The Search for Perfection

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

What is it about us humans? We always want more. We are inherently prone to dissatisfaction and constantly yearn for something more “perfect” — the perfect mate, the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect body. Even those who live in gorgeous mansions by the sea fantasize about getting a more perfect garden or yacht.

Maybe our human tendency toward dissatisfaction has had a useful evolutionary purpose. If we were easily satisfied, we might not have had the motivation to push the limits of innovation, from finding better ways to cultivate food and build housing, to achieving a more just form of society. But just as with other emotional habits, the habit of always wanting or at least secretly yearning for more can also bring sadness and disappointment.

As I have gotten older, I have noticed that an expectation of perfection decreases with age and maturity. Some of it is just due to life experience. We discover that perfection is usually impossible. We may consciously decide to “settle for less” — but really, “settling” also hides within it a yearning for more.

No, what I mean is that with wisdom comes a realization that the constant quest for perfection is a trap, and that the love for and trust in what is can be a gift.

I’m not saying that we should be happy with horrible situations and not try to correct them. But rather than approaching life with dissatisfaction, we can assume an attitude of acceptance that simultaneously opens us up to more possibilities and often a more positive outcome. This attitude is also a more ideal position from which to envision and create — to exert what I have called active consciousness.

In my experience, a key to achieving this more productive state is to begin by looking within. In particular, our own personal perfectionism and dissatisfaction is usually rooted in a dissatisfaction with ourselves.

It’s amazing but true — if we begin to love and accept ourselves more, we also begin to love and accept others. If we have more compassion for ourselves, we have more compassion and forgiveness for others. And even if we (as an act of self-love) decide to remove ourselves from a particular situation, our ability to do so with an internal attitude of compassion and forgiveness enables us to move on to something new and better, rather than remaining mired in the past.

Ironically, by letting go of the expectation of perfection, we create an even more “perfect” world. And even if it remains the same old world, we are now able to realize more deeply just how perfect it already is.

Homeopathy Always Goes On

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

There have been easy times and hard times for homeopathy since the beginning. Right off the bat, Hahnemann experienced both mockery and accolades. Eager young devotee doctors surrounded him and became his first provers of homeopathic medicines. At the same time, Hahnemann was repeatedly hounded out of town by the local apothecaries (pharmacies) because he manufactured his own medicines and didn’t use their wares (and also got better results). Sound familiar? As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun and history keeps repeating itself.

And so homeopathy always goes on. Why? Because it works and can even sometimes work miracles. It is affordable. But I believe that the real reason is that homeopathy is based on a fundamental, immutable truth. Unlike medical fads that come and go and are often proven harmful in the end, homeopathy’s Law of Similars presents us with an unshakeable and eternal law of nature, much like the laws of physics. Even if we don’t make use of this healing principle, it remains there to be rediscovered and used.

Of course, the application of the Law of Similars isn’t always easy. The practice of homeopathy is an art. There is a saying: homeopathy never fails, but a homeopath can. I might add to this that sometimes the physical body is beyond repair; after all, we all die in the end. The mysteries of the body are immense and ultimately, perhaps unknowable. Even the most perfect homeopath cannot always discern the way to the best remedy, potency, and dosing. But as I always say, there is hope with homeopathy. That gives us great comfort and is also the reason why no matter what happens, this medical art will always spring up anew. You can’t keep the truth hidden forever. And people will always need to be healed.

In April, homeopaths around the world celebrated Homeopathy Awareness Week, always timed to begin on Hahnemann’s birthday on April 10. This year, many people flocked to Washington, DC to lobby congressional leaders not to change existing FDA rules (which have worked fine for many years) that would impede the free access of homeopathic remedies to the public. This effort was organized by the amazing new organization, Americans for Homeopathy Choice. I encourage you to join me in supporting their efforts to protect access to homeopathy.

There are many other organizations in the USA and around the world that merit your support as well. These include the National Center for Homeopathy (I was on the board for many years), Homeopaths Without Borders, Homeopathy for Health in Africa, Research in Homeopathy, and health freedom efforts nationally or in your state.

Of course, there are even more organizations than these. Choose your favorites, get involved, spread the word about homeopathy. That’s why I wrote Impossible Cure and why I continue to write these newsletters and answer emails that are sent to me. I will forever be grateful for the blessing of homeopathy in my life.

And perhaps most important — keep the faith! Your positive intentions and beliefs do make a difference. Homeopathy has always and will always go on.

