GIMMICKS FOR HEALING

By Dr. Lawrence Wilson

All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

This article discusses simple ways to help improve your eating and living habits. The article is divided into the following methods: distractions, feedback methods, awareness methods, reward and punishment methods, learning methods, healing the cravings, and other.

DISTRACTIONS

The purpose of distractions is only to take your mind off your bad habits and redirect the mind in healthier directions. So, for example, if you start thinking of candy, instead put on some nice music, go get a cup of your favorite tea, take a bath or shower or sauna or enema, or call a friend – but not with candy in your hand.

There are many other ways to distract yourself. You could go for a walk, read a book, take a nap, look at the computer or television, or a hundred other activities. You get the idea. You should have 100 activities that you can do when you get cravings. This is how to use the distraction idea. Actually, it is good to pile up things to do so that when you feel like eating candy, you have a list of other things to do instead of eating.

LEARNING

Intellectual learning. You can study about candy and how bad it is for your health, your teeth, your figure, your diabetes, etc. This is an intellectual level of learning, but a very good one. Working with others with the same problem is very helpful here because you have to explain it to them, so you have to read books to understand it will enough to teach it. This is powerful.

Feedback learning. This is self-study. It is not so much about facts as it is about learning what triggers your candy habit, and then how to stop the triggers. Methods of acquiring feedback about yourself include journaling, keeping a diary, charting your eating patterns, and doing the Roy meditation, which is a type of mental feedback.

For example, through meditating or charting, perhaps, you might become aware that any time someone mentions you older brother, you reach for some candy. You keep writing in your journal or charting and you figure out that your brother beat you up when you were 5, and ever since you want candy when you think of him, because it hurt and the candy feels good.

REWARD AND PUNISHMENT SYSTEMS

These sound primitive, but they can work well in some circumstances. They can be very gimmicky and silly, but can still help break bad habits such as eating candy. For example, you tell yourself or better yet, make a contract with yourself, that if you can avoid eating candy for 6 days, you will allow yourself to go out and have an ice cream cone (or whatever you love) on the seventh day.

You then get a witness to watch you sign the contract and hopefully someone who will keep an eye on you. Then you only reward yourself if you keep your end of the contract. It sounds silly, but it can work for some people.

The rewards do not have to be food, and it is better if it is not a junk food. The reward could be a vacation, some new clothing, going to a movie or sports event, if you prefer. It can be almost anything, but something healthy is best.

A key to this system is not to make it too hard. If it is too difficult, you will keep failing and become frustrated. So start out very gently – maybe staying off the candy for one day only. If you can do that, then make a contract to stay off the candy for two days, and so on. Always keep it gentle and fun. That is another key to all the gimmicks. They must be fun at some level, even though you are serious and committed. Too heavy and most people will not stick with it. So even if it sounds corny, it is fine if you find it fun to play with your mind in this way.

PURE AWARENESS METHODS

J. Krishnamurti taught that awareness brings its own action. The idea here is that if you are aware enough of why you eat candy, and the harm it does, you will stop automatically.

One of the finest methods to do this is the Roy Masters meditation exercise. It is a type of feedback that is sometimes called pure awareness. You just do the exercise and the mind calms down more and more. As it does, you can observe how the mind operates and how it drifts over to thought of candy. As you see this more and more, it becomes easier and easier to control the thoughts, to nip them in the bud, and to move the mind in different directions.

At times, you may become aware of traumas that turned your mind to comfort foods like candy. You may become aware of hidden hunger that you do not satisfy properly with cooked vegetables or other good food. As a result of this mistake, the body starts craving sugar. You may become aware of all sorts of other trip mechanisms that get you in trouble with candy that you were not aware of.

For example, you may become aware of how you deny that candy is a problem. You might become aware of how you excuse eating candy, how you hide the problem from family and friends by being secretive about it, or how you try to twist the situation around to say that it is not so bad, it is better than other habits, and perhaps a hundred other strange methods of denying or excusing the habit.

The meditation exercise can also actually break through traumas that are secretly keeping you immersed in the candy habit.

HEALING THE BODY AND ITS PHYSICAL CRAVINGS

I hope you are doing this. It requires following the entire nutritional balancing program. It is important to understand that each part of the program reinforces all the other parts. If you skip parts of the program, it is not just missing that part. It is like damaging a whole system because the parts support each other.

Sometimes, one does not need to do everything to get results, but in most cases, doing the entire program is necessary for fastest and best results.

The time factor. One caution with the nutritional balancing program is not to set time limits, such as “I will give this 6 months.” The huge problem with this attitude is that nutritional balancing undoes your habits, thoughts, and cravings layer by layer. One does not know if the candy habit is at a superficial layer of adaptation, or it could originate at a deep adaptive layer. The superficial layers may heal within 6 months, but deeper layers will take longer – perhaps much longer.

So do not be impatient and do not be discouraged if you follow the program for a year or three years, and you still have your candy craving. That is okay. Remember, with nutritional balancing the body heals the most serious problems first. You may think the candy craving is the most serious, but there could be other problems that are much worse – perhaps an aneurism or a cancer or some heart disease. The body, in its wisdom, will handle those first, so the symptom or habit that you wish to eradicate may have to wait.

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