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by Kat James
Illustrations by Jeff Ham
Self Transformation Part IV:
Readying Your Emotions for Healing Synchronicity
At my lectures, people often ask me (with pencils poised) what
I started doing, eating and taking the day the most dramatic
part of my visible transformation started (that was my “shrinking”
phase, which was actually the day my 12-year eating disorder
fled because it had no remaining biochemical or emotional
roots to hang onto). It’s an understandable question. It’s also
ironic, since it was not what I started doing or taking, but rather,
the succession of issues I’d left behind and resolved, which allowed
my emotional work and readiness to “click.” I call that
process “the Process of Shedding,” which I cover in-depth in
my book, The Truth About Beauty. The liver, blood sugar, thyroid,
serotonin and autoimmune issues—and finally, the emotional
issues, which were surprisingly very connected with those other
issues—were my own series of roadblocks to overcome on my
journey to health, peace with food, and looking how nature had
intended all along. Your issues may be different, but one thing
I can guarantee: It’s not so much what you’ll begin doing, as
what you’ll have left behind, found sanctuary from, and recovered
from that will transform you the most. True, you may do
a lot of new things in place of the things you leave behind, but
the nature of achieving our inherent radiant potential was never
intended to require constant vigilance, hard work or struggle.
This may be hard to grasp for those who are entrenched in
popular beauty and weight loss pursuits, but beauty and vitality
are actually our intended natural states. And they are what will
invariably emerge and thrive once the unnatural challenges we
bring upon ourselves are “shed.”
In the previous three parts of this four-part “process of shedding”
I’ve covered the mindsets that can keep us from achieving
our radiant potential, how to gain sanctuary and recovery
from unwitting modern health assaults, and how to uproot
compulsive self-sabotage (if you missed these, be sure to catch
them soon at www.totalhealthmagazine.com). That brings me
to what I consider to be the final major click of the “Rubik’s
Cube: shedding your remaining emotional barriers. Not as a
mental health professional, but as someone who found true
peace from one of the more challenging forms of compulsive
self-sabotage, I offer these insights on what that journey, and
almost a decade of helping others, has taught me about emotional
healing.
“Conquering” Our Emotions is Not a Prerequisite
to Self-Transformation
There’s a reason I’ve saved emotional issues for the last step
in this four-part primer. I learned, to my own great surprise,
that attempting to reign victorious over your emotional challenges
and personal problems as a starting point, while sound
in theory, is not always optimal (and rarely possible) in reality.
Instead, I suggest a course that merely “allows” (and doesn’t
push) emotional healing as a side-effect of informed, healthmotivated,
and self-respecting strategies. Here’s an example:
Rudy was what he and those who know him, once deemed a
“hopeless,” obese alcoholic for whom nothing could work to
stop his self-destructive ways. After being exposed to the right
information and inspiration, he stopped drinking, was taken off
his diabetes medication by his doctor (no longer needed), and
lost over a hundred and twenty pounds in roughly a year. With
a radically changed perspective on life, Rudy landed a new job
and reconciled with his wife. In another example, Amy—once
an extremely obese mother of two entrenched in a destructive
marriage—lost over a hundred pounds as a side effect of balancing
her blood sugar, mood chemistry and hormone imbalances.
With her biochemical addiction to food firmly behind
her, and her “sanity” restored (she was shocked by how much
“emotional control she’d regained”), she found the strength
to escape an emotionally abusive situation. In both cases, it
was not an emotional overhaul, but the power of self-advocacy,
empowering information, and the emotional and physical sideeffects
of achieving biochemical balance and true health, that
were the unstoppable forces in both of these remarkable, total
transformations.
Troubled Emotions Can be Magnified or Even Caused
by Biochemical Issues
Few people understand the degree to which nutrition can govern
our moods. Imbalances in key nutrients affecting brain
chemistry have been shown to cause, magnify, and perpetuate
emotional distress. This was a revelation to me. I thought that
all the work I did to unearth my emotional triggers in college
would be the answer to escaping my eating disorder. It was only
years later that I understood the nature and power of the biochemical
influences that, for so many years, overrode my emotional
breakthroughs and even my prayers. It was not until I
untangled my own biochemical state that I was able to free myself
from a lifetime of what I would have sworn were merely my
“troubled emotions.” Like me, many people find that even after
they’ve dug up and dealt with their emotional issues, they continue
to feel anxious, depressed, or prone to sabotaging their
own health or success. Here’s what I want to tell them: targeted
nutrition and supplementation can have dramatic healing effects
not attainable via any other means. In Part III, I covered
some of the proven nutritional links specific to full-blown compulsions
and addictions. The factors below are just a primer to
give you an idea of the importance of nutritional considerations
when pursuing emotional balance.
