courses

Dec 7

Naturopathy & Iridology Immersion 2019

This autumn ten students gathered from near and far at Nutley Edge in East Sussex for the two-week Naturopathy & Iridology Immersion.

Each day we explored a new level of iris analysis, beginning with iris structure from both physical and psychological perspectives, then integrated this with Naturopathy studies of the five elements.

As we moved from structure, to iris markings, then onto iris constitutions, students delved deep into their inner world, how they process life experience and the relationship between their thoughts, feelings and physical health. From this study students began to work on their iris mandalas as a symbolic expression of their unique strengths and weaknesses, their gifts and challenges, and the unfolding of their potential as human beings.

Whether practicing Healing Diets, Herbal Medicine, or Naturopathy, the topics explored in this immersion are fundamental to helping you and your client recognise their unique mind-body dynamic. And with this understanding, a clear direction emerges for creating effective, individual, holistic self healing programmes.

The Immersion was gentle and contemplative, with deep sharing between students and an evolving closeness and trust that was beautiful to experience. Below are some of the thoughts and experiences that students shared with me after the Immersion, followed by images of the iris mandalas that students created as part of their studies.

Enjoy!

Suzanna Thelwall

Student adding final touches to personal iris mandala during iridology training

Naturopathy Student – Herbal Medicine and Healing Diets Graduate

Owner of Totally Natural Skincare & Herbal Practice and Pharmacy in Yorkshire

When I first came across Iridology, I was unsure about it. A quick Google search labelled it as ‘pseudoscience’ and showed studies ‘disproving’ that the eyes show markings related to body systems.

Once I began to learn about the iris structure, the markings, colours, lacuna, etc., and saw how incredibly accurate this was when looking at numerous people’s eyes, my opinion completely changed…in every instance, the markings reveal a tendency or give guidance, which can assist the person to know the most essential points in self care. Iridology is an absolutely wonderful tool in the prevention of disease.

We learned that Iridology shows a potential rather than a disease. I am a firm believer in ‘prevention is better than cure,’ and Iridology is the perfect way to learn how to take care of our individual constitution…the way that the course is structured taught us in such an efficient way that we will immediately be able to begin using and practicing these new skills.

Overall, I have really, really enjoyed the Naturopathy & Iridology Immersion and I have learned a huge amount. I feel confident to begin my Iridology journey and begin looking at many irises! Thank you Bonny!

Biljana Brajkovic

Student integrating physical and psychological analysis of her iris into a single iris chart.

Natural Physician Student and Healing Diets Nutritional Consultant Graduate

I was extremely excited when I realised that Iridology is a part of my studies at the School of Natural Medicine UK, but also I feared it was going to be difficult and complicated and with a lot of memorising. But it’s not!

I realised once again, that body and mind are connected. Your Iris is a reflection of your inner life, your past, present, future, your weaknesses, and strengths. Everything is just flowing and makes sense.

I worried before coming to Immersions. I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I haven’t really opened the Iridology materials. Would I be able to follow the lectures with no theoretical knowledge? But, it turned out that it was the best way. I feel now that those two weeks of Iridology Immersions have done so much for my personal growth.

Once there, I was very excited to see the photographs of my own irises. It was like: “Wow, is this mine? Is this me?!”

My eyes are mixed brown, with a combination of velvet structure in the upper part and lacunas in the lower…kind of ‘duality’ like many things in my life. I also have the Glandular Digestive Constitution, completely controlled by emotions which affects my digestive system, and my bowels talk to me! My feelings can be stronger than my common sense. Since I have some notable lymphatic rosaries, I can relate to some of the Lymphatic Sensitive Constitution characteristics as well.

I am also an introvert and my left eye is dominant, with a significant heart lacunae. Somehow it wasn’t a surprise. My heart reacts to emotions immediately with palpitations, faster beating or fluttering. It’s not something I can hide and my whole being is involved in the situation; feeling the necessity to find the answers or the solution.

The elemental exploration of earth, water, fire, air, and ether confirmed once again the undeniable divine connection of the whole universe, and I felt Me being a part of It. I went deeper and experienced some buried feelings and impressions of life and witnessed hidden fears popping out and shaking beliefs I live by.

I feel very much balanced when it comes to my earth. It seems I worked a lot through the years on my water and fire elements. Unknowingly and subconsciously, I’ve learned my lessons well but still need to repeat some. But it hit me when I realized how much my air (heart, chest) and ether (lungs, throat, ears) elements are out of balance, in confusion and in a mess. Another dimension of the same thing my iris has been showing.

I need to release the wounds of the heart, to slow down, to rejoice in being, to find my highest purpose, and to stop living up to others expectations. To set stronger boundaries with my family, get more personal space, and release my creativity.

Right now, I honestly can’t answer the questions: “What’s my role in this life?” and “What’s the root of all my confusion about it?” If I want to know my real role in life, I must do one thing and one thing only: give myself to what I love. Follow my longing and being what I was created to be, doing what I alone was meant to do, and only then, I’ll find the way to express myself.

