News, Blogs & Updates from Shining Tree

Do you need a panel of “experts” to tell you that you should treat the elderly with dignity and compassion?

February 29th, 2012

Do you need a panel of "experts" to tell you that you should treat the elderly with
dignity and compassion?
It seems that "care" staff in the NHS do.

In my nursing journey, we were low paid ,not academic, and the reason to become a
nurse was to care for people.Nowadays it is a profession and career. Nurses with
degrees do not want to clean up shit......if they do they they can't do it with
love or consistently for a whole shift. Modern nurses today are generally too fat
and unhealthy to work physically hard for eight to twelve hours! Meoww!!

We used to have the odd degree nurses in the 1980s, the general opinion was that
they didn't want to get there hands dirty and wanted to become managers..how prophetic.

One of my patient who was working in recruitment in a top hotel said the following:
"We recruit "nice" people to train,you can't train people to be nice"

It is only when you have respect, compassion and love for yourself that you can
feel those emotions for other people. It is the society we live in which shapes
our attitude. We live in a highly materialistic & selfish society, manipulated by
powerful organisations to stay shallow and selfish......captive audience.We are now
just a flock of sheep there to be exploited for their gain. I didn't have a tent
 outside St Pauls, honest!!

Our true budhha nature is that of compassion and love and empathy.

So come on you fat, unhealthy and ingorant nurses. come to Shining
Tree and find your true nature.

Meditation every Friday 11.30am. It's free......no catch!!

If you had cancer would you leave your survival to chance…….or can you be extraordinary?

February 24th, 2012

Breakfast news talked about the discovery of the genetic code of hereditary breast cancer this morning. At present patients with this dilemma can have mastectomies to prevent the cancer occurring. In the future, I am sure a “cure” for cancer and even other chronic life threatening conditions will be found,but does that mean we will all then enjoy everlasting health? I personally don’t think so.

In life, you reap what you sow; the success, achievements and life you have is a testimony of your journey . If you believe that “life is a bitch and then you die” , so be it. If you believe that life is nothing more than amassing as much material wealth as you can and getting through life with as little difficulty as possible, then so be it. Or you might feel that life is a journey for growth, understanding and enlightenment through challenging and empowering lessons; in which case having a relationship with our physical body, respecting it and maintaining it is vital for our growth. But do we?

Over two decades as a naturopathic practitioner, I consistently see patients who are completely dis empowered by the medical profession and even from complimentary practitioners. Anybody that you consult for you health who foster dependency from you and don’t teach you anything are dis empowering you. You don’t have to be qualified in anything to tell someone that they should eat healthily and exercise. But when you profess to be qualified in conventional or complimentary medicine, then you advice must be clear, concise, practical, achievable and effective ……..it is also not about flogging as much drugs, supplements and merchandising to vulnerable patients either.

Time and time again, patients come to me with no knowledge of what they can do to help themselves. Even with life threatening conditions like cancer, people will say that they were told that they don’t have to do anything other than follow the treatment, which would be drugs, surgery, chemo/radiotherapy. Are we really that gullible ? Or are we just relieved that someone has given us permission to sit on our fat arses and do absolutely nothing to help ourselves. “We can’t do anything because it’s hereditary”, “The consultant said there is nothing I can do to help myself”, yeah right! Another very common displacement is someone who has been helped with a life threatening condition, then go on to raise money tirelessly for charity…….but still not doing anything to improve themselves!!!!!!

I tell my children that I don’t care what they do in life. Whether they empty dustbins or are brain surgeons, be extraordinary, give it 120%, always be kind and be nice. If I have raised a child who is a kind and nice person, then I have succeeded as a parent. So am I saying that if you have the hereditary breast cancer gene, you shouldn’t have your breasts removed? No. Your life depends on the choices you make and the things that you do, not on the things that other people do. Don’t just listen to the “experts”. Take control, make changes in your life to improve your health. At the end of the day, whether you fail or succeed, you can hold your head high and know that you did the best you could, not the best that someone else could for you.

Be in control, be aware,make a relationship with your body, learn stillness, find joy in all that you do, look inwards rather than outwards for happiness, be alive, but most importantly be extraordinary.

Shame on you British nurses!

