nervous system regulation

Essential Oil Blend for Presence: A Grounding Aromatherapy Ritual for Mindful Living

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In a world that constantly pulls our attention outward, presence has become both a practice and a refuge. Presence invites us back into our bodies, our breath, and this moment—exactly as it is. Aromatherapy can be a gentle yet powerful ally in this practice.

This essential oil blend for presence was intentionally crafted to support grounding, calm the nervous system, and encourage mindful awareness throughout the day.

Why Use Essential Oils for Presence?

Scent is processed directly through the limbic system—the part of the brain connected to emotion, memory, and regulation. When used with intention, essential oils can:

  • Support nervous system balance
  • Encourage slower, deeper breathing
  • Reduce mental distraction
  • Anchor awareness in the present moment

For those living with chronic pain, recovering from surgery, navigating stress, or practicing mindfulness and yoga, grounding essential oils can serve as an accessible daily ritual.

The Essential Oil Blend for Presence

This blend balances earthy, floral, and citrus notes to create a sense of calm alertness—rooted yet open.

Ingredients & Benefits

Frankincense
Often called the “oil of awareness,” frankincense supports deep breathing, emotional regulation, and spiritual connection.

Lavender
Known for its calming properties, lavender helps quiet the mind and soften physical tension without dulling awareness.

Bergamot
A bright citrus oil that uplifts mood and eases anxious thought patterns, bergamot encourages gentle optimism and clarity.

Cedarwood
Warm and grounding, cedarwood promotes a sense of safety, stability, and embodiment.

Presence Essential Oil Blend Recipe

Roller Blend (10 ml):

  • 3 drops Frankincense
  • 3 drops Lavender
  • 2 drops Bergamot
  • 2 drops Cedarwood
  • Fill with a carrier oil (jojoba or fractionated coconut oil)

Diffuser Option:

  • 2 drops Frankincense
  • 2 drops Lavender
  • 1 drop Bergamot
  • 1 drop Cedarwood

How to Use This Blend for Mindfulness

  • Apply to wrists, heart center, or back of the neck before meditation or yoga
  • Use during breathwork or body awareness practices
  • Diffuse while journaling, resting, or during recovery time
  • Pair with a daily affirmation or mindful pause

Mindful Affirmation:
“I am here. I am grounded. This moment is enough.”

A Gentle Daily Ritual for Presence

  1. Apply or diffuse the blend
  2. Close your eyes and inhale slowly through the nose
  3. Exhale fully through the mouth
  4. Name three sensations you can feel right now
  5. Return to your day with softer awareness

This ritual takes less than two minutes and can be repeated whenever you feel scattered or overwhelmed.

Safety Notes

  • Always dilute essential oils before topical use
  • Avoid bergamot before sun exposure unless using a bergaptene-free (FCF) version
  • Consult a qualified professional if pregnant or managing medical conditions

Presence Is a Practice

Presence isn’t about perfection or constant calm. It’s about returning—again and again—to yourself. This essential oil blend is not a solution, but an invitation. A sensory reminder that you are allowed to slow down, breathe, and be here now.

If you enjoy practices that support mindful living, gentle yoga, and healing rituals, explore more resources at Embracing Spirit Yoga.

Why Yin Yoga Is Perfect for Winter: Rest, Renewal, and Seasonal Wisdom

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Winter is not a season of momentum. It is a season of conservation, reflection, and quiet transformation beneath the surface. In nature, growth slows, energy retreats inward, and rest becomes essential. Yin yoga mirrors this seasonal wisdom, offering a practice that honors stillness rather than resistance.

Unlike more active styles of yoga, yin is slow and deliberate. Poses are held for several minutes and are often supported, allowing the body to soften gradually instead of being pushed. During winter, when energy levels may feel lower and the nervous system more sensitive, this gentle approach becomes deeply nourishing rather than draining.

One of the most profound benefits of yin yoga in winter is its effect on the nervous system. Long, quiet holds encourage the body to shift out of constant alertness and into a state of rest and repair. Breath naturally deepens, muscles release unnecessary effort, and the mind begins to settle. In a season that can feel heavy or overstimulating, yin provides a sense of refuge.

Winter and Yin

Winter is traditionally associated with the Kidney and Bladder meridians, which relate to inner reserves, resilience, and wisdom. Yin yoga supports these energetic pathways by encouraging deep release along the spine, hips, and back body. Rather than expending energy, the practice helps preserve and replenish it, creating a feeling of steadiness and quiet strength.

