What Oak (and other tree remedies) have taught me about healing trauma
- Paula Jeffrey
- 1 day ago
- 8 min read
My favourite childhood campground had the best trees — “a tree for every redhead”, my mom would say.
I loved their towering nature, the way they swayed in the wind, even the way I’d trip on their roots in the sand, busting open my bare toes.
Over the years we’d watch saplings take root, old growth fall in storms, narrowly missing our cars and campers. Some would fade to disease while others would grow tall alongside us.
Those trees witnessed our stories unfold, year after year. They watched me blow out two decades of birthday candles, they saw new family members come in, kids grow up. They saw grief and loss too.
Trees of Homeopathy
After a recent expedition with the remedy made from Oak (more on that at the end of this post), tree remedies have piqued my curiosity.
While “trees” are not an official classification, other than being very tall plants with a trunk and many stems, we have a number of homeopathic remedies that would be best described as trees…or parts of trees.
Made from barks, resins, leaves, and fruit, I’d classify remedies like Thuja,Cinchona, Nux Vomica, Aesculus, or Ignatia in the tree family.
Many newer remedies have also appeared over the last 30-40 years, like the Sequoia Redwood, Petrified Sequoia, Betula (Silver Birch), Bambusa, Oak, Elm, to name a few.
And we can’t forget flower essences, of which we have many of tree origin: Oak, Elm, Aspen, Beech, Chestnut…
Tree Themes
Trees reflect both steady growth and deep, seasonal rest. They represent longevity and hope. They show us the importance of deep roots and high reach. They show us the value of ecosystems, community, collaboration, and sharing spaces.
They also show us the wounds that form in the name of survival, the way adaptation keeps us alive, and the pain that comes from enduring storm after weathering storm.
As I researched for this post my adoration for trees only amplified. In particular the way every part of the tree plays a vital role, and how it can be reflected in the remedies we have.
From the trunk that helps the leaves reach sunlight, to the bark that protects from damage and disease, to the roots that reach for nutrients and communicate with the intricate mycelium network.
These incredible plants reduce erosion, they regulate the climate, they are habitats for animals and plants and us, they grow our food, our fuel for cooking and warmth, a landing place for tree forts and little climbing feet and to sit beneath and be held while we rest.
And for us redheads especially…shade!
For this post I dug into a handful of tree remedies and started to explore what common themes tied them together. Of course, there’s a million remedies I could pull from and I risked this post being even longer - so perhaps we’ll anticipate a part two and beyond ;)
Core Themes of Tree Remedies
Endurance / Burnout / Responsibility
The first big theme of tree remedies is their ability to endure, until they can’t anymore. Often derived from a great sense of responsibility or duty, either to their community or their (often unconscious) ancestral loyalties. We can see what a vital role trees play in an ecosystem - the responsibility to other flora and fauna is massive.
Oak stands out prominently for this theme; be it responsibility to their own trauma or that of their ancestors. Oak does not yield, let go, or falter - they endure. Oak as a flower essence is described as brave, determined, obstinate, persevering “even if health is failing”. The remedy does not give up, they are stoic. They do not rest until their body stops them.
Petrified Sequoia carries a bit more of the ancestral themes being a great remedy for thawing inherited trauma and shock responses. It’s described for someone who has weathered many storms with great courage, where war, grief or devastation has been prominent.
Similarly, Silver Birch (Betula Pendula) can push themselves to the limits, but tend to be more sensitive than Oak. Oak becomes rigid and tense, Birch depletes. They become scattered and lose concentration.
To name a few more, Bambusa is called for after big stress in life (motherhood, moving, duties, loss of support) when all the client needs is support. Swelling and distension and bulging as if they’ve lost their structure, they need something or someone to hold them together.
China or Cinchona Bark, Hahnemanns first remedy reminds us of a very physical endurance - ailments after loss of fluids. I wonder what this remedy might look like in a proving today, if we would gather deeper insights into the mental, emotional, and spiritual perspectives of it. But from what we do know, this remedy lands when there’s been a loss of vital fluids, enduring a draining state, if you will.
Mentally we see a similar burnout with insomnia, loss of control over the mind, constant changeable thoughts alternating with slow flow of ideas, indifference, and sensitivity overall.
And we can’t talk about endurance and burnout without talking about Nux Vomica. The core picture of Nux is the complete denial of human needs for the sake of achieving, competing, and winning. They push beyond their limits, use simulants and medicines to do so until they can’t any longer.
Fragmentation, Disconnection or Suppression of Self
I think anytime we push ourselves beyond our limits to endure something, we naturally are forced to suppress ourselves or disconnect from self. Be it ignoring your own needs, your desire for authentic expression, or compartmentalizing yourself so you can survive through trauma, this is a natural byproduct of theme number one.
