I came across Dana when she posted her Food Freedom Program on the social media platform Nextdoor. I was dabbling in various online self-help and coaching personalities. None of them seemed to “hit the nail on the head” for me. I had decades of dieting, getting fat,losing weight, getting fatter, over exercising, inactivity, diet pills, cleanses, colonics, food rules, eat this, not that, etcetera etcetera, it was just exhausting. I would gain and lose 30 pounds from one year to the next for years. These punishing exercise and food behaviors were concurrent (and resulting from, as I now learned) from decades of guilt and self-loathing over various events in my life that I blamed myself for. I believed myself to be a “bad person” because I had countless bad behaviors and episodes relating to my sex addiction. The sex addiction was oddly inversely proportional to my food restriction and weight loss. The guilt of my sex addiction would cause me to have disordered eating. I felt constant overwhelm from the guilt of thinking I caused my son’s disability. I had debilitating stress caring for my triplets while working full-time and juggling my addictions and secret behaviors. When I met Dana, I was rebounding from an episode of sex addict behavior which threw me into a binge eating spiral and weight gain of 30 pounds in 4 months. I felt completely out of control and exhausted from the merry go round I was not able to get off. This was the year I turn 50 years old and it was a milestone that I was determined to devote the year to getting healthy in mind, body, and spirit, so that I could finally break free of this cycle. I was ready to pay anything, do anything, to get off this sickening ride. I devoured the modules, one per week, just to gather the information so I could understand the formula. I did one on one calls with Dana twice weekly for many weeks, until I was able to wean to once per week, then every other week, and less. I would talk to Dana about the traumas of the past and how they have made me feel sadness, shame, guilt, anger, and injustice. Each time, Dana would present me with a different point of view about the event and amazingly it would relieve me of the negative emotions associated with it. I went over the modules a second and sometimes a third time , each time going a little slower and absorbing the information a bit more.
When I came to Module 12, I decided “I no longer have disordered eating. I just don’t have it”. I became free from this affliction. Does this mean I eat well consistently and don’t have fuck ups with food? Hell no !!! I still have many many fuck ups. But they are getting less frequent and less severe and I don’t beat myself up as much as I used to. So it’s better, but far from ideal. Afterall, I have over 4 decades of dysfunction to work through and I have been on this program only 6 months. I also want to declare that I am no longer a sex addict (although I want to remain humble and stay vigilant of having a relapse). I anticipate that this will be a work in progress for several years. I don’t expect a quick fix. This is complex subject matter. But the progress I have made, I attribute entirely to Dana’s MindFit Mentorship Program. It just really helped me tremendously and I am eternally grateful.

Julia Bramwell