There are times when you find that the way you have been approaching things, even if it is by doing exactly what you were instructed to do, is backwards. I remember vividly a professor saying in the first week of medical school that “fifty-percent of what we are going to teach you is wrong and […]
A Fourfold Approach to Healing
There are a lot of different terms for describing therapeutic approaches that think differently from a conventional, Western-medicine approach. For a long time, they were considered to be “alternative” therapies—meaning something completely different and separate from usual medical practice. Then the term “complementary” therapies became popular—suggesting something still different from usual practice, but which could […]
Skin: What a Marvelous Sense Organ
You can read in many different places that our skin is the largest organ of our body. Some parts of our skin we know quite well, such as the skin of our face. We identify with that skin a lot. Other parts of our skin we may hardly notice, like the skin on our elbows, […]
Pain, Sleep, Seizures: Windows to Healthy, and Imbalanced, Wakefulness
The beginning of August offered a powerful experience for me when a wide-ranging group of anthroposophic doctors, nurses and therapists gathered for a conference about “Transforming Chronic Pain–a Spiritual Task for Our Time.” The meeting included very inspiring presentations from several doctors in Europe, especially one with deep experience in palliative care and another with very poor and challenged patients in central […]
Why Trying Harder Doesn’t Make Anxiety Better
In many areas of life if you try harder, focus more, consciously push further, then performance and success improve. It is tempting to extend that logic to all areas of life, but medically that principle does not always work. In truth, only specific portions of our body’s activities are open to conscious guidance, while many other realms […]
Stomach Flu, Probiotics and Digesting the World
Here are three paragraphs about supporting and strengthening your digestion: When you have an acute gastroenteritis (more commonly know as the stomach “flu”), a simple, but very helpful trick: If you get a stomach virus–the kind that quickly goes around schools and workplaces and causes multiple episodes of vomiting–it is very easy to get dehydrated. This […]
Building Strength for the Future, from present adversity
“What is to give light must endure burning.” –Viktor Frankl Health and illness follows certain foundational laws of cause and effect. Falling from some height (like a tree) risks breaking a bone; smoking increases rates of cancer. Those are fairly straight forward links that are easy to understand. We could say, the horse is clearly […]
Building Strength for the Future, how we can learn from present adversity
“What is to give light must endure burning.” –Viktor Frankl Health and illness follows certain foundational laws of cause and effect. Falling from some height (like a tree) risks breaking a bone; smoking increases rates of cancer. Those are fairly straight forward links that are easy to understand. We could say, the horse is clearly […]
What is the Best Diet (for cancer)?
Diet can be an important part of working with a cancer. There are six elements that add important holistic insight to choosing the right diet.
The Therapeutic Value of “Maintenance” as a Life Process
We all need to devote energy to “maintenance.” No, this does not refer to some kind of human 30,000-mile check, like what you might do for your car.