Herbstalk 2014

Herbstalk 2014 will take place this year on June 7th and 8th in Somerville, MA. Herbstalk is an exciting weekend of classes, workshops, and intensives focused on herbal education. If you are in the area and are interested in signing up to attend, you can find more information here. Debra Bluth will be offering her class Introduction to Flower Essences from 4pm-5:30pm on Saturday June 7th; this is a great opportunity for those interested in learning about flower essences. You can find the full schedule of classes here.

Your Vote Counts!

Hi Flower Essence Enthusiasts!

Last month, we told you about La Vie de la Rose, a flower essence company that is creating transformation through their work. If you haven't voted yet, now is your chance. It is down to the last set of votes and your vote could be the one that helps secure the opportunity to have a significant global impact through flower essences. Please visit http://www.laviedelarose.com/blast/LV_GrantEmail.html to learn about the amazing grant opportunity you can help them receive by casting your vote.

Help support a great cause!

Dear Manifest with Flower Essences community,

Today, I am writing to let you know about La Vie de la Rose, a flower essence company that is creating transformation through their work. If you have a chance, please visit http://www.laviedelarose.com/blast/LV_GrantEmail.html to learn about the amazing grant opportunity you can help them receive by casting your vote.

Q&A with Corrina Steward, Creator of Earth Hive Essences

Listen to an exclusive Manifest with Flower Essences Q&A session with Corrina Steward, creator of Earth Hive Essences. If you have any questions or are interested in a consultation, please visit the Earth Hive Essences website.

We welcome your thoughts, questions, and comments. Click on the title of this post to leave us a comment or start a discussion with others in the Manifest with Flower Essences community.

Are you ready to cut through the fog and get a boost in clarity using flower essences?

Do you seem to be walking through a fog not sure where to go next? Does life seem like a maze with no clear routes? Flower essences can help boost clarity and allow you to gain new insights. The following video talks about Apple Flower Essence for peaceful clarity.

Manifest your Dream Job Now using Flower Essences

Wouldn’t it be amazing to know that you will be doing something you enjoy and getting paid for it? What would it be worth to you to stop searching for your dream job and be working in your dream job instead? Can you imagine what it would be like to have offers flood your email box and people come up to you seeking your talents and skills to help their businesses?

Until now, the process of manifesting a dream job started with identifying it first. But what if, like many people, you didn’t know what it was? You would feel doomed from the start! You would search high and low, try everything you could, take endless quizzes, personality tests, and write essays, and still not know what exactly your dream job was. Worse yet, what if your dream job didn’t exist in a neat little package that you could just do a search for and click on a button to apply for it?

There are many creative, talented, intelligent people whose dream jobs don’t exist as jobs and yet not everyone is in a position to jump into the role of an entrepreneur to create their own jobs. What is a passionate, enthusiastic dream job seeker to do?

Read the rest of the article at http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/manifest-your-dream-job-now-using-flower-essences to find out which flower essences you can use to help you manifest your dream job now.

Q&A session with Warren Bellows about Floral Acupuncture

Listen to an exclusive Manifest with Flower Essences Q&A session with Warren Bellows, licensed acupuncturist and co-author of the book Floral Acupuncture. If you have any questions or are interested in a consultation, please visit the Floral Acupuncture website.

We welcome your thoughts, questions, and comments. Click on the title of this post to leave us a comment or start a discussion with others in the Manifest with Flower Essences community.

The healing or awareness crisis: What is it and how can you move through it?

The often ignored or rarely discussed phenomenon known as a healing crisis or awareness crisis is something that people who use flower essences or partake in other types of healing work are familiar with. A healing/awareness crisis is a situation in which the person taking the flower essence will often feel exacerbated symptoms of the very issue he or she is trying to resolve using the flower essence. An example of this is discussed in this article.

Flower essences bring an undeniable clarity to a situation where it brings to the surface anything about the particular issue being dealt with that was hidden or submerged. With this new level of clarity, it is really difficult to pretend that the issue doesn't exist and often times the person is led to take some action. When an issue involves more than one person, what often happens is that the flower essence works on the energetic level and shifts are made. Other people around this person may feel that something is different even though there is no physical evidence they can point to. Subsequently, the behavior of others around the person may change (sometimes in a positive way and sometimes in a negative way).

