Thoughts on the world, homeopathy, mindfulness and food...
A collection of blog posts - feel free to respond with your thoughts and comments - I love to have feedback - thank you!
It was great to read this (shared with permission of course) update from a mum recently. She's really taken on board using homeopathy for her family and was straight on with getting a kit from Helios as soon as I suggested it, shares her awareness and remedies from it with friends, family and at times folk at work. She's really rather brilliant altogether and whilst I've helped, definitely can't take all the credit here. It's been great to see XXXX get stronger in general, not have the occasions that would land her in hospital, and really fabulous to see how well she dealt with this recently. So finally, after my waffle... more of the story from the brilliant mum: "Hey Em, just wanted to save a massive thanks for your steer on remedies for XXXX. I spoke to the doc on Monday after the development of the white pus - he diagnosed as bacterial tonsilitis and prescribed penicillin. However, he agreed to delay starting the antibiotics given she was doing well in herself. Come Tuesday the white pus was starting to disappear and temp had gone. Today there is no pus at all. Needless to say no need for antibiotics. It's incredible to have witnessed to her little body fight it off all by itself, without her being particularly unwell, with some support from remedies and some immune boosting additions (vit c, echinacea and elderberry syrup). Such a great result when you think we first came to see you after the same thing triggered convulsions and ended her up in hospital twice!! " In our times of antibiotic, antimicrobial resistance, it would be just great if there were something out there that could help us deal with infections without resorting to antibiotics every time. I wonder if we'll discover it anytime soon?!? Honestly, I watched Panorama years ago whilst doing a post-graduate homeopathy course with the wonderful Jeremy Sherr. On the program they explained the dangers that we are in with increasing antimicrobial resistance. So what to do, what to do? Well of course... it's obvious, we sat and thought (it was a residential course, I was sat with colleagues, not the royal 'we')... let's explore traditional and complementary medicine perhaps? Stop hitting our heads against a brick wall here? No, what we need is STRONGER antibiotics we were told by the narrator of the show. Now, I'm not saying I don't want to use antibiotics if I need them. I'm not saying I would ever recommend anyone doesn't. But what I don't want, what I really don't want... is not to have access to them due to us having over used them. These are live saving, miraculous medicines. But if we over-do it there's a chance they won't be. Sometimes there's another option, apart from doing more of the same. Sometimes there's an option that helps support our body to deal with things naturally. Sometimes there's an option that doesn't wipe out the 'good bacteria' in our gut along with the 'bad bacteria' that's causing the issues. I'll be doing an Introduction to Homeopathy course in the Autumn over two evenings, if you want to sign up for it drop me a message to em@emmacolley.co.uk and I'll add you to my newsletter list where I'll be talking about dates nearer the time. It'll be online, run via Zoom. I love this phrase used by a 5 year old client. I first saw him as a baby and he's grown up using homeopathy. If he's hurt he'll go get the box of remedies and get his mum to help him find the "crunchy ball for it". I've just realised too that this fab pair were recommended by the mum who wrote the message above. It's a lovely way to share the potential of homeopathy - telling friends and family about how you've used it to success, for minor ailments or more chronic complaints (usually with a practitioner for the more chronic stuff). There's so much out there that tries to suppress gentle, natural medicine (I'll kick the soap box away about how there's not big money for big organisations to be made before I start), that sharing our stories of great outcomes is so worthwhile.
