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November 23, 2015 Hi {!firstname_fix} Well, this is Thanksgiving week in the US so it always feels like a quiet and sacred time. I will be in the Boston area to be with my family for Thanksgiving, and for a birthday celebration. My ex-husband and his wife have gathered all children and grandchildren. My brother is coming up from Florida and we will have a nice celebration I am sure. I hope those of you who are celebrating can have a quiet and non-complex day. Sometimes family gatherings can be a problem. People drink, old patterns emerge, and sometimes the myth of how wonderful it should be doesn’t match the reality. Or it may be you don’t have family and you will be alone on Thanksgiving and somehow that aloneness seems more acute on this particular holiday. Make plans to take care of yourself. I have had alone days and I roasted a chicken and put in potatoes and made some squash and enjoyed the taste. I got gravy from Whole Foods and made cranberry chutney. It was special. Know that I will be thinking of all of you and sending my thanks for your being in my life. We won’t have any YLD chats on Wednesday since so many of you will be doing preparations. This class will begin Wednesday, November 25, 2015. Please Signup and it will take you to the registration page:
This class will begin Wednesday, December 2, 2015. Please Signup and it will take you to the registration page:
This class will begin Wednesday, December 9, 2015. Please Signup and it will take you to the registration page:
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**What you thought would kill you can heal you. All the tenacity of your addiction can be in service to your recovery. And life will never be the same **********************************************************************
**Testimonial of the Week**When I first found RR, I was already doing another program where I had quit eating sugar. It was called the Schwarzbein Principle and I felt great. But soon I was in withdrawal and freaking out. So I started looking on the internet for support for a sugar-free lifestyle. That is how I found RR. Of course I didn't want to go back to eating sugar. I wanted someone to tell me how to stay off sugar without pulling my hair out and feeling like I was going to die without it. I was told to eat breakfast and work the steps, slowly, in order. Doing each step until it became so natural that I wouldn't dream of not doing it. I found that the core of RR was not about abstaining from sugar. It was about deep healing and lifestyle changes taking place. The skills of figuring out what to eat at each meal, the planning, shopping, cooking and lunch packing, all this took time. It took me a long, long, time to integrate these changes. In addition, my taste buds had to change. I now enjoy plain oatmeal with plain yogurt and cinnamon. I no longer need to drown it in maple syrup. I enjoy the taste of lemon seltzer water. I don't need Coke anymore. I enjoy a handful of almonds for dessert. They don't need to be covered in chocolate. I enjoy the taste of brown rice. I feel nourished by whole grains and beans. I even eat vegetables now. All of this took time. And it feels so much better to have given up the sugar gradually and without a fight. I feel free. Karen **********************************************************************
**Radiant Ambassadors**How did you find out about Radiant Recovery? I keep a note of how new people discovered Radiant Recovery - just to see what seems to be working in getting people interested. Here are the results - top of the poll was 'through a friend' - so all those mentions of sugar sensitivity or people lending out their own copies of Potatoes not Prozac seem to be having an impact! Fabulous stuff! Google came in a close second with people searching for sugar addiction or sugar addict. Quite a large proportion had known about Radiant Recovery forever. Bookshops/online reviews and Amazon were next so it's well worth adding your review of Kathleen's books to any websites you come across - especially Amazon! Counsellor/therapist/doctor came in next - I'm sure that number will increase as time goes by. Even Radiant Recovery business cards made an appearance! Did you know that you can get free RR business cards from the store to hand out? I always find them useful to add to noticeboards or give to friends. Do let me know how you discovered Radiant Recovery - was it any of these, or something different? Selena spreiki@rocketmail.com **********************************************************************
**Radiant Recovery® Store**
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. **********************************************************************
**Radiant Kitchen**Pumpkin Pecan Pie
Directions:
Combine all ingredients. Makes 1 1/2 cup mix.
