Show Notes:

Rescue Remedy, Dr Bach’s calming essence for stress, emergencies and trauma, is often the first experience with flower essences. In this episode we share everything you need to know about when, why and how to use Rescue Remedy, also known as Five-Flower Formula. You will learn about formulations available for adults, kids and pets, and how to give them. Kathleen and Rochana dive deep into the components of the formula, discussing each individual flower and how it helps with restoring balance after a stressful experience or trauma.

Audio

Video

Flower Essences discussed during the show:

• Rescue Remedy, AKA Five-Flower Formula – Healing Herbs
• Rock Rose – Healing Herbs
• Clematis – Healing Herbs
• Impatiens – Healing Herbs
• Cherry Plum – Healing Herbs
• Star of Bethlehem – Healing Herbs
• Mariposa Lily – FES
• Mimulus – Healing Herbs
• Soul Support – Alaskan Essences

Show Transcript

Greetings, flower lovers. It’s really great to have you back on The Flower Essence podcast today.

Today, we are going to be talking about the entryway essence for a lot of us, Rescue Remedy, and Rescue Remedy is a brand name of what Dr. Bach called Five-Flower Formula. And it is a really useful formula that I think everybody should know about and everybody should have in their purse or in their glove box or in their medicine cabinet. It’s a really important essence. We really wanted to dive into kind of the one-on-one level about Rescue Remedy today and then give you some more details on it because I think it’s a really interesting formula, and there’s a lot to talk about with each individual essence and how it relates to, say, trauma response or a stress response. So let’s dive in, shall we? It’s really good to be back with you, Ro.

Rochana Felde: [00:01:33] Hey, Kathleen, great to be here, as always.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:01:36] Yeah, it’s going to be fun talking about Rescue Remedy, and I know from your experience that you– both of us, I’m sure, all the time recommend Rescue Remedy to people or all the different options of Rescue Remedy. Do you want to kind of talk a little bit about some of those possibilities that exist out there in the market?

Rochana Felde: [00:01:56] Sure, yeah. I mean, it’s definitely been a great entry point for me.
I used it extensively before I learned anything else about flower essences really or used them and figured out how to combine my own formulas. The Rescue Remedy, which is that trademarked name made initially by, I think, yeah, that’s it. Kathleen’s holding it up on the video, and it is now made by Nelson’s Homoeopathic in Great Britain. There’s another one, and that’s by Healing Herbs, right? And that’s the one that is distributed here in the US by FES or one of our favorite suppliers that we talk about a lot, the flower essence services, and it’s the same Five-Flowers. And then, you’ll see a lot of other makers also making that same Five-Flower Formula. That’s the recipe that Dr. Bach handed down to us.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:03:11] Yeah, I just think it’s useful to talk about that Rescue Remedy, the name is a branded owned thing by Nelson’s. So you can get the same formula, but under the original name that Dr. Bach created, which is Five-Flower Formula. It’s just Nelson’s done a really good job of publicizing it as Rescue Remedy, and it makes sense that way. But just so you know, you can get it in the marketplace under a couple of different– or under two different names, really, Five-Flower Formula. So we’ll use those two names interchangeably even when we’re maybe not talking about the branded Nelson’s product.

Rochana Felde: [00:03:46] Yeah, and I mean, the tradition– I don’t know if you want to go into the ways that why you would use it or the ways that you would use it at this point?

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:03:57] Yeah, I think let’s talk about why we would recommend it to someone,   when it’s really handy, when it’s really useful because it is a crisis formula. And I know that you’ve recommended it a lot for people in extreme states of stress. I think about it for different types of anxiety, like plane, like flying, or going to the dentist, doctor visits. For animals, a lot of times traveling is stressful, going to the vet, that kind of thing. Those are the times that I recommend  Rescue Remedy. But I know that you have other circumstances as well that I’m sure you can think of that you recommend it for.

Rochana Felde: [00:04:36] Absolutely. So I mean, known as a crisis formula for emergencies, you think about it, like the extreme example is, you get in a car accident and there’s that immediate shock. That’s the perfect example of exactly the right time to use it. So keep it in your car. But the other thing is, well, how many times when you’re driving, and somebody pulls in front of you, there’s all these little micro crises that can happen throughout the day. And so it’s for that time, those little shocks, anything that gets your heart to just skip a beat or jump, that, to me, is the exact indication for a using Rescue formula.