No Worries

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

My son Izaak has been living in Australia for several years now. One Australian phrase that I love is “No Worries, Mate!” I remember waiting in a huge line to check in for a flight there in 2002. Over the loudspeaker they announced “No worries, everyone! Relax!” Can you imagine that announcement in an American airport, with all of its dire warnings about yellow or orange alerts? I hope Australia can hold on to that feeling.

“No Worries” is especially comforting to me because I’ve struggled with disaster thinking my entire life. When I let my mind do its normal meandering, I often find it concocting the most horrific and worrisome scenarios. It probably began in childhood, when I would sit in bed and plan out how I’d escape down a gutter outside my bedroom window if the house caught on fire. My worrisome ways were likely fueled by an isolated and difficult childhood punctuated by occasional violence and frequent family deaths. I often wonder how I came out of it all with an inherently cheerful, optimistic, and determined personality. Or maybe my childhood actually fostered this resilience.

Nevertheless, my habitual tendency toward disaster thinking remains. I worry unnecessarily about my kids, upcoming travel (which I simultaneously look forward to), and more. I’m an expert at concocting the worst possible scenarios. As a Jew, I can always fall back onto thoughts about concentration camps or other forms of torture. And when I get any kind of health worry — even a cut on my finger — the medical knowledge I possess enables my mind to inevitably worm its way to death: what if I get MRSA?!

Of course, I’m not alone. Today, everyone’s tendency toward disaster thinking has been exacerbated by the ever present media that informs and alarms us about every possible health woe and worry, let alone the ubiquitous political media constantly washing over us.

Luckily, I’ve become increasingly aware of these kinds of thoughts. They are much less subconscious than they used to be. For example, I’m now able to laugh at my ability to convert any health woe into a death sentence — thanks to my husband who reminds me and laughs with me. That usually stops those kinds of thoughts in their tracks.

Recently, I have begun attending services at a nearby Center for Spiritual Living. The community follows the spiritual science message of teachers like Neville Goddard and Ernest Holmes, who emphasized how our thoughts create our reality. And so I’ve begun to work even more diligently on my disaster thinking tendencies. (Luckily, my life has actually been wonderful and quite luck-filled, despite my worries — perhaps thanks to my innately optimistic nature!)

One thing that I’ve learned is that constant worrying and fretting has no purpose. We may think it prepares us for the future, but any required thought-preparations really take much less time than we spend on worrying. Write down your ideas or preparations and then put them aside. Remember that worry and fretting just helps negative outcomes to manifest! (I also discuss this point in my book Active Consciousness). It also inhibits positive action or response, fosters unhappiness within you and those around you, and even contributes to physical disease.

For four years before my mom died in 2010, she experienced increasingly poor health and I knew she could die unexpectedly. I often found myself thinking “What would I do if Mom died tomorrow?” and would plan out the scenario in my mind. A good friend gave me some excellent advice: “Your mom will only die once. But you’re living her death a thousand times!” The moral of this story is this: Have confidence that when the time comes, you will respond to any crisis in the best way you can. Nothing more is required.

Here are some more tips I’ve tried to put into practice:

▪ When you notice a thought you’d like to stop dwelling on, say out loud: STOP! (You’ll be surprised how well this works.)
▪Replace your worry by imagining the BEST possible scenario or outcome.
▪Focus your mind on the good in your life with gratitude.

I hope this is useful and hopeful information for all of you. We live in a time of great trepidation about the future. But constantly “freaking out” — a state many people are caught in — serves no one and likely makes things worse.

I know I’ve written this message before. But it may be the most important message for our times. Remember that the world can turn on a dime. Small things — including small positive things you do in your own life — can ripple out in unexpected ways and cause huge changes. Anything can happen.

As we enter spring and the flowers and plants emerge from the Earth, use your consciousness to help good things to happen! Your thoughts and beliefs are the seeds of our collective future.

There Is Hope With Homeopathy

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

This has been a difficult newsletter to approach and write. The past month has been full of worrisome news for those of us in the world of alternative medicine, especially folks in the autism community with concerns about forced vaccination.

