Centaury Track

Centaurium umbellatum

Centaury people are charming and considerate, loved everywhere for their kindness and helpfulness. The motivation behind their "noble" character traits is the desire for appreciation and love. Out of fear of hurting someone and thereby losing appreciation and love, they show so much consideration that they often lose their own will. Self-determination and self-fulfillment are sacrificed for appreciation and devotion. They value helpfulness and service to others at the expense of their own interests. The loss of appreciation and love strikes so much terror in them that they ultimately become willing slaves of a dominant personality.

These people often describe themselves in the followings ways:

• I am good natured.
• I don't want to hurt anybody.
• My will is not very strong.
• Ioften find it difficult to say no.
• I am easily talked into something and get angry about it afterward.
• I often don't find the right moment in a relationship to say, "Enough, no more!"
• I have always lived for others and have denied my own needs.
• I never have the courage to disagree.
• I grew up late.
• I am afraid of not fulfilling another person's expectations, even when the other person has not expressed her expectations.
• I often feel that I have been used.
• When I want something it is hard for me to express it.
• I am cowardly and am tyrannized by others.
• I often ask myself, "Why don't you fight back?"
• I often say yes because I am afraid of no longer being loved if I express my opinion.
• I need recognition.
• I am afraid of being rejected.
• I am afraid to assert myself.
• I am afraid of being repelled.

People who live in a Centaury state often have a weak handshake.

Fundamentally, Centaury has to do with demarcation, on a personal as well as energetic level. On the personal level it is the demarcation of one's own will from the will of another. If she is not successful, the individual will become an instrument of another stronger personality because of her lack of willpower.

On the energetic level it is the demarcation of one's energy field from its surroundings. If demarcation is not attained, the individual will suffer apparently unexplainable fatigue. She will, for example, report feeling tired and weak in front of other people. The fear that other people can drain one's energy is sometimes expressed. Centaury can be a great help here, by closing the aura and protecting the energy body and the personality from the influences of the immediate surroundings.

Ilex Aquifolium

The flower remedy Holly helps against anger, hate, envy, jealousy, suspicion, and revengefulness. Holly people live in a constant state of restless irritation, get angry easily, and often lose control of themselves. Even a fly on the wall will anger them in situations of extreme tension. They often complain about others, whom they blame for their own bad mood. Generally, they always find a culprit whom they can blame for their own mistakes.

Holly people report about themselves:

• I easily fly into a rage. Sometimes I am so tense that even a small thing makes me mad.
• I often get angry at myself, especially when someone has persuaded me to do something I actually do not want to do.
• I often have uncontrollable temper tantrums.
• I am constantly unsatisfied and suffer for no reason.
• My friends say I am hot-tempered.
• Sometimes I am very unfriendly, although the other person has given me no reason to be.
• I often wake up at night to my own voice and hear myself complaining out loud.
• I am very resentful.
• It is difficult for me to forgive myself or others.
• I am very suspicious.
• I am very jealous. When my husband went to a seminar, he had to call home every hour.
• I often envy other women who are prettier than I am.

As a result of their temperament, Holly people often suffer acute and violent illnesses-for example, sudden high fevers; inflamed, burning, or itching skin rashes; allergies; and gallblader disease. Coughing (Do not breathe on me) and vomiting (This is making me sick) are acts of aggression and expressions of a Holly state of mind.

How do these extremely destructive states of mind originate? It is said that hate is the mirror image of love. Why does a person shut herself off from love? Is she afraid of love? Does she want to protect herself? Did she once show too much emotion toward other people and was so disappointed by others - and possibly also by herself - that she is afraid of her feelings? Is that what Holly people try to express when they say, "I cannot easily forgive myself or others"?

Let us remember the image of Centaury. These people offer so much empathy to their environment that often they cannot say no. They give a lot, live almost solely for others but expect to receive the feeling of acknowledgment and being loved from them. If these people are disappointed - they also often describe the feeling of being used - they have two possibilities:

Either they learn life's lessons by exercising their own will and taking their lives into their own hands, or they compensate for their weakness by blocking out the emotions by which they were hurt. Devotion turns into resentment. Necessary demarcation from the world turns into separation. Because one's own will is weak, it has to be defended constantly from other people. We attack other people, however, only when we believe they will impede us in some way.

