Case #3: Learning to Forgive
and Heal Childhood Wounds

The Client : A woman, 39, divorced, mother of a 12-year-old son, advertiser for a TV network.

As soon as I answered the door to receive the patient, I saw a tall and striking lady, with brightly-colored, curly red hair.  She was an advertisement contact for a TV network ( a person who sells commercial spaces for companies) — and felt very shy. She expressed a sensation of being inadequate, a deep feeling of insecurity, felt she would not "be up to her duties," and had a constant feeling that she was inadequate compared to her colleagues.

"I feel very much like hiding away, but I can't because my work requires me to visit companies on sales calls," she told me, "and I do that with extreme difficulty."

She told me she had been raised by her father and lived to age eighteen in the small town where she was born. When she was 2 years old, her mother fell in love with her father's nephew and ran away with him. It was scandal in the town, which was small and moralistic. Since she was a child, she was always seen as the "daughter of the sinner" at school, in the neighborhood and at church parties. Being so young, she couldn't understand it intellectually, but she felt the isolation and social judgment.

Since her early years, besides missing her mother and feeling abandoned, she felt awkward, inadequate, a lower class of person. The conversation brought back memories of her childhood home and "drew out from her" a scene she described: She remembered herself at around 6 years old, hiding behind a half-open door which gave way to the living room. Feeling excluded, this was the way she heard and saw the friends who visited from the city, as an observer, an outsider.

As her father was the "big victim of the city," and her mother was hated and censured by everyone, little by little she nurtured a deep hatred for her mother and an idolatry for her father. Up to the age of 19, she had never met her mother. When she did meet her, it was as if her mother was a complete stranger. Her meetings with her mother were formal because she had never forgiven her. And this was the state of her relationship with her mother when she visited me.

The interesting point, for me, was this deep sensation of inadequacy: the shyness, insecurity and feelings of unworthiness (it was as if she was still a child abandoned by her mother, in a revival of the scene when she was six years old, seeing life through a half-open door) which was coming up for her with such tremendous force, at the very moment when she needed so much to participate and feel secure and accepted.

She reported that these feelings started two years ago, when she was 37.  This is a time in the soul biography when karmic aspects, mainly in the professional area, manifest in order to help the individual assess and correct the life path. I tried to tell her how I saw that inner child who still wanted to position herself to feel she was accepted, and who deep inside wanted very much to be with her mother. I perceived the grown-up person she was now as someone who needed to listen to and understand her mother, because she had never talked with her mother about the reasons why she had abandoned her.

First Formula:

Evening Primrose + Mariposa Lily + Pink Monkeyflower + Stinging Nettle + Larch + Sweet Pea

In this formula I selected Evening Primrose as the leading essence, since the traumatic events took place when she was two-years-old, with her soul very much connected to, and in need of, her mother's light. This essence helps when the treatment must address the patient's personal, pressing situation, prior to any real linguistic development, since the situations in her past pre-dated her ability to have a more elaborate internal dialogue, before her "sense of self" was clearly defined.'

Mariposa Lily represented her mother who she missed so much. It is the great nurturing that was deficient, resulting in shame and inadequacy.

Pink Monkeyflower brought the possibility of deep emotional acceptance, and overcoming her social vulnerability.

Stinging Nettle is a dioecious plant (male and female flowers on separate plants), and one that works with the relationship of the two sexes. It  addresses  the metaphor of the home in which the male energy and the female energy must live harmonically. In situations such as in this specific case, I use Stinging Nettle as the flower essence that helps to cure the memories of a broken home. The plant is rough and hostile.

Larch helps to heal that social hesitation and feelings of unworthiness.

Sweet Pea helps find the individual to find great connection with one's social community.

Second Session:

Fifteen days later the client called, saying she was feeling extremely sad, lonely, abandoned, and miserable. I listened to her stories while she cried.  After I felt that her crying had lessened, I proposed the following exercise: I asked her to sit comfortably, while playing music that would touch her heart. I gave her a meditation help her consider many aspects of herself from childhood onwards. I encouraged her to contact her own "inner mother."

I asked her to consider the image she had of her inner child — at age six, alone, feeling inferior and inadequate, seeing the living-room through a half-open door. I asked her to take that child by her hand tenderly, take her to a comfortable room in the house, embrace her and pass over to that abandoned and sad soul all her love and light. I asked her to listen to what that child had to say, to her feelings and fears, to her strangeness towards life. I also asked her to talk to that child about what she had within her heart. It was a magical moment, full of enlightenment and love. I asked her to accept that child to live in a noble place of her heart.

Little by little, she calmed down and dried her tears. I asked her to make use of her experience, and to continue to take her flower essence formula. As it was Friday, I recommended she share the entire weekend with her son: that they go to the movies, to the amusement park, to the zoo, share ice cream together, etc.

Third Session:

The patient returned, looking more beautiful, with a more secure and joyful look. She reported that the weekend spent with her son had been wonderful! She felt that her "inner child" had had more fun than her son, who had complained: "Gosh! You're so excited, you look like a child!"

She reported feeling stronger. Sometimes insecurities would surface, but her inner strength would fight the fears. She was visiting her mother more frequently and began to explore many details of the past, reaching new understanding and insights beyond the victim- villain polarity that she had cast for her parents.

Third Formula:

Deerbrush + Sunflower + Baby Blue Eyes + Queen Anne's Lace + Alder + Rue

This formula was made for the patient to be able to investigate the truth about her life.

Deerbrush brings light, truth and focused intention. Sunflower brings the action and light necessary to support this patient's intention to know about her parents. Baby Blue Eyes is a flower essence that helped her to review her feelings about the world, which she had adopted through the relationship with her father. Queen Anne's Lace , Alder and Rue help us to "see" the truth more clearly, to see what is real, to see the truth as a source of illumination and enhanced consciousness.

Fourth Session:

In this session, she arrived walking with confidence and speaking in a different voice.  By investigating her family history with more objectivity and compassion, her hatred and sorrow were transforming into new understanding and compassion for her mother. She was forgive many grievances against her mother.

The father, who had died three years before, was now a target of much resentment. I asked her if she wanted, in such a bright moment in her life, to go on harboring anger and resentment. We started a task of cleaning up the past. Her mother had already been forgiven. Now it was time to "have a talk with her father," with the intention of forgiving him.  Ultimately she was forgiving herself, and renewing her life.

Fourth formula:

Baby Blue Eyes + Sunflower + Inner Father Formula + Forget-Me-Not + Holly + Willow + Walnut

In this formula I focused on the father and forgiveness, and included Forget-Me-Not , a flower essence that facilitates the contact with friends or family members no longer incarnated on earth. I expressed the intention of her meeting him on some level and being able to heal her feelings.  By addressing the past, she would be able to open herself up to new, more positive future.

Fifth Session:

In this session the patient revealed a dream of  her father in which they talked and cried. She saw herself fighting with him, but hugging him afterwards. She also reported that her relationship with her mother was different now, no longer living in her past feelings. She felt happier and more secure at work, and this security was noticed even by her boss. She said she was feeling well and did not need more sessions.

She wanted a maintenance formula so that she could be ever more secure and confident at work.

Maintenance Formula:

Mariposa Lily + Zinnia + Mimulus + Larch + Sunflower

We have gotten in touch by phone a few times in the last seven years, and she tells me about her progress and her struggles in life.   In a recent follow-up interview with her she said, "I feel more adequate and confident. I'm working at another TV network, only now I am the leading coordinator. I get along well with my mother and am proud of her. My son is 19 and a handsome man. I still need to find a mate. I think I am going to start a new treatment with that intention!"