January 6th, 2012

David Cameron told British nurses to be more caring towards their patients today, that nurses should be more patient and not paperwork orientated. Shame on you British nurses! Did you really have to be told that??

I trained and qualified in nursing in 1986 and stopped nursing in 2004 to open Shining Tree. My area of nursing was always acute medical and elderly nursing. The pay was poor and the work was hard, but that was what I signed up for and loved doing . Nursing to people like myself was a profession, a vocation…….not a “career”. The priority was always the acutely ill patients, whether medical or surgical and patients who were helpless and needed our care -we were their advocates. There has always been indifferent and lazy nurses in the ranks, just as there will always be soldiers who are less than courageous; but if the negative elelment start outweighing the positive then you will have serious problems.As we do now in nursing. Not every nurse liked me when I was on duty, because I made them work when I was in charge of the ward; but they respected me, because I led from the front, I didn’t sit on my arse doing paper work while they gave the care. I gave the care because this is what I trained to do and loved doing. There is really nothing more rewarding than finding a patient covered in poo and pee and leaving them all clean and comfortable, but doing it with their dignity in mind. I can remember many a hellish night of hard, hard slog, but then, we British nurses were the best in the world! Nurses cannot blame management or lack of resources for their poor care to the patients. We have a code of conduct, which states that if a nurse feels that the environment that they are on is unsafe, they can refuse to work. Nobody complains, they just don’t give the care…..it could be your mother or grandmother they are neglecting. How can they do it……..I really don’t know.

It is always people that make things work. Hard work,stamina, compassion, empathy, common sense, intelligence, kindness and a wicked sense of humour are the attributes of a good nurse, not loads of academic qualifications and a reluctance to participate in patient care

Picture is of King’s Lynn School of Nursing class of 1982-86.

Every one of these girls are angels... ….except for the bloke with the dodgy haircut

I had a bad dream the other night. I dreamt that I was back in nursing . I needed to turn a elderly patient and give her some care, but I couldn’t find any nurses who would help me do it.

On doing and being

December 25th, 2011

On this special day, whether it is because you try to follow the example set by Jesus of Nazareth, or you see this time purely as a time to spend with your family.

Just take a moment out and just “Be”.

There is a danger that we are so busy rushing around and doing stuff, we lose sight of who we are and even why we are rushing around.The example set by guys like Jesus and Buddha are about giving of themselves…not material things; but of unconditionality, of non-judgement, of gentleness, of kindness, of generosity, of love. Sadly to say, non of the above qualities are shown by the institutions such as governments and religious organisations which rules our lives. These institutions are a reflection of our collective consciousness.

They will only change when we grow and evolve. We can all “give”, we can all grow, we can all love.

Om Shanti

Jesus was a Yogi

December 3rd, 2011

“Father Gabriele Amorth, who for years was the Vatican’s chief exorcist and claims to have cleansed hundreds of people of evil spirits, said yoga is Satanic …” He obviously hasn’t seen the Jeremy Kyle Show. Ignorance, fear, bigotry and hate……wonderful tools of control and subjugation aren’t they?

Blogs are wonderful things; they give people a chance to express themselves, to rant and rave and sometimes even to share some wisdom or knowledge which others might find useful on life’s journey. It is always rewarding when you find that others share you view point, but the main objective is to help others think about issues that they might take for granted; even if it means they disagree with you to the point of being angry.

When I did my training in the Smae Institute, one of the tutors told us never to talk to patients about religion and politics. It is not something that I totally agree with, as I like to get to know my patients, but then again,they haven’t come to my clinic to hear my view on those subjects. The irony is that although religion and politics is the most contentious issues that most people would engage in. A lot of our opinions and viewpoint are based on fear, ignorance and bigotry, and those who don’t have an opinion…….,well, are they just ignorant or don’t they have the energy to care beyond just living from day to day?

How wise is it to blog about religion? Is there a danger of offending Christians? Well, that’s not a problem, because I am actually a Roman Catholic; so I can’t be accused of being a heathen Chinaman attacking the Catholic faith.I suppose I could be ex-communicated…………am I bothered? Kim and myself went to Rome for a long weekend several years ago and we went to see the Vatican. Two observations I made while I was there: 1.Why was the people who crucified Jesus of Nazareth running this massive organisation in his name? 2. If there was a God, he certainly didn’t live there.

