A "HEALTHY" DISTRACTION

Fear and insecurity can turn physical fitness into an addiction. While most of us consider the pursuit of physical fitness to be a great habit, for me, it was a painful cycle disguised as a healthy practice. The more unsatisfied I was with myself, the more strenuous, restrictive, and consistent my exercise and diet became.

Looking back, it’s clear to see that dissatisfaction, not poor health, was what propelled me to dedicate more than twenty years of my life to fitness. I strongly believe that the reason fitness and fit people are so popular is because most of us are attracted to the idea of having a “healthy distraction” from our inner conflicts.

Although it is true that exercise and physical attractiveness can improve our overall health and lift our self-esteem, using these methods to hide our pain can also result in increased, unnecessary suffering. I don’t know anything healthier than having the courage to dive deeper into our own hearts for answers.  

Much love! 

Valeria  

To be healthy is to be loving!

ESCAPISM & FITNESS HABITS

The links between my painful past and fitness became clear to me after a period of major inner turbulence. I knew that most compulsive behaviors had their roots in traumatic experiences, but I never connected my obsession with fitness with my lingering inner pain from the past. I believed I was a strong person who had overcome pain because I had a fit and healthy body to prove it, as well as a life that seemed to be driven by (and built on) authentic and exciting experiences. However, the truth was that my fitness habits, to a great extent, were escapism.

Much love! 

Valeria  

To be healthy is to be loving.

OUR OWN CREATED PRISON

Given how exercise, diet, and even therapy can become traps for a painful emotional reality, it’s crucial for us be aware of the fundamental causes of our suffering.

Think of how we might sometimes consciously (or unconsciously) believe that we are not good enough or not worthy of happiness. When this happens, we then begin to work hard in pursuit of this worthiness.

As a result, anything external that gives us the illusion that we deserve happiness for our effort will also become our own created prison.

This cycle of sustaining habits out of fear turns exercise and diet (or whatever our external source of happiness is) into negative forces, thus compounding the root problem as we live for our bodies and for conditioned emotional stability through abusive mechanisms.

This can cause disharmony within the heart, creating a state of mind where true happiness cannot exist.

Much love! 

Valeria  

To be healthy is to be loving.

UNHAPPY HEART IN A FIT BODY

Susan had a session with me at two in the afternoon. I was not feeling well after Destiny’s encounter. During lunch, my thoughts had been much more centered on love and kindness, and this reflection was hovering over me when Susan arrived. She’d been training with me for a couple of months.

I began chatting with her about these tender reflections. In the middle of our session, I said, “Susan, you know what I’ve begun to realize?”

 “What?” she asked.

 “That the foundation of health is love; how can we feel comfortable in our bodies if we are not in love with life? Does that make sense to you?”

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She looked at me as if she was thinking about it. Then she said, “Valeria, can you please get the mat for my next buttocks workout?”

We continued with the session as if I’d never brought up the insignificance of a fit body without a loving heart and a happy mind.

Much Love!

Valeria Teles

THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE TRUTH CANNOT HIDE

Karen was my last client for the day. We met at seven sharp, right after Steve.

Karen was an obese woman I trained twice a week. She was thirty years old, weighed 250 pounds, and was 5’ 2”. However, these numbers don’t say anything about her as a person. She was a painter who owned her own gallery in Manhattan. The serenity in her eyes and the way she smiled for no reason introduced her to me before she even told me her name.

She had been married for more than five years to someone who was in good shape. I knew this because her husband came to pick her up after our sessions. The conversation we had the first day we met left me pondering about life for days.

I asked the same question I asked every client before we began the program: What are your three main fitness goals?

Karen said she only had one goal: to enjoy the workouts.

I recall looking into her eyes as if she had not understood my question. I rephrased it, and this time I was more specific.

“I understand, Karen, and I will ensure that the exercises will be fun, but what I meant was, how many pounds do you want to lose?”

Again, she answered with a smile and said she didn’t care about the weight; she just wanted to feel good during and after the workouts. Furthermore, she said it didn’t matter if she didn’t lose any weight at all. Her peaceful eyes and joyful smile reinforced the truth of her words.

I could not believe this woman and how out of touch with reality she was. She was obese, for God’s sake! She could actually die of a heart attack at any moment, and my mind refused to believe that anyone could be at peace with a body like hers. It couldn’t be possible.

I insisted. I tried to force her to make a deal with me, and asked her to agree on losing one to two pounds per week.