More often than not, with any type of healing, what happens is that the person doing a lot of healing work on themselves shifts their energy to a much higher level; before he or she changes their conscious behavior, this energy shift is felt by others and triggers their issues. This discomfort in others often results in them lashing out for things that don't make rational sense. If you feel like you are facing arguments that hold no rational meaning or if you feel unfairly picked on or bullied, there is a very good chance that others around you aren't taking responsibility for themselves. It is not your fault. Your new, fresh energy can no longer hold a place for their negativity. You might wonder how in the world they are able to sense that when you haven't changed the way you interact. Energy healing is very powerful. If you walk into a home with a lot of negative energy, you can often feel it before you can identify any evidence. Similarly, someone who is used to a certain level of negativity actually struggles with positive energy. If someone is bitter and angry, being around energy that is positive sets them off even more. You are in no way responsible for that, but it is a warning to you that flower essences (or any other type of energy healing) are powerful and they will unearth and clear away old patterns.

If you are going through a healing or awareness crisis you have several choices. Some of those options are discussed in the article linked here. If the issue you are dealing with had something to do with those around you, some ways of handling the situation are to give yourself some space from those who are reacting negatively; talking won't necessarily solve something that isn't necessarily rational. For example, if you are doing self-acceptance work and it is in someone's best interest that you have low self-worth so they can control you, the minute the other person senses a new energy from you that appears more self-confident and self-assured, their fear of losing control over you is triggered. It doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong; it means that the situation of control can no longer remain the same. The other person may or may not choose to work on their own issues. In the meantime, you will either spend less time around that person or you will make a decision to completely stop interacting with them. You may also choose to slow down the process by stopping flower essence therapy and other healing methods until you can make conscious changes to your environment.

Healing using any modality creates change. Change in and of itself is not a bad thing; however, our mechanism for integrating change is important to long-term life satisfaction. Once we have a certain level of clarity, we will attract people and situations in line with our new energetic blueprint. We will no longer be operating from a place of childhood patterns or victimhood.

Not everyone experiences a healing crisis every time they take a flower essence or do healing work. This is just something to be aware of when you feel frustrated that things seem to be getting worse before they get better. With some support, love, and a new perspective, you will most likely continue on your healing journey and notice that your life improves a great deal. Unfortunately, in order for new people and opportunities to come into your life, you may have to leave behind situations that you have outgrown. Follow your heart and make these changes with compassion and calmness. Do not do things in haste or out of retaliation or anger. Allow yourself time to integrate the changes and make choices from a place of empowerment. You are responsible for yourself; those who truly respect you will allow you to change and they will deal with their own issues and triggers with maturity. Those who have controlled you, bullied you, or expect you to follow their command will no longer be able to handle being around you and your new boundaries until and unless they find a new way to relate. Give yourself the gift of freedom and healing by following through on what feels right to you while respectfully and consciously untangling yourself from drama and chaos.

Since the process itself can be rocky, you may consider taking one of the following flower essences for the healing crisis itself. Some flower essences suggested for a healing crisis are: Aloe Flower Essence, Crisis-Desert Emergency Formula, Desert Jointfir Flower Essence, and Zephyr Lily Flower Essence. You may also consider taking Bach Flower Rescue Remedy.

A close up look at beautiful flowers

Enjoy this beautiful video which features a close up look at some beautiful flowers. This close up look is great if you are learning to make your own flower essences and are studying various features and signatures of flowers. If you are using different flower essences, see which flowers resonate with you at the moment. If you are particularly drawn to one or several of the flowers from this video, note them down and research the flower essences made from those flowers to see if you could use those flower essences for what you are currently experiencing in your life.



Do you have a favorite flower? Leave us a note in the Comments section by clicking on the title of this post. Thanks!

That elusive first step: Flower essences to help you get over procrastination

For those of you who have subscribed to our newsletter, you might remember this quote from the Special Report you received, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" by Lao-tzu. The special report suggests that a simple first step into the journey of flower essences is to learn more about them by reading articles and posts through resources such as books and articles as well as blogs including Manifest with Flower Essences. By learning more, there would come a point where you might feel inspired to try a particular flower essence and then over time, flower essences would become a tool that you could turn to at any time you wanted to make changes or manifest something in your life.

