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Cultist I've been away a while working on myself. As a matter of fact, I spent last week fasting from all mental distraction including reading, movies, internet, TV, and music. So I certainly wasn't posting then. But my time off has been fruitful.
I've been working on my concepts of the structure of the mind including the left and right sides that I mentioned before. Part of this journey of realization brought me to the conclusion that my intellect and the products of it are not me or my identity.
Most people describe themselves as the product of what their mind has created. They also judge themselves by the ability of their intellect to do its job. Of course, because the vast majority of people's minds are running on reactive autopilot, they are also describing themselves as the byproduct of an out of control intellect.
What's more, most people label the thoughts running in their mind as themselves or as something they are creating. They are "their thoughts" that created their identity/personality. And because these reactive thoughts frequently come out as reactive talking, the words people used are also lumped together as part of their identity.
Yet the intellect is just a tool. For most people, it's also a tool that's has merely been reacting to material input since they were very young. So it's a tool that is being controlled by everything outside instead of the inner wielder. It's not us. It's not who we really are. Even its opinions and beliefs, the things most people hold dear, are not really us. They're just more conclusions the tool has come to in reaction to things people have told us or stories we've been fed by TV, media, and society.
The most efficient use of the tool is as a powerful calculator wielded by the higher, conscious mind to analyze its needs when manifesting its will. Otherwise it's just a tool of whatever sense data is being fed it, which is usually self destructive or limiting.
So now when I find my mind worrying about something or judging someone I remind myself that it's not the real me. And the train of thought slows and eventually stops because I am no longer willing to put effort into something that's not my choice or representative of what I want.
I've been working on my concepts of the structure of the mind including the left and right sides that I mentioned before. Part of this journey of realization brought me to the conclusion that my intellect and the products of it are not me or my identity.
Most people describe themselves as the product of what their mind has created. They also judge themselves by the ability of their intellect to do its job. Of course, because the vast majority of people's minds are running on reactive autopilot, they are also describing themselves as the byproduct of an out of control intellect.
What's more, most people label the thoughts running in their mind as themselves or as something they are creating. They are "their thoughts" that created their identity/personality. And because these reactive thoughts frequently come out as reactive talking, the words people used are also lumped together as part of their identity.
Yet the intellect is just a tool. For most people, it's also a tool that's has merely been reacting to material input since they were very young. So it's a tool that is being controlled by everything outside instead of the inner wielder. It's not us. It's not who we really are. Even its opinions and beliefs, the things most people hold dear, are not really us. They're just more conclusions the tool has come to in reaction to things people have told us or stories we've been fed by TV, media, and society.
The most efficient use of the tool is as a powerful calculator wielded by the higher, conscious mind to analyze its needs when manifesting its will. Otherwise it's just a tool of whatever sense data is being fed it, which is usually self destructive or limiting.
So now when I find my mind worrying about something or judging someone I remind myself that it's not the real me. And the train of thought slows and eventually stops because I am no longer willing to put effort into something that's not my choice or representative of what I want.
Cultist I was at work and had little to do and started reading Wikipedia's entry on the effect of Placebos. I just thought it would be fun to read about how science views the power of the mind. And what I found was quite disturbing.
There was an entire paragraph in the article describing all the things a placebo can do. A placebo can relax muscles, a placebo can induce intoxication, etc. (It can even increase endurance, speed, and weight-lifting ability, and
the article suggests that perhaps it shouldn't be allowed in sporting
competitions. Absolutely, let's ban the power of thought from sports!) Yet it's stated that a placebo is an inert substance that is designed to convince a person to create the effect themselves. But yet there is a list of what it can do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Science, but an inert substance can't do anything! So then clearly the paragraph should read: The human mind can relax muscles, the human mind can induce intoxication, etc. With so much staring at and focusing on something that is inert and only a trick to get the real power to act, how can a perspective such as Western Science not be at least a little lost?
There was also a suggestion that some people define the effect "as a physiological effect caused by the placebo", but a quoted pair of authorities pointed out how obviously nonsensical this is, and furthermore, went on to shockingly point out that the placebo itself might be useless and instead we might want to just focus on the patient. Talk to a patient or work on his mental issues instead of feeding him drugs - even fake ones? I'm sure they were laughed at.
I think it seems pretty obvious that if a fake drug pretending to do something does almost as much, if not more, than many actual drugs we proscribe then Science might go far if it spent some more time focusing on the mind behind the works than the outcomes or the physical tricks used to get it work.
