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George Kao: [00:00:00] Have you ever heard of flower essences?
And do you know that flower essence therapy can help us with our creative thinking, our emotional healing and even our spiritual growth?
That’s what I’m going to talk about in this interview today with Ruth Toledo Altschuler. Hi Ruth, good to have you here.
Ruth: [00:00:21] Hi George, it is a pleasure to be here.
George Kao: [00:00:24] So let me share your background first with those who are watching or listening, and then you have a presentation for us, which I’m excited to to experience as well.
Ruth has three decades of practice offering sequential flower essence therapy with a loyal following of clients who have been receiving her mentoring, coupled with the gentle support of the flower essences for inner healing and outer effectiveness and success.
Ruth is a Certified Flower Essence Practitioner by the Flower Essence Society since 1993 and is a respected educator in her field.
Her in-depth study of flower essence plants and her numerous opportunities of learning with the original researchers, coupled with the application of this knowledge in her work with her many clients over three decades, gives her a unique perspective and level of experience that is unequalled in this field.
Ruth, thank you so much for taking the time and presenting to us. I know some of the folks watching this know about flower essence therapy, and some don’t or may have heard of it, so I’ll let you kind of take over. And I may have questions here and there, but I’ll let you share what you have in mind here.
Ruth Toledo Altschuler: [00:01:39] It will be wonderful, and I welcome your questions. So yes, one of the things that we’ve been talking about, and I know your clients (and as a loyal client of yours as well) I know we are really looking into productivity and creativity, creative thinking and all of that. And, at the same time, we have all become so aware of how divided our attention is, and how overwhelmed we feel on our day to day life.
And also, so many of us are going through change – change all the time coming our way – whether we want it or not.
We are being challenged to change, to adapt, to adjust.
So, I want to share with you all a story of why is it that plants, and plant intelligence, can help us move through change, and readjust and reintegrate. And become more creative, as we deal with the challenges of life that are always coming anyway.
So, what I am going to do is I am going to share a presentation with you. And it’s kind of a little story. It is a story of us, a story of our Unity with the living world of which we are part. In this life, in this incarnation, and a story of the web of life, one in which everything is integrated into a very well articulated whole.
And there is a timeline to this story. And I will go into just a little bit of an overview here. Saying that life on Earth began 3.6 billion years ago. But there are four very striking moments that have to do with how human life became possible in the planet.
3.4 Four billion years ago, the first kind of bacteria, within the waters, began performing photosynthesis. And then, 400 million years ago. The first primitive plants went up into solid ground. 475 million years ago, the first land plants began putting down roots, and that’s what began creating the ozone layer. A lot later, 130 million years ago, there was an enormous evolutionary leap. Flowers, flowering plants came into existence. And 200.000 years ago only (that is how recent we are), anatomically modern humans came into existence.
So when flowering plants began existing, it was like an explosion. And they began interacting with their pollinators, and all these different beings came into existence, and the multiplication of plants, as a result of the existence of flowers, and the complex forms that evolved from there. And all the nutrition that became available is what made possible life of humans on Earth. So, yeah, we are part of this amazing unity, much more than we usually think about. The air we breathe, all the food we eat, even the animal sourced food comes from plants.
In fact plants are our elders. We descend from plants, and flowering plants are our very important ancestors. Now in a special way, I believe and you will understand that: plants really help us remember. And I mean remember in terms of becoming members, re-becoming part of this whole.
Now what are flower essences and, what they are not?
Ruth Toledo Altschuler: Flower essences are information. Differently from essential oils, that have aroma and that are made from a lot of plant substance, flower essences are prepared in the peak moment of flowering. When the plant reaches that apex. It’s almost like it’s shining, it’s radiating. And then flowers are picked and placed on the surface of a bowl, and they sit under the sun for a number of hours. And the information, the evolutionary information of that plant that is so amazingly contained in the flower, because the flower is that moment that the plant is re-creating its new generation. So all of that it has learned through all its several evolutionary journeys, all its adaptation, all of that is imprinted, as information in that water.
