Cat Ward

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Today I drove out to Mangere for my regular volunteer session on the Cat Ward at Auckland SPCA. It’s early summer in New Zealand and the kitten season is in full swing. Pregnant mothers, mothers with newborn kittens, and litters of orphan kittens are continually being admitted. Of course there are older cats there too. Some have been picked up as strays, some surrendered by owners who can no longer care for them, and others are victims of cruelty or neglect.

All the cats are beautiful, with their different sizes and colours and personalities. A few are highly vocal, constantly clamouring for attention, freedom or food. Some are labelled ‘Timid’ and hide away under their blankets. Many others just sit still, waiting with patient dignity for what will happen next.

Volunteers work alongside the veterinary nurses, helping with practical tasks such as cleaning cages, feeding bowls and litter trays; serving meals; stocking up supplies of rags and newspaper; taking rubbish out; and sometimes spending time with sick puppies in the room next door.

We are not encouraged to have too much physical contact with the cats, because of the risk of spreading infection, nor do we know where they came from or where they will go. It’s probably better not to get too involved with them individually, because not all will be lucky enough to live happy ever after, though a good number will eventually be adopted by one of the many visitors who come to the Animal Village.

There are always vacancies for new volunteers, to do a variety of jobs: direct care of cats, dogs or rabbits, reception, administration, laundry, driving, fostering and fund-raising. Maybe this Christmas season you might consider helping at your own local animal rescue centre, giving them some money, becoming a foster parent or offering a dog or cat a ‘forever home’.

Blood pressure

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Friends who know that I’m not a ‘morning person’ would have been surprised to see me out walking in the park before breakfast today. All part of my enhanced ‘healthy living’ regime prompted by the shock of a raised blood pressure reading last week.

I thought my lifestyle was pretty good already, but from now on there will be more aerobic exercise; less coffee, wine, salty and fatty foods; more vegetables, herbs, fruit and the occasional dark chocolate ginger; olive leaf extract; and more regular meditation sessions. Psychological factors are not so easy to change, even with the help of Bach flower remedies such as Elm, Rock Water, Vervain and Impatiens to promote a more relaxed attitude to life. I hope to avoid having to take medication, especially since a recent review in the British Medical Journal has questioned its value for cases of mild hypertension.

There is a widespread misconception that people who practice good physical self-care, positive thinking and spiritual development should never have anything wrong with them – especially if they work in the healthcare field. But all bodies are vulnerable to sickness of one kind or another and will eventually wear out completely. It is also true that those with some personal experience of sickness or disability often make the most effective healers.

Where is home?

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My jet lag is gradually clearing after the long flight back to my adopted country of New Zealand, following a return visit to my native country of England.

Unlike many other expats, I am fortunate enough to be able to make this journey every year.

My annual expedition requires lots of forward planning, and is not so much a relaxing holiday as an intensive round of both joys and challenges. It is always different and always worthwhile. And it always highlights the fact that life is full of paradoxes, that we cannot ‘have it all’ but often need to find a compromise between opposing choices.

Some decisions are basically trivial: Whether to stock up on clothes from Marks and Spencer, or keep my suitcase light? Whether to go for the convenience of staying in one central base, or make the extra effort of traveling round the country?

Then there are the deeper dilemmas: Whether to attempt the near-impossible and exhausting ideal of visiting all of my friends and relatives each year, knowing there are some I may never see again? Whether to stay long enough to make the trip really worthwhile, although it means being away from my husband and family in Auckland?

The Bach flower remedies Scleranthus for indecision, and Honeysuckle for nostalgia, might be helpful for some of these issues but none can solve the underlying question – where is really home? I appreciate the privileges of having citizenship of two countries which I love equally, and of being able to spend time in both. It is just rather unfortunate that they are nearly 12,000 miles apart. One day I may have to choose, or find that fate has chosen for me.

Names

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I’ve always taken care about the choice of names. Whenever a new cat comes into our home I spend many happy hours deciding what to call it. I sometimes also give names to inanimate objects such as computers or cars.

