ORCHID ESSENCES FOR STRESS 101

The orchid, an epiphyte surviving in the harsh jungles and forests of Southeast Asia, is rare, fragile and of the most austere purity. Imagine partaking of this resilient spirit of great beauty......  

Brian Koh, proprietor of Life by Design Consultancy and distributor of Living Tree Orchid Essences, demystifies the allure, beauty and function of these potential additions to our holistic first-aid kit. 

What are orchid essences exactly?

Orchid essences are made from the mother tincture of various orchids (vibration-infused water that has interacted with the orchids) and is preserved with French cognac and mineral water.

How do Orchid Flower Essences work?
The Living Tree Orchid Essences from Gigha (Scotland) are very supportive for those suffering from trauma, abuse, hidden wounds, and other intensely stressful situations. Mental illness, addiction, violence, depression and many other serious problems respond beautifully to orchid essences because these conditions involve complex interactions of biochemistry, emotion, thoughts, and subtle energies. The energetic patterns of the orchids add the natural, spiritual dimension to healing so often missing from mainstream treatment.

The two fundamental processes of orchid essence healing are release and reconnection. What are released? Chronic pain and trauma, energetic and physical toxins, emotional burdens and memories, energetic and neurological blockages. What are reconnected? Life, soul, the self, the truth and the body. Old patterns of energy, thought, and reaction are released. Fresh connections are made in new, healthier ways.

When life takes a sudden turn, orchid essences can help you cope and offer spiritual perspective. Sudden changes are stressful, reducing immunity and vitality. Shocks cause mental and emotional freezing, and numbness and shutting down of body systems and energetic flow. Unreleased, this sets the stage for later serious problems.

Orchid essences ease body and energy systems back into balance and the flow of health. When life goes too fast and too hard, astrology can help in revealing that disruptive planetary transits are at work. Crystal & Flower Essences can maximize your potential for changing and growing with the cosmic influences. They cushion you against stress and shocks by reconnecting every system in the body-mind-spirit to the ultimate sources of vitality, inner peace, and truth, found in nature and the spiritual dimension within each one of us.

·         Stress

Pressure, whether from within or outside of us, puts a strain on mind and emotions as well as our physical health. Modern life is full of everyday stresses; when more is added to your personal load, the interweaving of subtle and physical systems that is life can begin to fray at the weakest points.

Orchid essences can buffer temporary stresses, as well as work to heal those weak places, where old or unresolved memories, events, family and other personal issues have created disharmony. Awareness is enhanced, understanding and healing follow. We can move forward stronger and more whole, shedding what felt so draining before like rain off an umbrella.

·         Grief

Loss hurts, whether a dear one has died, or a beloved who has left us alone, or we've lost an irreplaceable aspect of our lives. The connections are broken. We feel empty. Other losses echo, other hurts and sometimes, they are from before conscious memories. Orchid essences remind us that our true nature is eternal and indestructible. They reorient, heal and reconnect us to the wellsprings of love and meaning in life and spirit.

·         Chronic Illness & Disability

Illness and disability can set us apart from the main current of the world's daily life, leaving us isolated, hurt and abandoned. Besides the challenges of dealing with our own needs, we also have the additional struggle for understanding, access, accommodations. Intense feelings arise from awareness of the differences that limit and set us apart. Orchid essences help with adjusting to and accepting our conditions. They can open us to the inner richness and delight of exploring life in new ways, on new paths, forging new identities.

·         Broken Relationships

When you sense something isn't right in an important relationship, orchid essences can help work on the problems. So much can be healed by working on oneself, taking responsibility, forgiving, and letting go of fears in order to love without attachment or dependence. Working on communicating with the other person can also make positive shifts.

If the relationship is clearly ending or over, orchid essences help move through the grief and anger and hurt authentically, responsibly, without blame or victimhood. Those are hard feelings, but worth it to stay with until they pass, transforming into new awareness and connection to your core self. A life reading can show the openings occurring, and orchid essences lend support towards taking steps in new directions.

·         Trapped

Every way out seems barred: stuck without money, in a bad job, toxic family, wrong body etc. Life gives us important truths and opportunities. When it seems we can't get anywhere, we must look within, change our attitudes, or open up to a different perception or experience, in order to see the way through. Orchid essences bring in the help of cosmic forces, our souls, higher selves, hearts and spiritual guides. By allowing our hearts and the still small voice within to lead us, we can experience an entirely new relationship with ourselves, the world, and life.

·         Abuse

We tend to believe what we're told. We become how an abuser makes us feel: afraid, ashamed, helpless, hurt. As small children, our minds, bodies, and selves are still developing, building on our experiences. When the foundation is faulty the structure is too shaky to handle all the pressures of life without falling apart somehow. Those abused as adults often experienced some sort of neglect or violation as children that created a vulnerability to being violated again. The weak structure of self needs to be rebuilt,  o that we discard what doesn't work, find the foundation and make it strong and whole.

