How to Balance Your Energy Through Essential Oils with Charlynn Avery [Episode #547]

This week’s topic is: How to Balance Your Energy Through Essential Oils with Charlynn Avery

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Charlynn Avery, who is an aromatherapist and national educator and expert in the field of Essential Oils. Listen in as Charlynn talks about the essence of true self-care, really getting to the heart of balancing our energy and how these plants aren’t just about smelling good but really about helping our energy come back into our center.

[BULLETS]

• How essential oils fit into a self-care practice…
• The energy of plants and how it affects our energy through essential oils…
• Which essential oils are best for grounding our energies…
• How to apply essential oils to receive its benefits…
• Best essential oils to massage with and the safest way we can massage these into our hair…
• How long you can keep your essential oils for…
• Essential oils practices to use when we feel the over-ness and the over-yang…

[FEATURED GUESTS]

About Charlynn Avery

Charlynn Avery is an Aromatherapist and Educator for Aura Cacia, a brand of Frontier Co-op. In her work, she travels around the U.S. teaching about safe and effective essential oil use and is passionate about those powerful oils. Her life’s mission is to empower each individual to be in charge of their own health and healing.

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Charlynn Avery’s Interview

• Charlynn’s Website

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• Increase Your Energy Easily, Without a Focus on Food
• Boosting Energy the Ayurvedic Way with Dr. Jay
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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:11 Hey Beauties and welcome back to our Monday interview podcast. I am thrilled to have back one of our favorite all-time podcast guests Charlynn Avery who is an aroma therapist and a national educator and expert in the field of essential oils. But today we go a bit further, we talk about the essence of true, true self-care, which is the theme in our Solluna Circle this month if you want to check it out. I’m so excited so I wanted everything to pair together. So we talk about really getting to the heart of balancing our energy and how these plants aren’t just about smelling good but really about helping our energy come back into our center. Essential oils are the energy of plants in a sense. They’re distilled down from sometimes thousands of pounds of plants and they come into our space and they can be so powerful and so helpful.

Fan of the Week

Kimberly: 01:08 So Charlynn shed so much light on it today. I’m so excited to share this interview with you. But before we get into it, I want to give a quick shout out to our fan of the week. His or her name is airforceHope. I love this name. And he or she writes, “My number one go-to podcast. I’ve had the honor of listening to Kimberly’s wisdom of how to live your best life for many years now. Her knowledge of healthy and healing foods, how to treat your body and spiritual health is pure gold. It’s my favorite podcast to listen to in the morning while preparing my GGS for the family. Thank you for all that you do.” Air Force Hope oh my gosh thank you so much for being part of our community. I appreciate you so much. I am so happy that we are connected. I’m so grateful. So thank you and sending you a big virtual hug wherever you are. And again, thank you so much.

Leave a Review on iTunes

Kimberly: 02:05 And Beauty for your chance to also be shattered out as the fan of the week, for me to read your beautiful words, please take a moment out of your day and leave us a review on iTunes. I say this every week, and you’ve probably heard me say this before and maybe you put it off but maybe today can be the day that you leave us a review especially if you’ve gotten any benefit from the show. It’s just a great way to support the show energetically and to help other beauties find the show. So thank you so much in advance. And while you’re over there, please be sure to subscribe to the show and that way you don’t miss out on any of these interview podcasts or our Thursday Q and A community shows.

Kimberly: 02:44 All right, all that being said let’s get into our interview today with the amazing Charlynn.

Interview: How to Balance Your Energy Through Essential Oils with Charlynn Avery

Kimberly: 02:49 Charlene. It’s so amazing to have you back. Thank you. Happy new year. I think we could still say that. Now we’re in February, so it’s the last time we can say it, this week, but how’s your new year so far?

Charlynn: 03:02 So far so good, just keeping on keeping on is what I’m saying for this new year, and just taking care of me and my little tribe here at home. We’ve had a good peaceful start to the new year.

Kimberly: 03:17 Oh, good, good. Yeah. It seems like this year is definitely going to be brighter for all of us, and what I wanted to talk to you about, Charlene, because it’s February and I’m not sure you’re aware, but we started this whole new Solluna app, which is a portal for our Solluna Circle, and our theme this month is prioritizing self-care. We go into it in much more detail in the circle, and all you beauties listening, please check it out. The app is free, and if you want to check out the circle, it’s easy to click over to the membership part.

