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April 12, 2010 Hi {!firstname_fix} Well spring is here. Everything is blooming including the creativity of the community. In the last two weeks we have been doing some major problem solving. We have been thinking about how to resolve the dilemma of our *kitchen* lists...we wanted to infuse them with the love of cooking that so many of us feel. Two weeks ago a number of our leadership team were up in Maine having fun. Out of that time some really creative ideas are flowing. I brought this to chat last week and what we have come up with is the idea of doing a number of short-term, focused cooking classes. We will take a theme like creative breakfast, lovely lunches, food on the go, cakes galore like oat cakes and yam cake and potato cakes, and build a week-long class around specific recipes. We will choose the recipes that keep emerging over and over in the community. The class members will get the recipes at the beginning of the week and then everyone will try things together. The outcomes, comments, ideas will be posted here in the newsletter and on Facebook. I am just working out the logistics of these classes, but watch for them. I will also be updating the class schedule this week. I wanted to see how to balance the new with the old regulars. Also this week, I am announcing a special class on emotional healing. This class is for people who are on step 6 or more and would like to learn about how sugar sensitivity shapes our emotional vulnerability and why traditional therapy or self-help will not create the healing we need. This class will be interesting and fun, and NOT scary in any way. It will also explore why we experience *sugar feelings* and how we have used sugar to cover pain that we were not able to hold. This class will begin Wednesday, April 14, 2010. Please click on the name of the class you wish to join and it will take you to the registration page: Brain Chemistry: Dopamine (2 weeks) is the newest addition to the brain chemistry series. Learn about the mighty cousin to serotonin and beta endorphin. Learn how he sparkles and seduces and what to do to have him as an ally rather than a dragon. Radiant Store Tour (1 week) is a free guided tour of the store. David will be leading this class so if you want to get to know the guy that makes it all work, come sign up so you can show your support for the work he does to keep you happy. These classes will begin Wednesday, April 21, 2010. Please click on the name of the class you wish to join and it will take you to the registration page: Radiant Step 1 (2 weeks) is our foundation class to get you started. Learn all four parts of step 1 in a structured way. Learn how to progress through them with enjoyment. Let us support getting your program off to a fabulous start.  Emotional Healing (2 weeks) is a new class designed to give you understanding of the special emotional world of the sugar-sensitive person. We will look at how childhood experiences combine with our special brains to create a unique way of coping. We will learn how disassociation protects and also keeps us from healing. This will be a very structured and safe class for people on step 6 or more.
The class schedule is online. Click here to see what is planned. Please wait to sign up for classes until a week or two before, and do not sign up for classes that are not yet scheduled. A number of you have asked me how the classes work. Check the class list page for more information on this. And please go read the questions and answers before you write to me. If you have trouble getting through the process, write the tech forum. Be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery website and Community Forum regularly. Warmly, Kathleen **********************************************************************
** Quote From Kathleen ** When you actually start keeping a journal, you will be floored to discover that what you thought you 'knew' and what you actually did were very different. **********************************************************************
** Testimonial of the Week ** Hello again folks, Here's what happened today--we have had ongoing problems with internet service being spotty and not working well. Over the last year, I have called the ISP ranting and raving and generally "going off". This has happened several times (not proud of this). Well, it has happened again this week, but guess what? This time instead of getting upset, I was patient and calm and I wasn't even trying! After a couple of days of this, I thought to myself, "Where's the angst? Why am I not more upset?" I literally have no stress surrounding this issue. Then it dawns on me, this could be my first instance of the program working for me. It was pretty exciting, let me tell ya! Kathy **********************************************************************
** Radiant Ambassadors ** Do you talk to people about Radiant Recovery? I know that lots of people share about Radiant Recovery with friends and family - after all, it's been such a life-changing experience for me, I just want to tell the whole world! Here is something that Kat