But there’s so many other ways that it can help, and that is with these little daily stressful events, things that typically promote anxiety. Now, anxiety is something that I’ve struggled with my whole life and definitely was having that, and, well, I’ll say that I was not so much addicted, as totally dependent on antianxiety medication and pills for a while. It’s kind of started after my first husband died and somebody gave me an Ativan, and oh, my God, that was– well, it was heaven for me at the time going through that much grief and pain.

And over the years, I kind of just turned to pills as a way to, whenever I just got to a point where I couldn’t, I just seemingly couldn’t face what was going on, or something was throwing me outside of myself, and I didn’t have any tools. I didn’t have flower essences. I didn’t have other energetic and emotional tools to deal with that stuff. And so just getting a pill, even a very small, light dose pill, that became a habit for me.

And what I started doing when I decided to get off of those, there were other things in my toolbox, including herbs, but I decided to use the Pastilles that Bach makes, that Nelson’s makes, the Rescue Pastilles. And that not only gave me the flower essences as a way to stop the cycle when the cycle started happening, to just kind of break that cycle, that circular anxiety cycle, but also as an oral thing because you’re opening up a tin and you’re getting a Pastille and putting in your mouth. And whenever you want to change a habit, I find replacing it with something similar is a really helpful way to do that, to get out of that habit. So Rescue Pastilles, not by themselves, but as part of a larger program, and learning to deal with anxiety was so helpful for me in getting off of those antianxiety medications.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:07:59] That’s an awesome story, and you can really see how learning a new way to bridge, learning something to do with that feeling that you’re feeling and what do I do about it? And a lot of us, it is a normal mammalian thing to be oral, right? When you’re born, the very first thing that needs to happen is you need to have a suck reflex. You need to be able to nurse, right? Otherwise, you’re not going to be around for very long.

And so I look at this a lot with animals because this is certainly something that we talk about when we deal with animals is this quality of the tension being held in the mouth. And in TTouch, we do a lot of work around the mouth. We do a lot of work to release tension around the mouth. And you see the changes like that with the animals is how they can relax. So humans, we do also just the same number and the same– we maybe get more creative with our oral behaviors. But there’s smoking, there’s eating. There’s all sorts of things that we do with our mouths. And I love that you learned a new skill, something changing, changing out that habit, and it is soothing. It is something that you’re doing that soothes. And then, you’re layering in all the goodness of the flower essences as well to help bring down that anxiety level. That’s really cool.

I mean, it comes in those Pastilles which are so easy to give to kids. They are really good for anyone, kids of any age, let’s say. And then, it also comes in drops. And you can also get it with the spray top. The drops are preserved, as are most flower essences, with a brandy. And that preservative is just there and just for that reason. It’s not part of the medicine per se. It’s just there to keep the bottle from spoiling. And that is certainly something that a lot of people are concerned about using the essences. They look at the back and it says, how many percentage alcohol. And yet, you recognize that you’re taking a drop or two drops or very small amounts. So it’s really a very small amount of alcohol. If you’re concerned about that, you can mitigate that by putting some drops in a glass of water, stir well, and just take sips off of that. And you’re getting the same– you’re getting the same dose of energy. You’re getting the same release of essences. So you can use flower essences even if you are concerned about alcohol, or of course, there are now availabilities of you can get Rescue Remedy or Five-Flower Formula in a glycerin base. And I know you use a lot of glycerides in your practice. And definitely for animals and for children and for kitties, those are good options.