Though one thing I also found interesting was that it explained that the placebo effect doesn't work for people with Alzheimer's because they have lost the ability to expect things. So, you can reverse engineer that and say that perhaps its our expectations that cause most of our illnesses and pain. So that if you find why we're expecting those things you could simply reverse that and teach/encourage people to expect the opposite, and you'd have healthy people.
But again, that doesn't make money.
There was an entire paragraph in the article describing all the things a placebo can do. A placebo can relax muscles, a placebo can induce intoxication, etc. (It can even increase endurance, speed, and weight-lifting ability, and
the article suggests that perhaps it shouldn't be allowed in sporting
competitions. Absolutely, let's ban the power of thought from sports!) Yet it's stated that a placebo is an inert substance that is designed to convince a person to create the effect themselves. But yet there is a list of what it can do.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Science, but an inert substance can't do anything! So then clearly the paragraph should read: The human mind can relax muscles, the human mind can induce intoxication, etc. With so much staring at and focusing on something that is inert and only a trick to get the real power to act, how can a perspective such as Western Science not be at least a little lost?
There was also a suggestion that some people define the effect "as a physiological effect caused by the placebo", but a quoted pair of authorities pointed out how obviously nonsensical this is, and furthermore, went on to shockingly point out that the placebo itself might be useless and instead we might want to just focus on the patient. Talk to a patient or work on his mental issues instead of feeding him drugs - even fake ones? I'm sure they were laughed at.
I think it seems pretty obvious that if a fake drug pretending to do something does almost as much, if not more, than many actual drugs we proscribe then Science might go far if it spent some more time focusing on the mind behind the works than the outcomes or the physical tricks used to get it work.
Though one thing I also found interesting was that it explained that the placebo effect doesn't work for people with Alzheimer's because they have lost the ability to expect things. So, you can reverse engineer that and say that perhaps its our expectations that cause most of our illnesses and pain. So that if you find why we're expecting those things you could simply reverse that and teach/encourage people to expect the opposite, and you'd have healthy people.
But again, that doesn't make money.
Cultist I made a comment in a thread that I wanted to expand on. Mostly so I understand what I, myself, am talking about!
I have this strong sense lately that I am trying to unlearn most of what I was taught by society, teachers, and parents over the last 30ish years. I'm finding that the thing I felt most drawn to (the macabre, the occult) are the things I most truly identify with and enjoy. However, following the scientific path of logic and reason has only taken me further and further away from these things.
I actually had a realization a while back that part of me believed in the occult and I could even be okay believing in it actively instead of as a fictional tool if I but wanted to! Since then I'm discovering more and more how this rigid, materialistic thinking has caused me to doubt any evidence or information pertaining to occultist thought.
Little examples would be things like ghosts or auras that I could be seeing or getting glimpses of, but I've come to understand that my mind whips out the most convenient, scientific reason for even the slightest discoloration in my vision. "Must be a dust mote," "Must be too much blood pooling in my head", "I'm probably just tired so I'm seeing fake things that aren't there." But really, does every single thing that isn't physical have to be a delusion? Isn't science itself aware that we don't see on every spectrum?
For myself, the key to unlearning this has been loosening my perspective on things and opening my mind up to other possibilities. One thing struck me when I was reading a list of signs that a person is in late stage cancer and one was "Seeing hallucinations (things that aren't really there)." It seemed so simple, but struck me fiercely because there was absolutely NO suggestion that perhaps the person might just be seeing something real from a different perspective. After all, I'm sure the vast majority of science is judged from the viewpoint of a relatively healthy, breathing human being. So, how would all of those scientists know what it's like to be nearly dead? Who are they to say that what a dying person sees, things they will never see unless they're dying, "isn't really there"?
It's that hard line view of "reality" that I'm afraid I've fallen pretty far in over the years that I'm trying to break back out of and get back to a more flexible, purer mental state. Personally, all that mindset ever did was get me to become obsessed with everything I did, what everyone thought of me, and all the scary things that might happen in the future to me. And the worst thing about the logical, reasoning process, is that it convinces you that if you keep up with it, you'll find a solution. If you keep stressing about what you did yesterday, eventually you'll "reason out" the truth and be happy. But, as I've told a couple other anxiety sufferers, you got into that state by constantly thinking, you can't get out of it by doing more of the same!
Of course the hardest part of all of this is how insidious these perspectives are. They are fed to us when young and reinforced over and over until it becomes the very tool your mind and body use for their survival. So when you're ready to break free from it, there is this huge part of you telling you that you are a fool, a suicidal fool who will end up killing themselves if they don't worry constantly about what physical things might happen that you can't control.
