Childhood Abuse & Brain News of Hope

By Regina Sullivan, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Norton Lasley
September 01, 2010

Editor’s note: Why do abused children attach and remain attached to abusive parents? In this article, Dr. Regina Sullivan explains how her research with rat pups has led to greater understanding of the infant brain, and how negative early experiences can cause long-term genetic, brain, behavioral, and hormonal changes that can affect not only the abuse victim but also the victim’s descendants.

Many parents have absolute faith that, with the right kind of stimulation, they can give their child an educational advantage. Conscientious mothers play Mozart to the baby in the womb, take their toddlers to Mommy and Me dance classes, and work their way through preschool applications as daunting as those for medical school. Yet even with the wide range of advantages available for infants today, many people are still surprised when I tell them that the way they treat their children will actually change the structure and circuitry of the child’s brain.

Though prenatal Mozart has not been proven to boost IQ, the day-to-day stimulations of a nurturing, interesting, stable home life most certainly can sculpt the circuitry of the brain. Reading, singing, showing colorful pictures to a child—and especially talking and cuddling—help shape the child’s development in a very real, neurobiological way. In the parts of the brain that are stimulated, individual neurons flourish like tiny trees, sprouting more of the branches, called dendrites, that allow communication between cells. Neural circuits form, followed by complex networks, allowing the child to flourish in the outside-world social networks of family, friends, school, and community. The child’s genes provide the framework, but early-life experiences will determine how those genes contribute to the emotional, intellectual, and social life of the child—and to the adult that the child will become.

Unfortunately, the same process plays out when the child’s early experiences are not happy ones. The brains of children who suffer neglect or abuse—about 10 out of every 1,000 children in the United States in 20081—also develop in a way that reflects the child’s experiences. And the effects of early abuse can be notoriously difficult to detect. Contrary to commonly held beliefs, it is difficult to identify an abused child unless there are obvious signs, such as bruises or injuries. The child’s behavior usually provides few clues—in fact, when social workers, doctors, or police officers attempt to rescue a child from an abusive situation, the child will often lie to protect the parents.

It usually takes a skilled therapist with specific diagnostic tools to uncover definite signs of abuse. One method is the Strange Situation Test, in which a caregiver brings a child into a room and then leaves, after which a stranger comes in and attempts to engage the child. Only after repeated rounds of these stressful events—and after the final stage of this test when the child is reunited with his or her mother—will the child finally begin to show signs of “disorganized attachment,” simultaneously showing a need for and a fear of the caregiver.

Yet by adolescence, some 80 percent of abused children will be diagnosed with major psychiatric illness. Imaging studies of abuse survivors often show that brain areas controlling emotion and cognition are abnormal, both anatomically (they are generally smaller) and functionally.

These facts illustrate two of the biggest obstacles to successfully treating, and preventing, child abuse. The ability to bond with a caregiver is such a strong biological imperative that once a bond is formed—even with an abuser—it is difficult to break. And the devastation resulting from abuse often will not become fully apparent until the child is well into adolescence. To help these children overcome their attachment to the abuser and avoid psychiatric disorders later in life, it’s important to understand the mechanisms through which abuse leaves its mark on the brain. Since the 1950s, researchers have raised many interesting questions and are only now beginning to provide some of the answers.

The Beginnings of Attachment

Within moments of birth, a human baby enters into a state of quiet alertness that lasts for hours. The newborn rests quietly with eyes open, orienting to the faces, voices, and scents of humans. Some hardwiring in the baby’s brain makes this bonding possible: babies are born with a preference for the high-frequency sounds of the human voice and for the general shape of the human face. But the infant also needs to learn about the caregiver. This learning begins before birth as the baby becomes familiar with the mother’s voice and odors. The newborn continues rapidly to learn more voices and smells, responding more intensely.

Throughout the animal kingdom, once a newborn knows its mother it will do its best to remain with her. Animals that are mobile soon after birth, like horses or goslings, follow their mothers everywhere. Newborns not yet ambulatory, including humans, will cry for their caregiver.

It seems inconceivable that any child, puppy, baby monkey, or chick would develop an enduring bond with an abusive caregiver. Puzzling out the explanation requires a shift in the ways brain and behavior have been traditionally viewed.

For much of the twentieth century, psychology followed a behaviorist model: An animal will repeat a behavior that triggers a reward, and will not repeat a behavior that’s punished. Following this logic, a baby would do its best to avoid an abusive caregiver, or at least show signs of distress in that person’s presence. But the research of Harry Harlow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, beginning in the 1960s, showed just the opposite. Harlow raised infant monkeys with a “surrogate” mother (a wire tube wrapped in cloth with a plastic monkey head on top). In one experiment, baby monkeys clinging to the surrogate would hold on even when subjected to an unpleasant puff of air. Similar results show up in studies of other species, including chicks and rats—and in many heart-wrenching headlines of abused children, battered wives, and kidnapping victims who stand by their tormentors.

Scientists suspecting a brain-based explanation were hampered not only by the behavioral hypothesis but also by prevailing views of brain development. Throughout much of the 20th century, researchers understandably assumed that the brain became more sophisticated with age—that the young brain was, in fact, immature. Recently, however, our view has shifted. The infant brain is actually perfectly developed to accomplish the tasks appropriate to the survival needs of infancy. Some of the unique functions of the infant brain help to explain why a child will bond with whatever caregiver is available.

A Mother’s Presence is a Biochemical Off Switch for Fear

Because of ethical concerns, it’s difficult to scan the brains of most children; it is certainly unethical to upset an abused child even further by presenting traumatic events during a brain scan. Scanning also presents logistical problems in children, since the child needs to remain perfectly still during the scan. It is possible, however, to study normal and abusive attachment in rats. Though rats learn about their mothers entirely through smell—seeing and hearing do not emerge until the rat pup is around two weeks old—rats are similar to children in that they have a biologically predetermined attachment system in the brain but must learn to identify and remember the caregiver.

