This week we have a number of announcements. I sent my manuscript off to Simon & Schuster for the revision of Potatoes Not Prozac. What a joy that was! Your voices make it come alive. New science, refined steps to include what we have learned and I corrected the comment about the grams of protein in an egg and took out the comment on how to lose weight, LOL. Your generosity to the scholarship fund is wonderful. We have raised close to $5,000. We are currently $324.97 short of our goal so if you haven’t checked in, we sure would love it. And if you haven’t signed up for ranch, now is the time to do it. This year will be a really exciting time. The community is moving towards a global presence. We have set up a new list called radianttranslators. Our intention is to translate part of the website into other languages. We now have it in Spanish and will be adding French, Turkish and Swedish. If you have proficiency in another language and would like to be a part of this exciting process, please come join us. You do not have to be a professional translator. We will be talking about issues of nuance and idiom on the list. In keeping with this, if you haven’t visited our community map, do come on over and place your dot in. It is fun to see where we are. We will be starting these new classes the week of 3/14. Please click on the name of the class you wish to join and it will take you to the registration page: Step 2: Journal, Introduction will teach you the basics of journaling. The class will give you step by step instructions in how to record your food and feelings in a way that gets you excited. Step 5: Browning Your Family is one of our favorites. Learn the art of whole grains. Get lots of information that you won't find anywhere else. I picked the brains of one of the world's leading *brown* experts for this class. Using the Resources of the Community. This class is being postponed since there is a current class underway. The next session will be held the week of 3/28. Radiant Store Tour 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. We will be starting these new classes the week of 3/21. Please click on the name of the class you wish to join and it will take you to the registration page: Back to Basics 1 is the class for those who have been on Step 7 and got lost. If you are wobbling around, have relapsed or need a tune up, come connect. We are kind, funny and have a great get back on track process. Hormones is a class for women dealing with perimenopause, menopause, PMS or whatever. Let's discover what you can do to refine your program to support feeling better. I have been working on the curriculum for this class for several weeks. My, oh my, the material I have found is fascinating. The story is way more intriguing than the things we were taught. Step 4: More Than You Think is the potato class. Come learn everything you ever wanted to know about the timing, size, frequency of your potato. Learn about the best vitamins and talk all you want about them. This is a nice way to strengthen and refine your step 4. Resource Center Tour is another one of our free walking tours through the website. This one takes you through the resource center. Explore all the nooks and crannies and discover things you did not know were there. Creating Restful Sleep is a new class for those of you who are having trouble sleeping. I will give you some ways to sort out what might be going on and some up-to-date science to help find solutions. I have posted a new class schedule on line. Click here to see what is planned. A number of you have asked me how the classes work. Check the class list page for more information on this. The classes are done online with one lesson each day. You do not have to be at your computer at any set time. 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. Please feel free to pass this week's newsletter on to your friends and family. Don't forget to let me know what you like and would like to see me cover. Be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery® website and Community Forum regularly. Warmly, Kathleen **********************************************************************
March 12, 2007 ** Quote From Kathleen **
The wonderful thing is that you do not have to work on all those behavior things individually. You do not have to master your blood sugar and your serotonin and your beta-endorphin, you just “do the food.” When you do the food, your body and your process take care of the rest. From Potatoes Not Prozac 2 *********************************************************************
** Testimonial for the Week**
For years every time I started a new diet I announced it to everyone. Maybe I thought that would help me to stay on the straight and narrow. What I did was kind of give everyone permission to remark on what I was eating. Fast forward to when I began to follow the steps. First I read PNP and it made a lot of sense. Right away I started a journal which I kept hidden from everyone. Although the order of the steps changed, it may have been best for me to do the journal first. All those yellow marks for all the sugar I ate made a huge impression. I followed the steps and made slow and steady progress. I never said a word to my DP or anyone that I was working the steps. When I wobbled I got right back up and started again. I didn't punish myself when I wasn't perfect. That was huge because I was always doing that if I wasn't perfect on my new diet. I stuck to what Kathleen wrote about one food choice at a time. If I made a poor choice, I just tried a little harder the next time. If I ate the wrong things on Sat. I didn't trash the plan. At the next meal I did my best to eat enough protein, browns and vegetables. I didn't fall for that old trap of "I might as well start over on Monday." After a couple of months I started to watch my anniversaries. Funny, but now that I wrote that, my five year anniversary is the week of St. Patrick's Day. My family gets together to watch the parade on St. Patrick's Day. I cook corned beef, cabbage and potatoes. I was seven months into the program and still playing with a little sugar after my meals. When I say a little, that is one tablespoon or less of ice cream after my meal. It didn't even taste good any longer. After dinner at my son's I ate some home made carrot cake. After all I was allowed because I hadn't done a sugar detox LOL! It gave me a terrible migraine headache for about three or four days. Since I had no sugar for those four days I figured the Universe was helping me to do the sugar detox. One of the main reasons that I was able to stick with the steps was because I could go at my own pace. Once I started having breakfast consistently I began to feel so full of energy, happy and focused. Only than did I have the courage to go on to the next step. It was very important and helpful for me to experience the healing of my biochemistry. It sure beats going cold turkey! Hugs, Ann ********************************************************************