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Rochana Felde: [00:10:47] Well, yeah, and it tastes sweet. So it’s nice to have that option. I mean, as an herbalist, glycerin is definitely a glycerite or glycerin in the alcohol tincture of an herb really helps what they call compliance people taking it because most herbs don’t taste good. So there’s no flavor in a flower essence, obviously, but not everybody might want that brandy flavor, even though it’s such a small amount, and the sweetness, some people like it and some people don’t. But it’s really great to have that option.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:11:30] My personal favorite packaging is the Five-Flower with the spray top because it is so handy. You’re not fumbling with a dropper and then you drop it on the ground that at least I do, and you’re just able to either mist it under your tongue or use it externally. And if you’re using a glycerin, you can’t really use those externally, much too sticky. But the alcohol base with a spray top is so handy. I’ll use it on acupressure points. I’ll particularly think about using it, say, on pericardium 6 on the inside of your wrist or on conception vessel 17 on the center of your sternum right, just sort of right in the center of your chest. And I can describe that further, but you could look it up. Those are two places that I use essences quite a bit and recommend using them quite a bit. With that spray cap, it’s so handy. You can just drop that right on.

Rochana Felde: [00:12:34] I’m such a big fan of spray caps. That’s how I deliver all of my dosage formulas to my clients. I just don’t even bother with the droppers anymore because the spray top is so convenient, and it does completely reduce that chance of contamination of taking a dropper out and accidentally touching it on your hand or your tongue or dropping it. And you can use one hand to use it. So again, when you’re in the car, which is a great time to use a flower essence when you’re driving because of all of the stress of driving, so, yeah.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:13:13] And like you were saying that the Rescue in the car, you get those little near misses, you get that little panicky moment of like, oh my God, that guy just about pulled in front of me or those sorts of moments where your heart leaps into your throat, that is exactly the time to be thinking of using Five-Flower Rescue.

Rochana Felde: [00:13:31] Yeah. Yeah. And so it’s really, there’s such a calming aspect to it and it’s something that I think is so resonant for children, and I have seen personally, it’s just almost miraculous, the complete change that happens with an upset child. So I did use to work in an herb store for several years. And I’ve seen that a very upset, crying child with their mother and nothing can calm them down, and it’s just really upsetting. It’s upsetting to everyone, really, when a child is that upset. So I’ve given the Rescue Pastilles to the mother to give to their child, and it’s immediate. It’s just absolutely– it’s amazing to me because maybe it’s putting candy in the mouth, that’s part of it. I don’t know. But no, there’s more to it because nothing has, I’ve seen, can just change that traumatic upset-ness around in children.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:14:54] Yeah. You think that, oh, well, maybe it’s this thing or maybe it’s that thing, and it’s really fun to use essences in the cases where the individual receiving it doesn’t really know what it is. Intellectually, the kids can’t read the bottle and go, oh, this is going to help calm me down, if especially if they’re throwing a fit. Certainly, night terrors are a really good use when kids have had terrible nightmares or adults have terrible nightmares, using Rescue Remedy Five-Flower is really a help to bring them back down into themselves. But I’ve certainly seen it with animals, using Five-Flower just helps them come out of that stress response, helps them come out of that panic response that they’re experiencing. And all you have to do is mist it on your hand or put some drops on your hand and pet it onto their coat. You can just simply pet their head down their spine, down to their tail, and it just shifts the whole conversation. Everything helps to calm down. So I know with the little ones, the kids, you can use it topically as well as internally, right?

Rochana Felde: [00:16:05] Yeah. Yeah. And topically, even the Nelsons company makes a cream for skin conditions, and they do add another essence to it. But I think Crab Apple, but it’s called Rescue Cream. So they are already providing a way to put it on topically as well on the skin.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:16:32] Yeah, it’s quite neat to have all those different options available for different circumstances, but you can always just use what you have on hand. Don’t let that get in the way. Just use what you’ve got available to you as you’re working with it. I would love to sort of dig into some of the pieces of what is in Five-Flower, what is in Rescue Remedy, and the five flowers that are part of this formula. And Dr. Bach, the story is, is Dr. Bach created this and experimented with it, so to speak, with some cases. And I remember reading about one of the cases of how somebody was a near-drowning, and he was able to help them restore to consciousness essentially after that experience.

And the five flowers that are in rescue or Five-Flower are Rock Rose, Clematis, Impatiens, Cherry Plum, and Star of Bethlehem. And each one of these essences are so pivotal to our practices as flower essence practitioners on their own, and together, they come together in this formula that’s helpful for these extreme stresses. Do you have any starting thoughts or do you want me to dive into my ideas about why they might work the way that we find them to work?

