Healingways

23/04/2026

Restoration of health as a whole being 🌼

Dr Bach’s focus in his work was always restoration.

From his early work on gut biomes and immunology through homeopathy to the flower essences, his motivation never wavered.

He wanted to bring about the restoration of health, as a whole being. This was his entire focus.

Dr Bach was working on this decades before the scientific community began to even consider the causal links between gut, brain and immune system.

Whilst we might look at some of his conclusions as being oversimplistic today, nearly a hundred years ago they were challenging the most basic assumptions of allopathic medicine.

What Bach saw clearly was the link between emotional states and physical health. This in itself was not simplistic because it entailed a huge amount of time watching and learning about different characteristics of behaviour.

He explored which behaviours are effectively baked in, which are habitual and which are reactive.

He started with the Twelve Healers for behaviours that are so intrinsic to the person that they define the trajectory of health.

Then he created the Seven Helpers which were designed to release patterns that had become second nature but blocked a return to health.

And finally, he created the Second Nineteen, which were designed to restore balance after shock in order to prevent it from becoming an embedded pattern.

In today’s language, Bach might be talking about the nervous system, the vagus nerve, psychoneuroimmunology and so much more. In the 1930’s he worked with the language and knowledge he had and even now it has so much to teach us.

Today, the essences continue to remind us that every person is unique and how they reacts to the challenges of life is just as important as assessing physical symptoms.

You can read Bach’s own thoughts in The Collected Writings of Edward Bach, which is available to read for free in the Julian Barnard Library.

https://www.healingherbs.co.uk/learn/julian-barnard-library/

07/01/2026

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✍️ Peace on the Silent Road - Sometimes, the road we walk is not lined with crowds or filled with welcoming voices. Sometimes, it is just us, the silence, and the path ahead.

Yesterday, we walked on a red clay road—wet from recent rain, muddy beneath our feet, with no one watching, no one waiting to greet us. Just quiet earth and open sky.
But even there, especially there, peace was still shining.

Because peace does not depend on applause or recognition. It does not require witnesses or perfect conditions. It does not fade when the road becomes difficult or when we walk alone through the mud.
Peace walks with us in the silent moments just as much as in the celebrated ones. It is there in the steady rhythm of our steps, in the breath we take while navigating slippery ground, in the choice to keep moving forward even when no one is watching.

The world may not always see our journey. The path may not always be smooth or clear. But the work of cultivating peace continues—in the quiet, in the challenge, in the simple act of placing one foot in front of the other, again and again.

Yesterday’s muddy road told us this: peace is not about where we walk or who sees us walking. It is about what we carry inside, what we nurture within ourselves, what we choose to be regardless of circumstances.

So we keep walking. Through mud and sunshine, through crowds and solitude, through roads that are easy and roads that test us. Because peace is not conditional. It is a choice. And it shines brightest not when everything is perfect, but when we choose to carry it forward anyway.

May you and all beings be well, happy, and at peace.

11/12/2025

Hawayo Hiromi Kawamura Takata (24 December 1900 – 11 December 1980)

45 years ago today, Hawayo Takata passed through the veil separating this world and that of the ancestors, less than two weeks before her eightieth birthday.

45 years earlier (11 December 1935), Takata was attending her second day of Reiki training at the Hayashi Reiki Kenkyūkai, learning the spiritual therapy to which she would then dedicate her life.

Her 45 years of devotion to Reiki transformed the practice from an obscure Japanese healing art to one poised to become a truly global phenomenon with millions of practitioners worldwide.

If Reiki has touched your life or the life of someone you love, take a moment to remember this remarkable woman and express gratitude for her hard work that made this all possible 🙏

photo taken July 2, 1974, Palo Alto, CA

18/09/2025

It’s ok to not be ok, we don’t always have to say we are fine. There is always someone who will listen.🙏

23/04/2025

Perfect advice about regulating our nervous system and restoring our natural way of being.

If Bach were creating his system in today’s world, he might well have talked about regulation of the nervous system.

He was an advocate of many approaches that today are recognised as vital for nervous system health.

He was a great proponent of raw foods, spending time in nature, being around animals and getting plenty of exercise all of which are highly recommended to support the nervous system.

For Bach, nature was more accessible then than it is now and certainly of a higher quality. He spent considerable amounts of time, and many pairs of shoes, walking in search of plants that would provide an additional dimension to nervous system support.

Introducing qualities of nature through the essences influences nervous systems in a more sustained way.

Mimulus, for example, shares its brightness to banish fear and restore our natural state of being. Fear is an emotion that very effectively upsets the nervous system. Meditation, yoga, mindfulness and breathing can all help to keep the fear at bay and Mimulus can support this process.

The essences bring nature into our bodies to allow us to restore our natural state of being.

Even when the nature is not directly available to us, we can still benefit by using the essences to restore balance.

https://www.bachflowerlearning.com/the-language-of-plants/mimulus/

05/12/2024

Recognising our emotions, knowing and accepting how we feel, can make a positive difference to our physical wellbeing.

In Bach Flower Essences & the Elements of Plant Life Julian Barnard weaves together ideas, thoughts and questions that have emerged over more than forty years working with the plants that bring us Bach Flower Essences. He travels beyond the simple art of observation of the structure to explore more....

27/09/2024

Essences are for those times in life, “when we can’t see the wood for the trees”.
When we are too involved in a situation, we can lose our clarity.
Essences, not always from flowers, but always from Nature, are a simple system that can help unravel the knots and reinstate our sense of balance and purpose.
Trying to achieve this ourselves when thrown off balance by illness or life events, can be challenging.
It can help to have a Consultation, which is a confidential conversation based on current circumstances.
This can aid the choice of Essences, which can be used internally and externally to regain balance and vitality, to live our best life 🌼
Contact details in the comments

01/02/2024

HAPPY IMBOLC – LIVING WITH NATURE'S RHYTHMS

As we move from January into February, the first bright green shoots of the spring bulbs poke through the soil.

"Hazel catkins glow in the welcome sunlight and everywhere there is the feeling that life is stirring. Seen from a distance, some of the native trees have taken on a coloured hue, caused by the gentle swelling of their buds, faint at first, but increasing as the increase in the day’s length begins to influence the plants. There is a sense of rebirth in the air, of new beginnings waiting for their right time to come."

Observing Nature's rhythms and celebrating the changes in light, energy, growth and life, is a great way to connect to Mother Nature.

Glennie Kindred has spent most of her life entwined with Nature, and here she shares how she celebrates Imbolc, and how you can too.

https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/living-in-tune-with-the-seasons-imbolc-january-into-february

21/12/2023

🌟

Tomorrow brings the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. It’s a reminder that even in the darkest of times, the tiniest glimmer of light can bring hope.

As Howard Zinn so sagely said, “To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Our task is to keep turning towards the light. We are the light, beings of the stars and Earth. Each small light glows with a certain radiance, but when our lights are flickering together, like stars, they can be seen from a thousand miles away.

This winter solstice may we all choose to shine our lights in whatever small way we can. Together, those lights can change the world.