Venus rising on a deep blue night

Welcome to Radiant Recovery®
July 29, 2019,
Hi {!firstname_fix},
Last week I gave you the original photo of Venus. This week, you can see how the energy of Venus shining in the dark suits our new logo. Some of you know that we have been working on a new logo for a while. This is it. It is about the light in the dark, the brightness of a shining star (well, really it is a planet but that is not as poetic), and the grounding of the New Mexico mountains below it. The New Mexico sky is very clear and in early nighttime and late night just before dawn starts, it looks like this. For, me it is very healing.
I was reading some of the older newsletters and came across the one I wrote just before the second edition of PnP came out:

Ten years ago, we had only a dream. None of us had met each other. No books, no forum, no newsletter, no lists or classes. And look at what we have created together. I am humbled by it. This is the power of listening, of taking risks to follow a passionate dream. This is the power of trusting that healing expands and grows and deepens...hmmm...I sure am glad I listened and trusted.

Another 10 years have passed. We have matured and deepened our understanding of the power of what doing the food can achieve. We had a very amazing discussion in coaching chat last night. We started talking about the emotional charge different kinds of sugars have for us. I am going to put it up in the resource center so all of you can read it. It will help you to know that we ALL were attached to the sugar on the bottom of the cereal bowl. I find it very comforting to know that all my pals had the same sugar secrets, the same love, the same comfort from sugar stuff. And we all thought it was comforting us and never realized that what we thought was comforting us was actually hurting us.
Coaching is going well. We are just designing a quick and easy way for people to post their *food*. It is fun doing experimentation. The people coming back to the *Return to Radiance* group are feeling supported and cared for in understanding how to slow things down and get focused. Sugar lapse creates scatter. It is helpful to know it is biochemical.
Since very few people were coming to Living chats, we have shifted Monday chats for coaching and will bring Living topics on over to the Wednesday slots.
Support for Your Program
Kathleen Smiling
COMMUNITY FORUM
Share with others, ask questions, explore everything and anything about your program. Yes, even topics like chocolate and Fritos. This is a great place to get started when you are new.
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GROUPS
Work on your steps, get information on what to eat while running a marathon, ask about depression meds, learn how to do life. Groups are free and fun.
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If you prefer talking on Facebook, come over to one of our three groups there. Radiant Recovery®, Radiant Recovery® International or Radiant Recovery® Germany that shares in German.
CLASSES
Not starting new classes until September.
WORKING WITH KATHLEEN
Coaching is a special offering for people who are serious about enhancing their programs and would like to have ongoing coaching. We will do individual assessments to sort out exactly where you are in the process. You will be guided in making your own individual plan. You can learn about journaling and adjusting your food for your own life needs – what to do when. You will be given tools and shown how to use them.
We are just starting a new group called Return to Radiance Coaching for those who have done the steps in the past and then drifted. Skilled Coaching is for people who are steady on step three and ready to move through four-six. The small groups stay together as they learn skills. And Special Coaching will be geared to people have health considerations. This may include include weight issues for those who are steady and ready to explore them... If you want to sign up for Special, put a note in the notes section so I have context.
Sign up for coaching
Signature Coaching is intensive individual coaching geared to your specific situation. You may want to step out of the craziness of sugar addiction, return to steadiness and clarity after slipping away, slow down and focus on your recovery, or deepen a steady rhythm of recovery.
This is a way to step out of feeling overwhelmed with where to start and what to do. Because it is so individualized, we can work on what is right for you at this point in your journey. People tell me that coaching helps them feel safe and focused. We work with your style, your rhythm. We address your fear and let go of shame.
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"Doing the food will balance you, and you will know exactly what to do to heal yourself."
Testimonial of the Week

Yep, it all starts with breakfast. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think I kept looking for the "quick fix" rather than do the steps. When I finally, honestly admitted the quick fix wasn't working, then I was finally willing to do whatever it took to do the steps, THE WAY KATHLEEN WROTE THEM. And isn't that a concept (smile). I kept wanting to do them MY way, then wondering why it didn't work.

So, breakfast, breakfast, breakfast. You are on your way.

Delse
David Smiling
David, your Radiant Recovery® Concierge
Come visit our STORE. Call 505-345-3737 and leave a message.
David is on vacation this week. He is in Maine playing volleyball with family and friends. He is eating steak tips at a bar in Chelsea and sleeping in a tent at a state park. They have turned 50, so maybe they are at a B&B, Don't order anything LOL. Let's let him rest.

Your Last Diet!
Your Last Diet Book Cover

I had someone ask me why I don't just tell people what to eat in order to lose weight. It really pushed me to think about what it is we are doing in YLD. The key concept is about LAST - this means the whole point is to get you to realize that diets are not the story. Diets = restriction which is simply one more way of taking away power. YLD is all about *empowerment* which means it is slow, thoughtful and transformative. It can be a little disorienting since it is so different from what you are used to.

Chats, chats, chats. We just keep talking, reflecting, learning. You will learn about fat terror, about the myths of obesity, how dieting fosters *restriction* and what that means for your long term success. We add new science to help you understand why you do what you do.