Emotionally, winter yin offers space for reflection without pressure. This time of year often brings memories, endings, and a natural turning inward. Yin yoga does not rush these experiences or attempt to fix them. Instead, it creates a calm container where emotions can surface, soften, and pass without judgment. Through stillness, we learn to listen rather than react.

Yin and Rest

Yin yoga also reshapes our relationship with rest. In a culture that often treats rest as something to earn, winter yin reframes it as essential and intelligent. Stillness becomes a practice of trust — trusting the body’s timing, trusting the season, and trusting that slowing down is not falling behind.

Practicing yin in winter is an act of alignment. It is a choice to live in rhythm with nature rather than against it. Through support, patience, and quiet awareness, yin yoga honors the unseen work happening within us — the gathering of strength, clarity, and intention that will eventually support new growth when the light returns.

In this way, yin yoga becomes more than a physical practice. It becomes a seasonal ritual, a way of listening deeply, restoring gently, and allowing winter to teach us its quiet wisdom.

Nervous System Support: My Essential Oil Blend for Calming Chronic Fight-or-Flight

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Finding Calm When Your Nervous System Won’t Settle

A Personal Blend for When You’re Stuck in Fight or Flight

If you’ve ever lived in a season where your nervous system feels like it has one setting — high alert — you’re not alone. After months or years of stress, pain, recovery, or constant caregiving, the body can forget how to step out of survival mode. You might feel jumpy, restless, easily overwhelmed, or like your mind won’t quiet down even when your body is exhausted.

This state is often called chronic fight-or-flight, and it’s something many of us quietly struggle with. When the body stays “on” for too long, even small tasks can feel heavy. And yet, the moment you begin supporting your nervous system with intention — breath by breath, choice by choice — small shifts begin to happen.

As many of you know, this has been my personal reality. My body has been through an intense year. Surgeries, recovery, pain, stress, and the emotional heaviness of trying to keep up with daily life have kept my nervous system running at full speed. Some days it feels like it never gets the memo that it’s allowed to rest.

But healing happens in layers.
And one of the most supportive tools I’ve leaned on is essential oils.

Why Essential Oils Can Support the Nervous System

Certain essential oils interact with the limbic system — the emotional center of the brain — helping signal the body to soften, release, and shift into the parasympathetic nervous system. They don’t “fix” stress, but they help create an internal environment where your body can breathe again.

Over the years, I’ve crafted many blends, but this one is deeply personal — something I’ve been using daily as I navigate this season.

My Nervous System Support Blend — “Safe in My Body”

This blend is steadying, warm, grounding, and soothing without being sedating. It’s made to help ease tension, soften the stress response, and bring you back to a place of inner safety.

Essential Oils:

  • Copaiba – 4 drops
  • Lavender – 3 drops
  • Frankincense – 3 drops
  • Bergamot – 2 drops
  • Cedarwood – 2 drops
  • Vetiver – 2 drops
  • Patchouli – 2 drops

Add these oils to a 10 mL roller bottle and fill the rest with fractionated coconut oil or jojoba.

How To Use It

Roll it over your heart when I wake up feeling tight or anxious.
Use it on the wrists when you feel overwhelmed or overstimulated.
Apply it to the spine to help ground your energy.
When the breath gets short, pause, inhale the blend, and let the exhale be longer than the inhale — a simple way to signal safety to the nervous system.

A Gentle Reminder

Healing your nervous system isn’t about perfection. It’s about creating moments where your body feels held.
If you’re living in survival mode, please know:
You’re not broken.
Your body is protecting you the best way it knows how.
And with time, breath, support, and compassion, it can learn to soften again.

Affirmation

“I am safe in this moment. My breath is my anchor. My body remembers how to calm.”

5 Gentle Yoga Poses to Reduce Anxiety — With Chair Yoga Options for All Bodies

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5 Gentle Yoga Poses to Reduce Anxiety — With Chair Yoga Options for All Bodies

We all experience stress and anxiety—but you don’t have to face it alone.
This new yoga video offers a short but powerful practice featuring 5 calming yoga poses, each designed to soothe your nervous system and quiet your mind.

Whether you’re brand new to yoga or seeking an accessible way to find ease in your day, these poses can help you feel more grounded, supported, and at peace.

