How to Choose Your Bach Flower Remedies

If you’ve decided you want to use the Bach flower system, it can be a bit daunting when you want to choose from a list of 38 remedies!

Having read what each remedy will help with, most people say,

"I need all of them - I can't choose just one or two!"

I know how you feel - It can seem impossible to narrow your choices down when you first look at the list. I’ve put together a few suggestions to help you narrow down which remedy or remedies will be most helpful to you.

As tempting as it is to choose all of them, it would be like playing every single note on a piano at the same time. Just too many individual plant vibrations!

That’s why practitioners strongly recommend that a remedy blend should have no more than seven remedies in it at any one time. Any more than that and the remedy becomes less effective the more remedies you add. Too many plant vibrations again!

Choosing a Remedy to Soothe a Passing Mood

If you’re looking for just one or two remedies to re-balance a passing mood, think of one or two key words that would describe your current mood. (I often need to get some choice words out of the way before I can find a more “suitable” word to match my mood!)

For example, have you got a long to-do list and really can’t face doing any of it? You just can’t get going and keep putting things off? Although you know if you can just start, you’ll probably mange to get quite a lot done?

Hornbeam is a remedy that might match your mood remedy needs. It’s called the “Monday Morning Remedy” for good reason! It helps galvanise you into action and feel less overwhelmed by tackling the tasks ahead.

Perhaps you’re usually pretty good at getting on with stuff but suddenly feel completely overwhelmed. You can’t understand it - and can’t think what’s wrong because you’re usually so capable. (Maybe some extra responsibility has come your way recently and it’s tipped the balance?)

Elm is a remedy that will help with this. It’s ideal if you’re usually very capable and crack on with everything…until suddenly you just feel unusually overwhelmed. Elm will help bring you back to your usual self and remind you that you can handle whatever it is in front of you. (It helps that the remedy name is in the word overwh-ELM as well).

Maybe you have an important meeting coming up that day and you know your stuff, but you don’t feel confident about speaking out. If you’re worried about voicing your thoughts in front of others, then Larch and/or Mimulus would be useful as your mood remedy choice. Larch will restore your confidence (without becoming arrogant) and Mimulus will give you the courage to speak your thoughts clearly.

So, you can see how identifying some key thoughts will help you zone in on the most helpful remedies. Even if you don’t pick exactly the right remedy for your mood, it won’t do you any harm whatsoever. So, if you choose the ‘wrong’ remedy, all that will happen is…nothing… as the remedy will not be needed by your system and will dissolve away.

Once you’ve added the remedy or remedies to any drink (2 drops of each chosen remedy), then you can sip the drink and let the remedies do their gentle work.

Quick tip – try and make sure you finish any drink you’ve added remedies to. This way you’ll get the full dose, and they will be much more effective. So, consider how much liquid you want to consume for each mood remedy. If you end up using a pint of water for your mood remedy drink, you might wish you’d used a teacup, especially if you have a couple of mood remedy drinks!

Choosing Remedies to Make a Longer-Term Personal Blend

If you’d prefer to rebalance a longer-term emotional situation, then a personal blend is a helpful option. This is simply a 30ml dropper bottle, filled with spring water, some drops of your chosen remedies and perhaps a gentle preservative (alcohol or glycerine etc) to keep the spring water fresh. This is now your own personal blend that you can take over several days and weeks.

Choosing remedies for a personal blend is a slightly different approach than choosing for a mood remedy. It might help if you think about what emotional difficulty is bothering you the most right now. What is taking up the most time or space in your mind or heart lately?

I’ve found that the remedies are at their most effective when you tackle one emotional difficulty at a time. You might be thinking that you haven’t got time to go that slowly! It’s part of the healing process to give yourself permission to deal with one thing at a time.

Perhaps start there and see which ones resonate with what is bothering you the most. Then take your time to read through each remedy. If you spot one that sounds helpful, jot it down and at the end you might have a shortlist that you can work with.

For example, if you have been feeling low or depressed for a while, consider how this low mood is showing up in your life. Is it coming and going for no obvious reason? Then perhaps Mustard is the remedy that will be most helpful.

Is your low mood heading towards full-on depression? Perhaps the remedies Gentian, Gorse or Sweet Chestnut are worth investigating?

Still Stuck? Ask Yourself - How Do I Feel About How I Feel?

When choosing a remedy, it’s often helpful to ask yourself

“How do I feel about [current emotional state or situation]?

It sounds odd, but asking yourself ‘how you feel about how you feel’ can often unlock the right remedy!

Everyone reacts to situations in their own unique way. Someone with earache might prefer to deal with the pain by becoming withdrawn. Another person might react very differently - becoming angry, snapping and snarling at everyone. Another person might become tearful and need lots of love and attention.

This is why it’s useful to ask yourself how you are feeling and what you need. That’s the important information!

Dowsing for the Right Remedy

Over the years, it’s become more common for people to use dowsing as a method of choosing their remedies for a personal blend.

In case you’re wondering what dowsing is – the most popular form is done using a pendulum; a short length of cord or chain, weighted at one end with a crystal or similar sized weight. The method is to dangle the crystal/weight over an object and watch which way it moves. One direction for “Yes” and another direction for “No”.

To dowse for a remedy, the pendulum is held over each remedy (or picture of each remedy plant) one at a time. Some people make a shortlist of remedies before dowsing this list, because it can take quite a while to dowse 38 remedies!

Some remedy users swear by the dowsing method, while others find it inaccurate. I suppose it depends on your preference.

Over the years, some practitioners have dowsed for remedies while making a blend for me, and in my experience, it’s not a method I find particularly reliable.

Seeing a Practitioner

For many people, their situation just feels too complicated to unpick. It can feel too foggy to know where to start. Sometimes, we just need a safe space to figure out what is going on and some support with choosing the right remedies. This is a good time to seek out a qualified Bach Flower Remedy Practitioner.

The job of a Bach Flower Practitioner is to offer you a safe and peaceful space to figure out how you’re feeling right now. The key phrase here is “right now”, because a practitioner works with how you feel on the day of the appointment, or that week – maybe that month.

Practitioners don’t dive right into the core of the problem; this can be too traumatic and distressing for anyone to cope with. Instead, they work with what is current at the time of each session. If you decide to see a practitioner regularly, what feels ‘current’ over the weeks will change. Gradually, one emotional layer will dissolve, allowing the next layer to become present. This only ever happens when you are ready. It’s all done at your own pace.

Speaking with a practitioner is also a great way of getting help with choosing remedies. Oftentimes, someone else can see things we can’t, giving us a valuable insight into how we’re feeling. They are also trained to spot what remedies will match specific behaviours and emotional needs. Once they have a shortlist, you can discuss any ideas about which remedies they think will help your specific situation. You will always be able to which remedies go into the blend and which ones you’d rather not have.

None of These Methods Appeal? Follow Your Intuition

As a fully paid up member of the Wild Woman tribe, I am a firm believer in following your intuition. This is the calm, steady voice that sits alongside (sometimes beneath) the mind chatter and inner critic. When all else has failed to help you find your remedies, give yourself a minute to listen to what that calm, quiet nudge is pointing towards.

Ignore the squawking harsh noises of inner gremlins and allow yourself a moment of grace.

Trust your inner knowing and give yourself permission to hear yourself think.

You might be surprised at what wisdom resides within!