More than one in six couples in Australia experience delays in conceiving. While the common perception is still that women are largely at fault when there are fertility problems, medical researchers are stating unequivocally now that the male carries at least 50% of the responsibility.

In fact, since 2004, a flurry of research into male fertility has had alarm bells ringing. Researchers in the US, Europe and Australia have estimated at least a 50% drop-off in male potency since our grandparents time and have even identified Sick Sperm Syndrome, a phenomenon that has raised many questions about whether the decline in male fertility is really is getting worse and what, in our modern lifestyles could be causing it.

As early as 2005, Professor of Developmental Biology at Queensland University, Peter Koopman said when discussing declining male infertility, “A little like global warming, what we will see with fertility is that things will reach breaking point…We’re starting to see a precipitous decline in fertility and if that continues over the next 10, 20, 50 years, it will be impossible for men to reproduce naturally. And I think that is a grave situation for the human race and for our quality of life.”

Research has identified a number of reasons why this decline is happening. Firstly, with our new understandings of trans-generational genetic mutation, it is now acknowledged that a son can not only inherit his father’s bad habits, but also the damage done to his father’s reproductive capacity as a result of that bad habit. For example, if a father develops lung cancer, DNA damage in his spermatozoa also occurs. As a consequence of that DNA damage, there is a four-to-five fold increased chance his children will develop childhood cancers of various kinds.  So his children are genetically weaker that he was.

Moreover, the newer technologies being used in IVF clinics around the country to offset the dramatic reduction in the amount of sperm available due to the recent rapid decline, is to isolate a single sperm to fertilise the oocyte(woman’s egg). This effectively bypasses Nature’s brilliant plan of having the strongest sperm win the conception race, thus ensuring a stronger offspring. Technicians are doing the selecting based on their limited perceptions of the strongest sperm. Natural selection is being compromised and babies are being born genetically weaker than their fathers.

Secondly, not only is there a decline in the quantity of sperm, but also research is demonstrating that the rise in male infertility is directly linked to the increase in testicular cancer particularly amongst young men in their twenties. And one of the main reasons is environmental toxins which damage the sperm when it is in the vulnerable ’production line’ phase, increasing vulnerability to cancer but also impacting on the potency of the sperm itself.

It is during this production process within the testes of the male that genetic material is being packed into the microscopic head of the sperm. This cargo is designed for delivery at the crucial moment when it binds to the oocyte, after its victory swim up the vaginal canal of the woman.

A range of specific and non-specific environmental toxins have been cited as responsible for little or no sperm production, slow sperm or non-functional sperm, during the production line phase which means effectively that the chances of being a victor sperm are minimal at the least and impossible in most cases. 

Studies on male fertility over the past twenty years by the Queensland Fertility Group was based on the job that the study participants do, indicating the level of environmental toxicity that the workers were exposed to, according to the clinic’s scientific director Keith Harrison.

 The studies showed that white collar workers, people who work in offices and don’t get their hands too dirty, around a quarter of them have significant semen defects.  For blue collar workers such as transport workers 50% of them had semen defects. In occupations where the men actually get their hands dirty, such as builders, electricians, painters, plumbers, again there’s a 50% incidence of abnormal semen. However, of the men who really get their hands dirty; motor mechanics, fitters, turners, welders, machinery operators – there was an almost doubling in the incidence of semen defects. Similarly, farmers and graziers and people in mining industries demonstrated double the incidence of semen defects as office-based workers.

 And the problem may even be even closer to home – or getting home after a day's work! Italian scientists say traffic pollution can affect male fertility by damaging sperm. After studying 85 attendants at tollgates on Italian motorways, researchers at the University of Naples in southern Italy discovered that the men had poorer quality sperm than other young and middle-aged Italian workers in the same area.

"The sperm count did not differ significantly between our study group and the controls but, in general, the sperm of the study group was more feeble and less active, so it has a lower fertility potential," said Dr Michele de Rosa, a researcher at the university.

Levels of testosterone and other hormones in the men, who were exposed to pollutants for about six hours a day, were normal, but sperm motility, or ability to swim, was lower, which could affect its ability to fertilise a female egg.

"Our study demonstrates that continuous exposure to traffic pollutants impairs sperm quality in young and middle-aged men," Dr De Rosa said.

The researchers said the toll workers had been exposed to higher levels of nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, carbon monoxide and lead than the other men in the area. They identified nitrogen oxides and lead as the most likely causes of sperm damage.

Furthermore, the effect of chemical intoxication can impact more than production of sperm in the adult male. It can impair embryonic development. For example, although the issue of oestrogens in the environment is contentious, many chemicals can produce oestrogen effects in animals and especially on developing foetuses. Exposure to some pesticides and plastics at high enough levels can disrupt male hormones, particularly in the developing foetus. If this damage has happened to the male embryo during gestation, it will take at least 20 to 30 years for that damage to be identified, which is when the now adult male attempts to reproduce himself. Many of the hazardous chemicals cited have not been around for long enough to determine the degree of damage to the DNA. Laboratory testing on animals however, do not paint a promising picture for male fertility.