Rochana Felde: [00:18:02] I’d love for you to dive in. Go ahead. Yeah.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:18:06] Okay. So a lot of my practice is very trauma-informed, and I’ve done a lot of research and reading and reflection on what happens to our energetic systems when we’ve experienced trauma. And certainly, that falls into the category of shock that might be written on the label or that anxiety and in Tellington TTouch, which is I’m a Equine practitioner, we have a way of looking at an animal’s behavior. We talk about the four Fs, and it’s fight and flight. A lot of us know these stress responses of fight and flight. But we also have faint and fidget. And I see these things playing out in animals, but I also see them playing out in other animals that we call humans. So when we have this extreme response to something, it’s considered to be that your sympathetic nervous system has taken over. And in order to relax and come back and be able to be calm again, your parasympathetic nervous system has to engage. And these two systems are sort of on two poles, and it’s usually one or the other is going.

The parasympathetic nervous system is the rest and digest and heal part of your nervous system. So if you were perpetually in sympathetic nervous system, if you’re in anxiety, fight, and flight, all of these possibilities, your body is not able to heal. Your body is not able to digest. All of these systems that should be working all the time in your system are not operational. So it’s a starting place in any of the healing process. This is to help you come back to yourself so that you can get into the parasympathetic.

Yeah, do you have a thought on that, Ro? I thought you–

Rochana Felde: [00:20:09] Oh, no, I was just thinking how well, that’s the vagus nerve controls all of that. And one thought when you said fight, flight, faint, and fidget, fidget’s interesting, right? I didn’t know about that with animals, and I wonder if that’s similar to the newer thoughts on the fawning. I think that we’re seeing fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are the sympathetic responses now that we’re talking about with humans and the vagus nerve and using the vagus nerve to help modulate that.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:20:56] So I’ve not heard the fawn term before. Can you tell me about that?

Rochana Felde: [00:21:00] Yeah, I think that it comes up with trauma and being in a situation where it is a dangerous situation, say, for somebody in a relationship and they can’t leave. And so there’s a tendency to – how do I describe this? – to fawn.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:21:28] Placating?

Rochana Felde: [00:21:30] Right. To play along basically to try to gain favor with the person who is a threat to you. I guess in the more extreme example, it’s like that Stockholm syndrome, but it’s much– there’s more micro examples of that in daily life.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:21:55] There’s a whole spectrum of each and every one of these responses, and the way that the individual expresses it is also really quite different. So one type of person could be in the full-on freakout and the other kind of person could be holding it all inside and outwardly seem okay, right? I mean, you see all of those things, and yet, inside, the response is very much the same, and the energetics of it are very much the same. That’s really interesting to hear that approach.

The fidget is something. And we talk about fooling around and fidgeting a lot. We see that with the animals a great deal. And I wonder if inside that feels a lot what we humans would describe as anxiety because we will distract ourselves like crazy all the time when we’re feeling anxious. we will try to go do something else. We’ll try to just go play with something or touch something or go somewhere else or put something in our mouths. We see the same thing with the animals is they’ll do that when they’re not feeling settled. If you’re feeling settled, you don’t feel the need to go and pick your nails or any of the possible things that you would be doing if you were feeling unsettled to try to make yourself feel better. It unfortunately never really works, but you do it anyways, right? So it’s kind of cool to see these types of ideas intersecting in this way. And, yes, kind of the more recent work on the vagal response is really compelling stuff.

So it’s kind of cool that in all types of animals, humans included, we see these types of nervous system response to what we could call trauma or shock or something like that. So we’re the fight. I think we all are familiar with that. At least, we’ve seen that in animals and in people, too, that extreme response where we push away or we’ll get hostile or we’ll get aggressive or something like that. I see that as being really, in the essence land, I see Impatiens being part of that because that’s that livery response. That’s that, get away from me, get away,   push them away or get aggressive. And so I think that that’s why Impatiens is in a Five-Flower is to work with that part of the parasympathetic nervous system response. Is that something that makes sense to you?

Rochana Felde: [00:24:24] Yeah. And then, so also, what about the Cherry Plum being more of that mental need to or being afraid of your own aggressive response?

