#1 Introduction and Allergies

Hello and welcome to episode one of the Homeopathy At Home with Melissa podcast. In this episode, You’ll learn the basics of homeopathy, quite a bit about me and my family, how we got started over 20 years ago, and why you should subscribe to this show.

 As you’ll see, the Lord took me down a path specifically to give me peace about not only using this beautiful medicine, but how to teach others to use it.  

 My name is Melissa Crenshaw, I’ve been a homeopath for 20 years and I have always had a passion for teaching families how to be healthy, eat healthy, and use homeopathy at home with their family. Making the change from a conventional lifestyle to a traditional, more healthy, lifestyle can be overwhelming when you think about all of the things that you need to change, so I intend to guide you step-by-step in making this change. If you’re beyond the basics, you can pick up where you need to be. Maybe you already eat healthy and know all about the dangers of medications, but you don’t know enough about homeopathy to use it with your family. or maybe you just want to go deeper with homeopathy and you already know the basics. No matter where you are in your journey, this podcast will deepen your knowledge and help you grow!

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the Homeopathy At Home with Melissa podcast. If you're ready to be independent in helping your family with acute and chronic conditions, if you are interested in learning how to use homeopathy at home, then this is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Melissa Crenshaw and I invite you to subscribe, grab some coffee, and get ready to learn how to use homeopathy at home with your family. 

Hello and welcome to Episode One of the Homeopathy At Home with Melissa Podcast. In this episode, you'll learn the basics of homeopathy, quite a bit about me and my family, and how we got started over 20 years ago. You'll also learn why you should subscribe to this show. I'm believing that this podcast is going to help you to go deeper, and learn homeopathy so that you can use it at home with your family. As you'll see, the Lord took me down a path specifically to give me peace about not only using this beautiful medicine called homeopathy, but also how to teach others to use it. 

My name is Melissa Crenshaw, I've been a homeopath for 20 years, and I've always had a passion for teaching families how to be healthy, eat healthy, and use homeopathy at home with their family. Making the change from a conventional lifestyle to a traditional, more healthy lifestyle can be overwhelming when you think about all of the things that you need to change. So I intend to guide you step by step in making this change. If you're beyond the basics, you can pick up where you need to be in another episode. Or maybe you just want to hang out and learn a little bit more about me and my family, which I think is a good idea so that you can get to know who it is that's going to be teaching you about homeopathy. Maybe you already eat healthy, and you know all about the dangers of medications and conventional foods and conventional medications and over the counter prescriptions, but maybe you don't know enough about homeopathy to use it with your family. Or maybe you just want to go deeper with homeopathy and you already know the basics. No matter where you are in your journey, this podcast will deepen your knowledge and help you grow, so let's get started. 

First, let me just share a little bit about my history so that you know where I'm coming from. Knowing where I'm coming from, can help you relate to me and know that I have likely been where you are, or at least, have been through some things that can help you understand that I'm a person just like you and after 20 years of homeopathy, and this more natural lifestyle, I can share lots of ideas and knowledge and wisdom on how to do this. So even though I was raised conventionally, going to public school, going to the doctor for everything, and knowing nobody that had an interest in natural health care, I had this instinctive desire for it. It was just deep inside me and I just knew it was what I wanted. I've always hated taking medications. And before I gave birth to my oldest son, Chandler, in 1996 I knew that I wanted to breastfeed even though my mom nor my grandmother ever did. I don't stand in judgment of either of them. They did what the doctor told them to do. My mom was born in the 50s and in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, it was highly unpopular to breastfeed during that time, but also, it was looked upon as something only poor people did so my grandmother didn't breastfeed at the direction of her doctor who said that formula was just as good or better than breast milk and then my mother was told that she would not be able to breastfeed me because her mom couldn't breastfeed or didn't breastfeed. Are you hearing this? When I decided to breastfeed, this was a foreign concept to everyone that I knew and even though my mom fully supported me, nobody else really knew how. I even got nasty comments like, "Ewww, why do you want to do that?" Here I was, in my early 20s going to give birth to my first child. I wanted to breastfeed, and I had women who were asking me questions like that. When I decided to breastfeed, I was going against the grain. I was swimming upstream and I didn't care and that's the kind of life that I still live today. I knew what I wanted to do, and I still know what I want to do and where I'm going. So, 14 years after I gave birth to my oldest son, Chandler, I became a Board Certified Lactation Consultant because I love teaching and encouraging women to do what our bodies were made to do. 

