Blooming in the Dark: How Flower Essences Illuminated the Way During My Most Difficult Moments
A Personal Essay on My Emotional Well-being Journey
After two traumatic medical events that rocked my world, I was brought to the magical healing power of flower essences. Flower essences are a natural medicine which work on an energetic, vibrational level to nurture or melt away a wide range of emotional matters. They are so subtle that they are able to get past your conscious levels to the subconscious, where many of our insecurities and emotions can get trapped. There is a growing body of research available linking physical ailments and disease to an emotional root cause. Many indigenous cultures have long made this connection. I believe this was the case for me. Now, more than 10 years later, I’ve realized my life’s mission revolves around sharing the importance and significance of emotional well-being with those around me and those willing to listen. I always knew my passion and gift was in helping others and urging them to see their potential, but what brought me to this purposeful journey feels like it’s been divinely orchestrated, something only a higher power could have envisioned for me.
In 2012 I graduated from Temple University with a political science degree, determined to change the world through the aspiration of becoming involved in politics, even though my newfound college education taught me that politics were just a big game. A week before graduating, I was offered to be a United Nations youth representative for the organization I was interning with- the Association for Trauma Outreach and Prevention, led by Dr. Ani Kalayjian. As an intern, we learned about a 7 Step Integrative Healing Model for trauma. Through this method I learned about holistic health through a mental, physical, emotional, ecological, spiritual, social, and financial lens. I’ve never looked at health any other way since.
During my time at the U.N. I became involved in as many committees in the non-governmental organization sector as possible. Weekly, I sat with hundreds of women and men who represented nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations from all over the world, listening to them speak about their work on the ground impacting the lives of the most vulnerable communities. I gained so much wisdom and hope for humanity from being in this space with them. I helped plan events from concept to post-event reporting, published a few articles in psychology journals, and sat in private meetings with high level political leaders and ambassadors from all over the world. My dedicated involvement led me to an opportunity in becoming the opening speaker on behalf of all Youth Reps around the world, at the U.N.’s first ever youth-led briefing. My career goals were being realized quicker than I thought possible.
In the week leading up to the briefing, I started to experience a constant headache. I assumed it was a stress headache and ignored it. I even lost my voice the weekend before the briefing, but still persevered and opened up the event with my speech- hoarse, rough, raspy, and all. You can see the event and my speech archived here. The event came and went, but my headache got worse, so I decided to see a medical doctor. He barely asked me any questions and within 10 minutes I was in and out of the office with a prescription for migraine medicine. The medicine didn’t work. A few days later I thought it was finally time to head to the ER to see why I was having such a horrible headache that was affecting my vision at that point. Long story short, I ended up having to get an emergency brain surgery to repair a vascular malformation in my brain that erupted. My brain was sitting in a pool of blood.
I entered the ER on a Tuesday eve and by Thursday morning I was going into surgery. Everything happened so quickly and a week later I was out of the hospital like nothing happened. There was no sort of physical therapy or relearning of any kind that needed to happen. If you lifted the back of my hair up you’d see that a small section by the nape of my neck was shaved off, otherwise, no one would be able to tell what I just went through. In my followup appointment with the surgeon, I asked why this malformation happened to me, what could have been done to prevent it, and if it was something I need to worry about in the future. He said it was random, and I shouldn’t have to worry about it happening again, or passing on this experience to my future children. How could this be random?, I thought. Cue- my first appointment with a flower essence practitioner.
After speaking to Dr. Ani about my experience, she suggested that I go see a flower essence practitioner she knew named Sandra, and even hinted that I may be depressed. The word shocked me. Mind you this was over 10 years ago. It’s been quite impressive to see how much we have detabooed depression and mental health since then. I didn’t know what flower essences were at all, but I just wanted answers as I felt my surgeon provided none. Within five minutes of meeting me, Sandra was able to tell me about my deepest, darkest insecurities and personal challenges that I thought I was able to hide from everyone, including myself. Using her intuition and muscle testing, she told me that I was depressing my feelings and cared too much about what others thought, she told me that I was unsure of my life direction, and that I had a fear of losing control which kept me from connecting with others on a soul level. All of this led to me living in a tense and fear-filled emotional state. Most importantly, she suggested that these emotional matters were what led to the vascular malformation in my brain. I was living too much in my head, in my own racing thoughts, without ever expressing my feelings around them because I didn’t think it was important to do so. So long as I was hitting my career goals and rationalizing my thoughts, I thought I was good. Energetically, this caused a messy tangle which manifested physically as a vascular malformation. Her explanation really sat with me. To put it in simple terms, my tangled web of thoughts that I kept bottled up, manifested into a tangled web of veins which eventually started leaking as that suppressed energy had nowhere else to go. My emotional debt manifested physically.
