Letter #2: My Introduction to Natural Healing Part 1
Healthy foods in Bhaktapur, Nepal
Dear Friend
Do you remember that these Letters are expected to take 1-2 hours of your time each week? I hope so, we have a longer Letter than last week!
I have a revelatory tale from my own life to share with you, there is the Health Tip of the Week, the Word of the Week and the Sentence of the Week, and we will reflect upon last week’s tasks.
Let’s get started.
How I healed myself from my lower back pain
Before Reading Task
Do you have any kind of affliction or ailment that affects you on a recurring basis? What do you do when you suffer from it?
Make notes in your beautiful notebook. (Have you bought one yet?!)
The Tale
It happened again, oh my Buddha, what agony. I leant over the basin to wash my face and my whole lower back above the waist crippled me up in pain. Just moving it was excruciating. So incapacitating.
On previous occasions just washing a dish or cleaning my teeth, some similar kind of innocuous movement, had done the same thing. How could it be?
I would be in great pain for two or three days before it began subsiding and I got back to ‘normal’.
Despite being an avowed avoider of pills, this time the pain was so much that my wife Air got me to the hospital and they prescribed me some kind of painkiller. It worked very quickly, giving me almost total relief. I was a very happy bunny, what a miracle! I made a note of the drug’s name, Arcoxia, for future ‘spasms’, and indeed, I bought it a couple more times at a local pharmacy and it worked each time.
(As an aside from what I later discovered, be careful of this drug, and many others! Look it up on the internet to see what I mean.)
I don’t recall how many times this happened, probably half a dozen in all, over a couple of years.
Meanwhile, with an increasing frequency I was waking up in the middle of the night with lower back pain, although this was nowhere near as severe as those other outbreaks. I could get relief by sitting upright, but then I couldn’t get back to sleep! I was left in Catch 22 each time.
Sleep, along with drinking lots of water (Thailand, where I live, is a hot country), and living with fun and avoiding stress were my three doffs of the cap to my health care ‘regimen’; proactively speaking, I did nothing else to support my health. I drank a lot of beer, smoked part-time, but my diet was generally good as Thai food is healthy anyway. My only exercise was a round of golf each week, but that was a good 8km walk.
I never ever bought junk food, because I hate putting any money into the coffers of the huge corporations.
(I should add, because I now know it would have been a contributory factor, that my job had recently become really political at the university, and that was definitely stressful to some degree. The teaching itself, as always, was fun and super rewarding, but the other stuff was not.)
Looking back, I know I was facing these lower back issues for at least four years before I finally took action.
I’d finally had enough of losing my quality sleep and getting these terrible outbreaks of pain.
I would joke at the time also that I was almost becoming a more regular visitor to hospitals than bars and pubs, and that really was not to my liking.
I was 44. It was 2008.
(Reflecting on things since then, I realise that my ‘bullet-proof youth was over, and in fact it had been over since turning 40.)
However, over a couple of months or so nobody could help me. I tried mainstream ways, I tried Chinese herbs, I tried a couple of other ‘specialists’, including physio, and I went to see a highly recommended American-trained back specialist. He said something to me about stopping drinking, which was a shock to my ears. I thought about this when I got home, and just concluded he must have meant for a couple of days, not forever.
One day at the hospital I insisted upon an X-ray because my frustration was mounting, and when it showed no physical displacement on my spine, my logical brain said that there must be a solution. But what was it? Nobody could help me.
As I was contemplating my next move back at home, I suddenly recalled that a few months ago I had read a very interesting article in the Outlook section of the Bangkok Post, about some kind of ‘alternative’ medicine, and I had kept it in case of future need.
That future need was now my present need.
Unusually for me I was able to locate it rather easily, and reread it. I felt super excited. It was an introduction to Ayurveda. I did a google search and found three Ayurveda places in Chiang Mai. Two were at five star hotel resorts and out of my teacher salary’s price range. The third place looked promising, and was in the old town area. I booked up a time to see the Ayurveda practitioner.
I went to see her on the 31st of October 2008. The day is etched in my memory.
