Review
After many years of working with women as a holistic practitioner, Linda Crockett has developed soul-utions to our hormonal dilemmas. Conventionally, hormonal conditions are treated on a very physical level, with little understanding or appreciation of the emotional and spiritual aspects of women's lives, making true healing unattainable. In Healing Our Hormones, Healing Our Lives, you are guided on an holistic approach, embracing all three aspects, bringing an approachable understanding to your physical symptoms, recognizing the hidden emotional origins of your hormonal conditions, and finding true soul-utions to your health problems. Written with intellect, intuition and a deep wisdom, this is a compelling and reassuring read.
238pp, 138mm x 214mm, Paperback, 2009

Extract
I am sitting in my office; the sun is pouring in on this clear warm morning. A slight breeze carries the scent of rose and honeysuckle through the open window. I can hear the wind moving through the pinewood on the hill above and see the circular flow of sheep passing single file around it. The sky is clear blue and full with buzzards circling rhythmically, their soft dolphin-like whispers punctuating the quiet calm. My eyes wander to the white and pink cosmos flowers alongside the gate. I am thinking about my 25 year journey to this place and hope I can bring all I have learned forward in a caring and inspiring way.

For many, the road to a peaceful existence often begins with what appears to be a negative impetus; something within that gnaws away at them, preoccupies their mind, motivates their decisions and becomes their obsession. This is just what happened to me. I suffered dramatically with premenstrual syndrome over the years and without its disturbing monthly reminders, the depressive episodes, the lethargic incapacities, the irrational outbursts, the explosive rages and the battles with weight, I would never have been so determined to make sense out of the chaos of hormones and their cyclical fluctuations. It was my frustrations with treatment and the inability for anyone to explain what was wrong with me that caused my initial need to take control and learn as much as I could about hormones. It was this wild premenstrual energy that fuelled me from one course and diploma to the next, and it was my desperation that kept bringing me to each new therapy, looking deeper within myself. From this I somehow managed, over the years, to develop a healthy life style, loving relationship, successful career, and a more peaceful balance within myself. What I realize now is that I have become the therapist I wish I could have met back then, who could have given me the comfort and reassurance and, above all, the soul-utions I needed. But then again, had I met such a person I would have missed the experience of the healing journey I had to make.

From my own experience, and the last 10 years working with women as a holistic practitioner, I have become very familiar with the problems women face and the hormonal triggers behind so many of them. Women come to me as confused as I was, desperately trying to make sense of the diverse and complicated symptoms of premenstrual syndrome. Many turn up angered by the side effects they have developed from their use of synthetic hormones in treating endometriosis or menopause. Some come in frustrated with their increasing weight and appetite, remaining unaware of underlying conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome or insulin resistance that maybe powering their inability to control their food intake. Then there are those that appear in my office tired and exhausted after failing to get their health practitioners to acknowledge or understand their problems with candida.

But you cannot really blame anyone. Hormones are tricky, and do not easily fit into the orderly, diagnostic world of medicine. There is a mystery surrounding hormones and women never quite seem to get the definitive answers they are hoping for.

We seem to be missing something important about hormones. Hormones do not exist solely on the physical level, but are an intricate part of the inner world of women. I believe most women intuitively know they have a hormonal problem, they just cannot get anyone else to believe them; and worse, they have begun doubting themselves. So when they call me, and start explaining their history and I agree and confirm their intuition, they are reassured and hopeful. I have come to believe that the chances are, they do have a hormonal problem, but it may not be the hormone everyone is looking for. In fact, not only are we looking for the wrong hormone, but many times we may be treating the wrong symptoms, possibly the wrong condition, and more importantly, probably missing most of the women behind the condition. This can mean that for many women the real cause of their problem is never identified and therefore never resolved. So much of treatment today is geared at the physical body and its symptoms, greatly reducing the possibilities of hormonal treatment and our perception of hormonal disease. What we are overlooking is that hormones, besides being a physical issue, are driven by the energy of emotions, and are guided by the inner spirit of women. If we ignore these other aspects we will never be able to balance our hormones or heal our lives.

After years of working with women, I began to notice that there is a natural progression to healing, a way of moving us beyond our physical symptoms, down into our emotions, and then enabling entrance into our spiritual realm: a place that guides us into healing, forgiveness and understanding.

From Healing Our Hormones, Healing Our Lives, ?2009 by Linda Crockett, published by O Books.