Guest Author Rhianne Newland joined a class to let go of sugar as an addictive pattern in her life. She explains sugar’s deep appeal, and what she’s found as a satisfying alternative.
I have always looked for sweetness. Like a bee, I go to it: the beauty of a flower, the blue of the sky, the song of a bird.
The sweetness of loving true connection with other people is a deep longing that is always present in me. Perhaps this is the longing I find the most difficult to appease, a communion with other human beings that is deeply fulfilling. When this sweetness is not available, it is natural for me to get upset, sad and depressed.
From childhood, I felt this. It began with being fed formula from the first cry, never for an instant being given the warm hearted breast of mothers milk, and her colostrum. Never feeling that skin on skin connection, not even once.
As a young child, sugar became my mother. “She” was my sweetness. I did not know what she was then, just that it felt good to eat her, to be filled with her.
Sugar on trix in the morning, because my mother never got up to make breakfast. Sugar for snacks, sugar and more sugar. Birthday cakes, cupcakes the baby sitter made. It seemed that all the best times, were connected to the sweetness, of sugar.
When I stopped growing at the age of sixteen, I went from being a skinny girl to being overweight overnight. My parents freaked out. We were an upper middle class family who were very concerned with “appearances”.
At sixteen, starting to feel fat, I went to a family gathering for the holidays. There, a distant cousin of mine who was an actress in New York, told me she could help me to stay thin. She took me into the bathroom, and showed me how to throw up. She said all the actresses did this. I thought is was pretty disgusting.
Shortly after, I was at a friend of mines home. She was from a wealthy family, and her mother looked like a model/movie star. That night, her parents came home from an evening out, and my friend made a comment “Oh, now my mom is going to go and throw up”.
I gathered this was how her mom stayed slim after a party. At that point, I figured this was just a way to stay thin, so I started to do it. A nightmare, my sugar addiction kicked in and I gorged, knowing I could just “get rid of it”.
All of my pent up anger, feelings of being neglected and abused surfaced. Not to mention that I was feeling highly sexual, and since I started this behavior, I had lost weight and looked amazing!
I was exercising like a maniac, my mother took me to her hairdresser who made my hair a tantalizing shade of red, and I had a big budget for clothes. A typical valley girl! I attracted a lot of men. I had no idea how to handle this. It only made me feel more frightened, and led to eating more sugar.
After a bad short marriage to a rock and roll singer, I went to the mountains in Colorado, it was there that I found my first spiritual path and therapy. I began to understand things, to make a connection with my inner being, to find sweetness on the inner, rather than the outer.
Life went forward, I re-married, and created a more stable environment. My spiritual path fulfilled some of my longing. But still, I felt a loneliness that could not be filled.
One day, standing on a very special red rock formation in Sedona, I prayed and called out very sincerely. I really asked for the “magic” to come into my life. For me, the magic was a way of being, loving, living laughing and playing that made the beauty of life deep and rich. Like an experience I had had as a child when my imagination was bright.
Where had the magic gone? Everyone seemed so busy, pressured, overwhelmed, and without time to play, to connect, to go into a place of joy.
It was then, on that mountain top, that a feminine presence came to me. This presence felt so sweet, so loving, and I could hear a voice from within begin to speak to me: “If you follow my guidance, I will bring the magic back to you.” It was at that time, I was guided to bring together my women friends in a new way, a way of sacred “play.”
As I opened to this feminine presence, I felt activated, creative, enthusiastic and ignited in a way never before experienced. When I sat with my women friends, this presence of the feminine came through me, and I found a gift for facilitating magical groups, bringing this essence into a room, so everyone could feel it. That evening, we experienced connection, and a way of being together that was pure magic.
I had found my calling. As a result, my craving for sugar has diminished, and my creativity has flourished, and I have connected to hundreds of people all over the world because of this journey.
But, it is a full time vigilance, to stay connected to this sweet, nourishing presence. When I lose the connection, I go right back to sugar! Right back to an old habit that seems so much easier, yet, in truth, is so much harder. This sugar binge class is helping me regain my connection.
The Divine Feminine is just a few words to explain something that is beyond words. People use the word Goddess, Mother earth, Divine Feminine, and many others, to say a similar thing. It is my devotion to bring awareness of this feminine presence back to the hearts of humanity.
The balancing of the true masculine and true feminine is the direction to harmony. It is the misalignment and disharmony, that makes me crave sweetness and get crazy. I continue my journey, day by day, and step by step. But having the nurturing, powerful, loving presence of the Divine Feminine within me, is a saving grace that grows over time.
Perhaps I will always have a struggle to release the habit of sugar. But somehow, I feel that we are in a time when, if we choose, there is going to be a lot of spiritual support for us to go beyond what has limited us. Since the beginning of time, Humans have turned to a “Divine Mother” and honored this symbol as the giver of life. This I do as well, in an intimate and personal way. I find Her wisdom, invaluable. I wish this sweetness for everyone.
