Hi {!firstname_fix}

This week's issue is a follow up to our issue about abuse. It is a hard subject. I know it was upsetting for some of you. But doing the food, doing the steps is going to make a huge difference. Let's keep talking and keep healing.

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.

A copy of this newsletter may also be found posted on the web at http://www.radiantrecovery.com/weeklynewsletter. If you wish to unsubscribe, use the link at the bottom of the page. Do not email me, do not get mad at me, just click on the linkand you will be forever removed.

And be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery website and Community Forum regularly.

Warmly,
Kathleen

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April 26, 2004

** Quote From Kathleen **

Every molecule yearns to be healed. If you listen, they will partner with you in a way you cannot imagine.

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** Testimonial for the Week**

Hi, Keir my eldest will be 15 in August so know just how you feel ! I also have a 6 year old and he is so much easier to work with on this programme. Everyone is so right by saying 'get him involved'. He started the programme last October and I have been the 'overpowering/controlling/too caring' mum 'too' many times with him since then. It's been a learning for both of us as we go. Of course everytime I get 'too' much he becomes the most 'difficult' teenager and will not 'do' the programme.

The mistake I first made was to try to limit his sugar intake upfront along with step 1 breakfast. He still reminds me as he says how I tried to get him to do all the steps at once. So I had to learn to meet him where he was. I did that by talking to him about his feelings/the food/connections between how he feels and what he has eaten again and again and again. OK, now I acted as his 'journal' and it would have been better if he did it for himself but he wasn't going to and I saw this as a baby step to getting him to take it on board later on. And when I see the eyes roll I know it's time to back off for a while and give him space. I am learning that even when I think he is not listening he really is, it's just he doesn't want me to know it.

Now I would love to have had a 'drug' free house (and I know one day I will) but I knew I couldn't have done this programme successfully if I had limited my sugar intake upfront and Keir proved to me the hard way that he couldn't either. The other thing I would say here is he quickly latched onto 'being deprived' when we limited his sugar intake and he often slipped into victim mode and would use it as ammunition not to do the programme.

So what I ended up doing was to agree with him a few simple rules. One he had to have breakfast with protein and a complex carb. Then he could eat something sweet if he chose to do so. We also agreed that he eat some protein with all things sweet things. I only insisted on the breakfast part as essential/non negotiable. He used to take sweet stuff on its own so I used these opportunties to help him make the connection between the sugar and his behaviour/feelings. You see having the sugar there has actually helped him learn what sugar really does to his body. To be honest before I knew it he was having his three meals and two snacks and something sweet after each meal.

We also talked about his 'sweet' choices and agreed which ones were acceptable to both him and me. Yes, you guessed it, the ones with least amount of sugar, for him it is gluten free cookies and mini milky ways. I did not initially stop him from eating 'other' sweet stuff when we were out but gradually he has shifted to saying no to other sweet stuff. I did stop all 'fizzy' drinks/soda both within and out of the house.

Moira

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** Your Last Diet: More Than What You Think**

We are making some changes in the Your Last Diet Program Online. A whole new resource for people who are highly resistant to losing weight. The energy is crackling. If you have been thinking about it....now is the time.

Come join us and hear about this success!

http://www.radiantrecovery.com/YLD_signup.htm

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** Radiant Recovery Seminars **

Ranch in Albuquerque is just a month away. Radiant Ranch is the highlight of the year. Most of the liaisons come and we all have a blast. Did you know that we are having a kids ranch this year as well? I have posted a schedule of the seminar if you want to see what we will be doing. I have had 3 cancellations if you want a spot.

We have invited Coach Sonnon to attend ranch and he will be coming to share about Circular Strength Training. We are pretty excited.

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David's Corner **

	Well, I have some EXCITING news from the store. We have a new CD. It is an interview Kathleen did for a radio show called "Southwest Coffeehouse". She said it is the most exciting interview she ever did. If you want to hear some of the more personal journey and vision for the future, this is the story for you.
	Click here to order this inspirational CD for $11.99

Please send questions and suggestions for items you might like to see in our store. YOU are building our store. Tell me what you want and we will sort it out.

