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Heart of Herbs Herbal School Podcast
Scentful Healing: Integrating Aromatherapy and Emotional Wellness with DeeAnna Nagel
Unlock the secrets to harnessing essential oils for creativity and emotional balance. DeeAnna generously shares tools like chakra and wellness charts on her website to help listeners integrate these powerful holistic practices into their lives. Safety is a cornerstone of our discussion, where we delve deep into the responsible usage of essential oils and the potential dangers of improper ingestion. DeeAnna emphasizes the importance of mindfulness and care through personal anecdotes, ensuring that listeners can confidently navigate their aromatherapy journey.
Explore the incredible concept of scent memory and its significant influence on our psychological states. Discover how aromas can trigger potent memories, and why it's crucial to consider scent associations, especially in therapeutic settings. DeeAnna offers practical advice for practitioners, such as doulas, on how to introduce essential oils to clients thoughtfully. We also celebrate the growing acceptance of holistic practices and honor DeeAnna's role in demystifying aromatherapy, making it accessible and beneficial for everyone. Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation that promises to expand your understanding and appreciation of the power of scent.
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Thank you, hi. This is Demetria Clark, the director of Heart of Herbs Herbal School, and today we have Deanna Nagel on our podcast. She is an aromatherapist who's taking aromatherapy in all these different places, so that's really exciting and I can't wait to share that with you. She's also an author, she's a business, she's a creative, she's an innovator. So, deanna, thank you so much for being here and please, like, tell us all about yourself.
Speaker 2:Thanks having me, demetria. Um, it is so great to be here. And, um, you know I wasn't. I haven't been an aromatherapist for very long, I've been. I've been an aromatherapist for about 10 years. That's a long time. Well, but I hadn't really put it into practice. So a very long time ago I decided to become a therapist, a psychotherapist, and so I got my master's degree in counseling and somewhere along the line I buried my intuition, went to graduate school and figured out how to do this thing called counseling. And I think I went to graduate school to justify my intuition.
Speaker 2:So years later, you know, like 10, 15 years after that, I came out of the pixie closet and I'm like you know, I've been using my intuition with my work, but not intentionally. Like I did a lot of forensic work in the early days, you know, counseling families and children and foster care and custody evaluations and substance abuse and all the fun stuff, and I always use my intuition, but I relied on the valid and reliable instruments to back up my hunches, and my hunches were always backed up. So there's my intuition. So at some point I said, you know, I got to do more with this, like it was knocking at the door and I was going through some personal health issues, um, being called to kind of go down the holistic path instead of the allopathic path, um, and so, you know, I went gluten-free and I did all the, all the whole foods. And this was years ago, this was before it was a thing, um, and then one day I I literally like a neon sign, came down and said you need to learn Reiki. I'm like Reiki, I don't even know if I know what Reiki is. I need to learn Reiki, yeah, um, and so I I like found a Reiki course and took that and still not really clear what all that's about.
Speaker 2:Um, and probably about three months later, after I did Reiki training and I'm still doing therapy, you know private practice and court and all that a friend of mine who was also a therapist at the time, calls me to lunch and I get there and she's got this like little centerpiece of 10 bottles of something. I'm like what's going on? And she said, well, these are essential oils. I'm like no, no, no, I don't do that, we don't do that. I can't do fragrance, I can't do oily, smelly stuff, I'm very sensitive, autoimmune. And she's like no, no, these are pure essential oils. And I'm thinking whatever that is, and I'm thinking to myself what is this? Did she drink some Kool-Aid? But I got through the lunch and she's like go ahead and experience some of these oils.
Speaker 2:And so I tried lemon oil. I thought, well, how bad could lemon oil be, if it's real lemon? Who's allergic to lemon? So I did the lemon oil and I got an immediate sort of brightening reaction and I said, okay, I'm in because she was my friend. So she said to me that day use the oils every day, in every way. So she said to me that day use the oils every day, in every way. I didn't know what that meant, but I said okay, and off I went and from that experience my life changed exponentially. And I'm not talking just you know the obvious. Well, my house smells good now and it's not fragrance, it's not chemicals, it's all natural. Oh, my house smells good now and it's not fragrance, it's not chemicals, it's all natural.
