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July 6, 2015

Hi {!firstname_fix}

As you read this, I am on the road up to my island in Maine for a sit by the sea and a quiet time of healing. I will be happy for the cool and the fog and the sound of the buoys in the channel. Yes, we will eat lobster, and yes, I will sit on the deck and work on the new book. Your mentors will do chats and care for the community while I am gone.

The coaching class has gotten started and will be an *open* enrollment, so if you decide you would like to join us, know that you can apply whenever you like.
Radiant Coaching/Skilled (2 week intervals) - This class is a new class which will be an ongoing skilled coaching class for people who are experienced with steps 6/7 and really want to amp up their programs. We will look at the magic bowl system, adjusting food for exercise, exercise, journaling, joy dots, and whatever else the *trainees* want. It is an opportunity to have Kathleen’s personal ongoing coaching in real time. Take the tidbits you get at chats and expand them into personal applications for YOUR program in real time. You get to choose how long you want to do this, and what use to make of your coach. While this is NOT boot camp, it is a serious commitment to change. This class is not open to everyone, you will have to request participation and provide an application about why you are ready to take on this challenge.


This class will begin Wednesday, July 8, 2015. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:



Magic Bowls (2 weeks) - Some of you have heard about the *Magic Bowls* and their role in successfully doing the program. This class will teach you how to assess your magic bowl configuration for what step you are on and where you are in that step. This class is for those of you who get baffled by numbers or counting, or who struggle with restriction. You will need to order and have the bowls before the class starts.



This class will begin Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:



Dopamine (2 weeks) - a look at sugar sensitivity and dopamine. Learn about the fourth leg of the story and see if this is your missing piece. If you are drawn to excitement and *danger*, if you love stimulants like coffee and strong tea and risk taking, dopamine may be your thing and this class will suit you.
Depression (2 weeks) - Yes, the first book was called Potatoes Not Prozac for a reason. Learn about the biochemistry of depression, what meds do, how to use or not use meds as you progress through the steps. Learn why SSRI's don't always solve the problem. Become an informed consumer so you can speak to your doc in a clear and educated fashion about your needs.


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

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**Quote From Kathleen **


Beta-endorphin is immensely powerful. It can drive you inexorably toward deeper addiction - or raise your spirits to a level of health that you may never have known before.

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**Testimonial of the Week **


I am feeling all kinds of happy with myself because in June I messed up my Step 6 due to poor planning. All my meal times went out the window, my snacking returned, etc. And now I have been to a family party with my Emergency Meal (that I hadn't really thought I'd need, but brought it anyway thank goodness), and then a couple of days later I went for a three-day visit with my daughter-in-law and little grandchildren while my son was at a business conference. I brought my own food and stayed with my program! I even wrote in my journal every meal! Good for me!

Getting back to replies about the Emergency Meal: yes, banana would make it taste better. I'll have to try it. Good idea!

Husbands: my darling husband went to the party with me (the one with cookies, brownies, ice cream, Chinese food, and everything being served at various times) and he ate everything they served. The next day he had a royal headache, allergies acting up...he's been eating what I've been eating at home, you see. When I realized what was wrong I got him a banana, encouraged him to drink a lot of water and eat fruit with every meal (as a former Step 6er I don't have many sweets around). Now he knows I'm not the only one with a sensitivity! (lol) Plus he has a lot of compassion for the old days. "Is this how you felt when you were on the couch?" "Yes." "It's horrible! How did you stand it?" "I didn't. That's why I was on the couch." (Now he can understand why various relatives do what they do to avoid feeling like that. One day when we're radiant I hope they'll try RR.)

On the trip I brought Ezekiel bread, oatmeal, cottage cheese, hard-boiled eggs, cans of tuna, salmon, garbanzo beans, and even frozen vegetables (in a cooler with ice). I was determined to assume nothing. I figured the worst that would happen is my dil would have extra groceries in the house. I also brought George's Jr shake, which I left behind for her to use on my dear ss son who can be pretty grouchy in the morning. I suggested that she just do what I did: hand him a shake. If he drinks it, he drinks it. If not, she can have it.

Something I've learned from this community is that we are not weak. We have bodies that are a special challenge to us, and we have the courage to face it and work with it. I learned that it is not weakness to spend the day after I got home taking it easy and not expecting too much of myself. My body needs what she needs and I can't run her ragged without consequences. I love the fact that we do this program in steps. It isn't all or nothing. If it all comes apart we can start at Step One and gradually add back the steps until we're better again. In June all the old sugar feelings returned and I didn't think I'd get better, I just did the steps because I didn't know what else to do. Now I feel stronger than ever. That feeling of having a spotlight on me with everyone watching me seems to be going away, too.

It's good to be back!

Lora




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** Radiant Recovery® Store **


I know a lot of you are making travel plans for the summer. Here are two great suggestions.

Get a little travel mixing bottle. We have been getting awesome reports back from the people who have them. You don't need batteries, they really mix well and are very light weight.


And if you are going on a plane or taking long car trips, make sure to take pycnogenol. One of the things it is most noted is its protective effect on DVT (deep vein thrombosis - blood clots from sitting for a long time). This effect has been tested in a number of peer reviewed studies in major journals. Kathleen highly recommends it for that purpose.


Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better.

