essential oils

4 Myths About Essential Oils & the Truths That Might Surprise You

February 6, 2018 by Edie Wadsworth 229 Comments

I was sitting at my desk working on my Lenten devotional series when I glanced to the left and saw my oils stash, sitting there in all its rainbow glory. It made me smile.

These little miracle bottles of unicorn tears have blessed me and my family in countless ways over the past three years.

Then I turned to the abyss which is my inbox and got this email,

“Dear Edie, I have followed your blog for years and I love everything you post. For some reason, I haven’t been able to make the leap with you into essential oils. I trust you so I’m assuming there be something to it. But it’s just confusing and weird and so trendy right now. Is there really THAT much to them? I don’t mean to be negative, I’m really asking. Do I need them in my life and why. Enlighten me sister.”

And so goes some version of that email nearly everyday in my inbox. To save myself some time, I’m answering with a blog post!

So.

If you’ve been intrigued or skeptical or at least a little curious about essential oils but found all the conflicting information out there confusing and just need someone to tell you the truth, I wrote this post just for you, sister.

As a physician and a long time skeptic of almost anything “natural,” including my hair color, I’m no stranger to doubts and confusion and lackluster results around essential oils.

I bought my first starter kit so my friend would stop telling me how much I was sure to love the oils. In other words, so they’d hush up about oils already.

And honestly, I thought it was the weirdest thing I had ever paid good money for.

And as a certified skeptic who let her kit languish in the recesses of her china cabinet for a year, I hope to dispel a few of the myths that often surround oils.

Let me guess…

Though skeptical, you went so far as to pick a few oils up at the grocery story or from a friend only to be a unimpressed by their lackluster results.
Or. You have wondered if there’s really anything to the crazy success stories you sometimes see on the internet.
Or. Someone on Facebook drives you crazy with their constant sales pitches and even if you wanted to, it makes you NOT want to try them.
Or. You’re pretty sure this is just a passing fad and you don’t want to fall for something expensive and/or pointless only to find out there’s was nothing substantial to it.

I promise I won’t waste your time. Busy mamas (like you and me) don’t have a SECOND to waste on things that aren’t directly linked to taking care of the people we love and keeping all the balls in the air. As a physician and veteran mama, I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think it would change how you take care of yourself and your family for the better. Hang with me here, I know I can help dispel some of the myths that have kept you on the fence.

Myth #1: You need to have some sort of specialized training to use oils.

Well, let me assure that this is just not true.

Oils are designed by God for our benefit. Just like he made food for us. And we don’t need specialized training in food. (I guess there could be an argument made for that, though!) We just need to eat the food He made. When we don’t eat what He made for us, we get into trouble. The same is true with oils. Just use the gifts from the plants that HE made for us—the ones well known to provide benefits for us, and leave the rest to Him.

Is there fancy chemistry associated with the oils and how they work? Yes, I have a whole training video on that and it’s QUITE fascinating. But the oils do their magic whether you know how they work or not.

There is a learning curve, make no mistake about it. That’s why you need to make sure you join up with someone who will teach you and mentor you along the way. (more about that later.)

But it really is just as simple as using them regularly, like you eat food, and watching what happens. They work amazingly well, whether you’re a physician and a chemistry major (now I see where that comes in handy in my life!) or a 5 year old who just likes the smell and novelty of the little bottles!

My private Facebook group is the perfect case study for a bunch of mamas who are finding amazing results with essential oils without having any sort of special training. They come in with a little humility and curiosity, ready to learn, and they find that a month or two or eight later, they have learned so so much about how to better take care of themselves and their families. It’s been a JOY to watch!!

(Make sure to download this free cheat sheet to see if you’re using oils all wrong, like I did for the first year!)

Myth # 2: Learning to use oils is a ton of work & I don’t have time for it

Here’s where having a mentor is SUCH a gift.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, because I already did. I made all the mistakes, I stayed up late and got up early many, many days because I was so captivated by what the oils were doing for me and what I was learning about them.

