JOY IN THIS MOMENT
Nothing in the past can hurt us when we have learned a lesson from it. Nothing can happen in the future that is not happening now. Our job is to recognize in the present moment the peace and joy in our hearts.
Much Love,
Valeria
SPIRITUAL CONFIDENCE: THE ETERNAL JOY
SPIRITUAL CONFIDENCE: THE ETERNAL JOY
Self-confidence is important to have—but spiritual confidence is essential.
Spiritual confidence (aka inner peace) is that clear certainty within you that cannot be affected by internal or external instability.
It’s eternal joy from understanding that the mystery of life cannot be known; it can only be felt with the heart.
It’s absolute wisdom that manifests through contentment.
Spiritual confidence is accepting that you are a gift to this world through which a divine blueprint is being carried out. It’s the only kind of confidence that eliminates existential doubt and liberates the human spirit.
It gives us the strength and the drive to fulfill our destiny, but more importantly, the power of serenity to face life’s most unwanted events.
We often see people with a high level of self-confidence derived from fear, egotism, narcissism, or vanity. This kind of confidence seeks to dominate and control others.
Without spiritual confidence, everything about us and everything that we achieve isn’t enough. We don’t feel satisfied.
Spiritual confidence allows us to accept what is beyond our control with courage and grace, to reclaim the joy that belongs to our hearts.
The spiritually confident are warriors of innovation, the ones who don’t hesitate to be the first to fully invest in their own ideas—ideas that can contribute to self-improvement and to bettering the world. These warriors fearlessly stand for a way of life that is closer to “God” when everyone else flocks around “goods.”
They fight with kindness for a life that is meaningful. Warriors who don’t believe that problems will disappear if they ignore them. There is no compromising truth in exchange for temporary happiness.
Escapism is not a conceivable choice for the spiritually brave.
In this world we live in, where self-doubt and illusions give rise to all sorts of conflicts—it’s imperative that we value spiritual confidence.
The true power of inner peace reveals itself in moments of need. It’s felt in the heart that beats indestructible and with unconditional love for our humanity, and for a life governed by change.
This love welcomes transformation.
It’s love that knows how to reach the depths of who we really are to transcend our self-imposed limitations.
It’s the unwavering confidence that guides us through life’s challenges with compassion.
This confidence, turned into eternal joy, empowers and transforms us because it knows love before fear.
Much love,
Valeria
CHOOSE TO BE THRILLED!
We have the choice to change our minds when we can't change the situation we find ourselves in. Instead of perceiving a commitment to finish our work with dreadful anxiety, we can live in these moments with a sense of excitement.
Embrace the challenge of being creative, thus tapping into the unborn parts of the mind that are not habitually conditioned to perceiving external events.
The main difference between anxiety and excitement is the energy behind these feelings: one is driven by negative thoughts (anxiety), and the other by positive ones. All of the unnecessary suffering in our lives is self-created, and so is our happiness.
When we are able to perceive reality with an inner “eye” that can’t see itself, our hearts will have become the source of unconditioned joy.
Much love!
Valeria
IT'S IN OUR HEARTS
Nothing in the past can hurt us when we have learned a lesson from it. Nothing can happen in the future that is not happening now. Our job is to recognize in the present moment the peace and joy in our hearts.
Much love!
Valeria
WE ARE JOY!
Writing these life events taught me that everything is connected, and that ignoring what causes us to suffer is the same as losing an incredible chance to free ourselves from pain, thus abandoning the path toward happiness. This might sound contradictory. However, I can assure you from my own experiences that there is nothing like examining the causes of pain and fear to free ourselves from them.
We are not our past, our thoughts, our feelings, our genes, or our futures. So who are we underneath it all? Well, I highly suspect that we are joy—a mixture of peace and happiness! It’s my conviction that only the heart—with an undeniable healing force that can turn our stories into “songs” of freedom—can empower us with true forgiveness, joy, and love.
Much love!
Valeria
PAST AND FUTURE TRAPS
Happiness and serenity are linked to the present moment, which requires fully appreciating what is happening now, within ourselves and in our environment. Nevertheless, many of us do not achieve this state because we dwell in the past or become preoccupied with living for a “better” future. When we project or stake our happiness on the hypothetical achievement of future circumstances, we sabotage our ability to be happy in the present; this reinforces a self-destructive mindset that will likely persist into the magical “future” we are hoping for. To release ourselves from this trap, we must shift our perspective toward a spiritual reality that resides in the now. And it is this spiritual reality that has the power to transform pain into joy.
