Many of of my friends and family know that I use essential oils religiously, though they may not know why. I try not to foist my beliefs on others, but in doing so, I may have actually been so reticent that people may not realize what a powerful tool they can be. I’d like to explain here why I believe so much in essential oils.
I found essential oils several years ago. At the time, I had no major health issues, but I suffered from a lot of minor annoyances that really dragged down my quality of life. I ate relatively well and I walked a couple of miles daily with my dog, but I was still gradually gaining weight. My skin felt dull and dry in places and excessively oily in others and I was losing my hair. With chronic congestion, severe acid reflux, and swollen, achy joints, I was averaging 3-4 hours of sleep each night and was lethargic and moody. Between prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, and supplements, I was taking handfuls of pills every day AND I still felt like crap.
One of the changes I made in my life was the addition of essential oils. Through extensive investigation (and trial-and-error!), I learned of the oils and oil-infused products that supported my wellbeing in the most natural, sustainable, and enjoyable way possible. And my health and emotional outlook changed dramatically!
I am still a “work in progress,” but I am healthier, more centered, and happier than I have been in years! I haven’t used a prescription medication—or even an aspirin—in over seven years and I sleep like a log. I spring out of bed each morning, and relish walking along winding creeks and wooded trails with my dog. I feel more at peace, more excited about my vision for myself and the world around me, and more empowered to embrace the future.
Essential oils transformed my life! They are potent, yet natural and bioavailable components of an incredible fulfilling and healthy lifestyle. I feel empowered and in control of my physical and emotional wellbeing.
So now you know!
It sounds trite: “What the World Needs Now is Love.” But what does that actually mean? What does love actually DO for the world? As I see it, loving others unconditionally means I see them as they are and accept them as they are and love them as they are.
How dramatically different would the world be if we loved each other intensely and unconditionally? If teachers really saw and accepted their students? If police officers really saw those they arrested without preconceived ideas? If politicians really saw their constituents and their needs? If nations really saw their counterparts and their people? If corporations and governments really saw the people they are supposed to serve?
Today I commit to loving EVERYONE intensely, passionately, unconditionally, without judgment or preconceptions. And maybe, that is what the world needs.
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There is a Zen proverb that goes something like this: “If you don’t have time to meditate for an hour everyday, you should meditate for two hours.” It sounds counterproductive but it is SO true!
I don’t meditate for an hour, but I try to sit for 15 minutes every morning, and I schedule little ‘mini-meditation minutes’ throughout the day: I have alarms set on my phone to go off every few hours. If I’m not in a meeting or teaching , I just close my eyes (if possible) for a minute, breathe slowly and deliberately, and center. At the risk of seeming overdramatic, meditation has saved my life!
I’ve only been consistently ‘sitting’ for a couple of years, and found that this practice works for me. When I tried to make myself do longer sessions in the morning, they often would get pushed aside by an early morning appointment. After much experimentation, I discovered a 15-minute session is the perfect blend of doable and productive.
AND, I have learned something miraculous. When I wake up stressed about upcoming tasks or trying to fit everything into the day that needs to happen, if I extend my session from 15 minutes to a half hour, even though it took more time out of an already packed schedule, my day went much more smoothly. I moved more easily from task to task, with less fretting in between, and with more focus and motivation to approach the undertaking with a fuller heart.
With the schedule I have right now (yes, I’m looking at you hard, retirement!), trying to meditate an hour would just be setting myself up to fail. But I CAN do 15 (and when necessary, 30) minutes in the morning and 1 minute several times a day.
And I don’t have to set up my chanting CD, or find a special cushion, or light a candle.
I can quiet down and breathe in my car, waiting in line in the supermarket, and even while my students are getting out their assignments or moving into discussion groups. Those moments have effects long past the one minute I’ve allotted to the exercise.
And they add up, maybe not to an hour, but they add up.
Would you like to enhance your mental clarity, reduce stress, and increase your sense of well-being?
I am offering a free online zoom event on Monday in which I will be sharing the ways to deepen (or develop) your meditation practice!
Come and be still, breathe, and center. You can learn more HERE.
10 years ago, I closed a door in my life....
My then-husband and I decided to get divorced. I’d like to blame it all on him, but there were two of us doing that dance. He was a person with expectations, arrogance, and insecurities and so was I. Unfortunately, our fears and insecurities crashed against each other like jagged rocks in a rock tumbler, tumbling, scratching, cracking, irritating each other over and over and over…. Well, you get the picture.
Things were bad years before I moved out, but I kept telling myself, I’m being unrealistic, selfish, or oversensitive.
