This is from nutritionist, fitness model, and dear friend of mine, Elizabeth Anderson.  www.ElizabethAnderson.com.    She has written a beautiful article on her personal quest in discovering her true spirit self, while maintaining a healthy perspective on the physical.  I asked her to contribute this because she lives these principles and makes them work in her life.   I know that in my own path of overall wholeness, the physical aspect is a necessary component of total wellness, and it is possible to be spiritually centered while at the same time, honor the body as the vehicle that makes possible a spirit’s journey in the physical dimension.   If you would like her to personally share her life changing information on spirit centered fitness and nutrition, please email her at liz@elizabethanderson.com.

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For many years my primary value as a person was based in my physical beauty, weight, and fitness level.  Although this was a great accomplishment for me to have a healthy and fit physical body, it was also a source of pain.  As everything in the physical world is ever changing, I constantly lived in fear of losing what I had attained in fitness and beauty with age or injury.  This way of living ultimately created self worth and love as contingent commodities that were always in scarcity.             

Realizing that my attachment to the physical world for my value and worth was causing me pain and unhappiness, I knew that there must be a different path for me, a path of happiness and freedom. 

Over the past year I have taken a new road in my life as I have personally sought to be an avid student of spiritual truth in many places.  I began to go within myself to my spirit and soul and honor that this part of me is the true, unchanging, source of my life.  In this honoring of “me” there is no longer fear or scarcity, but total abundance of beauty, health, and life.

My process of reuniting my self with my soul created a departure if you will from caring so much about my physical body.  My passion for fitness and nutrition waned as my love for inner self grew.  I stopped training competitively, modeling and caring so much about exercise and proper nutrition because these things no longer were my major source of self acceptance.

A few weeks ago I realized for the first time since my spiritual rehabilitation process that I really missed my passion for fitness.  I missed training and viewing myself as an athlete, applying the effective principles of nutrition that I knew, and ultimately I missed honoring my passion for something that came so innately to me.  I felt that embracing the same principles of fitness with my “new eyes” from a place of spirit would allow me to truly be in a place of freedom to maintain focus on my spirit and embrace my passion for health and wellness on a whole new level.

Moving forward in doing this, the key principle that I use in maintaining the balance between my mind, body, and spirit, can be illustrated by using the visual of a triangle.  I always remember and honor my spirit as being the top or apex of the triangle.  On the two bottom corners of the triangle are the assistants to my spirit – my body and mind.  To use an analogy, I (my spirit) am the driving force of my life, and my body and mind together are now my vehicle.  Viewing my physical body with this perspective has allowed me to beautifully embrace it as the gift that it was always meant to be.  With this new belief system I am free to BE who I really am and at the same time really honor, enjoy, and care for my physical body!”