An article that Lilipoh published in the Spring 2024 edition

The Willingness to Hope and Cope – Building the Bonfire of the Soul
by Dr. A. Schaeffer-Pautz, M.D

The diagnosis of a serious illness can leave us feeling powerless, dismayed, and afraid. We may feel like a victim, slog through treatments, and worry about the outcome.  Coping with illness this way is unsatisfactory and improves little merely by “being positive.”  We need more insightful and effective ways of coping. Yet how can we be subjected to illness, even advanced disease, and not feel victimized? After all, doesn’t conventional wisdom consider disease to be an enemy? By developing a fuller, more encompassing attitude that steps out of victimization, we improve our odds. — We become active survivors.

We must act on a diagnosis appropriately. Overcoming is a process of deeds, requiring insight, courage, and willpower. Real energy and clout are needed to embrace and incorporate the seeming enemy. Handy for this struggle is a readily-available, inward force. If you will, the potent energy on tap for firing up the soul is Hope.

Fear is consciously countered by hope. Constantly refueling a positive attitude with hope stokes the inner fire higher. The more the fire burns, the greater courage becomes. When we witness fears being consumed, we are encouraged and empowered further. We may feel joy moving ahead.

Achieving a workable positive approach does not imply that a diagnosis should ever be ignored. No matter how hopeful we are, a problem ignored usually gets worse. Hope melts away fears, however, when it is properly supported with thought-out options. Understanding the options avoids false hopes.

All this is possible due to a certain magnificence. Because the inner life and its potential fire can be more encompassing than an illness, it is possible to contain and incorporate the diagnosis, to subsume the problem effectively within the inner life.

We know clinically in anthroposophic medicine(*) that an active, positive approach favorably influences an outcome. An optimum situation develops when we take charge and embrace an illness appropriately. As experience – the assimilation of a situation in life – gradually consumes the passive feeling of victimization, we become aware of more options. We grow from the encounter. The quality of life improves, encouraging strength while increasing potential results. In the sense of learning from an illness, we befriend an enemy – a well-known phenomenon among breast cancer “victims” turned survivors.

Our ability to cope with any situation requires composure. Anthroposophic medicine applies this process of engaging the will in a conscious, full-feeling manner. Balance in our daily deeds is achieved by the completeness of thinking, feeling, and willing working in harmony.

How to build a soul bonfire:
1. Affirm that life is good despite it all. Think positively into your feelings. Embrace your fear; acknowledge that it’s “OK” to be afraid, but inform the fear that it’s not the only feeling in town.
2. Hold the spark of joy – fire it up with hope into an all-sustaining hope. Focus your thinking not on ultimates, not on living or dying, concentrate instead on moving forward each day.
3. Renew your mental and physical fortitude. With the hope expanding, feel your way positively into your body, into your will. You may experience a fire-like quality literally, an expansive warmth flowing into your extremities.
Repeat as needed, allowing the steps to support each other. For example, the warmth in the willpower provides positive feedback to your feelings and thoughts. The effort feels good and you know (think about) its appropriateness. Maintain healthy willpower with a consistent daily rhythm, a good diet, and exercise.
Keeping hope on tap to fuel your fire may lead to a manageable outcome of an illness with proper treatment. The willingness to hope provides forward motion with renewed courage and vitality. The wisdom we transform into deeds of courage not only leads us out of victimization, this is in large measure essential to our very humanity. So too is wonder.
But of course, we all have to go some time. Dignity, joy, and a good quality of life are possible even to the moment of the great transition from this world. Individuals who are willing to cope with illness fully using the fire of hope can develop an amazing thankfulness for all that life offers.
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(*) Anthroposophy (anthro-po-sophy) means the “wisdom of Man.” As a human-centered extension of conventional medicine, the anthroposophic approach incorporates the totality of the human being.

Note that this article is not intended to diagnose or treat. If you have a medical condition, please consult with your health care professional.

Dr. A. Schaeffer-Pautz, M.D. is a board certified internist and a board certified holistic medical doctor. Of about fifty anthroposophic physicians in America, Dr. Pautz is the only one in Florida. She heads the Persephone Healing Arts Center in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. The center provides wide-ranging services including unique adjunctive treatments for advanced diseases and extensive counseling. First-time visits are two hours or more. (904) 246-3583.

Enthusiasm and the Warm and Fuzzies
by Dr. A. Schaeffer-Pautz, M.D.

Essential for health, warmth supports the development of the outer physical body in childhood and also the inward faculties we require later as adults. Staying warm is of course more than just avoiding catching a cold. And physical warmth is more than the body burning food calories to release energy. Throughout life, warmth not only supports and protects bodily life, it also nurtures and builds a basis for the inner life. Warmth as a process in childhood leads directly to warmth-like forces of soul in adulthood.

Clearly, the warmth enveloping a child is necessary for the proper formation of healthy physical organs. Over time, these physical organs gradually begin to support the “organs” of soul.  Calling soul and spiritual faculties “organs” may seem odd until we realize that clarity of thought and stability of emotion, for example, require a proper seating in their corresponding physical organs. Warmth nurtures these later-to-unfold faculties and forces of the inner-life.

On the other hand, most Waldorf educators understand from experience that a consistent lack of warmth in childhood may lead to a “coldness” of soul later in life. Such coldness usually manifests in adulthood as one-sided intellectualism or judgementalism. Parallel to the body not being warmed through enough, thought forms become unable to penetrate (warm through) the nuances of more sophisticated ideas and perspectives.  This too may seem outlandish until we see the connection between nurturing warmth protecting the child and thought’s ability to love something outside its kin.

