Essential oils for deeper self-love
‘Self-love’ has become a bit of a ‘buzz word’ in the world of healing and self-discovery - and the true power of it is often underestimated. We can commonly mistakenly think of ‘self-love’ as what I’d actually describe as ‘self-care’. It’s innocently done as we usually hear the term followed with ‘tips’ that we are provided to help us into being more self-caring. Yet, over the years, I’ve come to see that there’s a ‘deeper’ kind of ‘self-love’ that’s even more important for us to access for a more wholesome and fulfilled life of health and wellbeing on all levels - emotional, mental. physical and spiritual.
Given it’s February, we thought what a perfect month to dive deep into the essential oils that can help us begin to step into this journey fully - and the three phases of true, lasting self-love that we can cultivate powerfully by harnessing essential oils. You can journey with this for deeper opening to loving aspects of yourself that have until now been lost.
What is ‘self-love’?
Self-love is typically taught in the modern world as a variety of ‘practices’ or ‘habits’ or ‘actions’ that we can do - perhaps we’re encouraged into a nice warm bath to be a bit more loving to ourselves, or we go for a massage, or we create space to go to that yoga class we’ve been meaning to go to but never allowed ourselves to prioritise. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this - it is just that these kinds of things are loving ‘acts’, rather than what I’d call real, deep ‘self-love’.
They are really acts of what I’d call ‘self-care’ - which is an ‘embodiment’ element of self-love.
The challenge is, ‘embodiment’ of self-love, via self-care, is actually something that is stepped more fully into deeper in the path of true self-love, and if we skip the earlier parts of the journey into true self-love, many people will often find it hard to choose into these practices.
Have you ever found yourself struggling to choose into self-care practices on the regular? If so, what’s been missing from your ‘self-care’ work, is probably the real, deep, true art of “love of self”.
What is ‘love of self’?
‘Love of self’ is the art of truly loving and welcoming all parts of ourselves - including the parts of ourselves that feel undesirable and have been suppressed. It’s really what I’d refer to as ‘soul reclamation’ - loving and welcoming all the parts of our true selves and full expression that we’ve maybe rejected or shamed or pushed aside, deeming these aspects of ourselves as ‘unlovable’.
And it’s ‘love of self’ that takes us deeper than the ‘self-care’ practices that we often engage with more superficially, and largely sporadically - usually when we’ve hit our point of ‘enough’ and run out of energy. It’s common to find that people have only been choosing self-care when they’re about to explode, rather than have actively integrated it into their lives, with a deeper sense of wholeness and actual self-love.
It’s the journey of truly learning to love ourselves which is the foundation for anyone who is really wanting to cultivate a more ongoing loving inner-relationship that also allows us to actively choose and more deeply commit to more self-care practices in our everyday lives.
The distinction is quite nuanced, but it’s also important - because the real healing is found in truly learning to welcome all parts of ourselves.
So, how can we begin to do that?
3 steps to opening to love of self - along with aromatherapy blends to support
There are 3 steps that I invite people into journeying with when opening to a deeper sense of true self-love (though they’re rarely ‘linear’ - we will spiral around them a few times). We can super-charge these with essential oils, so I’ll describe them first and then offer some blends to support you in each step.
Before we dive in, the most important thing to do in all of this is to be open to cultivating a bit more self-compassion, so it’s important as you go in to lay down your inner ‘self-beaty’ stick and begin to take a loving and honest look at where in your life you have begun to shame and discard parts of yourself that feel ‘broken’ - and actively choose differently.
1. Self-illumination and honesty:
We need to take a look at where we have started to dislike ourselves and feel guilt and shame about who we are - harnessing the art of loving self-illumination. Noticing the patterns that our inner little girl has put in place to stop us being kind, patient and gentle with ourselves - and noticing why that is difficult - is the starting point. Asking deeper questions that help us reflect on where we’ve not been loving and welcoming all parts of ourselves - and why - is the first step.
The sorts of questions to ask here include:
- What is it about ourselves that we haven’t welcomed and loved? Which aspects of our true selves have we rejected? Why?
