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April 22, 2013 Hi {!firstname_fix} This certainly was an intense week for many of us. The bombing at the marathon felt so personal. I think because I think of Boston as my *home* town, it really got to me. I have walked those streets. I lived in Watertown, it all felt so close. And listening to the police chief speak of taking care of our people sounded so familiar. It is how Boston is. Not to be encumbered with fear, or bowed down. It was very moving. And of course all are in my thoughts and prayers. I have spent the week doing audio editing. I have hired a professional sound engineer and we are getting the CDs completed. It has been an illuminating task. I love the collaboration and I especially love doing it before this year's ranch. It gives me a very different sense of what I can pay attention to to make the recordings better for all of you. I also have been looking at all the material from Ranches from the last ten years. Now THAT was an experience in seeing how we have grown and developed. I think that historical context is a good thing. I like what has happened and I am really, really looking forward to our first Santa Fe event. This class will begin Wednesday, April 24, 2014. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:
This class will begin Wednesday, May 1, 2013. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:
The class schedule is online. 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. 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 **********************************************************************
**Quote From Kathleen ** Once you feel radiance, there is no going back. **********************************************************************
**Testimonial of the Week ** My 4 kids have been doing the food with me for years. My youngest, 11 yo girl, has been having increasing difficulty waking up on these cold mornings (it is winter in Australia), and getting food into her in time to walk to school has gotten more and more difficult ...until I remembered someone saying about bringing breakfast to the child in bed. Now everything in my "when they obey they can have a treat" background screamed against me doing this "pampering" of a "willful" child. But when I thought about the biochemistry, it became an easy decision. So I take my medication (which must be 1/2 hr before food), get up, go to the kitchen, prepare oatmeal for myself and my daughter, stir in some milk powder and take it in to her. A drowsy good morning, and she eats sitting up in bed. I get dressed, then eat my oatmeal while cooking the eggs. Soon she is in the kitchen ready for the eggs and bacon I have cooked for her. 20 minutes later she is fully breakfasted and dressed. 30 min from when she was asleep, she is ready to leave home (and so am I). Lunch gets packed as we finish eating. The older 3 kids all cook their own breakfasts and pack their own lunches...all I have to do is make sure the doings are available...it messes things up if I forget to put the bread out before I go to bed! No whinging from anyone. Not the child, or me! No nagging, no dragging, or dawdling...because we have addressed the biochemical reason that she couldn't do the things for herself!! Kath **********************************************************************
**Radiant Ambassadors **  The Ambassadors list is always on the look out for more opportunities to talk about Radiant Recovery. I sure wish I had known about RR when I was little! So it was no surprise when one of our eagle-eyed scouts sent me the following link about a documentary producer/presenter who has given up sugar (albeit cold-turkey by the sound of it). http://www.ivillage.co.uk/life-sweet/166850 From her website - "Cherry has a particular interest in women's ever-changing roles in society - giving light to new cultural trends in a (sometimes painfully!) honest and entertaining way" She has over 90,000 followers on twitter. I've tweeted her and will report back if I get a response. I've also found her agents and will send her a copy of PNP. You never know! Selena selenas@blueyonder.co.uk Come join us if you are excited about spreading the news. **********************************************************************
**How I Found Radiant Recovery ** Hi, My name is Linda. I just started Step One the Monday before last. I found Potatoes Not Prozac when it was suggested to me by my Kindle. After reading the reviews, I bought it. I am a stay-at-home mom - I have 3 children (3 years, 18 mos, and 9 weeks). Looking forward to learning more. Thanks! **********************************************************************
** Radiant Recovery® Store ** 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. **********************************************************************
**Radiant Kitchen ** There’s a fruit cobbler recipe I have made for years that I made sugar-free tonight for the first time. It’s great! I used apples and strawberries, but you can use anything, really. If you’re using something like canned peaches (in natural fruit juice of course), you can use it as is. Tonight I sautéed apple slices in a bit of butter and cinnamon and nutmeg until they were a bit soft. Then added a handful of strawberries, sliced. Put fruit in the bottom of a glass pie dish. In a bowl, cream 1/2 cup butter and about 2/3 cup apple butter. Add 1 egg, 1 cup flour (can use whole wheat or whole-wheat pastry), 1 tsp. baking powder and mix well. Glop this on top of the fruit in several places and spread to cover. Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit for about a half an hour. Delicious with whipped cream. This recipe was contributed by Sue Ann from the Radiant Recovery Community Forum. For more great program-friendly recipes, check out our cookbook in the store and visit our online Radiant Recipes site. **********************************************************************
**Radiant YLD ** Wow, so we’ve been having some very in depth thought provoking conversations in YLD. In chat we have been discussing the disassociation we can feel from our bodies and some amazing dialogue in the Obesity Myth class. We are learning so much. YLD is continually evolving, it’s very exciting! If you would like to join, come find us here **********************************************************************
**Radiant Conversations ** We have a new portal for the Conversations program. Come check it out here. The really, really fun part is that mostly we talk about the article from the newsletter. Sometimes not, mostly yes. But the most astounding thing is that whatever the conversation starts as, it shifts into what people most need to hear. It is like having cozy tea together, or like sitting by the sea chatting about things that fill us up. We don't talk about the food, we talk about hopes and dreams. If you would like to join us, you can do that below. Join YLD Weight Loss Now: click here - $99 Join Conversations 2011 Now: click here - $99 Join Both YLD and Conversations Now: click here - $149 Current YLD members wish to Upgrade to Both, click here - $49 If you are not a member, come and join us if you want to be a part of the latest and greatest or just have some plain ol' fun! **********************************************************************
**Our Online Groups ** Step Seven. We have been sorting out what step seven might be. We are doing this through dialogue. We had someone who