Blog Post 09: Our Vision

Freight House Fitness Vision:"Reaching those who aren't active, who feel hopeless, lost and frustrated with their health. Showing them love, encouragement and serving them in a way that they break free from their problems and start accomplishing their goals by discovering what's holding them back."      This vision and mission is the core of us. Boot camps, personal training, meal plans, making people sweat... That's all important but what separates us is freedom. Living life free from our strongholds is the main purpose of Freight House Fitness. Ever find yourself diving into a bowl of ice cream or cake and midway you realize you're doing this and wonder why? Or on a different topic, why you are in and out of relationship after relationship? We have parts of our heart that have been wounded and most of the time it occurs before the age of 5. This is a part of us that we might not even be able to recognize ourselves because we buried it deep down a long time ago because of the pain it caused us. I'm going to break down these strong holds or problems into 3 categories; generational sin, ungodly beliefs and life's hurts. Sounds kinda scary huh? Well let's describe these and you'll see the relation of these within your life.I was driving down the road one day and traffic was thick. I had to be at a meeting and the thought of being late or even on time but not early gave me some serious anxiety! Every time I'd get into similar situations I feel this heaviness and emotional breakdown! Well my father and grandfather had the same issues. My grandpa had to be 30 min early to everything and was super OCD to the point he'd nearly have an anxiety attack. I took on that feeling and this wasn't a feeling from God. We all take on these sins from our parents. We must understand these patterns and break the cycle. Alcoholism, adultery, divorce, abuse... all these things can be passed down unless we get to the root of the cause. Sometimes simply forgiving our parents for the problem can be the beginning of our freedom from that. Taking ourselves back to our child self and experiences the feelings we had when first experiencing these sins then in that moment experiencing the love and forgiveness in its place. Replacing what our worldly parents sinned against us with what God says about us and the support and love we needed in that moment.My parents had addictions and were unable to be there for me and raise me. My grandparents took custody of me and took on the parent role. But still there was this feeling of abandonment and feeling unlovable. This can result in ungodly beliefs. I believed I had to make sure people were pleased or else they'd abandon me. So I began to live this life always trying to please everyone and at the end of the day I felt tired, lost and not myself because I had lost myself in trying to be what others wanted me to be. Do this exercise...Think of an event that took place that resulted in a negative feeling. For example: I lie to my friend when he asks if I like classic rock music because I know he likes it. In result I feel dumb, confused, and sad that I couldn't agree to disagree with him. Now once you have the event and feeling think back to the first time this occurred. For me it was when I was about 5 years old I agreed t0 throw rocks at a car because my friend had asked me to and I wanted his friendship. I had abandonment issues related to my parents leaving. So to heal this I had to give up my rights to having parents, forgive them for not being there. Experiencing those hurts as a 5 year old boy again and replacing it with love from my heavenly father. Now I simply say "no" and have found people respect me even more for being straight forward and honest with them. The amount of freedom and joy that has taken place is amazing!Life hurts. God never promised a life without hurt. The older we get the worse it gets. Unless we deal with this hurt as it occurs it accumulates in our hearts. There's a spot in our heart and when we don't deal with hurt properly it falls into that spot. Unfortunately very few of us know how to deal with pain and especially when we are children. Here's the reality... time heals nothing. People say time heals but it doesn't. In fact pain gets worse over time. In my opinion emotions heal in the presence of God. Time can help us escape the feeling in the moment, or help justify the hurt but it doesn't heal it. These hurts compromise our mental, emotional, spiritual and relational health. I made a vow at a young age that I was not going to be rejected and I would prove people wrong. So I led with this hurt and in trying to prove myself to people I kept finding myself feeling empty at the end of the day. We must understand we have to empty our hurts and dive to the root of the cause and give up that hurt over to God. We must talk about our hurts in order for them to heal.Our vision is heal those wounds and feelings of shame, guilt, self-pity, anger and replace them with self love, joy and peace. When we begin to love ourselves then accomplishing our fitness goals seem to be much easier and exciting!