Healing Beyond Medicine with the Power of Bowen Therapy – Dr. Nelly Naguib on The Healers Café with Manon Bolliger

homeopathy and naturopathy at the same time. I graduated in 2015 and I believe Manon, along the way I met you.

Manon Bolliger  03:56

That’s right. I may have been teaching, I think at the Boucher College. Is that possible or? No, it wasn’t in that context. I can’t remember.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  04:06

It was Bowen College.

Manon Bolliger  04:07

Bowen College, yes.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  04:08

And I knew, yes, yeah, Bowen College, and I knew you through the Canadian College of Homeopathic Medicine.

Manon Bolliger  04:15

That’s right.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  04:16

Yes. So okay, I wanted to learn Bowen, and don’t know what to do that. So I got your introductory course online. And I felt because before that I was introduced to another Bowen teacher, but it didn’t resonate well with me. I didn’t. I said, Oh, that’s so difficult. I don’t know if I can put a hand on this. And then when I did your introductory course, it was online. I remember oh my God, but it was yes. Very good course, yes. And I said, Oh my God, that’s so nice. I can. I did it and I finished it. And then I went to the part one and part two, in the condensed way, with one of your TAs. And then the next, the final one, was with you when you came to Toronto and I wasn’t ready to take my exam. And said, Oh, you take your exam today.

Manon Bolliger  05:06

You know, it’s always the most qualified people, the ones with the most degrees that feel they’re not qualified to take a degree, right? But it’s like or to take an exam, right? And the thing is, you know, what I teach is a hands on technique, as you know, and you know, if you’re connected to your heart and the desire to help your hands will remember what needs to happen.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  05:32

I wanted to prepare when I exam, but my hand remembered all the moves that you taught me, so I passed my practical. And then, before I become a naturopathic doctor, I start to be a Bowen therapist, registered Bowen therapist, and during my internship as a naturopath, people, my superior, my teachers, told me, Oh, like, seemed like they said homeopathy doesn’t work. They said Bowen doesn’t work. So I will tell these people and challenge them. Just give me 15 minutes of your time, and I will show you that Bowen actually work. And whoever give you this wrong notion is like wrong. And then I remember some of my colleague will have headaches, and I do like the 15 minutes head protocol on them, and they get, Oh, my God, I don’t need aspirin now I just it’s gone, and this gave me more confidence. I worked with more people and to become a registered Bowen therapist. I went through 10 cases of my friend and family. I accomplished a five to six session each, I believe, and all of them was like, perfectly well. I worked with difficult cases, chronic back pains, neck pains, MS patients and so on. And afterward, I finished my ND. I became a naturopath. I became a registered ND, and I did also the diploma for holistic nutrition with Edison Institute of Nutrition. And I have been working under COVID hit. And then I realized that, Oh, my God, I cannot keep my living like this. I’m stuck at home. I cannot do Bowen therapy. I cannot do anything. So this one, the idea to my head came, okay, let’s go back to where I started as a medical doctor. I passed my test, so what left for me? Okay, they need recent experience. They need post grad training. They need a post grad education. No problem. So I moved to Egypt in 2021 I joined the family medicine high diploma. I passed it, finished it. I am a family doctor now in Egypt. And at the same time I was, during my stay there, I was doing Bowen therapy on too many people, people who were like struggling with pain meds, on muscle relaxant, taking lyrical high dose. I have done a lot with Bowen therapy than I you could even imagine. People tell me, where did you get this information from? Oh, this is my mentor, Manon, my friend, taught me this kind of technique, and I’m so fascinated taking people off their pain meds gradually so it will not be harsh on their body, and replacing it was more holistic way of how to deal with pain, by hydrotherapy, by exercising, giving a session every week. And I found that my full potential is to become an integrated physician. Like apply conventional medicine, holistic medicine at the same time, start naturally. If I need for medication, I will put the medication in when the time is good, I can take off the medication again and make the people live their life, quality life. And I think this is actually my mission, is to help people live to their maximum potential, not just to be kept on 1-2-3, up to 10 meds for the rest of their life.

