We are all creative; we might not always feel it, but it’s true.  And as we start a new decade, filled with lots of new opportunities, it’s about time we considered our true possibility, and explored how we can truly step into our full creative potential.  You see, creativity is also core to our feeling well.  I’ve learned over the years that anything that equates to ‘play’ time is useful for helping us drop out of our heads – where we often spend much time – and back into our hearts.  In a society that is so often stressed, overwhelmed and anxious, creativity is what can lead us back to our wellbeing!  But what do we do if we can’t tap into that creative balance?  Well, essential oils can support us in exploring what we love to do, so read on to find out more.

All of the essential oils I’ll mention within this article are useful for inspiring creativity, but I am going to break them down into what can help you notice what’s possible, those that can help in exploring our inner creative, and finally those that will help us embrace that creativity.  These can be used interchangeably – and I encourage you to take this opportunity, firstly, to begin to get creative with your oil blending!  Stick to the recipe formulas in terms of quantities, and mix and match the essential oils you like best – you can’t go wrong.  And, with blending being something very much intuitive and heart led, why not use this as a first step into your creative spirit?  

Noticing what’s possible

There’s so much possibility around, but when we are feeling uninspired, we are often lost in thoughts about things that are preventing us from seeing the beauty in life.  There are many essential oils that can naturally offer us a reminder of the joy available to us.  In particular, some of the more citrusy oils can be beneficial in helping us notice our true possibility.  These may include:

• Lime – stimulating and refreshing this oil offers us a beautiful reminder of hope
• Lemon – energising and uplifting, this essential oil is perfect for offering us joy
• Sweet Orange – a cheery mood-booster, this oil is a gorgeous inspiration
• Mandarin – calming and uplifting, this oil can help calm our busy mind to notice more
• Lemongrass – a positive oil, this can help with mental fatigue and unleash ideas

Creativity challenge

This is a brief introduction to some essential oils, but if you’re up for a creativity challenge, I encourage you to find 3 more oils that might be good for creativity – simply by going to your own kit and simply ‘scent testing’ all your oils to see which motivate and inspire you.  This is all about following your nose, and diving into your intuition, as this is a crucial exercise in really noticing what lights you up.  Observing what we find joy from, and what we feel inspired by, really grounds us in our creative knowing.  When we operate more from the heart, rather than the head, we begin to rediscover ourselves and more easily see where our creativity lies!  It’s simpler than it sounds!

Once you’ve done this, select your three favourite aromatherapy oils and use them in one of the following ways:

Inspiring Diffuser Blend

An aromatherapy diffuser is perhaps one of the best ways to get essential oils into the room to create an inspiring environment within which you can play with ideas:

Mix 2 drops each of up to 3 essential oils with water in an electrical diffuser or candle burner and diffuse the blend for up to half an hour at a time. Example blend: 2 drops Lemon, 2 drops Sweet Orange and 2 drops Mandarin.

As you’re doing this, you may wish to grab a herbal tea and sit on a comfy cushion and journal about any dreams and ideas that might crop up in this half and hour of beautiful space!

Clarity Bath Blend

If you’re just out of ideas and thinking and dreaming about possibility feels more like a chore, why not have a clarity bath to relax yourself and let your mind settle?  Often in the space of doing nothing is where our ideas arise, so carving out half an hour for yourself to have a rejuvenating bath can actually be more productive than it might sound!

Blend 2 drops each of up to 3 of your chosen essential oils and mix with 15ml of Bath Oil or Bath Gel, before pouring into your running bath water.  Lie back, close your eyes and find some space. You never know what might arise!

Example blend: 3 drops Mandarin, 2 drops Lemongrass and 1 drop Lime diluted as above.

Relax into this beautiful space and enjoy the clarity that can come from literally doing nothing!

Possibility Spritz Blend

Sometimes it can be nice to have a creative reminder as we move throughout the day.  If you find your mind wandering to ‘uninspired’ thoughts, why not envelop yourself in this beautiful spritz to remind yourself of what’s possible?

In a spray bottle blend up to 30 drops (total) of your favourite three essential oils with 100ml of hydrolat or water. Shake well before use and spritz over yourself as and when required. Example blend: 15 drops Lemon, 10 drops Sweet Orange and 5 drops Lime mixed with 100ml Orange Flower Hydrolat.

This is a great way to distract yourself from uninspiring thoughts and tap back into a nice, inspired feeling!  

