Healing a sense of safety with Cherry flower essence (Prunus Avium)
Are you always trying to protect yourself or keep yourself safe when developing new relationships with others?
Are you experiencing physical symptoms or illnesses that you believe is deeply linked to your sense of safety?
Have you ever felt like your innocence was “taken away” from you?
Do you have painful childhood or adolescent experiences that you’d like to heal and integrate into your maturity?
Are you feeling under attack, criticized or suspicious of other people’s intention for you?
Have you ever been described as someone with a protective shell or with a thick wall around your heart?
Cherry (prunus avium) Flower Essence
Through a series of dreams, cherry flower essence (prunus avium) led me on a journey to profoundly understand the relational dynamic between trauma, sexuality and sense of safety. Cherry is an ideal flower or plant ally to collaborate with for inner child healing work.
Cherry relaxes tension and helps us transition from projecting distrust into feeling safe and grounded in our bodies and environments. It aids in softening our character.
Cherry helps you with:
Embodying a youthful like joy and exuberance
Embracing feelings of innocence and openness
Celebrating the threshold of adolescence
Healing and integrating painful experiences in adolescence
Cherry works with you on:
Identifying the root cause (emotional body) of toxic blood or related skin conditions causing skin irritation or inflammation such as hives and acne
Repairing a loss of innocence
Regaining hope or youthful outlook on life
Addressing traumatic life experiences in adolescence that continue to plague the body/soul identity
What Cherry revealed in my dreams
I’ve found that flowers communicate to me in several ways, the most powerful medium being the dream realm. Although these dreams are personal to my life experiences, I believe sharing these will help folks understand the power of the healing messages that come through when working with flower essences and other plant medicine.
***Trigger warning: I mention scenarios of sexual trauma in this section about dreams.
Please skip to the next section if you feel this may trigger you.***
Dream one
Sleeping in bed next to a brother figure. He kept wanting to hold hands and put his hands on me. I told him to stop. I left the room. He followed and started taunting me even more. I cried because I was mad that he wouldn’t take his hands off me and leave me alone.
When I told my mother, I felt deep pain from being violated. I could feel this heart wrenching pain in my body in the physical realm.
My mother stood there listening, but had no words to respond.
What this dream illuminated
This was showing me the first moment when I wasn’t able to use my voice at a critical moment. Closing myself off from sharing with a caregiver that my body was being violated by family members (not my actual brother, but relatives who were brothers). I kept my experiences a secret and doing so perpetuated an unhealthy cycle later in life. Two decades of not feeling safe enough to share what I was going through with others.
Dream two
I was watching a video game. Two large dinosaurs cut open the back of a stegosaurus along the spine. Suddenly, it became a turtle. They wanted to know why the turtle was the “chosen one.” Why it was trusted to journey across the sea and help others. It had magical powers.
Next thing I knew, I was with the turtle which was placed inside a plastic bag left to die. I sensed that I was actually the mother of this turtle. I heard it screaming in excruciating pain telling me how much it hurt to have had the bully dinosaurs rip its back open exposing the spine. I wanted to take it to the vet even though I knew nothing was going to save its life. I felt so much pain and helplessness. I woke up crying.
What this dream illuminated
There are two scenarios I see in this dream’s message, both of which I believe are applicable. First, it’s possible that in a previous life, I couldn’t protect a child and carried that karmic debt into this lifetime. I’ve had several dreams confirming similar storylines regarding this.
Secondly, I believe I was shown a perspective of my mother. How it must’ve felt for her to hear how she couldn’t protect me as a child.
Dream three
I was driving the childhood van that belonged to my uncle. We were navigating through my hometown, Lake Elsinore. We ended up inside of my uncle’s house which looked beat up like a shack that was boarded up.
My body in the physical realm was triggered telling me it’s not safe to be there because the dream took place in the actual moment/memory of when I was molested by relatives in that house.
The rundown house was my uncle’s way of showing me what happened to his home and his heart the day he found out what his sons did to me and my sibling.
This was a visitation dream with my uncle, one I’ve been waiting for since he transitioned to the other side years ago.
What this dream illuminated
My uncle expressed to me exactly what I needed to hear all my life, but I didn’t realize I needed it until it came through in this dream.
I needed an important caregiver in my life to acknowledge that what I went through was awful and heartbreaking.
I felt that he grieved for my loss of innocence and that he carried shame in ways I never could have known.
Journal prompts inspired by Cherry
What did I need protection from that I never received? How does that contribute to my current concept of safety? How do I act defensively in my current life?
In what ways did I feel I failed to protect someone or something in a situation? How did I carry the shame that followed? Can I now forgive myself for not knowing or not having the ability to respond in the past?
Growing up, what did I need to hear from caregivers to make me feel safe and protected?
How have I prioritized survival to keep myself safe?