Your body is a miracle! It’s the reason why you chose to come to earth. Your body is a true gift to be used by your free agency in ways that can bring you back into the presence of your Heavenly Parents and eternal family.
This upcoming year my goal is to help you develop a unique type of appreciation, respect and level of honor for your miraculous body that will minimize disease and empower you to live a long, fulfilling joyful life so you can accomplish the work you were sent here to do.
As you learned at the kick-off at vision days this class is going to be a lot of fun. It’ll be full of learning new things about the body, doing exercises, eating foods that can heal, strengthen and nourish our bodies.
We will learn the liberating value of tracking the progress you make in turning exercise and the core areas of caring for your body into a joyful habit.
We’ll also discover the value of the freedom we can enjoy by not comparing ourselves and our personal progress with others but rather how to set our own personal world records as we strive to grow closer to God.
This Week’s Action Steps:
Action step: come prepared in our first class to go on a group hike the 2nd hour! Bring water to drink and your lunch — we will be eating lunch when we reach the end of our hike before coming back down. Van-bucks goes to anyone who brings food on the hike that has to do with this weeks core area of study which is on the BRAIN 🙂 What kind of lunch or snack can help your brain?? See what you can learn 🙂
Action step: Answer this question and write down your thoughts in depth in your journal:
Why or why not is this life the only time in the eternities you’ll have the opportunity to learn how to master your flesh, to do good continually so you can experience a fullness of joy as the Lord revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith in D&C 93 vs 33 to 35.
Study the full section of D&C 93 and write down your thoughts, impressions in your journal and come prepared in our first class to share your insights about why you have a body, the purpose of having it, what you are doing now and will in the future to experience the type of joy the Lord is talking about in D7C 93. Answer and write down your answers to these other questions:
- Why do you think it’s critical to have a body to experience a fullness of joy?
- How do you think you will feel when your body is temporarily away from you after it dies?
- How do you think you’ll feel when your body and spirit are reunited in the resurrection?
- Record your thoughts about why you are grateful for your Savior in making it possible for you to eventually experience a fullness of joy?
Action step: Keep using your weekly habits tracker to document your personal progress on your exercises and core areas of life. Share your stats with your team leader who will turn those stats into me. From there I will send out the leaderboard that everyone can see for the purpose of awarding groups prizes in the future.
Remember that the #1 reason you are tracking these things is to help you improve your personal best scores NOT to compare yourself or scores with anyone else.
Action step: In a 1970 General Conference talk by Pres. Monson he said “”When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates”
Write down your thoughts in your journal about that statement. Also write down your answers to these questions:
- What do you think Pres. Monson is teaching us?
- How exactly does your personal performance improve by tracking or measuring it?
- When you report back to someone who cares about your progress how does that increase the rate of improvement in your life?
- How could returning and reporting your progress with your Heavenly Father in prayer help you increase your success in any area of life?
Action step: Answer and record your answers to these questions in your journal:
- How do you think comparing yourself, your body image, achievements etc. with others makes you feel?
- What types of “good comparison” would God approve of? How could that type of comparison help you get better in life?
- How can worldly comparison kill your personal joy and happiness in life?
- When have you experienced a lack of wanting to do something you desired but comparison killed your desire to act?
- What can you do to avoid worldly comparison?
Action step: Watch this educational video about the brain:
Action step: Come prepared to class during the first hour to discuss these sections of the brain, what they do.
Action step: Watch the following video, take notes and implement the memory practice he teaches about how to memorize the top 10 brain foods:
Actions step: Become familiar with the 11 systems of the body by reviewing the info below. The goal here is to simply be aware of these 11 systems and have a basic understanding of what each system does. I’ll call on random people in class to quiz you for some van-bucks 🙂
- 5 Processing Body Systems
- Circulatory System: Transports nutrients, gases, hormones, and waste.
- Endocrine System: Regulates bodily functions through hormone secretion.
- Nervous System: Processes sensory information and coordinates responses.
- Muscular System: Facilitates movement and interaction with the environment.
- Skeletal System: Supports and protects organs and structures, aiding movement.
- 3 Intake Body Systems
- Digestive System: Breaks down food and absorbs nutrients.
- Respiratory System: Takes in oxygen and expels carbon dioxide.
- Integumentary System: Includes skin which interacts with the environment and can be considered part of sensory intake.
- 3 Elimination Body Systems
- Urinary System: Removes waste from the blood and regulates fluid balance.
- Lymphatic System: Removes toxins and supports immune function.
- Reproductive System: Involves processes for reproduction, which can be considered part of elimination in terms of reproductive waste (e.g., sperm, eggs).
