It’s that time of year again, beautiful friends. It’s fall,
the time when Florida
officially dips below one hundred degrees. It’s autumn, the time when you can
bring your babies out to the local blueberry farms and pumpkin patches. It’s
time for pumpkin spice lattes (my personal favorite), Hans Solo outfits, and
lots and lots of flannel. It’s officially my favorite time of year and also,
the time for seasonal sicknesses, y’all.
I literally don’t know what’s been going on in my house. It
seems like we’re just passing sicknesses around like a peace pipe. One day it’s
me, the next day it’s my daughter, and then soon it affects my husband and
practically everyone he works with. I’ve been pumping Emergen-C and Thrive
Boost packets like it’s my job and it just doesn’t seem to matter. With this
glorious weather change seems to come all kinds of funky illnesses. Am I right?
I’m not really the person who gets sick often. In fact, my
super macho husband seems to be the one who has the weaker immune system.
(Imagine that, if you will. Maybe it’s from all my years in child care, retail
and the child safety system.) I actually haven’t been officially “sick” since
about 2012, when I was working at Victoria ’s
Secret and I had bronchitis AND the flu at the same time. That was super fun. Although I did read like six true crime books
that week; one of them being Helter
Skelter. So I would say it was a pretty productive week.
But while I never get sick,
per say, I have a lot of days of not feeling well. And I try to do the mind
over matter thing because I can’t just spend my life not feeling good, right?
But sometimes, I get migraines for days. Sometimes no matter what I eat, it
bothers me. And sometimes the air is just disgusting and I have a hard time
breathing. (I never been tested officially for asthma, if there even is a test
for that, but it was just the common thought that I had it throughout my life.
And because of that, I spend the majority of my life hating smokers and envying
people who can just breathe easily in any situation.)
And on those [multitude] of days when I don’t feel well, I
do this thing that drives my husband insane. And it’s really only because I
seriously can’t help it.
I say, over and over again, that I don’t feel well. I know
it’s annoying AF, you guys. But something about saying it out loud helps to
alleviate what I’m feeling. I also have this theory that if I should die
mysteriously during a nap or in the middle of the night, I want someone to be
able to say, “Well, she said she wasn’t feeling well.” I don’t want them to be
plagued with the fact that “nothing was wrong”.
Morbid, I know. I have this sick fascination with death.
Remember the true crime novels? I’m just trying to be practical, really.
The fact that we are
living does not mean we are not sick. –Joseph Brodsky
So I have this super cute, hippie girlfriend who lives
across the street from me. I’ve mentioned her recently because now she’s my new
yoga partner. But for those of you who don’t know, she is a wellness advocate
and natural living guru who just literally stuns me with her knowledge. I feel
like I get smarter just listening to her talk and honestly, maybe it’s her
general aura or the fact that she lives a really
healthy life, but I can literally breathe easier around her.
Well, because of said extensive knowledge about living
naturally and organically (which is basically my one goal in life: to live healthfully and naturally), my little girlfriend across the street has become my
resident “witch doctor”. I literally text with every ailment my family has.
She’s sort of like the Think Dirty app if it were a person. She literally knows
so much about food, essential oils, exercises, and how to avoid everyday
carcinogens so I can’t help but text her with a question every three seconds.
Poor thing is probably going to change her number and move
out of my neighborhood soon…
With every complaint, ailment or sickness that I had, she
would swing by and leave a sample of the oils she sells in the crevice of my
front door. She would tell me the various benefits of whatever oil she dropped
off and then would tell me the best way to use it. At first, I’ll be honest,
even though I’m all about the healthy, natural, and very organic lifestyle, I
was kind of like, “ehhhh, okay, I’ll try it.” Because to be fair, I’ll try
anything once but I wasn’t entirely sold.
I wasn’t entirely sold because it’s hard to believe that
something naturally derived can enable
your body to heal itself.
So I started small. She gave me a bunch of samples to help
with digestion and stomach problems (of which I have many, regrettably) and
this one roll-on she gave me literally seemed to help almost immediately. At
first I was thinking it was psychosomatic; I liked her so much that I wanted to
support her business as she had previously supported mine. I wanted it to work, so it “worked”. But
then I tried it over and over again and you know something?
