our new site is live!
We’ve moved!
Come and see us at our new site!
www.lifeforinstance.com
I’ll meet you there!
Lori
Life, for instance
November 5th, 2010Intentions and Aromatherapy
September 6th, 2010Intentions are powerful. They differ from goals, dreams, plans or the many items which populate our lengthy To Do Lists. When you set an Intention, you release your desire into the Universe, confident that what you’ve requested will be delivered to you.
One of the reasons Intentions are so powerful is the feelings of positive expectation that go with them. How you feel is the key. This is where essential oils can assist in the Intention-setting process.
Aroma is processed in the memory, emotion and learning center in the brain; the limbic system. When you set an Intention while inhaling an aroma, the aroma will become associated with the emotions you are feeling as you inhale it. Later when you inhale the oil, the aroma will evoke the same emotional response.
As you set your Intention and inhale the oil, take a moment to feel the feelings of the outcome of your Intention. This creates a primer, both to daily re-affirm the Intention and to encourage you if you are tempted to give up on your Intention before the Universe has found a creative way to deliver it to you.
Tip 1 Using a new essential oil or blend that has no prior connotations for you, is most effective. It’s akin to writing on a clean slate.
Tip 2: Put the bottle of essential oil in a place where you will notice it several times a day, at which time you can pause and inhale the oil while remembering [the feelings of the manifestation of] your Intention.
Tip 3: Continue this exercise for a minimum of 21 days – the magic number in setting/breaking habits and affecting change in the brain.
Wild mayflower blossoms - aromatherapy at its best!
Essential Oils and Energy Work
August 5th, 2010If you do energy healing work, or any kind of hands-on therapy, consider incorporating therapeutic-grade essential oils into your practice. In my energy tool kit, along with Reiki, Quantum Touch, QiGong and Sound Therapy, essential oils have pride of place.
Gather an assortment of essential oils; singles and blends which affect the emotional issues you treat in your practice. Become familiar, if you are not already, with the properties of the oils but also allow your intuition to guide you in selecting which oils to use in a treatment.
To use essential oils in an energy treatment, apply a drop of oil to one palm and rub your hands together until they are dry. The oil will diffuse from your hands and affect your client through inhalation. What a subtle and gentle way to create a relaxing atmosphere for your treatments.
Pure unadulterated essential oils have a natural life-force energy that joins with the energy and intention of the healing practitioner to help clients achieve their healing goals.
Reiki and essential oils in a natural setting
Essential Oil Travel Kit
July 19th, 2010Whether you are travelling by car, boat, plane, canoe, bike or on foot, packing a small kit of essential oils will make vacation time more pleasant for you and your family.
The overall effect of using essential oils is balance. When you are travelling, you are away from familiar territory, eating different foods, and dealing with different stresses and this can be a challenge. Whether you are wearing the oils or diffusing them, keeping them in your environment will have a subtle affect on how you feel.
What’s in my Essential Oil Travel Kit?
Lemon – a quick hand-cleaner in a pinch. Tip a drop onto one palm, spread the drop with your fingertips up to the fingertips of your other hand and then “wash” your whole hand with what’s left of the drop. One drop goes a long way, feels so clean and smells fresh.
Lavender – for sleeping in strange places like cars, boats, and airplanes, not to mention hotel rooms and tents. A drop on your pillow will diffuse into your breathing space long enough to escort you peacefully into slumber. Lavender is also great for burns; both campfire and sun, for headaches, sore throats and for travel stress.
Peppermint – helps keep you fresh and alert when you diffuse it. Use peppermint for indigestion, car-sickness, headaches, and sinus problems. We found that as long as we diffused peppermint in our camp, the ants stayed out.
Those are my top three though I have other favorites I take along as well; a Citronella blend for repelling bugs, a Chamomile blend for calming, my favorite Rose blend for perfume, and Wintergreen and Tea Tree for unexpected aches, pains and injuries.
Have a great Summer 2010!
Beach time!
Preserving Memories
July 9th, 2010Has this ever happened to you? You are standing in line at a bakery and you catch the aroma of freshly baked gingerbread cookies. Immediately (in your heart and mind) you are sitting at your grandmother’s kitchen table, eight years old again, with a glass of cold milk in front of you; your mouth watering as she removes a pan of gingerbread cookies from the oven and sets them on the table in front of you.