Names can have a major influence in many spheres of life – the development of a child’s character, the marketing of a new product, the psychological impact of a medical diagnosis. For each individual, the significance of a name will depend on its cultural associations, whether it sounds pleasing, and how it looks when written down. I can ‘see’ certain names in different colours with my mind’s eye.

But the idea that names can have any metaphysical significance, or predict the future in some way, never seemed credible to me until I started thinking about a couple of my experiences.

When I moved to New Zealand 12 years ago, I needed a new email address and chose the username of ‘Starflower’ simply because I liked it (though I no longer have it now). It was not until two or three years later that the ‘flower’ part acquired significance, when I began studying the Bach flower remedies and found that one of these, Star of Bethlehem, is also known as Starflower. And about ten years later I developed an interest in astrology, so that completes the ‘star’ part.

Another example: ‘Bach’ is an unusual name where I come from, and one that I would rather avoid because I find it difficult to pronounce, however my two great enthusiasms in recent years have been the flower remedies of Edward Bach and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Maybe just a couple of trivial coincidences, or maybe a little glimpse of esoteric patterns we do not understand.

Bach flowers for mind-body healing

~ Jennifer Barraclough ~ 2 Comments

I’ve just published a short ebook called Bach Flowers for Mind-Body Healing and you can download a free copy from https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/176232.

The cover image shows the Gorse flower, used to promote hope and faith in cases of chronic illness.

Here’s the blurb:

‘The Bach flowers are safe natural remedies designed to balance the emotions. Although they do not treat medical conditions directly, they can help to control mental symptoms such as anxiety and physical ones such as pain, and to modify personality traits such as pessimism or impatience which may be contributing to ill-health. This is a short practical guide to using the remedies for mind-body healing on a self-help basis, alongside professional treatment and care’.
 

The symbol of the butterfly

~ Jennifer Barraclough ~ 1 Comment

Over the past several weeks we have been watching the slow transformation of the caterpillar on our swan plant as it became a chrysalis and then, today, opened to release this beautiful Monarch Butterfly.

Today we also attended the funeral of a much-loved family member, and I remembered that in many traditions the butterfly represents the freedom of the departing spirit. In Ancient Greek the same word, psyche, means both butterfly and soul.

Persons not diseases

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People choose to explore natural therapies for many different reasons. One of the main ones given by the clients I see in my work as a Bach flower practitioner is the wish to be valued as a ‘whole person’ whose psychology and life circumstances are unique. Even if their orthodox medical treatment has been successful on a physical level, they often feel that they have been have labelled as ‘just another case’ of the condition in question, being managed according to a set protocol, and that staff lacked either the time or the interest to look beyond their diseased part.

It would be a great mistake to reject the ‘disease-centred’ model which prevails in modern medicine, for this has yielded huge advances in knowledge about the causes, prevention and treatment of specific disorders. And it is good to see mainstream healthcare considering lifestyle factors such as nutrition, exercise and stress management, which may reduce the need for drugs and surgery. But this is not enough for people who want to explore the personal context of their illness in more depth, which is why they may turn to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and the ‘holistic healing’ approach.

One of the basic principles of this approach is the focus on persons rather than diseases. The Bach flower system, as originally formulated, exemplifies this – Dr Edward Bach advocated ignoring the medical diagnosis when selecting remedies, and focusing purely on the sufferer’s current state of mind. Involving the patient, or client, as a partner in this process is empowering and therapeutic in itself.

But, as CAM becomes more widely accepted and integrated with orthodox medicine, there is a risk of the person-centred approach being replaced by the ‘one size fits all’ method of giving the same mixture to everyone with a particular condition. This may reflect a wish to appear more ‘scientific’, or be done to save the time and trouble of making an individual assessment of each case. A couple of examples, again involving the Bach flower system, will illustrate the trend.

In a UK chemist’s shop I saw an ‘Emotional Eating Kit’ made up of three remedies: Crab Apple (for body image problems), Cherry Plum (for loss of emotional control) and Chestnut Bud (for those who continually repeat the same mistakes). One or more of these remedies might certainly be appropriate for someone with an eating disorder, but so might several others: Vine (for over-control), Rock Water (for perfectionism and self-denial) and Pine (for self-blame) come to mind, but any of the 38 flowers could be indicated for different individuals.