Today I want to address the factors that keep us from taking that single step. That first step. The resistance to that first step can often be overpowering. Just as you go to click the link to read an article about something that could potentially change your life or pick up the phone to make a phone call to find out more information about an interesting opportunity, you get sidetracked by something. You think you'll get to it later. You start noticing that this happens even for the smallest of steps, and especially for anything that could actually be useful or life-changing. You don't seem to procrastinate when it comes to buying a new dress or trying a new restaurant. Those kinds of decisions and actions are easy.

It's the stuff that really matters, that resonates deep within that seems to be accompanied by a wall that is impermeable. It's so much easier to watch some television or get a snack than to read the article that gives you specific advice on how you could manifest your soulmate or attract the job of your dreams. Of course it's perfectly valid to question whether any of that actually works because you have seen hundreds of ads and books and articles that promise you all of those things and never deliver. It's understandable. But do you ever wonder why so many of those things exist? Somebody somewhere must be benefiting from these types of things; otherwise why would they still exist? Market forces seem to indicate that such self-help material must be helping someone find his or her soulmate and someone attract the type of job that makes Monday mornings fun. But is this curiosity enough for you to try yet another thing that could just be hype? Your procrastination may stem from a need to have everything perfectly set up before you think you can get what you want. Deep down this might indicate a feeling of not deserving what you want. Desert Alchemy's Spineless Prickly Pear Cactus could be just what you need.

But what if your procrastination stems from not being sure of what you really want? You might try Desert Alchemy's Cliff Rose. What if you know what you want but just can't seem to "get all your ducks in a row"? What if it's just hard to put all of your energy and resources behind what you want? Try Desert Alchemy's Desert Broom.

The most useful thing I have found when it comes to procrastination is to find out whether you are willing to go into the first step of any venture with a beginner's mind. In meditation, the beginner's mind refers to a state of openness. Are you willing to see this step as an experiment to learn rather than accomplish something? If you go into any venture being attached to the outcome, you are putting too much pressure on yourself. It is understandable that if you are making a considerable investment in something, it's natural to want results. But most first steps seldom require a huge investment either in terms of money or time. Are you willing to take a first step and just observe and note what it feels like? Can you take that first step with the stance of a journalist and take note of what you learned? Can you take that first step and suspend judgment long enough to fully be aware of how you feel, what your intuition tells you, and what you can physically see and observe? This approach can go a long way to making the process of manifesting easier and more successful. Many times, the first step is the hardest. With the knowledge you gain from taking that first step, you can make a much more informed decision as to whether to follow through or not. Are you ready to take that first step?

We invite you to leave a comment by clicking on the title of the post. Which flower essence was the first one you ever tried? Did you feel anything the first few days of taking it?

How to deal with a difficult person or situation using flower essences

Do you ever feel trapped in an unpleasant situation and just can't seem to get free of it? Are you a self-development expert who can't understand why all of your efforts seem to be in vain when it comes to this one very sticky, very annoying situation? Here are some approaches with flower essences that may just be what you need.

Whether you are frustrated about an annoying boss, a negative co-worker, a bullying teammate, or a friend or family member that is picking on you or teasing you excessively, you can try the following flower essences to help alleviate the issue not just in the short-term but to transform the interaction entirely so you are not faced with the same issue over and over again. Just to note, this is only for frustrating or annoying situations and not issues of abuse, harassment, etc. For those types of matters, please consult the appropriate professional immediately.

Before we list the specific flower essences, let's figure out the distinct parts of the annoying situation. One part is the persistent nature of this annoyance. It seems to be a repeated annoyance every time you interact with a particular person. Another aspect is that the issue is part of some routine part of your life and because of that, you are unable to or do not want to consciously break free of interacting with this person either because of a job, a familial relationship, long-term friendship, sports team or activity group, etc. Another part to the problem is that you seem to be singled out so that the issue is something you face alone or with just a few people as opposed to mass oppression in cases like oppressive regimes, conditions of war, etc. Those types of situations require greater resources and professional help; please seek out appropriate help and professional care in those circumstances.

