Letter #3: My Introduction to Natural Healing Part 2
A health-producing friend of ours!
Dear Friend
I have a top Letter for you this week!
I trust this Letter finds you in good spirits and, perhaps, already beginning to ‘unleash your spirit’ upon the world?!
This is Letter #3 and is the second part of my tale recounting how natural healing came into my world, transforming my approach to life. The third and final part of this tale comes next week.
I want to inspire you to put natural healing and holistic living ways into your own life! It’s simply about getting valuable information and putting in the work to change your habits.
If you’ve not read Part 1 of this tale in Letter #2, then definitely read that first to get the background to the upcoming story below.
Furthermore, if you’ve not read Letter #1 then please start with that Letter, as it gives all the important information on how to get the most out of this series of what will be 52 Letters during 2024.
I publish each new Letter every Monday.
In today’s Letter I will:
share the story of what happened to me in this remarkable and revelatory 90-minute period of my life at the Ayurveda Centre in Chiang Mai town centre, one Monday evening in 2008, which has had such a profound affect on my health and wellbeing ever since
give you the Word of the Week and the Sentence of the Week to ponder over
give you the Weekly Health Tip to implement into your life
set you a Weekly Task
and discuss the tasks from Letter #2
If you are reading this in my email, always remember that all Letters are catalogued here on my website all on one page.
The Tale: Natural Healing Works, and A Bioenergetics Machine Changes My Life
(Much of this tale is taken from my book.)
Pre-Reading Task
1. Have you had any experience of natural healing? What do you think it encompasses?
If so, summarise what it did for you in your notebook. If not, write an honest summary of what thoughts are triggered in your mind by the term ‘natural healing’.
2. Hospitals have many machines which are used to diagnose specific ailments and health problems. Have you ever heard of, or come across, machines which read your overall general level of wellbeing or ill-health?
The Tale Part2
So it was that, at 5pm on Monday 20th of October 2008*, I turned up at the Ayurveda Centre for my appointment. Revelations galore were about to unleash themselves upon me.
(*In my last Letter, I said it was the 31st of October. I just checked the calendar from that year, and I realise it was in fact the 20th!)
First thing I noticed was a lovely tropical garden, and upon entering the reception area I sensed a serene vibration to the place: the scent was good, not those sanitised smells you get in hospitals; it sort of felt like a home; and I was greeted by a smiling healthy-looking elder lady behind a counter.
She wrote down my details, and gave me some kind of herbal drink. The energy felt good, and I felt calm. So far so good.
Presently two young ladies appeared, dressed beautifully in traditional northern Thailand style clothing, and led me into a separate room.
There, on a table, I saw a small machine which immediately provoked curiosity in me. Looking at it as I sat down next to it, I saw it had a dial ranging from 0 to 100 and a needle resting at zero. Out of this machine came two wires, one with a sort of copper rod which I had to hold in my left hand, and at the end of the other wire was a sort of metal pen-shaped thing.
One of the ladies then proceeded to gently push this pen thing against the bottom of each finger and thumb of my right hand, on both sides, and then the same again on my toes of my right foot. This gave them 20 readings of my body.
Each time the pen thing touched my skin it would provoke the needle into action and the other lady would note down each score.
From memory, only two readings failed to reach 100, and for most of them the needle rapidly flew to the 100 mark, making a sort of screeching noise. I deduced 100 to be not a good score. I could see on the form where they recorded my measurements different parts of the body listed, such as the liver, kidneys, stomach, nervous system, heart, blood, lymphatic system and various other parts. I recall wondering what ‘lymphatic system’ was.
Now, I’d never come across any such machine in my life, nor knew of the existence of such things, but I was very interested to learn that a machine could measure the state of various parts of my body. I could not yet trust it, because it might be some gimmick, but I was curious for sure; I was good at physics at school and have a rather scientific bent to my mind and use research in my line of work.
I was led back to my original seat to wait for the lady doctor, and I contemplated upon this machine and its readings for me.
Shortly, one of the assistants led me into another, larger, room which was airy and nicely cool within the tropical heat, made so by a slowly whirring ceiling fan. It had one wall covered in books, and in the middle of the room was a rather large table. Sitting behind it was a smiling lady who was a bit older than me perhaps. She bid me to sit down.
