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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
Turning toward the sun. Turning toward the light. At least here in the north. And, Man, today, the frozen north. We're getting ever more grateful for our precious allotment of light. I don't know about you, but heading into the the winter, you know, the cold. I think it doesn't bother me as much as, like when it's just so dark for so long.
So looking toward the light. Finding the light. Such a great metaphor for what we're trying to do. In life and health. And so we're going to dial in, dial in today on that. So to frame, our discussion today, I wanted to share a favorite, quote with you that is kind of the inspiration for this, a Mary proverb.
Turn your face to the sun, and shadows will fall behind you. I think it's such a such a beautiful wish. So this is my wish for all of us. My wish for you, as we're dialing up our, intention to move toward health. Let's turn to face the sun. You know, both physically, if we can. Like, I got out, to do this hike in the morning.
So beautiful. But at least metaphorically, if we can't do it. Looking at the sun. Let the shadows fall behind us. Do you ever feel like you're walking right into the shadows? Metaphorically. Lisa's just stuck in a shadow season, okay? A shadow cannot exist without the light. Okay. So if you are stuck in a shadow, where is the light that is casting that shadow?
And then let's turn toward it and look at that and be giving you some, reflections on that today. Turning toward the sun. Face to the sun. Face to the light. Looking to the light. This, to me, is a centering principle for maintaining a positive attitude. Very easy. In so many ways in our life, we can get overwhelmed, by the details, by the little things, by the short term.
It's like we lose sight of the big picture. It's like we're on the path. We're trying to follow our path. It's hard to even see the path if it's all stuck in shadows. So looking to the light. Looking at the sun like that quote says. Lighting the path. Hopefully that's what we can do in these, sessions. Ground ourselves in positivity.
Starting the week on the right foot. We've got kind of the cockpit. I've been flying around the country. I think of our cockpit. Always talk about our dials of health that we can turn. Dial in on a mental health space. Thoughtful reflection, journaling, meditation, mindfulness. Maybe that's our tap dial to dial in, especially as we head toward the holidays each day.
An opportunity to take a step. So be very thoughtful in this and be my suggestion for everybody. Holidays coming up. Be very intentional and thoughtful about it. How can we plan our life over the coming two months to bring down the stress of everything as much as possible, so that we can just sink in and enjoy our time with friends and family?
However, that looks like planning out our food experience. So that way we don't have to stress out about cooking stuff. Plan ahead as much as possible and eating plan so we know what we're going to be eating and we don't feel overwhelmed by it. Have a lot of that contemplation space, the mental dial focused in on what are the types of food that you've been joy meaning value to this season and where?
Where is my line where I say, you know, this is something that isn't serving me in this season, and we want to walk that line, in a way that just brings balance to everything. Our movement dial. How are you doing with that? Moving the body in healthy ways. Some aerobic activity, even just taking a walk. You know, there's such a merger between the mental health and the physical.
Maybe getting some resistance training, some some weights that you can lift, strengthen those physical muscles, and then a fasting dial. I think looking toward the light can be like looking toward the lighter. It's kind of a great metaphor. Fasting about lightness to me, is not consuming things. We're trying to become physically lighter in the body. That means losing weight means also being not burdened down by shadows, looking to the light to help us think positively and staying optimistic.
He say looking to the light doesn't mean there never be darkness. Sun comes up and goes down. So look into the light doesn't mean there's nothing difficulty, not no difficulty. Looking to the light means in the midst of a shadow, in the midst of a darkness, we're choosing to be optimistic. We're turning track. We're doing our best to see the good.
Absolutely. What are the shadows that you're struggling with? This would be, a place to really dive in today and think, is this maybe this is a season where you say, hey, I'm dialed in on the light and like, we are walking toward it and I'm feeling that lightness in my day. This is what we're going for. This is what we want.