When I give an opinion, it is usually backed up by my own experience. I would advice you all to beware of people who quote research at you, or who gives you an opinion which is of the general consensus; those who quote research often won’t have any practical experience of what they are talking about, and those who believe what everyone else believe definitely don’t know what they are talking about. So I wonder what Father Amorth actually know about Yoga? My opinion would be that besides from bigotry and fear, he would have very little practical knowledge if any of what Yoga is. To be honest, a lot of people I have come across who profess to have done Yoga for many years don’t really know what Yoga is. It’s the same when you get some “expert” who tells you that Acupuncture doesn’t work. When you ask him how many years of acupuncture training and practise he has had to come to such a conclusion, he will tell you that he hasn’t….but he has read a report on it. Well, in the early part of the last century, there were reports that Negroes and women had smaller brains….so that must be gospel then, mustn’t it?

I digress, let us get back to Father Amorth contention. For us to assess his assertion, we must understand what Yoga actually is.

The word Yoga means “union” and Yoga evolved almost 26000 years ago in India http://www.medindia.net/yoga-lifestyle/yoga-orgin.htm Union with what? Union with your self , union with others, and if you so believe, union with your God. There are eight limbs to Yoga:

1.Yamas- your attitude towards others and the world around you, including your environment.

2.Niyamas- how you treat yourself and look after your body.

3.Asanas- system of physical posture to keep your body supple and strong.

4.Pranyama- way of breathing

5.Prathayara- withdrawal of the senses, so that we look inward for wisdom and not to be deceived by our outer senses. Interestingly enough, it was material wealth and pleasures of the flesh that Satan was said to have tried to tempt Jesus with out in the desert.

6.Dharana- concentration and mindful intention

7. Dharma- meditation, reflection, looking inwards, union with your higher self and wisdom.

8. Samadhi- Enlightenment and self realisation

That is what Yoga is. Not just some girlies in leotards contorting themselves in a village hall or gym , but a whole system of spirituality and way of living. It’s gentle and tolerant,and not about guilt, fear and punishment and subjugation that Christianity is based on. Sure ,as a species, men have always fought wars and killed each other, but to kill in such vast numbers in the name of a person who represented love and peace?

No Farther Amorth, Yoga is not linked to Satan, although my spider senses tells me that you are decidedly dodgy. I would conclude by saying that Jesus was a Yogi. What do you think?

“If if makes you feel better,do it”.

November 27th, 2011

Picture the situation. You are at your doctor’s surgery. You have a chronic health problem and nothing that he gives you helps, in fact, you have developed secondary symptoms and problems as a result of the medication that you have been taking. You do feel grateful, as you have had a battery of tests, investigations and seen loads of different consultants . You ‘ve got IBS, chronic arthritis, hormonal problems, migraine, you are overweight, stressed and you are getting on in years as well. Is it any wonder that you feel you will never, never get better or have a better quality of life.

Out of desperation you seek”alternative” therapies to help yourself. Often we pick a therapy by what we have read in magazines, what celebrities have had done and what friends might have recommended……..not exactly a very scientific way of trying to find someone to help improve your life! Some people are so debilitated and desperate they even have Colon Hydrotherapy! A very good treatment, I might add, although you might think I am biased! So you pluck up the courage to tell your doctor that you are seeing another therapist. You are nervous because you don’t want to offend him/her. In fact, in decades past, some GPs have taken patients off their list for seeing an alternative practitioner. Times have changed and some doctors will now recommend patients to see various therapists. My only concern is that often they have no experience themselves of the therapy they are recommending. I like to think that if I was recommending something to you, be it Colon Hydrotherapy or a new biomass boiler system; I would bore the pants off you with the intricacies of the subject matter, as I know both areas intimately. My GP sometimes recommends patients to me . He tells me that the patients who come from him are generally satisfied with my treatments. I don’t think he actually know what I do, other then I use to be a nurse and I treated one of his family ( successfully thank God!). His recommendation is probably based on the fact that I have a nursing background and that he knows colleagues and family who has been to me. Most of my patients who comes to me don’t really know what my qualifications are……….because they come to get better, not just for a therapy.

