Did you know that every emotion you experience can be linked to a physical response in your body?
🤯 Mind-blowing, I know.
The reasoning is found in the limbic system within your brain.
The limbic system is the part of the brain that involves the behaviors and emotions that we need for survival, like feeding, sex, caring for children, and our fight or flight responses.
👉 When we feel an emotion-based from fear, happiness, sadness, anger, love, guilt, peace/calm, and stress, our limbic system sends hormones through our body and we have a physical response.
Let’s dive into the mind-body connection and how we can use essential oils to assist us with those emotions.
Everyone responds differently to different emotions…but there are underlying themes that each type of emotion exhibits. In order to get to the heart of the matter and understand what underlying emotion is happening when we clench our jaw or puff out our chest (anger for example), we want to tune in and recognize what our body is doing at that exact moment when we become emotional.
We can do this for each emotion we experience as emotions manifest into physical indicators.
Reflect for a minute: What is your GO TO emotion when you are triggered? Anger? Stress? Anxiety? Laughter? Peace? What is the GO TO emotion for your child who struggles with an invisible disability?
We all have the same base or root emotions:
😤 Anger
😱 Fear
😞 Stress
🥺 Guilt
🤗 Happiness
😥 Sadness
😍 Love
😌 Peace
Each of these root emotions shares associated emotions.
👉For example, love. Love has associated emotions like passionate, forgiving, fondness, empathetic, or caring & kindness. These emotions carry the same root. When we are looking for an essential oil to help us feel or combat a certain emotion, we need to describe the associated emotions, dig deeper to the root emotion, to peel back why we feel the way we do.
Our associated emotions and root emotions can all drive physical indicators. We can not only emotionally feel anger, for example, but we can physically feel it too. That is how strong the mind-body connection can be.
Let’s break down the physical indicators of several basic emotions and what you can feel due to the root emotion.
FEAR
😨😨😨Fear can be present when you feel anxious, prideful, judgmental, jealous, over-controlling, weak, or unsafe. Fear often triggers the fight or flight response which is why the associated emotions are on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Our breathing may become shallow or rapid, we have an increased heart rate, we have sweaty palms or feet, we can experience butterflies, or we can have clenching in our throats, chest, or stomach.
When we interpret the physical indicators of fear, we need to look deeper at what is causing that fear response.
There are varying levels of fear. Some can cause general worry and some can leave you paralyzed.
Essential oils can help calm our emotions.
You can create a roller or diffuser blend out of the following oils to support those feelings:
✅ Wild Orange
✅ Geranium
✅ Lavender
✅ Juniper Berry
✅ Clary Sage
✅ Frankincense
Choose one or two oils, from the list above, combine equal amounts (5-10 drops) of each in a roller bottle. Then top of with fractionated coconut oil.
For those times when it feels like there is a “monster in the closet”, whip up a bottle of Monster Spray with equal amounts of Wild Orange, Frankincense, and Lavender. Top with distilled water, in a spray bottle, and spray at bedtime. This can be sprayed on a pillow, in the room, or topically on the body. (Avoid direct sunlight when using topically on the body. Citrus oils are photosensitive and may cause blistering on the skin when exposed to direct sunlight.)
Journaling is a great way to work through our emotions. With each emotion, you will find a journal prompt with a diffuser blend to support that emotion. Follow the prompt for yourself and journal for your child. Journaling for your child will help you figure out the root of their struggles and how you can best support them as they learn to control their emotions.
Grab a pen and journal, your favorite diffuser, and let's write about fear.
Fear can often be misconstrued as bad. I like to think of it as a gut instinct. Fear keeps me alive. I believe that fear keeps me on my toes, but I don’t want fear to consume my life or cause me not to enjoy life to the fullest. That is one way that you may respond to this root emotion.
✍️ Fear Journal Prompt:
Can Fear be a good thing? Explain.
What is something you fear?
Why do you fear it?
What physical responses occur when you feel fear?
Diffuser blend: 2 drops Juniper Berry, 3 drops Cypress, drops Lavender
ANGER
Anger can show its face through frustration, irritability, resentfulness, and even hate.😡😡😡
When you are displaying anger, you may feel your body tighten up, you may clench your jaw or your fists, you may physically feel hot and a warming sensation may overcome your body. Anger can also cause you to sweat, your body to shake, and your blood pressure and heart rate to rise. You really start to feel that adrenaline pumping.
As we recognize the physical indicators of anger, we need to look deeper into what emotions we are feeling. What caused the anger? Is the anger caused because you are masking something like fear or sadness?
When you are angry do you activate fight or flight?
You feel it bubbling inside of you. Your adrenaline spikes. Your breaths quicken. Your face flushes. You are mad. Try as we might, we don’t want to fly off the handle when something upsets us.
The good news is you can create a roller or diffuser blend out of the following oils to support those feelings:
✅ Breathe
✅ Cardamon
✅ Forgive
✅ Ylang Ylang
✅ Myrrh
✅ Siberian Fir
✅ Peace
When I find myself frustrated and angry, I take a drop of Breathe (respiratory blend) in my hands, rub my hands together, cup, and take deep breaths in and out until I am calm.
