Fit Soul - Introduction

Hey, what's up? It's Ben Greenfield. You may have heard that I wrote a new book. It's free@fitsoulbook.com as a digital download. You can also get the physical version for next to nothing. I'm just covering my shipping and handling and printing costs. I'm not making any money off this book. I just want you to experience some of the things I've written within the pages. I'm also recording the audiobook version, but I'd like to give you bit of a taste of that audiobook version. And I may actually begin to release every chapter for you on this podcast on Sundays so you can sit back and prepare to experience the half hour long or so audio recording of the first introductory chapter of Fit Soul. I hope you like it. There's actually no show notes for you to go comment on, so you can't go leave me a comment like Ben, never do that again on a Sunday. But anyways, it's here for you to listen to and if you like it you can go to fitsoulbook.com all the resources and everything for what you're about to Hear are@fitsoulbook.com Introduction I hope you enjoy this first chapter and you can always find me on social media at BenGreenfield Fitness on most social media platforms. And perhaps there you can just let me know what you think. And if you want me to keep releasing chapters like this on a weekly basis, if it helps you out, touches your life somehow, or gives you good information, I'll do it. So without further ado, here we go. Fit Soul Tools, Tactics and Habits for Optimizing Spiritual Fitness by Ben Greenfield Introduction who am I? I got lucky. On second thought, I need to work that lucky expression out of my vernacular. I still find myself lazily using it even when writing. Luck, coincidence, and seeming serendipity are all simply signs of a great God doing His work imag mysterious ways. So a more appropriate phrase would be God blessed me. Why do I say this? Frankly, I was born into a very happy, stable home, the second spawned of five siblings, one older brother, one younger brother and two younger sisters. I was raised and homeschooled by newly Christian parents who, after moving to North Idaho to escape sin, drugs, crime and turmoil in their cities of Miami for my father and Detroit for my mother, had a deep yearning in their hearts to raise their children in a safe, protected and spiritually nourishing environment, steeped in deep love and connection. As a result, from the very beginning, I didn't really have any childhood trauma I experienced very little adolescent angst. I was perfectly happy spending my days with my nose in a book, a violin on my shoulder, a chess pawn in my fingers, and a basketball or tennis rack in my hands. Don't get me wrong, my childhood wasn't plain Jane or Ho Hum, but it didn't even involve very little drama, fights, heartache or trouble. No drugs, no alcohol, no social media drama. Heck, no smartphones, tons of reading, very little pop culture drivel, plenty of church and Sunday school. You get the idea. If you happen to be able to get your hands on a copy of Fit Soul, you can see an image of a newspaper interview with me that took place when I was 14 years old. The clipping shows the reporter astutely and accurately commenting that the most important things in Ben's life are his God and family. There's even a quote from me in there saying I was going to say church would be my first priority, but not if you mean a building to go to. I guess I was kind of spiritually woke. That's just how I was. I wasn't perfect, but in most respects I was a pretty decent kid. I loved God, I dug morality and fairness, and I love to make everybody around me happy. The Slide to Inauthenticity but eventually I was traumatized. That is if you consider trauma to be defined as Dr. Gabor Mate describes it, a loss of connection to one's true self. See, I began college as an immature 15 year old who probably should have been more socially responsible and spiritually prepared before diving headfirst into a giant booze infused academic gathering of peers to impress. Almost immediately I began transforming myself into who I thought the world expected me to be, what folks around me perceived as cool and anything but my true authentic self. After all, what cool person could possibly be impressed by a homeschooled, chess playing, fantasy fiction loving, Bible believing, classical music enthusiast. So I began drinking and partying multiple times a week, sleeping around and treating women like objects, remodeling myself as a loud, boisterous, muscle bound jock while sidelining any of my creative or seemingly meek character traits. Fell away from reading my Bible, praying regularly, attending church and maintaining any semblance of union with God while still calling myself a Christian. My lifestyle reflected anything but perhaps my only saving grace despite my pure neglect of spiritual disciplines was that I didn't shirk my academic and career disciplines during this time. So I rose to the top of nearly every class in which I enrolled. I completed a full pre med curriculum, I attained a master's degree in exercise physiology and biomechanics, all while simultaneously moonlighting as a personal trainer, a sports camp and tennis instructor, a coffee shop barista, and a bartender. In my senior year of college, I married a wonderful, faithful, beautiful Christian girl named Jessa. Upon becoming a husband, I gained a slight sense of greater responsibility. I straightened up just a bit, or at least