EMOTIONAL AROMATHERAPY December 2016 BEATING THE HOLIDAY BLUES Sadness is but a wall between two gardens. -- Khalil Gibran
BEATING THE HOLIDAY BLUES For many, the holidays are the most joyous time of the year. They love the shopping, gift-giving, baking, feasting, decorating, visiting, and parties. Scents of real Christmas trees (pine, fir, or spruce smell) or special baking (cinnamon, vanilla, allspice) trigger happy memories. (Even if you don t have those memory-scents from your childhood, those smells usually elicit a positive response). Christmas: one of the best examples of the positive effects of certain scents on our psyche! It s common wisdom, though, that during the holidays, many people feel sad. Lots of people want to feel joy and love, happiness and connection but actually feel a multitude of emotions that might be summed up simply as sad. Are there scents that can help turn around that feeling? Yes! Digging Deeper When people are sad, they sometimes can t say why: I just feel blue. Sometimes looking a little deeper can help you identify an emotion that more closely describes what you re feeling. Let s refer to Emotions & Essential Oils, Appendix B, to take a closer look at feeling sad. Emotions & Essential Oils tells us that Sadness is one of the basic emotional states. But many other emotions may be feeding into that state (Appendix B). When we identify as sad, we might be feeling something more specific, such as: Loneliness Has your best friend moved? Has your spouse been deployed? Did you just start a new job (where everyone is new to you)? Loss Have you lost your home, or your job? Have you lost a position that gave you pride or identity? A feeling of loss can come from obvious and not-soobvious sources. Grief A sister to loss, grief is more crippling. Often a result of the death of someone important to you, it can also be hiding under the veil of sadness for different kinds of losses: Have you lost some aspect of your health? Have you retired and moved to a new city? Sadness sometimes covers a deep grief for a life irrevocably changed. * There s a real difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is sometimes related to hormones and a natural response to many of life s situations. Depression is a medical condition that may need professional attention. When people are sad and express their sadness, they feel better, whereas when people are depressed, expressing their pain may not give them relief. Sadness doesn t involve mean thoughts about oneself, or hopeless or suicidal thoughts, but depression often does. Sadness doesn t interfere with feeling other emotions, while depression often prevents them. If you think you could be depressed, talk to your doctor. See more at goodtherapy.org.
Finding Help in Essential Oils The Take the Wheel class handout recommends choosing an oil for support and reading about it for awareness. Emotions & Essential Oils recommends these oils for: Loneliness Marjoram, Cedarwood, Frankincense, Myrrh Loss Geranium, Ylang, Ylang, Comforting Blend Grief Geranium, Comforting Blend, Respiratory Blend, Soothing Blend, Lime Sadness Respiratory Blend, Ylang Ylang, Geranium, Peppermint, Massage Blend, Uplifting Blend, Comforting Blend Here we see the benefit in looking closer at the underlying emotions. You will see a lot of overlap in the oils beneficial for Loss, Grief, and Sadness. If you label your emotion Sadness, and choose Geranium or Ylang Ylang or Respiratory Blend, you will have touched notes in three emotional states but not in Loneliness. If Loneliness may be the root of your sadness, you might get more support from your oils if you drilled down a bit from Sadness and chose oils more suited for Loneliness. But you don t have to worry about getting it wrong! We re only beginning to scratch the surface of how and why essential oils aid in emotional healing, and which oils provide what benefits. There s a large overlap among many related emotional states. Loneliness, as a component of Sadness, might very well abate with the help of Geranium, Ylang Ylang, or Respiratory Blend. But if you weren t getting the results you hoped for, a deeper look into Sadness (Appendix B) might reveal a more effective oil, to address the Loneliness aspect, such as Marjoram or Cedarwood. I WILL HONOR CHRISTMAS IN MY HEART AND TRY TO KEEP IT ALL THE YEAR. EBENEZER SCROOGE
Helping Yourself Once you ve selected an oil and read about its properties in Emotions & Essential Oils, you want to find ways to incorporate it into your life. When you choose to address your emotional state by introducing a new, positive stimulus, you can interrupt the chemical habits that may be dominating your emotional reactions. Here are several ideas; but let your inner voice guide you to one of these, or something totally different, that speaks to you. Deep Relaxer. If your Sadness leads to worry, try a warm bath, with your chosen essential oil added to the water. Lay back, breathe deeply of the aroma, focus your thoughts on what you re grateful for, or the fact that you don t have to do anything right now, or visualize a peaceful earth panorama. Quick Refresher. Carry your chosen oil with you. Multiple times throughout the day, take a deep breath, breathing in the fragrance, and enjoy a moment or a minute of peace. Ritual Enhancer. In a quiet room or corner, light an unscented candle (beeswax is nice), wrap yourself in a warm shawl or afghan if you like, and use a diffuser to distribute your scent around the space. (Deep breaths from the bottle will also be fine.) Visualize a favorite or ideal scene in nature, or focus on the candle. Or visualize yourself reacting in a common situation the way you would want to react (visual role-playing). Or, in this environment, pray, meditate, or simply maintain stillness and presence, and rely on the oil and the peace to touch a chord and promote your emotional healing. Remember, it s about the choice to seek a different emotional state than the one you re accustomed to. The essential oil provides a powerful situational change (through scent) and a stimulus that helps break the established chemical patterns of emotional response. GERANIUM THE OIL OF LOVE & TRUST: EMOTIONAL HEALING, TRUSTING, FORGIVING, GENTLE, LOVING, TOLERANT, OPEN
RESOURCES Sharing the Message To teach a follow-up class on emotional aromatherapy for support with beating the blues, follow the outline we ve provided. Using the tools provided here you will be able to: First, teach your class the basics of emotional aromatherapy: particularly, how the emotional response cycle works. Reference the front page of our Taking the Wheel handout or visit your subscriptions section on Enlighten's website to download talking points for presenting that material. (There's also a wonderful webinar on this topic available on Enlighten's YouTube channel. Choose "Emotional Aromatherapy Webinar" to hear the content presented live.) Then, use the content here to follow the four steps on the back of the Take the Wheel handout: Step 1: Introduce the theme Beating the Holiday Blues." Step 2: Guide your class through the process of identifying the emotion or underlying emotions they re experiencing. To get started, reference the Emotions & Essential Oils Wheel, then Appendices B and D of the book. Step 3: Show them how to find the essential oils they want to read more about in Emotions & Essential Oils. Step 4: Recommend uses and practices to help clients incorporate essential oils into their regimen. Spreading the Word Download these support graphics and use them to advertise your classes on emotional aromatherapy this month. If you send out a monthly email newsletter make sure to use our pre-designed header graphic. And for those who share on social media, post the graphics and use your own versions of the following ideas in the comments ~ Feel better! Join me for a meaningful discussion on essential oils & emotions December 19 @ 7:00. Contact me for details. ~ Discover the amazing benefits of aromatherapy for emotions. This month we re learning how to beat those holiday blues. Contact me for details. Note: For best results, download our high-resolution graphics from the website. You ll find them in the subscription section under your personal account.