Sugar - Is it Meant for Human Consumption? An Interview with Dr. Jody Stanislaw

On Curb the Binge, we forgive the past, learn from it, and look to the present and the future. This podcast is less about the binging behavior, and more about where we are going, how we are evolving out of old patterns into new territory, and what tools we can use to empower ourselves in the direction of our heart's longing and our soul's actualization. 

Numerology can be one of these tools. I met Felicia Bender at a party several months ago, and after witnessing a presentation she gave on the life path numbers, I knew I needed to bring her on this podcast. 

What is numerology? Hans Decoz says, "The Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Hebrews, Egyptians, Phoenicians, early Christians, Mayans and Incas all employed number systems to gain a deeper understanding of themselves and the universe." 

Simply put, numerology is the study of the energy and vibration of numbers - the specific, unique frequency that each number holds, and how paying attention to this numerical information in our birthdays, names, and our environment, can give us practical, applicable, and exceedingly valuable information about our lives. 

And while it may seem woo-woo, just think about how pervasive numbers and mathematics are in an increasingly computerized world. All that code is written in numbers, and Pythagoras, the same historical figure who delineated the geometric facts you learned in high school - also compiled the mathematical disciplines of the Arabic, Druid, Phoenician, Egyptian and Essene (1) sciences to create the form of numerology most often used today. 

My guest Felicia Bender has a Ph.D. in Theater, brings an incredible liveliness to her teaching of the life path numbers, and has written two books and many more materials on this subject. She's so fun to listen to, and today, she not only discusses each of the life path numbers (so you'll be sure to hear about yours); she also teaches you how to calculate your life path number in a snap. 

Tom Cartwright is the Founder of Cartwright Coaching & one of Australia’s leading coaches for substance abuse such as alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. His passion for working with clients to
overcome addiction and live a life of choice has been fueled from his own inspiring story.

In this podcast, Tom tells us how he's navigated the journey from his own addictions to alcohol and gambling, to a life of meaning, purpose and fulfillment. Find out how he's overcome his own shadows - including the fear of success - along the way. 

Here are just some of the things you'll learn: 

• The connection between addiction and shame. 
• What is "toxic shame"?
• Why recovery and healing is not a straight line. 
• The power of making a decision.
• Why allowing yourself to live your best life must come before healing addiction. 
• How to get clear and honest about our comfort zones and how they are playing into our addictive patterns. 
• Why transitioning from surviving to thriving is a huge step to congratulate ourselves for and be patient with ourselves through. 
• Developing a healthy relationship with fear. 
• How our primitive brain and tribal instincts challenge our drive to thrive. 
• The beauty (and effectiveness) of baby steps. 
• A powerful metaphor for how to up-level the way we relate with change. 
• Shooting for higher-quality problems. 
• How to build self-trust. 

When it comes to addiction, astrology is a rich place to look for answers. While everyone's astrological birth chart is unique, and there are many configurations and signatures that could point to the potential of or tendency towards addiction, one looming theme bears mentioning: that of Neptune. 

Neptune is the planet that represents the ocean of consciousness, the field into which the individual soul dissolves and we are all One.  Perhaps this reads like a total abstraction, or perhaps you have had some of your own personal experience of this, even if it was just a glimpse. 

And, even if it does read like an abstraction, there are elements of Neptune we can all relate to. Neptune is the planet that rules higher states of consciousness - states sometimes reached through meditation, yoga, and prayer, but can also be reached for some by walking alone in nature, creating music and/or art, and other beautiful doorways into our own mystical vastness. 

It's also the planet that teaches us - and represents - transcendent, unconditional love. 

These so-called "elevated states" are a requisite for living a healthy and happy human life, though some of us need more, some of us need less, and the doorways to get there are many. One person's way of achieving existential bliss is not the doorway for the next person. That is all well and good.

Yet, sadly, when we don't know of any healthy way to merge with our infinite nature, the all-too-easy doorways begin to look appealing: enter addiction in all its forms. 

As life-preserving as authentic Neptunian fulfillment can be, the delusion/addiction side of Neptune can be equally destructive, effectively blocking our access to true happiness and fulfillment. 