How essential oils fit into a self-care practice

Kimberly: 03:50 But this whole idea of self-care, Charlynn, I feel like it gets tossed around a lot, and I think sometimes it gets a little bit murky or can be a little bit surface. The way I think about self-care isn’t just, oh let’s … which can be fun or great, but let’s do some more manicures or once in a while, let’s give ourselves a facial, a band-aid on top of the stress that’s already there.

Kimberly: 04:17 For me, self-care is taking a step back and looking at our overall energy, because we are the ones that have to tend the fire of our energy, so to speak. We are the ones that really have to cultivate balance. And within each of us is that yin and yang, there’s the yin side, which is the rest, the feminine, if you will, the fluid, the flow, the circuitous, the very creative, and I speak in general terms. And then there’s the yang part of us. That’s the doing, the achievement, the tasks.

Kimberly: 04:54 So, for me, self-care is really stepping back and first of all, looking at where our energy is and evaluating. Am I feeling a bit unmotivated, uninspired, slothful? Do I need to lift my energy up? Or do I just have too much on my plate? Am I trying to do too much? Even though we’re home and we’re quarantining, in some ways we were talking about before we got on, with the kids and the work and the house stuff, and just the unknown, there’s just a lot of stress for people.

Kimberly: 05:25 So, is that the part of our energy that’s getting imbalanced? Because the excess fire, as we know, Charlynn, depletes us, and can dim our energy and can age us in so many ways and we feel less creative, we feel like life becomes a struggle.

Kimberly: 05:40 So, then we can layer in, which I’d love to hear your ideas about, then we can layer in all the tools: essential oils like we’ll talk about today, foods, back to our cornerstones, body, how we can take care of our body, how we can approach our exercise, emotionally, we need from our tribe, from our community, journaling, processing, and spiritually, even the way we approach our meditations. And in the circle every month we do have different meditations. I can’t help but share it. [crosstalk 00:06:09] everything becomes so integrated, that I want to share and add this extra layer for the circle.

Kimberly: 06:16 So, back to this idea that self-care, first of all, is taking a look at our energy and how we can come back to our center. So sometimes we become too yin, sometimes we become too yang, and ideally we want to feel that wholeness, we want to feel centered. So, first of all, Charlynn, tell me how does that sit with you? What do you think about that? And where’s your energy right now?

Charlynn: 06:40 Yes. I think that totally resonates with me, because I feel like we get into this space of, especially this time of year after the holidays, normally when it’s not pandemic and this intense time that we’ve been in, some of us get very sluggish during this time, and some of us feel so scattered because of new year, new goals and all of that. And so, for me, my own energy, I’ve been super intentional with the start of this year, having kids at home and just weathering this time that we’ve been at home so much and trying to stay motivated, but also in the mindset of self-care.

Charlynn: 07:20 And so I’ve been taking my own practices back to something very simple and very nourishing, taking care of my skin, oiling my body, giving myself a lot of love. Self-care to me begins with self-language, how we’re talking to ourselves and [crosstalk 00:07:40] myself, I’m strong, I can handle anything that comes my way. And this vessel, this body is important for me to take care of in many ways so that it can keep me on the path to where I’m heading.

Charlynn: 07:54 So, for aromatherapy, I’ve been using a lot of spicy oils and florals this time. Speaking to that yin yang, very, very perfect to look at both of those groups, because they can help with, in the case of florals, with self love and self-care, inspiration, beauty or reminding us of the love. I was just describing rose oil as when I smell it, it reminds me of Mother Nature’s love for us. So, that [crosstalk 00:08:27] that self-love that is inherent from all that’s around us, that can help generate our own self-love, can come to us with floral aromas. Geranium is a good balancer. And so that’s one that I’ve used. It tends not to be my favorite, but I enjoy what it does.

Charlynn shares some of her favorite essential oils to help with energy

Kimberly: 08:46 As you were talking, Charlynn, when you’re talking about florals, I think sometimes some of us think, oh, florals maybe too girly. Growing up, I remember some of these gross perfumes that we’d smell sometimes like Kohl’s or target. And it just feels so fakey, but then as [crosstalk 00:09:05] went on, my guru Paramahansa Yogananda always talked about the sweetness of spirit as being the essence of rose. So, I’ve really been drawn to rose, when we’re talking about self-care, first of all, just to ignite, like you were saying, I love when you said self-language, that self-love that depth of love inside of us. What do you think about rose?