I quit partying and drinking quite so much. I began to attend church more frequently, mostly to make my wife happy, but also because I had a slight stirring in my soul. It was probably the right thing to do. Then, three years into our marriage, Jess and I were blessed with twin boys and my sense of responsibility even more dramatically shifted. I started a family constitution, a trust, a living will, and an investment portfolio. An outside observer may have assumed I was finally becoming a man, though I was still an irresponsible, selfish boy on the inside. My neglect of the spiritual disciplines was still painfully glaring, though. Studying scripture, praying, meditating, fasting, silence, presence, true worship of God. These were all shoved to the side in favor of pumping iron, drinking protein shakes, flexing, building a business, making money, seeking praise of men and women, and ultimately serving my fault self while simultaneously staying severely disconnected from my true self, often to the neglect of my young family. I began a slow slide into the escape I could afford. Through workaholism I built a successful chain of personal training studios and gyms, began making six figures a year as a health and exercise junkie guru, was nominated as America's top personal trainer, appeared on the COVID of multiple fitness magazines, and simultaneously rose to the peak of athletic success as an adventure athlete who hopped on planes multiple times a week to leave town and compete, an ironman racer who trained for hours a day while my family played alone at home, and a ripped fit, picture perfect image of all the shallow pleasures of the flesh that the world and social media holds dear. My wife, Jessa patiently put up with my gallivanting about the globe, engaged in my pursuit of ego inflating enjoyments. She prayed earnestly for me, did the lion's share of raising our young boys, attended church by herself as I travel nearly every Sunday, and by the grace of God, she somehow patiently put up with being married to the spiritual equivalent of an irresponsible, selfish brat. I bought a condo, then a house, then another house, couple nice cars, biohacking toys, more fitness equipment, rifles, pistols, bows, arrows, spearfishing guns, gold, silver, bitcoin, plenty of ribeye steaks, a guitar, a ukulele, few drums, nice things for my wife, toys, toys and More toys for my boys, a massive library of books, a thriving nutrition supplements company, a lucrative speaking and writing career, then finally, a dream home on 10 acres of forested land in Washington State. Fame, power, money, belonging and social media follows were my holy metrics of success. Yet even then, 10 years into marriage, saturated with all the worldly success that society places on a pedestal, and from an outsider's perspective, becoming a man who had made it with a beautiful family, a successful career, social media, fame and a fit body, I was severely broken and unhappy. There was never enough to satisfy my carnal cravings. I succumbed to nearly every temptation the world threw at me. I sacrificed relationships, friends and family for all the notoriety, wealth and prosperity I thought would make me happy. I escaped the constant pricking of my conscience with what I knew deep down to be true and right by running physically and running emotionally, filling my life with a constant buzz of doing, doing and doing that kept me from confronting the gaping hole of personal emptiness and unhappiness inside of me. I was disconnected from my true self. I was traumatized without even knowing it. And perhaps most sadly, I was disconnected from God, my God shaped hole. There was a distinct moment when I came to the realization that my priorities in life needed to seriously change and my path to the top of the mountain was in truth plunging my life, my family and relationship with God to the bottom of a dark valley. That moment occurred when I realized I could no longer hide my rotten habits away from my patient and long suffering wife. Upon returning from a long solitary walk on a Sunday afternoon, I was convicted by God and broke down in front of Jessa, confessing to her that I hadn't been a faithful husband. Of course, I had amassed many other wrongdoings related to my inherent selfishness, but I knew that unfaithfulness to my wife was what was really eating me up from inside out. It was one of the most difficult conversations I've ever had. In an act of pure grace, kindness and love, she forgave me. But she was hurt to the core. And for weeks our relationship, already built upon the frail foundation of an absent husband and father, became even more rocky and precarious. I feared I had screwed everything up big time and that the family I loved so much was now going to be torn apart in a public and embarrassing fashion. In the later years of their marriage, I'd witnessed my own parents painful divorce. Felt as though the same tragedy was about to happen in my own marriage. And worse yet, I knew it was all my fault. And so one morning, days after my confession to my wife and sitting alone in my kitchen, sipping coffee while staring off into the hills behind the house in the throes of frustration, fear, shame, and emotional alienation from Jessa, I realized if I didn't begin to tend to my spiritual health and restore my union with God, I really was going to lose all that really mattered in life. I was, as Mark 8:36 alludes to, going to be a man who had gained the