ARP: Week 104

Focus: Keeping a gentle, reliable rhythm for the rest of our lives.
Repetition: My body trusts rhythm. I begin each day the same gentle way. I am steady, I am slow, and I have nothing to prove.

Never Stop Becoming

Here we are, at the last week. Before I hand you the library, I want to say a few last things.

Continue the soul’s journey toward perfection, and allow the body to be imperfect. We are asked to be perfected in love, and we are never promised a body without weakness. The saints did not have flawless bodies; they had surrendered hearts. So keep growing in virtue, in prayer, in patience, in charity, and let the body be what it is, healing, aging, mortal, and beloved.

Go be a light in your home first, and then in your community. The light does not have to be large to be seen.

Trust your intuition, your decisions, and your body. You have spent two years learning to hear all three, and you are no longer a beginner.

And remember this above everything: the voice of God is never dysregulating, and that voice lives inside you. Peace, clarity, calm, and a quiet certainty are His. Urgency, panic, shame, fear, and frantic striving are not. Learn that difference and you will never be truly lost again.

Never stop becoming. You are not finished, and you were never meant to be.

Where This Protocol Came From

This work is not mine alone, and I would never want anyone to think it was. What follows is the library, the voices and the works that shaped the Ancestral Regeneration Protocol.

It is a library, not a reading list. Not everything here will apply to every person at every stage. Some of these works are foundational to the protocol. Some offer a single chapter, a single idea, or a single story that changes the way a person sees themselves and their healing. Some are written by people whose worldview differs in places from the one that shapes this work. All of them have something worth receiving.

Read slowly. Return often. The healing life is a long one, and good books are companions for the road.

Part One: With Deepest Gratitude

Mary Ruddick

Ancestral nutritionist, experiential anthropologist, and the woman without whom this protocol would not exist.

There are people whose work you encounter and immediately know: this person has changed everything. Mary Ruddick is one of those people. She has travelled to the furthest and most endangered corners of the world to sit with traditional cultures, the Maasai, the San people, isolated South American tribes, and to learn what human beings are supposed to eat, how they are supposed to move, and how they are supposed to heal. She has brought that knowledge home and made it practical. She has offered it generously. She has done this while fighting for her own health and the health of people others had given up on.

The microbiome framework at the heart of the ARP, the sequencing of mucosa, pathogen and birth microbe work, the specific organism selections, the understanding of quorum sensing and biofilm, and the connection between gut terrain and neurological function, has been shaped profoundly by Mary’s research and teaching. She is dubbed the “Sherlock Holmes of Health” and it is exactly right. She sees patterns no one else sees. She solves cases others have abandoned. And she does it all with the humility of someone who knows the body holds more wisdom than any single practitioner.

Thank you, Mary, from the depths of what this work has meant to the people it has reached. Her framework healed my family. I do not say that lightly or with any qualification. The understanding she brought, the microbiome sequencing, the birth microbes, the mucosa, the pathogens, and the ancestral foods, gave us a map when we had none, and the courage to follow it.

There is a particular quality of gratitude that lives beneath words, that does not diminish with time but only deepens, and that is where Mary Ruddick lives in me. I carry what she gave us as both a gift and a responsibility: to pass it forward with the same care and generosity with which it was given, always returning the credit to its source, always remembering that behind the framework is a human being who paid a high price to learn what she knows. What I have learned from her, I hold in trust for anyone who needs it. That is how healing moves, from one person to the next, hand to hand, generation to generation, gratitude woven into the giving.

Where to find Mary: her website is maryruddick.com, and her Instagram is @maryqueenofhearts. Search “Mary Ruddick” on YouTube for over one hundred podcast interviews, and begin with any interview on the microbiome or ancestral nutrition. She is featured in Beat Autoimmune by Palmer Kippola, GundryMD productions, Food Lies, MeatRx, and the LowCarb USA Podcast, and serves as Director of Nutrition for CaptainSoup.com, Enable Your Healing, The REIGNS Method, and the Back to Joy Program.

Jen Donovan

Licensed professional counsellor, nutritional therapy practitioner, and author.

Jen Donovan rebuilt her entire life from the ground up after severe chronic illness that conventional medicine could not address. What she created from that rebuilding, a Six Protocol framework integrating mental health, systems theory, polyvagal theory, nervous system regulation, ancestral nutrition, and gut microbiome science, is one of the most comprehensive and practically useful bodies of work available to people navigating complex chronic illness.

