AND, I want to honor it here... Sanctuary. I'm now teaching it at The University of New Mexico as well as The Santa Fe Community College.. and after taking the last few days off for my birthday and Mother's Day, the insights helped me 'see a better way' to give and support. You see, I love the science to the practice I've developed, but it's not 100% necessary and can stimulate even more anxiety than I'm about. So, the name of our community is officially: the inner sanctuary How this works: - The Threshold (free) — a monthly Sanctuary Letter, quarterly open circle, and a taste of the practice, step in when you're ready. - The Inner Sanctuary (membership) — the full held space. Monthly cycles, live circles, practice labs, aromatic protocols, and the community of women walking with you. If and when you're ready, the door is open. Please let me know if you have any questions and how I can assist you in anyway!

I have used essential oils for nearly forty years. Some of those years I was looking for relief — for myself, for clients, for whatever symptom was loudest at the time. Some of the oils worked the way I hoped. Some didn't. And yet I never put them down. On yesterday's live call I named, finally, what I think I was actually doing: not chasing relief but rebuilding a particular kind of interior space. The space between stimulus and response. The space between you and them. The space between who you are and what you are about to do. That space is what neuroaromatherapy restores — and what it has been restoring in me, quietly, for more years than I can count. And, as I noted towards the end of the call, my head (a dangerous neighborhood) and body (the victim) went from feeling as if they were betraying my life, to becoming a united sanctuary. The handout attached is a companion to our call. Five oils, one pregnancy-safe substitute, the constituents that matter, and a simple daily rhythm that won't ask too much of you. I've been deliberate about origin and chemotype — Helichrysum from Bosnia rather than Corsica, Roman chamomile rather than German — because in this work those distinctions are not marketing details. They are nature's wisdom. Use them daily, not heroically, and notice what changes in the gap between something happening and you reacting to it. That gap is the whole thing.

And share your results! Post questions to... https://aromagenomics.com/essential-oils-and-hormones-quiz

These 3 simple rituals are designed as starting points to help quiet the anxiety, overwhelm, or guilt — the common "demons" that show up in this beautiful season of our life. Because every woman’s energy, hormones, and scent preferences are unique, treat these as invitations to experiment playfully. Always start low and slow... Bioindividuality Tip: Your response depends on your nervous system, histamine tendencies, hormonal season (e.g., perimenopause), and what scents FEEL comforting vs. temporary/short-term to you. Test one drop first and make notes in a journal for 3 days — what helps one woman feel at ease might need to be adjusted for another. Ritual 1: Soothe Anxiety (Racing Thoughts / Wired Energy) Focus: Gentle nervous-system calm without heavy sedation. - Inhalation Ritual (quickest): 1–2 drops roman chamomile or bergamot on a tissue or inhaler. Inhale slowly for 1–2 minutes while allowing your anxiety demon to shrink with each breath. - Diffuser Option: 3 drops roman chamomile + 2 drops bergamot. - Roller Option (diluted): 4 drops roman chamomile + 2 drops bergamot in a 10ml roller topped with a carrier oil of your choice. Apply to wrists or temples. Ritual 2: Ease Overwhelm (Buried / Exhausted but Restless Feeling) Focus: Grounding with a touch of uplift. - Inhalation Ritual: 1 drop geranium or copaiba. Inhale while placing a hand on your heart and offering yourself a kind phrase (e.g., “I’m doing my best”). - Diffuser Option: 3 drops geranium + 2 drops roman chamomile or copaiba. - Roller Option: 4 drops geranium + 2 drops copaiba in 10ml carrier oil. Apply over heart or inner wrists. Ritual 3: Release Guilt (Self-Criticism / Heavy Heart) Focus: Heart-centered compassion and emotional balance. - Inhalation Ritual: 1 drop ylang ylang or clary sage. Inhale while placing a hand on your heart and offering yourself a kind phrase (e.g., “I’m doing my best”). - Diffuser Option: 3 drops ylang ylang + 2 drops cedarwood atlas or clary sage. - Roller Option: 4 drops ylang ylang + 2 drops clary sage in 10ml carrier oil. Apply over heart or inner wrists.

What conventional medicine rarely tells you about estrogen, mast cells, and the neurochemistry of chronic inflammation — and what aromatic constituents can actually do about it. Here is something most clinicians have not yet connected into a single picture: Histamine is not primarily an allergy chemical. It is an immunological organizer — the signal that recruits immune cells, opens blood vessels, activates inflammatory gene transcription, and primes mast cells to release more of itself. And it is in an intimate, self-reinforcing conversation with estrogen. Estrogen stimulates mast cells to release histamine. Histamine, in turn, stimulates the production of more estrogen. This is a documented bidirectional loop — confirmed in peer-reviewed immunology and endocrinology journals — and it runs quietly in the background of many of the most common and most poorly-understood inflammatory conditions affecting women. “Estrogen receptors are expressed on mast cells, and estrogen binding increases mast cell degranulation. Histamine has been shown to stimulate ovarian estrogen production — creating a feedback loop that can exacerbate symptoms associated with both high estrogen and mast cell activation.” — Bonds & Midoro-Horiuti, 2013, reviewed in Frontiers in Immunology But the conventional conversation about estrogen and inflammation is almost entirely focused on estrogen as a single entity — high or low, present or absent. What it misses is that which estrogen you have, and what your body does with it metabolically, matters as much as how much of it circulates. Not all estrogen is the same — meet 4-hydroxyestrone When your body metabolizes estrogen, it routes it through one of three primary pathways governed by specific CYP450 enzymes. The 2-hydroxylation pathway produces metabolites that are mildly anti-proliferative, weakly estrogenic, and readily cleared. The 16α-hydroxylation pathway produces more potently estrogenic metabolites associated with estrogen-sensitive tissue growth.