There’ll be no more Bach flower posts here for the time being, but you can follow my other blog through this link.

Happy Christmas and New Year!

Jennifer

Many of the Bach flower remedies can help with managing anxiety, but which one to choose?  Today’s post gives a simple overview. I have included seven flowers – five from the ‘Fear’ group in Dr Bach’s original classification, and two others.

Mimulus: For ‘fear of known things’ – for example phobias of flying, dental visits, public speaking or animals. it is also helpful for those of a generally nervous and shy disposition. The remedy promotes courage, bravery, and trust in the outside world.

Aspen: For fear of the unknown, in sensitive and perhaps psychic people who tend to feel nervous and apprehensive without knowing why.

Agrimony:  For those who hide their worries and fears from others, and even from themselves, by putting on a cheerful facade and maybe using drink or drugs to numb their anxieties. The remedy promotes honesty about feelings.

Red Chestnut: For excessive fears and anxieties felt on behalf of loved ones, rather than for oneself. With this remedy it becomes possible to develop a healthy detachment while still maintaining compassion and empathy.

White Chestnut: For repetitive worrying thoughts going round and round in the mind, often causing insomnia. The remedy promotes mental quiet and calm.

Cherry Plum: For severe anxiety which runs away with the imagination, with fear of losing control.

Rock Rose: For severe terror or panic, especially in threatening situations, and for nightmares.

Combinations of the above can occur, so two or more of these remedies can be mixed in the same treatment bottle. Remedies for associated problems such as feeling overburdened with responsibility, obsessional tendencies, or coping with change, may also need to be included. This allows a more finely-tuned individual approach than is possible with pharmaceutical drugs.

The photo (courtesy of the Bach Centre) shows the lovely blossom of Cherry Plum (Prunus cersifera).

Life’s Labyrinth: the path and the purpose

Were you born with a spiritual purpose? Do you have free will to choose your path through life? How can you best find happiness and fulfillment? This book does not claim to answer these questions, but gives a practical framework for exploring them. The text is illustrated by many true life stories, drawn from interviews and correspondence with about 40 people from New Zealand and the UK.

It’s published on Smashwords.com and you can find the details, read a free sample or buy the whole book through this link.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this project which has taken several years to complete.

Geoffrey was my uncle. He never talked with me about his time in the RAF, though I have a childhood memory of a game we played on top of Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire, running in the wind pretending to be Spitfires. Our family was, and still is, fairly scattered geographically but after I grew up I was able to see Geoffrey, his wife Joan (Johnny) and son Ben several times a year, until I moved to New Zealand in 2000.

Some of the excitement wore off when many people discovered that this formula did not seem to yield the desired results for them. Skeptics say that the Law of Attraction lacks a sound scientific basis and there is no formal evidence that it works. In contrast, most of those in the modern self-help and ‘New Age spirituality’ movements still claim that it is valid, but that there are many factors both conscious or unconscious which may block its success.

Here is a light-hearted look at some of the common blocks, and which of the Bach flower remedies might help in overcoming them. For illustration I will take the classic example of wanting a red car – although Dr Bach, who lived by the value of Simplicity, might not have approved of such a materialistic goal.

Lack of clarity about your desires: You doubt your own judgement about what sort of car would be best, and keep asking other people to validate your choice (Cerato). Or you keep changing your mind, unable to decide between a red car and a blue one (Scleranthus).

A negative mindset: You have little hope or expectation of getting the car you want (Gentian or Gorse). Much as you want the red car, you do not feel you deserve it (Pine). Or you doubt your ability to manifest such a fine vehicle, let alone drive it properly (Larch). For success with the Law of Attraction it is essential to be positive, and focus on what you want instead of what you don’t want.

Passivity: You would like a beautiful red car to appear by magic, but you tend towards day-dreaming rather than taking action (Clematis), or feel resigned to putting up with your old vehicle (Wild Rose). Besides putting your requests out to the universe, you need to play your own part on a practical level.

Over-control: You have rigid exact requirements about the car you want (Rock Water), are so determined to get it that you wear yourself and others out with your enthusiasm (Vervain), or cannot you wait – you must have the car NOW (Impatiens).

We cannot always control the timing of things, hence the maxim ‘let go of the outcome’. And sometimes, when our desires never manifest at all, this turns out to have been in our best interests; perhaps you would be better off with a bicycle, or by directing your intentions towards a more spiritual goal than getting a red car.

For detailed information about the remedies mentioned above please visit the Bach Centre website.

Chronic unforgiveness has been described as ‘a deadly spiritual poison’ and many alternative healers regard it as a major risk factor for physical disease, some going so far as to say that it lies at the root of most cases of cancer. I don’t know whether this is true and it would be a challenging topic for research, but there are certainly many personal stories of remarkable recovery both from cancer and other conditions after sincere forgiveness has taken place – see  this link for one man’s story. Forgiveness always benefits the one who forgives, and also the one who is forgiven, if it is possible and appropriate to tell them about it.

