Updates from Vicki Merrill

What happens when your body is chemically overloaded?  You may see it in something as catastrophic as cancer. But, most of us feel it in other ways like lethargy, inability to focus, sleep trouble, chronic inflammation, unexplained pain, skin issues, adult acne, hot flashes, stress, anxiety and fear. If you face any of these issues, it’s time to kick chemicals to the curb.

 

To help you do that, let’s take a quick look at the ultimate tool kit  that supports every system of your body. For more information about each of these oils, visit Nan at experience-essential-oils.com. Her website is my go to along with my desk reference.

 

Lavender is one of the most versatile oils, known as the Swiss Army knife of oils, has over 1000 uses...and is also the most adulterated oil on the market. Knowing your source is critical. 

Another great skin oil. Put on your pillow before you go to bed. 

 

We love it for bruises, blisters, rashes, bug bites, mild burns or headaches and anything we don’t really know what else to use. Spray it on your pillow before you go to bed. Lavender Vitality is great in smoothies, sauces, dressings, homemade ice cream, marinades and drinks!

 

Emotionally it is used for feelings of abandonment, criticism and helps you not to worry about what you can’t control. (Can people really do that?? LOL)  Relaxing and balancing. Fosters communication, brings clarity and insight. But with any oil, start low and go slow. Oils are powerful...ask Dana about his poison ivy story...

 

Peppermint vitality supports your gastrointestinal system and digestive tract. One drop will keep you alert while driving or at other times when you need to focus. 

 

I love it for its cooling effect. I will often drop it on the back of my neck when I am doing a Raindrop session as I tend to get really warm with all the energy that can be released from a client. This has also been my failure oil. Great to have this time of year as kiddos are going back to school as it helps when there is a block to learning a new subject and it helps to eliminate that fear of the unknown. 

Add it to your water, tea, brownies, ice cream, in a veggie cap, or even under your tongue. We will also put a drop on our thumb and put our thumb to the roof of our mouth to clear our sinuses. Dana gets a bit braver and puts it on his  mustache...Remember, vitality and regular are the same oil, just labeled differently to remain in FDA compliance.

 

Purification is an all time favorite. Have you fallen in love with it yet?? Great for cleaning, refreshing, laundry, pet odors and as an insect deterrent. I love diffusing this one all by itself.

Uplifting and refreshing, diffusing it purifies and cleanses negative emotions (now you know why I love to diffuse it...). Our favorite blue book tells us it is good for anger, being alone,  fear of rejection, fear of seeing, negative or wrong thoughts, recognition and violence.

 

Thieves vitality – thieves has been proven to kill 99.9% of all germs and bacteria. Do I even need to say anything else? LOL. When anyone even looks or sounds like they might be going below the wellness line, the first thing I do is get this oil in the diffuser and on their feet and spine. Why those places?? The spine is where bundles of nerves run through your body and the feet (and hands) are where they come out. If you put oils in those places topically, you’re covering a lot of ground in the body, even if you don’t know where those germs are hiding out – another reason Raindrop Technique is so powerful as the oils are applied on your feet and back as well.

 

I put a drop of thieves with lemon, orange or citrus fresh (vitality, of course) in my water or tea and I even have a popcorn recipe that uses thieves! 

 

Did I mention it is also our favorite way to remove splinters!!?? Simply apply a drop as needed and watch the magic happen.

 

Think you couldn’t use this emotionally? Guess what? It helps with feeling different, sneaky, or uncertain and is specifically designed to cleanse your mind or environment when you diffuse it. 

 

Stress Away – you all know my love/hate relationship with this oil. I hated it for over 7 years. Despised it. It was so harsh smelling! But I did put it on my feet because I knew my dislike of it had an emotional element… I giggled when I saw in the blue book that it is for the emotion of cruel…that’s about how I would’ve described this oil before. LOL 

 

It promotes wellness and is one of the top emotional oils, helping you leave all that stress behind, like from being over tired, irritated, angry, nervous, restless…wonder if it helps with being hangry?? Hmmm... It will also help calm you, bringing peace and natural restful sleep.

