_ Connect to who you are at the most primal level and you will become more relaxed.  I don’t care what you say, you were not built to slouch on a big , cozy chair or sofa.  You were not built to watch hour upon hour of TV, or hunch over a computer as I am doing right this second.  You were not built to be waited on and catered to, and coddled every waking second of your life. 

We as most people in the world (especially here in good ol’ America), have become reliant on “other people” to take care of everything.  Even those of you who have made a life for yourself independently and passionately; those of you who have become “successful” through hard work, 20 –hour days, being tough and pushing through.  How’s your health?  How’s your sleep?  How do you react when you are cut off in the car, or when someone acts like an idiot near you?  Do you view your surrounding human counterparts as stupid and annoying, or as beautiful and intriguing?  Is your life filled with negativity or happiness?

Find out what truly makes you, as a human being, tick.  I would argue it is ripping off all your clothes and running through a completely abandoned forest, or beach, or mountain, or field.  All jokes aside on that view, I really think disconnecting from everything we have created to mean human will make us so much more actually human.  We were not born with clothes.  We were not born with the understanding of technology.  We were born wild, curious and deeply connected to nature.  

Get outside and chill out. 

Did you find an excuse not to just now?  Did you create a handful of reasons why I am wrong and decide you’d just keep doing the same thing day in and day out?  Or, will you take me up, shut your computer or phone down and go give it a damn try already?!

In the end it’s up to you.  Hope to see you in the wild!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

 
 
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A Little Walk Lindsey And I Took Last Year
These past couple weeks for me have proved one major thing for me: approach things with the right frame of mind and GREAT things happen!  I have taken so many things off my plate, and this has allowed me to get so much more done with the most important things.  I have officially opened my temporary gym space, my training gains have been taking off, my recovery and mobility is getting greater and i have been feeling all around in much better spirits than in a while!

So how has this happened?  Well, it took me bearing down a little bit and telling myself what was important.  Here’s the thought process that I went through:

I made a set time to get myself completely alone (normally I would head out to the woods for this, but this time, I just sat on my couch).  Then I asked the question: What do you want?

I wanted to do everything in my power to make it to the CrossFit Games in 2012, I wanted to open a gym, and I wanted to get my Courage Bars officially up for sale!  That’s it.  So how would I be able to stick with these basic, “simple” goals?  Well, by taking all the other ones I had (and trust me, I had a LOT), making sure they were all written down, and putting them off in a folder somewhere for another time.  Then, to help my crazy, spastic brain out, if another idea came to me (at least one a day, seriously….) I would quickly write it down and stock it in the “idea and future plans” folder.  Now, all of my energy would either be directed directly towards the three things I want the most right now, or, into learning how to chill out.  So, napping, resting, stretching, deep breathing, walking around and spacing out are all things I am very quickly teaching myself are GOOD things to do. 

The brutal truth of it all is as follows:  I did all that stuff all the time!  I mean seriously people, how much time to you truly spend each day doing nothing productive?  All I have been focusing on is allowing those times to genuinely be relaxing for me.  If I am going to zone out in from of the computer for an hour or two, or in front of the TV, it will be because that is exactly the plan.  I won’t stress about it, I won’t panic about “all this other stuff I have to get done”, I’ll allow myself to do the things I need to do to feel happy and healthy.  This is incredibly relaxing and peaceful, seriously; it’s awesome.  And, interestingly enough, it is literally what all those self-help advice givers are all about.  Be honest with yourself about the things you do, and all of a sudden you release most of your stress. 

The main change for me was learning how to convince myself that doing nothing wasn’t a waist of time.  See, I would sit with y computer, doing “work”, watching TV shows on Hulu for like 4 hours.  The fact of the matter is, I really wasn’t getting all that much work done.  So, rather than create all this made up stress, and if I really did spend a good deal of each day just chilling out, reading or watching TV programs, I might as well enjoy the rest time to the fullest.  All I can say is that my stress has been going away.  It feels great.  And my gains in the gym are finding their way WAY back up!

So, if you’re planning on shilling out, CHILL OUT.  Take your relaxation just as seriously as your work and your work will be that much better.  Give it a shot.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage

 

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