80 the rice diet renewal
and fully expected, to be totally healed. Well, to summarize this
phenomenally amazing and physically, mentally, emotionally, and
spiritually transformative experience as succinctly as possible, I will
say that I immediately felt different. (I will describe the transforma-
tive spiritual highlights of this experience in chapter 5 .) Although
my physical joint pain was still present for another week, I knew on
an emotional, intuitive level that my control addiction, or chronic,
habitual dependence on the resentment of other controlling peo-
ple, had forever changed. It was a week later when my physical
pain was completely healed. I pray that you will fi nd this exercise
as revealing and potentially healing for your particular emotional
issues as I did for mine. You are welcome to duplicate the follow-
ing exercise for your journal or ongoing emotional inventories and
explorations.
Day 5: Unpack Your Baggage
The following journalizing exercise is a simple technique for
examining the emotional roots of your unease or disease. Create
a quiet place when you have ten to fi fteen minutes; take a few
deep breaths and ask your most troubling issue to surface. Think
of the last time you felt the overwhelming hold of a certain emotion
or disease, then trace it back to the underlying root. Responding
to the statements in the list below will help you in this. Sometimes
this is obvious.
For instance, if you have recurring headaches and ask yourself
to become conscious of what precedes them, it is often so blatantly
simple and clear that it is laughable. Oh yeah, I only get headaches
when my teenager comes home and we fi ght like cats and dog s. In other
words, when you try to control people and do not produce the results
you desire, a headache results. Under Emotions that are not serv-
ing my higher calling you might write “ Frustration and anger when
my authority is disregarded. ” Situational examples could include
“ Unproductive daily fi ghts with teenage son ” and “ Emotional eating
when no one wins. ” Plans to Heal could list options like: “ Seek ther-
apist that Sue recommended, ” “ Create more positive interactions
such as eating together at my son ’ s favorite restaurant and enjoying