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People are talking, bring your questions and ideas!.It is nice place to get started if you are new to the community and are wondering what to do. Introduce yourself and ask for help. Join it
now.
GROUPS
The groups list is up on the web site. Just sign up for the group you would like to join. Read about the group before you ask to join. If you are starting or returning, join the Step One list. Don't join Step One and Step Two and Step Three all at the same time.upportS
CLASSES
When a new class is ready, I will post it on the website under the "LEARN" link.
JOIN US ON FACEBOOK
WORKING WITH KATHLEEN
Coaching is a special offering for people who are serious about enhancing their programs and would like to have ongoing coaching. Support is provided in a small group with people who are looking at similar concerns. Kathleen is part of each
coaching group.This is not a class but is a process to support your progress. We have added a special chat for people in coaching. It meets twice a week to accommodate those who are in Greenwich Mean Time and those who are in USA time. Coaching is not designed for beginners. If you are just starting, own the Step lists to learn the basics.
Coaching includes several options now: Return to Radiance Coaching for those who have done the steps in the past and then drifted and would like to get back on track. This is a good place to plug in if you have gotten wobbly over the last few weeks and would like to restart your
program.
Skilled Coaching is for people who are steady on the steps and ready to work on Step 7 life skills.
If you wish to join coaching send me an email and say what you are interested in and why.
I also provide individual coaching called Signature
Coaching. I can help you 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 particular option is especially helpful if you did the steps a while ago and then kinda meandered away. Or if you are facing some
intense times and would. like skillful support. But I can tell you that it is a good time to do coaching.
This is a 3 month process that includes doing an in-depth assessment of where you are in the process, designing an individual plan for you and then talking with me once a week via phone or Zoom to work on your progress. You will learn to do an efficient journal and to identify your strengths and challenges.
This is the 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. This is a unique opportunity to release your fear and let go of shame.The guidance can shorten and ease your process so that in 3 months you will do what you might take a year to do on your own. Signature coaching is also an excellent way to tackle any special needs you may have. like wanting to get sober, or dealing with insulin resistance, or integrating doing the food with special medical concerns.
And in fact, we have developed some creative personalized plans especially suited to where people are in the program and what will work best to support them. Call 505-345-3737 if you would like to chat.
Sign up for Signature Coaching
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"If you want it, we have something that will change everything, everything."
I just wanted to share with SOMEONE – and I figured that you, of all people, would be the best ones to share it with.
I'm not so worried any more because, while all of the obvious signs seem to be pointing in the opposite direction, I can feel the changes going on inside me. I can feel my body getting re-aligned, re- adjusted, re-awakened. And I love it.
I can say this because, just a few days ago, I woke up happy for the first time in years. Years. Not "happy" as in excited about something that was going to happen that day, or because of something that had happened the night before. Not a giggly, funny, ha ha happy either. Not even a conscious happy. It wasn't until I was walking out the door for work that I realized I had been smiling since I woke up. That was two
hours prior. And I didn't know why, and it really didn't matter. I liked how the smile felt on my face, and I left it at that. I woke up happy, and it was amazing. I've been waking up happy since. Just feeling pleasant in the mornings. What a treat that is.
I'm so happy that, even though I've gained 6 pounds since starting SARP, I'm not upset. In the past, this would have crushed me. Not only have I gained 6 pounds, but I'm at the heaviest I've ever been. But I'm not worried. Here's why:
Not so long ago, I was deep in the midst of yet another diet. I've been on and off diets since I was 18, and have been continually on a diet for the last 3 years. Non-stop. Counting this and that, eliminating these foods, eating only other kinds of foods, points here, there and everywhere. And a few months ago, while charting up my day's intake of "allowed/allotted" food, I thought to myself that none of this was
working. I was practically starving myself, and the weight wasn't moving. "What I need," I thought, "is a way to get my metabolism going." I felt that my blood was stagnant, that no matter what I ate, or didn't eat, nothing was ever going to happen. My body was like an engine that had been run without oil – gasping and sputtering, no matter what kind of fuel I pumped into it, it just wasn't going to run.
(for you gearheads out there, please pardon me if that's an incorrect analogy.)
My engine is now getting a tune up. I can feel it inside me. I can feel the good foods that I'm eating going out and repairing the broken bits inside of me. I feel like my blood is starting to "live" again, instead of flowing through me sluggishly. Yes, I've gained, but I know why. I dove off the deep end. "I'm not on a diet anymore" I thought, "I'm on a LIFE PLAN, and I can eat anything I want (as long as I have my
breakfast with protein and brown/green)." So I did. And then I journalled, and didn't listen when my journal told me that the "forbidden" foods I was now indulging in were making me feel sick. Then I moved on to step three. And as I ate my 3 regular meals, with protein, brown/green, and ANYTHING ELSE I WANTED, I found that I didn't really want anything else. The chocolates, the chips, the garlic toast, they all started tasting kind of bad. I'm starting to eat less and less of them. Not because
I'm saying, "no- you can't have that", because I CAN have that, if I want to. I'm not eating them because I'll pick up that next chip and get it half way to my mouth, and then put it back down. I don't WANT it. It doesn't seem appetizing. I'm FULL.