Her book, Rebuild Yourself: Whole Body Practices to Heal Your Brain and Nervous System, is essential reading and sits alongside the ARP as a companion rather than a competitor. Her warmth, her precision, and her absolute refusal to leave any stone unturned make her work trustworthy in the deepest sense. Thank you, Jen, for every hour of work you have poured into making healing accessible.

Where to find Jen: her website is wholebodyhealingwithjen.com, and her book is available on Amazon and through her website. Her free Facebook community is “Heal Histamine With the Histamine Queen,” with practical resources, low histamine guidance, and nervous system support. Workshops and recordings are available at wholebodyhealingwithjen.com/more/resources. For podcast appearances, search “Jen Donovan gut-brain axis” on any platform; Conversations for Health is a recommended starting point.

Part Two: A Word Before You Read

Everything below is offered with one important note: hold every resource up against what you have already learned and the foundations you have already implemented. Not every recommendation in every book will be appropriate for where you are on this path. Some of these authors recommend foods that are not part of the ARP at your stage. Some use therapeutic approaches that complement the protocol beautifully, and others that may require adaptation. Some hold a worldview that differs in important ways from the one that shapes this work.

That is not a reason to avoid them. It is a reason to read them well. We can learn from sources that do not completely align with what we are doing holistically in our lives. A good book that contains one chapter that changes everything is worth reading. A single interview, a single idea, or a single story told with honesty can open a door that no amount of correctly formatted protocol work could.

Receive what is true and good, hold it alongside what you already know, and trust your discernment. The foundations you have built are not fragile. They can receive new information without being destabilized. Read widely, read curiously, and return always to the core: food as medicine, the gut as the origin, the nervous system as the ground, and the spirit as the animating truth of all of it.

Part Three: Food, Nutrition, and Ancestral Eating

Eat Like a Human, by Dr. Bill Schindler

Begin here. Dr. Schindler is an archaeologist and experimental anthropologist who runs the Eastern Shore Food Lab. This book is the most practical, grounded, and joyful introduction to ancestral eating available. It teaches not just what to eat but how: fermentation, soaking, nose-to-tail cooking, and preparing food the way humans have for three hundred thousand years. It pairs beautifully with the ARP and is the recommended first read for anyone new to this way of eating.

Website: eatlikehuman.com.

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, by Weston A. Price, DDS

The foundational text of ancestral nutrition. Dr. Price travelled the world in the 1930s and documented the physical and dental health of isolated traditional peoples eating their native diets, compared to those who had adopted modern foods. The photographs alone are worth the book, and the conclusions are undeniable. This is the scientific and historical bedrock beneath all ancestral nutrition frameworks, including the ARP.

It is available free online at westonaprice.org, which is also an ongoing resource for sourcing and food preparation guidance.

The Sacred Cow, by Diana Rodgers and Robb Wolf

A rigorous, beautifully produced defence of animal foods, ethically, environmentally, and nutritionally. Diana Rodgers is a registered dietitian and regenerative agriculture advocate, and Robb Wolf is one of the originators of the modern ancestral health movement. This is required reading for anyone who has been told that eating meat is harmful to the planet or to themselves.

Website: sacredcow.info, where the documentary film is also available.

Know Your Fats, by Mary G. Enig, PhD

The definitive scientific reference on dietary fats: what they are, why saturated fat has been wrongly maligned, how lipid chemistry actually works, and why the move away from animal fats toward seed oils has been one of the most damaging dietary shifts in human history. Dense but essential.

The Cholesterol Myths, by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD

A systematic dismantling of the diet-heart hypothesis. Dr. Ravnskov reviews the original studies used to link dietary fat and cholesterol to heart disease and demonstrates, study by study, that the evidence does not support the conclusions that have been drawn from it. It gives a confident, evidence-based foundation for the ARP’s high-fat framework.

The Untold Story of Milk, by Ron Schmid, ND

The history, science, and politics of raw milk: why pasteurisation was introduced, what it destroys, and why fermented and raw dairy from well-raised animals is a foundational food. Deeply researched and essential for those incorporating dairy into their protocol.