 

Deep Relief comes in a portable roller bottle...just like Stress Away. This makes it easy peasy to reach those places on your back or shoulders!

Wintergreen, helichrysum, clove, peppermint, copaiba, lemon, vetiver, candian balsam fir, dorado azul…powerful oils…but when combined together?? Game changer.

Nan says this blend will help you find emotional and mental patterns that stop you from exercising and/or taking care of yourself emotionally and physically. It may also dig up physical hurts that have gone unresolved including accident prone tendencies, over exertion or over achieving. It will cool anger and frustration that you have with yourself about those patterns.

Remember, anything that is continually overdone or in excess will drain your body and mind  instead of supporting them, even if the initial intention was good.

Last week we said 26 seconds after exposure, chemicals are found in measurable amounts in your body.  The average woman applies 300 chemicals a day – 80 of those even before breakfast!  Of the top ten most dangerous chemicals in our home, number one is air fresheners, those plug-ins or candles. Second on the list – cleaning supplies. 

 

Ready to take the first step and curious about how you can get this kit and start guarding your home? Message me or comment below. 

 

Next week we will dive into more detail about the toxins lurking in your cabinets that make their way to your clothing, your floors, your skin, your children, pets and food, also taking a look at greenwashing. Join us Sunday night at 8:15pm in Intentional Wellness.

Life is like a combination lock, if you know the right numbers, in the right order, regardless of your race, gender or anything else, you can have anything you want. It doesn’t matter who you are – the lock has to open for you. 

 

Believe it is possible and you can do anything.

 

Between the ages of 3 and 8, maybe 9, you decided you weren’t attractive, you’re not smart, don’t learn well, people don’t like you, it’s not okay to ask for money, or to ask for anything at all…Those long held subconscious beliefs continue to get in your way even today.

 

Who remembers Muhammed Ali?? Am I dating myself? He says, “Impossible is a big word thrown around by small people who find it easier to live in a world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion.” 

 

Every thought you have sends out a vibration – just like your cell phone, your tv, your radio. 

 

Have any of you ever seen or tried the rice experiment where you talk positively to one jar of rice and negatively to another for 30 days? We have done it and it is crazy! We even included a jar that we completely ignored…Google Dr. Masaru Emoto and his water and rice experiments. They are fascinating!!

 

Jack Canfield shares that the two most powerful words in our language are “I am”. Anything after those words, our subconscious takes as a command. Think about it. What words to you pair with I am?? Is it really what you want?? Do you really want to be fat, ugly, sick, tired, stressed, lonely, broke?? Where your thoughts go, your energy flows!! 

 

Your attitude and your reaction are always in your control…Step back. Give yourself grace, find gratitude instead of going into frustration. Will you always succeed?? Umm…Nope. But you will make progress. You will learn not to give your happiness away so cheaply and easily.

What do you need to let go of?? Grab your oils. Smell them right from the bottles. What ones are you drawn to? What ones do you not like at all? The ones you are drawn to, you need physically. The ones you cannot stand the smell of? Those are the ones your emotions need. Don’t set them down and walk away. Take the one that smells the worst to you. Put it on your feet. Put socks and shoes on after if you need to, or stuff them under your blankets.  But put the oil on. You can do this with more than one oil at a time, if you want, but at least use the one that is the worst for you. I promise, over time, if you continue to use it consistently, you will come to like or even love it, as the negative emotions are released and your cells are reprogrammed. I challenge you. Do it for at least a week, or a month, or longer. You will feel the shift. Then pick another oil…It’s truly that simple. You know my Stress Away story…

 

 If you want to know what my handy dandy blue book says for what oil to use for what emotion, message me! We’ll work together to figure it out. Have an area in your body that hurts, an issue or dis-ease you would like to see the emotional baggage behind? Message me. We can even see what emotions are connected to that pain as well. You are an amazing creation and you are here for a purpose. Don’t let another day go by without realizing that.

