Latest / Motherhood Alliance Podcast / Homeopathy for ADHD, Anxiety, Fear, Anger, and Hyperactivity w/ Beth Bundy | fieldwork homeopathy
Transcript
- Britney Suttner: Hi, this is Brittany from motherhoodalliance.com and I'm excited to welcome you to a new four episode series with Beth Bundy, a certified classical homeopath, registered nurse, public health nurse, and co-founder of Fieldwork Homeopathy. With experience in both conventional healthcare and homeopathic medicine, Beth brings a unique perspective to healing that considers the full picture, mind, body, emotions, environment, and family dynamics. Through her virtual practice, she works with children and adults experiencing a wide range of challenges with a special focus on mental and emotional health, including anxiety, depression, grief, mood swings, anger and rage, perfectionism, concentration difficulties, learning challenges, hypersensitivities of all kinds, birth trauma, generational trauma, and many other things. Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. We are in episode two with Beth. Welcome back, Beth. Beth: Thank you, so glad to be back. Britney Suttner: We are so glad to have you back. For those who are just jumping into this episode, maybe the title intrigued you, I'm actually going to ask you to hit pause and head back to episode one in this series because Beth really kind of gave us a 101 beginner's guide on what homeopathy is. And that's really, I feel like foundational information into understanding what we're going to be talking about in this episode. In the last episode, did briefly kind of define constitutional versus acute care. So long-term care versus like a short-term injury or something like that. And in this episode, we're going to be really focusing more on that constitutional care in a lens that I feel like is brand new to our podcast. Oftentimes people are talking more so about physical symptoms. You know, if they're, if they're having like chronic headaches long-term, We're actually going to be talking a little bit more about the mental and emotional side of things. And this is something that Beth is very passionate about, which I love that we're going to be having these conversations. So Beth, I guess the first question to start with is how did you find your love of this niche? Like, why are you drawn to working with the mental and emotional side of care? Beth: I just am fascinated by our minds, our hearts, how we perceive ourselves, how we perceive the world, how our brain works, how it loves us, how our brains are beautiful, neuroscience, all of it, how we are existing in our world. and how we see it. I was fascinated like in nursing school when I did my psychiatry rotation and just captivated by... how all the places we can go in our mind. Really. And I also, I also, even back then, I also saw that our body isn't separate. Like in our Western model, still it's changing, but still it's like our body is a machine and our mind and emotions are separate. They're not considered one thing. They are one thing. like they are one they're all connected and the common denominator is you right and i also saw how When there's stress and activity happening in the mental emotional space, our body responds to that. And often our physical symptoms are coming as a result of our mental emotional stress. So when I'm caring for kids and adults who are having, you know, mental emotional stresses and patterns, The body is absolutely mirroring that. And when we address, when we go upstream and address the stress actually, the origin up here, the body can relax then and the physical symptoms resolve because they're not needed anymore. Britney Suttner: That is such a good point. feel like so many people in our society these days are asking, you know, why do we have more physical symptoms than it feels like there used to be in the past? And maybe that's not true. Maybe it's just we have more social media and some people are more aware of it. But also I feel like there are studies that are showing that anxiety and depression and some of these mental and emotional things truly are on the rise. And so these need to be addressed. And so it's really interesting to me that homeopathy can help with this. In our prior episode, you kind of gave an overview of what acute care really is and looks like, but this constitutional care is a little bit confusing to me. And I'll be honest, I've dabbled in homeopathy for my own kids when it comes to what will be our fourth episode, which is the first aid and like colds and flus and things like that. So those acute type things. But when it comes to something constitutional or long term. you're really kind of evaluating how somebody's nervous system is working. How are they taking on the inside? If you're seeing things like chronic ADHD type symptoms or just hyperactivity or fear about things or rage or anger, like these things that are coming up constantly in somebody's personality and their life, you can help look at that. But how does that work? Are you taking these little pellets we talked about in our first episode, kind of like a vitamin? Are you taking them every day? How does this work from from an actual logistic standpoint. Beth: Yeah, so logistically we look at the entire symptom picture, right? Mentally, emotionally, physically what's happening. We tie in family history is incredibly important on both sides. We tie in life experiences, pregnancy, birth, postpartum, all the things. we match that with one remedy because it's one pattern. It's like one portrait. It's one constellation that the person is experiencing. We match one remedy and basically the