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IN THIS PODCAST, WE COVER:

02:13    Life’s hardships

05:59    Different remedies for emotions

17:12    When to take what

23:53    Coffea and Aurum metallicum    

 

LINKS AND RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Aurum metallicum 200

Coffea cruda 200

Ignatia amara 200,

 

 

 

You are listening to a podcast from practicalhomeopathy.com where nationally certified American homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese, shares her passion for helping families stay healthy through homeopathy and nutrient-dense nutrition.

 

Kate:  This is the Practical Homeopathy Podcast Episode Number 69 with Joette Calabrese.

Joette:  This is Joette Calabrese, and I’d like to welcome you to the Practical Homeopathy Podcast. Women and men worldwide are taking back control of their families’ health and learning how to heal their bodies naturally, safely and effectively. So, if you’re hungry to learn more, you’ve come to the right place. Stay tuned as we give you the tools — and the inspiration you need — as I share my decades of experience and knowledge using this powerful medicine we call homeopathy.

Kate:  Hey Joette, how are you today?

 

Joette:  I’m doing well, Kate. How about you?

 

Kate:  Well, I’ve overwhelmed actually. My mom, who had a severe stroke in December, is struggling today. There are so many …

 

Joette:  Today? No, you and I have been in close touch regarding this. No, maybe she’s struggling again after making some real headway.

 

Kate:  Oh, yeah! That is it. You know, I have to remind myself that our health isn’t a linear graph.

 

Joette:  That’s right.

 

Kate:  Just like you say all the time, Joette. It is ups and downs, and it’s never going to be perfect.

 

Joette:  It’s two steps forward, one-and-seven-tenths backwards. And then another five steps forward, and then four-and-a-half steps backwards. So, we’re always looking for the net gain.

 

So, excuse me. We’re kind of going off on a tangent. It’s not really what we planned on talking about, did we?

 

Kate:  Right. No, we had a whole podcast planned, but after chatting for a few minutes, we thought it might be helpful for the people who listen to your podcast to kind of walk along a journey with us and hear about how health can be a struggle. It can be super-high when we find that right remedy, and our health has changed. It can be a low when we’re trying to figure what to do. Especially the emotional rollercoaster, Joette, that is what I have found difficult. I think you have a few things to help me.

 

Life’s hardships

 

Joette:  Well, I’ll do my best. But I’ve decided that life’s a tragedy. Just give it up. Life is just a big tragedy. If you can avoid some here and there, so you get some time in between to enjoy your family and your life and the sunshine and the birds and et cetera, then you’ve kind of made it.

 

But basically, it’s a tragedy. The reason I say that is because I just lost my father a year and a half ago. It was just … it’s a killer. He was going to be 91. It’s not like he hadn’t had a nice, long life, but it still hurts a lot.

 

So, I was telling you earlier, and I never finished the story because then we decided, “You know, this is what we ought to be discussing.” I was saying earlier that just about a week ago, I had gotten some news from a friend of mine that she has cancer. She’s a very dear friend. That normally does not scare me. In fact, it didn’t scare me; it just took the wind out of my sails.

 

You know, I listen to people’s sufferings all day long every single day except Sundays — and sometimes even Sundays.

 

Then right after that, I was going through my phone, and I saw my father’s phone number. I pushed it to dial it. I was bracing myself thinking, “Oh, my gosh! What if that phone was never deactivated (because my brother took care of it, you never know), and I would hear his voice! I would just fall to pieces.” So, I was bracing myself. In some ways, I was quite thankful. In other ways, I was disappointed that, of course, the phone had been taken down a year and a half ago.

 

Then I had a case of a client, a little boy who was not doing well at all. It was just another hit for this little person. Three things hit me very deeply all in one day. I don’t know if it was just the alignment of my thinking, but boy, it really got to me. Normally, I mean I listen to sad stories all day long. They don’t make me sad. I don’t think they do.

 

Kate:  I don’t know how you do it.