whole world yet lost his own soul. That very morning I went upstairs to my bedroom. I found my dusty, neglected Bible, and I cracked it open. It had been so long since I'd read God's Word that I simply began with the very first chapter of Genesis. After reading, I turned to God and I started to pray. It felt awkward, foreign, and strange to be speaking to the Creator whom I neglected for so long, but I poured my heart out to him nonetheless, in a desperate cry for help and direction. Later that week I even wrote a personal prayer and began to recite it each and every morning, a prayer I continued to recite to this very day. It goes like this. Our Father in heaven, I surrender all to you. Turn me into the Father and husband you would have for me to be into a man who will fulfill your great commission and remove from me all judgment of others. Grant me your heavenly wisdom, remove from me my worldly temptations, teach me to listen to your still, small voice in the silence and fill me with your peace, your love, and your joy. Amen. I also began to meditate and a journal, and as the months proceeded, I dove into the spiritual disciplines that I discuss in several links that I'll give you in the accompanying PDF that you can get along with this audiobook. I voraciously consumed titles such as Celebration of Discipline, the Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster, Good Book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Also Good Book by Donald S. Whitney, the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook by Adele Calhoun, and many other books far outside the realm of the fitness science, nutrition, and biohacking literature I'd so myopically immersed myself in for o too long. I ferociously committed myself to my family for the first time in years, learning to be fully present with my wife and twin boys, trusting on God to provide for my needs rather than engaging in frantic, desperate workaholism and being the father, the leader, and the man who I knew from childhood that God called me to be, despite my decades long resistance to accepting that calling and forsaking all my irresponsible boyish escapades. Perhaps most importantly, over the next several Months. God slowly opened my eyes and I began to realize that no amount of money, fame and famous friends, business success, fitness, dietary perfection, supplements, drugs, books, toys, musical instruments or anything else could fill the God shaped hole within one's heart. See, every person has a void in their life that can only be filled by God. This God shaped hole is simply the innate longing of the heart for something outside itself, something transcendent, something other, something greater. Ecclesiastes 3:11 in the Bible refers to this as the eternity in man's heart. See, God made us for an eternal purpose and only God can fulfill that deep rooted desire for eternity. Nearly every religion that exists is based upon this innate desire to connect with someone or something greater than ourselves. And this desire can only be filled by God. The problem is, we silly, selfish humans can spend much of our life, or worse, all of our life, ignoring this hole or attempting to fill it with anything other than God if it promises to fulfill our longing for meaning. Whether business, family, sports and other hobbies, food, drink, exercise and the like, we keep dumping it into that hole, expecting that at some point the hole will be full and the result will be the happiness we've been craving that nothing else seems to. Yet by pursuing these things that are not eternal, we remain unfulfilled and continue to wonder why our lives never seem satisfactory. Sure, we can achieve happiness for a short period of time, like when we finally get to the body fat percentage we desire, or discover the perfect diet, graduate college or graduate college again, cross the finish line of a triathlon, get married, have kids, win the lottery, or achieve massive business success. But nothing fills the longing for eternity. People pursuing all things except God can certainly achieve some measure of happiness for a short period of time. But consider the words of King Solomon, who had all the riches, success and power one could ever wish for. In short, a vast world of wealth that many humans spend their entire lives seeking. Yet he called this all dissatisfactory vanity. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon at least realized that all the worldly pleasures in the absence of God are vain. Many other rich and successful people don't even arrive at that realization. Simply consider the Hollywood suicides of people like Robin Williams or Marilyn Monroe, the seeming unhappiness and unfulfilled attitude of great athletes like Tiger woods and Michael Jordan, and the wealthy, successful yet miserable status of America's dream job elite, which was highlighted in a recent New York Times article I read on people haunting the halls miserably at corporations like McKinsey Company, Google, Goldman Sachs and Apple things get even worse if you, like me, are driven. As my friend Dr. Doug Brackman highlights so well in his book by the same name. Many of us are born with this natural genetic drive often seen in entrepreneurs, pro athletes, inventors, adventurers and Navy seals. Due to our built in DNA hardwiring, we tend to seek thrill, success, achievement and adventure even more than the average human. Which might sound familiar to you, resulting in rampant