When I think about setting up oil stations around our house I think of success quotes.

“Set yourself up for success from the very beginning and then focus on maintaining that success.”

“Motivation gets you going and habit gets you there”

When most people get started using essential oils, they buy the starter kit, get the pretty storage box and fill the box with oils.

The box then begins to collect dust. The oils go unused and you get frustrated about investing in a product that you never use. So let’s get those beautiful bottles of plant magic out in the open for ease of use. Let’s get you set up for success by having them out in the open so you can see them and be visually reminded to use them. This will get you using them more often and allow you to set up the habit of reaching for them daily. Let’s keep the excitement going from the moment you open your order to every day that you reach for a bottle.

Essential Oil Stations

So let’s walk through 4 key essential oil stations you’ll want to set up in your house. I have oil stations in the kitchen, bedroom(s), home office (or at work), and bathroom.

Kitchen

I have 2 stations set up in my kitchen.

Number 1: Oils for cooking or drinks. This is where I keep all the herb oils that I might add to soups or stews, like basil, thyme, oregano, etc. I keep citrus oils here that I like to add to water like Lime, Green Mandarin, Tangerine, and Grapefruit. I also have Cinnamon Bark and Vanilla Absolute here as we add these to warm drinks like coffee or the vanilla cloud drink I have in the evenings.

Number 2: Diffuser station. This is where I keep all the oils I like to diffuse in our kitchen. I keep Abode, AirX, Citrus Bloom, Balance, Northern Escape, Peppermint, and more.

I have accumulated my display cases over the years from the dōTERRA’s marketplace. There are also other great companies that offer different display options.

I like the 2-Tier Resin Marble Essential Oil Display by Oil Life (Oil Life Canada) or the Rotating Essential Oil Diffuser Stand (Oil Life Canada) or the Stone Essential Oil Holder (Oil Life Canada)

Since the new MetaPWR products launched in September 2022, I also have put these out on the countertop so I’m reminded to use them daily. I’m thinking of grabbing a tray like this from Amazon so I can organize and display them more easily and then move them around to wipe down the counter.

Bedroom

I have 2 stations set up in our bedroom as well.

Number 1: Roller Bottles on my nightstand. I bought the holder off of Amazon and actually have 2 of these in my home office and one in my bedroom.

Number 2: Diffuser station. This is where I keep all the oils that I like to diffuse before going to sleep like Adaptiv, Serenity, Lavender, Siberian Fir, and Roman Chamomile. I also keep a bottle of OnGuard & Breathe in the bedrooms for diffusing when we’re fighting colds in the house.

The key to your diffuser stations is grabbing a glass carafe and filling it with water. I love these ones from IKEA so you can easily fill up your diffusers instead of having to always walk them over to the bathroom to fill them up.

Bathroom

If you’re following along I tend to have 2 stations in each room. And it’s no different in the bathroom.

Number 1: Roller bottles, 15ml, 5ml, and face care

Number 2: Diffuser station. Here I keep 4 bottles that I love to diffuse as I get ready for the day: Island Mint, Malama, Sunny Citrus, and Citrus Bliss.

Since I only have 4 oils for diffusing in my bathroom I like the smaller display cases for just a few oils. I still need to get one for our new master bathroom. Something like this would be perfect.

Other options would be the Pixel Oil Display, the AromaTouch Technique Marble Display (this would be perfect because there is a space for a fractionated coconut oil bottle, which I use as a makeup remover), or a small natural wood mini essential oil display (Oil Life Canada).

Home Office

Can you guess how many oil stations I have in my home office? If you guessed 2 you would be correct! And while I do keep the beautiful wooden display box to house my extra oils bottles in my office I still have 2 other oil stations in the room.

Number 1: Roller Bottle Display

Number 2: Diffuser station. Here is where I have the blends I love diffusing for stress relief, focus, or fun blends that I like to make.