Speaker 2:It was, you know, my respiratory system. I have a lung disorder. My respiratory system responded. Not a miracle cure, but my respiratory system responded and hadn't responded to anything in 15 years. So, and that magic oil was eucalyptus, you know, not an uncommon oil Like it's been around in my life forever. Where have you been, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:But the biggest expansion I think I made was emotionally and spiritually. And I was told a long time ago that essential oils can be the heavy lifters. So, whatever you're dealing with, it's not that the oils are the miracle, but they support you in a way that will allow you to open up and experience whatever you need to experience. And that is exactly what happened to me, and I think the reason it happened is because and everybody's different um, we, we all have magic moments, we all have epiphanies, we all have what some term spiritual awakenings, and for me the sense was that opening. So I was opened up to a whole new way of experiencing. I had always been intuitive and a little bit of claircognizance, which is clear knowing, a little bit of clairvoyance, you know, seeing, and when I started using the oils, all of my clear senses just started popping.
Speaker 1:And when I started using the oils, all of my clear senses just started popping. Wow, I love that. That. It was just like a friend in a simple moment. Isn't that crazy how transformative interactions. I actually started tearing up a little bit, because we've all had those moments where it's like just the light switch went on and how cool is that?
Speaker 2:That that I mean, yeah, that's how it started and and so you know, when you have those kinds of experiences, you can't ignore it. I mean, how do I ignore that? And then how do I integrate that into the work I'm doing as a counselor, educator, as a coach educator? And I was told by many of my colleagues you're, you are committing professional suicide by going down this pixie lane.
Speaker 1:And I said I'm glad they cared, but it's really your career. Come on, it's my life.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so for many years I kind of had my feet in both camps. You know therapy and I was, you know, an ethics chair of two state counseling associations. So I know scope of practice, I know ethics, um, and that really helped me guide myself and others. So now what I do primarily is I teach. I don't see clients anymore, but I teach. I do clinical supervision, I teach clinical supervision. I teach intuitive wellness coaching. I teach essential soul care, which is based on an Oracle deck, I wrote, which is rooted in essential oils. So essential oils are sort of filtering into a lot of what I do. What I tell professionals counseling professionals and coaching professionals and healers is, if I'm the one, I'm the girl that can tell you how to integrate this into your practice ethically, so you stay in your lane.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that Cause ethics is a huge thing for me, like I think it's really. I think that the industries are very the wellness industry, herbalism, aromatherapy there's a lot of ethically ambiguous actors out there. I'm trying to say it nicely and I love that that is like just such a core for you and that you're saying that because I think, like people like hearing that, okay, it's okay to have an ethical backbone and I can still have a career and I can still have money, and I can, you know, I can still have these things that make my business and I can still have a career and I can still have money, and I can, you know, I can still have these things that make my business, but I can stay true to my, my ethical beliefs or the beliefs of my industry or whatever. So I love that you you're sharing that, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, for therapists we forget that the sort of the founders of psychotherapy or psychoanalysis, you know, Freud was the first, and then there was well, the first recognized, and then there was Jung and Jung. Carl Jung was all about all of the Wu. Carl Jung was all about all of the Wu. Like he preached Wu, he preached psychospiritual approaches, metaphysical approaches. So this isn't new. But in the culture we live in now, therapy is very, very much rooted in the medical model. So when you become a therapist, I tell therapists, you know, you're now in the medical profession, yeah, yeah, and as a medical professional you have to check all those boxes, and those boxes say everything must be evidence-based. Well, so my, my thing is you can do some of this other stuff and pair it with evidence-based practice. It's called subjective tools, it's called metaphorical experiences that help open up the client to get to those evidence-based practices. So that's my big thing. Right now I'm launching a course based on the Oracle deck, essential, soul care, um, and it's 49 cards with 98 journal prompts.
