Clary Sage - Taking the Horror Out of Hormones

It might sound like there is a pun intended in the title, and yes, in some way it is a play on words. However, whilst I always try and keep a sense of uplift and the lighter side of life at play, there is no joke about how debilitating and horrendous hormonal issues can be! Both for those living with them and for their loved ones. It is not something to be taken lightly as those of you who resonate will understand and not always an easy issue to try and tackle. Thankfully though, there is good news and support that I can vouch for experientially and will explain later below.

Hormones can affect us all so differently and the list of associated difficulties is vast and varied. Issues range in the level of impact upon daily life and change across age ranges, and even from month to month for some of us. On this non-comprehensive list some common factors we can often start to associate with hormone changes and/or imbalances are; headaches, migraines, breakouts, boob and nipple soreness, that yucky and embarrassing bit at the end of a period that nobody wants to talk about, and possibly worst of all can be the negative mental and emotional health aspects. From moodiness and tears to absolute rage which can affect relationships with your loved ones. Not to mention the gut-wrenching subsequential guilt and shame from over-reacting or taking it out on them. Any anxious feelings can be heightened or initiated, and every negative comment ever received in your life seems to appear from nowhere and be actualised in front of your very eyes as you look and feel likesome kind of monster (of course you don't really but that's how it feels). There can be such a low sense of self and feelings that leave you not recognising yourself.

The good news is that there are powerful natural solutions, such as Clary Sage that doesn’t involve anything synthetic and can be ingested, due to the Certified Pure Tested Grade of doTERRA. I have found it so empowering to make this great healthcare choice for my hormonal health knowing that it can be for as long- or short-term as I wish, meaning I feel as in charge of it as I can be and can stop or increase/decrease the ratio at any time I wish. Listening to my body’s ‘indicators’ each month for a few cycles helped me to confirm the right ratio of oil for me (which was of course within the stated maximum daily amount for ingestion, please contact me if you require any information on how to use the oils safely).

My journey with hormonal changes has been vastly improved by the daily use of clary sage in this way, to a level of around 90% better than it was before. This can change slightly from month to month depending on the other external factors going on in life at the time but with such a huge and beneficial difference seen and felt in the 10 months that I have now been taking it for has so far cemented it as one of my top 5 daily priority healthcare choices (see next month’s blog to hear more on this!) This is also yet another example of the many reasons why I describe these oils as life-changing!

The beautiful thing about how the oils work is that there is no suppression or unnatural cessation of anything the body is needing to release, yet the intensity of the difficulties felt are often brought into balance and drastically reduced, as in my case using Clary. We, in the West, are heavily conditioned to seek medications that will suppress, block or numb anything uncomfortable as the most ideal outcome and in my view, is too often associated with the pharmaceutical industry. I am certainly not of a mindset that is anti-pharmaceuticals when they are necessary for health but I feel passionately that there is a great deal of unnecessary pharmaceutical use and misuse. As we increasingly understand, suppressing and blocking symptoms can over time cause inflammation, disease and further associated long-term physical and emotional difficulties in the body. That's even before we have considered the side-effects of synthetic medications.

That said, we don't of course want to be unnecessarily suffering with debilitating symptoms or difficult to manage emotions, or for anyone else to be so although we can understand that our body's are innately intelligent at healing themselves, we also know when we need some extra support. This is particularly true in our current environments that can be stressful with more external pressures than are healthy for us. Our body's are intuitive and responsive at knowing what we need when we take a little time to listen and they will usually respond quickly in 'resetting' and benefitting immensely from simple and natural interventions, such as powerful essential oils when of the highest grade in quality, such as doTERRA. The oils work cleverly to bring the body's own natural healing systems into balance, and within these little bottles of nature, lie the various chemical compounds that work synergistically with our own natural chemistry in the body. This is why purity is so very important as it really does mean power. Power to really be effective in actually making change to our level of wellbeing due to the scientific make-up of each given oil, and without polluting our system with any of the shocking impurities found within the other 95% of essential oils on the market.

Finally, I’d like to celebrate the allowing of vulnerability and the beauty of healthy release of symptoms and emotions from the body, like the occasional damn good cry for example. Imperative for functional processing on all levels and effective long-term healing. This is also why I understand I have 90% improvement in hormonal factors - if it were 100% then I would surely be suppressing, blocking or numbing some release. I wouldn't be human, and I wouldn't be a woman. The beautiful thing about being a woman is we are innately designed to be more emotional, intuitive, even a little chaotic at times, as we are changeable like the moon and the tide....thankfully though there is support for improving the intensity of how hormonal factors impact on this release, for which I am grateful.