But I’ve simplified the process and created so many FREE resources so that you don’t have to do that.

Right now, for instance, I’m writing a brand new class that I’ll be teaching tomorrow in our private FB group all about emotions, hormones, and intimacy, right on time for Valentine’s Day. It’s SUCH a fun topic and fun class and I can’t wait to share it with my group.

Last year, I developed classes on Gut Health, Toxin Free Living, Hormones, Healing Oils of the Bible, and many more. Those are all waiting for you inside my group.

I can’t promise that you won’t fall down the rabbit hole of complete and utter AMAZEMENT at our God made our bodies and how His gifts support them but I will promise you that I will make it easy and fun and understandable.

Myth #3 – I’m fine; I tried oils a few years ago and they didn’t really work for me.

Same.

The exact same thing happened to me. And here’s what I learned after trying many different brands and stores and oils.

Essential oils are not created equal. There is a VAST difference between the oils I use now and the ones I tried over the years. They are not even comparable.

And honestly, even with good oils, without a little guidance, it can be so overwhelming that you give up before you get results. It’s happened to plenty of us.

Much like good quality, organic food grown by a farmer who cares, if you get REAL, authentic oils that come from REAL plants and REAL farms, they will change your life. They will transform the way you think about health and wellness. They will give you REAL tools to help your family. They will reduce your stress and improve the way your body functions. Your immune system will get stronger, your hormones will start to balance, your digestion will improve, your mood will get BETTER.

I promise you that if you give real oils a fair try, you’ll never be without them again.

It took my skeptical, scientist husband Stevie a long time to embrace oils, but he often says how amazed he is at how well they work. That right there is a miracle in and of itself!

Myth #4 – No thanks, I’m a christian and I’m not into weird healing practices like rubbing oils on my body.

We are a culture addicted to quick, ineffective fixes and as someone who spent most of her 20’s learning about pharmaceuticals, I can tell you that most of them are just that. They don’t get to the underlying cause of anything. They silence the alarm system of our bodies and that’s it, at least usually. Sure, there are some amazing discoveries that have been made and some life saving drugs on the market, but just look around. Are these making us overall healthier and more able to cope with the stress of life? If so, then why are there SO MANY pharmacies and doctor’s offices everywhere?

It seems to me that we have become very good at keeping ourselves in a state of low grade sickness for a very long time. It seems that we aren’t as a culture thriving, feeling good and full of energy and ready to serve the world with our gifts. At least most aren’t.

We are sicker than we’ve ever been and we worship at the altar of modern medicine. We look to those little (often toxic to our bodies) pills as saviors. And sometimes they are. But often, they are not.

We honor the white coat as if it represents something like a god. We trust it implicitly. And I get it. I wore that white coat for years. But we’ve stopped trusting ourselves and our ability to know what’s best for us.

So often, when I practiced medicine, I did what I was trained to do—prescribe drugs. And when it finally dawned on me that maybe those weren’t always the best choice for people, that maybe getting off some of those drugs, and changing our lifestyle and our stress level and our nutrition would be a far better approach, I began to see holes in the system everywhere.

It dawned on me that if Pfizer could make a drug that would make me feel less stressed that maybe God could too. And maybe God’s way was more holistic in its approach.

Could it be that He filled the world with the essences of plants he made and that those plants would be so often good for us? Yes, and the fact that most drugs come from plants is good proof of that.

So, if it has you weirded out that it’s a strange way of doing things, it really isn’t. It’s as old as Adam and Eve and there’s evidence that nearly every ancient culture used oils for a wide variety of things. Sometimes there’s an incredible amount of wisdom in looking back. Which reminds me of the verse in Revelation that says, “the fruit of the trees shall be for their food and the leaves of the trees for their healing.”

Every new thing you try feels weird at first and then you often realize that it was your own thinking that needed adjusting.

At least that’s what happened for me.

My wish for you is to sidestep the doubts and confusion and insecurities of using oils so that you can finally discover their magic. They are potent little drops of love that will do amazing things in your body.

