Do our emotions really matter?
The short answer is…yes. There is an emotional component to all healing. Yet here in the US, it is mostly ignored outside of depression, anxiety, or more severe psychiatric illness. What if the underlying emotions of physical symptoms could be addressed and balanced where needed? How might that help our physical bodies to heal? Let’s take a look at Bach Flower Essence’s history to answer that question.
Dr. Edward Bach, the founder of this healing modality called Bach Flower Essence, is quoted as saying “The main reason for the failure of the modern medical science is that it is dealing with results and not causes. Nothing more than the patching up of those attacked and burying of those who are slain, without a thought being given to the real stronghold.” That stronghold is the thoughts and emotions of the individual.
So what are Bach Flower Essences? Simply stated they are the frequency of a specific flower. They are not herbals like you might have a cup of tea, nor are they essential oils. They are simply flowers infused into spring water activated by sunlight to pass the flower’s unique frequency into the water. This mother tincture is then further diluted and safe to be be given to people of all ages, regardless of medication status, animals of all species (rescues do really well with these remedies), and even plants (with the trauma of replanting or pruning). Currently, Bach Flower Essences are classified as homeopathy under the Homeopathic Pharmacopeia of the United States (HPUS), although they do differ slightly from homeopathics.
So, who was Dr. Edward Bach? He was a British physician and homeopath who lived from 1886-1936. As a highly successful surgeon and bacteriologist, he found modern medicine did not fully address the whole person. It primarily did well at suppressing symptoms. He felt healing should be more for the Church to teach than for a separate medical society to govern. After all, Jesus healed the whole person – body, soul, and spirit. Why not follow His ways of healing?
Throughout his medical training, he observed that the same treatment did not always cure the same disease in each patient. He learned to observe each sick person’s emotional response to his complaint (illness) and saw the various reactions each person had to the diseases which seemed to influence their prognosis. Attitude and emotion went a long way toward further sickness or healing.
He also observed that while some remedies cured some patients, they did not affect others with similar symptoms. He also noted similar personalities or temperaments would respond similarly to the same remedy. Thus, he believed the personality of the individual was more important in the healing journey that the actual physical state of the body. Personality was the prime indicator of the treatment required.
Like Hippocrates, Dr Bach believed healing should be gentle, painless, and non-invasive. In his day, medical treatment was often painful, sometimes more so than the disease itself. He observed most doctors of his day were so busy treating symptoms in the body, they totally forgot the body was only part of the entire unique person. Has that changed much over the past 100 years?
Dr Bach began to study homeopathy and came to the same conclusions Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, had drawn. Both men believed remedies should only be repeated when the improvement for the previous dose had ceased and that the patient deserved individual treatment, not a “one remedy fits all” solution. Bach believed homeopathic remedies were much gentler, milder, and better medicine than the vaccines injected through the skin that caused many to experience pain, swelling, and other reactions. He was very familiar with these types of reactions through his work as a Bacteriologist and specifically his work with bacteria in the intestinal tract.
Through his research, Dr Bach was reluctant to use disease to treat disease. He was convinced no toxic or poisonous substance could ever really function as a cure for healing the human body. He knew man needed to be able to heal body, mind, and spirit, not just body apart from the mind and spirit. He longed to find substances that were natural and non-toxic in themselves that could be used to bring about improvement in patient health. In 1928, he discovered his first plant remedy when he found the vibrational frequency of seaweed had almost the same frequency as a dysentery-type virus. The homeopathic potentizing method left the remedy with a positive polarity while a negative polarity was associated with the disease itself, therefore the two frequencies canceled each other out. Thus healing was brought about within the body. He believed this could happen not only with the physical body but also with the mind (emotions).
He theorized the dew on the plants he was studying had naturally been potentized by the energy of the sun, and that it was left with the reverse polarity he needed to help bring the healing that was intended. Thus, he discovered the simple process required to make his remedies – using simple spring water, heat from the sun, and a botanical flower. He learned the strongest power of the plant was in the flower itself.
As he identified different moods or personality types/characteristics, he would prepare remedies from various flowers and give this magnetic solution of simple water and flower frequency to his patients. His work was soon referred to as “the new medicine” as the results were astounding to those who observed and experienced them.
The first twelve flowers he formulated are known as “The Twelve Healers, however, his research continued. There are 38 official Bach Flower Essences, grouped under seven emotional categories: fear, uncertainty, lack of interest in the present, loneliness, oversensitivity, despondency, and over-concern for others. Bringing a balance to these emotions allows harmony and balance throughout the body as healing comes.
“Final and complete healing will come from within, from the Soul itself, which radiates harmony throughout the personality when allowed to do so.” Dr. Edward Bach
Bach intended for his work to focus on the emotional side of healing, regardless of the physical issues at hand. He wanted to know how the individual FELT about the symptoms they were experiencing, looking at the whole person, not isolating a disease. Traditionally, Bach consultations do not discuss physical issues at all. In our culture, this is very unusual as we are all conditioned to focus on what is our body screaming at us – the symptoms we want to be fixed.
Once a remedy is chosen for an individual, it should be taken for no longer than 3 weeks as it will lose its potency after being blended. Taking a few drops several times a day, the emotions initially observed may begin to balance within just a few days of use. Sometimes the blend needs to be changed or updated as an individual heals from within. All this is determined, simply by listening to an individual and seeing them as a whole person, body, soul, and spirit and being willing to address the emotional side of healing.
One final quote by Dr. Edward Bach… sums up Bach Flowers.
“Take no notice of disease, think only of the outlook on life of the one in distress.”