Every alternative medicine newsletter I’ve read lately is awash in panic about a possible federal expansion of powers to remove all state vaccine exemptions for everyone, not just school children. Efforts are afoot (once again, led by legislators from my own state of California — which initiated the forced vaccination trend in the USA with the passage of SB277 in 2015) to impose media censorship on any “anti-vaccine” information. Facebook has begun to block information. Amazon has already removed some books focused on autism recovery. Frankly, I am worried that they will also remove my own book Impossible Cure, despite the fact that it touches only lightly on the vaccine issue, which wasn’t strongly in my consciousness at the time I wrote it. (NOTE: As of now, my book is still on Amazon.)

Couple all of this with recent efforts by the FDA to gradually remove our access to homeopathic remedies. It is very hard not to believe that these developments, fueled by the power of Big Pharma (which now exceeds that of the military-industrial complex and has bought politicians of every political stripe), is part of some grand plot to decimate our collective health and reduce the population, or at least to subjugate all of us mentally and physically. I applaud the bravery of people like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his Children’s Health Defense organization or Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, with her recent statement about the erosion of our basic civil liberties.

Putting aside the most sinister motives, there is legitimate reason for panic in the allopathic world. The overuse of vaccines has been a colossal mistake and perhaps even they know it, or at least are beginning to realize it. I wrote about this in an article I wrote a couple of years ago. Just as with the debacle of overused antibiotics, the desperation of those in the know is well-founded. An increasingly small number of people, born before 1958, still have true immunity to the childhood diseases. That leaves a growing population of inherently unhealthy and unprotected people. Unfortunately, the only tool known by the Big-Pharma machine is to impose more suppression: more antibiotics, more vaccines and forced vaccination. Pity them, for they blind themselves to the knowledge of any other way.

I can’t pretend to offer much comfort to young parents who want to protect the health of their children. I can’t pretend to not be afraid for myself and my family.

But what I can offer to you is this: There is hope with homeopathy, along with other alternative means of healing. That’s why it’s important that we support organizations that work for our freedom to access homeopathy and remedies. In the meantime, in case authorities render our access to remedies more difficult, I recommend stocking up now, including nosodes, which will likely be harder to get in the future. Do it. The good news is that your remedies will last indefinitely, no matter what the labels say, if they are stored properly. Build your knowledge of how to use them. Homeopathy may not be easy or perfect, but it provides hope. It can bolster your immune system so that you become more resilient to whatever is unleashed upon you (including forced vaccination) and help you to recover if you do fall ill.

Over the past few weeks, both my husband and I have been working through this year’s difficult flu. I hadn’t been sick in a few years. My husband never gets acutes; I haven’t seen him this sick in our 38 years together except for a couple of bouts of food poisoning. Unfortunately, we fell ill during a two-week vacation to Hawaii, which we ended up spending holed up inside. Luckily, I had remedies with me (I never travel without them). Gelsemium did the trick for Steve. Initially Phosphorus and later Bryonia has done the trick for me, though I’m still recovering. This flu has been a sobering learning experience, but I know that I am now stronger because of it. My immune system has been exercised. Homeopathy came to the rescue, even if the process took a while.

I’ll conclude with this. Homeopathy teaches us that suppression is never the answer. It may be a necessary stopgap measure at times, but it is never curative. Likewise, the suppression of information is never the answer. The suppression of access to healing tools is never the answer. Forcing suppression upon others is never the answer. Yes, there may be difficult times ahead. But sometimes things have to get much worse before people wake up and take action.

Let’s try to have faith. And let’s remember that there is always hope with homeopathy.

Why Is It So Hard to Love Ourselves?

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

Valentine’s Day is only days away. Why not make a commitment now to start developing a loving relationship with the most important person in your life? YOU.

Do you scoff at this idea? Do you think it’s egotistic or morally repugnant to focus on loving yourself? Know that loving yourself is not about selfish egotism or narcissism. It’s about a deep and knowing love for who you are, as you are. The truth is, narcissists are actually people who loathe themselves and compensate for this internal feeling by becoming selfish bullies.

It’s a truism but it’s true: if you don’t love yourself, you can’t truly love another. The love you can feel will be that much more limited, not just for your family and significant others, but for the world. Don’t believe me? Do a little experiment. Work seriously on loving yourself for a few weeks and find out how much more you start loving others.

Maybe you are saying, “Of course I love myself!” But are you sure? Try doing this: pick up a mirror, look deep into your eyes, smile, and sincerely and with all the heart you can muster say, “I love you. I really really love you.”

How do you feel? Is it awkward? Do you cry a little? Can you even bring yourself to do it? And how do you feel about beginning each day by doing this? If you have any qualms about it or think it’s silly, it’s time to get to work. And even if you don’t, know that incorporating this simple little exercise into your life will change it for the better.