So flower essences are highly diluted vibrational preparations. They don’t take a lot of plant substance to be prepared. And you have the mother essence, and then you have the first dilution, and then you have the second dilution. That is the essence that we use. They can be prepared either as an internal use dilution just these drops, or, they can be prepared as a spray in a misting bottle.
A few flower essences for focus and Creative Thinking
Ruth Toledo Altschuler: [00:09:53] I want to give you a gift, of some essences that you can use immediately for your own creative thinking.
Can you think of days when everything is happening at the same time and you’re going through a lot of demands and people are calling and the phone is ringing and an email is arriving and it’s almost like you’re being divided into many little pieces? Your attention being called everywhere? Would you like to, at the same time that all of this is happening, would you like to stay centered, have that quiet peaceful center within yourself? Well that is one of the special gifts of the Indian Pink flower essence.
So despite it being all red and all cut into little indentations, it has this calm center within. All flower essences come kind in that way: you don’t really have to read this, but they have the patterns of imbalance and the positive qualities. And so here we’re talking about being fragmented by too much movement, overwhelm and, the ability to remain centered and focused, even under stress or high levels of activity so.
What if you really need to stay more focused?
Now here’s the Madia, and look at this plant: it’s almost like it’s directing you to its center. But there’s one more thing that it does, in it’s adaptative intelligence: it begins opening up in the morning sun. And then, when it becomes very hot and too fiery outside, the flowers begin closing down, almost as if they’re concentrating their energy. And they are kind of focusing themselves inwards, like this. And then, later in the day, they will open up again, in that beautiful star.
So that is an amazing essence for focus, for the ability to concentrate. Now we have another one: and let’s think of all these different multiple tasks that you have ahead: we solopreneurs are really dealing with that all the time, we have our marketing, we have our offerings, we have the clients, we have the calendar. And sometimes it is difficult to find what is the priority now, and how to organize this whole and how to to divide our attention correctly into the parts.
Well, that is one thing that this Rabbitbrush really helps. And I’ll give you just two more, because these you can actually go to the store, and buy them and use them yourself.
So the Shasta Daisy is actually a plant that was developed by a genius, who knew how to interbreed plants to create special varieties, and he created a daisy that is the synthesis of many different daisies. He took 19 years developing this plant, until he was able to come to a daisy that was perfectly white and perfectly balanced. Now this, as an essence, really helps us with integrated thinking. It helps us see all the parts, and see them within the context of an integrated whole. It is very helpful for managing, for organization, for synthesis, for writing and more.
In this Blog Post, more details of use and benefits of the Shasta Daisy essence.
And just the last one, to top it off: this is my very favorite. It is named after the goddess Iris, and Iris was a mediator between the Gods and humans. And as the flower essence, it is amazing in how it helps us with creativity, inspiration, the ability to generate our most inspired offerings, inspired writing.
George Kao: [00:15:27] Wow that was beautiful. You know what? What kind of stood out to me was how gentle the flowers are, and yet how much power they have to affect us. And then perhaps the most powerful effects start with the most subtlest source you know.
And so one question, that I have and others might have as well, as how do you work with your clients with this? You are flower as practitioner, a flower essence therapist, and you mentor others in this work as well. How does it work? You have given us some recipes or ideas that we could get flower essences from a holistic store and you know we have them, but now how does it really work?
Ruth Toledo Altschuler: [00:16:26] Right, well. I’m going to tell you one story that maybe you can relate, and that is related to one process that I’m beginning to offer as a package, and I call it Leadership Stature.
Leadership Stature: alignment and enhancement of Presence
And this one, this process is one that meets a person that is really ready to stand out in the world and to really build more of a presence, and to step out into their leadership, and yet, they feel that there are some almost like really old time blockages, perhaps from their childhood. You know, perhaps parts within themselves that keep saying: “oh you’re not really all that”. You know those voices that we have in our minds? At the same time, when they go out to do public speaking, perhaps they would like to have more radiance, perhaps they would like to shine more. So the work that I offer, is kind of a step by step, ongoing work. But we don’t meet very often: we meet just perhaps once or twice per month or once every two months, and I prepare the essences, but we also talk about these very deep patterns that they want to change, and we address these patterns with the essences. And we also bring the essences that are going to help them develop this bigger presence, this kind of shining charisma that can help them come out with enthusiasm, to share their gifts with the world. So that’s one possible way that I can help you, and others.
