Healing The Woman Within

Let’s look at some healing modalities recommended by Diane Stein in her book “The Natural Remedy Book For Women”. Diane Stein is one of my favorite natural healers and reiki practitioners. She has written many books on healing and energy and she presents her information in a very easy to follow format.

I would like to share and expand on her protocol for depression. She starts by sharing the emotional reasons for depression and physical reasons such as endocrine imbalances, chronic fatigue syndrome, heredity, heavy metal toxicity, high sugar diets, diabetes, candida albicans, food sensitivities, stress and nutritional deficiencies. All of these and more can contribute to depression, which means that just addressing the emotional state may not provide any relief because of underlying conditions that need to be addressed first.

Of course, depression can be life threatening and requires expertise to diagnose, heal, and even prescribe medications.

Vitamins and minerals: B complex vitamins, lecithin, folic acid, vitamin D and niacin can all be helpful. The best way to determine a mineral and nutritional imbalance is a hair analysis. Contact me and I can have one ordered for you. It is best not to run out and buy a bunch of supplements from your local store. You will quickly become frustrated when you don’t know what is working, what isn’t and when you don’t see any changes. Learn how to muscle test yourself, or bring a friend to help you.

Herbs: Herbs should always be checked against medications due to their ability to impede and cause harm when contraindicated with a medication. There are a wide variety of herbs used for depression, stress, anxiety, etc., but which ones to use is a complicated decision. I always muscle test my patients to see which ones are best for them. Try a tea with passion flower, chamomile, lavender, kava kava, or catnip. You can buy these in tinctures (liquids), tablets, or teas.

Naturopathy: Eat a high protein and raw vegetable diet. Diane recommends eating more grains but since the majority of people purchase the wrong types of grains and are also sensitive to the highly processed and sugared breads, I do not recommend more grains. Cut out any additives including sugar, caffeine, high fructose corn syrup, and chemicals which can impede the function of the nervous system and brain.  Include more omega-3’s, purchase a refrigerated fish oil, eat more good fats such as butter and whole (raw and organic) milk.

Homeopathy: Try Arsenicum for anxiety and depression, exhaustion and restlessness according to Diane. Pulsatilla is for depression with weeping and is also good for boosting the immune system.

Acupressure: Diane recommends paying attention to the sinus, pituitary, cerebrum, and cranial nerves, thyroid, adrenals, liver, and thymus for foot reflexology. “For releasing grief, try acupressure points below the collar bone on both sides near the shoulders and the back beside each shoulder blade.”

Flower Essences: White peony or blackberry, pandora vine and star of Bethlehem are recommended. See my post on bach flower remedies for more information on flower essences.

Gemstones: Look for pink, blue, or purple kunzite, lepidolite, chrysoprase, labradorite rose quartz or pink tourmaline. You can hold these gemstones or wear them on jewelry pieces.

Emotional release: Release grief by crying or create a ritual for letting go of the event, person, situation and closing the energy that is left open causing the draining of your energy.

There is a lot of information presented here, and more in Diane’s book. She gives more specific examples of types of depression and what works best for different types. The book offers different healing techniques for each category presented above for other physical ailments.