Pottenger’s Cats and the Agouti Mice Studies

Two of the most important pieces of nutritional research ever conducted. Dr. Francis Pottenger’s multi-generational cat studies in the 1930s and 1940s showed that a raw animal food diet produced healthy, reproductively competent cats across generations, while cooked-food cats deteriorated physically with each generation. The Agouti mice studies demonstrated that maternal diet directly changes gene expression in offspring, affecting health outcomes across generations without changing the DNA sequence.

Both are available as summaries and original documents through the Weston A. Price Foundation and the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation at ppnf.org.

Toxic Superfoods, by Sally K. Norton, MPH

The comprehensive reference on oxalates, the anti-nutrient found in high concentrations in spinach, almonds, sweet potatoes, kale, and many other foods promoted as superfoods. Sally Norton spent decades piecing together why her own health deteriorated on a pristine plant-heavy diet, and discovered oxalate toxicity as the mechanism. A necessary read for understanding why ARP plant food selection is not arbitrary.

Website: sallyknorton.com.

The Plant Paradox, by Dr. Steven Gundry

Dr. Gundry’s work on lectins made the concept of antinutrients accessible to a broad audience. While the ARP framework extends well beyond his approach, and some of his recommendations require discernment, his foundational argument is valid and important: many plant foods contain compounds that damage the gut lining and generate systemic inflammation.

A note for ARP readers: hold his recommendations up against the ARP food list, because some foods he permits are not ARP-aligned at early stages.

Website: gundrymd.com.

Sugars That Heal, by Emil I. Mondoa, MD, and Mindy Kitei

One of the earliest accessible books on glyconutrients and saccharides, the specific sugars required for cell-to-cell communication and immune function. Several of them are found in the birth microbe feeding substrates used in the ARP, including HMOs, arabinogalactans, and chitin. Useful background for understanding why the birth microbe feeding foods are what they are.

The Fourfold Path to Healing, by Dr. Tom Cowan

Dr. Cowan’s framework integrates nutrition, therapeutic remedies, movement, and what he calls salutogenesis, the conditions that generate health rather than simply the absence of disease. His understanding of traditional foods and the role of the heart, blood, and cellular water in health is unique. Not all of his positions are mainstream, so read with discernment.

Website: drtomcowan.com.

Eat Like the Animals, by David Raubenheimer and Stephen Simpson

Oxford researchers who spent decades studying how animals across thousands of species regulate their own nutrition. Their protein leverage hypothesis explains why modern calorie-dense, protein-dilute diets produce overconsumption, and why a diet naturally high in animal protein regulates appetite without effort. Rigorous, readable, and validating.

Offaly Good Cooking, by Janin Farzin

The single best practical resource for incorporating organ meats into daily cooking with joy and confidence. Janin Farzin makes offal approachable, delicious, and genuinely exciting, and every recipe is grounded in the understanding that these are the most nutrient-dense foods on earth.

Website: offalygoodcooking.com.

Bumblebee Apothecary, by Marisa Tolsma

Marisa Tolsma is an herbalist whose website and community are among the most practical and warm resources available for those walking an ancestral, gut-healing path. Her recipes, her supplement guidance, and her community leadership have helped thousands of families implement real food healing.

Website: bumblebeeapothecary.com.

Part Four: The Gut, the Brain, and the Nervous System

Gut and Psychology Syndrome and Gut and Physiology Syndrome

These are the books from which much of the ARP’s gut-healing framework draws, and they deserve real credit here. They were written by a neurologist and nutritionist who developed her protocol after healing her own son’s autism through diet. The foundational insight, that the gut is the origin of most neurological and psychiatric conditions, is now increasingly supported by mainstream research. Both books are essential reading for understanding why meat stock comes first, why certain foods must be removed, and why the microbiome matters so much to mental health.

Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind, by Dr. Georgia Ede

Dr. Ede is a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who reversed her own chronic illness through dietary change and now applies ketogenic and carnivore-adjacent diets in her psychiatric practice. This book makes the case, grounded in neuroscience and clinical evidence, that the brain is a metabolic organ and that food is psychiatry. One of the most important books in the ARP library for understanding the food and mood connection.

Website: diagnosisdiet.com.

Memory Rescue, by Dr. Daniel Amen

Dr. Amen is the leading researcher in SPECT brain imaging and has scanned over two hundred thousand brains. Memory Rescue presents his BRIGHT MINDS framework for identifying and addressing the specific risk factors that drive brain aging, memory loss, and cognitive decline. His nutritional recommendations align well with the ARP, and the book makes a motivating case for why food choices are brain choices.

