Dr. Kathleen Fuller

Where The Sugar Sneaks Are is a rare awareness building coloring book that your young children will love. As health minded parents this parody for Where The Wild Things Are brings the lesson there is no place like home and saying ‘NO’ to the sugar sneaks is what your child can experience in this story adventure. Jacob and Emily experience sugar sneaks in wild binge and are sent to bed without super. Fortuitously, a forest grows in their room, and they soar and romp without parental stops. But in the end learn to say “NO’.

For you, as parents the simplicity of the language is deceptive while keeping in mind that as the author, I have personally studied the effects of words on one’s subconscious mind for the past 20 years in my private practice, working as The Surgeon of The Subconscious, and an eating disorder expert. Each word is chosen carefully so that the child may experience the dangerous adventure of the story (As an aware parent I wanted my children to be fully empowered to prepare for the real challenges of this world.) and yet the words allow the child to feel empowered to say no to those foods that are causing health problems today.

Having worked with young children in the 70s and 80’s as an elementary education teacher I have found that in sharing a book with a young child; the adult who is reading it has a great influence on whether the child enjoys the book. As parents you can be most effective in encouraging your children to be readers by mocking up – if need be – a kind of excitement and confidence in the book experience as you read to your children.

I remember and of course that is long ago, one of the things I enjoyed most is when my sixth grade teacher read a favorite novel in class. What a contrast to today’s world where your children are watching TV, playing video games, or using the computer. Imagine a different picture for your children. Imagine making a special tradition of reading a book before bed. As your children grow you can find another time to begin longer novels. Think of it as a story hour and mockup your enthusiasm and let your children pick a classic children’s novel or ask their teachers. Librarians have a wealth of information and they know what the different age groups love.

Back to Where The Sugar Sneaks Are I recommend that you purchase the coloring book and read it first to your little ones maybe four, five, and six year olds. Then put some time aside to color with them. Many times the young children cannot color within the lines so let them do their best. As parents think of questions to ask them about the story or about what they’re coloring. Make it fun and exciting. Help your children know that they can be empowered just like little Jacob and Emily in the story to say no to the sugar sneaks.
Plus as parents you’ll enjoy the original art as vibrant and luminous as it is in the topics where I work and live.

Rejuvenation is defined as “to make young again.” You can rejuvenate yourself and your current relationships including the relationship you have with food when you strive to live more consciously with a balanced awareness of the legacy of your past generations. The tool to use is the genogram for understanding and dispelling the family shadows. It’s another perfect tool for eating disorder awareness.

Depending on personal family history, the cycles and dynamics within families bear fruit every fourth through sixth generation. When a family unit is tight, strong, and loving, the members of that family enjoy the strength of cohesiveness and support from familial love, which helps them ride through the hard times of the currents of life better.

However when a family unit is not close (antagonistic), or displays emotional fusion (lack of boundaries, poorly differentiated relationships), or is dysfunctional, then the family dynamic becomes more of a liability than an asset to its members. The more closed the family system is, the more rigid and automatic the family responses and patterns become. Family members who identify strongly with or idolize other members may be prone to continue destructive behavior patterns throughout generations.

How does this happen? Family behavior patterns can be passed along in stories, as well as through attitudes, liaisons and affinities between family members for generations. The intensity of these patterns often unconsciously pulls at our attention and influences our lives on a subconscious level. Sometimes they interfere with the ability to make wise, conscious, decisions and undermine the ability to live fully and function truthfully in the present modern world. One way to discern and understand your family dynamic is through a charting method known as the genogram.
The Genogram
A genogram is similar to a family tree in that it describes family relationships between its members. Primarily used by mental health experts, physicians, and clergy, a genogram maps biological processes (such as birth order, marriages, pregnancies, deaths, households, and other historical and medical events).

A genogram can also map the emotional dynamics in relationships between family members, such as whose relationship was conflict-ridden, which relationships were close, the incidence of physical abuse or incest, as well as other patterns of dysfunction within the family history for generations. When used effectively, this tool gives a “snapshot” of the historical and dynamic influences at work in a family. You can benefit from this information. Simply draw your own family genogram and use it to become more conscious of the hidden influences within your family.

The Genogram Survey

Draw up a history of your family in your journal, using circles to signify females and squares to delineate males. Record at least four generations of your family, beginning with your grandparents. Add each generation (your parents, their brothers and sisters, you and your brothers and sisters, your children and their cousins) and their spouses or significant others. Do your best to fill in the relationship dynamic by answering the following questions in the genogram survey.