 

Joette:  Well, I always wondered if I would be able to do this, too, when I first started studying homeopathy to become a homeopath (which was not actually my intention originally). But this is what I’ve done; I’ve parsed it out.

 

Now, this particular circumstance, I went into a depression with these three events, the first one, of course, being my friend.

 

My husband said, “Oh! For crying out loud, Joette just take Aurum metallicum 200.” That’s Aurum metallicum 200, folks. Now, my husband is not a studied homeopath, but what he is, is he's studied me and has helped me in the past. Aurum metallicum has helped me in the past. Sometimes it has not, but it has done a lot of good work.

 

Kate:  So, let’s stop just for a minute Joette because people might wonder, “How do I know when I need Aurum metallicum versus Ignatia.”

 

Joette:  Why don’t you say that?

 

Kate:  Yeah, that’s what I was just saying.

 

Joette:  Oh! Oh, I thought you were going to stop the recording! <laughter>

 

Kate:  I didn’t mean stop the podcast. I actually meant let’s stop and figure out … you said using Aurum metallicum, but I know you also talk about using Ignatia 200. So, how do we differentiate when to use the Aurum versus the Ignatia when we’re sad?

 

So, let’s maybe talk about me for a second.

 

Joette:  Oh, why not! Why should it be about me!

 

Kate:  Why shouldn’t this podcast be about me?

 

Joette:  Right!

 

Kate:  I think this is helpful because, for instance, I’m a caregiver right now. I’m overwhelmed with the daily struggles of caring for my mom and trying to balance my children, and work, and so many things, and dealing with the emotions, the ups and downs of my mom every day. I think this is maybe a good example. How do we know when to use Sepia, Ignatia, Aurum metallicum? What’s the difference?

 

Different remedies for emotions

 

Joette:  Now, those differentiations between remedies is a study in itself, but let me see if I can distill it down pretty easily. The first thought my husband had when I said, “I just want to go away.” I mean not far away to an island; I would just want to go with my father and be with Jesus. I mean that’s the way I was thinking. “I want to end it all. I just don’t want to be here anymore. It’s too painful, too much suffering. My friend is now going to suffer. I just can’t take it.”

 

First, he said, “Maybe you should take Ignatia.”

 

Then when I started to talk like that, he said, “Oh no, no, no, no. This is Aurum.”

 

So, what’s the differentiation?

 

Ignatia is — and you don’t hold me to it a hundred percent, but generally speaking — Ignatia is certainly being overwhelmed with duties, feeling a little skitterish, emotions can be all over the place. Laugh one minute, cry the next. It doesn’t have to be there. None of these aspects of Ignatia must be there, but these are little characteristics that can help you determine whether or not it could be a good remedy for you. It’s anxiety; there are a lot of fears. I didn’t have that. I had downright, frank depression. It came on pretty quickly. It came on one day. Maybe it was two days after I learned about my friend. It was wanting to die.

 

Aurum metallicum has suicidal thoughts. Now, I didn’t actually have “suicidal thoughts.” I wasn’t going that far. I just knew that I didn’t want to be here anymore for that day and a half/two days.

 

Ignatia is different than that. Ignatia is lots of anxiety and fear and some depression, but they don’t think like that generally. Those who need it don’t think that way. So, getting back to Aurum so that I can give you an example, I took a dose of it, and he was absolutely right. Within a couple of hours, I could feel it lifting.

 

It’s not as though I felt anything different. It’s that I was going back to myself. So, it’s easy to say, “Well, I didn’t feel anything dramatic.”

 

Well, are you still depressed?

 

“No.”

 

Do you still want to go to the other side?

 

“No.”

 

Okay then, I guess it worked.

 

“Yeah, I guess it did.”

 

Kate:  You know, I have to say, you suggested that I take Aurum metallicum not long ago. I did, and I had the same experience where before, I had a thought of just driving my car off into the sunset. I just want to be in heaven. It’s hard. This life is hard. Again, I’m like you. I didn’t have any suicidal thoughts per se. But it’s just the feeling of this is too overwhelming. This is too much.

