Breaking the Negative Thought-Loop With Bach Flower Remedies

Somewhere there may reside a person who has never fallen into a negative White Chestnut state. But if there is, I haven’t met them.

This is the state that occurs when your actions or ideas have come under attack – or even when your personality traits have received a negative review. If the attack came from someone whose opinion you valued, you’re especially vulnerable.

Sometimes it’s an attack you launch on yourself… so it comes from the person whose opinion you value most of all! Think of a job interview or a conversation with a client when you know you said the wrong thing. Think of a time when you said something insensitive to a friend or family member and wished you could snatch those words back just as soon as you said them.

In the negative White Chestnut state you dwell on the hurtful words that were said to you, or you criticize your own words and actions, wishing you had said something different – or that you had stayed silent. You re-run the damaging conversation over and over in a continuous loop – feeling over and over again the pain of the attack.

You can’t let it go, and it even interferes with sleep.

Then your brain adds another element to the loop: “Why didn’t I say this?” “Why didn’t I say that?” It just goes on and on.

Fortunately, for most of us the state does fade away after a day or two. But for some it becomes chronic. At this point, the sufferer wants nothing more than to escape from his or her own thoughts.

Children are especially vulnerable to this state, because they are often not allowed to speak up in their own defense. They’d love to say “You were wrong,” to a parent or authority figure, but they know that would get them in big trouble. So they stuff it inside, where it grows in importance and pain.

Parents whose children begin to withdraw and avoid social interaction are well advised to find out if the child has suffered from a verbal attack that is causing a “negative thought loop.”

Remember, sometimes kids are afraid to tell – especially if it’s a parent who has done the damage.

The outward sign of a White Chestnut imbalance is, not surprisingly, facial tension. But then it becomes accompanied by chronic frontal headaches.

Treatment with the Bach Flower Remedy White Chestnut allows the mind to settle down and release the impulse to replay negative conversations. It lets the mind discriminate between thoughts that are helpful and those that are not. In essence, it allows the individual to once again connect with and accept guidance from his or her Higher Self.

One of the practices in learning to use the Law of Attraction to your advantage is to “think a better thought.” White Chestnut aids in that practice by allowing you to release the negative and replace it with something better.

To see an overview of all Bach Flower Essences and their benefits, visit FeelBach!
Then come to www.bachflower.org for a more detailed explanation of each.

If You're Plagued by Indecision...

Do you suffer when you have to make a decision – because you don’t trust your own judgment and you don’t know which of your friends or relatives has given you the right answer?

If so, you’re in a negative Cerato state.

This negative state occurs when you’ve lost belief in your higher self. It causes you to mistrust your inner voice and seek guidance from others, sometimes to your detriment.

It also causes friends and family to become annoyed with you. How many times does anyone want to tell someone else that they should wear the white shirt or the blue shirt, or that they should choose this movie or that one?

Worse, most of us really don't want to be responsible for telling people what to decide about major life changes. But the negative Cerato personality will persist in asking - and asking again.

The interesting part of this is that you probably do know the right answer to your question or solution to your problem. You just don’t trust that it’s right. So, you ask opinions of everyone. Naturally, those opinions will differ, so you’re left with a new decision – whose advice should you take?

Once back in a positive Cerato state, your inner voice grows stronger. So instead of agonizing over every decision, you’ll have an air of quiet certainty. What a relief!

Doctor Bach classified Cerato as one of the “Twelve Healers” in his collection of 38 flower essences. These twelve he described as key to transforming root personality imbalances, which he believed were associated with physical illness as well as mental and emotional distress.

If you're suffering from indecision, order your bottle of Cerato from Feel Bach today... so you can start trusting your higher self once again.

The Person Who Won't be Pleased

Have you ever had to live or work around a person who criticized every thing you did or said? It isn't very pleasant, is it? But that person probably isn't pleasing himself or herself either.

In fact, he may very much long for harmony and connection with others, but is stuck in a negative Beech state.

People who have long been criticized or suppressed often develop this personality as a shield against being hurt. They develop an "I'll show you that I'm better than you" attitude. When the state is allowed to continue, the person mentally elevates himself to a position of superiority over others - and feels that he has every right to criticize even the smallest word or gesture.

Over time, the negative Beech personality loses touch with his or her own feelings and is completely unable to understand other people's feelings - or care about how their criticism and ranting hurts others.

Fortunately, a person who recognizes the problem and desires to change can be helped with Bach Flower Essences. The Beech flower remedy will help them reconnect with their higher selves and return to a state of joy, cheerfulness, and tolerance for others.

To read more about Beech and the other Bach flower remedies, visit www.bachflower.org.

Eating Disorder Tied to Fear

We all know people who use food as a comfort during stressful times – and people who simply quit eating during those times. And people who suffer from anorexia are no doubt suffering from low self-esteem and feelings of being unacceptable if they carry any fat cells at all. Of course, in their case it often progresses to something way beyond that, so that they actually look at their skeletal bodies in a mirror and see a fat person.

Now there’s a new eating disorder. Until recently, this disorder was rare and was included under the catch-all label of “Ednos,” which signified unrecognized disorders. But by 1997 there were so many sufferers that it was given its own name: orthorexia nervosa.

It is, simply, a fixation on righteous eating.

Sufferers, in an attempt to eat only pure foods, limit their food choices to a point that malnutrition ensues. These people are generally over 30 years of age and well-educated, so they spend some time researching and choosing the foods they will and will not eat.

A very valid concern with the quality of supermarket foods becomes an obsession, and
Orthorexics develop their own rigid rules around eating. They commonly refuse to touch sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soya, corn and dairy foods. Then they eliminate any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives.

I can sympathize with the basis of the disorder, because the more I read about the various pesticides, fertilizers, growth hormones, etc. that are added to our foods the more I buy organic. And there are some foods, such as overly processed "ready to eat" meals, that I never buy.

But in Orthorexics, fear has become the dominant emotion with regard to food. They're afraid to eat so many things, and have eliminated so many foods that they can no longer consume a healthy, balanced diet.

Their habits become just as destructive as if they ate nothing but fast foods.

One Bach Flower Essence that could help these people is Mimulus. This is the Bach Remedy for the personality that fears real life. Their fears are grounded in the fact that something bad could happen, even though it has not happened.

You might recognize a Mimulus personality by their frequency of illness and the length of time it takes them to recover. Their focus on taking care of themselves, and the attention they give to their illnesses usually delays recovery.