Hi, my name is Tracy Kershaw, I am 45 years of age, and I am an integrated health specialist of 12 years and owner of an award-winning holistic health clinic, Buddha Therapies and training school, Buddha Therapies Academy in Liverpool.
We treat many conditions at the clinic from fertility, migraines, spinal injuries, digestive problems, Stress, Anxiety, insomnia, COPD, Raynaud’s, arthritis, lupus, acne, tennis elbow, menstrual, cancer plus much more, creating individual prescription plans to suit the client.
Buddha Therapies Academy was created in 2017 to help deliver Alternative, Holistic, Complementary, and Traditional Eastern Asian Therapy courses. Our academy won “Best training provider 2019 in Liverpool, and "Best Training Provider 2022 with The Guild of Excellence-Holistic", We deliver to students all over the UK and Ireland, from Newcastle, Essex, Manchester, Liverpool and Belfast. Our courses are also delivered in Carlisle by Holistic Beauty Academy and Olistico Therapies in South Liverpool and Wales.
Buddha Therapies was voted best holistic business in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 in Liverpool, I was voted Best Holistic Healer in 2019 and in 2015 came runner to Edge Hill University in Liverpool at the House of Lords in London for a national “Mental Health First Aid champions award”. In recognition of the work we do with children, we were asked to attend different schools across Liverpool for children with behavior problems and mental disabilities, to help guide them on their journeys when they leave school. We talk about employability and my journey and talk about health and well-being with our business, Little Buddha Wellbeing. Also, in recognition of the work we do with fertility, we were asked by Professor Charles Kingsland, the head of the Northwest for IVF fertility, to host a talk in the Hewitt center in the Liverpool Women’s hospital regarding what we provide and how it is successful with fertility treatments. I deeply believe that the message and importance of holistic therapies as preventative medicine should be taught to everybody.
My leadership at Buddha Therapies and Buddha Therapies Academy is completely based on its service. To provide health, well-being and compassion to the clients, students, staff and to myself. This comes in so many ways. I study, research, and learn to help them give the best they can give and to help empower them through compassionate service, to take control of their own health and to awaken the healing power inside them. Integrating the best of modern medical science and ancient eastern healing methods, we promote well-being on an emotional, spiritual, and physical level.
My personal integrity is my passion, an affinity with people, nurturing them to recovery and growth often when they are mentally and physically depleted and my personal resilience, I try to teach to others, is your emotional and spiritual strength which enables you to enjoy life, survive pain, disappointment, and sadness. We, the practitioner absorbs other people’s pain and hurt and are still able to carry on every day while keeping ourselves ok.
From an extension of the healing work we deliver, we discovered that interlinking nutrition was a key factor in health, so our nutrition business, Buddha Life and Buddha Thera-Teas were created, delivering Natural, Organic, Vegan supplements and Herbs to help assist in prevention, health and recovery, and an understanding in the importance of plant medicine combined in therapies and nutrition.
My Illness
In 2014, I was diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, which is a kidney disease that causes deterioration of the nephrons in the kidneys and serious health symptoms such as high blood pressure, oedema, and fatigue. Everybody is born with their own, individual “Pre Constitution”, this is weaknesses your born with at conception, throughout life you can either make them worse, or better, through lifestyle choice, your internal or external environment, Lifestyle, Diet, and emotions.
My pre-constitution was extremely unbalanced at conception, with one side of my body -13 and the other +7, like a scale completely out of balance, although I fought death through a traumitised delivery of the cord wrapped around my neck four times, and my mother experiencing 24 hours of labour, and an emergency cesarean , my will power pushed forward, (this is classed as good Kidney Jing in Traditional East Asian Medicine), as good as this is that I am still here, it made my Kidneys weak, so put in a comprised situation, they may become diseased.
The trigger was emotional stress and the only solution the renal consultants gave to me at the Royal Liverpool Hospital in Liverpool, was conventional drugs and long-term steroids. I asked them if there were any other treatments that could benefit my illness and all three said no, So I asked if I could have 6 months to try and heal it myself and decrease the symptoms and 10 months later my blood test, water and results were perfect.
What did I do?
I meditated, took more time off work, practiced yoga, walked in fresh air, had countless holistic treatments, and changed my diet to organic; chemical free soil and foods is a key factor in absorption of nutrients, I cut out meat, chemicals in skincare and took organic supplements, (EVERY DAY).
I combined an array or medicinal mushrooms from Cordyceps, Reishi, and Gingko Bilboa, Siberian Ginseng, Zinc, Vitamins C, D3, B12, B6 and Naicin (B3) plus more, which I now have compiled into my own supplement called KIDNEY. I use myself as an example that holistic well-being can help you spiritually, physically, and mentally.
One major factor we have to be extremely aware of nowadays is stress, stress accounts for a huge amount of illness, holistic therapies and plant-based products can offer one of the best ways of combating the trauma of stress without having to resort to drugs which can be habit forming and damaging to your health.
Physical illness that has continued over a long period causes a negative emotional state, and this can eventually lead to a compromised immune system. This situation can be particularly devastating since the weakened immune system will now be more vulnerable to further infection and another new infection can lead to even further emotional depression. A downward spiral of emotional and physical health can occur, producing a vicious cycle of illness that can be very difficult to break without the correct treatment. Scientists have proven that negative and positive emotions really can change the complex chemistry of our bodies, and these changes can have a negative or positive effect on the immune and hormone system.
This is why we have to take all of our lifestyle challenges into account and understand the word Holistic as a whole approach.
“When we water a plant, we water the root not the leaves, balance starts within” –
Tracy McMahon