She had a kind face and a most serene manner which made me immediately feel super calm, and behind her was a large window revealing the beautiful tropical garden I had entered the building from. Still smiling, she asked me to tell her a bit about myself.
Now this was an interesting surprise to me. ‘Normal’ doctors don’t ask things like this!
Well, already I was fully at ease before we’d even got started.
I told her I was a teacher at one of the universities in town, and told her about my time in Thailand, how much I loved my life over here, that I was soon to get married, and a few other things, and only then did she ask me what my health complaint was.
I told her about my back problems, that an X-ray had shown it was physically fine, and that I suspected my beer drinking might be causing my hassles, but it seemed to me she wasn’t really concerned with my back or the beer.
She turned her attention to my 20 readings and I joked that I thought 100 was not a good score. I was right, and the nub of what she then told me was that this machine had revealed to her that my whole body was overheated, all my organs were being overworked, and my immune system was struggling.
I’d never heard of such things before. Obviously I knew about the existence of my liver, kidneys and so on, but I had never really been made aware of their connection to one’s level of health, or what each was responsible for. ‘Immune system’ was never part of any conversation I had.
She talked about many things relating to health and wellbeing (again, this is not normal doctor talk), including giving me a basic introduction to Ayurveda and the three different body types (doshas), and that my type was prone to overheating and inflammation.
She also talked about different diets for different blood types, and about acid- and alkaline-forming foods. Lots of her talk was about diet. This was the first time in my life that I’d really been made aware of a direct link between diet and health.
She mentioned the importance of sleep and a few other routines one should follow to promote good health. Everything she said was about promoting good health and preventing ill-health.
Nothing was mentioned about my back! Amazing!
But from our chat it was clear she was focusing on my whole body, not any one part of it. She did, however, focus a lot on my overheated organs.
All this stuff about food and developing healthy habits was a brand new concept to me, and a source of serious interest right away because I love learning new stuff. For many years I’d been investigating and contemplating upon the human mind and our strange, conflicting ways, but never on diet and physical health.
She was an amazing lady, speaking calmly with a lovely smile that never left her face and, in my estimation at the time, with great authority about health matters. With the wonderful greenery outside her window and the sweet sound of birdsong, I almost felt like she was healing me as I was sat there. I felt super peaceful in that room with her, and over the hour I was with her she made me feel more and more optimistic I would be able to heal my long-standing back issues, explaining why and how we get ill. I’m into stuff like that, I’m always looking for causes of things as the means to a solution.
This was my first experience of speaking with a health professional who spoke about root causes of ailments, how the body worked in a holistic manner, and about the very concept of health itself - what a strangely rare thing in this human world of ours!
And even more so back in 2008.
In fact, my whole time there was all based on this revolutionary concept of health and wellbeing and how, with her guidance, I was going to get it back. It generated in me a tangible anticipation and a feeling of positive energy, and she wasn’t giving me a single pill, hooray!
I asked her about the machine and she said it was a bioenergetics machine she had got from Germany.
In fact, I asked her lots of questions because she seemed to me the source of so much useful information. She patiently and willingly answered them, clearly explaining things to me.
She gave me several sheets of A4 paper with various bits of information pertaining to foods that complemented or antagonised my blood type, charts of acid- and alkaline-forming foods, and a list of healthy habits to build into my lifestyle for my specific Ayurveda constitution type, which she determined to be pitta.
It felt like I was being overloaded with priceless information! I couldn’t wait to get stuck into researching it all.
My ‘treatment’ was a mix of two spices (looking back I feel sure turmeric was one of them), and I was to eat over 60% alkaline-forming foods, and to avoid the ‘bad’ foods for my blood type.
Being type O, this mostly speaking meant all dairy foods, pork, white sugar and foods with sugar in them, processed foods, and one or two others were out of limits.
But in essence no dramatic change to my diet, although cheese and bacon would be two big losses for me, as would my shredded wheat with milk and sugar for breakfast. Oh, coffee had to go too, and I drank lots of that, but it would be revolting without sugar and milk. I also would think nothing of eating a whole big bag of crisps/chips before dinner with some pre-dinner beers, and that was now out due to them being processed foods.