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**Radiant Your Last Diet**I have to admit I have been blown away by listening to our senior folks make their weight-loss plans around the holidays. As you all know, we always in the past thought of this as *lost time*. We would think, I will get back on track in January. But that is not what is happening in YLD these days. I am hearing talk of strengthening the program, planning special options for family gatherings. Whew, what a group of role models. Here is a quote from Cin about why YLD a great option: Your money gets you into the inner workings of the community, where there is deep and intimate healing happening. That is not to say that it isn't happening on the free parts, because the forum will attest to some great healing and interaction regarding people's programs. But in addition to that, you get this intimate environment, and to work one-on-one with Kathleen and other wonderful moderators from the main yld list.The discussion we have been holding is moving to the changes I outlined last week. It is nice to see things emerge. NOTE: NO CHATS ON WEDNESDAY If you would like to join us in YLD, come find us here **********************************************************************
**Radiant Living**I know I keep telling you about how we talk about *life things* in RL chat. Last week we talked about *browns* and had a whole in depth discussion on how to make great oatmeal...we even heard from the women in IRELAND who are masters at it. it was a really fun chat. If you would like to join us in Radiant Living, come find us here **********************************************************************
**On The Mountain **Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
Albuquerque has a mountain to the East. It rises more than 10,000 feet. I see it out my windows. I watch the light change on it all day, every day. In the morning, the sun rises over it, in the evening, the moon comes up. At dusk, the sun in the West casts a purple light that lasts just a short time. The mountains light up. Sometimes I just sit in a chair on the front porch and watch the light moving on the mountain at dusk. I have a poster that I have had since college. It says: The mountain moving day is coming. I say so, though others doubt. Only a while the mountain sleeps. In the past All mountains moved in fire. Yet you may not believe it. Oh friend, this alone believe, all sleeping women now will awake and move. Yosano Akiko I went to college in the late sixties. It was a time of great turmoil and awakening. Women at that time were breaking out of old expectations. When I started college, we wore girdles and white gloves and had dorm mothers. Half way through, in the summer of '68, we came back and nothing was the same. Many of my friends were angry and taking action. I was reading South American educational writing called the "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" that talked about teaching literacy in the context of meeting people where they are. Teaching through meaning. I was writing an honor thesis about awakening the spirit of the person yearning to be whole. I was not in the streets those years. I was at home with infants. I dropped out of school and did mother things. When my children were tiny, I was a single mom going back to school and working full time. I was sleeping still in the demands of regular life, learning how to manage raising children, having a new career in public health, thrashing about in creative sugar sensitivity. That would mean the same things you all struggle with - mood swings, bouts of angst, bouts of brilliance and hope countered by despair and inadequacy. Not knowing about the food shaped everything. I had framed that poster. I always had it in my bedroom. I never really knew why except that it comforted me about that time in my life when everything had seemed so, so possible. Then I came to New Mexico and the mountain was there. The deepest part of me was stirred and I said, *I need to be there* and arranged my life to make it happen. The mountain spoke to me with her majesty. I felt as if her roots went as deep as her peaks. This made no rational sense. I was a woman of the sea. There was no ocean here, just that big rooted mountain sitting over there to the East. So I just did regular life, sitting here at my computer facing the mountain, answering email, connecting with all of you. And our community started to root, down deep like the mountain. We learned to trust our recovery, to trust one another, to trust this life so different from the old one. A life of peace and wisdom and humor. A life that is funny and connected and caring. You came to an annual seminar here. We called it *ranch* and even though it was held in a regular life little chain hotel, the mountain magic stirred you too. People said, *Well, what is the agenda anyway?* and I would say the official things because I couldn't really say, *come and meet the mountain please.* The mountain moving energy is now breathing us. It is a like a big rock that does not move no matter how things change around it. I had wondered about sharing this with you. Wondered what it would be like to tell you the story the way I am living it. Do I share the inside part and let you see what is beneath the story of the author writing about potatoes? Do I reveal that the story is bigger than just what you eat? That changing the food changes everything? I think changing the food means we see mountains, we feel mountains, we become mountains. Ten years ago, I wrote about being at the sea, being with my family, turning sixty. I went to the movies and found out I was a senior and it is cheaper. Then I came home and watched the light on the mountains, light on snow and thought, *No, Kathleen, it is not about senior, it is about elders.* Now it is ten years later and I feel like I have matured into *elder* with grace. We are living the mountain moving days. **********************************************************************
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Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together:
Gretel, our webmaster, puts it all together. David runs the Radiant Recovery® Store. Mosaic contributes to the Notes from the Forum column. ©2015 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://radiantrecovery.com/learn/newsletter/ |
