About Linda Cohen

I grew up in Riverdale, New York, and Miami Beach, Florida, the eldest of three children in an upper middle class Jewish family, emotionally dysfunctional yet well-meaning. I did most things a young girl/woman of my background was expected to do… went to private girls’ school then on to a good college, graduating Cum Laude, then on to my MA in English Lit and Creative Writing from The University of London. After a three-year courtship, I married Robert when I was twenty-one… never a thought of who I was or who I might become, other than Robert’s wife and a mother to the children I would soon bear. This pattern was set by my mother and Robert’s mother and those that came before us in our families and cultures. By the time my second daughter was born I was twenty-four and heading into an emotional, spiritual and vocational black hole that took me years, feeling like lifetimes, to suffer and deliver myself from.

Back problems. Physical therapy. Prescription drugs. Psychotherapy. Seasonal Affected Syndrome. Malaise. Inertia. A dark cloud over my young, and supposedly charmed, existence that I felt I could only escape through divorce. But, as I found out, one’s “baggage” tags along, unless inner obstacles are cleared and resolved. After my divorce came the “rock and roll” years replete with my drugs of choice until my delusionary existence left me without my children and facing a year-long stint in an upscale rehab facility just ten blocks from the home I nearly lost. I was swallowed by the beast of my own making and now I really had to face my demons and deconstruct them one by one.

In order to finish “my program” and get my girls back, I had to secure a job in the outside world that would sustain me and then I had to learn how to “eat”, a task many of us put off until we have no choice. I had always been a heavy cigarette smoker and with the recreational drugs and a touch of anorexia I’d managed to keep food to a relative minimum. While still transitioning out of rehab, I started working full-time, began studying Karate, began a spiritual discipline and began studying food and healing with AnnaMarie Colbin at The New York Open Center. And every day the Light grew brighter. And every night I began to feel the magic of the moon within me. And I did! I made friends with food and four years later I became a Certified Holistic Nutritional Counselor through a program that was then offered by Gary Null.

During this expansive period, I was working for a Native American organization. A lovely young woman, goddesslike and radiant, sat next to me and each day, like clockwork, she’d take out tiny purple bottles from her handbag and administer several drops from each under her tongue of…? I knew not what. ”Marina,” I questioned, “what are you taking?” “O. These are my flower essences from California.” “What are they for?” I mused. “Well, this one is because I hate my mother. And this one is because my mother hates me. And this one is to bring me more in tune with my lunar, feminine nature.” I immediately got the information and started my collection of FES (Flower Essence Society) remedies to embark on a soul journey that has thus far lasted nearly twenty years, fortunately, with no end in sight. As time progressed, I came to realize that my emotional nutrition… the thoughts I nurtured, the flower essences, the affirmations, the creative visualizations, the listenings to the promtings of my Spirit… was my most important “food.” So in 2001, I left all other work and delved into a Bach flower essence certification program, following it shortly thereafter with my studies and certification through the highly acclaimed Flower Essence Society (FES) in Nevada City, California.

Linda counsels and teaches all levels of Flower Essence Therapy. She is also a Field Educator for FES, The Flower Essence Society, helping to bring forth the highest quality flower essences and related FES products.

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