Contagion – Part one: Contagion

By Anne Malatt and Paul Moses, Australia.

When someone walks into a room, we know how they are feeling.

We can feel it with our whole being, and we then confirm it with our five senses.

If they are angry, we feel it first. We then see it in their facial expression, in the way they hold themselves hard and the way they move and walk, we can hear it in the way they bang things down or stomp their feet, we can smell and taste it in the air we breathe and we can touch it if they come into contact with us, but most of all we just feel it.

And we can react or respond in different ways.

Most of us tend to tense up, contract, and go hard ourselves, in an effort to protect ourselves from what we can feel is coming at us. We may be on edge, ready to fight, or flee. It may bring up memories and feelings in us of when other people have been angry with us, and may even have hurt us, or those we love.

Whatever our reaction, it can be very challenging to stay open and loving with someone who is behaving in this way, no matter how much we may love them.

So, can this anger be contagious?

Continue reading “Contagion – Part one: Contagion” →

A skin rash tells its story.

By Joan Calder, retired/volunteer work, Frome, UK. 

Hello! I am called Pityriasis Lichenoides by the medical profession, although they freely admit they do not know what causes me to exist. It’s a long complicated name but it makes me feel important and I had a big presence in the body where I have lived for eight years, in fact, you could say, I have been in control of the situation during that time — up until now.

I was born in the gut of a female human; my parents are of unknown origin, although there is a possibility it started with my hostess’s inflammatory reaction out of a response to Father Virus or Mother Bacterium. This is not surprising considering the way she maltreated her body, and her emotional reactions to everything around her. I lived quite happily in those long dark serpentine tubes for a long time until one day she met what is called a Gentle Breath Meditation and started to practise it.

Continue reading “A skin rash tells its story.” →

Gestational Diabetes

by Chan Ly, Commerical Interior Designer, Brays Creek, NSW

Throughout my adult life I had always considered myself as being healthy. I thought I was looking after myself by eating healthy food. I never smoked, drank alcohol, coffee or took any drugs. I felt my body was in good shape and I had always been petite and I would often over eat at meal times because I wouldn’t put on extra weight. The first time I ever had to go into hospital was to give birth to my beautiful son when I was 25. My entire pregnancy was amazing; I felt a little bit of morning sickness during the first trimester only, and labour was natural and fairly quick.

I had my second pregnancy 3 years later. I went through a very different experience. I had suffered from severe morning sickness throughout the first trimester. I was mostly dehydrated and I constantly ate to try to get rid of the nausea. I was working full time and living on a boat with my partner and son. I struggled through the first 3 months and felt so much better when the morning sickness subsided. During the second trimester, I was feeling more tired than usual and I went to all the regular check-ups at the hospital. It was a standard procedure at 26 weeks of pregnancy to do a glucose test to check for diabetes. When the results came back, I got a call from the nurse while I was at work to tell me that I was just slightly over the borderline of being classified as having gestational diabetes. I didn’t quite understand what this all meant at the time, how it all worked and what I was going to enter into. I just remember getting off the phone and crying. I cried, not because I was afraid of having gestational diabetes, but because I was disappointed and felt extremely sad that my body wasn’t coping with the pregnancy. I thought I was healthy and well, but now my body was telling me something different. I was under the illusion that I was very healthy because I had never experienced any illness or disease, until now. Continue reading “Gestational Diabetes” →

Congratulations! You have Cancer

by Eva-Maria Anja Daniela Förtsch, M.Sc.Klin.Psych., Psychologist, Neuropsychologist, Psychotherapist, University Lecturer, Bochum, Germany

Hello. My name is Eva-Maria. Lovely that you choose to read these lines. If you read this because you have cancer, your life might not be easy right now. Perhaps you are worried, in anxiety, angry, sad or even in desperation. If yes, I am totally with you because I have also gone through that. But also if you don’t have cancer and you are just interested, I would like to invite you to read on and feel into what it might offer to you. In the following I want to share with you my experiences with cancer and how it changed my life and my relationship with my body through a big clearing and healing process.

The Diagnosis

I was diagnosed with a very dangerous form of skin cancer (melanoma) when I was 28 years old. This diagnosis came all of a sudden, after the removal of a birthmark on my upper back in between my shoulder blades. When I heard the word “cancer”, I was shocked. Panic arose in me and countless thoughts flooded my mind – and not a single one of them helped me to cope with the situation; all of them were full of anxiety. I was frightened of what would happen next, of the cancer spreading in my whole body, of chemotherapy and of dying. I already saw myself in hospital, thin, pale and with no hair, believing that I would not have much time left. The emotions coming up were overwhelming. I had already spent so much time in hospitals and had had so many surgeries in my life. Hospitals were horrifying to me and reminded me of much pain, anxiety, sadness and helplessness. ‘Why again me?’ ‘This was not fair!’ ‘Why can´t I have a healthy body like others at my age?’ These thoughts did not stop and my anxiety grew.

Although I am a successful psychotherapist and well-trained at supporting others in dealing with their difficulties, I had no idea how to cope with this situation. Continue reading “Congratulations! You have Cancer” →

Conversations with my body – Part 2 – Learning to use my left hand

By Dianne Trussell, BSc Hons, Goonellabah, NSW

It is possible to tune in to a particular part of the body to find out what is going on there and what is needed. Science confirms that all the cells of our body communicate with each other in various ways, and we can consciously access those messages.