I’ve been doing using and studying oils for over 4 years now and I’ve made MANY mistakes along the way. SO MANY. You don’t need to do the same!

I’ve compiled a list of 5 of my biggest rookie mistakes in learning to use oils and how to avoid them!

You can download it here.

Included in the cheat sheet is a bonus video on how I use oils in my everyday life!

And if you’ve read enough and are ready to start your journey toward a more holistic approach to health, I’d love to help you get started here! You’ll get added to my group (of almost 5,000!) just in time for our LOVE class!!

If you’re still curious and wanting to learn more, be on the look out for a jam packed master class coming up at the end of the month! I’ll let you know when you can sign up!!

The Reason I Gave Up on Essential Oils

June 21, 2016 by Edie Wadsworth 190 Comments

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As a family medicine physician who spent most of her twenties with sick people, I feel qualified to comment on state of modern medicine and how my submersion into the world of natural health and essential oils over the last few years has opened my eyes to so much that I never knew.

Very early in my career as a physician, I developed a love/hate relationship with pharmaceuticals. Sometimes they were life-savers. Most times, they caused more problems than they helped. Certainly, I realized pretty quick that someone who takes 10 (not uncommon in my neck of the woods in someone over 50) prescription drugs in a day does not usually feel very well. Not to mention how prescription drug abuse has devastated the county where I live in East Tennessee. So began my quest to stop or wean as many medications as I could from as many patients as I could. People felt better, often got their energy and their passion and their lives back. And since doctors are trained to prescribe medication above all else, by the time I quit, I was basically an anti-doctor, feeling very out of place in the profession I spent so much time training for.

And to be honest, from the beginning, I was the health care professional who never took antibiotics and tried to take as little of anything as I could. I can still count on one hand the number of times I’ve had my kids to a doctor’s office or on any type of pharmaceutical. Somewhere deep in my subconscious was a healthy skepticism toward the system—the system that is amazing at keeping us alive (and I’m very thankful for that) but not very good at keeping us healthy and thriving.

I wanted something different for myself and my own family than what I saw at work day in and day out.

After I quit my job, I continued to be fascinated with health and nutrition and natural ways to stay well. I was also saddened by the declining state of health care and the declining state of our overall health—despite our obsession with it, despite the fact that there’s a drug store on every corner, and despite the fact that though we spend more money than every other country on health care, we don’t seem to be thriving in the wellness arena. We seem to be getting sicker and sicker and more dependent on the system.

Honestly, when I got my first set of essential oils, I did it mostly to prove to myself (and to my friend who convinced me to buy the kit!) that it was just another fad. I kept the box of oils in my china hutch, stored away under lock and key like you would store Grannie’s heart medication. Occasionally I’d go to the trouble to drag the box out, open up a few bottles, rub some lavender on my skin and then put the whole thing away, all the while saying to myself. “It’s all hype, just like I thought.”

I basically gave up on them after having that box in my house for almost a year, thinking it was just a box of things that smelled good.

Then. Something changed. I went to a conference where I saw some of my friends carrying little bags in their purses full of small cute bottles, and applying them multiple times a day, all the while giggling and happy and sharing them freely with others. I did a double take and realized that I had those same oils back home in my china hutch, standing on the ready for the next yard sale.

The problem with essential oils is that we view them like medicine, which they are not. We’re afraid of them, not sure what to do with them, and sure that we’ll do something dangerous like overdose on them or use them in the wrong combination.

Here’s the honest truth. After two years of finally using them as they’re intended to be used, (more like food than medicine) I can tell you that I could never go back to life before oils and I could never practice medicine in the same way either. Why? Because I’ve had life changing results and now I know too much. I know that for 90% (or more) of what ails us, there’s a much easier and way safer answer than pharmaceuticals, beginning with nutrition and removing the worst toxins from our daily life. I also know that essential oils will balance everything from hormones to mood to skin to immunity to digestion and on and on and on. I’m so thankful for my medical training but I’m even more thankful that I didn’t stop being willing to keep learning, even if that has meant relearning much of what I was taught.