Grab a pen and journal, your favorite diffuser, and let's write about anger.
✍️ Anger can be a hard thing to journal about. We don’t want the emotions with what we are journaling to activate and come back to the surface; but as we journal and dig deeper into understanding our anger, we are more equipped to approach it.
📓 Anger Journal Prompt: When do you notice anger the most? What triggers this feeling? For example: if you find yourself becoming angry at work or home, think about the specific reasons for the response. Now, take this one step further and journal about your child. What triggers your child’s anger? How are you able to help your child become calm? Are you able to remove the triggers for your child’s anger? What technique can you use to teach your child ways to calm themselves and be aware of when the anger is starting to bubble?
Diffuser blend: 3 drops Forgive, 2 drops Siberian Fir
When you journal about these emotions it will help you to process these emotions in a healthy way!
HAPPINESS
Happiness can come in many forms: contentment, joy, positivity, and excitement. When you are happy, you may experience a warm glow, deeper breaths, and increased energy.
Many factors can affect your mood:
Not getting quality sleep
Stress
General Health
Relationships
Toxic Overload
Poor Diet/ Gut Health
Not getting enough movement
Little sunshine or time outside
Sometimes, it can be extremely hard to change your mood. If only it was as easy as flipping a switch!
Through daily movement, cleaning up gut health, incorporating essential oils, and limiting sugar, I have noticed that the happiness levels in my entire family stabilized.
If you are struggling to find happiness, or want to feel more content and vibrant, here are the top oils that elicit happiness:
✅ Citrus Bliss
✅ Cheer
✅ Lime
✅ Lemon
✅ Grapefruit
✅ Peppermint
✅ Madagascar Vanilla
✅ Ylang Ylang
Try putting 3 drops of Citrus Bliss and 2 drops of Madagascar Vanilla in the diffuser.
✍️ Grab a pen and journal, your favorite diffuser, and let's write about happiness.
When writing about happiness, lean into gratitude. When we realize how many blessings we are surrounded with, it sparks a light that fills us with happiness.
📓 Happiness Journal Prompt: Who are the people in my life that mean the most to me? My favorite memory of them is… This journal prompt would be a great conversation piece at the dinner table to help teach children the joy of gratitude.
Diffuser blend: 3 drops Citrus Bliss, 2 drops Lime, 1 drop Vanilla
SADNESS
Sadness is a complex emotion. It can be caused by loss, grief, or loneliness. Sometimes we pull ourselves into sadness when we are overly taxed and stressed out.
When you are sad you may feel a heaviness in your chest, a knot in your throat, extreme fatigue, and you probably want to cry until your eyes are dry.😭😭😭
The beauty of sadness is feeling it wave through your body, and processing through it. This is extremely healing to what is coming up to be healed or grieved.
When feeling a little low, try rolling Console on pulse points, Rose over the heart, and put 3 drops each of Breathe and Citrus Bliss into a diffuser. Laying under a weighted blanket may also help, especially with children.
Oils that are beneficial to support sad feelings are:
✅ Breathe
✅ Citrus Bliss
✅ Rose
✅ Hope
✅ Console
✅ Ylang Ylang
✅ Eucalyptus
✅ Peppermint
✅ Siberian Fir
Grab a pen and journal, your favorite diffuser, and let's write about sadness.
No one truly enjoys being sad, most humans try to escape their feelings of sadness. Sadness can often manifest into anger and fear. Journaling to better understand why you are sad and what you need while feeling that emotion can help you process it better.
📓 Sadness Journal Prompt: When I am sad, I need more of… I need less of…
Diffuser blend: 3 drops Ylang Ylang, 3 drops Siberian Fir, 1 drop Geranium
LOVE
❤️ Love is a set of emotions and behaviors often characterized by passion, intimacy, and commitment. It involves trust, attraction, closeness, protectiveness, and care. We have different types of love for different people in our lives that elicit different associated emotions.
We have friendships, infatuations, passion, compassion, and unrequited love. We have love for our children, parents, siblings, and friends.
When we feel love for another being, we are often filled with warmth, our heartbeats faster leading to increased blood flow.
When you are feeling blissful and in love with your life, it's a beautiful idea to root that emotion with an essential oil blend.
Oils that are beneficial for love:
✅ Passion
✅ Serenity
✅ Lavender
✅ Rose
✅ Neroli
✅ Jasmine
✅ Align
✅ Grapefruit
Try a blend of Jasmine and Grapefruit to center yourself in love. Place a drop of each in your palms and inhale deeply.
Grab a pen and journal, your favorite diffuser, and let's write about love.
Ahhh, love. When you are in love and enveloped by it, you can really feel it. When love is harder to find or someone doesn’t understand how we show our love and receive feelings of love, we can often replace love with sadness or stress.
📓 Love Journal Prompt: When I love someone, I express it by… When someone loves me, I want them to express it by.