Our sailboat is just getting blown along. We've pulled up the anchors like we were talking about the other, week. Nothing dragging us along. We're in this, you know, it's a bright, sunny day, and we're just blowing gently across the lake toward our beautiful destination. You know, that would be the ideal, scenario. Maybe you are in a different season, you know?
Are there shadows? Are you, are you in a space like that where it's not a beautiful, calm, pleasant day where we're just drifting across the lake? Maybe you need. You know, we talked about the the positive anchor. The anchor that is holding us steadfast in the midst of the waves, looking to the light in there like, oh, you can see on the horizon the clouds are parting.
You know, the sun is breaking through. That's what we want to move toward. Look into the light. Yeah. It's not about ignoring difficulty. This is, definitely a thing I want to focus on that I've been trying to do on the channel. No sugarcoating everything and not not just because I'm kind of opposed to sugar. Sugar, not really helping us as a society, but don't sugarcoat things means we're not ever saying a weight loss path.
I call it a journey because a journey is like a journey is a big operation, right? Like like walking to your neighbor's house isn't really a journey, you know what I mean? Like, that's like you take a little stroll, right? Like a journey implies something, you know, really big weight loss path, like we're dialing in on. It's not like walking to your neighbor's house.
It's like walking, you know, to the other side of town or to the next town specialist. Like a lifetime process and journeys of most kinds projects. If a car project you ever start a house project, you think, oh, it's going to be so simple, I'm just going to do this thing, doesn't it always, at least for me, I don't know.
I always tend to think, oh, I'll get this project done in the morning and then I'll get this project done in the afternoon. And it's like, you know, three days later, like we finally got the actual first project done. You know, things usually take longer than we think. It's like, okay, a journey is like a, a real process takes time.
Going somewhere different going to be twists and turns to that process. Seasons where things flow and seasons where it seems like things run into an obstacle that's normal. We were talking last week, people, you know, you want to watch out. You say something was flowing easily, or then it's not. Or you get on a process. You say, oh, this is a struggle.
There's difficulty can feel like, oh, is there something wrong with me? If I'm not? I hear doctor Z is, you know, I just float in my sailboat across the thing. You know, if we only said that so, I would just be sugarcoating it like, everything is always easy. But no, life in general is, is a struggle, and there are seasons within it that are more in a flow and more in a struggle space.
And so we just want to be open to all of that. Looking toward the light. We know the shadow is, you know, there behind us, for example, we're not ignoring it, but choosing to move forward despite the difficulty and circumstance that we might face, finding extra gratitude, right? When if we're in this season of ease, season a flow, everything is kind of going our way.
This is like we find just immense gratitude for it, because we know that life is a cycle and there are hills and valleys. If we're on the hill, you know, we're up on the mountain top. We have gratitude and we store that up. That's building the mental capital like we talked about from the book we've been going through, building that mental capital to know, okay, on this journey, Hills and valleys.
We're going to be making it through each of these seasons. And then also when we're in the Valley, season in the shadows from everything around, you know, looking to the light is like, hey, we know that our breakthrough is coming and we choose to look toward it. We choose not to focus on this difficulty. That's actually the thing that helps propel us out of that space.
Look toward the light, keep climbing up the path, keeping ourselves in the most positive, thoughtful mindset, grounded in reality. Not ignoring. Not pretending. Okay, some issue, but purposefully optimistic. Driving forward.
Toward the light. What are the shadows? So this would be something to reflect for the week. What are the shadows that have stood in your way? You know, you're you're focusing on these things. Here I put a list. For me, that is just what shadows could represent in this to me. Can make your own list. Guilt over a past mistake.
Guilt over things that we wish we had done differently. Okay, that can be a shadow as we're on our journey and that can divert our gaze. We want to be looking forward. We're looking to the light. But guilt over something that we did or said or didn't do anything like this that can take our eyes off the prize, eyes off the light, and we get stuck in this shadow.
How about fear of failure? That can be a shadow. Any time we're on a journey, it's like we set out somewhere. It's like, do we? Can we really get there? Like the. The doubt comes in our our fear of the unknown saying, well, what is it really like if I am setting out in this direction and it's like, that's a shadow over the whole thing.