 

I took the Aurum metallicum, and then it made it so much easier to deal with coming and watching my mom suffering and dealing with everyday life. I didn’t have that feeling of overwhelmed. My feeling was, “I can do this. It’s going to be okay.”

 

Joette:  That’s it. It’s the absence of symptoms that lead you to know that you’ve chosen the correct medicine. It’s the absence. Don’t expect to be high and feel like you just smoked a joint or something like that! So, those potheads out there who I’m shaking a finger at by the way — that’s a whole ‘nother podcast.

 

So, I don’t let the sufferings of my clients … most of whom I’ve gotten to know quite well, and I very much like. In fact, I could say I even love them! I have great relationship with my clients, and I feel close to them. They have allowed me into their world. They hand me their pearls of wisdom. They teach me what I need to learn, too, in terms of what life is really about and how to take life.

 

So, I could easily go down and fall apart every time I hear a sad story from one of them. But if I do that, I’m useless to them. That’s not my girding, although that is valuable. My real girding is I am there to discover the answer: the right medicines, what potency, what frequency, for how long to use it, to give them some encouragement if I can. That’s my job. My job is as a detective. What’s the remedy? So, my focus is so myopic that I don’t allow the emotions to get in the way. Now, if I did, I guarantee I’d be useless to them and to myself and to my family. So, I don’t allow that to happen.

 

In spite of the fact that this friend of mine is going to be working with me, once I start working with her, and I come up with the medicines that need to be used for her, I will be able to put up a “scrim.” That’s the best way to put it. It’s kind of like a scrim on the stage where you see them, but there’s a little protection, a gentle diaphanous film between them and me that protects me from going down the sad road with them so that I can gird them up and hold them in place.

 

Kate:  And the homeopathic remedies like Aurum metallicum help us to do that?

 

Joette:  They do. And then I will also say that Aurum metallicum stopped working for me after a couple of days. I could feel it coming on again, so I took another dose. It didn’t stop working. I felt as though it just needed another hit, so to speak. I took it, and I did not see improvement. That’s when I decided — for me — I decided to use Psorinum. That’s spelled P-S-O-R-I-N-U-M, Psorinum 200.

 

Now, that’s not one of our main medicines in our protocol for depression. It’s a tertiary medicine for depression. But the reason that I chose it — and I’ll tell you why, for those of you who want to read up on this, and I urge you to do so — Psorinum is for an underlying sadness that feels as though life is not worth it. It’s like being like Eeyore.

 

There are often skin issues. Just around the same time, I got a little patch of eczema under my left eye. It’s gotten swollen and itchy, and I haven’t had eczema since I was 13. (So, in some ways, I guess I’m grateful because it means that perhaps I’m cleaning something out. Who knows? I don’t try to figure that kind of stuff out necessarily.)

 

So, that was itchy. Then I was feeling itchy all over — my ears, at my scalp. There were no eruptions; I just felt itchy all over. I said, “Oh, for goodness sakes, it’s got to be Psorinum.” So, I took it, and I have felt much better since that time. I feel just more like myself.

 

Kate:  So, you took Psorinum because there was a complete picture. It wasn’t just the emotions. It was other things.

 

Joette:  Yes, ma’am. That’s exactly why I chose it. I didn’t just say, “Oh, Aurum metallicum didn’t act.” Because what I could have used was Aurum metallicum 200, every other day and Coffea 200, twice a day. That’s a great combination for depression. But I was so itchy. I’ve had that experience of itchiness throughout my life here and there. I know through experience that Psorinum has often helped. So, that’s what I took.

 

Kate:  I talk to people in the study groups that I lead, and I tell them to be very careful with the nosodes. Psorinum is considered a nosode because it is made from a disease.

 

Joette:  Yes, it’s made from scabies.

 

Kate:  So, if we’re going to use a nosode, we have to really know that that is the correct remedy. We have to know what we’re doing.

