Healing Menstrual Cramps with Rock Rose Flower Essence (Helianthemum Nummularium)
Have you ever been in a life-threatening situation?
Does the quality of your life seem “dull” in ways that are out of your control?
Do you experience painful menstrual cramps that you haven’t figured out the root cause for?
Have you ever witnessed a suicidal attempt or someone engage in self-harm?
Are you very sensitive around matters of physical death and pain?
Rock Rose (Yellow Helianthemum nummularium) Flower Essence
Unlike the cherry essence, where epiphanies were revealed to me through dreams, rock rose was my teacher in waking life. Also known as the yellow helianthemum nummularium, rock rose is widely known as a great plant medicine to collaborate with for menstrual cramps and period pain.
Rock rose helps us embody extraordinary courage in times of adversity especially around disruptions to life. It aids us in remaining present and grounded despite chaotic surroundings.
Rock rose helps you with:
Feeling brave and safe no matter your environment
Understanding and accepting death as a natural cycle of life
Exploring ways in which you can enhance your quality of life
Rock rose works with you on:
Identifying the root cause (emotional body) of menstrual cramps or related symptoms causing period pain
Distinguishing what is truly a “life or death” situation versus what is a projection of a traumatic experience
Discovering what safety feels like in your physical body
What Rock Rose revealed to me
Rock rose had me revisit old situations as if I was peeling layers off like an onion. The through line was that self-harm as a coping mechanism really freaked me out and yet I was subconsciously engaging in it in the most shadow-y of ways…also known as addiction.
This blog published in May 2024 and I’ve been having pain-free periods since July 2023 with only 2 random months where they were uncomfortable. Rock rose is the primary flower ally that helped me heal bedridden menstrual cramps.
In the next section, I’ll share these intimate stories with you, purposefully numbered chronologically to demonstrate how far back we must go to discover the root cause of our physical symptoms. AND to illustrate how each experience builds onto the original emotional distress that manifested as a physical symptom. (In my case, the cramps)
***Trigger warning: I mention scenarios of self-harm including suicide in this section about old situations. Please skip to the next section if you feel this may trigger you.***
2010: A time when I witnessed someone die by suicide
As I was slowly searching for an open parking spot, I heard a scream and saw what looked like a sweater fall in between the uncovered portion of the structure. It felt incredibly eerie and yet I drove on frantically, only to find that even the top, uncovered floor was full. I ended up parking at an uncovered lot right next to the structure I was just in. As I approached it, I noticed an emergency vehicle and people gathering near a particular spot. It wasn’t until after my first class that a friend revealed a woman died by suicide by jumping off that structure.
That was the scream that I heard. That was the sweater that fell.
I sought professional help (psychotherapy) immediately after the incident. I was privileged to learn a little about the woman’s history, named Jane, made available to the public after her husband was contacted by press. Months later, I wrote a letter to Jane, hoping it’d help with my grief over their loss of life.
Being a witness perpetuated a strong sensitivity to anyone I loved who was going through a rough time. I immediately assumed it meant they’re at rock bottom to a point where they had suicidal ideation. I over-worried about other’s well-being. I felt a need to always be around to keep them “safe.”
It wasn’t until my spiritual awakening when I began detaching myself from this made up narrative. This helped me relocate without guilt or shame for not being physically close to my loved ones.
2007 - 2017: A time when I helped a loved one recover from attempted suicide/self-harm
I was a high school senior and noticed concerning things about my sibling. The random “scratches” on their wrists, sometimes covered up in band-aids. Their drawn out time spent in the bathroom. Discovering bloody blades tossed in the bathroom trash can.
Once dots were connected, I realized this sibling was engaging in self-harm. It took months before I confronted them about it. There’s so much more I could say about what this sibling has gone through, some of which is shared sexual trauma between the both of us. I knew she was struggling with that and her identity, which my mother and society wouldn’t tolerate.
Unfortunately, one serious conversation didn’t stop what became a coping mechanism throughout their young adult years. This sibling had multiple suicidal attempts. In their last incident, they were 5150’d and transported to a rehabilitation center.
Looking back at this phase of life, I recognize that I wasn’t equipped to support a loved one going through this internal battle. It scared me and at the same time, I felt called to learn more so that I could be prepared to recognize the warning signs and symptoms of suicidal risk.
2000: A time when I literally thought I was dying, but received no help when asked for it
One day, I had unbearable pain in my abdominal area. My father agreed with mother that taking me to the hospital wasn’t an option. Having not experienced any other form of physical pain in my life, I truly thought I was dying at the age of 11. What else could that pain have been?
Since my parents were unavailable to tend to my needs and I had no other way of asking for help, I resorted to what would bring me the most comfort: a large bowl of ramen noodles with extra sriracha sauce on top of my sriracha. A day later, we discovered I got my period and transitioned into womanhood. The pain I experienced were menstrual cramps, a symptom my mother wasn’t familiar with.
