Which of Dr. Bach’s flower essences was needed here?

Perhaps it was Impatiens, the flower essence that promotes patience. 

Or…it might be Elm, the flower essence that helps us cope when we’re faced with too many chores and responsibilities. 

Why was either one needed? 

In an already busy day/week/month, I was confronted by an unexpected chore. We decided that since we hadn’t used our boat in years, we should offer it for sale. And, since summer doesn’t last forever, we should get busy with getting it polished and ready to go. 

Unfortunately… When we took it out of storage to get it ready, we found that we’d had winter guests, and that they had brought their own dinner. In fact, they’d brought enough to last for months.

They’d also eaten dinner many times and left the remains for us to dispose of. Here’s the scene that greeted us when we opened the door to the cabin…

Every possible storage space was stuffed with pine cones – I removed about a dozen 5-gallon buckets full of pine cones. After counting one bucket full, the estimate is about 800 cones left behind – plus the remains of the ones that had been torn apart. (In case you’re not familiar with squirrels, they rip the cone apart to get at the seeds, which they eat.)

As you might expect, it took hours to remove the cones, then vacuum up the small pieces and scrub down the cabin. Thankfully, squirrels do not soil their “kitchens” – there were no droppings to clean up. 

I did need patience, and I did feel frustrated over this unexpected chore. I already had a full schedule of work to do, plus a garden full of weeds that needed to be pulled. I had no time for this! 

Impatiens is generally used to promote patience in dealing with other people. It might be children who argue or fail to do their chores. It might be co-workers or employees who seem to be dragging their feet or not doing their work correctly. In this case, it was simply impatience over wanting to hurry up and finish a job that necessarily took more hours than I wanted to spend. 

Elm is the flower essence for people who become overwhelmed because they take on too much work and don’t leave time for themselves. Often, the Elm personality believes they need to do it all – and do it all immediately. 

In this case, Elm was the flower essence to promote putting things in perspective. The cleaning needed to be done right away – so which other chores could be temporarily set aside?

Whatever obstacles you’re facing in life, they come down to an imbalance in your energies and perhaps an inability to listen to your inner voice. 

Fortunately for us, Dr. Bach discovered the secret to re-balancing those energies. He left the world with 38 different flower essences, each with the ability to help us overcome the obstacles and get back to leading happy lives. 

If YOU are out of balance… turn to Dr. Bach’s flower remedies. Learn all about them at Feel Bach!