How do I choose which flower essences to use?
Flower essences can be selected in a number of ways. Usually, a flower essence practitioner uses one or a combination of the following methods to select flower essences: detailed interview with the client, intuitive impression of the client's concerns, muscle testing, dowsing with a pendulum, a cross-reference of the flower essences, or other methods. Our book The Art & Technique of Using Flower Essences contains a detailed explanation on how to use different methods to select flower essences in an effective way.
Since flower essences do not have negative side effects, it is completely safe to select the essences yourself. If you use an essence that you don't need, nothing will happen. When reading about the flower essences we often recognize our attitudes in the descriptions of many of the flowers.
To select flower essences:
Ask yourself the following question: What issues are most important to me right now, today? List three things that you would like to change or issues with which you want resolution.
Next, ask yourself: What is underlying these issues? What is at the root or core of this situation? Holding this question in your awareness, scan the list of our essences and see if one or more hold your attention more than others. You may want to use these few essences together or you may decide to use just one essence at a time.
Another method of selecting flower essences is by using our cross reference included in The Alchemy of the Desert, Second Edition, our comprehensive guide to using desert flower essences. This book contains more in-depth descriptions of the harmonizing qualities each essence embodies, and the patterns of imbalance that exist when the essences are needed. Its cross reference section includes different states of being and the essences that help harmonize them. For instance, you can look up "anger" or "creativity" and find the essences that offer support. If you don't have the book, you can use the search function in this website.
How many flower essences can I use at the same time?
If you want to select essences for yourself, it is advisable to focus on using just a few at a time. While there are no hard-fast rules to preclude your using more essences, you might want to limit the number of essences you use together to no more than four or five. Even though our Composite Formulas contain more than one flower, they may be used as if they were single essences.