Kelly is the creator of the podcast ‘1M: A Homeopath’s Podcast’. She is also a member of the faculty of the Academy of Homeopathic Education and has taught and practiced homeopathy in her hometown of Maine USA since 2011.
Eugenie spoke to Kelly about teaching, practicing, and being the inspiration for her own podcast, Homeopathy Hangouts.

As with many users of homeopathy, it was her children that began Kelly’s path into a career in homeopathy. When her second child was born in a highly upset state, she had an experience with homeopathy which changed her future for good.

Her new baby would not stop screaming. Thankfully, Kelly’s midwife suggested she give Aconite, which she already had at home. He immediately stopped screaming. ‘I was like “wow, that was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!”’.

She immersed herself more in home homeopathy, quickly realising that she wanted to further her education. Finding a homeopathic school only an hour away, she began the intensive years of study to become a qualified homeopath.

‘I started there, and pretty much haven’t looked back’.

Following completion of her initial studies, she went on to a post-graduate program run by well-known homeopath, Jeremy Sherr*. Kelly also returned to teach at the school she had graduated from, Baylight Centre for Homeopathy. Teaching homeopathy was a natural fit for Kelly, having had a long history educating in various scenarios, including Middle School.

The idea for the 1M podcast was born from a need to listen to a homeopathic podcast herself. ‘I had been thinking about doing a podcast for a while. There wasn’t anything about homeopathy…I really wanted to listen to something that was [about] the most important thing that I was doing’. After health issues shifted her outlook, she decided to make her idea a reality. ‘When you go through something with your health it shakes things up’.

Kelly wanted her podcast to express the challenges faced in practice. ‘I wanted my learning to be visible. I wanted to dispel the idea that we graduate and we know it all, that we don’t struggle…I’m never trying to put myself out there as like ‘hey, I’m talking to you because I’ve got it all figured out’.

In fact, the theme of one of her podcasts relates to failure in the practice. ‘I actually think we learn the most from our cases that don’t go well. Twenty percent of your cases will take up 80% of your time. I’m constantly trying to figure out what’s going on’.

This open approach is a breath of fresh air for homeopaths, who so often hear about the ‘miraculous healing’ cases of other homeopaths, which are the exception rather than the rule. Knowing they are not alone in their challenges is a great relief to practitioners, especially new graduates, who do not often hear about this reality of practice.

‘I really feel like we don’t talk about that enough’.

Another great aspect of the podcast is that Kelly breaks down the Aphorisms of the Organon, making it easier for homeopaths to absorb the knowledge of Samuel Hahnemann.

The Organon is the first-ever book written about Homeopathy. Published in 1810 by the founder of homeopathy Samuel Hahnemann, Kelly explains the importance of the Organon succinctly when she states ‘this is the book that he wrote that explains the theory, philosophy and the practice of homeopathy. It’s broken up into paragraphs called aphorisms and each illustrates a point or gives an instruction. Everything you need to know about how to identify what needs to be cured, how to prescribe a remedy and then how to manage a case and how to manage the remedy is found in that book’.

Her advice to people who have been using homeopathy at home and are considering furthering their studies is to question how they see homeopathy in their future.

‘I think you can know that ‘what I really want to do is to treat things for my family and friends’…you can just become an amazing first aid and acute prescriber…and just know that if you look at professional programs what you’re doing is choosing a career. You’re choosing a practice, a profession. That isn’t to say….there are certainly people that choose to dedicate four years or three years and don’t practice – they just want that intensity and that level. They were in it for the philosophy, they were in it for that transformation that happens’.

The transformation Kelly is referring to is the intense personal development and reshaping that occurs when a person trains to be a homeopath. ‘Students who start a four-year program – the education itself is like a remedy. You are going to be transformed in the process of learning this as a discipline. We get succussed and we get diluted’.

Kelly is well-known for her ability to translate information in an easy and informative way, a talent she takes to her podcast and the classroom. She has taught every subject from philosophy to Materia Medica to case-taking, and it’s the variation that she enjoys – in the clinic too.

‘I like not always knowing what I’m going to get when I’m sitting down with somebody for a consult. I do have a lot of families in my practice, a lot of kids. It’s such an easy way for people to step into homeopathy. I love that because I really enjoy working with kids – I homeschooled my own kids and I was a teacher so working with families is really comfortable for me’.

When asked if she has any advice for homeopaths, she reminds practitioners to take ‘really good notes’.

‘Our job depends on the quality and the consistency of our notes because people do not remember what they told you. And as they’re healing they don’t remember what was wrong with them’.

This is a very familiar scenario for homeopaths during a follow-up consultation. It’s not uncommon for the practitioner to initially hear the client say that nothing has changed. However, when re-looking at the complaints that the person came in with initially, the client will often discover that previous complaints have disappeared.

‘I love that we value that’.

When asked about her top three favourite remedies, Arnica Aconite and Ledum come out on top.

‘Arnica is the gateway remedy for us’ she says, referring to the fact Arnica is often the first remedy a person has ever tried, often without any awareness that it is a homeopathic remedy. Sometimes new clients are surprised to learn they have a homeopathic remedy already in their household, and others may have been inspired by the phenomenal results they have had with Arnica to use and learn about other remedies at home.

Aconite is a remedy she is partial to after the wonderful healing response she witnessed with her baby boy. It’s also an incredibly handy acute remedy. ‘When you’re out and about is when you’re likely to stumble into something that was unexpected. Fright shock, tickle of sore throat. For almost any condition at the start of it’.

Ledum comes from the need to protect against tick bites out in the woods of Maine. Ticks can transmit Lyme disease, and Kelly is often found in the woods with her dogs.

Kelly’s open and honest approach to discussing homeopathic practice along with her fine ability to deliver knowledge about homeopathy itself makes her a wonderful contributor to homeopathy as a worldwide practice.

You can listen to the 1M: A Homeopaths Podcast on several apps including Apple Podcasts here or Podbean here.

Kelly can also be found at Concentric Healing in Maine, at www.concentrichealing.com.

*Jeremy Sherr is a South African Homeopath who, along with his wife Camilla, travels through Africa treating people with homeopathy. Their foundation Homeopathy For Health in Africa has had phenomenal success in cases of AIDs. He founded the Dynamis School in 1986 and has written several books. Jeremy has conducted ‘provings’ on 35 new remedies. Provings are the homeopathic experimentation of a new remedy and are conducted by a group of people taking the remedy until they express symptoms. Those symptoms are recorded and become the information homeopaths use to match to a person with those symptoms. This is the principle of ‘Like cures Like’ – that a substance that causes certain symptoms in a person when taken in semi toxic levels can also bring health to a person expressing those same symptoms.