Why is it so hard to love yourself, anyway? Societal messages are one explanation, but more important are childhood experiences. Within you are carried every criticism, every “should” imposed on you, parental neglect or abuse (both physical and mental), and a host of other reasons for feeling bad about yourself. It is also the natural inclination of any child to blame themselves for whatever is going amiss in the family, whether it be discord or misfortune. We may forget about it all as we grow older and learn to cover it up with busy-ness, but it still lies buried deep within. It is stored in our memories and often within our bodies as aches and pains and dis-ease.

But these memories are just thoughts and feelings about yourself. They can be changed. They are habits of being, and just like any habit, they can be broken. You just have to make an effort.

Why is this so important? How can it help you in practical ways? Well, if you’ve read my book Active Consciousness and are interested in becoming a person who can actively create his or her future, know that working on loving yourself will help you remove many of the blocks that inhibit your progress. As the Huna wisdom teaches, prayers sent to the High Self can be blocked by the subconscious self doubts and self-limiting beliefs of the Basic Self. For example, if deep down inside you fear or feel undeserving of achieving your conscious desires, all of your efforts to achieve them will bear weak fruit. But when you “prep the soil” first by working on loving yourself, you help to remove these blocks.

Author Anita Moorjani, whose book Dying to Be Me describes her near-death experience from terminal cancer and her miraculous and quick recovery after she returned, says that her discovery in the afterlife was this: self love is the key. She says that our mission here on Earth is to learn to love ourselves completely and to let our light shine as brightly as it can. I’m slowly learning that she is right.

I am currently working on Louise Hay’s course, Learning to Love Yourself. Already I feel a difference in my life. Although this online offering is free in its current form, I decided to buy it. Much to my amazement, my husband Steve is now doing the course too. I hope my children will too.

Steve and I are in our 60s. Most people will never do this kind of work. They simply accept that they must go through life in anger, resentment, guilt, and fear, never suspecting that a bit of self-love might be the answer. I figure, better late than never for me and Steve. I hope that many of you, who are much younger, can begin now to change your lives for the better! Give yourself the best Valentine gift you can possibly imagine: learn to love yourself.

Why Am I So Confident About Homeopathy? It Works! Here’s Some More Scientific Proof Too

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

Just this week I got an email from someone who has begun to read Impossible Cure. (Actually, he’s listening to the audio book — something many of you might also be interested in.) He asked me how I could be so confident about homeopathy, given all the naysayers, quackbusters, and negative media about it. My answer went something like this:

First, I know from personal experience that homeopathy works and is extremely powerful. It isn’t a panacea and sometimes I need to use other healing modalities too (I’m currently writing a new book that, among other topics, focuses on many of the self-healing methods I’ve learned), but homeopathy is my family’s first “go to,” and has been for almost 25 years. So it doesn’t matter what anybody says. My only fear is that as I get older, I’ll be forced into the allopathic machine. I hope not!

Second, I know so many brilliant people who use homeopathy, are homeopaths, or are supporters of homeopathy. The people who put down homeopathy, in my experience, either really know nothing about it and just regurgitate what the media says, or are so limited and threatened that they’re afraid to really learn anything about it. (By the way, it’s not just the media but also most politicians that are bought-and-sold by Big Pharma.) The reason the media and other attacks have escalated in recent years (in my opinion) is that the science is beginning to verify the effects of ultradilutions, including ultradilutions of allopathic drugs and products. If this phenomenon becomes widely accepted, it would absolutely destroy the pharmaceutical industry because medicines would essentially cost nothing. That is why Big Pharma would spend any amount of money and do anything to protect its power. And that means trying to discredit homeopathy.

Last month I promised some pointers to more studies that buttress what I’m saying. The media wants to keep this information from you, and that’s why it’s important to stay aware and share it. Who knows, maybe you’ll even convince your doctor that homeopathy is not “mere placebo”!

First, here are three places online to look for pointers to lots of research studies.
1) The most comprehensive and up-to-date is probably Saurav Arora’s site, researchinhomeopathy.org.
2) The National Center for Homeopathy — which you should all join and support — provides a nice link to “quotable research”. Some of the items below are derived from their monthly newsletters.
3) Our intrepid homeopathic author, Dana Ullman, also makes available an ever-growing database of homeopathic research and guide to treatment, in his eBook Evidence Based Homeopathic Family Medicine.