From the moment I walked into the grounds of this Ayurveda Centre I felt a wonderful sort of calming energy about the whole place, starting with the small tropical garden I walked through.
About 90 minutes later I emerged from the clinic with a tremendous feeling of anticipation that I had found my answer. Incredibly I had been sitting down with the practitioner for about an hour, talking to her about my life, my work, my attitude towards life, and so on. This is not your typical doctor visit!!
I was feeling like I had found a solution to all my back problems, and interestingly no pills had been prescribed. All I had in my hands to show for my visit was a two-herb mix, which I knew nothing about at the time, but looking back I know one of them was turmeric. Even more interestingly, the lady doctor had prescribed me a diet which was to avoid certain foods.
I had never heard of diet being ‘medicine’, but during our chat I learned so much from her, with my eyes and ears agog at what she was telling me!
I asked her if I could drink beer, and she nodded in the affirmative which really surprised me. However, perhaps she didn’t know the propensity of an English male for consuming lots of beer…
I was to return to see her in two weeks time to report upon my progress.
As dusk turned to night time I drove home feeling high. I also had plenty of informational handouts she had given me, which suited my research head no end (I love learning, and my teaching position required me to do lots of research, I was trained in it, and I also had to teach my teacher students how to do it).
I will share the story of this 90 minutes with you in Letter #3 as this tale in itself deserves a full telling, and I really want it to give you serious food for thought for your own life.
However, what I want to tell you now is that, no kidding, on my fourth night of sleep I had a full sleep and didn’t wake up with any back pain in the middle of the night. Miracle of miracles! What a revelation! And the same the next night. I was fixed!
I also realised that I had been carrying other tensions and niggles in muscles and parts of my body, but which I had sort of learned to live with. I knew this because with every passing day my body was feeling lighter, tension was dropping away, and my mind even began becoming clearer and a good mood was filling my consciousness.
But one problem remained on the horizon, yet, in the spirit of my revelatory week, I quickly established a solution. Every Friday was pool league night, and at that stage of my life it would simply have been impossible to go to a pub on a Friday night and not drink beer. She had said no problem, but for reasons I will relate next time, I wanted to avoid all beer for the two weeks till I saw her again.
I took myself off to Pai for the weekend, three hours drive from Chiang Mai, and perhaps my favourite spot in the world. In this way I avoided the pub on Friday, and sure enough, I went the two weeks without a drop of beer.
What a clever man!
When I went back to see her two weeks later, I was a transformed man. Unbelievable. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a week to get the full story!
Ayurveda deserves a quick mention, but I will be returning to it in a near future Letter. I am now very well-researched in it. I think everybody should put its knowledge into their life, it is literally transformative.
In a nutshell, this major episode in my life was my introduction to natural healing. It was done through nothing more than a change to my diet, a part-time cessation of beer consumption, and a two-herb mix for two weeks.
Perhaps I should add, for me, crucial also was all the amazing information coming my way, which I had never ever heard of in any mainstream media. And I’m an information nut and learning junkie.
Dietary protocol is at the heart of Ayurveda, and all natural healing.
Something, I was now quickly learning, studiously avoided by mainstream media and society.
Ayurveda is the ancient Indian system for preventing ill-health, proactively pursuing our wellness, and healing our body from ailments and disease should they arise. It is the complete health modality for daily living habits and practices that support our wellbeing, easily grasped by the ordinary human being.
Ayurveda means ‘science of life’, and while its origins are from a good 5000 years ago, it’s very much the health and wellness guide for modern man.
I recommend you to get it into your life!
~~~~~
In future Letters we shall return frequently to the whole topic of holistic health and the practice of living holistically, of which Ayurveda has so much to teach us. Next week in Letter #3 I’ll return to this momentous day in my life, and tell you about the bio-energetics machine which they used on me, and which I found so fascinating.
Needless to say I launched myself over the coming months and years into thousands of hours of research into diet and nutrition, illness and wellness, health modalities and so on.
This is a timely moment for our weekly health tip.
~~~~~
Health Tip of the Week
Did you know that chlorophyll in green plants has the same molecular structure as our blood, just that its central atom is magnesium, while iron is the central atom of blood?