I had a most striking experience of this while preparing for shoulder surgery late last year. I knew this would render my right (dominant) arm unusable in a sling for a couple of months and relatively useless for a couple more. Thus two weeks before the surgery I began training my left hand to clean my teeth, so that at least there would be something I could do for my own hygiene while in a sling. At first it was like trying to poke holes in my own face, as you can imagine! But it did improve and in 2 weeks I could do a fair job of tooth cleaning with my left hand. This is all very normal and expected – that one can, with time and repetition, train a part of the brain to co-ordinate an activity and muscles to carry it out when they are not used to doing it. Continue reading “Conversations with my body – Part 2 – Learning to use my left hand” →

Conversations with my body – Part 1- the cure for hiccups

By Dianne Trussell, BSc Hons, Goonellabah, NSW

As a child I suffered from hiccups. And when I say ‘suffered’, I mean SUFFERED! Once they started, they’d go on and on, every 5 to 6 seconds, 24/7, for days and days. I’d be sleepless, frustrated, irritated, driven crazy by them. I was in despair. I tried every remedy suggested: held my breath, breathed into a paper bag, put sugar under my tongue, drank water upside-down, fasted, ate…. all to no avail. By the time the hiccups would subside (by themselves) I’d be exhausted and very sore in my throat and chest. And in dread of the next bout. It’s one of the reasons I became such a slow eater – to help avoid the ‘hell’ of hiccups!

Continue reading “Conversations with my body – Part 1- the cure for hiccups” →

The Family Doctor

By Lee Green, Business Owner, Melbourne, Vic

The picture of the traditional family doctor is well known to us all – a General Practitioner that has a history of the family and is well versed in the ailments of all generations. This role is often depicted in period dramas, especially in well to do families of old – the visiting practitioner being the authority figure that knows ’health,’ or seemingly so, as is portrayed.

Interestingly, as illness and disease climb through the roof, the pressure on our worldwide medical systems is such that they veer closer to collapse – in effect a breakdown of a system that has been essentially supporting us to get on and function – the same system as portrayed by the family GP of old that we have given our power away to and expect to fix us and ready us for the next thing to do.

We have essentially made the role of the GP the first line of support – we take along our ailing bodies and ask for help. The appointments are often short, there is often a wait, and the GP may or may not be having a good or bad day; how they look after themselves in their important role of looking after other people is a key component to this particular element.

Another one being how we walk into the surgery ourselves.

Continue reading “The Family Doctor” →

I’m Ready for a Baby Now … It Should be Easy, Right? …

by Anon, Social Worker, Queensland, Australia

I am a mother of three adult children and I work in the area of child health, particularly focusing on infant and perinatal mental health. Every day I have the great fortune and privilege to share the lives and stories of many women who are having or have had a baby. From a young age women are subtly taught that it is natural that one day they will want to have a baby of their own and it is kind of an unspoken law that until they do, they haven’t quite reached the same status as their peers who have had a baby. At times the pressure can be enormous – someone gets married and the next thing that happens is that people are asking them when they are planning to have children; someone has a birthday and people start to make remarks about the biological clock ticking … you get the picture. The socially accepted norm that motherhood is a taken for granted goal, instinctive and fulfilling for females shows no regard for individual choice or circumstance.

I certainly took on these beliefs when I was growing up in a family with five siblings and parents with strong Catholic beliefs around women and their roles. Once I became a mother, I loved that it seemed to bring me closer to my mother. It was like I had gained her approval by having a baby and we now had something in common to chat about.

Continue reading “I’m Ready for a Baby Now … It Should be Easy, Right? …” →

A Tooth Quest

By Dianne Trussell, BSc Hons,Goonellabah, NSW.

When I was a little child, I was already committed to my health. At school we were taught in the subject ‘Health And Hygiene’ to brush our teeth 3 times a day, so I did that diligently. But no-one told us or demonstrated how to actually brush properly. And no-one told us about toothbrush care. They also told us that sugar was bad for our teeth and caused decay and that’s one of the reasons we should brush our teeth 3 times a day. But no-one told us what foods sugar was in! And no-one told us about relating the sugar consumption and the brushing together in time i.e. that you needed to brush your teeth after you ate the sugar and what this would mean for the wellbeing of our teeth.

My mum had false teeth, as she ‘lost’ all hers in her mid-teens. That was so horrifying to me that I was motivated to care for my teeth! Not only that, but because she had no real teeth for her whole adult life, she was no role model for tooth care for her children. Putting your plastic choppers in a glass at night hardly qualified! Continue reading “A Tooth Quest” →

My Body and the Body of God

 by Liane Mandalis, Possum Creek, NSW, Australia

My whole life I have felt trapped in my body. Now, I know that sounds a bit strange, but this is how it has felt for me. Bodies are dense, they get sick, they are subject to abuse both from ourselves and from others. In short – they get hurt and the pain goes deep. If I choose to not connect too deeply then I won’t get hurt, right? Wrong.

I have spent a lifetime fighting my body and perceiving it as some ‘enemy’ that needed to be at best conquered and at worst abandoned. I was under the belief that our bodies let us down; they shake, they tremble, they vomit, they cry, they bleed, they break, they shut down, they faint, they get SO exhausted… Basically, my body did not feel like a safe place for me to be, but seeing as I had nowhere else to go, the only option was to ‘grin and bear it’. And so I did, through the many ailments that would come and seemingly go, only to come again. Nothing too serious to warrant immediate medical attention, but enough to leave me feeling depleted, depressed, disconnected (but from what?), anxious and exhausted. At one stage it all felt ‘too much’ and I suffered from bouts of anxiety and panic attacks. I was a nervous wreck, ever ready to fight or take flight. Continue reading “My Body and the Body of God” →