Since then, ramen with sriracha became my go-to meal whenever I wanted comfort, either to soothe period pain or other life hardships. I loved to eat spicy foods since I was a very young girl and sriracha was my most favorite condiment in the world.
1988-1989: A time when my pregnant mother’s self-harm put the quality of my life in danger
One day while still developing in the womb, my mother made salaw machu kreung, a Cambodian sour beef soup she claims I made her crave. My father dumped the soup, upset that she didn’t cook what he wanted to eat. This was untrue. She had the food he requested ready to eat and had only made the soup for herself.
Among many in her generation, my mother was a victim of forced displacement from Cambodia. She came to America with her brother and was further separated from him after she left an abusive marriage back in Georgia.
For more than half her life, she had only known violence. The trauma, the isolation and my father’s mistreatment triggered her. So as a form of self-harm, she decided to cope by over consuming alcohol.
As a result, her body overheated painfully. Attempting to cool off on the floor, my oldest sister, Kwin, was by my mother’s side saying, “Mom, please don’t die.”
Addictive Patterns We’re Subconsciously Repeating
Rock rose reveals our closeness to lifelessness. Dullness (quality of life) and death. I recently asked my mother to retell her story to me, so I could accurately share it. The most illuminating detail that brought the healing of rock rose to full circle, was remembering that as a result of drinking, my pregnant mother began overheating to the point of unbearable pain.
HEAT. Baby Rosie and the wisdom of my mother’s body was protecting me by overheating the body I was developing in.
And what brought me comfort in 2000 that became my go-to meal in times of hardship all these years? The ramen bowl heavily drizzled with sriracha…HEAT AND SPICE.
It’s an understatement to say that I love spicy foods. Almost every single one of my meals, for as long as I can remember, had a spice component to it. I even added MORE spice to dishes that were already spicy to begin with. Was it a problem? Absolutely, but not one I was ever willing to admit to.
In early 2023, right when I started taking both the cherry and rock rose essences, my body developed an uncomfortable reaction to foods with HEAT AND SPICE qualities. This led to eliminating ingredients of this nature out of my diet.
Not a coincidence. This was the plant medicines at work assisting me with detoxing my unhealthy, addictive pattern of over-consuming certain foods that were risking the physiological functions of my body. It took about 7 months of dietary change before I noticed that I no longer had menstrual cramps.
Don’t Address The Issue, Address The Person
When doing healing work, we don’t address the issue by masking or attempting to remove the physical symptom. When masking a problem, this usually compromises our health and promotes the “mask” as a crutch instead of facing the root cause. When only removing physical symptoms and not going to the root cause, sometimes new and different physical symptoms manifest, keeping a person in a perpetual loop of suffering.
Receiving advice from a professional to eliminate heat and spice from my diet would’ve only been helpful for a certain period. Not for long, I could’ve developed another form of escape with some other food or activity. This is why we need to understand the emotional and mental causes of the physical symptoms.
Although I appeared as a healthy baby, I subconsciously chose to repeat “overheating” my body over and over and over in my life. That experience in my mother’s womb somehow led me to operate in survival mode since birth.
Revisiting my mother’s womb story made me realize this was partially why the relationship with my mother was the way that it was.
How could I trust someone, who was supposed to take care of me, if they were risking the health of my physical life and body while I was developing in their womb?
Other People’s Self-Harm Mirrored My Own Self-Harm
Although “overheating” is very clearly unhealthy for anyone, it was normalized for me in the womb. The reason why the self-harm/suicide related stories are important to this narrative is because, in some ways, those experiences were mirroring the darkness in me that I couldn’t accept as true.
The darkness being that I, too, was engaging in self-harm through the addiction to a certain type of food.
The darkness being that I, too, willingly kept myself closer to “death” than liveliness, by eating foods that were damaging the vitality of my life.
But I would never have been open to seeing it that way had it not been for the rock rose essence. No one could ever explain to me that the way I was consuming sriracha sauce wasn’t concerning.
Integrating With Flower Essences
I just shared some deep, heavy stuff with you! This is the power of flower essences and why I love them so much. When working with an essence, there are four common stages you’ll experience.
To connect the dots the same way I did in this blog post, I highly recommend journaling while taking an essence. What memories or situations are coming up for you? How are they related? What is the through line? Which of your shadows are illuminated in these narratives? How can you begin integrating these epiphanies into your life?
A year after taking rock rose, I had the privilege to visit Tennessee. The place where I was conceived. Where my mother’s womb trauma happened. Where I was born. The core memory I had of Tennessee was that of my mother’s womb story. Not a pleasant one.
Visiting the land as a healing adult felt like an opportunity to make peace with the shadow that was born there, and make new, beautiful memories to evolve my energetic connection to that place.