Dietary Transformation from the Inside Out
Access a powerful sense of inner authority and self-trust. In food and diet…and beyond.
About this Course
This program will crystallize within you a powerful sense of inner authority and self-trust. In food and diet…and beyond. We explore a path of vitality and ease, yet one that also requires a firm commitment to undo deep-seated habits of struggle that are nearly universal in modern culture.
Unlike most courses on diet and nutrition, this learning journey will not tell you what to eat and not to eat. Many of us are quite comfortable with a new list of supplements or superfoods, new detox regimens or dietary principles… another set of instructions to follow. In this program we go beyond that comfort zone. We access the authority that resides in the body.
Does that sound like a cliche to you — “listen to the body”? Easier said than done. In this course we develop simple and effective practices to connect with body intelligence, so that desire becomes a force we can trust for guidance, rather than an enemy that sabotages health. We will see why we so often hunger for things that do not serve our health, and we will learn how to maintain well-being at a higher level.
Session Information
“Dietary Transformation from the Inside Out” consists of five main audio sessions, each with a conceptual discussion, a guided meditation, and a take-home practice to implement and ground the teachings. These can be downloaded for your listening convenience. A short video introduces each session. In addition, I’ve prepared a number of mini-modules on specific topics like fasting, exercise, supplements, and feeding children, and will add modules ongoingly in response to participant requests.
We recommend that you go through the core material first, approximately one session a week, before moving on to the modules. The main sessions in particular are dense with information and might reward repeated listenings and time to digest them.
Our Unique Approach
A key premise of this course is that for most people, the main problem isn’t lack of information about what, when, and how much to eat. Beyond diet too, the problem usually isn’t that we don’t know what to do. It is that we don’t do it. This course will bring you insights that go far beyond the realm of food, to include anything you choose to “bring in.”
This learning journey is intended for people who:
- Struggle with weight issues, particularly due to overeating
- Struggle with poor dietary habits, for example eating too much sugar
- Are at a transition point that calls for a healthier way of eating
- Want to cut through confusion surrounding the hundreds of (contradictory) dietary authorities out there
Sessions
Inner Authority
What is the alternative to self-control? How can we access the intuitive knowledge about food, and learn to trust it?
In the first session, we explore the nuances that arise in moments of personal choice. In doing so, we cultivate and strengthen the inner authority that allows us to know for ourselves what foods truly nourish us, and to choose them effortlessly.
Displaced Desire
Can we really trust desire? Why does it so often seem that we want the things that harm ourselves and others?
When we develop insight into the authentic needs that may be lying beneath secondary desires, then we can meet them directly. We no longer need displace our desire for adventure, intimacy, connection, or nourishment onto harmful substitutes.
Pleasure & Pain
How can we recover the biological guidance of pleasure and pain so that it is reliable? How can we integrate pleasure and discomfort so that we no longer need the willpower to make good choices?
In this session, we explore the role of pleasure and pain in our diet and in our lives. When we fully integrate the sensory information that accompanies a choice, we can then access body-level intuitive information that is much more nuanced than any external source of nutritional data.
Liberation from Self-forcing
If you can’t MAKE yourself change, how can you change? How can we liberate ourselves from conditional self-approval and self-rejection?
This session, we examine our tendency to strive for control, justify and condemn, approve and disapprove, and try to exert self-discipline through conditional approval and rejection. Only by releasing those tendencies and allowing ourselves the full experience of our choices, undistorted by judgement, can desire be a reliable guide.
The Symphony of Vibrations
What does it mean to say “a state of diet is a state of being”? Why do we create conditions that reduce our levels of joy and vitality, and how can we change that?
There is a beautiful, interweaving of melodies and harmonies in a body and a life that we become aware of as we follow the path of trust. Be prepared for changes that go beyond diet. Diet can be a path of transformation, if it corresponds to the next movement in your symphony.
Optional NAAS Subscription
This course has run as a DIY course, and you are welcome to do it that way. However, for many people it is more powerful to work the material with a group. My business partner and former wife Patsy and I host a network community called A New and Ancient Story (short for NAAS). It is an online network dedicated to reverence in communication. If you would like to participate in it in conjunction with this course, go to the community landing page and read the introduction and posting guidelines. If you feel resonant, you can join through additional subscription. Once you are a member, you will find archives of discussions on course forums on the left menu as well as participating in many features NAAS offers
Program Costs
Upon beginning this course, on the first page titled Preliminaries, you’ll choose a self-determined fee that feels right to you, that feels clean, fair, and honest, and that respects your financial means. If that amount is zero, we welcome and trust that choice as well. All material will be available to you regardless of what you choose, and you will never receive any marketing, promotions, ads, or upselling. We offer the course as a gift, trusting the generosity of participants to support us in developing and sustaining in-depth learning journeys like this one.
One final, important note: This program is not for people with serious medical conditions or serious eating disorders. I’m not saying this for legal reasons, I’m saying it because if you are very sick or have an eating disorder you should work one on one with a skilled practitioner.
Thank you to Filiz Telek for the beautiful session images used in this series, and to Jaime Fritsch for our signature course image.