The reason most people fail to have the same results as I eventually did when they start using oils is because they’re scared of actually using them.

And perhaps rightly so. All oils are not created equal and I wouldn’t trust my health or that of my family’s to any company but Young Living.

But, using oils is more like eating fruits and vegetables than taking a medicine. Can you eat grapes with apples and oranges at the same sitting? Sure. Can you eat cauliflower in the same day or at the same meal that you eat broccoli and swiss chard. Of course. Will everything be okay if you have twelve different fruits and vegetables in one day? Absolutely. Things will be better in fact!

Those nutrients were made by God for our benefit and because He made them, they know what to do in our bodies. You don’t have to understand the chemistry of how Vitamin B works to get the benefits of it. But you do have to eat foods rich in it and eat them often.

The same with oils. There’s very little you can do wrong with pure grade oils and SO MUCH you can do right.

Once you try therapeutic grade oils and once you know how to use them, you will never go back to not using them. I promise.

You just need a guide to help you.

Which is why I’ve spent the last two years teaching people how to use them.

And why I created a course to get you started with more confidence.

The best news is— this week only, my essential oils course is part of an amazing natural health bundle where you get $400 worth of educational products and courses for $29, which is $10 cheaper than my course alone. It’s almost too good to be true! AND. If you purchase the bundle through my link, you’ll get a pdf and a (slightly dorky) video of me showing you exactly how I use essential oils everyday to feel better and more energized than I have in years. I think you’ll find it fascinating if you’ve always wondered what people do with those little colorful bottles.

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Maybe you’re like I was? Too paralyzed and full of questions to really use the oils you bought. I created this course with us in mind.

Or maybe you feel guilty about the box of oils that’s been sitting in your house that you’ve been afraid to really use? This bundle is for you and will give your the knowledge and confidence to finally make the purchase worthwhile.

Have you been on the fence, wondering if the oils would work for you and your specific situation? They will. And there has never been a better time to arm yourself with a library of resources.

Do you see the writing on the wall and realize that we must do something to start taking charge of our own health? This course will give you the confidence you need to take the first steps. You are going to LOVE the way these natural oils balance everything in your life. They are by far the best investment I’ve ever made for my health.

A sample of other things you get in the bundle:

101 Essential Oil Blends for Topical & Aromatic Use by Rachel Zupke of Mason Jar Values ($7.99)
Best Herbs & Essential Oils For Labor & Delivery-Audio Class & Transcript by Jenni Wilson of Natural Oil Mom ($19.95)
Handbook of Home Remedies by Wellness Mama ($24.00)
Herbs & Oils: Beyond the Basics by Jessie Hawkins of Vintage Remedies ($165.00)
Homegrown Healing, from Seed to Apothecary by Chris Dalziel of Joybilee Farm ($9.97
Wholistic Vitality: Healing Foods for the Whole Family by Dr. Karen Lee of DrKarenSLee.com ($9.99)

If you click this link or the yellow box below, you can see a short video I made about the bundle!

(The bundle sale starts today and will only be available for one week and likely never again, so snatch it up before it’s too late!)

Also, if you happen to click before then, you will submit your email and then they’ll notify you when the sale starts. OR. You can just come back and click the link after 9:30.)

(And if you haven’t yet used essential oils and would like to begin using them AS you learn, I’d be honored to have you in my group! Click here to get your oils purchased. We have lots of fun, learning together and sharing our answers with each other.)

If you purchase the bundle sale, come back and add your email address to the form below so we can send you your bonuses next wee!

What Inspires Me {Essential Oils & 3 Reasons Why I’m Still Head Over Heels}

September 11, 2015 by Edie Wadsworth 245 Comments

In an effort to remind myself of what I already know and in hopes of sparking a streak of creativity for you and me, I’ve been thinking and writing and periscoping about what inspires me.

