Eating Addiction Help Instructors

Gary Mahoney

Gary Mahoney is the founder of the School for Healing Emotional Eating and the author of two related books, 'The Last Cookie Club' and 'Healing Emotional Eating.' Gary is someone who has suffered and valiantly battled the demons of a 40-year obsessive-compulsive eating disorder. Gary's characters in these books, their stories and their relationships with one another unite them all through their common bond of facing their own demons and battles with food. Their story creatively and accurately depicts the anguish and drama, despair and trauma, the guilt and the shame of those who feel powerless and betrayed time and again by the only one who can ultimately save them –  themselves.

The books have been his impetus to start the 'School for Emotional Eating' in Las Vegas, NV and are written with candor, humor, pain and humiliation. In his writing Gary does a remarkable job of revealing that the strength, dignity, resilience and light of the human spirit is always right behind the darkest shadow and that is what serves as the foundation for the school.

That inner light, which has accompanied Gary's journey through thick and thin, is what ultimately prevailed and brings him daily to a point of peace within himself. And it is the peace he finally made with both his light and his dark places which is what, to this day, keeps him grounded in a healthy, honest and fully conscious relationship with his mind and body, his relationship to food and his abiding connection to a power beyond his own failings. Gary's healing comes through his realization that he could never have done this alone and that there is a universal force far greater than the undeveloped aspects of himself
which previously manifested as weakness, fear, anger, shame, guilt, and a multitude of other unconscious behaviors. His willingness to cultivate a relationship with that
power, which he discovered as a universal intelligence that surrounds him and also exists within him, is what has propelled his transformation. It has been and continues to be an evolving process based on his commitment to using his gift of free will to be fully present to every moment of life and make conscious choices based on that presence, which guides him steadily forward in his journey of living up to the full potential he carries.

From a place of immense gratitude through his own ongoing process of awakening, Gary shares what he has learned through his own healing journey in the School for Healing Emotional Eating. In this multifaceted program which addresses the multiple dimensions of the self, he teaches and inspires hope to so many others with eating disorders and shows them that there is light at the end of what can seem like an endless, dark tunnel.

The author's intense struggles with his own addiction, his comprehensive exposure to a plethora of programs and philosophies targeting addictive behaviors, his first and second books and, most importantly, his lifelong commitment to releasing the delusions which have inhibited his highest potential is what qualifies him to help you through your own healing journey.

Kimberly Wolfe

Kimberly Wolfe is the founder of Still Point Center for Positive Change in San Diego, California. She has spent 15+ years facilitating the self-development process of individuals and groups. She provides heart-centered guidance in living authentically and cultivating the unique potential which exists in everyone through teaching conscious presence and compassionate self awareness.

She has functioned as a consultant and contributor to the book 'Healing Emotional Eating' and serves a developer and teacher for the program for the School for Healing Emotional Eating. She brings a unique perspective on working with addictive-compulsive disorders guided by a philosophy and faith in the unique potential living at the core of every human being. Kimberly recognizes there is a continuum of development for everyone and encourages and assists this process to help people live to their full potential.

“My belief is that the natural gradient in everyone is growth and whatever we use repeatedly and compulsively to stop that growth is our particular addiction. People are addicted to food, alcohol, work, perfection, drugs, gambling, shopping, sex, intensity....the list is endless. Because we live in a society that perpetuates unrealistic standards of perfection through the media, economy, fashion, cosmetic industries...that list is also endless, people resort to whatever self-soothing substance that will temporarily numb their mounting anxieties.

Food is a natural choice for so many because it is so closely associated to a primal need of being nourished and fed, which leads to feelings of being nurtured and safety. When we are not nourishing and nurturing ourselves physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually in healthy and conscious ways, then we will attempt to fill that growing void with foods that temporarily comfort and soothe yet are often deficient in nutrition. This is a pattern which intensifies and deepens, reaching a point where reaching for food becomes a mindless binge which leads to an inebriation equally as powerful and destructive as alcohol and drugs.”

Kimberly's diverse training and practice modalities include psychosynthesis, voice dialogue, clinical hypnotherapy, mind-body communication, neurolinguistic programming and interactive guided imagery. She has worked extensively with people suffering with eating disorders and negative body images, helping them distinguish between confused mental and emotional states and pure conscious awareness, guiding them back to optimal vitality and well being.

She has been on the teaching staff at Optimum Health Institute, Lemon Grove, California for the past eight years and has further taught at the School of Healing Arts in their holistic health practitioner program in San Diego, California. Kimberly has been in private practice in San Diego and Los Angeles, CA for the past twelve years.