For this reason, we began to use “attachment learning” in rats to question what it is about an infant’s brain that supports attachment, even when the caregiver is abusive. An early clue was the involvement of the brain chemical norepinephrine. The neurotransmitter is released in massive amounts at birth and during bonding with the mother. It is also released when a young animal is in pain.

This dual role for norepinephrine set us on the path to explore the fundamental, and puzzling, question of why a child cannot learn to break the attachment to an abusive caregiver. After all, when humans and all other mammals experience pain, they learn to avoid anything that warns of the pain so that they can prevent it next time. So in an abusive relationship, why doesn’t the pain activate the brain’s fear and avoidance circuits?

Simply and amazingly, the brain area responsible for fear and avoidance learning is not turned on by pain in pups not old enough to leave the nest. Even more amazingly, in older pups that live in the nest but also explore outside the nest, this brain area shuts off only when the pups are with the mother.

We worked first with young rats still nesting with their mothers, when they are blind and deaf and must depend upon the mother’s odor for attachment. The maternal odor is so important that without it, pups die. First, we paired a novel odor with a painful experience, such as a mother rat handling pups roughly, a tail pinch, or a slightly painful electric shock. That odor became a new maternal odor that controlled the pups’ approach to the mother and enhanced social behavior and feeding with the mother. Older pups that could leave the nest reacted very differently: they learned to avoid an odor paired with pain. But to our surprise, if the mother was with these older pups during the learning, they were attracted to the pain-associated odor, and examination revealed no activation of stress networks in the brain. That is, the mother’s presence can act as a biochemical switch, determining whether rat pups will develop an aversion or an attraction to a mildly painful event.2,3

My colleagues and I were perplexed by these results. These pups should have learned to avoid the odor. It took time for us to change our thinking and view the infant brain as a brain designed for infant survival, rather than as an incomplete adult brain. We were completely surprised by the paradoxical result that pain would lead an infant to approach, even seek, a newly learned odor. We were even more astonished by the ability of maternal presence to reinstate this paradoxical learning in older pups. Once these initial results were uncovered, we wanted to determine the mechanisms involved.

The key to the young rat pups’ behavior is an almond-shaped structure known as the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in emotionally charged memories—especially fearful ones. The presence of the mother during a painful event is enough to suppress activity in the amygdala of a rat pup. The mechanism proved to be surprisingly simple: pups still living in the nest, or older pups in the mother’s presence, did not release the stress hormone corticosterone. The infant amygdala is uniquely dependent upon increases in corticosterone to learn and express fear. In a later study, we showed that the neurotransmitter dopamine is also released when the rat is learning to avoid the odor. Though dopamine is often considered a “reward” chemical, when increased in the amygdala it helps to form fear-related memories. In this study, young rats still in the mother’s nest showed a large decrease in dopamine in the amygdala, indicating a mechanism to further block pups from learning to fear.4

The benefits of this maternal off switch seem obvious. Nearness to the mother offers comfort and courage in what might otherwise be a frightening situation, serving to strengthen the bond between mother and infant, and to remind an older child where its haven is in times of danger. This phenomenon is known as “social buffering,” and it continues throughout life. When a child gets an injection, the presence of a parent can help the child cope with the pain. Later on, when someone we care about is there to comfort us in a stressful situation, our stress hormones and fear are greatly reduced.

The switch is flipped, however, when the intrepid older rat pup is out exploring. Then, the threatening event sparks the fear response, propelling the youngster away from danger and, preferably, back into the nest while searing an indelible memory into the brain.

But when the parent and the nest are themselves sources of danger, the suppression of fear circuits in the amygdala unfortunately still works. The fear, avoidance, and even memories associated with pain are extinguished—explaining why an abused child, even while trying to escape pain, will later seek contact with the abuser.

Neurons Build Walls Around Memories

Under normal circumstances, the ability to remember danger is so vital to survival that memories based on fear cannot be erased. They can be overwritten through “extinction,” an active-learning process in which a new memory supplants the older one (like teaching a rat that a shock will no longer follow the sound that used to precede it). But extinction is shaky and impermanent, and the underlying fear can re-emerge at any time.

Key neurons in the brain build structures that reinforce fear-based memories. These “perineuronal nets” are made of cartilage-like tissue known as proteoglycans. Like miniature chain-link fences, they are thought to protect important memories by blocking the re-modeling, or plasticity, that might otherwise dismantle the memory in favor of new information.

Once again, the formation of these barriers is age-dependent. Andreas Luthi of the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Switzerland and Cyril Herry of INSERM in France showed that in adult mice whose fear of a shock has been reprogrammed through extinction, treatment with an enzyme that degrades the “nets” will bring the memory back in full force; the mice showed the same freezing behavior in response to a warning odor that they did before extinction training took place.5 But younger pups, less than three weeks old, can lose a fearful memory completely. Like our work with norepinephrine circuits, this research also illustrates a concrete mechanism that prevents young children from forming memories based on fear—even when it might be in their best interest to do so.

Loving Care Sets Brain Development on the Right Course

The animal research explains an infant’s biological drive to stay close to a source of food and safety. But we know that even when basic needs—food, clothing, shelter, medical care—are adequately met, children are still devastated by the loss of a parent. Children in orphanages whose basic needs are met (who receive “perfunctory care,” in medical parlance) often fail to grow and do not reach developmental milestones at a normal pace. Later in life, these children are more likely to have profound mental problems, including difficulty maintaining social relationships. The early work of Harlow and colleagues attests to the importance of “attachment figures.” In an experiment well known to every first-year psychology student, a baby monkey will choose a warm, soft, cuddly artificial mother with no food over a wire one with a bottle attached.

