As the Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s draw near, so does the stress that comes with these celebrations…on top of the astrological buzz that I’ve mentioned in past postings…and this month is crammed, that’s for sure. However, it doesn’t really matter if you are ‘in to’ astrology…the annual return of the holiday season always comes with assorted stresses…usually it’s a matter of how intense each year is going to be and what a dichotomy it is.
If the economy is in good shape, it seems we tend to carry on, ‘over do’ with the fun things…going to and hosting social gatherings, shopping, cooking, holiday events, cards…pushing us into an over the top frenzy to the point where reality hits us with the question, “What was I thinking?”
Currently of course, the state of the economy and our country is on everyone’s mind; these are tenuous times, the future seems uncertain, especially the political climate. Never-the-less, when Thanksgiving approaches we seem to rev up into ‘automatic pilot’ and as in previous years, despite vowing never again, we launch ourselves into the holiday fray…even though it may not be as robust as in past years. And, although the source of our stressors (am I going to be first in line at the 4 a.m. ‘blue light special’? Will I want to kill my sister with the turkey fork at Christmas dinner? How am I ever going to get everything done?) is probably somewhat different this year, they are part of us like clockwork and taxes.
Dr. Edward Bach’s Elm flower remedy is a fabulous tool for combating the feeling that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew and are up against the wall…I have the large economy size on my desk at all times, by the way! While Elm is a star at holiday time, I want to mention a few things about the action of the remedy in general.
The negative Elm state is typically a ‘temporary’ state and can appear in any of us at any time. In other words, it isn’t one of the soul types that I’ve been writing about, nor is it particularly what I would identify as a ‘personality type’, although it may seem so. While we all can have the experience of ‘taking on too much’ for a particular reason, there are individuals who repeatedly find themselves in the negative Elm state. So what does this look like; is it different than the occasional experience of feeling overwhelmed?
Yes and no. On the surface it develops pretty much as the state I described that happens during the holidays…or it could be a forthcoming wedding or a ‘one-off’ important project. But the difference is that there are individuals who are ‘prone’ to a repetitive imbalanced Elm state. These are the people who tend to over achieve…particularly if they are perfectionists by nature. The tendency is to take on, take on, over commit then crash and burn. In these cases, there is a deep, on-going dynamic that drives the behavior which has an affinity to the remedy, Pine. (for basic information on Pine, see my post of 8/19/11).
What I love about Elm is that in my experience, when we are feeling ‘overwhelmed’, a simple dose or two can swiftly shift our perspective into one where we can ‘step back’. It fosters our ability to ‘see’ that not everything is a number one priority. It helps us ‘see’ possibilities for prioritizing, delegating and exhaling!
Photography ©Dr. Edward Bach Foundation