…when do i use essential oils?

An unfortunate, yet common problem is the prescriptive use of essential oils.

They are not medicine.

Before you disagree, consider this: medicine is a treatment to cure or heal. In reality, nothing cures or heals the body but the body itself.

While there are medical treatments, plants are not classified as such. If you haven’t read my post on Natural Remedies Aren’t Approved by the FDA. So What?, please do so. In that article, I discuss the miracle of nature and how each of us has been gifted with something science cannot touch: synergy.

However, long-term medical treatments do not cure or heal completely, not even chemotherapy. The cancer being treated may be stopped, but it hasn’t necessarily been vanquished.

According to the American Cancer Society, the chance of recurrence is higher for:

• People treated for childhood cancer

• Adult survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma

• Glioblastoma (a type of brain cancer)

• Some types of soft tissue sarcoma

• Cancers of the bladder and pancreas

• Cancers caused by tobacco use

For example, triple-negative breast cancer is more likely to recur than hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer.

The Cleveland Clinic also reports higher recurrence rates for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, ovarian cancer, and melanoma that metastasized before diagnosis. Healthline states that colon cancer returns in 30-40% of patients.

These statistics highlight that medical treatments are designed with the best intentions to control a situation with the hope of a cure. Even if cancer doesn’t return, people often develop cysts, fibroids, benign tumors, polyps, or other health concerns.

In my professional opinion, this is due to the variability of individual epigenetic responses. No two people respond to medical treatments in the same way. Science repeatedly shows that change is the only constant, a fact consistently proven by nature.

Adaptation is the name of the game.

This is nature’s way. Medical treatments help correct a health condition or provide some degree of relief, but they do not restore balance. They act as positive feedback, enhancing a physiological state rather than reversing it.

Take that in for a moment. Medical treatments are not designed to reverse a medical condition. This is why we see the development of worsening symptoms, the return of old ones, or the onset of other issues. The body is not achieving the relief it needs to establish consistent good health.

The continual administration of regimented control stresses the system because the natural course of action in all life forms is the ability to adapt. Constantly attempting to regulate the body’s activity signals the need for more inflammatory hormones to protect the system from harm. This is an expected natural reaction.

Inflammatory hormones, known as oxidative stress, stimulate important protective inflammatory reactions. At this point, you are officially in survival mode. Without knowing this, your emotions throughout the day are often pinned to a person, place, or thing, making tense situations harder to handle.

Now more than ever, this process happens even without medications:

• Chemicals to control odor, insects, weeds, bacteria, and viruses

• Chemicals to preserve and extend the shelf life of packaged products

• Chemicals approved as food additives

• Materials used in packaging and cosmetics, like microplastics

• Overexposure to naturally occurring chemicals in the environment, such as heavy metals, fluoride, and aluminum

• An overgrowth of candida, bacteria, and viruses in the body

• The excessive use of herbs, essential oils, and supplements

• Using herbs, essential oils and / or supplements to control something in the body such as sleep (melatonin), the menstrual cycle (I see this all the time with premade essential oil blends), methylation as with n-acetyl cysteine

• The prescriptive approach to using herbs, essential oils and / or supplements recommending certain or several times a day or even as needed

Control has become the accepted norm, whether it’s the environment or your body. The field of health and wellness is now a mechanistic practice.

After using a personalized oil blend for several weeks to reduce stress and anxiety, a client asked if she should save the rest and only use it when needed.

I was surprised by the call, not the question. Most people don’t think to ask. Using things as needed or directed is all we’ve ever known.

I’ve worked with the Amish since 2014, and many homes still had supplies of essential oil blends I made for them years before. So, when this woman called, I was thrilled to have this chance to put an end to an outdated habit!

The problem with the prescriptive mindset is it establishes automated behavior. Medications are formulated to be taken as directed. So are countless supplements, with many containing registered or patented formulas.

However, truly natural remedies are not. They’re not meant to be taken as directed, nor do they affect the body in predictable ways.

The more routine a behavior becomes, the less aware of it you are. According to Scientific American, this failure to check our actions means habits can become akin to addictions.

