http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2852795/Science ... %202.0.pdf
This short document helps the reader become aware of the technical mechanism that governs our behavior. It boils down to two simple concepts - the movement towards pleasure and away from pain. In regards to the Wai Diet, the need for change will boil down to your determination to focus on the pain side of addicting junk foods, and the pleasure side of healthy wai foods. In order to do this continually, you need to write down and always have infront you your deepest desires, such as to lose weight, rid yourself of acne, and become youthful and healthy. Only when you have a burning desire to do so, and when you have constant reminders of this desire, can you adequately focus your conscious attention enough to overcome your bad habits and create new healthy ones. If you allow your focus, attention, and imagination to wander without your conscious control, like a string puppet you will be pulled and pushed through life on the wills of your addictions. By not daydreaming about the tastiness of junk foods, and focusing all of your attention on daydreaming about the benefits and joys of consuming wai foods, you have a great likelihood to change your dietary habits.
Here is a summary from the document:
Natural selection has favored the nervous system, because it allows for a higher probability of survival and replication through the use of the twin emotions of pleasure and pain. Through the constant creation of neuro-associations of pleasure and pain in the nervous system, your body is constantly moving in a direction, toward or away from
stimuli. It is only through the conscious act of attributing meaning to things that you can reinforce or change your behaviors. Lack of control (or lack of awareness) of attributing meaning to things will result in chaotic movements toward and away from stimuli. When taking control of this mechanism of meaning creation, you must direct it to what you find most pleasurable in life, your highest values. These values will become the goals that you're constantly moving yourself in the direction of. You do this by
reconditioning your nervous system through the use of emotional intensity and repetition. Once your reconditioning begins, you will start to move yourself in the
direction of your goals. These are the technical reasons for why you do what you do. Since you are now aware of this process, all you need to do now is take control of this process.
After reading this and thinking about it for awhile, I've come up with a simple list of things you can do to really change your behavior. This is intended for the wai diet but can be applied to any behavior you want to change.If this conclusion was too technical for you, then the entire article basically boils down to the following:
"You will become what you focus on or think about most, with emotional intensity and repetition."
1. Write down or type down the list of things you want most, print out and tape this list and several copies of it on walls, doors, the fridge, your car dashboard, etc, so that you are constantly reminded of these desires/goals.
2. Focus and daydream constantly about what you need to do to accomplish these goals, and if an addiction ever creeps into your imagination, immediately stop thinking about it and instead look at the list of things you want and remember the pain you will experience being let down and feeling horrible if you fail by cheating on your goals.
3. Remember that you are like a robot, a vessel, for your masters (genes), constantly seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, and that the only enemy between you and all of your wildest aspirations is your own control or lack of control of your thoughts. In order to better control your thoughts, it's best to remove all temptations possible. Including going out with friends which have your addictions lying around, removing all addictions from your home, for example all non-wai foods, and other measures necessary until you have your thoughts under your complete control.
4. Do whatever you have to do to stay motivated, if you are really hurting for an addiction, come up with an interactive way to busy your time and focus on the pain side of it, and the pleasure side of the anti-addiction. For example, if at work on break and really cringing the snickers in the snack machine, take a sticky note and start drawing yourself as a slob on the couch with a beer belly and acne on your face, so that you associate the feeling of hunger for candy with that painful vision. Then draw yourself as a successful wealthy businessman or whatever you want to be if you eat an egg yolk instead. Draw egg yolks as the sun in your pictures and you worshiping it if you have to, just ingrain the thought of your addictions as evil and horrible and exaggerate their evilness because in reality, a single failure can lead to a loop of failures that never ends.
5. You must always include as many senses as possible and make all of your daydreams very real to you. Simply seeing yourself fat or with acne will not create a strong enough emotional connection with the negative addiction or behavior. You must feel the disgust with yourself, the putrid smell of your breath and the frustration of being old and crippled before your time and unloved by your friends and family if you do not succeed in order to change your behavior.
6. Memorize, idolize, and make your personal motto the ever-wise quote "If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self.”