As I mentioned in my last two posts, I am away overseas. I thought I would share with you some of the remedies – homeopathic and otherwise – that I have in my travel kit. This may be useful for you to bookmark for next time you are travelling. If you are going on a long haul flight and skipping across time zones, make sure you read my post from last week about Jet Lag. Firstly, my homeopathic kit. For …
This is something that will be familiar to anyone who has travelled across a number of different time zones on a plane – you arrive feeling like you have been crammed into a tube for too many hours, and then instead of being able to rest, your body think’s it’s time to be awake in the middle of the night, and you’re falling asleep in the middle of the day. There are various different jet lag remedies available and all …
It is Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, and so an opportunity to reflect on the Māori language, and this year I am taking time to reflect on remedies through a holistic Māori lens. I have discussed Te Whare Tapa Wha before, (you can read the post here), it is my favourite holistic model of health. For a quick recap, it describes the four walls of a meeting house, all are equally important for health. Taha Wairua- Spiritual (and this …
On the weekend I attended the New Zealand Homeopathy Conference: I will talk more about the content but firstly I want to discuss the magic of the coming together in person of so many Homeopaths from around New Zealand. One question for the weekend ( with a prize) was about the collective noun for Homeopaths- and several people individually came to “a resonance of Homeopaths”- and it really does feel like a resonance. (Unfortunately I cannot remember who to attribute …
One thing I have been doing this year is contracting for Open Polytechnic, and doing workplace assessments for Pharmacy Technicians who are working on their Level 4 and Level 5 diplomas. I love this – it’s amazing to get out of the house and explore a different part of Northland, plus get the opportunity to talk to other Pharmacists and discuss what Pharmacy is like. I also really love supporting learners, and I know there are always things we can …
I’ve seen a couple of comments lately about the cost of seeing a Homeopath, and it is also something that came up in my homeopaths demographic survey last year, so I thought it was worth discussing. You may already understand that it is not a matter of cost but of value, and that this is not just unique to Homeopaths, but Naturopaths and other non-funded health practitioners. I would also like to make note here of all my wonderful clients …
“She looks like she has it all together, and I’m a mess.” I hear variations on this all the time. Social comparison is a really harmful behaviour, especially when what you see is the good times and you notice it when you are feeling overwhelmed or struggling with life. A study published in the Journal of Behavioural Addictions cites social comparison as a potential mechanism for the link between social media use and depression (1). Previous studies have also highlighted …
The last two days we have talked about the influence of birth order, and some homeopathic remedies that may be indicated for middle and youngest children. Today, finally, let’s look at Eldest and Only children. The Eldest are used to being first. It can also come with a lot of responsibility, often they are expected to help at a much younger age than younger siblings. They can act as a leader and a role model for others. They have also …
Continuing my birth order post, let’s look at Youngest children. The “baby” of the family, they may be more indulged and be considered less capable than their siblings were at the same age. While they may or may not be spoiled in terms of what they physically are given, they certainly don’t usually have the responsibilities of their older siblings, and this can give them a more care-free nature. Youngest children can be easy going, looking for a good time, …
I am the second child of four, and I was fascinated as a teenager and in my early 20s by the writings around birth order. In one job I had a colleague who was also second of four children, boy, girl, girl, boy, same as my family, and despite the different age gaps between siblings and growing up in different places, with different cultures and family background, her stories about her siblings could have been mine, and vice versa. Last …
Last week was World Breastfeeding week, so I want to discuss two important remedies that are to do with breastfeeding: Lac Humanum, and Lac Maternum. Both of these remedies are made from human breastmilk, but there is one key difference. Lac Humanum was made from the breastmilk of one woman, and Lac Maternum from the breastmilk of 9 Women at different stages of their breastfeeding journeys, from day 3 to 10 months. Lac Humanum has a theme about finding your …
It’s World Breastfeeding Week! I am passionate about breastfeeding but for many women it is not easy. Last year I wrote about mastitis, if you need support for that you can find the post here: One problem with breastfeeding can be the supply – too much causes engorgement and can lead on to mastitis, other women struggle to have enough breast milk to feed their baby. Today I want to talk about under supply. There can be some myths about …