Speaker 1:Oh wow. So how can people get their hands on this and then tell us a little bit more about that? Because I think I think the cool thing with journaling and oracles and prompts is sometimes we just don't have it in us, you know, and then we have a prompt and it's like oh okay, this is how I can help myself. I think we're just so exhausted that I think a lot of people don't realize how useful these tools can be in our everyday life. So please share more about that. That's so exciting and so interesting.
Speaker 2:So the deck is 49 cards. So there's seven sets of seven, each seven. Each one is based on one of the chakras, seven main chakras, um, and we pair it with what we call an element. So for the crown chakra, we call the element transcendence. For the third eye, we call the element intuition. For the throat chakra, we call it mindset, and it goes from there. The root chakra is sanctuary, um, and in the guidebook we we offer a paired essential oil, a paired crystal, a paired affirmation, the oracle message, and then a soul play journal prompt. If the card comes up right and if it comes in reverse, do the soul study, which is the shadow side, probably. You talked a lot about the shadows, so it's a really thorough way to sort of you create your own self-help path. You can just pull a card every day. What, what do I need to know for today? I love that there's different.
Speaker 1:It's not just like here's a card and here's a prompt. It's like maybe you're not in the mood for the prompt, right, or maybe you can't deal with the prompt, but you can go and you can find the appropriate crystal or the appropriate essential oil and maybe that can help get you there, or maybe that's all it can give you for that day.
Speaker 2:But it's going to give you like whatever I know like.
Speaker 1:if I'm going nuts, so bananas, I know I go to anything in the citrus family and instantly I'm in another world. Grapefruit is my jam. It always has been. Grapefruit is my jam. It always has been.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, just having like that extra, those that like whole list of like prompts, I guess right, they would be like a list of it can give people tools that maybe they weren't expecting or, you know, sometimes you just, sometimes you're just like I'm not doing, I'm not smelling anything today, and then you could. There's another tool for you, or sometimes you could do all of them, and I think that's really. I think that's really exciting, because I think it's important for people to realize that you can have lots of different things in your toolbox in one place and you're giving people that in these cards. Yes, and I'm really glad that you brought that up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's the point. It's like you, like you know, we're all. We all wake up in different spaces every day, and so there's a, there's a playbook that goes with it, like a workbook, that teaches you more about the oils and the crystals and what contemplative writing is, and wait, there's a workbook too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can just get the deck, but there's also a workflow, so, yeah, so people might choose just to journal that day, or they might just choose to repeat the affirmation three times, or they might just say you know, this isn't fitting, anything I'm experiencing right now and they put the deck down, and then our suggestion is revisit that later. Yeah, yeah, you know what you went about today, what, what came up. We're really big on synchronicity. I co-authored this with madison lee acreage he's also a therapist um, and we co-authored the deck, um, but we're really big on synchronicity. So my, my thing is if you want to increase your intuition, pay attention to the synchronicities okay, okay so could you?
Speaker 2:explain what you mean by synchronicity to everyone who's listening sure, like you hear the phone ring and you know who it is. Okay, okay, you see number, you see triple digit or four digits over and over in a day 11-11, 4-4-4. You are writing about something in your journal and the next thing you see on the internet is a book on that topic. Like those are just, sometimes they're very big thing and sometimes they're very small. But when you start paying attention in an intentional way, you know that's the universe's way of saying you're on track. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. I love the way that you described that. Thank you, yeah, you're on, you're on track yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love the way that you described that, thank you yeah, you're on, you're paying attention to your path.
Speaker 2:So keeping a synchronicity journal is, I think, one of the best ways to increase intuition.
