Living A Better Life with Jerzy Gregorek

Jerzy Gregorek is a world champion weightlifter, poetry writer, and the co-author of "The Happy Body", a science-based mindful exercise & nutrition program, which connects what the body needs and what the mind wants with the better person you want to be. Jerzy has won 4 World Weightlifting Championships and established a world record that still stands today. Jerzy has been mentoring clients for over 30 years and The Happy Body program has reached more than 30,000 practitioners throughout the world, including numerous Hollywood stars, Silicon Valley luminaries, people with chronic conditions, people of all sizes and shapes. In 1988, Jerzy earned an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. His poems and translations have appeared in numerous publications including The American Poetry Review.

Most Influential Person
Jerzy Popieluszko, a Priest I knew in Poland who became a Catholic saint.  

Effect on Emotions
Mindfulness helps me to stay with the poems. When I write a poem, I meditate. Every time that I work with a poem, I'm in a mindful state.
In a class I was teaching, a woman told me she didn't have thirty minutes to exercise every day because she had two jobs. When I was driving home I was thinking how could a person not have thirty minutes in a day to create this micro progressive system so they could get better in life.
So I came home, went to my meditation room for four hours and then wrote a poem. I went back to the class and read the poem and the poem was very moving to everyone.
The women said that the poem moved her. (Jerzy shares the poem later in the episode).

Thoughts on Breathing
I created singularity of the brain within one repetition and there are six things that happen with one repetition. Inhale and then holding the breath, flexing the seven body parts, lifting, stretch, return, and exit. 
All six things repeat, and those six things create the mantra and that singularity and mindfulness that happens during this time creates thirteen minutes of exercise system when they exercise that way. They also feel like they meditate.
So they are completely mindful during the thirty minutes.

Suggested Resources
Book: Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation by Bob Roth
Book: The Happy Body: The Simple Science of Nutrition, Exercise, and Relaxation by Jerzy Gregorek
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Bullying Story

I was one of the shorter boys and of course the communism was there too, and communism was tough. When you are thirteen, you sense what parents are going through. They were persecuted and they have problems so you feel it.
When I was around thirteen I was bullied, badly. I had to walk to the school, not a long walk, maybe a quarter of a mile. During this walk I would be caught by boys to get money, and they would hold me upside down by the ankles and shake me to get money from me. There was constant bullying. 

Final Words of Advice
I think that we need to focus on goodness, the goodness in every way and fight for it. The goodness is getting more flexible or stronger or more mindful. The goodness is be kind in the world. The goodness is to love people as they are and give them the science of what to do to get better.
Goodness is to choose hard choices verses easy choices in life to create micro progressive systems.
Goodness is an amazing thing because goodness also creates self-control and self-discipline, delayed gratification and it is a sign of virtues.
I think the stoics were right that virtues are more important than almost anything that we do in life. 

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