Kindness versus 'othering'

Brene Brown says that when we call people by non-human names (eg animals, aliens) we place them outside of our moral inclusion zone, and effectively dehumanize them.  They are no longer ‘one of us’.  This ‘othering’ is dominating a lot of the internet at present and infecting us with its divisiveness, which sadly can and often does transfer into our daily contacts with other people.

We may need to review the attitudes we are bringing to this issue.  We cannot change other people but we can become doubly aware of how we react or would like to respond.  If you are feeling the urge to tell someone they are wrong, should shut up and listen to someone who knows, then take Vine to ease that tyrannical streak. If you see the other person as inferior to you, as someone who should think or behave a lot better than than they are doing, take Beech for a more tolerant and understanding outlook.  And if the urge is there to post something spiteful or hateful, then take Holly.

And if you are on the receiving end of some this widespread antipathy, and have given up believing you can do anything about a particular situation, select Wild Rose in order to take back your agency. If something seems like an attack on the most vulnerable part of yourself, causing you to feel as though you’re about to lose your rag and say or do something you would later regret, take Cherry Plum. If you feel you must fight every battle in order to win people over to your way of thinking, or to convince them to join you in your ‘crusade’, take Vervain.

And lastly, be kind to yourself.  If someone says or posts something designed to make you feel guilty, take Pine.  If their posts undermine your self-confidence, take Larch.  If their words trigger in you a feeling of self-dislike, or uncleanliness, take Crab Apple.

"A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind." Alexander Pope

There is more info on these flower remedies in my new book, Space to Reflect, click here.

Pascal Campion

 

When you are more Rock than Water

Photo: Ally Matson

Rock Water in its name, as well as in its nature, encapsulates both the positive and negative aspects of the remedy.  In a negative state the person is all Rock – unmoving, inflexible, enslaved to their principles and policies, unable to see that their very fixedness is limiting; it limits their vision, their aims, and their mental and spiritual growth.  In a positive state, the person has more of Water’s fluidity, and is able to experience more joy in life, just as a stream chuckles on its way to the sea.

“But why,” asks a Rock Water type, “Would I want to go with the flow?  My diet, my beliefs, my work standards are right for me and I see no point in changing them for the sake of change. People could do a lot worse than follow the good example I always try to set.”  Taking Rock Water does not stop us from having high standards but it allows us to take a fresh look at ideals and routines which we’ve always held sacrosanct, and to realise when change and modification would allow us more flexibility and pleasure in life.

We can see an allegory of the release to be found by taking Rock Water in the Labours of Hercules.   In Alice A Bailey’s version, a drought caused Amymone to ask Neptune for help.  He instructed her to strike a rock, from which three crystal streams appeared, but soon a monstrous hydra arrived, turning the place into a swamp.  Hercules’ task was to get rid of the hydra.  In a negative Rock Water state Hercules would have lost the fight because the rule book was no help: every time he cut off one of its 9 heads, another 2 grew in its place.  But Hercules had been given a key piece of advice by his Teacher:  ‘We rise by kneeling; we conquer by surrendering; we gain by giving up’.   Recalling this, Hercules kneels in the swamp and by raising the hydra into the clear light of day, its strength fails and it dies.    

When we are in the negative state where we need Rock Water, we are unable to give up our precious rules, our strict self-denial and martyr-like mentality.  We are unable to kneel figuratively to wiser counsels, more flexible ideas or lifestyles.  We’re loth to surrender our favourite strategies and habits: we believe they serve us well when in fact they now repress us, preventing us from growing.  Like Hercules we hold on to our pride in what we’ve achieved so far, and believe our self-imposed rules and disciplined lifestyle will overcome all obstacles, not realising that surrendering comes with its own power.

When Hercules had won the battle the crystal streams were free to flow for everyone’s benefit.  Ultimately this is the gift offered by all the flower remedies, they release us from our fixed ways of the past so that we can become a healing stream for others.

This piece comes from my book, Turning to the Light, click here for more information. For my newest book, Space to Reflect, click here.

What choice do we have?

Photo of Scales of Justice, Dublin by Alejandro Pohlenz on Unsplash 

 

Among the flower remedies we think of Cerato and Scleranthus when it comes to doubt and indecision.  But when it comes to making the right choices throughout life, almost all the remedies offer us the opportunity to choose the best option in our daily actions and attitude, and to assess our moods critically.

The word critical stems from the same root as crisis, as in a crisis point in life, a critical juncture. Critical thinking is the ability to think across all the choices presented and perceive the right way forward with clarity. It’s related to ‘discriminate’ (as in discern) and ‘judge’ (decide).

Take Beech as an example. When we are in need of it we see life through a judgemental and intolerant eye. Or we can choose to recognise that a lack of compassion and understanding is unhelpful to our spiritual growth, and we should take Beech.  We can view the world at present in a state of hopelessness where optimism seems farcical or nothing is worth trying; or we we can decide to take Gorse in order to realise that hope is a suit of armour, not a soft pillow to help us sleep. And something similar is true of all the remedies. Do we choose to drift along in life believing nothing we can do will ever change things, or do we seize our power and reclaim our agency with Wild Rose? Or try again with Gentian? Every one of the 38 remedies offers us a choice: to remain in the pit of our emotions or to reclaim our fortitude and rise up out of the quagmire with renewed vigour.

Bach Flower Remedies help us to choose equanimity, peace and a sense of perspective. We know we owe it to ourselves and to others to take any remedies we need right now, in order to rise above the global atmosphere of toxicity and fear, and pursue, as Dr Bach would say, the work of our soul in the world.