Exploring our inner creative

Anything that helps us to explore more deeply what lights us up is an invitation to wellbeing.  We so often focus on what we haven’t got, or what we are lacking, that we forget that anything we want is available to us!  So, let’s get ready to dream with the support of some meditative, dreamy essential oils that can help us connect to the space of what we really love.

• Frankincense – meditative and revitalising, this oil is perfect for tuning into our creativity
• Myrrh – spiritual and balancing, this oil helps us tap into our true purpose
• Rose – a powerful emotionally releasing oil, this one can help us let go of what no longer serves us in order that we allow new creativity in
• Tangerine – this oil is great for switching off overactive minds and lifting creative spirits
• Jasmine – an oil for confidence and indecision, this is great for creative empowerment

Now, these oils can be used with the same blend formulas as in the Diffuser, Bath and Spritz blends above, but for the actual process of exploring your inner creative there are other useful blends you can try too:

Meditation Blend

A great way to really explore creativity is to meditate on your creative possibility.  To do this, simply find a space that you feel comfortable in, perhaps facing a window, sitting on a comfy chair – it doesn’t have to be formal – and sit and just let your mind wander.

To help, you might want to try applying a Meditative Massage Blend before you do this.

Mix 3 drops Rose, 2 drops Frankincense and 1 drop Tangerine into 15ml Sweet Almond oil and massage all over your body in a direction towards the heart.  This will infuse you with some really strong oils to help your creativity flourish – and you’ll enjoy the pampering too!  

As you simply sit there noticing your mind wander, you might begin to get some ideas coming up as to what you’d enjoy creating.  Whether that’s crafting for fun, creating something big - like a business, or just opening your mind a little to invite new ideas in.  Often there’s no particular aim, it can just leave you feeling inspired.

Wandering Inhaler Blend

You may prefer walking outdoors in order to feel like you’re exploring your creativity.  I know I do!  I love getting outside and seeing where my feet take me.  This can be creative in and of itself, as you never know what lovely places you might find!

If this is you, try taking an aromatherapy sniffy stick (inhaler) with you to sniff for gentle inspiration while you walk.

Add 1 drop each of Jasmine, Rose and Myrrh to the cotton wadding inside an aromatherapy inhaler. 

Again, there’s no particular thing that needs to be achieved, we are just exploring where life takes us when we allow ourselves to do something slightly different and go where we haven’t been before.

Try something new

This one isn’t particularly related to an essential oil blend, but you could definitely just get moving and see what shows up.  However, to help you come up with some ideas, I’d recommend diffusing a beautiful blend whilst you journal. Write down all the ideas that appeal to you then follow the idea that strikes you as the most exciting - something completely new that you have never done before!

Mix 3 drops Rose, 2 drops Tangerine and 1 drop Myrrh in water in an electrical diffuser or candle burner and diffuse for 30 minutes to inspire you as you journal.

You’ll be surprised what comes up – it could be anything from reading a new book, to venturing to Bali!  I love Julia Cameron’s exercise which is to think of 10 jobs you wish you’d done, and then using each one as inspiration for taking yourself on a creative artist’s date!  Could be photography, writing, or crafting – anything!  Give it a go!

Embracing our inner creative

Now sometimes, we can have all the inspiration in the world but still not quite be ready to take action.  So, this final step is to help you uncover some oils that you can use in an ‘Action Blend’.  Here are some of the oils that might help you feel the fear and do it anyway:

• Peppermint – a refreshing and stimulating oil, this one is great for inspired action
• Grapefruit – cheery and rejuvenating, this oil is great for helping us take steps forward
• Rosemary – a stimulating oil, this one helps with directed action
• Pine – strengthening and reviving, this oil can be invigorating, helping you moving forward
• Eucalyptus – boosts enthusiasm and activity

Given we already have all our blending formulas, to support you in taking inspired action, you can choose any of the blend techniques and, using the same dilutions, choose your three favourite oils from this list to create your own ‘action blend’.  

Action Spritz Blend

Personally, if it were me, I would create an Action Spritz, using 15 drops Peppermint, 10 drops Grapefruit and 5 drops Rosemary, mixed in 100ml Orange Flower Hydrolat and spritz this over myself whenever I needed a boost of encouragement!

Deep down, you’ll know what inspired creativity you want to take, especially if you use some of these ideas to help you really connect into what it is you want to be creative in!  So, enjoy the process, get creative with your essential oils, and why not let us know what beautiful blends and creative inspiration you come up with?

Enjoy!

Nicole Barton
Consultant Aromatherapist

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