Website: amenclinics.com.

The Brain That Changes Itself and The Brain’s Way of Healing, by Dr. Norman Doidge

Dr. Doidge’s two books on neuroplasticity are among the most important works in modern neuroscience made accessible to non-specialists. The Brain That Changes Itself established the concept of neuroplasticity for a popular audience. The Brain’s Way of Healing goes further, documenting the reversal of Parkinson’s, chronic pain, and other neurological conditions through movement, light, sound, and thought, the very mechanisms the nervous system work in the ARP draws from.

Beat Autoimmune, by Palmer Kippola, FMCHC

Palmer Kippola reversed her multiple sclerosis through functional medicine and lifestyle change. This book presents her FIGHTS framework, covering food, infections, gut health, hormone balance, toxins, and stress, and is one of the most comprehensive patient-facing guides to autoimmune reversal available. It also contains an exceptional library of further book recommendations within its pages, and Mary Ruddick contributed to it.

Website: palmerkippola.com.

The Good Virus, by Tom Ireland

A beautifully written exploration of bacteriophages, the viruses that kill bacteria, and what they mean for the future of microbiome medicine and infectious disease treatment. It gives important context for understanding how the microbial world operates at a level below what standard microbiome testing can see.

An Epidemic of Absence, by Moises Velasquez-Manoff

This book explores the Old Friends Hypothesis, the idea that the modern epidemic of allergies, autoimmunity, and inflammatory disease is caused not by what we are exposed to but by what we are no longer exposed to: the parasites, bacteria, and organisms our immune systems co-evolved with over hundreds of thousands of years. A profound and disturbing read that explains why the ARP’s work of restoring ancestral microbes is not optional, but the reversal of a fundamental modern deprivation.

Breathe, by James Nestor

The most accessible and entertaining book on nasal breathing, the diaphragm, and the science of breath. Nestor spent years investigating how modern humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly and what it costs us in sleep, cognitive function, immune health, and nervous system regulation. His findings directly support the ARP’s emphasis on nasal breathing and breath-based nervous system work.

Website: mrjamesnestor.com.

Musical Breathwork

A growing body of practitioners combining breathwork with intentional music and sound to access deep nervous system states, release stored tension, and activate the parasympathetic system. Worth exploring for those who find traditional breathwork too clinical. Search “Musical Breathwork” on Instagram for current practitioners and sessions.

Sounds Like Misophonia, by Dr. Jane Gregory

The best clinical and compassionate guide to misophonia, the neurological condition in which specific sounds trigger intense emotional and physiological responses. For those affected, Dr. Gregory’s framework offers both understanding and practical management. It is relevant to the ARP’s nervous system work because misophonia is a vagal and threat-detection condition at its root.

The Conscious Ear, by Dr. Alfred Tomatis

Dr. Tomatis was a French ENT physician whose work on the relationship between listening, the ear, the vagus nerve, and neurological development was decades ahead of its time. His methods for using sound and music to retrain the nervous system have been applied to autism, learning disorders, sensory processing, and emotional dysregulation. His insights on the voice, the ear, and human connection are unique and profound.

The Body Clock, by Dr. Michael Smolensky and Lynne Lamberg

The authoritative guide to chronobiology, the science of biological timing. It covers circadian rhythms, light hygiene, sleep architecture, and the timing of eating in a way that grounds the ARP’s light hygiene and meal timing practices in solid science.

Waterlogged, by Tim Noakes, MD

Professor Noakes dismantles the overhydration myth, the idea that we must drink water constantly to perform and function well. His work on the physiology of hydration and sodium is directly relevant to the ARP’s emphasis on mineral salt and electrolytes over plain water, as we discussed in Week Ninety Seven.

Part Five: The Mind, Memory, and Healing

What My Bones Know, by Stephanie Foo

A memoir of complex PTSD, written by a journalist with extraordinary skill and honesty. Foo investigates her own childhood trauma and the ways it lives in her body, her relationships, and her chronic health symptoms. One of the finest and most human accounts of the body and mind connection in chronic illness, and it pairs beautifully with the somatic and limbic work in the ARP.

Dr. Jacob Ham, trauma resources

Dr. Ham is a clinical psychologist and trauma specialist whose website contains one of the most thoughtfully curated collections of trauma, attachment, and nervous system book recommendations available. His compassionate and science-grounded approach to childhood trauma and complex PTSD offers a rich extension to the psychological side of healing.

