Focus:
On our intuition (or “instincts” if you like that word better) and allowing it to guide us and releasing the desire to follow the urgent directions of our dysregulated nervous system.
Repetition:
I was gifted intuition (or instincts).
I KNOW the voice that was placed so lovingly within me to help guide me through my day.
I will learn to listen to my gifted voice instead of the voice of urgency which is in opposition to love and healing.
Feeding the Birth Microbes
You will begin feeding the birth microbes this week. The foods that feed the birth microbes — and working amounts:
- Green plantain — 1/4 of a green plantain chip (not cooked in seed oils), or a small cooked slice.
- Apple pectin in supplement form or a bite of fruit leather.
- Raw milk (for lactose) — 1 teaspoon.
- HMOs (human milk oligosaccharides) — a small pinch. From a supplement form, or from human breast milk from a healthy source.
- Chitin (for the chitin-feeding strains) — chitosan, or ground shrimp shells or crawfish shells.
- Larch arabinogalactans — supplement form, or birch bark tea may be used instead.
- Hibiscus tea — daily, where tolerated.
- Colostrum — raw or low-heat treated; a pinch to half a teaspoon.
- Acacia fibre or PHGG — a small daily pinch.
- Inulin or Jerusalem artichoke — a pinch daily IF you are not already drinking chicory tea (which carries inulin naturally). If you ARE drinking chicory tea, the inulin is covered.
A Note on Ketosis
Note that we are having garlic, carrots and onions which also feed birth microbes. If you are staying in nutritional ketosis, be mindful — these additions can knock you out of ketosis. Adjust the amounts accordingly to keep your ketone numbers where you want them.
Regulating the Nervous System
We have learned some helpful tools so far to assist in regulating our nervous system. Without these tools and tools like them, finding remission will likely be impossible. If you are not incorporating the lifestyle parts of this protocol, please start from the beginning, staying where you are with the food, and work them into your day.
I want to emphasise now that we are not suppressing feelings or trying to stay emotionless all the time. We want to learn to express our emotions AND stay regulated. The way we do this is to learn our favourite tools that regulate our nervous system and make them habits so that we can access them without thinking in times of anger, sadness, trauma, etc. Some of our practices are to actually release stored trauma from the body and train it to feel safe as well.
While this protocol is not teaching us to live exactly like our ancestors, it IS teaching us to have the health and fortitude of our ancestors. I wish that we could all live in small communities in nature, walk everywhere or ride animals, get all of our food from our local environment, wear clothes made from our environment, etc. But this is not the time that most of us live in. We want to integrate the things our bodies need, while operating in the life we have chosen or been born into and have the best health possible.
This is why we incorporate or offer some bio-hacking, get into a deep ketosis, incorporate sound, movement and a truly ancestral diet. Our ancestors, living in rural areas with no famine, would have been in perfect health as we see today in the living tribes and communities that still live on their ancestral land and have zero modern food or things. People totally immersed in nature have no physical and mental illness because they are reverent, live in the light, sleep on the ground, eat a species-specific diet, live in small community and do not even know what is happening outside a certain radius, are always supported by their community, move their bodies, are surrounded by perfect frequencies, have endless exposure to microbes, laugh, live in gratitude and react appropriately to situations, even traumatic ones.
We know it is possible. We now know the body was created in such a way that it regenerates, desires to reach a state of perfect health and will do everything it can to help you, given the proper tools. We can do this by living fully in nature with no modern foods or conveniences. Personally, this is my preference but not my story! Haha! We can also do this by simply giving our holistic selves what they need and letting go of what they do not need.
Addiction and Compulsion
If you find you are struggling with an addiction or a compulsion, it is ok — it is not your lack of willpower that is at the core, and I want to stress that guilt and shame will only drive the behaviour. First, know that compassion is crucial. There is not an addiction or compulsion that we chose to incorporate into our lives. They originate from either missing microbes or microbes that are present that should not be. Then the actual habits are formed along the way.
Our minds know these things are not good for us but our nervous system does not, not yet. We learned these habits because we were trying to self-soothe in some way and at least for a moment, they do soothe. We have taught our nervous system that in times of life or death, a cigarette, pizza, candy, martini, drugs, pornography, fighting, scrolling, driving recklessly, etc. is a life-saving mechanism. Our nervous system thinks we will actually die without these things. We are here to teach it that there are regulating options that actually work.