What it really comes down to is that the left side of your brain, your reasoning, is a calculator. It's great at coming up with answers to questions posed to it. But it shouldn't run your life, and can't control a single thing outside of it, yet almost all of us have convinced ourselves that it has to and in fact is all there is.
I have this strong sense lately that I am trying to unlearn most of what I was taught by society, teachers, and parents over the last 30ish years. I'm finding that the thing I felt most drawn to (the macabre, the occult) are the things I most truly identify with and enjoy. However, following the scientific path of logic and reason has only taken me further and further away from these things.
I actually had a realization a while back that part of me believed in the occult and I could even be okay believing in it actively instead of as a fictional tool if I but wanted to! Since then I'm discovering more and more how this rigid, materialistic thinking has caused me to doubt any evidence or information pertaining to occultist thought.
Little examples would be things like ghosts or auras that I could be seeing or getting glimpses of, but I've come to understand that my mind whips out the most convenient, scientific reason for even the slightest discoloration in my vision. "Must be a dust mote," "Must be too much blood pooling in my head", "I'm probably just tired so I'm seeing fake things that aren't there." But really, does every single thing that isn't physical have to be a delusion? Isn't science itself aware that we don't see on every spectrum?
For myself, the key to unlearning this has been loosening my perspective on things and opening my mind up to other possibilities. One thing struck me when I was reading a list of signs that a person is in late stage cancer and one was "Seeing hallucinations (things that aren't really there)." It seemed so simple, but struck me fiercely because there was absolutely NO suggestion that perhaps the person might just be seeing something real from a different perspective. After all, I'm sure the vast majority of science is judged from the viewpoint of a relatively healthy, breathing human being. So, how would all of those scientists know what it's like to be nearly dead? Who are they to say that what a dying person sees, things they will never see unless they're dying, "isn't really there"?
It's that hard line view of "reality" that I'm afraid I've fallen pretty far in over the years that I'm trying to break back out of and get back to a more flexible, purer mental state. Personally, all that mindset ever did was get me to become obsessed with everything I did, what everyone thought of me, and all the scary things that might happen in the future to me. And the worst thing about the logical, reasoning process, is that it convinces you that if you keep up with it, you'll find a solution. If you keep stressing about what you did yesterday, eventually you'll "reason out" the truth and be happy. But, as I've told a couple other anxiety sufferers, you got into that state by constantly thinking, you can't get out of it by doing more of the same!
Of course the hardest part of all of this is how insidious these perspectives are. They are fed to us when young and reinforced over and over until it becomes the very tool your mind and body use for their survival. So when you're ready to break free from it, there is this huge part of you telling you that you are a fool, a suicidal fool who will end up killing themselves if they don't worry constantly about what physical things might happen that you can't control.
What it really comes down to is that the left side of your brain, your reasoning, is a calculator. It's great at coming up with answers to questions posed to it. But it shouldn't run your life, and can't control a single thing outside of it, yet almost all of us have convinced ourselves that it has to and in fact is all there is.
Cultist One thing I've picked up from Eastern philosophy, which I think would greatly benefit the West, is a more positive definition of Health. In Eastern Medicine and Eastern Thought, Health would be represented roughly as a graph that looks like this:
Dead----Sickly----Feeling Bad----Nothing Wrong----Feeling Good----Healthy
Please note that is very off the cuff and so vague it makes me slightly ashamed. But, basically, an Eastern Medical specialist would be able to judge where on that line a patient fell and to encourage them (via their Chi/Qi) toward the Healthy side.
The problem with Western Medicine and Western Thought is that our definition of Health falls right around "Nothing Wrong" on the line. With maybe some hope for "Feeling Good" if you're "lucky". Western Medicine acknowledges, for the most part, that it also has no clue how any chronic diseases occur and almost any cure it offers (unless it's mending a broken limb or a life-threatening cut) is simply attacking the symptoms of something it knows nothing about. In other words, you go in with a list of things that make you feel bad, and they prescribe pills to numb or dull the negative symptoms that are occurring, with no nod toward how you got there to begin with. They may even collect your list of symptoms and compare it to a chart of other people's complaints to give it a name, thereby making themselves feel powerful and special.
At best, Western Medicine would say that consulting a nutritionist or exercising regularly (meaning, go spend money at a gym) are a solution to staying healthy. Although if you get really sick, somehow the nutritionist can't help you anymore and only more pills that are still just dulling the symptoms are the solution.