Charlynn: 09:27 I love rose. It took me a while, because rose for me, and like so many people will say, “I love rose because I smell it and it smells my grandmother,” or they’ll say, “I don’t like rose because it smells like my grandmother.” But we have expressions of, “Stop and smell the roses” because of this beautiful aroma that can transport us. And for me, rose, I fell in love. I got to go to Bulgaria in 2014 during rose harvest, and I got to be in the field and picking the petals and loading the petals onto the carts and taking them for distillation.

Charlynn: 10:09 And when you see, I think, an abundance of roses like that, you see something so perfect and so beautiful from the natural world that can help convey so much to us, not only in our own sense of beauty and love and wellness, because of what Rose does functionally, but emotionally, it lifts the heart. It helps us have a more joyful state. And when we wear it or use it in a balanced way, because I think back to your point about the fragrances and the heavy florals, it’s been overused and synthesized, because it makes it cheaper to develop a rose fragrance, but taking a step back and just taking a small whiff of a floral oil to see how we respond instead of being bombarded by the aroma, is the best way to approach it, especially if you’ve had that negative impact experience for fumes, because I did.

Kimberly: 11:06 Well, I feel like the negative, too, Charlynn, like you were saying, it’s so synthetic and it’s over the top. Whereas if you ever smell a true essential oil rose, it’s very sweet and very light. And I love your experience. It just feels so magical because you’re so in this world and I actually see the process. For those of us that are really into the glowing green smoothie, or vegetables, you start to grow your own veggies. It provides this connection with nature, and back to this idea of self-care.

Kimberly: 11:40 I get asked about balance so much, and I actually don’t love the word “balance,” because I think balance makes me feel like a tight rope, like [crosstalk 00:11:49] fall off, but it is an easy way to convey this idea of just playing with the energy and bringing things back in, calling it back in or elevating. I like to think of it like tending the fire of ourselves, nurturing ourselves.

Kimberly: 12:10 It’s winter now, Charlynn, so, so many people … I know you live in … Are you in Colorado?

Charlynn: 12:14 No, Oregon, Portland.

Kimberly: 12:16 Oh, Oregon. Right. So it’s probably a bit cold, a bit rainy. So you’re not out there running your feet in the ground right now, whereas essential oils are a way to bring nature to us. And sometimes we forget that, but they’re so potent, and nature is balanced, nature is just this beautiful energy that we are part of. So when we tap into nature more and more, we can create that in our energy. Tell us about that, Charlene. There’s literally thousands of pounds of plants that go into each of these oils.

Charlynn: 12:47 Yes. Yeah. Back to rose, rose is one of the most expensive, because it takes about a thousand pounds of the plant material to get a pound of the essential oil. And so I think sometimes people will look at, oh, essential oils. Some of them are less expensive, like citrus is so inexpensive because they press the oil out of the rind after they’ve already used the fruit for juice. So it’s a byproduct. And it’s very inexpensive because citrus peel is so abundant, the oil in that peel is so abundant. We can get so much out of just one.

Charlynn: 13:20 But a rose petal, so delicate, so fragile. It wants to keep that volatile oil. So, to express it out or to extract it out, it takes a lot more of the plant material. And so I think in terms of thinking about how we correlate to the natural world, just the notion of just that every single plant played a part, every single one of those roses that contributed to that [inaudible 00:13:52]. That’s like a community coming together to support us emotionally, energetically and in a lot of different ways.

Charlynn: 13:59 And so I’m always a champion for people to understand that every single drop has merit, and it has a lot of value, more than we even know, because of what went into bringing us that drop. And know that even though it’s thousands of pounds, those plants that we pull the petals off, they grow again next year. So it’s not a wasting by any means. We continue to support this wonderful industry in places like Bulgaria by using the essential oils. So that’s a good thing, too.

Kimberly: 14:33 Well, it goes back to this abundance in nature, and it teaches us abundance when we’re using things in a really responsible way, that it does regenerate. And there’s so much magic in that, Charlynn. When you’re describing it, it does feel like one of the medicines of the earth.

