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November 7, 2016 Hi {!firstname_fix} 
I have just finished doing Euroranch in Salisbury. This picture is of the cathedral there. It was built in the 1200s. Ranch of course was incredible and very deep. We worked on forming intentions for our lives and how to weave the intention with our food. I think we will all be going home with LOTS to reflect on, and a plan for change if that is something that speaks to us. The time spent with our community members at Euroranch is always very sacred to me. It is like a pilgrimage. The people and the places converge for me. We sometimes talk about going to another lovely place and nope, not something I want to do. This isn't a pleasure trip, it is a going to the source trip. And of course staying in the hotel where the stonemasons stayed while building the cathedral helps.I think we all have little rituals about Ranch, be it here or in Albuquerque. Where we hang out for tea or coffee, where we go for stationery supplies, where we go to pray, where we sit in the lounge, by the fire, where we sit outside under the 800 year old vine in the court yard. It is all part of it. Ranch is always indescribable. Everyone wants to know what happened. And we never know what to say about the moment when everything was still in the room when someone connected to something that was from her deepest self. Or coming back from dinner at the Indian Restaurant and the rain was blowing so hard, it swept into our faces, but it didn't matter. I always go up to Avebury when I go for Euroranch. Google it. It is my own *place*. This time I went alone. I always take my little Wellies because I never know if it will be bright and sunny or dripping wet in the fields. The stones are right there. They start to sing when I come. *She's back, she's back!* And I reply, *thank you for being here and yes, I am back*...I walk my circle, touch my special friends, spend time with my Mother stone. Then I have some soup and tea, and go into the gift shop to buy a porcelain cup with a sheep on it. Then I walk over to the Henge shop and see what has been written in the past year. What people are thinking about energies and stars and sacred places. There is not another place like this in the world. It smells like wool and there are bits of stones...not what you find in New Age crystal places... rocks, rocks that are sturdy and ring like the big ones out in the field. I suspect every human has a *place* where they are restored. It might be at the sea or a mountain, a river or a redwood, or a meadow or a vista. This funky little shop is my place. I go to the cathedral and I pray, but I come to the Henge shop to hold the little stones and feel connected to the BIG ones that hold the light. And LOL, you know I rarely speak of all of this. When I was little, of course I was told I was crazy, as many of us are. So we learn to *tone it down* - gosh, what a phrase is that. Don't let people see you act that way...yada, yada. I think it is why many of use learn to use sugar, alcohol, drugs, sex and rock and roll. it *tones down* things we know. My own sense is that this is part of what doing the food does...takes us back to the place we were before we had to shut down. So, it is tied together. But mostly I do regular life, and breakfast and of course those silly dogs. This class will begin Wednesday, November 9, 2016. Please Signup and it will take you to the registration page:
This class will begin Wednesday, November16, 2016. Please Signup and it will take you to the registration page:
Check the class list page for more information on how the classes work. See the the Class Schedule here. Be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery website and Community Forum regularly. Warmly, Kathleen **********************************************************************
**Quote From Kathleen**Beta-endorphin is immensely powerful. It can drive you inexorably toward deeper addiction - or raise your spirits to a level of health that you may never have known before. **********************************************************************
**Testimonial of the Week**The food spikes - I have just very recently started to notice how food is related to the spikes throughout the day. Just yesterday I made a conscious decision to lessen the impact of a spike by deciding to wait and have my "sweet fix" until after I had dinner. In the last weeks or so I have slowly been moving sweets into my meals and it has slowly lessened the impact of spikes. I don't feel terrible or super great....I just feel even Steven if that makes sense. I can start to appreciate what food does for my mood and I am excited! I am getting steady slowly. Raising the natural state of BE - I am noticing that little sweet joys make me glow. I am starting to appreciate this little glow and how it's slowly raising my BE bar. I'm starting to appreciate "quiet time" and its powers and also the power of walking and how that raises my BE. It's like feeling a soft warm light instead of feeling a jolt of electricity when I get a spike from sugar. Diana **********************************************************************
**Interesting Bits of Science**Here is a fun little article in defense of the latte (smile)...The title is *Milk bioactive peptides and beta casomorphins induce mucus release in rat jejunum.* [Trompette A, 2003) The article notes that there is a mu-opioid peptide generated in the intestine when cows are digesting milk protein. This peptide causes the intestines to release mucus which is seen to defend against *noxious agents* in the gut. But interesting for me, they noted that an infusion of beta endorphin caused a dose-dependent release of mucus. I have often wondered about why there is such a high percentage of sugar-sensitive people with sensitive guts. I wonder if lower beta endorphin means our guts are more vulnerable to *noxious agents.* And it would make sense that as BE increases, our guts seem to heal. So perhaps we can add gut-healing as a benefit to doing the steps. At the very least, I will continue to enjoy my decaf lattes. (smile) **********************************************************************
**Notes from the Forum **In Response To: At war with myself I can relate a bit. I did two "Don't want to!!" episodes. One was pushing the part of breakfast that said, on time, every day. I wanted erratic. It was much more dramatic. Then I was NOT going to be told what to do on step three. I didn't realise that no one was telling me to do anything.  