Speaker 2:And and so when we get back to aromatherapy, when we pair all of these activities with the oils, we have the potential doesn't happen every time, but we have the potential to pop open that soul portal through the olfactory sense. Right there there's an opportunity for that to happen, and an example of that is when I did for a few years. I had a local aromatherapy shop, brick and Mortar, and I did creative writing classes with essential oils, and what I would do is I would pass around, I would give everybody paper and pencil and I would give the prompt and say pen to paper, five minutes, don't stop. Whatever comes, just write it. Then I would pass an oil around and do the same prompt again without the oil as part of the prompt. The writing was very cognitive, concrete, um, not a lot of feeling a lot of times. And then when you add the oil, it becomes more creative, more feeling. It's, it's left brain, right brain stuff it's like you tickled their emotions exactly exactly so.
Speaker 2:That's just an idea of how essential oils can sort of take you in a different direction, yeah, and so that's why I felt it was essential to create a tool that involved essential oils. I, I love that, yeah, and, and I've created, you know, a chakra chart and a wellness chart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was looking at those. You sent them to me. They're just so beautiful. Where can people get those charts?
Speaker 2:They can get them on my website. Okay, and what is that? Deanna, D-E-E-A-N-N-A, M-E-R-Z bagel, N-A-G-E-Lcom Cool.
Speaker 1:And you're so great that you spelt it out for us.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Because when we do the. We always do the transcript so people can read along or whatever. So the transcript will get it right, which is great. So do you have everything available on your website, or is it just the, just the charts? I mean, do the?
Speaker 2:is the book available there too? Everything's there, and if you can't find it, there's a search bar. You just put wellness wheel or chakra chart, it'll pop up.
Speaker 1:Awesome, awesome. Yeah, that's good it's. I mean, I love. I love it when people get things directly through the creator, but are they available in box stores also, like Amazon, or not? The?
Speaker 2:charts, but the books, the essential soul care deck and guidebook is available on Amazon. The playbook is available on Amazon and my book intuitive aromatherapy is available on Amazon.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm glad you brought that book up. I would love to hear more about the book intuitive aromatherapy Intuitive- aromatherapy.
Speaker 2:It's a really simple book. It's really about how to use essential oils intuitively, even how to use essential oils as the oracle right.
Speaker 2:I have got a. I got a whole section on and I used to do that. I had a big bowl when I first got into the oils I didn't know anything about the oil, I didn't know what oil was for what, but I had all the oils in a bowl and I would every day pick three oils singles, not blends and then look at my reference guide to see what the oracle message was. Okay, cool, and because I really began to see the essential oils as an oracle themselves, if you listen. Okay, okay, and so that was the initial impetus for the book. But really the book is a compilation of my thoughts and my own expressions over the past 10 years using the oils in this way.
Speaker 2:Wow in this way, you know I mean I went, I got to level two aromatherapist and you and I talked about this earlier. I took the anatomy and physiology course and got through it, and my brain's not as young as it used to be. It's a lot of memorization.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you it's like really and.
Speaker 2:But I felt it was essential to have that background because you also, people also need to understand that essential oils are extremely potent, um, extremely powerful for physical, um support, and we can't overlook that. We can't overlook the safety measures we need to take with essential oils. We can't, we, just we. So for me, being in the role I'm in, I felt like I needed to be very cognizant of the whole picture, even though, you know, coming up with a, a potion for um, somebody's physical ailment, is not. That's not my gift. My gift is is more metaphysical okay, okay, cool.
Speaker 1:So, but I mean, just because your, your, your gift is metaphysical, doesn't mean people aren't going to take it into the physical right. Exactly so giving people really solid safety information is so important and in this industry it's been hard for the safety stuff to get out there because there is a lot of noise. That's oh, we'll just put it undiluted on your baby's butt and you're like that child is burned. That's not you, just burned your kid Like what.
Speaker 1:You know and so people. Even when you're trying to give what you feel is like really clear, practical information, someone else is going to go. Well, what if I stick?