Website: drhaminnyc.com, which contains a full recommended reading list worth bookmarking.

When the Body Says No, by Dr. Gabor Maté

Dr. Maté’s exploration of how suppressed emotions, chronic stress, and early attachment wounds manifest as autoimmune disease, cancer, and chronic illness. His compassionate and unflinching case histories demonstrate the mind and body connection not as a metaphor but as a physiological reality. Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the emotional terrain beneath the physical symptoms.

Website: drgabormate.com.

Take Off Your Glasses and See, by Dr. Jacob Liberman

Dr. Liberman is an optometrist whose work on vision, light, and awareness opens remarkable questions about perception, attention, and healing. His thesis, that poor vision is often a learned response to a psychologically unsafe world rather than a purely physical deficit, resonates with the ARP’s understanding of the nervous system as the interpreting layer beneath all physical symptoms.

The Amino Acid Therapy Book, by Dr. Anthony Chaffee and colleagues

The scientific and clinical case for using targeted amino acids to address neurotransmitter imbalances, mood disorders, addiction recovery, and anxiety. Directly relevant to the ARP’s understanding of why adequate animal protein, the richest and most bioavailable source of amino acids, is neurologically therapeutic and not merely nutritional.

Website: anthonychaffee.com.

The Mood Cure, by Julia Ross, MA

Julia Ross pioneered the use of amino acid therapy for mood disorders, addiction, and emotional eating, and her work on how nutrient deficiency drives emotional dysregulation is foundational. The four amino acid groups she identifies, corresponding to serotonin, catecholamines, GABA, and endorphins, map directly onto the neurotransmitter deficits addressed by the ARP’s food and microbiome work.

Website: juliarossnmrt.com.

Intuitive Eating, by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

Read this one with the ARP caveat in mind. Their framework of making peace with food, honouring hunger and fullness, and moving away from diet culture has helped millions of people disentangle their relationship with eating from shame, control, and fear. The nervous system and relational dimensions of eating, and how safety and trust are communicated through food, resonate deeply with the ARP’s meal practices. Discernment is needed on specific food recommendations.

Women Food and God, by Geneen Roth

A beautiful and searching exploration of the relationship between emotional eating, spirituality, and self-understanding. Geneen Roth’s honesty about her own history opens a conversation about the deeper hungers that food cannot satisfy. It pairs well with the ARP’s understanding that eating practices are also spiritual practices.

Part Six: Specific Health Topics

The Iodine Crisis, by Lynne Farrow

The comprehensive guide to iodine deficiency, the history of its removal from the food supply, and the consequences for thyroid, breast, and immune health. Lynne Farrow’s research into the Iodine Project, and the clinical protocols of Dr. Guy Abraham and Dr. David Brownstein, is essential reading for anyone with thyroid dysfunction, autoimmune thyroiditis, or breast health concerns.

Dr. Brownstein’s books are available at drbrownstein.com, including Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It, and Dr. Abraham’s original iodine loading test protocols are available at optimox.com.

A note for ARP readers: an iodine protocol in the context of suspected Hashimoto’s requires careful sequencing, so always hold it against the thyroid guidance in the protocol.

Dr. Sarah Myhill, mitochondrial medicine and chronic fatigue

Dr. Myhill is a British physician who has spent her career treating chronic fatigue syndrome and ME through a mitochondrial medicine framework. Her work on mitochondrial dysfunction, sulfur, magnesium, B vitamins, and the energy equation in chronic illness is foundational to the ARP’s supplement sequencing. Her books include Diagnosis and Treatment of CFS and Fibromyalgia and Ecological Medicine.

Website: drmyhill.co.uk, an extraordinary free resource with hundreds of detailed patient information sheets on virtually every aspect of chronic illness.

Reverse Parkinson’s Now, by John Pepper

John Pepper is a South African man who reversed his Parkinson’s disease through conscious walking and lifestyle changes, without pharmaceutical intervention. His story, documented both in Norman Doidge’s The Brain’s Way of Healing and in his own book, is one of the most powerful demonstrations of neuroplasticity in the clinical literature. Relevant to anyone working on a neurological condition.

