How do people become polarized from each other and how might flower essences help?
First, how do people become polarized?
“You have to be carefully taught”—by your relatives, by your community, by your government, even by your choice of news media. You can also be taught by your lived experiences—by traumas, abuse, and by years of practice.
If an incident happens and you are helped to heal from it, you’ll move on and respond to similar experiences in a variety of ways depending on the specifics of what is going on. If you haven’t healed or are expected to behave in certain ways, you’ll stay in that polarized defensive or aggressive posture until the healing you need comes or you heal yourself. You might even find other hurt people to recruit to your side and spread the polarization to a larger and larger group. Fear begets fear, and hate begets hate. What might start as a disagreement between people sharing the same DNA can set an entire community, nation, or region on fire. And that’s just the beginning in some cases, I suppose. Or it’s at least what people who are old enough to remember a World War still fear.
Pema Chodron says, “We can talk about ending war and we can march for ending war, we can do everything in our power, but war is never going to end as long as our hearts are hardened against each other.” In this same article she says that healing polarity cannot come when you are holding on to a rigid belief or point of view. The only thing that helps is having a change of heart by putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
Asia Lenae says the “notion of ‘us’ and ‘them’ is responsible for the most atrocious of human crimes . . . To stop violence of all kinds, we must never forget each other’s humanity: our opposition isn’t the enemy— we’re all on the same side.”
Easy to say, right? But in the heat of battle, with tempers flaring all around, that can seem very hard to do.
One thing that sometimes helps me—when I can pause long enough to remember—is what I said in my last blog post: the truth is always somewhere in the middle between polarities. It might be closer to one side than the other, but it always contains at least a little bit of truth from both points of view.
Flower Essences that Can Help
Help with a war? Well, that would take a lot of flower essence! So let’s talk about more run of the mill arguments and small group interactions instead.
On some level, the flower essences needed can be as varied as the individuals themselves. If you are in a conflict yourself, you might start with flower essences that address the fear and anger, grief and rage driving you to fight in the first place. So you would start there first, addressing what seems to be on top: Star of Bethlehem to soothe shock or trauma; Rock Rose for calming deep fear or terror; Holly for dealing with anger, hate, or rage (either coming at you or from you); Vervain for getting beyond zealotry; Vine if you’re stuck in the position of wanting to force someone to your will. These are all classic Bach Flower Remedies that might help. But if you’re actually willing to come to the negotiating table, we might go beyond the original Bach remedies and give some of these a try:
Quaking Grass: for getting along better in groups, being able to be more receptive and flexible, able to relax preconceived notions and hear what others have to say. Quaking Grass can help you learn how to balance your own needs with those of others. When used by a group, it promotes more harmonious interactions, helping everyone balance their individual needs with the needs of the whole.
Tiger Lily: for helping to replace hostility and overly aggressive viewpoints with a desire to find common ground and engage in creative problem-solving. It’s about adding the ability to let in other perspectives, to listen and care about other people, so that a position of strength is balanced with compassion and desire to serve the common good.
Calendula: for bringing a compassionate and receptive spirit into your communication when anger and biting words are creating division and misunderstanding.
Ocotillo: for grounding and calming explosive emotions, reactivity and rage.
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Flower essences are used to assist with mind-body-spirit interactions and individual results may vary. They are extremely dilute which makes them quite safe. But because so little physical substance can be detected in a flower essence solution, these products are presumed to work on an energetic or vibrational level—something that cannot be adequately tested by western scientific methods. Claims made by me, therefore, are based on personal experiences and the evidence of the combined multiple decades of case notes by Dr. Edward Bach as well as Healing Herbs and Flower Essence Services (the companies who make the ingredients I use in my products). This is not, however, accepted medical evidence or substantiated scientific evidence from a modern allopathic point of view. I am not a medical doctor or licensed healthcare practitioner.
Statements made have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information provided on my blog, websites or by this company are not a substitute for a face-to-face consultation with a health care provider, and should not be construed as individual medical or mental health advice. Consulting with a health care provider is a must for anyone taking medications or working with a medical or mental health condition, and highly recommended before using any herbal product. Please consult your doctor or health care provider for any possible contraindications and/or interactions with current medications. I trust you to seek the medical guidance you need to use any of my herbal products healthily at your own risk.