Two men looked out from prison bars,
One saw the mud, the other saw stars.”
― Dale Carnegie
The human mind is one of the most complex discoveries of man.
It is so complex, in fact, that it cannot even understand itself. For all of our achievements, our own minds remain an enigma to us. Perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of the mind is the way it perceives reality. Although our minds are incredible, they can only receive so many inputs at once. In order to keep us from getting information overload, the mind must act as a filter as much a receiver. By filtering out information that isn’t necessary at that moment, we are able to focus on the pertinent data at hand. This can also cause us to miss out on other types of information, however.
Information that can alter the way we look at reality. The more one examines how the mind interacts with reality, the more we realize how convoluted the concept of “reality” is. Ultimately, how we perceive reality most affects our state of existence in it. Once we understand how powerful perspective can be, we can learn to harness it so as to make our lives the best they can be.
Maintaining a well balanced perspective is a challenge that requires daily maintenance and exercise to manage in a healthy way. Especially when life seems to be throwing extra hurdles our way — such as those related to health, wellness, money matters, grades, training, the list goes on! How do you keep up not only the daily grind — whether in work, school, martial arts, relationships, or other aspects of our lives — but a positive perspective as well.
There are many tools available to help us manage our perspective and mindset.
The important thing to remember is that keeping a healthy perspective requires daily reinforcement.
We can gain a healthy dose of perspective just by training in martial arts like Kuk Sool Won at least 2-3 times per week. The National Center for Biotechnology Information is one of many institutions with countless studies in their database showing the science behind how regular exercise can help us manage chronic diseases, side effects of medication, anxiety, depression, overall moods, and cognitive function.
The list of positive side-effects of regular and varied exercise are endless. We all know that exercise is important, but when we understand just how important it is to mental as well as physical health, we see that much more clearly just how important a it is. It is for this reason, on those days when we find we don’t feel much like training, that we tend to need it the most. The workouts we get through Kuk Sool Won are ideal for managing mental and physical health, because we do a little bit of everything in our training sessions — including aerobic, strength, isometric, stretching, and breathing and meditation techniques.
Meditation is one of the next best things for managing a healthy perspective. The beauty of meditation is that it is free, can be done anywhere, transcends cultures and religion, and doesn’t require anything but your mind to accomplish. There are many different approaches to meditation. There are no right or wrong ways to do it, as long as you are achieving the clarity of focus desired.
Meditation allows our minds to stop thinking about thinking for a little bit, which is an incredibly healthy thing to do. It takes practice, just like anything else. One of the best examples of how to meditate we’ve found to date is a lecture by the philosopher Alan Watts. There are countless recordings of his fascinating and enlightening lectures up for free on the internet, but The Art of Meditation remains a favorite.
Last, but certainly not least, another of our favorite ways to maintain a healthy perspective is through immersion into self-development. Studying how others not only have achieved success, but overcome every boundary that defines humankind, is one of the most powerful ways to keep a positive mindset. Knowing that everyone undergoes adversity helps us feel less alone.
Understanding the various ways adversity has been overcome gives us tools and inspiration to overcome our own challenges.
Inspiration is like fuel for your fire. When we examine the word, “inspire” comes from the Latin “inspirer” which means “to breathe or blow into.” Fires are fed by oxygen, so when you need to add fuel to your fire, remember to breathe, keep yourself moving, and feed your brain good food in the form of self-development.
This will help you to achieve a healthy perspective, which will aid in all that you aim to achieve in this life.
We hope we help add fuel to your fire so you can live life inspired!
Kam sam ni da!