1. Label addictions such as alcoholism or drug abuse recreational or over-the-counter or food addiction.
2. Note any medical information you can. Look for chronic illness, eating disorders, depression, or other mental health problems. Some health concerns you might be aware.
3. Label any emotions that might define certain members or that they might be stuck in. For instance did you parents argue? Did you mother remain bitter? Did either of your parents experience loss and grief? If so, how did they teach you to handle it by their example? Did either parent have difficulty overcoming fears?
4. Using straight lines, connect the relationships in your family which were loving and close. Which relatives do you identify with or idolize?
5. Connect all the conflict-ridden relationships with jagged or wavy lines. How much of what you do today is directly or indirectly influenced by unresolved issues in these relationships?
6. If possible, ask the family for more history. What were their lives like? How did their lives turn out? Successful or tragic? In what ways? As sensitively as possible, ask for specific details. What “family secrets” do members choose not to talk about? Fill out your chart accordingly.

Emotional History

In addition, answer the following questions to determine the past messages your family sent you. Understanding these things consciously takes them from being stumbling blocks and turns them into personal stepping stones out of unconscious behaviors.

1. Ask yourself, what message or belief did my mother pass on to me?
2. Ask yourself, what message or belief did my father pass on to me?
3. Ask this same question for each grandparent, both maternal and paternal.

The emotional beliefs (a prime factor in eating disorders) passed on to you by previous generations are powerful coercive forces that affect you and your choices in life. Knowing your family background can help you understand where some of your feelings and actions originate and allow you to make more conscious, satisfying, rewarding choices in the way you react or behave, tremendously effecting the course of the rest of your life.

Dr. Fuller

Go to http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com/article_27.html and see the genogram illustration.

I’d like to start with a little bit of information about Dr. Edward Bach who believed that the ills of the heart and the spirit must be the focus of a healer’s attention. This is truly a perfect tool for an eating disorder. The bodily ills are symptoms of our fears, our cares, and our anxieties that can open the path to the invasion of illness. This philosophy along with herbal medicine prescribes plants for melancholy or mental indecision. But Bach went further in making a connection between what you feel and that of your actual physical illness. Thus he produced the unconventional Bach Flower Remedies.
Bach developed and specialized in a branch of herbal medicine where he used flowers. He noted that the flowers were high in vitality, as they contained the essence of life or seed of the plant. These qualities were what he wished to experiment with to relieve mental distress. Bach knew that flowers were only part of the puzzle. He knew that the positive give-and-take interaction and the encouragement that a doctor or psychotherapist can give completed this process.
Bach observed certain principles that worked in nature and believed there was no need to complicate the issue with further mental pursuits. Bach gathered hundreds of successful case histories. With that said, I’d like to share a personal family story that illustrates my success using the Bach Flower Remedies.
I know, from my 18 years of clinical case studies in my private practice, that by solving the mental attitudes you can stop a disease from becoming a physical one, or reverse one. For example an intervention early in teens can turn the tragic effects of eating disorders around .Today, as compared to the 1930’s when Bach compassionately wanted to relieve those suffering in the Great Depression ; we are beginning to understand disease at an energy level rather than a pathological one.
It’s interesting my daughter is now 30 years old. She is a recovered anorexic and perfectionist. I was talking to her the other day and she is now a CPA working in a busy high-powered office. One boss is particularly strict and intimidating. So we are talking, and I asked her, “What kind of techniques or tools do you use to handle the stress of working under a boss like that?”
She said, “Most time I don’t take it personally. I may called him a (—– ) in my head but I’m very nice to him face to face.” In other words, she uses the technique of sending them flowers in her imagination after she cancels the silent names she calls him. She added further, “Really mom, I find that I love my job and its challenges if I take the Bach Flower Remedies. They help so much so that I don’t take my boss personally.”
Then I asked her which ones do you do use? And she answered, “The one that I love most is Larch.”
I asked her what is Larch for, because I noticed in my own life I was not using the Bach Flower Remedies like I had in years past and I had forgotten about Larch . Yet I do have rescue remedy always on hand. My daughter’s favorite, Larch helps boast self-confidence and overcomes the feeling of not being strong enough to succeed. (Plus this is a great flower remedy for overcoming the lack of self confidence with any eating disorder.) My daughter has found that when she feels self-confidence her need to be perfect takes a quiet repose in the back of her mind and then she can more effectively use her command words ‘let it go’.
“Oh,” I said, “that is amazing you are still using the Bach Flower Remedies and the tool of command words that I taught you by using these remedies throughout your growing up times. Good for you.”

Use the natural Bach Flower Remedies and feel great!