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:24:37] Yeah, totally. I think that there’s a lot of overlap. I don’t think they sort of fit into one category completely. And I think you’re right that that’s the bridge piece because Cherry Plum is a very mental remedy. It’s described as being for the fear of losing it, losing your mind. And there’s a lot of that fidget in there, of that, I’ve got to go do something else. I used Cherry Plum for animals who are afraid to be confined. So if a human is afraid to go to an elevator, that’s the same sort of scenario or go on to a plane because you feel like you’re just about to explode. You feel like I have to get out of here, I have to get out of here. And that’s a Cherry Plum thing. And I think that you’re right that there’s a lot of overlap there with the Impatiens and Cherry Plum in that sort of fight response. And then, it’s like fight and flight, right? So the Cherry Plum has that more flight end of it and the Impatiens has the fight end of it. So, yeah, kind of interesting.

And the Rock Rose, I think is really just that base level of terror. I think of it as when you’re so frightened, it sort of liquefies your guts. That, Oh, my God, you’re seeing your life flash before your eyes. That’s the Rock Rose situation. So I’m not sure it falls really tightly into any of these categories, but we’ve all experienced that in some way or another. And Rock Rose is a friend to you. And it doesn’t just have to be in that moment. If you’ve had that experience and you maybe have little flashbacks to that experience, Rock Rose is a useful essence for you.

Rochana Felde: [00:26:24] Yeah, it kind of brings you back down. When I think of Rock Rose, Rock Rose is my rock, right? It’s the rock that’s just keeping you steady.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:26:36] Hmm, I like that remembering way to remember it.

Rochana Felde: [00:26:41] I do remember that.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:26:44] Yeah. How cool is that?

Rochana Felde: [00:26:46] Impatiens when you’re impatient, that’s pretty easy.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:26:49] Yeah. That one writes itself, but Rock Rose being your rock. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah. Rock Rose has the overlap in Chinese medicine being part of the kidney, and the kidney is this deep well, this deep reserve of your life force. And so the kidney and the adrenals have a relationship. And so a lot of times when we have a lifelong trauma experience or stress response going on all the time, it’s really depleting to the adrenals. And something like Rock Rose can help you let the trauma out of your system so that your body can go into the rest and restore and start to rebuild your adrenals.

Rochana Felde: [00:27:35] I’d love to hear you say the botanical name on that one. I could try and see how close I get.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:27:40] Well, let’s give it a shot. Here we go. We’re not going to botanical name shaming because the point of a botanical name is so that you can communicate information, not so that you can be perfect. And plus, it is a made-up language, or all the rules are made up, and it’s a dead language. So it’s okay. So I call it Helianthemum nummularium. That’s the way I pronounce it.

Rochana Felde: [00:28:04] I was thinking Nummularium, but yeah, I can see that because there’s two Ms. 

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:28:09] Maybe. I don’t know.

Rochana Felde: [00:28:09] We don’t know. We’ll have to channel our long-dead Latin-speaking ancestors, I guess.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:28:17] Yeah. And it’s not strict Latin. If you took Latin courses, it’s not strictly the way that you would pronounce it in your Latin course. Whatever, it’s all good. You just say the word close enough.

Rochana Felde: [00:28:32] It’s fun. It’s a fun name. I love them. I love it. It is. Okay.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:28:35] It is kind of fun, yeah. And the next piece that I think is really useful to talk about in that stress response is that faint. And it’s also, I think, also freeze is also part of that. And I think you were talking– you brought up one of those concepts in there as well. And freeze can be in the moment that you’re just so shocked you just can’t move, but also, I think this encompasses what is called, in animal behavior, it’s called learned helplessness. And I expect that probably that’s a notion that exists in human behavior as well, where you were talking about that, something that’s similar to the fawning or at the extreme case, it’s Stockholm syndrome.

But the learned helplessness is when you feel like there’s nothing you can do. You’ve learned that you have no agency, that you have no ability to change things, and so you just go kind of still and cold, and you lose the ability to step up and fight for yourself. You lose the ability to protect yourself. And you’re just– there’s like– you become in this shell. Your inside of you goes kind of dead. I don’t know. Yeah, I’m familiar with this from my background. And bringing that part of yourself back into life brings so much life force and helps you feel like living again.