Just like being just plain happy, I haven't been just plain full in years. I've been stuffed to the gills, but not full. I've eaten so much on some occasions that I thought I'd be sick, and ten minutes later be right back at the table. Now, I'm eating smaller and smaller meals, not consciously, but almost inadvertently. I'll cook a big dinner, and halfway through, without thinking about it, put down my fork and clear
it away. It won't be until I'm putting the chocolate cake back into the refrigerator that I'll notice that I DIDN'T EAT IT. I'm finding that if I really really want to eat sweets or salty things, I have to eat them first, otherwise I'll forget.
I know that for a while yet, things will be hard. My car/body is still being repaired. It will stutter and gasp and emit large clouds of ugly black smoke. What that means for the really me, I'm not sure. I'll probably gain a little more weight, or have days when I don't wake up happy, or whatever. But the main thing is that the repairs are getting started! To mix my metaphors – Rome wasn't built in a day, and I'm not
going to be healed overnight. But I'm starting. Brick by brick, brown rice by chicken breast, it's getting done.
I'm curious and excited to see what happens over the next steps. What will happen when I start with the potato? I've already started to dream again – something else I haven't done in years. I still can't fully remember them, but I'm sure it will come. What will happen when I finally reach detox? Will I even need to? Or will I have just forgotten to eat all those things I used to NEED so badly. Who knows?
Anyway, sorry this has been so long. I just needed to get it out to someone who would understand.
Cate
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David, my oldest son, runs our store. He makes sure your orders go out quickly and works with you to find the best things suited to where you are in your process.
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better.
Come visit our STORE. Call 505-345-3737.
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If you are starting the program, this is a GREAT resource. Not just recipes, but lots of really helpful tips for doing the program.
Your Last Diet: More Than What You Think
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Come to Chat. It is nice, it is comforting and we like it.
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Another Look at Learned Helplessness
Kathleen DesMaisons, PhD
When you get hurt as a child, you get a big beta-endorphin response to protect you. It literally kept you alive. And then as an adult you have intuitively found ways to recreate *safety* with sugar. Your body *remembers* that beta-endorphin means *safe* so you become very emotionally attached to your *comfort foods.* Sugar sensitive people are more attached to these foods, as we well know. And sugar sensitive people
who have experienced childhood abuse are even more vulnerable.
But here is what is even more intriguing. The body is flooded with beta-endorphin in the time of trauma or inescapable stress. These can be bad things happening like an accident, a death, a horrid boss, abusive situations or even traumatic stimuli like having your utilities turned off or your credit taken away.
If you experienced the protection of the beta-endorphin flooding when you were little, these later adult experiences will recreate that powerful feeling of safety – even though on the outside it rationally seems as if these things are bad. You are drawn to them for the biochemical solace that comes with the release of beta endorphin.
Learned Helplessness
So even the things that seem like they are really *bad* are actually hooking into a very old biochemical pattern of beta-endorphin protection. And if bad things happen enough, you will feel (just as it did when you were little) like there is no way out. You will feel overwhelmed, inadequate and without options – this is learned helplessness.
The most incredible thing is that these feelings are biochemical. They are beta-endorphin mediated. When you use sugars, you are comforted for a little. Life seems more possible, options seems bigger. But you can’t find your way out because the optimism and hopefulness only lasts for a little bit – while the sugar induced beta-endorphin lasts. Or goes away and when you are in beta-endorphin withdrawal, the
helplessness gets worse.
A Way Out
You stay in a downward spiral of hopelessness. The good news is that the Radiant Recovery#&174 plan can help you to get out of the destruction of learned helplessness. But in dealing with the bigger story, you have to make some adjustments. If you really want to be in the world in a new way, you will need to be very diligent about creating experiences to evoke the slow, healing beta-endorphin rather than the
quick spikes that come from sugar.
When you start getting better with the food, you reduce the priming from sugar. This is a good start. But unless you *add in* emotional experiences to recreate beta-endorphin (like EXERCISE, prayer, meditation, dancing, puppies, kittens, good sex (relational intimacy), good food, etc.), your body will be seeking, seeking something to re-activate the beta-endorphin *safety* which you connect to being okay.
You will drift back to old patterns which mirror the trauma. So you will pick a fight with a cop ;-), your husband, partner or mother. You will *forget* to pay your bills on time, you will double book appointments, or not pay your taxes. This is NOT a function of being screwed up so much as an unconscious attempt to find solace and safety. Unless you reform the patterns, learned helplessness will follow you
tenaciously. And you reform the brain patterns by changing the food.
Take care of the food and the rest will take care of itself
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