impulsivity, distraction, havoc, stress and diagnoses of medical conditions like ADHD or ADD or ocd. As Doug discussed when I interviewed him a podcast about the book, we driven people fight this constant lifetime uphill battle in a quest for happiness until we find God. And in many cases, our God shaped hole can be an even deeper and more problematic abyss. If this sounds familiar to you, you should read Doug's book or listen to my podcast with him. And incidentally, whenever I mention a book or a podcast on this audio, I'll link to it on the references page for the chapter. So for example, in this case you can find the references page@fitsoulbook.com no regrets, only Gratefulness Ultimately, in the same way a square peg can't fit a round hole, the God shaped hole inside each of us cannot be filled by anyone or anything other than God. Not only did I eventually come to the profound realization that my own hole had been empty for a very long time, but the same was also true for my thousands upon thousands of followers in the physical culture, fitness and health world who had a similar deep, unhappy gnawing in their soul and were craving the answers I was suddenly finding now. At this point in my life, I could have had many regrets. Regrets at having played a large part in giving many people the false impression that they could find their happiness through exercise and dieting. Regrets at having spent so many years neglecting my own spiritual fitness while simultaneously spending inordinate amounts of time honing physical and mental fitness perfection. Regrets that I'd stepped onto so many hundreds of stages in front of so many microphones, teaching so many people how to satisfy their fleshly pursuits while simultaneously presenting a skewed reality. What's truly important in life. Yet, upon reflecting upon the plan that God manifested in my life, I realized there was no need for regret. Instead, I was washed over with this understanding that over 20 years of building this giant fitness empire, God had blessed me with a sizable audience of people hungry for and craving the same fulfillment I'd finally found. Matter of fact, I have a snippet of a journal entry of mine from November 30th, 2019, during which I was meditating upon this very concept and experiencing a temptation to be regretful of squandering years goes like this when you idiot, can't you see that all along this is a journey of no regrets and only gratefulness? Are you ashamed of being a bright and shiny spandex, gold tanned Gold's gym Nautilus spinning as seen on tv glittery Jamba Juice fitness icon? Well, don't be. Why? Because look where it somehow brought you. A following, a stage, a rabied fan base of listeners and followers who are get this all suddenly looking for answers and pop. You're the dude standing in front of them and you're standing there with the elixir in your hand and the spark in your soul. Do you really think they want another longevity hack or pill pop or new dumbbell move? No, they think that's what they want and that's certainly the shiny penny that got them to grab a ticket to the experience that is you. But you know what? They're now sitting on that chair. You're now standing on that stage and you've got a giant audience ready to hear what they really need to hear the message of light and love and hope and fulfillment that only God can bring. So yeah, God works in mysterious ways. He draws straight paths with crooked lines. His path to the top of the mountain is a zigzagging goat trail that eventually, if you listen to his voice and pray for wisdom and discernment, takes you exactly to where he desires for you to make maximum impact with the life, the purpose, and the unique skill set you've been blessed with. There's actually a wonderful book that explores this path up the mountain concept even more fully. It's called the Second Mountain by David Brooks, the Great Commission. After turning to God to fill the abyss in my soul, beginning to pursue the spiritual disciplines with the same fervor as I'd been pursuing the physical disciplines and experiencing the incredibly blessed sensation of of waking each morning with a satisfied smile on my face, a happy and connected family, and an extraordinary fulfillment of daily union with God. Life became absolutely magical and continues to grow more magical each day as I seek wisdom, discernment and direction from God. But I'd be remiss, not to mention another meaningful moment that occurred along the way. Five years into my journey of blissful connection to faith and family, the spark lit within my soul burst into an absolute wildfire like inferno when I emerged from an intense plant medicine ceremony I'd prepared for with weeks of prayer, fasting, meditation and intense, intense focus upon my relationship with God. My intention for plant medicine was to turn off my analytical brain and creatively develop a few new personal and business ideas for fully manifesting my purpose in life and impact on the world. Now wait a second. What's the deal with plant medicines? Well, we're going to get into this in chapter 20, but I certainly think there's an appropriate, responsible and purposeful use God intended for plant or synthetic medicine. In the very same way there's an appropriate, responsible and purposeful use for a nice Bordeaux, a touch of tobacco from a cigar or a pipe, or a double espresso shot pumpkin spice latte, for example. I personally derive a great deal of energetic and creative