More recently, the importance of a loving caregiver early in life has been underlined by studies of teenage Romanian orphans left by impoverished parents to be raised in overcrowded, understaffed, improperly run state institutions. Even when adopted and cared for by loving families, some of these children remain detached and have emotional and cognitive impairment. Some encouraging findings, however, show a group of resilient children who overcame these early-life disadvantages; they were adopted before age two and placed in loving families that gave enormous time and energy to their rescue.

What specifically does a loving caregiver provide, without which even a healthy, well-fed child will languish? Once again, animal research offers some clues. Rats are devoted mothers and spend copious time licking, snuggling, and crouching over their young. Myron Hofer of Columbia University has shown that the intense sensory stimulation a rat pup receives regulates the behavioral, physiological, and neural development of the brain.6 This line of research has shown that when rat pups are separated from their mother, mimicking her actions by stroking can increase levels of growth hormones in the infants’ brains; extra warmth (normally provided by the mother’s body heat) increases levels of norepinephrine; and giving the pups a whiff of their mother’s scent ramps up their level of activity.

Once basic needs of the infant are met through social interactions, presenting an environment that is interesting but age appropriate appears to optimize behavioral and brain development. A recent study in rats by Akaysha Tang and Bruce McEwen showed that infant rats that experienced just three minutes of novelty each day exhibited enhanced learning and more controlled stress response in adulthood.7

Abuse Alters Gene Activity

Traumatic experiences such as abuse can work their way into a child’s genes. This fact may come as a surprise, since most of us think of genes as something we are born with. Of course, the genetic material we receive from our parents is important, and lays the foundation for who we are and what we become. But how our parents treat us as we grow can greatly influence the way the genetic material is “read” and used. Think of our genetic material as a vast library of information. The way this information is accessed, and what ends up being done with it, depend in great part on our early-life experiences.

The influence of outside-world factors on our genes is known as epigenetics. An epigenetic change occurs during the biochemical process of turning a gene’s code into whatever protein that gene codes for—in scientific parlance, the process of gene expression. The concept of epigenetics helps explain why so many effects of child abuse do not become apparent until adolescence or adulthood. It may also hint at why abused children often grow into abusers themselves.

It may seem obvious that a mother’s handling of her child will influence the way that child treats her own children. The transmission of this trait from mother to daughter and beyond may result from epigenetic alterations to genes involving estrogen sensitivity, according to research from Frances Champagne of Columbia University and Michael Meaney of McGill University. These researchers showed that the amount of care a newborn female rat receives in the form of licking and grooming will determine how much licking and grooming she will do for her own pups—and they for theirs.8 In 2006 this team found that a mother’s licking and grooming activity can modify the expression of a gene involved in several aspects of reproduction, resulting in differing levels of a particular estrogen receptor in adulthood. Consequently, a rat’s sensitivity to her own estrogen levels can change, leading to changes in the way a mother handles her pups for at least two generations.

Animal studies show that epigenetic changes also occur in abusive situations. Tania Roth, David Sweat, and colleagues at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, found that when rat pups were raised by stressed mothers who behaved abusively, the pups—and their pups—showed changes in the gene producing a substance known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).9 The job of growth factors is to nourish and protect brain cells; BDNF in particular helps to stimulate the birth of new neurons (a process known as neurogenesis). The gene alterations in the abused pups showed up in the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. Since BDNF and neurogenesis in the hippocampus help to support learning and memory, and both help ward off stress and depression, this animal finding points to one route through which abused children can suffer from emotional and cognitive problems throughout life.

Some recent research hints at epigenetic changes in people who were abused as children. In 2009, Meaney and colleagues examined brain tissue obtained postmortem from a group of suicide victims, some of whom had been abused early in life and some of whom had not. The brains of the abuse victims showed several differences. In the hippocampus, receptors for the stress hormones known as glucocorticoids were fewer in number, and the genes encoding the receptors had alterations in the “promoter” region, where the process of gene expression begins. In a healthy brain, glucocorticoid receptors are plentiful in the hippocampus, where they play several roles in memory, emotion, and the stress response—including helping to consolidate fear-related memories. Some conditions, like major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, involve a loss of the neurons containing these receptors; both conditions can involve memory loss as well. This pattern of epigenetic change did not show up in the brains of suicide victims who were not abused, or in control subjects who had died of natural causes.10 The differences imply that the abuse caused the changes in the hippocampus—not that people who commit suicide have an underlying brain anomaly making them more likely to take their lives.

Conclusions

Technological advances, coupled with our new understanding of the uniqueness of the developing brain, have direct implications for child rearing. Assuming that basic nutritional and health needs are met, what do we need to do to optimize brain development? Not Mozart or that developmentally designed mobile. The developing brain overwhelmingly requires a loving, consistent, and patient caregiver who socializes with the infant, punctuated with age appropriate novelty and learning. This organizes brain circuits and gene expression for cognition and emotion to yield a cognitively and emotionally well-balanced child and adult.

What is detrimental to brain development? Neglect or emotional or physical abuse that produces either heightened or prolonged activation of the stress system results in later-life difficulties. While we are less sure how these early-life experiences change the brain, we do know that the brain responds by changing its structure, gene expression, and function. How do we help a traumatized child recover? No magic pill has been identified. Instead, heightened caregiving and therapy involving social behavior are key. In other words, we are social creatures, and our social interactions in early life design the brain to greatly influence the person we become.

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Compulsive Overeating - Help Is Here

See if you have an addiction to carbohydrates. Then read on to find the solution that 5HTP offers for weight loss and relieving your cravings. Here’s a Carbohydrate Addiction Quiz.

