Ah! Finally! A Good Night's Sleep

I had been sick and worried about it and, true to my nature, I just couldn't sleep. Tried any number of things, didn't like the side effects, and then decided to double down with my own Restful Sleep formula. Frequently when insomnia gets to be a long term habit, as was true for me, using a little Restful Sleep formula just before bed isn't enough. It's the exact opposite of what you'd do with a heavy duty tranquilizer but when using flower essences and aromatherapy it makes a lot of sense to use it two or three days in a row twice a night.

I put some on about three hours or so before I would typically go to bed and felt the relaxing effects right away. I tend to run a line of the oil all the way up and down the center line of my body on the back and front, add a little extra to my solar plexus (I hold a lot of extra tension there) and rubbed the oil left on my hands on my legs. This formula is very grounding and serves to bring energy bound up in worry and thinking too much "down to earth". You just feel the tension drain away. For me, it literally feels like energy I'm holding higher in my body moves down into the ground.

Unfortunately, the first night I felt all these things but still didn't sleep very well. So I did it again the next night and things greatly improved! I had a little trouble falling asleep but within a relatively short time I drifted off and slept all night long. The next night... total success! I'll be keeping it up until the tendency to keep myself awake with excessive thinking is gone. That means I'll use it nightly until I forget to use it and sleep anyway. (You may prefer to do something more disciplined but it works for me!)

I recommend the 2 oz. massage/body/bath oil size at the bottom of this page. It's the most economical option. And getting a massage and pouring a little in the bath is a great way to get in the mood for a good night's sleep!

The Artist's Way to a Better Life

Hanif Kureishi wrote an interesting editorial in the New York Times recently. In it he says "As we as a society become desperate financially, and more regulated and conformist, our ideals of competence become more misleading and cruel, making people feel like losers." The importance in pulling our attention away from this -- to envision the lives we'd prefer to lead -- is essential to our growth and well-being. The point of the article was to talk about the importance of distraction as part of the creative process. To begin to redesign our society one has to live like an artist to some extent. To feel free to explore, imagine, daydream, try things out, intend a new outcome, try again.

Zinnia Spiral Notebook

Well, it's a new year and time to re-evaluate past activities and choose better ones. This blog, for instance. I used to write religiously every day, sometimes more often. Now I can't! With a day job and trying to do business activities, too, it's important to prioritize my activities. Facebook has become a more important activity -- better for networking and less need to write volumes. I still think there is a use in sharing my expertise, ideas and experience and still intend to do so but I just don't have the time to do it as often. Still, I notice that if I post ANYTHING the number of people who find my earlier posts go up! Guess that's a Google thing or just a way the internet works -- update a website or blog and it goes higher in a search engine search. So I probably will do so from time to time. But if you'd really like to stay in touch with me, please look me up on Facebook and send a short note with your friend request to tell me you found my blog online. Thanks! (Sheryl Karas)

On a related note, I've been adding new flower designs to items in our Zazzle shop. Here's a favorite on a spiral notebook or lined journal:

Woodcut Zinnia by paulnsheryl
See other notebooks

We Are the 99% (song) posted by Occupy Boston

Trying Out the Handmadeology Brand Exercise for Mama Love Flower Essence Aromatherapy

Handmadeology is a craft professional's blog offering tips and suggestions for having a successful business. Today they asked people to consider how they would define themselves if they took away every specific product in their shop. They listed three phrases to get started and something in it appealed to me. The phrases are:

•My single most important intention for having this business is…(this is your mission)

 •My secret personality quirks are…(hint: these are those things about you that seem to come up often in a conversation or you find friends calling on you for)

 •Describe a time in your business when you felt the most alive or vibrant…

Okay, here it goes. 

My single most important intention for having this business is wanting to bring relatively low cost, powerful, safe and effective tools to people for their health and well-being with a specific focus on how mental and spiritual attitude affects the emotional and physical. I don't believe this is ALL health is about. I think diet and exercise and not getting hit by cars or flying projectiles at peaceful demonstrations helps, too! But I have found enormous benefits from working on the emotional and mental levels for my physical well-being at times in my life when I couldn't afford the typical and ineffective medical approaches to the same problems. Even doctors say that as much as 90% of the concerns people see them for are caused by or exacerbated by stress. And studies show that people with a strong spiritual focus don't get sick as often and recover quicker when they do. So that's what my Mama Love business is all about.

My secret personality quirks are… hmm, are they really so secret? Friends call on me the most for listening and advice. And not just (or even typically) psychic/intuitive advice! Long before I was willing to come out of the closet about that one, I was the person in any setting people turned to to get help and clarity about things bothering them. So it's a natural tie-in to my flower essence aromatherapy work to offer healing sessions and flower essence consultation, too.
     Another quirk coming out strongly these days is a political one. Call it the Libran Sword of Justice (I'm an October baby) but I really get steamed about anything that interferes with the health and well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. The soaring cost of medical care, combined with a very poorly regulated insurance industry, is a big part of the bankrupting of America. Add insult to injury by attempting to over-regulate traditional herbal remedies and methods people have used to take care of themselves for hundreds of years and you have one very pissed off Mama Love! If something should happen where flower essence and aromatherapy products come under the gun, my brand would not be affected because I would switch to educating people as to how to grow their own medicine chest and make use of it safely and effectively in their own backyard. (And I'm not talking about marijuana here either -- I'm not a user... although... what's wrong with using it for healing is beyond me!)

Describe a time in your business when you felt the most alive or vibrant… sigh! Alright. Before I started my business I was writing a book about flower essences and developing ways to help people learn to use them effectively (including a flower essence self-awareness deck that I still haven't finished). Then I got all caught up in "making a living" and all my focus turned to marketing. I grew my business to the point of having my products in more than a dozen stores across the country and had dreams of being the Bert's Bees of flower essence therapy. Then the recession hit and that was all she wrote. Half my wholesale accounts went out of business. The other half cut way back and I'm pretty much back where I started only worse because now my day job barely pays my rent.

I know from a lot of experience that attempting to make a living as a writer pretty much sucks (financially) unless you somehow win the jackpot so going back to the idea of writing a book and such is a bit demoralizing. But I'll be thinking about the possibilities.

Good exercise to get me thinking today!

By the way the name of my Etsy shop has recently changed. It's no longer MamaLovePerfume. Instead it's MamaLoveHealing which more accurately reflects what I do.

My main website, Mama Love Products, remains the same.

Socialists and Lesbians, Occupy Slogan

Calling Every Protester A Socialist Is Like... by paulnsheryl

Not that there's anything wrong with being a Socialist! Or a lesbian.