Sandra recommended Mustard, Wild Oat, Crab Apple, and Cherry Plum flower essences for me. I still didn’t really understand what they were or how they would help me, but I followed her instructions to take 4 drops under my tongue 3 times a day. Mustard was for emotional stability and being able to integrate suffering and joy into a positive whole. Wild Oat was for manifesting one’s true goals and values and being motivated by a clear life purpose and conviction. Crab Apple was for getting rid of the sense of feeling impure and obsessing over your imperfections. Cherry Plum was for spiritual surrender, trust, and releasing the tension that comes with the fear of losing control. She said I should use them for however long I felt I needed them, and that some people felt its effects after 2 days and some people after 2 weeks. Basically she encouraged me to follow my intuition. That was the first time any health practitioner advised me to do that.
A few days later when I was on my way to a friend’s music performance, I got dressed and put a crop top on. I thought absolutely nothing of it until I stepped in the car to see one of my friends was also wearing a crop top in the same color. It was then that I realized, “Oh shit I finally put on this crop top I’ve had in my closet for years!” Mind you this was over 10 years ago when crop tops were NOT as common, LOL, yes there was a time. It was also in that moment that I realized what the flower essences were doing. I didn’t hesitate to put on the crop top because I wasn’t preoccupied with everyone else’s judgements on what I was wearing. I finally felt confident enough to wear it. As simple as the act of putting on a crop top was, it was a major moment for me. I started to think about all the other simple acts that go by without notice where I hesitate on what I actually wanted to do. I promised myself to never do anything I did not want to do anymore. As obvious as that statement sounds, if you’re not taking the time to reflect on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, you could easily end up living your life on someone else’s terms.
Another change I experienced after working with flower essences was making the decision to start my own non-profit. After working with so many wonderful people from nongovernmental organizations all over the world at the U.N. and taking a flower essence meant to help me take charge of my life direction, it clicked for me that the only people who were actually making a difference in the lives of others like I wanted to, were those people in nonprofits that I had met. It wasn’t the princes or prime ministers or other high-level politicians I once thought I’d want to be working closely with. It was the everyday people you’d never hear of unless you met them yourself who were actually changing lives and creating ripple effects for generations to come. It became a no brainer for me to pivot from seeking political fame to a career in nonprofit work.
I truly started to pave my own unique path after this pivotal point in my life. I stopped using any over the counter medication or prescriptions, and detoxed my life from as many harmful and cancer causing chemicals as possible. I became super invested in learning about essential oils. I moved to the Dominican Republic with my partner, Lenny, for 6 months, but before I left I wanted to see Sandra. She told me I was still holding myself back in order to please people. She mentioned that this was coming from a place of ego where I didn’t think that others would understand me so I sort of dumbed myself down for them. I remember very clearly that she told me that I still had to work on my confidence, “especially before having a baby,” she said. I was confused at her choice of words at the time, wondering if I was already pregnant and she was somehow able to tell, but after getting my period that month I let it go and thought nothing of it. She recommended Centaury and Golden Yarrow flower essences. Centaury was for serving others from inner strength, while nourishing one’s own needs. Golden Yarrow was for melting away over-sensitivity to one’s surroundings. In D.R. I learned how to slow down, appreciate living with the land, and looking at life from an abundance perspective. I tested out an alkaline diet with only the produce available on the farm that we were living on and at local markets. When I returned to NY I started taking classes and certifications in herbalism. By the time I finished my first green medicine certification, I became pregnant. Little did anyone know that a week prior to finding out I was pregnant, Lenny and I decided to go on a break to essentially work on ourselves without the complication of having to rely on each other to fulfill each other’s emotional and physical needs in the process. Upon learning of our pregnancy, we immediately got back together, not bothering to address why we broke up in the first place.