way that I practice and this differs between practitioners, but I work with one remedy at a time most of the time. We work with it in two forms. So we do use the pellets and then we do a daily liquid. So we'll do a dose or two of the pellets in the beginning, but only one or two, we set the vial aside. That's kind of like a, if you consider like a loading dose or like a initial push, and then the liquid helps to carry how the body's working with that on a daily basis. You just take it once a day. It's so easy. It takes two seconds. It just drops under the tongue. It's really simple. Britney Suttner: So, I mean, from people just understanding this perspective, a lot of times, if we're talking especially about kids, well, adults too, know, ones that are having a hard time focusing, they feel a lot of just squirrel symptoms, right? They may be put on medication for this. And so, it's similar in concept, if it's something you're taking every day that's going to help. with what you're feeling. is this kind of more, number one, it's natural instead of it's coming from natural sources instead of chemical labs. But is this actually helping at the deeper level of helping people's like nervous systems heal? Whereas typical medications are really just bringing down the symptoms. Help me understand the difference in that perspective. Beth: Correct. your big intelligent brain and nervous system, because of neuroplasticity, if you've heard of that term, like the ability of our brain to create new neural pathways of safety, of belonging. of peace, we have this incredibly flexible nervous system. So the remedy comes in and because we are going all the way upstream to the original origin of the stressed state and where it's coming from, The remedy stimulates, basically a lot of times it's stimulating the integration of... trauma patterns of learned patterns from childhood of inherited patterns from a parent that are kind of our, you can think of it as like our operating system versus our hardware, which is our body. So the remedy over time helps the brain and nervous system to heal these stressed patterns that that kind of like they alter the way that we are experiencing reality. So for example, someone who has a phobia of like mice, for example. Their brain, for whatever reason is, you know, they see one and they just go into a full on panic because this is a brain pattern that is triggered when they see something. But this does not have to be true. The remedy can come in and help heal that so that it it literally is not active anymore. So when someone's on medication, The medication is chemistry, right? So it's suppressive in nature. It's modulating or manipulating what the body is trying to do. Sometimes it's helpful and sometimes it's necessary and good to be on meds. That's not at all what this is about. But it doesn't heal anything, right? It's kind of a palliative tool. So, but they can be used together. So folks often come on medication. If somebody wants to get off of their meds, yes, let's do that. What has to happen first though, is we have to work with the remedy for a bit of time to strengthen their system and to start healing those patterns before they even think about tapering under the guidance of their prescribing practitioner. So that's kind of what that looks like. And if someone doesn't want to get off their meds, that's also okay. It can still really be helpful. It's always what somebody wants for their own health, you know? Britney Suttner: So what you're saying is there can be things that people have experienced in the past that they're holding on to, right? So this could be beneficial for past abuse, helping to overcome that. It could be beneficial for panic attacks that have triggers with certain things, Beth: Yes. Britney Suttner: right? What about addictions? If somebody has had an addiction to even just physical things like gambling or alcohol or, you know, they have a hard time not eating the sweets when they're in front of them. Is this something that can help with that as well? Beth: 100%, yes. Because, Britney Suttner: Interesting. Beth: yes, because an addiction is just, the addiction is, it's a symptom, right? It's a person who is suffering in some way, consciously or not, or a combination, who is trying to feel better and gambling or alcohol or food. is providing a feeling that they actually need. Usually it's comfort. Comfort, love. We're all just trying to get love at the end of the day in whatever way that we can. So when we view it as a symptom and we go into that wounded, place that actually it's coming from and we meet that, with its corresponding remedy and we start to integrate that pain. It's really remarkable, like it's almost like the... What I often see is just organically from within without willpower. It's like the person's system is like, I'm actually feeling more safe. I feel more connected. I actually don't desire these things as much. And it kind of can on its own just quiet, quiet, quiet and resolve. Britney Suttner: about if somebody is coming to you and they are wrestling with numerous of these pieces that we're talking about? say because a lot of them do tend to be a little bit more intertwined so somebody might have anxiety. They may also then feel like they can't focus on something more of that like ADHD type symptomology. They may also have a history of panic or I don't know something like this. So a lot of these are like almost unique what our traditional system would say, unique diagnoses, right? They're different from each other, but they're also potentially intertwined. How are you finding a single remedy that helps in each