Hello to all of you!
This issue of Mirasol’s newsletter is once again full of news about recovery! I love to talk about recovery and to teach you different ways of approaching your personal recovery and healing. I’ll continue to talk about different forms of healing as time goes on. There is not one form of healing in life that fits everyone! This is why at Mirasol we use such a wide variety of therapies and modalities to help people heal. This is why our treatment is so individualized – not one kind of treatment works for everyone! Each person needs to be honored and treated with dignity and respect for being who they are, just as they are.
And of course, I’ll end with one of our delicious recipes!
I know this newsletter is long – but sometimes I can’t help myself when I want you to have ALL of the information.
As you all know, Mirasol is located in Tucson, Arizona. We have a heritage of native American culture that has deep roots in the history of the Southwest. As a result, a part of our everyday world is rich in Native American beliefs and rituals. Many Native American traditions such as the medicine wheel, vision quests, the sweatlodge, and the sun dance to mention just a few, are still prevalent today among the tribes of the southwest.
Before the advent of physicians, tribes needed traditional Native American healers to help cure them when they were ill. Traditional Native American healers see becoming well as a journey. Most native people believe that all healing is ultimately spiritual healing, and that the integration of mind, body, and spirit is crucial to getting well.
I thought that many of you would find the medicine wheel of interest. It is something that each one of us can adopt in our lives to help us heal. Inspired by the healing philosophy of the Native American culture, we can travel around the medicine wheel to address spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental well-being.
Warmly,
Jeanne Rust, M.C., C.P.C. Founder
and Executive Director Mirasol
-Mary Summer Rain’s Guide to Dream Symbols
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Physical (North)
Knowledge and Enlightenment (East)
Spiritual (South)
Introspective Thought (West)
What is medicine? It is a healing, teaching, enlightening, spiritual energy. We learn, grow, and change by allowing each person, place, object or experience to teach us. If we see our relationship to other people, objects and situations as mirrors to what is going on within our own minds, anything that occurs can carry a lesson for us.
Draw a circle – either on a large sheet of paper or eventually you might want to make a large wheel out of stones in your garden. Divide it into four parts or into the four directions. There are lessons to be learned from each direction. You can use the medicine wheel to begin your own recovery, to begin to change how you view yourself and the eating disorder, and to begin to believe that you truly can become completely well.
The North represents the physical.
It is also the time of the winter. When I am in the North, I must
- Take good physical care of myself.
- Regain balance in my life by developing an understanding of the important connection between the physical, psychological, spiritual and emotional part of my existence.
- Stop inflicting pain (physical or emotional) on myself or others.
- Come to understand that change is a process.
The East represents knowledge and enlightenment.
It is the time of Spring. When I am in the East, I must
- Reawaken to all of creation and all of the beauty that exists in the world around me.
- Make a commitment to release myself from a narrow view of life and begin to grow, learn and gain new knowledge.
- Remember that I have a sacred right to live my life as I wish and the need to bring harmony and balance to my existence by respecting the life rights of others.
- Work on understanding the changes I must make in order to achieve personal harmony, balance, and freedom.
- Come to an understanding of my special relation to Mother Earth.
- Come to an understanding of my special relation to Father Sky.
- Seek a greater understanding of my sacred connection to all of Nature.
- Reconnect with and nurture my own spirit.
The West represents introspective thoughts and emotions. It is the time of fall. When I am in the West, I must
- Speak honestly with myself.
- Look at my problems and my accomplishments with a willingness to commit myself to growth and change in a positive way.
- Examine the way in which I have tried to manipulate, control or manage the lives of others and make a commitment to stop this behavior.
- Acknowledge that change in my life must begin with me.
(Point to north again on illustration)
The North is a time of renewal of rebirth.
You have made a decision by being here to stop physically abusing your body. You have some out of a long sleep and are ready for rebirth.
- To begin your walk through the medicine wheel of recovery, you must start by recognizing the damage you are inflicting on your body. Starting today you will begin to make the changes you need to bring improved physical health.
- You will begin to see the entire picture of your life. This step is asking you to understand that physical well-being involves the need to become aware of the important connection between emotions, life stresses, sense of self and the effect these have on your physical health. If one looks only at a single part of life (for example, your eating symptoms), the total meaning becomes lost or obscured. Therefore, when one considers life, it is wise to step back and view the many different parts. In this way one can understand how experiences, feelings, health and dreams connect to and affect one another.
- Looking at the pain we have inflicted on ourselves and others.
- For those of us recovering from an illness, this step is very hard because we have been used to immediate gratification and the thought of going “through a process” can seem long, frightening and unfamiliar. People with eating disorders are not accustomed to “process living.” We have been used to going from crisis to crisis. We have been seldom aware of the causes of anger and distress and no formula exists for resolving a problem, let alone predicting an outcome. Understand that change takes time. You can’t expect miracles overnight, but you can expect them over time.
East is the direction of knowledge and enlightenment.
New day, new light, raising sun, new resolve. In the east we learn to expand our views and learn new ways. We discover or rediscover forgotten zest in living. Each day you can see new light as a chance to make positive change, to continue the process of growing and learning.
- This step means you as a recovered person must learn again to see the world around you. Perhaps you shut off your awareness of the world because it seemed ugly and painful. But in shutting out the pain, you also closed the door to beauty, positivity, and the awesomeness of creation. In this step you must again open your eyes, ears, and senses. Feel the coolness of a breeze, smell the flowers. Learn to see the beauty in other people. Begin to be again. Leave behind the eating disorder behaviors that hinder your growth and development as human being.