I have been saying this for the last 10+ years. Our automatic reactions resemble addictive patterns. It’s especially noticeable in people who are used to doing things at a certain time or expecting a particular reaction. When it doesn’t happen, they become highly agitated or upset.

Addictive patterns are established when the reward pathway, also known as synaptic plasticity or neuroplasticity, in the brain is influenced by substances like cortisol and dopamine—not just drugs, caffeine, alcohol, or tobacco.

Repeated activation by cortisol and dopamine leads to long-term rigid reactions, also known as habits. This is the effect of positive feedback and why behaviors become so ingrained and automatic.

There are fun ways to rewire your brain and improve neuroplasticity:

• Break the habit of restrictive diets. Balance in your choices lets your brain know balance matters.

• Alter your routines. Take a different route to work, the store, or even with your exercise.

• When you notice your head caught up in thoughts, deliberately stop yourself. They’re just thoughts. Either choose to like them or choose new ones

• Avoid calling anyone when emotionally worked up. Train yourself to become comfortable in the uncomfortable.

• Take a pause while in the middle of mental work to watch a tree dance in the wind, a bird flying, notice the colors in a flower, look at a picture, or even feel your breath.

The idea is to retrain your brain.

Emotional connection is the human way. It is the reason we find ourselves alive today! The opioid receptors evolved so that we could bond and form communities.

Without realizing this, the natural reaction is to get hooked by someone else’s story, even though the circumstances may be unfamiliar. The way another person feels resonates with you because cells have a resonance through a specific cellular process involving an aromatic amino acid called tyrosine, responsible for producing several neurotransmitters.

A vibration, also recognized as sound, is produced and felt by anyone listening, whether physically present, on the phone, or on a video call. This phenomenon helps us see ourselves in a brighter light!

Plants use this process to help one another survive and thrive. Tyrosine regulates oxidative stress production, triggering familiar emotional spirals and affecting the epigenome/methylation pathway, prolonging the stress response.

This offers insight into why people struggle with inflammation and worse. Yet, it does not have to be your fate!

Essential oils are the plants’ answer to environmental stressors. Attentive use of them every day retrains your brain and empowers self-awareness. They help you survive to thrive.

By using your sense of smell, you align with your sense of self.

You become the observer of sensations that quickly become emotional reactions and thoughts you don’t like. These reactions tell us why people are prone to negativity. We don’t know how to separate ourselves from emotional reactions or deem the thoughts that follow as unlikable.

A positive mindset does little when unaware of the energy lurking within your cells. This isn’t generational trauma. It’s your protection mechanism at work because you live in a chemically infused world!

The chemistry of your emotions fans the flames of inflammation, but it’s the energy you have control over.

As the observer of your energy, you understand yourself. You see life through the lens of appreciation. The need to conjure gratitude is gone because feeling thankful is a natural state for you. When you slip, you have it within you to lift yourself back up and vibe well.

Using essential oils as needed resists the value of your emotions. Although easing emotional reactions in the moment, you are not retraining your brain to be free from the habitual hamster wheel of endless thoughts and mental distress.

There is no value in emotional upset. However, the sensations you feel are everything when you realize you are safe in the discomfort.

Addictive patterns are a toxic form of safety.

Not feeling safe pushes you to relieve the ‘pain’. Acting on the push can become an addictive pattern.

From Michael Bernard Beckwith: "Pain pushes until the vision pulls."

Carefully tailoring your selection of essential oils and using them daily helps you to pause, notice, and continue with whatever you’re doing, even when you feel uncomfortable.

You’re now able to conduct yourself calmly and clearly.

Loving yourself aligns you with wellness and helps you understand your soul’s journey, realizing a better way to be and move forward in your day and life.

The nose is the only sense that interacts with every area of your brain. Using it daily does so much for mental, emotional, and physical health. You are no longer trying to control the chemistry; you are encouraging your brain to process information effectively.

And generating a ripple effect that can be felt by the lives you touch!

What questions do you have about this? Comment below or shoot me a message …