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**Radiant Kitchen **


With the hot weather, I love to make cold salads. This is one of my favorites from our own Radiant Recovery Cookbook

CURRIED CHICKEN SALAD

  • 3 c. cooked chicken, cubed
  • 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
  • 1 1/2 c. sugar-free mayonnaise
  • 1 Tbsp. curry powder or to taste
  • 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
  • 1/2 c. fresh orange segments
  • 1/2 c. sliced scallions
  • 1/2 c. sliced black olives
  • 1/2 c. chopped cilantro
  • 1/2 c. chopped pecans or almonds
  • 1/4 tsp. salt or to taste
  • 1/4 tsp. black pepper or to taste
Combine all ingredients. Serve immediately or refrigerate up to 3 days. Good over mixed greens as main course salad or as sandwich filling. For vegetarian version, substitute baked tofu (cubed) or tempeh for the chicken. Makes 4 servings.
For great program-friendly recipes, check out our Cookbook in the store and visit our online Radiant Recipes site.

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**Radiant YLD **


As you may realize we are in the process of designing our new website. This has made me think a lot about how I want to present the YLD program. I am thinking that many of you may not have gone back to the page where you sign up for YLD. It is fun to check it out here.

Check the testimonials here. I know the we don’t talk about them a lot because mostly I want to help you stop fretting about weight, weight and think breakfast, breakfast. But there is the truth of the program.

The new site will offer a special area for YLD members including our chat room, a special forum, the chat transcripts and special weight loss recipes. This won’t be ready the day of the big unveil, but it is in the works.



If you would like to join us in YLD, come find us here

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**Radiant Living **


Radiant Living is all about support for learning how to *live* as you move towards radiance. The stability of your food and the steps will form a foundation to bring you into a new way of living. We will talk about emotional sobriety, finding passion in your life, disarming things that get in the way, program maturation and, of course, spirituality. When we are caught in addiction, we stop growing, we get stuck and stay stuck. Our commitment to doing life without addiction has catapulted us into something unexpected.

Radiant Living will allow you to share a dialogue with others – people who are asking the same questions and exploring answers boldly and with the humility that comes with doing the food.

If you would like to join us in Radiant Living, come find us here

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**Grace Unfolding **
Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.



It is Friday morning, a week to the day of my knowing that my Pepper dog would be leaving. I woke up early, that time of darkness before the light begins. I swung my feet over the side of the bed and had that same feeling of her not being there that I had a week ago. She had been sleeping right up next to the bed for the month before. If I was not careful, with where my feet went, I would touch her, and she would wake up with a start, and I would feel badly. Last week she was not there. I found her lying outside under the butterfly bush. Her breathing was labored and she told me she was complete. I will always remember that feeling of waiting in the darkness for death to come soon, waiting for a death I did not want, a death I accept because I did not want her to suffer.

I wondered if I would write more about a *dog*...and yet I realize that I am not writing about a dog at all. This is about sugar sensitivity, the essence of being born with a body that feels so deeply. We are all hard wired for this, we are unbuffered by a skin thick enough to shield us from the feeling of feet hitting the floor rather than the softness of a sleeping dog.

I cannot yet act as if regular life has returned enough that I can act as if I am all right. All week I have felt like I was in an altered state, watching my confident self containing, cleaning the kitchen, doing chat, working on the website revision, paying the mortgage, while my other self was in so much pain I felt I couldn’t move. My muscles felt they could not respond.

These feelings are why we turn to sugar, to alcohol, to drugs, to fantasy, to anything to take away the pain. Running from the pain, trying to find something, anything to make it stop and then being caught in the deadly swirl of that which we thought would comfort us is now crushing us and stealing moments of joy, of life and light.

Some part of me knows that this willingness to go through the pain is the essence of claiming recovery. Going to Whole Foods and buying shrimp rather than a bottle of wine or some fine, dark chocolate becomes the testament to a life that chooses to feel rather than flee.

I have had and lost many dogs, many people to death or simply moving on. I have never felt an emptiness like this, an emptiness in my cells, a silence, a darkness where something that was lit has gone. Copper fur, the faint smell of NM dirt, the shape of a muscle sculpted by chasing seagulls in Maine...a collection of memory bits that have woven into me on a cellular level.

Of course it is the loving, the heart that opened to a dog saying *you can trust me, I will be here for you.* A dog who came to repair a heart that has been broken, or forgotten or betrayed. A sugar-sensitive heart that trusted and then was left, or hurt or not seen or valued. Dogs do this in a way that people cannot. There are no strings, no qualifiers.

This is what I have not told you about step 7. This is what I have not spoken. If you follow this path, if you *do the food* you will end up in this place. You will feel again and the moments long buried will surface and ask you to heal them. If you have committed to what many of us have chosen - a life of reclaiming buried pain, of connection, of healing - then you will simply hold on, trust and wait. Your being will know that the space carved out by loss can be space to be filled by love, trust and the flow of a joy dot river.

Perhaps you may not know it yet, but you, like I, will make your morning shake, put it in your special glass, sip it and say, *I am willing to be this self. I am willing to not run from pain, but to let it flow through me and wash me. I am willing to be connected to all those people in the world who feel deeply and know exactly what this is about.* The loss of a dog, a cat, a bird, a ferret, a lover, a child, a mum or dad or sister or brother or friend, or the promise of a life that cannot be will open us to grace.

I know I will not *get over* Pepper. I know the pain will not go away. I know also that my capacity for joy sits right there next to the pain. If I walk from the pain, I walk from the joy. It is like the tide flowing in and out. As you are reading this I am on my way up to the Island in maine to be with the tide going in and out. The sea will wash and heal me.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. It is not about the dog, it is about who we are. I will sit with the tide and I will write about Grace Unfolding and that we are not alone.

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Until next time!
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©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.

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