When a client asks me, “What have you got for sinus congestion?” or “what can you do for headaches?” a stock rejoinder is “you are not a car!” I can replace a car’s exhaust system without having any effect on its starter system (and vice versa). You, on the other hand, are an organic entity within which all functions are connected. Your sinuses or your head won’t be dealt with separately by a homeopath such as myself.  A better outcome can be expected from taking your case in comprehensive mind/body fashion.

But fess up. You, me, every one of us at times considers the feelings of a beloved car.

Let’s start with those pangs of guilt experienced upon surrendering my old and worn out car. It’s an extension of myself after all, one that for years has faithfully conveyed me to work, to weddings, on vacation sojourns, through dead of the night emergency visits to the doctor, to reconnections with distant friends, on visits to my daughter at colleges. TRADING IT IN? Are you kidding me? For some shiny, show-offy, metal sleekster that can’t hold a spark plug to my old 2004 Impreza? Give me a break!

Anyhow, glad to find out it’s not just me: http://www.citylab.com/navigator/2014/08/its-just-not-that-easy-to-get-rid-of-your-car/379082/

Am casting back to a wonderful old 1988 tank of a Volvo I once drove. With minimal coaxing from me could squeeze itself into the tiniest of parking spaces, intimidate other vehicles with its bulk to make me feel comfortable on the road. Behind the wheel was like being in the cocoon-like cockpit of a Boeing 707. Just to prove its loyalty the big lug decided to hate my then girlfriend. Short-circuited its lights and radio, refused to start, deflated one of its tires the moment she put herself behind the wheel.  Not have feelings, indeed!

And then there was the business with the psychic I hired. She asked for a personal possession of mine to hold when requesting spiritual assistance in locating a missing address book. Emerging from her trance, she dreamily looked at me and confessed “I have no idea where your address book is. But your car loves you!” That was right on. The item she was clutching was the ignition key for my 1971 Volkswagen Bug with 180,000 miles that I maintained in impeccable fashion, mostly out of gratitude for its having delivered me from a hellish existence in New York City to a new life in the city I now call home.

What accounts for any of this? Firstly, in extending our capabilities our technology generates and inhabits a highly personal force field pulsating with our will and emotions.  When encountering the field of a stranger’s force field, that of my girlfriend’s for example, it  understandably takes umbrage.

Less surprising then, eh? When the loss of my long-term car companion needs be grieved? It’s a piece of myself being given up after all. Will take a while before my new car and I once again achieve that kind of rapport. Guess I’ll give it a chance though….

As a homeopath I have yet to treat anyone for grief after the loss of his or her car. But a related issue is found among other individuals such as those prone to hoarding. Troubled backgrounds and pathological bereavement then lends itself to homeopathic remedy prescriptions such as Nat Mur, Ignatia, or Phosphoric Acid.

Interestingly, two of the most important remedies for inconsolability relating to lost possession (albeit usually under humiliating conditions), Kali Brom and Aurum address spiritually disconsolate version of grief. Being deprived of objects in which we find ourselves invested thus can stoke feelings that we have displeased (Aurum) or been abandoned by God (Kali Brom) .

Grieving the surrender of a car is nothing to be ashamed of since within every grief it is ourselves for whom we mourn. All loss contains a spiritual challenge. Talk to your homeopath about it!

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