healing starts at home.

Anna Branding Fam-Edits-0343.jpg

Wouldn’t it be awesome to be able to give more, serve more, love more, do more for your kids?

I certainly think so, but this also feels heavy because my “more” plate is already full.

My schedule is full, my brain is full, my budget at capacity, and yet thankfully, my heart is full.

There’s been this divine message on repeat over the last year or so for me, and the message is that I need to do a better job stewarding what I already have. To h e a l where I need to heal so that I can actually grow from here and take me and my family to the vision I have of what could be.

Which is so much easier said than done. How do you heal 30+ years of emotional (what I could consider, maybe some wouldn’t) trauma, healing from an eating disorder from high school that didn’t last very long but I can still feel its claws, heal from past relationships that weren’t God’s design, heal our finances and our mindset around them and take it from scarcity to abundance, heal from whatever has been attacking my body and causing massive brain fog and fatigue, heal from having two children so close together that while they bring so much love, brought so much change so quickly, healing a marriage to turn it from roommates + BFFs to living out an exceptional marriage with Christ at the center.

Listing all these out like that makes my healing process feel so overwhelming, and makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable. I hate it.

But you know what? I can guarantee there are other people out there who want more, who can see the possibility of what could be, who want the time and financial freedom and the amazing marriage and the adventures with their family or to start a family but they’re too freaking tired and overwhelmed and out of control in their finances and their schedule and their health to know where to begin.

Beauty, it starts with the willingness to begin.

It starts with focusing on one thing at a time.

It starts with asking for wisdom and guidance from above.

And while this isn’t a post about essential oils, my first kit of essential oils taught me this lesson. I went to the class, learned all the cool things, got really excited, researched, bought my first kit and it came to my door - and whoa. It felt so overwhelming. I wanted to change my self care, my health care, and create a toxin-free home in one day. in. one. day. Friends, this doesn’t happen, nor is it supposed to.

So what did I do? I started where I had the greatest need and mastered that one. Then I’d run out of my window cleaner, for example, and teach myself how to make one out of my essential oils. Then one of my kids would get a diaper rash, and I’d use my resources to figure out how to help support their skin.

By taking it one little step at a time - I was able to completely integrate natural health and essential oils into our home, reaping both the physical and emotional benefits and learning bit by bit until it became a habit and now I’m using 20-30 oils and natural products a day, without even thinking about it. It just happens, but it won’t just happen if you don’t just start.

From there, this trickle of self-improvement and self-love spilled over into other areas of my life. Using oils revealed areas where my self care + my self worth could be better. They helped me start uncovering emotions and feelings that have been buried for years (these oils have a way of helping do that - it’s so neat to dive into the emotional properties of each of the oils).

Starting the biz side of the oils had me uncovering all my feelings around our finances, and forced me to take a good look at them and instead of being a passenger on a train about to wreck, bring them into a place of telling our money how to go to work and start our debt pay off journey.

And throughout all of this - if I were to have one actionable piece of advice, it would be to start each day with waking up a few minutes before your house does and create the time to read your Bible. Find a devotional that speaks to you, or just open up your Bible and start reading. We’re really missing out in our leadership, our relationships, and how we serve the world if we’re not in the Word everyday… the knowledge in there is literally spoken from Above and has been the foundation of our healing at home.

So whether you are reading this and it totally triggered you because you feel like it seems impossible to begin or because I mentioned my faith and that makes you uncomfortable, maybe you’re in the middle and you’ve been there so long it feels like the vision might be dimming a bit, or maybe you’re living out that vision you had years ago of healing your health, your home, and your life… I want to encourage you.

Start. Keep going. Share your story with others, even if it feels hard. And mama, it starts with you, at home, where + when no one is looking.

And if this is a post you liked and want more of - let’s connect a little more intimately, shall we? I send out some inbox love about once a month and you can share your info with me here to get in on that. This is the signup link (https://mailchi.mp/2992fed6e4fe/emotionalaromatherapy) and I also gift you a short eBook with a description and explanation of what have been my top 3 emotionally healing oils, verses to support Biblical truth around healing that emotion, and a mantra you can repeat as you use the oils.


Anna Bordner