Fasting & Emotional Healing

Was eating one meal a day for years... Had done a number of long dry fasts for some time before that. All seemed great, but it was just another vehicle for control, without even realizing fully that was what was under it. It all culminated in kicking off, not preventing symptoms, on this journey for me. I've always been little-er bodied, but ended up at 86lbs. I don't think it makes sense to include all the winding road of symptoms that came along as I don't want this comment to contribute to fear. BUT, felt compelled from a place of love to just emphasize that TMS brain can use anything as a distraction (obsession) and it's so important to remember recovery is possible without the "perfect diet" / exercise, meditation practice, etc etc etc.
I had all of that dialed in to the Xnth degree. When all of this happened, I kept saying,"BUT, I did everything "right..." I don't understand." But perhaps the better question could have been "Why did I feel like I needed to do everything "right?"
Answer to which, I continue to explore -- but now have even more insight that I felt I wouldn't be loved if I didn't do it all "right." Only to realize that's always going to be an inside job to which I can do everyday.

TL;DR: Anything can be used for TMS brain as a distraction/obsession - seems important to explore what's going on underneath it all.

 

You might have a point because I diagnosed my symptoms as lyme and (on the 9th year without knowing what I had!) as soon as I had a diagnosis I was mentally relieved, then I looked for stories of people who healed from it and saw many that accomplised that via dry fasting, there was a woman who wrote a book starving to heal in siberia, on yt there are many testimonials so on and so forth
but again, this can be debunked because this is the nature's way, animals don't have a neocortex that's responsible for their ego, they just are, their normal state is just being, without personas, masks, superego etc etc, so no, it's actually the inner healer at work here, even if I changed my thoughts that wouldn't heal me, and I never had a negative self-talk, atually there was a period where I just gave up and did nothing for 2,5 years, still didn't get better, the fasting literature is clear, the best books explaining why it works so well are michel deladoey's and filonov's books (Dry fasting revolution).
Well from what I saw many people have to follow protocols, because their emotional reservoir is full and spilling and they have to release those negative emotions, so there's a work to be done by many people, the "book cure" that sarno referred only happened to what, 10% of his patients? The other 90 had to change, they had to change what was botheging them in their lives, cut off draining/negative people, energy vampires, setting boundaries, saying no, changing their circumstances, maybe their environment, aspects of their personalities that might be undermining them, maybe quit an unfulfilling job and of course, releasing the emotions that the brain perceives as threatening, when they don't they can stay stuck in shutdown dorsal vagal freeze forever, so this monk like thinking of "just sit still and do nothing" won't work for the majority of people. Without doing the work they won't get better, they need to change, they change by releasing the suppressed material buried in their psyches and subconscious mind at a psychossomatic level

 

All of this bio hacking and these modalities are actually interfering in the process. They give the illusion of control and catharsis, but it's not the real deal. It doesn't lead to true integration and completion of repressed emotions, or resolution of inner conflicts. Whether it's starving in Siberia, dry fasting, following carnivore, cold water plunges, tapping etc etc etc, they are all ego led performative crutches. Sarno was crystal clear that there were 2 pillars of recovery; Knowledge and Implementation. Implementing his concepts did not mean adopting new defenses and distractions for the purpose of fixing micro managing, externalizing, outsourcing, and coping. These ever trending modalities may provide temporary reduction in anxiety, but there will always inevitably and invariably be something else to contend with down the road because the emotional charge is once again getting suppressed. And when it does happen again, it will be even more intense. I experienced it myself with an initial "book cure" that only led to full blown CRPS. Einstein said it best, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."

 

This is well said. And it should be noted how such means of control can lead to their own disorders and anxieties, which in and of itself just becomes another branch of TMS. Disordered eating is commonly seen in people with IBS. Which is understandable given the discomfort associated with IBS. So naturally people start to fear foods and fear eating because they want to avoid symptoms. Some people will discover diets-low acid, low fod map, vegan carnivore, gluten free, fasting, raw, etc etc, that provide relief. Yet they cling to these as being the ultimate salvation. Their diet essentially becomes a ritual that they must follow or else they will suffer. For many the diets are the totality of work that they will do in regards to their situation. So they will live in this half panicked state of still fearing and avoid foods but limiting symptoms and thinking all they can do for the rest of their lives is adhere to this strict diet. And this fear impacts other parts of their lives, the ability to socialize, the ability to go to dinners and restaurants , the ability to travel etc etc, your whole life becomes this ritual to this thing that you think is keeping you safe but is just another prison of fear. And becomes a distraction (I have to meal prep, eat/fast at this specific time, excuse to avoid social functions etc) that keeps you from seeking actual solutions.

I say all this as someone with ibs/gastritis on a low fod map low acid vegan diet who has seen so much symptom relief, but my fear of food walks the line on being disordered eating centered around immense fear of symptoms reoccurring. It’s been a lot of working through accepting that while this is okay for now, because I deserve to not be in pain, the actual solution lies in getting out of fight or flight and ultimately reaching some degree of emotional regulation, which is done through mind body work.

