Coming soon: Online Body Peace Support Forum! This will be an 8-week online event that will include a message system for support and feedback and a packet with journal work for each week!
Finding A Break In The Clouds is a workbook which can serve as a gentle guide and companion along your path of discovery/recovery. This innovative and ground breaking publication by Kyrai Antares clearly defines the theory and methodology of how she defeated both anorexia and bulimia.
If you would like to order the book, Finding a Break in the Clouds, just send your name, address & phone number to womanonearth@gmail.com.
To order a copy of "Finding a Break in the Clouds" using a credit card, payments are accepted over the phone 859-200-8013 or via email womanonearth@gmail.com.
Quote from the Garden City Observer (December 2, 2001), Dr. Alexander Sakeyfio, Coordinator of Beaumont Hospital's Eating Disorder Programs, "I thought it was very well written. Most of my patients who have looked at it have found it to be beneficial. The book (Finding a Break in the Clouds) is a good guide for people with eating disorders."
Outline of Contents
Chapter One: WAR! The first half of the author’s intense personal story of surviving anorexia/bulimia. Intimately describes the psychological, emotional, and behavioral aspects of anorexia/bulimia.
Chapter Two: Understanding the Invader. Includes an explanation of the progression of disordered eating patterns, a Declaration of War document, and an introduction to the idea of “the invader.”
Chapter Three: WAR! Part Two. The continuation of the personal story of the author. Illustrates some physical repercussions of anorexia/bulimia, and the process of re-feeding.
Chapter Four: Food: From Enemy To Ally. Changing the idea of food from a feared opponent into appreciated medicine for the healing body.
Chapter Five: Gentle Nutrition. A new re-feeding plan which uses natural, unprocessed, and simple food as medicine.
Chapter Six: What To Expect During Re-Feeding. Prepares the reader for the physical, psychological, and emotional challenges of re-feeding. Includes activities and exercises to assist in times of struggle.
Chapter Seven: Emotions: The Rescue Mission. Reminds the reader that the natural emotional state is self-love, introduces the invader’s thugs (Guilt and Shame) and the fear monster, assists in processing negative emotions, and reveals the secret weapon against the invader.
Chapter Eight: The House of Being. Expands the reader’s idea of “self” to include more than the physical body.
Chapter Nine: Recovery Insurance. Many creative ideas for relapse prevention, including the creation of a Relapse Prevention Kit.
Chapter Ten: Frequently Asked Questions. Answers to questions commonly asked in support groups facilitated by the author.
Chapter Eleven: Tips For Family and Friends. What to do, and what not to do, when trying to help. An inside view of the world of anorexia/bulimia useful in bridging the gap of understanding between those suffering, and their loved ones.
Chapter Twelve: Cloud Climbing. A challenge to “take it from here.” Among other activities, the reader writes a letter of good-bye to the disordered eating pattern, signs a peace treaty with the invader, and rewrites the story of her/his life.
Appendix A: Book Suggestion List
Review #1
There is a beautiful trait that many people, “the wounded healers,” someone has called them, share in common. Anyone who has dealt with 12-step programs, therapy situations, or other healing ministries learns quickly that those responsible for such programs are usually people who have needed help and support themselves. Because they have “been there” they seem to have a special calling to give in turn what they have received. This is true of Kyrai Antares, the author of Finding a Break in the Clouds, whose inviting subtitle reads, “A Gentle Guide and Companion for Breaking Free from an Eating Disorder.”
Ms. Antares establishes the fact in the very beginning of her excellent book that she has suffered the humiliating and painful tragedy of a serious eating disorder. She shares her experiences with her readers in a most open, frank, and loving way. She has more than sympathy for her readers, presumably people who live with what she calls “the invader,” anorexia/bulimia, and she is what her book promises, a gentle guide and companion, a friend who holds the reader’s hand through the valleys and rough places that are inevitable on the way to recovery.
Her own story is fascinating and terrible, but it is also encouraging and life-giving. “If I can do it, so can you,” she seems to say on every page, and that is the spirit in which the entire book is written. It is up-beat and uplifting, inspiring and practical. This reader found two features of the book exceptionally helpful: the first is the chapter entitled, “Understanding the Invader.” Here the author provides a graphic, scientific and interesting explanation of the progression of eating disorders. The section on re-programming the brain was especially good.
Chapter eleven, “Tips for Family and Friends” was especially meaningful to this reader. The common sense approach complete with very practical suggestions, although geared toward the needs of someone with an eating disorder, are what we all should use and put into practice no matter with whom we are dealing. The world would quickly turn into a more peaceable kingdom if all of us would be more generous with the affection and the attention so needed by our suffering brothers and sisters and which, for one reason or another, only the very generous among us seem able to lavish on others.
One final comment: this reader deeply appreciated the spiritual message found throughout the book. No one, the author rightly suggests, can overcome this Invader alone - God’s help is needed, as well as the help of loving family and friends. It is anything but a Pollyanna book. The road ahead for any person working on recovery is difficult, and Ms. Antares does not sugar-coat her message in any way. All through the book she speaks honestly, firmly, out of the strength she has unleashed in herself, gently from the grace and love which are her gifts.
It is highly recommended, not only for those suffering from an eating disorder, but for anyone suffering with or because of someone with an eating disorder - or any kind of disorder. Which is to say - the book is recommended to anyone who is fortunate enough to find it. It deserves a wide audience. I would like to see it in every library in the land!