Here are 3 Bach Flower Essences that can be used together to address annoying/frustrating situations:

1. Bach Flower Remedy Chestnut Bud
2. Bach Flower Remedy White Chestnut
3. Bach Flower Remedy Centaury

Though each of these flower essences can be used for a variety of issues, in this case, we have selected Chestnut Bud to illuminate the areas in which one finds themselves repeatedly in the same situations. White Chestnut is used to help alleviate repeated thoughts that continue to play over and over again like a broken record. Breaking out of that thought pattern allows one to see the situation with a new perspective and also relieve the stress of unwanted thoughts repeating themselves indefinitely. Centaury is used here to help restore one's individual power. In situations where someone is being picked on, one may feel powerless to do anything about the situation. By fortifying one's power from the inside, this new vibration will help create an invisible boundary of energy that makes it harder if not impossible to be singled out or picked on.

Some situations may be more complex and require a consult with a flower essence practitioner to address unique circumstances or longer-term underlying issues that need to be dealt with using other flower essences. For simple cases where it seems that everyday life would improve dramatically if one particular annoying situation could be alleviated, these 3 flower essences may just be the answer you are looking for. You can create your own personal blend by adding several drops of each of these essences into a bottle of water and sipping from this bottle of water throughout the day. Some flower essence practitioners have described this method using the image of a hammer tapping away at the issue each time this water is sipped. With many persistent taps throughout the day, the problem or issue crumbles. This might be a more effective method than taking the flower essences only 3 times a day. If you were to sip from the bottle throughout the day, you would be imbibing the energy of the essences 10 or more times per day. This persistence with the issue may be just what you need to deal with an equally persistent, annoying situation. To figure out how many drops of each essence to put in a bottle of water, click here.

Flower essences are powerful; if you are going to try this for a situation you are dealing with, be aware that within the first few days, the situation may become exaggerated and you may find yourself feeling even more frustrated as the situation comes to a turning point. At this point, you might find yourself in a heated discussion with the person or a breaking point with the situation. You must be prepared to be completely honest with yourself that you want to find a solution to the issue and take responsibility for your thoughts and actions. If you are not ready for this, stop taking the flower essences or for a gentler approach take the flower essences once a day or once every few days. However, you may also find that when you take the flower essences, you are easily able to stop thinking about the annoyance and the person that would usually pick on you may just stop their behavior because they sense a different energy around you though you might not be doing anything differently on a conscious level.

It is hard to predict exactly how a situation pans out, but flower essences usually bring about some change. The process can sometimes feel difficult because the process of change itself can feel difficult. However, if you are ready for more awareness in a situation, flower essences definitely bring issues to light. Each individual's particular experience with them will really depend on how many other issues exist in the background. If you have done a great deal of personal development work and have been using flower essences for a while, many of the shifts may feel fairly gentle since a lot of major issues have been cleared. However, if you have always stuffed away your emotions and suppressed every instinct and feeling you have had, it may feel like any inner work feels like a trigger that could cause an inner volcano to erupt. Bach's Cherry Plum flower essence is great for the fear of losing control. If you use these flower essences for a few weeks, you are likely to notice some positive changes. With continued use of flower essences for a variety of issues, you'll clear out old patterns and start noticing life becoming easier, lighter, and more aligned.

Have you used any of these flower essences before? Do you use other flower essences for these issues? Click on the title of this post and leave us your thoughts in the Comments section.

Article featured in Evolution Ezine: The secret to manifesting your desires with ease

Manifest with Flower Essence's article "The secret to manifesting your desires with ease" was featured in the Evolution Ezine. We are very excited to be featured alongside many wonderful resources. If you haven't seen it, we invite you to take a moment to read the article and share your thoughts. You can view it here. Come back and leave us a comment in the Comments section by clicking on the title of this post.

Become a Manifesting Magnet using Flower Essences

Have you seen The Secret? Have you tried to manifest your desires but just can't seem to get results? Today we are reviewing 3 powerful flower essence blends / combinations that may help you become a manifesting magnet. According to many manifestation experts, the 3 key steps to manifesting are to visualize what you want, remove any obstacles or blocks, and take inspired action while staying open to receiving your desires.

The following flower essence blends/combinations help with all of those areas including inspiring creativity, helping clear obstacles by revealing subconscious blocks and illuminating healthier beliefs and options, and providing gentle support to take inspired action.

