Over the holiday, as I gathered winter offerings on a walk, I was reflecting on what makes it hard for some people to find their sense of gratitude and how this can be helped using homeopathy. One of the basic premises of homeopathy is that the mind, body and emotions are inseparably inter-linked. Ungratefulness can be seen as a symptom just as important as any other.
Sulphur might be needed for the person who can’t find a sense of gratitude because their need for appreciation is so strong. Their sense of lack is so deeply rooted, they cannot but compare themselves to what they aren’t getting and then act with jealousy or anger. Children who experience sibling rivalry when a new baby is born would be an example. To make a good prescription of Sulphur, you’d need to see other symptoms, such as skin and digestion issues, with a strong internal warmth and feeling worse with heat, smelly discharges and/or burning pains.
Someone needing Bryonia, on the other hand, is challenged to feel grateful for different reasons: loneliness and insecurity. They’re purposely withdrawn and isolated from social contact because of a deep sense of vulnerability, weakness and sensitivity to any intrusions. Inside, they feel great unhappiness and despondency. They just want to be left alone and any imposition, even consolation or well-meaning attempts to help, bring out their irritability and resentment. It’s this sensitivity that makes gratitude so out of reach for them. Other symptoms that would round our a prescription for Bryonia would be dryness of mucous membranes, aggravation from any motion (they must lie still when in pain or ill), amelioration from pressure, thirstlessness and/or ailments that come on slowly.
I don’t have people coming to me specifically asking to feel more grateful, but as emotional and physical problems get addressed with constitutional homeopathy, energy and vitality increases, physical symptoms lessen and there is more emotional freedom. This, in turn, can strengthen one’s feelings of gratitude as a welcome result.
Thank you for taking the time to read these words, I feel so very grateful for this, as well as for the wonderful medicine homeopathy can offer!
Karin Beviere RTCMP 