author of “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom” (Bantam 1998)
A practicing physician for more than twenty years and author of numerous women’s health books, including Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (Bantam, 1998) and the recently released Mother-Daughter Wisdom (Bantam, 2005), Christiane Northrup has been a pioneer in the movement for women’s health, creating awareness about the interplay between mind, body, and spirit. Her books encourage women to reclaim their inherent feminine wisdom, which is frequently overlooked and forgotten in Western society. As a proponent for preventative medicine, Northrup recommends an integrated approach to health; incorporating the science of Western medicine with both alternative and integrative practices.
HL&S: The theme of this issue is inner balance. What does this mean to you?
Northrup: Inner balance is a state in which the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems are equally balanced most of the time. You have your foot on the gas when you need to, but you also know when to put on the break, and those two things work in a conscious way that produces optimal immune system functioning, a sense of peace, joy, intimate possibilities, and hope for the future, not to mention hormonal balance and good immune system functioning. Inner balance starts with the way you think. The only thing that we really have control over in the world is our perception and our thoughts; and the point of power for choosing inner balance is always to change a perception in a direction that brings you more
comfort and more peace. So for example, lets say that you don’t get the job you wanted or somebody calls and cancels a dinner date, I have trained myself to have a knee-jerk reaction in the following: ‘I have been spared’. I don’t know why that is, but since my life is unfolding, there is a reason that whatever it is got cancelled and something better is coming. There is no way to prove that, but the perception that creates the inner balance is that all is well and that this is happening for my highest purpose.
HL&S: This seems like a very optimistic way of living.
Northrup: Our perception and our thoughts attract our reality to us, but the opposite is also true, if you always see the glass half-empty you’ll always have empty glasses around you. Inner balance doesn’t mean nothing ever happens.
I think we have a crazy Western perfectionist notion that inner balance means that we are in control all the time, that we sit in the lotus position and we chat ‘Om’, and we look unruffled, and we never sweat, and we never yell. That to me is not inner balance, that is being kind of comatose. Inner balance is always pushing the envelope to have more fulfillment, more fun, more growth than you had the year before. It’s always knowing that when you call in more life and more light, that you will keep evolving and find a new balance point.
HL&S: In your practice you must see a lot of individuals who are out of balance. What do you think is the cause?
Northrup: I think it revolves around one believing that they are not worthy and that they are not lovable. At the bottom of just about every illness, particularly gynecological illness is some wound about being a woman; that your sexuality is wrong or bad, that your body is too fat or not the right shape, that your breasts are too small, that your vagina isn’t clean. In other words it is some inner dialogue that you are not enough and that you don’t measure up. I think that the health care mantra that we need is, ‘I accept you unconditionally.’
HL&S: Where do you recommend women go to rejuvenate and retreat?
Northrup: If I ruled the world, I would have everyone do a health assessment at Sanoviv Medical Institute. It is not a pampering spa, it is preventative medicine. If you went to Sanoviv once a year you would prevent most of the things that people die of. Their work is holy.
By Melissa B. Williams
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