Diffuser blend: 1 drop Rose (optional), 3 drops Align, 2 drops Bergamot Mint
STRESS
Stress can be HEAVY.
We feel it in our necks and shoulders (hello tension). 😖 Generally, when we are stressed, we can lose focus, get headaches, have a rapid heartbeat, and engage in poor sleeping or eating habits.
Stress can come from being generally overwhelmed, not feeling as supported as we should be, burnt out, or feeling like we are being controlled.
Stress can start to mimic other root emotions based on your fight or flight response. You can become angry, sad, or fearful.
When feeling stressed, there are several oils to try based on what you are personally drawn to at that moment:
✅ Copaiba
✅ Wild Orange
✅ Adaptiv
✅ Frankincense
✅ Balance
✅ Citrus Bloom
Each of these oils supports relaxing and calming. Try using them in a bath to help ease the stress and tension, apply 1-2 drops topically, or put in a diffuser to create a sense of calm through the room.
Mix 2 cups Epsom Salts, ½ cup baking soda, 3 drops Frankincense, 3 drops Adaptiv, and 2 drops Wild Orange. Once mixed, add the salts to the bath and I soak for 20 minutes. You can also make shower melts or add these oils to your favorite body wash.
Grab a pen and journal, your favorite diffuser, and let's write about stress.
Stress can physically manifest itself in some of the worst ways. Migraines. Tight muscles. Sore back. Jaw soreness. Stress can be caused by so many things in our lives.
📓 Stress Journal Prompt: Write everything down that is worrying you or causing stress in your life. Rip up the page and throw it away (or burn it if you are a daredevil). Reflect on how releasing that made you feel.
Diffuser blend: 4 drops Adaptiv, 2 drops Tangerine
GUILT
The Very Well Mind describes guilt as a “self-conscious emotion that involves negative evaluations of the self, feelings of distress, and feelings of failure”. We often hold guilt when we feel we have wronged someone, and we aren’t sure what we need to do or say.
When we feel guilt, we can have knots or butterflies in our stomachs, head tension, and pain in our lower abdomen.
👉 Oftentimes, we are looking for forgiveness outside of ourselves, but when we realize that true forgiveness comes from within, we release any blame, shame, or guilt.
Guilt stems from us not being able to forgive ourselves for our mistakes or wrongdoings. Forgive Touch is a great blend to support releasing feelings of guilt. Roll it over wrists and heart.
Other oils for dealing with guilt are:
✅ Copaiba
✅ Bergamot
✅ Lemon
✅ Arborvitae
✅ Juniper Berry
✅ Peppermint
✅ Forgive
✅ Citrus Bloom
Grab a pen and journal, your favorite diffuser, and let's write about guilt.
Guilt comes to us when we perform an action that can negatively impact someone else. Do we take ownership over it? Do you feel responsible for something that has happened?
📓 Guilt Journal Prompt: In what ways has your guilt had a positive influence on you? How did you use it in a constructive manner? How can you teach your children to respond in a healthy way to guilt?
Diffuser blend: 2 drops Copaiba, 2 drops Peppermint, 2 drops Bergamot
PEACE
When you are at peace you feel calm, patient, content, present, and grounded. Your pulse and breathing are steady, and your muscles are relaxed.
Feeling at peace creates stability in areas of your life like work, relationships, family, and friendships. When you are in a peaceful state you feel calm, relaxed, and safe. Even when you are stressed, you feel protected by this sense of peace.
Ideas to help ground yourself:
- Step outside barefoot in the grass and connect with the Earth
- Daily scripture reading and prayer
- Meditation
- Yoga and stretching exercises
During overwhelming moments, try these oils to feel more peaceful:
✅ Peace
✅ Align
✅ Balance
✅ Serenity
✅ Roman Chamomile
✅ Frankincense
✅ Patchouli
✅ Copaiba
✅ Lavender
✅ Wild Orange
Take a drop of Align and a drop of Wild Orange in your hands, rub together, cup, and take 3-5 deep breaths in through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Rub the rest over your heart and on the back of your neck.
Grab a pen and journal, your favorite diffuser, and let's write about peace and calm.
Inner peace or a holistic feeling of calm in your center is an ideal feeling. To me, peace is a lazy Sunday afternoon in the late spring. The dishes are done. The house is clean. I can take a nap. I just feel centered. Others meditate or exercise to feel peace. What is your ideal?
📓 Peace/ Calm Journal Prompt: I feel most peaceful when… What do I need to forgive myself for?
Diffuser blend: 4 drops Peace, 2 drops Copaiba
One last journal prompt for you.
📓 Journal Prompt: Today, I am grateful that my mind and body are one, are whole, because…
Understanding and learning about our mind and body connection can be hard. We have to face emotions that we do not necessarily want to bring to light. Celebrate discovering how these basic emotions affect you and your children. The more you know, the more you are able to bring peace and calm to the chaos of raising children with invisible disabilities.
👉 For more information on using essential oils to support your family’s health,
and effectively, and how to purchase the best quality for the best price.