Healing cardiovascular disease with medicine and love

By Mike Stevenson, Retired, Sandhurst UK,

In March 2015 I enjoyed attending the Universal Medicine Retreat in Vietnam, during which we were introduced to the concept of constellations with people and events in and throughout our lives. Little did I realise at the time how I would benefit from an important constellation that occurred towards the end of the event.

Midway through the celebration dinner I started to feel very ill, experienced severe vision problems and subsequently went into a state of collapse.

Attending the dinner were several students of Universal Medicine who were also Medical Doctors and they immediately came to my aid and sent for an ambulance.

In spite of my body going into shock, I felt no fear or anxiety, even though I heard them saying that my pulse was weak and my heart rate had dropped very low.
Continue reading “Healing cardiovascular disease with medicine and love”

Nursing and my new religion

Annelies van Haastrecht, community nurse, Voorschoten, the Netherlands

I started nursing at a young age, 17 years old. And if you asked me at that time why I had chosen nursing as a profession I would not have been sure what to answer. It would definitely not have been the answer I would give today. Today I say I have chosen to become a nurse because I love people and I love to care for and nurture them, to give them an insight into how it is to truly be caring and loving for oneself.

I left the healthcare system ten years after I started, without any appreciation for myself, burnt out, not coping with the pressure and the huge demands of the system. I did my utmost to fit in, to please others, unaware of who I truly was and this resulted in me becoming the tough nurse, hardened, in whom everything and everyone else came first. I thought myself and saw around me that this was what nursing was about, but I felt I would never be enough, that I had failed, I had given myself away completely and I gave up… and withdrew from my profession.

Continue reading “Nursing and my new religion”

Abortion – a responsibility.

by Gyl Rae, teacher, Scotland. 

Recently I had a session with a very wise Esoteric Practitioner around my need to have children. What came up in our discussion was the question: had I ever been in a relationship where we seriously talked about having kids? I hadn’t, but I had had two abortions when I was younger, that if I am honest, I carried guilt around for years, and didn’t want people to know about in case of what they thought about me.

These thoughts can come from pictures, beliefs and ideals we are fed that having an abortion is the ending of life, from the imposition of the world’s ideals and beliefs and the Church – all of which can come through both women and men, where we are told a woman does not have rights over what she can do with her own body and the choices she makes.

Just recently, 4th of February 2017 – under a new law passed in the state of Arkansas, in the USA1, “A pregnant woman’s husband will have the power to stop her from having an abortion, even in cases of spousal rape”. How far lost are we that we can pass a law that allows a man to rape a woman and stop her from aborting the child? In this one law we are saying rape, abuse, and controlling a woman and her body are okay.

Continue reading “Abortion – a responsibility.”

Breaking free of the uncomfortable comfort

by Rachel Mascord, BDS, Sydney and Warrawong.

This has been an extraordinary week in my life…a point of endings and new beginnings that have left me raw and vulnerable in a way I’ve rarely allowed myself to experience before.

I submitted my resignation this week. This has been a momentous step because it is the first time I have left a job with no other job to go to. I had held this position for more than 16 years, and a very comfortable nest it became indeed. My comfort in this job lay in the “security” of its tenure, but an uncomfortable and damaging comfort it was. The price I was paying was high; its coinage the toleration of a constant level of low grade disrespect and the sort of subtle abuse that people learn to cope with, in some way or another. After all, it is quite the normal thing in this world…isn’t it? It is an abuse that does not mark the flesh, but rather more insidiously leaves its bruises deep and unseen upon the heart and the being.

Leaving it has felt like I imagine the baby bird must feel as it extends its wings for the first time, surrendering itself from the edge of the nest that has held it safe for so long…

Never have I allowed such a level of open vulnerability in my life. Never have I allowed such a level of surrender, never have I stated that I trust myself so deeply and all of the resource that comes, innate, rich and sourced from deep within me.

Continue reading “Breaking free of the uncomfortable comfort”

From Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome to regular periods through Esoteric Healing

by Jessica Gamble, Psychotherapist, M.GestTherapy, Tintenbar, NSW.

At 18 years of age I should have been a fit young woman who wanted to grab life with both hands. Although I wasn’t depressed and did not have anything physically wrong with me, I had certainly adjusted to living a life that lacked true health and wellbeing.

At 174 cm tall I weighed 80 kilograms and had little vitality or motivation. I felt sluggish and often woke up with enormous back and shoulder pain, a tight jaw and felt constantly dehydrated. I remember having to seek support from my mum who was a qualified bodyworker, as most mornings I physically couldn’t get out of bed without a back rub, allowing me to stand up straight and proceed with my day. During this time I was on the contraceptive pill and had been since age 15, so my periods were falsely manufactured and I therefore had little knowledge of just how much my body was struggling. After I finished a long-term relationship at age 20 I decided to go off the pill, in order to see if I could shift some of the excess weight and regain some aliveness in my body, as my libido was now well and truly dead.