Thuja of course comes top of mind for this - a remedy who suffers from suppression on both the physical (top remedy for vaccinosis) and emotional level (highly sycotic, hiding, shame). Thuja carries many delusions that reflect this theme - delusion soul is split from body, delusion he is ugly, delusion there is a stranger at his side. Thuja is highly calculated in how they express in order to protect their connection to others.
Petrified Sequoia is known for being a remedy that helps clear generational trauma and people who have been “frozen” in their trauma. In the proving it’s talked about as a remedy that helps integrate split parts to bring harmony to the system. It also helps bring unity and belonging where trauma has put people into a state of disconnection and hypervigilence.
Madeline Evans speaks about Chestnut tree (Red Flower) which has a strong affinity for sexual identity and feminine energy. Many of the indicated symptoms circle around sexuality, STDs, Hormonal issues, and the suppression of the feminine. There’s a lack of clarity around who they are and with it comes great instability, “has power but no direction”. Similar to many other tree remedies there is a great disorganization of the mind - scattered, detached, “not all there”.
Masculine/Feminine
Building on the duality/disconnection themes above, many of the tree remedies have strong themes around the balance of masculine and feminine energies. This is talked about more so in newer remedies, but we can see it in remedies like Nux Vomica who is highly, sometimes overly, masculine, or Thuja who can be so yielding.'
Generally I see it as either a need for more support so they can yield, or more honouring of the wisdom of the feminine so they can let go of some of the masculine enduring.
Oak can be seen as overly masculine and a good remedy for balancing the masc/fem to bring both patience and release, but also grounding and boundaries. Colin Griffiths says of it: “…they have lost the sense of yin; there is no idea any more of how important yielding energy is.”
Redflower Chestnut Tree as mentioned brings beautiful balance as well, empowering the feminine and bringing clarity to sexual identity.
Bambusa I tend to think of as similar to Sepia, where there have been circumstances that have forced the feminine to shift into a more masculine state and provide support for herself in times when she needed to be able to yield and be held. It’s called for in the way this remedy craves support and the way it has such affinity to postpartum states.
Overall, I see many und
erlying themes in tree remedies calling for the balance of masculine (yang, boundaries, support, stoicism, and strength) and feminine (yin, surrender, yielding, leaning on support, emotional flow, release) energies - and truthfully this stands out as one of the key indicators when I’m looking at a case and thinking trees.
Any place where circumstances, stress, trauma, have forced someone to adapt, suppress, and endure in order to survive.
My experience with Oak
I’ve spent lots of time with tree remedies; Thuja, Nux Vomica, Ignatia to name a few. But earlier this year I found myself called to Oak as a support. Inevitably I over did it as I self-prescribed it (do as I say not as I do, right?) and while the first dose felt incredibly supportive, the next one blew me wide open.
It was a necessary journey in hindsight, but it could have been much gentler.
That’s my little PSA before we dig in - but what did I notice with Oak?
It started to peel back all of the enduring I’d been doing. All of the trauma I’d pushed through and suppressed, lying to myself with the classic Arnica “I’m fine”.
But it went beyond the trauma of the last ten years - it tapped into my childhood patterns (which I suspect are not just mine) of doing it all myself and never needing any help.
I think this is the part of healing with homeopathy that sometimes surprises people:
Sometimes the best remedy is the one that makes your current circumstances so intolerable you have to create a change.
That’s exactly what Oak did for me, and it wasn’t pleasant. It pushed me to ask for help, to drop commitments, to give up responsibility, to face fears and let go of control.
I called my mom, I got a new therapist, a new homeopath, I set boundaries, and nearly immediately released a mountain of stress that I was done carrying.
All of it tied me back to that core tree theme: I’m not enduring anymore.
I’m not tolerating receiving the bare minimum, I’m not making myself small, and most importantly I’m going to learn how to receive again.
It’s nice to wrap this up in a neat little paragraph, but it’s been a complete reorganization of my inner world and that is not a clean, tidy process.
In all of this I’m brought back to the ways we adapt in order to survive, and most importantly, belong. From childhood (and long before that) we learn how we can best maintain connection to those responsible for keeping us alive - or how we’ll find new connections to keep us alive.
My entire career has been inspired by my own journey of walking the path back to self - from survival to thrival. Unpacking the inherited loyalties and traumas, the survival adaptations and protections that got me here, and learning how to integrate them to find me again.
At a certain point I realized: I’ve survived and now I’m entering a new matured form. It’s time to take up space and express myself.
To become a habitat for the creatures below, to guide the saplings with the wisdom I’ve accumulated, to let my leaves and flowers bloom and then become compost for the next season.
Wherever you are in your journey, I hope the trees, and their remedies, can be an invitation to reflect on what you’ve been enduring, carrying, pushing through.
The trees are asking you to notice your tension, your disconnection, your foggy, scattered mind.
To yield where you’re too rigid and to seek support where you’re feeling wobbly.
And from there, maybe letting go gets a little easier, making space for more of you to take root.
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