 Hi {!firstname_fix} I have six bird feeders right outside the window of my office. I do not understand how birds can eat so much in such a short period of time. I think they tell every bird on the block to come over and chow down. The peacocks are no longer calling day and night. This means the girls are sitting on the nests and at some point will emerge with 20 grey puff balls behind them. I do love all the morning bird sounds. This week's article is about radiance. I wrote it and then thought about it a lot. Ever since I have been sort of mulling over these ideas. And I realized that much of my life is about radiance these days. Subtle and intense, at the same time. On the outside, things look the same. A little less cluttered, but if you came to visit, it would seem the same. But the feeling is different. This feeling spills into everything. The classes are fun, chats are delightful, conversations on the lists are something I cherish. Maybe the community is like a whole block of bird feeders and grace just fills them up every night with whole grain deluxe. We are doing classes throughout the summer. These classes will begin Wednesday, June 25, 2008. Please click on the name of the class you wish to join and it will take you to the registration page: Learning About Depression (2 weeks) is a key class for the Potatoes Not Prozac crowd. Learn in-depth information on the kinds of depression, why drugs will or will not work, how they work and how Doing the Food can help. If you are dealing with depression as part of your sugar sensitive equation, you will love this class. Step 4: More Intriguing Than You Think (1 week) 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. These classes will begin Wednesday, July 2, 2008. Please click on the name of the class you wish to join and it will take you to the registration page: Brain Chemistry: Beta Endorphin (2 weeks) 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! Back to Basics 1 (1 week) 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. ***Ok, and I have made a change in the class fees....if you are on disability or low income (your household income is less that $1000 a month), you make take classes for free. This is an honor system. If you qualify, simply make a note in the notes box and we will not charge you. The class schedule is on line. Click here to see what is planned. Please do not sign up for classes that are not yet scheduled. 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 and you do not have to be at your computer at any set time. It does not matter whether you are in the US, Europe, the Far East or Australia, you simply respond on your own time. And although I advertise that the classes are one or two weeks, sometimes we are a little flexible and they may run longer. 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 **********************************************************************
June 23, 2008 ** Quote From Kathleen **
When you feel your worst and can't cope with anything, just go back to eating breakfast with protein every day. *********************************************************************
** Testimonial for the Week**
Slow is good Ashley. When I go fast my *house* that I've built often comes tumbling down, lol. I recently read something about what it means to master a task. Basically what I got from it is that Mastering is not about perfection, far from it. Mastering isn't doing everything perfectly (nor right off the bat perfectly). It is striving to be more tomorrow than we are today. Slow, small increments, or holding steady at one place before taking the next move forward. So we get to step two, the journal, and it says: "journal your food and your physical and emotional feelings." I¹m glad I wasn't required to master that the first day I attempted to journal. Whew! No, I was given tips, support, and help, and I took that a little at a time and a day at a time and others listened to me about how hard it all was; and yes, eventually was journaling every day. And the neat thing about *mastering* journaling, is that it continues to grow, change, and become transformed, just as our lives do as we leave addiction and enter healing. So, I think you are doing just great Ashley. Patti ********************************************************************
**Radiant Ambassadors** I've been doing a bit of surfing and found that our friend, Oprah is planning to do a program on children who are addicted to sugar. Here is the blurb from her website.... "Are you worried your child is addicted to sugar? Does your child suffer from sugar meltdowns - constantly craving sugary snacks and throwing a fit when you try to take them away? After eating sweets, have you seen your child go from happy to moodiness and tears minutes later? Do you notice a dramatic change in his or her behavior depending on what foods he or she eats? Have you seen your child "crash" after the sugar high is over? Maybe after drinking soda or juice your child seems content but his or her mood quickly spirals out of control? As a parent, have you found yourself giving into their sugar cravings to avoid a fight or a tantrum? If you suspect your child is becoming addicted to sugar and it is affecting his or her behavior at home and at school, we want to hear from you! Please email us your story only if you are willing to appear on television." If anyone is interested, here is the link. https://www.oprah.com/plugger/templates/BeOnTheShow.jhtml?action=respond&plugId=\ 278400001 They are only interested at the moment in parents who have children who are sugar sensitive. Well, at least it's something :) Oh my! The deeper you dig in the Oprah website, the more you find sugar addiction. Here is a link to four people on her message board who are desperate to lose sugar (grin). http://www.oprah.com/community/thread/46591?tstart=0 Well, we know something that works! Won't you join us in the discussion on the boards? Selena Come join us if you are excited about spreading the news. ********************************************************************
**Radiant Kitchen**
One of my all time favourites came from the Delia books. Just chop up any root veggies you fancy - parsnip, carrot, potato, onion, courgette, celery etc into two bite size - roll in olive oil and some chopped up rosemary and roast in a hot oven for about 30 mins. I sometimes add whole garlic segments, no need to skin them as you can just snip off the top and 'pop' them out of their jackets when they are cooked and soft. I've tried the other veggies as well but my favourite remains a carrot/parnsip/potato/garlic combination. I hadn't realized you can eat sugar snap peas raw with a dip before - they are a new standby for travelling when I am desperate for a green. Jacqueline