Tree Frog Farm's Manifest Essence Blend contains over 20 individual flower essences including Clary Sage to heighten ability to receive psychic insights, Camas Lily to communicate your desires more easily, and Osoberry to hold your higher purpose while staying grounded in day-to-day activities.

La Vie de la Rose's Perfected Manifestation© helps facilitate the translation of thoughtforms into physical manifestation. At the same time this formula helps illuminate and remove self-limiting beliefs, thus aiding the process of manifestation. Furthermore, Perfected Manifestation© helps heal parts of one's consciousness, removing impediments to the manifestation process.

Fox Mountain's Create Your World Flower Essence is a blend that helps manifest one's Soul's desires. It reminds us that we already have all the tools we need to manifest what we desire. This blend enhances one's connection to creativity and to life's gifts.

These powerful flower essence blends offer a synergetic combination of individual flower essences that work on many levels, clearing subconscious blocks, illuminating creativity, sparking inspired action, and offering grounding and gentle support. Share your successful manifestation stories with us by clicking on the title of this post.

Flower Essences for Entrepreneurs

The path of the entrepreneur is both an inward journey and an outward manifestation of inspiration in the form of a product or service. On this path, an entrepreneur needs to nurture his or her idea and bring it to fruition. This process requires clarity, commitment, and courage. Flower essences chosen specifically for entrepreneurship can enhance support, intuition, and wisdom through this unique journey. Lotus Wei offers a blend called Inspired Action in the form of an elixir, mist, and serum which contains the flower essences of the Chandelier Succulent along with the flower essences of Fire Star Orchid, Red Bird of Paradise, Euphrasia, and Pink Lotus.

To help cope with the flurry of activity and accompanying mental chatter that is often present in the life of an entrepreneur, this article suggests several Bach Flower Essences including Olive, Elm, and White Chestnut Bach Flower Remedies.

Which flower essences do you turn to as you follow the path of entrepreneurship? Do you have a favorite flower essence for when you wonder if you are on the right path or need a boost of inspiration to get over a slump? Share your ideas with us by clicking on the title of this post and leaving us a comment in the Comments section.

Floral Acupuncture

Flower Essences work well with other complementary healing methods. One innovative use of flower essences is through floral acupuncture - the use of flower essences on acupuncture points on the body. This unique method of utilizing flower essences has many benefits. View the video below to learn more.

Seasonal Flower Essences

As I was researching flower essences recently, I wondered whether there is any correlation between the seasons and flower essences. Given that flower essences are an energetic link to nature, it wasn't surprising to find that certain flower essences are associated with certain seasons. There are no hard and fast rules as to which flower essences you should take during a specific season; rather, there seems to be a pattern or correlation between what types of issues surface during different parts of the year. For example, during the winter, especially where the climate is harsher and sunlight is infrequent, one may turn to a flower essence such as St. John's Wort for help from anxiety or depression. To learn more about Winter/Spring remedies, click here.

Flower essences can also be used proactively instead of in reaction to how one feels at a certain time of year. For example, one may choose to use Christchurch Flower Essences' summer flower essences to deepen spiritual growth. This article details specific flower essences including Canterbury Bells and Dogwood which can be used to deepen one's spiritual practice.

Have you used a particular flower essence or flower essence blend through a season? Do you tend to reach for certain flower essences in the summer and other flower essences during the winter? Leave us a comment in the Comments section by clicking on the title of this post.

And the rest is history...

Have you ever heard someone tell a story and say, "and the rest is history"? Have you ever thought, that's the most important part - I want details, step-by-step instructions, or a line-by-line analysis? At Manifest with Flower Essences, we want to fill in the blanks. We want to share specifics about how to use flower essences to manifest what you want. We want to go from the part where nothing seems to work to where the most exciting things manifest in life and talk about specific steps and tools so you can reach that happily-ever-after place. Most manifesting coaches warn that there is no happily-ever-after place and that life is ever-changing and a journey that has ups and downs. I agree with those ideas, but have something else to add. I believe that it is possible to operate from different modes. I believe that an optimist experiences the world differently than a pessimist. I believe that a successful person experiences the world differently than an unsuccessful one. The interesting thing is that we all have those modes in us; the difference is which mode we tune into at a given time; it's not that certain people are successful and that others aren't, it's that certain people operate from a successful mindset more often than others. I believe that flower essences help us find and operate the switch that controls which mode we manifest from. For example, if someone is often successful with work projects but seldom experiencing success in the area of relationships, flower essences chosen for relationships can help that person tune into the frequency of success in relationships, helping the person make the choices of someone who is successful in relationships. This distinction is critical because it allows someone to be themselves but tune into a specific frequencies that are helpful without changing their specific likes and dislikes or changing their core.

