How to find the light when you’re feeling dark; help with the autumn blues
Autumn is a beautiful time of the year, but many people struggle with the darker evenings, especially after the clock changes in late October, so it’s very common for feelings of low mood, despair, despondency and hopelessness to come to the surface as we head into winter.
These dark disconnected feelings can be among the toughest to live with. They crush the joy and hope out of you making it difficult to believe that things will ever get better, and they make it hard to find the motivation to reach for something that could help.
Flower essences shine a light into the dark places in our psyches and gently reconnect us to our own inner light
Flower essences shine a light into the dark places in our psyches and gently reconnect us to our own inner light so we can live with more hope, joy and spiritual connection.
Here at Crystal Herbs, we make ten essences that are particularly useful if you’re feeling low, dark, hopeless or despondent.
Please note that this blog is intended for information only, and vibrational essences (flower, gem and crystal essences) do not replace assistance from a qualified medical or mental health professional.
Which are the best flower essences for flat, dark and heavy feelings?
With so many essences to choose from, it can be difficult to find the ones that will help you most so we’ve created this guide to help you hone in on the best essences for you. In most situations, we recommend that adults take a combination of Bach Flower Remedies alongside one of our deeper acting essences for the greatest benefit.
Bach Flower Remedies help you to balance how you are thinking and feeling in the moment, so they can very quickly help to restore an inner sense of balance and perspective while the deeper acting essences get under the surface to clear stuck emotions at a deeper level.
You can take up to 8 Bach Flower Remedies at a time, and they work best when you choose the remedies that most closely match how you’re feeling.
Our Top Ten Essences Low Mood, Hopelessness, Despondency & Despair
So here are the top essences that we recommend to help:
1. Gentian – For despondency, disappointment and lack of faith
Gentian is the Bach Flower Remedy to choose when you feel fine if everything seems to be going well, but you lose faith and sink into a dark hole when things don’t go as you’d hoped or planned. Perhaps you didn’t get the job or house you wanted or your holiday has been unexpectedly cancelled and you can’t imagine that something better might be just around the corner.
Choose Gentian if you find it difficult to see the bigger picture, are easily discouraged, feel pessimistic and cynical, and find it very difficult to see positive solutions to problems. Signs that Gentian is a good choice include feeling disappointed and discouraged by setbacks, expecting the worst, and quickly becoming despondent when things don’t work out as planned.
Gentian helps to restore the qualities of trust and faith, promoting an optimistic outlook in all situations.
2. Gorse – For hopelessness and despair
Gorse flower remedy is the one to reach for when you have lost all hope and don’t even believe there’s any point in taking essences at all, such is the deep pit of despair that you have fallen into. Time and time again, we have seen the power of gorse essence to spread the bright hopefulness of its sunshine yellow flowers into the most hopeless and disconnected parts of the psyche.
Gorse Bach Flower Remedy for feelings of hopelessness and despair and ‘what’s the point?’
Choose Gorse at times of great hopelessness and despair, when you can’t see the point, when life seems like ‘a lost cause’ and you feel resigned to things not getting better. Signs that Gorse is a good choice include not being able to see a way out of what feels like a hopeless situation, believing that nothing will ever go right, and giving up hope of improvement when ill or facing challenges.
It can create positive shifts quickly but you may need to work with it over a period of months to transform deep and heavy feelings if you’ve felt this way for a long time. Over time Gorse helps to dispel deep dark and hopeless feelings so you can feel hopeful and positive about the future.
3. Mustard – For gloom for no apparent reason
Whereas Gentian Flower Remedy is the one to choose if you feel despondent when things don’t go how you’d thought they would, the state that Mustard treats has no known conscious reason for it. One morning you feel absolutely fine, the next day nothing has changed on an outward level but you feel dark and disconnected.
This state of deep melancholy can sometimes rise to the surface as a result of absorbing sorrow from the collective that strikes a chord with you on deep unconscious levels. Mustard is the Bach Flower Remedy to choose if you sometimes experience a black cloud of gloom that hangs over you and comes and goes for no obvious reason. Some people find Mustard to be very helpful for seasonal low mood, but this state of deep melancholy can arise at any time of year.
Signs that Mustard is a good choice include heavy, unshakeable sadness that you can’t cover up, and feeling withdrawn, separate and isolated from the rest of the world. Mustard helps to dispel the black gloom, bringing back light and joy so you feel clear headed and light hearted.
4. Sweet Chestnut – For extreme anguish and despair
Sweet Chestnut Flower Remedy is the one we use when somebody is in extreme anguish and despair, feeling utterly disconnected from the light of their own soul. This is a very intense state to be in because it feels unbearable to live with and often arises at times of real spiritual crisis or breakdown.
The intensity that makes these feelings so painful mean that the anguish is very close to the surface of conscious awareness so using Sweet Chestnut during these times swiftly brings relief. It can be taken every 10 minutes if required. This state of breakdown is often the precursor to a spiritual breakthrough so use Sweet Chestnut to help you to find the light in the darkest of times.
Choose Sweet Chestnut for ‘the dark night of the soul’; when you feel that you have reached the limits of your endurance and are at the end of the road. Signs that Sweet Chestnut is a good choice are feelings of absolute and utter despair or hopelessness, unbearable suffering, or a state of desolation in which you feel isolated from the rest of humanity.
Sweet Chestnut helps to dissolve the darkness, and restores connection to your Soul’s light and love.
5. Wild Rose – For apathy and lack of enthusiasm
Wild Rose is a very useful essence if you are feeling flat, low and disconnected – unable to find any joy or motivation for life. You may feel like there’s no real reason to get out of bed in the morning or it may be a more subtle state where you are going through the motions doing what you need to do but can’t muster up any real sense of enthusiasm or meaning.
