The Treatment of Anxiety & Panic with Bach Flower Remedies: God's Own Medicine

By Estella Ritter

Anxiety being the main mental health concern for women, and second only to substance abuse in men, The Treatment of Anxiety & Panic with Bach Flower Remedies offers both a practical and comprehensive guide to everyone struggling with panic attacks, anxiety attacks, social fears, generalized anxiety, or obsessive compulsive behaviors. Representing a fluid, self-directed process to emotional healing the goal of the technique is to present a very contemporary, user-friendly, and immediate response to emotional distress. Working by specifically targeting every type of negative state of mind reveals an amazing, subtle energy approach that is neither created in the language of pop culture, nor new age therapy. By explaining step-by-step how to use one of the most effective healing tools nature has provided to us, this book in a non-clinical voice, addresses the debilitating impact of anxiety, and shows how to effectively overcome anxiety driven symptoms in order to achieve a lasting recovery. Rather than just covering up and continuing to suppress emotional difficulties with drugs, this book supplies the tools needed to manage anxiety, and after that to resolve emotional problems
The information can be used to develop ones own self-help program, or, as an adjunct to other healing modalities, the technique will reliably deliver clarity and a lifetime of emotional assistance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 28, 2006
• ISBN: 9781462838103

Estella Ritter

As a Bach Foundation Registered Practitioner and former National Education Coordinator for Nelson Bach USA, Estella Ritter the founder and head of TotalStressManagement.com, a unique private and work related stress management consulting practice, is very familiar with the success rate among her own clients who have been plagued by anxiety’s psychological terrorism. “Their gratifying results are the chief reason I felt compelled to write this practical and informative hands-on manual that easily demystifies and breaks down the taxing process of how to get to the root of what is triggering an individual’s fears and anxiety.”

Book preview

The Treatment of Anxiety & Panic

With Bach Flower Remedies

GOD’S OWN MEDICINE

Estella Ritter

Copyright © 2006 by Estella Ritter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Note to the Reader: This book is to be used for educational purposes only. The information herein is in no way intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition, and should not be used as a substitute for professional medical care or counseling.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

33469

Contents

Introduction

Years Later . . . . 

Foreword

The Key to Emotional Control

Chapter One

A Comprehensive Look into

the Origin of Anxiety and Stress

Chapter Two

The Philosophy Behind Turning a

Negative into a Positive

Chapter Three

Energy Medicine / How The Remedies Really Work / Placebo or Science?

Chapter Four

Bach Made Easy / Basic Principles of Usage

Chapter Five

Anxiety Originates from many Diverse Roots

Agrimony

Aspen

Beech

Centaury

Cerato

Cherry Plum

Chestnut Bud

Chicory

Clematis

Crab Apple

Elm

Gentian

Gorse

Heather

Holly

Honeysuckle

Hornbeam

Impatiens

Larch

Mimulus

Mustard

Oak

Olive

Pine

Red Chestnut

Rock Rose

Rock Water

Scleranthus

Star of Bethlehem

Sweet Chestnut

Vervain

Vine

Walnut

Water Violet

White Chestnut

Wild Oat

Wild Rose

Willow

Chapter Six

Frequently Asked Questions & Answers

Chapter Seven

Help While You’re Under Attack—

How To Avoid a Mental Meltdown

Chapter Eight

The Anticipatory Factor

Chapter Nine

More Ways To Manage Your Anxiety

Chapter Ten

One Final Word

For mom,

               plus a Bach Flower Remedy commonly known as Gentian—

                                       Thank you both for your steadfast encouragement

                                                                               and patient wisdom.

Introduction

Once upon a time you were content. And lazy, but in a good way. You

could even say you were a little spoiled, calmly thumb sucking your nights and days away. Minding your own business. Doing your own thing. Perfectly adapted to your environment you felt no pain. But like all peaceful phases in life go, this one is alas, too short lived.

For surely as fate intended, on one noteworthy date, in the sphere of one exclusive second, minute and hour, as all the planets in the universe aligned themselves up in a meaningful, cosmological way, and the earth and the stars and moon astrologically joined in, the bottom dropped out from under you (both literally and figuratively) and suddenly, without any forewarning, you became as all who came before, a violently launched projectile headed straight for a completely unrelated atmosphere.

It was immediately upon arrival that your skin was touched for the very first time. And mind you it wasn’t in a gentle or comforting way. In fact, your first impression noted it felt more like a slap rather than a caress, after which you were expected to cry just like a baby. In this altered reality, and on behalf of anxiety, you were rudely bombarded by a lavish array of new sensations. Terror primarily became your first experience, and it was fear that initially informed you that you were indeed alive. But there was one emotional consolation prize—you still had your thumbs.

Welcome our latest member of the human race—to a new dimension in time and legroom. Made up of air, and lights and sounds . . . and trauma.

And while most of us tend to get over that chilling first encounter with the real world, real fast . . . . some of us can take a lot longer to recover . . . .

Years Later . . . . 

You’re alone in your car . . . . driving where? It hardly matters. One of your

favorites is playing on the radio and you’re humming right along like a songbird. The weather condition is dry and sunny. Your mental condition is calm and sunny. Your destination is coming up shortly. Traffic is moving along nicely . . . . when . . . . oh no . . . a sea of brake lights is stretched ahead and all you can make out is a streaming broad band of crimson red. A cotillion of sirens races by. It produces an odd feeling of being swallowed up . . . . left adrift and then WHOOSH! You feel yourself suddenly free-falling.

