Isolation

An exploration of flower essences you can use
to uncover and harmonize the root causations of isolation.

Why do we isolate from others? It’s true that some people are more introverted than others, but we all need interactions with people to fulfill our needs. There are times in life when we need more time alone and other times when our needs include more interactions with others. When is isolation a good thing and when is it unhealthy? Perhaps we are the only ones who can accurately assess when isolation feeds us and when it is an escape from life.

To be isolated is to be separated from other persons, to be alone. Having time alone is important so we can contemplate, process our feelings and commune with our Higher Power. Sometimes a deep healing process will require that we spend more time on our own. After ending an important relationship we may need time alone to attempt to discover who we are and what we want. When we are in the midst of a transformational experience we often need more contemplation time.

Yet there are patterns we sometimes adopt that can push us to isolate from others, even when we really need interaction. A bitter experience with someone may leave you distrustful or unwilling to interact with others. Those who were not taught social skills may feel insecure in appropriately interacting with others. If you did not have good mothering support as a child you may feel that you are incapable of having good relationships. When you feel that you have nothing within you to offer, you may want to keep yourself apart from certain social interactions. Some of us may feel that the only way to be a spiritual person is to isolate from others.

Following I’ll explore these and other patterns of imbalance that relate to isolation and the flower essences that can bring us back into balance.

Isolation: Healthy or Not?

Sometimes we feel that to be spiritual we must be isolated and separated from others to retain our purity. Mexican Star can help us find the true and perfect balance between a legitimate need for aloneness and an unbalanced hermitage. There are times when we need to withdraw and this essence can help us know when that is really the right thing. Mexican Star can help us ascertain when isolation is a healthy thing and when it is a limiting pattern that we need to work out.

Other times we feel that we must have a certain person or people in our life in order to survive. Mexican Star can help us assess whether we are too attached to being with people in general or a certain person in particular. Perhaps this is the first essence to use when faced with the feeling of isolation, as it supports us in knowing when isolation is healthy and when it is not.

Social Ineptitude

Desert Sumac is the essence to use when you feel like you are “on the outside looking in” in your social relationships. You show up, but feel disconnected with others in social situations. Usually there is an inner sense of shame or a feeling of ineptitude in social situations, as if you are less than others.

This flower essence helps heal the pain of loneliness and isolation by awakening your ability to see beyond superficial differences so you can connect with others at a soul level. Once this ability is awake it becomes easy to see the oneness you have with others and fears of inadequacy in social situations fall away. If you feel you lack social skills, this essence can help you originate communication from your heart, which will always be endearing to others.

Self-imposed Isolation

Creosote Bush is an important flower essence for resolving self-imposed isolation. It is for the person who feels an ancient sense of being forever alone. Usually there is a wistful bitterness about something that happened in the past. The Creosote Bush person may be wrapped up in a magical world of their own making that doesn’t necessarily bear congruence with reality.

This flower essence has a great releasing effect, helping you let go or express what has been held-in. It promotes a feeling of brightness or of being freed, so you can emerge into a reality of connectedness.

Spiritual Desolation

Feelings of isolation can stem from an inner feeling of spiritual desolation. Mesquite flower essence helps us with this sense of having an inner wasteland or a huge inner desert that we must cross. Our inner world seems empty and we are afraid to go into it. We feel cut off from humanity and emotionally remote from others.

This flower essence can help us find the willingness to go through a dark night of the soul, to cross the seeming wasteland within, so we can emerge into the circle of human connectedness. It supports us in finding an inner spiritual richness that reconnects us to the oneness of humanity.

Lack of Mothering Support

Sometimes feeling isolated stems from the lack of ability to mother yourself or give yourself reassuring messages. If you lost your mother physically or emotionally as a child, you may not have been able to learn to mother yourself. If you had an abusive mother you may have the same problem: an inability to reassure yourself.

Mariposa Lily is the flower essence to use for changing this inner pattern. It can give us a new mother model.

No matter what our age, Mariposa Lily can help us discover that there is such a thing as mothering support. It helps us see the value and the fundamental qualities of emotional, physical and spiritual support that mothering provides. Once we find a value in these basic aspects of human life, we find that we are able to call upon mothering support from within our own selves.