The 2-Tier Resin Marble Essential Oil Display by Oil Life (Oil Life Canada) or the Stone Essential Oil Holder (Oil Life Canada) would be perfect in a home office or work office as well.

The goal is to get them out of the box, out of the display boxes, and in plain sight for easier use.

Most people are drawn to essential oils for the amazing ways they help our houses smell better. Did you know that many people are drawn to essential oils for emotional support as well?

I’ve been teaching essential oil classes since 2016. And one of my favourite classes that I’ve taught is called Essential Emotions. In 2017, I partnered up with Camp Yoga as their exclusive dōTERRA rep. I taught 2 workshops during the weekend. An essential oils 101 class and a class focused on supporting our emotions.

I miss teaching these in-person classes, so I thought I could share all the ways essential oils can support our mental health here on the blog.

How do emotions affect our physical health?

Let’s first understand why we would want to use essential oils to support our emotions.

But first a story… I met Deborra Cameron a few years ago now. I was looking for a Naturopath and I visited a clinic in downtown Ottawa that had a health concierge. I met with her and mentioned a few things I was dealing with. She then made recommendations for different practitioners I might want to meet. I did 15 mins meet and greets with a few health practitioners and Deborra fascinated me.

She was a reflexologist and qi gong practitioner AND so much more. She calls herself an intuitive reflexologist and I was soon to learn what that would mean for me. She introduced me to the concept of an emotional blueprint and how certain emotions can affect different areas of the body. One of my favourite quotes from her about page is “Once we heal imbalances, we provide the body with energy and room to heal itself and recuperate.” During our first session, after massaging my feet for a few minutes and without asking me any questions based on the reflexology she could tell that I had a lot of warrior (masculine) energy, but that I was lacking feminine energy. At the time I had just launched the Alpha Female podcast. She also labeled my emotional blueprint as “Love is Insecure”. After calling off a wedding in 2012 and leaving a toxic relationship it was definitely true.

If you read Deborra’s Cycle of Creation blog post, you’ll learn that according to Taoism, emotions are stored in our organs. Fast forward a few years and her cycle of creation chart really started to resonate with me. Over the past 2 years, I’ve been processing a lot of anger from birth trauma to being fired while on mat leave, to how I’ve been treated in the world during a pandemic. And it’s no wonder that I’ve been dealing with liver issues over the past 2 years.

However, let’s back it up a few years to 2015. I was diagnosed with MS in December of 2014, and the following year, I read the book “When The Body Says No” by Gabor Mate (for which I did a book review). In the Chapter on MS patients, I was shocked to learn that many of Dr. Mate’s MS patients shared similar personality traits, potentially leading to similar ways of handling stress. And many MS patients had been in toxic relationships before their diagnosis. That’s when I truly started taking stress management more seriously and healing from many traumas. My eyes had become open to how stress management and our reactions to stress can really impact our physical health.

Around the same time, I found essential oils and dōTERRA. I was more curious about how to get better sleep and use the oils for green cleaning to reduce my toxic load. Little did I know that I was just beginning to open my eyes to the emotional support properties of essential oils.

How does aromatherapy affect our emotions?

Many research studies exist on the National Library of Medicine. For example this study on “Therapeutic Effect and Mechanisms of Essential Oils in Mood Disorders: Interaction between the Nervous and Respiratory Systems”

The favourable outcomes may be due to multiple mechanisms, including the regulation of monoamine level, the induction of neurotrophic factor expression, the regulation of the endocrine system and the promotion of neurogenesis. 

The simple way I’ve come to understand the science is when we use essential oils aromatically (ex. in a diffuser). We inhale the volatile aromatic compounds of the essential oil through our nose, into our olfactory system which is located close to the hypothalamus and the hippocampus. Which in turn interacts with our brain and our limbic system, and creates hormone productions like serotonin or dopamine.