As well as environmental toxins there is also a concern about the toxic effect that pharmaceutical drugs are having on male fertility. The concern is that while pharmaceuticals may be tested rigorously for their sematic toxicity (do they make your hair fall out or cause kidney or liver poisoning?) there is little effort given to studying their reproductive toxicology. Anti-depressants have been cited as compromising the health of the sperm.

 Researchers at the Cornell Medical Centre in New York put 35 men on the anti-depressant drug Paroxetine for five weeks. After a month, changes in the DNA of the men's sperm were discovered. Dr Peter Schlegel was the lead researcher for the project.

"If you look at normal sperm counts and motility, the standard measures of fertility, you saw no changes, but if you looked at sperm DNA, the genetic material in more detail you actually found dramatic changes in almost half of the men, normal men, who are on this drug," he said.

Paroxetine is sold in Australia as Aropax. Millions of prescriptions for various anti-depressant drugs are written in Australia every year.

In the face of all this doom and gloom, is there any glimmer in the darkness? Well, it seems that if men are prepared to take the pill, there may well be.

 For research has found that a combination of anti-oxidants and vitamins can significantly increase a man's fertility.

A tablet (ah-ha – a pill for men?) containing vitamins C and E, folate, zinc, lycopene and garlic oil has been found to help protect a man's sperm from damage caused by smoking, toxins and infections.

The study conducted in Australia found that the success of pregnancy doubled in the infertile couples who took the pill.

So in real terms what does all this mean? Well, according to current figures, even the most fertile of couples having unprotected sex at the right time of the month have just a 1 in 4 chance of conceiving that month. So getting pregnant isn’t as easy as our mothers warned us. And given that the proportion of abnormally low semen volume, sperm concentration and motility, increases significantly with the age of the male, along with women’s tendency to put off wanting to have children until they are older, it seems that we are fast heading to a future where having children will be the exception rather than the norm.

However, the problem of male fertility is not easily resolved. The male biological inscription determines that men are often the last to admit that there is anything wrong with them. That is why it has taken so long to even recognize that half of the current fertility crisis rests with men, and is not just the domain of the female. Women have carried the larger part of responsibility for contraception for fifty years now at great expense to their procreative power (the pill decreases fertility) their emotional stability (studies show the pill causes depression) and their birthright to pleasure (the pill has been proven to permanently decrease libido).  Men have had no need for chemical interference in their hormonal functioning because it was always assumed that women would bear the load.

The problem of rising infertility rates in the human species must be addressed if we are to bequeath future generations the endowment they are entitled to: that of the right to evolve. In the opinion of those observing the downward spiral of our reproductive power, we may well be heading to a future where reproduction is so compromised that humanity is on the path to devolution: that is each generation is becoming less healthy than the one before.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine the axiom for health and wellbeing is moderation in all things, including moderation. Lifestyle it seems is a major contributing factor to rising rates of infertility. This is something we can all do something about. Eating well, regular exercise, resting and recuperating in balance with work and social activities, a regular detoxification program and taking supplementation if there is a deficiency are all easy ways to bring our bodies and minds into the balance required to create healthy sperm and eggs.

Balance also means bringing the opposites into a state of equilibrium. So, as men and women, gender polar opposites, come together to take responsibility for a challenge, there is where wholeness lies. Let us work together to create a healthy future for our children

 What do you think? I would love to have your opinion.

According to two recent Radio National Health Reports (2^nd November and 9^th November) about one third of all babies being born in Australia are being delivered by Caesarean section, that is a surgical cut through the mother’s abdomen.

There are two main groups of women having caesareans: those who choose it and those who consent to it on medical advice either before or during labour.   Of those, an estimated 18% request it for no medical reason- a recent phenomenon that has increased dramatically over the last decade.    It’s not really well understood why women choose caesarean section without a medical reason. However, a study by the Cochrane Collaboration found that women’s birth choices were heavily influenced by three things:

• previous birth experience,
• their need for choice and control and
• especially their fear of a vaginal birth.

Fear of vaginal birth is very real, especially when women are at the mercy of a medical system using terminology and strategies that induce fear and lack of confidence in their bodies. And a system that promotes women to hand over the responsibility of their contraception, fertility and birthing to doctors, who in many cases are male. Because the mainstream medical system is based in the masculine principles of problem solving, and its main treatment strategies are surgery and pharmaceutical intervention, it ignores the emotional side of medical conditions.

Woman are not counseled when they express their fear of the pain of childbirth, but rather told that the solution is to remove the baby surgically – there is no ‘how come you’re feeling like that, let’s talk about it, let’s see what kinds of things can we work through to help you feel empowered and, how can we help you make an informed decision’.

Caesarean is NOT a safer option!

The truth is that caesareans involve major surgery and according to experts who have had long-term experience with the aftermath of caesareans, they are definitely not a safer option. Apart from the implications of cutting open the uterus and thereby weakening it for subsequent pregnancies, there is the problem of adhesions, which can have life-threatening effects, in the event of  second and subsequent pregnancies.

According to obstetrician David Ellwood, the gravest outcome, Caesarean Scar Pregnancy, can be life-threatening and, with the increase in CS, is on the rise. This is where the embryo actually implants in the caesarean scar and starts to develop within the scar. According to Ellwood, “the gestation sac then starts to disrupt the scar and if it develops for too long the wall of the uterus will actually rupture and the scar will break open, there will be a major haemorrhage”.