I think it would be safe to say that nothing has inspired me more in the last year than diving into the deep end with essential oils. It took me a few months to dig through the hype and honestly the fact that it was trendy made me even more skeptical. I finally tried them because some people I trusted were raving about them and I had to find out for myself. It all seemed so strange to me, I’m not gonna lie.

What won me over was how amazingly effective the products have been at keeping me well on every level. It’s hard to argue with something that works. It’s hard to argue with measurable outcomes. My immune system became stronger than ever, my hormones were so much more balanced, my emotional life was no longer so topsy turvy. I started to feel better than I ever have. It was simply amazing.

When I left my medical practice 7 (or is it 8?) years ago, I was so disillusioned with modern medicine and our seeming inability to give people real, tangible help for wellness. When I found essential oils, I felt like I had won the lottery. Here are a few reasons why I’m still so in love with them.

1. They have the intelligence of a compassionate Creator

For the past two months, I’ve been mostly teaching a class about the oils of ancient scripture and in researching and studying to teach that, I fell head over heels (again) essential oils. I had studied the science behind why they work and was fascinated with their chemistry and the properties of their constituents. But when I began to look at their roots in ancient scripture and when I began to ponder on that fact that this was just another way God is caring for us, I was even more thankful for them and how much they’ve helped me. I asked myself questions like, “Is it possible that a God who loves us so much to provide for our very salvation might also have known that I would need physical and emotional support too?” Of course. And that it was probably no accident that he put Adam and Eve in a garden, of all places, where they would have both the nourishment of good food AND the healing properties of all the plants and shrubs and flowers that He so graciously gave them.

Essential oils are one of God’s gifts to us because He knew beforehand that we’d struggle with stress and emotional ups and downs and sleeplessness and hormonal shifts and a million other things. They have His intelligent design so it’s no surprise that they should be so effective at keeping us well and fit to carry out our mission as lovers of neighbors and sharers of His good news. He was caring for us before He ever made us because that’s the kind of Father He is—full of compassion and care.

2. They inspire curiosity and you don’t have to be a weirdo

One of the things going to medical school taught me was to never stop learning and essential oils have inspired to keep learning and reading and searching like nothing else in the health field ever has. I was amazed that a few of my otherwise seemingly normal friends were embracing something that seemed so OUT THERE.

Curiosity finally got the best of me. And even after they started amazing me in how well they work, I remember saying to a good friend, “Don’t worry, I won’t become one of those crazy oil ladies.”

Except I did. Like the crazy cat lady only with oil. Lots of little bottles of all kinds of different oils. And I’m CRAZY for them.

BUT. I’m not otherwise crazy or weirdo. (Or maybe I am, I guess you’ll have to decide.)

These little drops of love are quite amazing and you can’t know it until you’ve experienced it. You can be skeptical and you can be doubtful but when you begin to use them, you can’t help but be curious as to how and why they work so well. The more I learn and the more I use, the more I want to know and the more I want to experiment.

They inspire curiosity and conversation like no other. And not just what you can learn from medically researched journal articles about the amazing benefits of something like Frankincense but also just what you learn from a year of using an awesome little oil called Joy. My friends and family who use oils become so intrigued by them that they want to read more and talk about them and ask lots of questions. Essential oil usage tends to inspire lots of reading and way more self-awareness which often leads to positive lifestyle changes that can be otherwise hard to make. The YL starter kit is BY FAR the best investment I’ve ever made for my health. Without a doubt. Not crazy or weird, just the BEST THING EVER. Okay, fine, they also tend to make you very passionate.

The funny thing is we don’t think it’s weird that people take so much medication, which we should because medications are loaded with side effects. Just watch the next drug commercial. The side effects of essential oils? Better mood, stronger immunity, more relaxed inner life and yet more focused on your work. Maybe it’s not so weird after all. 🙂

3. They are natural supporters of a healthy emotional life.

This is my FAVORITE fact about essential oils—every person I know that uses them experiences a noticeable shift in mood. This is one of their qualities that baffled me and made me insanely curious. HOW do they do this?! Is it just placebo?