Fear. One of the biggest motivators of people, people afraid of, many things. Fear like one of the biggest impediments to action. Fear of change. Fear of things being different, a lack of certainty that can be a big shadow over the path. Looking to the light is like getting over, letting go of our fears. Maybe one fear is like a fear of judgment of some kind of people, fearful of being judged by other people being judged for failure.
And these huge shadows being judged by ourself. We've talked about that a lot, that we are often the most harsh, with ourself. And then these two can certainly mix, right. Like put guilt. We guilt trip ourselves if we haven't achieved the success we want, if we've tried and failed on other processes and we are afraid we can be afraid having fear of having an experience like that again.
And of course we don't want that. So another shadow, they were like, that was that process not serving us and will not serve us to get stuck in a shadow of fear and guilt and judgment. Like we said, I think was it even last week as we're looking through that book? Of course, what we want is to learn, from these experiences, the history that we have, that session from John about having love for ourself.
He says, you know, these, these difficulties, the mistakes, all these things, you know, become the the brush strokes in our sacred song or something he referred it to that is definitely looking to the light to see how our mistakes were stepping stones learning. And we have grown through these and have weaving it into a beautiful artistic expression of life and health and learning and growth, where we are becoming stronger, wiser, more knowledgeable, more experienced.
And then we take everything that we have learned from all of our experiences, all of the difficulty, and we use those as the foundation and the source, of the process that helps us look forward, find the good, see the positive, find the joy in the difficulty, in the midst of struggle and difficulty as we move, through that valley, seeing the sunrise over the mountain, we're heading to the mountaintop.
Like, accomplishing, what we're seeking and then realize, okay, it isn't just getting to the mountaintop. It's finding joy on the journey. The real benefit is finding joy on the journey existing in the light, on the path. Not just, oh, we get to the mountaintop, we accomplish the thing. But but the way of being that the Rick Rubin book is showing us the way of being is existing in the light, in the midst of the shadows.
What other what other shadows do you struggle with? Another one that I put on my little list. Negative self-talk. Do you do you experience this ever the the little voice that is telling you that you're not good enough, that you can't possibly do it, and it's just it's giving you all the reasons that you know the path that you're on.
You should just get off. It's not going to be worth it. Have you experienced that or am I the only one I ran? I read, great book, Little book. Also an artistic book. Maybe. I maybe, maybe if we ever make it through, this whole book, I bring some of this in, the War of Art is talking about that.
Anytime we're trying to create something worthwhile or valuable, that there's always resistance to it. And that's what is describing this voice of negative self-talk. The the principle in that book that I've found the most valuable, that I think is valuable for any type of endeavor. And you say we've described a weight loss path as a creative endeavor.
Trying to create the experience of our life is like, you can use the resistance that we feel as like a compass. So here's my beautiful stone I told you about. That is like a compass and a lens full of metaphors. We take this idea any time. If we realize anytime I'm trying to do something really important, that really means something to me, to us, we will experience resistance to it.
There's like, it's almost guaranteed we're going to get an obstacle. You want to change. You want to move in a healthy direction. Almost guaranteed. There's going to be something, some barrier to it that we have to pass through in order to get to it is maybe not. Maybe it's not all the time, maybe some time, some really incredible beautiful thing.
You are just able to flow into it without any struggle. Of course, that would be like the very ideal state I'd I give if I ever had a button to make that happen all the time. Of course I would give it to everybody and I'd say do it. But when you realize it, when you say, oh, look at what I am experiencing.
Shadows as hard to see the light. Where is the light? I'm trying to look toward it. But these shadows like we're discussing is blurring it. You start. The negative self-talk is coming. This can't be the right thing. Like you need to give up. It's not worth it. All these negative things, that is like the compass that is pointing at the thing that is important.
