Foreword to One Person's Journey

We often advise people who are studying the Bach flower remedies to keep a track of their emotions. Keep a remedy journal, we say, and note down how you feel about the situations you encounter. Journaling helps us learn the remedies because we see how they relate to our lives. It also helps us learn about ourselves and our feelings. The best journals are always about humanity, and about growth.

In contrast, an occupational hazard threatens people who write more formally about the remedies. It occurs when we focus so hard on the system, on remedy indications and dosage and so on, that we forget to put any people in. This is especially strange because the whole focus of Edward Bach's work was people – their personalities, their feelings, their emotions. Humanity is central to the remedies.

That, in a nutshell, is why this book is special. More than a book about remedies, this is a book about people. Using her own life and experiences as a framework, Nicola Hanefeld introduces us to those fundamental feelings and personalities that are the basis of Dr Bach's system. She tells us about her life, her faults, her qualities, her relationships. The stories are human, sometimes wry, always engaging. Some will move you; some – I'm thinking about the tale of how Nicola came to own a Cerato plant – are gentle and funny. The decorating story made this reader laugh out loud.

This book teaches the remedies because it's all about life. That's putting things in the right order.

Stefan Ball
The Bach Centre

March 2014