Much love!
Valeria
IF NOT WITHIN, IT CAN'T BE FOUND
It’s with profound delight that I can say the main message in this book came out of my conviction that we are born into physical bodies to realize the joy that already exists in our spiritual hearts.
Fit for Joy connects physical activities with spirituality and enjoyment, and psychological processes with our inner nature, which are our unique ways of seeing the world based on our past experiences. I believe that the heart is the master of our lives, the mind our powerful servant, and the body the bridge between them.
Much love!
Valeria
ON HOPES AND DREAMS
Deluded dreams and unrealistic hopes for the future can have the same effect as real drugs. We all know something is terribly wrong when we rely on this frantic search for fulfillment. But because everyone else around us lives in this kind of reality, we get pulled into it, too. We start to believe that this is how things should be—that this is what is real and normal. In truth, what is real and normal is to fully live in the present moment.
Consider this: if we can’t find happiness and peace in our own hearts in this very moment, doing whatever we are doing, we won’t find it anywhere else—or at any time in the future. Our hearts know, and have known, this truth forever.
To strive, achieve, and grow without joy is to live in mediocrity. This is much like the unfulfilling pleasure one experiences while having a beer or soda while playing the lotto. Where is the joyful you in this moment?
Much love!
Valeria
A PATH TO HAPPINESS
A few months later, still at the peak of my “new life,” the feeling that I couldn’t help my clients intensified as my façade of success crumbled. The fitness competition I had won had been an awful experience of self-abuse that made me obsessed with keeping my weight as low as possible. The new guy I’d fallen in love with was my ex-husband in a different body. My emotional life was falling apart.
On a calm day while walking home from the gym, I started having frightening thoughts. I didn’t think about ending my life; rather, something deep inside me suggested it was already over. Despite my fit and healthy body, years engaged in the fitness community, and my organic diet, I was severely depressed.
I felt I could not share my condition with anyone. After all, I was a fitness model and a “health” enthusiast. Being perceived as a strong and inspirational person was crucial to helping the people around me become “healthy.” Thus, my depression had to remain hidden.
Although I knew my clients were making positive changes in their lives because of me, I intuitively acknowledged that these were not the kinds of changes that pleased the “soul.” Pained and lonely, I trusted I would overcome depression and feel “normal” again by spending more time at the gym, coming up with new exercise routines, new healthy and delicious recipes, or buying new gym clothes. But my depression worsened until, on a sunny, beautiful day, I felt that I was dead. I couldn’t think of anything that made me feel I deserved to be alive. My past was filled with painful experiences and torturous memories, from childhood abuse, to two divorces, to unreliable friends, to dissatisfying careers. In the darkness of my own mental prison, I asked myself: “What would you do if you were still alive?”
This was the question that changed everything. Before I even thought of an answer, joy washed over me, and immediately I knew that my understanding of life had shifted. I felt like I was free from all the pain. This feeling also announced that happiness and peace had been there in my heart all along. I promised that I would listen to my heart from that day on, starting with forgiving my mother. There would also be no more preoccupation to be fit as a way to be happy. I was, and always had been, fit for joy!
This feeling was so real and strong that all I wanted to do was to share it with others. I wanted to tell everyone that no matter what happened, is happening, or will happen, that there is a path to true happiness.
Much love!
Valeria
THE STORY AND THE SPIRITUAL PATH
I believe our story is part of our spiritual path, and that our spiritual path is inseparable from our story.
During the inner conflict I experienced as a fitness trainer, I did sense that something was wrong with my thoughts, behavior, and my life in general. But I had no idea that the pressure to be fit was directly linked to an unhealthy desire to please others based on past experiences and conditioning. What keeps us repeating the same mistakes—and suffering unnecessarily from them—is our inability to address our negative past as a collection of stories. These stories can help us better our lives if we examine them with courage and kindness. We simply need to learn to perceive all past experiences without judgment, blame, or guilt, and let them serve as references for what not to repeat in the present or in the future.
Much love!