Speaker 2:it up my nose, maybe it'll work better.
Speaker 1:It's like, well, that's not what I intended. So I love that. You're, you know, you talk about safety and you're, you're, you, you, you bring safety into the forefront with your work because it's so important.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just that simple, it's so important, I mean how many times in this book do I say be careful, you know, make sure you dilute properly, don't rub your neck with tangerine oil and go out in the sun, you know? And then I have a whole little piece in the book on ingestion, because there's a lot of controversy around that. Yes, and I'm very I'm on the conservative side of that, so it's not that I'm totally against it, but I think it does require a level of skill and a level of intention about how you use the oils in that way. I'm not one that thinks, you know, you need to be ingesting oils every day just because yeah, well.
Speaker 2:I uh.
Speaker 1:I just remember, years ago there was a time period and it was like the thing, and people are like yeah, you know, I'm taking like 25 drops in my water.
Speaker 2:I'm like who told you to do that?
Speaker 1:like wait, wait, no, stop. Like how about we try smelling it? And they're like, oh, that actually kind of works. Like yeah, no wonder you're having burning diarrhea. No, no, you don't want to be mean like who told you to do this? But like your instant thing is who told you to do this?
Speaker 2:you know and you know so this is what I didn't know until I took an aromatherapy course was essential oils in general are very hard for the liver to break down, so like, and my perfect example of that is lemon. Okay, lemon essential oil does not come from the rind, so I mean from the, from the juice. So when you're dropping drops of lemon essential oil into your water, that is not the same as a lemon drop, because it comes from the rind.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, it's a whole different part of the plant, right?
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's probably not going to do it. We just don't absorb it the same way.
Speaker 1:It is. It's scary Some of the information that's out there. And I think once you're in the industry, you know you've been around essential oils for a while. Sometimes you're like you know you can't help but just laugh Like I can't believe this is still out there, that this is still making the rounds, like this has got more life than anything else. But but I think, like the, the, the practitioners that just keep okay, I'm just going to keep it's easier not to talk about the safety, but they keep talking about it, right Is? I mean it's just going to do the industry a world of good, because I think, I think we're starting to break through.
Speaker 1:You know like I used to get a hate mail I guess is how you'd call it from people who worked with certain oils from certain places, and they'd be like you're giving wrong information. And I'm like look, if you spill it on your table and it strips the finish off, you probably shouldn't be drinking it. And they're like oh wait, what do you mean? I'm like okay, have you ever seen the furniture stripper, the Citra brand? And they're like yeah, I was like, read the ingredients. It's essential oil. I mean, obviously it's industrial grade and it's different. But I'm like why would you, why would you drink it? And they're like oh, you're not being mean. No, I'm not being mean and I'm not selling anything. Don anything, don't drink right.
Speaker 2:You can use lemon essential oil, the same way you can use goo off to get a label. I do right. I have.
Speaker 1:Like I mean I had children who magic markers and paint and bubble gum. I mean know sometimes that grapefruit would be pulling double duty. Make mama feel calm and get the stuff clean. No, it's. I mean it's uh. It's good that you're talking about safety in all of your materials, because I think it's easier sometimes for us to just skip over that, and I think it's good that people are not skipping over it anymore. Like if you read some of the aromatherapy books from, like you know, 20, 30 years ago, they don't really talk much about safety at all. They don't talk about ingestion, because no one was drinking it then, right. Or very, very few people. Or people would be like no, it's French style, that's not true. It's no such thing, no-transcript. We want people to feel safe when they're in those spaces too.
Speaker 2:Well, and even if you're diffusing essential oils I see some essential oil blends or diffuser recipes on the internet. They're like 15 drops in a diffuser for one room.
Speaker 1:No less is more your baby didn't fall asleep because it was relaxed, it was sensory overloaded and shut down Right.
