letting go – Solaz Scents

Are you living your best life?

What does your best life look like?

How do you know if you are living it right now?

Wow! Here’s two powerful questions that can really change your life if you take the time to reflect on them. Not only do they deserve some reflection but most importantly, ask yourself this? Are you living your best life or are you constantly aspiring for more and perhaps missing some of the little things that are right in front of you?

How would you know? When’s the last time you reflected on this?

For the last few weeks, I’ve been hearing this question “are you living your best life?” so I wrote it up on the blog wall and have been waiting for the information to come through. Well, this week some conversations happened and I’ve just been woken up super early with information to share with you.

Last week, I remember a friend saying to me that her and her husband sat down and did a reflection and when they looked back on their goals from 9 years ago, it turns out they are now living the life they want…

They’re married, have 2 beautiful daughters and have even managed to purchase their own home which on paper seemed almost impossible to do. They live in a street where other people are growing their own gardens and home schooling their kids as well, so there is this awesome little community of like-minded people in their very own street.

Another friend of mine was doing some work that she didn’t really enjoy or really want to do then last week, due to a mandatory requirement, turns out she no longer can do that job. At first, she was a little annoyed about it as she needed the income but at the same time, deep down she did feel relieved. Turns out a new job has already manifested and she will be earning more money with less running around and doing more of what she really wants to do.

Another friend of mine has retired, moved down to the coast and set up the life she has been talking about for a couple of years. She mediates each morning, goes for a walk along the water and enjoys the sounds of the birds and nature. She’s free to do what she wants, whenever she wants.

So here I am, observing my friends starting to live their best life and it made me start to self-reflect as well and turns out I am very close to living my best life. I get to make amazing scents, spend time with my dogs, do my gardening and am taking the time to rebuild myself after a very traumatic 2021. I’ve been using the Gratitude scent which has just been really lovely and gentle to help me in the process and have become very grateful for the most simplest of things that I used to take for granted.

Are you living your best life? Do you Self-Reflect?

What Is Self-Reflection?

Simply put, self-reflection is taking the time to think about, meditate on, evaluate, and to think about your behaviours, thoughts, attitudes, motivations, and desires. It’s the process of listening to your thoughts, feeling your emotions and understanding your motivations to determine the “Why?” behind them. I like to call it the “drive” that makes you want something.

Why is Self-Reflection important?

Without self-reflection, we tend to go through life without thinking, moving from one thing to the next without making time to evaluate whether things are actually going well. We don’t pause to think, to analyse or determine what is going well and what isn’t working. Without this, we tend to get stuck in rut and keep creating the same outcomes. You might feel like you’re on a merry go round!

For example, if you’re not doing self-reflection, you might stay in a job you don’t like or a relationship that isn’t going well. You might just keep on running and trying to keep up with things even if things aren’t going well. You can feel like you’re simply trying to keep your head above water, doing the same things over and over again even if they haven’t worked before.

The Benefits of Self-Reflection

It creates learning and understanding. When you go through life without making time to think and reflect, you can miss learning opportunities and miss out on gaining deeper understandings from situations that happen. You just keep busying and move from one thing to the next.

Self-reflection allows you to take a step back and gain perspective on what matters and what really doesn’t. It allows you to process events, situations and achieve clarity on them. It allows you to think deeply and ponder the meaning of your circumstances, emotions, and motivations. It helps you move towards living a wholistic, and integrated best life.

Self-reflection allows you to take a step back and gain perspective on what matters and what can be ignored. It allows you to process events and achieve clarity on them. It allows you to think deeply and ponder the meaning of your circumstances, emotions, and motivations. It enables you to stay on path towards what it is you really want.

3 easy steps to Self-Reflect… Welcome to my 3 G’S…

Goals, Going & Gratitude

Goals: Every year I create a visual manifestation chart which I have on my bathroom wall because it’s the first thing I see in the morning and last thing at night. This helps set my mind in the direction I want and if I wake up in the morning and feel a bit out of sorts, looking at my chart reminds me to reset my focus towards my goals.

So if you haven’t done that, make one. People always ask why I’m such a good creator and its because of that one discipline I do every year without fail. It has up to 10 things that I want and some are physical, mental, emotional, money and health orientated. How do create what you want, if you don’t know what you want?

Going: This simple question is so beneficial. Ask yourself how your goals are going? Look at your goal chart every morning and look at each item on it and ask yourself, how’s that goal going, am I on track, am I doing positive activity towards it?

Do you have any negative thoughts that you need to release – if you do, then take some positive action that day towards that goal. You can use the Letting Go Scent which helps you release any negative thoughts.

Gratitude: is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.

I know some people do a really big process around gratitude but a few years ago, we started a gratitude group and all we did was use the Gratitude Scent in a candle, Scent oil, Diffuser or Melt and started to write down what we were thankful each day. We had these groovy little journals we kept by the bed and wrote 3 – 5 things we were grateful that day

The interesting thing was that the group started to receive their goals faster and their life started to flow with ease and grace. It didn’t matter when people wrote a whole paragraph or a simple message that said” Today I am grateful for ……..”, it worked and the Gratitude Scent is still a best seller today.

To help you practice gratitude…

The Gratitude Scent helps you to consciously practice gratitude and it’s one of our subtle scents and has some cedarwood, sandalwood and cinnamon in it which helps you to feel calm and be grounded too.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some tips and scents that really helped me in the hope they can help you too. Remember that you deserve to get what you want and Gratitude is a powerful secret that is here to help you.