Different sets of responses would be triggered, such as increased neurogenesis, regulation of hormonal levels, activation of different brain regions, and alteration in blood biochemistry, which would ultimately affect both mood and emotion.

Our body is so complex that this explanation doesn’t even begin to do it justice. Or allow you to understand the mechanisms by which essential oils support our emotional health. But when I started doing this research it was enough for me to see that essential oils could support my mental health. And it was up to me to become my own guinea pig.

The Emotional Root To Physical Ailments

When I first started researching essential oils and emotions, I came across this chart created by another dōTERRA wellness advocate. What I found fascinating about it was being able to match physical responses in the body, to the emotional root of the issues and then what essential oils could be used to support a new emotional desired result.

As I mentioned above, I’ve been dealing with a lot of anger, and feelings of being stressed and anxiety. Depending on what physical symptoms are manifested, I will look to move from a potentially negative emotion to a most positive one. So if I’m working through anger and I set the intention I’d like to feel more comforted, I’ll look to grab Breathe (Easy Air – as it’s called in Canada). I’ll pop it into the diffuser and use guided meditation to feel more grounded.

In Deborra’s Liver and Anger blog, she writes: “By bringing awareness to the anger, we can allow it, judge ourselves less, and begin to see the anger begin to evolve to acceptance of others and ourselves.”

Just by simply acknowledging that I’m angry, journaling about my feelings, and meditating on the subject, I can bring awareness and acceptance to the emotions I’m feeling and not let them fester in my body and affect my health.

Essential Oils & Intention Setting

I’m a big fan of using essential oils as a tool in my healthcare tool belt. So when it comes to mental health I use essential oils in tandem with other tools. But even before popping an essential oil in the diffuser and doing a guided meditation I focus on the intention behind use an oil.

I believe intention setting is a powerful thing so I always pair intention setting with a mental health tool and essential oils.

Essential Oils & Stress Management Tools

Here are all the ways that I use essential oils to support my stress management habits.

1. Essential Oils in a Diffuser + Guided Meditation
2. Essential Oils in an Epsom Salt Bath
3. Essential Oils on the skin after dry brushing before an Infrared Sauna session
4. Essential Oils in a Diffuser before bed
5. Essential Oils in a Diffuser + Breathwork
6. Essential Oils used in a massage

My Favourite Essential Oils for Emotional Support

I have an amazing resource that I use to teach myself more about the emotional properties of oils. The Essential Emotions book is an amazing resource so here are excerpts from the book on 10 oils and blends and how they can support different emotional states.

Adaptiv: The oil of adaptability. This essential oil blend contains wild orange, lavender, copaiba, spearmint, magnolia, rosemary, neroli, and sweetgum. This oil was created as the “Calming Blend” to support anyone feeling anxious. This oil blend helps us adapt to stressors and fears in more clear, constructive, and confident ways.

Balance: The grounding oil. This essential oil blend contains spruce, ho wood, frankincense, blue tansy, blue chamomile, and osmanthus in a base of fractionated coconut oil. Balance helps us by staying present with a specific plan or idea until it is embodied.

Breathe (US) / Easy Air (CA): The oil of breath. This essential oil blend contains laurel leaf, eucalyptus, peppermint, melaleuca, lemon, cardamom, ravintsara, and ravensara. This oil can help address the inability to let go of grief and pain and become open to genuine love and healing.

Cheer: The oil of cheerfulness. This essential oil blend contains wild orange, clove, star anise, lemon myrtle, nutmeg, vanilla bean extract, ginger, cinnamon bark, and zdravetz. This oil is helpful for those who feel heavyhearted or feel weighed down.

Citrus Bloom: The oil of new beginnings. This essential oil blend contains wild orange, grapefruit, lavender, roman chamomile, and magnolia. This oil is also named the Springtime blend. It’s wonderful for clearing stagnant energy when a chapter comes to a close.

