Introduction to Flower Essences.....

....and their Natural Healing Properties

When we reply that we make and use flower essences, a typical response is to exclaim,
“How wonderful! Working with so many beautiful smells. And how do you make them? You must have a large garden.”


Well, the truth is not as romantic as that – the two of us gathering a large harvest of blooms and distilling them by some involved process, filling our house with all the exotic scents. In fact, in contrast to aromatherapy essential oils with which they are so often confused, flower essences are perfectly odorless.


Flower essences also differ from essential oils, herbal extracts, and the various other natural, plant-based remedies that most of us are familiar with, in another important aspect. Flower essences contain no physical plant material. They are an energy medicine and have no biochemically active ingredients at all. Concerns that you could become sick by taking a flower essence of a poisonous plant are simply not an issue.




So what are flower essences and how do they work?

Before we answer that question, let's take a brief look at their history. Back in the early 20th century an English medical doctor, Dr Edward Bach, was very concerned that so many of the treatments his profession was able to offer their patients were either not very effective, or caused the patient as much, if not more, distress than their original ailment. Dr Bach wanted to alleviate suffering, not add to it. So he dedicated his life to finding a method of treatment that would be safe, gentle and effective. Dr Bach was familiar with homeopathics, which are safe and gentle, as he was also a very talented homeopath. However, he had an inner conviction that there should be a simpler system of healing that would treat any condition.


Dr Bach experimented with nosodes, potentized homeopathic remedies obtained from diseased areas of the body. This may sound bizarre, but vaccination works on a similar, although not identical principle. And Dr Bach obtained some excellent results in treating his patients with this method. However, he wasn't satisfied with this. He wanted to treat patients with something that was perfectly safe and healthy, and he intuitively felt that the answer lay in using non-toxic plants that grow naturally in the wild.


Dr Bach then closed down his thriving medical practice in London and set off into the wilds of Wales in search of healing herbs. He had intended to take the tools of his homeopathic trade – his pestle and mortar – to make the new remedies in the traditional homeopathic way, but he accidentally left them behind in London. When he found the first of his new remedies, in order to extract them, he was forced to improvise and devise a new method. He decided to float the flowers in a bowl of pure spring water and leave them in the sun for a few hours. Then he discarded all plant material, retaining only the energized water, which he potentized in a method similar to (but not the same as) homeopathy by diluting it down. Flower essences differ from homeopathics, in that homeopathics are diluted to a much greater degree and also shaken, or succussed, as part of the potentising. Dr Bach devised a much simpler, yet equally effective method for flower essences.


In identifying which plants to use, Dr Bach wasn't just choosing herbs in the conventional way, matching up their effect on the body to patients' symptoms. In his medical practice he had keenly observed that every patient with a physical disease also had various emotional and mental disturbances, such as anxiety, terror, grief, self-pity and hopelessness. His breakthrough was that by treating the mental/emotional state and resolving those issues for the patient, this would unblock the natural healing potential in the body, which would then be able to do its own work in healing the person at the physical level.


Dr Bach was very sensitive; in fact, he is what we would now call an empath. He would actually feel the mental or emotional states of his patients, often suffering extreme distress himself. When he was out wandering in the woods, this state might become heightened, in which case, he knew he was close to finding another remedy. As soon as he found the particular flower that was the remedy for that emotion or mental state, his feelings would return to normal. In other words he was guided intuitively to each of his remedies.


And Dr Bach obtained excellent results from his remedies, which eventually grew to a total of 38, and are known today as the Bach Flowers(TM). He remained in the country, never returning to medical practice in London, but patients flocked to him – so much so that he was often very busy. He normally didn't charge a fee, wanting this wonderful new healing modality to be available to everyone.




In the decades since Dr Bach's discovery, many others have made their own ranges of flower essences...

.....and many of them have pioneered new uses for flower essences. The basic principles, however, have remained much the same, although sometimes the essence is energized by placing pure water next to a plant, rather than floating plant material directly in the water. This latter method is particularly useful for making essences from trees or large natural features, such as rocks.


For actual use, flower essences are traditionally made up into dropper bottles, often with brandy, especially if the mixture is to last more than a couple of weeks. If you sniff a bottle of flower essences expecting the wonderful scent of geranium or jasmin, all you will usually smell is the brandy! For those who don't want to take brandy, other forms of alcohol or even non-alcoholic cider vinegar may be used as a preservative.




To use flower essences, you only need to take a few drops at a time....

That's how effective they are! And, unlike homeopathics, their healing power is not diminished if they are taken together with food or drinks, or even tea or coffee. Flower essences don't interfere or cause reactions with conventional medication either.


In contrast to Dr Bach's original 38 remedies, modern flower essence therapy works directly at all levels of our systems: spiritual, mental and emotional, as well as directly at the individual cellular level.




For some people flower essence therapy can be very subtle.

You may take regular doses of a remedy and feel that nothing much is happening. Usually, there is no sudden observable shift or dramatic change. However, after a week or so, you cast your thoughts back, and realize that today you are coping with your everyday life in a way that just wasn't happening a week or so ago.


For others the results can be instantaneous and even dramatic. One young child we treated recently reported that when he took his first flower essence dose, everything "went still" inside him. In some cases you may even experience a healing crisis, in which a large number of issues seem to flood the mind at once. The feeling may be overwhelming, but it is like the crisis of a fever – it soon passes, the feelings of panic and distress disappear, and calm descends.


This is a very effective way of "burning up" lots of unresolved problems in one quick "fire". Rest assured that flower essences will never cause a "bad reaction", in which a patient's condition worsens, except through the temporary healing crisis just described.




Flower essence therapy works best when you really want to change.

This may seem obvious, but not everyone who is suffering at some level, whether physical or higher, really wants to let go of the thoughts, beliefs and emotions that are causing that state. If you are not ready or willing to let go, the treatment will be less likely to succeed.


Similarly, you can't force others to heal, or secretly give them essences and expect the treatment to succeed. (Yes, occasionally we get emails from someone wanting to cure a loved one who isn't ready to let go themselves, or who doesn't believe in alternative therapies.) In your love and concern, you naturally want your loved one to heal, but you do need to obtain their willing consent. This is true for all natural healing systems.




And what are some of the conditions that modern flower essences can treat?

Well, the list is virtually endless. Here are just a few examples:

• Resolving early childhood, birth and pre-birth trauma
  
  
• Healing a wounded heart and recovery from grief, separation, loss etc.
  
  
• Feeling stressed, blocked, and unable to cope with everyday life
  
  
• Helping hyperactive, ADHD and Indigo children cope with their respective challenges, and assisting them to integrate into our somewhat dysfunctional society and schooling system
  
  
• Addictions of all kinds: smoking, alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, relationships
  
  
• Overwhelmed by negative influences: feeling attacked and put down by others, or unable to cope with the bombardment of noise and negative energy in our society
  
  
• Sexual abuse or dysfunction, and/or gender and relationship issues
  
  
• Balancing and alignment of the chakras (energy centres) and subtle energy body
  
  
• Metabolic and cellular support during recovery from major illness or chronic physical complaints
  
  
• Support during healing from past emotional trauma
  
  
• Spiritual crises: finding a connection to God or your true self, and resolving the duality and your shadow shelf
  
  
• Feeling attacked by alien or etheric entities of various kinds

This article was originally published in the September 2004 issue of the New Zealand Body, Mind & Spirit Magazine.


To find out what flower essences really are, and how they are created, see Part Two.