When we have a healthy ability to mother ourselves, we no longer feel isolated or the need to isolate from others. Once we can comfort ourselves, we see the value in human relationship and the possibility of give and take that healthy relationships can bring.

Isolated in Work

Some of us may find that our work ethic leaves us feeling isolated. We work so hard, but there is always more struggle, more difficulty to surmount, and our progress seems small and insignificant. We feel isolated in our struggle to move ahead in life but it seems that there is just more work and more difficulty. Purple Aster can change this type of self-imposed isolation from receiving support from the universe.

Purple Aster flower essence helps us allow the universe to carry us on its wave of support. It changes the feeling of pursuing a goal to feeling like you are drawn along with the flow of universal energy to the manifestation of the goal. It helps us give up the sense that we have to force things to happen, while it shows us how we can allow ourselves to work in tandem with the divine.

Sometimes we may feel that we are all alone while we are working for the upliftment of humanity, that we are small for such big work. Purple Aster fosters faith that we are one with the universe and will be carried and not lost out on our own. We find that we can trust in the divinity of the Self, and we find harmony with our work and our self-image.

Separatism Creates Isolation

Some people compare themselves to others and then set themselves apart. They isolate by their perception that they are so different and sometimes even feel as if they are superior or more special than others, what I like to call a “prima dona” attitude. Because their focus is so firmly on the differences that separate them from others, they create an insurmountable gap of isolation. If you are only looking to find in others an exact replica of yourself with whom to interact, you will guarantee yourself a life of isolation.

Wild Buckwheat evokes a perceptual change from separatism to commonality. We change from a negative and exclusive perception to a reality that is positive and inclusive of others. We focus on the areas of similarity with others. Just because you don’t share everything in common with someone doesn’t mean that you cannot have meaningful relationships, connecting through the areas of similarity. Wild Buckwheat helps us recognize and celebrate what we have in common with others.

This essence can help you find how to relate with someone with whom you wouldn’t normally have chosen to interact. Circumstances may put you in a situation with someone very different from you, such as the parent of your child’s friend, your in-laws, co-workers, etc. Will you isolate, or will you choose to find where commonality exists?

Wild Buckwheat can help us experience that which we share in common with others, healing us from the sense of separation we impose upon ourselves. We begin to see differences with compassion and understanding as we affirm the unity and diversity of life.

Both Desert Sumac and Wild Buckwheat can help you if you tend to focus on the differences between you and others. However, the pattern of Desert Sumac usually includes feelings of inferiority or ineptitude and Wild Buckwheat’s pattern swings in the opposite direction with feelings of being superior or more capable than others.

Selecting the Most Appropriate Flower Essences

Not every flower essence mentioned above will be appropriate for every person’s specific needs. Different people have different issues around isolation. The process itself of exploring and contemplating your isolation issues is important. It is the foundation for successfully selecting the most beneficial flower essences. Usually, careful self-examination can clearly show you which of the above flower essences are most appropriate for your particular needs.

Though you can use more than one flower essence together, you probably will not need to use all of the ones mentioned here. After contemplating your relationship to this issue, select the flower essences that apply for you, or use an intuitive method to select among them. (For more information on how to do this, see The Art & Technique of Using Flower Essences.) A general guideline is to use four drops at a time, four times a day, in water. However, it is fine to follow your intuition and use them as often as you like. Most people find that they tend to use them more often in the beginning and less often towards the end of the cycle. Unless otherwise indicated, a cycle is usually two to four weeks. [more]

For information on how to clearly evaluate the effects of the essences you have used, see The Art & Technique of Using Flower Essences.

List of the Flower Essences Mentioned in this Article

Creosote Bush

ancient feeling of being forever alone; self-imposed isolation due to some bitter experience

Desert Sumac

a sense of being “on the outside looking in” in your social relationships; unsociable

Mariposa Lily

feeling separated from mothering support; isolation resulting from an inability to mother yourself or give yourself comforting, reassuring messages

Mesquite

feeling separated and remote from others or self; feeling as if there is a barren wasteland or a spiritual desolation within yourself

Mexican Star

feeling that to be spiritual you must be a hermit or isolated from others

Purple Aster

sober, hard working efforts create a feeling that you are isolated, that progress is small and difficult

Wild Buckwheat

comparing yourself with other people and setting yourself apart from them, a prima donna attitude; focusing on differences which separate you from others