As a Naturopath I have seen many people in my clinic with an array of health problems which I have successfully treated and as a result, my clients are satisfied with my services. However, there have been the select few that, despite all my efforts, they have experienced little or no improvement, or they find great results to start with but then hit a plateau. I have spoken to my work colleagues who are in the same industry and they have found the same thing with their practices. It’s as if there is something missing, something blocking these patients from reaching true healing and subsequent freedom from their ailments. This seems to be apparent across the board of health practitioners. For instance, a few of my patients have come to me seeking more than what orthodox medical doctors’ offer. They claim that they have been taking prescription drugs for too long which initially helps their problems, but brings with it side effects that when discussed with their GP, they find they have another prescription drug added to their list. To me this was just not good enough, and I felt as a health practitioner I needed to find the missing link to why this was happening.

More and more people, including some doctors, are becoming aware that maybe there is more to their patients’ health condition or disease than just the physical signs and symptoms. They are right, there is more. This means that in order to truly heal them, it is going to take more than just orthodox drugs, or in my industry, more than just improved diet and herbs.

There is a concept that has been around since the ancient Greeks that disease is a result of emotional pain and/or negative mind patterns. It was written about by Paracelsus two thousand years ago as well as by Hildegard of Bingen’s medicine eight hundred years ago. More recently however, Edgar Cayce also spoke of emotions and disease. Edgar Cayce was known for his thousands of long distance healings through home remedies, nutrition and naturopathy. Cayce stated:

Anger creates headaches or indigestion, depression results in weariness; emotional turbulence triggers asthmatic conditions and so on. He said, “no one can hate his (sic) neighbour and not have stomach or liver trouble” and “one cannot be jealous and allow anger of same and not have upset digestion or heart disorder.”

In 1966, a lady by the name of Alice Steadman wrote a book Who’s the Matter with Me which is an extension of this theory into a healing system. She believes people’s thoughts and fears create disease in the body, and by examining and changing these mental-emotional negatives, health is regained. Dis-ease is caused by friction between body and soul; not knowing oneself as Goddess, not following our incarnational life purpose, or denying one’s spirituality.

Louise Hay has also written on dis-ease, thought forms and emotions called You Can Heal Your Life and Heal Your Body (Hay House, 1984 and 1982). Heal Your Body is a lovely book that can be used as a reference guide that lists many conditions and diseases, the most likely causes of them and a new thought pattern for each to assist one to change the old thought pattern. Louise believes that in order to permanently eliminate a condition, we must first work to dissolve the mental cause or mental thought pattern. The mental thought patterns that cause the most dis-ease in the body are criticism, anger, resentment and guilt. For example, criticism indulged in long enough will often lead to arthritis. Anger can cause things that boil and burn and infect the body. Long held resentment can eat away at the self and consequently lead to tumours and cancer. Therefore, with all this information, it is suggested that when treating any sort of condition or disease, acute or chronic, we need to look within ourselves to see if there is any underlying emotional or mental issue that could have caused the problem. We also should be open to incorporating many different modalities in order to treat the body and the mind. We need to be flexible and open to change – this can include changing one’s diet and lifestyle, changing the way we think, changing our occupation, and some people need to go to the extent of changing their whole way of life. When we are confronted with such chronic and serious diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer just to name a few, we need to be aware that they present themselves as a wake up call, calling us to stop and take notice of ourselves, confront our fears, the way we think, function and the way we live our lives and ultimately make changes to better ourselves and our health.
Carrie is a qualified Naturopath on the Gold Coast. Carrie uses herbs, nutrition and nutritional supplements as well as Reiki healing as treatment  modalities.  She also believes in treating the mind, body and spirit, as all these aspects play a  part in our overall health and well being. Carrie is also branching out and furthering her qualifications to include Bush Flower Remedies and White Light Remedies. She is also on her own personal journey to becoming a Medical Intuitive.
If  you have any questions please dont hesitate to contact   Carrie Forbes   candcforbes1@bigpond.com.

References: Stein, D. 1996, Essential Psychic Healing – A Complete Guide to Healing Yourself, Healing Others, and Healing the Earth, Crossing Press, California Hay, L. 1998, Heal Your Body A-Z, Hay House Inc, Australia