I’m in my third year of recovery and THIS year is the worst roller coaster of trying to balance my protein/sugar/mood swings. Was at wit’s end, wondering where could I find a doctor who knew addiction recovery AND nutrition when my sis sent me a blurb on your book. Went to bookstore and the words leapt off the cover at me! I KNEW it was more than just blood sugar; I had been doing food combining, protein in the a.m ., etc., for years, even before I quit drinking. You have saved my life and, more important, my peace of mind by filling in the blank spaces in my diet management. All I want is to feel normal after I eat! Even after I had the blood sugar thing down, I was still experiencing weird feelings, and there they were in the book: a column for beta-endorphin and one for serotonin! Thank you so much for giving me direction!! God bless you! I have been telling everyone about your book.

—M. S.

If you would like to join us in YLD, come find us here.
Dog on rooftop

How Joy Dots Affect Our Healing

Kathleen DesMaisons, PhD

People on our Facebook Page have been asking what Joy Dots are. This is an article I wrote a couple of years ago. It started with an article I had read about the hole in the Irish Psyche. The man who wrote about that place of sorrow decided that the sorrow is connected to the level of alcoholism on the Emerald Isle. I think the sorrow, which many of us know (Irish or not), is connected to our sugar sensitivity. It lives in an unbalanced amygdala that was set for a certain level of beta endorphin. When it is not filled with Joy, it feels sorrow. Let me see if I can walk you through this....

"Drinking in Ireland is not simply a convivial pastime, it is a ritualistic alternative to real life, a spiritual placebo, a fumble for eternity, a longing for heaven, a thirst for return to the embrace of the Almighty." Irish drinking patterns are, he writes, "evidence of a deep hole in the Irish psyche which only alcohol can fill." John Waters

"A 2009 Irish Health Board Report showed that 54 percent of respondents (about 2.14 million adults out of a population of 4.2 million) engage in harmful or risky drinking each year, compared to a European average of 28 percent. "

People drink on St. Patrick's Day to "celebrate". John Waters thinks it is “evidence of a deep hole in the Irish psyche which only alcohol can fill.” I think it is something more. My intuition is that the hole in the Irish psyche is about sugar sensitivity. Those who are creative, who feel deeply, who are courageous and compassionate suffer more. We are less armored, less shielded, wrapped in less Beta Endorphin. I think the Irish found whiskey because they had potatoes, and time while waiting for the crops to mature. Other sugar sensitives found sugar and sweets.

As you might guess I don't think that either whiskey or beer is the solution to the *deep hole*. I think that hole rests in a compromised amygdala deep in the brain. The amygdala has 2 parts, one does anger and fear, one does sorrow and joy. If you learn to live from the joy side, the anger and fear side fades. We have a path for this.

Start with creating Steady State, and then learn to live with Steady in Joy. When we start,

Life is hard, a little chaotic,

we are kinda attached to misery

or we don't know how to get out of it.

We start doing the food. It feels hard. We struggle with depression, discouragement.

But we started to try something outrageous. We try doing *joy dots*. It is called a Joy Dot Practice. These are not affirmations. Affirmations come from the mind. Joy dots come from a little spark in the heart. I point a light, a moment of noticing.

Every day we notice 3 small things that touch our hearts.

At first, it feels a little weird, maybe a little artificial...

A robin pulling a worm.

Water flowing in the acequia.

A glint of sunlight on the Guadalupe statue.

After a bit, something seems to shift. We start being surrounded by what we think of.

It is as if we have a joy magnet in our hand. Joy dots start creating a joy life.

Now I see sunlight other places, I see leaves budding on the trees, I smell Mac and Cheese bubbling in the oven. I notice Venus rising over the mountains. Now Joy is our logo.

All I did was joy dots.

Here is the Annie Lane column that brought so many of you here.

Dear Annie: I read with interest the letter from "Weird, Stupid or Selfish?" – whose husband eats all the decorative candy she puts out. His inability to resist sugar resonated with me, as I have sugar sensitivity and have engaged in exactly the same behaviors. I simply could not resist sugar.

After years of struggling and dieting and sitting in work meetings obsessing about the doughnuts instead of the topic at hand, I discovered the book "Potatoes Not Prozac," by Kathleen DesMaisons. Her theory is that people who are sugar sensitive have brains that respond differently to sugar, alcohol and refined carbs and that what they eat and when they eat it have a huge effect on them. She shows how to rebalance blood sugar levels, serotonin and beta-endorphins through small lifestyle changes and offers the latest research, free online support and seven steps to change your life. It is not about willpower; it’s about biochemistry, which her program can slowly improve, just one tiny step at a time, with amazing results.

I have been sugar-free for six years now, lost 25 pounds and never gained any of it back. I can go to dinner with family and don’t even think twice when someone orders dessert. I don’t have cravings, and sugar is no longer on my radar. I am more focused and more tolerant, and the daily mood swings are gone. The woman who wrote to you could suggest to her husband that he check out http:// radiantrecovery.com to see whether he does have sugar sensitivity. At the very least, she would be better informed about this condition. – Happy Without Sugar

Dear Happy Without Sugar: I hadn’t considered that health issues might explain

her husband’s behavior. In fact, I hadn’t even heard of sugar sensitivity.

Thanks for opening my eyes to the condition! I’d like to encourage all readers to talk to their doctors if they find themselves compulsively eating sugary snacks.

—Email questions to dearannie@creators.com

ANNIE LANE
©2019 Kathleen DesMaisons. All rights reserved. You are free to use or transmit this article to your blog 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 for additional resources on sugar sensitivity and healing addiction.

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