I was mixing a combination for my partner recently and wondering why I had to do it for him. He wanted some remedies as he was stressed at work. But taking them was not easy for him and I wondered why. Suddenly, I realised that remedy states include reasons for not getting round to mixing them in a water glass. As my partner is (like me) a famous Impatiens person, I cautiously suggested over breakfast one morning that perhaps it‘s not straightforward for him to mix his remedies because he doesn‘t take time to do it. He immediately agreed and then corrected slightly (instantly!) to 'it takes too much time'.

My musings continued through the day and I realised that somebody in a Clematis state won‘t take remedies because she‘ll forget. Somebody needing Olive will be too tired to get round to making a mixture. Somebody in a Hornbeam state will ‘do it later‘. A person in a White Chestnut state might not think about mixing a combination because they will be preoccupied with their problems. Somebody in a Vine state won‘t take remedies anyway because they know better. A person in a Scleranthus state will be indecisive and may want to change around the chosen remedies... and somebody in a Gorse state may not make up their combination because they have no hope it will help. But don’t we all need the remedies as the pandemic drags on and on and on?

What is Covid is doing to us? There are more depressive and anxiety disorders as The Lancet has shared. Less liptick is being sold, pretty lips behind a mask are pointless (this is a pretty insignificant impact, but...) And the amount of rubbish we’re producing has increased. There are dozens of other things that COVID is doing with societies but I'll stop there...

There is a group of people to whom my heart goes out particularly during the pandemic: young mothers (and women expecting). This is because I have been sensitised to young mums through doing a PhD these last three years looking at the potentially challenging phase of life we call the postpartum. But also because I become a grandmother in summer 2020 and have experienced first hand how my youngest daughter dealt with having a ‘Corona baby‘ (as she calls my grandson). It is the all-pervading caution and loss of spontaneity that I think has permeated young motherhood and parenthood that gives me heartache. Even if people have been inoculated twice there is no 100% safety from getting SARS COV 2 and babies don‘t wear face masks anyway. I understand the millions of women who are pregnant at the present who hesitate with an inoculation. And they then have to live with a risk that must be an additional burden to carrying a baby anyway.

I nevertheless sense deep gratitude for the possibility that our modern society has given us to protect ourselves from the virus. In dark moments I sometimes wonder where the world would be without the possibilities of vaccination. I often think of people working in clinics with people on ventilators (and the patients themselves) who are ill with Corona. To me, the carers are brave people and many of them might be ‘Oak‘ personalities… and maybe in the meantime, in this second Corona year, they are feeling very ‘Elm‘ and ‘Olive‘. And of course, I think of the people who have become ill and now have Long-Covid, struggling to recover with an all-pervading Olive state. And then there are the hundreds of thousands who have died...and the bereaved families.

As a sideline

If you’re interested in my work on the postpartum I recommend listening to a podcast I recently did with Sarah Mayhan from ‘Poised and Powerful Parenting‘. Here is the link. We are both teachers of the Alexander Technique, she lives in the USA, I‘m in Germany. I’m also excited to share with you that I’m planning a crowdfunding campaign to write The Mindful Postpartum Handbook, here a the link with further details. I thought this could be of interest as the practitioner community is mostly female and many of you have kids and grandchildren. Happy listening and reading and... keep going with your remedies for yourselves and your loved ones!