benefit from the left and right merging of the brain hemispheres, the increase in sensory perception and the neuronal growth that occurs when I microdose with a bit of psilocybin or LSD on a long riding day, the relaxing and socially and sexually enhancing benefits of a touch of MDMA or cannabis, and even the enormous spectrum of insights and ideas I get gain from a more intensive so called journey. Plant medicine, when used responsibly, can be a blessing. But just like alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, St. John's Wort, or any other popular substance humankind has discovered to tweak dials in their brain can also be used as an addiction, an escape and a dangerous replacement for God. In this specific case, during 27 hours of journeying under the guidance of a trained Christian facilitator, I was completely astonished by the fact that I didn't experience a single business insight, strategic plan for my company or brand, or a host of new ideas for work and life projects. Instead, I spent the entire session repeatedly spellbound with intense and overwhelming visualizations of the entire story of Jesus playing over and over again in intense detail his deity, his death, his burial and his resurrection. I spent this medicine journey dwelling upon Jesus hero's journey, including all the intensity of his suffering that you'll discover in chapter nine, along with the glorious message of salvation, opportunity for all of us humans to release our burdens, sin and shame, and ultimately a free solution to all of our struggles, both great and small. Upon emerging from the ceremony, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt in my heart that I must spend the rest of my life shouting this good news of deliverance from the rooftops. Matter of fact, here's just a small snippet of the many journal entries that I logged for days after that ceremony goes like this. We can all be saved. All our sins can be washed away until we are white as snow. All the shame that's carried in individuals and even in families for generations upon generations, for thousands of years, that's all covered by Christ. And through him we can all be forgiven. Sure, you can keep coming back to the same old wounds over and over and over again like a nightmarish dream. But I can tell you that unless you know that it's all covered by Christ, you will never emerge from a cycle of trauma, sin or shame. So what do you do, Ben? You armor yourself with the full armor of God. You build your soul with the spiritual disciplines. You help your children put their armor on. You help them build their spiritual disciplines. You pray. You meditate. You memorize scripture. You go to church. You build a community. You equip spirits. You show the world yourself and your family as a living, breathing example of God's light and love. You shout this message of salvation from the rooftops until your very last dying breath because the world needs to hear it so desperately now. Did I need plant medicine to come fully to that realization? I doubt it. I believe some are called and some are not to that type of approach. But it certainly accelerated in a very dramatic fashion my own awakening to the meaning and magnitude of my true call calling to use my personal Unique Purpose statement to fulfill the Great Commission in each and every last aspect of my life. And what is that commission? Well, you can find it by opening your Bible to Matthew 28 verses 17 through 20 where Jesus says, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. So we are each called in our own unique way to fulfill that commission. I recently discovered a good perspective on unique calling presented by Sadhu Sundar Singh, a remarkable Indian disciple of Jesus Christ. It's actually well worth reading his biography, which I'll link to on the resources page for this chapter. FitSoulBook.com Introduction he writes in his inspiring book with and Without Christ, everyone should follow his calling and carrying out his work according to his God given gifts and capacities. The same breath is blown into flute, cornet and a bagpipe, but different music is produced according to different instruments. In the same way the one Spirit works in us God's children, but different results are produced and God's glorified through them according to each one's temperament and personality. I challenge you, too, to dwell upon what kind of instrument God has made you to be, and how his breath of life can fuel your unique purpose in life. Let those things that come easy to you, like reading, teaching, speaking, art, music, crafting things with your hands or anything else, be the things that you use to minister to the world and never feel guilty if it does come easy. A violin can spend its entire life glancing with covetousness at a piano while wishing it could and attempting to make keyboard sounds. Or that same violin could spend its life playing a beautiful, enchanting concerto that displays its full violin glory in Zechariah 9:9 17 in the Bible you can read how God shot Israel like a lightning bolt from his battle bow. But we are all God's children, and the Bible tells us that children are like arrows in one's quiver. So also imagine that each day God is plucking you from his mighty quiver and shooting you from his bow like a lightning bolt into the world. So where is God aiming you? Are you prepared to fly like a fiery arrow wherever he aims and calls you? Well, that's enough about life's purpose