Charlynn: 14:51 It is. That’s how I consider it. When we went to Bulgaria, we were on this long travel stretch and I had been up for about 20 hours with flight combinations and travel. And had been traveling and they were just like, “We’re going to take you to the first farm at the end of this day.” And I was like, “Oh, can we just go relax and then do it tomorrow?”

Charlynn: 15:13 But I was so glad, because we got to this field right before harvest and flowers are out and they’re beautiful and you’re almost home eat. And I was standing in the middle of this field, knowing the experience, and it makes me tearful a little bit, but of heaven on earth because of this. Plants convey messages to us. They trigger thoughts within us. They trigger emotions within us as we smell these volatile oils. And I feel like when we get to be surrounded by nature, that is the state we’re supposed to be in. That’s heaven on earth. That is the experience of true balance, because that’s where we’re supposed to be.

Charlynn: 15:58 So that trip for me was a life changer and gave me this deep respect and appreciation for all things rose. And so living outside of Portland, the city of roses, we grow a lot of roses up here at home. I’ve got a couple of different varieties because I want to have the plants around me and not just because the volatile oil comes from that plant. So growing roses is really, really important as well.

Kimberly: 16:24 Oh, you know what, Charlynn, we have a lot of roses out here too. All our roses happen to be white when we bought this house. The woman that lived here before, the couple that lived here, she was the president of the gardening club. So, we got these amazing gardens, but I guess she was really into roses, too, because there’s beautiful white roses.

The energy of plants and how it affects our energy through essential oils

Kimberly: 16:47 But all the plants, Charlynn, I think the deeper I go on the journey, I realize it’s not just about how things taste, how things look, how things smell per se, but understanding that it’s all energy. So when you’re working with these essential oils, there’s an energy of the plant that you’re putting into your space. And that energy is affecting our energy in a positive way, bringing it back to that center. It’s bringing in the energy of that plant, like you said, everything is giving us something, so understanding that. And we’ll get into specifics in a moment, but that rose has an energy that is unique. It’s one part of the whole spirit’s plan, divine plan, and it’s giving us something. So, yes, it smells good, but there’s an energy behind it. And same thing was food, of course. It tastes good, but there’s an energy food and it becomes part of our energy. Everything is energy essentially.

Charlynn: 17:44 Right. And we describe it that way. So, as people read about plants or aromatherapy descriptor words, rose is always described as joyful, uplifting, because that is the energy of that plant for us.

Charlynn: 17:59 Something very different, cinnamon, another oil I’ve used a lot this year because of the spiciness. Spices tend to make us feel comforted and grounded and warm. And we certainly taste that as we ingest them. And we can smell that when we get the engagement with the aroma, but the overall feeling that we get, and as people use cinnamon, they describe feeling comforted, feeling like they’re at home, but it also helps with a little bit of motivation. So it’s good for [crosstalk 00:18:31] this time of year, getting a little bit more spice for people that need more contributions for their fire to keep going.

Charlynn: 18:39 Spicy oils and spices in our cooking as you know very well, that’s such a great way to help increase or bring some more for folks that are just really … I think about people that are in couch lock right now, I just want to give them all sorts of … I want to combine cinnamon and rose to give them joy and motivation and comfort at the same time.

Kimberly: 19:04 Yeah. Let’s talk about that a little bit more specifically, Charlynn. Actually, last month in the circle was our first circle and we do this live Zoom. And last month I think the theme was manifesting success. And I talked about my three-step process. There’s an energetic process, where it’s inspiration, being open to the best ideas, and then filtering that through the passions of your heart, which ideas you want to put your energy into, and really that’s the foundation. And then the grounding part, the tasks, the doing.

Kimberly: 19:32 And unfortunately, so many of us rush to the tasks. Oh, we have the best ideas, and then we don’t have the motivation to follow through, or we lose our way. And so I asked the circle members in the live, I said, “Which one of the three is the one that you feel you need the most work with?” And overwhelmingly, I would say 88%, maybe 90%, said grounding. So the tasks, the doing, figuring out how to take these great ideas and manifest them into reality.

Which essential oils are best for grounding our energies

Kimberly: 20:04 So, let’s talk about that. Cinnamon would be one of them, I think you said, Charlynn. Can you talk about the best ones for grounding, for taking our ideas … Give us the energy to move forth, and then the best ways to use the oil. Because I know [crosstalk 00:20:20] just put it directly on our skin.