You stop humming and coherently look for a route to escape. There isn’t one. You’re just one lone car among hundreds of others idling, bumper to bumper. Your foot rests uneasily on the brake pedal as you stare straight into the rear end of the car in front. You try with all your might to will that car to start moving. When it doesn’t a sense of dread slithers into the empty passenger seat beside you and just like that—the game is over. Ha Ha! You lose again! Did you hear that? That’s the voice of sheer terror mocking you. You’re powerless to do anything except remain perfectly still as it cruelly sucks the vitality out of every hair-raised molecule in your body. And what is going on with that amplified pounding of your heart? It’s ramped up so high it’s muting out every other sound except your hysterical voice shamelessly screaming out—Come On, Let’s GET GOING ALREADY!!! MOVE IT! MOVE IT! MOVE IT!

What just happened?

One minute you were fine. The next you’re locked in your head frantically trying to contain a hemorrhage of fear from spilling out into a rush of panic. Your brain immediately gets busy sending out an SOS to all vital points I’m going to totally lose it if we don’t get going, NOW! But it’s only your windshield that bears witness to that horror.

By now it’s too late to avoid a total meltdown, yet your brain struggles valiantly to save its own motherboard from crashing. A group of off-duty bodily functions are prudently told they have to report back to duty. They make no attempt to hide the fact that they’re miserable at having to work overtime, but they resign themselves to do a half-hearted imitation as they perspire through another anxiety driven day.

It’s unfortunate when your impulsive nerve endings submit so readily to trembling. Trembling soon after that turns into tingling as your digit circuitry rapidly fails. In addition to all that mayhem, no amount of air is enough to stop an asphyxiating chokehold in your throat from stirring up a small but tight clan of neuroses you’ve cultivated since birth. Oh, and you might want to check on that suave, laidback public image you’ve tirelessly been propping back up, it’s dropped its guard again as every last morsel of composure and dignity hastily evacuates the premises.

Given that your conscious mind was so brutally ambushed without cause or motive, adrenaline is speedily pumped to a labyrinth of internal organs that demand to be shut down in virtually 1-2-3—And we’re really sorry to have to tell you this, but just like in every other previous attack your assailant is never caught, or even seen.

However, as noted in all of your previous attacks we did come across one appalling trademark signature only an abusive pattern would have the gall to carelessly leave behind—constricted breathing so rapid even a speed freak junkie wouldn’t be able to keep up. So aside from that ugliness the bureau of internal affairs has filed this attack away just like all of the rest—an open and shut case of a random hit and run.

Sometimes during the night you wake up in a cold sweat, scared to death even though you can’t recall having any kind of bloody nightmare, or ghoulish dream. Merely rolling over and going back to sleep turns into a blatant sardonic joke. No, on these endless, insomniac nights, you end up staying awake until dawn with fear as your only loyal, bedside companion.

You’ve worked hard to make sure you meet an impending deadline, and you’ve put in much longer hours at the office than usual. Throughout the strenuous days you were terrified that an anxiety attack will expose your thin veil of self-assurance and make you look like an utter fraud. Due to your exhaustive efforts to remain calm and in control, and despite the fact that you’ve successfully met your deadline, you still go home feeling like you’ve crashed and burned. At home you’re finally relaxing, maybe watching TV when a wave of anxiety pointlessly comes over you so paralyzing you remain glued to the couch, frightened for absolutely no discernable reason.

Or how about that time you were casually hanging out at a friend’s house when suddenly out of the blue your heart began to race and your chest played a scene out of the first act of ‘Spontaneous Combustion.’

Shopping at the mall used to be your greatest pleasure. It was a fun way to slack off a little, unwind, distract the tension in your head. Not anymore. After your last visit when you rashly made a run for the nearest exit door it seems that finding enjoyment at the mall is nothing short of a dreaded chore.

While you’ve been experiencing from time to time this form of runaway train terror the thought may have crossed your mind that you were having a heart attack. Paramedics, never ones for taking a chance invite you to come along with them to the nearest emergency room. How disappointed were you when the ER doctor swiftly discharged you before anyone had a chance to clean up the emotional debris still dangling from your unstable gestures?

Hospitals rarely offer any qualitative information or appropriate referral services related to anxiety disorders, unless you count the doctor who handed you your walking papers inside of a brown paper bag. Remember the speed freak constricted breathing? Follow-up care instructions advise you to keep such a bag handy so that the next time it happens you can blow into it to ward off any destabilized carbon dioxide levels, a phenomenon commonly referred to as hyperventilating. That’s the same culprit behind that lightheaded or swooning sensation you felt once your breathing returned back to normal.

For someone who has just survived one of the worst nightmares anyone can experience while still awake, the message registers very quickly that this is apparently the best treatment program that modern science can come up with to treat whatever is ailing you.

You leave the hospital sheepish, dizzy and utterly exhausted and go away with nothing more than an unsteady and mortified psyche. Totally drained and more confused than ever you notice a new consciousness; an inflated kind of spacey, out of it feeling that lingers around for most of the entire day.

Typically the follow up is to call your own doctor for a full check-up. You take for granted that what a patient tells his or her doctor should be just as vital a tool to that doctor as their stethoscope, so you keep organizing your thoughts so you’ll be sure to say what you what in the most informative way. You even go so far as to practice the correct tone and cadence in which to say it.

After all, relating feelings of being scared to death for no apparent reason may intentionally identify you as a mentally unbalanced loon, so it’s imperative that you don’t give the impression to the doctor that you are one. You’re reminded that traditionally trained doctors need to gather a litany of physical complaints into a neat pile, and then assign a medical term that will signify some form of a physical illness. By having a name to pin on the pile we instantly acquire a new identity, and it alleviates a lot of the tedious explaining we feel obligated to have to share with others.

So it seems