This is one of the exciting things about essential oils; aroma has the wonderful ability to spark clear and charged memory recall because aroma is processed in the limbic system of the brain along with emotion, memory and learning. We will remember something we have smelled longer than we will remember something we have seen!
The next time you embark on a vacation or any new experience, choose a new essential oil to diffuse and inhale throughout. Discontinue diffusing the oil for a week or so when the experience/vacation has ended. Later, uncork your memory-preserving essential oil. All the feelings of the experience will come wafting out with the aroma, immediately putting you back into the experience. Aroma has the ability to capture and preserve an experience in a profound manner that photos, sounds and tastes alone cannot.
Sunset in Santorini
Spot Diffusing
July 6th, 2010Hello again!
I thought I’d start with a few creative ways to diffuse essential oils with your Terra Cotta Pendants. It is TCP’s blog, after all, and we wouldn’t want TCP to feel slighted.
Terra Cotta Pendants make it easy for you to disperse essential oil in different areas in your home inexpensively by “spot diffusing”. Yes, I know; wearing a TCP transforms you into a “walking diffuser” generously sharing your essential oil wherever you go but if you don’t want to run from room to room in your house all day long, you can strategically place TCP’s in different rooms of your home with essential oils that apply to each area.
Take the baby’s room, for example. The baby’s room is the perfect place to diffuse essential oil of Lavender.
My “baby” was already eight years old by the time I discovered essential oils. But my grandchildren will have a TCP diffusing Lavender in their nurseries! The bottle of Lavender will be right there on the shelf over the changing table next to the stacks of cloth diapers. This TCP will naturally and gently diffuse Lavender all over the nursery preparing baby for a peaceful night’s sleep.
I try to Imagine what bedtimes would have been like if we had known about Lavender back then! I picture serene and even-tempered souls in the room and no one crying. I bet the baby would have been happier too.
I don’t need to tell you to cut the waxed cotton cord short or to use another very short one to hang the pendant and to not tie it on the crib or any place where the baby can reach it. Well, I didn’t need to tell you, but I guess I just did.
And since I’m not giving you advice, I guess I can’t tell you to be sure not to use anything but pure essential oil. It makes a huge difference. Lavender oil is one which is hard to just “smell and tell”, so you need to do research on the company that sells the oil and know about the growing and distilling practices of their essential oil sources. It’s work up front but will pay off in the long run.
Lavender oil diffusing in the nursery is like a lullaby for the olfactory inspiring peace and quiet and calm! And because aroma is processed in the same part of the brain that deals with memory and emotions ….but wait – that is a whole new post!
Until next time!
Lori
Diffusing in the Nursery
Diffusing While Travelling
June 29th, 2010Natasha and I were in Greece in May – having a mother/daughter trip of a lifetime! I don’t know about you, but I’m not a huge fan of getting into large winged vehicles which leave the ground and fly above the clouds using aerodynamic principles I do not even pretend to understand. I’m like a kid who requires a security blanket, figuratively of course. My security blanket was a diffuser pendant [a Terra Cotta Pendant] with a drop of calming soothing essential oil on it. It hung right under my nose, diffusing the essential oil directly into my personal breathing space.
And if it happened to go into someone else’s space, perhaps, say, that of a crying baby, that was OK too. The aroma lasted the whole eighteen hours it took to get there! That’s one drop of essential oil going a long way! Even when I wasn’t lifting it to my nose for an extra boost of courage, it was lying against my chest, affecting me vibrationally. Mmmmmm! Don’t leave the ground without a Terra Cotta Pendant!
Natasha and I on the transatlantic flight!
Welcome!
June 29th, 2010Welcome to the Terra Cotta Pendants [TCP] blog!
Unfortunately, TCP doesn’t use a keyboard,
so you’ll be hearing mostly from me – Lori!
That’s me in the photo below.
What am I going to blog about?
Essential oils and how to use them, of course!
You’ve invested (hopefully) big bucks to get them,
but now you don’t know what to do with them?
Sure, you’ve heard all the usual ideas:
put them in your bath, put some on a light-bulb ring, etc.
But there is much much more!
This blog will look at creative and empowering ways
to use essential oils in your life.
Stay tuned.
Lori