of these? Because I'm guessing if somebody came to you with a single issue, it would be a little bit easier to find a remedy. They're coming to you with multiple and you're like, okay, now which remedy do we start with? So how do you kind of narrow that down? Beth: Yeah, so we just explore the feeling underneath each thing. And what you'll find is that there's a thread that emerges that connects all of them. And 100 % of the time without fail for adults, it always... always leads back to some experience when they were little. something that was overwhelming, traumatic, they could not cope with, but they did not receive help for. And this could have been a one-time, you know, big tragic accident or experience. It could be prolonged dysfunctional family system that was abusive in any stripe or flavor. Because a child has to adapt. to that environment so that they can survive. And often that means swallowing how you feel, suppressing your anger, you know, to still get love or whatever it may be. Then we, but because our brains are so formative in those young years, it's like children absorb things as truth. And then we carry them forward into our adult lives and they really start to cause trouble because we're operating from the same survival state. But we're not in that environment anymore, or we may be married someone who is like our parent. We do that. That happens all the time and we're repeating it. So it's unpacking. It's often, yeah, the multiple things it's like. It's still one thing. It's still one coping strategy and adaptive mechanism that's at work. And we just match that. And Britney Suttner: Okay. Beth: as that's integrated, yeah. Britney Suttner: Now, what about the kiddos? Because I know that you do work with a lot of kids. And so there's going to be a lot of families that are like, me, I have a kiddo that is constantly has some hyperactivity or has received an ADHD diagnosis or has fear of so many things. But as far as I know, there hasn't been anything traumatic in their life that was maybe stemming from this. Or my kiddo is just constantly like raging. This doesn't seem normal. So how What are your thoughts on the kiddos that maybe don't have that thing that has happened to start this? Because these are symptoms that do appear in a lot of kids. So where is this stemming from? Beth: Yes, I often see that that kind of child pattern comes into my practice all the time. When we explore how pregnancy felt for mom, how mom felt prior to even being pregnant, how she felt as a kid, like anything, any kind of... stress or hurt or emotional pattern that's that has been unintegrated in in either parent or both epigenetically will flow right on through into the kids and this is very well documented in in even our Western medicine research so it's often coming from a place that did not start with them so if mom had if mom felt really unsupported, if she felt alone, if she was really, really angry but couldn't really express it, if her pregnancy was painful, difficult, fatiguing, know, scary, like needing lots of interventions or was high risk or any of that, like the fear, like baby feels all of that. And even just in our culture these days, we're just highly stressed. We're more stressed as a baseline than we ever have been, right? Baby feels all of that. And if there was a traumatic birth, even like a vacuum assisted or forceps assisted birth and emergency C-section, all these things, baby feels all of that, right? And then if mom is struggling postpartum, if she's having you know, really struggling emotionally postpartum because she's not supported or her hormones are just and she's really having a hard time also affects bonding like all it's very complex actually. And then the baby's nervous system is the baby's nervous system and as the child grows and this kind of hyperactive state, right and reactivity sensitive emotional It's like their nervous system is using those as like a vent because they're They need help in cultivating more of that parasympathetic, rest and digest capacity in their nervous system that the formation of that was interrupted a bit by previous things. So that's often the pattern that I see. Britney Suttner: So interesting, isn't it? It gets so deep and like you said, it is very complex. I feel like in this type of a conversation, it would be helpful if you have a couple of examples you could share of maybe a family that came to seek you, how home you have to help them, maybe even the timeline before they started kind of seeing some changes. Do you have anything that comes to mind? Beth: Yes, I have, okay, I have so many. I have a mama, a mama and a dad who have a son. He's now 13 years old, but he kind of, he struggles with kind of all these things we're talking about. So difficulty concentrating. He needs to be moving all the time, all the time, chewing gum, fiddling with something like his, he cannot. Be at peace, really. He is, he feels everything. He's so observant, almost like there's no, like his nervous system is feeling lack of capacity to kind of filter out what's his and what isn't. So he feels everything, the emotions of people really affected by changes in his schedule, like really disrupted that way. and his shows up as anger. he there's a small little change and he just he just will yell and scream and cry and even call his parents names and He's really suffering, right? Like he doesn't want to be that way. And he's aware that people look at him funny and judge him for that. I'll ask him, say, what does this feel like in your body? What's happening inside of you when you get so mad? And he'll say, it's like I have a volcano