Disclaimer: Any views or advice in this weblog should not be taken as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, especially if you know you have a specific health complaint. Prescribed medication should not be stopped or varied without conventional medical advice. Please remember that homeopathic remedies and other health measures should be individually-selected to match the whole person, not just the unwelcome symptom. For chronic, severe or long-standing complaints, or if you are pregnant, elderly or on orthodox medications, seek professional advice rather than self-prescribing.
The Phoenix Homeopathy clinic re-opened last week, from new premises that are brighter, fresher and more spacious than our last home. Contrary to what some critics of homeopathy seem to believe, professional homeopathy is a tremendously rewarding but not at all lucrative career, so our extra space was bought at the cost of being in a cheaper area, a little further from the centre of Brighton and Hove, but we hope that it will suit us and our patients very well.
Despite all our advance planning (Phoenix’s practice manager used to work in logistics, so the move was arranged with military precision) we did think, rather optimistically as it turned out, that we’d get a bit of a break during the time we were shut for the move. In fact, the arrangements for moving phone lines, broadband, card payment systems, furniture, files and stock, as well making sure that all our patients and suppliers knew where we are, and sorting out things like door entryphone systems and signs at the new clinic, took up more time than we expected, and we soon realised that a proper break just wasn’t going to happen. Of course, the best-laid plans can go awry, and luckily the whole team ajusted their expectations and just got on with the job in hand.
As a result – thanks, team, for being so adaptable – we managed to keep a skeleton service going during the whole period, and we re-opened bang on schedule at 10am last Monday.
One of the very first lectures when I was studying to be a homeopath concerned adaptibility, and I’ve never forgotten how important this quality is to good health. In fact, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that adaptibility is key to health: after all, through the mechanism of homeostasis, a healthy organism achieves a stable metabolic state, despite changes in the environment and other disruptions. Our bodies need to be kept within fairly narrow limits: for example, our pH (or acid-alkali balance) needs to be kept fairly stable for us to survive, so internal feedback mechanisms constantly ensure that this homeostatic balance is maintained.
The same thing should happen with emotional changes: if something goes badly wrong, it’s perfectly normal to have a bit of a wobble emotionally, and even lose our equilibrium for a time, but we can usually get ourselves back on an even keel in due course. It’s only when we stay out of balance that we may need help, whether from a good chat with a friend, a game of footie and a pint with the lads, going for a run, antidepressants, counselling or a good prescription of a homeopathic remedy for bad news (like Ignatia or Gelsemium).
As tends to happen with any project, there were one or two slightly frantic moments during our move of premises, when a couple of things went wrong: at one particularly fraught moment (involving an IT guy, a phone engineer, our lovely landlord Arthur and a stubborn door entryphone system), the receptionist and I were sent out shopping to Habitat to get us out of the way, which was, frankly, a genius move by the practice manager. Neverthleless, we all adapted, and managed to keep our cool, and all we needed at the end of the move was a good laugh together over a delicious curry and a glass of wine, before we were ready to start a new week.
For more information about natural healthcare solutions and homeopathy, visit
www.phoenixhomeopathy.com
