Now one third of the way through the sixty-day juice fast I decided to undertake while writing my upcoming book, I wanted to share progress before going into the next forty days of fasting. I decided to post the prologue here in my blog so you have an idea of what’s to come, as well as the first draft concept cover art.
There’s still a long way to go, both with writing the book and the fast but both are going well. The first week and a half of the fast really took a lot of adjusting to, as my body craved the sugars, salts and fats I’d taken from it, as well as the rituals of cooking and sitting down to eat which I realised had provided a lot of comfort to me.
Now my body has come to terms with the routine, I know the remainder of the fast is going to be a lot easier and hope to accelerate progress with the book further still. Many chapters have been drafted and I’ll share the chapter list below the prologue as well. Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and the support.
PROLOGUE
November 1st, 2020. It’s the second time in my life that I’m preparing to go two full months without solid food. Tomorrow, I begin a sixty-day juice fast, due to conclude on January 1st, 2021. The last time I began a sixty day juice fast, I weighed 270 lbs. I was suffering from a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis, and had just decided to stop taking the pharmaceutical drugs that had been ineffective for years, by that point. That was June 2014, six and a half years before this present moment of writing. This book shares how I improved my life circumstances, and how you can too.
In this moment, I’m over 100 lbs lighter than when I started the previous fast. Weighing 168 lbs according to my bathroom scales, in another sixty days time, I will be significantly lighter still too. I’m no longer suffering any symptoms from the rheumatoid arthritis that I was diagnosed with, in my early twenties. I remain pharmaceutical drug-free, over half a decade later. So why start another juice fast? There are a few reasons that I’ll cover, throughout this book. The main one is that I’m following my intuition. This feels like the right act for me, to gain closure to this story.
The last six and a half years have been an incredible and wild experience. I’m choosing to book-end this time of my life by repeating how it all began: sixty days of fasting. The time in-between has seen literal round-the-world adventures, doing a full loop of the globe by plane on my travels. I have had experiences with shamans in the Peruvian Amazon. I have hiked, half naked with world-famous iceman, Wim Hof to the top of snowy, Polish mountains. I’ll share all kinds of exciting tales in the following pages, including internal journeys that surpassed the outer, geographical ones.
It sounds incredible, but this hasn’t come without cost. I aim to share both the light and the darkness of my journey throughout this book. Constant challenges that expanded the limit of my comfort zone, in order to grow beyond the chronically ill, clinically obese, suicidally depressed person I once was. Learning to integrate those parts of myself, and no longer judge them for how I had acted, or how I felt at that time. A continuing journey, walking a life-long path of self-discovery. Making conscious the unconscious parts of who I am in my authenticity; the shadow and the light.
I’ll certainly be at the limit of my comfort zone by sharing uncomfortable truths in this book. I do so to provide a complete picture of how I became mentally and physically ill in the first place. Harder still, will be sharing the ongoing struggles I’ve continued to have, despite my life circumstances greatly improving. I believe by writing from a place of vulnerable sincerity, that the writing process will be a continuation of my own healing and self-acceptance. I hope to share a living example of someone strong in their vulnerability, encouraging others to embrace this strength for themselves.
Stories of people who struggled with mental and physical illness, and been brave enough to open up about how they worked through it, were the catalyst to work through my own illnesses. People like Joe Cross, in his documentary, “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead”. Others like Aubrey Marcus, who discussed his plant medicine journeys on Joe Rogan’s podcast. These men, and other inspirational heroes lead me to follow in their footsteps. I often walked the exact same paths in search of healing and purpose. I now follow their example in another way, by sharing my own story too.
Even though I’m only sharing my story as a book now, I’ve been sharing this story orally and online over the past four years. I do so through the company I created in September 2016: Causeway Living. Offering retreats, workshops, coaching and community events; Causeway Living teaches methods that help people improve their life circumstances, and the lives of others around them. I have lead seminars and retreats worldwide, from the US to continental Europe, as a Holistic Lifestyle Coach with the Chek Academy, and an officially certified Wim Hof Method instructor.
At the events I run with Causeway Living, I almost always begin by sharing a short version of the story that is offered in full detail throughout this book. How I became unwell, regained my health, found my purpose, and how others can use similar techniques and simple steps to do the same. Similarly to events that I run, after recounting my personal story in the first part of this book, the second part will focus on practical advice. Using the information in Part II, it is possible to connect with whatever is most meaningful to you, and learn how to accelerate on your path towards that.
The second part of this book explains the entire Causeway Living Method. This will be broken down into small sections, that you can jump to straight away. If you feel intuitively called to a particular section, for example, ‘breathing’ in the pillars of health, or ‘controlled stress’ in the pillars of strength; follow that feeling. You can start implementing the practical advice while reading my personal story from the beginning of the book. Alternatively you may choose to read my story in it’s entirety for inspiration, before beginning to integrate the practical steps. There is no right or wrong.
All of the practical advice offered in this book is personally recommended through experience, but also grounded in science. You won’t have to take my word for any of it. I’ll offer further suggested reading for each small section that the second part of this book is broken down into. I’m sharing the information in this book so that others don’t have to take some of the big leaps of faith that I did, while walking the path towards a bigger, more meaningful life. Instead, you can learn simple, daily practices, that when applied consistently over time, become Small Steps to Giant Living.
PART 1:
Steps To Illness (Childhood, Personality, Adolescence, Adulthood, Diagnosis)
Steps To Recovery (Arthritis, Pharmaceuticals, Hope, Rock-Bottom, Fasting)
Steps To Purpose (Peru, Travels, Plant Medicine, Mental Health, Intentions)
Steps To Actualisation (Return, Relationships, Depression, Causeway Living)
Steps To Growth (Sharing, Speaking, Connection, Wim Hof, Psychedelics)
Steps To Balance (Addiction, Loops & Patterns, Let Go, Writing, Coaching)
PART 2:
The Philosophy (Overall explanation of the Causeway Living Method)
The Pillar of Purpose (How to discover ‘meaning’ and learn to follow it)
The Pillars of Strength (Your living environment, connection and stress)
The Pillars of Health (Drink, Eat, Sleep, Breathe, Move and Think better)
The Balance (Modifying the philosophy and system to fit your own life)
Frequently Asked Questions (Covering anything left yet unanswered)
EPILOGUE
Thanks for taking the time to read this first, free part of the upcoming book. If you’re excited to get a copy and apply the information that I’ll be sharing, you can get a jump on that by working with me directly, right now. I still have space for a few more 1-to-1 coaching clients, or hold on tight for the book coming in the near future.
More updates coming soon,
