Reclaiming the powers of essential oils for medicine and emotional healing
With the modern rising of allopathic medicine of the last century, essential oils have been placed in the realm of alternative and “soft” medicines, nevertheless aromatherapy is one of the most powerful medicines available! Imagine, to create a pound of rose essential oil you will need 3000 to 5000 pounds of roses, and to produce a pound of cinnamon oil, you will need 1500 to 3000 pounds of bark. That means that in every drop there is a huge quantity of the plant matter, and it is available to us: what a gift!
I would like to shine a light on the fact that plants produce essential oils for the sole purpose of protecting themselves from fungus, bacteria, viruses and threatening bugs and animals. They also produce them to attract pollinators and animals that ensure their reproduction, offering delicate and hormonally charged fragrances to ensure their survival…so imagine that power concentrated on your skin and in your body!
Humans have now interacted with essential oils for centuries and aromatherapy has been re-popularized through the world with companies such as Do-terra and Young Living. Essential oils can heal profound chronic conditions, infections and furthermore rebalance emotional well-being… this comes with incredible results and solid scientific research to support it, with more potential that we have ever known…
The easy access to essential oils also came with a slew of information on the web that was created and shared by non-practitioners, creating a repertoire of accidents and even deaths that have occurred through ignorance and maluses of these potent essences. Nowadays essential oils, while coming back into the hands of the people, have also received many cautionary warnings that have relegated them to “dangerous, unpredictable, sensitizing, photo-toxic, hepato-toxic, neuro-toxic, abortive” to name only a few. And this is all true!!!
But, only for specific oils that contain molecules that can create such counter effects. That said there are hundreds of essential oils that can be used safely when properly diluted and prescribed. They offer unique properties and powers that very few other “alternatives” or modern medicine can offer, and that is why I intend to reclaim their position as available medicine for humans to have a hand on their own healing.
In 2008, during a stay in Brazil, I took a psycho-aromatherapy class offered by two PhD teachers at the University of Bahia in Salvador. I was stunned. Here were two highly educated and passionate individuals that were telling me that if I had an abusive mother who had altered my sense of self confidence, I could take bergamot essential oil, three drops three times a day for a couple of weeks. My eyes were rounded in disbelief! How could this possibly be??? How could plants be tools to unlock the most profound subjective and non-visible ailment? I could not believe my eyes…
My journey making hydrosols opened my heart to the discovery that even these precious waters influenced my mood, my inclinations, my hormones and more… it was subtle but something I could certainly observe in my everyday life as I developed a deeper intimate relationship with the power of this gentle, yet potent aromatherapy. There was much more awaiting to be unveiled so I could integrate what I was experiencing in a more coherent way.
Through years of intense research on the subject, I was lucky to find the most amazing resources, books and scientific papers on the power of essential oils to heal the body and the mind…I took it all in, everything I could find that was based on true research was sitting at my bed rest awaiting to be devoured!
All that I studied was so exciting to me. One pivotal discovery (that I had always intuitively known) was that many ailments start with a weakness or imbalance in the invisible non-objective emotional body (or the sub-conscious, to adopt the modern psychotherapy approach). I knew deep inside that if I healed my emotional body, my chances of becoming sick were greatly diminished, my life span would grow longer and that all that came to me through the challenges of daily life would be received with more strength and peace. I realized that our physical wordly experience in this lifetime, was a canvas to reclaim coherence, balance, compassion, self-love, and radiant health inside and out…AND essential oils were one of the tools that mother nature was generously offering us!
Now, this is where your own experience comes in: how would you approach aromatherapy if you knew that these oils taken internally, inhaled, or used topically could support you in your becoming, your unfolding, and your reclaiming of freedom and original essence? This is what inspired me to start teaching about connecting people to hydrosols and essential oils in that way. Each essential oil has the potential to become a mirror to your own essence, and to dissolve the layers of accumulation that have altered our true potential. I invite you to see the natural world not as a pragmatic tool to feed you, heal you and give you all the necessities you need to be alive, but more so as an ally!
Next time you walk in nature, look up, look around, go spend some time with redwood, cedarwood or cypress… Crunch a few leaves between your fingers and inhale the breath of that magical tree, its language, its healing… What is it telling you? Does it have a message that will give you the strength to overcome fear, resentment, or loneliness? Does its stature remind you to stand tall, to reach for the stars, to surrender and root in your body and remember to breathe? Each essence holds a unique personality, a character that can accompany you on your journey: they are all here to support us in our transformation, they are all here to help us transcend the experiences and traumas that have held us back, they are all there to remind us of our beauty…so dive in! You have allies and they have always been here waiting for you!
With love and aromas,
Alice Duvernell