In this episode, astrologer Valeria Torres and I explore this archetype of Neptune, going deep into its symbology, the gift of being a "Neptunian person," as well as some techniques for balancing the shadow sides of this archetype. 

A strong Neptune can give us the ability to create truly inspired and inspiring things in this world - but only if we anchor ourselves enough to bring the gifts from other realms, into this one. 

Valeria Torres, also known as AstroVal, has been pouring her soul into the esoteric subjects since she remembers. She truly reconnected with herself through astrology and so sharing this ancient wisdom has become her life purpose. She offers astrology sessions, teaches for an online astrology school and has hosted various workshops and retreats on the subject.

Valeria’s goal is to connect you to a deeper level to help you heal and understand the nature of your soul through self-love and compassion, while creating an atmosphere for transformation with her coaching skills. She says: We are here to shine our own light through self-acceptance. She believes that once we recognize who we truly are, the gifts and challenges we incarnated with, we will align with our unlimited potential. 

Forgiveness is an essential tool for freeing up energy, taking back our creative power, and living our fullest lives. 

So many of us think we've forgiven when, in fact, we've just buried our resentments. 

This leaves us drained and cut off from our full potential, and, often, not knowing why. 

Dara McKinley has dived deep into this work to discover how we can really, truly forgive. 

Dara experienced her own big betrayal some years ago, and she found herself unable to let go of the hurt and resentment it left her with. Her life was impacted - with cyclical thoughts and the eventual development of a "mystery illness." Dara found herself in a perfect storm of physical and emotional turmoil that spurred her to look for answers. She began to research forgiveness, then implemented what she learned in what came to be a successful 3-week forgiveness journey that left her feeling completely liberated from her burden of hurt and resentment.

She's turned her research into a methodology which she calls, simply, "How to Forgive." According to her, once you know how to do it, you can use this methodology anywhere, anytime, with anyone or anything. 

We focus the second part of the show on how to apply forgiveness to eating disorders and our often delicate relationships with ourselves. 

In this talk, we dive into: 

• What forgiveness is and why it's important. 
• What betrayal is and how to know whether you have been betrayed. 
• Dara's own story of betrayal, how she connects it to a "mystery illness" she developed, and how she eventually found her path of healing. 
• The biggest misunderstanding folks have about forgiveness. 
• What is the difference between forgiveness and compassion? 
• What is the difference between forgiveness and bypassing? 
• The inner work of forgiveness and why it's so powerful.  
• How does forgiveness apply, on the eating disorder path? 
• How do the steps for forgiving ourselves differ from and overlap with the steps for forgiving others? 

A Little Bit About Dara: 

Dara McKinley, MA possesses an unwavering curiosity for emotional health, spirituality, and the practical  intersection of these two worlds. Her passion has led to a 15 year career in human services which includes an M.A. in Contemplative  Psychology from Naropa University, and a private counseling practice. In 2007 she began a 10 year journey studying the feminine essence with renowned divine feminine teachers, and through tracing back and studying her own indigenous roots. 

Dara has created and facilitated workshops and retreats, but today she is devoted to raising up a modern, and dogma-free forgiveness path called How to Forgive. She defines forgiveness as “a spiritual experience that heals betrayal,” and asserts that forgiveness mastery is core to the success of feminine power.

Register for her course at https://howtoforgive.com/ref/16/

Dr. Jody Stanislaw is a licensed Naturopath (N.D.) with Type 1 Diabetes. 

She has devoted much of her life and her medical practice to finding out - through research and experience - effective ways to heal the ravages of sugar, and how to return blood sugar to its healthy, balanced state. 

Because the ravages of chronic high blood sugar include, and are not limited to: 

- heart disease
- kidney failure
- strokes
- gangrene 
- blindness 
- limb amputation 
- violent behavior

.... and more. But even before that, way before that, unstable blood sugar can cause many seemingly silent yet debilitating symptoms -such as chronic tiredness, lack of motivation, and mood issues. 

In her TEDx talk - which has received over half a million views in 8 months - Dr. Jody explains how chronic sugar consumption affects the body over time - even if we don't feel its effects. 