 

Joette:  Well, the reason I’m giving you this story is because I want to be able to express that as well. I don’t believe nosodes are any more dangerous necessarily — or safe necessarily — than any other homeopathic medicine. But when it comes to stepping outside of a protocol, now we need to be a little more cautionary, just because.

 

What I mean by that is people say homeopathy is perfectly safe. I don’t believe it is! I think it’s relatively safe. You can cause some trouble with homeopathy if you use it willy-nilly, if you don’t follow the rules properly. One of the rules is to make sure that you got your diagnosis correct.

 

Kate:  Right. When you’re using the protocols, you need a diagnosis. Now, sometimes that doesn’t necessarily mean going to the doctor.

 

Joette:  No. I didn’t go to the doctor. At first, I didn’t know what was happening to me. That’s why my husband had to chime in. (Which is, by the way parenthetically, something everyone ought to know is that their spouses ought to know the medicines that work for them — especially those that are psychological medicines for them. Because when you’re sick, your brain turns to mush if it’s an emotional discord.)

 

Kate:  Yes.

 

Joette:  I would not have been able to think. I didn’t know what to do. All I felt was this deep sadness, and I couldn’t think straight.

 

Kate:  Not only when you’re sick, but when someone that you dearly love like a child is sick, your brain can also turn to mush because all you feel is that empathy. It’s hard to get past that.

 

Joette:  I have people say to me oftentimes, “I feel so sad for my child.” I want to say … sometimes I do, depending on the circumstance. If it’s on my blog, then I might not go this far, but certainly, when it’s a client, I will say, “Don’t feel sad for your child. Feel determined for your child. Feel ready, willing and capable of learning what to do to take care of your child because if you allow yourself sadness, you’re going nowhere fast.”

 

Kate:  Yeah. That’s how we started out this conversation. I was saying how I felt so bad for my mom because I didn’t know how to help her. We have trouble communicating with her. You stopped me, and you said, “No, you can’t go down that road. You have to take a step back and take the remedies that you need. Then try to be analytical because it’s going to destroy you if you go down that road.”

 

Joette:  Well, I know I’m going to turn some people off by saying this, but you have to be more like a man. I’m serious. You have to put the emotions aside and take the task at hand seriously. That’s a very masculine way of thinking.

 

I’ve learned a lot from my husband because that’s the way he is. When his parents passed away, he grieved, but when it was done, it was done. For goodness’ sakes, I’m still carrying on about my father; it’s been a year and a half! “Hello, Joette, get a grip!” I mean, really, it’s time to … I mean, I think I have moved on, but there are those moments that it comes back, and it hits me. It’s always when I feel weakened by other bad news.

 

But this does not affect my husband. It doesn’t seem to affect my sons — these kinds of things. I observe it all the time. It didn’t affect my father. I don’t see it affect … well, maybe my brother. But I observe the differences between men and women because I love them, and I celebrate them. I want to learn from my partner. I’ve learned a lot from him because of that. He’s very sturdy, and I need to remain sturdy, too.

When to take what

 

Kate:  Okay, so let’s get back to knowing the difference between the Aurum and the Ignatia and Sepia because those can all be used for that overwhelmed emotional state.

 

Joette:  Aurum metallicum takes on responsibilities. People who need Aurum metallicum are often the responsible ones in society who take on everything that they come across. They take it on with aplomb. They go all the way.

 

Look at what you’re going through right now: You don’t just visit your mother; you live there. You only go to bed late at night to your own bed and then start again first thing in the morning. We’re doing this podcast from your mother’s room for goodness’ sake. I know what that rehabilitation center looks like now because you and I have met a number of times.

 

Sometimes you can use Aurum metallicum, and then a couple of days later, you might need Ignatia.

 

Sepia is very specific. It’s very female, hormonal and is often for a middle-aged woman or a woman who’s had children.

 

But Ignatia has a lump in the throat. They start pulling their hair out a little bit. They start picking at their skin. They start doing things that are central nervous system oriented, too. Ignatia can often present with trichotillomania. Trichotillomania, it’s a long word.