One very good example of this is Vitamin C. And as an interesting note, human beings are one of the few mammals that can't product Vitamin C naturally, yet we need it. Right now there is work that some Western specialists have done with Vitamin C that suggests that large doses of it, regularly, could greatly improve a person's life. Of course this is frowned upon by most Western science because it doesn't sound like a pill, it doesn't immediately treat symptoms, and it's cheap. In fact, what the Daily Recommend Amount of Vitamin C is is just enough for the average person to not get scurvy (which comes from a severe deficiency of Vitamin C).
In other words, the Western authorities on health say that you need just enough Vitamin C to keep you on that aforementioned line hopefully above "Feeling Bad" and ideally at "Nothing Wrong". But if someone explains that regular Vitamin C intake could make you "even healthier", Western Medicine doesn't understand that because it's not within its definition of health.
But logically, if not intaking enough nutrients makes you sick, intaking more makes you not feel bad, then wouldn't more make you feel even better? Perhaps they should suggest that people keep eating an excess of helpful nutrients, and then we'll never fall down that scale to even "Feeling Bad". But, without that definition of Health, all Western Medicine can do is keep trying to plug holes in the Health dam with just enough of what the body needs to not get sick and die right away.
I would suggest this is a byproduct of our constant surface obsession of logical, physical reasoning. If you can't see a result with your eyes (like sores go away or pain disappear), then it doesn't exist.
I for one would prefer glowing health the rest of my life and am willing to try whatever seems reasonable.
Dead----Sickly----Feeling Bad----Nothing Wrong----Feeling Good----Healthy
Please note that is very off the cuff and so vague it makes me slightly ashamed. But, basically, an Eastern Medical specialist would be able to judge where on that line a patient fell and to encourage them (via their Chi/Qi) toward the Healthy side.
The problem with Western Medicine and Western Thought is that our definition of Health falls right around "Nothing Wrong" on the line. With maybe some hope for "Feeling Good" if you're "lucky". Western Medicine acknowledges, for the most part, that it also has no clue how any chronic diseases occur and almost any cure it offers (unless it's mending a broken limb or a life-threatening cut) is simply attacking the symptoms of something it knows nothing about. In other words, you go in with a list of things that make you feel bad, and they prescribe pills to numb or dull the negative symptoms that are occurring, with no nod toward how you got there to begin with. They may even collect your list of symptoms and compare it to a chart of other people's complaints to give it a name, thereby making themselves feel powerful and special.
At best, Western Medicine would say that consulting a nutritionist or exercising regularly (meaning, go spend money at a gym) are a solution to staying healthy. Although if you get really sick, somehow the nutritionist can't help you anymore and only more pills that are still just dulling the symptoms are the solution.
One very good example of this is Vitamin C. And as an interesting note, human beings are one of the few mammals that can't product Vitamin C naturally, yet we need it. Right now there is work that some Western specialists have done with Vitamin C that suggests that large doses of it, regularly, could greatly improve a person's life. Of course this is frowned upon by most Western science because it doesn't sound like a pill, it doesn't immediately treat symptoms, and it's cheap. In fact, what the Daily Recommend Amount of Vitamin C is is just enough for the average person to not get scurvy (which comes from a severe deficiency of Vitamin C).
In other words, the Western authorities on health say that you need just enough Vitamin C to keep you on that aforementioned line hopefully above "Feeling Bad" and ideally at "Nothing Wrong". But if someone explains that regular Vitamin C intake could make you "even healthier", Western Medicine doesn't understand that because it's not within its definition of health.
But logically, if not intaking enough nutrients makes you sick, intaking more makes you not feel bad, then wouldn't more make you feel even better? Perhaps they should suggest that people keep eating an excess of helpful nutrients, and then we'll never fall down that scale to even "Feeling Bad". But, without that definition of Health, all Western Medicine can do is keep trying to plug holes in the Health dam with just enough of what the body needs to not get sick and die right away.
I would suggest this is a byproduct of our constant surface obsession of logical, physical reasoning. If you can't see a result with your eyes (like sores go away or pain disappear), then it doesn't exist.
I for one would prefer glowing health the rest of my life and am willing to try whatever seems reasonable.
Cultist I recently watched a very interesting video on Ted.com about a brain researcher (I won't pretend to know her official title) who had a stroke on the left side of her brain and suddenly became aware of the differences between the two hemispheres when one basically shut down on her. If you're interested, the video is here:
Stroke of Insight
Her basic breakdown of the two sides of our brain is as follows:
Right Side - Sees all existence as one and uses intuition and pictures to think and feel in. It is aware only of the present moment. Blissfully happy.