Certain times we mention flower essences that might work for anyone who faces certain situations. At other times, we talk about certain scenarios but don't mention flower essences for those scenarios but instead mention working with a flower essence practitioner. This is because a flower essence practitioner can often get to the hidden root of the issue and suggest a flower essence that transforms the situation better than listing a handful of essences that might have some effect. At the same time, we want to allow you to explore the topic of flower essences here on this blog as much as possible and give you the resources to make your own informed decisions, so we will try to provide you with as many options as possible, and as you try different flower essences and tune into your own intuition, you will likely start noticing great results. Feel free to share your insights with our community and post any questions you might have. We have many wonderful flower essence practitioners in this community who are happy to answer questions and provide you with guidance to help you manifest the life you desire using flower essences.

Exponential Growth: What does it have to do with flower essences?

Have you ever seen a graph of exponential growth? Look at this link for an example. Notice how linear growth seems to be making a lot of progress right from the beginning compared to the exponential growth model. But there is a sweet spot when the exponential growth line surpasses linear growth and skyrockets from there. What does this have to do with flower essences?

The changes you might initially experience from taking flower essences may be subtle. You might wonder how flower essences could possibly help you get from where you are to where you want to be. You might question how flower essences could possibly help you manifest the life you dream of since it seems incredibly different and far from anything you are currently living. If you study the exponential growth model, you will notice that there seems to be little change for the first phase of time. Then, all of a sudden, as if out of nowhere, there is a dramatic shift in growth. If you use flower essences, you might experience subtle, small changes for the first few weeks to months after which time you might notice that there have been huge changes to your life. You might have been inspired to make major shifts in your life which in turn produced other changes. These changes, even the ones that seem arbitrary at first end up revealing a brand new reality, one that you had only seen in your visualizations and dreams.

To better understand how this might work, let's walk through an example. Let's study the case of someone who wants to be in a relationship, find a new job, and move to a place that she likes better than where she is currently living. After working with a flower essence practitioner, she realizes that the common theme holding her back is a lack of courage that is preventing her from taking calculated risks. She is afraid of the consequences of her actions, but her fear has created a risk as well; her fear has kept her from the possibility of having what she really wants. Her flower essence practitioner selects the following essences: Aspen for the fear of unknown situations, Mimulus for the fear of situations that she is aware of, and Cerato for lack of trust in the decisions she makes. For the first few weeks of taking these essences, she notices that she is drawn to trying a different commute home than the one she normally takes. This leads to meeting a new friend on her walk home. She finds herself browsing job boards and noticing that she is drawn to a different type of job than the one she has. The more she learns about her likes and dislikes, the less scary the idea of changing careers becomes. She notices a magazine cover featuring a city she had always been curious about living in but had never visited before.

When she unexpectedly gets a few extra days off of work for her successful completion of a project, she decides to visit this city to find out what it would be like to live there. As she continues working with her flower essence practitioner, she starts noticing that fear isn't holding her back like it used to. She decides to stop using those flower essences. As she talks with her flower essence practitioner, she realizes that she is seriously consider moving to the city she visited, but at the same time, she has started appreciating new aspects of her current city. She is prescribed Scleranthus for her inability to choose between the two options. As she continues to take this new essence, she starts to realize that the city she currently lives in doesn't have the job opportunities she is interested in pursuing. She decides to explore possibilities sending in resumes to a few jobs in the city of her choice.

A few weeks later, she receives a call about a job she had applied to and after a phone interview, she is flown in for an in-person interview. Immediately, she knows that if she is offered the position, she will move. A few weeks later, she has settled into a new apartment in a new city with a new job. Looking back, she realizes that without conquering her fear, she would never have taken the small steps necessary to make big changes. As she continues to work with her flower essence practitioner, she is given Honeysuckle and finds it easier to let go of the past without letting go of her fond memories. As she examines her past relationships, she realizes that she has let jealousy and envy block her heart from feeling open to love. She takes Holly flower essence and notices that after a few good cries and rants in her journal, she feels more peaceful and loving. A few weeks later, she is invited to a party by her coworkers and meets an interesting man who asks her out on a date.