Constantine Hering was born on January 1st, 1800 in Oschatz, Saxony, and today is the anniversary of his death, July 23, in 1880. He was a boy with a great interest in learning, and went to medicine, studying at the University of Leipzig. Like many, Hering was a skeptic of this new field of medicine, homoeopathy, and he decided to repeat Hahnemann’s original proving with Cinchona in order to discredit him. Shortly after that he received a wound on his …
Natrum Muriaticum (abbreviated as Nat Mur) is sodium chloride, or common salt. Found in every kitchen, it is an essential mineral for life, and homeopathically it also has a wide range of symptoms and is one of our polychrest remedies. Nat Mur is one of Schuessler’s twelve tissue salts, as well as a remedy we use in much higher potencies homeopathically. As a tissue salt, 6x potency, it is used for fluid balance. This means that too much moisture or …
These are a common childhood complaint and can affect the skin anywhere on the body. (You can also get warts of the mucous membranes, of the anus or genitals, but I am not going to be discussing those today). Warts are caused by the Human Papillomavirus and are most common in school aged children, although any age group can get them. The virus affects the base layer of the skin which forms more keratin than normal, causing the thickened and …
This Friday we have a public holiday for Matariki. This is sometimes called Maori New Year, and is marked by the appearance of the Matariki cluster of stars in the sky. In Europe these stars are known as the Pleiades, but here, they are Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea, the eyes of Tāwhirimātea, the god of the wind, who threw his eyes into the heavens in anger, after his siblings separated Ranginui, the sky father from Papatūānuku, the earth …
It’s National Volunteering week – the time of the year that we appreciate and give thanks to the volunteers who make a difference. Homeopathy has a large number of volunteers that keep the profession going. The New Zealand Council of Homeopaths is run by volunteers – these women on the Executive support professional Homeopaths around New Zealand. Our New Zealand Homeopathic Society is run by volunteers – this is a charity that helps raise the public awareness of homeopathy. There …
I recently had a very mild bout of shingles – the fact that this was very mild was likely due to two factors, one is my age, in general people under 50 have a milder experience of shingles, although there are exceptions. The other factor was I noticed the first expression, just 5 little dots like a line with an arrowhead, and recognised it immediately for what it was and started taking a homeopathic remedy. The next day I got …
Bellis Perennis is the daisy, part of the Asteraceae family like Arnica, and sometimes called the common, lawn or English daisy to distinguish it from the cultivated forms of the daisy. Like Arnica, Bellis Perennis is a remedy for trauma. Specifically to trauma of the abdomen, reproductive organs, or spleen. It has an affinity for the reproductive organs so is particularly useful for after childbirth to support the uterus reducing back to a pre-pregnancy size. Even during pregnancy, if there …
Yesterday I wrote about the first four types from Vannier’s book on Typology: Mars, Saturn, Apollo and Venus. Today I will finish discussing the four prototypes, starting with Jupiter. Jupiter is described as a majestic demeanour, and is of medium height and well proportioned, but may tend to fat. From the front their face looks square, but ther head is “acorn-shaped”. They have a short, straight or aquiline nose with large nostrils and a big chin which may project forward …
I was recently reading the book “Typology in Homeopathy” by Leon Vannier, a French Homeopath, and it was an interesting book to read. Much of this was completely new to me, never having come across these “types”. Leon Vannier was a French Doctor turned Homeopath who lived from 1880-1963, and was the founded a French homeopathic journal and society, and also supported the creation of homeopathic manufacturing laboratories in France. In this book Vannier brings together works from the 17th …
In homeopathy we look at Samuel Hahnemann’s writings in the Organon as our founding document and the blueprint for what we do as Homeopaths. Here is a controversial opinion in Homeopathy: Some parts of the Organon are 100% valid today, but some things need to be looked at with a modern lens. Hahnemann was an amazing man and so far ahead of his time, but there were still prejudices and beliefs that today we don’t necessarily need to cling to, …
It’s Pink Shirt Day, a day dedicated to anti bullying, so I thought I would discuss a remedy that is really useful for bullying – for either party. Lycopodium is a remedy made from the clubmoss. These plants are some of the oldest on earth, 410 million years old, and 300 million years ago there were club mosses that reached 100 feet, or over 30m in height. These days though, Lycopodium is a moss that looks a bit like a …
A few weeks ago I watched Moana with my children. I really love this movie, the storyline, the music all really resonate, much deeper than any other Disney movie. I can’t help but think remedies when I watch movies, especially when I’m re-watching and able to look more at what is going on for each character. So here are some of my remedy suggestions for some of the characters in Moana, along with my reasons why. Spoiler alert- if you …