Speaker 2:So you know, and that is to me, that's a safety concern you don't want to overstimulate yourself, overstimulate your olfactory sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah so, and a lot of it is common sense, um, at least I think but yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to say yeah, okay, I think every time when we, when we as professionals, are like it's common sense, it's like someone in someone in the world's gonna be like slap, yeah, well, and you're like yeah okay, well, and and then the other piece of this is, even with ingestion, you know, in terms of spiritual or emotional development, paying attention to what your body, mind, body, spirit, not just your physical body, your aura, your astral spine, however you want to, your soul, however you want to think about that, being in touch with what your body needs, and so many people you know, and sometimes that's just allowing yourself to drop in and pay attention, yeah, yeah, and so many people follow somebody else's directions rather than just paying attention, like if you smell an oil yeah, I've heard this. I mean, well, if you smell an oil and you don't, and and you don't like it, it's probably what your, your body needs.
Speaker 1:No, it's not your body saying no I know I think that's so funny or like it's a healing crisis. No, you just burn your. You just burn the skin on your back. You should not use undiluted whatever and I'm like that. You know that kind of we're going to hurt you. To make you better. I'm not a huge fan of that. I'm like I want you to feel better. I don't want you to be like you know. I think sometimes, when we have a reaction to something in our environment and maybe something we need to, like, take a look at, like why is this bothering me? I don't feel like what we use to heal and make ourselves better should be making us violently ill or hurting us or scaring us or having us relive trauma. That's saying let's move to a different tool in my, in my philosophy.
Speaker 2:Yes, and there is. There is something that I've experienced many times which is called scent memory. It happens to people who smell any kind of aroma or fragrance. It's not just with essential oils, and having been a therapist for years working with people with trauma, I know that sometimes trauma victims are triggered by certain smells, by certain aromas. Absolutely, they might have memories, and so a scent memory is a real thing and those scent memories, even with essential oils, can be good or bad.
Speaker 2:So a scent memory, for example, if you smell lavender essential oil pure essential oil for the first time, you may get a trigger that has nothing to do with the pure essential oil pure essential oil for the first time. You may get a trigger that has nothing to do with the pure essential oil, but it reminds you of the laundry detergent, the chemically laden laundry detergent that gave you a migraine three years ago. Right, Because there is lavender essential oil in that laundry detergent, but there's also the chemical, the vat of chemicals, along with it, which is what gave you the headache. Absolutely, the good side of that is if I my first scent memory with essential oils was geranium, Okay, and when I smelled geranium I was immediately taken back to my grandmother's backyard and her geraniums in the yard, Like it was an instant. It was just an instant. Here I landed right in the garden and that was lovely. That was that was I mean. It was like she was in the room. So my point with all of that is, when you smell an oil and you don't like it, don't necessarily, you know, run the other direction. That doesn't mean you need to inhale it or diffuse it or whatever, but just allow yourself to be open to what comes up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's, that's um. I when I talk to, uh, so I trained doulas too. I, when I talk to, so I train doulas too. And so when I talk to our doula students, I do say to them like, look, you know, if you are working with someone who's been open about having had some kind of traumatic event in their life, I do. I will ask, like, is there a scent associated with that? Because I, you know some people, you know, if they've been hurt by someone who's wearing, like old spice cologne?
Speaker 1:for example, right, and then you're trying to give birth and a nurse comes in the room wearing that you at least know, like, okay, how can I, you know, make this situation different for them? And we forget that, like, most memories in our life are associated with a smell. We just don't think of it in that context. Right, you know people, people know what their grandmother's pie smelled like. Or you know I will forever, until the day I die, know that my grandmother and I can smell her, gina Tay, that's her body splash from when I was little and what the powder smelled like. And you know that. You know. Or, or people will be like, oh, the iconic scent of Chanel number five, or whatever.