Furthermore the pregnancy cannot progress. Again says David Ellwood, the pregnancy “can progress for quite a few weeks, in fact the most dangerous types of caesarean scar pregnancies are those that have been undetected and have progressed to quite an advanced gestation.” Because the baby “couldn’t survive to full term” late-term abortion is then required which involves either an infusion of the cancer drug methotraxate that kills placental tissues, so it stops the placenta from growing and developing, or, by surgically cutting the baby out of the uterus. In the former procedure, the lethal drug has to also circulate through the mother’s system.

Another complication that arises with pregnancies following a caesarean birth can result in the placenta penetrating into the uterine wall and even through into the bladder, because it cannot attach to the scar tissue in the uterus. The inevitable outcome for this condition is that baby must be born by Caesarean Section and the uterus removed at the time of surgery, because there is no way to stop bleeding without taking out the uterus altogether.

Side Effects on Baby of Caesarean Birth

If these are the consequences of surgical birth for the mother, what is the impact on the baby? According to the report, research demonstrates that surgically delivered babies show a dramatic increase in:

• Type 1 diabetes
• Asthma
• Allergies
• Breathing problems

The report goes on to say that in many cases, intervention is often unnecessary and that the markers for foetal distress that determine a doctor recommending a caesarean during labour are often commonly over-exaggerated, causing excess caution in a process that is natural. Doctor’s fear of litigation has been cited for this extreme over-caution.

In my book, The Essence of Woman, I describe how Nature has designed stress into the birth process, balanced by the return of the vaginally-born baby to the heart-field of the mother, as she cuddles her newborn. A close, tight birth canal ensures that every inch of the baby’s skin is stimulated, cleverly planned into the birthing process to trigger the initiation of the baby’s functional systems. These are the systems that will enable baby to exist independently of the ‘mother-ship’ and include the digestive, respiratory, circulatory, nervous and elimination systems.

In a caesarean birth, these systems are not stimulated, resulting in an inefficient ‘start-up’ of the baby’s independent systems. This means that there will be functional deficiencies involving the skin, lungs, stomach, liver, bowel, heart and brain of the newborn.  The health outcomes include allergies, digestive disharmonies such as childhood and infancy diabetes (alarmingly on the rise) and colic, asthma, psychological and emotional problems such as ADD, ADHD, autism, developmental retardation and behavioural difficulties, including autism.

To understand how these health problems arise when a child is unnaturally born, read my book, The Essence of Woman, where the underlying MindBody connections are fully explained in easy readable language.

As women, we need to seriously consider how far away from our natural feminine intelligence we have strayed, when we willingly agree to have our natural processes managed for us by pharmaceutical companies that drive our mainstream medical systems for profit. In most case, this means white-washing the public into believing in the medicalisation of women’s natural reproductive processes, as with the recommended use of HRT for menopause.

Women Have Lost Confidence in Their Bodies

Many women have lost confidence in their bodies. This happens when we collaborate in the management of our reproductive processes with a medical system using toxic pharmaceutical agents that injure the body and downgrade our natural processes.

Use of the contraceptive pill has become commonplace now, and yet it has serious repercussions for the health of women. The dramatic rise in IVF (one in six couples in Australia are affected by infertility, and one in twenty babies – about 10,000 – are currently born using assisted reproductive technology) is a testimony to the fact that women’s fertility is being negatively impacted.

What’s more, the pill has been shown to reduce libido and to contribute significantly to depression.

But it doesn’t stop there. The cascade affect goes on: the more the IVF cycles, the less likely a woman is to conceive. In other words, IVF further degrades fertility and contributes to multiple births, where neither the mother nor the babies receive the optimum nutrition or energy to deliver optimum health for the newborn at birth.

Moreover, research has demonstrated that the natural gender balance is being gradually eroded with 58% of babies being born male via IVF, compared to 51% born male by natural conception.

A study, by the Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society at the University of Melbourne, found:

• IVF mothers more likely than non-IVF mothers to have a caesarean birth
• Three times more likely to seek help from an early parenting centre and
• Babies more likely to be bottle-fed by three months of age

The conclusion of the study was stated thus: “We think that experiencing infertility and the added stress of using Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) has a cumulative effect, eroding women’s confidence in themselves and in their bodies.”

IVF has a touted success rate of 15%. It is a billion dollar industry that is increasing its profits by the day. Currently, there are no quality control standards in place, nor is there any come-back for couples who pay out tens of thousands of dollars with nothing to show at the bitter end, but heartache and a stressed relationship.

Truly, it is a modern day tragedy that seems to have no end in sight.

Continuing down this path can only result in the dramatic devolution of the human race, in terms of both physical and psychological health and wellbeing of the children being born, in this denatured way.   That is unless, as women we stand up and say no, stop and enough!!

It is within our power to find other, more appropriate ways to manage our fertility that does not involve chemical castration, the expunction of natural coital conception and the slicing open of our abdomens to cut our babies from our bodies.