What this means is that our blood and body very much would like chlorophyll in it! Many health practitioners say that we lack magnesium, and that many ailments and much ill-health arise out of this lack.
Therefore, regularly consume green drinks from green plants, leaves and vegetables.
This gives you a much higher concentration of their nutrients than eating them, as you can consume so much more.
I like using leaves as this is easier than making juice and having to clean my old machine! With bigger more dense leaves like lime tree leaves, I pick about 6-8 of them, clean them, then tear them a few times to release their oils, and infuse in hot water, then drink. With mulberry and moringa leaves I pick loads of them from our trees, wash, dry naturally, and then put in airtight and light-tight containers for drinking as herbal tea.
You can of course buy many herbal teas, so choose ones from green plants or trees.
Word of the Week
awareness
For me developing awareness is our single best tool for being able to manage and take care of our health and wellbeing. I’ll share my thoughts on it in the next Letter. However, your task is to reflect upon it yourself and see what you think it means, and include self-awareness in your reflections.
Make notes in your notebook which you can return to next week.
Sentence of the Week
Actually, since they go together, you get two for the price of one. They’re not my quotes, but I have no idea who first coined them.
“You’re not sick, you’ve been poisoned.”
“There’s no money in death, no money in wellness, all the money is in between.”
Again, reflect upon what they mean to you, make notes and we’ll discuss them next week.
Weekly Task for Letter #2
Here is an excellent introduction to Ayurveda in this short video, Living an Ayurveda Lifestyle.
I have used it many times with my students for listening skills practice, but also in learning about Ayurveda. Whether you are a complete beginner in Ayurveda or have already learned some about it, I think you’ll find it fascinating.
In the spirit of task-based learning, before you hit the play button, here are some questions for you to answer as you listen along.
Listening 1 Task
Watch the whole video without pausing, and without writing. Give it your full attention. At the end, write down the answers to these questions in your notebook.
What are the five elements in nature?
What are the three doshas in Ayurveda?
Which dosha sounds most like you?
Listening 2 Task
Now watch the video again, and make notes as you go along, pausing as you wish.
At the end, ask yourself what actions you can realistically implement into your life now, and to make a new habit in your lifestyle. Remember our pathway is step by step for 2024, so don’t feel despondent if you can’t do it all, which you almost certainly won’t have the time to.
And then start implementing them this week!
Weekly Task from Letter #1
I asked you to think about learning, what it is, and what your experience of it was during your schooling. It was a task in ‘awareness-raising’, because mostly speaking we know so much more than we think, yet until we are aware of something we cannot utilise it in our life.
We are spending the whole year learning, and I will be bringing many learning strategies to you through all the tasks. Look at the tasks I’ve set you for the video, and see how these direct your learning experience. You might want to compare it with what you remember doing at school.
The main thing I want to say here is that mostly speaking ‘learning’ at school is just one small learning sub-skill of rote memorisation. Real worthwhile learning must be motivating otherwise we cannot give and maintain our attention, and without attention nothing comes into our brain.
True learning has four stages to it: input >> intake >> output >> reflection. That means your mind and heart must be attentive, receptive, productive and reflective.
Input is what you read or listen to or see, while intake is the bit that you understand and recall. Output is doing something with what you have learned, and reflection is replaying the whole event in your mind from a fresh perspective.
As an educator, for now I will just say that most schooling blocks us from developing our listening, reading, speaking and writing skills. This has terrible consequences for us when we enter adulthood, and we are in effect disempowered as if Mother Eagle had clipped Baby Eagle’s wings. It’s why there are so many troubles in society, and so much ill-health, because we never learned all the fundamentals, in terms of core knowledge, essential skills and self-belief.
That’s why I’m launching my whole venture - and these weekly Letters - to bring real learning to the adult world, because until parents, teachers, educators, leaders and all adults learn how to learn and how to manage our own health and wellbeing, how can we teach the children in any beneficial way?
We can’t.
That’s it for Letter #2. If you have spare time and want more work to do (!), do some further research into Ayurveda, using the above video as a starting point. The internet has brought the whole world library into our own homes!
See you next week.
All the best
Philip
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