exploding. I just erupt, I see red, I don't know what I'm doing. It comes over me and I feel horrible afterwards. And I wish I can control it and I can't. I just react. So this poor kid. he just, he needs help building more capacity in his nervous system to move with the changes in life, right? So, sent a remedy that is matching this adaptive pattern that he's in to try to deal with this inner anguish, because that's where it's coming from. And Literally, usually what I'll see with kiddos like this within a week, within a few days, there will be a shift. When the remedy is a really good match. And that's always the goal. Sometimes it takes a bit of, a little bit of fine tuning. But in general, we should really see improvement right away. And by the end of the five weeks of working with it, we should see a market. improvement. And so with him, the first thing that mom and dad saw was that he just he was still becoming angry and upset, but the duration and intensity was a lot less and he could move out of it easier. He was more open to doing chores, like less, less, you know, pushing back about that stuff more. He just was more at ease in himself. And so as we keep helping unwind this for him, you know, he may be on this remedy for a year or two as his nervous system is kind of reprogramming his operating system. But we'll see how he does. He's thriving already. Yeah. Britney Suttner: Wow. Yeah, this is where I'm like, you just need to, in order to understand this, you need to hear like real life stories. Do you have any adult stories that come to mind by chance? Beth: Yeah, so many. I have a mom who has kiddos. just, actually her brother just tragically died all of a sudden and he was only like early 40s. So it was very sudden. So she's dealing with this sudden grief and loss in her family, which she loves so much. so that just recently happened, but she came to me for excruciatingly painful periods, endometriosis, ovarian cysts, heavy cycles, can't function, premenstrual rage, really, and this feeling and, and a lot of fears, like, so a lot of fears about something could happen to my kids when they're playing outside or I could get in a car accident or you know, and the but the fears were really active in her mind on a daily basis and like intrusive and really she recognizes their irrational but like the fear was super active. talked through the whole picture and how she's what kind of coping strategy is she in tied it all the way back to growing up and her family system and what she saw her parents do a lot of learned things learned fears from them that she just was carrying forward into her own life but that really weren't hers. So sent a remedy and she wrote to me just a few days later and said, my gosh, my mind is quiet for the first time in so many years. I don't know what to do with myself because I feel really, really calmer than I've ever felt. And the noise, the fear noise in her brain was really just, it sometimes can just literally like melt. It's remarkable. And she had more energy. And so now we're tracking her cycles to see how they're going to be, but we had a hormonal focus for her too. Britney Suttner: So do you think your hope with this remedy is that it's not only gonna help her the mental challenges that she's going through, but it's also gonna help change her physical body with her actual periods too? Wow, wow, goodness, there's so much to learn here. Well, and this is Beth: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Britney Suttner: why for constitutional care, for things that are bigger than just lasting a few days, that's where working with you, someone like you is just so important because You like I said, I have at home kit, a homeopathy kit, but I, this is, this is a lot bigger. And it seems like there's quite a bit of analysis you put into deciding which remedy is a good fit for each person based off of that two hour consultation that you do with them. This was a really great and insightful episode. Thank you so much for probably instilling hope back in families' lives. And I love that this really does apply to adults and kids because like you mentioned, adult side of things, like we're carrying so much stuff as we go through this life. We just keep picking up more and more experiences, good or bad, right? That kind of add up and eventually even if somebody's fine now in five years, they may just hit a tipping point where they need some support and they're going through emotions that do not feel normal to them. But then our kiddos are also going through things that are like outbursts and they oftentimes just need help. So this was a really insightful episode for me. Thank you so much for your education on everything. We do have two more episodes coming up. I'm excited for these. We're going to be honing in staying on the emotional side, but honing in more so on the acute side. So short-term things. So parents of toddlers, you're going to definitely want to tune into this next one. We're going to be talking about things like meltdowns, like things that just pop up in our kids' lives or even our adult lives. And we might need some support getting through something emotionally. know, like a bee sting happens, or you get it in a little bit of a fender bender and now your kids are petrified to get in the car. How can we work through these little things emotionally? And then our last episode is gonna be more of those acute things, focus on more of the physical side. So colds, flus, scrapes, bumps, bruises, things like that. I am so excited to continue to get more of your knowledge, Beth. So thank you for joining us again. Beth: Thank you.