Charlynn: 20:22 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Some of the deeper and earthier notes, they are the ones that ground us and connect us to … they’re described as earthy because they connect us to the earth, and they help us root our feet solidly on the ground. Most of us, I think, especially going through this past year of so much turmoil and change, we’ve all been disrupted at our core. We’ve been very disrupted. And so reestablishing where we feel safe, secure, and grounded is a challenge for a lot of folks. So, vetiver, one of my favorites, very, very earthy, and it’s not a spicy oil by any means, but it’s for people that really feel like they’re all up here, they’ve got the ideas, but no foundation to have a starting place or a place to record it. Vetiver is one of my favorites.

Kimberly: 21:16 Is that a plant? Vetiver, what does it look like?

Charlynn: 21:22 Vetiver is a tall grass. It can be human height, five feet, six feet tall, and they take the root of the grass, and that’s where we get the essential oil. I love to describe the growing conditions of the plants. Vetiver grows in really specific soil conditions. So, Madagascar, Haiti, dry conditions, but the right type of environment [inaudible 00:21:50].

Charlynn: 21:50 And so I think about this very hardy plant that produces this grounding oil and abundance. It’s for everyone in any situation. And it helps us all thrive in multiple conditions. It’s great for kids, too. We’re talking about kids in virtual school, I use vetiver with my kids … It’s hard to keep them focused. And so to get them to the place where they can just sit and produce, that’s the oil that I-

Kimberly: 22:21 Oh, that’s [inaudible 00:22:22]. Are you just using it in the air for the children? You don’t put it on the skin.

Charlynn: 22:26 I diffuse it for them, and if it were a nighttime application, I would put a little bit in their bath water, but general diffusion is the way that we should use it. I do have a combination that I really love to suggest for people to wear with vetiver: vetiver, patchouli, you’re not going to be surprised by that, and marjoram. So it’s a really clean and earthy supportive combination, but it’s especially good for guys who don’t like the lighter, sweeter aromas, and anyone, not just guys. I tend to like them a little deeper, earthier.

Charlynn: 23:05 But that is one that I suggest people massage on their feet and then work up, especially in times that we’ve really, really been shaken, a big life transition, a big instability, think about people who are going through loss of loved ones, grief, loss of a career during this pandemic.

Kimberly: 23:27 Yeah. Loss of their small business … so many changes.

Charlynn: 23:33 Yeah. So having feet, working our way up type of application to really reinforce not only how we circulate through our body, but the notion of building a secure base to stand on to navigate whatever we’re going through.

How to apply essential oils to receive its benefits

Kimberly: 23:50 And how would we do that, again, specifically, Charlene? Would we get a carrier oil and how many drops would we put in? What do we do?

Charlynn: 23:59 Yeah. I can share a recipe that I created.

Kimberly: 24:03 Oh, sweet. We’ll put it in the show notes. Thank you.

Charlynn: 24:06 Yeah. But basically I would suggest a lighter carrier for this type of application, like a fractionated coconut oil or a grapeseed, something really, really light, because with heavier oils like vetiver and patchouli, it takes a while for them to move through the carrier oil. So we want something really light that we can get a faster response with.

Charlynn: 24:28 So, having that combination in a carrier base, you could do equal parts. I have to go back and look at my recipe, but two drops of each oil in an ounce of fractionated, coconut oil, or grapeseed oil or a lighter sesame oil, and then massage from the feet, up the legs to the hips, reapply at the hips, working up toward the heart, fingertips out and then working in toward the heart. And then I always to go around my neck and back down toward the heart a little bit. So I’m ending this energy practice at my heart center, but the notion is this groundedness lifting me up so that I can move through life and do what I need to do.

Kimberly: 25:18 Wow. What an amazing energy to bring in and to just help call in that resilience inside of us, the part of us that is the real safety insecurity. It doesn’t come from out here. It comes from inside of us.

Charlynn: 25:32 Absolutely. It’s what we can control. We can’t control all of this stuff, but we can control what’s here. Not even control, we can manage and regulate and understand.

Kimberly: 25:44 [inaudible 00:25:44] inside of us.

Charlynn: 25:45 Yes, yes.

