It’s my unshakeable, instinctive belief that deep down all illness is the result of unresolved anxiety, pain or trauma. And that to truly heal we need to tackle the invisible, murky stuff that has led to our physical symptoms – the mud in our souls, if you like.
It’s my unshakeable, instinctive belief that deep down all illness is the result of unresolved anxiety, pain or trauma. And that to truly heal we need to tackle the invisible, murky stuff that has led to our physical symptoms – the mud in our souls, if you like.
An opportunity to put those beliefs to the test arose just a few months ago. I was on my morning run when, out of the blue, I experienced a sudden loss of balance and vision disturbance. Terrifying but – thank God – it all only lasted a matter of minutes. The GP wasn’t taking any chances though. He told me there was a possibility I may have suffered a mini stroke (gulp), prescribed statins and aspirin and arranged for me to have some tests.
My heart sank at the prospect of going on medication – I hate taking drugs of any kind. And I worried about the potential side effects of the statins. But on the other hand, I couldn’t bring myself to risk not taking them.
Right to choice?
I’m not the only one concerned about the drawbacks of western medicine. Aside from friends who’d rather embrace homeopathy, acupuncture, spiritual healing , hypnotherapy, kinesiology, medical herbalism and so on, there have been more stories in the press about patients seeking (or in some case fighting) for the right to try traditional healing. Take, for example, the mother of Neon, the little boy with leukaemia who feared the effects radiotherapy would have on his health, or Sam Dyer, the 25-year old with a brain tumour who insists faith healing can cure him, despite his cancer consultant father’s deep concerns.
So my reaction to being handed a prescription and hospital appointments was to go along with it all but to seek answers elsewhere too. And by elsewhere, I mean I decided to visit a healer. I wanted to see how she or he might interpret what had happened to me. What might be the alternative take on the physical symptoms I displayed? I was desperately seeking reassurance, peace of mind – to not feel freaked out as I did right then.
I rang up Anna Hunt, the author of the brilliant and compulsively readable The Shaman in Stilettos (£8.99, Penguin). With an M.A. In history from Cambridge University and a former career as a tabloid journalist, she makes an unlikely healer. But shamanic work, allied with allopathic medicine (she is very much in favour of combined approaches) cured her of severe and crippling IBS, which had been originally misdiagnosed.
Restoration
Unlike many healers I’ve come across, Anna seemed reassuringly down-to-earth. Her vocabulary is void of the esoteric language and broad brushstrokes beloved of hardcore spiritual types that drives me nuts (none of that ‘Light’, ‘Love’, ‘One’ stuff). And her memoir records her journey from stressed-out London hack to apprentice to fully fledged shaman (a type of healer who can see and move energy), who now sees clients suffering from cancer, depression, fertility issues, bereavement and much more, really resonated with me.
On the phone, I briefly explained my symptoms. She in turn spoke of her belief that illness begins with unresolved thoughts and emotions, which are then stored as electrochemical energy in the body. Left there, she explained, they can often lead to more physical symptoms.
“Unresolved emotions are a huge part of what causes illness – in the West, we don’t have ways of dealing with them,” she says. “If we’re really sad, how do we deal with that? We don’t know, and so we bottle it and dump it in the body. And because everything is energy those emotions aren’t nothing. We leave our body to express them for us. That’s fine but over time that toxicity has to come out.”
Anna tells me that with her shamanic healing she can supplement the gap in the way that a lot of allopathic treatments work, and address the emotional and psychological reasons behind symptoms: “I think picking and choosing the best of allopathic and alternative medicine is wise and shows a level of responsibility. I’m wary of saying you should take the alternative way or the highway, I think it’s important that we make use of all the options available to us,” she says. “It seems to me really good sense to use every technique to give yourself the best chance. The relief that comes from Western medicine – being able to exclude stuff in a very definitive way – can have a huge and beneficial impact on your ability to heal.”
Of course the difficulty arises when Western medicine tells us that all is palpably not well. But Anna isn’t oblivious to people’s fears when confronted with a serious illness and the sometimes toxic medicines prescribed to cure it. “If we look at chemotherapy, as an example, it is a broad spectrum, so it can kill healthy cells as well as damaged ones,” she says. “But we need to follow the steps: the first, if you have a tumour, is to operate or use radiotherapy to contract or dissolve it. I can help you to make it through that process to make it as un-traumatic as possible. Then when you’re through I can help you to release those toxic chemicals. But it’s important to follow the cycle.”
Feel the pain
One thing Anna will say about pain relief is that very often we use it because we want to run away from what we perceive as the negative, i.e. pain. “Pain is there for a reason. I think in our culture we like to run away from anything uncomfortable and I think that creates a lot of suffering. We are addicted to pleasure and often people have a misplaced idea that life is one-sided, that it should be all pleasure, all abundance, all hunky dory. I think that’s denying the truth of quantum physics, and in doing so I think we set ourselves up for a fall.”
Anxious to get started, I book a few sessions with her. Before, I have the various hospital tests: a CT scan, blood test, carotid artery ultrasound. All come back negative to my huge relief (Anna was right about that bit.) The consultant is concerned though, given my family history and what I’d experienced. He wants to explore further. More tests are booked, including an MRI scan. “We still want to know what happened to you,” he says. I’m taken off the statins – hallelujah – but there is still a question mark looming over my health. On top of which, a week before I am due to meet Anna, I begin to have palpitations. Thump, thump, thud. They’re distressing and distracting.
Am I about to have a heart attack or am I just very anxious? And what am I so anxious about (aside from having maybe had a mini stroke)? Sure, my bank balance resembles a black hole, I am emotionally sensitive, confused about a man (yet another), and prone to overreacting when I ought to hold fire. But I enjoy life. Very much. So whatever it is I want it to stop. On the day, I turn up on her doorstep looking and feeling like a wreck – my heart had thumped and thudded on the long journey across town.
Tune in
“Our body is very much a biofeedback mechanism,” she says, as I slump, wearily into an armchair. “Whereas the mind and the senses will vacillate rapidly within the course of an hour, the body is much more consistent. So while our idea of ourselves might be ‘I don’t really feel anxious, everything is quite normal’, our body will tell us really where we’re at.” The solution – releasing all that unprocessed anxiety – is a combination of a technique called quantum collapsing, creative visualisation, and work with crystals and sound. The first involves a sort of spiritual enquiry process. Anna asks what she calls ‘quality questions’, designed to enable me to let go of attachments which are causing me suffering. It’s a playful, challenging and eye-opening exercise.
The creative visualisation is next, followed by the bit I’ve been waiting for: the shamanic healing to release energy. It’s wonderful – I lie on a mat on the living room floor while Anna shakes her rattle and whistles the haunting, sweet tunes traditionally known as Icaros (and later, she tells me she sees a stream of light – energy – coming from my chest area). Amazingly, the palpitations vanish. I am so relieved I want to hug her. Two sessions later I feel on top of the world. Solid, well, at peace, my heart quiet. I have hospital tests looming but they feel more like a formality. I trust that the key to my health is learning to master stress. “It comes from changing perceptions and releasing the energy,” says Anna. For me, that means carrying on with the quantum collapsing, spending more time in nature – and hopefully, a retreat with the Shaman in Stilettos
By Jini Reddy
