As an emotional therapist, I notice that many people use food to protect themselves from feeling bad or to numb themselves to abuse. They can gain weight to make themselves look undesirable or not available for sexual attention. This leads to feelings of contempt and self loathing. It is very common for victims of abuse to blame themselves for the abuse. Essential oils can bring feelings of self love, forgiveness, and acceptance into the field.

Milli Austin in The Healing Bath did some ground-breaking work in healing abuse with essential oils. She talks of the body not just from the physical but also its energetic aspects. She see the body surrounded by energy fields similar to the atmosphere around the earth. The energy is layered into different energy bodies. The energy body closest to the physical body is called the etheric body. Then there is the astral or emotional body. Next the mental body follows with the soul body encapulating all the bodies. She claims that abuse emotionally and mentally lodges itself into the energy bodies and causes a person to be unable to completely control their life. The abuse takes hold and directs the life in ways the person does not want to go, but seems to be helpless to prevent. As in feeling bad about how your body looks and wanting to look better, but unable to stop eating. With her essential oil therapy, the person would come into contact with what was really causing the bad feelings and clear them with the oils. She also felt that abuse from one life could be felt in another and causes disturbances in this life.

To heal this trauma, she suggests using bath or massage therapy. In her book she included several formulas to help the person clear the abuse. It is a good idea to have a counselor or therapist to consult if you are going to use the oils in this way. The baths also call for more oils than most aromatherapists feel is safe so caution is advised and supervision is required. We will list a few of the formulas and if you are interested in doing them, we suggest you read her book first for more details.