 

Just 3 seconds...

That's how long it takes essential oils reach your heart, liver and thyroid from the time you inhale them. They can be found in your bloodstream within 26 seconds after being applied…just like anything else you inhale or apply…Sit with that for a moment…

 

So, can you use any just any oil? Does quality really matter?

 

If you walk into a grocery store and look at a box of cereal, you’ll see nutrition facts on the side. However, there are no nutrition facts on the side of oils and no labeling requirements. So that means you have to know and trust the source – the company you are buying from. 

 

If you see “100% USP grade” on the label of your favorite oil, that means US Pharmacopeia, which means it has been manipulated to fit a standard, so by definition, it is adulterated. Wrigley’s wants all its spearmint gum to taste exactly the same every single time you buy a package, unwrap a stick and pop it into your mouth. Therapeutic oils cannot be played with in any form. They contain a life force and even just a little bit of synthetic material can poison it or even destroy it all together.

 

So, let me ask you…why would you use an oil laden with chemicals if the entire purpose of using oils is to get away from chemicals?? 

 

Unfortunately, you cannot have quality without cost. Just think about that hamburger on the dollar menu compared to an organic, grass fed, Angus beef burger…they are both burgers, right? Or…are they?? I read a book called Chew On This to the kids – all about the fast food industry. We learned that the meat (and other parts) of thousands of animals can be found in just one burger…and some of the grain that is being fed to commercial beef actually contains…dead cows!!! Remember mad cow disease?? Yup…You get what you pay for!! We seem to understand that when it comes to burgers and other industries, but not with oils…

 

Authenticity is why you just can’t buy oils at the grocery store. Authentic means that they do not alter the essential oil in any way during or after the distillation process. Companies can claim they use proper distillation of the plant material and that they don’t alter that process because there is a little unknown secret in the aromatherapy world called fractional distillation and rectification.

Fractional distillation is when a company buys essential oils that have been distilled properly, but then, after the plant material is distilled, it goes through a process that fractions out certain molecules. In the case of peppermint, they will take out the earthy aromatic molecules leaving a much more “pleasant” and sweet smelling final essential oil, not the natural peppermint smell it should have. 

Rectification is where a batch of oil is missing some amount of molecules that causes the smell to be too different from what a consumer may think is "normal". The company adds in molecules from other plants to fix or “rectify” the issue. In the case of a batch of Lavender that isn’t as floral smelling as the last batch, they may add in some molecules from Ylang ylang to help fix the smell.

Consider when you buy an orange, you know that the orange you buy now will taste and smell different from the orange you buy even next week. That is nature. With oils, because they are bottled, your brain thinks something is wrong when it smells different from bottle to bottle. In the world of true unaltered authentic aromatherapy, it is normal to have aromatic differences from batch to batch.

How do you know you can trust Young Living? Simply put – Seed to Seal. It is what sets them apart from all other oil companies. No stripping constituents to make them smell better. No mixing species of the same oil. No weed killers, pesticides, herbicides or genetically modified seeds. No “f” word fragrances we talked about last week. They spend $12,000 per acre to hand weed instead of the industry standard of $60 per acre to spray with pesticides. No solvents are used in the distillation process. No mercury, arsenic, glyphosate, or any poison in the soil because the fields are untouched by toxic chemicals…and more. Want to see the difference for yourself? Check out seedtoseal.com here to learn more. 

 

Curious?? How about support for every area of your life at your fingertips? Check out the Make A Shift Essential Solutions kit!  Lavender, Peppermint, Thieves, Purification, Stress Away and Deep Relief, along with a diffuser that is only available in this bundle. And, if you are brand new to Young Living, be sure to use the coupon code SHAREYL at checkout to save 10%! 

