"Do No Harm"
The Philosophy of Natural Healing
by Dr. Dori Luneski
The true meaning of a preventive approach to health care is to first exclude the "simpler" causes of disease, and then think of the more complicated. The simple truth is that dehydration alone can cause any symptom or disease. Dehydration eventually causes loss of functions, and various "thirst signals" are too often treated as symptoms, rather than getting to the cause. There are three main causes of most sub-health conditions:
- Intracellular malnutrition
- Intracellular toxicity
- Intracellular dehydration
The basic assumption behind natural healing is that the human body is linked to the properties of natural organic substances. The philosophy of natural healing is that your body is capable of healing itself once proper conditions are provided. Herbal therapy is a natural way to help the body heal itself. Herbal remedies neutralize or eliminate from your body the harmful substances that impair its power to heal itself, and provide natural nutrients in their most absorbable form. In the chaotic condition of "modern medicine" and the crying need of the millions, is our grand opportunity to understand the truth about the ancient, honorable, and beneficial science of natural healing with herbs.
Homeopathy is another method of stimulating the body's own healing processes. If you have a symptom, your vital force is down! It is your depressed vital force, not your symptom, that is the origin of disease. Homeopathy is a holistic science, and treats the whole person. Health is not the absence of disease ... it is a universal good condition on all levels--physical, emotional and mental. Homeopathy works on the principle of resonance, like when a singer shatters glass on a special note that matches the energy of the glass. The source of the homeopathic remedy has certain symptoms if taken in excess, and when these symptoms match yours exactly, the two energies combine like the singer who breaks glass, and increases the overall energy. This increased energy raises your vital force and you are now stronger to overcome the symptoms.
To change the "level of health" you must change the person's constitution or "vital force"--a subtle governing energy that organizes and directs physical and chemical action of the body. Efficiency of your vital force is reflected in degrees of health or illness. The present transition toward health and wholeness, rather than disease, has enhanced the growing awareness and importance of subtle energies and influences that encourage the body to heal itself.
Symptoms are an expression of your vital force's effort to heal. Do not suppress your body's attempts to communicate with you!
- Do not treat thirst with drugs.
- Understand the healing properties of herbs and allow nature to help in the healing process.
- Understand that treating symptoms is masking the fact your vital force is down; you need to be dealing with that, rather than just temporarily wanting to feel better.
Every physical, emotional, or mental symptom gives us a particular message, and we need to acknowledge these messages. every true healing process is an affirmation of our wholeness . . . and any condition should "first do no harm."
Author: Dori Luneski. Originally presented in Baltimore Resource Journal, Vol 9, No. 2, Summer 1995, Baltimore Maryland. Dori Luneski is a naturopathic doctor practicing in Frederick. She can be reached at (410) 418-5969.