The staggering statistics of how many women are on some sort of mood altering/boosting medication are enough to make us want to find alternatives to help us with our stressful lives. And modern medications work by blocking difficult emotions, which can sometimes be helpful but they do very little to help us process all the change and grief and difficulty in our lives. Essential oils are such small molecules and are lipid soluble which means they readily cross the blood brain barrier. Once inhaled they go straight to the emotional center of our brains.

This ability makes them so special and unique and because the sense of smell is so tied to our emotions and memories, they begin to help us change some of our deeply ingrained emotional responses. I cannot begin to tell you how many people I know personally whose lives have been improved by this quality alone. If this piques your interest, I’m doing a video class Sunday night via Facebook on emotional healing and essential oils and would be delighted for you to join me. Click here to join the event.

I actually never thought I’d be inspired enough by anything to actually write about health & wellness, despite the fact that it’s been my lifelong obsession and the subject of so much of my study and reading. Now, because of these reason and more, it’s become one of my dearest passions because I’ve found something that I believe in with all my heart. I’m so thankful to have found this treasure trove of goodness and I’m so thankful for the growing community of women that are taking this wellness journey with me. We’d love to have you join us!

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I’ve started a new blog for my Young Living peeps called The Oily Sisterhood and I wrote this morning over there about a day in the life with oils if you’re curious about how you would incorporate them into your daily life!

If you find all this intriguing and want to know more about what I use and how I came to choose Young Living, click here.

To view my class on Essential Oils & Emotional Healing, click here.

If you were already on the fence and are ready to give them a try, click here or email me at ediewadsworth@mac.com. You’ll love our wonderful, supportive group!

3 Ways Essential Oils Changed My Life (And a special until July 15th!)

July 7, 2015 by Edie Wadsworth 1 Comment

As a family physician, I never thought I’d end up such a natural health enthusiast until essential oils changed my life in such dramatic ways. This video explains it and don’t miss the free pdf below on how I use the oils everyday for mood and sleep and hormones and EVERYTHING! I also link to a video below where I teach a class about hormones and mood.

1. They dramatically improved my sleep.

It ain’t no lie to say that I didn’t sleep through the night in years (at least hardly ever) before using oils. And listen, if you can fix sleep, EVERYTHING in your life gets better. Everything. We are the most sleep-deprived people on the planet and we need to sleep well in order to perform well at anything.

2. They’ve balanced my crazy hormones. FINALLY.

Okay, let’s just be honest. As we age, things get a little crazy. I’ve been trying to get my hormones balanced or two or three years. I went the traditional medicine route. I tried bioidentical hormones. And I’m telling you nothing, I mean NOTHING has balanced my hormones like our oils and supplements. We have a hormone oil that when you open the bottle, THE ANGELS SING. Just ask anyone who’s tried it. It’s amazing. And I tell you all about how I use it in the pdf below.

3. They’ve SO improved my mood and given me joy!

That whole joy-of-gladness thing in the Scriptures is FOR REAL. Every single person that I personally know who uses oils regularly has seen a shift in their mood for the better. And many have been able to ditch more harmful mood altering things for oils with great results. I’ll tell you what works best for me in the pdf below but suffice it to say, all oils improve mood because God is awesome and that’s how he does things. The first place the oils work when you inhale them is on the mood regulating part of your brain. The God of the universe knows a thing or two about how to heal us and I’ve never seen emotional healing like this before.

Click Here to Get the free PDF!

I know it’s overwhelming, but the oils are the best teacher and they work, even if you don’t understand how. BUT. That’s only true if you get the highest grade therapeutic oils like the ones from Young Living. Otherwise, you’re just getting perfume. I wrote a post about why I chose Young Living here, in case you’re interested.

Ready to get started with these awesome oils? Click here and I walk you through it!

Also, if you’re not quite ready to start but want to learn more, join my free 14 day e-course that covers every oil in our starter kit with gobs of ways to use them!