On Friday 21st August on Tony Eastley’s AM morning program on ABC Radio National there was a discussion on the alarming increase in juvenile diabetes in Australia. More Australian children are being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes than ever before. A new report reveals that were 900 new cases notified in 2007.

That represents a 30% increase in the number of new cases since 2000.

This means that Australia has the highest rate of Type 1 diabetes in the world – around 1000 children being diagnosed each year.

The report also looked at the increase in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and that more Australians are developing the disease at a younger age.

Factors considered to contribute to the increase fell into three categories:

1/ A childhood virus that is part of a range of 17 viruses called enteroviruses – no concrete proof of this as a cause but considered by scientists to be a high likelihood (30% – >50%)

2/ Lack of Vitamin D – this consideration is based on studies, which correlate rates of diabetes in countries with low exposure to sunlight such as Finland and Scandinavia versus countries with high sunlight exposure. Again this is just considered to be a hypothesis – and a simplistic one at that.

3/ Bottle Feeding – early introduction of cow’s milk to the gut might inflame the gut or intestine of the baby and cause a development of an autoimmune response where the immune system attacks the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas.

Personally I was alarmed and but not shocked at the statistics.

In my clinical practice, the underlying cause of so many diseases that people present with stem from a digestive weakness.

And, as we can see from the above discussion, many Australians are suffering from an inherently weak digestive system. This means that no matter how high the quality of foods that we put into our bodies, the digestive system just cannot efficiently transform the incoming food into available energy.

Diabetes is the most serious disease outcome of this weakness, along a spectrum of other disorders that effectively sabotage the joy and energy available to us in our daily lives. This gives rise to a vast range of unpleasant symptoms such as sinusitis, chronic lethargy and tiredness, menstrual difficulties, anxiety and stress symptoms, allergies, acne and so on, to mention just a few!

I believe that the scientific approach outlined above leaves out one critical factor that underpins each of the three hypotheses described. That is the crucial mother-child bond that nature built into the birthing and early infancy process, but which is being negatively impacted by unnatural birthing methods, early weaning and premature separation of mother and child through early child-care practices.

The mother-child bond is critical to the baby’s health and relies on primary contact in early infancy and toddlerhood with the mother or primary care-giver. This does not include a mother substitute who divides her time between many children under supervision.

A healthy mother-child bond assures not only the emotional and mental wellbeing of the child but also has a powerfully positive effect on triggering the integrity of the physical digestive system.

A good healthy digestive system needs a natural birth to initiate healthy functioning, and close mother-baby contact through breast-feeding to ensure that the intake of food is associated with pleasure and contentedness.

An anxious baby whose emotional and close-proximity needs are not being met becomes anxious and fearful, setting off an inflammatory process throughout the body that centres in the digestive system. This also weakens the immune system, leaving the baby open to virus proliferation in the gut, as described above.

I wonder whether the fact that Finland and Scandinavia have a more enlightened approach to early mothering, exemplified by their much more time-generous allowance for parenting leave, is not a more realistic reason why there is a lower incidence of diabetes in the young in these countries.

From a Mind-Body perspective, emotional and mental factors cannot be separated from the physical – together they interact to produce either health or disease – and even more critically in the infant, when critical body systems are being kick-started. In fact, the patterns of health or disease set during these early days, are the ones that will persist throughout a lifetime.

Let’s go deeper than the surface when looking for the patterns of a disease that is undermining the health and wellbeing of our people. Birthing practices, breast-feeding and supporting mums to stay at home with their babies for as long as possible, seem to me to be the best ways that we can prevent the rise of this life-debilitating disease that produces its insidious effect in so many areas of our daily life.

My range of flower essences has a blend which might be useful to strengthen the bond, even years later.

Introducing ……….. Blue Mink

This is one of the exciting NEW flower essences that is part of my Spirit of Woman Australian Flower Essences range. The range will be launched at the Endeavour College