Left Side - Sees itself as separate, or I, and uses stored information from the past to analyze the present moment and thereby extend predictions for the future. Easily worried and jumbled. What would be called the "monkey brain".
When I first heard about this I started realizing that the Left Side is the side that meditation and self awareness drowns out. It's the running commentary in one's head that makes everything miserable. So the goal of most enlightening paths or religions would basically be to shut off this side and favor the Right Side. Which started me thinking in a dualistic fashion wherein the Left Side is the bad side and the Right Side is the good side.
Then it hit me. The Left is not inherently bad. It's simply a tool. A computer. It runs future simulations of everything occurring in the present based on the data it's been fed. Just like that old programming adage: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
If an impressionable child's mind is fed the input that 80% of responses from other beings will be negative and judgmental, then a few years later the adult brain is going to "reason" that there is an 80% chance that anything coming from another being is probably negative and they're being judged.
In other words, the present moment is inherently neutral, and it's up to the programming of the Left Side to analyze it either in a positive way or a negative way. And this tendency is based on what data it was fed years before. So the key to gaining control of one's life would be to analyze what data has gone in and what data is false or unwanted and reprogram it.
After all, there's so much talk in self-help circles about the monkey brain rambling all the time and this just distracting you from the now. But if your biggest problem was that the Left Side of the brain was constantly telling you how great the actions you just did were and how wonderful tomorrow was going to be, would it really be that bad?
What I'm trying to say is that I owe the Left Side of my brain an apology for all the bad things I've said of it. It's only just doing its best to do its job with what it was given.
We all just need to feed it better data if we want it to give us better results.
Stroke of Insight
Her basic breakdown of the two sides of our brain is as follows:
Right Side - Sees all existence as one and uses intuition and pictures to think and feel in. It is aware only of the present moment. Blissfully happy.
Left Side - Sees itself as separate, or I, and uses stored information from the past to analyze the present moment and thereby extend predictions for the future. Easily worried and jumbled. What would be called the "monkey brain".
When I first heard about this I started realizing that the Left Side is the side that meditation and self awareness drowns out. It's the running commentary in one's head that makes everything miserable. So the goal of most enlightening paths or religions would basically be to shut off this side and favor the Right Side. Which started me thinking in a dualistic fashion wherein the Left Side is the bad side and the Right Side is the good side.
Then it hit me. The Left is not inherently bad. It's simply a tool. A computer. It runs future simulations of everything occurring in the present based on the data it's been fed. Just like that old programming adage: Garbage In, Garbage Out.
If an impressionable child's mind is fed the input that 80% of responses from other beings will be negative and judgmental, then a few years later the adult brain is going to "reason" that there is an 80% chance that anything coming from another being is probably negative and they're being judged.
In other words, the present moment is inherently neutral, and it's up to the programming of the Left Side to analyze it either in a positive way or a negative way. And this tendency is based on what data it was fed years before. So the key to gaining control of one's life would be to analyze what data has gone in and what data is false or unwanted and reprogram it.
After all, there's so much talk in self-help circles about the monkey brain rambling all the time and this just distracting you from the now. But if your biggest problem was that the Left Side of the brain was constantly telling you how great the actions you just did were and how wonderful tomorrow was going to be, would it really be that bad?
What I'm trying to say is that I owe the Left Side of my brain an apology for all the bad things I've said of it. It's only just doing its best to do its job with what it was given.
We all just need to feed it better data if we want it to give us better results.
Cultist This is a blog in response to Venger's video where he discusses his struggles with control in his diet and lifestyle. My wife and I have been working on our own, so I'm going to discuss what has worked for me.
For starters, I have the same weakness when it comes to sugar and junk food. I frequently get a strong desire, whether I'm hungry or not, to eat as much sugar and meaty junk food as I can. So, this is how I've gotten away from that:
I've utilized quite a bit of self awareness with this.
First off, considering quantity: Every time I eat I pay attention to my body to see if my body wants me to keep eating. I've found that I tend to tune out my body's responses and force myself to keep eating because some part of me just wants to eat the food. I've noticed that I speed up my eating at this point because my mechanical mind is trying to trick my body into receiving more food before the feeling of being full can stop me from eating.
