Words Have Power: Blend for Emotional Wounds

Guest Blog by Melissa Holman that demonstrates how a blend can nurture your strength during emotional wound healing.

Words have power, and the words you tell yourself matter because those words become the beliefs you believe about yourself.

One of the most interesting things about beliefs is that they originate from within, and your brain will constantly seek external proof that the thing you believe is true. The words that I have told myself for the majority of my life, my most prominent belief, was that my voice doesn’t matter. Thanks to the Reticular Activating System (RAS), I received confirmation again and again that my voice did not matter.  The second interesting fact about beliefs is that they will positively or negatively affect your mind, spirit, and body. 

I remember one specific instance when this disempowering belief was confirmed.  I was in my early 40s, and we had a death in the family.  I was a full-grown adult with children and years of life experience.  We were driving through the winding hills of Tennessee, searching for our family graveyard.  We crested a small hill; I saw the dirt road leading up the mountain and told my family we were there.  I was immediately dismissed, and we continued to drive for another hour and a half to end up back at the dirt road I had told them about.  The words we tell ourselves have power.  My voice did not matter and was confirmed again!

Words have the power to give life or destroy it. The belief that my words didn’t matter translated in my body to “I don’t matter.”  Because my body experienced an existence where it didn’t matter, it began to behave in ways that confirmed this belief.  I gradually began experiencing emotional numbness, depression, anxiety, physical pain, physical numbness, sluggish digestion, asthma, and more.  My body decided that functioning wasn’t necessary and began shutting down. 

I began taking supplements, adjusted my diet, exercised, and saw a chiropractor, massage therapist, acupuncturist, and mental health professional; I tried everything I could think of but continued to experience all the symptoms.  Chasing after symptom relief became my way of living for several years. 

In 2015 I went back to school to learn about Aromatherapy.  I received my certification in 2018 and added essential oils to my toolkit to combat my decline.  I was doing everything I could think of, yet nothing was working. In the fall of 2019, during one visit to my acupuncturist, she called my husband into her office and told him that if I didn’t make significant life changes, my body would soon give out. 

Your mind and body were designed to work together for optimal functioning.  When you continually berate yourself, your mind will do amazing things to preserve the functioning of your body; they will disconnect.  In that disconnect, your body can no longer receive the messages from your brain and vice versa. 

I broke my toe several years ago, and instead of my brain receiving the message through pain receptors, I heard the crack and said, “I broke my toe.” There were no tears, and the bone took over three months to heal. Without the mind-body connection, my brain could not respond to the injury to heal it.  When the mind-body is disconnected, no amount of diet, exercise, supplements, or any other modality will have its fully intended effect.  After decades of telling myself and believing I didn’t matter, my body believed and behaved destructively.  I knew I was not well.  I knew something needed to change.  But what?

In March 2020, we moved to Guam.  Little did I know that Guam would be where my true healing would begin.  Most of the world despised everything that 2020 brought, but for me, it was the beginning of my healing journey.  Being on a tropical island, where life is generally at a slower and less expectant pace, coupled with the worldwide pandemic, I was forced to stop.  My mind and body had a chance to align in the silence and stillness. 

During the pandemic, I earned my Health and Life Coaching Certificate and then my Transformational Coaching certificate.  I worked with other coaches to uncover and unpack old beliefs throughout the process, which resulted in reconnecting my mind and body. I learned to listen to my body and feel again.  In reconnecting my mind and body, I have seen true healing begin in my mind, body, and spirit. Now, I can take supplements, exercise, eat right, and use my beloved botanicals and my body will accept them.

One of the hallmarks of people who are disconnected in mind and body is their inability to hear when their bodies speak.  You may be able to attune to others and their needs, but your needs go unmet.  One of the tools that I used to help my mind reconnect with my body, in addition to transformational coaching, was essential oils.  You may find, as I did, that your body may respond to some essential oils more than others. 

I created a blend for myself to use in my coaching sessions that brought together the botanicals my mind and body needed for healing: Juniper Berry (Juniperus communis), Rose (Rosa damascena), and Red Mandarin (Citrus reticulata).  This blend brought profound spiritual ease, promoted self-love and nurturing, healed emotional wounds, and opened my heart.  It helped to restore trust and relieved worry and unpleasant memories.  It also allowed me to breathe happiness, experience long-lost childlike feelings, and offer love and protection.  Coupling this blend with transformational coaching allowed my mind and body to relax, reconnect, rejoice, and realize that I have gifts to bring to this world.

Your words matter.  The things you tell yourself matter.  The thoughts you choose to believe in can heal or destroy.  Maybe you don’t know where or how to start the healing process.  If that’s the case, I have this to offer…I have found the thing most helpful is seeing someone on the same healing path, using modalities that resonate with you but who is a few steps ahead of you, and asking them to help guide the way.