Now a smattering of studies:

Recent Lab-Based and Basic Research

Hot off the press (courtesy of Dana) — a new lab-based study that appeared in leading journal Nature in September 2018.
This study tested various potencies of Rhus toxicodendron (also called Rhus tox) in the treatment of neuropathy in rats. This study showed that the various potencies of Rhus tox (2X, 4X, 6X, 8X, 12X, 24X, and 30X) had significant and even sometimes substantially significant effects on various immunological markers as well as in various pain-relieving tests. Not only did this homeopathic medicine have remarkably beneficial effects as compared with a placebo, it was found to be as effective as a leading conventional drug, called Gabapentin, and was considerably safer than this conventional drug!

Another article by Dana, about a July 2018 basic-research conference in the UK, featuring several world-renowned scientists, that was entitled New Horizons in Water Science — The Evidence for Homeopathy?.

Clinical Studies

A new research study about autism and homeopathy by Dr. Rajalakshmi in India.

Efficacy of homeopathy in livestock (courtesy of the NCH) Homeopathy is widely used for livestock, especially in order to reduce the use of antibiotics. A comprehensive literature review has been conducted to assess the efficacy of homeopathy in cattle, pigs and poultry. Only peer-reviewed publications dealing with homeopathic remedies were included. Search results revealed a total number of 52 trials performed within 48 publications fulfilling the predefined criteria. Twenty-eight trials were in favor of homeopathy, with 26 trials showing a significantly higher efficacy in comparison to a control group. Peer-reviewed publications from 1981 to 2014 Vet Rec. 2016; 179(24): 628, Doehring et al

Chronic primary insomnia (courtesy of the NCH) Researchers from South Africa’s Durban University of Technology focused on determining the effects of constitutional homeopathic treatment for insomnia, when compared to a placebo control. Thirty subjects diagnosed with primary insomnia were randomly assigned to Homeopathy or placebo. An analysis of the outcomes showed that sleep duration and sleep quality improved significantly under homeopathic treatment, when compared to using the placebo control. Efficacy of homeopathic simillimum 2010, 99, 1, 63-8 Naudé et al

Homeopathic treatment of patients with chronic low back pain (courtesy of the NCH) Researchers from Charité University Medical Center in Berlin, Germany, evaluated 129 adults suffering from medically diagnosed chronic low back pain for an average duration of 9.6 years. They were treated by homeopathic physicians who prescribed according to their individual symptoms. Their progress was followed for 2 years. On analysis of the symptom severity and quality of life, changes demonstrated a marked and sustained improvement. In addition, the use of homeopathic remedies were associated with a significant decline in the use of conventional treatment and health services. A prospective observational study with 2 years’ follow-up. Clin J Pain. 2009, 25, 4, 334-9. Witt CM, et al.

Effect of homeopathy on chronic tension-type headache (courtesy of the NCH) Headache frequency and intensity was lower in the homeopathy group than in controls. Compared with usual care, patients randomized to homeopathy used 35% less medication (P = 0.001) and had 45% fewer visits to general practitioners (P = 0.0001). J Headache Pain. 2013; 14(Suppl 1): P56. Sharma et al

It’s Time to Turn Off the Trump Channel

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

I know that I’m kind of going against the message of this article by even using the “T” word in its title. But the title’s message is so important. It’s the end of the year, a time for reflection. Soon we greet a new year, a time for change. Decide now to free yourself and turn to a new channel.

Don’t worry. You won’t miss a thing except a never-ending background stream of anxiety, anger, and fear. And you will know what’s going on. You won’t be able to escape it unless you live off grid and never talk to anyone. You will find that any tidbit that passes you by isn’t very important for you to know.

You will now have time to think and talk about new things. You’ll also have some new space in your heart and mind (once it is freed from all that anxiety, anger, and fear) to actually do something that helps others. You will become happier and healthier and you’ll sleep better.

I recently read this quote by C.S.Lewis, written after World War II. It could have been written today:

“One mustn’t assume burdens that God does not lay upon us. It is one of the evils of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows of all the world come to us every morning. I think each village was meant to feel pity for its own sick and poor whom it can help and I doubt if it is the duty of any private person to fix his mind on ills which he cannot help. (This may even become an escape from the works of charity we really can do to those we know). A great many people… do now seem to think that the mere state of being worried is in itself meritorious. I don’t think it is. We must, if it so happens, give our lives for others: but even while we’re doing it, I think we’re meant to enjoy Our Lord and, in Him, our friends, our food, our sleep, our jokes, and the birds’ song and the frosty sunrise….It is very dark: but there’s usually light enough for the next step or so.”

