Once upon a time I was a know it all!

As I was sitting here getting the dregs out of my valor bottle this morning... I started to remember the first time I was introduced to essential oils. I thought they were snake oil, after all if it did not come out of a pill bottle what good was it anyway? At the time I had injured my back working as a nurse, it was 1998 or so, which meant I had been a nurse for only 2 years before my career might be over. I was taking vicodin for the pain and flexaril to relax the muscles. All that really happened was I slept a lot, but the pain didn't dissipate. At one point I had the violent side effect of attacking my partner at the time, vicodin for some people can bring out anger and rage tendencies. Sadly I was one of those people, luckily no one got hurt!

Pt was not helping, the meds were not helping, and sleeping just had me sleeping through my life and my young children's lives as well. I was miserable and the ice massage from that PT lady was driving me up a wall to boot. I was involved with a spiritual organization at the time and they swore by their essential oils. I scoffed, laughed, and made cracks about the way they smelled and the snake oil they were peddling to unsuspecting humans. (as if I knew a thing or two!) After all if it was not in a pill bottle it didn't work. If that stuff worked the medical community would embrace it and go with it, but alas the medical community in a large part denies the effectiveness of therapeutic grade essential oils and their efficacy for healing. And so I suffered... not too silently I might add!

I have to add here that at the time my mother had become a massage therapist a few years before this, and I had only had one or two treatments from her and they left me feeling broken and beaten the next day so I swore off all of that silly stuff! What I didn't understand is that the stress of being a single mom and going to nursing school had taken it's toll on me and my body... well that and the alcohol problem I had at the time. So during the massage the toxins moved into the blood stream and boy was I feeling them.... but I was too smart for that... massage was EVIL! I was certain.

So I was seriously in pain and didn't know how I would go back to work. One of my snake oily friends asked if she could put some oils on my back. "Sure," I said, "as long as you don't try any of that evil massage on me I already hurt enough." At this point my allopathic way of treating myself had gotten me no where. So I laid there and she dripped an oil on my back from above me. She didn't touch me she just let the oil sit there and some weird things started to happen. My vertebrae actually snapped back into place. Not just one but four different snaps crackles and pops I heard and I didn't even move. And even weider was that the pain decreased... no one had even touched me. That one oil she used that day was Valor, I placed my oil order immediately because the relief I had was so incredible that I had to find out more, plus who wants to have that much pain daily?

Since then I have used my oils for everything from strep throat to uplifting depression. What a cool memory to have on an over cast day while I attempt to get each and every tiny molecule of oil out of this bottle... lesson learned today... DON'T EVER LET MYSELF RUN OUT OF VALOR!

How to find some valor? Just click here

A New Day!

After walking away from my nursing career for the most part, about 5 years ago I really never wanted to return. I had been blessed enough to have opened my own massage and healing business, and was able to make my own hours and days of work while handling my daughters special needs at the time.

Now I find myself in the position that many people have had to endure. The business office had to be closed due to economical reasons, and I find myself once again in the market for a job. This morning I had a job interview at a local home health agency. From the moment I walked into this place I was made to feel welcome and that has not been my experience here in Florida. This is a faith based organization that certainly brings their beliefs into the work place to support their staff and clients. It was AMAZING!

Even though I practice a somewhat different perspective on religion and belief systems I found myself excited at the prospect of once again working with a team of people for the greater good. I find myself extremely homesick for a team of faith based people taking responsibility for themselves and their world in a calm, polite, and caring manner... what a breath of fresh air! Even a fresher breath as I had been loathing in some ways returning to the nursing industry after enjoying so many years working as a healer.

I remember years ago when I studied with a Guru in Ashland not understanding why some of the residents of the ashram were told that they must move back "into the world" finding jobs and new homes away from the life they had come to love so much. I now recognize the wisdom in that teaching. Sometimes we get very comfortable in a place and we forget, or at least we become desensitized to the "real" world and in that desensitization, as a healer, we can forget how intense the process of paradigm shifting can be for people who only live within the constraints of the "real world" rules and limitations.

Making the choice to close my business office was in some ways one of the hardest things I ever had to do after all it was a creation of myself... 5 years of work and learning and hope... and yet it was also a relief in some ways. A relief to let go of something that just was not meeting the mark. I had to remind myself that sometimes we must stumble and dig around in the dirt a few times before we can find our way back on our feet. I was clear that closing the business was a good business decision and I resisted the small tiny voices saying that I had in some way failed my community or myself.

What happened instead for me has been a glorious unfolding of incredible wisdom for as much as I worked to be there for my clients there were places in my own life that were not being tended. I have been given the gift of tending to myself and re-arranging my priorities. I have been given the gift of re-membering where most of my clients come from, and now I have the gift of being of service in a different way to the planet in the nursing industry. Today at least I am certainly thankful for my many blessings and for the hypnosis client I got a call from on my way out of that job interview... I haven't received a call in weeks. Sometimes we just have to move energy somewhere, anywhere; for energy to move everywhere within our own existence.

Today is full of beautiful reminders of the grace of life! Now it is time to do my Intro to Spiritualism class...

Namaste'