on 21st June, 2009. For details and to register for an invitation click here

Blue Mink
Ageratum Houstonianum

Description:
Native to tropical Mexico, this member of the Asteraceae or Compositae family (which contains daises, sunflowers and asters) is a popular and easily grown annual that has escaped cultivated gardens and now flourishes as a classified weed.
It is fully established in Australia and is commonly known here as Blue Mink or Blue Top.
It has low sheen, heart-shaped leaves that are slightly furry, with showy blue, lavender and mauve-pink fluffy, soft flower-heads.
Medicinally, it is classed as an anodyne – an agent that soothes, comforts or relaxes. The juice of the plant is used externally to treat cuts and wounds.
An ornamental plant, the flowers are very attractive to butterflies that can be seen dancing around their soft, blue fluffy flower-heads in the sunshine.
Doctrine of signatures:
The soft, puffy appearance of this attractive little flower calls out to be touched. It gives the impression that it could be used to stroke the skin soothingly.
It has heart-shaped leaves that are soft, furry and pleasing to touch.
Its soft blue, lavender and pink colours are classically feminine and evoke a sense of tenderness.
Medicinally, it is classed as an anodyne, which is used to relax and soothe, so it carries the quality of softening the hard lines of tension and stress that grip and tauten the body.
Its use in treating cuts and wounds on the skin suggests a strong healing quality for emotional wounds that have penetrated deeply through the protective barrier of the aura which, when intact and healthy, protects the skin and keeps us feeling safe and relaxed.
It loves to grow in the filtered sun, evoking the image of lying in a relaxed state, soaking up gentle warmth and feeling no anxiety, stress, tension, pressure or sense of threat.
It likes to be protected from harsh cold windy conditions, signifying the sense of wanting to be kept safe from the outside world.
Originally a cultivar that has escaped and now roams free across the landscape, it suggests the feeling of freedom that women experience when they are liberated enough to relax and enjoy their sensuality and sexuality.
This soft and attractive little flower evokes a feeling of wanting to touch it. It resonates with women because of its tactile softness and feminine colours. It is particularly appropriate for women in the area of sexual expression and intimacy where stress is an ongoing factor in their busy lives.
Stress affects women differently to men, particularly in the areas of sex and intimacy.
The stress hormones of cortisol and adrenaline boost the inflow of testosterone into a male’s bloodstream causing him to want to have sex. In fact, sexual connection relieves a man’s stress by draining the build-up of tension from his body leaving him feeling relaxed and soothed and brimming with oxytocin, the hormone that fosters connection and love of intimacy. A sexually satisfied man will sleep easy after a love-making session with his partner, feeling secure and comfortable.
But the hormonal drivers work differently in a woman’s body. They cause a distinct physical and emotional adverse response to sexual advances from her partner. Cortisol and adrenaline dampen down the oxytocin inflow into a woman’s body so that she does not respond to touch in the way that she normally would when relaxed. They also diminish the production of the neuro-chemical dopamine, which triggers her desire for pleasure.
So stress acts to restrict and harden a woman to the sexual advances of her partner.
In fact, often her stress is increased when he reaches for her because she feels so stretched already, and the last thing on her mind is sex when all she wants to do is sleep! Blue Mink relaxes and soothes, paving the way to being open to physical contact.
One of the old-fashioned advices that came to me from my grandmother was, if you want a happy marriage and you can’t ‘make it’, then fake it!
The women’s liberation movement looked sternly down its nose at this old adage as it seemed to be suggesting that a woman is acting against her best interests by giving in to her husband’s request for sex when she doesn’t really want it.
The biological reality is that, for women, all the normal triggers for sexual desire do shut down when she is stressed, making sex seem like a chore rather than a pleasure.
But the secret is that there is truth in what our grandmothers were saying.
Research demonstrates that even though we may not be open to sex at the outset, by going ahead and engaging sexually, the hormones of sexual pleasure, relaxation and satisfaction start to flow once sex begins.
Below conscious level, the ‘pleasure and connection’ hormones, stimulated by the act of sex, switch on the body’s relaxation response, causing the body-mind to unwind naturally.
The outcome is deep healing sleep and relief from the tension burden that could otherwise persist for days and even weeks, if not cleared.
Stress and tension generate an unhealthy tightening of the body musculature and debilitation of the nervous system, causing both physical and emotional pain and reduced function.
Physical symptoms can include headaches, PMT, tiredness, palpitations, acne and digestive dysfunction. Blue Mink assists with these stress-induced conditions, assisting the Body-Mind to relax and release.
Emotional repercussions can range from overwhelm, anxiety, irritability and irrational anger and striking out, to feelings of isolation, separation and a desire to escape from the world. Use Blue Mink first then follow up with another essence, appropriate to the specific emotional state.
In the long-term, chronic stress is the precursor to many debilitating disease states.
Healing Challenges:
For stress.
For dislike of intimate touch.
For feeling stressed by sexual advances from a partner.
For dislike of partner and feelings of mistrust.
For being closed off and hard-edged to children, family or friends.
For deep emotional pain from a past relationship.
For skin diseases, such as psoriasis, eczema, rosacea, neuro-dermatitis, superficial wounds and scratches.
Healing Outcomes:
Relieves stress and tension.
Opens a stressed woman to the comfort and protective energy of her partner.
Softens the hard lines of tension through gentle touch of the skin, in a non-sexual way.
Restores a sense of connection and intimacy, particularly when stressed.
Heals long-held emotional heart wounds from the past.
Has a soothing healing effect on the skin
Soothes a ruffled or torn aura.
For psoriasis, neuro-dermatitis, eczema, especially when worse with emotional stress.

To find out more about this exciting new range of flower essences specifically for women, click here

I heard recently of a medical conference being held to discuss the link between depression and heart disease. Hailed as a first in the industry, it appears to be a real ground-breaker, challenging the old Cartesian notion, which is the basis of modern medicine and emphasizes the split between Mind and Body. And not before time!

Born in 1596, Rene Descartes had a primary influence on thinking in his day, and through his book, Discourse on Method, his philosophy went on to influence the development of the underlying principles of the emerging medical model. Descartes distinguished between the res cogitans and the res extensa. The former referred to the soul or mind and was said to be essentially "a thing which thinks." The latter was the material stuff of the body, characterised primarily by the fact that it occupied space and was therefore amenable to measurement.

