For me, here's what has worked in the past year:
Homeopathy -- it is magical! I suffered serious mental imbalances after my concussions, exacerbating some tendencies towards anxiety and depression. I've been working with an amazingly gifted Classical Homeopath, Betsy Reiling, over the past year and she has listened to me talk about dreams, feelings, symptoms, etc., and prescribed little white pellets that have worked wonders. Classical homeopathy works with your constitution so it's a big picture medicine. And its effects are subtle; it's hard to identify the difference, and yet the difference is there. I have no anxiety and no severe depression. The fall is usually when both flare up for me, and the one year anniversary for my concussion is in 10 days. I'll be interested to see how I do. But no matter how I do I'm totally confident that working with Betsy will work if I need it to.
Homeopathy also helped with jet lag and traveling through time zones. Good stuff.
Chiropractic -- this is a weird one. Different chiropractors seem to help with different things for me and they all have very different approaches. I've worked with 5 over the course of my life. I recently added the 5th one, Dr. Domenic Febrarro, specifically for concussion recovery and the results have been amazing. I would like to keep seeing him for additional things but there is a cost if you aren't insured (and I'm not). Frequency is key. I was there probably 2-3 times/week for the first few weeks after my second hit. And I needed all of that.
What he does is really great for me -- he uses an intuitive approach called Koren Specific Technique which is a combination of his asking my body for information and then using a handheld machine that gently taps on the area in need of adjustment. The frequency of the tap is lined up with the body's frequency. It's a quantum level approach to giving the nervous system the best chances of functioning.
There is something called retracing that happens with this method. He finds old hits, wounds, stressors of all kinds -- emotional, physical, spiritual, chemical -- and your body is given a chance to unwind past injury. The healing crisis can be activated with this method, but he stops adjusting when the body says to stop which keeps in manageable, and the frequency of visits helps keep things moving through.
My vision in my right eye was really affected by the second hit and with adjustments I was able to correct most of it. I got new glasses only after being treated for a while.
The 4th chiropractor I added is Dr. Daniel Schenck. His approach is similar to Dr. Febrarro's but is less clinical. He uses the intuitive approach for diagnosis combined with conversation with you, but uses his hands for adjustments and other energetic work. Dr. Febrarro might only need 5 minutes with you at a time. Dr. Schenck will take a full hour and really work through your whole body. Dr. Febrarro comes on strong and is extremely passionate about his work and how it can replace the need for many things in the allopathic medical system. It's awesome. Dr. Schenck is much more conservative in his presentation and very subtle in his suggestions, using a broad perspective with an Asian twist. He teaches meditation, he's been to Tibet, he's from the West. It's all of that and it's also awesome.
Endocrine System, Baby -- so the stress of my life has hit me physically again. My metabolism is off, I'm getting infections a lot again, other stuff. Most of my doctors have since retired from practice or moved into other locations so I have been doctorless for my specific needs for over a year now. I'm really excited to be meeting with someone new - a naturopath - in 2 weeks. I'll share if she's good!
Meanwhile, there are two doctors who live in other states that I've been really impressed with. Regular docs just don't get the endocrine system as being key to tons of things. I can see that I'm a classic case for needing to rebalance my hormones, my thyroid, my pituitary, adrenals, etc., but a primary care physician just wouldn't necessarily go there. They would simply treat the head cold, for example, which is fine but doesn't get to the root causes.
Ok, so the first doctor is a nutritional endocrinologist named Dr. RitaMarie. Now, she is one of those self-improvement, virtual teacher-type people and you have to wade through a crapton of confusing hard-sell things on her website. But her educational background and knowledge are rock solid and the direction that she is trying to move the health industry towards is admirable and right-on.
I've been drinking her adrenal elixer for the past 3 weeks and I have to say until I traveled oversees this past weekend and got another infection, the elixer had me feeling more amazing than I've felt in over 2 years. Yes, that good, and this is post-concussion, too, so that makes it even better.
Here's the Adrenal Elixer recipe, and the recommended length of time is 30 days:
16 oz of Gynostemma tea (I am using Tulsi tea as substitute until I can order the other stuff online)
2 T coconut milk (get the pure stuff! not the box stuff with tons of icky ingredients)
2 T Maca (I've kicked this waaaaaaay back to 2 tsp....consult your doc before doing 2 T for sure!)
2 T Raw Cacao
1 T Chaga (you can also add Reishi) (I use a Chaga tincture because that's what I could find in the store...but will definitely move to the other Chaga when I'm done!)
1 T Ashwaganda (you can also add Astragalus)
Dash of Himelayan Sea Salt (or Kelp powder)
Sweetener of choice (I use Stevia because I have it and I have a thing with regular sugar...)
Blend it all together for 30 seconds in a blender and enjoy! If you make it with warm tea then it kind of turns into a hot cocoa. Very yummy as the weather turns cooler.
This drink will charge you up so sip it and adjust amounts of herbs to meet your needs. I started the first week really strong to kickstart my system but I felt overstimulated so I have been working with amounts to find the right balance.
The othere doc is Dr. Anna Cabeca. I like her skill set and her approach to women's health and aging. I have only heard her do one webinar, which was stellar. I got a few of her free resources as follow-up and if I lived anywhere near her she'd totally be my doc!
