My mum was a very caring “stay at home” mum, who loved running a good household. There wasn’t a moment she didn’t have time for me whilst doing her duties as well. As most children, I suffered my share of childhood illnesses like the measles, chickenpox, the regular cold and occasional flue. When that happened it was very comforting to know that mum would go out of her way to make me feel as comfortable as possible in my condition. She would make me a cup of chicken stock and give me the medication the doctor prescribed. Sometimes she would buy me a little gift to feel better and sit by my bed a bit more then usual. I think she was so good to me because she could relate to feeling bad with chronic health problems herself. I guess you could say that to me as a small child it was a bit of a special time to be ill and it felt good to be spoiled despite the discomfort of the illness.

Now from a different perspective in adulthood, I realise that all that special treatment made me feel good and that I wanted more of that feeling, so as a consequence I “found” myself sick more often! (This is NOT a suggestion to neglect comforting ill children, but to try create balance and to encourage them to focus on the more rewarding benefits of being well). I was later diagnosed with Asthma, Hay Fever and other allergies as well as becoming known at the doctor’s as the kid with the unusual symptoms that could not be diagnosed and left him puzzled. I still remember what he jokingly said every time I came to see him: “Your a strange child and that’s what you are!” Mind you, he did sometimes have some strange ways of expressing his thoughts. One time I went to a Summer holiday camp and came down with a mysterious flecked skin and feeling unwell, conveniently at the moment I decided I had enough of being there…By the time mum picked me up and we arrived at the doctor’s, the skin had returned to looking normal! This memory proved to me that the mind does indeed influence the body.

As I since have learned while trying to understand my health issues, everyone has the ability to “make themselves sick” (mostly accidentally, unintentionally and subconscious) for whatever reason, but on the flip side if we focus on being healthy and feel good about being healthy we really can achieve good health. I discovered that being healthy is not a blessing, it is a choice! (It is not a brain one but a choice with determination you feel deep down from the bottom of your chest.) I made that choice when I finally realised that being sick was interfering with my life too much and holding me back from what I liked doing.

The final drop that caused me to feel very angry at the health care system and solidified my decision to ultimately free myself from all medication, was the response of a skin specialist I saw when I was about 19. After years of using cortisone cream and not seeing any improvement in my skin problem, I was getting desperate for a cure. It was so bad, I had to keep my hair from touching my face not to aggravate it. It would feel like my skin was on fire, also turning bright red in large patches and when that subsided it would itch really bad and the skin would peel off. I had to take the train for an hour to see this expert specialist, that was supposed to be able to do what the local specialists could not. After several appointments I straight out demanded to know what the cause was, as it seemed that not one of the many specialists I had seen for this problem had been able to tell me that. He did not hesitate to tell me that “stress” was the cause. Ok, that was great news, now I knew how to get rid of the skin problem, just get rid of the stress! In my opinion, if stress was the cause I should go and see a psychiatrist to combat stress instead of a skin specialist who gave me cortisone cream that was not having any positive effects on stress or the skin problem whatsoever! His response was: “That would not work, would you like another prescription for the cream?”!!! I felt so let down (and more stressed out), that I did not want to waste any more time than absolutely necessary in a doctors office!

I started “finding” the right information, every time I was ready to learn the next step, in books, health magazines and things people said to me. I discovered that my skin problem was caused by an allergic reaction to nail polish, after reading about that possibility in one of the books I found about curing allergies. It completely went away after I stopped using nail polish in less than a couple of weeks! I was baffled that those “clever” skin specialists never looked at my beautifully manicured hands! Despite my anger at them at the time, I am now extremely glad they didn’t, because that was the turnaround point in my life. This “victory” was the moment where I became ready to start taking responsibility for my own health. This ultimately has led me to start this blog to reach others that might need to hear what I have found out the hard way. Now I am back at a point that I can honestly say that there is definitely a need for doctors and they do good work too, but be selective if you need one and find the doctor that understands your needs and treats you as you deserve, with respect!

It took several years of changing my eating habits, finding the right (mostly mineral) supplements to boost my immune system and going to alternative health practitioners. I slowly changed the way I thought about health and what is possible. I can now confidently say I am completely free of any medication for the first time in my life and feel better now than when I was in my teens and twenties! I made the choice to be healthy and free of medication and things “fell into place” to make it a reality and I have learned to embrace life again! (I still catch an occasional cold like everyone else, but the severity has decreased dramatically and now not even once a year, 6x less than before.)

Now I can hear you think: “But what about the more serious and life threatening Illnesses, what about incurable diseases?” Well, I am glad I never let it get that far, but in my studies to regain my own health I have stumbled on many so called “miracles” that other people have written about, like Kit Campbell, who beat Crohn’s disease ( http://kitcampbell.com/about-kit/ ). That proves to me that the decision to focus on health also works for those cases, depending on the individuals ability to believe (and feel) the “unbelievable” and to read their inner compass.

For those that would like to learn more about the subject and aid their recovery from so called “chronic” and/or “terminal” illness, besides having the guidance of a good qualified doctor and/or specialist, I also recommend to look into works by Bruce Lipton PhD ( https://www.brucelipton.com/about ), Lissa Rankin MD ( http://lissarankin.com/ ), Andrew Weil MD ( http://www.drweil.com/ ), and others like them, who are much more knowledgeable, regarding the way the body and mind really work together, than me. Have an open mind, relearn to feel your own intuition and you will find your own miracles. I am glad I found my health, because it gave me so much more!

“I admit that thoughts influence the body.” —Albert Einstein-

Quoted by W. Hermanns in A Talk with Einstein, October 1943. AEA 55–285. http://einstein.biz/quotes.php