wrote about her experience of sharing the program last week: "I don't remember how it happened, but last week, after a massage, I ended up sharing about sugar sensitivity (and how I had been addicted to sugar) and the two girls at the front desk were nodding. One of them said, "Oh my God, you mean there's hope?" I gave her Kathleen's name, the name of Potatoes not Prozac and the web site and I just know she went home and looked it up. This probably took place in the span of only 10 minutes, but the interaction was light years away from how I used to talk about it. I don't remember the opening (how we got on the subject), but it was really a wonderful interaction. I could just see the light on the girl's face at the idea of hope, along with the hopelessness she lives in most days. She totally got it. So if this kind of stuff is happening for me, I'll bet it's happening for a lot of folks who are on or off the ambassadors list". Kat How do you talk about Radiant Recovery? What do you say? Would you be willing to share on the Forum? I'd love to compile a list of how people broach the subject of Radiant Recovery. Selena Come join us if you are excited about spreading the news. **********************************************************************
** How I Found Radiant Recovery ** I found my way to a part of the bookstore that I never cared about - health and nutrition. BO-RING! My arms and legs seemed to operate independently of my brain for those few minutes. I walked right to the shelf (it was on the bottom), picked it up, read the cover, thought "That's dumb, you can't be addicted to sugar." Read the first several pages. Got intrigued and frightened at the same time. Put it back, left the store quickly. It gnawed at me for a full day, I drove back and bought it. I either "fell or was pushed". I like to think I was pushed. By what I don't know. Here I am. Seven years later. With a life I never remotely thought was possible. Sky **********************************************************************
** Radiant Kitchen ** We are going to be revising how we work in our kitchen. I want to simplify things, make it more interesting and exciting...so we are going to do a couple of things: One: We will be compiling all the recipes that have been posted in the newsletter and put them into a format that will allow you to search for them easily. Two: As I said above, we will be offering short-term classes that focus on specific skills. Three: We will start using Facebook and Twitter to let you know about hot new ideas that are bubbling on the stove. If you are new at the program and want some great ideas, get the Radiant Recovery Cookbook. It has way more than recipes...it literally is a guide to get started. For more great program-friendly recipes, check out these great cookbooks in the store. **********************************************************************
** Your Last Diet - More Than What You Think ** The creativity of the the last two chats is the essence of why YLD is so fun. In reality, chats have little to do with weight loss per se. They are the cutting edge of our thinking about what we need and how to do it. Not only did we talk kitchen this week, we talked about what you want, how to do it and how this dialogue makes the community such a dynamic and developmental place. I love chat, and I hope you will join us. If you are not a YLD member, come and join us. Click here if you are ready to change your life or just have some plain ol' fun! **********************************************************************
** Radiant Recovery® Store ** David manages the Radiant Recovery® Store. He is also Kathleen's oldest son. Glenn's wife is pregnant and he was asking about the use of fish oils in pregnancy. I called the rep at Nordic Naturals and she gave me the link to their research site. Whew, that was exciting. So I thought I would start to share some of what I am learning. Note that AJCN means the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition which is a peer reviewed, gold standard journal. AJCN - Higher intake of Omega-3 Fatty Acids associated with less Dry Eye Syndrome. For those of us getting older, this is critical. And because I live in a very dry climate, the dryness factor has been a bear. My medicine cabinet has many bottles of different eye drops. After I started taking ProOmega Elite, I stopped having problems. That was exciting. AJCN – Omega ratio is associated with Bone Mineral Density. In a study of more than 1100 people, higher levels of omega 3 fatty acids were shown to correlate with greater bone density. *These findings suggest that the relative amounts of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids may play a vital role in preserving skeletal integrity in older age. That means the people taking more omega 3 had denser bones...and without side effects. Ok, and here is one for you younger women. HFCam - Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Antioxidants May Benefit Fertility in Women. If you are trying to get pregnant, omega 3s help (smile) I think fish oil is fabulous. I think it really, really helps sugar sensitive people.
