Journaling the Ancestor Cleanse – Part IV

So you can see how, thanks to our ingenious Creator, we were well equipped to survive in jungles, grasslands, forests, even the frozen arctic.  But in our modern world, we are brought up in an atmosphere of addiction.  Everyone around us is eating and acting this way.  It seems normal.  Huge industries of very smart people work day after day and year after year, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to capitalize on our biology and keep us addicted to their food-drugs.

These are just some of the many reasons we should not feel ashamed when we have a food addiction.  It would be a miracle if we didn’t.   We are all survivors.  Our bodies simply tell our stories of what he have done to survive.   If there is an aspect of our body, that we don’t enjoy, it will most likely go away when we don’t need it anymore.

Remember to use the 4 Pillars tool to help you improve your health and reach your goals.   If we think back to the example I gave above with my late night eating, this is what I did.   First of all, even though I felt like I didn’t have to journal how much I practiced mindfulness, I needed to remind myself to be mindful late at night when the cravings hit.  I did this by making the intention to allow the craving to trigger, first, my need to be mindful.  As soon as I felt the craving to snack late at night, I would pause (hopefully!) and breathe and feel all of the feelings I was feeling.  Was I truly hungry?  Usually not.  Then what was motivating me to eat when I didn’t need food?  As I stayed with the feelings, I could feel myself thinking that I was a victim of this or that, basically a victim of the stresses of my life, and therefore, deserved to have a little snack or treat.  As I stayed consciously aware of these feelings, without acting on them, I could see from my much larger, wiser state of consciousness that I wasn’t really rewarding myself by my actions, but actually punishing myself by doing behaviors that sabotaged my health in response to the stress I was feeling and creating.  I knew from practice that if I just stayed mindful of all of the feelings that were arising with the craving to eat when I wasn’t hungry, eventually those feeling would pass.  This was loving myself.  This was forgiving myself for my feelings in response to my stressful life and this was truly making me feel better by giving me a higher level of strength and health to bring to the stressful situations in my life.  I also started making sure I had some relaxing herbal teas at that time, which would be a treat that didn’t sabotage my health.  I didn’t try to exercise more, or cut something else out of my diet, or meditate more.  I just maintained my normal routine and focused on this, until I was successful here and this became easy.  (As of this writing, I’m still working on this one! 🙂

Journaling Specifics:

Date & Duration

The date lets you know how frequent you need to do (or not do) something, and the duration lets you know how long you need to do (or not do) something.  For example: Under MIND – Mindfulness – sitting – I wrote: “2-15m”.  This would translate: “Sept 2^nd, Sat mindfully for 15 minutes.   Under BODY – Food – High Glycemic, I may write: “2, 5, 16, 27”.  This translates as: “On September 2^nd, 5^th, 16^th and 27^th, I had food with a glycemic index above 65 (sugary food).

Supportive Community Time

Remember, this is one of the 4 pillars, so it is just as important to your health, as diet, exercise and sleep!  These people are not people who trigger negative feelings such as anger, frustration, etc, even though those may be people that you live with.  These are people who make you feel relaxed, listened to and and loved.

— Dr. Troy Anthony Smith, DC