 

I feel like this is the equivalent of my need to track all my calories and weigh myself daily. It's a way to control when there are so many things in life we can't. I don't have a true eating disorder but finally stopped tracking and weighing everything because that tight control was just causing me more problems in cases where maybe I slipped a bit on a day, more symptoms and more stress.

Barring religious reasons, I just don't see the need. But that's a personal opinion. Even intermittent fasting has been overhyped as this magic method to weight loss when really it is just a way to control how you eat. It all comes down to control.

 

It feels great to be able to clean your own intestines. It helps the health overall. And it strengthens one's will power. And I know that most people don't give a ... about all these things.

 

I thought biohacking was taking a bunch of supplements and using different machines (all external)... not things that we do internally like meditation, brain rewiring, emotional excavation, dry fasting etc.. There's nothing "biohacking" about these approaches, if there's one "biohack" I've been using lately in the last 18 months has been mouth taping due to reading james nestor's book, but again, this shouldn't even be considering a biohacking although the folks on the internet, youtube/tiktok call it so, but in my mind this is a return to normal breathing, no animals breathe through their mouth during sleep, only human beings do so due to the brainwashing they receive during their lives, but I digress
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All of what you've said can be summed up by "nothing changes if nothing changes". I agree that "ego led" is not the way, and that was definitely not the case when I did my long fasts because you need to surrender the control, "control" and "fear" which are all illusory, since the body is self sufficient, it can last months without food and 14 days without water easily, the suffering on a fast comes from ego, resistance, doubts etc. I can guarantee you that people can heal 95% of modern diseases with long dry fasting, But of course this is hard because people have been brainwashed into thinking that they need food every two hours which is ridiculous, dry fasting will lead to complete resolution of inner conflicts, it will unbury your repressed emotions and it is cathartic, I experienced all of this during my last 2 long fasts and I didn't even know about TMS, I didn't have the foundation which is the knowledge about how TMS works, and that is very important too, but since dry fasting taps into our inner healer majestically it will do all these things without us having to focus on it, our bodies know how to heal if we get out of the way, dry fasting is the ultimate surrender, it's a form of ego death, to go 10 plus days without water and food, just relying on your internal resources, knowing that you are enough, ditching the hundreds of supplements and drugs you were taking, few people would do that, I did because even though I didn't know about TMS I saw all the stories of healing through this practice. All these things you cited are ego led, cold water plunges, tapping etc, those are the ego, fasting is divine.

Implementation is doing the work, doing the inner work has nothing to do with beating around the bush like in the examples you cited (micro managing, externalizing, outsourcing, and coping), those things created the problem in the first place, people need to FEEL TO HEAL (A book by Giten Tonkov btw on somatic release) if they don't face their fears and their repressed emotions, if they don't face their shadows they'll stay in the hamster wheel. "invariably be something else to contend with down the road because the emotional charge is once again getting suppressed" Yes that's what's being discussed here, why is it getting suppressed again? Because the 1st pillar wasn't embedded? The first pillar is knowledge, and by knowledge Sarno means changing one's paradigm, people need to understand that life happens and they can't suppress their emotions anymore, they need to feel the full spectrum, there's no light without darkness, they need to listen to their bodies, they suppressed too much anger that's why they're experiencing back pain, so the next time they need to express their rage, say no, or if they can't scream or yell, they must shift, cut off a relationship, stand up for themselves, impose boundaries, this is the change they need to make, not numbing the rage, grief or any negative emotion, by snorting cocaine, smoking weed, drinking alcohol, that's what most people do and that's why they're sick, because when you numb pain you also numb joy and you end up depressed. This is doing the work, changing stuff in their lives like their old paradigm (which doesn't serve them) is paramount to recovery. And these tools are there for this very reason. There are also cases where the trauma and emotional baggage accumulated when the person was too young, like before 6 years old (ACE study which proved that childhood trauma causes chronic symptoms later in life), therefore they don't have that much access to events of such an early period of their lives, so here methods like holotropic breathwork can be very useful (yes, your breath can heal, what a surprise, no, it makes sense once we understand the science), stanislav grof has treated thousands of patients in his multi-decades time in the field. And it's all aligned with doing the inner work that TMS requires. When people enter holotropic states of consciousness their neocortex shuts down, allowing them to access the limbic system and brainstem where subconscious memories of even their birth can be recalled, so the people who went through childhood trauma can heal, by using an excellent tool, it directly access their bodies (the body keeps the score..) and releases childhood trauma, stuff they didn't remember because they were 3 years old and grew up in a dysfunctional damaged household, like a child that was molested when they were too young, this is too much for the nervous system and the brain literally buries that memory and the person reaches adulthood, start experiencing symptoms and they don't know why, then they need to do the inner work, be it meditation, be it holotropic breathwork, be it somatic awareness, TRE etc, some things can't be accessed rational introspection.