- Deficiencies in the “feel-good” brain chemical serotonin and the amino acid tryptophan (which turns into serotonin) have been directly linked in studies to depression, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, insomnia, carb cravings, and even compulsions such as alcoholism, bulimia, and even gambling. Supplementation with tryptophan has been shown to benefit all of the above, without side effects. More recently, a serotonin-raising derivative of tryptophan, called 5Htp has become available as a supplement.
- Abnormal blood sugar has been correlated with depression, certain addictions and even ADHD. A recent study of over 5,000 Norwegian teenagers showed a direct link between soft drink intake and mental problems. Teens who skipped meals were prone to even higher soda intake. Stabilizing my own blood sugar via a (surprisingly decadent) low-glycemic diet and proven bloodsugar—stabilizing supplements, such as chromium, gymnema, cinnamon, and alpha lipoic acid, among others, was one of my most rewarding steps toward emotional and physical freedom from my eating disorder. This same regimen has resulted in the miraculous recovery of emotional (and physical) stability in many people who had exhausted all other approaches.
- Omega-3s and other brain cell membrane nutrients are critical for normal mood chemistry. Who knew back in 1990 that in addition to helping my recovery from my liver disease and my eczema, fish oil was also reducing the mood swings, anxiety and anger that my eating disorder once thrived on. Gretchen Vannice, a nutritionist for Nordic Naturals, a leading fish oil company, points out that because brain cell membranes are comprised primarily of fat, getting an adequate amount of long chain omega-3 fats (such as those in fish oil) is crucial for proper brain functioning. “Fish oil’s proven benefits in reducing depression, aggression, and other mood disorders make it a key part of any nutritional approach to achieving emotional balance.” PhosphatidylSerine is another important cell membrane nutrient for healthy moods. In his new book, PS (PhosphatidylSerine): Nature’s Brain Booster, Paris Kidd, Ph.D., identifies several studies linking PS supplementation with reduced depression.
These are just a few. Countless other
nutrients and herbs have been shown to
improve moods and reduce stress and
its consequences. Other mood-altering
factors include exercise (proven as effective
as drugs at relieving depression),
hormone balance (often addressed with
supplements like DHEA and pregnenolone),
prescription drug side effects, food
allergies, and sensitivities to toxins such
as those in household cleaning or personal
care products.
Prozac vs. Tryptophan:
The Insane Connection
Prozac and similar “SSRI”antidepressants can reduce the loss of serotonin, but can’t help the body
produce more. And in order for it to work, there must be enough serotonin produced by a person
to begin with. A 1992 study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry showed that SSRIs
abruptly stopped working when serotonin production fell too low, due to tryptophan deficiency,
and then started working again upon supplementation with tryptophan. In other words, SSRI antidepressants
can’t even work without adequate tryptophan. Tryptophan is not produced by the body and can
be tricky to absorb, so supplements are the obvious solution. In 1990, however, the FDA took tryptophan off
the market after one tainted batch out of Japan resulted in an outbreak of a fatal, flu-like disease. The CDC and
the Mayo Clinic soon identified a single source of the isolated, tainted batch, but even so, the FDA chose not
to lift the ban. To the millions who could no longer relieve their own insomnia, depression, food cravings and
migraines without a prescription drug (and without side-effects of SSRIs like loss of libido, dry mouth and
tremors), this turn of events was perplexing. But the following passage from a report published a few years
later by the FDA Dietary Supplement Task Force was illuminating: “The Task Force considered... what steps
are necessary to ensure that the existence of dietary supplements on the market does not act as a disincentive
for drug development.” Only four days after the banning of what few health experts would argue is the
safest and most effective natural mood lifter and sleep aid, Newsweek featured a story hailing Prozac as the
next antidepressant.
During its ban, Tryptophan was ironically deemed safe enough for baby food, and to be sold by prescription
(priced about five times higher than it was over the counter as a supplement). Most recently, you can once
again buy tryptophan over the counter from hard-to-find sources like FTH Nutraceuticals. |
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Exploring Emotional
Causes Behind
Self-Sabotage
Once you’ve got targeted supplements
on your side, getting to the bottom of
emotional issues can be a more fruitful
process. Solitude, journaling, yoga, selfhelp
books, talk therapy, creative projects,
and other pursuits of self-expression or
self-discovery are all potent catalysts for
emotional healing. The following are key
learnings from my own emotional journey
to embracing life and health:
- Uproot your emotional triggers and family legacies. If you are able to uncover and reject anything that was projected on you by a parent or a traumatic experience, you will begin to dispel that inexplicable shame, resentment, perfectionism, approval-seeking or other pattern that creates discontent or self-sabotage. Looking into your parents’ own family legacies and experiences can be invaluable in this process. By going through this effort now, you may also spare your own children the same legacy. But take note that sometimes those closest to us have the most invested in our staying in our old patterns, not necessarily because they want bad things for us, but because our breaking free would cause them to look more deeply at themselves.
