In This Podcast, We Cover:
01:00 Introduction: I Can Predict Your Future
02:21 The Art of Observation: What Are We Looking For?
05:34 Just Observation, Not Assumptions
06:30 Real-Life Examples of Observation
08:29 Prediction by Looking at Clues
12:12 We Have to Fight for Our Own Health, Yet Not Everyone Is Ready
Gateway to Practical Homeopathy®: A Guided Study Group Curriculum
Joette’s Study Group, Find Your New Study Group Friends
Additional Resources:
Joette Calabrese on YouTube (Monday Night Lives)
PracticalHomeopathy.com
Joette’s Mighty Members
FindAPracticalHomeopath.com
This is the Practical Homeopathy® Podcast, episode number 152, with Joette Calabrese.
Hi, I’m Joette Calabrese, and I welcome you to our health care movement — yours, mine and the countless men and women across the globe who have retaken control of their families’ health with Practical Homeopathy®.
So, for the next few minutes, let’s link our arms as I demystify homeopathy — what was once considered an esoteric paradigm — into an understandable, reproducible, safe and effective health care solution available to all.
This is the medicine you’ve been searching for — my unique brand of homeopathy, PRACTICAL Homeopathy®.
Introduction: I Can Predict Your Future
Welcome back to the Practical Homeopathy® podcast with Joette Calabrese. I am your co-host, Kate. And I’m thrilled to be here with Joette, our homeopathy expert, who always shares her wisdom and practical insights and experiences so that you can become a confident healer in your family.
Today, we’re diving into a fascinating topic: the art and power of observation and homeopathy, or what we’re calling “I Can Predict Your Future.” I know you’ve got some insights, Joette, to share about how observing people — and even pets — can reveal so much about their health and guide us to the right remedies.
So, let’s get started, right?
Today, you’re going to tell us how we can predict our future or the future of someone else.
That’s right. As you know — I have to say this — that one of the most powerful tools in homeopathy isn’t a remedy bottle necessarily, or repertory, or even a materia medica. It’s our ability to observe.
So, within a few minutes of meeting someone, I can often get a sense of whether they’re headed toward a robust, vibrant life or if they’re veering towards illness.
And it’s not about judgment. It’s about noticing patterns and priorities that tell a story about their health and their thinking.
The Art of Observation: What Are We Looking For?
That’s so interesting. Tell us more about that. What kinds of things are you looking for when you observe someone?
Well, sometimes it starts with the little details.
For example, what are they drinking? Are they sipping sparkling water, or is it a martini? (And maybe the second or third one.) What they choose gives a window … What they choose to drink gives us a window into their priorities.
Are they reading a book on self-improvement? You can find that out by talking to them and asking them what they do in their spare time.
Are they consumed — you can see this immediately — by gossip or about complaints.
And are there conversations focused on problems like an upcoming … an event? Caring for a loved one? And it depends on how they care for that loved one. Is it done with joy? Is it done with humor? Is it done with a burdened attitude?
Or raising their children. Raising their children with intention or saying, “Well, I don’t know how to do that, so I just go to the doctor and get a medication for the child. I don’t have any interest in learning how to take care of this or that. That’s the doctor’s job.”
But I also notice physical cues, and those are the ones we see right away. I mean — these others that I’ve just discussed — are, really, once you get into a conversation with someone.
But physical cues: Where is their weight distributed? For example, if the weight is all in the belly, then we start thinking about insulin resistance.
How they carry themselves: Are their shoulders back or their shoulders leaning forward?
And how they speak: If they look you in the eye, and they speak to you with intention.
These things aren’t just random. They’re clues to their overall, I don’t know, shall we say, vitality and their overall attitude towards life.
Now, I don’t want to be unfair. I have to say this, that there are times when we all have downsides in our lives. To catch a vignette of someone’s life could be unfair.
They might’ve just gotten really bad news. And they’re normally buoyant, but right now they’re thinking differently, and it feels as though the weight of the world is on their shoulders. And so, we do have to take that into consideration.
But generally speaking, observation is our cornerstone.
It’s like being a detective. When you’re taking a case and working on someone to help them with using homeopathy, it’s actually even more important to observe the person or the animal or the baby than it is to ask questions because the baby, the animal, the sleeping person can’t give you an answer. So, we must spend a lot of time concentrating on observing people or animals: what they do when they give us information about themselves.
