“Health is the ability to adapt to change.” ~ Robert Davidson
A mentor of mine once said that ‘health is the ability to adapt to change’ – and never is this more obvious than in wintertime, when we begin to resist the transition from autumn into the darkness. It’s very easy, as we head towards winter and the season gets darker, to begin to feel a little bit hopeless, low – and even depressed. It makes sense – it’s why winter is archetypally a symbol of ‘death’. If you think about it, winter represents the death of visibility of the sun (with our shorter days), the death of the current year (as we move into completion of this cycle), the death of nature (as our trees lie bare). And what we forget, in a culture that always wants to be ‘switched on’ and busy – aka a culture that doesn’t like ‘death’ and prefers the aliveness of summer – is that where there’s death and hopelessness, there’s also possibility for renewal, rebirth and hope.
When we work with winter as a symbol in this way, we can learn to harness its power to rebirth and change, therefore creating a deeper sense of wellbeing and health. We can learn to embrace its gifts of slowing down (which it often enforces) and begin to tune into the hope that comes with the idea of rebirth – the moving towards spring, the heading towards longer days, the regrowth of green leaves. According to Kathryn May, who wrote the book “Wintering”, it’s a time for slowing down, resting and going inwards – a time of rest and restoration, which can feel a stark contrast to other seasons, but when we fully embrace it, it can begin to offer us healing and renewal.
What’s even better, is that there are many essential oils that we can use to supercharge and inspire ‘hope’ at this dark and depressing time of year – so today I wanted to explore which oils we can work with to help us feel a little more uplifted – and to support our winter wellbeing – as we navigate this season! Let’s discuss this on the levels of Body, Mind and Spirit.
BODY – Create a safe space to slow down and embrace the change
One of the first things we want to do as we head into winter – as a step towards feeling able to cultivate a sense of hope – is to create ourselves a safe space for bodies to slow down and begin to embrace change. It can be really tempting to keep pushing on through death season, as if it were the same energy of summer, but that can really be testing for our bodies, which naturally slow down. For example, think of the well-known idea that digestion gets slower in winter and so we put on winter weight to see us through the season – an adaptation from when our ancestors would have had less resources than we have now. What we need to do is to create a slower pace for us to come back into harmony with our bodies – because that’s the foundation for us to feel more emotionally hopeful – and there are some gorgeous relaxing oils that can help us cultivate this:
Essential oils to create a cosy environment to slow down:
- Geranium – cyclically balancing, relaxing and emotionally soothing
- Lavender – often experienced as the most relaxing oil there is
- Rosewood – like a hug in a bottle
- Rose – a comforting oil that helps us regulate
- Vetivert – an earthy, grounding oil of “tranquillity”
MIND – Support change and offer reassurance and emotional healing
As well as slowing down to create a grounding into our bodies, we also want to work with oils that can help support change and initiate emotional healing for our minds, so that we can begin to tune into our feelings and regain a deeper sense of hope. It can feel really hard to mentally and emotionally accept change, so when creating blends this month, it’s always good to include those that can remind us of our cyclical nature. Essential oils, after all, remind us of what our natural state is, and how we should be moving through life. This can remind us that there’s somewhere beyond the darkness of winter – opening our minds to a new possibility beyond the hopelessness and despair we feel in this season.
Here are some emotionally supportive oils for change that can lead us into a space to cultivate hope.
- Cedarwood – an oil promoting inner strength
- Cypress – restores calm in times of upheaval and change
- Neroli – revered for its balancing effect on the human psyche
- Patchouli – calms mental chatter
- Rose Geranium – a mood-boosting balancer for the emotions
SPIRIT – Lift the spirits and inspire hopefulness
As we support our body and minds through the change of winter season, we also need essential oils that can inspire hope within our spirit. Grounding into our body and supporting our emotions as we move into the change of winter is the foundation for us to open to possibility and a sense of inner hope – to there being something greater than the darkness.
There are some powerful oils that will uplift our spirit, including:
- Frankincense – a meditative oil for lifting the spirits
- Grapefruit – a sunny, inspiring oil
- Helichrysum – derived from the Greek words ‘helios’, for sun, and ‘chrysos’, meaning golden, this is a great one for inspiring hope in winter
- Sweet Orange – a cheerful, happy oil to bring hope
- Ylang Ylang – a sweet, passion-restoring oil
Essential oil blends to inspire hope
In general, I advise you to play with the essential oils shared in this article to create your own aromatic diffusions, allowing yourself to be guided by your nose. The oils that we need tend to call to us via our sense of smell, so trust yourself in blends. The only thing I’d advise, is that when creating a blend to help you inspire hope, to keep harmony my recommendation is to choose an oil that supports you on the levels of body, mind and spirit – aka one of each.
One of my favourite blends at the moment, as we journey into the dark, is as follows:
Winter Hope Diffusion Blend: Mix 3 drops Cedarwood, 2 drops Geranium and 2 drops Sweet Orange in water in an electrical diffuser or candle burner, and diffuse into the room you’re in, for 30 minutes at a time as desired.
I recommend journaling as you sit with your blend, and contemplating the following:
- How do I feel (welcome all)?
- What am I hopeful about?
Happy playing with some diffusion blends as we head towards winter – notice how it helps you to reconnect to a sense of hopefulness!
Nicole Barton
Consultant Aromatherapist
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