for now, but I'll return to it in detail in chapter eight, Forgiveness So these days does my life still involve daily struggles accompanied by temptations, failures, and setbacks? You bet. As Romans 8 one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture states, all creation groans. It goes like this, for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. For the creation was subjected to futility not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. That's right. This means life will be tough and full of temptation, toil, and often unpleasant work by the sweat and occasional blood of our brow. We'll experience disappointments, emotional ups and downs, conflicts, turmoil, and unexpected, sometimes troubling twists and turns. This will continue until the very last day we're swept into heaven. Furthermore, you don't just have to believe upon the hero's journey that I'll describe in chapter nine, then wistfully waltz off into the sunset whistling a happy tune as all of life instantly becomes magical. It takes a bit more than that. It takes a release of shame of what you've done or experienced in your life thus far, and a full casting of those concerns and burdens upon God. It also takes forgiveness, a concept perfectly illustrated in the story of Louis Zamperini, the Olympic athlete and airman who endured 26 torturous months in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. A stupendous story now illustrated fully in the book and the movie Unbroken. Hailed as a hero for his incredible story of survival, Zamperini, for years after his release, was actually emotionally scarred, filled with hatred and plagued by nightmares. He became an alcoholic, he abused his wife, he neglected his young daughter, and eventually, in an act of great desperation, he attended a Billy Graham crusade, confessed his sins, entered into union with God, put his faith in Christ, experienced forgiveness, and was finally delivered from his nightmarish existence. He writes. Deciding to devote your life to God doesn't mean instantaneous, non stop happiness. Hard work lays ahead. I fought despondency and doubt and tried to come to terms with what had happened to me. The hardest thing in life is to forgive. Forgiveness is healing. Zamperini's epic survival story didn't buy him happiness. It was only the grace of Jesus that filled the hole in his heart and gave him the peace and happiness he'd been seeking for so long. So you too, as I did, must forgive yourself and release all feelings of shame to God. Ask for his forgiveness from others, as I also did for rotten things you've done in the past. And finally, as Zamperini did to his Japanese wartime tormentors, forgive others who have wronged you and who you may hold bitterness against. That is, when filled with a belief and faith in the hero's journey, you'll embody the powerful words of Second Corinthians 5:17. If anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. So there you have it. That's who I am. A new creation with a renewed and fantastically exciting lease on life. That is also why over the past several years, if you're a regular reader of mine or listener of my podcast, you may have noticed a shift in my message towards a less myopic focus on physical and mental fitness, and instead a more broad and necessary focus on the inclusion of spiritual fitness, too. Ultimately, I'm overjoyed and inspired with the clarity of life purpose I experience every day. Now I have, by God's mercy, been plucked from sin to salvation and from meaninglessness to purpose fullness. Within this book are some of the biggest lessons I've learned along the way. And so where do you and I go from here? Well, I'll personally continue to live out my life's purpose, which is currently to read, write, learn, teach, sing, speak, compete and create in full presence and selfless love to the glory of God. Don't worry, later on you'll get a chance to learn how to hone your own purpose statement. This is going to include me not only continuing to teach you about how to care for your body and brain using the latest research, ancestral wisdom and modern science so you too can be fully equipped to live out your own purpose in life, but also me continuing to transform as God works in me and through me from an adventurous boy to a more responsible and mature mentor and sage who can teach you how to not make the same mistakes I made and who can also teach you how to tend for the one part of you that needs the care and attention the most. Your soul. It's my hope and prayer that I can, within this book, help you attain not just a fit body and a fit mind, but also a fit soul. Now, this book began as a series of weekly so called Sabbath ramblings on my website@BenGreenfieldFitness.com a series which subsequently underwent significant editing and modifications, then was combined with additions from spiritual material and edited sections from my book Boundless and now exists as what you are listening to today. A collection of what I would consider to be my most important research, advice and wisdom on how to attain, as the title of this book implies, a fit Soul. Let's start by ensuring you begin your journey to a fit soul with a clean slate by releasing all attachments in life. In chapter one, you're about to discover how to do just that. In the meantime, for resources, references, links and additional reading and listening material for this chapter you've just listened to, visit fitsoulbook.com introduction.