You don't feel resistance to things that don't matter. Some some simple thing, some superfluous thing. You're not sitting here having a crisis of negative self-talk, telling you, oh, you're not good enough. You could never do this thing. And so when you hear it, you know, you're you're here with me on a health channel, in a health space or trying to move toward a health goal.
I mean, that's a very important thing. It's very important. And so use it like a compass. The dials, the mental health, the exercise, the food, the fasting. These are like the lights that are lighting the path. Do you experience then in your life struggle to it, resistance to it? Does negative self-talk coming in and saying, oh, you couldn't do that.
You can't do that. Say, oh, instead of getting discouraged by it, realize, oh, this is the resistance. This is the obstacle, the mental work that has to be done to work through that. A really helpful concept to be able to recognize self-doubt and negative self-talk as, hey, this must be something that is important because it's activating this resistance system.
And so use that to move through, that sort of space. That's a way to look through shadows and toward the light and move through it. Love the metaphor. Let's look at our sun again. Let us look. Sun is coming up. We will gain, more insight, from it. So turn your face to the sun. We're talking about the shadows falling behind.
Yeah. Sun represents like the light is like hope and purpose. What are some ways that that can look like tangibly in our life? How about, how about finding gratitude for small wins like small steps along a road? The shadow perspective is we want teleportation to the top of the mountain. We don't want to have to always, you know, say, I don't want to have to walk this whole path to get to this place.
Shadow perspective is telling you this. This isn't good enough. You're not making progress fast enough. Is it even worth it? The antidote to that, looking to the light, is finding gratitude in the small wins what we're doing. We're stepping toward the new year. One day at a time. This day right here. The only time we can take this step.
We can't take the other steps. We'll worry about those in another day. Find gratitude. Focus for this day, this opportunity. This is our practice. Center ourselves in the present moment. Be right here. We don't have anything else to do in this day other than to be living this day in our most true alignment to ourselves and our purpose that we are moving toward, and that is enough for this day.
And so any negative self-talk that is coming in and saying, oh, it's not good enough, like what you're doing today, this isn't enough. You've got to put in enough effort to win tomorrow and Wednesday to no, no, no, no, it's just enough. Be here now in this place. Like turning toward the sun is just seeing. Okay. The sun is rising.
And this day this is the sun for this day. Only tomorrow. Like that's the cycle. Sun will set. And we know that we rest. We do the work for this day and we rest. And then tomorrow's a new day. New start. Today is a new day from yesterday. If you struggled, you know previously sun has set. On that day.
Sun is rising up. We're seeing it here. This is a fresh start. It's the beginning of this day. Whenever you're watching it, even, you know, metaphorically, you're watching it in the evening. Hey, this moment now is a new time. The past, that's another thing, is like a shadow that is falling behind us as we're looking toward the sun is like we're looking toward the future.
We are not living in the past. We're not dwelling in the past means that mistakes and and things that we regret. Okay, take a big, deep breath and and let go of them right just there in the past. Let go of that. Looking to the light is looking to this present moment instead of the shadow of the past, which is falling away.
The way to definitely have a fresh start looking toward the light. Maybe if we dial in just on fasting specifically, because that's the focus I want to. I want to give you perspectives on every good part of health. We are holistic beings. You know, it's we aren't saying or fasting and nothing else. We we do every good thing that moves us forward and health.
But then we dial in on fasting, to the extent that you want, because it is a beautiful, powerful process, very under appreciated in our society openness. It is a practice of lightness. And, so as we're focusing on this, maybe a fasting space is the path that, that you want to really look toward. And this is what I would say if you're trying to lose weight, it's the path.
To me, that is the least, struggle because it's taking down the pressure of everything that we have to do except for the mental work of doing nothing, the mental work of finding peace and contentment. This is the interface between fasting and our mental health. And in between everything between the physical body, the mental experience of the body.