Manon Bolliger  09:15

Yeah, that’s not at all a lifestyle that makes any sense. But I’m very curious. You know, when you had two parents that were medical doctors in the field, and they were helping people, and you were inspired by this desire to help, do you find that what they knew and what they included in their scope of practice is actually different than when you went to medical school?

Dr. Nelly Naguib  09:47

Well, because I am originally Egyptian, so that Egyptian culture, the way we practice medicine there, I believe, different than how Canadian and US people, well, even Western people practice. Because, going to the root of Egyptian culture, we use herbs.

Manon Bolliger  10:07

Right.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  10:09

It’s not that is not, not medication for everything. So my mom was well aware about how cinnamon can help during menstruation, and how we can take a lemon water. How we can do honey with lemon like I grew up with this kind of culture, so being a holistic practitioner wasn’t difficult for me. So my mom and dad was helping people, not just by medications. They can give them recipe like chicken soup or, you know, things like that, you know, they didn’t know much, not like when I went to school and I learned, but it’s part of our culture. Then that’s why I resonated more with holistic practice, because it’s part of my culture.

Manon Bolliger  10:55

But, and I think, you know, it’s interesting, because there’s the cultural component, but there’s also the, you know, like I, I’m looking at my family, and my uncle was, he’s passed now, but he’s a thoracic surgeon, and, you know, he said, I asked him before he passed, you know, what is the most important thing you’ve learned in all of your practice and in everything that you’ve done in medicine, you know. And he says to love your patient, you know. And I’m thinking, wow, okay, that’s, you don’t hear that in the way it is today, you know. Now we’ve gone into, I mean, most of the doctors are basically doing prescriptions, like you said, they’re not really looking at the person they’re treating. There’s not this, you know, heart centered, patient centered approach, that’s extremely rare, you know. So I think that has also changed, and I think there’s a been a backlash in this last few years, you know, now that people have are questioning, you know, the the authorities and the medical authorities and, you know, and even the those who say, Oh, I was just following orders. And it’s like, Wait a minute here. Did we not have an oath. Did we not pledge to at least put the patient center first, you know? And I think before waking up to realize that most doctors are cogs in the wheel of a big pharmaceutical, ultimately, military complex. I mean, they’re, you know, they’re not free agents, really looking after people anymore, and, well, people want to change, you know? So anyway, that’s why my…