Valeria
TRYING TOO HARD
I now see that my "fit and healthy" lifestyle was made up of a series of these kinds of experiences. I was very disciplined, but this discipline was turning me into the opposite of a loving and happy person. I came to realize that the pursuit of a fit and healthy body could only be a positive thing if we’ve already recognized our spiritual hearts as perfectly fit to provide us with a life of happiness and peace. In other words, although a fit body can improve our health, earn compliments that boost our self-esteem, and give us a temporary “high” of accomplishment, without a content mind and joyful heart, our happiness won’t last long. When our health and feel-good states depend on external conditions and constant hard work, this can propel us into an endless, destructive cycle.
Much love!
Valeria
ON SELF-RESPECT
From my experience with fitness, I can confidently say that the motivation to have a healthy body should not be based on fear, but on love. One of the hardest negative mental habits to break is the constant need for the approval of others. This habit can result in physical and emotional abuse (as happened to me), by propelling us to overtrain our bodies so that we will be accepted and complimented by others. The more I abused my body at the gym, the more people praised me, and the more I was motivated to keep doing it—to the extent that I even signed up for competition shows. As you can see, this was not that different from a drug addiction. My lack of self-respect and self-love was great enough to keep me open to doing anything that gave me that “approval-acceptance” high.
Much love!
Valeria
ON SELF-LOVE
SELF-LOVE
After many insights and lessons, I’ve learned to have self-love without selfishness; to recognize which behaviors are motivated by love rather than fear; to see how closely connected my past is to my present; and that love, joy, and peace are at the core of our true nature with regard to how we relate to others and the world. My new spiritual understanding not only gave deeper meaning to my life, but it has also caused external changes I could never have imagined.
Much love!
Valeria
THE SPACE TO BE YOU
"Bravo’s dusty roads were still paths for bull-driven carriages, which squeezed between the houses in a cloud of dust. The carriage conductor would scream loudly to give directions to the bulls. He wore leather pants and a leather jacket under the fierce sun, and whipped the bulls with two dirty ropes. From far off, I could hear the loud creaking of the carriage’s dry wooden chassis carrying large bags of beans and corn.
The sound grew louder and louder as it approached our street. It was a bit scary at first, but it always became the attraction of the week. I would rush to the window, covering my eyes with my fingers so as not to be blinded by the dust. I couldn’t open my mouth to laugh or scream either, unless I wanted to have dust for lunch.
I still enjoyed the passing of the giant, creaking carriage dragged by bulls and whipped by a wild man. Bravo seemed not to care about its bull-driven carriages making loud noises and clouds of dust. It was simply the space that allowed a bull to be a bull and a man to be a wild conductor."
Much love!
Valeria
LISTENING TO THE HEART WAS MY ONLY CHOICE
"After days of dwelling on my detached feelings and memories of the past charged with discontent, there was a moment of silent melancholy and then a question. This question would change everything: ‘What would you do if you were still alive?’
I knew the answer well.
I’d listen to my heart..."
Much Love,
Valeria
LOSE WEIGHT - FIND JOY
Below you will find a sample of the diet that I was on for about two years before I competed with WBFF – World Beauty Fitness and Fashion. This dietary system, combined with weight lifting, can greatly help lose weight, stay in shape, and build muscle and strength. But as I have mentioned throughout my book, Fit for Joy, this type of regiment mainly focuses on the physical body, which is only one aspect of our being. We are so much more than just our bodies! The approach to fitness that works the body in isolation from our mind and spiritual heart is not what I do today, professionally or personally. My work at the moment is about integrating conventional physical fitness with spirituality.
These meal suggestions are only to illustrate what my personal journey was like. They are not approved meal-plan recommendations.
BREAKFAST Option One
8 oz cold water with a probiotic supplement
1 tablespoon matcha green tea + ½ lemon
7 walnuts
1-2 whole eggs
BREAKFAST Option Two
1 salmon filet oven-roasted with coconut oil
5-10 walnuts
Steamed Kale
BREAKFAST Option Three
Steel-cut oats, almond milk, berries
Green tea
LUNCH
Any lean meat of your choice: white fish (sole, cod, flounder, or halibut), grass-fed red meat, tuna fish, wild salmon, chicken breast, turkey breast, and sardines in water.
Eat with steamed veggies or a green salad.
Avoid sauces; instead use olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and avocado oil for salad dressing.