The mistake these people make is that they ward off love and affection. They reject the one thing they need most. In the Centaury state they long so much for love and acknowledgment that they will do anything for other people, just to receive this feeling. They even repress their own needs out of fear of not being able to fulfill the needs of the other person and thus losing the other's love and affection.

The first step is to free the blocked feelings with the Holly flower. One should not stop on this level, however, because the cause lies deeper. Only by treating Centaury's negative emotional stage can the real basis for the destructive feelings of the Holly state be eliminated. Altogether, Holly is the compensation remedy for the comunication flower Centaury. Centaury represents, in Chinese terms, an extreme yin state. An imbalance is always unstable and cannot exist on its own for long; therefore a compensation will eventually occur, which means that the equilibrium will tip from the extreme yin state into the yang state. This works like the pendulum of a clock, which swings from one side to the other and back again.

Since the yin in the Centaury state was extreme, the compensatory yang in the Holly state is just as extreme. The patient accordingly overreacts. If this state is not overcome it will tilt back from the extreme yang to the extreme yin. What follows is the state of decompensation, the Pine state.

Pinus Sylvestris

People who need the pine flower constantly suffer from a guilty conscience. In every possible and impossible life situation, they find reasons to feel guilty. Even when successful they accuse themselves of not being good enough. If they get criticized they torture themselves with self-accusations. When they are praised, they cannot accept the praise. Often they say:

• That isn't worth mentioning.
• That was nothing special.
• After all, it was my duty.

They have a hard time accepting presents, because they believe that they do not deserve them. Their phrases often begin with:

• If only I had ...
• Why did I ...
• Please excuse me for ...
• I am very sorry that ...

Pine people say about themselves:

• I often have a guilty conscience.
• I look for faults in myself, even when it actually might have been someone else's fault.
• In unpleasant situations I always convince myself that I am to blame.
• I often remember unpleasant situations from the past and still feel guilty today. Sometimes it gets so bad that I could jump out of my own skin. I feel it physically and start to tense up throughout my body.
• I still suffer from the bad lifestyle I used to have.
• I often blame myself now for eveything I did not do for my children.
• I often blame myself for not giving my children enough love.
• I often accuse myself.
• I criticize myself when can't perform.
• Even when I am sick, I have a guilty concience. If the medication does not work, I immediately think that it is my own fault.
• It is sometimes difficult for me to be really happy because I am always conscious of what I have missed out on.
• I have many guilty feelings about sex.
• I often blame myself for other people's mistakes.
• If other people do not say much, I accuse myself of insulting or hurting them. Even when they deny it I still feel guilty, because I imagine that they will not admit it out of courtesy and consideration.
• I can't be really happy about something and thus often feel sad and depressed. When others call me a party pooper, I feel guilty again.
• Often I can't fall asleep because I am tortured by self-accusations. When I am dead tired and not able to function the next morning, I really feel guilty.
• If I refuse to do someone a favor, I later have a guilty conscience.

The Pine image contains strong masochistic elements. The patient thinks he must constantly punish himself. What causes such a self-destructive misconception? Let us remember that Pine is the state that follows Holly. In the Holly state the individual always tries to blame someone else. Holly people are never satisfied with other people, which causes them to be constantly tense and aggressive. Pine people are never satisfied with themselves and focus their aggression on themselves.

Pine is the decompensation state of the Centaury flower. In the Centaury state it is difficult for individuals to say no. In the Holly state they fall into the other extreme and always say no, in return for which they will feel guilty in the Pine state.

At first there is a search for love and approval. This desire often leads to a complete loss of self. Eventually, it leads to a point where these individuals feel used by others and start to separate themselves in an aggressive way. Through this demarcation, however, love and approval will be taken away from them. Therefore it is impossible to sustain the Holly state over a long period. They fall back into decompensation and guilty feelings. For many people this becomes a vicious circle; they do not dare say no because of their feelings of guilt. They are taken advantage of again, and the whole game starts over.

Excerpt from: Dietmar Kraemer, New Bach Flower Therapies, Healing Arts Press, Rochester, Vermont. ISBN 0-89281-529-9