- Deal creatively with stress and low moods. We all know how far-reaching the effects of stress can be, both physically and emotionally. Find physical activities you enjoy. Set aside time and boundaries to pursue a creative passion of self-expression. Use alone time to tune into yourself (not tune out). Learn from depression and anxiety. If you’re more than mildly depressed, be sure to seek medical supervision, but also keep in mind that depression may be signaling you to step back from your normal routine to reassess how you are living your life. Be sure to spend time with people who encourage you to express yourself, for answers or apologies. Only you can create who you’ll become tomorrow.
- Reject self-compromising mindsets. Ads, media, and reality makeover shows often shame us into harsh self-judgment, or feeling like unfit health decision makers, or un-hip members of society if we don’t buy into certain beauty or body obsessions. Even our loved ones can do this. Counter these mindsets by spending time with people or reading books that explore your greater gifts. Women who attend my programs sometimes have husbands who expect them to return “slim and beautiful” after their week with me. But I encourage them to stop encouraging comments about looking thin or sexy and ask their spouses and friends just to be happy that they are getting healthier. This tests some relationships. Especially those that emphasize appearance over substance.
- Nurture a healthier motivation. Emotional balance and dramatic self- transformation are the elusive rewards of putting health before beauty and weight loss motivations. The motivation of health not only aligns us with self-love, but with true healing. Once my health crisis struck, I forgot about my beauty and body pursuits. This ironically put me on the ultimate path to my truest beauty and body rewards for the first time—through health. Before long, I found that the new actions I was taking—not working out, starving or the other typical ways of “being good”, but rather, informed, painless upgrades to foods, products, and routines—connected me with a long-lost sense of wisdom and love for myself that I was both surprised and empowered by. And unlike the previous starving or “all-or-nothing” workouts, these actions didn’t set me up for any kind of failure or guilt trip (or feed my compulsion). Once my health motivation took over, there was little room for shame, guilt or comparing myself with others. The health motivation gives us built in protection against drastic (short-lived and dangerous) extreme measures that keep us at war with our bodies while keeping us distracted from our true solutions. Sometimes the people with the most willpower (those that can starve themselves or stick to rigid exercise regimens as I once did) are often the last to look at the real issues behind their problem, Instead, they rely on strict damage control for the rest of their days, and never achieve true, cellular health.
- Start a new relationship with the mirror. Start looking at yourself even more closely each morning before the makeup goes on. You will begin to notice surprising fluctuations in your facial contours and the area around your eyes from day to day. These are signs of how your body is reacting to each day’s choices. As you begin to make positive changes in your daily choices, you can begin to read the daily messages your face and body are telling you in response to how you are treating yourself, and stop using the mirror to compare yourself with others.
- Let your spirituality grow out of self-advocacy. A famous French theologian once said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience.” Many people feel that a spiritual pursuit is the best path to spiritual enlightenment, but being accountable to our “human experience” by getting informed and taking consistent action on our own behalf can be a powerful spiritual calling on its own. Our subconscious picks up on each positive action we take on our own behalf, lifting the spirit, and deepening our self-respect. My own awakening to so much unknown truth after so many years of being deceived by industry about health connected me with an inner voice I had never fully engaged before. The spiritual outcome and passion for helping others that emerged from that awakening was more powerful than anything I’d ever felt before.
- Finally, give up the identity and “padding” your challenges give you. My final emotional “twist” came on an unexpected evening of clarity, when I realized that even though the biochemical rollercoaster that drove my eating disorder had come to a halt, my history and identity in self-sabotage had taken on its own life and developed its own “perks.” My disease had become my padding and protection from my vulnerability and challenges an eternal insulation from the pain of failure without an excuse (being the perfectionist, my weight was a perfect excuse for anything I couldn’t deliver on). It was an ironic revelation to have the night before my 12-year compulsion ended, but by no means a coincidence. Save this consideration for last. It won’t be obvious to you early on, but will emerge once you are deep into your own Process of Shedding. As more and more desensitizing choices and physical “noise” are lifted away, you’ll begin to thrive on your reawakened senses and sensibilities. And once most of your formerly toxic daily choices are removed, you’ll begin to find harsh self-treatment, products and foods increasingly undesirable. This is the turning point at which you’ll begin the upward spiral to nature’s true intention for you, and the best time to reflect on how your fading identity has served you, and ready yourself to let it go.
The Process of Shedding is powerful enough to reverse virtually
any downward spiral. It will lift you up above the merrygo-
round, one self-affirming act at a time. You’ll look back in
wonder at how you used to care for yourself, and forward, to a
new destination altogether.
If you feel healthy and want to partake in my week-long
Total Transformation® lifestyle program that incorporates my
own personal eating and self-care
approaches for selftransformation,
call877-548-6825 or visit
www.informedbeauty.com
for more information.
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