Wednesday Column

***Everyone Has a Story***

Years ago (a lifetime ago) I watched an Oprah Winfrey episode where she was talking about realising that everyone has a story. To prove her point, she selected a random woman out of the audience, and asked her what her story was. The woman’s initial response was that she didn’t have one but with careful questioning Oprah uncovered an amazing story about how that woman came to be in the audience of the show. 

Now that I’m practicing homeopathy, this "thing" about people always having a story, it sticks with me. Everyone does have a story. And most of the time we don’t hear about it. Most of the time we talk about the little things, the chit-chat, the daily stuff. Not often do we connect and resonate with someone’s story.

One of my favourite things about my life is that I get to connect and resonate with people on a daily basis. It serves to inoculate me against the nastiness in the world, and gives me hope that we’re all doing the best we can to be the best possible versions of ourselves. Often, a consultation is the first time that people have told their story to anyone. Sometimes it has been weighing on them, sometimes there is an element of shame, or embarrassment, or fear about naming something that they have hidden for so long. Sometimes they laugh and say “I haven’t even told my husband this!” and often people are amazed at the ground that they cover during a consultation.

I really believe that owning our story is the first step back to health. Until we own who we are, where we’ve come from, who we want to be, we cannot move in the direction of wellbeing. To get out of the darkness we must first light a candle. We must first step into the spotlight on the stage of our history and celebrate it for who it has helped us become. Whenever people are ready to, we approach that spotlight together and I observe what’s going on and I bear witness to their courage. 

So many times, people have said to me that they feel better after a consultation, even before they’ve started the remedy. And I think that this is why – because we have shined a light on something that they have been ignoring or hiding for so long, and that feels gooooooood.  

Then they take the remedy and I think it helps by matching the story and taking up some of the weight of it. And once the weight is lifted, people can for the first time lift up their head, look around, and see options that they never knew existed. They can make changes that they’d never before considered. They can take another step on their journey to being their best selves.