Dr. Nasha Winters, the metabolic approach to cancer

Dr. Winters is a naturopathic oncologist who reversed her own terminal ovarian cancer diagnosis and has developed a comprehensive metabolic framework for cancer prevention and co-management alongside conventional treatment. Her work on the terrain, the metabolic, immune, and microbiome conditions that allow cancer to establish, resonates deeply with the ARP approach. Her book The Metabolic Approach to Cancer, written with Jess Higgins Kelley, is the primary resource.

Website: metabolicterrain.com.

Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, the SHINE protocol

Dr. Teitelbaum’s SHINE protocol, covering sleep, hormones, infections, nutrition, and exercise, is one of the most practically useful frameworks for people in the early stages of healing who cannot yet tolerate much. His work on B vitamins, adrenal support, and sleep restoration provides useful context for the ARP’s nutrient sequencing.

Website: vitality101.com.

Nicotine research

There is a body of research on the therapeutic use of nicotine patches, not tobacco, for neurological conditions, Lyme disease, long COVID, and other chronic inflammatory conditions. The work on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and their role in immune regulation and inflammation is unconventional but increasingly referenced in functional medicine circles. Hold it against what you already know, and consult a practitioner before implementing anything.

Dr. Jack Kruse, quantum biology and light

Dr. Kruse is a neurosurgeon whose work on light biology, mitochondria, and the quantum nature of living systems is one of the most radical and interesting bodies of thinking in the ancestral health space. Not all of his positions are mainstream or fully evidenced, and some of his insight on light, water, and mitochondrial health is genuinely important. Read with curiosity and discernment.

Website: jackkruse.com.

Part Seven: Light, Nature, and the Healing Environment

Why We Need to Be Wild, by Jessica Carew Kraft

A journalist and mother’s journey into rewilding, the deliberate re-engagement with nature, wild food, and ancestral physical practices, and what it does to the body, the mind, and the nervous system. Compelling, personal, and grounding, and a beautifully written companion to the ARP’s nature and grounding practices.

Bach Flower Therapy

Dr. Edward Bach’s system of thirty-eight flower remedies for emotional states is one of the oldest and most widely used systems of vibrational medicine. The remedies address specific emotional states, including fear, grief, impatience, despair, and over-concern for others, with a gentleness and precision that conventional approaches cannot match. Rescue Remedy, the emergency combination, is widely available and useful for acute emotional overwhelm.

The Bach Centre’s official resource for finding a practitioner or learning about each remedy is bachflower.com.

Instagram Voices Worth Following

The following practitioners and teachers share freely on Instagram, and their content has been found genuinely useful by people on the ARP path. All require the same discernment as the books: receive what is good, and hold it against what you know.

@theHomeomother, for homeopathy, ancestral healing, and gentle family medicine.
@OscarPatel, for functional medicine, the microbiome, and the nervous system.
@JulesHorn, for somatic healing and body-based trauma work.
Dean Hall, whose story of reconnecting with the natural world as the primary intervention in his cancer recovery is extraordinary; search “Dean Hall reversed cancer nature.”
@TimMatz, for men’s health, nervous system work, and ancestral living.
@LolaAgni, for Ayurvedic and ancestral practices, and food as ceremony.

Movement Resources for Those Who Need to Begin Very Gently

For those whose nervous system cannot yet tolerate structured exercise, vigorous breathwork, or any practice that feels like a demand rather than an invitation, somatic movement and very gentle guided practices offer a way back into the body that does not require strength, endurance, or performance.

Sah D’Simone is a meditation teacher, somatic healing guide, and author whose work uses conscious movement, breath, and sound to access and release stored emotional and physiological tension. His approach is non-performance and non-athletic; it is movement as prayer, as release, and as homecoming to the body. It is particularly beneficial for those with trauma, chronic pain, or profound fatigue who need movement that feels like relief rather than effort. Find his classes and guided sessions by searching “Sah D’Simone” on Facebook.

Healing Through Movement is a Facebook group and resource space dedicated to gentle, accessible movement practices for people with chronic illness, pain, and limited capacity. The content is paced for those who are rebuilding from the ground up, where five minutes of gentle stretching is a genuine achievement and is treated as one. Search “Healing Through Movement” on Facebook to find the group and current resources.

Part Eight: Spirit, Rest, and the Interior Life

This Too Shall Last, by K. J. Ramsey

A theologian with chronic illness writes about suffering, faith, and the long haul of not being healed on one’s own timeline. This book is not primarily about physical healing; it is about the spiritual and psychological work of remaining present and trusting in the middle of suffering that has no clear end.