had been on step seven and had gone off the rails. We were trying to sort out with her how we might work through the process of coming home. Hi Jane, Ok, you posted about doing a 30/30...but you really didn't provide any context for that. So I just went back and read all the postings...I think this is the reference post, yes? Yes, there are folk who go completely off plan, I know that they exist, but only know of one who has come out and said it at the time. I didn't post about it publicly as I felt great shame, which then probably contributed to me down the addiction path even further.When I was reading this, it sounded as if it was in the past tense. (smile) Then, there's the isolating part. If I do this in secret, I can get back to where I was and no-one will ever know. This is the part I feel very uncomfortable about, and I do see that as being dishonest, if not to you all, then to myself. But that's probably why I bared all on Brits, my 'home group.And here it sounds as if it is in the present tense. (smile) So I think you are in trouble and the 30/30 reference was really whether you could or should do your *remedial* work here? Is that what you were asking? With hindsight, maybe the best thing I could have done for myself was post on here and be surrounded by step 7 advice.Ok, this is a GREAT question because I think it precisely highlights the issue I have been trying to sort out. I think we are all in agreement now about what we might move this list towards. I think the remaining question is essentially how do we handle a person who was on step 7 and got derailed. And actually it does happen more than you may realize...and yah, the shame gets in the way. Anyway, let me tell you how we handle this on mentors. If someone gets in trouble, they stop *working* so they are not acting as if everything is all right. They tell people on their home group. And then they get individual support from someone they really trust. Kinda like a private coach. What if we did that here? You stay on the list here, but you tell people you are in trouble. You ask for help. And maybe ask for a coach from the list who will listen to you directly and put together a *rehab* plan. I can post some samples of what people are doing...like posting daily, working on the step where they lost it, and of course working on journaling, LOL. I am thinking aloud, so I may say contradictory things, LOL, Ok, so then, as they are getting back on track, they start posting to their home list about what happened and what they are doing, and how it is going. Once step 3 is back solid, usually the shame stuff quiets and then the reporting is funny, and sometimes even fun. I think the question is what level of the rehab sharing should happen here on the list...and how do we work on the shame part. Here is my opinion at this point in time. I would like the step 7 list to be a shame-free list. Or a hiding or lying list. (I mean that tenderly). Isolating, hiding and lying is not step 7. Problem solving is. So it is not the falling that is a problem for step 7, but the response to it. For example....I could feel in your note, Jane, that angst that comes with biochemical imbalance. Words like *lead balloon,* LOL, are a clue...to *they don't love me, I am bad, I need to slink away* LOL. So let's do a step 7 reframe...(smile) No, wait, here is an idea...think program and food...two things... Your program can be great even if your food is wonky. (smile) A step 7 program says, *Eek, my food is off the rails. I am in deep do-do here. Hey guys, can you help me sort this out? Let me share with you what is going on, and perhaps you can suggest how I best proceed.* Then we would collaborate...and get a plan. And the plan might be to LISTEN until you are not defensive, LOL..and do work on your step 3. Or it might be to report daily. I have learned something too... My default on this list is that people are ok unless they say something. But not saying anything...or being MUSHY...is a clue. So what if we agree that if you are on this list, you participate....and you honor this idea that default means working step 7 improvements and that if you get in trouble you commit to saying that (which is the step 7 ticket). One other thing..on step 7, I tend to expect people to be healing each other, rather than Kathleen doing it. It is a significant shift. Whew, this would be called groping into an answer. What do you think of this? Does this make sense? Kathleen **********************************************************************
**The Mystery of Joy Dots ** Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
I know that many of you have heard the term *joy dots* being talked about in the community. You may have seen people posting their *joys* and thought it was a pleasant exercise, but you really had no context. I thought it would be fun if we talked some about the idea. THis will let you share in the excitement they bring us. So here is the back story. Our depression list was the very first list we ever started in the community. For many years, it was a pretty grim place. People came in and shared about being depressed. It kinda went round and round and round. As people did the food, they usually left the list and joined the community in other places. A few years ago I was having a conversation with one of the women on the list about her being stuck. She was upset by the fact that she had been doing step 3 for years and could not get past it. She was pretty negative and grim. One day I challenged her to just write three things that she noticed during the day that gave her joy. I think this idea came out of the class I was teaching about the amygdala - the center of the brain that processes primal emotions like fear, anger and joy. At any rate, she agreed to do it. Later she admitted to me that she thought it was a really stupid idea and she only agreed to prove me wrong. She just started tacking three sentences on the bottom of her posts. *I noticed the flowers blooming in the garden* *I liked how the light was shining on the trees.* *There were dew drops on the spider web.* *My shake was yummy this morning.* They were simple declaratives and caught a joy moment. We called them *joy dots.* They were interesting, pleasant and no one really noticed them. Some time passed and one day I said, *Can you move those joy dots up to the top of your posts?* She did. And something very strange happened. Her tone changed. She was no longer grim. And she started looking at things in a different way. And then something even stranger happened. Other people on the list started doing the same thing. Joy dots first. And the list woke up. The energy shifted. Grim faded. The list started laughing. The members started connecting to each other. Now we call the depression list, the joy list. If you think it is silly, just try it. See what happens. Thanks for reading! If you know someone who could benefit from this, feel free to forward it to them. Not a subscriber yet? Like what you have read? Sign up to get future issues delivered straight to you: http://www.radiantrecovery.com Until next time!
Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together:
Gretel, our webmaster, puts it all together. David runs the Radiant Recovery® Store. Selena provides the weekly Ambassadors column. Steph provides the Your Last Diet column. ©2013 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. 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 |
