Well good morning. I apologize for your newsletter arriving a little later than usual. I was really sick all last week and couldn’t even get out of bed, let alone do a newsletter. But thankfully, I am better and am enjoying a bank of knock out gorgeous lilacs blooming across the yard. I guess they loved all that snow we had this year. We will be starting these new classes the week of 4/11. 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. Brain Chemistry: Beta Endorphin is one of our most popular classes. It will teach you the core of the science behind the program. This is the outline for a critical part of sugar sensitivity, why you act the way you do and what you can do to change it. I love this class and so do all the people who have taken it. Somehow BE rocks! Step 2 Journaling: An 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 1 The Art of Breakfast is our foundation class to get you started. Learn all four parts of step 1 in a structured way. Learn how to progress through them with enjoyment. Let us support getting your program off to a fabulous start We will be starting these new classes the week of 4/18. Please click on the name of the class you wish to join and it will take you to the registration page: 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. 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. 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. This is his first teaching experience, so you can show your support for the work he does to keep you happy. 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 **********************************************************************
April 9, 2007 ** Quote From Kathleen **
The fun thing will be to see how your feelings emerge as you do the program. *********************************************************************
** Testimonial for the Week**
Well I am laughing.
I have proved to myself, that for me it really makes a difference.Kath, Step 7, Geo Coach for Downunder Just to give a brief background. My DH has a progressive disability. He has been on sick leave now a total of 4 months, and last week the specialist confirmed that he should retire on medical grounds. He is 43. The disbility is beginning to affect his mind as well as the bodily evidence we have seen for some time. I have not previously had much to do with our finances. I have to learn fast. I am finding it all very difficult and some parts of looking after me have taken a back seat. Including making sure I have spud available, and cooked. For a while I have had whatever spud was left from dinner, and when there was none, I had porridge. I was gradually becoming more and more tired, burdened, grey, flat...overwhelmed. Yesterday I baked some spuds. Lots of them. I had one for lunch, stuffed with tuna and sundried tomatoes and basil and olives, with a side of chick peas (garbanzos) mashed with garlic, lemon juice and mint leaves. Yum. I had a spud at dinner, and I had a spud, about the size of 2 hens eggs (bigger than I have been having) at the 3 hour mark after dinner, then I went to bed. I slept deeply, had some dreams which I can't remember, and woke refreshed, with a clear mind. Hopeful and purposeful. Responsive, and with a renewed sense of humour. As opposed to vaguely resentful, slightly weary or burdened, this is deightful. No they are not huge differences. It is subtle. How I was feeling this last fortnight is a lot better than what used to be normal (smile). But how I feel today, is *good.* Radiance is a deep thing, not a shallow shine on the surface, it is like a Joy which has roots in my being, not reliant on day to day events and doing. Does it *have* to be a spud? no, but a spud is the best. (smile) ********************************************************************
I used to dine at a restaurant that served a delicious spinach salad but the dressing was very sweet so when I started doing the food, I decided to invent something that would be similar. Here it is and I hope you like it as much as I do! SPINACH SALAD WITH POPPY SEED DRESSING
Note: if you are concerned about eating fresh spinach, you can substitute the spinach with any other dark leafy green. POPPY SEED DRESSING
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**Your Last Diet: More Than What You Think**
YLDonline is a membership program run directly by Kathleen DesMaisons herself. We had so much fun at last week’s chat. The old timers shared their stories. That was just breathtaking. I just love these conversations each week. The folks from Eurochat are rocking and have planned out a super Ranch for fall, the newbies are asking super questions at the Monday beginners’ chat, and that Wednesday night chat simply is awesome (or brilliant as our UK friends would say). The weight loss readiness class is just finishing up. My they did a wonderful job!! We will be starting a new class soon for those of you who have recently joined. 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. 