A search for Bach flower remedies in the medical literature shows that a number of academic researchers have tried to evaluate the system by prescribing a standard mixture of remedies for the condition under study. That they mostly find no advantage over placebo is hardly surprising, because they have not respected an essential feature of this therapy, namely individualized treatment in which clients themselves have choice and control.

Talking and listening

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Out of the blue I got an email from a young woman who had been a student of mine many years ago, when I was a palliative care psychiatrist in England. She was writing to thank me for teaching her the importance of listening to patients. Although ‘of course it seemed boring at the time’, later on she had realized its value, and wrote that ‘without knowing it you made a huge contribution to my life’.

I remember the student herself, but have quite forgotten our session on this particular topic, so was surprised as well as pleased by her message. It made me think about talking and listening as a two-way process which needs mindful attention on both sides.

Casual remarks can have a significant and lasting effect, whether hurtful or inspiring, whereas statements intended to carry great significance may have no impact on the listener at all. There is a Bach flower remedy, Heather, for those who talk incessantly about themselves and their problems whether their audience is interested or not.

Listening calls for just as much care as talking, for it takes patience and focus to really understand what another person wants to say, especially if you are bored by the topic or in a hurry to get away, distracted by noisy surroundings, or hindered by a hearing impairment or language barrier.

Cultural differences can cause misunderstanding. For example I find most New Zealanders speak in a literal and direct fashion, while English people favor more subtle nuances. Or as my husband put it: ‘Kiwis talk common sense when Poms talk rubbish’.

Talking includes ‘self-talk’ as well as conversing with other people. How often do we speak to ourselves in critical or discouraging ways instead of affirming ones?

And listening is not just about verbal communication. The maxim ‘listen to your body’ refers to the idea that physical feelings and symptoms may hold some kind of message. We can also benefit from ‘listening’ for the significance of life’s recurring patterns, synchronicities, and the inner voice of intuition. And from listening to uplifting music, and the sounds of nature such as breeze, waterfalls and birdsong.

Focus on Healing: the ebook

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Focus on Healing: Holistic Self-Help for Medical Illness is now available in ebook format on Smashwords. Please click here for details.

The printed version, published a couple of years ago, was well received in New Zealand, but due to high postage costs not many copies were sold overseas. I’m hoping it will now reach a wider audience. Yesterday I was pleased to receive this comment from a reader in the UK:

I think it is quite an outstanding book … really helpful. I particularly like the case histories. It is balanced; it does not tear down either orthodox or so called “complementary” therapies and it encourages the patient to take responsibility without being heavy handed about this.

Again, here is the link.

If you never say ‘No’ …

~ Jennifer Barraclough ~ 2 Comments
If you never say ‘no’, what is your ‘yes’ worth? I heard this wise saying from one of my first teachers in the art of holistic healing, and have often passed it on to clients who find it hard to protect themselves against unwelcome demands and intrusions. 


Problems which arise from this inability to set personal boundaries can include neglect of personal needs and desires, tiredness from overwork, and feelings of victimhood, martyrdom or resentment often concealed by a polite facade.


Some people who cannot say ‘No’ to the demands of others hold the belief that being ill is the only valid reason to claim care and attention for themselves. There is even a theory that illness can develop primarily for this reason. Whether or not that is true, such a mindset can certainly prolong recovery. This would happen through unconscious mind-body mechanisms and is not deliberate malingering.


Two key Bach flower remedies to be considered for the ‘yes-person’ are Centaury and Walnut. Centaury is for those so eager to please others that they agree to each and every request. Walnut is for those who are unduly sensitive to outside influences and therefore easily distracted from their chosen path in life. Other flowers might be indicated for the secondary consequences, such as Elm for feeling overburdened with responsibilites, Olive for exhaustion, Willow for self-pity, or Holly for hostility towards others.
Practical aids to setting boundaries include such simple steps as shutting your door or turning off your phone when you do not want interruptions, and limiting the period you are willing to spend on certain activities. You may also need to practice techniques for saying ‘No’ without causing offence, or being worried about doing so. This can be done firmly and politely without having to give detailed reasons or apologies.