Once you have told him, you might get two reactions. He would either be defensive , as you are basically telling him that he is not able to help you. Or he will say to you: “If it makes you feel better,do it”. Strange comment! If you adolescent son came and informed you he was taking up hard drugs, would you say “if it makes you feel better,do it”?

Now what does he mean. He could mean that he really really wants the best for you. As conventional medicine can’t help you, he supports you in exploring a holistic and naturopathic approach to health, where you want to be educated and empowered to take control of your life and make a good relationship with your body, learning to understand and respect it.

Or he could think that you a gullible idiot with more money than sense. don’t you know that chronic health problems can’t be cured? Why do you think they are called chronic? You are over sixty years old, you should have pain, shouldn’t you? Even if you do improve, it’s only the placebo effect, purely mind over matter.

What are your reasons for having complementary treatments?

A passionate discourse on the placebo, intention and Yi

November 26th, 2011

Had a discussion with a colleague recently about the so called “placebo effect”. As far as I am concerned, there are three views of this.1. the conventional medical view , 2. the view of the general public and 3. my view.

Wikipedia defines the placebo effect as: is a sham or simulated medical intervention. Sometimes patients given a placebo treatment will have a perceived or actual improvement in a medical condition, a phenomenon commonly called the placebo effect.

So basically it is an action based on lies, deception, smoke and mirrors. It is usually talked about in context of medicine and medical research. What seems to happen is that a belief in something i.e. perceived medication , can result in an actual physiological change and relief of symptoms in the body. This is generally the perception of the public as well. My colleague who is an acupuncturist say that new patients actually asks her whether the improvement from the treatment they are going to receive is due to the placebo effect? She feels that the placebo effect is important to her as one of the reason why patient improves with treatment and also because she does scientific research, she has to speak the same language as others do in the field of medicine and medical and research An example she gave me was how she was given some painkillers for a headache when she was six years old, as soon as she took the medicine, her headache went. Thus she saw as the placebo effect, as the medication would not have had time to act yet. I would disagree with her on this . Yes, there was a definite physiological change in her body leading to a cessation of symptoms; but there was no deception on the part of the person giving this to her. This I would call the “intentional effect”. Now, some of you reading this will query whether I am splitting hairs here. What does it matter what we call it as long as the effect is the same?

Intention or Yi

It does matter. For a start, relationships matter. The karmic outcome of a relationship built on lies and deception is going to be different from one built on respect and understanding. To put it simply, do you trust the person who lie to you or the person who is honest with you?

When a talented racing driver enters a race. He will win if he has the talent and skill, the best car, and lastly, the confidence and intention of winning the race . The Chinese call intention mindfulness or Yi. Another word to describe this is focus. When we have intention backed up by knowledge and skill…..we will always win through. If you have no skill or knowledge, than no matter how positive you are ,you will not win. We hear this sometimes from people who have been told they have cancer and are embarking on a programme of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. They will be positive and say they will fight the cancer. Yes, having a positive attitude is essential in everything that we do, especially if we are fighting cancer. But all too often, the patient do not do anything else to help themselves while undergoing medical treatment .The answer is usually that the consultant they are seeing has told them they there is nothing else they need to do for themselves. Is it not plausible that to make the body as healthy as possible could help ? For most cancer patients, sadly, it isn’t plausible.

It seems that the placebo effect is often talked in context of illness . Even if taking a sugar pill can fool the body and create physiological changes, how long does it last? Will the patient eventually get better or will he lose out to the disease process? Why not focus on actually helping to educate patients to get healthy? The reason is because the people working in the NHS are experts in diseases and not health. They don’t seem to understand that unless you know about health, you cannot cure diseases.

It seems to me that some people will always be part of the “placebo effect” group.These people will never ask too many questions, do as they are told, keep taking the tablets, blame everybody else for their woes. Whether they get better or not will have very little bearing on what they actually understand about their bodies or actively done to help themselves. While others will be of the “intention/Yi effect” group. This group of people will find out what they can do to help themselves, make positive changes such as changing their eating habits, taking up Eastern Yoga, Tai Chi , Qigong, meditation; and generally get to know and make a relationship with their bodies. Intention backed up by action will create real change and growth. The perception and mentality of the people in the above two groups do not just affect their health but every other aspects of their lives. Which group do you think you belong to?