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. ********************************************************* ***********
**Our Online Groups**
Radiant Men is abuzz these days. For whatever reason, we have had a whole lot of new guys coming into the community this last month. If you would like a special place to learn program skills, how to work your PDA or Blackberry for the program, or want just the facts, LOL, come join us. ********************************************************************
**Sleeping Your Way to Radiance** Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. When I first started doing my own plan, I thought that "getting" the program meant doing it fully, being diligent, following the instructions and not messing with it. I still held the belief that being disciplined and focused were the only ways to go. Now I am not so sure that these are the criteria for succeeding with the program. Now I am convinced that something else is operating, something a little more subtle and unexpected. I believe that showing up and being in relationship to your body will help you more than being tough on yourself. Let me outline how I got to thinking this way. I used to lead a ten-week guided imagery series called “Finding Healing From Within.” Each week, we would do a guided meditation. After the meditation, the participants would draw what they experienced, and the group would share their feelings. Sometimes a group member would sleep through every single meditation and make up a drawing because they had no memory of anything in the meditation. This made me really uncomfortable. Was I failing these people? Were they failing the group? Were they in denial? How could they sleep through my wonderful imagery? At the end of ten weeks, we reviewed the progress of everyone in the group. How had they changed? How did they feel? Surprisingly, time and time again, the sleepers would have as remarkable a change as the doers. Not once, not twice, but every single time. Ten weeks of sleeping through what I thought was the healing part of the work and they would report a profound sense of inner healing. They didn't work it. They slept through the meditation -- at least on a conscious level. But they were there. They showed up and they drew the pictures and they talked about their process. This experience taught me something. The act of showing up creates change. In fact, it creates powerful change even if on the outside it may not seem so. Making a commitment to healing starts a process -- a chain of events that is much deeper than we may think. When you vow, "I will get better," when you begin to hold the idea of being willing to do whatever it takes, then something starts to shift. Given this experience with my “sleepers,” I looked again at the effect that dalliance vs. diligence might have on the seven steps of healing sugar sensitivity. I started looking at my personal process of doing the steps. What was happening when I was playing around with them a little instead of being diligent? Could those times be like the sleeping times in my guided imagery class? Could change be happening in spite of what seemed to be my own inattention? I looked in my food journal and discovered something astounding. When I was attending to the steps, listening to my body, writing in my journal, even if I wasn't doing the food plan perfectly, change was happening. I was making progress even when I was being kinda sloppy. Think about those sleepers. The sleepers were there in the room with the rest of the group. Every week. They woke up, drew pictures with the group, and talked about sleeping. And when I showed up, kept my food journal, and wrote about sleeping through my food plan, I was still engaged with my body and working the steps. I was talking with myself about what was happening. I was not criticizing myself for food sleeping. I was simply noticing. And I kept coming back to the journal. I kept coming back to my body and my healing. The nature of the sugar-sensitive person is to give in when things get difficult. Like the C57 mice, you crouch in the corner and think you can't stick to your plan. Your biochemistry and your coping behaviors have supported learned helplessness. You hit hard stuff and you felt overwhelmed, unable to follow through the way you hoped. A thousand failed diets from the past reinforced these feelings. As soon as you catch yourself "sleeping," you say to yourself, "See, you did it again!" So you run away from the program, run away from yourself. You crouch and hide -- and then you abandon everything you have learned. This time it will be different, because knowing you are sugar sensitive lets you finally, finally understand the nature of who you are. Knowing you are sugar sensitive lets you shift the perspective from feeling bad about a thousand "failed" diets to being open to a solution. Think about that. You are tenacious. You keep going, you search and continue. You may be impulsive and impatient, but you can be and are committed to finding a solution. This program helps you use your tenacity in a new way. Because you finally understand why other diets haven't worked, you can start to make choices. You can change the voices that say, "I know this won't really work" into "Hmmmm, let's sort this out," "Why am I bored?" "Why don't I like doing the journal?" "Why do I sabotage my efforts?" Asking these questions becomes a part of your healing. They are not the same old tapes you have run about your inadequacy. They may be the same questions, but they are asked from a different perspective. Say to yourself, "I will do whatever it takes to heal this. I will give it time, money, energy, whatever it takes. Taking care of my food will be at the top of my list, not after my job, or after my family, or maybe when I get to it. But at the top of my list every day." You have made these affirmations a thousand times. But generally you make them in your head. You think about your affirmations, but you do not usually put the affirmations into action. What would it really mean to "do whatever it takes?" ©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 |