OnGuard: The oil of protection. This essential oil blend contains wild orange, clove, cinnamon leaf & bark, eucalyptus, and rosemary. This oil blend’s protective properties extend beyond physical by warding off negative energies, domineering personalities, and other harmful influences.

Northern Escape: The woodland blend. This essential oil blend contains black spruce, siberian fir, balsam fir, lavender, cedarwood, cypress, hinoki, frankincense, nootka, cananga, and clove. This essential oil blend provides a grounding and inspiring aroma.

Peppermint: The oil of a buoyant heart. This essential oil brings joy to the heart and soul. It invigorates the body, mind, and spirit. It can remind us that life can be happy. Peppermint can be felt most in times of discouragement or despair.

Serenity: The oil of tranquility. This essential oil blend contains lavender, cedarwood, coriander, ylang ylang, marjoram, roman chamomile, vetiver, sandalwood, tonka bean, and vanilla absolute.

Wild Orange: The oil of abundance. This essential oil inspires abundance, creativity and supports a positive mood. It can help us reconnect with our inner child and bring about spontaneity, fun, joy, and playfulness into one’s life.

Would you like to bring these essential oils into your stress management tool kit?

The Aroma Essentials Kit

The easiest way to get started with dōTERRA is with a starter kit. It’s the most cost-effective way to purchase, you’ll receive a free wholesale membership (with the ability to purchase oils at 25% off whenever you want) and free shipping.

With the Aroma Essentials Kit, you’ll receive the 8 oil blends and 2 single oils that are described in this blog post with the Laluz Diffuser.

Last but not least, you’ll become a part of my essential oil community. I send out daily text messages around essential oil education from diffuser blends to try to DIY recipes and more. I’d love to help guide you as you bring these tools into your life.

Disclaimer: I personally use the MetaPWR system and am a wellness advocate with dōTERRA. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration or Health Canada. I’m sharing my personal experience with products. As always, please consult with your healthcare team when incorporating new products into your healthcare routine.

What is metabolic health? And how does metabolic health affect autoimmune disease?

On the main page of my MetaHEALING program, I go over the concept of metabolic health but let’s get into it a bit further here.

Definition of Metabolism

According to this study found in the National Library of Medicine, “there is little consensus on the definitions of metabolic health.” However, we do have a definition of metabolism.

Let’s take it one step further and look at the definition found on the National Cancer Institute‘s website.

So if we want to improve our metabolic health, we are looking to improve our metabolism. But what does that mean? How can we look to support our cells in making energy, and provide the right material for our cells to grow, and reproduce, while generally staying healthy? Since metabolism is also a driver in reducing our toxic load there are so many benefits to improving our metabolic health for the sake of our overall health.

Metabolism & Autoimmune Disease

We know according to Healthline, that “Poor metabolic health increases your risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.” I’d like to infer that poor metabolic health also does nothing for those with autoimmune diseases and puts us at risk for even more health problems.

When it comes to autoimmune disease there are so many cases where we understand that the disease progresses due to attacks on healthy cells. I’ve always been of the mindset that if I take care of my body to the best of my ability and create an environment where my cells “don’t get confused” then I’m increasing my chances of having fewer “autoimmune attacks” over my lifetime.

I also understand that improving one’s metabolic health can lead to decreases in inflammation in the body. Which we also know to be detrimental to those living with autoimmune diseases.

So at the end of the day, having healthy cells and decreasing inflammation is enough for me to know that improving my metabolic health is important to me.

Health Pillars

When I was first diagnosed with MS back in 2014, I started taking care of myself based on 6 health pillars.

1. Digestive Health & Nutrition
2. Supplementation
3. Movement
4. Sleep
5. Stress Management
6. Reduce Toxic Load

When I was introduced to the new dōTERRA MetaPWR system in September of 2022 I was really excited because they were speaking my language around health care but adding one more category that I hadn’t factored into my self-care health pillars.