Answer yes or no to the following

1. _____I am overweight
2. _____I crave bread, pasta, candy, cereal, and other rich carbohydrate foods.
3. _____If I don’t eat every two or three hours throughout the day, I feel irritable, tired, shaky, or develop a headache.
4. _____I get tired and/or hungry by mid-afternoon.
5. _____I begin eating starches, snack foods, or candy, I have a hard time stopping.
6. _____My body fat .is primarily distributed around my abdomen and upper body.
7. _____I have one of the following health problems: high cholesterol, or high triglycerides, diabetes, high blood pressure, or hypoglycemia.
8. _____I eat more when I am stressed or depressed or when I am traveling.
9. _____I seem to gain more weight or have difficulty weight in the winter time.
10. _____Even after I eat a good breakfast I get hungry before lunch.

Scores
Number of yes answers Type of Carbohydrates Addiction
8-10 Severe
5-7 Strong
2-4 Mild
None

Low serotonin levels can cause people to experience apathy and cravings for large amounts of foods high in carbohydrates. There are two kinds of carbohydrates. The simple carbohydrates are the sugars and the foods high in carbohydrates are candy, white flour products, pastries, and most processed cereals..The second kind of carbohydrates are called complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, pasta, and starchy vegetables such as potatoes. People that have cravings will eat any form of carbohydrates. But they prefer the simple sugars.

In extreme cases the carbohydrate cravings can become an addiction this word is too vague to be a key word. This can lead to a vicious eating cycling from low serotonin levels to overwhelming cravings, to bingeing this word only in article once, not good to use, to the levels quickly falling and the cycle starts again.

If you are tired of being overweight, depressed or anxious this exciting information is for you. You could be having even more upsetting symptoms or you may just feel a little unmotivated. You may not realize that you could feel so much better than you do now. Imagine being motivated enough to wake up happy and ready for whatever your day may hold. What would that be like for you? What favorite something would you do if you had more energy? And did you realize that negative worries or negative thoughts can drain your energy almost instantly? So how can you feel more motivated and have fewer cravings so that you can lose those extra pounds that have bothered you?

The following could be the answer to your problem. Recommendations are: start taking 100 mg. of 5HTP three times a day. Take the dose twenty minutes before each meal. Stick to this approach for one week. If your weight loss results are unsatisfactory after that time, try doubling the dosage to 200 mg three times a day. Again do this for a month. You should experience a weight loss averaging one pound a week.

Let’s explore this answer more. In Europe, 5-HTP has been used for decades as an accepted treatment for weight loss, sleep problems, and depression. The research on 5-HTP and serotonin is expanding at an exciting rate that clinically shows it to be safe and a natural way to boost brain serotonin.

Further recommendations are if you are serious about weight, taking 5-HTP alone is not enough. For your success you have to commit to profound lifestyle changes and 5-HTP can help.

This study is taken from the book 5-HTP by Michael T. Murray, N.D. An Italian study involved nineteen overweight women, with the typical woman being 5’4” and 170 to 235 pounds. The ideal weight for a 5’4” woman is 110 to 145 pounds. The researchers gave them approx. 200 mg three times a day or with meals. (This was a placebo-controlled crossover study.)
The researched outcomes showed that the women who took the 5-HTP ate 1,100 fewer calories a day. Nothing else was changed in their diets. These women would burn off 1 and ½ pounds a week. I have a spectacular source to give you to address the cost of this plan. Just go to: http://store.ourhealthcoop.com/?Click=18223

Barefoot Body Paradise Everyday,
Kathleen Fuller, Ph.D.
1# Amazon Bestselling Book- Not Your Mother’s Diet
(A classic, comprehensive,& deeply spiritual book for your eating issues.)
Award Winner
Leading Eating Disorder Expert
The Surgeon of The Subconscious TM

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com/eating-disorders-self-esteem-index2.html

P.S. my Facebook page is —- http://www.facebook.com/kathleen.fuller1 — I would love to hear from you.

Box Gardening at Martin County Extension

Do We? — Use Pure or Use What You Have? These are questions that came up recently pertaining to the environment both external and internal.

The quote I follow is, “Take what you can and leave the rest.” Someone I admire once said, “I choose to value any experience I have and learn something from it.”

I had an engaging free lesson at the Martin County Extension which taught me how to use plastic products that you can buy at any hardware store to make a simple yet new system for growing vegetables. I felt this was a gift from the universe, since I have been focusing on making my gardening easier.

“What did you think of their system?” Asked the owner of a nursery I visited that very afternoon to buy coconut palms.

Squeezing my eyes to access her better, I asked, “Do you want my truth?”

“Yes,” she said with intense interest.

Most people are interested in sharing me because I have questions that I ask so that I learn from them. They have their focus and they stick to it. I notice body language that says they are interested only in a particular idea or method that they have learned. Ideas that I mention in the conversation, are to fish for possible interest. Many times I get silence or a change of the subject. I let that go. The fact is I want to honor everyone’s opinions. My position is to love and accept everything I am given as experiences in this life, and that includes everyone I meet. To me all experiences are precious gifts. After the gift is received, I may ask myself what I can apply to my life, and I let go of the rest.

So I said, “My concern is the plastics that are used can leach, and we all need to be aware of the plastic containers that we drink water from or cook with. Glass, clay pots, ceramics are safe. Coming up with an alternative to the plastic buckets is something I will do soon.”

According to http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/bpa/bpa_side_effects.php “The leaching of BPA from the polycarbonate plastics and the polycarbonate plastic lining of containers is particularly alarming in light of the serious health risks associated with BPA ingestion. More than 200 lab animal tests to date strongly suggest that BPA exposure, even at very low doses, creates risks of dangerous developmental, neural and reproductive health effects in infants and children. Exposure to BPA, even at low and short-term doses, is linked to a staggering number of health problems.”

The nursery owner passionately agreed, since she is a health purist in the organic sense. The controversy of using organic vs. commercial fertilizer and plastics, can be a lively topic for her, is what I sensed.

Over the past three decade, I have observed that those that are passionate about their beliefs can change the world. In my younger years, I didn’t realize that huge changes in consciousness take years to come to fruition. The lesson may be patience.