Sending you love light and good vibes, AJe

Anxiety Up… Depression Down

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Wow! There I was slowly losing it, bit by bit. I could feel my frustration turning in anger, I couldn’t speak properly, my temperature increased and driving was really difficult so I pulled over and parked my care. I turned off the music and when I arrived at the Doctors, I didn’t even remember getting there. I walked into the Doctors surgery, answered all the covid questions and everything bloody thing else they needed, only to find that my Dr was 15 mins late.

They asked me to wait in the car, I said NO it was 39 degrees so I didn’t. About 15 mins later they told me I had to wait outside and that my doctor was going to be another 30 mins. I felt the anger inside of me about to explode like a volcano and I remember looking around at the other people who were waiting and wondering why I wasn’t allowed to wait in the air-conditioning like them. I burst into tears and at the same time felt like I would hit something, so I stormed outside and luckily a dear friend rang me and I vented. I vented so hard I think she could have put the phone outside in the middle of a 6-lane highway and still heard me.

She said “you know what”, I think you’re having an anxiety attack. When she told me what was happening, everything made sense. It was in that moment; I was able to start to take control and breather. I remember that “Anxiety goes Up and Depression goes Down”.

My heart was racing, my mind wasn’t computing and I was super sensitive to any sound and noise. Yep, I was a mess and I had no idea what was going on. Mum died of Breast Cancer only 2 months ago and she was my best friend, used to live with me and help me with the business too. Did it just hit me that’s she’s gone, I mean really gone? Or was it that last year was full of death and trauma for me. Was it a combination of everything or was it just the straw that broke the camel’s back?

By the time I got into actually see the Doctor, I burst into tears and she confirmed I was smack back in the middle of anxiety attack. Thankfully my friend called just before I got to the Doctor’s otherwise, I probably couldn’t have even gone inside to see her.

I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anxiety but my psychologist says Anxiety goes up and Depression goes down. With Anxiety your heart rate increases, you get very sensitive, you can’t tolerate the smallest of things, you tend to overreact, your breathing gets faster and you don’t seem to have control over your emotions or feeling. I can now describe it as a Volcano of emotions which consist of fear, frustration, stress, disappointment and overwhelm all at once. It can be really quick or in my case, looking back now, I think it started to build over a week because there were a lot of little triggers that were sneakily laying upon one another

Anxiety is what I call the secret thing, upon sharing my experience with close friends, I learnt that 3 of them have all had anxiety attacks and never told me. I’m not sure why, but I do understand that there is a sense of shame and disappointment that goes with it and it’s not an easy thing to describe or talk about unless you know that the person, you’re sharing with has also experienced it. Afterwards I was physically wiped out for about 3-4 days and because I was feeling absolutely exhausted, I then started heading towards depression.

Thankfully I rang my Grief & Loss Counsellor and didn’t allow myself to go down to depression but it’s only a days since its happened that I’ve finally been about to string enough words together to start writing this blog.

The main reason I’m sharing this with you is because I want you to know that: If you have anxiety attacks, you are not alone and here’s a list of things that helped me to stop it and then get come out the other side. I am back to good now so don’t worry about me, but I think this is a great opportunity to share some Tips that may help you.

Tips that may help you…

Call someone and ask for help – they may recognise what’s going on and help you to calm down.
Share your story with your friends and you might find out they have experienced anxiety too
Set up a code sentence like “I need you” with your friends so if you call and they don’t answer, you can text and they know to call you
Look at 5 things you can see and speak them out loud then,
Touch 4 things and say them out loud then,
Listen to 3 things I you can hear and say them out loud then,
Smell 2 things and say them out loud
Focus on your breathing and take some deep breathes
Take some medication to calm you down (if you have some) (some people might be really hesitant about his, I certainly am, but just last time I took 1 tablet and it helped calm my nervous system) which really helped.
Allow yourself time to really get settled again, it can take a few days and don’t get too down or start to allow yourself to head towards depression.
Once you are starting to come good again, do some reflection and see if you can identify what the triggers were.
Implement some small actions that will help with those triggers in future.
Create 1 or 2 goals and steps towards these changes
Commit to the changes and take action
Trust the process of the tornado (see previous blog) and don’t become fearful
Step outside yourself and watch the direction the tornado is guiding you to
Use your scents to help shift the emotions.

After my anxiety attack ended

I used the steps above and figured out what the trigger was and have made some decisions around not returning back to the job that caused that. I focused on re-balancing and really got stuck into the scents to help shift my emotions – I’ll write a list below of what really helped me.

I am now spending time gardening, swimming the dogs, listening to music and I’ve started writing again. I have Let Go of a few security blankets, some grief, trauma and hurt and feel at peace. I am now very clear how I want my life to look like and have been focusing on that.

Scents to help shift your emotions

To Let Go & Clear my negative emotions, I used the Mind Cleanse and Letting Go scents and because they worked so well for me, we’ve created some special Mind cleanse packs to help you shift emotions and feel better faster.

I found that the Letting Go just helped me to Let Go of baggage and negative energy, whilst the Mind Cleese helped me to release old thoughts and beliefs. I feel very grateful I had these scents available on my shelf because I was able to access them as soon as I got home. I used them for about 4 days solid and alternative between them.

After this I then found myself turning to the Care & Comfort Scent, it’s a strong vanilla bean and it always makes me feel like I’m getting a great big hug. I burnt that for a solid week afterwards and had to make myself some more. I put the mosaic candle by the side of bed so that when I woke up in the morning, it was the first thing I would smell.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some tips and scents that really helped me in the hope they can help you too. Remember that anxiety isn’t something to feel shameful about and talking about it really helps.