3 Amazing Meditations With Essential Oils
Whether you follow a regular mindfulness practice or you are completely new to mediation, taking even a few moments to let the world go by and enjoying some peaceful time is accessible to everyone. Meditation is simply being purposefully in the moment without judgement. You let your thoughts flow through your mind and you simply observe them.
Essential oils are well known to help enhance meditation experience. Essential oils have long been thought to have profound effects on mind and body and have also been used for millennia to connect with the divine.
We love using essential oils during our yoga, mindfulness and meditation practice. We use different essential oil blends depending on how we feel at that moment - from calming and soothing effects to enhancing focus to elevating mood or balancing emotions.
The best way to enjoy essential oils during mediation is to diffuse them with a diffuser. We recommend our Nebulising diffuser as it does not heat or dilute the oils into water and delivers a deeper, more vibrant aroma.
Here are 3 of our favourite mediations that you can combine with specific essential oil blends:
Position: Lying down
Desired effect: Body awareness, relaxation, balance
Recommended blend: Active Life or Mind Spa
The body scan mediation is one of the most commonly known mindfulness practices. The idea is to pay attention to each part of your body in turn with maximum self-awareness, noticing the sensations and emotions that reside there. You attain spacious awareness by shifting your attention slowly around your body, region by region, like pointing a flashlight around the walls of a cave. You cannot hold the whole body in mind at once, since the mind is unable to multi-task and so it can only work sequentially. As you move from one area to next, you will become aware of physical sensations such as pulsing, heaviness, tension, stiffness and so on, and may also recognise emotions that reside in your body. Start from the toes of your feet and move upwards until you reach the crown of the head.
The idea is to pay attention to each part of your body in turn with maximum self-awareness, noticing the sensations and emotions that reside there. You attain spacious awareness by shifting your attention slowly around your body, region by region, like pointing a flashlight around the walls of a cave. You cannot hold the whole body in mind at once, since the mind is unable to multi-task and so it can only work sequentially. As you move from one area to next, you will become aware of physical sensations such as pulsing, heaviness, tension, stiffness and so on, and may also recognise emotions that reside in your body. Start from the toes of your feet and move upwards until you reach the crown of the head.
For body scan meditation we recommend our Active Life blend. The blend is restoring, balancing and gently invigorating. It contains 5 essential oils where peppermint is the hero ingredient. Peppermint has a cooling and refreshing effect and is blended with black pepper which stimulates circulation as well as eucalyptus, juniper berry and a hint of grapefruit to add balance. The blend will enhance a body scan meditation with the refreshing scent with earthy undertones helping you feeling restored, grounded and invigorated.
You can also use one of our Relaxation eye pillows which are a great way to block out light and put gentle pressure on your face. The lavender scent is soothing and balancing.
2. Loving Kindness meditation
Position: Seated or lotus pose
Desired effect: Heart-warming, heart opening
Recommended blend: Heart chakra
This meditation, based on Buddhist practice, starts with self-compassion – the acceptance of yourself with all your quirks and flows – and then moves on to embrace others in a wave of positive, heart-opening energy. Loving Kindness is a ‘heart’ meditation as opposed to ‘insight’ mind-oriented meditations.
The meditation is centred around making a wish of Loving Kindness. You can express silently a specific phrase such as: “May I experience a loving kindness for myself. May I enjoy happiness, health and peace.” Continue to make a wish of loving kindness and express compassion and empathy to other people in your life. Finally, send warm feelings to humanity and feel your heart fill with joy and love.
Our Heart Chakra blend is specifically created to help with self-exploration, heart-opening and spiritual journeys. It is a blend of woody and spicy essential oils making it the perfect companion for more spiritual meditation, mindfulness and yoga routines. The hero ingredient in this blend is cedarwood, which is synergistically blended with black pepper, juniper berry and frankincense with a hint of citrus as a top note to balance the blend. I love this blend because of its deep esoteric profile, which creates a lovely mystical atmosphere - ideal for the Loving Kindness meditation.
3. Mindful Mountain meditation
Position: Standing, warrior pose
Desired effect: Accessing inner strength, Mental and emotional stability
Recommended blend: Deep forest
A mountain is stable, imposing and majestic, and this meditation helps to find a parallel of strength and stability within yourself. It reminds you that any inner storms you face – the equivalent of mountain weather – have no true bearing on the essence of your being. For this meditation you need to be in a seated position and imagine your head as the peak and your arms and thighs as slopes. Once you’ve become the mountain in your imagination, you can visualise the view you’d have of neighbouring mountains in the range stretching in front of you.
Our Deep Forest blend is the ideal companion to the Mindful Mountain mediation. Our Deep Forest blend is a true forest bathing experience. At the centre stage is vetiver which is wonderfully grounding with its earthiness and has a deep soothing and calming effect. It is blended with fir needle for a large dose of freshness and a hint of black pepper with a top citrus note. Diffusing the blend in your space whilst practicing the Mindful Mountain meditation will give you powerful mountain scent hints and help you transport to a majestic mountain.
1 comment
Thank you for the information, Veronika. It would be useful if you can provide links to guided meditation.
Bests, Yordanka