We can recall a memory of mom tucking us into bed: There is fullness to the feeling of protection, both the physical warmth of mom and the emotional, supporting sense of a loving parent. What happens if we don’t get enough of such warmth? We may become weak in our sense of self worth, have anxiety and fears, or develop one-sided mechanisms to cope with life.  It is easier for me to close down and block out a foreign idea than to embrace it. A little warm hugging of a child helps them hug big ideas later in life.

Keeping children warm, including their hands and feet, is important to keeping them well in their body. Because of smaller body mass, a child’s body exchanges heat more rapidly than an adult’s – it is more difficult for children to maintain temperature. They cool off and heat up faster than we do. In cooler or colder weather, the child’s care giver should make more frequent adjustments than they might for themselves. Dress the child up in a warm sweater or jacket and scarf, if it’s real cold. During transitional weather, use thinner layers of clothing. Peel off a layer if they overheat during play. But be prepared to peel it back on – watch out that they don’t cool off again too rapidly. Doing this is certainly more an art form than skill. Warmth and heat improves the immune system, helping it to fight better.

During the colder seasons, underwear of cotton, silk, or even soft wool right against the skin gives a much appreciated feeling of being hugged by the touch. (For some, however, wool might be irritating.) Such undergarments are more appropriate than the typical loose-fit tee shirt. Of course, as any parent knows, many kids like to throw off their clothes at every opportunity. But if the child is brought up from infancy with the feeling of the right buffer of warm clothes, this won’t be an issue later.  And, by the way, independent of the amount of clothing worn, occasional sweating is healthy.

Infants inherently tend toward “womb-like” conditions. Remember placing a baby in the cradle or crib and later finding that the child had moved, nestled into an edge or corner? Often more than coincidental rolling around, the child needs touch, the feeling of surface. They seek a womb-like boundary of warm assurance. Warm touch reminds us of the welcoming physical world.

Proper clothing, while providing physical protection, helps to welcome the soul and spirit into the body. A good, hearty welcome in turn nurtures healthy physical and mental development. We need our body, our temple, to be at its best so that we can express soul and spirit into and through matter via the physical organism. This is what we strive to teach our patients in holistic medicine. And it is a foundation provided in Waldorf education: the protection in warmth and love for the growing child to move in healthy balance between heat and cold.

Physical heat is akin to emotional heat. By lifting the fire of the hearth into the alter-fire of soul, we can find courage to work in life’s fullness. Enthusiasm enables the Will power to carry idea through to deed.

Raised in a Waldorf environment, Dr. A. Pautz, M.D. is a trained eurythmist and is board certified in both internal and holistic medicine. She is also a DAN! (Defeat Autism Now) doctor. She specializes in anthroposophic treatment approaches in conjunction with conventional medicine. The practice can be reached at (904) 246-3583 in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

Listen to Your Messages
by A. Schaeffer-Pautz, M.D.

Physical and spiritual activities work in the events of life. Positive and negative outcomes such as joy and accident leave their traces on the path of life. These biographic events can be understood as messages revealing things we need to work on. We can ask what our own biography means and what the messages are trying to tell us. However, we may not always get the message or understand it fully.

Because it is fundamental, biography can play an essential role in medical treatment. With the right training, a medical doctor can assist us in understanding and working with the life events our biographies hold. With the doctor, we can take action on these messages to help us alter – or steady – our course along the path of life and healing.

How life affects us on the one hand, and how we respond on the other, form two parts of a whole. It is not just a play on words to say that “holistic” is both “holy” and “whole”.  When a life event is severe enough, the whole is disrupted. For this reason, Edgar Cayce says “disease” should be pronounced as “dis–ease.”  The physician can observe how biographic events, when left unresolved, may manifest as functional or physical symptoms, or go deeper into the physical body, leading to disease.

As many know from experience, the events of life often repeat until we finally “get it right.” That is, until we not only get and understand the event’s message, but also when we learn how to work it through. When we don’t listen to and implement the message, “destiny” repeats itself. Similar circumstances are attracted over and over again if not corrected and healed. This rhythm of accident and opportunity is like a pulse of messages full of meaning.

In the holistic sense of holy and whole, the term “anthroposophy” is aptly applied here. “Anthro-po-sophy” means “wisdom of Man.”  It is the wisdom we all have. That is, we have ability to consider the whole human being, both physical, where the life events manifest, and spiritual, where biography resides and functions.

As part of the medical practice, an anthroposophically-trained medical doctor listens to and evaluates a patient’s biographic messages, comparing them to the ideal whole human being. In turn, through the use of dialog and counseling, without drugs – even without natural remedies – the physician is able to intervene through awareness and participation. This helps his or her patients take active charge of life, reduces the attraction of accidents requiring medical services, and may prevent disabilities.

By applying the messages of biography, the physician strives profoundly to assist patients in their own efforts to learn, balance, heal, and live well.  An anthroposophic medical doctor can also support a patient using holistic remedies from the disciplines of naturopathy, homeopathy, and nutrition, as well as with therapeutic eurythmy, which works deeply with the rhythms of life.

A.Schaeffer-Pautz, M.D.

As in taking the heart’s pulse, the doctor reads the pulse of life’s events, relaying them to the patient to work on freely in healing. A balanced life takes the “dis” out of dis–ease.

(Note that this is not intended to diagnose or treat. If you have a medical condition, please consult with your health care professional.)

Dr. A. Schaeffer-Pautz, M.D. Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Diplomate of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine (ABIHM), She is also a DAN! (Defeat Autism Now) doctor. She specializes in holistic treatment approaches in conjunction with conventional medicine and also in terminal diseases such as cancer. Of fifty doctors practicing anthroposophic medicine in this country, Dr. Schaeffer-Pautz is the only one located in Florida. The practice can be reached at (904) 246-3583 in Jacksonville Beach.