Riding the Waves of Emotions

Diana Pink is a Holistic Health Mentor, offering ways to detox and balance your life to restore vitality and health.

While I was walking along the beach reflecting back on the last few years of my life, I realized how much my emotions and really, my lack of understanding and control over them has dominated my life. This is learned behaviour as I was raised in a family where emotions were not understood, talked about or managed in a healing and loving way. I was the sensitive and emotional one, was easily hurt and cried, but this didn’t always work out as a benefit for me... As I strolled along marvelling at the expansive low tide lines and critters, I recalled times in my life where my emotions were out of control, and I realized too that I didn’t have many tools to handle how I was feeling and what was happening to my body, as the emotions took their toll on me physically to create widespread pain. How can it be that we are not taught about feelings, emotions, and how to move the energy through our bodies from a very young age? Why are these crucial life skills not shared with us? How many times have our long held pent-up emotions wreaked havoc in our relationships and lives, and created an inability to live authentic lives each and every day? A real detriment to our happiness, health and personal success in life. To help myself move through and heal suppressed and stuck emotional energy, I have been exploring tools to process and integrate emotions so they can flow. For that discovery, I have been deeply studying the work and legacy of Dr. Edward Bach (18861936), and his tremendous gift of 38 Bach Flower remedies created to soothe our myriad of emotions.

Starting in 1930, Dr. Bach identified the first three flowers he would use to make his initial flower remedies: Impatiens (for impatience), Mimulus (for fear of known things ie: virus and death), and Clematis (for dreaminess and lack of interest in present circumstances). He was convinced that there must be harmless ways in Nature to help humans be in resonance with well being, and the way to do this was through balancing emotions with flower essences.

Dr. Bach believed that traditional doctors were treating the dis-ease instead of the patient. He saw how patients could heal by being helped with their emotional well being, taking appropriate flower essences to balance what they were feeling, and looking at the personality of the person instead of the disease. An amazing insight into root causes of dis-ease, and it is very true that you have to ‘feel it to heal it’.

Dr. Bach studied human behaviour and emotions, and created 38 remedies to cover the spectrum of our emotional experience. Here are more examples: Agrimony for mental torment behind a brave face; Gentian for hopelessness and despair; Hornbeam for that Monday morning feeling; Larch for lack of confidence; Oak for being exhausted but struggling on; Red Chestnut for fear or over concern for others; Walnut for protection from change and outside influences; White Chestnut for unwanted thoughts and mental arguments; Wild Rose for resignation and apathy and Willow for resentment… this is a small sampling of the 38 remedies which he divided into 7 groups: Fear - Uncertainty - Lack of Interest in Present Circumstances - Loneliness - Despondency and Despair - Oversensitivity and Overcare for Others welfare.

You may have heard about or seen Dr. Bach’s ‘Rescue Remedy’, in bright yellow packaging which is a blend of five flower essences (Impatiens, Star of Bethlehem, Cherry Plum, Rock Rose, and Clematis), to provide immediate calm and ease in acute stressful and trauma situations. It’s easy and safe to use, 4 sprays or drops as often as needed and available at local health food and some grocery stores. It’s a must have for everyone in today’s crazy world and it is available in tincture form for adults, and there is one for children and pets that is made with glycerine. I recommend this remedy all the time as a necessary tool to have handy as we all ride intense and extreme emotional rollercoasters. It lives in my purse and it has assisted me and others hundreds of times over the twenty years I have been enjoying its benefits.

I feel deeply aligned with Dr. Bach’s remedies and have much respect and gratitude for his gift of flower remedies. I’ve had much personal success using them, I have completed my first two levels of Bach Flower training, and I am thoroughly enjoying making personal remedy mixes for clients, friends, family and a few dogs and cats too! When I create a personal mix for someone, they complete a questionnaire and the remedies required reveal themselves. The positive changes and increased sense of well being people (and animals!) experience is truly amazing, heart warming and inspiring. Now is the time in our lives when our personal well being, emotional health and stability matter more than ever. The extreme upheaval of the last two years, has been very hard on our collective nervous systems and the ways that we relate with our family, friends and outside world. Bach Flower remedies can assist you in recognizing your emotions and providing specific remedies to soothe, calm and balance your emotional body so you can move easier through life. Please be in touch by email afreshstart@shaw. ca or phone 250 597 2102 if I can help and make a custom Bach Flower remedy for you!