Having dove deep into natural medicine, I knew I wanted a midwife,a doula, and a homebirth. After rounds of interviews with a bunch of different midwives, I fell in love with my midwives Shar and Carol of MidwiferyNYC. They visited me at my home for every checkup, stayed with me for an hour, asked me how I felt, about my dreams, how my partner was feeling, and so much more. I drank herbal infusions that I learned about in my green medicine class meant to nourish a healthy pregnancy, made sure I was eating healthy, did exercises to prep for a successful labor, and read so many books about having a holistic pregnancy. After a beautiful, easy, intentional pregnancy, at 7 months pregnant, I had a checkup with my midwife at my apartment and we could not find my daughter’s heartbeat.
Rushing to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, I did not even consider that I could have lost my daughter. I didn’t know it was even a possibility so late into pregnancy, at that time. My heart absolutely sank to the depths of hell when I was told that my daughter passed away in utero. How could this happen when I was doing everything “right?” I felt like an absolute failure at life, and on top of that I still had to give birth to my daughter. I did not feel mentally nor physically prepared, as I thought I had a few more months to prepare for this moment. The next 24 hours were a whirlwind of emotions for my partner, family, and I. Many people on both sides of our family were able to visit us in the hospital before we had to give birth to our daughter, and I heard so many stories for the first time from women on both sides of the family about when they also experienced miscarriages or stillbirths. I couldn’t understand why they never mentioned such a heartbreaking event before this moment. If so many women experience this, why don’t they talk about it? How could they possibly keep these strong, overpowering emotions inside? I felt this way because I already knew in my heart that I HAD to be able to talk about this afterwards. I couldn’t see any other way of being able to cope with it.
We prayed with our friends and family and they helped me prepare my birthing room as an intentional sacred space with flameless candles and essential oils. After writing a poem in honor of our daughter and asking everyone to leave the room so my partner and I could read it out loud, I was finally ready to give birth. Within 2 hours my partner and I birthed our daughter. The emotions that ran through me were so strange. I was proud of myself for birthing without any pain medication, and so quickly. It was terrifying to not hear a cry at the end of the birth. It was heartbreaking to not want to hold my daughter in her condition, although my partner decided he would. I felt guilty for a long time for not being able to find the courage to hold her. We slept with her in our room that night. Honestly it is still so hard to write about these moments because of the wide range of emotions that filled them. How odd, to sleep with your dead daughter in the effort of trying to feel normal. That is what we had to go through.
Leaving the hospital broke my heart even more. Because I was planning for a homebirth, I never pictured myself leaving the hospital with a baby to begin with, but having to leave without a baby was so sad. At the same time I felt like I had to act strong for everyone else around me so they wouldn’t feel so bad for me. My friends tried to make things feel “normal,” so we watched a movie together when I got home. All the baby items were removed from my daughter’s room while I was in the hospital. The whole time I just wanted to yell and scream and cry on the floor, but I know none of us really knew what to do. This is part of why I am so open to writing and speaking about my experience now. I hope to provide some guidance and something to relate to for moms and their families, as stillbirth is such a common experience in motherhood. I appreciate my friends for simply being there with me. I know it was not easy and everyone who showed up for me during that time holds a special place in my heart.
I saw Sandra again shortly after my stillbirth. I went to see her about two weeks after, the same day I would be hearing about the results of the autopsy and what could have caused the stillbirth. She explained to me that there are spiritual reasons why a baby’s soul chooses not to incarnate on earth at a specific time, and that this was the case with my child. She told me that the spirit of my child would be the first of its kind on earth and that I had to really take seriously meeting her at that advanced level. All the issues in our relationship that Lenny and I brushed under the rug after finding out we were pregnant were extremely important for us to address in order to be worthy of this child. I never thought about the significance of an unborn child’s soul like this before, but it has stuck with me ever since. I remembered what she told me before leaving to D.R., that I had to work on my confidence “before having a baby,” and I reminded her to see if she remembered. She said she did not remember specifically, but that whenever she does her consultations, she channels messages and that must’ve been the message she was receiving then. I still had work to do that could no longer be ignored before being able to meet this child. She recommended Star of Bethlehem and Explorer’s Gentian flower essences. Star of Bethlehem was for shock, grief, trauma, and comfort from the spiritual realm. Explorer’s Gentian was for renewed strength for meeting one’s life purpose and spiritual destiny, and transforming crisis and loss into new opportunities. She reminded me that there would be a physical reason why the fetus terminated that the doctors would tell me about, but not to get too hung up on it. Later that day at the doctor’s office, they told me they could find no reason why the fetus terminated and that it was random.