Dr. Nelly Naguib  12:52

That way I see it, is, medicine is not a profession. Medicine is a mission. So if the doctor doesn’t have this in his heart, he will use the profession just to gain money from the sick. If he, if he, if it’s your actual mission, that this is his calling. You know, this is like, this is not a job I am doing to earn money. Yes, and money is important. But on the other side, if this is my mission to help people get better, I want them to get better as fast as possible. I don’t want them to stay with me for three four months until they see results. That’s why, when I was practicing Bowen sometimes like this patient, I’m treating now. For over a year, I was called by one of the bishops in Egypt, and he sent me to this friend of his. He told me, I want you to help her. So when I went to see her, I found that she has done two back surgeries to fix her lumbar, segment, her neck is not stabilized. And before doing the back surgery, her doctor told her, Oh, you have too much weight. So he pushed her to do bariatric surgery as well. And then she had, like, carpal tunnel in the wrist, and then, oh, she was cut off just to clear the carpal tunnel, and I found a person when I went like nearly dead. She was on 900 milligram larica. And she was putting morphine patch on her chest. She was out there using muscle relaxant for her pain. So the lyrical all, what it did is put her in depression. She wasn’t focusing. She is a professor teacher, by the way, so she wasn’t able to go perform lectures. Her daughter cannot find her to talk to her. Her husband felt that she is not there anymore. So when I see when I saw her the first time.  I don’t know if she was hearing what I’m saying. She was a kind of delirious, and I heard all this. What can I do with this lady? Like, she’s like, very chronic now, for a year she has been doing this. And then I told her, I took the challenge. I told her, Listen, I don’t know, how can I help you with this mess? I will only do you one Bowen session one, if you felt better, I will continue working with you. If you did not feel better. Sorry. I’m not a practitioner for you. Whatever surgeon messed up, messed up your body. I don’t know how to fix that, so I did only one Bowen session on her, one. She felt at least 25% better. So I thought, Okay, I’m continuing, but we need to lower down this lyrica dose a little bit by little bit. Within six months, we got rid of 90% of the lyrica I took her off the morphine patch gradually, and then I told her, don’t use muscle relaxant. And then I start to teach her hydrotherapy, the golden hot technique. And I gave her exercise to do for the whole body you can do in the bed. I don’t want her to stand on her feet and do clean she won’t be able to, especially the blood supply to her neck was so bad that when she does any neck movement, she will feel dizzy up to this level. Like now it’s like more than a year. Now, you look to this lady, you wouldn’t imagine how far she came. Her husband told me, thank you very much. You are a blessing. You brought my wife back to me. And her daughter would say the same thing. And then she thought she started to refer me to other client, but I don’t have a clinic in Egypt. I was studying, and I’m still doing training, so I don’t want to have a clinic. So I will be doing home visits. I don’t want to be known by home visits in Cairo, because I only want to go to places that I know. So yeah, so I’m grateful to Bowen therapy and to you Manon to teach me this powerful technique, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to help her. I guess I gave her nutrition and hydrotherapy, but Bowen was the the base of my treatment with her. And this go back to what I started. If physician don’t have this in their heart, I don’t think they are practicing the profession as they pledge to do no harm and all the 10 Commandments.

Manon Bolliger  17:46

Yeah. No, no, I agree. Why do you think…because, I mean, you have knowledge in allopathic medicine, in homeopathic medicine, in natural medicine, so all these different things. Why do you think that Bowen is so effective?

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Manon Bolliger  19:16

Because to and maybe I should interrupt people who don’t know about this, you can always go to Bowencollege.com. There’s videos to show this, but essentially, it’s a very gentle soft tissue manipulation, or we don’t even say manipulation, because it’s really just a little movement that wakes up the natural immune system, the innate healing system. I mean, that’s the short version of it, and yes, there are shocking results that take place, but I’ve never really asked you why you think, what’s the, you know, combination of things, or what is it that that why you think it’s so impactful?

Dr. Nelly Naguib  19:59

My experience with Bowen therapy started when I was training with one of your teacher, one of your teachers. During my training, I had frozen shoulder, and nobody ever did a full protocol on me. I’m just we’re practicing the shoulder, upper body thing. And no, no, no full protocol whatsoever. By the end of the weekend, I was able to move my shoulder at least 90% better. This is number one, number two. Bowen therapy is very powerful in the way is I’m giving the body the same sequence every time, and it’s up to the body to heal in the way it wants. I’m not pushing the body to do certain things. I’m just giving it a message. But I believe in the innate ability of the body to heal like chiropractor physiotherapist, like they will ask patient, what you what you have, what problems you have, neck problem. Okay, they start to do neck manipulation. People are better at the end of session. Two days later, they feel the same thing coming back on them with Bowen therapy, I felt I am doing exact the same thing with every single patient, but there is also different. Some people decide to heal their back first. Some people decide to heal their neck first, to heal their hands, whatever, whatever. So I will go with what the body wants. I learned from you too how to read the body language, how to feel the body needs with my hand, yeah, like I was able to feel the body needs with my hand. You taught me how to fish, and you did not put a fish on my plate. So now I am emphasizing I am doing my own moves now.