 

Kate:  What is it?

 

Joette:  Yeah, what is that?

 

Kate:  What is that?

 

Joette:  It’s a hair-pulling disorder. It’s a central nervous system response that results in an urge to pull out hair, whether it’s eyelashes, eyebrows, hair from the head, the arms, wherever it might be. That is what can happen with Ignatia. But we can also see a lump in the throat, a chronic little nervous cough I’ve seen in people, ailments from grief, all of that.

 

Now, when I talk about my father, is it an ailment from grief? Well, yes, but that’s way further back. What I was describing to you was: bam, bam, bam! Three hits. Three big emotional hits that hit hard — which shouldn’t have but did.

 

So, the sadness of my friend, her suffering, I wasn’t grieving necessarily. The thought that I missed my father, and then this child was suffering. Is it grief? Well, there’s grief somewhere in there, but what was the hierarchy of symptoms was this overwhelming depression. I just wanted to go to the next life.

 

So, that’s how you differentiate. You have to figure out what to say because some people say, “Well, it is from grief, too.”

 

No, no, no. No, no. Don’t go there. Go with what is presenting most overtly.

 

Kate:  So also, another clue that you might need Ignatia is that sighing, right Joette? The “Aaaaah,” someone who does that, that’s an Ignatia thing.

 

Joette:  And sobbing alternating with laughing or feeling easily offended. Someone says something that’s perfectly normal, and you see it as the complete opposite. “Oh my gosh! You must mean … You are … You must be prejudiced! You must be a white supremacist!”

 

“Oh, for crying out loud, get a grip. I just said let’s put up a fence!” The whole world needs Ignatia. It’s the only thing … excuse me for getting political here … we just need to kind of get a grip on our borders. That’s all we’re saying here. When everybody is saying, “Oh, he must mean he hates Mexicans and South Americans.”

Really? Is that how far you’re going to pull this apart?

 

When we see life that painfully, and we feel so victimized, then that is Ignatia.

 

Kate:  Okay.

 

Joette:  When we talk about Ignatia, I always talk about it in a 200C, twice daily. Twice daily, every day. Twice a day: morning-night, morning-night, morning-night, until it’s over with. When it’s over with, you stop. When you feel better, then you put an end to the use of it.

 

When it comes back — and it likely will because if someone has that strong feeling, they have a propensity for it; it will come back. Of course, as I said when we started, life’s a tragedy. So, it is going to come back at some point where you take it again. Even if it’s a week later or a year later, you just start it again. Now you know what medicine works for you.

 

Kate:  How about the Aurum metallicum? How often to take that?

 

Joette:  Aurum metallicum, we like to use only in a 200C, every other day. Aurum metallicum — here’s something that’s valuable — not always, but it has an accompanying … Not always; remember this, folks. Because everyone thinks they have to line up all the symptoms, and they all have to be perfect in order to use one medicine or another. There can be fatigue: chronic fatigue or the fatigue is just … it’s again, part of the central nervous system (is my guess. That’s the way I see it.)

 

And it’s great for men. That Aurum metallicum is a wonderful boost for men’s low testosterone, low sperm count, men who can’t perform sexually anymore or are having difficulty with that. They have so much responsibility, but they’re stoic. They hold up because they know they should do the right thing — because that’s the way Aurum metallicum people are generally speaking (those people who need it). They’re stoic. They just keep trudging through in spite of how hard it is. So, Aurum metallicum — not always, again — Aurum metallicum is more often a little more masculine. We think about that a little bit more for men.

 

Ignatia is a little bit more feminine. Ignatia has, I know this is going to anger people (some women), but I’m sorry: There’s hysteria with Ignatia sometimes. They’re bouncing all over the place (bittybeep-bittybop-bittyboop). They’re all over the emotional spectrum. “I’m crying. I’m laughing. I’m hysterical. I take everything in bad turn. I’m freaking every time you say something. What did you really mean by that? I know what you meant.”

 

Ignatia.