- Where have we been unkind to ourselves in the past?
- Where do we commonly beat ourselves up?
- Are our beliefs around this ‘unlovable’ aspect of ourselves really true? What would others say?
- Where do we not honour our own unique needs?
- If something has stopped us from harnessing self-care practices - what has that been?
- Why? What has been in the way? Is it the fear of losing approval, control or security?
- What are the costs and benefits of not choosing to love ourselves more?
- Do we want to choose differently?
Essential oils for loving self-illumination
When you are working with the first part of this 3-step journey, I’d recommend diffusing essential oils that support you with emotional release and heart opening and activate your cognition alongside a more ‘spiritual’ oil that will also help you access the deeper unconscious aspects of yourself. Here’s a blend that would really support:
Self-Illumination Diffusion: mix 3 drops Rose Geranium (emotional release/heart opening), 2 drops Rosemary (cognitive) and 2 drops Myrrh (spiritual) in some water in a candle burner or electrical diffuser and use whilst you’re in the process of self-questioning to help you get honest about where you’re at.
2. Get in touch with your desires:
The next step is to more fully take a look at how we really desire to be in the world - do we want to continue beating ourselves up, or would it feel much better if we could really learn to love ourselves a bit more? Do we desire more boundaries? Do we desire more self-care? What do we truly want for ourselves? Tune into your heart and journal on this.
Essential oils for getting in touch with our desires
When you’re getting in touch with your desires, you want some essential oils that help you attune to your heart and sense of inner joy, nourishment and desire. I’d recommend some self-massage around the heart area with some ‘opening’ essential oils that can help you begin to get in touch with a deeper place within yourself and hear your inner truth - and then journaling on what became clear. Here’s a blend to support whilst you access your deeper heart’s desires about loving yourself:
Desire Activation Massage: mix 3 drops of Rosewood (nourishing), 2 drops Sweet Orange (joyful) and 1 drop Ylang Ylang (desire) in 15 ml of Grapeseed carrier oil and massage this blend into your heart space - or all over your body, if that feels potent - in circular motions towards the heart. As you do, tune into your deeper desires for how you desire to express more true, deep self-love - what does that look like, in practical steps?
3. Embodiment of self-love:
When we have been more deeply into self-illumination of the patterns that are stopping us from being in ‘love of self’, and we’ve got clear on our desires for how we’d like to move forward, we can then begin to actively commit and choose to be more self-loving in our embodiment - this is when our more self-care based practices come in. We can only really fully choose this when we know how it has been costing us to not choose it. The ‘Embodiment’ phase is really about the aspects of self-love and self-care that we often already know. This part is really about choosing the practical steps illuminated in step 2 - and it will look very different to everyone. Will you choose to embody more self love? What practices will help you cultivate that feeling in your body? Make a list.
Essential oils for embodiment of self-love
When we talk about embodiment, we are really referring to actively choosing to feel self-love in our cells - even if we don’t. How can we embody and cultivate more self-love in our bodies? We can powerfully use essential oils for ‘cellular’ embodiment - in particular, they are potent embodiment support because we can intentionally choose essential oils that hold properties that we want to embody. For example we can choose oils for their “calming”, “nurturing” or “relaxing” properties, if we want to embody these things - oils will help us to embody specific properties so we literally feel the embodied impact in our cells, so think about the oils you include intentionally to help you feel their properties. An example is this blend that offers one embodiment practice in which you could embody self-love via calm, nurture and relaxation:
Self-Love Bath: mix 3 drops Bergamot (calming), 2 drops Rose (nurturing) and 2 drops Geranium (relaxing) into 15ml Bath Oil or Shower Gel - and add it to the warm, running water of your bath. Close your windows and doors, sink into your bath and enjoy the embodiment of calm, nurturing relaxation (if that’s your intention to offer yourself).
As you navigate this process, the deepest invitation when working with oils is to remember you can really use essential oils for embodiment of anything - so choose your oils wisely for the properties that they will help you embody more self-love.
Which oils are calling to you specifically?
Happy blending.
Nicole Barton
Consultant Aromatherapist
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