Psychic Care - Lastly I have to mention that psychic/soul care has been really important in helping me to process emotional stuff and life changes, and to see myself from outside myself. For example, it would be pointless to continue retracing with chiropractic care until I have processed things are that up for me right now. Clearing the deck takes time and you have to let time do its work. There is also Universal Time which makes no freaking sense to the mind, but letting Universal Time work is also pretty magical because you start to see things line up in brilliant ways that you never could have done by your will alone.
So, these are my ladies: my main guide has been Victoria Zaitz. She walks her talk and talks her walk, grounded and generous and intelligent with great boundaries. I've been working intuitively with a particular soul connection for quite some time now but it wasn't until February of this year that I "by chance" had a short session with her at a psychic fair (birthday present to me!) and found out its definition. She got a smile on her face when I said the person's name and quickly said, "Oh! Now this is a soul connection. First, you are not crazy. You might feel crazy, but you are not crazy." (I have discovered over time that some friends treat me like I'm a little crazy with this so I have to be careful how and what I say and save it for people who know this strange language of the soul.) I consult with her every so often when I'm overwhelmed and she gently points me towards the triggers to my ego, my creative contracts, my truth and soul growth and keeps me focused on my work and not on the relationship.
I have to say that this situation is the hardest challenge I have ever faced in my life. Because I'm open to it my growth feels accelerated; I can feel myself evolving. The other day I was vibrating for about 3 days because of this connection. It came on suddenly like a train wreck of light and energy and then disappeared like it never happened. This is the weird shit that goes down with soul stuff. I would call me crazy except that it's happening to me. It's a tangible experience and I'm not consciously asking for it.
SO. If you have felt weirdly connected to someone in a way that the mind cannot grasp and that doesn't make any sense in the "real world", and if it doesn't go (the F) away, and if that person triggers all your stuff, and you think you're going crazy (you're not crazy), then check out her introductory article on Soulmates. It will help you.
In conjuction with working with Victoria I have found it useful and fascinating to dig into astrology. A friend hipped me to a rather Jungian-based astrologer named Christine Gonze Conrad. I've worked with her twice this year and found her readings to be very useful in helping me to see my natural tendencies and to know they simply are who I am and not flaws. The trick is to work with them and create a life where they are positive attributes.
For example, I am Aquarian but my ascendant is the fiery Saggatarius and I have tons of Aries. Like, TONS. My work thread has been fragmented at best. I stay places maybe 2-3 years, maybe 4, and then I get restless and move on. As an artist my favorite thing is making albums. It's intense and has a clear beginning and ending. The grind of booking and playing out holds almost no spark for me. WELL, dear reader, with all my Fire and the way it's configured in my chart, these tendencies are perfectly natural and normal. My chart is all about freedom, restlessly so. If I'm not free to be mobile then it's over. If I can't get really in then really out, I'm really unhappy.
I've always known this and I've always seen this as a flaw because the world wants you to build a life. But now I know that's just how I am and building a life looks different for me. So, the trick is to make vocational choices that play into my need to get in then get out. I am Project Gal.
That's just one of many examples. If you're interested in a reading with Christine, contact me. But there are many wonderful astrologers. The key is to find one or two that resonate with you. I've worked with 2 astrologers and like them both for different reasons!
My next lady is Stephanie Charles, who does Akashic Records readings. These are interesting. They only give you what you ask for and they only give you truth for your current timeline so you have to really know what you want to know and ask the right questions if you are to have a valuable reading. You also have to realize the projections and answers can diverge from your eventual life choices. It's multi-dimensional. Her readings haven't been the main event for me, but they have offered a few key insights and been really supportive of my other work, validating other readings and therapies, which is important. I'll say why in a bit.
My last lady is Shay Port, who does this super fun eye reading thing out of a tea shop in Squirrel Hill every Friday night. Her gift doesn't seem to be part of any tradition. She's just got a knack for looking at your eyes in certain ways, and asking you to make statements, and then zeroing in on issues and making suggestions. It's cool. I have had to adjust some of her suggestions that haven't worked for me over time, but on the whole she's nailed it. And I've seen her work on other people and drill through layers of stuff with them in less than 15 minutes. The tea shop is charming so it's a fun low-key Friday outing to see her.
Ok. So here is why I think multiple readings can be important. I don't believe one reading is always 100% accurate, because they are given and translated by humans. It's good to get multiple perspectives and check them against your own intuition. In other words, your truth is not in the hands of someone else, and especially not in the hands of one person. Except yours. It's in yours.
I get readings for perspective because I have severe blind spots (and my astrological chart totally validates this with where Neptune is placed within it) and because I'm still learning how to trust my intuition. These readers are my training wheels (I also find them extremely fascinating so I can be a bit of a junkie. But it's pretty harmless, and I know myself, so I'm not worried.) and at some point I hope I will have learned my own language of intuition well enough that I won't need them as much as I do right now.
So that's my digest of stuff that works. If you are looking for help with things that these people treat, be in touch with them. Helping yourself costs money and takes effort and time and courage, but having a higher quality life is worth it. Growing your soul is worth it. Feeling good day-to-day is worth it. And there are times when it's not about being brave, and it's actually lots of fun! Good luck!!
