Heads and Tails: Decision Making

One of the best things about being human is that we can make many choices in our lives. One of the worst things is that this means we have to make choices.

Decision-making, depending on how you look it, is either a blessing or a curse. Dr. Edward Bach, creator of the Bach Flower Remedies, took some of the curse (and sting) out of decisions when he recognized that difficulty in making choices is based on personality types, with different kinds of people getting blocked on different kinds of decisions. (In general, personality types form the basis for the Bach Flower Remedies.)

Understanding this and discovering my own predominant type of indecision has helped me move forward in my life. I think you, too, will benefit from a fuller understanding of the various emotional factors that lead to indecisiveness.

Please note: when you read the statements listed with each personality type, you not feel that every one is true for you. However, if some of these feels strongly true, you will find this an area worth exploring.

Type One: Talented in Many Areas,
And Perhaps A Wee Bit Unfocused

You:

• Have many talents and interests
• Find it easy to master a skill
• Wish there were more challenge(s) in your life
• Want to accomplish something unique
• Hesitate to commit to any path
• Talk about what you'll do when you "grow up"
• Feel life is passing you by

This is the classic Wild Oat condition. If you are this kind of person, you wish you could be ten people so you could follow every path that interests you. Wild Oat is often described as a state of arrested development, a kind of prolonged adolescence in which the individual is constantly sowing his/her "wild oats."

How the Seeds Are Sown

People in the Wild Oat condition are reluctant to commit to paths for themselves, feeling that commitment means restriction and that making a decision means putting oneself in prison. A deeper reluctance, one of which they may not be conscious, is based on feeling that once they make choicesm they will have to settle down and accomplish something.

The real problem Wild Oat people don't face is that when they leap from possibility to possibility they are attracted to different paths on superficial levels. For this reason, they can never find deeply satisfying choices.

One of Dr. Bach's most fundamental beliefs was that each of us has a purpose that we choose on the soul level. Finding and fulfilling that purpose is necessary in order to live a life of well-being and joy. For those in the Wild Oat condition to discover their unique paths, they need to learn to become quiet and receptive to the answers that come, not from the outside world, but from one's own connection to one's soul. When we allow ourselves to be guided from within and act on that wisdom we learn that the "special" thing we are meant to do is to discover and follow our unique purpose in life.

Wild Oat opens the door to communion with one's soul, and to an intuitive understanding of one's purpose. Life, instead of being lived in as many arenas as possible, is lived with depth, purpose, and joy.

Type Two: Tell Me What to Choose

You:

• Gather much information, but can't put it together
• Don't trust your intuition even when it gives you a clear answer
• Frequently ask others their opinion
• Want to know what most people believe about a subject of importance to you.
• Get upset when others tell you you're the only one who can decide.

The above describe the person in need of the Bach Flower Remedy Cerato.

Having owned a crystal store, I had daily opportunities to meet people who needed this remedy. A customer would come to the counter holding five or six crystals or pieces of jewelry and look at me helplessly.

"I can't decide which one to choose."

I would patiently explain the properties of the respective crystals and ask her purpose in wanting a crystal. If she said, "I want to overcome my fears," I would say, "Charoite is a good stone for that."

She would look doubtfully at the charoite and say, "But I also want to deal with my anger." I would mention rose quartz.

Then she would say, "Well, which do you think is more important, taking care of fear or anger?" When I asked, "What bothers you more?" she would say, "I don't know. Do you?"

The point here is not that one needs to choose between dealing with anger or fear. Both can be handled at the same time. My point is to illustrate how inventive a Cerato person can be in avoiding the responsibility of trusting his or her intuition to make a decision.

People who need this Remedy usually have plenty of intelligence and insight, but you'd have a hard time convincing them that this was so. They lack self trust. They have become so accustomed to tuning out the voice of their intuitive inner wisdom that they don't recognize it when it speaks. Instead, they fall back on on habit, reason, and popular beliefs. They constantly gather knowledge, but rarely assimilate it.

They hesitate to make decisions because they so fear making mistakes and losing the good opinion of others, which they usually value highly. In a sense, they are trying to replace their own self-esteem with that of others and their own intuitive judgments with other peoples' advice. In many cases, they constantly ask the advice of others in order to get attention, although after a while some of that attention becomes negative.

Cerato helps people restore their natural connection with inner knowing, sometimes in dramatic way. I had a friend who was a textbook case of one in need of this essence. When I discovered the Bach Flower Remedies, I shamelessly took advantage of her willingness to take my advice and recommended this remedy to her.

When she started taking it, a quiet transformation took place. All on her own she made a career change, became active in an organization devoted to service to others, in which she did much informal counseling and coaching. She is now a massage therapist and a Reiki master. Her life has transformed.

That's the power of listening to the inner being, as facilitated by Cerato.

Scleranthus: Back and Forth

You:

• Find more than one choice overwhelming
• Make "firm" decisions that change frequently
• Find yourself attracted to opposing choices
• Swing from choice to choice as if you were on a seesaw
• Have mood swings
• Look at things in terms of "either/or"

In Bach Flower Remedy terminology, the personality described by the above characteristics is related to the Scleranthus Remedy. Individuals tend to be attracted to opposites. If it's a choice between jobs one might involve much interaction with other people, while the second involved solitary work. If a choice of spouses or partners is involved one will be an angel, the other a devil.

Similarly, the Scleranthus person may be prone to mood swings from joy to misery. Physical imbalances may also result from these emotional fluctuations.

The Scleranthus person's immediate problem is that he has become an either-or kind of person who's shut off the possibility of a more inclusive reality. The deeper problem is that she allows herself to be swayed by circumstances, having stopped listening to the voice of her higher self or soul.

Scleranthus opens up this connection and allows to achieve a state of balance and blending. Its astrological counterpart is Libra, represented by the scales, the sign of balance.

Dr. Edward Bach was a Libran. When he was young he was torn between becoming a doctor and becoming a minister because he didn't know which profession would best enable him to help people. He initially chose medicine, and became a renowned and successful practitioner, but in time the other side of the scale tipped, causing him to give up his medical practice and go to the countryside.

He found his balance, however, for he was clear that his central focus was on healing. Following his intuition, he discovered a simple method of healing people on the emotional and spiritual level. We know this system as the Bach Flower Remedies.

His life clearly indicates that once we listen to the voice of our inner wisdom, all contradictions can be resolved and brought into a state of harmony.