One of the healthy habits she strongly suggested I include was to get to bed by 10pm. She also said I should make sure I don’t get frustrated, impatient or angry with my girlfriend, or anybody for that matter.
This was not your usual visit to a doctor: in and out as if on a production line, you’ve got an ‘-itis’, here take these pills and see if you get better, thank you and goodbye. What a difference!
She booked another appointment for me to see her again in two weeks. I asked her if I could continue to drink beer, and she said a few would be fine. Wow! So many surprises, and now another one. But I don’t think she understood how many beers an Englishman can drink…
Now, I wanted to follow her diet exactly as told, and I was super curious to test out this machine in two weeks time, and didn’t want the beer messing up the readings, so I resolved to drink no booze until I saw her again.
I emerged out of her centre and into the twilight of the evening, my head buzzing with all this new information and understandings, climbed into my car and drove home, noticing a bit of a stupid grin on my face. I could not wait to get started.
As I drove home the only problem I could foresee was going to be my decision to not drink beer. It was Monday, and I knew I could fairly easily get by without until Friday, but the weekend was a different matter. Friday nights were pool league nights, and in those days going to the pub and not drinking beer was surely impossible for me.
I thus resolved to disappear from town after work on Friday and go to my favourite getaway up and over the mountains to another valley, and small town called Pai, for the weekend. I got home and told my wife about everything and that I would have to go away on my own for the weekend.
As you will know from Part 1 of this story in Letter #2, on the fourth night I got a full night’s sleep with no back pain waking me up. Day by day I felt more energy, the back pain was all gone, and my mind felt more joyful.
I duly went to Pai on Friday for the weekend, I avoided going into any bars, went to bed early, got up with the dawn each morning, and I discovered an Aladdin’s cave of health and wellbeing in Pai that blew my mind.
I had seen this place every trip before (Pai is one heavenly place on this planet!), but had always studiously avoided going in there. It was called The Good Life Herbal Restaurant. I used to sort of dismiss the name of it to myself: why would I possibly need to go in there when I lived the good life in all the pubs? Why would I want herbs in my life when I had beer?!
Funny how life changes when pain comes along.
I went back to see the good lady doctor two weeks later, looking and feeling the picture of good health, and guess what readings the machine gave me?
Only once out of the 20 readings did the needle go to 100, and it did so without that urgent screeching noise.
This was all I needed to know. I had absolutely 100% verified for myself that bioenergetics was no gimmick, and that this machine literally was able to read a human being’s current level of health and wellbeing. Or not, as in my case two weeks previously.
But now, well, I was a very well man!
~~~~~
In Letter #4 I will bring you Part 3, the final part, of this introduction to natural healing that changed the direction of my life.
I will tell you about the amazing afternoon I had in the Good Life Herbal Restaurant, more about the bioenergetics machine, my follow-up chat with the Ayurveda lady, and how this episode in my life launched me into a research frenzy that extended into thousands of hours over the coming few years.
Post-Reading Task
Having now read this account, write a few sentences in your notebook about your thoughts in reaction to the tale, and any actions you are feeling triggered to take in your life.
Then write down the day you will take those actions, and then… take action! Don’t be over-ambitious, make anything you implement achievable. After a period of time, these new things we do become a new habit, and much easier. But also, when you get the rewards from feeling more energy and vitality, you will want to continue.
Health Tip of the Week: Sleep
I mentioned that the Ayurveda lady told me about the importance of sleep. Ever since that day, as my default, I get to bed for 10pm, or 11 at the latest. I have learned a few things along the way, which I want to share here.
Ayurveda recommends we get to bed by 10pm because the hours of 10pm to 2am are when we get our deepest sleep. And it is during this period that our body can really get down to doing any repair work from any stresses or damage we expose it to each day.
Sleep truly is important. Another thing is to not eat anything a good three hours before your bedtime. This means that my dinner time is always 7pm at the latest. And then no more snacks. Reason being is that your body wants to do repair work while you are sleeping, and if it’s busy digesting when you are sleeping it can’t do that so well.
Something I find hard due to me building my new venture, but which I’m currently making a new habit for myself, is no screen time after dinner. This allows the nervous system to calm down.
Ayurveda recommends we get up at 6am, or when dawn arrives.