Snack - Best Options:
1 tablespoon spirulina shake with ½ oz. frozen organic berries and a teaspoon of coconut oil
Green juice (no fruit added)
Protein shake (whey protein)
Nuts (walnuts, macadamias, pecans, Brazil nuts)
Raw coconut flakes
Celery, cucumber, or carrots with almond butter
Kale chips or dried seaweed
Raw cheese (unpasteurized)
Sweet potato chips (homemade)
DINNER
The same options as lunch
*Important – Avoid:
Alcohol
All sugar and sweets
Regular fruit, except for berries and green apples
Starchy carbs such as pasta, bread, rice, wheat wraps, white potatoes, etc.
DRINKS
Water
Kombucha drinks or tea
All kinds of tea, but especially green tea (no sugar added)
Coffee (no sugar added)
OTHER DETAILS
Sleep 8 hours or more per night
Drink a gallon of water every day, as well as green tea
All vegetables and fruit should be organic
Adding lemon to your meals is great – it alkalizes the body
You can have a small piece of dark chocolate 85% cacao or higher, but not every day
Use stevia powder as the only sweetener
Much love!
Valeria
CALLING FOR FITNESS AND SPIRITUALITY
My six o’clock client was not a regular. A fellow female trainer had had to leave due to an emergency, and asked me to take her client that day. I filled in for her as a substitute trainer.
Steve was a fifty-seven-year-old businessman who seemed to be under a great deal of stress. I could tell this just by being around him for a few seconds. He gave me a serious, almost intimidating impression, and breathed heavily. We were introduced in a hurry by the other trainer as she ran out the door.
Steve looked at me with an expression of quiet impatience. He was in good shape and looked strong. His chest area was well developed, leading me to think he must have been lifting heavy weights for years. I could tell he was very proud of his chest.
Before I could ask him about his training routine, he gave me the workout for that day. His program had only four exercises: barbell bench press (155 lbs — 12 reps), incline chest press (50 lb dumbbells — 12 reps), floor push-ups (20 reps), and incline dumbbell flies (20 lbs — 12 reps). If you understand something about muscle-group training, you will notice that Steve’s workout had only chest exercises.
I looked at his program and said enthusiastically, “Great! Let’s do it!”
I set up the barbell and began the first workout on the list. I was ready to spot him if he needed it, standing close to the bench behind his head. As he ended each rep, I cheered him on by saying things like, “Great job, Steve. You’ve got it! Nice work! Keep the energy! You can do it! Wonderful! You are doing it right! Don’t give up! One more left! Nicely done!”
In truth, I was talking to myself. I needed to hear my own enthusiastic words, given the day I’d had. I noticed something unusual when I took a glanced quickly at Steve’s face to make sure he was okay. He was looking at me and smiling as he lifted the heavy weight. He’d finished lifting without saying a word, but he smiled. I didn’t exactly understand the reason for his happiness, but I was glad his serious and stress-filled expression was gone.
Considering he was a new client, I didn’t feel comfortable enough to begin a conversation about my early insights into fitness and kindness. Nonetheless, I asked him trivial questions, which he didn’t answer. I don’t know about you, but I enjoy interacting with others when I’m with them. I like separating things: There is a time to be fully alone, and a time to be fully with others. In a trainer/client relationship, there are moments to focus on the exercise, moving and breathing properly, and also moments when we can talk.
Steve’s behavior was making me feel incredibly awkward. Concerned but trying to stay cool, I followed him around with my cheerful chatter. His behavior didn’t change. The studio was quiet; there were only a few people working out with their trainers. No one seemed to notice how uncomfortable I was around Steve.
Once again in my life, I felt stuck. I didn’t want to stay there, but I couldn’t leave. I tried to stay calm and do my job well.
We went through the workouts. In the end, Steve was sweating, still with a smile on his face. Before we said goodbye, he asked for my name again, then mentioned that he liked my training style. He also inquired if I could train him from that day on. I politely explained to him that my schedule couldn’t fit another client.
In truth, if my heart had not begun to guide me toward fitness and spirituality, I would have accepted his offer.
Much love!
Valeria Teles
LIFE OR BODY TRANSFORMATION?
Diana was next. We met at five in the evening.
She came in ten minutes early and hustled past me on her way to the locker room, saying, “It’s been another busy day. Give me the hardest, most beast-mode circuit you’ve got, Valeria.”
My energy was very low at this point. I really didn’t want to train another client, especially a high-energy person like Diana. She was thirty-four years old and exercised every day in the morning before she went to work. Whether embarking on a life or body transformation, the journey often leads to personal and professional growth. For those inspired to start their own business in this transformative period, checking out a Zenbusiness LLC review can be a great first step to understanding the best way to legally structure your new venture.
