We know what physical fitness looks like and what it takes to achieve it. Spiritual fitness is a bit tougher to define, but it's actually not so tough to achieve. Like its physical counterpart, it just requires some willingness and a little coaching. The latter is what The Soul Workout provides. The began this by learning, practicing, and thinking about small, everyday actions, such as, 'return your shopping cart,' 'have cash-register honesty,' 'don't put the empty milk container back in the fridge,' etc.

There's a saying in many recovery programs, 'while I was in here trying to recover, my disease was in the parking lot, doing pushups.' That saying applies to more than just those in recovery. While most people are trying to live their lives as decent, spiritually-fit human beings, life itself is 'out there' doing pushups. So many small, everyday life events can distract individuals from their spiritual ideals. The guy who cuts off people in traffic or the woman with twenty items in the 'ten-items-or-less' aisle can make one tear up all those lofty spiritual principles and throw them away with both hands.

The Soul Workout provides easy-to-implement exercises to help readers build and maintain the spiritual conditioning they aspire to, but too often fail to achieve. It will help strengthen spiritual 'muscles,' so they are not as easily overpowered by life events.

Some Spiritual Principles

The principles discussed in this book are those embodied in the Twelve Steps of recovery. Those I write about are not the only ones there are; they're the ones I have recognized and attempted to develop within myself, or live in, since I re-entered recovery in the mid-2000s. No step calls on or builds only one spiritual quality; and each quality is colored with and by the others, but all are necessary to build character, to strengthen spirituality, and to help one grow as a spiritual being.

•         Honesty, including truthfulness, integrity, candor, and fidelity.

•         Hope, including optimism, trust, and faith.

•         Acceptance, including self-acceptance.

•         Faith, including trust, confidence, conviction, reliance, open-mindedness; also freedom, commitment.

•         Courage, including bravery, heroism, guts; also honesty and humility.

•         Integrity, including truthfulness, honor, reliability, acceptance, and self-acceptance.

•         Willingness, including readiness, enthusiasm, passion, and faith.

•         Humility, including surrender, acceptance, and unassuming nature.

•         Love, including concern and caring for another's well being; compassion, kindness, and tolerance.

•         Discipline, including to bring under control; to train or develop; also forgiveness, integrity, prudence, discretion, and faith.

•         Patience/Perseverance, including endurance, steadfastness in the face of adversity, hope, humility, and fidelity ('to thine own self be true').

•         Awareness, including consciousness, attentiveness, and discipline.

•         Service, including help, assistance, benefit; also compassion, tolerance, self-sacrifice, and equality.