Self-disregard: can we turn the tide of this modern day plague?

By HR Professional in Healthcare, London, UK 

Look at any headline in the news, or on social media and you will likely see that the NHS and other healthcare services world-wide are under continuous pressure due to the ever-growing demand from rising illness and disease in their local populations.  And more and more we are learning that illness and disease is linked to lifestyle. Given this, what is the trajectory looking like? If it continues to increase as it is, due to the way we are living our lives, the rising tide of illness and disease will overwhelm healthcare and bankrupt governments, reducing the productivity of our cities, nations, and the world as we become a society dependent upon needing care for our ailments and woes.

There are definitely times when we need to call on the support of healthcare, and my observations of working in the NHS for 38 years now, show that healthcare professionals work exceptionally hard to deliver the best services they can.

One of the issues healthcare professionals face is the tiny amount of time they have with each patient. Often appointments are booked on a continuous conveyor belt of one in, one out, with little time to discuss anything beyond the presenting issue. All the while during their busy days, healthcare professionals will observe patients and they will likely be aware of some lifestyle factors that may be contributing to their patients’ lack of health and wellbeing.

Continue reading “Self-disregard: can we turn the tide of this modern day plague?” →

What is the responsibility in our work as medical professionals?

by Lieke Campbell, Dentistry Student, Ghent, Belgium.

There is a saying that goes something like: ‘you can only truly care for another when you care for yourself’. This makes sense because when we do not make sure our body is well cared for we might get tired, exhausted or even ill to the point we cannot care for another anymore. I have also found that becoming very emotional, e.g. angry or frustrated, and taking on too much from or for others, are also signs that we are not truly well and not taking care of ourselves first. Taking care of ourselves is a key part of the responsibility of being a health care professional.

If this is true, and if this is the way our bodies naturally work, why is this level of responsibility not lived in everyday life? Continue reading “What is the responsibility in our work as medical professionals?” →

The Evil of Hope

by Fiona Lotherington, Registered Nurse and Complementary Health Practitioner, Northern NSW. 

You may think that the word evil is extreme when describing the effect of hope. Yet I define evil as anything that holds back our growth and development and anything which perpetuates the separation from the truth of who we are or which delays the healing needed to return to our essence. Defined in this way, evil and hope are perfect bedfellows.

I was recently listening to a friend talk about his experience with his partner who had died many years ago from breast cancer. As he shared the details of the events around her illness and eventual death, the word ‘hope’ came up several times. Each time I heard this word, I experienced a growing sense of dis-ease, as I became aware of what a detrimental role hope had played in her illness and death.

For a moment this surprised me, as hope is normally considered to be a virtue. Like a warm coat in winter, it is used to comfort ourselves or other people when we are ‘down on our luck’. It is common to hear people say, “I hope you get better soon” or “don’t give up hope” and consider this a kindness. We give generously to charities dedicated to researching medical conditions, in the hope that a cure will be discovered. Continue reading “The Evil of Hope” →

A true relationship with healing = true religion

by Jenny Ellis, Esoteric Practitioner, Brisbane

As someone who grew up without the influence of organised religion and in a largely atheist household, I had no meaningful experiences I would ever have called religious. I did however have a great deal of experience with what I might have once called healing, being involved in and passionate about health and fitness most of my younger life and studying natural medicine for several years.  To link the words religion and healing at the time however, could not have been more absurd in my view, and so to come to a point today where I now link healing and religion inextricably reflects a significant shift in my understanding.

When we think of healing, I dare say for most the word has lost its real meaning in everyday life and would be considered synonymous with the current dictionary offerings of: alleviating, palliating, easing, helping, softening, lessening, mitigating, attenuating, allaying and so on.

Historically in many cultures religion and healing have actually shared a close relationship. Shamans and priests held the power to ‘heal’ the sick through restoring the relationship of the individual with the unseen dimensions. A disturbance in this relationship was seen, and still is, amongst some religious enthusiasts as a valid cause of illness. Continue reading “A true relationship with healing = true religion” →

What if the human life span keeps increasing?

by Rebecca, Student, London, UK

The average life expectancy of humans is increasing at an unprecedented rate. Seen as one of the great achievements of the century, in the last 40 years alone it has risen by 10 years, and in 2011 life expectancy at birth was almost double what it was in 1841(1). But what will happen if our life span continues to increase, and how can we address the issues we will face?

As most people know, with age there comes a natural deterioration of the body. However, what we are already witnessing, and will see more of should trends continue to increase, is an unmanageable presence of chronic, multi-symptomatic conditions in our elderly and increasingly in younger people, which create a huge economic strain on the NHS. The annual cost of health and social care is far higher for elderly people, with more than two-fifths of the national health budget in the UK devoted to people over 65(2) and the number of older people in need of care is projected to rise by more than 60% in the next 20 years(3).

This strain will not be limited to the NHS alone, but will reach into wider society. In the UK the ratio of people of working age to people over 65 could fall from 3.7:1 in 1999 to 2.1:1 in 2040. This has the potential to drive up taxes for those in work, to be able to fund the increasing health and social care spending on the older population(4). There are also the implications on the wider health and social care systems to find long term care for the patients once they are discharged.

Continue reading “What if the human life span keeps increasing?” →

From Seeking the ‘Perfect Body Shape’ to Finding My Body Perfectly Beautiful as it is…

By Susan Lee, Norfolk.