I cried every single day for months. I looked forward to crying because I knew it was the release I needed from the emotions I was feeling on the daily. I would cry, sometimes I’d wail, then knew the rest of my day would be easier. As deep as I was in my grief, I was just as incredibly grateful for life and all of its treasures. Everything suddenly meant so much more, and what didn’t matter, didn’t matter at all. I started to weigh everything on whether it was a life or death matter. If it wasn’t, there was absolutely no reason to be hung up on it. It went on like this until one day 4 months later I found out I was pregnant again. This time I decided to see a spiritual healer, I’ll have to write another essay about my spiritual healing journey another time.
One month after the 1 year anniversary of birthing my daughter, I gave birth to my beautiful, bold, creative, confident AF son Kavi Love, in a quick but painful, peaceful, and transformative 4 hour home birth in our 2nd floor Harlem apartment. My midwife Shar who was with me throughout Nuwa’s pregnancy helped me birth him, along with my partner Lenny, a midwife assistant, and my doula Pam. You can check out my 2 part birthing story here and here. It was in the few short moments after birthing Kavi that I realized just how powerful women truly are, as well as how so many women have made themselves small to fit the standard of how women were “supposed to” behave in society. Birthing my son was also an instant confirmation that we are not all here for no reason. Conception and birth are such miraculous events that it is impossible that we are here for no reason. I decided to embody my power from then on out, as well as encourage other mothers to do so, answering our individual calling in the process.
Flash forward 6 years later and I am currently living in Puerto Rico with my partner and son, and we have been living here for over 3 years now. In my first year living here, I started a 9 month apprenticeship with a flower essence practitioner, fully diving into emotional well-being work. During those 9 months and in the few months following, I faced so much of my own shadows, from all different angles, shedding many layers of myself that no longer served me in the process. In this container I was able to choose the flower essences I thought I needed instead of having someone make suggestions for me. Some of my favorites that I worked with during that time were Alpine Lily for tapping into my femininity, Pretty Face for finally getting over my insecurity around my teeth, Blackberry for translating goals and ideals into concrete action, Mugwort for integrating my psychic and dream experiences into daily life, and so much more. I experimented with over 40 flower essences during my apprenticeship. For the past 2 years I have fully buckled down into my role as a holistic health practitioner focusing on emotional well-being. I have come full circle to focus on maternal emotional well-being.
I am so passionate about helping others gauge their emotional well-being as well as set emotional well-being goals for themselves because of everything I have gone through. We all set career goals, fitness goals, and even mental health goals, but emotional well-being goals are virtually unheard of. I advocate strongly for everyone to have flower essences in their toolkit because they have gotten me through the toughest points in my life, and past my deepest insecurities. They have allowed me to feel the range of human emotions from a place of being able to handle them as well as alchemize them, because there is truly no avoiding them. In my experience, ignoring my emotions manifested physically in two very different, very painful ways. Emotional well-being is not about never experiencing the more uncomfortable emotions, but being able to sit with them, process them, and transform them along your personal journey of growth and expansion. It is the presence of positive emotions, resilience, and a sense of fulfillment and purpose in your life. I have experienced the lowest lows, which for me was the gateway to be able to experience the highest highs. And now I experience the highest highs in my day to day, not only during special occasions, or when I indulge in luxurious experiences, but because my life is in flow at all times. Flower essences help us break past those internal blockages that keep us stuck in the same mindset for years, which keeps us from following our intuition and our unique life path. Trust me when I say I understand emotions well, and that flower essences can help take you to where your soul wants to be.
*All flower essence descriptions are from the FES Repertory.
Katrina Martinez is a flower essence and emotional well-being practitioner who works one on one with clients as well as creating a line of flower remedies called Radical Love Essences. She offers postpartum doula services in the San Juan, Puerto Rico area and seasonally in New Jersey.
Comments