Aspen support and community

Image: Moral Wisdom

Aspens form a colony of trees by root suckering whereby young trees are a clone of an older tree. Each tree therefore functions as both an individual and as a ‘branch’ of the whole organism. If one tree suffers, nearby trees send succour in the form of water and nutrition.

In his heart-warming book on the power of community, More Together than Alone, Mark Nepo writes, “Shared roots live longer. This is the aspen wisdom we all need. We need aspen sensitivity, aspen memory, and aspen compassion. We need to learn how to enliven that depth of connectedness whereby we can feel all of humanity while living our very small individual lives.”

As we humans begin to learn and appreciate that we are all part of the Oneness of life, (just as Dr Bach believed) even though we are individuals in our own right, we can see the importance of realising that what affects one, affects the whole community.  And as a community we help and support each other in times of need. As we continue to take the flower remedies, we develop a growing sensitivity to the whole of creation and its needs.  

As for the healing effect of the Aspen flower remedy, its community can calm our fears: “The delicious rustle of the wind moving through a canopy of Aspen is almost indistinguishable from the sound of water passing over a waterfall, or of rain on the sea.  It is an immensely calming sound.”  From Where the Wild Flowers Grow, by Leif Bersweden

Hornbeam and Chestnut Bud

"The flower is made of non-flower elements.  When you look at the flower you see non-flower elements like sunlight, rain, earth – all the elements have come together to help the flower to manifest.  If we were to remove any of these non-flower elements there would no longer be a flower.”  ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The same is true of all life forms, including humans, because everything is composed of atoms that are just whirlpools of energy.  Thus we’re affected not only by the sun and the rain, but all the vibrations around us, physical, emotional, psychological, and mental.   Being bombarded day and night by these energy streams, it’s unlikely that we will suffer from just one isolated emotion that has no relation to all the rest.  With the flower remedies this can often mean several essences are required.

Two essences I should have been taking for the past week are Hornbeam and Chestnut Bud.  They might seem unrelated to each other, but I’d been putting off a small chore and when I eventually got it done, I realised that “I never learn!”  The number of times I’ve procrastinated over something (maybe sometimes through anxiety or lack of confidence – yes, Mimulus and Larch required) only to find once it’s over that it was never as difficult or time-consuming (Impatiens) as I thought it would be.  Why don’t I remember this, the next time I’m putting off a simple job?   Answer – because I’ve forgotten to take Chestnut Bud!

If one part of us is out of balance, it’s almost inevitable that other elements will be out of sync as well.  After all, that’s how ill-health arises, something apparently simple occurs, for example  we become dehydrated; then the brain is impacted, so its routines of  producing certain hormones are affected, and the whole ‘internet’ of the body starts to suffer.

Of course, the dehydration may have occurred because we’re in a state of stress and drinking too much caffeine and not enough water.  Which reminds us that all energies are interdependent.   All things affect all other things.  All life is interconnected.

Fuchsia by Ally Matson

Another of my books, Turning to the Light

Five years ago this month - during the worst stages of Covid worldwide - I launched a book, Turning to the Light.

Calling on mythology and literature, folklore and philosophy, this commentary shows how the skilful use of Dr Bach’s flower remedies can increase our self-knowledge and wisdom, helping us to develop compassion and understanding of others. 

“This will be a boon to the serious self-helper who cannot see a practitioner 
for one reason or another.” Mike Cassidy

"This is lovely - with some wonderful similes, metaphors and 
stories." Tessa Jordan, BFRP

"Your descriptions offer a refreshing perspective to the remedies, explaining 

them in such a way that is both informative and entertaining - all of which 

gives the reader an opportunity to really think and understand." 

Judy Howard, The Bach Centre

64 pages, it explores all 38 remedies in alphabetical order.

Available from bachcentre.com/shop/

Or direct from me - my email is under my Profile, to the right of this screen. It costs £8.95 including postage to UK addresses.  For destinations outside the UK, please enquire.

If you prefer a downloadable pdf, click on my website (under my Profile) and the link will be listed there.

For my latest book, Space to Reflect, published July 2025, see my blog here

For my booklet, A-Z of Emotional Resilience, click here .

Peeling the onion of our emotions

 

Bird artist not known

Although this graphic is relevant to homeopathic prescribing rather than selecting Bach Flower Remedies, it is another way of viewing or understanding the onion peeling effect.

When we select a remedy for someone, we target the emotion they are feeling at that time.  For instance, if they say how tired they are, so drained of energy that they could cry, we would identify Olive. (The equivalent of picture 1) It would not be correct for us then to assume they are automatically in need of, say, Willow unless they actually express self-pity or resentment about their plight.

As we encourage them to tell us more about how they are feeling, it may, for example, come up that they are unable to turn down a plea for help as they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Only then would Centaury be indicated. People will only tell us as much or as little about themselves and their background as they feel comfortable with. So it would be inappropriate for us to make the leap, say, from acknowledging the people-pleasing to the guess that they had childhood trauma and therefore need Star of Bethlehem. 

We are not taking a complete case history in the way that homeopaths do. Instead we choose the remedy that seems most relevant to the emotion presented to us at that moment.  If they tell us more, we will understand more and then the need for further remedies will probably become apparent. If they return for a further consultation, more about their emotions and history may come out, and that’s when we can help further.

An important part of this process is that as clients benefit from the flower remedies, they – over time – come to understand themselves better and peel their own onion: they might admit that they have always driven themselves hard because their father expected perfectionism. Now they have come to see and articulate that, we can see the need for Rock Water. Over the course of a discussion, or maybe several, more of the onion is peeled back until – like this final bird drawing – we and the client can see the whole picture.