Ep #159 Optimize Your Mind and Enhance Your Mental Fitness with Kasper Van Der Muelen

SEXYFIT PODCAST

Hey there sister!

Have you ever dreamt of being superhuman?

You know, like being able to juggle the kids, a career, your transformation, and everything else that makes up your busy day.

Sister, wouldn’t that be nice?

Today I am very excited to introduce you to my new found friend, Kasper Van Der Meulen. Kasper is an author and lifestyle adventurer. He went from being overweight, burnt out and unhappy, to developing superhuman focus, fitness, and personal freedom.

He might just let us in on all his secrets. Who knows? Listen and keep reading to find out!

Here’s What We Talked About:

• How to train our mind like a muscle so we can become accountable and reach our transformation goals.
• Different ways to meditate so we can reach self-awareness and start taking the responsibility we need to start making better choices.
• Why difficult options are often the best choices to help us achieve the goals that are outside of comfort zone.

Work Your Mind like a Muscle:

The point of being ready usually comes with the realization that everything in our life is our responsibility. The moment that we make the changes and the conscious choice to try to change our lives is the moment we start stepping into our responsibility.

Sister, sometimes when we come to a realization, we want to hit the ground running. Unfortunately, that is not always the best way to go about our mental transformation.

Kasper’s approach to mental training is similar to his physical training. We have to mentally make that switch to get off the couch and go for a run. It doesn’t have to be a five mile run uphill with ankle weights (oh thank god, right?).

When it comes to goal setting and making changes in our lives, we need to start small. What is the minimum effective dose? The least we can do and yield results?

Start slow and work our way up. Kasper’s mental transformation took ten years! Ten years of working his mind like a muscle to get to where he is now #superhuman.

We cannot compare our beginning with where he is now, that would just be ridiculous.

We can’t create a castle in the air.

Point here is that anything we want to manifest in our life can be done if we are willing to do the work and understand that it will take time. Baby steps, sister, baby steps.

Sister, want even more effective tips and tricks to training your mind like a muscle? Check out my book The Sexyfit Method here! Plus, you get over forty mouthwatering recipes, like coconut ceviche and chocolate avocado pudding!

Sound Body, Sound Mind:

Our surroundings help create the brain patterns that influence our thoughts and our actions. Once we understand that our brains are programmed by our surroundings we can start to change things.

We can start to catch ourselves in the moment. But, how do we reach this awareness? Meditation!

For Kasper meditation is about watching the programs that influence our choices and our attempts to escape reality.

Why did I eat that cheeseburger and not the salad? What about the moment influenced my mind to make that choice? We can learn to lead ourselves to the present moment through breathing exercises, which are another form of meditation.

Focusing all of our attention on breathing can help us guide the monkey mind back.

Exercise is also another form of meditation.

Sister, you know that moment when your cardio session starts to become straight up DEATH? That moment when your mind tries to tell you all the reasons you should just quit? The possibility of hurting your ankle or falling off the stairmaster...again (yeah, that’s happened...multiple times).

Observing ourselves in that moment helps us understand how we respond to difficulty and we can take the responsibility to tease out our excuse generator.

You have to see the problem to fix the problem.

In a sense, it is like taming a wild horse with the advantage of knowing what the wild horse is going to do next.

Going “okay, when it becomes difficult, I tend to___________.”

Instead of criticizing ourselves for quitting, we can approach the situation with a sense of wonder and this prevents us from going into irrationality.

(Feeling like your biggest critic? Check out Ep #150 Overcoming Judgement and Radical Self-Love)

Meditation can help us reach the self-awareness we need to reach the self-awareness we need to take responsible action.

The Best Way Out is Always Through:

One of Kasper’s favorite mental training strategies is consciously creating suffering. This has taught him a lot about himself.

He realized that when he was out of shape and unhappy, he only did easy things. He never did anything that was hard.

Sister, we can totally relate.

If we never try to lift anything heavy, then we will never be able to lift anything heavy. If we never do anything difficult, then life never becomes easier.

For example, the exhaustion that comes with endurance running and cold training, for Kasper, has become a practice that has functioned as a form of meditation.

We don’t have to climb Mt. Everest to benefit from doing something difficult. Although, that would make a pretty cool story, right?

Having a moment in our day that we decide to live uncomfortably can help our minds become stronger and help those uncomfortable moments become comfortable.

Let’s look back at where we were at the beginning of our transformation. When the macro counting was confusing or when we could only do so many squats at very low weights.

Yeah, that was difficult, but looking at where we are now has made that difficulty sooooo worth it. And to move forward, we have to endure difficulty all over again. Why not implement practices that help our minds train for those moments?

There are truly great things waiting outside our comfort zone, sister.

Often we think of training as only something we can physically perform but our minds have so much capacity that we can only tap into we decide to train it like a muscle.

We spend hours training to get stronger glutes but never stronger minds, even while the key to becoming superhuman is all in our heads.

Sister, being superhuman takes responsibility, self-awareness, and letting go of the fear of difficulty. These elements live inside each and everyone one of us, so what are we waiting for?

With love, Zlata