So let’s work with that if that’s part of your life experience and the two essences that I see as being really important in that part of the trauma response are Clematis, which is used for shock, for spaciness, for ungroundedness. Bach even talked about it is for loss of consciousness. And I think that faint or freeze aspect is very much a Clematis signature. I use Clematis quite a lot in my formulas for clients because there are a lot of people who had experienced, in their birth experience, their mother was anesthetized or they were induced. And on some level, they weren’t ready to come out, and they never really woke up. They never really embodied. And then, of course, there’s all sorts of shock experiences that can cause you to dissociate and not be present in your experience. Is Clematis one that you use?

Rochana Felde: [00:31:15] Yeah, like how it just brings you back into the present moment.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:31:24] Yeah, yeah, and Star of Bethlehem, I know we’ve talked about this essence so many times on the podcast. It is that classic shock remedy. It really helps everything come back together. When you have a crisis, you’re up and out of your body. When you’ve experienced a trauma or a shock, up and out you go. And you’re not really inhabiting your body anymore. And Star of Bethlehem helps you come back in and helps you seat yourself back into your body and helps you feel safe in your body again because a lot of us learn the body is not a safe place to be and don’t be there. But the problem is, is that when you’re not in your body all the time, it’s kind of like an empty house attracts vermin. The raccoons start to move in, and things get a little icky in there, and your body just doesn’t work as well when you’re not inhabiting it.

Rochana Felde: [00:32:24] That’s such a great analogy. Oh, yeah. The other part of Star of Bethlehem is I’ve just always loved its feeling of kind of universal support, angelic support. It makes me– I think it’s great for not only when you’re not comfortable in your body, but if you feel like you just don’t belong there, like your soul or your spirit is just elsewhere because just either you’d rather be elsewhere or you’ve never felt– like you were describing, you’ve never felt like you’ve been home in your body. So it makes us feel like it’s okay. It’s okay to be there, and so not as grounding as there another grounding tree or stone or flower, but just making it a safe place in the body. A softer, safe return home that it’s okay to be in.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:33:33] Yeah, yeah, it’s such an important essence in so many formulas, and it does seem like it’s the basis of Five-Flower on some level. It’s like the bottom essence, the solid bottom essence of Five-Flower. To my mind, it’s like the frame of it. I don’t know if I’m expressing myself well, but it’s kind of how I think about it.

Rochana Felde: [00:33:57] Yeah.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:33:59] Because it is a bulb, right? It has that very Yin quality as a bulb, so it drops back down into the earth and holds that moisture and that safety in that form. So any bulb essence like Mariposa Lily or a lot of the lily as well. A lot of lilies have bulbs. They all have that Yin quality. They have that maternal Yin quality. And so they bring you back, help you come back into that safety of being in your body in a safe place. These are good essences.

Rochana Felde: [00:34:36] Yeah, exactly. And that’s why the bulb is safe in the protective earth around it, right? So we are safe in our body the way the bulb is safe in the earth.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:34:48] Yeah, awesome. And so, when we were talking about bringing this episode into being, I really was excited to break down Rescue Remedy and break down Five-Flower formula because a lot of times we just kind of know it a little bit and we just sort of– for those of us who, if you don’t know anything about flower essences, you might know that, but maybe don’t know much about it. And you’re just like, what is this thing and why would it work and why would it be helpful? And then, for those of us who might be a little more into essences, you’re like, yeah, yeah, Five-Flower Formula. I already know that one. But I just think it’s so important, and it’s so interesting to break it down a little bit and to open up, what it does and how it helps us and how we can use it the best because it’s really good for some things, but it’s not a panacea, is it? It doesn’t work for absolutely everything.