Now, this podcast is not just for women, but I will say that being a woman, I will have lots of encouragement, and of course stories and health wisdom for women, but I do consult with men also and of course I have a husband and two boys. I also have a daughter, but I really believe that the Lord brings women to me more often than men. So I get to encourage women often and it is such a blessing to me. I have two children that are younger than Chandler, who have never had a prescription medication, an antibiotic, or a vaccine. They did have a little bit of Motrin and Tylenol when they were very young, because I didn't know any better and I'll share more on that later. They also have not historically been very good eaters, so we don't have the perfect diet, but they will try anything so that's a great blessing. They'll at least try lots different foods. My oldest son, however, did have all the vaccinations, all of the antibiotics, prescription medications, and over the counter medications for every illness that he encountered while he was in the childcare center that I worked in. He's the one that brought me to start researching natural healthcare. Although I always had that desire in me, I knew that I was going to need to dig deeper. He was the catalyst to getting me into this lifestyle. He was also the one who brought our family to Fire Church in Concord, North Carolina on March 1, 2015, which was the beginning of an amazing journey for our family spiritually but you'll hear more about that along way. 

So now I would like to share with you my journey into homeopathy as a way to relate to where you may be now or where you may have been in the past. When Chandler was very young he was diagnosed with a peptic ulcer. This came after several years of all the vaccinations and too many ear infections to count, resulting in many antibiotics, a ton of Tylenol and more Motrin than I care to admit. I had no idea at the time that the antibiotics, over the counter medications, and the vaccines could be the reason that his digestive system was destroyed at such a young age. I also had no idea at that time, that diet had any role in our health. Can you believe that? I did not understand that what we were putting into our mouths and into our bodies was affecting our health. So of course, I knew that we should be eating more vegetables, but I just thought that was something that your parents always told you to do that really didn't matter. I did not know the truth in that, which taught me to not only tell my children what they need to do, but also to teach them why. So I'll take this time to just also tell you that we homeschool our children. They have been homeschooled from the beginning. Chandler went to public school, then he went to a private Christian School in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he went to public school before and after that until he got into ninth grade and then when he got into ninth grade, I pulled him out of public school and the younger two have been homeschooled from the beginning. So in order to teach my children why they need to live a healthy lifestyle, I had to learn myself, right? You can't teach something that you don't know. I remember the doctor, I remember her face. I remember her name. I remember exactly what she looked like so long ago when she told me that Chandler likely had a peptic ulcer and prescribed a medication that he would be on long term. I remember the feeling that I got and in my spirit, I rejected that diagnosis, and that plan of putting him on long term medication but I didn't know that there was an alternative. I just knew that I wasn't going to do that. So as we left the doctor's office that day, having no cell phone back then, I had time to think and process this information. Then when I got home I called my friend, Beth and I told her what the doctor said and conveyed to her my dismay. I was really upset. She immediately suggested that I go see this homeopath that was local to us. I had never even heard the word homeopathy much less have any idea what it was so I called this woman and she was willing to work with me financially because I was a single mom supporting myself and my son. I'm eternally grateful for the opportunity to have had a lower cost and the ability to make payments. I currently do this in my practice, especially for single moms. 

So the first thing that this homeopath taught me was about nutrition because again, I had no idea that the food we were eating had anything to do with our digestive health. I remember the look on her face when she asked me what we eat for breakfast. When I said, well, Chandler usually has, you know, these freezer waffles, and probably Aunt Jemima syrup and I usually have a Chick-fil-a chicken biscuit and a sweet tea. I remember the look on her face and she was so gracious and I never felt judgment at all. I didn't have any idea what she was thinking but now I can imagine. She just so very kindly encouraged me that if that was the kind of breakfast that we were going to have that we should probably take some digestive enzymes and so I was like, okay (and probiotics) so I was like, okay, we can do that but over the time that I worked with her, she just slowly and gently encouraged me to think about these things. Next, she encouraged me to research the effects of vaccinations. I had never even dreamed of questioning my doctor before then. She let me borrow one of her books and having no internet in my house at that time I had to go to the library and research, reading many books to educate myself on on true health. That homeopath suggested a remedy, a diet change and some digestive enzymes, all of which healed Chandler's gut and caused me to do an about-face on our healthcare plan. After seeing the amazing results that we had with him, I asked her to help me with anxiety and depression that I had had for many years. I had struggled with anxiety and depression and recent weight gain when I went to see her. So, at that point, I was on Lexapro and had been on Paxil in the past so I was very quickly gaining weight because of the medication but I slept better on the medication and I felt better on the medication, so I didn't see anything wrong with taking it. I just didn't know the long term side effects of these medications. So she advised me not to stop taking my medication without the advice and direction of my doctor and that I could use homeopathy alongside the medication until my doctor told me that I could stop it or wean from it. That was over 20 years ago and I haven't looked back. 