I had already covered healthy eating, daily movement, stress management, and smart supplementation in my routine. I hadn’t factored in healthy connections into a pillar of health before. While I’ve prioritized connections and friendships in my life, I have definitely let these fall by the wayside to prioritize other self-care tactics.

Ok but let me take a step back first…

For me my energy has been super low since the twins were born, I’m holding onto postpartum weight gain, our sleep is sometimes interrupted with toddlers and I’ve definitely had days filled with brain fog. So my motivations for increasing my metabolic health are two-fold. One just better quality of life and two better quality of life while living with an autoimmune disease. I never want to have to worry about MS attacks in the future.

So What Can We Do To Improve Our Metabolic Health?

Healthy Eating

I won’t be prescribing any certain way of eating but I’ll ask you a few questions you can journal on to decide if you want to focus on improving your nutrition.

• Are you eating anything that causes digestive discomfort?
• Do you have healthy poops?
• Are you dealing with indigestion, gas, or bloating?
• Are you conscious of the nutrients you’re eating?
• Are you conscious about eating a balance of macronutrients?
• Are you eating anything that you know is not serving you?

Daily Movement

Are you moving your body at least 30 mins a day?

When I started taking the MetaPWR system which I’ll share about more in a second, I promised myself that I was going to be consistent with daily walks with my husband and our dogs every morning. In addition, I started a workout challenge where I was working out at least 4 days a week. I know that the consistency of these resistance and bodyweight training workouts is serving me well. I’m continuing them into 2023 and sharing some goals over in this post.

Stress Management

My go-to stress management tools are:

• Movement (Workouts & Walks)
• Meditation
• Journaling
• Epsom Salt Baths
• Infrared Sauna
• Diffusing Essential Oils
• Talk Therapy
• Orgasms
• Breathwork

Do you have daily or weekly practices that allow you to rest and decompress?

Do you have tools that you use when you find yourself dealing with acute situations?

Connections

Are you prioritizing time with friends or loved ones where you are phones down, face to face?

Smart Supplementation

I’ve always been a fan of testing my blood to discover my deficiencies and then nourishing and supplementing as necessary. But I haven’t been taking anything specific to metabolic health.

Introducing the MetaPWR System. This system was launched during dōTERRA’s annual convention in September 2022 and I couldn’t have been more excited to try them.

dōTERRA launched 6 products within the system that include:

MetaPWR Essential Oil Blend, Beadlets, Softgels & Gum, MetaPWR Assist & MetaPWR Advantage

I have been taking the product for 90 days now. Consistently since September 19, 2022 for 30 days and then slightly inconsistently for 60 days over November and December as we’ve been battling sickness in our health on and off this fall/winter season with the kids catching all manner of colds from other kids at gymnastics.

My MetaPWR Routine

I take a MetaPWR softgel at breakfast, an Assist with lunch or dinner, a drop of the MetaPWR blend in my first Yeti of water in the morning and the Advantage as an Adrenal Cocktail mid-morning.

Adrenal Cocktail Recipe:

• 1 Orange Freshly Juiced
• Top Mason Jar with Coconut Water
• Pinch of Sea Salt
• 1 MetaPWR Advantage whisked in

My MetaPWR Results So Far

However, I’ve noticed an amazing difference. I’m starting to shed the weight I gain post-pregnancy.

The brain fog has lifted and my energy has increased so that I’m feeling lighter after work and able to engage with my family before we put the twins to bed at 7:30 pm.

Get Started With MetaPWR

The dōTERRA team that I’m a part of is hosting a class on Monday, January 9th at 8 pm ET. Come learn about metabolic health and all about the MetaPWR system.

Or if that day and time doesn’t work for you, you can watch a recording of the class here:

I will be running a 30-day program using the MetaPWR system products starting January 30th called MetaHEALING. Have a look at the page which includes ordering details. If you’re interested in joining us to increase your metabolic health in a way that feels nourishing for someone living with an autoimmune disease I’d love to have you!