She explains the actual process as it occurs in the pancreas, and how sugar affects the finite store of beta cells that we come into this world with - and can't live without. 

She shares some stunning facts and statistics - such as the fact that chronic sugar consumption creates as much damage to the brain as as abuse done in childhood. And the fact that, if we keep eating sugar at this rate, within a few decades, 1 in 3 people will have Type 2 diabetes. 

And, perhaps most stunningly, that so many of the maladies affecting us today can be eliminated simply by eating less sugar. 

We talk about these and other facts on our show today. But we also delve into Dr. Jody's own history with binge eating, and talk about the piece of advice her aunt Mary (a therapist) gave her when her struggles were at their worst. 

Jody reminds us that, because of the highly addictive property of sugar, for many the proposition of cutting it out entirely in one go is impossible. She discusses how she works with clients in this position, and also shares an approach she uses for working with the emotions that tend to accompany binge eating, sugar addiction and food addiction.  

This is a gentle, compassionate approach she introduces even before making any changes to the diet. 

I love Dr. Jody's holistic approach to the large-looming dilemma of food addiction and sugar addiction worldwide, and hope you will too. 

Andrew Pearce is a life coach who specializes in helping us Humans understand the roots of our behavior. As he says, when we clearly see why we behave in a certain way that is not bringing us the results we want, we are gifted the freedom to change it. 

When it comes to addiction, Andrew talks about the freedom of choice in a way that can wake an addict up and give us the courage to take the future - and our wellbeing and recovery - back into our own hands. 

How and why have we chosen to give our power away in the first place? 

In this podcast, you'll hear about: 

• How to identify, heal and clear blocks to in service of taking more aligned action and being able to receive more in our lives. 
• Andrew's understanding of the mechanism behind self-sabotage. 
• The difference between "safe problems" and "risky problems" - an incredibly potent and empowering distinction. 
• A detailed example of unpacking how we may unconsciously create our problems to get our core needs met. 
• A new way of looking at the word "responsibility," that has the power to change how we approach that concept within ourselves. 
• The relationship between responsibility and freedom. 
• How we can tip the scale between our old stories, towards taking full responsibility, in the service of taking constructive action in our lives. 
• How we give our power away and what we are getting in return. 
• The adult growth model: functional and dysfunctional versions of reliance, rebellion, results and realization. 
• Briefly, how inner child work can fit into the big picture of our recovery. 
• Becoming conscious of how we put energy behind certain thoughts. 
• How at the bottom of every behavior is the perfectly natural, understandable desire to feel safe and feel loved. How can we love this desire and the behavior, en route to ultimately taking back our power and having choice in our reality? 
• What is the key to stop needing our problems? 

Bonus quote from this podcast episode: "We can't hate ourselves into a version of ourselves that we love."  - Lori Deschene

Life designer, author, coach, host of The You-Est YOU Podcast and multi-time TEDx speaker Julie Reisler talks with Curb the Binge about her journey from people-pleasing and emotional eating to living a life that honors her authentic self. 

Julie's relationship with food was the catalyst that showed her that something wasn't right - at the time, her MO was wearing a mask of perfection that felt very far away from how she truly felt inside. 

Taking the courageous and honorable step of getting to know her authentic self, Julie embarked on a journey that led to massive inner work, personal transformation, and ultimately helping others find their authentic selves. 

Julie walks the talk. 

In this interview, you will hear: 

- An example of how our inner blockages can manifest as physiological ailments that we can choose to regard as precious messages on our path. 

-  How we can embrace and integrate all of the various pieces of who we are (most of us have so many different passions and talents!) and still be effective and make a living. 

- How is your relationship with food related to listening - and not listening - to your inner voice? 

- Food addiction - is the answer biochemical or emotional? 

- How to work with the fear that can come up when we are guided by our inner voice to do something risky or illogical. 

- How to make peace with personal growth as a process that humbles us again and again, and can leave us feeling like we are "falling on our own sword," even and especially when we are in a leadership role. 

- The awesome thing Julie did with a group of friends that swept inspiration and transformation into her life. 

- And more! 

