Aroma with Meditation: Exploring Essential Oils and Mindfulness for a Balanced Life

Are you seeking serenity amidst the chaos of your city life? Ever wondered how a connection to nature could foster a profound sense of presence? Embrace solace in the form of essential oils, your gateway to grounding and balance. I'm Nid, and I'll walk you through how to use an aroma diffuser to unlock the power of essential oils. We'll explore Ylang-Ylang for its balance and harmony, and the three "Jesus oils" - Sandalwood, Frankincense, and Myrrh - each offering their unique benefits. We'll also dive into the tradition of fire for transmutation and the water element as reminders of the states of flow.

Next, we'll harmonize the power of essential oils with the So Hum mantra in a breathing meditation practice. Let the aromatic oils and the rhythm of your breath guide you into a deeper presence. If visualization feels overwhelming, take a step back and bask in the serenity of the oils and your breath. Our journey together aims to help you connect with the present moment and understand the visceral feeling of true presence. Ready to explore more? Unearth additional ways to enhance your mindfulness practices, live healthily, and joyfully by joining our Body Life Sanctuary membership. Let's journey towards a more present and balanced life!

Read more about these essential oils and the practice at the blog https://www.nidsnidra.com/blog/essential-oils-for-presence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:52

Welcome. I'm Nid, a karma guide, which means that I support you through how to make changes in your life so that you can feel more aligned, more vital and just enjoy life in general in practical, simple and fun ways that are part of how you live your daily life. In this video, we are going to be looking at the use of essential oils to deepen your practice into becoming more present, and we will be using a breathing meditation practice, which also can include the mantra so hum, which means I am. Often, if you live in a very busy world, very busy environment, especially if you're somewhere like a city, it can be really hard to get those benefits of connecting to nature that we often talk about, which can help you feel more present and grounded and connected to all that is outside. Essential oils can be a really beautiful way to help you to come into the present, to calm yourself down, feel more centered and connected to the very moment that you're in. So in this practice, we are going to be using potentially up to four essential oils and I'm going to use it through a just gentle water diffuser. You could have an electric one if that works for you, but I'm going to use one with a candle, because I love having the tradition of fire for transmutation and the water element as well for reminding us the states of flow. So I light my candle and I'm going to set up my diffuser Now. This can be something you want to have close by when you're coming to do your practice. Sometimes people wear bracelets with the volcano, the lava beads, on them, and you can put the essential oils on there and then you can smell it. You could even have it hanging and let it spray. You can get the little hand sprays now as well that can spray and diffuse the oil into your environment, and the essential oils that we're choosing today to help us come into being more present is number one Alang-a-lang. Alang-a-lang is really beautiful for helping create balance, for bringing us into that harmonious and more centered state, and I'm going to say that the amounts that I'm putting in are to do with these brands of essential oils. Different brands will smell a little bit different, and so you don't necessarily want to do exactly what someone says with essential oils, because your brand might be slightly different, the age of the oil might be slightly different. Think of it a bit like a fine wine Essential oils are different depending on when and how they've been harvested and the quality of the grow as well. So always give it a smell before you put anything into your diffuser so that you've got a sense of how much you might want to put in.

Speaker 1: 4:05

I'm going to go for this is my base oil. So I'm going to go for six, two, three, four, five, six little drops and then I've got the three Jesus oils here. We've got sandalwood, frankincense and myrrh. Now you could choose which ones of these you would like to use. You don't have to use all of them to go with.

Speaker 1: 4:30

The alang-alang Myrrh, I find, is a subtler smell. It's not as strong as using sandalwood or frankincense, but it's incredibly centering and stilling. So it can be really useful if we're feeling like there's many things going on around us. And I'm just going to pop in two. It's a much thicker, more viscous oil, so it doesn't need so much. It means it's obviously going to be probably also a heavier note, so it'd be one of the earlier smells that we might sorry, one of the later smells that we might discover. With the frankincense, this has a lower threshold for heat, so it will burn off earlier in the smell. So it's often considered more of like a mid to high note, so you'd smell it first as it burns earlier and then wears off. So this will give you more of an instant smell. Again, I'm just going to go for two drops here, three so that we get that earlier, earlier hit of frankincense to help open and connect to awareness, open and connect to higher states. And then finally we've got our sandalwoods. This is more of our midway between the frankincense and the myrrh and this is going to be a real leveler, a little bit like the langa lang, but it's more connected to those spiritual realms, those higher energies. And sandalwood can be a bit slower to come out in the dropper but again, we're looking for two of those drops. Maybe you might want a little more sandalwood, but be conservative with sandalwood because it is over farmed and we want to make sure that we're not using too much. And then for our practice, we are going to be using the Sohum Mantra today to help us with coming into that.

Speaker 1: 6:44

I am presence. If you'd like to add in a visualization, you're more than welcome to and I will instruct for that option. But if you can, finding a comfortable seat nearby your beautiful blend of smells that works for you and let your eyes either look down to a soft point in front of your body, about two foot in front, or let your eyes rest closed. Begin by just being really aware of your breathing, trying to breathe in the aroma and letting it breathe out. As you breathe in, you may inhale from your tail up to the middle of the mind as a visual, and exhale down from the middle of the mind to the base of the tailbone and use the smells of the oils, of the aroma, to immerse yourself in this rhythm of your breathing up and down your spine. And if the visualization is too many layers, just focus on your breathing, inhaling and exhaling with the smells of the oils. And you have the option with the mantra to set in your mind where you can also say it out aloud as you inhale up the spine, we sing so and as we go down the front of the spine, hum Say hum.

Speaker 1: 10:04

Should the mantra or the visualization become overwhelming, just come back to focusing on the smells of the essential oils, on your inhale and on your exhale. And as you increase your familiarity with this practice of so hum, you may find that using the essential oils as you take your practice can start to take you deeper, deeper into the presence of the practice, deeper into the visceral feeling of what it is to be present, deeper into the presence of the essential oils and releasing the mantra and visualization. When you're ready and you can use both your essential oils and this mantra at any time, that supports you best. If you'd love to discover more about essential oils or more about how it is that you can deepen your practice of being present, then check out the body life sanctuary, which is our membership area, which each month, we explore different aspects of how we can be more well in our living and our enjoyment of life without the overwhelm, in bite sized chunks based around themes that we can incorporate into our daily lives. Have a most wonderful week, much love.