What You’ll Practice:

  • Forward Fold – for gentle spinal release
  • Legs Up the Wall – to reduce swelling & calm the nervous system
  • Cat-Cow – to awaken the spine and connect breath to movement
  • Child’s Pose – to settle the body into rest
  • Seated Twist – to release tension and improve circulation

And the best part?
Every pose includes a chair yoga variation, making it perfect for seniors, beginners, or anyone needing extra support.

Plus, keep an eye out for Leo the cat’s peaceful cameo—adding a little joy to your practice ?

Chair Option Here:

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? Your 10-minute self-care break starts here. Your body and mind will thank you.

Stay Connected:
 Website: embracingwisdomandwellness.com
 Instagram: @embracingspirityoga
 Facebook: Embracing Spirit Yoga

If you love my content and want more tools for mindfulness & movement, check out my digital products on Buy Me a Coffee! Your support helps me continue creating. 

Looking for the tools and products I swear by? Visit my Amazon storefront for a handpicked collection of my favorite finds—from kitchen gadgets to wellness essentials. Click here to explore and shop my must-haves.

If you would love to be part of my essential oil community and are ready to start using pure essential oils, shop here or email me for a free 1:1 consultation.

5 Calming Poses to Support Cortisol Balance

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Cortisol Reset: 5 Yoga-Inspired Poses to Help You Feel Calm and Grounded

Have you ever felt tired but wired at the end of the day—like your body is begging for rest, but your mind just won’t turn off?

That’s often a sign of high cortisol levels—your body’s primary stress hormone—still running the show, even when the day is done. Whether you’re managing chronic stress, burnout, fibromyalgia, or post-surgical healing (like me), that overstimulated nervous system can leave you feeling restless, achy, and emotionally depleted.

Over the years, I’ve found that weaving a simple, mindful yoga practice into my evening routine can help bring the body into a state of rest and safety. This gentle sequence of five poses is my personal cortisol reset—designed to calm the nerves, ground the energy, and support the body’s natural transition into rest and recovery.

1. Legs Up the Wall (Viparita Karani)
This restorative inversion helps drain tired legs, calms the mind, and invites your body into its parasympathetic “rest and digest” state.

Try it for 5–10 minutes with a folded blanket under your hips and soft lighting in the room.

2. Supported Child’s Pose (Balasana)
This gentle forward fold cradles the nervous system. When supported with pillows or a bolster, it helps you feel held and grounded.

Let your arms relax and forehead rest on something soft to activate the calming pressure points.

3. Seated Forward Fold (Paschimottanasana)
A slow, inward fold that quiets the thoughts and releases tension in the spine and hamstrings.

Don’t worry about reaching your toes—just soften and breathe.

4. Reclined Bound Angle Pose (Supta Baddha Konasana)
A beautiful heart-opener that helps ease anxiety and promote stillness. Use pillows under the knees for full support.

Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly to connect inward.

5. Supine Twist (Supta Matsyendrasana)
This twist helps release the spine, massage the organs, and encourage a natural detox of the stress hormones.

Let your breath be long and slow here, feeling into the release.

Bonus Tip: Add Essential Oils for Even Deeper Calm

Pair this practice with a calming essential oil blend for extra support. I like to use a blend of tulsi, cedarwood, clary sage, and chamomile—applied over the adrenals (lower back), heart, and wrists. Aromatherapy sends another signal to your body: “You are safe. You can rest now.”

Your Cortisol Reset Ritual

Set the tone with soft lighting, a cozy blanket, maybe a cup of herbal tea or magnesium. Take your time with each pose, focusing on slow, nourishing breaths. Even just 15–20 minutes can shift your nervous system in powerful ways.

Your body wants to heal—it just needs space and signals of safety. This practice can be your invitation to slow down and reconnect with that healing rhythm.

Let me know if you try this sequence—or share your favorite evening wind-down ritual in the comments. We’re in this together.

Looking for more gentle healing tools?
Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel for upcoming guided videos and practice sessions.

If you love my content and want more tools for mindfulness & movement, check out my digital products on Buy Me a Coffee! Your support helps me continue creating. 

Looking for the tools and products I swear by? Visit my Amazon storefront for a handpicked collection of my favorite finds—from kitchen gadgets to wellness essentials. Click here to explore and shop my must-haves.

Interested in being part of my essential oil community and are ready to start using pure essential oils, shop here or email me for a free 1:1 consultation.