- This step challenges you to venture forth, begin to give up your narrow self-destructive view of life. Open yourself to a new path of learning, new ways of understanding and a new way to view yourself. In this step you will learn to go beyond your fear, to begin feeling you are worthwhile. You will develop new ways of solving problems, coping with change, dealing with stress and learn to have a life dream again.
- You have a right to be you. You do not have to play a role assigned to you by your family. You need to be mindful of your expression of self, and the boundaries of another. Growing and separating brings necessary grief to be processed as a natural part of growth and change. As we balance our rights, needs and desires with those of others, we will achieve a harmony that will allow us to grow and become fully human.
- The changes made in this step must move us away from the old, dysfunctional, destructive life patterns to new, balanced, functional ways of living. Fear must be replaced with a feeling of personal strength through the caring support of the self by the self and of the self by others. Cooperation must replace control. Love must replace self-hatred.
South is the direction of the spiritual.
We allow ourselves to feel warmth, comfort and closeness to the earth. We make a connection with a spiritual power greater than ourselves. It does not matter how you conceive of the power. What does matter is that every recovering person connects with a spiritual essence, a power greater than herself.
- Mother Earth is the female part. We see the earth as the mother of all living things. Earth herself is a living being. In becoming aware of our relationship to Mother Earth, we also begin to understand the healing qualities of it. Soil brings forth plants for food and shelter. The Earth will play a very important role in your recovery. The earth will heal you with her energy. Mother Earth will not reject you or demean you. She is eternally there for you if you reach out and touch her. Release your pain to Mother Earth and you will be rejuvenated and released.
- Father sky is the male part. Father Sky is wind, rain, snow, thunder and lightning, stillness, movement, clarity and clouds. He is the balance between the opposing forces (tornado or breeze). All the moods of Father Sky are within each of us. We must learn to express and experience both caring and anger that exists within each of us. In order for balance to occur, anger must be recognized and released. Gentleness, too, must have recognition and means by which it can be expressed. Sky teaches us how to protect our spirit from harm. In your recovery the sky will be a mirror for you, reflecting the many moods of humankind. As you consciously breather in life-giving air, you will be filled with awareness; you will grow to understand the connection between yourself and creation.
- We will learn humility. If we contemplate the infinity of the universe, we cannot help but feel humbled. The universe is creator and creation and each of us has the same universal energy within us. This energy is within the wind, moon, sun, and all creatures. This is our connection. We can continue to heal ourselves by sharing knowledge and love with others. This love must be given freely with no expectations. The love you expected in the past was not love at all; it was a cry to have emptiness filled. The emptiness could not be filled by anyone or anything because you had no self-love. (Like a bucket with no bottom). When the person realizes her sacred place in the universe love and support will act like rain on springtime soil and beautiful things will begin to grow.
- This step asks you to nurture your own spirit. To do this, you must connect with your inner self, and with the most private parts of you. You must be able to acknowledge your fears, desires, emotions, and feelings of distress. Think of your spirit as a child. See if the child needs love, reassurance or comforting. If that child needs comforting (spirit) and healing, you may need to touch the earth, let the pain be removed and in the process help your spirit/child be healed. (The inner child is really the spirit). If your child/spirit is lonely, you may need to speak with her more often. If you cannot reach her alone find someone who is non-judgmental and supportive.
West is the direction of introspective thought and emotion.
It is the sunset direction. It has elements of completion and transformation. When we are in the west, we need to acknowledge our accomplishments, review our problems, and gather the self-knowledge that will help you make positive changes. Look within yourself and be honest with what you find or see.
- Acknowledge the illness and be honest about other problems in your life. Stop suppressing feelings, stop turning off emotions and stop denying a problem exists.
- At this point in the medicine wheel, acknowledgment of both problems and accomplishments return balance to your life. Commitment to positive growth and change provides a path to healing.
- You need to review the ways in which you interact with others. Do you attempt to induce guilt in others so they won’t leave you? Do you do other manipulative things to keep control of others? If so, you need to make a commitment to stop this behavior. Your own recovery cannot progress until this behavior ceases. You need to stop attempting to manage others and focus on taking responsibility for your own life. Others cannot be blamed for the eating disorder, and they cannot be made responsible for your recovery.
- This step is an action step in which you empower yourself to make positive life changes. You need to acknowledge that no one can make your life changes for you. “Freedom from my eating disorder begins with me today.” Regardless of the problem in your past or present, changes in your life begin with you.
This is one of the fun parts of writing the newsletter – I get to pick my favorite recipes to give you!
The following recipe was developed by a former chef of ours, Margarita. For those of you who can't stand even the thought of eating tofu, this recipe proved to be one of the client’s favorites! Give it a try and let me know how you like it! Remember that you need a lot of tofu to equal 3-6 ounces of protein!
CHINESE TOFU STIR FRY
2 packages of tofu
Fresh ginger – 1-2 tablespoons finely chopped
1-2 heads Bok Choy
3 bunches green onions
soy sauce
Fry the sliced tofu until brown with the sliced ginger. Add green onions when the tofu is browned. Add chopped bok choy, white part first, then green. Add soy sauce and cook for a few minutes to blend. Serve over steamed rice, and salad of thinly sliced cucumbers and tomatoes.