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October 26, 2015 Hi {!firstname_fix} 
It has been an interesting week for me. As part of the clutter clearing for our yard sale, we cleared out some boxes of photos. I found two pictures my Father had sent to my Mother. He was in the Air Force and was sent to Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima was the island in the South Pacific the US took from Japan in 1945. There is a WW II image that many of us are so familiar with - it was a photo from the time of that occupation. The photo my dad sent my mom was taken two years later and shows a group of guys on the beach in their bathing suits. They are cooking dinner while surrounded by the jeeps they all used to get out there. My Dad is over looking at the water. He was a USAF Captain, so these were his men. This was 68 years ago and you know I don’t think we so often have history being quite so personal. 
We think we are *clearing clutter* and really don’t know when we will encounter a tiny bit of a treasure. Somehow this just gave me such a sense of who my Dad was, a life different from the one I experienced with him after his life started to unravel. It is timely that we are doing the Grief class right now, it is part of processing those who have died, whose stories we may not know. This is life without anesthesia or amnesia - this is step 7...and when you muse about what *getting a life means* - this would be it.
This class will begin Wednesday, October 28, 2015. Please Signup and it will take you to the registration page:
These classes will begin Wednesday, November 4, 2015. Please Signup and it will take you to the registration page:
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**You are not afraid; you are not alone; You are part of a larger miracle. **********************************************************************
**Testimonial of the Week**Here's a little story about *90% solid*: I am making a quilt. I finished sewing the blocks on Friday, and on Saturday I was pressing the blocks in preparation for sewing them together. I noticed that 90% were just about right (6 inches square), but the last 7 that I pressed were a quarter inch too small. If I used them in one row of the quilt, that would mean that row would be almost 2 inches smaller. If I scattered them around, the quilt would pucker. So I went back to my fabric, cut some more pieces and made some more blocks. No big deal. And I took a good look at the ones that weren't right to see where I'd gone wrong. I knew it wasn't in pressing--I did a really careful job. I didn't think it was in sewing--I was reasonably accurate at that, too. Turns out the mistake was way back when I had cut my fabric. I had specially cut some strips to center on a repeating rose motif--and I was so focused on the roses that I didn't notice that the last strip I cut was 1/4 inch too small. And the 7 blocks I sewed it in were also 1/4 inch too small. 90% plus of my cutting was excellent. But that 10% or so that wasn't would have thrown the whole thing off if I hadn't gone back and gotten it right before sewing the whole thing together. Incidentally, it was just this kind of mistake that made me quit quilting before the program. I would try to make do, and end up in a muddle and really frustrated. It's a joy to take care and go at my own pace and get it right. Not perfect--but right :) Jeannie **********************************************************************
**Interesting Bits of Science**I started out with an article called *Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density.* It basically says that meditation changes the structure of the brain. Then I began to follow some of the citations and ended with some material that talked about a part of the brain called the right insula. Apparently the right insula is the place in the brain that controls empathy and affects addiction. And, apparently, this is where in the brain *kindling* happens for those of us who are prone to wanting to use substances and behaviors to feel better. Wake up the right insula, and we want *more*. Last night I was reading the article about the right insula and found it fascinating. I went to google and put in *right insula beta endorphin density* and guess what came up? The original article by Avena and Hoebel about SUGAR addiction. The key for today's commentary is that meditation affects this part of the brain! So the recommendation about prayer and meditation as one of the tools to repair and restore your addictive brains is now being written about in the scientific literature. Have fun reading...and come chat on the Forum or on the Facebook group page. It is pretty exciting! A Small Part of the Brain, and Its Profound Effects Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake **********************************************************************
**Notes from the Forum **In Response To: YLD I think the thing that helped me most was hearing about how our journals are non-judgemental.... and a way of communication. I really feel that my journal is a translator that means I can hear the messages from my body. I always got plenty of messages, but didn't know how to hear. Writing things down is a powerful tool for me. My journal started off very simple, and grew along with me. What made me *love* it was how amazingly accurate it all was, I got to trust it implicitly. I think the thing is to find just the thing that suits you. Have a look at the Your Body Speaks one in the store if you haven't already. Lots of us like a posh journal and it's a treat choosing. Funnily enough, my journals are always bargain-buy big notebooks - but I am very fussy about the pen. And though I am not drawn to stickers, I often draw a little sketch in there. As for YLD... isn't it marvellous. It was such a relief for me finding that book. Mosaic **********************************************************************
**Radiant Recovery® Store**
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. **********************************************************************