PLUS, there is a very special gift for every single listener at the end of this podcast, so very generous of Julie and we are so blessed to receive. Listen for the details. 

Jenn Edden is a coach on a mission, and her book, "Woman Unleashed: A Sensitive Woman's Guide to Radiant Energy and Unstoppable Confidence (Including a 21-Day Plan to Kick Sugar's Hold on You)" is a tour-de-force. 

A self-identified recovering sugar-a-holic turned sugar addiction expert, Jenn shares Curb the Binge's passion for aligning how we eat, with the success we want to achieve in life. 

In this podcast, you'll learn about: 

• The major unexpected life event that was such a wake-up call for Jenn, she changed her whole life around and never looked back. 
• What is a "sensitive woman" and how do you know if you are one? 
• How sugar addiction inadvertently played a role in Jenn unleashing her own life. 
• An effective (and fun!) way to get from where you are to where you want to be in life. 
• A powerful tool to stop spinning your wheels and get solutions oriented, in a way that's fast and fun. 
• A new way to look at worrying that will help you release this totally unhelpful habit. 
• A quote to help you let go of the person you think you have been (and all the guilt and shame around that), and see yourself clearly for the person you are today.
• And so much more!

Jenn is also a mom of 3, an adventurer, an advocate for doing only the things that feel good, and the kind of woman you want on your team, forever. Her work is SOOOO unshaming and empowering. 

For more info on Jenn, quick tips on how to get control of your sugar addiction, and grab a copy of Jenn’s book: Woman Unleashed, visit www.jecoaching.com.

Food is considered by some - and for some - to be a "keystone habit." Coined by Charles Duhigg, a keystone habit is a habit that leads to the development of other good habits. Getting 8 hours of sleep per night, for instance, is a keystone habit. 

For many, organizing our food (and, I would add, solving for addictive behaviors around food) is also a keystone habit. 

When we begin to clean up our food, we may notice ourselves waking up to other parts of our life that we feel ready to clean up. One of the biggies that can come up here is, you guessed it - Money. 

Bari Tessler is a pioneer of her unique style of money work, which brings her background in somatic psychology (body psychology) into the financial picture by leading her students to do their emotional money work first, before they dive in to organizing the numbers. 

Concepts like forgiveness, completions, ritual, and money stories play a big part in Bari's approach to money work. In my opinion, her integrative approach is what makes her courses, podcasts, blogs, and other offerings, so effective. 

In this episode, I interview Bari about: 

• Her own history and relationship with food
• Parallels between food work and money work 
• Her favorite, astonishingly simple tool for greater money awareness
• What are money practices? And how are they an act of self-care?  
• Moving from secrecy to transparency in our money lives 
• The first two steps for moving from disempowerment to empowerment around money

Bari's gentle and effective approach is perfect for anyone who ever feels overwhelmed by the vast subject of money. 

Here's her official bio: 

Bari Tessler Linden, M.A., is a Financial Therapist, Mentor Coach, Mama-preneur, and the Founder of The Art of Money. She has guided thousands of people to new, empowered, and refreshingly honest relationships with money through her nurturing, body-centered approach. 

Her work has been featured on Oprah.com, Inc.com, and the Huffington Post and in US News & World Report, Reuters Money, The Fiscal Times, USA Today, The Cut, Girlboss, Nerd Wallet, The Simple Dollar, REDBOOK Magazine and Experience Life Magazine.

Bari earned a Masters in Somatic Psychology from Naropa University and worked in body-centered therapy for over a decade before unexpectedly falling in love with bookkeeping systems and money work. Her unique methodology integrates these two worlds into deep money healing that honors all the facets of our money relationships: body to spirit, lineage to career, smart practices to deep visioning, and much more.

Bari is currently leading a global conscious money movement via her year-long program, The Art of Money, which weaves together personal, couple and entrepreneurial money teachings. Bari is also the author of The Art of Money: A Life-Changing Guide to Financial Happiness, published by Parallax Press. To learn more about Bari and enjoy her Pocket Map for Your Money Road Trip: A 7 day journey into The Art of Money Method, visit: http://baritessler.com/