Inner Marriage: transforming your inner Relationship Template
Another way is also one process that I’m calling the Inner Marriage, that helps you become aware of what is happening within you in terms of the inner woman, the inner man, and the relationship between the two – and how these may have been affected by what you experience in your life, by what you saw when you were growing up, and why is it that these situations keep repeating themselves in your relationships. And, as much as you want, you are not manifesting the kind of relationship that you yearn for.
And so, we go through a process of deep healing, but especially working on these inner archetypes of masculine and feminine, and of the partnership of both also working on inner child issues, and eventually as this becomes healthy and whole and transformed, a relationship manifests that is more of a reflection of the changes that you’ve made within. So those are a couple of examples of processes that I’ve really helped a lot of people over the years with, and that I’ve really worked with and used for myself, so there’s a lot of my own experience in this that I bring.
George Kao: [00:20:26] That is very helpful, to see some of the issues that you help clients with. Of course, given that flower essence therapy helps with both creativity, the mind, the heart, the healing of emotions and spiritual growth, there are other things that can come up that can be healed as well, through the work. So, if somebody is interested in working with you, what do you recommend? Is there something they need to do first, or what’s what’s the next step to doing that.
Ruth Toledo Altschuler: [00:21:00] Fortunately, as a result of using all these essences and doing creative thinking, I have a Website that is very complete. People can navigate, there is a scheduling page, there is a 30 minute free initial interview session that people can sign up for, and find out if we are a good match, if they like the way I work and the possibilities I have to offer them. And that’s a good way to begin. And they can read a lot more about the essences in my web pages. Another way that I strongly suggest people connect with me is through my Instagram page, because every week there are some plants and their messages. A lot of clients and non clients say that they feel a lot of healing from looking at my images and reading the text, so, I strongly recommend they follow that as well.
George Kao: [00:22:12] I will be sure to have the link to your website and just to name it out the website is www.EssenceMentoring.com. And on Instagram, it’s Ruth Toledo Altschuler – your name – and on Facebook there is a Facebook page as well. I’ll be sure to link those under the video. Anything, any other message you want to share with us as we complete this conversation?
Ruth Toledo Altschuler: [00:22:47] Yes absolutely. The entry point for most of my clients is people going through change. Because plants know so much about change, they’ve had to adapt to change of all kinds over the ages, and so many people go through major change, like a death of a loved one, a separation, a divorce, a relocation. A change in job, sometimes it’s an upgrade, or sometimes they’ve been fired and they have to reinvent themselves, but that big transition is just so shattering, in so many ways. And so, if you’re going through any kind of major change, and if you have a friend who has been impacted by shattering change, or a good change in their lives, but they really need that wisdom to adjust, to adapt, to kind of smooth the edges of the process, that is one of the reasons why most clients get referred to me. They usually don’t know about it, but people say: “you have to go talk to Ruth. I can’t really explain why, but go! And they’re really grateful, because I have a very special ability to truly listen and match their needs with the qualities of the flower essences.
George Kao: [00:24:26] Yes, absolutely, and I can vouch for that, and so can the many clients who have worked with you. You’ve got reviews on your Facebook business page for sure. People should check that out too. Ruth, thank you so much for bringing this beautiful presentation to my audience. I hope those who are watching this feel healed by it in some way, or at least you’re now more educated about what flower essences are. And Ruth is very kind in answering questions, so if you have any questions don’t be shy. Comment below, or reach out to Ruth and she’ll be she’ll be in my experience very helpful to answer anything. So Ruth thank you so much again for doing this work and for sharing with us today.
Ruth Toledo Altschuler: [00:25:14] Thank you George, for all the work that you do in the world. It is a joy to be part of your community.
George Kao: [00:25:22] Yeah absolutely. All right. Well, go ahead and reach out to Ruth if you’re interested. And see you in the next video.
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