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Discovering your passion will almost guarantee your recovery.  It’s pretty hard to be living a heart-centered life which is full of everything you intensely love, while you’re continuing to throw up and/or not eat.

I received by email this morning a beautiful piece by Dr. Neil F Neimark from the The BodySoulConnection.  I want to share this with all of you!

What Is Your Passion?
 
Developing a passion for doing good in the world is one of the keys to living a vital and healthy life. But just how do we go about doing that? And just what does it mean to be passionate?

To answer this question, let’s look at the meaning of the word, “passion.” The Latin root for the word “passion” means “to suffer.” In this sense, true passion means that in pursuing our own fullness of expression, we may suffer (by experiencing failure, rejection, loss or pain).

But, really, who among us wants to suffer?

No one really, but the key is this: It is only in our willingness to suffer (struggle) in pursuit of our values and dreams, that we unlock the hidden strength and vitality that helps us find meaning and fulfillment beyond our suffering.
Let me illustrate for you the healing power of living passionately with an inspiring story told by Bernie Siegel M.D., in his book Peace, Love & Healing.

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A Beautiful Way of Honoring the Integrity of the Body, Clarity of the Mind, and Beauty of the Soul

This is the first of a series of articles where I will explain the types of alternative therapies that are used in the holistic treatment of eating disorders, why they’re used and, their effectiveness.

I have worked in the field of treating eating disorders for almost 18 years.  In those 18 years I have experienced times of great joy as I’ve watched the miracle of a patient’s healing unfold before my eyes. I have also had times of deep sadness as I watched hundreds of women with eating disorders relapse repeatedly. Treatment teams are frequently dismayed, families are in debt for thousands of dollars, and patients themselves feel as if they’ve failed yet one more time.

I became aware early on as an eating disorder therapist that the medical model of treatment, which is cognitive-behavioral therapy and nutritional education with some equine therapy tossed in occasionally, simply doesn’t work.  Stuart Agras (1993) stated that only 32% of all people who have had eating disorder treatment are eating disorder free after a year.  This is simply not good enough!

It was when I was studying for my PhD at Saybrook in San Francisco that I finally figured out what was missing.  Attention to what I call my holy trinity – mind, body, spirit was missing.  In the medical model of eating disorder treatment, the body and the spirit were left out!

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What a dilemma!  Now I’m reading in my local paper today (8/7/09) that despite the dramatic upsurge in obesity over that last 20 years, only 17% of all Americans thought obesity was a major problem.  33% claimed obesity was a minor problem and 49% claimed that it was no problem at all!

The CDC said that only one state, Colorado, has a prevalence of obesity of less than 20%.  32 states had prevalences of 25% or greater, and 6 of those states had 30% of their population qualifying as morbidly obese.  Statistics also show that almost 63% of all Americans, while not obese, are overweight!

These discrepancies make me wonder if I’m going crazy!  With a full 82% of the population believing that obesity is either not a problem or maybe a minor problem, I’m filled with a kind of hopelessness.

Education has always been thought to be the answer, according to 75% of the population.  This means that the nutritional educational programs that are in schools, health clubs, workshop programs at hospitals, girl scouts and boy scouts, and many other venues are either not working or are not bringing the kind of public awareness to the population that is needed for a change to occur.

On the same internet page where I found the today’s article were five ads for different diets and treatments to lose weight.  We know that diets don’t work.  It seems that education isn’t working very much either.

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