Manon Bolliger  21:56

Of course.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  21:57

I’m not speaking with what I learned as basics. I feel like, oh, this area here needs some more work, so I will come up with, I don’t know what I am doing like it happens naturally, and it flows like that. My hand knows what to do. And then I say, and I combine, sometimes, Bowen therapy with acupressure, thing I learned from naturopathic college. I might combine it with massage with essential oils, like my session will be base Bowen therapy and I put a little bit more additions from other stuff I don’t want to remove. I want, I don’t want to leave remnant till next time.

Manon Bolliger  22:38

Right. Right.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  22:39

Now I only leave the session with people feeling really well, no pain whatever. I will do whatever I can to make people in my session, in my presence, pain free. I you know, I don’t do things as I was taught.

Manon Bolliger  22:58

Yes, okay, but let me just interrupt you here. You know, if you look on the website right, the Bowen College website, the mission is to allow the student to really connect to their intuition in healing. It isn’t to be dogmatic followers of a methodology that’s just the beginnings of this process, right? That’s the tool I use, like you say, to teach how to fish. But you know, but it’s the intuition is the most important part is to you have to be somewhat loyal to the technique for a while, to be the student of it to learn how far it can go, what it can do. But at one point that intuitive healer within comes out and tells you, you got to do this now. You got to, nope, this is enough, this, you know, or let’s, let’s stop right here, or whatever, you know. And I think that’s the pleasure of the practice. And, you know, it’s really, it, it’s a dance where you, you learn to be just in tune with the healing process, right?

Dr. Nelly Naguib  24:12

Exactly, well, that’s what I really, I’m really grateful to learn, because without knowing what Bowen can do, I wouldn’t even add anything to it. And that’s that’s really made me special.

Manon Bolliger  24:30

For sure.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  24:32

Because I have a genuine feeling and genuine willing, willingness, I want this person to feel better. I love her. I’m sending her love. I’m sending her positive energy, positive vibes, and I want her to be better. I want her to resume her normal life. I want her to live as much as possible, the better quality possible. So, if I don’t have this on my heart, it won’t reflect on my client. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I am passionate to medicine. I love what I am doing, and loving medicine as as a mission, as a hobby, even made me practice it that way.

Manon Bolliger  25:18

Yeah, yeah. Anyways, it’s, I mean, I’m so resonant with you. You speak my heart. A question on the participation of the patient. How important is to you, the willingness of the patient to to do what needs to be done, even if it’s lay on the table and receive but can you speak to that a little bit?

Dr. Nelly Naguib  25:51

Okay, I do believe that working with patient is a 50-50, thing. 50% my part, 50% the patient part. And I always ask the client I work with, are you willing to change? Do you want to heal? Do you want from your inside to get better? If I get a no to any of these three and any of these three questions, I will not work with them, because I would feel that all my my work will go to waste. They if they don’t have the willingness to heal, regardless what I will do, they will not heal. They might get better, but they will not reach their full potential. If they will not follow what I am giving them as instruction to do from session to session. I know that the session will not as as perfect as I want it to be. So definitely, holistic practice is a mutual relationship between the client and the practitioner. It’s not like conventional medicine. I’m giving you the skills, go home, do whatever you want, like I’m giving you the sugar hypoglycemic medication, and I’m telling you to eat food less carbs. But if you don’t want to, that’s fine, take the meds. I don’t do that. And I explained to them that really, this kind of schooling mental thing is hurting, hurting their body. Medication masks the symptoms.

Manon Bolliger  27:35

Right.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  27:35

As if you have an abscess like this and you put a bandaid on it, or you have a fire and you put a cover on it. One  everybody sees no fire is there, but the fire is still there. Nobody’s even trying to shut it down. You know, that’s why I really believe in the 50-50, relationship.

