Who knew that our lives would be thrown into such chaos and uncertainty in only a few months’ time? Who knew how much energy would be expended for daily tasks we once performed so quickly and easily, like shopping, running errands, etc.? Meanwhile we’re watching our country’s economy careen like a roller coaster off its tracks. Who knew that quarantine could have such a kickback for people’s emotional natures, or that going unmasked amidst spiking virus number might restore their sense of independence and freedom, if only symbolically, qualities that are especially important to the natural temperament of Americans?
This is a time for emotional as well as social distancing. And that’s the hidden message of Banana Essence. Social distancing, as has been said in jest, means “keeping 6 feet apart instead of 6 feet under.” Emotional distancing is about remaining unattached to the drama that is currently playing out in the world.
About This Un-Understood Flower Essence
To be honest, Banana Essence is one of our least understood flower essences. Whenever this essence emerges in a consultation, the client will often ask, or appear as if she wants to ask, “Are you suggesting I’m a proud person?”
Quite the opposite. The way I was trained to work with flower essences is based on the principal of resonance. A flower essence can only help you if that quality already exists within your nature, such that taking the corresponding flower essence has the potential to resonate with and strengthen that quality.
“Humility can sometimes be confused with low self-esteem, low confidence or meekness,” reported 3 professors at the University of Michigan – Toni Antonucci, Kristine Ajrouch, and Noah Webster. “But researchers have come to realize that being humble generally indicates the presence of deeply admirable personal qualities. It means you have the ability to accurately assess your deficiencies without denying your skills and strengths.”
In other words, There should be neither a superiority nor an inferiority complex. If you’d like to project your energy outward rather than seeking to draw people’s energy to yourself, this is the flower essence for you. Instead of having a big ego, this flower essence can allow you to have a big energy.
The Flower/Fruit/Folklore section of The Essential Flower Essence Handbook describes the humble banana stalk’s properties as the following:
“The name, Musa paradisiaca, includes the edible varieties and alludes to the ancient myth that bananas existed in the garden of Eden. Musa sapientium translates as “fruit of the wise men.” Wild bananas date back to prehistoric times and are now cultivated in all parts of the tropics as well as in the region from India to New Guinea. This seedless fruit grows on a giant herb and not a tree, with a stem of overlapping leaves. The plant reaches a height of ten to thirty feet. A flowering stem emerges at the plant’s apex carrying the male flowers. Higher on the stem are the female flowers, or hands, which hide twelve to sixteen bananas each. Bananas are rich in fiber. Their high potassium content aids the muscular system and they are helpful in feeding the natural acidophilus bacteria of the intestines. The peels also help with migraines, hypertension, skin sores and rashes.”
And Now – Back to These Times
Never in our lifetime have we faced the challenges of masking, distancing, quarantine, and lockdown.
“The nature of the disease makes you confused,” Anthony Fauci reported recently. “The nature of the disease sets it open to multiple different interpretations of how serious this is, and with that how serious you should be taking the disease.”
In light of the pandemic with case numbers currently spiking in previously untouched parts of the globe, it behooves us also to be vigilant about our emotional health. The self-honesty and self-forgetfulness promoted by Banana Essence offer to us that sense of standing on a mountaintop and regaining perspective, based on the process of distancing ourselves from our emotions. This is also the title of my children’s book, Bradley Banana and The Jolly Good Pirate, with the young Bradley on his way up the “metaphorical mountain.”
Feelings Versus Emotions: What’s The Difference
Consider this yogic explanation of the difference between feelings and emotions, explained in the context of the heart chakra. Feelings are pure, steady, and intuitive; emotions are agitated or confused feelings.
The heart chakra is divided into 2 sections: upper and lower. The lower part stores our emotions, as the heart chakra is the pivotal point that connects the 3 lower and the 3 higher chakras. Here, the heart’s energies are subject to a downward pull by those 3 lower chakras; hence the possible sense of agitation. The higher part of the heart chakra is the pure feeling center where our life force is drawn upward toward the 3 higher chakras.
One offshoot of this pandemic that corroborates the need for Banana Essence was expressed well in author Savitri Simpson’s summation of how current challenges are affecting people emotionally:
“I feel that the increasing erosion of people’s spirit is, in a way, more mental and emotional than physical for just about everyone these days. I certainly feel it in myself. Restlessness and hopelessness—thoughts that this will NEVER end—I’ll never again get to swim in the river, or go to the grocery store on my own, or chat with a friend in person, or go to a community event, or on and on …But of course that would be true if I died, anyway (ha-ha). Maybe in this pandemic, I feel like a zombie (the walking dead)? Ah, how dramatic.”
Many people these days seem to feel a strong negative undertow – meaning we have to raise our energy and keep our thoughts and actions uplifted. One woman, in the senior years/high-risk category, found herself emotionally bent out of shape from not practicing emotional distancing when she insisted on having plain, not fruited, yoghurt in the mornings—a luxury not presently available to her, as a friend shopping for her had bought the wrong flavor.
One woman in the U.K., a medical secretary, wrote of Banana Essence: “I resumed taking it last Wednesday evening and was mightily relieved. I do feel ‘something inside’ has shifted. I feel a little stronger and less sensitive emotionally and, dare I say it, can say ‘sod it, no’ to negatives which arrive yet are not mine.”
You could say that, more than ever before in our lifetimes, it seems that circumstances are forcing, not asking, us to make choices every moment about how to think, how to behave, and how to respond to others. These choices can be supported by the emotional distancing offered to us in Banana Essence.
Other blogs on Banana Essence:
Banana: The “Maybe You’re Right” Flower Essence
Bradley Banana and the Jolly Good Pirate
Banana essence: to improve our “hearing” – Letter and answer.
Hi Dear Lila,
Thank you for this article. You and the essences have been on my mind the last couple days- how I can use the lovely box of goodies (essences) to support this journey and here is a suggestion. I’m looking forward to trying banana for this week!