Once more with the same serene, happy look on her face, she replied that I didn’t understand her. Patiently, she repeated that she was fine with her weight and that she enjoyed her work. She was a person who loved and was loved by her family and friends. Her life was a blessing, and she was grateful for what she had. There was nothing else to be added or removed to make her happier. The workouts with me were just to get her body moving while she had some fun.

I wasn’t amazed by her attitude, because I neither understood nor believed in what she was saying at the time. Nevertheless, after our encounter that day, I went home thinking about her, and I remembered a thought I’d had when I was a teenager, one that had returned many times throughout my life.

I would die young.

I believed I would not reach the age of thirty, despite being physically healthy.

Perhaps intuitively, I knew that my heart could fail at any time because of my lack of understanding of what life was really about: love and kindness.

I am convinced that Karen became my client for a reason—to teach me that to be healthy is to be loving. She trained with me for almost a year, and never lost any weight.

Karen was the healthiest client I ever had.

 

Much Love!

Valeria Teles

SIMPLE PRACTICE FOR A PEACEFUL DAY

A simple practice we can engage in to cultivate peace and harmony is to give up hope and replace it with aspiration or motivation from the heart—that is, to stop waiting to be happy when something happens. Instead, rejoice in this very moment because what you are doing now should already be the realization of what you want to happen in the future. 

Warm wishes,

Valeria  

LIFE CAN BECOME A LUCID DREAM

The moment we choose to recognize our experiences in the world as lessons of love, life turns into a lucid dream. This recognition can come from the depths of our hearts—the spiritual awareness through the senseless suffering caused by our minds. Either way, the main difference between a nightmare and a lucid dream is a shift of our perception grounded in love. In the dream of life, there are many mountains to climb every day, and they might crumble, the dust might blur our vision, fear might replace our hope, but if we have faith and recognize our own essence, we will never fall.

 

Much love!

Valeria

TRAINING BODY, MIND AND SOUL

I believe that any physical activity can become a spiritual experience, even a tough type of training like weight lifting. The location where we train can become an auspicious terrain where spiritual awareness and physical practices can be integrated. I feel this is important. In most commercial gyms there is nothing there to remind the mind to practice virtues like trust, respect, patience, and kindness among others.

At best, weight lifting in commercial gyms can give us a feeling of being present in the moment, which is induced mostly by safety considerations. This is because the owners and staff of such places are not aligned with the idea of offering both a physical and spiritual space to us. Most gym managers are more preoccupied with signing up new members than they are with their well-being and happiness. 

Much love!

Valeria

MORE THAN OUR BODIES

Weight lifting can be of great help with weight loss, staying in shape, and building strength. But as I mention throughout my book, Fit for Joy, this type of training focuses only on the physical body, which is just one aspect of our being. We are so much richer and complex than just our bodies. The approach to fitness that works the body in isolation from the mind and the spiritual heart is not a sustainable source of health. This is the reason I created the Fit for Joy lifestyle, which integrates conventional physical fitness with spirituality. 

Much Love!

Valeria

LUCID LOVE

The moment we choose to recognize our experiences in the world as lessons of love, life turns into a lucid dream. This recognition can come from the depths of our hearts or from spiritual awareness—brought about through the senseless suffering caused by our minds. Either way, the main difference between a nightmare and a lucid dream is a shift of our perception grounded in love. In the dream of life, there are many mountains to climb every day, and they might crumble, the dust might blur our vision, fear might replace our hope, but if we have faith and recognize our own essence, WE will never fall again. 

Much Love!

Valeria 

EAT LESS, THANK MORE.

We know that the best way to lose weight is to eat less, especially of foods that are high in calories. Sugar is a well-known adversary of weight loss. But before depriving ourselves of healthy fats and sweets, it’s wise to try to understand the real reasons we eat more than necessary. I believe that wishful thinking and fear are subconsciously operating in our minds when it comes to our eating patterns. Food can become an addiction, often stemming from emotional triggers when we wish our lives to be different. Steven Pressfield, the famous writer, once wrote: “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us.”

The way I see it, having the courage to realize the unlived life within is essential to our physical and psychological health. Trusting this moment for what is—this is courage. Feeling grateful for what we have can empower us to follow our hearts, thus making each moment fulfilled and joyful. The happier we are within, the less preoccupied with food we become.

The perfection of this moment embraces us with unconditional love for our spiritual wealth, for who we truly are—there is nothing lacking. 

KIND HEARTS...STRONG BODIES...PEACEFUL MINDS.... Fit for joy! 

Much, much love! 

Valeria 

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