Balancing Emotions with Flowers?
Flowers that can make you less stressed or lonely? Sounds like something a hippie wiccan with a black belt in reiki would be into. But there could be truth in this... and then what if I told you it was all passed via flower energy? Now it's starting to sound like that wiccan hippie also has 50 cats and reads tea leaves and auras to pay for all that cat food and flower elixirs.
But there is also evidence that flower healing is real. And many consider them one of the most effective ways to naturally treat unwanted emotions (other than cannabis of course...)
And so comes in flower elixirs. The most famous of which are the Bach Flower Essences, known as "Fleurs de Bach" in France. They were created by British Dr. Bach in the 1930's from the essences of 38 flowers that are believed to help balance our emotional states. The flowers grow wild and are mainly cultivated from the forests or fields and each treats a different emotional state: fear, hopelessness, solitude, anxiety, oversensitivity....
And as crazy as this might sound, the magic of flowers apparently comes from their ability to balance the mind and body through energy pathways. Everything comes down to energy. Pain in the body is perceived by the creation of positive ions sending messages to the brain. Stress is perceived by a complex interaction between stressors and our perception of these stressors. Certain ones are universal–grief over the death or loss of a loved one, anxiety over a known fear, or over one that is unknown–but all are perceived, from a biological perspective, by the release of certain hormones. A spike in the adrenal glands, a drop in serotonin; all manifesting as forms of energy passed between neural receptors of the amygdala, to the hypothalamus, sympathetic nervous system and so forth (1)
Dr. Bach's philosophy comes from a belief of finding emotional peace by balancing the body and mind... a harmony between the physical and conceptual.
These elixirs carry the energetic essences of different flowers, which, when paired with certain universal emotional stressors, can help to harmonize the interrupted connection between mind and body. Flower energy healing emotions might sound like something from witch or fairy lore, but consider tears... under a microscope, different emotions create different molecular structures of tears... It is because emotional tears are linked to protein-based hormones including neurotransmitters like leucine enkephalin; while tears of joy are the product of an entirely different hormonal response. (2)
Dr. Bach's flower and alcohol tinctures have had a debated reputation. And understandably so. Many in the science community believe it is nothing more than placebo magic, which could be true, but many also believe and have experienced their power. There is so much we have yet to understand about the human body. I am under the belief that the connection with our mind is far more profound than we understand, and many answers reside in energies that we don't have the tools to detect, yet.
So why then do some people profess they don't work on them? A theory could be because each flower corresponds to a certain emotional energy. If you try Aspen elixir to help calm your fear for a test the next day, it won't work because Aspen treats fears of something unknown. You should have taken Agrimony, which is connected to fears of something precise.
And one of the most widely known Bach elixirs, "Rescue Remedy", containing a mix of flowers, is marketed as a general stress cure, while in fact it is specifically targeted towards reassurance and comfort in situations that spike adrenaline, like after a sudden, unexpected accident or crisis like a car crash. But if you are seeking a stress relief for loneliness or unknown anxiety, Rescue Remedy will not work. This "marketing flaw" has led many people to believe the elixirs dont work, but could simply be because they are not using the correct one, and sometimes you need to mix a variety of different elixirs to treat a more complex emotional stress.