There is no magic formula, no secret pill...

I qualified to practice homeopathy last year. It has helped me and my family tremendously. And it’s now starting to help my homeopathy clients tremendously. Hurray!

As you will know if you’ve read a bit about me on the website, I was in a bit of a state when my kids were about 7 and 5 – I was post-viral, chronically fatigued with gut issues and lowered immunity. But with help from my homeopath, we slowly but surely got me back on a more balanced path. But it wasn’t overnight, and we worked hard to “peel back the layers” (hence the picture of the onion!) and bring me back to health. And I still occasionally dip back into the odd symptom now and then. But now I know what to do when that happens.

The thing is, a lot of people seem to think that homeopathy offers “a magic pill”: a remedy that you can take and it will solve all the problems. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work like that. A lot of people have heard about constitutional remedies – that is, remedies whose picture matches the “bottom layer”, the person with characteristics you get to after you peel the layers back – and think you can take this and it will solve everything. This is not my experience of homeopathy. I do think Hering’s Law of Cure holds a lot of truth – that we peel back from the outside in, backwards in time, past all the illnesses and coping mechanisms of the past. Once you’ve done this work – and it can take years – then you are much more likely to get to a place where a constitutional remedy will offer benefits.

There are similarities in the Alexander Technique. People come for lessons, and immediately start to notice the

bits of their bodies where the most habit lies, the areas of their anatomy that they hang on to for dear life. So they notice something in the lesson and inside their heads go, “Aha! That’s it! I’ve found the magic formula – I just need to remember not to tighten this bit, and to let go of that bit, and all will be well…!”.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work like this (do I hear an echo?!). Much like the homeopathic process, the Alexander process works in peeling back layers. Letting go of that bit of muscle is what you need to do TODAY – but tomorrow it will be different. You might discover a deeper layer in your self-observation, or a bit of your anatomy that you’ve never even considered (for me only recently: hello ankles!). So use your inhibition to say no to that which no longer serves you, and use your direction to say yes to that release that you do want and need today. But know that it’s only for today. Tomorrow, wake up, throw it away, and notice all over again with fresh eyes.

Happy layer-peeling!