Best essential oils to massage with and the safest way we can massage these into our hair

Kimberly: 25:46 This space, the inner state. And you mentioned sesame oil, Charlynn. We jump around here because we’re so [inaudible 00:25:54] talks a lot about sesame oil as being a great thing that you can massage in your hair. What do you think about oils with carrier oils for hair massage, because one of the things is with the stress, with everything going on, there’s hair loss. We’ve been getting questions about that. People’s hair is thinning, we know the hair follicle is sensitive to that. We tend to use up more B vitamins when we’re stressed. For many reasons, hair is a big thing right now. So what do you think about, and what would be the best oils to massage, and what is the safe way we can massage into our hair?

Charlynn: 26:32 Those carrier oils, sesame and argan are my two favorites for scalp massage. Sesame because of Ayurvedic practice and historical use and all those B vitamins, I think are critical, argan because of the Vitamin A and Vitamin E contents, and the ability to help support hair. And we’ve seen argan explode in a lot of haircare products, but the pure argan oil is really ideally suited to scalp massage.

Charlynn: 27:04 So applying to our fingertips and massaging into the scalp and lightly pulling our hair is actually helpful to the hair follicle, because it helps with a release of that tension point in the scalp, and then we can create some space for absorption. One of the things that people struggle with is when we get stressed out our scalps get really tight and I don’t think we have a lot of awareness about that. So really working-

Kimberly: 27:35 Should we put essential oils in the sesame? I mean, sesame smells so strongly, not for the smell, but for benefit.

Charlynn: 27:41 It does. Yes. So, the essential oils that we look at for scalp support, and there are a few that have some good research with helping with opening and supporting … well, clarifying the scalp, but also helping support the hair follicle itself. Rosemary is the one that gets the most visibility, and it’s heavily featured in haircare products, tea tree and cedar wood are the other two oils. They don’t smell the best, so countering that [crosstalk 00:28:13]. So you can add a little lavender or something to help with the aroma, and lavender is a supportive, but those are the top three that are really going to help with any sort of scalp clarification and supporting that hair follicle, new follicle growth in the case of rosemary oil.

Charlynn: 28:34 So, you have some recovery, and I was just reading this morning about another botanical. I have to do some investigation, but there is another botanical, a fruit acid that I was reading about that, it looks it could have potential for hair growth.

How long you can keep your essential oils for

Kimberly: 28:51 Oh, it’s great. Charlynn, I’m going to ask you this again because I think, “Oh my gosh, I want to get back into the rosemary.” I had some. But how long can we keep our oils?

Charlynn: 29:01 Rosemary is one that can keep for probably three years, three to four years in ideal conditions. You can have it for a long period of time. Most essential oils we can keep for two to three years and beyond. Citrus oils are the ones that expire the quickest, about two years is the maximum for those, but the rest, I mean, frankincense lasts forever. It really does. Myrrh, patchouli, vetiver, those oils will last for many years and work very well.

Kimberly: 29:36 Well, thank you for that, Charlynn. And if we could post that recipe, that’ll be amazing for people. I’m going to try it myself. I love that, feet up, and just grounding, the feet … Last night, I’d saged myself, I just felt like wanting to clear. And I was sure to sage the bottom of my feet. I read that somewhere or I heard it from somewhere, you really have to, because that’s the part that’s touching the earth. You’re connecting with grounding. So as we don’t think about the bottom of our feet, but there’s a lot of energy, there’s all the points that go around the whole body.

Charlynn: 30:09 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Absolutely. Yes.

Essential oils practices to use when we feel the over-ness and the over-yang

Kimberly: 30:12 So let’s shift to the other side. We talked about the yin, where we need more energy, when we feel destabilized, we want to get grounded. Now, what about the yang? Let’s say we are over tasking ourselves, and I tend to fall into this category, overachieving, trying to speed up timelines, just the doing, the doing. And I experienced a rock bottom point, I would say, Charlynn, a couple months ago now with Moses the baby. It was just like I’ve been up all night. I’m getting to turn in my first draft of this next book, which is really exciting, but at that point I was in the heart of writing and there was just so much going on, we were working on the app and all this stuff.

Kimberly: 30:52 So anyways, I think a lot of us go through these periods. Everything’s cyclical; sometimes we need the motivation and sometimes we’re overextended. So what are some oils, some practices to use those oils where we feel the overness, and the overyang?