One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp

Ann Voskamp’s meditation on gratitude as a practice of seeing, of training attention to receive the grace present in ordinary moments. The spiritual discipline she describes is one of the most practical and accessible forms of nervous system regulation available: attention deliberately redirected toward beauty, gift, and presence rather than threat, lack, and the future.

Wintering, by Katherine May

A meditation on the seasons of fallow, difficulty, and withdrawal that are necessary for renewal, in nature and in human lives. May’s beautiful prose and her honest reckoning with her own periods of incapacity offer something healing protocols rarely address: permission to be in winter, and the wisdom to inhabit it well rather than fighting to escape it.

How to Winter, by Kari Leibowitz, PhD

A psychologist who studied how Norwegians maintain wellbeing through months of polar darkness develops practical tools for cultivating a winter mindset. Her concept of positiv vinter, actively finding what is beautiful and particular about the cold, dark, quiet months rather than merely enduring them, is a useful companion to the ARP’s light hygiene work.

Celebration of Discipline, by Richard J. Foster

The classic guide to the spiritual disciplines: fasting, solitude, simplicity, prayer, service, contemplation, and celebration. Foster’s framework is one of the most practically useful available for those seeking to build the interior conditions that support healing: a quiet self, an unhurried life, and a habitual orientation toward gratitude and presence. The chapter on fasting alone is worth the book.

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, by John Mark Comer

One of the most important books for those whose nervous system has been shaped by the pace and demands of modern life. Comer makes the case that hurry is not simply inconvenient but spiritually and physiologically destructive, and that the deliberate slowing of one’s life is not a luxury but a prerequisite for health. It pairs beautifully with everything we have practised about the parasympathetic state.

Atomic Habits, by James Clear

The most practical and neuroscience-grounded guide to building and sustaining habits available. Clear’s framework of systems over goals, identity change over behaviour change, and tiny habits compounded over time is directly applicable to the daily practice of this protocol.

Website: jamesclear.com.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness-based stress reduction

The founder of MBSR, whose books Full Catastrophe Living and Wherever You Go There You Are, and whose programs, have brought evidence-based mindfulness practice into mainstream medicine. His work on the relationship between attention, stress, and illness is foundational and deeply practical. The body scan and sitting practices are among the most reliably vagal-activating tools available to beginners.

Programs are available online through umassmed.edu/cfm.

Why Kindness is Good for You, by Dr. David Hamilton

Dr. Hamilton, a former pharmaceutical scientist, documents the physiological effects of kindness on the heart, the immune system, the vagus nerve, and the healing trajectory of illness. His work on compassion, connection, and the biological mechanisms of love’s effect on the body is both scientifically grounded and genuinely moving.

Website: drdavidhamilton.com.

Loneliness, by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick

The definitive scientific study of loneliness and its effects on health. Cacioppo, a social neuroscientist, demonstrated that loneliness is as damaging to physical health as smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity. Essential context for understanding why the relational and community dimensions of healing are not secondary to the nutritional and microbial ones, but physiologically primary.

Zenith Man: Death, Love, and Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom, by McCracken Poston Jr.

This may be one of the most profound resources in this whole library for understanding why community is so important. It is the true story of Alvin Ridley, a reclusive television repairman in small-town Georgia who was put on trial for the murder of his wife, and of the lawyer who defended him and then became his friend. His wife had died of epilepsy rather than violence, and Alvin was eventually found to be autistic, which explained almost everything his town had held against him for decades.

Read it and you will see how easily we isolate a person simply because we do not understand why their body causes their personality to be the way it is. Please read this book, buy it as a gift for others, and take the lesson in it with you for life. The revised edition is released on September 29, 2026, and that is the one you want. The book has its own website at zenithmanbook.com.

The Forgiveness Project, by Dr. Michael Barry

Dr. Barry, a hospital chaplain working with cancer patients, documents the relationship between unforgiveness, the sustained physiological state of resentment and grievance, and the progression of serious illness. His practical and compassionate framework for moving toward forgiveness as both a physiological and a spiritual intervention is relevant to anyone whose healing has stalled in ways that nutrition and microbiome work alone cannot address.

Love Is Letting Go of Fear, by Gerald G. Jampolsky

Dr. Jampolsky’s classic work on the relationship between fear, love, and healing has accompanied many people through serious illness. His core insight, that the mind’s orientation toward love or toward fear produces fundamentally different physiological conditions, resonates with everything the ARP understands about the nervous system, the threat response, and the conditions of healing.