Finding peace and contentment is the path to sustainability and to long term success. And finding joy on that journey. And this is the balance between saying is is fasting an easy practice? We say no fasting, not the easy choice in the middle of a consumption culture that has just, indoctrinated us all into pathways of consumption that aren't serving us, aren't leaving space for flourishing in the body, space to rest and reset in the midst of shadows of a society of dis health.
Looking to fasting is like the complete inversion of that. That is like looking to the light in the midst of shadows and clouds and confusion. So fasting is like you know, the culture is say, actually, in order to keep your metabolism going, you need to keep eating all the time. Otherwise it's going to shut down to say like, wait a second.
Like, let's dial that back a little bit. Body is strong and capable. Body isn't going to shut down. Body can actually flourish in this sort of space. This is like a light ray coming right over the top of the mountain. Beautiful, beautiful vision that I'm seeing. I'll tell you what is a real struggle is following advice that says you have to lose weight by continuing to eat all the time, try to lose weight without ever giving the body a break where the energy is not coming in.
You know, in order to lose weight, we're creating a flow of energy where the energy is flowing out of the body. Energy in our body. Body has immense energy, resources and it's there to serve us. The energy is there to power our life and realize, okay, it's a flow. Energy has flowed into our body, body because it cares about us.
It's how we find gratitude for the process. Invert all of the frustration that we have with a weight problem. Realizing my body is trying to serve and support my flourishing has taken energy that I've encountered and saved it for me. Okay, Moore has flown in, has flown out, you know? And so now we want to create an environment, open up a space where we allow the energy to serve its purpose, allow the body to do what it has been preparing to do, to have energy to drive us forward in our life.
This is why fasting can become an empowering process where we realize the strength that is within, inside of us. To me, looking at fasting that way is like looking toward the light. I don't need to be confused, by the shadows of the society that are telling me it's more complicated than that. It's very simple, actually. Not necessarily easy, but simple and so we find that lying in finding gratitude for this simplicity, seeing that it can cut through so much confusion and then moving toward it in as thoughtful and gentle a way as possible, that's like cutting through the shadows, looking toward the light.
Okay. So these I think these are these are my best reflections turning toward the light. So I thought maybe what I would do is try to guide us on a little bit of a visioning sort of exercise. We're here at the start of the week or where or wherever you are, whenever you're listening to it. We've kind of described this process of a sunrise light is coming or looking toward it is like, this is an opportunity to have a fresh start.
Wherever we are at, we're starting our journey. We're getting ourselves on the right path. And so we say, let's really dial in on this metaphor. Looking toward the sun, I am going to say, or have you close your eyes and I guide you through it. So close your eyes and imagining. Imagine turning toward the sun. Picture this beautiful sunrise in your mind and feel the warmth of the sun taking a big, deep, calming, peaceful breath.
Envision all the stress that you're having flowing out with your breath. The light of the sun is warm, calming, centering.
Feel that light hitting your body. Feel it burning away. Any regrets, any tension that you're having. You're seeing only the light, the shadows that you've been experiencing. That light is just driving them behind you, driving them into the past. Shadows might not be gone, but they are behind you. You are focusing on the future. You're focusing on the path.
Can you see it in that space? As you're floating in the light of this sun, the path lighting up before you, the good, the positive, the joyful, the steps that you can take in this day. Can you see them lighting up before you and that your supported and that you're cared for them, and that there is love and grace and kindness both coming from the earth, from community supporting you and from yourself.
You're finding kindness and graciousness in this space as you walk forward. In health. All right. I hope that is a beautiful vision. Whatever you're seeing in that, this beautiful sunrise coming in, let that be a centering image for you. As we start this day, as we start the week, as we're moving forward, let that, vision of where you're going give you encouragement, as we just step forward in this day one, thank you all.
Thank you for being with me here. Thank you for, stepping forward in light and health, together. Really appreciate, having you here with me. And I wish you the best in this week. Keep in touch on the channel. I will be back tomorrow morning. We'll keep walking forward in health together. Have a great day, everybody.