Charlynn: 31:09 Woody oils, the stabilizing, frankincense, cedarwood, myrrh, [crosstalk 00:31:19]-

Kimberly: 31:20 … Easter.

Charlynn: 31:20 Yes, yes. But they come from the core of the trees, sappy, resiny, think of stability. I always think of solar plexus stability with tree oils, because that’s where we need to have the confidence, the support, but also pulling ourselves back on keeping our power where it needs to be a strong and stable core. Those are the oils that I think about when I want to help pull my energy back in, and let’s get focused and get going.

Charlynn: 31:56 I also look back to rosemary and basil and black pepper for brain focus, so when our brain is all over the place. Black pepper is not one I’ve talked a whole lot about, but it’s another spicy oil that helps, especially when we are mentally taxed, it helps counter fatigue. So it keeps the brain, when we’re just trying, we’ve got all these ideas and all this information coming our way, but we need to get something done. Black pepper is one that I’ve enjoyed a lot more of.

Kimberly: 32:35 I’ve never even thought to use black pepper as an oil, because, obviously it balances salt, it flavors food, but it just … I don’t know. I never thought it would be something that you work with as an essential oil. I mean, obviously there’s a lot of oils in black pepper, but, huh. Never thought about it outside of food.

Charlynn: 32:54 It was one I came into my awareness about, oh gosh, 15 or 16 years ago, I think. Padma Lakshmi talked about, she was blending her own perfumes at the time. And black pepper was one that she used because of her cooking and the spice, and I was like, “Oh my goodness. So then I get caught on what are folks using, and just knowing that this person who was this wonderful chef and talking a lot about ingredients at the time that were introductions to people, like turmeric, and then she mentioned wearing your own black pepper. And that triggered, of course, my mind. And I was thinking, what can I do with that?

Kimberly: 33:40 I don’t know if we would ever wear turmeric. That’s not something-

Charlynn: 33:43 No. No. I wouldn’t recommend it. It doesn’t smell very nice, and there is a CO2 extract with turmeric that is functional, we can use it for topical application, but we don’t really want to smell like turmeric.

Kimberly: 34:29 So, when you were saying about when we’re tasking and we’re overdoing, I love how you said that these stabilizers come from the core of the tree. It’s almost like getting the energy of bringing us back into our center, we get centered. That’s so interesting.

Charlynn: 34:50 Yes. Yeah.

Kimberly: 34:51 [crosstalk 00:34:51]. They don’t hurt the tree. It’s the sap coming out.

Charlynn: 34:54 No, it’s very much like tapping the tree for maple syrup or to get the SAP out. With frankincense, they cut the frankincense and the sap comes out in tears, the tears, the resin. And it’s collected. But if it’s done in the right way, it’s also something that doesn’t harm the actual botanical. It can continue to produce. And so that’s why really knowing in the case of essential oils, who you’re getting your oils from and the intention of working with suppliers, because not everyone does it that way. So, we are very concerned with looking at sustainability as we look at essential oils. That’s a big concern of mine. I’ve said for years that if it doesn’t move us all forward, it’s not worth doing.

Charlynn: 35:43 And in many cases, there are examples of, like with Bulgaria, the rose industry being protected in essence by the essential oil industry, because it continues to generate a need for the botanical. In the case of rosemary in Morocco, it’s a protected plant species now, because it can grow in the wild, they can cut just a third of the top of the plant off for distillation, and then it can continue to grow. But until the industry came in and really wanted a demand from the plant, it was a plant that nobody cared about. So we can, with intentionality make the most out of using essential oils and using botanicals to move us all forward, to move the planet forward as well.

Kimberly: 36:33 And I remember hearing something, I think it was sandalwood, Charlynn, in Australia is now protected, or they’re working to protect it because then it got popular as an essential oil, and then there was a movement to protect the sandalwood trees.

Charlynn: 36:45 Yes. Yeah. India, sandalwood was over harvested. And people for years would say the best sandalwood is from India. It is. There are a couple of abundant species, but the sandalwood tree is a predator as a plant. So it needs to feast on other plants to grow when it’s young. And if it’s cut down, it takes so much to grow a full stand of the trees. It was being cut down. It wasn’t protected.