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. **********************************************************************
** Our Online Groups ** The Radiant Transitions list is a place to discuss something that many of us are dealing with, which is helping our aging parents to make a transition from their active, independent lives to something different. It can be experienced in different ways. There may be parents who are proactive and search for and find a retirement community that would be a safe place for them that also offered assisted living and nursing home care as needed. On the other side of the coin, there may be those who have dementia that progresses to the point that it was no longer safe for them to live alone. This list will be for those of you who are dealing with this situation now. We want the list to feel very safe, so you will have to apply to join it. All members of the list will be expected to participate. No lurkers, please. **********************************************************************
**Addiction to Misery ** Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
I have often reflected on why some people stay stuck in being miserable. No matter what life presented them, they would pick out certain variables to show that once again life was against them. This pattern went beyond your basic garden negativity. It was more like “I will continue my attachment to misery no matter what. It doesn’t matter what good comes to me, I know it is not real.” This pattern defied logic to me. Why would perfectly thoughtful, intelligent people want to live this way? My first clue in sorting this out came when I noticed my own physical response. I withdrew energy, disengaged and did not want to hang with misery or the miserable. When I realized that nothing I did or said changed anything, I just backed off. One day, in the shower, I had an incredible thought. My body was responding to les miserables just the way it does around active alcoholics and addicts. If someone commits to change, asks for help, listens and moves, I am there in a flash. But stay stuck, go round and round, whine, stay miserable no matter what, I just don’t want to spend time on the boat with it. The more I have healed my own codependency the less I can do rescuing. As I was rinsing the shampoo, I thought, “what if we can be addicted to misery?” As soon as that thought passed through, I knew it was true. It would explain the tenacious holding on, the energy, the devotion to it. So then I trundled off to do some research on this. My books, google and PubMed all gave clues. Yep, misery evokes beta-endorphin. Misery evokes the same brain chemical activated by alcohol, heroin, morphine and sugar. When we are miserable, our brains release BE so we feel better. It soothes us until it wears off and then we have to go back for more. We become attached to it. We get romantic and intense about all the bad things that have happened to us. We do “woe is me!”. And…significantly, we become tolerant to it, just like with any drug. Then we need bigger misery. More, more. We amp up the feeling of less than, not good enough, poor, not smart enough, not rich enough, not educated enough. And if life does not cooperate by offering enough brutal events, we create them in our minds. We need to feel worse to feel ok. We create catastrophe in our minds, we exaggerate, we munch to create drama and perpetuate the BE feelings. The increasing tolerance creates immunity to the little negatives, so we need more misery. We then take neutral events and shape them into desperate drama. For example. Perhaps you live on little money. You feel bad because you are poor. And you have low BE because you are sugar sensitive. So you overdraft your account, you pay late, you skip your taxes. And your tolerance grows so things get worse and worse. And when you try to change this pattern, you actually go into withdrawal. So you need to find other misery to grow. You stay in a horrible job, an abusive marriage, a bad apartment. You go round and round and misery becomes your way to being in the world. When you first hear this, it may be confusing. You don’t feel you are seeking it; you aren’t looking for a "high”. But think of it another way. BE is a painkiller. When life is hard, your natural tendency is to look for ways to soothe the pain. You unconsciously turn to things that do that, and then you get hooked. You didn’t know. Just like you didn’t know sugar was a drug until you were way in. Les miserables is a hard one to face. You might feel shame at first and think, “oh dear gawd, not more!” But the joy of healing is that now you understand. Now you have a name for what you thought was just circumstance. Now you can make sense and take action. You start to laugh at yourself. You get amazed at the skill your little inside addict has…it can find ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to make you feel ok. It has a good heart, it is trying its best to have you not feel pain. It is just a little misguided and now, in your recovery, you will do something a little different. You will kiss it on its little black nose, and say “ah, nice try, baby, but we aren’t doing that anymore…..” You will see that you do not want a life of les miserables. You are ready for something different. You can go to school, you can find ways to work with little money, you can leave abusive relationships, you can find a life of joy. This is what recovery is about. When you do the food, you do way more than give up sugar. You are HEALING addiction on a cellular level. Healing is real and it is yours for the doing. Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together:
Gretel, our webmaster, puts it all together. David runs the Radiant Recovery® Store. Selena provides the weekly Ambassadors column. ©2010 Kathleen DesMaisons. All rights reserved. You are free to use or transmit this article to your ezine or website as long as you leave the content unaltered, use this attribution: "By Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. of Radiant Recovery®", and notify kathleen@radiantrecovery.com of the location. Please visit the Radiant Recovery® website at http://www.radiantrecovery.com for additional resources on sugar sensitivity and healing addiction. You are getting the weekly newsletter from Radiant Recovery® in response to your signup. A copy of this newsletter may also be found posted on the web at http://www. radiantrecovery.com/ |
