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Limited Return of the BWC Seminar Schedule in 2022

The COVID Pandemic has made profound changes in everyone’s life, and so we are making some adjustments to how the Being Well Communications manual therapy seminars are provided. There will be a limited return of the seminars in 2022, with small class sizes of six participants per seminar. Please contact me should you have any questions or concerns about Being Well Communications going forward.

I trust you are all finding your way in clinical practice as we stumble along creating our new reality day by day. Remember that you are not alone during this ‘unprecedented’ time. If I can be of any help to any of you, please contact me.

Be well.

Dr. Verna Hunt, BSc DC ND

. . . . . . .

May 14, 2022 / October 1, 2022 | Seminar 1

The Belly: What is going on in there?

You can can get registration information for these seminars here.

 

By |March 30th, 2022|Events|Comments Off on Limited Return of the BWC Seminar Schedule in 2022

BWC 2020 Seminar Schedule Cancellation

As the COVID Pandemic is making profound changes in everyone’s life I am letting you know that I will not be teaching any of my Being Well Communications manual therapy seminars for the rest of 2020. This includes the one in September and the one in November. I will be letting you know in early 2021 what seminars will be available next year. Please contact me should you have any questions or concerns about Being Well Communications.

I trust you are all finding your way in clinical practice as we stumble along creating our new reality day by day. Remember that you are not alone during this ‘unprecedented’ time. If I can be of any help to any of you, please contact me.

Be well.

Dr. Verna Hunt, BSc DC ND

By |July 30th, 2020|Education, Update|Comments Off on BWC 2020 Seminar Schedule Cancellation

Human Body Operating Instructions

Story #1 – Water

In health care, storytelling promotes learning not only mentally but also through our senses and emotions as we can use our imagination to understand what is happening and what we can do about it. When the learning goes through our creative imagination it is easier to remember. When I teach my clients through the use of a story about their health status and what they can do to optimize it, it is much easier for them to understand the context of their symptoms, how the modalities being used in their care promotes homeostasis, and remember to do what I am recommending. One example is drinking adequate water. A current recommendation is to drink half the ounces of your weight in pounds, so if you weigh 180 lbs. you would drink 90 ounces of room temperature, clean, naturally mineralized water, sipped not forced down quickly. Putting the water in a see-through container so that you can see the water helps to remind you to sip the water, whether it be by your bed, on your desk, in your car or carry bag. It also helps us to envision that our body is approximately 70% water. The blood is largely water and carries our nutrients to and debris away from our trillions of cells. Storytelling is a way to ’embed’ generational health knowledge and wisdom—teachings passed on by the elders to the younger generation, from grandparents to parents, and from parents to grandchildren.

By |January 31st, 2020|Education|Comments Off on Human Body Operating Instructions

Moving into 2019 with Possibilities of Hope and Restoration

Naturopathic Medicine (NM) is more than the sum of its parts. Naturopathic doctors state that they have six principles plus a new seventh that articulate the philosophy by which they practice:

  1. The Healing Power of Nature
    Trust in the body’s inherent wisdom to heal itself.
  2. Identify and Treat the Causes
    Look beyond the symptoms to the underlying cause.
  3. First Do No Harm
    Utilize the most natural, least invasive and least toxic therapies.
  4. Doctor as Teacher
    Educate patients in the steps to achieving and maintaining health.
  5. Treat the Whole Person
    View the body as an integrated whole in all its physical and spiritual dimensions.
  6. Prevention
    Focus on overall health, wellness and disease prevention.
  7. Wellness Help to guide people in making choices that promote wellness.

Yet there is much more that makes Naturopathic Medicine distinct.

What is it that NM does that is so different? Naturopathic Doctors do not presume that they fix or heal as practitioners. They help people create the best circumstance for their bodies to use the healing power of nature – the ‘vis’.

Just as a farmer plants seed in the ground, there is much more than tilling and nurturing the soil, planting the seeds, watering the land that occurs within nature itself that causes the innate spark within the seed to grow. Similarly, there is within each cell of every living organism an innate ability to replicate itself, heal when injured and return to homeostasis, a balance of health, by following the dynamic template of function innately held within it, unless irreparably interfered with.

Knowing how to participate with this spark of nature is what sets Naturopathic Medicine apart and yet at times it is the most difficult thing for the opponents of NM to grasp. Advanced physicists in the forefront of their field will tell you that everything is energy and that even disorder can be an act of seeking further order. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, a modality used in NM, there is a theoretical principle of the necessity of both a destructive and creative cycle to explain that resolution through destruction allows for reconstruction of function.