Thanks
David

And of course, we have something for everybody in our store

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** Featured Topic**
After The Abuse
by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.

I got a lot of mail this week about the article on abuse. I gather than it hit some of you pretty hard. It touched deep places. And some of you were spooked. So let’s take a look at ways to handle big feelings.

Many of you learned at an early age to use sugar and fat and white stuff to help you manage. As children, bad things happened to you. You had no way out, and no one to help you make sense of bad things. Little brains cannot wrap around these bad things. And little psyches have no alternative. You were “stuck” in a family. You could not just move out, or go live with someone else. You could not say, “Oh, excuse me, this is not working for me, I would like a different set of parents.”

You found ways to manage. And usually that included eating. On some level you learned the beta-endorphin effect, you got it that sugar is a painkiller. You may not have understood that on a conscious level, but on a physical level you did. Your body knew. You got by. You drew inside and got quiet. You scrunched. You knew the message of “Don’t talk,” “ Don’t tell” and “Don’t feel.”

As adults, you sort of figured that out. Some part of you knows and remembers that childhood was no bed of roses. But what you cannot figure out is how you got here as an adult? Why do these things still happen? How could you keep doing it with all the knowing? That part makes no sense. And often you trash yourself because you think you should know better. How could you go back to a situation that is abusive? And if you are really honest, you think, “How could I be that stupid?”

Ok, here is an outrageous idea. Rather than thinking of the “going back” as being stupid, I want you to consider the option that you go back for two core reasons. The first is that your psyche wants to be healed. It seeks a recapitulation of an old story again and again, not because you are messed up, but because your psyche wants to be healed. You will do the same story over and over as a way of “seeing” the truth. If you can change the filter that you are not bad, not inadequate, just persistent about finding healing, it helps. You want to sort out this story so you can heal it. The other key issue is that while you are caught in addictive behavior, it is impossible to step outside a negative situation and heal it. Addiction keeps you caught. It chains you to the abuse. What you originally thought was giving you relief (and it did), actually now is killing you. When you are in an addictive pattern, you have one primary focus, and that is how to feed it. Your rational brain may say, “I have to get out of here. This is nuts. My life is at stake.” Or “I am dying here. I have to stop,” but if you are caught in sugar and white stuff, or wine and beer, you cannot make the move to be free.

On some core level, the way out is by doing the food. At first your brain may balk at that. You cannot imagine a relationship between what you are eating and staying in an abusive situation. But there is an absolute connection. Or you cannot imagine ever being able to heal those old feelings. They are too big and too overwhelming. The anger, the fear, the rage all swirl up if you even go there.

But here is what is exciting. As an adult, an adult with healing, you have power over what happens to you. Feeling like a victim is biochemical. Feeling stuck is biochemical. Feeling helpless or enraged without a way out is biochemical. When you heal the biochemistry, those feelings change. Even though the memories are real and the abuse happened, as you heal the biochemistry something happens. You find yourself thinking, “You know, I don’t need to keep doing this old story.”

And that thought creeps into some new pattern. You learn to say, “You know, this does not work for me.” You don’t stuff it, you don’t lash out in rage and spike your beta endorphin, you just say, “nope, not going there.” And that energy, the energy that comes from a healed place starts growing and feeding itself.

Now, when a grocery store clerk is surly, you laugh and say, “Excuse me?” When someone is obnoxious and testy, you walk away. When your husband or boyfriend or girlfriend picks a fight, you say, ”This does not work for me, what alternatives do we have?” You acknowledge that you need to learn new skills, new language. You didn’t learn either when you were growing up, so you start listening to the skilled. Your ear hears new ways of deflecting and disarming. You become confident and skilled. The longer you do the food, the more natural the skill becomes.

This does not happen all at once or in a flash. It, like your food program, comes in baby steps, sometimes in nano steps. But it does come. Do the food and things change. Do the food and heal. It is a very simple equation.

©Kathleen DesMaisons 2004.