Two months later, nearly a year from her first conversation with her flower essence practitioner, she recounts her year using flower essences. Starting from a place where she was looking for a relationship, a new job, and a new city to live in, she now has all of that. Instead of struggling and dealing with setbacks and disappointments, she found that flower essences helped her take small, inspired steps. She took time to listen to her intuition which saved her from making decisions based on comfort and routine which would have led her to stay in the same city and same job. She allowed herself to waiver between the two cities and explore the new city with a trip before making a commitment to move. This new process was fun and exciting instead of stressful and dreadful. She learned that change can be a good thing when supported by the use of flower essences. Her flower essence practitioner listened to the story behind her wishes and chose flower essences based on larger themes to create lasting changes.

This is quite a common experience with those who take flower essences. People typically notice small shifts at the beginning leading to transformative changes after a certain amount of time. Flower essences have the power to help people create exponential growth in their lives. Working with a flower essence practitioner, subscribing to informative resources about flower essences, and combining solid introspective practices such as meditation and journaling all help accelerate this personal growth process. If you are just beginning this process, remember the graph of exponential growth and how the first phase of time looks to have minimal progress, but if you are patient and continue to work with flower essences, you may be one of the many people who experience tremendous personal growth and lasting changes.

If you have already experienced this phenomenon, please share your stories with us. Click on this post's title and leave us your thoughts in the Comments section. Your testimonials and stories are valuable to newcomers; we thank you for sharing and helping foster a community around the resources that have helped you create the life of your dreams.

Q&A with Flower Essences Practitioner Debra Bluth

Today, we have a very special exclusive Q&A session with Flower Essence Practitioner and Herbalist Debra Bluth.

On behalf of Manifesting with Flower Essences, I would like to extend a warm welcome to Debra. I had the privilege of attending a presentation by Debra at Herbstalk 2013 in Somerville, MA. She has some fantastic insights about flower essences from her years of experience working with them and I am thrilled that she has agreed to do a Q&A with us here.

Q: What led you to flower essences?
A: I’d been exploring herbs for a little while and I would see the Bach flower essences near the herbs in our local co-op and I felt curious about them. I decided to give one a try on a whim and my experience with that essence (mimulus) was powerful enough that I then grew really curious. Although I dabbled for many years with them, eventually something in my spirit really began hearing them call. I resisted for a few years and it actually was a kicking-and-screaming sort of thing until I finally acknowledged that this work was a real calling for me.

Q: How long have you been using flower essences and what is your most profound experience from using them?
A: Well, that dabbling started 17 years ago, and I would say I’ve been consistently using at least one essence ever since then. I didn't fully embrace them as a path, though, until about 6 years ago. It’s hard to pinpoint one experience that is the most profound, honestly, because so much of my experience with essences has been profound. I CAN say that flower essences have literally saved me – they brought me through a very deep and dangerous period of depression that I don’t think I would have made it through otherwise. I needed a practitioner to help me through that time, because sometimes we need someone else to guide us and mirror us – it's hard to treat ourselves, as we can never really see ourselves. But aside from that experience with the essences, I can attribute flower essences to so much personal healing and development... it’s such a fascinating process to experience how the essences are working on us – the changes in our thoughts and perceptions, and then into our behavior… so many choices open up… our lives just begin to become richer and fuller, and we become so much more ourselves.

Q: If you could pick one or two flower essences that you would always have on hand, what would they be?
A: I think I would always have a protection blend with me – essences like angelica and st. john’s wort, cinquefoil and garlic. And I think I’d always have a clearing blend with me – essences that move energy out – like goldenseal and moxa and sweet annie. So I’m cheating a little with your question, because I am allowing myself blends rather than single essences! I’m also a big fan of red cedar, which is very grounding and centering. And motherwort, which helps with boundaries.

