What’s the difference between Natural Medicine & Holistic Medicine?
Some of my Clients choose to work with me from a desire to minimise their use of pharmaceutical drugs & use as many Natural alternatives as possible, & often measure any progress or ‘successful’ treatment in the same way as they would measure the efficacy of a drug based treatment ie a cessation of symptoms.
Other Clients choose to work with Homeopathy or QTT or other systems of Natural Medicine because they understand that in order to achieve sustainable results, address root causes of ‘Dis-ease’ & effect cure, the whole self has to be taken into account. The absence of so called ‘symptoms’ does not necessarily equal cure or wellness & in fact physical or emotional expressions of ‘dis-ease’ are often welcomed as evidence that the self is working as it should & able to eliminate potential toxins rather than hang on to them.
There is a big difference between using Natural Medicine in a Pharmaceutical/Allopathic way ie using the same perspective of what constitutes Health or dis-ease & how to treat it, and adopting a systemic, Holistic approach to Healthcare that supports our Natural processes & internal systems & enables them to work to optimum capacity as much as possible. Perhaps the most common example I can give is in skin rashes & eruptions – often called ‘Eczema’ or ‘dermatitis’ etc. Steroid creams, anti-inflammatories, anti-fungals or oral medicines are employed to stop the skin expressions but almost always the reason that this is happening is not taking into account. If our guts are out of balance & unable to eliminate toxins or waste efficiently, the first place the body will choose to try & eliminate it is via the skin. Closing that ‘escape route’ by applying steroids etc, merely forces the body to choose another route out, one that is a bit deeper in the body eg via mucus production. This is how when excema is suppressed as a child it will often transmute to respiratory issues like Asthma as all the mucus membranes are activated to try to eliminate the toxins formerly being attempted to eject via the skin. So measuring success by a temporary cessation of skin symptoms is limited & misleading. It is far more Holistic to address the original cause of the skin behavior – invariably the Health of the gut & bowels and sometimes the Lungs. Restoring the ability to eliminate properly via the bowels, eliminates the need to employ the skin as a rubbish disposal system & also boosts health on a general, metabolic level.
Then going a step further is to take into account the contribution to overall Health of the mental/emotional/Spiritual state, both when the physical dis-ease was first experienced & also as a result of the physical experience. The emotional or spiritual state induces physical responses, just as a prolonged physical state influences certain emotional or mental expressions of that state.
When we are out of balance emotionally or spiritually it has a physiological effect on our bodies as we send out hormones & chemical messages in response to whatever we are feeling. Over the past 3 years many people I support are experiencing a chronic feeling of fear or anxiety, an Adrenally driven state of Flight, Fight, Freeze or Appease. When we are in that state, the body is instructed to prepare for one of these options, to empty the bowels (often producing loose, urgent stools), to be on hyper-alert in case of further threats, not to sleep or eat, to be aggressive, argumentative, defensive or conversely to shut down all unnecessary bodily functions & ‘play dead’.
I do not place any judgement on either use of Natural Medicines, they both have merit & one of my top values is freedom of choice so I endevor to support my Clients being able to choose whatever system of Medicine that resonates with them at any given time. It is all about identifying your intention – what do you want to achieve with your chosen method of healthcare? What frames how we work together & what ‘tools’ we use, is whatever your desired outcome of working with me or any other Practitioner is?
Is it simply to minimise the amount of pharmaceutical drugs you are using in order to feel better?
Is it simply Pain relief or recovery from a surgery/procedure or other traumatic experience?
Is it to explore why this particular dis-ease is manifesting at this particular time in your life?
Is it to resolve any manifestations of dis-ease fully & permanently?
Is it to relieve the intensity of dis-comfort in order to allow a continuation of normal life?
Is it to achieve a deeper understanding of how you got to this state, restore yourself to a better state of Health & understand how to effect meaningful, lasting changes that allow you to make healthier choices going forward?
It is often the case that we start with one desired outcome & as we travel along we are able to open up to the possibility of more, of a greater, deeper & more meaningful result……of letting go of any limitations that we may have unwittingly placed on our own levels of Health or expectations.
When we are seeking deep changes in our lives either physically or emotionally or spiritually, we are talking about feelings – invariably we want to feel ‘better’, happier, more free, able to feel love, to give & to recieve it, to feel that Life is beautiful, exciting, interesting & collaborative. To feel our own significance & power, to be able to self-regulate, to be conscious & mindful of what feeds us & what takes from us. How we feel is what drives our actions, sets up habitual behaviour & either supports us in all the above or prevents us from feeling some or all of the above.
Being in pain emotionally or physically is draining, it’s like having a small, exceptionally needy child constantly whining to be picked up & clinging to us 24 hours a day. Sometimes the priority is simply to turn that pain off & if it can be done using Natural Medicines rather than pharmaceuticals, that’s a major step forward. It can allow us to then make a choice of stopping there & being satisfied with that result or using the opportunity to take a look at how we got to this state so that we can put things in place that drastically reduce the likelihood of it happening again. We can be satisfied that for now the leaking boat has had all excess water removed & can remain afloat again or we can recognise that if we don’t fix the hole in the boat, it’s simply a matter of time before we are right back where we started……
We can choose to continue waiting until the boat is full of water & about to sink & then frantically baling out the water so we can feel a temporary kind of peace or we can plug that leak & start to feel peace as a way of life, enjoying the scenary as we go! That’s the difference between simply substituting pharmaceutical/Allopathic treatment for more natural medicines or looking at the Whole picture & changing our behaviour in order to minimise the chances of simply repeating the same pattern over & over.
When I collaborate with Clients using deep acting Holistic Homeopathic remedies or a QTT session, neither of us are quite the same afterwards. My Clients start making healthier choices, able to look after themselves and set proper boundaries that enable them to choose to eat healthier food, cleaner water, introduce movement into their lives & enable a healthy tolerence of the many different perspectives & behaviours of others as well as integrating parts of themselves that have not felt integrated for years. Sometimes this also happens when a Client isn’t actively seeking anything other than a natural form of medicine to ‘switch symptoms off’, a well chosen remedy will always seek to encourage our whole selves to work towards Health in whatever way is possible. It’s understanding that if you have some kind of food poisoning, your body will seek to eliminate it from your body as fast as possible so being able to vomit or have loose stools temporarily is necessary & healthy. It is not healthy to stop that process since the toxin will remain in our systems. It’s understanding that Fever is a first line immune response, like boiling dirty water to eliminate contamination, it’s not something to be afraid of or to stop. It’s why we don’t measure the success of using a homepathic remedy to support a fever by measuring the temperature, we are not seeking to eliminate it, we are seeking to enhance it’s action & support the Whole self while it does it’s work.
So whenever you seek to use any form of medicine or therapy, be it Natural or otherwise – I want to encourage you to get some clarity over what your intention is, what your desired outcome from your choice will give you & how it will affect how you feel both short & long term. Making our choices conscious rather than automatic means they are actually informed choices, we understand any potential risks as well as the benefits. That we know when something is a stepping stone, a means to an end or whether it’s a doorway to a whole different world!