In my last post, I wrote about my writing journey which has developed therapeutically in more recent years. However, I have been interested in many different therapies throughout my adult life.
I started to question forms of alternative healing in the seventies, my first port of call being homeopathy which I discovered when I was twenty-six. Prior to that I had undergone an operation at twenty which I now know was unnecessary and wouldn’t be performed on a person so young these days. I had been pregnant and given birth twice by the time I was twenty-two, both of these leaving me feeling unheard while in the process of giving birth and not being in control of my own body. Hence, I started to question again with regards to allopathic medicine, diet and life style, alongside other forms of self-care for myself and my family.
Homeopathy assisted me here and I learnt a lot from a general practitioner who was also a homeopath. In hindsight, reflecting on this time, I would have liked to study this, but in those days, having left school at fifteen, I didn’t feel academically adequate. I’ve made up for it now and have been using homeopathy to treat dis-ease in the body for more than forty years. I was also very interested in herbal medicine and, living in a rural area, became aware of beneficial plants which grew in the hedgerows and the ones I grew purposefully in my garden. I was a regular shopper in Culpeper, a herbalists’ shop in our nearest city (there wasn’t so much choice then) and ordering herbs which of course then came by snail mail! I studied avidly when I could as a lay person. Again, I would have liked to train as a herbal practitioner and thought of it often, but by then I was a mother of four, looking after goats and hens and a garden with a low income so no chance of that happening at that time.
We moved to the wilds of Scotland and continued our ‘natural’ lifestyle, with me learning more about homeopathy, herbal medicine and treating my family and animals accordingly, and also adding another beautiful child and more goats into the mix! My then father-in-law introduced me to anthroposophy and Steiner’s views on education, growing methods and medicine. This led us to eventually move to North Yorkshire where we lived near a Camphill Community. My children went to the Waldorf School in the community and I worked there, learning much about biodynamic gardening and anthroposophical medicine, as well as occasionally taking care of houses in the community, giving house-parents a much-needed break.
Eventually, during a life crisis in the form of a divorce, I decided to go to university to study Social Anthropology. I immersed myself in many health modules when given the opportunity and learnt much about different forms of medicine around the world.
After I passed my two degrees with good results, I deepened my understanding of homeopathy and oriental medicine with the late Prof. Steven Russell and also embarked on a three-year teacher training course in Tai Chi, Chi Kung and meditation with Jason Chan of Infinite Tai Chi, now Radiant Health. On graduating from the latter, I taught successfully for several years until another life crisis came my way in the form of a serious illness.
It never ceases to amaze me how life changes can evolve into new beginnings. For me this eventually culminated in another form of healing, writing for wellbeing and becoming a poetry therapist practitioner in training.
In the last two years, I have studied flower essences which I have used personally myself. This is where I find myself now; facilitating groups and individuals in writing for wellbeing and poetry therapy, incorporating Tai Chi and Chi Kung exercises, as well as my knowledge of flower essences.