I was out for a walk in the woods near my house. I turned a corner and saw two women in front of me about 10m away. Their middle-sized dog was charging towards me, snarling and barking. One of the women immediately called it to heel, which it obeyed. The dog lay on the floor cowering, glaring at me with wild eyes, and growling at me as its owner grabbed it by the scruff of its neck. I stood frozen on the spot, my heart pounding. I was in the panic Rock Rose state.

The dog owner, still holding her dog, called to me that I should now ‘just’ walk past; I told her in no uncertain terms that she had to put her dog on the leash. Another hound had bounded up, and I said that I won’t walk past them. What if she can’t hold her dog? The second dog was not aggressive, but I was still terrified of the one she was holding. I said they have to back off. The women let loose a volley of swearing, so I turned on my heels and retraced my path out of the wood, away from the threatening scene.

My heartbeat quickly returned to normal, and I gave myself time to calm down. By the time I came out of the woods 10 minutes later, I felt fine. But I did notice that I didn’t go for a walk there two weeks after this incident. My subconscious had registered a minor trauma, a Star of Bethlehem state, and for that reason, I probably intuitively avoided the place.

When I finally returned to the woods yesterday, I started thinking about fleeting moods, and long-standing states of mind. Rock Rose and Cherry Plum are the most dramatic (and hopefully short-lived) states Edward Bach described. If you check those two bottles, I hope they are still full - meaning you do not use them often.

On the other hand, we have emotional habits that re-occur because they’re part of our personality structure. As a pathological Impatiens person, I must be continually be aware of the speed with which my Impatiens brain (potentially) sends me through life. A recent illustration: In August, I was trying to book a train ticket from southwest Germany (where I live) to the south of France for my summer holidays. I was on the French national train website, the SNCF, and innocently started to buy my ticket. Click-click-click, from where to where? asked the site…Freiburg – Marseille. A notification told me, “you are acting too fast for a person and have been blocked.” The website had identified me as a bot, and I sat there laughing. I logged off, took a deep breath, logged on again, and then slooooowly and successfully booked my ticket. (If you haven't already read this piece, check out how Impatiens broke my arm.)

Another typical long-standing state of mind is an Oak personality’s perseverance. These people have the energy to keep going in hard times; they do not give up easily and will continue with their projects quietly, sometimes stoically. But because they want to, not from some Rock Water strict discipline attitude. That is a quality of their person and certainly not a fleeting state of mind. See my post on Alexei Navalny, who must have had a strong Oak personality streak to his nature to survive so long without giving up on his mission against Putin.

It is Edward Bach’s remarkable insight into human nature that he identified human moods that come and go and personality types with their ingrained emotional behaviours. In 27 years of being a practitioner, I have never once had a consultation where some issue a client is tussling with turned up for which there is no remedy.

(The photos in the above piece are of rock rose, cherry plum and impatiens.)

Change of topic: For people who have been following this blog for some time, you will know that I posted two pieces in 2022 about discovering my Jewish ancestors who had been murdered during the Holocaust. 

I had been unaware of the losses my family experienced in WWII and ‘everything Jewish’ until I was 46 years old. The Holocaust was hushed in my family. The book about my family research is called The Unspeakable. Breaking my Family’s Silence Surrounding the Holocaust and will be published on 23 April 2025. Please click here for a book summary if you’d like to know more.

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