I have always had an ambivalent relationship with my body – I compared it and judged it against what I felt was the ideal shape and size as presented by the media, celebrities and the world around me. Even as a young girl I felt this dissatisfaction and was aware that my body was pear shaped and I was always wishing that my legs would miraculously change – and this was an underlying preoccupation that was always running just beneath the surface. I was deeply dissatisfied with myself and I am now realising that it was very painful to reject my own body in this way. At the time I had no idea how important my relationship with my body could be – or that in fact I could have an intimate and meaningful relationship with my body. I also felt that if I had ‘the perfect body shape’ then life and my relationships would likewise be ‘perfect’.

Later in my life I began to lose weight and change shape – my ‘pear’ was disappearing and I was delighted! I found it easier to buy clothes and felt more attractive and sexy. My diet had changed too as I was beginning to look at how I lived life and the effect that food had on my body and the way my body metabolised what I was eating. Looking back on this stage of my life it was more about control, so that I could look a certain way, than really feeling into what would support my body. I listened to the advice of others and did not trust myself to know what would support me to change the deep dissatisfaction I had about myself. Continue reading “From Seeking the ‘Perfect Body Shape’ to Finding My Body Perfectly Beautiful as it is…” →

True Physiotherapy – Part Two

by Kate Greenaway-Twist, Goonellabah NSW

Following on from True Physiotherapy – Part One:

Over the last 16 years I have transformed from a person driven by the goals of how things should be, how a patient should move or feel after a treatment, to a person far more at ease in myself, with a body that is far less tense. I am lighter and more fluid in all my movements and I am able to truly support my patients in their own natural healing process.

A big part of this transformation was due to me reconnecting to my natural gentleness, a quality within me that I had been disconnected from for a long time.

Gentleness

I have also learned over the last 16 years how important it is to reconnect to the natural gentle quality in me, that is in us all. I was inspired to give gentleness a go from the constant reflection of gentleness, love and true caring for others from Serge Benhayon, of Universal Medicine.

Gradually I became more gentle in my approach to myself and with everything I do, especially in how I am with my patients – how I touch them and treat them. Continue reading “True Physiotherapy – Part Two” →

True Physiotherapy – Part One

 by Kate Greenaway, Goonellabah NSW

I have been working in Physiotherapy for over 30 years. I graduated from Sydney University in 1984 and worked in teaching hospitals for the next 2 years. For the following 6 years I worked in private practice, learning as much as I could from more experienced physios, but I found there was a hardness to the way physiotherapy was practised and so I went overseas in search of a more gentle way to treat the whole body.

In Boston, USA, I did courses introducing me to the importance of the connective tissue in the body. I experimented with more gentle ways of releasing this tissue for my many clients that had complex chronic spinal pain.

I came back to Australia in 1997 and moved to the Northern Rivers region of NSW, working in Community Health for 4 years full time and then 4 years part time. I treated the full range of ages and conditions, from babies to the elderly. Since 2002 I have been self-employed, working in a wonderful complementary healing clinic called Universal Medicine in Goonellabah and for 2 years until December 2016 I also worked in a family medical practice nearby. Over the years, I have undergone such a transformation in myself and my work that the way I am with patients, and how I approach my treatments with them now is a world away from even 15 years ago. Continue reading “True Physiotherapy – Part One” →

Opening of my heart

By Irene Sheard, Aged care worker and grandmother, Goonellabah

We often hear the phrase “opening our heart” but what does it truly mean?

There are a lot of references about the heart such as hard hearted, mean hearted, cold hearted, and of course the one many aspire to, “open hearted”. I have always considered myself a fairly “kind hearted” person who cared about others and made myself available to help others whenever I could. It is easy and convenient to think of ourselves in this way as we then don’t have to change anything and can keep living our life in the same old way, but how true is this perception of ourselves?  Could what we think is our heart be an emotional part of us and not the original loving heart?

I have been unfolding this question for some years now by attending presentations by Serge Benhayon, the founder of Universal Medicine.

One of the first things I realised by attending these presentations is that I am already everything that is glorious and loving and that the parts of me that I think I am are only cover ups that I have learnt to live by, to literally cover up my hurts.  I then believe that I am this person, whether it be a positive belief, such as “I am loving and caring” or a negative belief that I am “a horrible person who hurts others”.

Continue reading “Opening of my heart” →

Presence in the body – Our key to True Intelligence

By Cherise Holt, 33, Nurse, Brisbane

The truth is that our bodies are amazing things! We need look no further than the way in which the Digestive System transports matter with consistency, the flow with which our cardiac system delivers blood through the heart and whole body; and our breath cycle and the way our lungs expand is super heavenly when we stop to feel it. The sheer fact that the human body can literally hold and build another body during pregnancy is beyond profound! Deeply exquisite and so intricately detailed is the human frame that we are still learning more about how it all happens and its magnificently intelligent and engineered design.

There is something so harmonious about the human body, its connections between all systems and the grand job description it is dedicated to; whilst it has the natural potential to live it all, coherently and effortlessly with each cell playing its role within the whole.

Our whole bodies really are intelligent, but how often do we really stop to not only appreciate this fact, but to tune in to this intelligence for ourselves; accessing the universal communication that is constantly being offered far beyond physicality – and how would this look?

Continue reading “Presence in the body – Our key to True Intelligence” →