I did therapy, I journaled, I filled out personality quizzes online, I did divinatory work, basically, I did anything I thought that would help me better accept that life (at that time, I had yet to be introduced to essential oils; how would my life have been different if I’d had my EO arsenal?!?!?!). And finally, I had a moment of clarity.
On Thanksgiving Day, 2010 I found myself sobbing. Through my tears, I was trying to decide if I wanted to fish out, and attempt to cook, the turkey that he’d thrown in the trash in a fit of rage.
And that is when I decided, screw the turkey, I’m done (no pun intended….).
I’d like to say that moment of clarity just appeared out of the blue, but that was far from the case. I had help to get my head in a place where I could see my situation and myself unambiguously. My sharp and clear sense of what to do came from the serendipitous concurrence of three different modalities that reinforced each other just when I needed them.
I’d seen a Reiki practitioner who worked on me energetically. Leaving her place, I felt emotionally freer (and my back hurt less, too!) than I had in years.
That session resonated with some yoga practice I’d begun doing every day that also targeted emotional release. I’d sometimes end the series of asanas with tears coursing down my face, feeling my mind and soul cleansed and balanced.
But what sent me around the bend to my moment of calm awareness was that I had begun seeing a hypnotherapist. She is fabulous and not only worked with me in her office, but created incredibly rich, evocative meditation recordings that I could listen to before bed, or in the mornings before facing the day, or well, anytime, really.*
These three methods of achieving serenity and clarity gave me the emotional strength and confidence to leave my marriage of twelve years. I have never second guessed my decision—which for a Libra, is HUGE—and have never looked back.
I knew, I really knew
that I had made the correct choice.
I can’t recommend enough the power of just learning to listen to one’s own innate wisdom. I just needed help to silence the noise of day-to-day living, emotional turmoil, societal expectations and my own doubts and insecurities.
Yoga helped me to quiet my mind, Reiki, to connect with my own healing power, and hypnotherapy, to focus on listening to that quiet, knowing voice within.
*That fabulous hypnotherapist is Denise Lee, CHt
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As a girl and young woman, there were rules that gave me guidance in pretty much any situation I confronted.
Smile. Be obedient. Don’t talk back. My lessons when I was a child, in my teens, in my twenties.
“You can’t tell me what to do.” “No!” “My face isn’t here to provide you ease or entertainment or aesthetic enjoyment.” My angry, rather militant backlash in my thirties and forties.
In both cases, I was reacting to societal messages, whether accepting or rejecting them.
It is only in the past ten years or so that I began to wonder if there was a third way. What if I could choose? Neither accept those early messages wholesale nor throw the baby out with the bathwater?
What if, instead of negotiating the spoken or tacit rules with which society tends to burden women, I had another way to judge what is appropriate for me? What if had a compass that I trust to steer me in every set of circumstances?
I had such a compass—my intuition—but I hadn’t listened to it in decades. When I was young, I was frightened of its demands that I sing or dance when the world wanted me quiet. I quelled its push to speak my truth when a little white lie might smooth over the situation. Later, I scorned its moderation when I wanted to come out swinging at every injustice I or others might suffer. I thought it wanted to soften me when I needed to be firm and strong.
Now, I know that my intuition was just trying to get me to be me.
Sometimes, that meant I needed to speak up and other times it meant I could serve myself (and others) best by calming the waters, to allow all of the voices present to be heard.
And I have to admit I listened so little to that part of myself that I felt it had shriveled, ignored, huddled in a dark corner of my soul.
It took many years for me to learn to listen to, hear, and trust my intuition. I’ve practiced meditation, counseling, coaching, hypnosis, etc., for several years now. And, to be honest, it is only in the past couple of years that I have felt comfortable making my choices without recourse to talking to every single one of my girlfriends, combing through conversations, sitting up journaling late at night.
But this burgeoning trust, sprouting in my spirit like a fresh, green shoot, is miraculous to me. I find myself wanting to nurture it, delighting in the freedom of knowing that I know: what is right for me, how to react, what I want.
So what does that mean? A lot of things, actually, but to just take one of the first lessons I learned. I learned pretty early on that when I smile, I could diffuse a situation, I could put other people at ease, I could soften something that might be unpleasant, and I could make myself less threatening.
That was then.
Now, I don’t smile because I want to set someone at ease or I think they will like me better. I smile because I am thinking joyous thoughts or because I just like how my face glows when I smile. It was difficult divorcing my physical settings from another person’s beliefs, needs, or reactions. But for the most part, I have done it.
I trust myself. And that makes me smile.
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