Choose Wild Rose if you are experiencing a state of apathetic resignation, which is often accompanied by feelings of boredom or tiredness. Signs that Wild Rose is a good choice include completely lacking the motivation and enthusiasm to participate in life, putting things off through lack of energy, feeling dull, wilted, lifeless, and resigned to your fate.
Wild Rose helps to revive your spirits and restore enthusiasm and joy so you can embrace life fully.
Using the Bach Flower Remedies: Should You Use a Single Or Combination Essence
Either is fine – wou can take any of the Bach Flower Remedies that resonate with you as individual essences or we can make you a personalised combination here: Make Your Own Bach Flower Remedy Combination
Deeper Acting Essences Clear Unconscious Patterns
Our deeper acting essences will help you to clear any underlying emotional blocks and crystallised beliefs that result in low feelings, despair, despondency or hopelessness. They are particularly effective at bringing what is hidden in your unconscious mind to the surface so it can be integrated, transformed or released.
6. Inner Joy Essence to transform despair and disconnection
Inner Joy Essence is the combination we recommend most frequently for people struggling with feelings of despair and despondency because it works on psychological and spiritual levels to facilitate deep inner change and transformation.
Inner Joy Essence is a combination of 6 deep-acting flower, gem and crystal essences which release feelings of despair and despondency that are stored at a deep unconscious level. It will help you to connect with your own inner light and joy by unravelling and releasing the deep-seated patterns that cause feelings of despair and despondency.
Inner Joy addresses a wide range of feelings of low mood, despair and despondency from feeling mildly flat and disconnected to feeling like you’re in a big black hole of despair from which there seems to be no way out.
7. Yellow Rattle Essence to transform deep-rooted hopelessness
Yellow Rattle can be used on an ad hoc basis if you find yourself occasionally swamped by deep dark feelings that arise for no apparent reason, or on a longer-term basis if you have very deep-rooted feelings of sadness, despair or despondency that you may have lived with all your life, or for which there’s no obvious root cause in this lifetime.
Signs that Yellow Rattle would be a good essence for you include intense sadness and deep melancholy that you sense are from previous lifetimes, or recurring and apparently unfounded feelings of hopelessness and despair buried deep in the unconscious which keep surfacing in your current life.
Yellow Rattle essence helps to gently open the inner doorways that enable old memories to be released from your unconscious into your conscious awareness so they can be transformed.
8. Geranium Essence to bring in the light
Geranium Essence is the one we choose for people who are feeling dark, heavy and unable to connect with their own inner light. We’ve noticed that feelings of despair and despondency often come to the surface when people don’t feel connected to the spiritual aspect of life so this is when Geranium Essence is a particularly good essence to take.
Geranium Essence helps you to find greater meaning and spiritual connection so choose Geranium when you recognise that there’s more to life and you need to connect with your spiritual essence, but cannot seem to find the doorway that will give you access to this part of yourself. It’s also ideal if you don’t consciously feel the need to connect with your spiritual essence but deep inside you know that something is missing and life feels flat and meaningless.
Signs that Geranium would be a good essence for you include feeling like you’re stumbling around in the dark unable to find the light switch, gloominess, despair, spiritual crisis, a recognition that you need something more in life.
Angel of Hope & Angel of Joy for uplifting spiritual support
Angel Essences provide instant spiritual support, divine assistance and higher awareness. These exquisite vibrations will help you to feel comforted, guided and able to see the bigger picture. Angel Essences are available as sprays to mist around your energy field and living space as well as essences to be taken on the tongue. Use them on an occasional basis when you need extra spiritual support, or longer term to bring their positive qualities into your life more fully.
9. Angel of Hope
Choose Angel of Hope Essence to help you keep the light of hope alive within your heart in times of difficulty or distress. Call on the Angel of Hope to help you expand even the smallest glimmer of hope into a strong light that will uplift your heart and help you to keep trusting in the goodness of life. The light of the soul is always within us and around us, inviting us to step into new possibilities and potential. The Angel of Hope is here to remind you that you are the light of the world.
10. Angel of Joy
Choose Angel of Joy Essence to help you ignite the spark of joy in your own heart centre so that you can experience more of this wonderful, uplifting frequency in your life. Ask the Angel of Joy to awaken more of your true nature so that your heart radiates the joyous light of your own inner being. Use the Angel of Joy essence to help you connect to the frequency of Joy, especially if you are feeling sad, fearful, dark, or disconnected.
How to Use These Essences
Bach Flower Remedies
Use 1-8 Bach Flower Remedies at a time. Put 4 drops of each remedy in a glass of water or put 4 drops of each directly on your tongue. Alternatively, make a combination bottle (see leaflet for more information). Take Bach Flower Remedies 6-8 x a day.
Deeper Acting Essences & Sprays
Essences: Use one deeper acting essence at a time and put 4 drops on your tongue 3-4 x a day. For best results, do not add to a glass of water or combination bottle. Sprays: Spray liberally into your auric field 4 x a day or 2 sprays on the tongue 4 x a day.
With all flower, gem and crystal essences we recommend you continue until the bottle is finished or you notice a difference in how you are feeling.
More Essences for Low Mood, Hopelessness, Despondency & Despair
View our full selection of all of the flower and vibrational essences – from Bach Flower Remedies to combination essences and single essences – for low mood, despair & despondency in the Essences and Themes Explorer here:
Jackie Stewart has been using Crystal Herbs essences for 25 years and trained as a Flower and Vibrational Essence Practitioner in 1999. She joined the Crystal Herbs team in 2019 and is passionate about how essences help us open our hearts to co-create a world that thrives on Love.
Thank you for this! This is a wonderful reference. Thank you for bringing these resources together in one place.