-Mary Flynn
February, 2002
Review #2
43rd Book: Review Date June 25, 2002
Finding a Break in the Clouds: a gentle guide and companion for breaking free from an eating disorder by Kyrai Antares
2001 by Trafford (an on-demand publisher) 145 pages
With FINDING A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS, Kyrai Antares not only offers a route to those who suffer from eating disorders away from their malady, but also gives them a reason to believe that this route will work – because it did for her.
Bravely discussing her own sufferings of anorexia and bulimia, Kyrai explains from her heart, memory and journals, what one suffering from an eating disorder feels, from the time of full fledged disorder, to admitting the problem, to asking for help, and through the recovery process.
With the percentage of individuals who suffer some form or another of an eating disorder in this country, this is a good book, not only for those who know they’ve got a problem, but also for all parents, especially of young females, as an awareness guide. At 145 well-written pages, the book is a very quick, and engrossing, read. Antares gives great examples of what to look for as a relative or friend of somebody you suspect may have an eating disorder.
Antares specifically shares her story of both realizing she had a problem, and then that of the initialization of her road to recovery in chapters 1 and 3. These chapters are both frightening and mesmerizing. She hides nothing from those portions of life from her readers – knowing full well that doing so could harm the potential help of the book. The chapters are frightening in how they show just how determined one can be to hide the fact that they have an eating disorder, not only from others, but from themselves, and in explaining some of the effects an untreated eating disorder can have on your body. Organs, especially the kidneys and pancreas can be severely overworked by the most common disorder tactics.
Throughout the rest of the book, that gentle path to recovery that Antares provides, she continues to give brief looks at various points of her recovery, in shaded in paragraphs or pages which correspond to the portion of recovery she is discussing at that point. In each case, the reader is treated to another well-defined example of not only what somebody else has gone through, but what somebody who has recovered has gone through.
The recovery plan set forth makes sense, and it is filled with suggestions to avoid leaping into anything without consulting nutritionists and other experts. It is a natural healing based plan, not a medicinal one – this even with the repeated acknowledgements of depression involved as both a cause of, and response to, eating disorders.
The recovery plan includes not only a guideline, but has many interactive ideas such as journal topics, question & answer sessions, future planning topics and others which follow up on an early statement that Antares makes that the cause for suffering an eating disorder is different from individual to individual. These interactive tools help determine one’s individual cause and are to be used as an aid in the recovery process.
Again, while the book is certainly a great tool for those who suffer from eating disorders, and their friends and relatives, I think it would benefit anyone who takes the time to sit down with it.
4.5 stars
-Dan Wickett June, 2002
The Best Thing You Can Do For A Loved One
The most frequently asked question by the families and friends of people suffering from disordered eating pattern is: What can I do to help? This question is especially important because many of those suffering will not ask for help, or accept help when it is offered. In fact, most confrontations or inquiries about the disorder are met with fierce denial, anger, or withdrawal. This is all normal. The “invader,” as I have termed the disorder in my recovery/discovery system, will not easily give up it's territory. It has taken your loved one hostage. The prison is a garden of weeds. The invader convinces the person that she is a weed, and the person forgets that she is a beautiful, perfect flower. She forgets that there is nothing wrong with her.
The “invader” is a professional killer. It does no good to battle it in its own arena. Something new is required if freedom is to be attained. The best thing you can do for your loved one is to feed her flower food. The part of her you feed is the part of her that grows. The invader is feeding her weed food (negative self-talk, distorted body-image, paranoia). You must feed that part of her which knows she is perfect as she is; which knows she is a flower. Make a list of all of the things you love about this person. Take your time, and be thorough! Try to include things about all of her different aspects - not just her physical appearance. The point is to reach beyond the skin, into the heart, down to the soul. Think about the times you have seen her shine effortlessly. What was she doing? Does her smile make you smile? What have you seen her do that you could never do? Is she clever? Courageous? Creative? A dreamer?
Next, focus only on the things on your list. Feed what you love about her. Stop criticizing. Stop correcting. Stop fixing. (Stop doing these things to everyone; even strangers! Even yourself!) Remind her constantly of her flower-ness. Talk to her about it. This will feed the part of her which will eventually become strong enough to do battle with the invader. It will feed that in her which believes there is nothing wrong with her. It will feed the inherent greatness which has been there all along. And what you feed is what grows.
It takes time. It takes patience. It takes courage. The fruit of the new garden doesn’t appear overnight. You must trust. You must believe. And one day in the future, when you least expect it, there will emerge in the garden a new bloom. And when this new bloom arrives, you and she will forget about all the weeds.
Note to Family & Friends: If you are worried for loved ones you think may have a disordered eating pattern give them this test, but do not ask for the results. Let them do it on their own. The idea is to plant a seed, which may help them slowly come to the idea that they may have an disordered eating pattern.
Circle True or False
I cannot eat a meal without worrying about its calorie or fat content.
True
False
I lie about what I eat.
True
False
I hide food and eat when no one else is around
True
False
I engage in purging behavior (induced vomiting, laxative use, diuretic use, over exercising).
True
False
I restrict my intake of food.
True
False
I am only happy when I am not eating, or I am not near food.
True
False
I avoid social functions when there is food involved.
True
False
I cannot remember the last time I ate without worrying about gaining weight.
True
False
I weigh myself at least once a day.
True
False
I have trouble concentrating because of fatigue, or distracting thoughts about food.
True
False
Even when I lose weight, I think I need to lose more.
True
False
I would rather die than gain weight.
True
False
Did you answer true to any of the above questions? If you did, this is a sign that you could have an disordered eating pattern. Each true answer is a reason to seek help. Talk to someone-your family, your counselor, your doctor, your friends.
