Day 131 – One of my favorite fitness guru and life coach is Chalene Johnson, creator of Turbokick, Piyo, and Hip Hop Hustle. I’ve listened to her podcast, bought her 1st and 2nd edition books, PUSH (because ya’ know I’ve never found a book I don’t want to read). Recently, I have purchased her PUSH diary, to prioritize my ta-do list. In the old days, you had to create your own, and I stuck with it for a year and I did manifest money into my life through Beachbody coaching, which was my goal. About the same time, I lost two close friends to cancer and had several other loved ones diagnosed with cancer or heart problems, and I began to fall apart physically (and spiritual and mentally). In retrospect, this was probably the beginning of my thyroid issues, but hindsight is 20/20. In any case, I found crossfit and the heavy lifting helped my angst greatly.

Artha, outer harmony, is the “work we do to remove the blocks to peace in our lives.” Reflecting back on the work I did to find “inner harmony,” I realized then and now that money and physical strength should never have been my main goal. I also realize that I have gone down many rough paths to discover this, and this reading was sort of like a small ah-ha moment for me.

In my new PUSH diary (I mean who can resist? It’s bright yellow), I will put artha as my PUSH goal, which is not to say that I don’t need to work on healing, or money, or even balance, but artha seems to incapsilate it all at this point in my life. Rolf writes: “Artha is being in harmony, bringing the yamas and niyamas into our relationship to work, family, and money in order to create abundance and peace. Arhta is putting one’s spiritual values into practice.”

This is an opportunity to create a life that–as Rolf puts it–is “an expression of my deepest beliefs. Not that I didn’t try prior. Like Rolf, I will “simply show up and try to be of service to whoever is put in my path, in whatever capacity the universe chooses,” but I will also value myself, as well. And in the end, that is all I can ask (but it will be fun to brainstorm this goal and reflect upon it). Truly, Rolf encapsulates it all: “Trust that artha is a natural by-product of being in the flow of life, giving what you wish to receive.”