When I think about the occasions in my own life when forgiveness has been called for, I find that they seldom involved deliberate wrong-doing. More often there was a lack of consideration for others, a projection of personal problems onto the nearest target, even a misguided attempt to be helpful – a reminder that different people can perceive the same situation in very different ways, and always a potential ‘learning experience’.

Though we may acknowledge that forgiveness is highly desirable, many of us find it difficult. For some, the intention to forgive can best be supported through spiritual or religious counselling and practice; for others, through psychological techniques. Several of the Bach flower remedies could be chosen to assist the process, depending on the details of each case. One might be Willow (Salix vitellina), which I discussed in a previous post, and two of the others which I will mention today are Holly (Ilex aquifolium) illustrated below left, and Pine (Pinus sylvestris) illustrated below right (photos courtesy of the Bach Centre).

Holly promotes forgiveness and love when there are negative feelings towards others.  Dr Edward Bach made this comment about people who need Holly: ‘Within themselves they may suffer much, often when there is no real cause for their unhappiness’.

Pine promotes forgiveness when there is criticism and guilt towards the self. Bach wrote in his booklet The Twelve Healers: ‘For those who blame themselves. Even when successful they think they could have done better, and are never content with their efforts or the results. They are hard-working and suffer much from the faults they attach to themselves. Sometimes if there is any mistake it is due to another, but they will claim responsibility even for that.’

Virtual book tours have not replaced live talks and book signing events as a way for authors to market their work, but they do enable outreach to a worldwide audience through websites, blogs and media outlets, all from a home computer at reasonable cost. To sample what is involved, please click on the links for my online interview and printed chapter excerpt, recorded chapter excerpt and ezine articles; and to buy the book through my website click here.

I recently edited the wartime memoir of my late uncle, a Spitfire pilot. This book is now at proof-checking stage and will soon be published in the UK. Also this month my next self-help book, about life path and life purpose, is being considered for a local manuscript award and I will probably self-publish this one, so am studying the options. More news on both books will follow in future posts.

These editing and marketing activities have left little time for new writing, but I am keen to try my hand at fiction in the future, and have already made a start on a romantic suspense novel set here in Devonport.

All this activity is very positive, but involves rather too much ‘multitasking’ – even with the best time management skills it’s sometimes impossible to avoid everything happening at once!  So I sometimes feel over-stimulated, stressed by the number of things to deal with, or impatient to get them finished. There are Bach flower remedies to balance all these states of mind: Vervain (Verbena officinalis) for over-enthusiasm, Elm (Ulmus procera) for ‘overwhelm’, Impatiens (Impatiens glandulifera) for impatience. These lovely flowers are pictured below (photos courtesy of the Bach Centre).

Research studies show that those who believe they have a large measure of choice and control over their own lives tend to be healthier and happier than those with a more passive approach. This works through a combination of better self-care, with diet and exercise for example, and direct mind-body relationships. Self-responsibility is a key feature in most cases of remarkable recovery from cancer or other serious disease. But there is a fine dividing line between self-responsibility and self-blame, which makes people feel guilty about having become sick or failed to recover. After all an illness may be at least partly due to factors which are beyond personal control, such as genetic makeup or exposure to passive smoking. In many cases the cause is not known.

This said, a sense of self-responsibility can certainly enable improved coping with difficulties, as illustrated by the story of one recent client of mine. In the past few years she had faced huge challenges including the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, divorce, loss of her home and the need to start supporting herself financially in her late 50s. Not surprisingly she often felt low and anxious, and to make things worse had fallen into a pattern of feeling sorry for herself and looking on the negative side of things. For example rather than giving herself credit for having completed a training course and obtained a first job in her chosen field, she continually complained about the irritations at her place of work.

According to the Law of Attraction, if we focus on what is wrong with ourselves and our lives, we are likely to draw even more unwanted things into our experience. Negative feelings are a natural response to adversity and it is helpful to acknowledge and express them. It is not helpful to get stuck in them. Looking for positive aspects to appreciate in the present, and imagining more of these in the future, can be the key to turning them around.

I gave this client a mixture of several Bach flower remedies to deal with different aspects of her case but the one most relevant to today’s post is Willow, Salix vitellina. Dr Edward Bach recommended this remedy ‘for those who have suffered adversity and misfortune and find these difficult to accept without complaint or resentment … feel that they have not deserved so great a trial, that it was unjust … ‘ The Willow remedy helps such people to move away from the victim role and take control of their own destiny.

(photo courtesy of the Bach Centre)

When my client came for followup she looked transformed for the better. She had made a shift towards self-responsibility by using both visualization exercises and practical actions to further her long-term goal of developing her own business. Meanwhile she was being proactive about improving her present work conditions, and balancing her lifestyle with some new leisure activities. She wanted to take an active part in selecting the contents of her next bottle of remedies, which is to be encouraged with this therapy because according to the Bach Foundation’s code of practice, clients ‘remain at all times responsible for their own well-being’.