In a world that tries to control the increasing chaos through suppression of symptoms of discord instead of looking at what these symptoms are voicing, the human species repeats itself by not listening and not reflecting on where it has been and where it is going at an ever-increasing rate of disaster. This is happening in health/disease and care/management, to weather changes to massive and spontaneous shifts of populations in order survive. Civilization is in the throes of the destructive cycle in order to create a new normal or homeostasis. How long this will take is difficult to know but naturopathic medical care has much to offer to bring clarity to help lift the health of people and the planet out of the calamitous discord that is prevalent everywhere on the Earth today.

Naturopathic medicine has a legacy of the understanding of normalcy in health and methods of care that are practical, available, applicable and affordable that can be administered to restore, maintain and optimize normal health status on an individualized basis. The elders within the NM can mentor the profession by sharing their experiential knowledge and wisdom. Ask them to share this knowledge and wisdom so that it is not lost.

—Verna Hunt, BSc DC ND

By |January 1st, 2019|General|Comments Off on Moving into 2019 with Possibilities of Hope and Restoration

March 2018 – The Year of Change

The dynamics of life are ever changing, from politics and climate change to social media. One thing I know from nearly four decades of clinical experience is that, as health care providers, each of us must make time for self-care and self-being (a new word I just created), meaning there is time to reflect and look after ourselves. This time of quietude is not a luxury. It is a necessity to restore ourselves and maintain our sense of self so that we can clearly maintain our boundaries while we nurture others. If you knew you could not fail (whatever that means to you), what would you do or not do in your time of self-caring and self-being?

As the world spins around every year I find my clients clamoring more and more for common sense, which is ‘not so common’ as the saying goes. I continually find it necessary to simplify how I explain to clients what is going on inside of them and how they can restore their health, so they can form a picture of how to carry out the plan of recovery. For most people, life is so complicated that doing one more thing in their profoundly busy schedule seems impossible. Helping them carry out recommendations so that they fit into their busy lives is essential.

A practical first recommendation is to suggest that clients shift their ‘state’ from being over-stressed to observing joy and beauty, which often only takes 1–2 minutes. Examples of techniques to accomplish this are mindful breathing when you are on hold on the telephone to relax your nervous system; humming quietly to yourself so that the vibration of your own voice in your body helps you focus within; noting when you see someone do something kind for someone else; enjoying a tree, a bird, a dog, a child being themselves.

Self-care is a welcome break that can be very time efficient. Epsom salt baths; growing pots of herbs, like lemon balm, each summer to make fresh, relaxing tea; listening to music through ear phones while doing other things; rubbing hands and feet with castor oil before bed—these are all simple activities that can be done to help your overall sense of well-being.

Of course, all of these recommendations are things the health care provider can benefit from themselves. Remember you cannot take your clients anywhere you have not gone yourself. Be a living example, look after yourself.

Dr. Verna Hunt, BSc DC ND

1.3.18

By |March 2nd, 2018|General|Comments Off on March 2018 – The Year of Change

Fall 2017 Events

Please note the new events that will be happening this fall:

From September 8–10, I will be in Norris Point, Newfoundland, to give clinics at The Old Cottage Hospital. Call Cottage Physiotherapy, the office of Joanie Cranston, PT, at 709-458-2875 to make an appointment.

On October 21st, from 8:15 a.m. – 5:45 p.m., I will be teaching the first seminar in a new BWC Seminar series. This first seminar will be on ‘The Belly’ and will be held at Viriditas Herbal Products, Ltd., 2775 Dundas St. West, Suite 101, Toronto, Ontario. Space is limited to 15 participants (who must be licensed practitioners – ND, DC, RMT), so register ASAP.

On November 18th, I will be teaching for the OAND’s Nathuropathic Legacy Project. The topic cover will be Part 4, a summary of the New Patient Physical Examination.

Details of these events can be found on the Events page of this website. Thank you.

By |August 16th, 2017|Events|Comments Off on Fall 2017 Events

Teaching Events in 2016

Here are some events I will be participating in this year. As more details become available, I will update this information. Thank you.


 

Teaching for The Legacy Project

April 16, 2016
Teaching parts 3 and 4 of the New Patient Physical Examination. Held at CCNM.
See www.oand.org for more details and to sign up.