And it doesn’t have to be verbal, as I’m saying, it’s just observational. They’re really handing us their pearls, their unique symptoms and behaviors. And as long as we’re there to observe on it, we’re not going to interpret. We’re just observing.
We’re not thinking, “Well, that person must be toxic,” or “That person must have parasites,” or “That person must have, et cetera, et cetera.”
We’re only going by what we observe.
Just Observation, Not Assumptions
So, we’re not making assumptions.
That’s right. We’re not making assumptions.
If we were taking it as a case, we’re just jotting down what is noticed, not what we think it is that’s causing it. Now those details guide us to the right remedy.
And what I’m talking about is when someone walks into my office or when I meet someone on Zoom the first time taking a case, but I’m also talking about meeting someone at a party. You can get a lot of this information just by meeting someone, talking to someone after church over a cup of coffee. You can get a lot of where this person is headed, where they are, where they’ve been, and where they’re headed by just observing and listening.
That makes so much sense. Joette, I love how practical this is. It’s about paying attention to what’s right in front of us, from what you’re saying.
So, I’d love to hear an example of how this can play out in real life.
Real-Life Examples of Observation
Well, yes. I was taking the case of a woman not too long ago, who I noticed her eyes were kind of half-masked. They were not open all the way. She pointed it out to me, but I had just noticed it not too long before she said it.
It wasn’t because she was tired necessarily, although she does complain of fatigue from time to time. But it really has to do with what medicine we’re going to choose for this.
So, it might look to others as though maybe she’s on a drug or something. I know she’s not, but what I’m looking at is … I don’t know exactly the reason why, but I do know that eyes that are half-closed while speaking is a specific medicine, and it’s often Gelsemium, for example. And Gelsemium is also wonderful medicine for fatigue that she also complains about.
Now, let me also go back and say her eyes were not half-closed because she was fatigued. Even when she wasn’t fatigued … even when she isn’t fatigued, her eyes are half closed.
So, we might also chalk it up (if we were not homeopaths) to saying, “Well, that’s just the way she is. Her eyes have always been like that. Perhaps her father’s eyes were like that, et cetera.”
What we’re looking for is noting characteristics, idiosyncrasies, little issues that can be useful to us.
Someone, for example, who’s always licking their lips might be because they have excessive saliva, and then we think of something like Mercurius sol. Or they might be licking their lips because their lips are dry.
So, once they start licking their lips, the next thing that should be noted by the homeopath is to see if the lips do look dry. Is it because it’s dryness and the person is trying to relieve that discomfort?
Or is it when they speak that they kind of suck in saliva or that it collects around the corners of the mouth, and they’re compensating by licking their lips?
All of this is very useful information for us as homeopaths.
Prediction by Looking at Clues
Okay. Joette, let’s expound more on the prediction part of our message. And how can you predict, looking at these clues, what is going to happen in someone’s life?
Well, one of the greatest predictors is what people are interested in and how they spend their time during the day … and the night, for that matter. So, what they’re reading, what their interests are.
If we are talking to someone who doesn’t seem to have any interests, then that’s a clue that we have somebody who may not have the wherewithal. Maybe they’re not well enough to reach out and look for an interest or a hobby.
And then again, in juxtaposition to that, when we talk to someone and they can expound on history, and we note that they read a lot about history, you don’t even have to ask that question. You simply note their level of understanding of history. And so that tells me that the person — generally speaking — has a more robust intellect.
Now, it doesn’t mean that for the person who doesn’t have a robust intellect that we are casting dispersions.
What we’re saying is that, as I said, it might be they don’t have the wherewithal. They have a foggy mind; they have difficulty processing their meal; and now their thinking is foggy. Or they don’t have enough energy to get through their day and then read as well.
So, if someone is interested in a subject that would bring them to the point where they become nearly an expert — at least socially — on the subject of say, history or health, for that matter, then we know that they are more likely to when they chomp down on a subject, they’re going to go all the way.
And so that gives me a measure of information telling me that if I suggest to them that they watch this particular video or read a paragraph that I send them in an email or something like that, that they’ll actually view it or read it and then follow through.
Because a lot of health has to do with follow-through, and that is a predictor — that behavior can predict whether or not that person is going to follow through.