It did work.
Then I started taking people up on their suggestion that
peppermint helped migraines. I’ve been told this forever, you guys. But I was
never super keen on straight peppermint flavored tea and I had to stay away
from it when I was breastfeeding. But you know what? That worked too.
So I gave some of the other oils that she gave me to sample
a try. And sure it wasn’t overnight. It wasn’t even immediate. But I noticed a
difference.
Fast forward to when we started going to yoga together. I
think I mentioned this in my yoga blog but I’ll say it again because it
matters. And I like to repeat myself. My hippie neighbor/witch doctor/health
guru/yoga partner gave me a sample of this awesome oil that I think was called
Motivate before our yoga class. “What’s this for?” I smirked at her. “It will
help you get motivated for this class and really get the most out of it.”
Sure, sure, I
thought to myself. But you know what? It really did. Maybe it was the ninety
plus degree room, maybe it was the fact that my kid wasn’t around, or maybe it was
the fact that it was my first workout in a long time but I noticed a really
clear, alertness that I didn’t have before.
Moral of the Crazy: I’ve
always had a really intense sense of smell. It’s nothing to do with hormones or
having a baby; it’s just who I am. In fact, a friend of mine once told me that
he had virtually no sense of smell but when he was around me, he always inhaled
this intoxicating fragrance. “Probably because I’m a scent Nazi,” I had joked.
But since I learned that all things scented are severely
harmful, I’ve removed basically everything from my home that smells good and I
wear next to nothing with fragrances unless I’m going somewhere fancy and then
it’s Burberry. Because as I mentioned earlier, I can’t breathe most of the time
as it is, so why would I intentionally create my own health problems…?
And you guys that are rolling your eyes about scented
candles, just stop it. Because you need to Google it and read up on your
precious pumpkin spice candles, yummy scented cleaning wipes and fancy hand
soaps and how terrible they are for you.
I’m serious.
One morning before our six am yoga class, my awesome
aforementioned neighbor gave me this super delicious oil to try. I always mess
up the name of this particular one but it smelled like it had notes of
patchouli in it. (I believe it is InTune by doTERRA.) And you know what? I have
this secret love affair with patchouli. I don’t know what it is. A friend of
mine from social work school used to always wear it as perfume and I just
wanted to lay on her forever and smell her neck.
Anyway, I think this particular oil was supposed to help you
really focus and stay on task; it was supposed to promote a sense of clarity
throughout your day. Well because it was so early in the morning and the sun
wasn’t out, I had on my favorite Cubs sweater that my mom bought from some
store in the kid’s department because I’m like five foot nothing. A little bit
of the oil must have gotten on the sweater and every time I put it on, I got a
whiff of patchouli and it was like it took me back to that early morning yoga
sesh. I know, I know, scents and memories are connected but I’m telling you, it
did something to me.
I literally want to buy it and wear it as perfume because it
was life changing. (My best friend is probably rolling her eyes so hard they’re
going to fall out of her head right now. One day I’ll change her mind.)
I don’t want to claim that oils will cure your every illness
because quite frankly, I don’t know enough about really anything to say that.
But I will tell you that what I gathered from my sweet neighbor is that oils,
and the same could be said for healthy, organic foods, give your body the
ability to heal itself. It’s not a miracle cure but it’s something that
strengthens you from the inside out. (I wish I said it as beautifully as she
did but I’m not nearly educated enough in the ways of this part of the world.)
It’s like the guy who came to service my air conditioning
told me about eating organic. “Sure, you’re spending about thirty percent more
in groceries, but what are you saving in future health problems?”
I could go on and on about this but I’ve already written a
fairly long blog. Just do this for me: love yourself enough to take care of yourself. Buy the good
stuff because it’s good for you. Stop
smoking because hello, it’s 2019 and I don’t understand why we can be so
advanced in technology but can’t figure out that smoking is just terrible for you. Stop littering because
like I read on a bumper sticker once, there is no Planet B when Mother Nature
is deceased.
You only have right now. You only have today. So diffuse
some yummy oils, drink your peppermint tea, and recycle your garbage.
I love you, dear friends.
Sickness is the
vengeance of nature for the violation of her laws. –Charles Simmons
Comments
Post a Comment