Continue reading “From Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome to regular periods through Esoteric Healing”

The gift of constipation

by Alexis Stewart, care worker with the intellectually disabled and yoga teacher, Sydney, Australia.

When I was a girl I used to go to friends’ houses for tea (‘tea’ being a word in England that refers to an early dinner. My favourite tea was macaroni cheese and chips). Going to other people’s houses was always a bit odd, because other people’s families never did things quite the same as my family did; for example some Mums used to tell their kids to wash their hands before eating, which is something my family never did. So when issued with the command to wash my hands by someone else’s Mum, I would dutifully file into the bathroom with the other kids and copy the way that they waved their hands in the general direction of the taps. There was one thing however that most Mums seemed to have in common and that was the nagging suspicion that the kids had not actually washed their hands! Funny that!

Continue reading “The gift of constipation”

Our Body and Its Amazingness

by Matts Josefsson, Student in Behavioural Science, Sweden 

I find the body absolutely extraordinary in the way it functions. Just this morning I was reminded how amazingly it just keeps on doing what it does, regardless of what we do to it, up until the point that it cannot support us any longer. What I also came to think about was how and why things occur in the body and how the way we are living with the body must have an effect on it. Science these days knows a great deal about how the body functions but still there are the questions that go unanswered as to why things actually occur. There are extraordinary experts in knowing how to deal with something once it has occurred, but the bigger struggle is still trying to understand why things occur. For example: why do cells starts to divide in a way that later on leads to cancer? Continue reading “Our Body and Its Amazingness”

How Connective Tissue Exercises helped my neck and back pain

by Lieke Campbell, Student Dentist, Ghent, Belgium 

I am a dentistry student and in the course of my work, I started developing pain in my neck and back that stayed until the next day, even from working just short periods of time with patients. As a dentist, I have to work in an area that is small (and moving) which asks for precision and attention to detail whilst working with the instruments in the person’s mouth. To be able to see it all, I often find myself going out of the preferred ergonomic position – which is with back and neck only slightly bent – bending and turning my back and neck in all directions. This is the worst position to be in for your back and neck, as it puts a huge strain on the spine and the muscles around it. Even when knowing this fact, not wanting to cause harm to my patient can drive me into going into such a position anyway. Combine this with a little nervousness and tension about treating my first patients and this developed into neck pain. Continue reading “How Connective Tissue Exercises helped my neck and back pain”

Prolapse and Hysterectomy – Appreciating Myself as a Woman

by Carmel Reid, Somerset, UK 

I recently had a hysterectomy; it was the final solution for a vaginal prolapse that had been around for many years, although I had largely been unaware of, until it became too uncomfortable to ignore.

What is a prolapse? Well basically, a weakness in my pelvic floor muscles and vaginal wall, so that what is normally held inside is no longer supported, and begins to protrude on the outside, making walking uncomfortable.

What caused it in me? Many reasons, I suspect. Giving birth is acknowledged as a common one, and new mothers are always encouraged to do their pelvic floor exercises afterwards. I didn’t, so that may have contributed in my case. Add to that was my attitude to what I felt my body could do. I played squash 2 or 3 times a week; that’s a game that can be pretty hard on many areas of the body. Not only that, but I was strong and therefore allowed myself to lift heavy things, and enjoyed the weekly battle with a wayward shopping trolley and all the heavy shopping, not knowing how much lifting heavy things was affecting my pelvic floor muscles. Continue reading “Prolapse and Hysterectomy – Appreciating Myself as a Woman”

The prevention of breast cancer – the answer is in our bodies

by Rebecca, Student, London UK

Recently I undertook a research project at Bath University, looking at the effect epigenetics can have on the formation of breast cancer. What I found was really amazing, and very relevant given the current trends of breast cancer worldwide.

Breast cancer is now so common it is hard to find someone who is untouched by the disease either directly or indirectly through friends and family. It has become the enemy within and women across the board are now encouraged to check their breasts for any sign of breast disease. October has become synonymous with pink ribbons and raising money for breast cancer research.

I have seen so much in the news and in general about the few options available for women with breast cancer when it comes to treatment and prevention. The most common option for treatment, and now also for prevention, is the removal of the breasts, and sometimes the ovaries too, even before any cancer is diagnosed, if the women are deemed to be at high risk of developing the disease.

Scientists have isolated the ‘breast cancer gene’ and can give genetic counselling to women with this gene as to what their options are. However, what I have found interesting is that the research or information I talk about below is seemingly not taken into consideration, let alone placed equally alongside all other treatments and preventatives. Continue reading “The prevention of breast cancer – the answer is in our bodies”