Ian's May 2022 Newsletter

On finishing high school I worked as a bus conductor for a short time to save money to travel overseas. My favourite bus driver was a German fellow who had been a soldier in the second world war. He had been captured by the Russians on the western front and spent ten years in a very harsh prison in Siberia. These experiences had deeply impacted him and his philosophy on life and as a teenager I learnt a lot from talking with him. The one thing that always sticks out the most from our discussions was when he told me very soberly, “I fought on many battlefields and saw many men from many countries die. The one thing in common with all these men in great pain, distress and dying is that they all cried out for someone. And it was never their father or their wife/girlfriend, it was always for their mother!” Of all our relationships, the one with our mother is perhaps the very deepest, no matter what age we are.

Certainly the most important relationship for a young child in their first 3 years is their relationship to their mother. During this period the child will quite often be a surrogate for the mother and if I’m treating a young child in this age bracket then I often will give the mother the same remedy to take, as it’s often her issue. From age four to seven the relationship with the father becomes the dominant relationship.
When teaching the ABFE Level 2 workshop and discussing Dagger Hakea, the remedy for releasing resentment to those close to you, I have the participants do the Forgiveness Process. I also frequently have my patients do this process as well. Almost invariably the first person to come up for clearing is the mother and if not, she will be the second person after the father. Even if a person has had some very tumultuous adult relationships with a partner or partners, such as a very bitter divorce, the partner rarely appears before the mother. All of which hints at the very deep profound relationship we have with the person who bought us in to the world and who we grew within for 9 months.

Other areas which highlight the impact of the relationship with our mother is that men will frequently choose a partner with very similar qualities and personality aspects to their mother. Or, that the challenging aspects of the relationship with their partner mirror unresolved issues the man has with his own mother. This is irrespective of whether the man has a male or female partner.

If a woman doesn’t have a good relationship with her mother, then it has been clearly demonstrated that this can lead to a greater difficulty in conceiving as well as increasing the risk of post-natal depression, if the conception is successful.

Bottlebrush is the Essence to enhance the relationship between a mother and her children or child. If the relationship isn’t a healthy one then it would be advisable for both mother and child – even if the child is an adult themselves – to take Bottlebrush. Not surprisingly Bottlebrush is a key component of both Relationship and Woman Essences.

In the Doctrine of Signatures, Bottlebrush’s new growth is incredibly soft – just like a newborn baby’s skin. It is interesting that if a newborn is not put on the mother’s breast within the first six hours, then the bonding between the mother and the child is severely affected and can take decades to be harmonised. This is irrespective of why the child was not put on the breast - whether it be the mother’s conscious choice or a medical emergency where the baby was taken away immediately after the birth.

In my workshops, when covering Bottlebrush in either the Level 1 or Women’s Wellbeing workshop, I ask the participants if any mother had the experience of one child going on the breast and another not. If anyone had that experience I then ask if they noticed a difference in the bond they had between the two children. In the early days I was quite surprised by how long it took, according to these women, for them to feel the bond between their two children to be equal in depth. Some women said it never equalised!

Do you know about your own birth? Did you go on the breast within the first 6 hours? If you don’t know and you still have access to your mother, you may wish to ask her about your birth. In my Happy Healthy Kids workshop, I look at the type of birth experiences, caesarean, forceps, breech, premature etc and the emotional consequence this has on the child's personality. 

For many years now we have been donating the Bush Essences to orphanages in Brazil and the improvement in wellbeing of these children has been remarkable. Sometimes we have a Flower Essence practitioner who will prescribe essences individually for each child, but if we can’t find one, then the staff in the orphanages are trained how to add the essences to the children’s food and sugary cordials. The most common remedies that we use in the orphanages are Bottlebrush and Red Helmet Orchid, to enhance the bond between mother & child and father & child respectively. Tall Yellow Top is widely prescribed for abandonment as is Sturt Desert Pea for the sorrow that they feel from not having parents who are able to love, nurture and look after them.

Children who have been adopted, even when it’s by very loving nurturing parents, will still greatly benefit from these essences just mentioned. Though the new parents treat them very well, the fact that their biological parents couldn't or didn’t want to look after them leaves a huge scar on their psyche. These adopted children, if their emotional scars are not addressed, will often act out quite a lot more than other children as teenagers.

A universal theme that we as humans all share is that we all have a mother. So, as you reflect on your relationship with your own mother – just two days after Mother’s Day here in Australia – I hope it is with fondness and gratitude.