I have not had and over-the-counter or prescription medication since that time. There are times when fear tries to creep in and, you know, anxiety tries to come back especially right now. We are selling and buying a home so if you have done that you know how stressful that can be. So right now our home is under contract and we have no idea where we're going to go. If you don't think that some anxiety can creep in during a time like this, then you haven't been in this buying and selling crazy market that's going on right now. It is currently July 2020 and the market is NUTS. A house goes on the market and it's under contract within hours to a couple of days so everything is just getting taken right out from under us before we ever even get to see it BUT I rely on Jesus for peace and strength and I pray and talk to Him. He's my best friend. I really believe that the Lord led me to homeopathy. Homeopathy helped me to get off of medications and Jesus keeps me off of them. 

So at that time, after seeing the results that I had with myself, with anxiety and depression and my son who was healed from the ulcer and all the symptoms that came with that I decided that I wanted to teach other people how to use this amazing medicine and once I became certified, I started holding live classes at my local church, and at local health food stores, like Whole Foods and Healthy Home Market. I used to rent these little rooms at these different health food stores. Sometimes they would let me use them for free and sometimes I had to rent them but these stores were in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I would teach these classes for free. I just wanted people to know how to use homeopathy at home. So I'll admit, my classes were not very good back then. I didn't spend any time writing a curriculum. I just showed up and I wanted to share my knowledge so I think that my classes back then were kind of boring but I do hope that it helped at least a few people change from conventional medicine to natural medicine. 

During my time in school with Dr. Robin Murphy, I started to learn not only about homeopathy, but about other spiritual practices that concerned me. What I saw was that every homeopath that I knew was not a Christian and I started to be concerned that I was getting into something that went against my beliefs. I was so torn. I loved the natural medicine, but I love Jesus more. I was a very busy  mom, who was also studying to become a lactation consultant, and  stepped away from teaching others about homeopathy for a short time. A few years later, the Lord spoke to me and told me to lay it down completely. I had still been using and suggesting homeopathy occasionally but I had started using essential essential oils more. So I was sad and a bit fearful not knowing what I would do without homeopathy, but I was immediately obedient to the Lord's call and the result was an enormous blessing that I'm living right now. About a year later, he released me to pick it up again and within a month, my practice tripled! I'm currently having some pretty tough growing pains. What I saw during my essential oils days was some benefit, a great enjoyment of the smells, and feeling good that I was still doing something natural for my family but I realized that the oils were not uprooting conditions. So you can find great essential oils to help you feel better and you can use those for the rest of your life, but you will depend on them long term because they don't uproot conditions. I knew that Homeopathy was not something that you take long term nor is it a lifelong medicine. It is something that you can use lifelong, but once you uproot a condition, you're done with that condition because homeopathy teaches your body how to heal itself so that you don't need it anymore. 

That's exactly what I want to do in my practice. I want to teach people so well how to use homeopathy that they won't need me anymore. I don't want you to depend on consultations with me. I want you to learn the medicine and be able to use it at home. The blessing of a growing practice isn't just a financial blessing to my family but it has also been a beautiful journey of getting to encourage many women. Again, this podcast isn't just for women but I really believe that the Lord just brings me these beautiful women, most of which  have hormone issues, and children who have lots of different things. So I have made lots of great relationships that I'll always cherish. 

