Optimum Health and Chronic Troubles

Working with a practitioner of these alternative arts is not at all a simple substitute for a visit to your GP. Because of this, I’ve had the question posed to me many times- “Why would someone go to someone like you?” In this question, I hear another: “Why should I bother with what you do?”

There are many reasons people, ordinary people, turn to things like herbal medicine. I’m going to elaborate on a few of them, to give you some ideas.

Mmmm... I love ice cream, but my sinuses do not!

Many of us, or maybe all of us, have ongoing health issues. These are often low-grade, chronic, cyclical things, like intermittent constipation or skin troubles or allergies. Maybe it’s weight we always put on at certain times of the year, or a funk we experience as a season changes, or the effects of stress as demands at work shift over the company’s calendar cycle.

These aren’t usually concerns you’d see a physician about. So you get a little mucousy when you have dairy, or spend more time thinking about sleep than sleeping on some nights, or you just noticed that it takes an extra mug of coffee now to feel human. There’s no pill for that.

What you’re feeling is that you aren’t operating from ‘optimum health’. The great news is that there’s actually lots that someone like an herbalist can do with you!

We have remedies that can address specific complaints. We have protocols that can rebuild you- your resiliency, your defenses, your physical and emotional elasticity. We can work with your physical body AND your emotional body- they really are one and the same, after all.

Have you ever smelled vanilla and just felt warm and comforted? Seen a pop of red somewhere unexpected and felt your eyebrows raise and your eyes open wide and thought, “Wow!” ? Felt the difference between a warm summer’s breeze and a cold swirl of icy wind, and the promises each held?

This may all sound very woo-woo, and unscientific, and crunchy-granola, but we all experience the world we live in through our senses and our emotions, and so those can be treated just like our digestive system or our immune system can be treated.

For example, if your cuticles are constantly falling apart, if you find it hard to heal small cuts or nicks, if your skin is dry or flaking or not quite whole, you might also have a hard time setting and holding emotional boundaries, saying No to others, or telling others too much or too little. A boundary is a boundary, and there are plants with boundary affinities that can help us heal wounds and hold our personal walls appropriately.

Sometimes you may not be able to put your finger on exactly why you aren’t feeling well, because there’s nothing actually wrong with you. But that doesn’t mean you’re quite right either.

An initial consultation with any type of alternative practitioner is going to include a very long, very comprehensive, and very detailed personal history. We’re trained to look for patterns, for major shifts, and for subtle changes. We’ll help you figure out what’s going on, and we’ll be your guide back to feeling well again. (Here's a link to what a consultation with me entails.)

Healing is a journey, and as one of my teachers described so well, we are your torchbearers, holding the light for you to find your way.