Q: Do you make your own flower essences? What inspired you to do so?
A: Yes, I do. Making essences is really important to me, and many of the essences I use in my practice are ones I’ve made. The communication and spiritual connection with the plant while making the essence leads to a very deep connection with the ‘finished’ essence, and that strengthens the possibilities of what happens when you use it. A gateway opens between you and the plant, and that energy becomes stronger with time, just like any relationship can deepen. I've been very inspired by teachers of mine (David Dalton, Kate Gilday) and their connections with the plants. I knew I wanted to live with that kind of connection and integrity, and I want to be able to pass it on to others. The field of flower essences is always evolving, and I want to be part of that evolution and discovery, learning how to further our ability to help others.

Q: How could flower essences be used to make the world a better place? What do flowers offer us and how can we tap into that to help us live better lives?
A: That’s a profound question. I’m a huge believer that as we become more whole in ourselves (which is what the flowers help us do), the ripple of our own healing moves out into the world. We’re kinder to other people, we’re kinder to the earth. As we become more whole, we become more loving, sensitive, and patient, and this ripples out to everyone around us – and by everyone I mean not just humans. As we become more empowered, too, we are inspired to act truthfully for what we care about. Life becomes larger than just our personal story. A deepening of our sensitivity increases our capacity to feel a larger web of connection. I think personal healing is a truly political act.

Thank you Debra for sharing your insights and information with Manifesting with Flower Essences. To learn more about Debra, please visit her website at http://www.seedandlegend.com.

We invite all of our blog readers to share thoughts and questions by clicking on the title of this post to view the Comments section.

Bio: Debra Bluth is a flower essence practitioner and herbalist practicing in Brighton, Massachusetts and Yarmouth, Maine. Certified to work with flower essences by David Dalton, she also completed his advanced practitioners’ clinic, and now apprentices more closely with him at Delta Gardens. Her eyes first opened to the plants 18 years ago while in a shiatsu certification program, and years later she continued training through The Boston School for Herbal Studies, Bevin Clare, Katja Swift, Mischa Schuler, and Kate Gilday, among others. Debra holds a B.S. in psychology from Tufts University, an MFA in choreography from California Institute of the Arts, is certified as an integrative yoga therapist and shiatsu practitioner, and currently teaches classes in yoga, movement, and experiential anatomy. She also facilitates an online nine-month chakra apprenticeship for women. You can contact her at and join her email list at seedandlegend@gmail.com.

Dreaming of success: The one key factor that keeps you a step away

Today I want to write about the one key factor that gets in the way of success every time. No matter what endeavor you embark on, there is one thing that can keep you at arms length from what you desire. That one thing is self-sabotage. It is not often talked about in professional circles, but plays a critical role in who succeeds and who doesn't. As a society, we talk about effort, merit, and even luck, but we seldom delve into the realm of emotions, where self-sabotage lurks. Self-sabotage isn't easy to spot either. It's not something that shows up like a billboard or a street sign. It often lies dormant until we are one step away from what we want. It can appear as procrastination, a cold, bad weather, or even as a distraction. For some people, it isn't one event that derails them from success. It is a pattern of events gone wrong and resources disappearing. It is inconveniences, difficulties, and downright stubborn and nearly impassible hurdles.

Self-sabotage appears to be from outside of ourselves, and in some energy healing circles is thought of as repressed emotions and past fears attracting the very things we are trying to avoid or overcome. For anyone who has ever tried to use effort and energy to overcome difficulties in their lives and seen the difficulties persist or increase, you may find that flower essences are just what you need.

Flower essences offer a gentle, yet powerful way to get to the root of the cause of self-sabotage whether it is a childhood fear of success because of difficult family circumstances that reinforced the idea that succeeding meant being ostracized from the family or a deeply-ingrained belief that becoming successful means losing valuable friendships. Flower essences illuminate the thoughts behind the self-sabotage and clean away false beliefs while bringing to light the very real circumstances that might be an issue that needs to be addressed by taking certain actions in the present. Flower essences can also provide a sense of comfort and support through the process of evaluating what works and what doesn't work in your present circumstance. Once the cause of the self-sabotage is revealed, it is much easier to make empowering decisions. For some examples of flower essences for self-sabotage, click here. With the help of flower essences, you'll be able to start noticing differences in your outer circumstances and soon you'll be succeeding on your terms instead of being a step away.