Wishing for a solution timeline
If only I knew where I could buy her gift.
Not just any gift.
My friend is hurting and I know just the thing that would make everything better.
Maybe not all better.
But no doubt much, much better.
The exact cause of her pain doesn’t exactly matter. Still, I will share.
She lost her job in early November.
As is often the case, she didn’t see it coming.
She has been the most employed person I know.
You know that old saying, “You’ll never find a job just sitting on your living room couch?”
Friend has literally found a job sitting on her living room couch.
She sent her resume to one company. Unbeknownst to her, three people passed it around. The fourth called her, yes, while she was sitting on her living room couch.
Not just any job, her dream job.
That makes for a great story, but it doesn’t matter much now.
That was years ago.
Today she is more than four months into unemployment. Her funds have run dry.
She is understandably very unhappy and scared. Which leads to the gift. I wish I could give her the gift of When.
Yes, When, Dear Reader. The answer to “When will all this end?”
I remember years ago being out of work. I would often say, “I wish a little bird would land on my shoulder and whisper, ‘You’ll find your next job on May 7th.’”
It didn’t matter if that was 11 months away. Knowing when my misery would end was all the relief I needed. It would allow me to stop worrying that everything was going to work out. It would allow me to enjoy the time between jobs instead of wishing the time away.
This is why I wish I could give Friend her “When.”
Of course, we each have a very specific idea of when we want our misery to end. Immediately.
I remember looking for that next job after being laid off. As the months ticked by, I thought, “I’ll die if I go an entire year without a job.”
Watch out what you don’t wish for.
That time I went for one year and one day before my next job.
It’s not that challenges get solved on their own timetable. It’s that the actual timetable remains a classified state secret.
To know when is even more powerful than the What, what the solution will be.
Are you wishing for a When, too, Dear Reader?
When will you find your next great love following
Kagan
and medical treatments,” McCormick said.
Keeping her grandmother’s lessons top of mind, McCormick also wanted to learn more about aromatherapy and herbal use in healing but couldn’t find any educational courses for these practices available in the Midwest region.
“Physicians simply don’t have time to train in this,” McCormick said.
In 1986, McCormick started the Ohio Academy of Hypnotherapy, basing the program on her own life experiences in the wholebody holistic concept. She hired a reflexologist who helped her set up a clinically based program and eventually she moved her business to Xenia where it became the Ohio Academy of Holistic Health.
“It was a full holistic program,” McCormick said. “We offered six different certifications.”
As holistic health started moving more to the forefront of modern medicine and even into nursing education, McCormick was tapped to lecture at conferences and for publishing companies.
“This sounded like a wonderful opportunity,” McCormick said. “I love travel and teaching.”
But after a few years, McCormick began to feel overwhelmed and was unable to live the healthy lifestyle she was preaching.
“I had no time to exercise or eat right,” she said.
She returned to the Dayton area and decided it was time to spend more quality time with her family, which includes three grandchildren.
The academy she started was no longer in existence when she returned, and she found herself at a crossroads.
“I always wanted to do something with the holistic piece of my life,” McCormick said. “And my main concern as a nurse has always been that we don’t have a good concept as a society about holistic health.”
Since the majority of her career had been in health education, McCormick knew she wanted to have a school, so she opened the Institute of Holistic Leadership.
Now located in Centerville, IHL is a state registered educational facility offering holistic health services to anyone in the community, including reflexology, clinical aromatherapy, herbal wellness consultations, and imagery and mindfulness training.
“We have been in the Miami Valley for more than 30 years,” McCormick said. “And we are the area’s best kept secret.”
IHL students work directly with physicians in traditional medical settings because McCormick knows holistic healing doesn’t take the place of traditional medicine.
Stumbling blocks remain, however. Since most insurance companies won’t cover holistic treatments, McCormick encourages people to work on their whole-body health all the time, rather than simply treating illnesses as they happen.
“Personally I would rather spend my money on ways to stay healthy, rather than on medicines I need when I get sick,” McCormick said.
IHL recently completed a clinical aromatherapy pilot program, which was funded by Green Medical Foundation, to evaluate the effectiveness of aromatherapy for post surgical symptom management.
“The results have been remarkable,” McCormick said.
As interest in holistic health continues to grow, IHL graduates are opening private practices and working hand and hand with traditional medical professionals.
“This is a very consumer driven industry,” McCormick said. “People want this now. They want to find more physicians who are open to holistic health. My goal with IHL is to develop programs to train individuals as holistic health professionals and to help people understand how choose what feels right to them.”