The next part of my journey began with a change in the way we eat and the products that we use so after dumping conventional medicine, deciding to homeschool, and moving to a more rural area where there are more farmers, the natural next step is to clean up the diet. The first thing I learned about was conventional grocery store milk from cows raised in terrible conditions, and given all kinds of medications and fed junk food their entire lives. The first change that I made was our milk. At that time, I did not know about raw milk. This was also so long ago that it was before Facebook and I just didn't know anything about raw milk. All I knew was that the milk that we had access to from the grocery store was terrible for us, and it was causing tons of mucus, digestive upset, colds, cough, strep throat, and allergies. It was just wrecking our digestive systems and our immune systems. Speaking of allergies, I had a lifelong history of not only seasonal allergies but year-round hay fever allergies with all of the itching, watering sneezing like crazy, miserable symptoms. I had decided to reportorize (we'll discuss that word later and you'll learn what that is and how to do it). I decided to reportorize my symptoms and I came up with an allergy mix that absolutely cured my allergies within 18 months. I had had those lifelong. I started sharing my allergy mix with many people with, I would guess, a 98% success rate. You can grab my free Allergies Guide from my website or I'll link it in the show notes. 

So back to milk. We did not go dairy free, but I changed from conventional cow's milk to almond milk and we all had great improvements in many of our symptoms. We still ate conventional cheese and ice cream and butter because again, I didn't know there was a better alternative. Over the years, I slowly started to learn about the better dairy products, organic foods, locally grown foods, corn, gluten, GMOs, and the importance of a colorful raw foods diet. I also began to learn about raw feeding our pets and you'll hear more about that in another episode. 

So as you can see, I have come from one end of the spectrum to the other and it has been a journey that I'm proud to share with you. Like I said in the beginning, I'm excited to guide you step by step into a more natural lifestyle because I know how overwhelming it can be. I've been there. When you look at all of the things that you might need to change in your home and your diet, and in your medicine cabinet, you may get overwhelmed and decide that you just don't even know where to begin. We will take baby steps together and you'll enjoy the process. In the meantime, I hope you'll join me here to learn more about how to use homeopathy in your family and how to help your friends. 

Now, you may be wondering what is homeopathy? Its simplified definition, and kind of my elevator speech, is that it was founded over 200 years ago by a German physician named Samuel Hahnemann, who was tired of seeing what conventional medicine was doing to his patients. He hated the side effects that it caused, and the suffering that they had to endure, as well as the death rate that he was seeing. He left his profession to find a better way and he was a believer! He gave glory to God for this medicine that he was developing and he worked on it for the rest of his life. In fact, when he died, he was in the middle of writing the next Organon which you'll learn about in another episode. The principle of homeopathy is that like cures like, so here's an example. Allium cepa is the red onion. So what happens when you slice a red onion in your kitchen? Well, the fumes come up and you might get runny, itchy, watery burning eyes and nose right? What condition does that make you think of? Allergies, hay fever, and maybe even a cold. So if you have allergies with these kinds of symptoms Allium cepa could be a really good choice for you! Again, you can grab my free allergies guide from my website or I'll link it in the show notes. My allergies guide will give you several ideas for uprooting allergies. 

Now you might be wondering, what is homeopathy made from? I just gave you one example of the red onion. So homeopathy can be made from anything and most commonly it's made from trees, plants, herbs, flowers, minerals, sea creatures, seawater, sand, salt. Anything that you can think of, there can be a homeopathic remedy made from it. There are no side effects, it's inexpensive, and you can learn how to use it in your own family. I teach weekly classes using Joette Calabrese's Gateway to Homeopathy Study Group materials and I'll link my next classes in the show notes below. In these study groups (we do them online) we meet on Zoom every week and we enjoy great conversations and digging really deep into the world of Homeopathy because Homeopathy can be a really complex medicine to learn. I went to school for years and I'm actually back in school to further my education right now. I never stop learning. I love to learn. I just keep learning and keep learning but this Gateway to Homeopathy curriculum just really makes it more simple and that's what I also hope to do in my podcasts. I hope to simplify a complex thing so that you can actually use it at home. In between classes, we have an active Facebook group where you can ask questions and get fast answers from knowledgeable women and myself. I post in there and answer questions in there also, but we have some highly knowledgeable women who really just study homeopathy who are active in there and answer questions also. You can also sign up for emails on my website, that's MelissaCrenshaw.com, to be the first to know about new classes and other cool stuff that I'm planning to release soon. 

So I hope that you've enjoyed this episode, Episode One of Homeopathy At Home with Melissa podcast. Click subscribe so that you can get all of the future podcasts downloaded directly to your device, and so that you don't miss anything. Join me next time as I introduce steps to making the change from a conventional lifestyle to a more natural one, and I'll dig deeper into hormone balance and problems that women face in menopause. I look forward to discussing that with you next time. Have a great rest of your day. God bless you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai