Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

“Child of Mine” by Ellyn Satter

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Subtitle: Feeding with Love and Good Sense

Recommended to me by: Michelle, The Fat Nutritionist

I want to learn more about healthy eating, so I looked up books at the library by Ellyn Satter, and this one came in first, which is why I read a book about feeding babies when I don’t have one.

I like Satter’s firm imperative to respect and trust a child’s physical autonomy. She says over and over that children will choose the foods they need and balance their food intake over a week even if a single day’s food does not look nutritionally balanced. Parents control what food is offered when, and children control what and how much they choose to eat. She also emphasizes that children come in different sizes and trying to control their eating to make them larger or smaller simply doesn’t work.

I hadn’t realized that eating is a set of physical skills that each baby has to learn. It requires coordinating all those jaw muscles and the swallow reflex, as well as learning to tolerate a variety of flavors and textures. Satter recommends a patient, gradual approach to teaching children these skills, with a firm (there’s that word again) expectation that the child will share mealtimes with the parents and learn to eat the offered foods eventually. She recommends fixed meal and snack times, with no “panhandling” for food in between.

All Satter’s advice is couched in firm terms. Don’t feed a baby honey for the first year because it might contain botulism spores. Don’t feed a baby wheat cereal for the first year because it might trigger gluten intolerance which is inconvenient. Do feed a baby barley cereal because it’s a more rarely used grain so it’s okay if the baby becomes intolerant of that. (She seems blithely unaware that barley contains gluten.)

I’m not a child and I’m not feeding a child, so I’m not sure how much of this book applies to me. I plan to read one of her books about eating for adults. At the same time, I find myself resistant to her firmness. We had family meals growing up, and that wasn’t a guarantee of healthy eating for me. My mother was eternally on a weight-loss diet, so there were other issues going on. I kept thinking there are more right ways to eat than Satter acknowledges, even while I appreciated her emphasis on autonomy and respect.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Dark Side of the Light Chasers” by Debbie Ford

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Subtitle: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams

I first read this book at least 10 years ago and found it life-changing in both positive and negative ways. Yes, it’s useful to look within myself for qualities I struggle with in others. Yes, it’s useful to acknowledge that we include all qualities, both wanted and unwanted.

No, it’s not useful to believe that I can control others through that process. The author says, “We must choose interpretations that move our lives forward rather than leave us feeling alone and helpless.” Years ago, I read that as a command, as well as self-blame if I felt alone and helpless. Now I see the author’s avoidance of the qualities of aloneness and helplessness, as well as the effects of her privilege and wealth, insulating her from events she truly does not control.

This book contains a lot of practical information and exercises about projection. It’s worth reading with caution to see which ideas work for you. The point of acknowledging projection is to reduce internal pain and suffering, not add more because you don’t get the magical external results the author describes.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Stone Lions” by Gwen Dandridge

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Recommended to me by: Knowing the author and reading early drafts long ago

I expected this book to feel a little repetitive since I read so many early drafts. Instead, it was riveting! I found myself not wanting to stop to go to bed, and wanting to pick it up again the next morning instead of working. (I did exercise some self-discipline.)

I sent off that copy to my sister for her kids, and ordered a few more to give to families with kids of the right age. I love that it centers on girl and women characters, as well as teaching about Muslim culture, the Alhambra, and a little math.

The only issue I had is that even though characters advocate for mercy toward the villain, we only see him acting in evil ways. In my experience, the worst villains are nice most of the time, especially to people with more power. One-note evil breaks my suspension of disbelief more than mathemagics.

Highly recommended for girls, boys, and anyone who is tired of the same old tropes in fantasy.

Content Note: Some cruelty to small animals, and off-stage violence at the end, so not appropriate for very young readers.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Body Has a Mind of Its Own” by Sandra Blakeslee and Matthew Blakeslee

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Subtitle: How Body Maps in Your Brain Help You Do (Almost) Everything Better

This book contains fascinating information about how the brain represents the body in various maps, giving us our sense of where we are and what our body parts are doing. We include tools in our body map as we use them. Mirror neurons internally echo what we see others doing. Place cells and grid cells help us orient to the space around us.

Unfortunately, this mother-son team of authors play fast and loose with scientific research and include their personal biases and speculation. In the acknowledgements at the end they say, “[W]e have vastly oversimplified the science. […] Certain details and caveats that a specialist would consider vital have been condensed, glossed over, or shoehorned into metaphors.”

Even though the book was published in 2007 it reads as if it was published much longer ago than that. It promulgates fat-hatred and dieting. It uses outrageously out of date stereotypes about autistic people. It attempts to justify homophobia because of mirror neurons. It discusses invasive research on monkeys without compassion for their suffering.

I’m very interested in scientific discoveries about the brain. I wish I could trust what this book said about it.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Mood Cure” by Julia Ross

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Julia Ross theorizes that deficiencies in certain amino acids cause emotional symptoms, and taking supplements, as well as generally eating more protein, can quickly and completely resolve most mood problems.