Descartes was a pretty smart fellow who established several patterns for modern Europe to follow: he laid down the idea that the thinking mind was somehow more real than the body in which it is housed (this is called the Cartesian mind-body split); and that emotions were due to the overall nature of the character of the individual–called Cartesian affect (i.e., emotion) theory.

From that point onwards in European culture, subjective truth would hold a higher and more important epistemological place than objective truth, skepticism would be built into every inquiry, method would hold a higher place than practice, and the mind would be separated from the body.

In recent years neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists have argued that this ontological separation of mind and body is no longer tenable.

Upheld by some of the mind-boggling discoveries concerning the interactive nature of energy and matter described in New Physics, we are charging into the new millennium knowing the ‘energy and matter are dual expressions of the same primary substance’.

So Mind and Body are interconnected after all, and Descartes was wrong.

No wonder modern medicine, with its emphasis on the split between what we think and how our body responds, is losing followers in droves – many people, these days, are more informed about the true nature of how we function as living human beings than medical doctors, who are supposed to be the experts on health and well-being.

The Mind-Body split developed in mainstream medicine as separate disciplines, each robustly defending the boundaries of their own job description. Physicians treated the body, while psychiatrists treated the mind and ‘ne’er the twain shall meet’. In fact, to emphasis the split, psychiatrists are not licensed to touch the body.

I was discussing this very topic yesterday with an ex-nurse. She said that when she was training they were told that when treating patients, any procedure or strategy that would cause their patients to close their eyes was not allowed – because such practice belongs to the realm of psychiatry, not physical medicine!

So, as practitioner myself, the notion that I would be not allowed to reach out and touch a client empathetically, during an ‘emotional storm’, is abhorrent. Touch is such a reassuring comfort, for a person who is ‘beside themselves’ with emotional distress, evoking a sense of connection and safety that assists in healing the wound for them.

True healing involves healing the mind of inconsistencies and distortions, at the same time as correcting the body function that has gone out of balance in resonance. Often we do not recognize the attitudes and mind fixations that negatively affect us, until we have them mirrored back to us by someone outside of ourselves – that is the nature of Mind – it can always defend its own position. But when some disturbing physical symptom appears to come out of nowhere, that is the time to turn inwards for a moment and reflect on what messages we have been giving our body and what parts of our lives we have been neglecting, that have resulted in dis-ease.

The Body is a reflection of the Mind – a healthy Mind results in a healthy Body and vice versa – energy and matter are dual expressions of the same primary substance. And what is that primary substance? It is the Vital Force or energy (Qi) that animates all life and is expressed through the Body-Mind as body, mind and spirit.

So pleased to know that mainstream medicine is finally getting it, as evidenced by psychiatrists and physicians getting together at this conference to discuss the connection between heart disease and depression! It stands to reason that a depressed person will not have a happy heart.

In energy medicine we say that ‘when the heart is unhappy, the organs tremble’

A book on treating cancer that grabbed my attention, when researching this post looks interesting. Let me pass it on to you:

Healing the Mind/Body Split: Bringing the Patient Back Into Oncology
Steven Greer, MD, FRCPsych
St. Raphael’s Hospice, Surrey, United Kingdom
The effect on oncology of the doctrine of Cartesian dualism is examined. It is argued that this doctrine continues to exert a baneful (though unacknowledged) influence on the practice of oncology, Descartes’s doctrine of a mind/ body split is mistaken, and mind and body (brain) are inextricably interwoven. A biopsychosocial model of disease is advocated. The role of psychooncology in healing the mind/ body split by focusing research attention on the patient is outlined.

And if you haven’t read my book, The Essence of Woman, you may be interested to follow this topic. It takes one step further, describing how the energy/matter fusion is expressed in the body, in both women and men, with especial emphasis on feminine intelligence (Yin Qi)

Keeping warm is one of the ways to protect you and your family from Swine Flu.

 Despite dire warnings being bandied about in the media, and regardless of how virulent an infectious disease is, the best way to keep safe is to be super-healthy and honour the energy needs of your body.

Your ’super-immunity’ is in your own hands:

• Eat warm and nourishing foods, such as chunky home-cooked soups, stews, and casseroles. A crock-pot is a must for convenience and ease of preparation in Winter!
• Get at least eight hours of good sleep a night.
• Avoid cold drinks and foods. Drink plenty of water, but at room temperature.
• Schedule in relaxation times to alleviate the stress of heavy work commitments.
• Take daily supplements that will boost your immunity – a good multivitamin and multimineral complex, a fish-oil capsule and some magnesium to keep your muscles relaxed.
• Keep emotional stress to a minimum. If you are wrestling with a problem, take a course of Flower Essences prescribed by your naturopath or see a counsellor to let off the head of emotional steam that can weaken the body, and your immunity.
• Exercise moderately, to keep the muscles flexed and fluid,staying warm during and after the work-out. Cold contracts muscles and contributes to flu-type symptoms by constricting the flow of valuable vital force and blood. This weakens body systems crucial to healthy body functioning.
• Avoid big, draughty open spaces where a lot of people are gathered.
• Stay warm and cosy, wherever you are. Use scarves and gloves, big coats and jumpers to protect your body from the cold.

By staying super-healthy, you ensure super-immunity for yourself and your family.