Secondly, considering quality: I've discovered that while my mind tells me I want sugar and junk food, I don't really enjoy those foods. The way I analyze this is that I don't judge myself for a craving. If I think: "I want a big, fat burger", I go get it. And while I'm eating it I pay close attention to see if I really find it delicious and satisfying.
Lately, I've found meat foods (especially beef) make me feel heavy and uncomfortable. Sugary foods make me feel acidic and sick to my stomach.
And the best way I've found to be capable of awareness with what I'm eating (because it's easy to get lost in feeding urges) is fasting. Right now my wife and I are on a schedule of three weeks of solid food, one week of fasting. It helps to do this off and on via a schedule as at the end of our eating period we start giving in more, and at the end of our fasting period we tend to be very ready to eat food. Though the more times we do it, the less things have a hold on us.
Fasting only on water is the most extreme version of this. It makes you feel on and off crappy, absolutely terrible, because your body is sloughing off chemicals and toxins like crazy. Distilled water works the best because it has the least in it to flow through you. Fasting on juice is less dramatic/stressful, but gives much of the same effect. Just not as quickly and thoroughly.
The first three days, or so, is the worst when you stop eating. Your desire for food is difficult to overcome and your impulse will constantly be to grab food whenever hungry.
But what repeatedly fasting does is reset your taste buds. After not eating for a few days, you can intensely taste everything you eat. Heavily processed food will taste like poison. And heavy meats will be like eating cement.
All in all, I still have cravings to indulge. However, when I look at things like candy and junk food, I'm now aware that I won't enjoy them and they are less exciting to me. Now if I get the feeling I should over indulge on junk, I end up eating a lot of trail mix or fruits or something like that that isn't going to hurt my diet. And sometimes I still dip into the junk foods, and I immediately regret eating it as it usually tastes hollow and unhealthy.
Starting this path is the difficult part. You may have to fast for a shorter period to start out with.
The thing is: Your body wants healthier food. So when you pay attention to what you're enjoying or you take away food for a while, your body will quickly and clearly tell you what it desires. Which isn't pizza and burgers.
Though, in speaking directly to Venger, I'm not 100% sure how to suggest a non-food diet if you work out or regularly exercise. I go to a martial arts class once a week and I find myself desperate for some sort of sustenance after doing that and not eating. I have tried a couple protein shakes that day, along with as much juice as I want, and it tends to dull the uncomfortability. But if you're more active, you may need more nutrients.
However I think that if you try some of this you'll find soon that crappy food doesn't have a hold on you. As for Mountain Dew and sugary soda, the way I cured that a while ago was just to buy lots of water and constantly have a glass of water near me so that if I get an urge to ingest sugary things, or simply be drinking something, I have water. It's not as "exciting" as soda, but eventually it replaces the habit with something that won't harm you.
Also, fasting with juice or water is good for weight loss for anyone who is attempting this. It is pretty rapid but doesn't leave you with the same saggy skin thing that surgery and atkins-like diets do, at least from my understanding. Longer periods of fasting (which I'd suggest doing with juice at some point, unless you're crazy about dropping weight and toxins) are better for this. At this point I'm left with so little fat on me that I start getting boney and even sitting down is uncomfortable as I'm losing padding. So I'm actually considering drinking protein along with juice on my next fast to not lose too much weight.
For starters, I have the same weakness when it comes to sugar and junk food. I frequently get a strong desire, whether I'm hungry or not, to eat as much sugar and meaty junk food as I can. So, this is how I've gotten away from that:
I've utilized quite a bit of self awareness with this.
First off, considering quantity: Every time I eat I pay attention to my body to see if my body wants me to keep eating. I've found that I tend to tune out my body's responses and force myself to keep eating because some part of me just wants to eat the food. I've noticed that I speed up my eating at this point because my mechanical mind is trying to trick my body into receiving more food before the feeling of being full can stop me from eating.
Secondly, considering quality: I've discovered that while my mind tells me I want sugar and junk food, I don't really enjoy those foods. The way I analyze this is that I don't judge myself for a craving. If I think: "I want a big, fat burger", I go get it. And while I'm eating it I pay close attention to see if I really find it delicious and satisfying.
Lately, I've found meat foods (especially beef) make me feel heavy and uncomfortable. Sugary foods make me feel acidic and sick to my stomach.
And the best way I've found to be capable of awareness with what I'm eating (because it's easy to get lost in feeding urges) is fasting. Right now my wife and I are on a schedule of three weeks of solid food, one week of fasting. It helps to do this off and on via a schedule as at the end of our eating period we start giving in more, and at the end of our fasting period we tend to be very ready to eat food. Though the more times we do it, the less things have a hold on us.
