Dr. Cindy Trimm - The 40 Day Soul Fast Participants Guide

ABOUT DR. CINDY TRIMM

A best-selling author, high-impact teacher, and former senator, Dr. Trimm is a sought-after empowerment specialist, revolutionary thinker, and transformational leader. She has earned a distinguished reputation as a catalyst for change and voice of hope to the nations.

Listed among Ebony magazines Power 100 as the top 100 doers and influencers in the world today, Dr. Trimm is a featured speaker on some of the worlds largest platforms, a frequent guest on Christian broadcastings most popular TV and radio shows, and continually tops the Black Christian News Network and Black Christian Book Companys National Bestsellers List.

Dr. Trimm combines her wealth of leadership expertise with her depth of spiritual understanding to reveal life-transforming messages that empower and inspire. Seasoned with humor, compassion, revelatory insight, and personal candor, Dr. Trimm opens minds and touches hearts with biblically-based principles of inner healing and personal empowerment.

Pulling on her background in government, education, psychology, and human development, Dr. Trimm translates hard-hitting spiritual insights into everyday language that empower individuals to transform their liveshelping change the path people take in search of meaning, dignity, purpose, and hope.

THE 40 DAY SOUL FAST
HANDBOOK

SUGGESTED GUIDELINES FOR
DETOXIFYING SPIRIT, SOUL,
AND BODY

By Dr. Cindy Trimm

In consultation with Dr. Paula Walker M.D.

A PERSONAL WORD FROM
DR. CINDY TRIMM

If you are reading this, you are taking part in the 40 Day Soul Fast. Please remember the purpose of the Soul Fast is to eliminate the toxins in your soul, not your body. However, because the body and soul are interconnected, what is good for one is good for the other! I encourage you to take this opportunity to cleanse and detox your body even as you dedicate yourself to cleansing and detoxifying your soul.

The Body of Christ is longing for detoxification on so many levels. That is demonstrated by the large number of people who have asked me for information about detoxifying their entire system as they pursue this 40 Day Soul Fast. I pray it will be a useful tool to help you along your life-cleansing journey.

Remember, Jesus said, It is not what goes into the mouth of a man that makes him uncleanbut what comes out of the mouth; this makes a man uncleanwhatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this is what makes a man unclean (Matthew 15:11, 18 AMP).

If you choose to pursue a physical fast along with the Soul Fast, please dont become distracted or burdened by the demands of a restrictive fasting regimen. I would encourage you to prayerfully allow God to lead you into laying aside whatever is keeping you from thinking more clearly, having more energy, or pursuing Him more fully. I would suggest along with fasting unhealthy foods, you fast unhealthy thoughtsas you give up toxic eating habits, give up toxic behaviors. It is more destructive to your soul to engage in gossip or complaining than it is to eat gravy or cupcakes.

The primary aim of the 40 Day Soul Fast is to lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us (Heb. 12:1 NKJV). The weights of negative thought habits and toxic verbal behaviors tie you down and keep you vulnerable to sin. The debris in your mind and the junk coming out of (not going into) your mouth are what keep you stagnated and going around in circles. These are the toxins that prevent you from running with endurance and fulfilling your divine purposeand cause so many to abort their God-given dreams.

If exercising the discipline of fasting unhealthy foods will help you be more mindful of exercising the discipline of fasting unhealthy thoughts, then let the two work together synergistically to help you bring your spirit, soul, and body into alignment. It is for this reason I am making this guide availableto help you learn to cleanse and renew your body even as you cleanse and renew your mind! May you be empowered for life and empowered to live beyond your limits!

SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

When this vision came to me, I, Daniel, had been in mourning for three whole weeks. All that time I had eaten no rich food. No meat or wine crossed my lips, and I used no fragrant lotions until those three weeks had passed (Daniel 10:2-3 NLT).

This is the kind of fast day Im after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace; free the oppressed; cancel debts. What Im interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.

Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, God will answer. Youll call out for help and Ill say, Here I am.

If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other peoples sins, if you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. Ill give you a full life in the emptiest of placesfirm muscles, strong bones. Youll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. Youll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. Youll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again (Isaiah 58:6-12 MSG).

Its not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart (Mark 7:15 NLT).

Cant you see that the food you put into your body cannot defile you? Food doesnt go into your heart, but only passes through the stomach and then goes into the sewer. (By saying this, he declared that every kind of food is acceptable in Gods eyes.)

And then he added, It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a persons heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you (Mark 7:18-23 NLT).

We work to feed our appetites. Meanwhile our souls go hungry (Ecclesiastes 6:7 MSG).

THE FAST WAY TO HEALING AND HEALTH

Some people wear out one set of teeth digging their way to the grave, only to buy a false set of teeth to complete the task of eating themselves to death. Author Unknown

Fastingtraditionally seen as a spiritual activityis increasingly being used as a method to improve physical, mental, and emotional health. It is an ever-increasing belief that fasting not only helps to relieve the body of toxins, but also stimulates and increases spiritual awareness and produces growth hormones, which postpones the aging process. The search for health goes on unceasingly, and fasting has helped many to achieve it.

Contrary to what our minds may tell us, the body can function for seven days without water and forty days without food. I am not asking you to go forty days without food, but I do encourage you to practice one of the fasting options offered below for the duration of the