Balance and harmony

November 25th, 2011

Fools will rush in where angels fear to tread; but he who hesitate is lost. If you can steer the middle path between the two in life , then you will have balance and harmony

Vibrational medicine……the basis of all healing

November 17th, 2011

I saw a feature on the news about how singing appears to help symptoms of Parkinsons disease and Altzeimers as well. So sound and breathing can strengthen the body and promote healing? Would it surprise you to know that Yoga and Chinese Shamanic practises of sound and breathing were recorded as far back as 3000BC in the East?

Look beneath the surface

Typical of “Western Science”, it looks at the surface i.e. reporting an effect of a certain action but never seeming to looking at the cause of the effect. So do you have any idea how singing can improve our health?

Everything is vibrational

I’ll keep this simple…because I am a pretty simple kind of guy. Often when someone makes something complicated, either they don’t understand it themselves and/or they really do not see passing on practical knowledge to you as necessary….. after all you are only a pleb. Okay, here we go.

1. Everything is made up of atoms.

2. Atoms are held together by energy…… energy vibrate and has frequency and amplitude. Example- if you clap your hands, the number of times you clap per minute is the frequency, and how hard you clap is the amplitude.

3. So looking behind the physical manifestation of our physical world we see energy. When you massage someone, you are expressing that action with frequency and amplitude , coupled with your intention……. these are the energetics behind the body. When you breathe, there is frequency and amplitude depending on how you breathe .A body absent of energy is………a corpse. This is where the age old debate of God is about. Is the energy that powers the Universe just an impersonal source or is it a super sentient being up there somewhere?

How singing improves health

Therefore when you sing, the vibrational and energetic effect will specifically affect body structure through the thorax and abdomen, increasing oxygenation and stimulating all vital organs and systems. The physiological effect of healing normally includes an increase in neurotransmitters such as endorphins and serotonin, increase in immune function by increase in red,and white blood cells, optimising blood biochemistry and absorption and assimilation into body cells and optimising healing.When our body feels stronger, normally we are emotionally stronger and able to effect positive changes in our lives. This is not rocket science, when we remove as much negative influences from our live….such as eating crap, smoking, destroying our liver with alcohol and watching Eastenders; implement more positive support systems in our lives (check out www.shiningtree.co.uk ) , and the described positive cascade will take place. The structure of our bodies, the physiological processes, our emotions and our perception of spirituality, combines and defines who we are – body, mind and spirit.

Applying the science

Yoga, Taoism and Buddhism all have comprehensive and powerful systems of breathing and meditation techniques. Whether you practice the stillness or dynamic aspects of these arts, you body will be vibrating and pulsing, balancing itself energetically and optimising itself physiologically. We also practise a Taoist system called the Six healing sounds. We teach this in relations to the Five Elements of Chinese Medicine, this incorporates the seasons and emotions as well. Really cool! So come over to Shining Tree and check it out.

However, I do believe though that there are some of us, myself included, who should never, never, never be allowed to sing in public.

The emperor’s new clothes syndrome

November 16th, 2011

Saw an advert on the TV last night. One was for a new movie system from XBox which was voice activated. While on one level, it seems very positive and a sign of progress in technology; on another level, it’s another opportunity for us to sit on our bum and do even less.

Technology should make our life easier so that we can have more time exploring and making relationships with our physical, emotional and spiritual self. Rather, it has become the golden cow that all everyone wants to worship. Materialism has become the new god to all. Brainwashing and indoctrination is so clever and subtle, you have to admire them…just see the adverts. Buddha said that life is an illusion or a dream. The story of the Emperor’s new clothes demonstrate this……. if ever body around you believe something to be true, it must be true. So how much of what we believe in is our own actual perception and how much of it is manipulation ?

So who do we blame? The bankers? The marketing gurus ( I really believe that if they wanted to, they can persuade you to eat your own baby)? Tesco?

The above is merely a reflection of a part of our own nature. So if we hate them, we are merely hating an aspect of ourselves. If we don’t want to be led and controlled then we must stop acting like sheep, we must all become shepherds- our own shepherd. When the negative aspects of ourselves are balanced by our positives aspect, then the bankers, PR gurus. Tesco and other tyrants and manipulators will disappear like the illusions that they are.

How do we get that balance………….. you got it-meditate.

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