Tv, phones, wifi, computers should not be in your bedroom, and certainly nowhere near your head! I would love to live without wifi, but it seems not possible in my current lifestyle. However, we switch it off every evening before bedtime.
The darker you can make your bedroom the better. This promotes melatonin production in your body, which is important for living with wellness.
Weekly Task for Letter #3
This task is for you to carry out every evening for the full week at least, so you can see what benefits you will derive.
Don’t not do this, unless your job blocks you from doing so!
Have your dinner by 7 at the latest, or at the very earliest you can. Go to bed at 10, or three hours after your dinner if you eat after 7. Try to make sure you are in bed by 11 at the latest, but if you can, make it 10.
Then get up at 6, or an hour earlier than your usual waking-up time. This may well give you an extra bit of time before you go to work or study or whatever.
Word of the Week
This goes hand in hand with the Weekly Task.
journal
Not long after my visit to the Ayurveda Centre I began keeping what I call my ‘Food and Feelings Diary’. I would write down all the foods I was eating each day, and how I felt in terms of energy and vitality and clarity of mind.
I suggest you use your beautiful notebook (or get another one), and start getting used to doing journaling. For now, at a minimum, make a note of the time you have dinner each evening, the time you go to bed, the time you get up. Then reflect upon, and write down, how you feel each morning, and what kind of sleep you had during the night.
Writing stuff down makes us pause and think. It gives us crucial time and space to reflect upon our life. We increase our abilities in awareness, observation and reflection. This leads to more conscious living, and we learn so much more about life and our own life.
Sentence of the Week
“If you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll be forced to make time for your illness.”
I have no idea who first coined this quote, but I do know that it contains serious wisdom in it.
Do be aware that mainstream healthcare systems and society barely focus on wellness, only on sickness and treating it.
Wellness applies to your whole body, mind and spirit. Start thinking about wellness routinely in your life. Become much more conscious of your diet, exercise, attitude and lifestyle. It’s intuitive as to what we do which either harms or helps us in our wellbeing, but intuition only comes to us when we live consciously and notice what it is saying.
From Letter #2
Are you drinking or eating more green foods?! If not, get started this week. Don’t leave it any longer. Keep a record in your new journal. Green juices, leafy greens for lunch or dinner, herbal teas from green plants, spirulina, green powders… many choices. Make it a regular intake.
Awareness and self-awareness were our Weekly Words, and this means consciously noticing (noticing and knowing you are noticing) life going on around you and life going on in your mind and body, respectively.
Cultivating awareness means cultivating learning and conscious living. It’s in this state of mind that we learn so much, and when we begin to understand how to put trust, joy, happiness, and love into our life. Keeping a journal asks you to reflect upon things, and that in turn will prod you into observing more and being more aware of life around you and within your skin.
In one of the quotes I said that you’re not sick, you’re being poisoned.
Humankind, through the rapacious corporate model of business that has evolved, has created thousands of toxic chemicals which we put into our food, our drinks, our medicines, and our soaps, shampoos, creams, cosmetics and so on.
We also put all these chemicals, and heavy metals, into the skies, the lakes, the rivers, the seas, the earth, the soil, the air, everywhere.
We are poisoning ourselves and our planet at every turn in this modern society of ours. It is insane.
And any cursory look at mainstream media, including much TV, reveals a huge production line of toxic information and ‘entertainment’, which we consume with our minds as we consume toxic foods with our bodies.
Is it any surprise we struggle with our emotional and mental health, as well as all manner of physical ailments and afflictions?!
In this day and age, wellness is simply impossible to happen by accident. We have to work hard for it, and proactively so.
The rewards we experience in our levels of energy and vitality in our body, clarity in our mind, and the joy in our heart are so worth it. But there’s another brilliant reason to embrace wellness: in addition you will be one more person who stops buying all this poisonous shit from the huge food and pharmaceutical corporations who are killing us all slowly for their gargantuan profits.
Don’t line their pockets with your sickness and misery!
In all future Letters you will learn everything I can possibly share with you that I have learned for myself since that amazing day on Monday 20th October 2008.
Next week in Letter #4 comes the final part of my introduction to natural healing.
See you next week, and all the best
Philip
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