One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, doubt, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence,empathy, generosity, forgiveness, truth, compassion and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Thoughts can become things. The power of your thoughts can go in either direction. The on-going collection of quotes below is intended to inspire you along your life’s journey. A healthy mindset of aligned thoughts, actions, and habits is one of the best tools to manage stress. Thoughts can greatly influence your reality, and they are probably your number one asset when properly utilized. Many diet and exercise programs assume that formulating good eating habits and getting in better shape are all you need, but that only works in the short term. For true health and performance to be realized it’s essential to practice a mindset that is authentic to your values and considers the process just as important as the outcome goals. For long-term success, it’s important to create a practice that will help guide you through the process and keep you motivated toward a big-picture lifestyle change.
To optimize health and performance for every individual, it is essential four key areas are exercised in a balanced manner: The Principles of Mindset, Recovery, Nutrition/Hydration, and Movement. These elements operate interdependently and ultimately have a very powerful influence that may help with optimal gene expression. Mindset, Recovery, Nutrition/Hydration, and Movement alone aren’t enough. But together, and incorporated into daily habits, balancing these four fundamentals serve as a Force Multiplier to help you succeed now—and for life to Feel, Move, and Perform Better. For further assistance see UpRight Movement’s Regeneration Guidelines.
Click here to learn about the UpRight Movement Principles.
Mindset:
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Mary Oliver
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
Plato
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
“My life is a gift from the Creator. What I do with it is my gift to the Creator.”
“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
Carl Jung
“Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.”
Jonas Salk
“Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long, and its purpose in the service of your people.”
Chief Tecumseh
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.“
Jack Kerouac
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Invictus, William Ernest Henley
“If the people are sick, I too am sick, only when everyone is healthy will I too be healthy.”
Vimalakirti, 6th to 5th century BC
“We are the ones we have been waiting for.”
Hopi
Recovery:
“Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.”
Thomas Dekker
“Look to the season when choosing your cure.“
Hippocrates
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
John Muir
“All things are poisons, for there is nothing without poisonous qualities. It is only the dose which makes a thing poison.”
“Excessive stress occurs when the demands made on an organism exceed that organisms reasonable capacity to fulfill them.”
“The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“Performance is limited by recovery.”
“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
Homer, The Odyssey
“To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.”
Hippocrates
“I still need more healthy rest in order to work at my best. My health is the main capital I have and I want to administer it intelligently.”
Ernest Hemingway
“Live in each season as it passes; breath the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
Henry David Thoreau
“A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.”
Irish Proverb
Nutrition/Hydration:
“Eating is an agricultural act.”
Wendell Berry
“When you rely on artificial manures (petroleum based fertilizers) to make artificial soil, then you grow artificial plants which make artificial animals which make artificial people who can only be kept alive with artificials.” (pharmaceutical drugs).
Sir Albert Howard, English Botanist 1940
“You, as a food buyer, have the distinct privilege of proactively participating in shaping the world your children will inherit.”
Joel Salatin (Farmer) Polyface Farms, Food Choice Advocate, Dream-Doer
“Food is far more than fuel; it’s a language that programs every function of your cells.”
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
“Good broth will resurrect the dead.”
South American Proverb
“Drink half your bodyweight in pounds in ounces of water daily. The best solution for pollution is dilution.”
Paul Chek, C.H.E.K Institute
“Now, good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both!”
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
“Don’t eat anything your great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. There are a great many food-like items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food.. stay away from these.”
“He who takes medicine and neglects to diet wastes the skill of his doctors.”
Chinese Proverb
“Touch not the poisonous firewater that makes wise men turn to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.”
Chief Tecumseh
“Water, air and cleanliness are the chief articles in my pharmacopoeia.”
Napoleon
Movement:
“What I’m after isn’t flexible bodies but flexible brains. What I’m after is to restore each person to their human dignity.”
Moshe Feldenkrais
“Make the impossible, possible; the possible, easy; and the easy, elegant.”
Moshe Feldenkrais
“Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.”
Confucius
“Walking is man’s best medicine.”
Hippocrates
“The loads we experience in today’s world differ hugely from the loads people experienced a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand years ago. Yet we blithely accept that our health issues—which so many of us share—are genetic. Genetic, a term we’ve internally defined as beyond our control. Whether out of convenience or ignorance, we have failed to address the habitat in which our genes dwell, and the impact of the way we move on the state of our health.”
Katy Bowman, Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement
“First move well, then move often.”
Gray Cook, Functional Movement Systems
Behavior + Environment + Genes = Fitness
“Fitness is the ability to consistently thrive and interact within your environment and any of its demands, toward optimal gene-expression.”
“True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.”
Wilhelm Von Humboldt
“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“I hope that here in America more and more the ideal of the well-trained and vigorous body will be maintained neck by neck with that of the well-trained and vigorous mind as the two coequal halves of the higher education for men and women alike.”
William James
“Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.”
John F. Kennedy