Lack of hope – hopelessness – may be a long-standing attitude or personality trait. It may be a symptom of a clinical depression. Or it may seem a logical response to certain situations, for example a chronic or progressive illness.

Hopelessness is often linked to helplessness – passive submission to a miserable fate.

Whatever its origins, hopelessness is bad for health. Large prospective studies have identified chronic hopelessness as a risk factor for developing serious illness such as cancer and heart disease. Other studies have found that, in people already suffering from such medical conditions, a hopeless/helpless attitude predicts worse ‘quality of life’ and shorter survival time. This can be explained partly by direct mind-body relationships, and partly by poor self-care. Hopelessness is a frequent precursor of suicide.

One of the contributions of the palliative care movement has been to show that, even when hope of a cure seems unrealistic, there are always other things to hope for: better control of symptoms, rewarding relationships and activities, a peaceful death and perhaps belief in an afterlife.

Is there such a thing as ‘false hope’? Should someone who has been diagnosed with a progressive illness, but who seems unable to accept the fact, be discouraged from starting a long-term project? Should someone like me, with a 40-year history of migraine attacks, give up spending time and money on new treatments? No right or wrong answers here, but if it is true that our mental attitude helps to shape our personal future, we need to seek a balance between maintaining hope and accepting unpleasant realities.

A great many of the Bach flower remedies can help to promote hope. I will mention two of them here. Gorse (Ulex europaeus), illustrated below left, is especially suitable for those with chronic ill-health who have come to feel that nothing will ever be better and there is no point in trying any longer. The remedy helps to lift their spirits and encourage them to consider new approaches which may lead to improvements in medical symptoms and in other aspects of life. Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa), illustrated below right, is indicated in more acute situations and helps those in deep despair to ‘see light at the end of the tunnel’.

photos courtesy of the Bach Centre 

The only reason I went to the optometrist was that my driving license was due for renewal. It was quite a shock to be told that my vision was not so good as I thought it was, and that my intra-ocular pressures had increased to well above the normal range. I was diagnosed as having ‘narrow angles’ between the lens and the iris. This condition, which blocks the free drainage of aqueous fluid, may or may not progress to either acute or chronic glaucoma. I was referred to a specialist who gave me the choice of either having regular repeat observation, or LPI to create a tiny hole in each iris so allowing the fluid to circulate.

The prospect of an operation, however minor, on such an important and sensitive body part as the eyes was daunting. In general, too, I am wary of medical interventions based on screening tests rather than clinical symptoms. I spent some time researching LPI on Google. Most sites described it as a very safe and successful procedure with only a small risk of side-effects, but I found two separate reports from patients who claimed to have suffered devastating visual damage as a result of this operation. These cases were clearly quite atypical, but still alarming.

I also researched natural approaches to preventing glaucoma. I was already doing most of the right things – not smoking, walking several miles daily, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables – and seldom drinking more than one cup of coffee or one glass of wine per day. My homeopath suggested that walking barefoot on green grass would help relax the eyes and I found this a very pleasant exercise, apart for the time an enthusiastic large dog jumped onto my foot.

Eventually, weighing up the pros and cons, I decided that because visual loss from glaucoma is irreversible, I would accept the preventive surgery.

LPI is an outpatient procedure. On the day, a technician prepared my eyes with two kinds of drops: a local anaesthetic, and pilocarpine to constrict the pupils. Then I had to wait about half an hour, during which time my vision was slightly blurred and I felt rather shaky probably due to a mixture of pilocarpine and nervousness. This was the worst part of the whole experience.

The operation itself took only a few minutes, and the technology was impressive. My chin and forehead rested forward against a frame while my surgeon, seated opposite, applied more local anaesthetic to my right eye and inserted a special lens to prevent blinking and to magnify her view of the iris. She asked to to look straight ahead and then applied a series of laser shots in quick succession. I perceived these as starbursts of red light. They were uncomfortable rather than painful.

The same process was repeated on my left eye, then after a short rest in the waiting room I was ready to leave the clinic and have lunch in a nearby cafe with my husband, who had come with me to provide welcome moral support. I would not have been allowed to drive myself home after having both eyes treated on the same day, though driving is permitted for patients who have had only one eye done.

To my surprise I experienced no after-effects whatever, and felt no need to use the anti-inflammatory eye drops I had been given. Having expected to need a longer recovery period, I had planned to cut down on reading, writing, computing or watching movies for a few days. This involved some pleasant alternatives – including a tour of the vineyards of Waiheke Island. However it was quite a challenge to find activities which did not require use of the eyes, and this made me very conscious of the importance of sight.

At my six-week follow-up appointment I received the good news that my eye pressures were down and the intra-ocular appearances improved. While the long-term outcome remains to be seen, so far it seems that orthodox treatment has been worthwhile.