Her jogging sessions lasted an hour. She usually met me in the late afternoons for her weight training.
Today was an upper-body session. While she lay under a sixty-five-pound loaded barbell, doing twelve reps of military presses, I asked her, “What is the most important thing in life to you, Diana?”
She was so focused on her reps that I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. As usual, she was having a serious conversation with the barbell. We didn’t tend to talk much. Her workout mood had always been to get the job done as well as possible and then leave the studio.
A few seconds later, she put the bar back on the rack. The next exercise was ab work, and she knew it. We had the circuits programmed in advance. She moved briskly to the yoga mat on the floor to do a set of twenty reverse crunches.
Her breathing was heavy. The circuit was intense. She was never happy with anything light or easy. I was still waiting for an answer to my question as I kept track of the number of reps, but I didn’t ask it again.
On the floor, while doing a quick stretch—bending her knees close to her chest while keeping her legs together—she said, “The most important thing to me is to keep moving forward through the days. When I wake up in the morning, I have a to-do list in my mind. I just go through it naturally. It’s a clear, focused, and precise daily plan I accomplish by the end of the day.” She finished her answer by the assisted pull-up bar, after fifteen reps.
Diana had been moving fast for the last thirty minutes. She performed all her exercises with the same focus and precision as she checked off her to-do list.
“Do you like your job?” I asked.
She was so focused on her spider plank ab work that her favorite movie star would have gone unnoticed had they walked by us. Sitting on the mat, wiping her face, she said that she got her job done, made great money, and was proud of herself. She worked out hard in one of the best fitness clubs in New York, and could afford my high personal training fees. She laughed and added that she ate out all the time, traveled, went out with friends for drinks; serious relationships and love were too complicated to give attention to.
You know that feeling when there’s nothing you can say to someone because they’re too busy listening to their own thoughts? That’s how I felt.
After we finished the workout, I reflected on how Diana’s life was not that different from her to-do list. It was programmed. She’d been in a cycle of living according to rehearsed habits, and her life had turned into a running race with no finish line or winners, an existence driven by nonstop actions. There was no space left to even think about love.
Diana followed the exercise program and ate clean while training with me. She achieved the fit and athletic look she wanted in three months. Her body composition transformed, but I wish her life had, too.
Much Love!
Valeria Teles
FLAT BELLY ONLY!
My next appointment was with Destiny at noon.
She called to say she would be almost twenty minutes late. I stared out at the street from the studio. There were many things going through my mind that day, even though my feeling of unhappiness was not connected to any of them. It was cold and windy outside, and I expected Destiny to come rushing in any minute.
Destiny was one of the most cheerful clients I had. She always went straight to me with a big smile, and gave me a tight hug and a kiss before we started training. She was a mother of two kids, taught school, and was overweight. Destiny was a high-energy woman with a very unusual fitness goal: to lose belly fat only. She trained with me three times a week.
When we met two months ago and I asked her about her fitness goals, she told me her husband would love to see her with a smaller belly, wearing the new pink swimsuit he’d bought for her that summer. She shook a colorful water bottle and took a sip, adding that she knew she was a bit overweight, but she liked her voluptuous body—except for her belly fat. Her husband had said all she needed to do to look great was lose belly fat.
It was not the first time I’d heard this kind of fitness request from a client, and I was used to it. I proceeded to explain to her that spot reduction was not possible with exercise and diet, and that while working out with me, she’d lose fat in her body overall, not only around her belly. Despite this, she was excited to get started. I don’t think she understood me.
We started training from that day on. She was doing great. Destiny had lost almost twenty pounds so far.
After a long, melancholic wait by the window, she came rushing in. She looked serious and worried. It was the first time she didn’t greet me with a hug and kiss. I hoped nobody had died.
We sat down on the sofa in reception. I faced her, but she looked down. She said she’d wanted to meet me in person to say something important. She didn’t want to send an email.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She said she couldn’t do it anymore; I had helped her reduce her belly size and feel better, but she’d noticed that her thighs and buttocks were shrinking, too. It wasn’t what she’d expected. She was looking down the whole time, about to cry.
I listened to her quietly. I didn’t have much to say.
Destiny thanked me, then stood up and walked away.
Much Love!
Valeria Teles