 

Kate:  Aurum metallicum is that Type A personality where, “I’m going to get it done. I’m responsible. I’m going to be there. I have the weight of the world on my shoulders, and I can do it.”

 

Joette:  That’s right.

 

Kate:  But they’re tired doing it.

 

Joette:  But they can be tired, and it can drain them hormonally for men.

 

Kate:  Okay, so our emotional rollercoaster is going to come to an end because we all know what to do to help us, so Aurum metallicum, Ignatia, Coffea. For those women who are in their early years of having young children, then that’s a Sepia possibly thing as well.

 

Coffea and Aurum metallicum

 

Joette, you mentioned Coffea when you were talking about Aurum metallicum and how those two can be used together. Can you elaborate on that a little?

 

Joette:  Sure. I used Aurum metallicum by itself. I could have used Coffea 200. I suppose actually, now that I think about it, I could have added that in instead of going to the Psorinum. But, Psorinum was so compelling because of the itchiness in my skin.

 

But had I not had that skin irritation, I might have stayed with Aurum metallicum 200, every other day and added Coffea 200, as I said earlier, twice daily — particularly if I was having difficulty sleeping, or if I would fall asleep and then wake up. I hear this often from folks. I fall asleep, and then I almost startle. I wake up, and my mind starts going. That’s Coffea 200.

 

Just like when someone has drunk too much coffee. (Which parenthetically let me mention, if you’re drinking coffee, and that happens to you, stop the substance! Stop the coffee. I mean, really that’s just kind of logical. You don’t have to stop it abruptly. You can just cut back by half or something or drink it only in the morning.

 

But I also will tell you that when people drink coffee in the morning, they think, “Oh! That will never affect me at night.”

 

Really? You don’t think that if you take a drug at 6:00 in the morning that that won’t affect your sleep at 10 o’clock that night? Absolutely, it will! So, why wouldn’t coffee do that? Coffee is a substance. It’s caffeine, and it’s strong.

 

If people drink a lot of it, and they usually drink it quite strong, and they think that they could drink it like they were in college, sorry. You can’t do anything like you can when you’re in college. That’s true. I mean, I used to eat a lot of chocolate and be able to get away with it. I used to be able to drink coffee all day long and never give it a thought. I used to be able to stay up until 3:00 in the morning and party and all. I used to drink alcohol, and I never had any trouble at all. Well, if I did any of those even in small amounts, I would be paying for it.

 

Kate:  Well Joette, I think you’ve given us a lot of clarity on how to use these medicines. So, thank you for helping me and so many people who are probably going to go right now to their homeopathy cabinet and pull out that Aurum metallicum or Ignatia or something.

 

Joette:  Kate, allow me to wrap this up by saying our very core is shaped by the adversities that we endure. There’s no doubt about the fact that life is difficult. As we march through time, the more that we can overcome, the more it shapes our character. So, don’t worry about adversities piling up too much. They’re going to! Just learn how to deal with them the best you can in a pragmatic way, if possible. If not, make it philosophical and say, “Oh well, onward.”

 

Kate:  I feel like I should be encouraged but …

 

Joette: <laughter>  “I’m more discouraged than ever now. Thanks a lot, Joette!”

 

Kate:  No. Thank you for sharing, but honestly life is hard. Yeah, we just have to trudge on like you said.

 

Joette:  Well, let it run off your back like a duck. Imagine that. Really, truly put that image in your mind. The duck goes down in the water, comes up and the water just rolls right off his back. That is the way you want to see life. Otherwise, we will accumulate all the sufferings and all the tragedies, and it will just keep going. And cling to your faith. It’s very important.

Kate:  Yeah.

You just listened to a podcast from PracticalHomeopathy.com where nationally certified homeopath, public speaker, and author, Joette Calabrese shares her passion for helping families stay strong through homeopathy. Joette’s podcasts are available on iTunes, Google Play, Blueberry, Stitcher, and TuneIn radio.

 

Thank you for listening to this podcast with Joette Calabrese. To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit in your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.