Words: Dr Renita HERRMANN
Why aren’t you in perfect health? Your life is a balance, and to maintain that balance, your flow of energy must remain intact. You have a life force [vital] energy that is strong when you’re born healthy. You may have lots of energy when young, and if everything went well, you would not get sick. But, you may become susceptible to illness for various reasons [heredity, faulty nutrition, poor diet, exposure to toxins, etc]. Your life may tip between disease and health often. As we get older, our balance may become increasingly compromised. In homeopathy, we find this imbalance through signs, or signals, your body expresses and use them to find your specific remedy.
The homeopath looks at the signals from the whole being, not individual parts. You are considered synergistically, and every part of the body is considered when coming to the correct remedy. We treat the person, not the disease; we don’t often look for tests and allopathic considerations. In my practice, I often rely on my training in natural health to adjust lifestyle and diet to make immediate improvements, or avoid dangerous, or unhealthy, activities of which the patient may not be aware.
The Individual. Not Merely The Illness
If you have hay fever, simply stopping cow’s milk and its products may alleviate the problem. If not, a remedy may greatly improve and eliminate the hay fever. This is a common ailment easily dispatched with homeopathy. Well, your allergic reaction is not the same as your best friend; she may have sneezing and itchy red nose, and you may have itchy eyes and headache. This calls for a different remedy, unlike conventional medicine. Each person is an individual and the reaction to a remedy will also be individualistic. The state of disarray is reflected in signs, or signals, of an organism; we call them symptoms. In homeopathy, we don’t suppress symptoms; we use them to find your remedy. Symptoms help us perceive imbalances of life force. Your own life force energy is also what cures you, with the help of your carefully selected remedy.
Disease and cure work from the innermost to the outermost; if you suppress your symptoms, you may drive them inward. Skin is less vital than lungs; having eczema [atopic dermatitis] is healthier than asthma. The weaker the life force energy, the deeper it goes; thus, the skin disease shows a stronger life force than the lung cancer [from inner to outer]. Symptoms soothe life force energy; they give it a vent, a way to temporarily relax the imbalance. We aid the life force, completing the process already begun. Your carefully selected remedy will now re-establish harmony throughout the organism; it is free to express itself once again. In order to do this, we use scientific ‘provings,’ done on healthy individuals — to find the symptoms they cause.
Homeopathic remedies are energetic medicines that are now thought to employ quantum physics. The essence of the remedy is transferred in potentising it. I generally give a remedy for a chronic condition less often than an acute disease, and only one remedy at a time. This is the principle of classical homeopathy.
There is no contra-indication for pharmaceutical drugs, but it may make it more difficult for a homeopath to find the totality of the disease, and to determine the effectiveness of the remedy. Totality is too important. You may have 30 remedies that reflect chilly people, who love spicy food and ice-cold drinks, but only five that love the fog, and only one among them is a person that thrives in the morning. This is the elimination method we use to find your remedy.
Homeopathy Changes Your Mental Outlook
When I had just finished homeopathy school, I took a case of a young boy that was having trouble in school. He told me that his teacher was mean; he didn’t like her. Of course, there were other problems: bedwetting, ADHD, diet requirements no mother could meet, and sundry. His mother’s chief complaint was that he wasn’t doing well in school, despite being on Concerta. They had tried Ritalin too, and it was unsuccessful. Even on a strong dose of Concerta, this child was not able to concentrate on his schoolwork.
Upon asking him about school, he revealed he hated maths. ‘The 5-times tables are so hard.’ Of course, this was the class in which the much-despised teacher reigned. He dreaded getting out of bed in the morning because he knew — maths class loomed. He had anxiety before tests, which manifested when he woke in the morning.
At his first follow-up, his mother cheerfully reported bedwetting was rare. When we were alone, I asked how he was doing in school. “My teacher is so much nicer now. And, we’re on the 7-times and 8-times tables in maths, they’re so easy.” I just had to laugh. Not only was he doing better, but in his mind, it didn’t have anything to do with him. This is commonly what you hear when a child is doing better. It’s the circumstance; they cannot imagine they might change.
With adults, it can also be easy. But, oftentimes adults will attribute any improvement to something else they did to change the outlook. It may be a new supplement, an easier job assignment, a new health club, or health-care provider. Sometimes, it is obvious overnight. The person will call a few days after the remedy, and report an astounding fact. This is such welcome news to a homeopath’s ears. Often it is more gradual, but still resulting in the same improvement over a longer time period. The greyness clears, the pessimism lifts, the energy improves. These are all subtle reactions to the remedy, and are difficult for a lay person to pinpoint.
If one is stuck in a rut, it may take a little push to get out of it. This is often easily achieved by the correct remedy. It may be a low dose, a 30C potency. If there is a larger problem, such as depression, or substance abuse, it may take a 1M or 10M to start. I’ve occasionally started with a 10M in mania cases. It all depends on how serious the problem is, combined with how strong we perceive the vital force in that person. A child with a long history of health problems that shows none of the normal energy of a child may need a small dose of a remedy, whereas a child that is bouncing off the walls and throws temper tantrums with regularity may need a 1M to start.
So if you’re feeling blue, check out your local homeopath, and make an appointment. The way you feel the ‘blue’ is a key to which remedy you need. Maybe, you mope around the house and become a couch potato. Maybe, it’s weepiness, or heading to the local bar. The way your vital force expresses your symptoms is the way we find that homeopathic remedy that will have you singing in the rain. Also, it’s not just your mental outlook that improves; it’s every aspect of your life.
That’s voilà, right?
