The Timeless Relevance of Bach’s Cerato Flower Essence
I started to consider this topic recently with a number of clients who have seen several health practitioners and were still looking for an answer, typically human really each practitioner had all given their own perspective and this was now leading to confusion as to what was the right path to follow. It wasn’t the fact that there were different perspectives and interpretations of health happening, but that the individuals themselves were not trusting their own intuition and were now sailing their ship rudderless.
We are now far from my fathers time when he would read the newspaper my mum brought home at 6pm, then watch the news at 9pm before bed, and read a book in the day. In our hyper connected era, we’re bombarded with information from social media feeds to 24-hour news cycles so you can fill your boots with misery and algorithmically determined information that confirms all of your fears. Unsurprisingly now amid this flood, many of us struggle with a deeper challenge of trusting our own judgment and intuition. We second guess decisions, seek endless opinions, and scroll for validation, often now ending up more confused than before. This chronic doubt isn’t just personal it’s a modern stressor that can erode our well being because who can you trust if you can’t trust yourself any more?
Enter Cerato, one of Dr. Edward Bach’s 38 flower remedies, designed specifically for those who doubt their intuition and constantly seek advice from others.
The Cerato flower (Ceratostigma willmottiana), with its vibrant blue blooms, symbolises inner certainty. In its negative state, Cerato reflects people who know intuitively what they want but lack confidence, leading them to ask others excessively for guidance or what they think. The remedy helps restore faith in one’s inner wisdom, fostering decisiveness and self-assurance, helping you to sort the wheat out from the chaff.
Cerato is particularly vital today because it’s clear that many people are struggling with what is happening with our society and the inability to even trust those who are meant to be our guiding lights doesn’t help. This is leading to a situation where we have chronic doubt as a modern stressor happening, which let’s face it, on top of the other stressors in life many of us don’t really need.
Hans Selye, the pioneer of stress research, described the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) in the 1930s coincidentally around the same time Bach developed his remedies.
Selye’s model outlines three stages:
1. Alarm the immediate fight-or-flight response.
2. Resistance where the body adapts to ongoing stressor.
3. Exhaustion how the body’s resources deplete, leading to burnout or illness.
In modern life, chronic psychological stressors like constant decision making in an uncertain and what feels for many chaotic world keep us in prolonged resistance, draining our adaptation energy and pushing many of us toward exhaustion. Doubt amplifies this, when we are in a continual state of doubt seeking external validation creates mental loops of anxiety, elevating cortisol levels and contributing to fatigue, low mood, or even physical symptoms.
Cerato addresses this at the emotional root. By rebuilding trust in intuition, it reduces the mental friction of overthinking and external seeking, allowing better adaptation and preventing exhaustion. In Bach’s holistic view, emotional harmony supports physical health aligning with Selye’s insight that unresolved stress leads to diseases of adaptation.
We are surrounded by all the information we could ever want, originally I would have had to go to a library, find the book, study and read the book, now a click of a button and you are surrounded by the worlds libraries, and more information than you will ever consume on every topic from every perspective. Today’s information overload fosters misinformation, we face conflicting facts on health, politics, lifestyle and daily choices. We believe what we are thinking are our own thoughts, but they are heavily influenced by the internet. Research shows chronic doubt drives endless searching, exposing us to biased sources as the algorithms confirm our thinking rightly or wrongly.
The Cerato state, doubting one’s judgment, exacerbates this. People in this imbalance may defer to experts online or influencers, falling prey to echo chambers. Restoring inner certainty via Cerato doesn’t mean ignoring facts, it means confidently discerning truth from noise, reducing stress from perpetual uncertainty.
Adding creativity to help explore your intuition and inner guidance I believe is an important factor in self development. Our education system often emphasises rote learning, standardised tests, and binary right or wrong answers, side lining subjects like arts that embrace ambiguity, creativity, and nuance. Arts education encourages exploration of grey areas, interpreting emotions, experimenting without fear of failure. Yet, access to arts has declined, I believe this is a factor in reinforcing rigid thinking and the inability to truly think for ourselves and more importantly trust ourselves.
This black-and-white mindset spills into adulthood where we crave certainty in an uncertain world, fuelling doubt when answers aren’t clear cut, let’s face it as you get older you know that life just isn’t clear cut and you are often surfing waves of change and transformation. Cerato counters this by nurturing intuitive wisdom, honed through reflective practices akin to artistic exploration. In a polarised society, trusting our inner voice helps navigate complexity without paralysis. Cerato offers gentle support for reclaiming inner authority. It’s not about isolation but balanced discernment, listening to others without losing your compass and going off piste.
Bach remedies like Cerato remind us that emotional balance is key to resilience. Whether facing daily decisions or global uncertainties, trusting your intuition lightens the load on Selye’s adaptation machinery.
If doubt resonates, try Cerato: A few drops to reconnect with your wise inner voice. In doing so, you might find not just clarity, but profound peace.