They often can look burdened. And when someone is burdened, I actually hope that there’s someone nearby — their spouse, their parent, their adult child — someone to hold their hand and carry them through this difficult time in their life that may have been happening for a long period of time — it could even be years — will carry them through. And they will make sure that this person is carried through to a better state, eating better meals, cutting out superfluous drugs, learning how to use a couple of homeopathic medicines that could be of use, knowing that it’s important to get outside and exercise, walk, move, et cetera.
So, Joette saying that when a person is involved in learning in outside activities and they have a desire to be active, whether it’s mentally and/or physically, that is a prediction of the fact that they are probably — even though they’ve come to you with a health concern — they’re probably going to take that seriously and dig in and use the medicines and likely do well with using homeopathy as their medicine.
Whereas if the other person, maybe, is just not in a place where they’re learning and growing and active, then you’re not saying that that person cannot heal. You’re just saying that, then, that tells you some information about the homeopathic medicine to use, and also seeing if there’s someone in their life that can get involved and boost that person and encourage them until they’re well enough or have the capacity to do these things on their own.
Is that what you’re saying?
We Have to Fight for Our Own Health, Yet Not Everyone Is Ready
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Because if we want to find health, we pretty much have to do it ourselves … unless we’re lucky enough to have a spouse, a parent, an adult child to carry us along until we can get to that point.
But it’s really unfortunate that many times people believe that it’s not really their job. It’s up to the doctor to figure it out. It’s up to the drug company to give them something that makes them more comfortable. It’s up to someone else. It’s up to the government. It’s up to someone else.
As I say, I can predict whether or not they’re going to fight their weight to the finish, or they’re going to be nonchalant about it.
Now, I’m kind of giving an extreme example of someone who’s kind of soporific — not very excited about life at all. And that is when we see those people really need someone else to take their hand and carry them through.
But you can also tell by people who are just not interested in learning a little bit more.
For example, if I’ve met someone — and this has happened to me socially, especially when family events (have come from a big family of a lot of cousins, et cetera) — and they often, they’ll ask me about a homeopathic medicine for a specific condition. They might say, “I have this indigestion, do you have anything for that?”
And I would tell them, “Yes, there’s Nat phos, or there’s Iris ver,” or something like that. And when I say it, I can see that … I can tell by whether or not they’re going to go ahead and use it by the fact that they’re going to write it down.
“Where do I get this?” And I tell them where to purchase it.
“How often do I use it?” Et cetera.
I can tell by the way they act whether or not they’re going to carry through … that they’re going to carry out this plan that we’ve just put together in our conversation.
Now, others might say, “No, that’s what I get. Yep, yep. That’s how I … and I take my Rolaid. I take my Rolaids or something like that, and then, you know, it works well enough.”
Now, my prediction is that that person’s gut issue is going to get worse because they’re depending on drugs. They’re not willing to learn something new that could be useful to them.
Yet the person who’s written down the remedy — and sometimes I write it down, but I find that if I tell them to write it down, and I spell the word to them (even though it’s slower getting it out because our homeopathic medicines are all in Latin) … I find that if they write it down, however, it entreats them to make the move to go further.
But I also have to say that if they don’t ask any more questions of me or they don’t … when I watch what they’re eating at the picnic, and I see that they’re eating Twinkies, or I don’t think … they’re eating food that’s really not very good for them, I can tell that — even if they purchased the remedy or even if they have it written in their pocket — they’re probably not going to follow through.
I can tell that they don’t want to know more about this and understand further. They’re not at that point now.
And again, I’m not disparaging them. They may not be sick enough to have to go that far, but I can tell that where they’re headed is not going to be very good.
And it’s not just a simple prediction that I’ve just thought I’d make up. I see it over and over and over. And I hear from them later, or I run into them, or run into someone closely related to them … ask how they’re doing. And now they have, “Well, that gut problem really got worse. Colitis and then ulcerative colitis,” and now they’re in the hospital.
I could have guessed because of the lack of interest in the subject to figure it out themselves or to learn something new.
Let’s say I’m invited to that person’s house. Let’s say it’s a relative. And I go into the living room — and I know this is probably going to upset some people — but I see a huge television screen. And what’s on the coffee table are, I don’t know, Hollywood magazines.