If you would like to explore this food controversy, read Time magazine’s August 30, 2010, under Health, entitled Who Needs Organic Food? In that article Manny Howard, author of My Empire of Dirt, about his experiences with backyard gardening, says, “If we all had to concentrate on raising our own food, we wouldn’t have time to do anything else.”

In my backyard, I raise fruit trees, plus organic vegetables that keep me eating raw and fresh daily. It takes me an hour per morning to lavish in my hobby of growing my own pure foods. That’s all the time it takes for me to start each day with joy.

Next reviewing Emoto’s research http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/e_ome_home.html on the effects of words on the shapes of water crystals, I found saying blessings and loving my garden is essential to the beauty of the water crystals within every living thing. If 80% of humans are water, then what is the per cent of water in plants? Read his book and find out how water can be transformed within and without our inner and outer physical environments.

Another piece of the living puzzle is Vibrational Medicine or Energy Medicine. ‘It is based on the scientific principles that all matter vibrates to a precise frequency and that by using resonant vibration, balance of matter can be restored.’ More information can be found at http://www.luminanti.com/vibration.html .

We are what we eat, think, and do.

Dr. Kathleen Fuller's Bestselling Book - Not Your Mother's Diet

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com/eating-disorders-self-esteem-index2.html

P.S. my Facebook page is —- http://www.facebook.com/kathleen.fuller1 — I would love to hear from you.

Dr. Kathleen Fuller's Path to Your Inner Worlds

Here is how to travel to your favorite places. This is a well known and successful practice among many spiritual questers. One fellow traveler said, “This technique encourages you to learn and develop your inner consciousness along with sharpening your imagination. Imagination is a mental technique that helps you to enter the first door of the inner worlds. It is a tool that Soul can utilize for putting thought into pictures.”

The body, mind, does not know the difference between a physical experience (called maya or the lower world of illusions) and a hologram like experience. If that is confusing to you, you may want to pray, meditate, or contemplation about its meaning for you.

The Olympic Trainers have used similar techniques in various ways for decades resulting in winning successes. I too used this imaginary technique as a tool to win a 1989 National Dressage Championship. (See picture)

Dr. Kathleen Fuller's National Dressage Championship-1989

Follow the directions here. These imaginary techniques can be called ‘Spiritual Exercises’ by encouraging you as Soul to move your inner consciousness. Here is how you do it.

The Easy Technique

1. Fix your attention on a blank movie screen with your eyes closed.
2. If unwanted thoughts, images, or pictures come up in your imagination, replace them with the picture of a place you want to go. You can use a picture from a travel magazine.
3. Begin by taking three deep relaxing breaths.
4. Now ask yourself, “What does it feel like to imagine you are standing in your picture?”
5. What does it sound like in your picture? You can practice mocking up the sounds.
6. What does the air feel like?
7. What are the smells around you?
8. Now move around and explore your space and see what happens.

If this exercise isn’t successful the first time, try it again later. The technique works. It has worked for many others.

Dr. Kathleen Fuller

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com/eating-disorders-self-esteem-index2.html

P.S. my Facebook page is —- http://www.facebook.com/kathleen.fuller1 — I would love to hear from you.

Eating Disorders - Take the Jump to Treatment

Basically because the mind functions like a machine, experiences, facts, feelings, or beliefs that are unacceptable to it are routinely blocked out or denied. This happens in even the best of minds because the whole purpose of denial is to keep experiences, facts, feelings, or beliefs which would most likely overwhelm or disrupt you out of your everyday consciousness. How can you choose to be more aware? The following story has the answer.

The following synopsis tells the methods a sufi teacher used for escaping when asked about it years later. From the The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul by Sandra Maitri, she opens with a parable from the recently deceased Sufi teacher Indries Shah. It’s about an unjustly imprisoned tinsmith who miraculously escapes from prison.

The tinsmith told the following when asked how he escaped, he replied that his wife (a weaver) had woven the design of the lock to his prison cell into the prayer rug upon which he prayed five times a day. After realizing that the rug contained the lock design, he struck a deal with his jailers to get tools to make small artifacts, which the jailers then sold for a profit. He surreptitiously used the tools to fashion a key, by which he eventually made his escape.

The moral of the story is? Understanding the design of the lock that keeps us imprisoned can help us create the key that opens it.

How can you move past blockages and denial and attain your freedom? Here is another piece of the answer. People become overwhelmed most often when the worst of circumstances come into their lives or are triggered to unconsciously remember past trauma. Upon reaching the state of being overwhelmed, they will tend to drop into hopeless or helpless states. It’s dangerous to remain in either of these states for any period of time because they often induce the destructive life patterns which include overeating, overspending, too much radio, television or movies, etc.

During the worst of circumstances you can experience specific stages of grief like the stages Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote in her pioneering books on death and dying. Ross helped establish the modern hospice movement and brought to mass awareness the five stages that precede and give closure to the act of dying—(1) denial and isolation, (2) anger, (3) bargaining, (4) depression, and (5) acceptance. When you take the next step of letting go or thinking of letting go of an old destructive behavior you need to be aware of these stages. Think of it as letting go or the death of the past behavior that you choose to get rid forever.

When people let go of preciously-held beliefs, many times they will pass through these same stages before reaching and accepting a new awareness. Often each loss, whether the death of a loved one, dropping an old belief, or releasing a limiting behavior pattern, needs to be grieved and honored in the natural process of the five stages before the individual can move to a higher level of functioning. Again take note of these five stages of grief.

Sometimes therapy exercises like the ones found in Not Your mothers Diet by Dr. Fuller or other self-help books can help. In certain cases a support system of friends who understand the process can offer assistance to you, as you would for them. Other times your dreams help facilitate the transition that begins with these five stages.

The ideal way to shift to new states of consciousness is to move alternately between the five stages in a random pattern that’s comfortable for you, until you reach a state of gradual acceptance. It’s imperative to avoid getting stuck in any one state for too long (which can bring on feelings of confusion or hopeless before you default to a destructive life pattern). That’s when it is valuable to have established safe others to help you through the process as need.

When you do feel confused, helpless, or hopeless, reach out to friends, a support group, or turn to therapy exercises and techniques for help. Often it’s just a matter of trying different tools, techniques, and support systems until you find a combination that works for you.

Not Your Mother's Diet Book - The Cure for Your Eating Disorders

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com/eating-disorders-self-esteem-index2.html

Junk Food- Here's a Sugar Sneak Character That Hides in Most Foods

What do you think of the obesity issues in your children or your future children? Does it concern you? Are you interested in health issues? And/or do you want to live a healthier and pain free life? If you do then this article will surprise you, hopefully motivate, and inspire you to action or a larger awareness.

There’s a lot of get rich ideas out on the net, but if you don’t have your health, money often times won’t help you, and it certainly won’t cure you. Here’s the scoop. Ketchup, barbecue sauce, tiny taters, deep-fried popcorn chicken, bread, milk, this sounds like fast food that is high in fat, high salt, low fiber and this is a typical school lunch in your child’s school. Did you know? I know this because a grade-school teacher named Mrs. Q. got her courage up and documented for the world her daily school lunch in her school’s cafeteria for an entire year. You can find out what she discovered by going to her blog, “Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project” at www.fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.

Dr. Kathleen Fuller Pulls Away From Fast Foods

USDA reports that less than one third of schools stay under the fat recommendations for lunches. “School lunches hardly resemble real food – they serve items such as chicken nuggets, which are highly processed, with additives and preservatives, and the list more than 30 ingredients instead of just chicken,” says Marion Nestle, Ph.D., professor of nutrition food studies and public health at New York University, according to a September, 2010 article in Parents Magazine.
Another startling story is when Lilli Lesson, a wellness educator and parent, found that in her kids’ lunchtime in Marblehead, Massachusetts, after 15 minutes, the students could throw away their lunches and buy candy, cookies, and chips. Wow, does that teach kids to junk?

What can be done? I like to set an example, and share a snippet of history with you. I had written a children’s coloring book, Feel Great with Fun and Food in 1984. Now my two grown daughters are aware of their food choices for optimum health, and they give me the inspiration to do even more. The undeniable fact is I modeled for them good nutrition, which resulted in me knowing that teaching by example pays off in changing generational family patterns. It also shows me that the many struggles I had back in time to give them healthy foods, was so worth it. Here is what I found that simply works.

1. Plant a garden or visit one – Mrs. Obama’s food initiative coordinator has hosted children at the white house vegetable gardens.
2. Cook the harvest meal with them-
3. Become active in your school lunch program-
4. Kids love events with food. Hold a fruit festival where parents volunteer fruit. Try new foods if they are learning about different cultures.
5. Go to their school lunch time-
6. Help plant a school garden and connect to a local farm -
7. Suggest recess before lunch and kids will have better appetites-
8. At home my daughters and friends would make up siily food stories, and then act them out. It was hysterically, roll on the floor, funny.

Halloween Fairy Wings in My Permaculture Garden= FUN for Kids

There is help for your eating disorder.

A recent poll says 65 percent of American women are disordered eaters and everyone knows either a family member or friend that has disordered eating and worries about their weight.

The following clinical stories may sound like a woman that you know with an eating disorder. These stories paint a picture of the before-and-after change of consciousness that occurs when women actively apply the principles outlined in the many articles I have written. See if you can find the steps of realization, adjustment, and subsequent change to a higher level of consciousness in these stories of personal diet and weight success.

“When I was in college, I dealt with the pressure of papers and exams by getting a pizza, a pint of chocolate ice cream, and a bag of cookies—-eating them all and then writing or studying like a maniac all night.”As a result, my weight constantly fluctuated. I’d put on ten or more pounds from binging, then starve myself to take it off fast, then put it on again. Thank goodness this pattern slowed down and took a turn for the better
when I realized that pigging out wouldn’t ease my real-world work stress. Once I admitted that binges didn’t do much for me in my life now, they were easier to let go. I found other ways to relieve stress.” –Jennifer, 30

“I used to have chocolate kisses on the counter, just to welcome customers. Candy wasn’t my weakness, but pretty soon I became a social nibbler, grabbing a kiss with a customer every time we chatted about a printing job. “I stopped doing this one day when a friend who was having problems with her husband came by four or five times to vent. By the end of the day, we had emptied the entire bowl of kisses. “I went home that evening with a gross, sugar-and-fat feeling in my mouth and stomach. That gross sugar feeling woke me up to how much I ate while gabbing and made me think about all the food I unconsciously pop into my mouth at social gatherings (such as peanuts at bars and chips at parties). Through hypnosis I’ve made a point to be careful about what I pop into my mouth when I’m listening to others.” –Heather, 26

“By the time I get home from work and all the stress there, it’s 6:30 p.m. I’m exhausted and starving. I used to throw my stuff down and head to the kitchen, grabbing this and that—-leftover noodles, cold cuts, bread—and eat as if I was inhaling them. But then one day, with a mouthful of granola, I thought, ‘I don’t want to eat this stuff. Why am I doing this?’ I realized that frenzied snacking or shoveling it in was my way of releasing the stress of the day.

“Now I stay out of the kitchen until I calm down by using techniques that relieve my emotional stress. I take some time to figure out what I want to eat. That usually gets me eating healthier meals and has led to a better body weight.” –Susan, 49

“My husband and I travel in our recreational vehicle while he writes books and consults with financial institutions. I don’t particularly like accompanying him under these conditions. I realized that my resentments toward my husband were about giving up my previous way of life. Sacrificing everything to accommodate his second career caused me to feel rejected, angry, and hurt. It was only when I began to appreciate myself and renew my past interests that I found that my eating became more balanced —and my weight began to come off.” − Fran, 60

“I learned to feel my anger by letting go of stubbornness. That was hard to do, but I did it. Before I’d just yell, hold on to the anger, and feel really guilty afterwards. Next I’d blame my parents or step-mom. Or I’d be sarcastic and make everything worse. When I stopped yelling and began talking about what was wrong, I found I felt better about me. That’s when my eating balanced and I gave up purging.” – Brittany, 16

“Every avenue I went down seemed blocked. All the people I knew were stuck in the past. I stayed home and ate out of loneliness. “Then I learned to face my fear of people rejecting me. I practiced speaking up for my needs and wants. As I did this, I began to have more energy. I even tried new things, starting with having a cup of coffee at a Victorian tea room. Eventually, I began yoga class and dance lessons. My weight gradually slimmed down. I feel like a new person.” – Mary, 72

Julie learned to love herself by taking time to make different, healthy food choices. Heather made unconscious snacking habits conscious in order to stop them. Jennifer dealt with stress realistically and found it easier to quit engaging in cycles of bingeing and dieting.

Fran reconnected with her true inner self and gracefully gave up resentments toward her husband. When she did, her weight balanced naturally. Brittany found inner coping skills that helped her process intense emotions. As a result, she balanced her weight and stopped her purging behavior.

Mary committed to face her fear of rejection, which led to having more fun in life as she became a slimmer woman of balance.

These stories share real-life ways you or someone you know can overcome the stumbling blocks that keep you or them locked in disordered eating. New awareness can help you to help someone you love or reach your weight balance goals.

Not Your Mother's Diet: The Cure for Your Eating Disorders

Barefoot Body Paradise Everyday,
Kathleen Fuller, Ph.D.
1# Amazon Bestselling Book- Not Your Mother’s Diet
(A classic, comprehensive,& deeply spiritual book for your eating issues.)
Award Winner
Leading Eating Disorder Expert
The Surgeon of The Subconscious TM
http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com/eating-disorders-self-esteem-index2.html

Eating Out of Control?

Consider a Healthy Continuum Concept by picturing a mother named Sally in a retirement home. She’s eating whipped cream smothered over chocolate ice cream. Her diet habits from childhood are still wreaking havoc on her life decades later. Sally had an obsessive/restrictive mother. How is this abuse?

1. Picture the adult child in the grip of guilt that eats away at her core. She’s in the trash finding the crumbed cookies she just bought and threw away hoping she could stop eating them. She can’t stop.
OR
2. The adult daughter is now a mother of two daughters six and eight years old. She tells them both how bad ice cream and refined sugar is for them. She does everything even to making homemade birthday cakes with fruit as sweetening and never once going to McDonalds. This mother is repeating the cycle of obsessive/restrictive mothering behaviors towards sugar laden and fattening foods down to the last crumb of a cookie.

What do you think happens when her daughters visit a friend’s house where there are cookies and candy? Or what do you think happens when her daughters reaches their teens with money in their pockets and they’re out with peers? One of two things can happen to these daughters.

1. They may still restrict their food like their mother and become anorexic or bulimic
2. They may overeat and become out of control with their food intake and become obese.

Either one is devastating to a daughter’s mind/body/and spirit. I’ve taken a survey
of women of all ages and this is a hot topic of interest. What’s unique about this approach is viewing the effects that a mother’s beliefs about food can have on her children and the generations to come.

Go ahead and review the following list of behaviors to determine where you might be. Then look at where you want to be and the steps to get there.

Where Might You Be On the Obsessive Compulsive Eating
That Continues in Vicious Circles?

Note Where You Are:

1. Occasional Binges
2. Constant Snacking
3. Increase in Food Quantity
4. Onset scattered Thinking
5. Increasing Dependence on Food as Entertainment
6. Sneak Eating
7. Feelings of Guilt
8. Unable to Discuss
Problem
9. Memory Lapses Increase
10. Using Excuses toi Cover Eating Excesses
11. Decrease in Ability to Diet for any Length of “time
12. Persistent Remorse
13. Grandiose & Aggressive Behavior
14. Loss of other Interests
15. Efforts to Control Fail Repeatedly
Critical Phase

16. Work & Money Problems
17. Geographical Escapes Attempted
18. Round the Clock Eating
19. Isolation Begins
20. Physical Deterioration
21. Resentments Compound Loss of Ordinary Willpower
22. Sexuality Issues Arise
23. Decrease in Ability to Satisfy “Hunger”
24. Non-Personhood Feelings Begin
25. Onset of Lengthy Bingeing
26. Garbage Eating
27. Impaired Thinking
Chronic Phase

28. Unable to Initiate Action
29. Undefinable Fears
30. Vague Spiritual Fears &Questions
31. Obession with Food
32. Sexual Dysfunction Begins
33. All dieting ideas are Exhausted
Obsessive Compulsive Eating Continues in Vicious Circles Here

34. Complete Defeat Amitted
35. Honest Desire for Help
36. Learns Food Addiction is a Treatable Illness
37. Told How Addiction Can be Arrested
Intervention Phase

38. Volume Eating Stops
39. Meets Former Food Addicts Who are Normal and Happy
40. Isolation Ends
41. Right Thinking Begins as Sugar and flour Abstinence takes Hold
42. Spiritual needs Questioned
43. Physical Overhaul By Doctor
44. Personal Appearance Changes
45. Start Group Therapy
46. Appreciation of Possibilities of New Way of Life
47. Diminishing Fears & Anxieties
48. Return to Self Acceptance
49. Food Becomes Nourishment for the Body
50. Desire to Run Away Ceases
Restoration Phase