Speaker 1:But these are the reasons why they stick with us is because they are part of our memories and they are part of our experiences, and I liken that sometimes to the equivalent of like watching TV and scent, because you can bring back, but unfortunately you can also bring back bad. You could also, you know. And so just being aware of that as practitioners, I think is is is great, and I love that you brought that up, because I think people sometimes forget the sense that are in their life and how important they were in different parts of their life, and that sometimes, if you are having a visceral reaction, sometimes you'll know why and sometimes you won't be sure until you spend some time thinking about it. And there's nothing wrong with before you purchase something or grab something to use they take a few minutes and just think about it and say, okay, maybe this isn't something I want my life, I'm not having a healing crisis. I really don't want this in my life.
Speaker 2:Or, oh, okay, there was good with that and bad or whatever and I actually give a little example protocol in the in my book about you know how to how to not be overwhelmed by essential oils, because oh, wow, love that Love it Right. If you get that, if you get a kit from somewhere and it's got 10 or 12 bottles of oil, okay, that can be really overwhelming. So I suggest, I mean, come on let's rub them all over our body at once, because we're overexcited right so I suggest, my first suggestion is start with lemon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, start with something you know, or whatever and and hold it down like by your chest, and bring the bottle up slowly to your nose.
Speaker 1:Just allow your, your, your body and your senses to take it in so you don't think people should just slather it all over themselves in the first two seconds?
Speaker 2:please, no, no, um, um, they're, you know, it's, it's, it's also that these are, in my opinion, they're like, it's like little beings in a bottle. You don't want to exploit the oils. Yeah, yeah, and we're so fortunate to be able to have that bottled gift. Yeah, because they didn't have that a hundred years ago, 400 years ago, a thousand years ago, you know, in order for them to get the essence of cavemen weren't extracting essential no, I don't believe they were to get the essence of the plant.
Speaker 2:They had to work really hard for it. So you know, technology is why we have those little bottles absolutely.
Speaker 1:I am really a huge fan of less is more, and so people will always assume, because I teach aromatherapy and I practice aromatherapy, that I'm all about everything being aromatherapy. And I'm like, if you can get by with like half a drop, why would you use 20? Like, if your body has become so attuned and you can use less because your body responds quicker and feels better faster, why would you use 20 or 60 or 80 of something when you can, you know, now, get by with three or four drops, and they're always like. When you can, you know, now, get by with three or four drops, and they're always like they don't believe that that you know that our bodies well, can start filling in the pieces right.
Speaker 2:We live in a culture that bigger is better, more is better, absolutely, absolutely. You know. And while we're on the topic of you know, less is more, etc. The other important piece about that is sourcing where the oils come from, because I'm a firm believer, not just with oils, but with anything you put in on or around your body you need to be. Even the crystals that you hold in your hand need to be ethically sourced, absolutely. And if you't and I'm not saying that all the oils in the store are, are or are not, but if there's not a background, a backstory to those companies, go with a company that has a backstory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah Well, and they're all purchased on the commodities market overall, and some have contracts with farmers, the ones that are more ethical. They'll let you know what their story is because they're proud of it. They're proud of all of the work that they're doing to get the product to you and they can show you a paper trail. And I'm so glad you brought that up. I am beyond weird with this kind of stuff as far as sourcing herbs and essential oils. Weird with this kind of stuff as far as sourcing herbs and essential oils. It goes into my pots and pans, it goes into my clothing. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:My bed sheets are grown in alabama, like I'm. Like you know my flower, I know where the flower is grown that we we bake with. Um, because I think that we have a unique opportunity to be as responsible as possible. It's not hard now, 50 years ago, trying to figure out where everything was from, or in the 80s, when we were starting to, everything was plastic and started the plastic avalanche was coming at us. We didn't always know where everything came from, but now we can just look anybody up and find out who their parent company is and all this. It's almost negligent not to when it comes to things like herbs and essential oils, because they're putting the information out there. They're making it really easy for us to find, and if we're only shopping with our wallets, we're going to get what we pay for.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and to that point, all of my courses, my material, it is all brand neutral. You know, I have my favorite brands, but anybody that's taking a course from me is not going to be expected to be endeared to one particular brand. Yeah, I think the important thing is to get the word out that essential oils are a tool, a positive tool, for many people.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm a huge supporter of that. I mean, we teach students how to shop, not who to buy from.
