Telling similar remedies apart
Some of the thirty-eight sit very close together, and a few have names so similar that people reach for the wrong bottle. These pages take a pair at a time and give you the one difference that settles it.
MimulusvsAspen
If you can finish the sentence I am afraid of, it is Mimulus. If you cannot, it is Aspen. That one test settles most cases in about five seconds.
MimulusvsRock Rose
Mimulus is for fear you can live alongside. Rock Rose is for the moments fear takes the controls. If your body got there before your mind did, that is Rock Rose.
AspenvsRock Rose
Aspen hums and Rock Rose shouts. If the feeling is a background unease you have been carrying all week, that is Aspen. If it seized you and you are still shaking, that is Rock Rose.
Rock RosevsCherry Plum
Rock Rose is terror at something happening to you. Cherry Plum is fear of what you might do. The question to ask is whether the danger feels outside you or inside you.
LarchvsPine
Larch doubts what you can do. Pine blames you for what you did. If the feeling is I would not be able to, that is Larch. If it is I should not have, that is Pine.
Crab ApplevsPine
Pine is I did something wrong. Crab Apple is there is something wrong with me. Guilt points at an act. Shame points at you.
Crab ApplevsRock Water
Crab Apple is about how you feel about yourself. Rock Water is about the rules you keep. One wants to be clean and the other wants to be good, and they do not answer to the same remedy.
White ChestnutvsRed Chestnut
The names are one word apart and the states have almost nothing to do with each other. White Chestnut is your own thoughts going round. Red Chestnut is fear for somebody else.
Chestnut BudvsClematis
Chestnut Bud repeats and Clematis drifts. If you can see the same mistake three times over in your own history, that is Chestnut Bud. If you keep missing what is happening in front of you, that is Clematis.
OlivevsHornbeam
Olive is tiredness after the effort. Hornbeam is tiredness before it. If rest genuinely helps, it is Olive. If you feel fine once you get going, it is Hornbeam.
OakvsOlive
Both are exhausted. Olive has stopped. Oak is still going, and that is the whole problem.
ElmvsOak
Elm is a wobble this week in somebody who normally copes well. Oak is years of pushing on. If the feeling is recent and out of character, it is Elm.
ClematisvsHornbeam
Clematis has gone somewhere else. Hornbeam has not gone anywhere, it just cannot begin. If the work looks heavy before you start, that is Hornbeam. If you started and then vanished, that is Clematis.
CeratovsScleranthus
Cerato asks everybody. Scleranthus asks nobody. Both are stuck on a decision, and the difference is whether the argument happens out loud.
ScleranthusvsWild Oat
Count the options. Two real ones that you keep swapping between is Scleranthus. None that feel like the thing, however capable you are, is Wild Oat.
GentianvsGorse
Gentian is discouraged and can be talked round. Gorse has stopped expecting anything and does not want the pep talk. Gorse is the same feeling, further along.
GentianvsMustard
Ask yourself why. If you can answer, it is Gentian. If you go looking for a cause and there is genuinely nothing there, it is Mustard.
GorsevsWild Rose
Gorse has tried and lost hope. Wild Rose stopped trying a while ago and does not mind much either way. Gorse still hurts underneath. Wild Rose has stopped feeling much at all.
GorsevsSweet Chestnut
Gorse is calm about it and Sweet Chestnut is not. Both feel like the end of the line, but one has settled into resignation and the other is still inside the worst of it.
ClematisvsHoneysuckle
Both are somewhere other than here. Clematis has drifted into an imagined future. Honeysuckle is living in a remembered past.
HoneysucklevsStar of Bethlehem
Star of Bethlehem is for the moment it happened. Honeysuckle is for the years afterwards, when the past keeps getting more of your attention than the present does.
Star of BethlehemvsSweet Chestnut
Star of Bethlehem is numb. Sweet Chestnut is anguished. Both follow something hard, and the difference is whether you can feel it.
HollyvsWillow
Holly is hot and aimed at a person. Willow is cold and aimed at life in general. Jealousy against bitterness.
HollyvsBeech
Holly burns and Beech grates. If there is a person and a feeling with heat in it, that is Holly. If it is everybody and everything and it never quite reaches anger, that is Beech.
ImpatiensvsBeech
Impatiens is irritated by how slowly things move. Beech is irritated by how other people are. One is about speed, the other about habits.
Cherry PlumvsImpatiens
Impatiens snaps. Cherry Plum is afraid of what it might do. If the problem is the temper itself, that is Impatiens. If the problem is that you no longer trust yourself to hold it, that is Cherry Plum.
ImpatiensvsVervain
Impatiens wants it done. Vervain wants you to agree. One is irritated by pace and the other is driven by a cause, and they wind down in completely different ways.
BeechvsVine
Beech criticizes and Vine decides. If you notice everything and say nothing, that is Beech. If you notice everything and reorganize it, that is Vine.
AgrimonyvsCentaury
Both say yes when they mean no. Agrimony does it to keep the peace and hide what is really going on. Centaury does it because refusing feels impossible.
AgrimonyvsWater Violet
Agrimony is a mask and Water Violet is not. If there is something underneath that you are keeping light, that is Agrimony. If there is nothing underneath and you simply do not share, that is Water Violet.
WalnutvsCentaury
Walnut has decided and Centaury has not. If you made the call and other people's doubts are pulling you back, that is Walnut. If you said yes when you meant no, that is Centaury.
ChicoryvsHeather
Chicory gives and Heather talks. Both want people close, but one does it with rides and dinners and a small hurt silence, and the other by filling the room with words.
Why so many of them overlap
Bach described states of mind rather than symptoms, and states of mind do not have hard edges. Discouragement shades into hopelessness. Tiredness before the work feels much like tiredness after it. He drew the lines where he thought the useful distinctions were, which means several of the thirty-eight are deliberately close neighbors.
That is good news once you know it. If two remedies both sound right, you are probably in the right area, and the choice between them is a smaller decision than it feels. Nothing here is ruined by picking the neighbor, and a personal mix can hold both.
Not sure which two you are choosing between?
Start from the feeling instead. The quiz narrows all thirty-eight to three or four in about a minute.