Rochana Felde: [00:35:44] No, it doesn’t work for everything, or it might not be– I mean, it doesn’t hurt, but it might not be the most effective for other issues. But yeah, I love this conversation because, I mean, we just use it so much. It’s just part of, I don’t know, my lifestyle. I don’t really think about talking about it that often. So for those who haven’t used it, this is why we love it.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:36:12] Yeah. And I think maybe I could drop in a little bit because I’ve had experiences where I’ve been talking to people, and they’ve maybe tried it and they’re like, well, it didn’t work. And so I think that’s part of why I want to talk about it because it’s like, well, it doesn’t work for everything. And it is best used, if you can, to set a frame of calm and safety before you are at 100 of the spiraled out of into panic zone. In animals, situations happen and things happen. If you’ve been in an accident, take your Rescue Remedy, but don’t expect it to be magically like bonk, all of a sudden, you’re totally zen-ned out now. That’s probably not realistic, but what you do is you keep working with it and keep doing it. In a crisis, I recommend taking a drop or putting a drop on every couple of minutes until you start coming back into yourself. And that could be an hour or longer or whatever. Just keep working with it, keep using it. And even holding the bottle in your hand between doses is really beneficial to help yourself come back into your body. Do you have recommendations that you talk to people about how to use it?

Rochana Felde: [00:37:31] Yeah, well, I mean, always having it on hand and in the car and in the purse, like we talked about, but it’s not just for after something traumatic happens. I like talking about it prophylactically, let’s say going to you’re going to go to the dentist or something like that or even if just before getting in the car, if you know the drive is going to be stressful, I think it’s helpful. Any situation that you know you’re going into that might induce some sort of anxiety for you and even for those who really have– I like to add Mimulus to it for those situations too, to just pump up in dealing with the known fears of going to the dentist or something like that or a stressful meeting, but you don’t have to do that. But I think that adds an extra boost for really anxious people.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:38:34] So start when you start thinking about the thing, right? When you put the appointment on your calendar and it starts to go in your head, you’re thinking, oh, God, I’m going to go to the dentist that day, start taking your Five-Flower then. Any time you think about it, any time you’re starting to worry about it, take a dose definitely.

And then let’s talk more about this targeting with another essence because that’s a really useful piece of information that not very many people know. So you said you recommend adding in some Mimulus. So your options are if you’ve got a bottle of Rescue on hand and you literally put some drops of Mimulus into that – mark it that you’ve done that, and then you can use that for that particular type of circumstance. But I love how you’ve done that because I do that a lot too where I’ll recommend, okay, Five-Flower, and then, also sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll double up one of the essences in there. So if the person is taking Rescue or Five-Flower for a dissociative state, add an extra dose of Clematis because it helps– I find it kind of helps to direct the formula into that particular aspect. It weights Five-Flower into recovery from dissociative. Does that make sense to you? Do you feel that too?

Rochana Felde: [00:39:51] Yeah, it’s so interesting. And no, I had never even considered doing that or thought about doing that until I heard you mention it once before. And I don’t know if I actually– maybe I’ve tried it. I think I did it with one formula, but it’s not something I think about doing regularly, and I love that. And it’s like your intention. You’re just saying, hey, I appreciate all the five flowers in this formula, but I really need more oomph from this one particular one, right? So you’re just kind of telling it, kind of directing it how you want it to work by doing that.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:40:31] Yeah. And the flowers are listening. They really want to help. They know what you’re asking, and they want to be of help to you. So, yeah, just treat them like they’re intelligent. And guess what? They’ll act that way for you. So Five-Flower can be used straight out of the bottle, nothing wrong with that, but you can also use it in a formula, like we were just talking about, where if you’ve got a dosage bottle created of essentially a neutral solution, which is maybe a quarter brandy and three-quarters springwater or about a third glycerin usually, and then the rest in water and then go ahead and put, they usually say four drops of Rescue into the formula, and that’s useful. And that, you could just take that right there, and there’s Rescue Remedy available for you in that dosage level. And it’s equally effective from dosage to stock level. Do you have any more pieces on that that you want to add because I know you do a little more of the mix between the brandy and the glycerin that I don’t usually do? 

Rochana Felde: [00:41:38] For a dosage bottle, yeah, I actually don’t use brandy. I use organic cane alcohol, and I like making a little formulation of that for my dosage bottle basis. And so that ensures there’s a preservative, and it also makes it nice and sweet and tasty. So, yeah.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:42:03] Yeah, yeah. It’s just there as a preservative. It’s just there as an additive to keep things from going weird. So you can use whatever you’ve got available, whether it’s a vodka or whatever, whatever you have handy. I don’t usually use anything with the flavor to it. In my preparations, I use biodynamic grape alcohol as a preservative. So yeah, it’s all the options are there. And then, also for people who don’t want alcohol, I will sometimes preserve, if they prefer, with apple cider vinegar, about a third apple cider vinegar, and then water. So those are all good options. And then, if you really don’t want to do any of that, then put it on externally, put it on your acupressure points, put it on your crown chakra. Whatever system that works for you, you can apply it externally on whatever area feels like needs the support.