Fasting only on water is the most extreme version of this. It makes you feel on and off crappy, absolutely terrible, because your body is sloughing off chemicals and toxins like crazy. Distilled water works the best because it has the least in it to flow through you. Fasting on juice is less dramatic/stressful, but gives much of the same effect. Just not as quickly and thoroughly.
The first three days, or so, is the worst when you stop eating. Your desire for food is difficult to overcome and your impulse will constantly be to grab food whenever hungry.
But what repeatedly fasting does is reset your taste buds. After not eating for a few days, you can intensely taste everything you eat. Heavily processed food will taste like poison. And heavy meats will be like eating cement.
All in all, I still have cravings to indulge. However, when I look at things like candy and junk food, I'm now aware that I won't enjoy them and they are less exciting to me. Now if I get the feeling I should over indulge on junk, I end up eating a lot of trail mix or fruits or something like that that isn't going to hurt my diet. And sometimes I still dip into the junk foods, and I immediately regret eating it as it usually tastes hollow and unhealthy.
Starting this path is the difficult part. You may have to fast for a shorter period to start out with.
The thing is: Your body wants healthier food. So when you pay attention to what you're enjoying or you take away food for a while, your body will quickly and clearly tell you what it desires. Which isn't pizza and burgers.
Though, in speaking directly to Venger, I'm not 100% sure how to suggest a non-food diet if you work out or regularly exercise. I go to a martial arts class once a week and I find myself desperate for some sort of sustenance after doing that and not eating. I have tried a couple protein shakes that day, along with as much juice as I want, and it tends to dull the uncomfortability. But if you're more active, you may need more nutrients.
However I think that if you try some of this you'll find soon that crappy food doesn't have a hold on you. As for Mountain Dew and sugary soda, the way I cured that a while ago was just to buy lots of water and constantly have a glass of water near me so that if I get an urge to ingest sugary things, or simply be drinking something, I have water. It's not as "exciting" as soda, but eventually it replaces the habit with something that won't harm you.
Also, fasting with juice or water is good for weight loss for anyone who is attempting this. It is pretty rapid but doesn't leave you with the same saggy skin thing that surgery and atkins-like diets do, at least from my understanding. Longer periods of fasting (which I'd suggest doing with juice at some point, unless you're crazy about dropping weight and toxins) are better for this. At this point I'm left with so little fat on me that I start getting boney and even sitting down is uncomfortable as I'm losing padding. So I'm actually considering drinking protein along with juice on my next fast to not lose too much weight.
Cultist Cora's post suggesting a scientific or supernatural explanation for her Shadow People reminded me of something I've been thinking about a lot lately.
I see a lot of people who go back and forth in their own head or with others over whether the truth of something is based in material science, subjective occultism, or any number of perspectives. And it's very tempting to do this, because if you can get behind a certain perspective you can wield the combined beliefs of everyone who agrees with you in conversation to show how correct a momentary opinion of something is.
But it seems to me that we're all just fooling ourselves with various, mechanical systems and labels. It's like that old Chinese (?) story of the three blind men touching an elephant and one believing it to be a hose, one a tree, and one a rope.
And it's only worse when the descriptions come from people who know that these descriptions are only perspectives. I, myself, fight with my various Is in my head to want to quantify something using scientific knowledge and terms, or to accept it as something with a source greater than physical that (to me) can so far only be understood subjectively.
The biggest problem is that we use labels to describe anything, inside our head, or out. So, when the true reality is just a series of experiences with no right or wrong, how do you talk about them or make sense of them without creating a system to organize them? And if you give in to the need to organize, how do you stop it from becoming a war inside and out between the semantics of made up fantasy truths?
Right now I'm becoming very intrigued by late 19th/early 20th Century occultism. I like the ideas and they ring true from everything I know. But how do I focus on that without crystallizing my thoughts into limiting labels?
Any ideas?
I see a lot of people who go back and forth in their own head or with others over whether the truth of something is based in material science, subjective occultism, or any number of perspectives. And it's very tempting to do this, because if you can get behind a certain perspective you can wield the combined beliefs of everyone who agrees with you in conversation to show how correct a momentary opinion of something is.
But it seems to me that we're all just fooling ourselves with various, mechanical systems and labels. It's like that old Chinese (?) story of the three blind men touching an elephant and one believing it to be a hose, one a tree, and one a rope.
