Homeopathy can help you deal with a whole range of negative or painful emotional issues; from depression, grief, anxiety states and rage.

Here I give an example of a homeopathic remedy profiled in my book Homeopathy for the Soul, and describe how it helped one individual in his healing.

Natrum Muriaticum

The key theme of the Natrum muriaticum energy pattern is trust. People get stuck in the Natrum muriaticum energy pattern when something has happened to them in the past which makes them wary. This could be the loss of someone important in their lives, or an incident of being badly let down. This is a remedy for major grief that does not heal. People who need it have difficulty coping with bereavement; they find it difficult to move on in life.

Natrum muriaticum is actually made from salt. In the Biblical story, LotÕs wife was turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back. In terms of this remedy, this story suggests that if you are always looking back rather than moving forward in life, you risk becoming ossified in the energy pattern of homeopathically prepared salt.

One of the reasons Natrum muriaticum personalities find themselves unable to accept the loss of a loved one is that they feel they could have had so much more with that person than they actually had. They may feel that their intimacy was somehow not intense enough. Perhaps they did not allow that person to get close or they did not fully connect with them. Perhaps they needed more love than the other person was willing or able to give, or perhaps they could not allow themselves to accept the love they were offered.

Grief and loss produce a protective armour around their hearts, which nonetheless fails to protect. All it does is block the free flow of energy. It ends up preventing them from feeling any kind of love, so that they become more and more armoured against other people. People in the Natrum muriaticum pattern seem distant to other people, and they feel emotionally cut off themselves. They still have a soft centre which needs warmth and closeness, yet their defensive exterior can keep others away. This leads to a sense of abandonment and leaves them feeling bitter and resentful. These emotions only increase their sense of separation and ultimate aloneness.

People in the Natrum muriaticum pattern find it very difficult to forgive. Their experience of loss, abandonment, or betrayal leaves them holding a lot of pain and resentment towards the person they feel is responsible. They blame the person they have lost for the emotional suffering they are going through. Their inability to forgive leads them to judge and blame others. When they stand in judgement over other people, they again feel separate from them. Their lack of forgiveness blocks the exchange of energy between themselves and others, so that they feel even more isolated.

Victor first came in to see me in 1985, complaining of being Ôrun downÕ. After a long discussion, it emerged that the real problem was that he was suffering from loneliness. His own particular way of dealing with emotions prevented him from relating easily to people. When he wasnÕt working, he needed time alone to unwind, but once heÕd recovered he found it difficult to drop his mood of isolation and let people in.

He took offence easily and got irritable. For instance, he felt that as a single man he had to make most of the effort to maintain friendships with others who were in families, and this annoyed him. When he was feeling piqued, he would not contact friends even though he wanted to see them and consequently suffered in his aloneness. He was not able to see matters from other peopleÕs point of view.

He worked in a hierarchical, bureaucratic organization and kept getting passed over for promotion. He felt very angry when younger people who were promoted above him told him what to do. He felt unappreciated by his bosses, which made him indignant, but he was unable to express this feeling constructively. In spite of feeling angry at being unrecognized, he realized that he was also afraid of responsibility. On a deeper level, he felt that he did not deserve recognition, but at the same time he was offended when it was not forthcoming. In spite of his own ambivalence, he described his position was unjust.

He felt shy and inadequate, and said he had been dogged all his life by the fact that his mother had rejected him. He had been very clingy as a baby, and apparently he did not do anything independently until he was two years old. His mother had become disorientated as a result of her psychiatric problems, and his father spent more time caring for him. The mother left home when he was five, for reasons that were not explained to him, and he did not meet her again until he was 38, which was not a positive experience.

Victor complained that he had felt abandoned and worthless ever since he was a child. He experienced complex feelings towards women. He was emotionally distant towards them, and at times, hostile. He said that he was unable to relate comfortably to women, but resented not getting their attention. He found feelings of sexual attraction difficult to handle, as his desire also brought up a primal fear of getting hurt. He described himself as very needy and demanding when in a sexual relationship. He had become extremely depressed in the past after a relationship had broken up, and since then had spent years without one.

When depressed, he felt inhibited and tried to hide himself, but he also felt exposed and raw, as if other people could see right inside him. He had become very isolated, depressed, and at times suicidal, but he was afraid to share his suicidal feelings because he worried that other people would be scared by them.

The remedy Natrum muriaticum gave Victor more confidence, and, when he became more confident, his social skills improved. As he felt more comfortable socially, he got a better response from others. He gradually learnt that he could choose to let go of the old familiar resentments that he had built up to create a wall behind which he could not be reached. The grudges he held against people and his sense of indignation had become for him a source of false pride. In pride, he acted in a prickly, superior way. Other people then left him alone, which was excruciating for him. Until he took the remedy, he did not know how to break this painful pattern. Being conscious of it was not enough to make him change such a deep habit. He needed the energetic impetus of the remedy to help him shift out of that stuck perspective.

After being treated with Natrum muriaticum, Victor felt less suspicious of othersÕ behaviour and motives. He was less tense, as he no longer had the need to defend himself and restrain his feelings all the time. He still got angry and indignant, but by expressing his emotions more fully he got rid of bad feelings straight away instead of allowing them to slowly simmer, colouring days at a time with negativity. VictorÕs deep depression took a couple of years (and several doses of the remedy) to go.

As he was feeling more confident, he took the uncharacteristic risk of contacting an old girlfriend. She was someone he had previously got angry with over her not keeping an arrangement, and they had had some rather abrasive interactions. But he had softened as a result of his treatment, and when he saw her he was able to acknowledge their friendship and his feelings of attraction, which she responded to. They then moved out of London and bought a house together, and he allowed himself to settle into a very established relationship with her, which was consolidated by their marriage.

Although he explored several possibilities of leaving work and starting something new, nothing attracted him strongly enough to encourage him to let go of his job security. But now that he felt emotionally secure, he allowed himself to feel lighter, letting the child in him come out to play.