Nickie’s Nook: Oils and Books

This year, my friend encouraged me to come up with a word for the year. I’ve never done that before, but the more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it. When I thought about what I wanted for my life this year, I felt that my goal was to build a vibrant, thriving life. While I’ve made some huge changes in my life over the last five years and my life is definitely better than it has been in a while, I want more. I want to do more than just cope and exist. I want to have a more full life. After some soul searching and brainstorming to come up with the right word to describe what I wanted, I finally found it. I want to THRIVE!

When I say that, I have several things in mind. I want to flourish. I want a variety of positive things in my life and I want to be able to see my life as more than just managing my health and existing.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying I have a horrible life. In fact, my life is better and more full than it has been for many years. I’m finally living independently and have made many positive changes in my life. I’m working toward getting a job. My pain is in more control than it has been in over 10 years. I’m finding fun and pleasure playing with essential oils, crystals and so many other things. That said, I still want more. I want to look at my life and see that I’m living fully. Without beating a dead horse, let’s just say that I want to live a life that’s more in line with my age. I want life to be more than just managing my chronic illnesses and disabilities.

So I started thinking about what it would mean to be thriving and what support I needed to feel supported enough to get to the point of thriving.

As I did that, I discovered that I’d already created a roller bottle blend that could support me in my quest to thrive. I’d designed it based purely on aroma about one month before January 1st, so I look at this as a sign that my word is an inspired choice.

As always, when I come upon a good blend that supports me, I can’t stay silent. So here’s what I found to support me in thriving.

If you don’t have access to essential oils, I’ve included links to the oils. If you can’t get them for yourself, I hope the information about the oils and their emotional properties will give you some ideas of what you might focus on to support yourself in your thriving journey.

Thrive Roller Recipe

• 14 drops osmanthus touch
• 12 drops magnolia Touch
• 8 drops wild orange
• 6 drops lime
• 4 drops bergamot
• 2 drops Blue Tansy
• 2 drops sandalwood
• 2 drops Madagascar Vanilla
• 1 10ml roller bottle
• Carrier oil such as fractionated coconut or jojoba oil

Directions

Add all essential oils to the roller bottle. Top off with carrier oil, making sure to leave enough empty space for the roller ball. Place the roller ball on top and push down, making sure it’s tightly sealed. Add lid and shake or swirl the bottle to mix the oils and carrier oil.

Ideally, the oils would have at least 24 hours to marry, but I can never wait that long. Roll the oils onto your pulse points and enjoy the fruity goodness!

The Benefits Behind the Blend

Let’s take a deeper look at the oils I used and why each of them is part of my journey towards thriving. Each oil’s property is either something I need to help support me while working on building my life worth living full of thriving or is part of my definition of a thriving-filled life.

Blue Tansy: Inspired Action

Building a full life I’d define as “thriving” means taking action, but not just any action. It means taking action that is positive and builds a better life. It’s not easy to make changes. Actually it takes a lot of effort.

Taking action can mean so many things. It can be a one time thing, like back in the summer of 2022 when I made my first call to our state rehabilitation agency for blind people to start on the path I’m on to become a peer support specialist. It can also be a daily or even minute by minute thing like focussing on learning to pace myself so that I’ll ultimately be able to do more. It can also be trying to build healthy habits like exercising and doing affirmations. Either way, making changes and taking action is hard. Blue Tansy is a great oil to support taking inspired action. That’s positive action that really matters.

madagascar Vanilla: Unfolding

I never need an excuse to add vanilla to a blend. I originally created this blend without vanilla and it was nice enough, but adding vanilla gave the blend an extra touch of beauty and fullness. Vanilla is the oil of unfolding. Think of the term of unfolding as finding joy and awe in life. Vanilla can also promote creativity. We all engage in some form of creativity. It might be writing painting, writing music or doing some other form of art, but it doesn’t have to be an art form to be creativity. My Dad is very creative in how he tackles problems and the way he messes with the lyrics of songs on the radio. For others, creativity might show up as playing with ingredients of recipes. However you do it, expressing creativity creates a more full life. Basically, vanilla brings together seeing the awe and beauty in life.