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I'm not a lover of routine and would argue perhaps I need to trick myself into consistency. I felt OK with a 'bedtime pattern' for my daughter, but a 'bedtime routine'? That felt to suck the joy out of things for me, cage me, trap me and contain us in a way that I battled against. Quite probably says more about me, and for any homeopaths reading this, re-reading it is probably no shock that an 'animal' remedy is suiting me well. But rituals? Possibly the witchy feel to the title, possibly just quite how damn helpful they are, rituals I am on board with and I like. Not just like, feel convinced they are helping me improve many areas. Helping me find consistency. I'm currently taking part in Paul Mort's Unstoppable 28, 28 days, with 4 coaching calls, and daily rituals to do, well, daily. Simple, yet really effective. Sharing my The Compassion Sessions with a group of brilliant people (week 1 started yesterday), I've a couple of things we're doing for the week - I'll share those in a moment. For Paul's course, daily I'm writing one word that describes how I want to feel that day, a reason why, what I'll do to ensure I achieve it, one thing I'm excited about that day and who needs me to show up and be epic that day. I paraphrase slightly - he says unstoppable. He also swears a lot. I like him. Week 3, Unstoppable 28, we added in some extras - ensuring 2l of water was drunk before 12, some form of energising (cold shower, exercise, breathwork... or many others), hug (which could be a compliment, act of kindness to other as well as an actual hug) and meditate for 15 minutes a day. Ideally all of them before 12, to make sure they got done. All the way through, there's been the writing of 3 things that we were grateful for each day. Imagine at the end of 28 days, that's 84 things to be grateful for that month. Things that could easily have passed by unnoticed but have been marked down and we've made ourselves aware of them. Our brains are amazing, incredible things and I'm so grateful to have studied them - I'm still in absolute wonder of this phenomenal creation. That said, sometimes they're not our best friends, sometimes, and perhaps especially, when we need them to be. Our brains are hard wired with a bias towards the negative. Towards keeping us safe and out of danger. Dangers that may have happened in our ancestral past, or in our own past, but sometimes are no longer present. Our Pug X is a wee reactive dog and whilst we are having training sessions with her, in hindsight, we should have done so quite a bit earlier. We had some emergency intervention when things got really tough, but in general we've done our best with the awareness we have. Which perhaps may not have been enough. Still, after all, it's the second time in two days for me to mention it; the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the second best time is now... Our brains can respond a bit like a reactive dog, spotting danger everywhere that we need to be kept safe from, and with her we're doing training to hopefully get less reactive, and we're soon starting to add in some alternative behaviours - not just adapting and perhaps even coping much better with the challenges, but giving her something to do. Having an action to concentrate on. I do like the idea of a reactive dog and the analogy of that and our brains - we can be swept all over by our very persuasive thoughts and in reality this quote from Michael Neill in his TED talk Why We Aren't Awesomer rings true... Back to the idea of taking action. It's easy not to. I'm a master at it. If there was a Degree in saying I'd do something before recognising I'm delightfully inconsistent, I could have a First. But I am seriously loving the small changes that I'm seeing through creating some important rituals that serve me. From being calmer in arguments (a real bonus living with a teen and my partner) to looking forward to my daily meditations. From seeing my strength improve at the gym to reading regularly (2 pages a day minimum), having rituals is helping me stay on track. Habit formation takes differing amounts of time, dependent perhaps on who you ask, but realistically 21 days minimum of doing something, and possibly far more. Research I've read suggests it's over the 21 days by and large, but if we don't start we'll never find out. I'm loving the meditation app Balance and have been using it regularly since May of this year. Gratitude journalling I manage to fall in and out of doing, but it's been a good Paul Mort wake up and reminder to crack on with it. Imagine in 3 months, seeing 270 things to be grateful for (based on 3/day x 90 days). Simple rituals, but a reminder of care and nurture for ourselves, which it's easy to forget to do. My home-play for The Compassion Sessions week 1 is - Find a song which resonates and feels good and play it once a day for a week - Write something on a post it that you like about yourself daily for a week and stick it somewhere you can see it - Write a word that describes how you want to feel that day and a reason why I'd love to know if you have daily rituals and if so what works for you? Or if you'd like to do any of them listed above and how they work for you. Also, whilst I'm here, I really like the idea of asking ourselves "What's the kindest thing I can do for myself right now?" Mine is go for a matcha latte just now... See you! Em x |
AuthorI'm a Homeopath working in the Skipton (North Yorkshire) area. I am also able to offer food intolerance testing using Kinesiology and advice around diet and lifestyle. |
07734 861297
em@emmacolley.co.uk Em Colley Homeopath Practitioner of Classical Homeopathy BSc(Hons) Psychology and Neuroscience Laughter Yoga Leader Focussed Mindfulness Practitioner |