The journey toward Soul Control will let us stop and focus on three main areas.
Our Body
Our Mind
Our Soul
Each area overlaps another, because--you know this--all of life is connected.
Most often, we don't gain control over our soul if we haven't first focused on our mind.
We don't often gain control over our mind if we haven't first focused on our body.
So that's where we are going to start--with our body.
Epictetus said,
"Two words should be taken to heart and obeyed when exerting ourselves for good and restraining ourselves from evil–words that will ensure a blameless and untroubled life: persist and resist."
Boiled down to its simplest form: We persist in doing good things, and we resist doing bad things.
We persist in creating and following good habits that move us forward in life toward our goals.
And...
We resist doing negative things that hold us back from becoming who we were designed to be.
It comes down to our habits.
Persist and resist will be two important facets of how we will begin to gain control over our bodies.
So first, let's persist in something good.
Since we are beginning with the area of our body, let's look at how we fuel our bodies and how we move our bodies.
Fueling, not Filling
Too often we reach for something quick and easy, when our stomach begins to rumble.
Then, too often afterwards, we complain about a lack of energy and lethargic motivations.
Yet we don't always make the correlation between the food we just ate and how we feel afterward.
We don't let the discomfort in our stomach translate into better thinking up in our brain.
We come up the 24" short in making the connection.
What could it look like if we chose to think about Fueling our bodies instead of just filling our stomachs?
What kind of food would fuel you instead of just filling you?
You know this answer.
Food that is
whole,
colorful, and
real.
Are these the types of foods you put on your plate?
What could it look like to add them into your diet?
Think about this:
When you eat a banana, how often do you reach for another one?
It's probably only one per day, right?
Because it has the nutrients in it to fuel your body.
One is sufficient!
Now think about this:
When you eat a chip, how often do you reach for another one and another one and another one until the bag is gone?
Your body doesn't know how to stop you from eating the entire bag because it's still craving nutrients that will fuel it.
If you want to gain control over your body, you have to learn to control your appetite.
You have to be able to control what you feed yourself.
It's the first step in living a life of temperance, of self-control.
Are you up for a challenge?
For the next 14 days, track your food.
If it goes in your mouth, write it down.
Don't worry about the volumes of what you're eating yet; just the different types of food you're eating.
You've heard the phrase, You are what you eat, right?
It's true.
At the end of these two weeks, will you be a wholesome, colorful, real human being?
Or will you be a processed, boxed in, dyed item from a shelf full of preservatives?
It's up to you.
And it starts in the kitchen.
Remember, the end of this journey is Soul Control--being in control of your entire being with your body, your mind, and your soul.
But it starts with controlling your body, and that starts with controlling your appetite.
Did you miss the beginning of this series?
Check out Part One!
If you can't wait, and you want to hear the whole conversation of gaining Soul Control now, you can buy the talk.
I believe you can become fully who you were designed and destined to be, yet it's up to you to take the correct actions to make it your reality.
Get after it.
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