Bach flowers
Our emotions, like our thoughts, flow throughout our whole body and reach every cell through neuropeptides, which are neurotransmitters that circulate in the blood.
If we are in touch with our emotions we ease the flow of neuropeptides and therefore the unity of mind and body, and this is not a cognitive process but an unconscious one; only by living our emotions do we reach awareness, get rid of our convictions and come to know ourselves in all our aspects.
One method based on the premise that mental attitude plays a fundamental role in maintaining a harmonious state between body and psyche is the method practised by Edward Bach; Edward Bach was a bacteriologist and homeopath, and in the 1930s he discovered and developed a system based on 38 floral remedies able to find a way of reacting when faced with uncertain situations.
Each flower is aimed at an emotion representing fundamental conflicts that prevent us from remaining in harmony, and the system associates a flower with each state of mind.
For Dr Bach, the origin of every malaise can be traced back to an inner conflict between the self, with its innate aspirations, and the continual interference and pressures from outside, which often create a deep physical and mental disharmony. Many of us go through periods of fatigue and pressure, and that is when negativity, irritability and withdrawal into ourselves take over.
The method of preparing the flowers is kept alive and guaranteed by the Bach Centre at Mount Vernon, in England, the home and workplace of Dr Edward Bach. There are no negative emotional states: there are, instead, emotional states out of balance. We must not suppress those of our emotions considered unacceptable, first of all because it is almost impossible, and secondly because every emotional state needs to be expressed, otherwise the body somatises it internally.
The Bach flower does not eliminate the emotional state but rather intensifies the positive qualities of that same state so that the corresponding negative ones are removed, activating one’s own potential for self-healing. When we talk about emotion, we enter the deepest part of me! Everything that is the iceberg effect, that is, what shows itself, is unease… I like to call it the pimple effect, that thing that comes out of the skin… it is a tiny part of everything that has happened inside… so we define all that comes out as a biological dimension, where in the deep part, in the deepest self, there is a sexual, psychological, social and environmental dimension.
The environment and beliefs control the behaviour of genes. We are often victims of our own system of beliefs.
Bach flowers can be taken as a support to any medical or psychological treatment, but they must not replace it.
Working with the principles of the flowers helps people to transform patterns of behaviour, for example fear into courage, shyness into confidence, indecision into determination. More and more often, psychotherapists are astonished at how much more effective their interventions are when accompanied by therapy with Bach flowers.
To test which Bach flower is right for the person, I personally use the kinesiological muscle test during the naturopathic visit.
The kinesiological test allows me not to interpret, and lets the person asking choose the right flower and recognise the message that is useful for them at that moment.
With all respect for those who use conversation, I prefer to let myself be guided by the person’s autonomic nervous system, that is, by their subconscious and not by their mind.
Bach flowers are vibrational remedies, useful on our emotional journey; they help us find the way back to ourselves and accept who we are at the deepest level.
