My understanding of flower essences

I'm doing a unit at uni at the moment on Flower Essences. I had been using them prior to learning about them in depth, and really enjoyed the process and outcome of them when I chose them myself and when my kinesiologist uses them with me. I knew they worked but I hadn't really understood how and why - and now I actually understand what happens when I take them. This is just a take of my understanding and I'd imagine there'd be a lot of variation in people's views and experiences of flower essences. Flower essences are generally created by extracting the vibration or essence from a particular flower, into a body of water. However, this varies according to the branch of Flower Essence. The dosage and formulation also varies. There are different branches of flower essences and these include Bach's Flower Remedies (think Rescue Remedy), Australian Bush Flower Esences, Living Essences, Spirit of Woman Essences and many more. Flower essences are used for emotional healing, spiritual balancing and healing. You can take one essence at a time or combine several. They can provide a positive outcome to negative emotional experience. The flower's outcome is often determined by the idea of the doctrine of signatures. For example, if the flower is in the shape of a hand it may promote ideas and feelings related to 'reaching out'. If the flower is red, it may relate to energy, fire and standing out. Some flowers may be relate back to the chakras. Most flower essence branches will talk about the negative condition for what the flower is indicated for and the resultant positive outcome. One example is the Australian Bush Flower Essence 'Sturt Desert Rose'.The negative conditions are - guilt, low self-esteem and easily led. The positive outcomes are - courage, conviction, strength to be true to self and integrity. When taking flower essences there can be a whole load of ways that your being deals with them. Sometimes the essence or essences bring up some stuff, you might experience a physical manifestation of an emotion releasing itself, you may feel a sort of contentment with a shift, a presence, you may notice a change of behavior or you might wonder if anything is happening at all. Sometimes they're a bit hard to grasp especially when we are used to the conventional medicine approach to things and their 'quick-fix' nature,. Flower essences are a bit round-about and a bit abstract. In conventional medicine there's a separation between the person taking the medicine, the medicine, and the disease/issue. When you take an essence the plant itself becomes apart of you and works with you, and you work with it. And hopefully you come out the other end with an altered relationship with yourself, other people and the world you live in. In contrast, it can be a lot less dramatic and drawn out – with emergency essences for example (Bach's Rescue Remedy, Australian Bush Flower Essence's Emergency Essence). When thinking about taking essences I think it's best to seek a healer who can help determine your dose, the flowers you need and how long you need to take them for. For example, you may need to take essences for weeks for a deeply embedded emotion that you've carried all your life. Or maybe you need the minimum time for something that is acute or just to maintain a sense of wellbeing or calm etc. On the other hand, if you feel confident to research and prescribe yourself and are very aware of what's going on with you, all the information is out there for you to do it all yourself. I think an important thing to mention here is that if you combine essences for one issue - say, social confidence, this can be very effective, but one essence aimed at the same issue can be more so effective. Combining essences for several different issues - for example, an essence for confidence, one for creativity, one for anger - this will be less effective. It's best to address all of these at separate times using essences. In addition to the essence you can do other things. In addition to the essences and in order to complement and possibly increase their effectiveness other prescriptions are used. These include meditation, mantras, journaling, creating rituals when you take them, being grateful for the essence and the timing of it in your life or just acknowledging that you have created the intention to address your emotional health. For example, the mantra offered for ABFE mentioned above (Sturt Desert Rose) is 'I am nor releasing all feelings of guilt and regret about the past. I am now true to myself in all areas of my life'. This is something you might recite when you take the essence or when you meditate with the essence. Again, this is just the understanding I've gained through what I've learnt at uni and how I've felt taking them myself. I've personally had good experiences with ABFE myself, and they love me so I feel closest to them. Admittedly though I've only tried them and Bach and I'll try others if I ever become drawn to them, because for me the flower essences I take are chosen intuitively and come to me in a way, when I need them,

F The ABFE Macrocarpa (Eucalyptus macrocarpa) is indicated for thoe suffering from the negative states of convelescence, tiredness, exhasution, btnout and low immunity and someone requiring a pick me upm undergoing a stredfful time. The positive outcomes of taking the essence are energy, vitality and endurace. Apparently the essence has an affinity for the adrenal glands.