 

Not ready to jump in quite yet but would love to play around on the website and see all that Young Living offers? Use this link to create a free account - no purchase necessary. Let me know you created an account and I will send you an invite to join my online Facebook community where we learn about wellness, purpose, abundance, mindset and more. 

I'd love to hear what you think! What topics would you like to learn about? What fascinates you? Confuses you? Simply hit reply and let me know!!

Have an incredible week, my friend.

If you take a look at the label on a few of your favorite smelling products, you'll often find the word ‘fragrance' in the ingredients. But what is fragrance, or as I like to call it, “the other F word”…?
 
Fragrance chemicals are organic compounds that vaporize into the air, which is why we can smell them. They are added to household and personal care products to give them a scent or even to mask the odor of other ingredients. Unfortunately, those volatile organic chemicals (VOCs - think the smell of paint or paint thinner) can contribute to poor indoor air quality and are connected with a variety of adverse health effects. They are pretty much the last thing you want in a product you are burning or spraying for ambiance or to make your home smell "clean".
 But it gets a little bit worse…. 

To protect trade secrets, makers are allowed to withhold “fragrance” ingredients, so you can't read the labels to find out what dangers those festive scented candles (and room sprays.. and plugs ins…and burners...and perfumes.. and cosmetics…) may contain. This is called the “fragrance loophole” in federal labeling law. Although all other ingredients in your scented household and personal care products must be disclosed on the label by their specific name, this loophole allows ingredients that are added to provide a pleasant scent, or to mask a bad one, only need to be listed under the generic term “fragrance.”
 
 The Environmental Working Group (EWG) says that many popular candles and room sprays contain trace amounts of “natural essences”. They also typically contain a dozen or more potentially hazardous synthetic chemicals, some of which are derived from petroleum. 

According to the EWG, “Exposure to fragrance chemicals can cause headaches; eye, nose, and throat irritation; nausea; forgetfulness; loss of coordination; and other respiratory and/or neurotoxic symptoms. Many fragrance ingredients are respiratory irritants and sensitizers, which can trigger asthma attacks and aggravate sinus conditions.”
 
One harmful ingredient in “fragrance”, is styrene. A 2011 finding by the National Toxicology found that it is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.”
 
We know only that styrene might be an ingredient in any given fragrance because the International Fragrance Association, an industry trade group, publishes an online “Transparency List” (https://ifrafragrance.org/priorities/sustainability#.U9qfRoBdVss) of ingredients that perfumers say they use in formulas for consumer products. Styrene is one of the 3,000 or so ingredients on the list.
  When you add up the number of products in your bathroom cabinets and under your kitchen sink that contain “fragrance”,  this could be many exposures to substances  “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” 

THIS is why I am so passionate about ditching conventional products and switching to clean, effective and safe options! Young Living NEVER uses fragrance in their products - they don't even need to because of the products are infused with the highest quality oils which not only give the fragrance but help support your health and even your emotions. 

Convention starts Thursday! Be watching for new products to be launched!! What would you like to see??

Looking for some DIY summer body treatments that will leave your skin smooth and glowing? Look no further! Try out these simple and effective recipes using Young Living essential oils. Make a margarita body scrub using salt, olive oil, tequila, lime juice, and a few drops of Lime essential oil for a natural and refreshing exfoliation. For a body smoothing oil, mix Cel-Lite Magic Massage Oil with Grapefruit essential oil and massage into your legs and arms for a little extra smoothing. And if you want healthy, glowing skin, try making a DIY summer glow serum using CBD Beauty Boost, Frankincense essential oil, and a carrier oil of your choice. Say goodbye to moisturizers and serums, because this one is a game-changer! Don't forget to try out the other recipes like a Vitamin C facial toner, moisturizing oatmeal soak, mermaid hair detangler spray, and DIY nail polish remover as well. Get your summer glow on with these natural and nourishing treatments!