The book is clearly and carefully written, with a lot of “if you experience this, try that” advice. It starts with a Mood-Type questionnaire, and continues with a chapter on each type and what helps.

  1. Under a dark cloud: low in antidepressant serotonin
      main solution: 5-HTP in the afternoon and evening

  2. Suffering from the blahs: low in stimulating catecholemines or thyroid
      main solution: L-tyrosine between meals

  3. Overwhelmed by stress: Low in tranquilizing GABA
      main solution: GABA when stressed

  4. Too sensitive to life’s pain: low in pain-killing endorphins
      main solution: DLPA, D- and L-phenylalanine

Julia Ross recommends a hearty serving of protein for each meal: 3 eggs, or 3-4 ounces of meat, or 1.5 cups of beans. Plus plenty of fats and vegetables. She says several times that weight-loss diets do damage, and has a section headed, “Eat Enough.” There is a section of Good-Mood menus and recipes.

There is far more information in this book than I can even summarize here. It seems worth reading it and trying some of the recommended supplements, although I doubt the results are as consistent and dramatic as claimed.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Taking the War Out of Our Words” by Sharon Ellison

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Subtitle: The Art of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication

A decade ago, this book, and a one-day workshop on Powerful Non-Defensive Communication (PNDC), helped me get out of an abusive relationship. My copy disappeared, probably on loan to someone, and I just replaced it. This is an edited review I wrote for Survivorship back then.

This communication technique focuses on good boundaries, emphasizing that we can only control our own words and actions, not anyone else’s. On each re-reading, I notice different helpful details. The book is carefully and clearly organized, with section headings for each new idea, lots of example stories, and a review of key points at the end of each chapter.

Part I describes the “War Model,” Sharon Ellison’s name for the combative communication style we learn to call “normal” in our culture. Defensiveness is a natural outgrowth of war-like communication. Six defensive modes are described – the three main strategies of surrender, flight, and fight, with passive and active sub-strategies for each. The passive modes seek to protect oneself, while the active modes seek to damage the other person. The six modes are

  • Surrender-Betray (passive)
  • Surrender-Sabotage (active)
  • Withdraw-Escape (passive)
  • Withdraw-Entrap (active)
  • Counterattack-Justify (passive)
  • Counterattack-Blame (active).

Part II describes the three primary conversational tools of Powerful Non-Defensive Communication (PNDC): curious and innocent Questions, open and direct Statements, and protective and firm Predictions. Each tool is described in detail, with many suggested formats and examples.

Questions
Non-defensive questions are used to clarify assumptions, and to learn information about the other person’s position. They also ask the other person to stop and think. Sometimes a single neutral, gentle, curious question can shift years of negative interactions.

One example tells about a couple where the man repeatedly accused the woman of being late, even though she was generally ready on time and met her commitments. They had fought about this for years. One day, the woman asked, “Is it my pacing that leads you to think I’ll be late?” The man stopped, blinked, and said, “You know, you are usually on time.” She tended to get ready at the last minute, while he tended to prepare in advance, and this was the first time the man had noticed that she did regularly succeed in pulling it all together.

Statements
Non-defensive statements are vulnerable, direct, subjective, and descriptive. They include all relevant elements of one’s own experience, even when some of the elements are contradictory.

One example tells of a divorced woman who no longer wished to invite her ex-husband to Thanksgiving dinner, but continued to do so because he had a tendency to withhold her alimony check whenever there was a conflict. One year, she chose to state to him that she did not want to invite him, and that she had continued to invite him through fear of the consequences, and that she did not want her alimony check to be delayed. Much to her surprise, he did not show up for dinner, and the next alimony check was on time.

Predictions
Non-defensive predictions are protective, foretelling, neutral, definitive and double-sided. The intent is to communicate the consequences of both sides of a choice, rather than to coerce one side or the other. Two types of predictions are described in detail: Limit-Setting Predictions, which identify one’s own responses based on the other person’s choices, and Challenge-Choice predictions, which identify outside consequences to the other person’s choices.

An example of a limit-setting prediction is “If you are not ready when it is time to leave for the play, I will drive my own car, and you can join me later. If you are ready on time, we can drive together and enjoy each other’s company.”

An example of a challenge-choice prediction comes from the owner of a printing company, who found that customers often argued with him about color choices, and then blamed him when the results were poor. He started making the prediction, “If you use too many colors, then, based on my experience, this logo will be less crisp and you will not be satisfied with the outcome. If you use fewer colors, it will be more crisp, and I think you will be pleased.”

The section on predictions includes a detailed discussion about how to devise and implement predictions, including strategies for handling negative reactions from people unaccustomed to encountering clear boundaries.

Highly recommended if you want new tools to communicate well.

Available at bookshop.org.