At this darkest time of year, let us dwell on the light. Remember that a constant focus on worry, anxiety, anger, and fear just brings more negativity into our world. It actually feeds what you are trying to resist.

Instead, if you want to create something positive, you must feel and think positive thoughts. As I discuss in Active Consciousness, your world is created by your imagination, your thoughts, your beliefs. This is not pollyanna-ism or ostrich-head-in-the-sand-ism. It’s just the most effective way to get something new and positive accomplished.

How about trying it out as an experiment until New Year’s? Stop reading those Twitter feeds and Facebook posts. You know the ones. Talk to your loved ones. Meditate. Envision the coming year and what you’d like to experience in positive terms. Go outside and breathe. Take a walk. Love your Self. And have a joyous finale to 2018.

Homeopathic Reflections for Year’s End

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

Last month I promised to provide a list of studies in this month’s newsletter. However, I decided that this would be a better way to begin 2019 — with new energy and information. December seems like a better time to sit back and reflect a bit.

All of us cannot help noticing that today’s world is facing an increase in polarities — the yin and yang between growing brightness and ominous darkness. Various philosophers and historians tell us that increases in polarity portend that a major shift is coming our way. I talk about this in my book Active Consciousness. Personally, I am excited and quite hopeful about these incoming shifts to our society and the evolving consciousness of humanity.

One of the polarities we are experiencing affects homeopathy. I alluded to this in last month’s newsletter. Crackdowns on access to homeopathy and other alternative health approaches and views are expanding. These attacks are, ultimately, all fueled by Big Pharma, which many people say has grown to be even more powerful than the military industrial complex. The fact that Big Pharma is investing such effort and money into all of these efforts indicates that they are feeling threatened. It means that, at some level, they see the writing on the wall and are getting desperate. This also means that now is not time for us to give up in despair; it’s time to knuckle down and redouble our efforts and enlarge our voices!

Here are some growing signs of darkness and light:

Darkness: The FDA is trying to slowly whittle away our access to homeopathic remedies.

Light: (Excerpted from the National Center for Homeopathy newsletter. The NCH is the largest homeopathic consumer-based organization in the US) — “NCH has experienced tremendous growth over the past year; we’ve seen a 283% increase in new individual members, 90% increase in Organizational membership, 900% increase in lifetime members and new Student memberships. NCH also experienced a 17.9% increase in new followers on social media especially related to advocacy efforts by NCH to create awareness around the draft guidance proposed by the FDA: Drug Products Labeled as Homeopathic Guidance for FDA Staff and Industry.”

Darkness: Major outlets of information are beginning to brand alternative medical views as “fake news” and block them. For example, Pinterest, a major social media platform with 250 million users, banned The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) and GreenMedInfo for posting natural health information, including research questioning vaccine safety. This is an extremely alarming trend. We already know that Wikipedia is a completely biased and untrustworthy information source on anything pertaining to alternative medicine, from homeopathy to chiropractic. (You can read an article I wrote about this all the way back in 2008.) Please do not support them! Unfortunately, even more important outlets for disseminating information, like Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook, might become banned to us.

Light: Many alternative organizations have begun to embrace homeopathy more wholeheartedly! Most notable is the Mercola Newsletter. This is the number one alternative health site on the entire web. They printed a review of my book Impossible Cure and an interview with me back in 2003, after my book first came out. This media was critical in making Impossible Cure a number one book about homeopathy worldwide. Nevertheless, Dr. Mercola was not really a big fan of homeopathy at the time. That seems to be changing now. For example, the Mercola Newsletter has recently been featuring articles by Dana Ullman, complete with an hour-long video interview with Dr. Mercola himself!

Let’s face it, the more the crackdowns happen, and the wider their net is cast — way beyond homeopathy — the more allies homeopathy gains. It’s an example of intersectionality. We are all being persecuted so we will all band together. And there is strength in numbers.

In the end, censorship will fail, especially as the conventional medical system continues to collapse around us. Information has a way of getting out. It may only take an epidemic outbreak or the expansion of antibiotic resistance, along with news that these problems are effectively addressed by homeopathy, to turn the tide. In fact, it is exactly these kinds of events that can cause a shift to happen! And it’s even secret sauce of homeopathy. A small dose at just the right time and place does the trick!