Of course your mind understands that it is not a life-or-death situation, but a part of you truly believes it is. When you reach a space where you are dysregulated, your nervous system truly needs to be regulated because it is in fight or flight, it believes there is a real tiger in front of you, teeth snarling and ready to devour you. Your nervous system does not understand that someone at work said something that you reacted to, that you are nervous about an interview, that your child threw a tantrum, that your family member is angry, etc. Your nervous system has not evolved for the modern world. It has absolutely no idea that a car cutting you off and the rage you feel from that is not a hungry tiger. And remember that it also sees “threats” all day that we think are normal, the scrolling, never being outside, blood sugar spikes, fragrances, driving or flying, constant artificial light, shift work, etc.
So we learn our tools and we implement them.
Tools for Compulsions and Reactivity
The following are a few examples of things you can incorporate in your life for compulsions, addictions and reactivity. Please begin to incorporate them or similar things this week.
Practise a 1-minute pause before picking up your phone, responding to comments or messages, eating something you do not need to, eating from boredom, eating from a place of being too hungry, etc. In this 1 minute, breathe 5.5 seconds in through the nose and 5.5 out through the mouth. Say out loud, if possible, “even though I feel out of control, I know I have a choice in the next thing I do.” Always know that you truly do have a choice and at the end of the 1-minute, you can choose any action and if you begin to regret your decision, have compassion for yourself and just take it as a lesson. “I notice I was not as happy with the choice I made as I thought I would be, next time I will try a different option and I am grateful for this lesson.”
If it is a face-to-face reaction you would like to change, please practise this in moments of calm to make into a habit. When you are in conversation with others, check in with yourself that you are present from time to time. “My husband is wearing his blue shirt, my mother has lovely hands, my child’s eyes are so bright, I see my father’s nose, my friend is furrowing her brow, etc.” Just notice things to stay connected with the person in front of you so when they do something that you find triggering, you can just take a few seconds to be present and notice their humanity. This reminds us that we are human too and we make mistakes as well. Cultivate the belief that all humans are trying their best and there are countless reasons why they find themselves in spaces of what could easily be viewed as selfish, cruel, trying to hurt others, etc., including you.
In times of reaching for an addiction or compulsion, tell yourself to wait 10 minutes and then you can still have the thing or behaviour once you are regulated. Listen to and do a 5-minute body scan, flat on your back on the floor, arms out to sides a little, with no pillow. Do 5.5 breathing or box breathing (4 in nasally, 4 hold, 4 out, 4 hold). Choose a short prayer, Scripture or affirmation to memorise and use after the body scan.
Some examples for Christians would be prayers like “Come Holy Spirit, The Binding Prayer, Ave Maria, St. Michael Prayer, The Jesus Prayer, Gloria Patri, etc.” or a Scripture that reminds you of God’s Protection and Love, turning to Him for strength, turning from fear, etc. For non-Christians you could choose an affirmation like “I have free will and a mind that can choose what it knows is best for me. My intuition can tell me what my body needs and my intuition speaks the language of calm and neutrality and not one of panic and urgency.”
You could also opt to do tapping in this moment. In a time of calm, make a playlist on YouTube from The Tapping Solution of exercises you think would be good for your future self when in dysregulation and some that are good for anytime. Practise the ones you want often so that you will be able to reach for them when you are not calm.
Taking a pause has been shown to make us 90% more equipped to make a decision that will help us. We are rewiring our brains and therefore our habits.
Keep in mind that if we are not yet making our feel-good chemicals, especially GABA, being positive is going to be incredibly difficult. Without these very physical helpers in our body, we feel defeated and without joy. And that is 100% ok. Just practice the exercises above and always have compassion for yourself, especially when you cannot find joy or hope.
Also remember that the voice of God, the voice of your intuition (or instincts), the voices of heavenly beings will NEVER rush you, speak to you harshly, make you feel guilty or shameful. The only place that urgency, degradation, despair, hopelessness and harshness come from is the place that is opposite of love. The voices of the latter are to be disregarded. You can counter them with prayer, known truths, you can ignore them, hum, sing a song, laugh at them and tell them that it is silliness.
Above all, we keep going, we do the work and know the effects are proven, cumulative and not immediate and that we are supposed to be here. You were born for such a time as this.
Enjoying Your Soups
Keep eating your delicious soups!! Take this time to really practise eating the same, basic meals every day so that your body knows what nutrition to expect. Practise relishing every bite, being grateful for the nutrients, the source of the food, the wisdom of the ancient recipes, feel your cells benefiting from each bite. See each meal as wealth, truth, repair and experience feelings of reverence and gratitude. Never are these meals ordinary or mundane! They are the information with which your body is making itself new.
You are doing such an amazing job!