 Optimum female health depends on staying warm, so Winter is the season to rug up, making sure that your body,

especially feet and legs, is always toasty. This keeps the all-important blood supply to the pelvis circulating

freely, ensuring that periods are painless and trouble-free.

More seriously, chronic cold affects a woman’s fertility, making pelvic circulation so sluggish that there is not enough

free-flowing blood in circulation to nourish a developing baby in the uterus. This can result in problems as the

baby grows in the womb when crucial developmental stages are taking place, leading to health problems after birth. 

Moreover, sluggish pelvic blood circulation restricts free-flow of blood to the genitals, so necessary during intercourse

for a pleasurable and complete climax.

So many good reasons why it is  so important to keep the pelvis, legs and feet warm!

Tips:

• Wear slippers on hard, cold floors.
• Wear closed shoes to work on cool days, even if it means taking them off and replacing them with strappy shoes once when you get to work.
• Wear tights or leggings that protect your legs.
• Wear a long, warm singlet or camisole that covers your butt.
• Take a hot water bottle to bed and lay in at the small of your back. It will warm your whole body. 

Chronic cold in the pelvis is one of the underlying cause of a range of gynaecological problems. It comes from failing to maintain easy, warm circulation in the pelvis and is usually the result of years of neglect in keeping warm.

Apart from the above more serious health outcomes, ultimately it will result in the appearance of unsightly spider-veins at the ankles and the legs, particularly the lower legs. These are irreversible.

Keeping warm all over is very much to be recommended for super-health.

A general tip is to always wear enough clothes to keep hands and feet warm – cold consumes valuable body energy that otherwise maintains the health of the functional organ systems, particularly the digestive system.

At the bottom line, one of the major differences between a dead body and a live one is that the live one is warm!

The colder we are, the more our body systems begin to hypo-function (become under-active and inefficient).

A typical example is a hypo-functioning thyroid – the gland that governs the transformation of food into useable energy. An under-active thyroid causes tiredness, bloating, lower basal body temperature and can lead to a mild form of depression.

Although our Winters are not very cold here in Brisbane, that does not mean that we mustn’t strive to maintain our body warmth. Your body is your the barometer to health – if you feel cold, then rug up.

Click here to read about how you can protect you and your loved ones from Swine Flu. 

How can women take back ownership of their bodies and their souls, so that they are in control of the physical functions and processes that are uniquely their own?

Currently many women give over control of their body-mind to doctors and allow themselves to be guided and led by a medical model that runs on the male principles of scientific rationale, hierarchical structure and a mechanized view of the body.

It is easy for women to feel over-whelmed by lack of understanding of how their bodies, minds and souls work because we have been flooded for so long with values belonging to the opposite gender.

After all, it was a man who invented the pill. Where is the male pill, I ask you?

Any male might know how the body works mechanically, but he cannot fully grasp the magnitude of the effects that female hormones (and synthetic hormones) have on the emotions and attitudes of a woman, because it is outside of his experience.

Women Soothe and Heal by Nature

Healing the body and soul involves a shift on all levels of being. True healing requires feeling – for both the depth of the pain and for the path back to balance.

Healing through feeling is the domain of the feminine principle and involves the female attributes of healing energy exchange through caring, sharing, touching, empathisizing and love.

There are many men who have highly developed female sides and who are very adept in these areas also.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not putting down males. But the mainstream medical model is so deeply rooted in the masculine principle that it does not allow that the softer feminine approach of energy exchange can have real and lasting healing benefits on the body-mind.

In truth, this is where real healing, on all levels of being takes place all the way through from annoying symptoms to chronic disease.

Women’s Medicine is Mind-Body Medicine

The range of symptoms that might come under the heading of women’s issues and reproduction can include pre-menstrual syndrome, endometriosis, infertility, persistent miscarriages, hormonal depression, peri-menopause and menopausal symptoms, tiredness, lack of libido etc.

But also important for most women are emotional concerns such as persistent sadness, feelings of low self-esteem, lack of confidence, fear of success, relationship trauma which often accompany the above physical symptoms.

A natural medicine approach, as distinct from mainstream medicine, treats the whole person, body, mind and spirit, in the knowledge that there is no physical symptom that does not have an accompanying emotional and attitudinal component.

As women we can own our own bodily processes when we take back control of our health. Conception can occur naturally even in the face of years of unsuccessful trying. Women can take control of their own fertility by getting to know how their body operates and working naturally in sync with it.

 Your body might need some nutritional assistance to assist it to return to peak condition and that may take time however.

You may not have the skills to evaluate what you need to assist your body’s own healing process, but through net-working, attending a female practitioner who will assist you in an empathetic way, informing yourself with all the information that is available today and by trusting in your own intuitive whisperings you can start the journey back to the powerful woman you were designed to be.

By Becoming Healthy as Women We Honour our Men

When we embark on this journey, we honour our men-folk. We stand as their equals, not trying to be like them or to outsmart them, or giving them all our power, but by gifting them with the full blossoming of the feminine essence, and enjoying, for our part, the uniqueness of maleness that they can offer us as their gift.