When I took the step 5 browns class, I felt so inspired to try out different kinds of browns. Here is a recipe that I invented after that class. My kids just love it and ask for it often! BANANA COCONUT PUDDING
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**Your Last Diet: More Than What You Think**
YLDonline is a membership program run directly by Kathleen DesMaisons herself. Well, something wonderful is happening over at the weight loss farm...the new people are mostly settled. Those that need some extra help are tucked into the new chubby cherub tutorial program. The Weight Loss in Action class has designed their plans and have started. It is such an amazing thing to see a group having so much fun figuring out what they want to do and in what order. Motivated would be a minor understatement! We had a fun eurochat as well. I thought I was being very sensitive and dutiful when I changed the names in a chat we did on before/after. I wanted to quote it in the new book and thought protecting the identities was a good idea. Well, they did not like that idea at all!!! These quiet, mild mannered ladies told me in no uncertain terms that pseudonyms was NOT the way to go, LOL. So a correction went off to the publisher. Change the names back, please. If you are not a YLD member, come and join us. Click here if you are ready to change your life or just plain ole have fun. ********************************************************* ***********
**David's Corner **
David manages the Radiant Recovery Store. He is also Kathleen’s oldest son.  Don’t forget that you can have an automatic order set up for you. I am being really creative with some of our members. I put together a shipment of shake, pycnogenol, cod liver oil, and wild rice and send it out each month. On the third month, I send a journal and 2 of those little add on journals to write all about your feelings about spring. Just email me or call me at 505-345-3737 and let me know your heart’s desire. Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. ********************************************************* ***********
**Our Online Groups**
Yeşim, Step 7, is the Liaison for all the Middle East group The community is growing. And now we have planted a seed towards becoming truly global. We have created the Radiant Middle East Geo Hospitality Group. This is a group where people from or living in or just interested in the Middle East will come together to talk about doing the program and life in the region. Our daily lives. How we do the program. Our challenges. What delights us. The incredible ways in which we are healing. The little surprises. It doesn't matter whether you are from the region or just interested in the culture. Just jump in and join the conversation. ********************************************************************
**On Becoming an Elder of the Tribe** Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. My Mother's family had twelve brothers and sisters. Last week the last of this generation died quietly in her sleep with her five children by her side. It was a passing of more than this one sweet woman. We have often spoken of being elders, but sometimes the exploration was an idea more than a responsibility. It was an idea that first came to me when I was up at White Earth and dinner was served. They said, *elders to eat first*. I was sitting in my chair and and old Indian woman tapped me on the shoulder and said,*you can go up,honey.* It was a wonderful feast so I was happy to go to the head of the line. But I didn't really reflect on the meaning. Yesterday, I went to the funeral. I flew from New Mexico back to New England. The cousins were pretty much all there. Out of fifteen, thirteen were at the gathering. My aunt's youngest son had put together a slideshow of pictures of my aunt's life. So there it was, from the beginning. A picture with my mother. A hundred years ago. Time traveling backwards into another era. Two little girls with lives just starting. Two little girls whose mother would die when they were sixteen and fourteen. Who would go off to college in the days when not many girls did such things. Then they had families and the cousins made connections. We spent summers together. We did naughty things. Ray stole the cannon from the town courtyard, we drag-raced with the tractors at the farm, the boys put seaweed on the floor of the summer cottage in Maine and then scared all the girls to waking in the dark with bare feet. But we are not twelve or thirteen anymore. The little ones are our grandchildren. Our children are the graceful adults. How did this happen? Now they want to hear our stories. Or maybe it is that we want them to know the stories. We want them to know who stands behind them. Will they care that I remember the moment the bells started to toll for John Kennedy's death, or gun shots in 1968. Will they care that my first television was a miracle and we watched Walt Disney with enchantment? Or that I remember the first computers, filling a whole building and needing hand coded computer cards punched by 11 PM with programs delivered the next morning. It makes me smile to think that a little flash drive now contains 10 times the memory of my first computer. And in some ways that is symbolic of these strange new roles. An elder in a time of exponential change is a little disorienting. The grandchildren manipulate a keyboard in a way I cannot even imagine. And yet, they do not know the things of the heart. They are brilliant and yet still the same, without experience. I am laughing. I think this topic is way bigger than a simple Sunday morning reflection. I think I need to sit with being an elder. I think we need to speak of this together. it's new territory. ©Kathleen DesMaisons 2007. Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together: Gretel, the liaison for the recovery list and the webmaster, puts it all together Naomi gathers the recipes. David, who runs the Radiant Recovery® Store talks about what new products we have. 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/weeklynewsletter.htm. ©2007 by 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 and use this attribution: "By Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. of Radiant Recovery®. Please visit Kathleen's website at http://www.radiantrecovery.com for additional resources on sugar sensitivity and healing addiction." Please notify me at kathleen@radiantrecovery.com to let me know where the material will appear. Banner Photograph by Patti Holden, Step 7 |