Jifunza Jaha

Master Herbalist Student

Iridology really began to come alive for me when I read the first page of lesson 1, particularly this paragraph:

‘The second level of learning will take you the rest of your life, because each pair of eyes that you look into will teach you something new. Each client will present a new opportunity to correlate the information in the iris with the life of the person. As you progress through the twelve lessons you will learn about the philosophy, theory, history, vocabulary as well as anatomy, physiology and natural medicine. The maps and guidelines will be given to you, but the exploration and the discoveries will be your own unique experience, and your good fortune. Bon voyage!’

This paragraph took me right back to how I was feeling when sitting in class during Iridology studies in 2015, the desire to deeply explore Iridology and a sadness that I did not have the headspace to fully take in the information presented at that time.

The immersion training has helped me in so many ways:

• To identify and release my fears of not being able to deeply explore my current studies and became a ‘true master’. This fear has been holding me back from truly immersing myself into my studies consistently and trusting that I have the ability to help others to realise their healing potential.

• To acknowledge my irides are a two-way mirror of my internal and perception of external worlds which are indeed one; a whole perspective.

• I had viewed Iridology as separate diagnostic technique to help identify constitutional strengths and weaknesses, to support my naturopathic nutritional therapy practice. I now can see Iridology can provide a holistic and multi-dimensional view of the person, which when fully integrated with other modalities, can provide a synergistic effect to knowing self and to heal.

When learning about my inherited constitution, my strengths and weaknesses, it filled me with a range of emotions, from sadness that this information is not ‘common’ knowledge, so we could all learn about ourselves and make a decision whether to take conscious actions (or not) to live to our greatest potentials, to a feeling of gratitude that I have this information, which at this level of understanding can positively influence my health and wellbeing and that of others.

Thank you Bonny. This immersion was truly a life enhancing experience for me. You structured the lessons with such thought and detail; each lesson was a building block to developing a wholistic knowing of Self. The whole experience deeply touched my heart and reawakened a desire to keep the momentum of learning, embodying and teaching.

Elena Ageyeva

Natural Physician Student

I have not been familiar with Iridology prior to starting my Natural Physician course at the School of Natural Medicine UK. When I was reading the course description, the Iridology studies were probably of the least interest to me. I was still very new to the idea of the natural health and was not convinced that this knowledge is something I need. However, I decided to enrol into a complete course to have the opportunity to experience each module and then make up my mind about it.

The first thing that I was amazed by is how different every eye is. I had a very basic image in my head of how the iris looks – a flannel or velvet type fabric of different colours. It turned out that there is a myriad of features in the iris and each person’s eye is unique in its expression of them.

This was not the only thing that was striking. Being able to tell certain character traits by looking at the iris was just a bit short of magic for me. I felt like I acquired magic glasses that were showing me things I could not see before. Looking at the eyes previously was just about the curiosity to know other person’s eye colour, but now it was more or less like looking into their soul.

I learned to recognise the basic features in the eye and was taught how to use those features to determine constitutional type, emotional and mental patterns. This was a very exciting exercise, especially so were the moments of looking at the eyes of the person I knew: I could see the theory being confirmed by practice.

Apart from recognising the constitutional types and features as such, it was also a kind of a relief to realise that everyone is inherently different and the differences in the approach to various life situations is something more than just an acquired habit. I have certain level of anxiety in me due to the fact that I have always been a bit more tired or sleepy than people around me, and needed breaks from the socialising more often.

Even though my brain understood that I am not obliged or even supposed to behave like everyone else, I just couldn’t come to peace with that. Somehow, iris constitutional types were a missing piece: yes, there are differences. But they are not just weaknesses, they are strengths as well, and if I take good care of myself I won’t feel that my life is sub-par compared to people around me. Not only that, but the iris reading also pointed in the direction of things to look out for to bring my body into balance and make the quality of life better.

Integrating Iridology with the Naturopathy principles creates a set of powerful tools that allow to gain insight into one’s life and how various life experiences and patterns that might appear unrelated, are actually part of the same group of imbalances described by one of the Elements.

Looking at the elements was a very profound experience that revealed certain things about myself. I think I suspected or was subconsciously aware of some of these things, but the elemental analysis brought them to light and added pieces of missing knowledge and understanding that will hopefully allow me to take better care of myself and others.

Combined with Iridology this also made me understand myself and others better, which not only will be helpful when seeing patients, but is also a major help in everyday interactions and quite literally is learning to see the world through the eyes of others.

Iris Mandalas by Naturopathy & Iridology Immersion Students – 2019

Students were so creative in their processing of their Iridology analysis into the symbolic language of their iris mandalas. Although most students didn’t know what they were going to do before they started, their process took on a life of its own and the results are so inspiring.