Introduction
C oming from a family of high-strung, addictive, compulsive, and emotionally wounded members, I have thought, studied, and researched mood-enhancing and emotional healing methods all of my life. Learning how to cope with and eradicate certain negative influences and to promote positivity has been at the forefront of my brain since I was a young girl. Studying natural versus pharmaceutical healing is a lifelong passion of mine.
Essential oils have proven to be the answer to my quest. I can use these without anyone even being aware that I am protecting myself from their negative moods or that I am changing their outlooks on the day with a dose of positive oils in the air. I can take myself from a lethargic couch potato to an efficient multitasker in five minutes flat with a dose of these mood-enhancing beauties. Essential oils can have so many beneficial effects on every aspect of our daily lives and on the lives of those around us. This book shows you how to use essential oils for the mind, emotions, and soul.
My first book, Essential Oils for Healing, focused on healing everyday ailments with essential oils. Essential Oils for Emotional Well-Being is about nurturing those emotional, spiritual, and mental needs that we all have. We are constantly searching for ways to heal ourselves and those around us. Using natural healing techniques can profoundly affect our mental and physical health without causing further harm, which is often not the case with pharmaceuticals. Learning how essential oils can actually have a physical effect on the different areas of the brain, how molecules from the oils can cross that blood/brain barrier, has always been fascinating to me. The fact that by simply smelling an oil can alter how we think or feel is totally mind-blowing when you think about it. But it’s true.
I have spent over twenty years researching the emotional effects of essential oils on mental, emotional, and spiritual needs and deficits, and I have incorporated the best blends and recipes in this book for you. Through discussions and work with licensed clinical aromatherapists, certified Ayurvedic practitioners, and certified aromatherapists (I am certified in both Ayurvedic healing and aromatherapy), we have developed, experimented with, and researched the recipes included in this book.
I have previously published a book, Essential Oils for Healing, that delves into the physical aspects of healing with essential oils. I have sold essential oils, blends, and recipes for over a decade. I am an essential oil consultant and researcher by profession. My life has been devoted to the study and safe usage of essential oils, and developing this book has been at the forefront of my life for over four years. I truly believe that my higher power gave me both emotions and every plant on earth to use to control those emotions.
This book has been a joy, a learning experience, and a balm to my soul throughout the whole process. The recipes that you use with yourself or your family will be memory-enhancing aromas that, for the rest of your lives, you will associate with healing, positivity, and life enhancement. I pray you have many years of good use from this book and that some of these recipes become as dear to you and your family’s heart as they are to mine.
History of Essential Oils
Essential oil history is complex, vast, and spans the world. The different ways that people have used essential oils throughout history is intriguing and sometimes unbelievable. Essential oils are mentioned over one hundred times in the Christian Bible. Our ancestors were extremely awe-inspiring in the ways they incorporated essential oils into not just healing and saving lives, but in every aspect of their daily routines and healing methods. Herbs, plants, and the oils derived from them were the main components of healing in every culture on earth for hundreds of thousands of years.
The usage of essential oils has been found by anthropologists to date as far back as 2800 BC, and some cave drawings suggest that the plants and herbs were turned into oils thousands of years before that. People used the oils as a way to protect themselves from insects, as aromatics, and for culinary uses.
The first people to document the way that they used essential oils in healing were in Egypt and the Middle East. They used the oils for aromatics and eventually discovered that the oils led to healing and even changed emotions when used at various times. The oils were often forbidden to the poorer people and mainly used by royalty and the upper classes. Doctors of ancient times were eventually allowed to treat people with the oils, and their healing benefits quickly spread throughout the world.
One of the most widely known instances in the history of essential oils was the embalming of the deceased by Egyptians using cedar and myrrh essential oil. They incorporated essential oils with various ingredients to mummify their dead, and some of those embalmed mummies are intact today, thousands of years later.
Trade routes were developed in Egypt and the Middle East to carry, sell, and spread the essential oils to various cultures, cities, and countries. Great cities around the world today were developed on these trade routes, and their economic commerce depended on the availability of the plants and trees from which the oils were made.
Ancient scholars used the oils in treating and healing the sick, and taught others to use the oils. Hippocrates, Pliny, Jesus, Socrates—all were proponents of essential oil usage, and some of the methods that they utilized are forever written in ancient texts.
In the Far East, processes of using aromatics flourished. The Chinese developed trade routes to India and other countries of the world to trade, buy, and sell oils, herbs, and spices. Japan further increased the use of essential oils through their distillation processes.
The English, the Italians, and the Spanish soon got in on the lucrative spice and oil trades. More knowledge of essential oil healing properties spread to almost every country in the world. These nations brought their knowledge of essential oils to the Americas, where it flourishes today.
Essential oils were used as currency in many areas of the world and were thought to be worth more than gold. Expeditions to discover new lands were developed due to the oil and spice trades. Because of these ambitious and adventurous people, the various cultures and countries of the world worked together to reach new and distant lands to obtain the precious oils.
Millions of lives have been saved throughout history by ancient doctors, shamans, and healers discovering therapeutic properties in plants, and then condensing those plants into oils that work to eradicate certain diseases, treat mental illnesses, heal infections, and reduce pain. I believe we can learn so much from our ancestors about healing inside and out by using essential oils.
Essential oils have been used in every religion on earth at one time or another. History shows us that herbs, oils, and plants have been closely tied to numerous worship rituals and rites. Many of those religions continue to use essential oils today to have a closer connection with their higher power, increase emotional responses of faith, and develop their own soul’s journey.
How to Use This Book
People today want to heal from the inside out without relying on pharmaceuticals or chemicals that can often have devastating side effects. They want natural ways to incorporate emotional, mental, and spiritual healing into their lives and the lives of their friends and families. People the world over are turning to more natural, healthy, and simple ways of healing. Essential Oils for Emotional Well-Being shows how uncomplicated it can be to add natural healing to your lifestyle. The design and layout of this book is a simple and easy format that can be used by anyone.
This book is divided into chapters to give the reader easy accessibility in various categories based on conditions, emotions, needs, desires, or devotion, providing ease in locating what you need or desire. Each condition, emotion, need, desire, or devotion is followed by recipes that can be used to help with that condition. The recipes vary widely in each section to give you the options to use what essential oils you may have on hand.
A list of essential oils is provided after each condition. This list of oils is alphabetized and contains the most common essential oils used for that particular condition. Oftentimes, an oil from this list can be substituted in the recipes to replace an oil that you may not have available. Each of the oils contain therapeutic properties that work well for that particular condition.
At the end of this book, you will find appendices to help with the comprehension of technical terms, therapeutic properties, warnings, and other information regarding use. Becoming more familiar with these terms can help you to understand the recipes and explanations given throughout the book.