I have to say that I don’t expect that this person is a reader, a striver, someone who wants to learn more, who wants to delve deeper into subjects that are meaningful. Perhaps it’s meaningful to me, but it should be meaningful to anyone in society to want to strive.
If they’re spending their evenings watching movies or only watching sports, and their reading material is fluff, then I expect that their decision to move forward and take control of their lives has already been made. It’s unlikely that that’s going to change.
And so, I would predict that indeed, that person is probably going to have a life that’s probably a good amount of struggle, particularly in relationship to health, but also other areas as well.
On the other hand, if I go into someone’s house that I’ve been invited into, and I don’t find a big screen TV. Or when I look at the books, I see books on Aristotle, or there’s a piano, and there’s sheets of music there, and I can see that how they’re spending their time … or cookbooks or areas where it indicates that they have a desire to learn and to grow and to strive.
Now, I say there’s hope in this person’s life. There’s hope that since they enjoy learning and growing, that when you bring a new idea to them … such as the importance of staying away from certain foods and concentrating on others, or the importance of trying to stay away from as many over the counter or even prescription drugs as possible and replace them with something wholesome, homeopathy or herbs or something like that, or just exercise. That indicates to me where this person’s headed.
And so just by looking around their environment, we can see: Are there bags of chips everywhere? Are there bags of cookies? Are there cookie jars with Oreos, et cetera?
Or are there items such as butter or meat in the refrigerator? And it’s clear that this person does a lot of cooking and doesn’t go out for all the meals at fast food places, and then comes home and has Oreos.
It’s easy to predict what’s going to happen forthright.
How Can We Change?
Okay, so Joette, let’s just say that I’m the person listening to this podcast. I’m the person that really has a low amount of energy. I spend my time watching movies. I’m not getting a lot of exercise. I know I’m not eating as well as I should. What do you have for me that could change the trajectory of my future?
That’s a good question, Kate.
I would say that it sometimes can look insurmountable. When we look at all of these areas of someone’s life — what they eat, what they read, what they view, what their energy level is like, I would even go as far as saying that the house is untidy, et cetera, if that’s all part of this too — that it seems insurmountable.
But I would suggest that for someone who is in this predicament — perhaps it’s long-term, maybe they’ve always been like this, maybe they grew up this way, or maybe it’s short-term because they’ve just given up after some bad events, some bad luck — is to take one step only. Just do one thing, one thing only.
And that would be, for example, getting some good food in the house and making the meal yourself. And I realize that if someone is greatly fatigued or depressed, that they might find that too grand a step to take, but it isn’t.
And it’s as simple as something like getting some hamburgers and putting them in a frying pan. End of discussion. That’s it. That’s all that needs to be done.
Or getting a dozen eggs and throwing some eggs in the frying pan with some butter or some bacon.
So, what I’m saying is that nothing has to be elaborate, just very simple. Burgers. Burgers every day. Bacon and eggs every day. And that might seem strange to some people. How is it that you could go without vegetables on the side, for example?
But no, the most nutritious food on earth, as far as I’m concerned, is red meat and eggs. So, that’s one place to start.
Another is to learn that there are homeopathic medicines. Let’s say this person is listening to this, and the person is just too depressed to even go any further. Then we always think about the medicine, Aurum metallicum 200C, and that’s often used every other day.
That can snap someone out of this inability to move forward, this inability to strive and to plan ahead in their lives and to note that what they do today will make a difference into tomorrow.
And then I guess the third would be turn off the television. Put away the fluffy magazines. Throw them away. Don’t put ’em away. Throw them away.
And if it means going online and looking for people who are inspirational, Jordan Peterson, for example, someone who can help kick their life into action, even if it’s only for a day or two, starting with something small.
Jordan Peterson always says, “Start your day by getting out of bed and making your bed. That’s the first accomplishment of the day.”
Actually, it’s the second one; the first one is getting out of bed, I suppose. But get out of bed and do something, do something of measure.
Then the next thing might be do some squats. And even if that feels awful, then do simple leg lifts. If that’s still too much, then go down the stairs and then go back up the stairs once.
But these little tiny accomplishments …
And then when you go back down the stairs, you get the frying pan out and get the eggs and the bacon or the hamburger out.
One Step at a Time
It’s the little steps that we can take that really make a measurable difference, because that’s all life is anyway, is one minute, then two minutes, then an hour, then an afternoon, then a day, then a week.