How to Break an Emotional Habit

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

At New Year’s time, we often decide to break old physical habits that don’t serve us anymore. We may resolve to eat more healthfully, exercise more, or stop smoking. With the holidays coming up soon, perhaps now is a good time to think about addressing your negative emotional habits — those chronic, habitual, almost reflex-like ways of thinking and feeling that cause suffering for you. When you visit with family and friends, emotional habits are sure to become activated. Why not prepare in advance?

The truth is, emotional habits are even harder to break than physical ones. They have likely been with us since childhood. As a result, we don’t even notice them anymore. Typical examples include tendencies to react to social interactions with feelings of hurt, resentment, guilt, anger, abandonment, anxiety, or irritation. Usually we think these habitual reactions are warranted, and we certainly justify them to ourselves that way. But as Byron Katie suggests we ask ourselves, “Is that true? Is that really true?”

Even if our beliefs about a social situation are true, do we really need to react in the same old habitual way? After all, our negative emotional habits have toxic effects on our own bodies and also serve to perpetuate tired old social patterns of interaction from the past.

For example, suppose that you have a feeling of jealousy whenever you are around a sibling. As a result, whenever you hear that something good has happened to them or you hear a parent praise them, you react with a feeling of jealousy, abandonment, and self-loathing. In reaction, you slink away into the next room and grit your teeth.

What if, instead, you first said to yourself, “There I go again!” or as Henry Grayson recommends in his book Your Power to Heal, quietly say to yourself, “There is one of those enemy thoughts that is just here to make me suffer!” What if you then said to yourself, “I love myself just the way I am” or “All is well” — and you really tried to believe it? Finally, what if you forced yourself to stay in the room, put a smile on your face, and say with genuine feeling, “That’s really great! I’m happy for you!” You never know how people might react.

The bottom line is, habitual emotional reactions are just that — habits. That means they can be broken. The first step is to notice them. That alone goes a very long way. I myself have always had a tendency to be a worrier. I now can laugh at myself (with kindness and compassion) when a “worry” thought pops into my head, and I also say to myself, “There I go again!” This goes a long way towards dissipating my worry.

The next step is to introduce a new thought or feeling to replace the chronic one. Warning: this won’t feel comfortable or natural! A part of you will argue and try to keep you from doing it. Emotional habits hate to be broken and will fight you tooth and nail. It may feel awkward at first, but just do it. It helps to say the new positive thought or feeling out loud, even if it feels artificial at first. Nevertheless, you’ll likely feel a difference within.

Finally, it’s helpful to perform a physical action to reinforce your new replacement feeling. Say something positive out loud. Do something that reinforces or derives from the new intended feeling.

In summary: notice, replace, reinforce. And repeat! With some effort and enough repetition, you can break your negative emotional habits. As I discuss in my book Active Consciousness and will stress even more in the book I am currently writing, your thoughts and emotions help to create your reality. As a result, you may find that your new emotional habits change your life for the better!

 

As More Research Supporting Homeopathy Pours In, Efforts to Eliminate It Double Down

AmyLansky.com Posted on by

Almost every week I find out about new research supporting the efficacy of homeopathic remedies. It ranges from focused clinical studies, to broader studies that focus on overall patient wellness and satisfaction, to laboratory studies on animals, to basic research studies that prove that homeopathic dilutions are not merely “plain old water.” At the same time, the attacks on homeopathy have escalated.

After the mid 1900s, when the heyday of homeopathy came to an end, homeopaths and homeopathic remedies were, at first, largely ignored by the mainstream and relegated to a small group of followers and the pharmacies that supported them. In the late 1900s, homeopaths and remedies began to be derided as bunk by a group of paid “skeptics”. Small studies were ignored or downplayed. Nevertheless, the use of homeopathic remedies grew and homeopathy became more popular, as other forms of alternative medicine also began to gain ground, especially after the 1970s.

Earnest homeopaths and researchers started to do more studies. Clinical evidence began pouring in. Meta-analyses began to show that the effects of remedies were definitely not due to the placebo effect. (By the way, as I discuss in my book Impossible Cure, the whole idea of a placebo-controlled study was devised by homeopaths.) Animal studies also proved that the remedies were not acting via a placebo-effect.

Then, famous and otherwise-traditional medical researchers, like Jacques Benveniste and Luc Montagnier (who won the Nobel Prize in 2008 for the discovery of HIV) started investigating the efficacy of ultra-dilutions prepared using methods essentially equivalent to homeopathic potentization. Despite the reputation of these doctors, their research was blocked and defunded. Montagnier moved his lab to China. More clinical studies poured in. A fraudulent meta-analysis by Chang, et.al was then concocted to undermine previous meta-analyses and was widely publicized (unlike the others) and declared the “nail in the coffin” for homeopathy. Numerous articles outlining methodological problems with this study (including an entire issue of a journal) were ignored.

Recently, an Australian report was coordinated to study past homeopathic research, but it was abandoned and buried when it found results that were positive for homeopathy. A new report was then created that yielded the “desired” result (by omitting research that was positive for homeopathy — the same tactic used by the Chang study). This newer report was soon widely touted by world-wide media as another “nail in the coffin” for homeopathy, and has even been used as an excuse for more attacks. The movie Just One Drop focused on this duplicity. And more basic and clinical research keeps pouring in.

Now the efforts to suppress homeopathy have doubled down. In the old days, the practitioners of homeopathy were largely the targets. The AMA banned members from practicing or consorting with homeopaths (one of the reasons the organization was formed). Homeopathic medical schools were shut down in the early 1900s or converted into allopathic medical schools. Unlicensed homeopaths of the late 1900s were prosecuted for “practicing medicine without a license.” Today, with the health-freedom movement in full swing and naturopathic physicians (who use some remedies) getting licensure, this strategy is no longer working. Big Pharma and its skeptic henchmen have now decided to attack the remedies themselves. No remedies, no homeopathy.

At first, the skeptics tried to assert that remedies were just sugar pills or plain old water. Then they tried to say that homeopathy was dangerous because people who used it weren’t seeking “proper medical treatment”. When this strategy failed, homeopathic “sugar pills” suddenly became dangerous drugs! Oblivious to the inconsistency behind this sudden change in tactic, the media (which even mainstream politicians acknowledge is bought-and-sold by Big Pharma) has been fed horror stories about “poisonous substances” in homeopathic baby teething tablets! Of course, these dire warnings ignore the fact that the “poison” has been diluted beyond any possible toxicity, even if a baby was given 1000 tablets. Nor were there any reports of harm. It’s all too ironic, given the fact that pharmaceutical drugs are killing people every day.

Enter the latest strategy. Why not make homeopathic remedies…. illegal?

The legislation that formed the FDA in 1938 was written by Senator Royal Copeland, who was not only an MD but a homeopath. Because of this, he enshrined and protected the homeopathic pharmacopeia as part of that legislation. Oops! Time to change that! That’s what is currently happening. A little bit at a time, access to homeopathic remedies is being whittled down by the FDA. Say goodbye to your access at the local health food store. At first it will be only some remedies. Then more. Soon, many remedies may only be available by prescription. Given that there are very few medically-licensed people who would be willing to prescribe them (and most of whom know little about homeopathy), that won’t be very helpful. Time to stock up and build your own pharmacy folks! Luckily, remedies tend to last indefinitely…

So that’s the state of things. What’s next? Unfortunately, fewer and fewer people are studying homeopathy these days, given the embattlement of practitioners and their remedies. Many schools in the US have shut down over the past 10 years. In the UK, the homeopathic hospitals are being shuttered and treatment defunded by the National Health Service. Luckily, things continue unabated in India where homeopathy thrives. More studies continue to pour in, especially from the rest of Europe and India.

I believe that no matter what happens, homeopathy will definitely not die. Instead, it may go underground or dormant for a bit and then spring up in full bloom, like a plant in the desert. It always has! This will be made more likely by the increasing unsustainability of conventional medicine. When people cannot be helped or cannot afford to get help (or are afraid to get help) from conventional doctors, they will turn to other modalities like homeopathy. When an epidemic arises and homeopathy provides the only cure, people will flock, just like they did in the 1800s.

Another scenario, of course, is that Big Pharma will co-opt homeopathy. The science of ultradilutions will yield such incontrovertible evidence that it will not be able to be ignored. Big Pharma will fight this tooth and nail — because ultradilutions inherently cost next to nothing — but they may find a way to charge big bucks for remedies. Who knows? In the meantime, hunker down folks and keep the faith!

In next month’s newsletter, I’ll provide links to some interesting new studies. That’s what I intended to do this month, but I got a bit carried away!