Orchid essences help this rebuilding, letting go of everything that doesn't ring true and instead connecting to heart, soul, spirit, body and divine love, guidance, comfort and wisdom. They support the healing of the nervous system from trauma and stress. They gently release hurts, memories, feelings, and old beliefs. They soothe frightened inner children and welcome them safely into the new, integrated self.

·         Self-Destructive Behaviors

When inner torment wrings us into tangles we cannot bear, we often feel we have to act in harmful ways to relieve the pressure. Perhaps it is hurting our own bodies, eating, drinking, drugs, fighting, anonymous sex, or other violent or dangerous actions. Orchid essences work to heal the roots of inner conflict, bringing awareness and new perspective on the situations that trigger us, and the reasons for our responses. Awareness brings positive transformation.

·         Addiction

Orchid essences are great helpers in all phases of recovery, from the first desire to step towards health, to healing body, mind, heart and spirit from the effects of abusing oneself. Often other issues or traumas lie beneath addiction, and recovery requires the deep healing of these. Orchid essences support our connection to inner truth and the guiding wisdom of our hearts and souls to uncover who we really are.

·         Detoxification

Our bodies aren't the only repositories of pollution. Besides cellular and fluid stagnation from overload, our energy bodies can be clogged with discordant frequencies from chemicals, drugs, heavy metals, and other toxins. It's also common to accumulate negative thoughts, verbal sound bytes, or dysfunctional emotional patterns from the media, people we're around, and our families of origin. Our own negative thoughts and emotional responses are the most potent of all.

Orchid essences help to clear all levels of disharmony, and reconnect us to our inner light, just as the passing of cloudy skies lets the sun shine clearly down. There are essences to support cleansing our organs and body systems, as well as meridians, subtle bodies, and the chakra energy centers where our most powerful beliefs and internalized images are held. Using orchid essences in conjunction with a practice of energy psychology, affirmation, visualization, or prayer replaces negative beliefs and images with positive, healing ones, leading to transformation on all levels of life.

·         Anxiety, Depression, Anger

Often these unpleasant feelings are masks for deeper, more difficult, often painful emotions. We develop these habitual feelings to distract and protect ourselves from the underlying hurt that we believe would overwhelm us. Whatever the cause of our pain, orchid essences can see us safely through to regaining our whole selves, our choices and freedom, our joy and love of life.

·         Fears & Alienation

We are social beings; we need to be with others, to touch and be touched, to feel connected. When we've been tortured, neglected, rejected, ignored we tend to react by withdrawal into our own fortress of suffering, or with anger, hate and blame. Orchid essences help to move through the fear that keeps us armored and separate. They open us to love, trust, and safe reconnection.

·         Recovery

Healing can take a long time. The journey to joy and wholeness can sometimes seem like two steps back to each step forward. Orchid essences keep the process moving forward. They bolster faith and confidence, connect us to the inner core of knowing we are on the path to happiness. They soften the disappointments and balance the extremes.


Can you prescribe and describe a specific essence for a few common emotional ailments?

There are different essences that can be used to target the different root causes and to release it. For people who are trying essences for the first time, I would recommend they sit through a consultation for the right essence to be prescribed. Every essences resonates differently for each individual client. 
However, here is an introduction to a few starter essences. 

Angelic Canopy is known as the love balm for the troubled soul. If you can only have one of the Living Tree Orchid Essences, this one should be seriously considered, as it is so helpful in these times. Angelic Canopy brings nurturing to those who are in grief, despair or who have lost hope. Releases the tension from the flight vs. fight response, thus helping to increase one's sense of security by realigning to the values of life. Great for space clearing and cleansing crystals.

Unveiling Affection helps one to love and nurture oneself, as well as opening our hearts with affection to those around us. Good for anyone who has every felt emotionally bereft, or who has difficulty valuing and caring for himself.

Messenger of the Heart gives voice to the heart and communicates what you are feeling, without fear of the consequences for speaking your truth. To help one become more aware of what is deeply valued within the heart, spirited by the desire to be honest and true.

An orchid essence healing consultation usually lasts 60minutes to 120 minutes. During the session, the clients will share the issues that they are facing, and the practitioner uses a combination of tools (orchid cards, dowsing and muscle testing) to determine the suitable essences for the clients’ healing. The essences are meant to kickstart the clients’ healing process, and once the issues have been circumvented, the clients can stop consuming the essences.

For more information about Living Tree Orchid Essences, visit designyourlifecm.com.

About Brian Koh
Brian Koh is the resident consultant and founder of Life By Design. He specialises in Transformational Energy Healing and Mediumship, and uses a combination of modalities such as Vibrational Essence Therapy, Dowsing, Crystal Healing and Oracle Card Reading to help his clients. Besides consultations, he also runs various certification classes and workshops on spirituality and the various modalities that he practises.

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