Sandalwood: Sacred Devotion and Grounding

For me, sacred devotion is aimed at God. For others, it might be the Universe, Mother Earth or Source. Whatever it is, many people have something they believe in that’s bigger than themselves. Believing in something bigger helps us whenever we’re struggling and gives us purpose. For me, knowing that God has my back and a plan makes a huge difference when things get tough. It also means that I have a sense of purpose and someone bigger I’m devoted to.

Bergamot: Self-Acceptance

Self-acceptance means I accept and love myself for who I am. I don’t have to be different to accept myself. It doesn’t mean I stop making positive changes in my life, but it does mean that even when there’s something I don’t like, I can accept it as part of myself. I don’t hate myself for things that aren’t ideal. So many of us have things about us that we wish were different. It could be our bodies (for some that’s their weight), for me, it’s my pain. I also wish I didn’t deal with depression. Accepting those things means I don’t judge myself for them. That’s incredibly helpful and important for my sense of self-worth.

Wild-Orange: Abundance

wild Orange is the oil of abundance. Its cheerful scent makes you want to smile. Recognizing the positive things in life and bringing more positivity into your life is something orange encourages.

Lime: Zest for Life

Zest for life is finding an enjoyment of life. In some ways, I find lime to be as cheerful as orange, but it’s a bit sweeter. It’s almost like zest for life, finding joy in the sweetness of life. Lime can also be cleansing physically and emotionally.

Magnolia: Compassion

Making positive changes and trying to build a thriving life is hard. I’ve often found that when I try to make changes, I feel pressured by myself and others. For example, thriving requires me to take positive steps and work toward a more positive view of my life. When dealing with depression, it’s hard to work on your attitude. Some people need a swift kick in the pants to make those positive changes, but I’m more able to make those changes when receiving compassion and gentleness. Magnolia feels like a gentle hug or warm blanket to me. I often apply it to my heart when I need a hug. Adding that compassion gives me the kindness and freedom I need to move at my own pace.

Because Magnolia touch comes in a 10ml pre-diluted roller bottle, you’ll need a dropper or pipette. You’ll remove the roller ball to get access to suck up the oil and add the correct number of drops.

Osmanthus: Gentleness

Osmanthus touch isn’t usually available from Doterra, but it’s an oil I love. You’ll most commonly find it during special sales like bogo or convention kit sales. It’s a fruity smelling oil. Like Magnolia, it’s very gentle and promotes gentleness as a whole. I love adding it to a blend to make the blend sweeter.

I added Osmanthus originally for the smell, but it’s great for the purposes of creating a thriving life. thriving means making positive changes which is hard. It’s important to remember to be gentle as we make changes. Some people like to motivate people with a swift kick in the butt, but I find gentleness much more helpful as I’m doing things I find difficult or frightening.

Like with Magnolia Osmanthus Touch comes in a 10ml pre-diluted roll-on bottle. You’ll use a pipette to suck up the oil after removing the roller.

The Thrive Blend as a Whole

When I try to describe what the thrive blend is like as a whole, it’s very hard to do. it’s very cheerful in nature, but because of the floral and woody notes, it’s also calming and grounding. Citrus oils like lime and orange are cheerful and can be energizing, so when I used them on their own, I’d sometimes find myself going from sad and unmotivated to over-energized and anxious. Thrive has a nice balance because of the calming floral notes of magnolia and osmanthus, the soothing and comforting effects of vanilla and the grounding notes of sandalwood.

Emotionally, it’s uplifting due to the citrus oils of lime, orange and bergamot. Blue Tansy has a strong aroma I can’t describe, and it provokes a strong emotional response of making positive changes. The vanilla and sandalwood are calming and grounding. Finally, the addition of Magnolia and Osmanthus provide a lot of compassion and gentleness.

Sources

The information on emotional effects and properties of the oils comes from the book Essential Emotions 12th Edition. It can be purchased in print and electronic formats or found as an app for your smartphone.