*Editor’s Note: Elephant is not your doctor or hospital. Our lawyers would say “this web site is not designed to, and should not be construed to provide medical advice, professional diagnosis, opinion, or treatment to you or any other individual, and is not intended as a substitute for medical or professional care and treatment. Always consult a health professional before trying out new home therapies or changing your diet.” But we can’t afford lawyers, and you knew all that. ~ Ed

I was raised by a nurse in the medical model and went on to become a nurse myself in 2001.

For all of that time, I believed that when we are sick, we need a doctor and medication to get well. However, my turning point was in 2005, at the age of 41. I was challenged by a nurse colleague about the role of medicines versus the ability of our own bodies to naturally heal.

I was quite taken aback but was curious, so I started to do some research to try and understand what they were talking about. After many hours of reading, I discovered that if we support our bodies to function optimally, we can heal much more efficiently. The more I read, the more I wanted to know.

I started making better food choices and changing my lifestyle. As I did, the psoriasis, acid reflux, and eczema that I had suffered with for years started to heal without pharmaceuticals. I was seeing direct results from the small changes I was making in my life.

The more I healed myself, the more I started to become conflicted in my role as a nurse, giving out medication in the hospital, yet at home, I was no longer using them. I wasn’t managing the stress of the conflict well and just before I was 50, I spiralled into a deep depression with suicidal thoughts. Around the same time, my thyroid became underactive and I burnt out my adrenal glands (I believe from all the stress I had been under). My doctor wanted to put me on medications, but I didn’t want them. I believed I could heal myself further, but I had no idea what I was going to do.

Twice a day, every day, I had to go outside and walk our two dogs, no matter what I was feeling. In hindsight, I see this played a part in my healing journey. One day on their walk, I remember realising there were leaves growing on the trees and I could hear birds singing. My dark days were becoming a little lighter. I was slowly healing.

I then started looking for things to be thankful for—sunshine, blue sky, flowers, children enjoying themselves playing out in the street. Without even realising it, I was being mindful and practicing gratitude.

As I was starting to feel a little better, I started meditating. At first, I could only manage five minutes. I meditated on finding peace in the chaos within myself. As time went on, I started doing longer guided meditations about leaving my job as a nurse and becoming an entrepreneur and winning awards for my work.

Within a few months, I left my job as a nurse in the hospital and set up my first business as a nurse entrepreneur. I entered competitions and won a local and national award for my work. Although I loved my work, but I was still a nurse. I still struggled with this, as I had to upkeep the standards of the medical model, which I was so conflicted about since starting my healing journey.

I went on to heal the depression, my thyroid, and eventually my adrenal glands, myself without any medications and decided that I could no longer remain registered as a nurse. I trained to be a coach, to help other people to heal themselves too. It was during my coach training that I realised a huge part of healing our mind and body involves healing our past. I went on to remove my name from the nursing register and set up a new business—at the age of 57.

I started writing about my own natural healing to help others to see it is possible to heal ourselves naturally without medications. I realised that I needed to expand my writing to include many people’s healing from a range of conditions. My book Heal Yourself was born. It is my own and 74 others’ healing journeys—some from conditions doctors diagnosed as lifelong and life-threatening and said cannot be healed. Heal Yourself is currently translated into four languages, to help more people across the world.

I went on to start a podcast too called “Heal Yourself with Sarah Dawkins” to continue sharing the message that our bodies heal when we support them. This highlighted how much camera anxiety I had and didn’t even realise, so proved challenging. Still, the message is so important; it had to be done.

My message to you is that we can heal ourselves; our bodies heal. Myself and all the people in my book and on my podcast are testament to it. We all share what we did to heal ourselves so that others can try what worked for us.

My advice to you is to believe in your innate ability to heal. Your body knows what to do and does it better when you support it.

I wish you health and happiness.

Much love.

~

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