Meghan Rhodes MCPP MAPA

How to Anchor Diverse Alternative Medicine Courses into Your Life

If you’re like many of our students, you may have been on a journey - over years or decades - of exploring various alternative medicine courses. Perhaps you have a wide range of interests. (It’s hard not to when the world of holistic health is so vast and fascinating!) Perhaps there have been seasons of your life when you’ve just not had the time to spend as long as you’d really like going as deep into a topic as you want, so you’ve kept your feet wet with weekend workshops and mini courses. Perhaps each holistic health course you’ve been on feels like a piece of the puzzle, but you’re still searching for something to anchor it all in, that will bring it together, make it click in your life and make everything you’ve explored thus far become simply the way you live. Having taught multiple students with similar journeys before they come to us, here are my recommendations on how to anchor diverse alternative medicine courses into your life.

students bringing their alternative medicine courses together on our intensive herbalism course

1. If You Have a Wide Range of Interests, What Do They Have in Common?

Think back on all the various alternative medicine courses you’ve enjoyed in your life - maybe make a list if you’re so inclined. What do they have in common? A particular style of teaching? A common way of looking at or interpreting things? A theme - perhaps nourishment or women’s health? An area of the world or common tradition? Even if all the alternative medicine courses you’ve taken seem wildly different, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a common thread or two.

If you’re looking for support or guidance in integrating all you’ve learned into your life, focus on that commonality. It may not be about ‘more’; rather, it may be about diving deeper into that common thread, tracing it back to the woven fabric so you can enjoy the beauty of the full tapestry of what you’ve learned in your life, rather than hanging by a few loose threads.

2. Have You Dipped In and Out of Alternative Medicine Courses Over the Years? When the Time is Right - Commit

I’ve had a fair few students say to me over the years that they’ve always wanted to really throw themselves into learning and living herbalism - the alternative medicine practice that’s at the core of our school - but that they spent many years being swept up by their lives and not being able to make that dream a reality.

There are two sides to this coin.

We go through seasons of our lives that are more intense than others, times when something or someone has to take priority over what we truly desire. And there are other seasons where we have more space - more mental space, more emotional space, more physical space. Life ebbs and flows, the wheel of the year turns, and at a certain point, the time will be right and you’ll be able to commit to your learning the way you really want to.

Remember, there are so many wonderful facets we can weave into our practice of alternative medicine within our own lives, but as the old saying goes - A Jack of all trades is a master of none. It takes time to commit to both your learning and yourself to bring yourself into truly understanding what you learn on alternative medicine courses, getting it deep into your bones and living it in your day to day.

3. Anchor Yourself in a Course That Is Embodied, Elemental and Experiential

Theory, information and facts live in the storehouse of the mind, but developing knowledge and skills you can call on to pull everything together and weave into your daily life requires your heart and hands to be as involved as your head. When alternative medicine courses are anchored in embodied learning, you work through your senses and tune into your intuition. When they are anchored in the elements, the learning always ties back to the fundamentals of nature - earth, air, fire and water - that live within ourselves, as well as the rest of nature, so we can further feel and tune into their qualities, their ebb and flow. When a course is experiential, you have the opportunity to get hands-on often, making herbal remedies together with your teacher and cohort, for example, so that you can ask questions as you work on getting these skills to become muscle memory. Perhaps some alternative medicine courses you’ve taken have been like this. Perhaps others have been more theoretical or academic. But a course that gives you the opportunity to feel, taste, see, hear and smell your way through a grounding framework of knowledge will facilitate both the space and means to integrate previous learning into your current coursework, so everything comes alive and is accessible in your daily life.

4. Remember, the Right Teacher Comes to the Student at the Right Time

There’s no rush in this process. Remember - it’s a journey! My students and I are firm believers that the right teacher comes to the student at the right time. Each of the alternative medicine courses you’ve taken will have opened a door, shifted a perspective, made a connection, introduced you to something you didn’t know you didn’t know - all at the right time, all when you needed to gather that particular area of knowledge. There is no one ‘right’ or ‘best’ modality of alternative medicine, because they are all rooted in the same truths. A sense of interconnectedness. An appreciation for your place as a part of nature. Listening to subtler messages and understanding how to interpret and act on them. They all have the same aims - connection and vitality for every living entity.

Exploring alternative medicine - and exploring and developing your own health and autonomy - is a journey. It takes its own brilliant twists and turns as we gather more knowledge, more skills, more understanding, more life experience. But when you’ve taken multiple alternative medicine courses, it can feel like many different threads have been left hanging and you want to tie them all together so you can truly integrate everything you’ve learned into your life. To start, have a look at what all the alternative medicine courses that have interested you in the past have in common. What are you seeking at the root of it all? Second, if you’ve had to dip in and out of the years, when the time is right and you have the space in your life, commit to learning something thoroughly. If you’re ready to commit, anchor yourself in a course that is embodied, elemental and experiential. Finally, remember the right teacher appears for the student at the right time - there’s no rush in the journey. The time to bring everything to life may not have been right until now.

If you’re here in the UK, you’re very welcome to anchor the experiences you’ve gained through diverse alternative medicine courses with us on our intensive herbalism course - Awaken Herbal Wisdom - which spans all four seasons. With up to three years of development available, our course gets herbalism both deep into your bones and your daily life and - as many students have experienced - pulls together much of their previous learning on other alternative medicine courses they’ve taken over the years. Although it is intense, it’s suitable for a wide range of herbalists, including beginners! You can learn more about our herbal medicine course here. Be sure to join our mailing list to see what the current cohorts are up to and get first access to the coming year's cohorts or enrol for the current year before it begins while places are available.

Whatever your next step is exploring alternative medicine courses, I hope you enjoy the journey!

At Rhodes Roots & Remedies School of Herbal Medicine, our practice of herbalism is rooted in the belief that we must remember, reclaim and relearn our knowledge of our bodies, our autonomy and how to work with plant medicine in order to bring control of our own health back into our families and homes for a sustainable future for ourselves and the planet. Through our intensive herbalism course, we facilitate the development of confident, empowered herbalists, attuned to the messages of their bodies and the natural world. Living the deep wisdom of herbal medicine within themselves, their homes and their communities, they uplift themselves and others, creating a stronger society organically. We do hope you'll join us on your journey!

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