**Radiant Kitchen**Yam Cakes #1 Cook up your sweet potatoes (yams are so much easier to say, but we don’t get true yams), and mush them up. Add some oil (I use coconut oil), and about the same amount of rolled oats as you have of yams. I’ll use a cup of yams as an example. So you take your cup of yams, cup of oats, blurp of oil, and about 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, shredded coconut, and mix them all together. You want it to hold together, and be nice and sticky, so add water if you need to. I then use a scoop, and make little mounds, but flatten them with a fork. Bake at 400* for about 15 to 20 minutes. I freeze these, and take them out as needed…they are yummy cold and yummy hot, and they don’t crumble, and don’t get mushy, and travel well! Using peanut butter instead of the oil is yummy. And I bet you could experiment and use different spices…for variety. Enjoy! Colette Yam Cakes #2 I bake a bunch of large yams all at once, slip them out of the skins, and freeze in 3 Cup containers. (I use sweet potatoes a lot, LOL — not just for yam cakes!) When I’m ready to make yam cakes I thaw a 3-cup container of sweet potato, add a bit of water and warm slightly in the microwave, then mash them. I use a hand held potato masher, but you could use a food processor or whatever suits you. I add 3 cups of quick-cooking rolled oats, 1 cup of Restore protein powder and 1 cup of PB. I also add some more water, about 1/3-1/2 of a cup (I used a total of 1/2 cup of water), to get a sticky, goopy, but partly pourable consistency. Press into a lightly greased 9 X 13 pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Cool and cut into 32 squares. Store in fridge or freezer. My math showed that 5 squares had about a one cup serving of brown and about 19 grams of protein. Elaine in CO
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**Radiant Your Last Diet**We do a delicate balancing act with YLD between the brand new people who are so desperate to lose weight and the long timers who are relaxed, hardy and taking their time. I don’t think people in the community know who the women are who have lost 100 pounds. We don’t advertise that. And in some ways celebrate as much over the women who have spent a lifetime restricting and now have gained weight, are steady and joyful. And they are a part of YLD as well - Your LAST Diet has many layers of meaning. If you would like to join us in YLD, come find us here **********************************************************************
**Radiant Living**Radiant Life is where we talk about all the stuff that isn’t food. Joys, struggles, grandchildren, school, husbands, partners, dogs, even cats. Well maybe we don’t talk about cats so much, but we could. (smile) If you would like to join us in Radiant Living, come find us here **********************************************************************
**What This Community is Really About**Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
In 1998, Potatoes not Prozac was being published and I was committed to setting up a web site which would provide a way for sugar sensitive people to come together and share their paths to healing. I spent a long time finding a marketing group to help me set up the site. they asked me my goals. How much money did I want to make? What sort of income stream was I looking for? They were confused by the plan. You want to build *community?* they asked. I explained that I wanted to create a healing web. I wanted to provide a way for people to learn new things and to share their journeys. I wanted people to connect and know the power in working together. Sugar sensitivity and addiction flourish in isolation. Healing comes with connection. Remember this was before social media, before Facebook. They web guys were baffled. We started. A web site with 20 pages. Mostly informational. A few months later, we put up the community forum and people started talking. You asked for ways to share on specialized topics. We set up an elist for depression. You asked for more and the resources grew. I answered every email and listened to your concerns and struggles and dreams. As the mail poured in and the lists grew, I wanted to make sure the tone was clear and we stayed on focus. I formed a leadership team and invited a few folks who were further along in the process to help. The volunteer service base of the community was born. Each person had responsibility for an elist and was willing to meet with me online once a week to talk about how things were going. We learned to do team. We learned to trust one another and to work through style differences. We started the first Ranch and I think we got hooked on the joy of working together. The lists increased and we expanded the leadership team to include more volunteers. We met once a week, diligently showing up for work and play. We shared our programs, we critiqued ourselves and matured along with the community. People coming in were given a warm welcome. Connections were made. Boundaries were defined about the style of communication. No flaming was allowed and we created a safe place. This was hard work. Sugar sensitive people are notoriously sensitive and reactive when they are starting out. I started Your Last Diet Online because the marketing guys thought it would be a good experiment. We started chatting and the original idea of *weight loss* expanded to include discovery and exploration about what weight loss might really mean. This was and still is so exciting that I look forward to Wednesday night with a smile. Talk about connection!! When I counted in 2006, close to a half a million letters had been posted to the web site. I don’t count anymore but I know it is still a lot of talking and a lot of healing. I have learned that the web is the perfect way to connect people. Doesn't matter who you are or where you live. If you can get online, you can be part of the miracle of community. We laugh about issues in Perth or Oslo or Atlanta or San Diego. We are so much alike, sometimes it is scary. In some ways, it is almost unimaginable that we are still here, 17 years later, providing connection, comfort and solace. It’s pretty amazing, a group of people helping one another to heal, people who give back because they have been blessed. And people who may go away, but often come back again and say, *Yep, this is where it is happening.* It is pretty amazing. **********************************************************************
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. Mosaic contributes to the Notes from the Forum column. ©2015 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://radiantrecovery.com/learn/newsletter/ |