And even if we have two or three days that push us back again, start again. We have no choice.
I will tell a story about my father having come over to spend the afternoon with me one day. And I had my three sons who were in the house, and I think two of them were, maybe all three of them were sick, and the house was a mess.
We had a litter of puppies at the time, with three puppies and the mother dog, and I was absolutely overwhelmed. Dinner wasn’t made. My husband was coming home soon. The kids were very needy. And I turned to my father, said, “Dad, I can’t do this.”
And he turned to me, and he said, “Honey, you have no choice.”
And he was absolutely right.
Now, I knew that. But to hear it from someone that I held in regard was much different than my saying it to myself.
So, sometimes we need to hear it from someone else, say, “You have no choice. You’ve got to do this. You’re the only one. What are we going to do? Get another mother, find someone else to do this? Can’t be done.”
So, it straightened me out. And it got me thinking that when he came into the house that day, he might’ve predicted that my future was going to be an absolute mess. And that’s, of course, why I mentioned parenthetically earlier that it might only be a vignette.
And it was. It was a vignette that probably lasted for months because of the dogs in the whelping box — the puppies — and my kids having been sick all at that one time.
But whether this is what I’m describing is someone who’s been in this quagmire, in this quicksand for a very long time, or it’s just a moment in time, it is only up to us. We are the only ones who can change this.
And so, I’m delighted that my father didn’t predict that I was going to be a bad mother — an overwhelmed mother — forever. He said, “Just do it. Pick yourself up and do it,” basically. He didn’t have to go any further. He didn’t have to say anything else.
And so, then, my next job was to do something about it. Get the dogs out of the whelping box in the living room and put them in the garage. So, at least if they make a mess, I’m not seeing it right now.
Then take care of each child one at a time.
Get the hamburger out, throw it in the frying pan, and start making hamburgers for the dinner. Or throw in some eggs with that, too, and make it simple and nutritious and move to the next step.
Okay, now dinner’s made; the whelping box is in the garage; now I can sweep the kitchen, et cetera, et cetera.
One step at a time. Not all of it at once, because all at once is too much.
Closing Advice
So good. Joette. I am sure this will encourage some people out there. I feel encouraged and inspired.
And I wanted to add that if you are feeling like you’re in this alone, and you want some people to “do life” with, really, and learn maybe what your next steps are, or to be encouraged, or to learn homeopathy together, join a study group. There, you’ll find a group of people that will support each other, that will learn together, that will be there to cheer you on.
So, if you go to JoettesLearningCenter.com, you can find the resources that you need to purchase a Gateway to Practical Homeopathy® study guide and Joette’s Find Your Study Group Friends Facebook page. There, you can find a study group that is meeting and that works with your schedule, and connect with other people who support each other and do life together.
Yeah, I think it really makes a difference who you spend your time with, too, and looking to someone who is ahead of you and emulating that. And that’s what comes from community, such as our study groups.
We hear time and again, don’t we, Kate, how people are so encouraged and feel so embraced. And when they’re down, their classmates are right there for them and come back around and pick them up and carry them through.
Yeah, it’s pretty powerful stuff. That’s why we’re all on this earth together. But you just have to find your little group that makes the most sense, or you have to depend on yourself to just pick yourself up. And because “Joette, you have no choice.”
Good. Well, thank you, Joette, for sharing your wisdom and insight. As always, we appreciate you.
It’s my honor to share many lessons on this simple method of using homeopathy for free —without affiliates or advertising — here in my podcasts, but also my blog posts and Monday Night Lives.
But it’s critical that you learn how to use these medicines properly. These podcasts should serve as only the beginning of your training. Peruse JoettesLearningCenter.com to find fun study group opportunities and in-depth courses developed by subject.
So, with the proper training, you can join the thousands of students before you in developing the confidence and competence to protect the health of your family and loved ones with my brand of homeopathy, Practical Homeopathy®.
You just listened to a podcast from internationally acclaimed homeopath, public speaker and author, the founder of The Academy of Practical Homeopathy®, Joette Calabrese. Joette’s podcasts are available on all your favorite podcast apps.
To learn more and find out if homeopathy is a good fit for your health strategy, visit PracticalHomeopathy.com.
