I take this news with a grain of salt, but it also wouldn't shock me if it was true.
Allegedly, Lionel Richie has "incentivized" his skeletal daughter, Nicole, to eat more by offering to pony up a Caribbean yacht cruise for her and some friends if she puts some meat back on her bones. Lionel thought that her friends are encouraging Nicole to stay thin, so he thought if he gave "everyone" a reason to help Nicole gain weight, they would help her.
I read this and thought, Lionel is at wits end, and he is doing the one thing that many parents do, but don't get will not work, and that is to get your sick child into healing by "buying" them a reward. I know this because my parents did it with me. Now, the buying tactic may work with some people. Caribbean yacht cruises just might do the trick, but personally, my belief is that they never work in the long run because you are not attacking the source of the issue that is causing the weight issue. Offering extravagant gifts and rewards is easy. Going deep, and being fully present into your child's pain is a whole other story.
Nicole's problem is not eating, it's emotional and spiritual. Going on a yacht cruise, wearing designer clothes, and being famous is not going to fix the inside. Something is going on very deep in her heart and soul, and the anorexia is just a physical manifestation of that pain and struggle inside. I spent years thinking that material things and outer success would help me with my eating disorder, and it didn't. In some cases, it made the situation worse for me.
You think that if you can make your outside self, pretty, perfect, and lovely, then everything will get better. It doesn't work that way. Your outer world is nothing but a reflection of your inner world. If you want to change the results, you have to go deep inside and change the blueprint and the programming. Doing that requires a commitment to doing what it takes, and sticking through the commitment especially when it gets very painful and hard. Sometimes you have to break the bone again, because it wasn't set right the first time it broke. Painful, but necessary to get the body to heal properly.
It's the same with emotions. You may have to go back to a painful memory and relive it in order to completely go through the pain that never got a chance to express itself. Once you do that, you give your heart and soul the capacity to breathe and then heal. It's a very brave thing to do because of the pain, fear, and uncomfortableness you must go through. But in the long run, it is well worth it because of the happiness you can feel again, as well as the fredom from the burden your pain created.