Rochana Felde: [00:43:00] Yep, take a bath with it.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:43:04] Yeah, yeah, exactly. Put it in your bath. Go ahead and make a spray, spray yourself with it, keep it coming. And I think that that is, it’s such a useful essence. It’s such a useful formula. And I’m really glad that we came together to talk about it. There are– like we said, it’s not the panacea. It doesn’t work in every single circumstance, for every single thing. And that’s why we have thousands of essences in our cabinets, don’t we? Yeah, yeah, and there are other formulas, and I think probably that would be a fun another episode to do of all the other possibilities because there’s a lot of different crisis formulas out there. And that would probably be an interesting breakdown where we could talk about Soul Support. We could talk about I love Tara from the Blossom Remedies, and there’s a lot of different good crisis formulas. And we talked about it a little bit in one of our episodes where we talked about kind of post-fire recovery, our traumas. So we’ll probably link to that in the show notes as well. Do you have any thoughts that you wanted to–? I missed some pieces, I’m sure.

Rochana Felde: [00:44:10] Oh, no. I mean, definitely, we’re running out of time to talk about Soul Support, so we’ll have to do that on another one. But that is one of my favorite crisis formulas as well. And that has the lovely lavender mist option as well. But yeah, I’m loving that we did this episode. It’s like let’s honor just these five core flowers that have been the bedrock of Flower Essence therapy since the 1930s, and we just take them for granted pretty much completely or maybe we don’t.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:44:52] It’s the furniture. It’s like yeah, yeah, everybody knows Rescue.

Rochana Felde: [00:44:57] We forget to acknowledge them.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:44:59] Yeah, yeah. And I’m just going to– I’m going to honor, take a moment to honor because in my background here, I brought in a flowering stem of Cherry Plum that’s in beautiful bloom in my neighborhood right now. And so I wanted to bring that in, and have it part of our environment here as we’re talking about the components in Five-Flower Formula.

Rochana Felde: [00:45:20] They are. The Cherry Plums are starting to bloom. It is the end of February in Northern California, and that is happening around me as well. It’s just the sign of spring. That’s really lovely.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:45:37] Yeah, yeah.

Rochana Felde: [00:45:39] Yeah, so if we are complete on that, I just want to remind everybody to like, follow, and share that if you can like us on Apple podcast or YouTube, that will help other people find us. And then, you can also interact with us on social media, on Instagram and Facebook. So also, Kathleen and I, you hear us talk about working with our clients, and we are both taking new clients right now. So feel free to reach out to either one of us. If you are looking for some extra individual personalized Flower Essence support, you can reach Kathleen at floraofasia.com and myself at wiseflowerwellness.com. And you can see all the rest of our podcasts and the show notes on thefloweressencepodcast.com.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:46:43] We are so glad to share this information with you, and I’m sure you can think of at least one person who could really benefit from this particular episode and to learn about the wonders of Five-Flower Formula and Rescue Remedy because it’s a stressful world out there, and there’s a lot that we can do to support ourselves. So thank you for being with us. Thank you, Rochana, for being a fantastic partner. It is always a delight to spend time with you. And thank you, everyone, for listening. We will look forward to seeing you again really soon.

Rochana Felde: [00:47:17] Thank you. Bye-bye now.

Rochana Felde: [00:47:27] You’ve been listening to The Flower Essence podcast with Rochana Felde and Kathleen Aspenss, and we appreciate your interest in connecting with nature on a deeper level. You can find us online at thefloweressencepodcast.com or join us on Facebook and continue the discussion.

Kathleen Aspenns: [00:47:50] This podcast is meant for educational and entertainment purposes only. We are not physicians and do not diagnose, prescribe, or treat medical conditions. Please consult with your own physician or health care practitioner regarding the suggestions and recommendations made by the hosts and guests of The Flower Essence podcast. 

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