Speaker 1:And I think sometimes too, when we get this like kind of romantic relationship with the brand, we're only going to find out they're cheating on us with someone else later so it's really good to be able to source products on your own without needing you know, uh, the cult following of one brand or the other, and I think that that's great, that you're brand neutral too, I think that's that's something that I think is really needed. Um, especially, people seem to get really into their brand well and.
Speaker 2:I'm really into my brand, but not in a, not in a, in a glam, you know, glammy cult kind of way Like yeah, you like what you like right. If somebody wants my advice or wants you know who do you use, okay, fine, I'll tell you, but not, not as a not as a sales pitch. Does that you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying. I mean I like certain things that I like too. I mean I, I, my favorite sheets in the world are Redland cotton. But if you know, if, uh, you know, and I'm only saying that because I don't need some essential oil company coming after me for mentioning or not mentioning their brand, but like you know, but like uh, but you know, hey, if that's not what you're into, you don't need to buy the sheets I buy or like the whatever that I like. And I think that's really. I think that's really important too, that students understand that they really are the ones who are in power over how they decide to practice, and it's their decision. And it sounds to me like you really try to set your students up for having that kind of autonomy and having that kind of thought process where they can come to their own conclusions, and I love that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I, you know I. There are many preachers out there. I'm not one of them. No, I like that. I would be like the worst.
Speaker 1:I would be the worst at that.
Speaker 2:I'm really just here to guide people on their journeys, um, and most of the journeys are professionals. Yeah, you know being guided to help others, you know that's that's what I'm here for. That's my calling. Um took me a meandering road to get here, but here I am and I'm happy to be all woo and out of the closet and I can add my logic in there when necessary.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome yeah, so where can? Where? What kind of classes are you currently offering, and let us let everyone know where they can find all of your stuff again so, deanna mersnagelcom?
Speaker 2:um, I teach for therapists. I teach clinical supervision, which is very theoretical. Clinical application there's not. You're not going to see anything about essential oils in that course. I teach, teach intuitive coaching and transformative coaching, and both the clinical supervision and the coaching goes toward national certifications. And my intuitive coaching course, of course, includes pixie dust and essential oils and all the fun stuff. And then I teach essential soul care, which is based on my deck and it's teaching healers, coaches and and their therapists how to use the deck not just in their own lives but with clients to enhance, to enhance their practice. Um, I teach therapists how to implement the use of essential oils in their practice ethically. And I teach a host of coaching courses for another coaching school that's ICF accredited. So I teach, I teach, I teach.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and everything they can find out everything that you do at your website. Yep, it's all there, that's great.
Speaker 2:On Instagram. I'm at Deanna Nagel.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that's D-E-E-A-N-N-A-N-A-G-E-L. Yes, yay, yay, there you go. Well, like I was telling you earlier, I tried to make sure I pronounce everyone's name right, because Microsoft Word, in its first incarnation, used to auto correct my name to dementia or demented.
Speaker 1:So I would have the emails back in, like 1996, I'd be like thanks demented because it would just my husband had to teach me how to turn that off, so I didn't didn't always have my name signed off like that, and eventually it has learned my name, so you know a name is important. So thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you, I can't wait for people to hear this. I think they're going to be really excited to just think about aromatherapy in another way, or think about ways they can bring aromatherapy into practice worlds that maybe they didn't think it would be in before, because I think it's nice that we are learning how to access more intuitive tools in our culture. It's been a long time coming, so I'm glad that there's people like you who are helping people bring that into their world. So thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, demetria. Thanks, you have a great day you too. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Bye.
