Following tracks to our feelings
Eagle footprint like one I found next to our creek
I’ve had a pea-sized lump in the arch of my left foot for a year or so. I’ve tried various essential oils but it hasn’t budged. Then my friend and teacher, Kathy Spohn, mentioned the spot corresponded to the adrenal glands on the reflexology chart and said Endoflex, a blend of oils I wasn’t familiar with. So I ordered some and was really surprised when I opened it to smell spearmint. When I was 5 I had my tonsils out. As I emerged from the ether I had a nightmare that I was trapped inside a spearmint jelly jar. I couldn’t stand the smell of spearmint until later years when I made distant friends with it. I wondered if somehow my lump was connected to my surgery 55 years ago.
Yesterday I told this story to Kathy and she mentioned words like stress and trauma since that’s what adrenaline is for. I started filling in the rest of my story for her, how the nurse promised me that when I got back to my room I could have some ice cream—-and then I started to cry. You see, ice cream is my weakness. Ask any of my family or friends. I have trouble controlling myself around ice cream. It’s one of my best and most comforting friends. BUT the story goes on….
When I got back to my hospital room, the girl in the bed next to me was already eating ice cream, the very last portion of ice cream in the hospital. There was none for me! All these years later I can still see myself in the bed, looking to my right at the girl who got what I was promised. I think the 5-year-old me is still shouting, “Give me MY ice cream!!” I’ve always had a hard time with broken promises. I’m beginning to see why.
I’m still applying Endoflex to my foot, and on my adrenals, and inhaling it from my palm. I can’t report improvement with the bump, but I am learning some deep lessons about myself and my appetites. As you may know, when smelled, essential oils go straight to the amygdala, the emotional control center of the brain. They are able to retrieve buried emotions and bring them, along with memories, back to the surface when we’re ready to deal with them. This is powerful medicine.