So yeah, a lot has changed for me for instance, the old paradigm? The old brainwshing societal programming that I received? I discarded everything, it doesn't serve me anymore, it never did, it's not useful, it didn't fulfill me, and it was a process, it took some years, I actually changed it throughout my healing journey as I was seeking answers and little by little was ditching the mainstream narrative. It's funny you say you experienced a book cure that didn't last, so you're admitting that only knowledge is not enough and something had to be done to change your situation right? Yeah... exactly, that something is doing the inner work, Dan buglio above is right, a definitive book cure only happens in 10% of the cases, the rest has to do the inner work, and this is vast, there are plenty of people in the TMS space doing great work, people like sarah baldwin, cathleen king, dan neuffer, raelan agle, cfs health, howard schubiner, nicole sachs etc etc etc, I just scratched the surface, they all have their methodologies and approaches and they're all helping millions of people out there

 

14 days without water? Easily? What? I’ve seen animals show signs of significant dehydration after being accidentally locked in a closet for 2-3 days. And they don’t have the ego that we do.

 

@miffybunny If I could like your posts a thousand times I would. Even Steve Ozanich has said understanding it 100% is enough, you should do nothing. The various modalities don't hold a candle to LIVING. Just live. You're already healed.

 

my cat did 5 days dry (after he got beaten the shit out by another male cat lol..) and my chickens/roosters did 9 (they got sick), and the world record without preparation is 18 days, they locked a guy in a cage, forgot the keys. But yeah I must also say that this is advanced stuff, not for beginners
there are people who do it for weight loss but I don't recommend, for losing weight it's better to just do water fasting + electrolites

 

Yeah but that’s a far cry from the average person being able to go 14 days without water. Can a person do it? I imagine it’s possible, in the same way it’s possible for a person to hold their breath underwater for 20 minutes. But typing that out and pretending it can be done easily is ludicrous. There are years of preparation, discipline and conditioning to reach that point. And all that to accomplish what exactly? Some vague idea of Ego death? You can accomplish that via psychedelics if that’s your goal. You can also accomplish similar ideas via mind body work, and without the punishment and risks of the former.

is there merit to fasting? Sure. Is it the be all end all that you’re implying? I don’t think so. The whole concept reads like an appeal to nature, our ancestors had to fast so we should as well. There’s a whole host of reasons why people are less healthy today. I could argue things like technology use, microplastics, pollution, break down of communities are more impactful to our immune symptoms than the timings of our meals.

the body is so resilient that it can go months without food and weeks without water, but isn’t so resilient that the 8 hours of fasting during sleep that most people get today isn’t enough to prevent disease?

all this stuff you cling to is just a means of control, because it provides comfort that you have such control over your life. We can do everything right and still lose, whether that’s in terms of success or health.

plenty of people recover without the self imposed punishment of extreme fasting, so it’s so far down on my list of things I’m even interested in trying.

if you found benefits from it awesome! I just get bummed seeing people pretend any of this stuff is ‘easy’ one of my favorite aspects about this work and this forum is that no one pretends this stuff is easy, simple. Yes, but not easy.

 

Yes you have a point, and it wasn't easy for me it took me two years and I healed my condition thinking it was lyme, then 3 months later I stumbled upon the TMS niche and had the epiphany
the goal of dry fasting is healing, ego death is just a byproduct, and I was happy to hear that there are more than one way to reset the body, not just fasting, this is what the TMS literature has shown me, so simple things like meditation that I didn't think it was that powerful but it is, because it down regulates the nervous system, you see hundreds of testimonials all over the internet, Joe dispenza's websites full of stories of people who healed even cancer just by getting out of FFF, balancing out their ANS. But something is done after the TMS diagnosis, of course it's not easy, this is what she was implying "just understand the theory behind TMS and do nothing" no, the whole gist of TMS is=your suppressed emotions are interpreted as dangerous by the brain, therefore you need to bring them to the surface, stop running away from them, feel them completely and let them go. So anything that brings the emotions and feelings to your awareness is a valid treatment, there are a multitude of ways to do that, fasting happens to be one of them, but you can do EMDR, shadow work, meditation etc etc..

 

disagree, half truth, you can heal by meditating, which is indeed doing nothing (dry fasting, the way I healed, was also by doing nothing, be bored for 10~12 days lol) but something has to SHIFT, one of the most difficult things is to change one's worldview, one's paradigm, when your map doesn't match the terrain it can be hard for a lot of people, imagine years or decades of social conditioning, the people who for instance during covid fell for the psychological terrorism, putting their ANS in constant panic and anxiety, this is what caused long covid btw (I will do a post on this); they might need to break up with their abusive partner, ditch resentment for their parent or sibling, so many things have to shift in their lives, it's not just "there's nothing wrong here, go live life". Not how it works for 90% of people, for the 90%, even if they're gonna follow the "do nothing" approach, they'll need to set aside time to meditate for instance, when people meditate long enough all the suppressed material will bubble up, allowing them to feel it fully and release it, this is inner work, or maybe do shadow work, sit still for 30 minutes a day and write about past difficult situations by doing that they'll lower the emotional reservoir within their bodies, signaling to the nervous system they're safe
Doing nothing still requires SHIFTING and shifting means doing something, nothing changes if nothing changes