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**Your Last Diet: More Than What You Think**
YLDonline is a membership program run directly by Kathleen DesMaisons herself. Mid June and maybe you are thinking about losing weight. We will be doing the introduction to weight loss material right around the first of July. This is a good time to get connected with the process. Join us now to get oriented, learn how to chat and start meeting your buddies on the journey. 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. ********************************************************* ***********
**Radiant Recovery Store **
David manages the Radiant Recovery Store. He is also Kathleen's oldest son. I always smile when I read these notes. Thank you. I work hard to make sure your needs are met. My new helper, Woodrow, is doing well. He has learned box sizes and some of the idiosyncrasis of your notes. Hi Olivia, I noticed your post and loved it, nodded my head the whole way through reading it, in fact. My problem is that on the internet I sometimes forget that you probably didn't see me nodding my head the whole way through. Total agreement. I've never been unhappy with anything from the store, never had a single problem, The store is a real service to those of us with SS, it makes things that make the program easier available to us all. I too am very grateful for it. Joy S
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. ********************************************************* ***********
**Our Online Groups**
Most of us underestimate the importance of breakfast and try to do all the steps in the first week. When that doesn't work, we begin again. We concentrate on Step 1, breakfast, and find our lives begin to change. The RadiantBreakfast list is a great place to learn the nuances of breakfast, build a strong foundation for the rest of the Steps, and find how helpful it is to share our journey with others. It is great for new people and those who have been on the program a long time. Sharing helps everyone. The awesome thing is we all, Step 1 or Step 7, eat breakfast every single day. How cool is that? We'd love it for you to Sign up: We love new members! ********************************************************************
**What Is Radiance?**
Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. It has been ten years since Potatoes Not Prozac was published. It’s been twenty years since I have been working in the recovery field. My company is called Radiant Recovery®. You have heard many people speak of feeling “radiant.” But I have never really written about radiance per se. It has been a part of my life for a very long time. Almost fifty years. When I was nineteen, I met it unexpectedly. I feel in love and that same year met the world of great mystic writers and philosophers. My molecules woke up to a feeling. It wasn’t the writing, it was the knowing. It was a time of being directly connected to the flow that runs deep within all things. But when you are nineteen, life doesn’t really support that way of being in the world. Regular stuff took over. Babies, career, stuff, people. I did regular life. At certain times, I dipped back down into that place and drank from it. The time of writing Potatoes not Prozac was a time of living from that place. In my language, I would say it was a time of grace guiding who I am and what I am to be and do. That time, like the time of being nineteen, was beyond anything I had words for except perhaps a time of grace. Something happened then. Doing the food, maturity created a way to hold the connection. Not all the time, but more and more. You have heard me speak of “cells remembering” a certain way of being. It is a delight, a delight that is very subtle and feels like all things were sort of singing to you. The trees and the birds and the bloods each have a tone and the inside cells singing along. It is sort of like a little hum. When this happens, it fills you. It is not something rational. I can’t reason about it, or analyze it because it is a state of being. When I am there, it is fresh, spontaneous, like a three year old watching the big moon rise up in the evening. The feeling is subtle and intense at the same time. It is like a moment when you glance at your dog sleeping or notice your child’s hand, or see a little bud about to become a perfect little rose, or the curve of your beloved’s neck and you feel that everything is right. You are whole, you are safe and grace is there. This is radiance. Radiance can be unsettling. Ordinary life and many things still float about that are ugly or unpleasant and here you are feeling a sense of connection and grace. You wonder, “Am I nuts?” and “Is this all a dream? “Am I making this up?" "Is it going away?" "How can this be?” Then you come to a chat on a full moon night. On the surface, it is a bunch of people from all over the world just being silly. And then, a breath happens, your are laughing so hard, you snort your water. You cat is looking at you. And there is grace, there is the remembering. Radiance isn’t going away. It wants to be part of your life. It wants to guide you, to whisper direction, to have you know it, trust it, embrace it and live from it. Radiance wants to tell you that you need not figure anything out, it is not about knowledge. It is about breakfast, a shake on vacation. About lunch on time. About a daily writing in your journal. I know you came to deal with being fat, or being crazy or tired or overwhelmed. We all were surprised. Radiance is more than just healing that stuff. It is the connection to the deeper way of being. And how very wonderful. ©Kathleen DesMaisons 2008. Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together: Gretel, our webmaster, puts it all together 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. ©2008 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 |