Newfoundland Clinic, August 2016

Clinics at The Old Cottage Hospital in Norris Point, Newfoundland.
Dates of clinic are August 20, 21, & 22.
Call Cottage Physiotherapy, the office of Joanie Cranston, PT, at 709-458-2875 to make an appointment.

OAND Convention in Toronto

November 4-6, 2016
Lecturing at the OAND convention in Toronto on Optimizing Immune Resiliency.

By |January 27th, 2016|Events|Comments Off on Teaching Events in 2016

Move into 2016 by finding calmness within the chaos of our world

Feeling overwhelmed and knocked off course is very common as we come to the end of the year, and maybe especially so in 2015. Each person’s life is being touched by the state of the world. It is a time of great change and it is hard to know ‘which end is up.’

If we were computers, defragging ourselves might seem like the thing to do. One of the most effective and easiest ways to do this as a human being is to come to a ‘still point.’ Just sitting quietly and following the rhythm of our breath is often the simplest way to accomplish this. No doubt our mind will start to chatter going over ‘to do’ lists. Let that float by and enjoy doing nothing, just being.

This process allows our automatic nervous system to go from over activity to relaxation – from doing, to being. It allows us to transition from creating an environment of inflammation and illness in our physical and non-physical body to creating a healing environment in our entire being: physical, emotion, mental and spiritual bodies (PEMS).

I encourage you to take time for yourself and go to the still point within yourself to allow for conscious being time. You will find that you have more clarity about the choices you make in your life.

The question you may want to ask yourself as you begin 2016 is: ‘If I knew I could not fail, what would I do with the rest of my life?’ As you follow your heart-felt answers you will find greater calmness within yourself, even as the world’s chaos continues to try and sort itself out.

All the best to you in 2016.

Dr. Verna Hunt, BSc DC ND

By |December 12th, 2015|Update|Comments Off on Move into 2016 by finding calmness within the chaos of our world

Transitions are best managed through resiliency and responsiveness.

As many of you may know, naturopathic medicine in Ontario – first granted a license 90 years ago in 1925 – has been granted an updated licensing as of July 1, 2015. For more information on this go to www.oand.org, www.collegeofnaturopaths.on.ca. In general this transition is good for the profession and good for our clients. Many administrative glitches that are currently affecting the full scope that we used to practice under still need to be clarified over the next few years, as is often unfortunately common with anything new.

This is my 36th year in practice and my 33rd as a naturopathic doctor. The changes we are going through now in naturopathic medicine in Ontario can be of great benefit, however it is important that we keep to our founding  principles so that we do not lose the legacy of knowledge of those that have come before us.

These elders are the ones that survived in practice when the NDs in Ontario numbered under 50 registrants.  I encourage all my colleagues to speak up, especially those with years of practice, even though it appears at times we are not talking in the social media language of our younger colleagues. Each of you has gems of wisdom to share (check out The Legacy Project on the OAND web site). I encourage the younger NDs to ask the long-time practicing NDs how they survived in practice and what made them resilient and successful, clinically and financially, in their vocation.

Let us mentor each other during this time of change and respond to what the future has in store for naturopathic medicine in Ontario.

Many of you have asked when I will be teaching again. Probably next year. I have just completed the rebuild and sale of my office business condo after the May 2013 fire. I am recuperating and seeing clients about 3 days per week.

See you at the OAND convention September 25–27, 2015.

By |September 10th, 2015|Update|Comments Off on Transitions are best managed through resiliency and responsiveness.

July 2015 Update

Greetings:

As of July 7, 2015, the business condo is sold and I am free of the fire issues. What a relief for me and my staff – Barbara and Laura. They have been a tremendous support for the last 26 months along with many friends and relations.

I have just returned from the CAND Health Fusion Convention in Calgary where I spoke on “Using Naturopathic Manual Therapies to Address Metabolic Cellular Stasis.” The talk went well and I am looking forward to doing more teaching in the years to come.

My next trip is to the Gros Morne Park area in western Newfoundland where I will be mentoring Joanie Cranston, PT, in her Physiotherapy Clinic at The Old Cottage Hospital in Norris Point for 5 days. I will also be relaxing for 10 days in Woody Point, breathing the freshest air in the world, walking on gorgeous trails and eating lots of fresh fish.

I look forward to having a year of recuperating, and beginning writing and teaching, as well as clinical work 3 days per week with clients. I will keep you posted.

Be well.
Dr. Verna Hunt, BSc DC ND

By |July 6th, 2015|Update|Comments Off on July 2015 Update