Slowing Down - Investing in YOU!

Why rest, recuperation and allowing ourselves to feel good may be an essential part of healing

This year my body has been teaching me something that, after nearly forty years as a homeopath, you might think I would know already.

Healing takes time.

I’ve had a rather tiresome succession of musculoskeletal problems this year — a slipped disc, problems with my back, a troublesome knee and, most recently, an inflamed and swollen foot and big toe.

Nothing terribly dramatic. But enough to make me pay attention.

And I am not naturally very good at slowing down. My mind works quickly and I tend to move quickly too. I love cycling and swimming and generally getting on with things. Faced with an injury, my instinct is therefore fairly predictable: Right, what are we going to do about this and how quickly can we get it better?

Unfortunately, the body doesn’t always share my sense of urgency.

We are very good at doing

I suspect I’m not alone.

We live in a culture that places enormous value on doing. We work, look after families, answer emails, go shopping, exercise, clean the house, make arrangements and deal with the endless administrative debris of modern life.

Even when we’re unwell, there can be a slightly guilty feeling about stopping.

We want to know what we can do to make ourselves better.

What should I take? Who should I see? What exercises should I do? Is there another treatment I could try?

Of course, sometimes we absolutely need to do something. But I’ve been reminded this year that there is another part of healing that receives much less attention.

Sometimes we need to stop.

Not because we have given up on getting better, but precisely because we are trying to get better.

Treatment can help — but the body still has work to do

I’ve had plenty of treatment myself this year.

Homeopathy has certainly played its part. During my slipped-disc episode, I found Spigelia particularly helpful for calming the extraordinary nervous agitation that accompanied the pain. More recently, Bovista seems to have helped with some of the swelling and strange sensations around my foot and toe.

But I’ve also used osteopathy, acupuncture and physiotherapy. I’ve seen a podiatrist and had orthotics made to improve the mechanics of my feet.

(My 93-year-old mother, incidentally, somehow managed to misrememberpodiatrist as “pederast.”

I assured her that I had not changed therapists quite as radically as she imagined.)

All these different approaches have had something to contribute. But none of them can circumvent a basic biological fact.

Tissues still need time to repair.

A treatment can help move things in the right direction. It may relieve pain, reduce tension, improve function or stimulate a change. But sometimes the next therapeutic intervention isn’t another treatment.

It’s Tuesday.

And then Wednesday.

And Thursday.

It’s allowing the body to get on with what it is already trying to do.

Rest isn’t wasted time

I think this is where many of us struggle.

Rest can feel unproductive. If we spend an afternoon lying on the sofa, taking a bath, having a massage, sitting in the garden or simply doing very little, there can be a nagging feeling that we ought to be doing something useful.

But what if recuperation is something useful?

What if an afternoon spent resting isn’t an afternoon taken away from your life, but an investment in the life you want to return to?

That changes the meaning of rest completely.

It isn’t laziness. It isn’t weakness. And it isn’t necessarily the absence of treatment.

Sometimes rest is part of the treatment.

An unusual piece of homework

I was reminded of this recently by a patient.

She is one of those people who is always doing something for somebody else. Family responsibilities, work responsibilities, things that need organising and people who need looking after.

We were talking about ways in which she might begin to look after herself a little more, and I suggested having a massage.

She liked the idea. In fact, she’d thought about it many times.

But there was always something else that needed doing.

So I gave her some homework.

Before our next appointment, she had to book herself a massage.

Not because I thought a massage was going to cure everything that troubled her.

I wanted her to practise something that she found surprisingly difficult: allowing herself some time in which nobody needed anything from her.

An hour in which she didn’t have to achieve anything.

An hour simply to be looked after, to relax and — perhaps most importantly — to allow herself to feel good in her body.

And it occurred to me afterwards that I had prescribed for her something that I have been learning myself all year.

Putting some faith in the healing process

There is something else here that I think is particularly relevant to homeopathy.

As practitioners, we’re naturally inclined to intervene. We spend our working lives asking what might help somebody.

But good homeopathy isn’t simply about knowing when to prescribe. Sometimes it’s about knowing when to wait.

If someone is improving, we don’t necessarily keep giving remedies simply because the process isn’t complete. We observe. We allow things to unfold.

There is a certain confidence required in that.

And perhaps we could sometimes extend the same confidence to our own bodies.

Do what needs doing. Seek appropriate help. Find the treatment that seems right. But then, sometimes, give the body some space.

Put a little faith in the healing process.

Refurbishment rather than decline

At 67, I’ve also found myself thinking differently about what it means to look after my body.

I don’t particularly like the idea that getting older means progressively restricting what we do because our bodies are becoming increasingly unreliable.

I prefer to think of what I’m doing now as refurbishment.

If I’m fortunate, this body has another 20 or 30 years of work ahead of it. I want to cycle. I want to swim. I want to travel. I want to walk around cities and carry my cello and remain physically engaged with the world.

So perhaps taking care of the structure now isn’t evidence that the structure is failing.

It’s maintenance.

We maintain houses because we expect to continue living in them.

We service bicycles because we intend to keep riding them.

We look after musical instruments because we expect them to keep making music.

Perhaps our bodies deserve the same consideration.

And sometimes that means doing something.

Sometimes it means finding the right remedy, practitioner, treatment or exercise.

But sometimes the hardest prescription of all is much simpler:

Stop. Rest. Recuperate. Allow yourself to feel good.

And give your body the one thing none of us can manufacture more quickly.

Time.