And it's only worse when the descriptions come from people who know that these descriptions are only perspectives. I, myself, fight with my various Is in my head to want to quantify something using scientific knowledge and terms, or to accept it as something with a source greater than physical that (to me) can so far only be understood subjectively.
The biggest problem is that we use labels to describe anything, inside our head, or out. So, when the true reality is just a series of experiences with no right or wrong, how do you talk about them or make sense of them without creating a system to organize them? And if you give in to the need to organize, how do you stop it from becoming a war inside and out between the semantics of made up fantasy truths?
Right now I'm becoming very intrigued by late 19th/early 20th Century occultism. I like the ideas and they ring true from everything I know. But how do I focus on that without crystallizing my thoughts into limiting labels?
Any ideas?
Cultist Okay, so last Friday morning my wife and I decided to do a fast until the 4th of July cookout at my in-laws on Monday afternoon. Or rather, we decided it earlier than that, but the term of it was Friday morning - Monday afternoon.
This went well, as fastings go, although I felt like crap on Sunday. I finally looked it up while at work and found that fasting causes your body to break down all kinds of toxins that then spread through your body during the process of expulsion and can make you feel like dirt. So then I was okay with feeling bad. It was a good suffering.
Then Monday I ate a bit too much at the cookout. Not so much that if the average person looked at it they would call it a lot, but for me, and especially post-fasting, it was a lot. Then I had something like a dinner. Then I had breakfast this morning.
And frankly, shortly afterwards I just felt like I had enough of food. Part of it I think is that, without eating regularly, I was suddenly aware of the lack of nutrients in most of the food I was eating. But I also think another part is that I'm annoyed that I'm routinely eating, three-ish times a day, and sometimes gorging on desserts and other sugary stuff, and most of it comes down to a cyclic, mechanical, habit. I'm pretty sure right now that I'm not really enjoying the vast bulk of the food I eat. Nor, apparently, is my body. I'm just eating it because I've been taught to or because society says I should or because it's making someone money.
So I stopped eating food, again, after breakfast. Now I think I'm going to either fast or slowly reintroduce specific foods to see what I really like to eat, or a combination of the two. It really helps that I passed through the phase of suffering the pangs of hunger to basically reset my body so that now I can actually make conscious decisions about what I put into it. Because while in the cycle of eating I just wasn't capable of that kind of self awareness.
Now I feel like I've stepped aside and can make true decisions. Which is the ultimate ideal, as far as I'm concerned.
This went well, as fastings go, although I felt like crap on Sunday. I finally looked it up while at work and found that fasting causes your body to break down all kinds of toxins that then spread through your body during the process of expulsion and can make you feel like dirt. So then I was okay with feeling bad. It was a good suffering.
Then Monday I ate a bit too much at the cookout. Not so much that if the average person looked at it they would call it a lot, but for me, and especially post-fasting, it was a lot. Then I had something like a dinner. Then I had breakfast this morning.
And frankly, shortly afterwards I just felt like I had enough of food. Part of it I think is that, without eating regularly, I was suddenly aware of the lack of nutrients in most of the food I was eating. But I also think another part is that I'm annoyed that I'm routinely eating, three-ish times a day, and sometimes gorging on desserts and other sugary stuff, and most of it comes down to a cyclic, mechanical, habit. I'm pretty sure right now that I'm not really enjoying the vast bulk of the food I eat. Nor, apparently, is my body. I'm just eating it because I've been taught to or because society says I should or because it's making someone money.
So I stopped eating food, again, after breakfast. Now I think I'm going to either fast or slowly reintroduce specific foods to see what I really like to eat, or a combination of the two. It really helps that I passed through the phase of suffering the pangs of hunger to basically reset my body so that now I can actually make conscious decisions about what I put into it. Because while in the cycle of eating I just wasn't capable of that kind of self awareness.
Now I feel like I've stepped aside and can make true decisions. Which is the ultimate ideal, as far as I'm concerned.
Priesthood Faith of consciousness is freedom
Faith of feeling is weakness
Faith of body is stupidity.
Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
Love of feeling evokes the opposite
Love of body depends only on type and polarity.
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feeling is slavery
Hope of body is disease.
-G.I. Gurdjieff
Faith of feeling is weakness
Faith of body is stupidity.
Love of consciousness evokes the same in response
Love of feeling evokes the opposite
Love of body depends only on type and polarity.
Hope of consciousness is strength
Hope of feeling is slavery
Hope of body is disease.
-G.I. Gurdjieff
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