The Power of Plant Medicine meets the Power of Touch - the AromaTouch technique

I am teaching something today that I wish you could be present to learn, but I am glad that at least I can tell you about it here. It is called the AromaTouch Technique and over the last year and a half, it has become my favorite way to empower others to improve their health and quality of life. I cannot properly put into words how grateful I feel to have been given the opportunity to share this healing practice with others. One of the things that is unique about AromaTouch is that, unlike massage, which can be taxing to the practitioner, the technique is actually pleasant and beneficial to the person who gives it. When massage therapists of a certain age discover AromaTouch, they rejoice; not only do they not hurt after a session, but they feel emotionally uplifted and physically relaxed. Doctors and nurses love it because they can achieve a positive clinical outcome quickly and naturally, without drugs or surgery. Clients and patients may experience immediate restoration of range of motion, reduction in pain and more. They describe their feeling afterwards as "light and heavy at the same time" "clean and refreshed" and say "massage feels like it's working on the outside but this works on the inside." When I first discovered doTERRA essential oils, I was working as a reiki energy healer, and my dental hygienist thought to put me in touch with her aunt, Priscilla, a nurse who loves doTERRA essential oils and had made a business of sharing them in her spare time. I soon received a set of sample vials of the oils to use on my clients. I immediately fell in love with the extraordinary purity and potency of the oils and the benefits they delivered for my clients, myself, my husband and my kids; I began to read and learn about the company and its mission. As I did my research, it was the AromaTouch technique that intrigued me the most. I told Priscilla that I wanted to learn the technique so that I could share it with my clients. I asked when I should plan to go to Utah to learn from Dr. Hill, doTERRA's chief medical officer, who had developed the technique. Miraculously, Priscilla announced that she had just been deputized by Dr. Hill as one of several instructors trained to certify others as practitioners of the technique. Although we had not yet met, Priscilla offered to conduct a certification training in my living room if I could gather a dozen or so folks who also wanted to learn. I posted what I knew about AromaTouch on Facebook, basically, that it is a clinical application of essential oils designed to enhance health well being, and the response was rapid and strong. I quickly filled the room with other like minded individuals: a couple of massage therapists, an esthetician, a personal trainer, a life coach, a nurse, a healing touch practitioner, and a mother of teenaged athletes, and my own teenage son. We were all excited to learn something new, to acquire a natural way to help the people we care about. I didn't have any idea how much my life was about to change. Let me pause for a moment and explain: The AromaTouch technique has three fundamental objectives. It offers even a novice essential oil enthusiast a way to use oils effectively and appropriately to enhance quality of life. It addresses known constant disturbances to overall health and well being: stress, toxic insult, inflammation and autonomic imbalance. Third, it helps re-establish a state of homeostasis within the body. Without overloading you with too much of the science behind it, let me just say that it based on a whole lot of study of the neuroendocrine, nervous and endocrine systems, as well as the hypothalmus, which connects these last two systems. Walter Bradford Cannon, a Harvard physiologist and neurologist who dedicated his career to understand the autonomic nervous system, suggested the term homeostasis to describe a state of balanced and effective activity that promotes long term health. When homeostasis is achieved, we are able to react more healthfully both to emotional and physical stressors. What AromaTouch has meant for me, so far, is this: (1) I have a safe, effective way to make people feel better, to help them with chronic fatigue, chronic pain, chronic stress, even with grief and depression. (2) As a regular host of AromaTouch certification trainings (Priscilla would return to my spacious living room each month for the next six months, until I moved from our sprawling ranch in Ohio to a tiny city house just outside Washington DC), I was filled with joy each time a set of healers would leave my home armed with this new way to help the people they meet. I had fallen in love. (3) I set a goal for myself: to become one of Dr. Hills' deputies. Last month, I achieved this goal. I achieved Gold rank in doTERRA, which entitled me to spend a weekend learning with Dr. Hill in Columbus, Ohio, and I am now one of 32 newly minted trainers in the AromaTouch technique. (4) I am now the only trainer in the state of Maryland able to offer certification training in the AromaTouch technique. I also travel to teach the technique, as Priscilla did for me, when I first reached out to her. Earlier this month, I returned to Ohio to train a new group of people in Cincinnati in the technique and I am receiving feedback that they are already busy changing the lives of the people with whom they've shared it. Next weekend, I will visit my mother in South Florida and while I am there, I will train another group of folks in Boca Raton. And right now, I'm going to have breakfast with my family and then, pack up my doTERRA oils and go teach AromaTouch just a little way up the road in Rockville, Maryland.