Hope Is the First Dose, by Dr. W. Lee Warren, MD

A neurosurgeon and Iraq war veteran who lost his son writes about hope, not as optimism or wishful thinking but as a physiological and spiritual practice that can be learned and cultivated. His framework of active hope, grounded in both neuroscience and faith, offers something useful to anyone whose healing journey has required them to hold on in the dark.

Get Out of Your Head, by Jennie Allen

A practical guide to breaking the cycles of anxious, destructive thinking through intentional redirection of attention. Allen’s approach draws on cognitive neuroscience and Christian spiritual practice, and is accessible, warm, and immediately applicable.

Caroline Myss, energy medicine and spiritual anatomy

Caroline Myss’s work on the relationship between personal power, energy, and illness, particularly Anatomy of the Spirit and Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can, offers a framework for understanding why some people remain stuck in illness despite doing everything physically right. Her concept of wounding as identity is provocative and important for anyone whose healing journey has become their primary way of relating to themselves.

Website: myss.com.

The Sacred Year, by Michael Yankoski

A writer’s year of deliberate practice, one ancient spiritual discipline per month, and what it does to his attention, his relationships, and his sense of self. A beautiful and practical companion for those seeking to build a life with more depth, rhythm, and interior spaciousness.

Lost on Purpose, by Patrick Taylor

On the recovery of wonder, attention, and presence through deliberate disorientation from the ordinary. For those whose illness has narrowed their world, this is an invitation back to the largeness of things.

Part Nine: The Lives of the Saints

The lives of the saints are not merely devotional reading. They are case studies in the transformation of suffering into meaning, in radical forgiveness, in the practice of letting go, and in the discovery that the self is larger than its wounds and smaller than the Love that holds it. For those on a healing journey that engages the spirit as well as the body, these lives are companions and teachers.

The Story of a Soul, by St. Thérèse of Lisieux

The autobiography of the Little Flower, Thérèse Martin, who died of tuberculosis at twenty-four and became one of the most beloved saints in the history of the Church. Her little way, the practice of doing small things with great love, of releasing the need for recognition or achievement, and of trusting in smallness, is one of the most powerful nervous system medicines in the tradition. For those whose identity has been shaped by overachievement or performance, this book is quietly revolutionary.

St. Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue and biographies

Catherine’s life and her mystical writings are remarkable for their integration of intense bodily suffering, prophetic boldness, and radical forgiveness. She lived austerely, ate almost nothing for years, which requires real discernment in the context of healing, dictated extraordinary theological writings, and corresponded with popes and political leaders from a position of personal poverty. Her courage and her capacity for love despite suffering are extraordinary.

Padre Pio, biographies

The life of Padre Pio, the twentieth-century Italian friar who bore the stigmata for fifty years and served thousands of penitents, raises the deepest questions about the relationship between suffering, prayer, and healing. His practice of retroactive intercession, praying for those already dead, including his own grandfather, is one of the most striking instances of atemporal prayer in modern Catholic witness.

Recommended: Send Me Your Guardian Angel by Fr. Alessio Parente, and Padre Pio: The True Story by C. Bernard Ruffin.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers, sayings and lives

The fourth and fifth century Christian monastics who withdrew into the Egyptian and Syrian deserts to live simply, pray ceaselessly, and practice radical forgiveness are among the most psychologically sophisticated people in history. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, short, sometimes cryptic, always luminous sayings attributed to Abba Anthony, Abba Moses, Amma Syncletica, and others, are among the most compressed wisdom on the interior life available in any tradition.

The radical simplicity of the desert life produced a quality of interior freedom that modern life almost never encounters. These are not primarily ascetic texts; they are texts about the liberation of the self from the tyranny of its own reactions.

Recommended editions: The Desert Fathers translated by Helen Waddell, and The Sayings of the Desert Fathers translated by Benedicta Ward.

A Living Resource

This library is a living resource, and it will grow. Return to it as your healing grows.

Go, and Be Well

That is the end of the protocol, and the beginning of the rest of your life. Take what you have been given, keep your rhythm, love the people in front of you, and go be a light. Trust your body, trust your intuition, and trust the quiet voice that never frightens you.

Never stop becoming.

Thank you for walking these two years with me.