A few years ago, a woman came to see me for treatment. I will call her Susan. She was in her mid-30s and wanted to have a baby. Although she had no problem becoming pregnant, each time she miscarried—four in a year’s time. She also had a diagnosis of an overactive thyroid with episodes of what are called “thyroid storms.” She had not had normal thyroid lab values in 15 years. I took her case, and over a period of three hours her story emerged.
What was remarkable about Susan’s story was that at the age of 16 she had fallen deeply in love with a boy. Her first words to me were:
I’m here to remove all pain and emotional shocks. I was sent to a boarding school as a child. My parents thought it was the thing for me. I was separated from my mom way too soon. The other shock, the big event of my life was when I was 16, I fell in love with a guy named Matthew. We were together for 5 years. We separated because he was unable to grow up, but we still were friends after that. Each of has had new partners. During that time Matthew committed suicide.
Sixteen years later, in her dreams and emotional life she was still back at that time of Matthew’s suicide. Not long after the suicide she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. I asked her about the hyperthyroid symptoms and she answered
The possibility of having a crisis any time, to go to the hospital with my heartbeat going very fast, being sick. I don’t like to always have to be conscious of being careful to check if my heartbeat is all right. What will happen if I have another crisis?
Is she talking about physical or emotional symptoms? The deeper we move into a patient’s case, the more the physical and emotional symptoms blur. She experiences her heart as beating very fast, but her answer blends with her emotional shocks.
She came to see me because of the miscarriages. How does this relate to the emotional shocks? She told me a bit more about motherhood:
I had a very very very enormous fear to be a mother. I realized that when I had my second episode of hyperthyroidism. I cried with my therapist. I remember in my mind it was not possible to be a good mother. I remembered the pain my mother caused me when she didn’t listen to me or hear me.
She connects hyperthyroidism with being a mother. This is not accidental. She is beginning to tell us why she developed her hyperthyroidism as well giving clues to the emotional roots of her miscarriages. My experience in taking the cases of hundreds of people, is that patients always, if you gently press them into it, will tell you why they have gotten their specific physical symptoms. They are not fully conscious of it—if they were, it is unlikely they would have developed physical symptoms in the first place.
Taking it a step further, I asked her what she felt like when her mother would not listen to her:
I felt alone. It’s like someone cut between her and me, and we were not in the same world anymore.
This sentence is taking us straight down to the 4th level There are a few pieces missing--I'm leaving out the bulk of a 3.5 hour case--yet all her emotional and physical symptoms come together around this separation. For her, separated means alone and not in the same world. When she said the word cut she made a gesture of a cutting scissors with her index and middle fingers.
I gave her the homeopathic remedy that mirrored this fusion – [cut] [shock] –separate from world loop she lived in, a plant from the Malvales family.
Four weeks later I followed up on her case. She told me.
I feel good. I feel very surprised what I experienced during the four last weeks. The first week [after the dose] I made many dreams, big dreams, the week after that I don't really have dreams, I did so many things to get the attention of my husband. I broke my toe, locked myself outside the house. It was like I needed to be with people, I didn’t want to be alone. My mother, sister, my husband all had to take care of me, I did a lot of things to put myself in bad situations. The two first days after the remedy I slept very deeply for the first time.
She spontaneously told me about a dream:
I was near the house I lived when I was a kid. I was really big, and the house was very small. There is someone but I can't see them, they want to show me things in not a normal way, paranormal. I was very very afraid of that, I shouted so loud.
I asked her to clarify this feeling.
Surprised, to be able to shout. I felt I have the power to say ‘No’; so I was proud of myself for that. Very surprised of the power of my shout,…everyone will hear that.
She then told me about another important dream she had about a previous boyfriend. It came to her mind through the dream that she actually loved the brother.
I remember his brother probably loved me… I realized after Matthew I had a lot of fear of falling in love again.
Here we see some “rewinding of the tape” in her emotional life. This is mysterious. Then she added another important piece:
About my thyroid: this week, each week I take a blood test. I am in the normal range now, and it's the first time in 15 yrs that I am in the normal range.
Thus, right after she took the remedy her thyroid returned to normal functioning for the first time in 15 years.
As a society, we think in terms of the improvement of the psyche, which is the province of the psychiatrist, and separately we think of the improvement of physical pathology, which is the province of the conventional physician. Rarely do we speak of the two crossing. This intersection of the emotional and physical is the 4th level intention, exactly where my homeopathic prescription went.
At the conclusion of this first follow-up, I directly asked her to tell me what was better. She answered, I think I feel more calm, and then,
Each Monday night I felt exactly that feeling when I cut with my mother. I felt powerless. I feel that I go back to experience more feelings that I had when I was younger, go back in time.
She is going backward in time and processing. I underline the word calm because it is a key word for the remedy I gave her. She uses it to describe the opposite of shock or crisis or what she feels during a thyroid episode. Her use of calm is, for me, a key indicator that she is heading down a deep progression towards health, that deep place where mind and body connect.
A month later I followed up again. During this time she had a transformational dream:
I had two dreams with Matthew. He left me. I was very happy because [in the dream] he didn't commit suicide. It was like life continued without him committing suicide. I felt very strange; it's like I accepted he is changing. He’s not how he was when I was with him at 17. As life continued, I never thought he changed. It was the dream that made me feel like life changed, and I have to pass on to another thing. I felt sad for 2 weeks after that. Very sad. And last week I became more joyous and happy…
Here, fifteen years later she is letting go. Not long after this, she became pregnant, and this time she did not miscarry. The happy ending is that she gave birth to a healthy child. I have had to repeat her dose at various intervals, particularly after she delivered, because right after she gave birth her thyroid slipped out of normal range for the first time since before she saw me. As is typical, a dose of her remedy immediately brought the thyroid labs to normal values again. Normal thyroid function has returned. She continues to do very well. Most remarkably, she has a new sense of confidence and calm.
This case briefly illustrates what I call a 4th intention healing. All of us seeking to live long and healthy lives should know about it. Many people struggle with chronic health conditions, in spite of the attempts of their conventional doctors and alternative healers. If they find themselves in front of someone skilled in working at this 4th level, they often emerge not only well, but feeling better than before they ever got sick. The significance of the case above is not only that her thyroid problem resolved and she was able to have a baby. The treatment brought a sense of calm and faith in life that she had never had before. This is the genius of classical homeopathy.
For those who want to read further about 4th level healing please refer to the category Levels of Healing on the right. In particular, the Oct 8 post Thoughts On Explaining Homeopathy outlines the four levels specifically.
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