encouragement as you go.
I'll leave you with this closing thought. We've talked in the past few days about finding love in our process love, kindness, and compassion for ourselves that the process of our intention can be, loving action that we show toward self, that can then flow out to those around us.
Think of perseverance as love in motion, love in action. It's a process of showing up for yourself again and again. You're always there for yourself. You're moving in the positive direction. You're looking toward the light. Like we said earlier, this week, look into the light and the shadows far behind us. Thank you for being here with me.
I wish you the very best, in this day. And I will see you back here tomorrow. Bye, everybody.