DISCLAIMER: Friends, let me be real clear up front. I want to be in compliance with FDA requirements and my company’s policies and procedures. The information you’re about to read and the products I’ll talk about should in no way be construed or used to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure a disease condition. I’m sharing my story with you. It’s what happened for ME. I cannot guarantee you will have similar results if you try the things I tried. BUT…I bless your spirit to be encouraged, I bless your soul to be stimulated to dig deeper, to wonder and to pursue, and I bless your body to know how incredibly made it is and that it has the innate ability to heal, given to it by its Creator and stewarded by its resident spirit (that’s YOU!).
I joined Young Living in August of 2015 right after finishing my health coaching certificate at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I began researching essential oils and the companies that made and distributed them because I was interested in adding them to the wellness toolkit I was building to offer my new clients. But that was just the surface reason. Something else was brewing underneath . . .
I grew up with severe digestive issues. From the time I was 3 years old, I knew something was wrong with my digestion. By 9 I was beginning to see doctors regularly and having all sorts of tests. By 11 I was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, but they thought other things were going on, so we continued testing. Over and over. By the time I was 14 years old I had had every single digestive workup and test known to the medical community . . . twice. And we weren’t getting anywhere. So I was prescribed a whole host of medications designed to quell the symptoms. And I lived on those for quite some time, dulling the discomfort and masking the underlying root cause for what was going on.
In my mid-twenties I started to struggle emotionally. Not finding a parking spot during a busy lunch rush at a local strip mall could send me into a yelling spree that melted into tears. I was a hot mess. I went to see the doctor and that’s when I learned I had a severe hormonal imbalance. The doctor’s “fix” was to take the synthetic hormone birth control I was already taking and to skip the placebo week, thereby taking hormone 24/7 with no breaks and no period. I did this for nearly 7 years, folks. 7 years with no normal cycle and an overabundance of synthetic hormones, masking all the stuff that was brewing underneath. No one asked the question: Why is this all happening? All of my care providers were just helping me to silence the symptoms with medication.
I came off of birth control at 31 years of age so I could become pregnant with my first child. Things seemed to be okay but I was noticing some erratic tendencies with my mood. I would have episodes of foreboding or anxiousness. I thought it was just my busy lifestyle. But after the birth of my second son in 2010, I fell into an immediate, severe postpartum anxiety. And nothing the doctors were offering me was helping. I took five different medications in four different combinations over a period of six months and NOTHING helped. It only got worse, if I’m being honest. That’s when I decided it was time to figure this thing out a different way. I decided to dive into the holistic world of health and healing.
Long story short, I began a journey to wellness by drastically changing my diet, taking targeted supplements and prioritizing QUALITY sleep every single night. I also made sure to move my body every single day. I prayed and I worked on my mindset. Over the course of about 12 months, I climbed out of the pit. I stabilized. But I wasn’t 100% better. I had simply found a livable plateau.
In 2014 I lost my mother to stage 4, metastatic lung cancer. It was horrific. At the same time, I was going through health coaching school as a new mama to my third son, and I was also experiencing some personal struggles as I pastored our church family. Being under so much pressure while trying to love people well and maintaining good boundaries is a tricky, difficult thing, and while I was “getting through,” I was cracking. I dropped down to 113 pounds. People thought I was either doing it on purpose or that I had an eating disorder. Neither was true. The truth was, I was experiencing a FLARE.
I wound up in my gastro’s office that year where she would write me up to begin diagnostic testing to CONFIRM Crohn’s disease. Preliminary tests had all but confirmed it. At the same time, the panic attacks I had experienced five years prior came back with a VENGEANCE. Daily. I was slipping away. And as I sat in that doctor’s office, I knew I was going to have to fight for myself again. I took the prescriptions and the suggested protocols and I put them in a drawer and I said to myself, “Let’s wait and see on that.”
So when I went on my journey to learn about essential oils, my surface reason was to expand the services of my fledgling business, but my real reason was that I really needed a tool that could support me through my renewed effort to regain my health.
I am required by law to tell you that no essential oil or product that Young Living offers can treat, prevent or cure a disease condition. I’m not allowed to tell you that oils and drugs are the same. That’s okay because I do not believe they are. They are very different. But when I say that I used essential oils as a tool to claw my way out of a terrible flare and tail-spin in 2015, it might be construed that I’m saying essential oils healed me. They did not. But they certainly supported my body as my body naturally searched for the healing it knew it had somewhere deep down inside. I believe they helped my body to remember.
???? I began using lavender and cedarwood diffused to help me get my sleep back on track. I eventually found my “unicorn oil,” Rutavala (a Young Living blend), that wound up being the very best support for sleep that I’d ever experienced. I still use it daily, to this day.
???? I found AromaEase and Digize (both Young Living blends) to help support my digestive system while I was doing #allthethings with diet and supplements to try to get it back on track. I didn’t like the smell, but I sure did love the support these oils provided to me. I later learned about the power of combining peppermint and lemongrass in a carrier and rolling it on my lower abdomen to quell bloating and gas. What a blessing this was to me!
???? I learned about a study that tested a diffusion blend of essential oils on rats to see how it would compare to benzodiazepines when the rats were put through a stress test. The study showed that the essential oil diffusion blend had tested better than the medication for the rats. I began to diffuse a combo of Ylang Ylang, Lavender and Bergamot. I called it my Chill Blend. And chill me out, it did.
There’s so much more I could share with you, but I will simply say that essential oils became a trusted tool in my quest for natural wellness when that flare tried to take me out again. It took about 12 months to get things stabilized, but when all was said and done, I was a complete proponent of essential oils to help support health and wellness during any season of life. I’m a believer. I’ll never be without essential oils in my home (or my purse).
Some ask me if essential oils were the THING that healed me. I always say no. I know that my body knows how to balance and heal itself if given the right tools and time to do so. Essential oils became, for me, a beautiful complement and support for a body that was simply having a bit of a go in a moment trying to find balance.
I haven’t had a flare since and I’ve experienced only increased wellness since then. Is it the oils? I can’t say that definitively, but because I’ve experienced their effects, I’m certain that I wouldn’t want to go through a flare without them. They work. And that’s why I’m still here as an avid Young Living member and advocate.
Are you ready to try essential oils for yourself? If you’re not yet a Young Living member and are looking for a community to learn from and walk with on the journey, I’d love to help you. Here are a few ways to get started . . .
* If you’d like to grab a premium starter kit today that includes all the basics you need, go here: [Starter Kit Membership] As soon as I see you added to the team, I’ll send you an email with information to get started, as well as a Welcome Kit in the mail. In addition to a diffuser and oils, you’ll also receive 24% off retail prices on all future purchases plus membership in my online oily chat and education group, The Oiliversity. Let’s do this!
* If you’re feeling like you need to try something first, I hear ya! That’s how I was in the beginning. If that’s you, simply email me with your address and I’ll send you out a Seven Sample Pack of 7 of the basic essential oils that come in the kit, along with instructions on how to use them over the next 7 days. Then I’ll follow up with you to see how it went!
* Or maybe you feel like you need to learn a bit more before you do anything. That’s okay! I want to encourage you to come on over to Facebook and like my page, Beacon Essentials, where I have a bunch of education videos around essential oils and various topics. Here’s a class on the Basics of Essential Oils that I just posted recently.
Now join me in the comments! Where are you on the essential oils journey?
+ show Comments
- Hide Comments
add a comment