A Mother's Testimonial

"I believe, with all my heart, that without Kelly's work in my daughter Abby's life, she would be back on the streets today.

Instead my daughter is the picture of good health - she is radiant and determined.  For many years she struggled with a crippling eating disorder and then compounded it with a meth and later heroin addiction.  She has been in prison, she has been on the streets, she has been through many in-patient and out-patient programs for drugs and also some for eating disorders.  I would caution people to scrutinize any eating disorder program they might put their child in as they don't all live up to their reputations and now I am sure that the only approach that worked for my daughter is different from the typical approach we found in the other programs, including one at a well know hospital.

My daughter is brilliant and intense - willful and tends to be arrogant in thinking she knows more than other people.

She has learned about "thinking errors" through different programs which has helped her but she needed someone like Kelly who was relentless in calling her to honesty, integrity, transparency and disciplined thinking.  She had to learn that even though Kelly is fun, smart and loving, she is not weak - she sees through the crappy reasoning and manipulation.  My daughter was a master of manipulation, hopefully she will continue to work on not using that particular talent! 

My daughter has been to other programs that were very expensive and impressive looking, but she was very quick to find the dishonesty and disfunction inside the closed doors. Some if not many of these programs are staffed by people who have been addicts themeselves and are only clean for a very few years.  Even though people are clean it takes many years of growth and counseling to work with new addicts in healthy ways and behave in a professional manner.  (Kelly has been clean and sober for 24 years and if you know her you will observe that she lives what she teaches, passionately.)

The other programs admitted that they honestly didn't know how to help Abby because she came with such a complex of issues - they advertised that they did, but couldn't follow through. The good part however was that one of them did find Kelly for us and sent our daughter to her knowing they couldn't help. We will always honor that.
What we also appreciated was how Kelly maintained close communication and respectfully made us apart of the journey and was prompt and thoughtful in returning our calls regarding our concerns or questions. That rarely happened in any other treatment facility. 

My daughter was scared to eat the way Kelly wanted her to - sure she would be fat and miserable.  Now my daughter explains to you why you need to eat this way and goes into the chemistry of how the body and brain works in combination with healthy fats, this complex carbohydrate and that protein or whatever!  It's over my head!  But it gave my daughter the realization that she could still have control over her body and have great health and look amazing because of her hair and skin and muscle tone in response to Kelly's teaching.

Now it is up to my daughter to continue making the right choices - but this time she is thinking differently and it's based on actual facts as well as solid good counseling.  With Kelly we have true hope for our daughter and her future - We know that if our daughter returns to her old ways of thinking (which we don't think she will) we will have done everything in our power to give her the best chance - That is the piece that makes the entire investment so worth it.  A family has to have the peace of mind that they at least did the best they could in getting their loved one help. She is off all medication and thriving. She has been given all the tools she needs and the nutritional and discipline from Kelly has absolutely provided the missing piece. We are at peace.

It's not easy to be in her program.  She's intense and intensly devoted.  NOTHING less would have worked with our daughter.  It's a boot camp for changing the way you think about food, exercise and living in the light but there's much laughter, fun and love sprinkled throughout.  Our family is filled with gratitude for what Kelly has been able to accomplish with our daughter and for the love with which she approaches everything she does.  She is incredibly rare. We are incredibly encouraged." 

Teresa Wilhelmi, Oregon