The Only Choice is “Love”

Uncategorized Aug 12, 2018

After three thirteen hours’ days and then a ninety-minute drive home to my family, I had to share this before I went to bed as the sentiment was so profound, though I think it has been expressed in many ways before, it bears sharing nevertheless. We spend a life time loving what we love, hating what we hate, and in the very action create division and polarity in our lives where our mind, our hearts, our world, and our intimate relationships must take sides. What was so eloquently shared today was simply this "we can love what we are, and love what we are not, and we can love others for who they are and who they are not, because we have no right to try and change others and we cannot truly change ourselves, and the reality of it all is that we cannot if even we tried. What we look to accomplish is to 'transform' relationships, transform our lives, the lives of our children, the lives of our spouses, the lives of the world around us. When we transform others we are helping them...

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Shallow Be Thy Name

Uncategorized Aug 10, 2018

How sad it is and has become
This world we have created
Where our worth is measured
By shallow acts ill fated

The image of who we claim to be
Is the focus of our generation
No room for error or flaws of any kind
Vanity and desperation

But can’t we see the world around
Is perfect in its imperfection
The self-expression of a grand design
Beauty and grace in its reflection

The less we try and the more we allow
The natural beauty to abide
The more we will experience that true joy
Will in our hearts and minds reside

C. David Gilks Your Fellow Traveler

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From Me to We

Uncategorized Aug 09, 2018

Have you ever had a moment when truth sweeps over you and it is unmistakable in its message? I was watching a video from Simon Sinek and he made a comment about the whole self-help culture, in that he found it very self-indulgent with books like “What are the 5 steps YOU can follow to becoming a millionaire” or “ What are the 7 steps YOU need to follow to get the career you want”. He asserted that the industry was too focused on “what can I get out of life and for me” as opposed to perhaps “ What are the 5 steps I can take to help someone lose weight” or “ What are the 7 steps I can follow to help the person next to me get the job they want”. Don’t get me wrong, I think personally that the self help movement has done tremendous   good, but perhaps its time for a shift in focus, from “ME” to “WE”.
We can get excited about how well we performed at work, how amazing the project was...

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Are you courageous?

Uncategorized Aug 09, 2018

I have been interested in the driver behind human behavior for as long as I can remember. I worked in the night-club industry for many years and got to witness firsthand the rawness of human emotion, the unbridled impulses that often showed the darker side of human nature. Our insecurities, our shame, our anger, and our long held resentments often bubbled to the surface while in this environment.

From there I spent the last 20 years, having over thousands of hours of one on one conversations with people, people who are trying to change the course of their life by taking control over their health. What was interesting was that though weight loss and improved muscle tone were often the discussions during the initial meeting with a client that was just the tip of the iceberg. Often when a client felt that it was safe to share, issues of poor self-image, rejection of self, and shame would surface as the driver for their decision to get “fit”.

Does a darker side of us sit...

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Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired

Uncategorized Aug 09, 2018

I read a quote a friend of mine had on their profile and it was one from Robert Frost, which goes “ Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired”. I thought about it for a while, trying to determine what it meant to me. I have the habit, you may have guessed by now, not to take things at face value but rather have to chew them for while until I can link it to a bigger picture. When I read this quote I first thought of the cost and the risk of wanting to be desired as Robert Frost had stated, truly, was the risk of rejection too great to want to be “irresistibly desired?

Brene Brown, one of my favorite authors, speaks about those men and woman who live a life “wholeheartedly” and though they experience rejection, pain and shame, they still open their heart to the possibility of love and laughter, which enviably shows up in their life in abundance. Do these men and women experience what Robert Frost had spoken about, being irresistibly...

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Run, Numb or Grow

Uncategorized Aug 09, 2018

Every morning before I allow the day to provide my with its plan for me, I mediate and try to run interference on the potential cascading of negative thoughts that often rush in to set the tone for my day. As I get into the day I am generally good, but it is when I am not distracted and alone with my thoughts that often my mind serves me a healthy dose of low self -esteem, fear and frustration. Now if you have met me, or think you know me, you would assume that I have it all together, and for the most part I have a life I am very grateful for, but like many I think, I work hard at being even keeled. I have invested countless hours in reading, research and personal development in an effort to do…what? Quite often our drivers are unconscious to us, meaning that what drives us or motivates us is not always apparent and not what we think. I had hoped with the countless hours of self-improvement, study would have eased my troubled mind, and it has helped me immeasurably in many...

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Core Training for a Stronger Spiritual Centre

Uncategorized Aug 09, 2018

I have been an avid gym junkie for almost 22 years (with a few detours along the way) and I am proud to say I have been 80% on track for the duration of this journey. During that time I have trained as a martial artist, aerobic instructor, Olympic Weightlifter, bodybuilder, power lifter, speed and agility coach. I studied Chi Gong, Touch for Health, became a chartered herbalist, trained as a bio-kinesologist, and learned how to do acupressure. I was certified through three different personal training organizations, studied further and became a medical exercise specialist and Medical Exercise Program Director for 14 years, owning my own facility, and had some of my ideas studied and published at a local university. I have read over 600 books on personal development, psychology and neural plasticity, studied NLP for five years and have and created three breakthrough programs and technologies “Factor 3 Fitness”, “Cog/Kinetics” and the “ I AM...

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How do you know??

Uncategorized Aug 09, 2018

In this fascinating world that offers “plenty of knowledge on every thing” how do you which path to take and whose word to rely on? We have consultants for every thing imaginable, fitness to food, money to marriage, and sex to psychology. Of course there are thousands of others to pick from, these just happen to pop into my head So how do you know who to talk to, who to trust, where to put your money? That has been a probing question for me for many years as I poured through numerous books, courses, publications, and held counsel with various colleagues, therapist, PhDs in various fields of interest, and what I came up with, is, it depends. And what does it depend on? It depends what I am willing to act on and whom I trust. When it comes to those, like myself, who have careers as counselors or consultants in various fields of interest, you will find that we all have a bias to our particular point of view, of course, as that is what you are paying for in part.

But what is...

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Who am I to be

Uncategorized Aug 09, 2018

Who I am to be?

The face in mirror, who am I to be
What road do I take
Which voice do I heed

Though I know what I do
I do not know who I am
From what wellspring does my life appear

Is it vanity to think one can change the world
Is it insanity to think I would even dare
More questions than answers I fear

Is it the act of faith I must embrace
A blind path with no guarantees
Is it only with faith my life will unfold

So strange I would accept much less
Just so that I would be so sure
Of how tomorrow tomorrows will be told

But in the quite moments
Between each breath that I take
My spirit whispers to me

Take hold of your faith
Follow your heart
And your dreams do not forsake

I look in the mirror
And the man that I see
Has always been there waiting
To accept his destiny

C. David Gilks Your Fellow Traveler

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SAM and Strength

Uncategorized Aug 08, 2018

It was almost 20 years ago when I worked with my first rehab client, a woman who, after a few challenging childbirths, found herself embarrassingly incontinent. Being a young trainer at the time, I thought being incontinent meant you lived further inland ;) In all seriousness, this lady challenged me because truly I had no idea how to help her, but I was intent on trying to figure it out. So I have to let you know that at the same time I was working with her a few other things were also playing out in the background, things that changed the course of my career and forever changed the way I looked at fitness. I was training very heavy at that time and in a ego driven display of stupidity, I pulled a 475 lb deadlift off the ground (shouldn’t have) and injured both of my forearms by creating traction injury. So, I couldn’t grip, hold my coffee, open the fridge or hold onto a weight with any amount of force.

Those of you who have sustained exercise related injuries know how...

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