Charlynn: 37:15 So Indian sandalwood that comes from India is actually the legal. And so you have to be wary. Australian sandalwood is where they shifted production of the species, and now it’s plantation grown, there are sustainability practices in place along with replanting efforts in India for that species too. So, know where the oils come from. Not every supplier is on the up and up. Some people are in it just to make money. But when it’s really something very valuable like sandalwood, something very valuable like rose, we want to do whatever we can to protect the plants first, so that they can [crosstalk 00:38:01] contribute.

Kimberly: 38:02 That’s right. Yeah. It is a little bit of the Wild West. You guys have to be careful. And we talked about this before, but mentioning it again, safety, I know there’s some essential oil brands that even tell people to drink these essential oils, to put essential oil lemon in water and drink it. And we had David Crow on here, too. I don’t know you know him, he’s an herbalist. And he said that can because permanent esophageal damage. You are not supposed to ever ingest essential oils.

Charlynn: 38:31 No. And I answer that question every day because there are so people out there that are just saying, “Oh, yes, it’s like the plant.” It’s not like the plant. It’s an extreme concentration of one part of the plant, and anything in extreme, just because the bottles are tiny, I think people think, “Well, I can do whatever I want.” Every single drop has so much potential and potency.

Charlynn: 38:58 We find the same chemical equivalency in one drop of peppermint essential oil as we do in 75 cups of peppermint herbal tea. So that’s not the thing that I want to drink. I’m not trying to drink 75 cups of tea. I want to use my essential oils in my airspace and on my body externally. And I want to use the whole food or the plant internally. That’s what were supposed to do.

Kimberly: 39:25 That’s right. Thank you. Thank you. And, Charlynn, when it comes to distillation, let’s say we have a distiller like this, how many drops again do we put in?

Charlynn: 39:38 It depends on the space, because there the different diffusers can … small rooms, large rooms, but about 10 to 18 drops is the most that we would see. And I’ve talked to people that are like, “Oh, I dumped half the bottle in because more is more.” And I’m like, “No, more is never more.”

Kimberly: 39:58 More is never more. I love that. Just simple, do things, that’s all you need.

Kimberly: 40:06 Well, Charlynn, thank you so much. You always have so much wisdom. I mean, I feel this is bottomless well, and what I love, too, is when we’re talking about food and vegetables, for instance, we always want a variety, and there’s so many exciting vegetables out there. And I feel like the same thing with essential oil, I mean, the whole plant world. But a lot of times when people think of essential oils, I think that they go to just lavender, peppermint, right? There’s the lavender and there’s the peppermint, but there’s this whole rich space of plants and so much energy that we can derive from all these oils and practices.

Charlynn: 40:42 Absolutely. We’re supposed to have the sensory experience. We’re here and we’re supposed to taste the flavors in our food. We’re supposed to smell the smells around us. And in absence of the ability to immerse ourselves in the natural world, we can bring that to us and we’re supposed to. So I tell people, especially those of us who have gone through big struggles and tough times, and we get to these points that we’re feeling really low, “How are you engaging your senses? That can help pull you out of that, first and foremost.” And certainly taste and smell are the best ways to do that, in my opinion.

Kimberly: 41:24 Oh, so beautiful, Charlynn. Well, thank you so much. We are so appreciative of you. We honor you. We love your wisdom and thank you, thank you.

In Closing

Kimberly: All right Beauties, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did. Please head over to the show notes at mysolluna.com to get that recipe, that grounding recipe that Charlynn was talking about and for other links to other shows and resources I think you might enjoy. Thank you again for tuning in. Thank you so much for being part of our community.

Kimberly: 03:19 Again, I encourage all of you to check out our free Solluna by Kimberly Snyder app which is in the apps store. And then from there if you’re called to it please join our tribe, our amazing Solluna Circle which just grows and gets deeper and deeper every day. It involves a monthly theme, it involves daily tips, it involves a once a month live Zoom. If you can’t make that time you can watch it where we meditate and we talk about our cornerstones and the foods and the practices that support the theme that month. It’s really just an amazing program and I’m so excited about it. I’m in there every day communicating with everybody. So you can check that out as well. And till then we’ll be back here Thursday but I send you so much love. Take great care of yourself and again so much love. All right, I’m done. Bye-bye.

The post How to Balance Your Energy Through Essential Oils with Charlynn Avery [Episode #547] appeared first on Solluna by Kimberly Snyder.