In this way females and males truly find the balance that nature intended for us and we complete the whole by each being fully one of the parts. Men are hard-wired to like women who are sexy, playful and caring. Is that you right now or are you too burdened to lighten-up?

The Australian Bush Flower Essences have been a vitally important part of my life journey. Although I am not teaching the Levels 1 and 2 anymore, the Correspondence Course and the Teacher Training Course for natural medicine colleges, both of which I authored, are still valuable components of the Bushie’s body of work right around the world, and I am delighted that it is so.

Vale Jess - a valiant healing journey

Sadly today, I learned of the death of a friend who had been battling with breast cancer for many years. Jess’s death was peaceful even though the disease was rampant in her body during the last six months. She had embarked on a path to healing and even though she ultimately passed over she courageously managed to heal a lifetime of emotional wounding in her last days.

It was the effect that the emotional wounding had on her body that ultimately eventuated in her untimely and early death. The healing that took place allowed Jess to die in peace, knowing that the physical had passed the point of no return.

Jess’s story unfolded over a number of clinical sessions as she journeyed along her healing path. As a child, a trusted uncle abused Jess sexually. It was not an ongoing, insidious thing but a small number of grubby incidents that robbed her of her innocence and seeded in her young mind a belief in keeping secrets and hiding the truth from loved ones.

Her family lived by a strict religious code and she understood, even as a child, how deeply rocked her family would be if the truth of her mother’s favourite brother’s abuse came to light. So she chose to stay quiet.

She grew up, married and had her own children while maintaining strong ties with her family of origin. As the oldest sibling she had an almost maternal attitude towards her younger brothers, understandable because there was such a large gap in ages between the oldest and the youngest children and caring for them was often one of her given responsibilities. They continued to socialize well into adulthood.

Jess never revealed the secret, known only to her and her uncle, to her husband or her children. But she did boil inside with an unresolved anger about the injustice that was dealt to her and these thoughts often distracted her from being present in everyday life.

As her three daughters were growing up, Jess sometimes felt pangs of angst about their budding sexuality, but she dismissed any concern from her mind because she felt that, with their social activities largely restricted to family circles, her intuitive promptings that her girls were somehow unsafe, must have been a mistaken echo from her own past.

It wasn’t until her youngest daughter was in her twenties that Jess’s own family was rocked with a shocking revelation at a family gathering. Jess was not present when her youngest daughter confronted her uncle, one of Jess’s younger brothers, with her memory of ongoing sexual abuse over a period of five or six years starting from the age of five. She also asserted that he had also abused her two older sisters over a lesser time frame. He confirmed her accusations and said that he was sorry.

Jess told me that she was devastated when her daughters told her and blamed herself for inadequately protecting her girls from the predatory actions of her brother.

After much soul-searching Jess decided against telling her own mother about the abuse. She felt that it would ‘kill’ her mother to learn that one of her beloved sons had been responsible for such reprehensible behaviour. So she kept the secret again and held it within her breast choosing instead to carry the load.

She also decided not to tell her husband because she felt shame that it was her family that had caused so much distress to her girls and anticipated his critical judgment.

Within a short time Jess was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was treated with conventional medicine and was supposedly cured. However the disease reared its head again after a number of years.

The lid was kept on the boiling cauldron in the family coffers for many years. Jess felt that she couldn’t talk to her daughters about what had happened. It was like the proverbial elephant in the room as the girls feared broaching the subject with their mum and she didn’t know how to deal with the information and preferred to just let it lie.

In the MindBody energy system of a woman the breasts represent, on the one hand, mothering and on the other, being nurtured and cared for.

For Jess holding a shameful secret from her mother while at the same time being angry with her at not having been protected from harm caused her to feel motherless.
Simultaneously, she felt guilty that she had not adequately mothered her own girls and kept them safe from harm.

When Jess finally embarked on her healing journey, she courageously recognized that all the secrets had to come out in the open. She arranged for family counseling sessions that allowed her daughters to vent their hostility in a safe environment. After a couple of sessions she also brought her husband along to include him in the family discussions. The sessions were hard going but allowed Jess to experience and express the love that had been buried for all those years now that the blockages were removed. The energy flowed freely at last.

As the secrets came out so too did her cancer. It began to erupt on the surface of her left breast and up into her throat. It was as if all the ugliness that had been fermenting below the surface could finally be voiced and faced.

Harbouring secrets causes the qi of the body to knot and remain contained. This containment will be expressed in the body part that relates to the hidden or repressed agenda. There is a pertinent saying in Chinese Energetic Medicine that best expresses how healthy tissue is maintained by free-flowing qi. It goes: “a moving door never rusts”.

The emotions are seen in Energetic Medicine as ‘energy-in-motion’. When we constrain our emotions through repression, holding onto secrets, denial or suppression, energy (qi) becomes stuck and instead of nourishing and cleansing tissue, blood, bone, nerve fibre and organs it creates toxicity that eventually leads to pathological states.

It can be likened to water: when it flows freely it remains crystal clear, but when it pools and lies stagnant it becomes toxic.

The more authentic we become in our life, expressing fully who we are and what needs we want to be fulfilled, the healthier and more contented we become. Truly, in every sense, ‘healing is feeling’ .