I attended a course last weekend that reminded me about the vastness of naturopathic medicine and how much I love this profession. The premise of the course was that natural medicine is “respect for the individual in its spiritual, moral, energetic and physical entirety“.
If you stop to think about this, it is both simple and profound.
The next three days of the course went on to review and integrate philosophies of medicine from teachers throughout history – Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), Hans-Heinrich Reckeweg (1905-1985), Semion Korsakov (1788-1853), Hering, St. Hildegaard (a 13th Century nun), Dr. Senne (Switzerland), Hippocrates, and more. It linked herbal medicine with homeopathic medicine, with Traditional Chinese medicine and brought historical and modern medicine of different times and locations together. It linked the importance of the capacity for life with the importance of having a life purpose — that having physical health allows us to experience emotional and spiritual health. This was like soul-food for me.
Sometimes when a person wants to see a Naturopathic Doctor, they are simply looking for a safe alternative to a drug for a specific physical health condition – for example, a herb that can provide an alternative to a statin for lowering blood cholesterol. And as a practitioner, this is fine. Nature is incredible and does provide us with an endless variety of plants and substances to manage these types of symptoms. But, in my opinion, and the work of the great “Nature Docs” of history, I think our purpose as practitioners and as individuals is to go deeper. Yes – here is plant to lower your cholesterol – but why do you have high cholesterol in the first place should be our real question? What is the purpose of cholesterol in the body and what is the root cause of the imbalance? When we can identify that, we may be restoring an imbalance in the liver or other organ. We could also go even deeper and wonder how that organ system is interacting with other organ systems, lymphatics, hormones and even emotions.
When we go deeper, we are having respect for the entirety of the individual and I think we tap into the art of medicine, which is not unlike the art of a mindful life. It is not just maintaining our health so we can get up and do another day at the office tomorrow. The purpose of life isn’t a solid RRSP portfolio or an organized linen closet. What is your life purpose and what gives your life meaning? In this way of thinking, we can ask questions such as how does our physical health interact with our need for power and money? sex and affection? relationships? love? spirituality? In this model, if we examine our health as an interactive mosaic of many parts, we achieve the balance that allows us to become who we are “meant to be” or have the capacity to be. By becoming conscious of our potential or weaknesses as we unfold this journey, life offers us the opportunity to evolve. This is not an easy process – change.
The process of true ch
ange is a challenge. It is actually a crisis of self – we need to go into a deeper part of ourselves to literally transform how we interact with our bodies and our environment. The process is state of confusion, a feeling of lack of direction, which can often create significant physical symptoms and stress/anxiety. This needs to be healed on all levels in order to work through the challenge.
Sometimes the process of transformation is just the process of going deep enough within ourselves that we finally see something we recognize. It is being with the darkness and loneliness until we go around the bend and have an “Aha! moment” and recognize that our “new” way of being has been inside of us all along and is a truer version of our real self. It is not easy to let go – but the reality is, that our life journey actually requires our next evolution and resisting the next natural cycle will actually produce less satisfaction for us in the end. Being open to the next phase does involve responsibility… but as soon as you finally let go and step through that door – it is actually like “coming home”.
Naturopathic Doctor
Clinic Director
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