I was making up the drama of internal conflict when I didn't have to have any there at all, when really all the choosing was entirely up to me.  Kathleen had posted something that I always remember. It was something like - There's so much energy there. All that energy going into the conflict and drama. (and I much preferred the beta-endorphin kick from drama to actually doing breakfast as written). Just think how amazing it would be if I could harness all THAT energy onto breakfast itself. So that is what I keep in mind. Where to choose to direct my energy. And doing the food helps my choice which helps me doing the food. yay!! I still stamp my foot occasionally and don't wanna, LOL, but I recognise now where that's biochemical and can smile at it a bit and know what to do. So I really like your healing voice ! and love how you are listening to that one.   Mosaic **********************************************************************
**Radiant Recovery® Store**
And their premier product is for horses. Let me know if you want me to get that. I don't know how many of you have horses. If you haven't been to the store for a while, how about just coming over and browsing. You will be thrilled to see all the changes! Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. **********************************************************************
**Radiant Kitchen**Here is a recipe from Maggie. I have made this and can tell you it is YUMMY. And I don't even like cauliflower! ROASTED CAULIFLOWER
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**Radiant Your Last Diet**We have been thinking about *fat terror* and what a driving force it has been for so many of us. The steps antidote fat terror and replace it with hope, humor and mobilization. Somehow the desperation about weight shifts, and we just get functional and mobilized. Yah, it really is Your Last Diet, and the chats just bring that home over and over and over. And no, you don’t have to be fat or on step 7 to join, LOL. You can be slender and living in terror and you will be totally comfortable. Wait, that doesn't sound right. Being in terror is NOT a requirement, LOL.
If you would like to join us in YLD, come find us here **********************************************************************
**Radiant Living**In many programs for healing addictions, they talk about *falling off the wagon* or *relapsing* and those terms have always seemed so punitive and negative to me. In Living chat, I talk about the term *fading* as a way to describe what happens. It is as if our light dims, we withdraw back into ourselves and forget about doing the food. We talk about what happens when our buds grab a ladder and a lantern and come down into the *let’s hangout in the darkness cave* to sit with us. And then tell stories and remind us that just doing the food changes everything. These conversations are powerful because they are joyful, tender, caring and right on the money. I think we were all touched. If you would like to join us in Radiant Living, come find us here **********************************************************************
**She Refused to Eat It**Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
I have been cleaning and clearing. I started going through files in my *personal* file cabinet. I found some things that came from my mother’s that I had never seen before. The first is a picture of me in nursery school. I am posting this here so you can see my little sweet self. I am that little one down in the right hand corner, LOL. That would be little Kathy at Boots and Saddles Nursery School.
In the same envelope, there was a note from the school to my mother. They spelled my name wrong, too. It says:Dear Mrs. McCann, Kathy only ate 1/4 of a piece of bread and a carrot stick for lunch. And then went on to say that I told them I only eat grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken in the rough. Apparently they planned to deal with it later, LOL. This totally cracked me up since I was about as little as I was in that picture. 
Now, this note stunned me. I never ever thought of myself as a picky eater, I do remember an incident when the school served ratatouille and I refused to eat it. They made me sit at the lunch table all day, but I was a stubborn little thing and just said *no*. That note has touched me...was I choosing not to eat as a way of coping with feelings? I don’t know yet...but it does seem to be a time of old stuff being stirred. And as Kat’s comments about chat suggest, I still struggle with *lunch*. I think you know that, historically, I have tended to de emphasize psychological causation for our relationship to food, and attributed it more to biochemistry. You also know that when presented with *evidence,* I certainly am wiling to rethink my positions. I have wondered why it is that I understand restriction on such a core level. Restriction as *not eating* as a way of dealing with feelings. We have learned that even those of us who have larger bodies, and the stories to go with them, deal with restriction. Diets are about restriction. So as we diet, we learn to not eat. And we learn there is something perceived as very *virtuous* about that practice. But from some very wise part of me I have always known that restriction comes with a price. It means shutting down *feeling* and you can’t differentiate just one brand of feeling. The cost is pretty high. Numb for vanity. Or numb for the illusion of vanity. But the ringer here is that 3-year-old little Kathy was not dealing with vanity. She was dealing with a father overseas on a tour of duty and a mother going through breast cancer alone. And breast cancer in 1948 was very much more of a big deal than it is now. It was something that shaped who she was on a profound level. it makes sense to me that this little feisty kid who picked up every nuance of feeling in the universe got imprinted with all that. Or maybe she just didn’t like ratatouille and had the tiny self-confident spirit that said, *no*. I don’t know yet, but I am thinking about it. And I did fill my freezer with totally yummy food! **********************************************************************
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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. ©2016 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/ |
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