51. Realistic Thinking
52. Adjustment to Family Needs
53. Natural Rest & Sleep
54. New Personal Interests Develop
55. Family& Friends See Efforts
56. Rebirth of Idealism
57. New Circle of Non-Bingeing Friends
58. Application of Real Values
59. Personal Fact-Finding Begins
60. Program of Recovery is Obvious in Work Place
61. Increase Emotional Control
62. Return of Healthy Sexuality
63. Onset of New Hope
64. Rationalizations End
65. Contentment in Abstinence
66. Group Therapy and Mutual Help Continue
67. Increasing Tolerance of Others
68. Self-Actuating Future & New Means of Life Begin

Not Your Mother's Diet Book : The Cure for Your Eating Issues

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com/eating-disorders-self-esteem-index2.html

Dr. Kathleen Fuller's Live Healthy

After completely my Continuing Education Courses for my up dated state license, I found the following information that shook me like a coming hurricane. So often when we’re young we are care free of health problems. I was. However, in your thirties health problems may begin to nip at your well being. Not enough maybe to stop and take notice. Yet, in your forties the body starts to break down a bit. It may even cry out in dramatic ways to get your attention.
Since knowledge plus experience can equal wisdom, I want to share what is on the cutting edge of health. You can gain love and wisdom. Of the two, love is the more important.

My hope is you’ll take what you can of this information, and apply it with passion and love for a continued quality of life for yourself and your loved ones or your future children.

I have included the following book reviews and a link to Amazon. I believe the reviews cover the advantages of this product. When I find an outstanding book, I want to share it. And —I make zero on this product except good karma.

Research has been going on since the 1920’s, Professor Bouic has been researching the exact combination of sterls and sterlins found in Moducare for over a decade. Plant sterols and sterlins became available in CANADA in 1998 and the US the following year. There has been extensive testing and clinical trials. The work of Professor Bouic and others has been published in prestigious, peer-reviewed international medical journals.

I am surprised that my alternative doctors were unaware of this product. It is now 2010.

Now you can have this information and act on it by going to www.moducare.comand ordering this pioneer product for strengthening your immune system that effects & interacts with every other system of your body.

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A Must Have Health Book —- Book Reviews Follow

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
Suffered for over 2 years until reading this book!, September 16, 2000

By A Customer
This review is from: The Immune System Cure: Optimize Your Immune System in 30 Days-The Natural Way! (Paperback)
Outstanding book if you have an auto immune disease. I have an auto immune disease known as Weber-Christian disease and spent 2 years suffering before finally being diagnosed correctly. Once I had been diagnosed, I was told there was nothing that could be done for me – that it wasn’t a life threatening disease and that it would just come and go periodically, so I needed to just learn to live with it. After reading this book and following the advice, I am on the way to being cured and am feeling 100% better. In a couple of months (2), I’ve gone from having to stay in bed taking pain killers to leading a normal life again, virtually pain free!! I am only 37 years old and was not ready to just lie down and give up. This book has been a life saver for me. I highly recommend it to anyone with an auto immune disorder.

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
The Immune System Cure, January 6, 2000

By A Customer
This review is from: The Immune System Cure: Optimize Your Immune System in 30 Days-The Natural Way! (Paperback)
I was thrilled to get this book. I have terrible allergies to cats, horses and dogs. I could never visit the house of someone with pets and I have spent most of my life with a chronic head cold. After reading The Immune System Cure I started taking the supplements recommended for my allergies and within days I was able to tolerate animals. As well after reading the first five chapters I realized that I was not only allergic to pets but also to sulphites found in wine and beer and also wheat. Before reading this book I was not aware how nutrition and stress affect our immune system. I was shocked to learn that as little as 1 teaspoon of sugar can turn off our natural killer cells, the cells that fight cancer and viruses, for up to six hours. As well simple diet changes have made a tremendous difference in my health. I now eat as many fruits and vegetables as I can and I include good fats and oils and I have stopped eating margarine and processed oils. I have so much energy. I never realized how exhausting my allergies really were until I no longer was affected by them. The best thing about the book is that it is all based on research. People will be able to take it to their doctor and the doctor will not ignore it. All the recommendations are based on published research and plenty of human research trials are included. The authors also tell us that we may have an underactive immune system as seen in cancer and infectious disease but people like me may have an overactive immune system and may need to balance it out. Anyone with autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, or MS will really appreciate a fresh approach to treating their disease. And I can’t say enough about how thankful I was to learn that my allergies are caused by my immune system. Now I know that a antihistamine is only a bandaid and The Immune System Cure offers treatments that get directly at the cause of the immune dysfunction. I have read hundreds of books on allergies and none have taught me what I needed to know to be free of my allergies. Bravo to the authors.

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
This program really works!, August 5, 2000

By Rebecca Quick (Littlerock, CA USA) – See all my reviews

This review is from: The Immune System Cure: Optimize Your Immune System in 30 Days-The Natural Way! (Paperback)
I have been taking the Moducare Sterinols recommended in this book for about 6 weeks. The Chronic Fatigue that I’ve had for most of my life has disappeared! I lost 10 pounds without trying. I find that my interest in sweets has gone to nothing. My taste runs to raw veggies and fruits, which I would hardly touch before. I am a total believer in this product, and have learned a lot by reading this book.

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
Immune System Explained, January 13, 2000

By A Customer
This review is from: The Immune System Cure: Optimize Your Immune System in 30 Days-The Natural Way! (Paperback)
This book is full of information explaining how the immune system works and how different diseases/syndromes put it out of balance. It discusses in depth medical topics, but is still easy reading for non medical people. I read this book 2 month ago and I now have many weapons in my arsenal for maintaining my health and supporting my immune system. My only concern with this book is that there may be a conflict of interest with respect to the product “Moducare”. Sometimes I got the feeling that the book is pushing the product. —However it is a good product and I am currently taking it with noticable (but subtle) results… Overall, this book is worth reading and will give you the positive attitude and the tools to take charge of your health.

Not Your Mother's Diet: The Cure for Your Eating Issues By Dr. Kathleen Fuller

http://www.notyourmothersdiet.com/eating-disorders-self-esteem-index2.html