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Saturday, January 26, 2008

Healing Intuitively

Supplementary Study

I have always been interested in the role that intuition has to do with healing. There have been numerous studies done on it in the medical world and many stories told of it in the natural healing world. The results of this observation and study seem to agree on one thing - intuition factors into healing but nobody knows how much.

The Institute of Noetic Sciences is doing a study about this topic, among many others and YOU can participate. As you participate you learn more about your own intuitive abilities (you may have more than you thought!) and you are also given the opportunity to improve them. From the other end, the institute is writing down results to help them in their study. It is an amazingly fun and cooperative project.

You can participate online by visiting:

PSI Research & Games

Enjoy! And if you have any interesting experiences please share it with the other students in the course!

Blessings & Health, Kristie

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Short Cartoon about Allopathic Approaches to Medicine

This video is just TOO TRUE! If anyone ever asks you again why you are studying natural medicine you can send them this video:

Allopath Video


However, I do need to say, once again, that I am not against doctors. I think they are brilliant and have a lot of knowledge and if I had a broken leg I would certainly want one around! I am just against the general METHODS of allopathic treatment - which even herbalists can use sometimes. I have seen herbalists prescribing herbs using this same allopathic method and the mass manufacture (and near decline) of the herb echinacea is a good example of this.

This is a great educational video. I think it could have been made in a less "slanted" manner but for now...it is one of the best I have seen on the topic.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Becoming a Better Healer by Kristie

Dear Students,

This story can help you all become more responsible healers.

A consulting client of mine was doing a large amount of consulting with the clerk at a local health food store. While there are some clerks who are properly trained I still feel that actual consulting in this situation is not appropriate. These clerks are probably the most informed as to the products they are selling but answering any questions outside of this range, without having a full profile on the person in front of them (do they ever ask if you are pregnant, nursing or taking other medications?) can be dangerous.

This is also something we need to consider as healers or as people training to be healers. Are we being responsible in our advice-giving? This is one reason I don't give free consulting. I don't feel that answering a question without knowing someone's full health history is responsible. So I will help guide people in the right direction so they can do some more research or I will give them some "general advice" in a Letter to the Editor response, but in no case can I see that it would be responsible to hand out personal advice without knowing your client more extensively.

Here was my advice to her:


Dear AH,

...However, I just became a bit concerned when I received more than one e-mail about your consultations with the health food store clerk/owner/?.

I am concerned about people who are running health-food stores or natural healing stores offering themselves as consultants. This, to me, is like a pharmacist telling you what medicine to take when you go to the pharmacy. What if the doctor prescribed your daughter a cream for her skin or a certain antibiotic and then the pharmacist said "Oh, no, you should take this one"? It is irresponsible for three reasons:

1. It is a conflict of interest. How can you REALLY trust someone and how can they really trust themselves to give you the best opinion when they are also selling the product?

2. It is irresponsible. You can only advise someone on dosages and formulas once you know their entire story. Unless the pharmacist or store owner is going to sit with you for a half hour and ask questions or read a 4 page questionnaire then they should be more cautious.

3. They usually do not have the proper training. And if they did they would know better than to be handing out advice "on the fly" without a consultation. I cringe. I want to cry every time I go to purchase things at my local health food store and I see the clerk advising someone on an herb to take by opening up a few books they have on the counter and saying "the book says..." It is horrifying! I have actually had clients in my office who were ill from taking herbs that were advised to them in this way.

Books are for reference by a person who already has training in a field. Or they can give you guidelines on where to look or consider healing. They can also be used for things like colds, headaches, etc...However, you need to have a lot of background training to be able to use a book to diagnose and suggest cures for chronic diseases. And the books are often misleading. I have about 60 books that I use on a regular basis to cross reference various things. This is because one book may suggest 4 drops of carrot oil (as is in your case) and another may suggest 40 drops. One book may say never to take a certain herb but in another book it may tell you that it is safe. None of the books say the same things exactly.

This is where training comes in. The person who is trained takes what is in the book (or in their head) and can cross reference it with the hundreds of cases they have seen and dealt with. They can consult with others in their field that they know and in the end they can come up with an educated answer for their client based on a wide knowledge of the client's needs AND a wide range of reference and knowledge of the materials they are using.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

STUDENT LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Assignments for Classes?

Kristie,

This may be a silly question but I can't figure out the testing/quiz procedure. I did find and complete the first tests for both the Aromatherapy and Reflexology courses. Do you email subsequent tests after you grade the first ones or are they in the files under the course listing and I'm just overlooking them?

Thank you, S


Dear S,

No question is silly! From my end sometimes I think I am explaining things so clearly but the feedback I get sometimes tells me I am not...so...All the quizzes and tests and assignment are IN the Yahoogroups files section with the reading assignments. Some chapters and units have more assignments and some have fewer assignments. Once you finish a test you can go ahead and complete the next one. You can work at your own pace and you don't need to wait for me.

However, I have a "Student Day" every Friday, so if you don't get your work back (with corrections or comments) by Friday, please tell me because I may not have received it.

Thank you for asking.

Blessings & Health,
Kristie