Manon Bolliger  27:55

Now. So, so here, here’s the issue I have with that. I don’t, I don’t disagree to like, as in, I think the person who is conscious needs to, to, want to go through the steps of healing, and they definitely need to remove that program of quick fix, big, Band Aid, whatever, because I think that destroys, you know, humanity. But I have seen children that don’t have an opinion whether they want to get better or not. They’re dragged in. You know, can you do something to fix them? Or, when I was in Nova Scotia, I had a farm, and, you know, animals don’t ask. I don’t get their I mean, I get their permission in the sense of, you know, make sure they don’t step on me or do something where I’m at risk, but I will do the work, you know, and they improve without I would say that whole conscious participation, they just, they just receive it and get better.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  29:11

So I’m trying to respond to people, by the way, not talking about animals or children.

Manon Bolliger  29:19

I get that. But so it is really an adult phenomena. It’s, it’s like, when you have consciousness to say yes or no, that’s when it, it, it matters, yeah, when the problem comes, yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  29:37

I did treat my son. My youngest son, Andre was my guinea pig during my education. As boy in college, I will go home and tell him Andre, I want to practice some move on you. Oh, my come. And then I would practice on him, and he would fall asleep. Fall asleep under my hand. I have the book beside him. Body, and I will follow the steps on in the book. And then he sleeps. I cover him and go, you know. And also, we had a dog that he was like puppy, like this, and then he started to jump and hurt himself. And I’ll take him and I put arnica in the water and start to do some bow and move on him and he’s all better. I don’t take permission from those, but some adults are really stubborn, and they don’t want to heal from their inside. They feel like, okay, this is not for me. Okay. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you. Why will I push you to do it? You know? So, yeah, children are the most recipient of all because they don’t have rejection. They are open for everything animals too. And I dealt with both.

Manon Bolliger  30:52

Yes, I’m sure you have no and I would say the other group that actually I’ve, I’ve seen success in is true skeptics, in other words, adults that are they’re skeptical like, show me that it works, you know, but they don’t have the same resistance as the sort of unconscious patterning. Because there are people who don’t want to get better for lots of reasons. A lot of them are unconscious, right? And, and I think that’s a different group of people, like those who I’ve had, people who, like, show me, you know. And as long as they’re funny and they have some humor and, you know, and it works with my personality, I’m like, Okay, let’s, let’s see what happens with you, you know. And then they might come out and say, oh my gosh, I had no idea. You know that type of thing. You know that that can be fun too, but, but I do think it does take, it does take the desire to go forward and to commit to something unknown, you know. And I think, as we’re heading now, with so much, so many possibilities, now that so many patterns have been in health, have been liberated to the world, and a lot of the things that existed in our past are being freed, you know, for people to use, I think we’re going to see an explosion of health and possibilities. And anyway, I’m feeling very, very optimistic, but our time is is near. And can you, I mean, share the last few words, and then, can people reach you these days, or are you still kind of nowhere, specific, like, how can people connect with you, or not yet? Can people do what sorry? Connect with you.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  32:49

Oh connect with me, okay. Connect with me if they want to WhatsApp, through emails on my Facebook page.

Manon Bolliger  33:06

Okay, great, and, but you’ll be going back to Egypt for a little bit, right?

Dr. Nelly Naguib  33:11

Yes, for a year.

Manon Bolliger  33:14

For a year. Okay, great, okay, well, leave you with the last few words to to close our time together.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  33:21

Yes, I will say that I am very optimistic that every one of us can do its part to change at least the milieu around us. I will change my environment. Someone else change his environment, and so on. And together, we can work in this unity. And I believe all, all of us, we are led by the same move that we want people to live better and to feel better and definitely pain free, because nobody should ever live with their pain. The word that medical doctor will say to their client, no, you have a pain that deal with it. Live with it. I hate when I hear this word. Nobody should live with pain at all. Pain is just something from the body to tell us there is something wrong. We need to fix this. And yeah, pain free is my goal.

Manon Bolliger  34:22

Well, thank you so much for spending this time and sharing of your knowledge and your person.

Dr. Nelly Naguib  34:27

Thank you, Manon, for having me. It was my pleasure.

ENDING: 41:33

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