I wanted to share a blissful hour and a half I spent at home creating a Sunday Spa Day to soothe my dry skin and crunchy nerves.
Our hard-working nervous systems can get so easily out of whack. Stress comes in many forms and for many reasons. I often compare my relatively easy existence to what I imagine others might be experiencing, and then beat myself up for not feeling on-top-of-the-world grateful each and every day.
That shaming doesn’t help. But perspective is good. So, I encourage myself to think outside of my tiny life, and be gentle with myself, allowing my feelings to be acknowledged.
My best guess as to why I’ve been feeling so unsettled and adrift these days is (the news, but we’ll leave that out of it for now) the current Venus retrograde, flip-flopping my emotions.
According to my astro bestie, Chani Nicholas, when Venus retrogrades, we are asked “to review how we relate to creativity, pleasure, and connection….[W]e’ll have to plunge into the depths of our feelings and confront the fears lurking beneath the surface of our relationships.”
Spot on. Lurking fears have definitely surfaced.
I’ve been tweaking lately about how I express my creativity, how I pursue what brings me pleasure, and how I relate in the world. Judge, judge, judge. More self-shaming. This is not a cycle worth continuing!
I don’t know if I’m an introvert or an extrovert, but I’ve been leaning on extra caffeine to feel like I’m sparkly enough to chat it up in the social situations that I do adore. And then, the need to hibernate and either lick my wounds or just be deeply quiet arises. I’ve had to counter that extra caffeine with a passionflower and kava tea at night.
I love Passiflora incarnata to woo sleep to come, and started adding Piper methysticum because the tension I’ve been holding from all these insecurities began to tighten my shoulders and jaw like nobody’s business.
When my chiropractor had to encourage a rib back into place and she felt the shift, she said, “There. Now you can breathe again.” Oh. Right. I hadn’t been breathing!
Bodily tension releases with breath. A deep breath, into the belly, expanding the ribs out to both sides, held just a moment at the peak of inhalation, and released out through the nose. A restoration back toward center.
Anyway. On to Spa Day! I’m happy to see this heat we’ve been having in Sonoma County break. The dry, dry heat has done a number on my skin. So I decided to do a little home treatment from head to toe. It was blissful, and so easy. I wanted to share it with you in case you, too, need to carve out a little time to treat yourself to some easy self-care.
I started with a simple face wash and steam. I used my Herbal Steam, whose magic, I think, lies mostly in the fact that when you use it, you are doing a steam!
You can steam with a bowl of plain water. But why use plain water when you can add herbs? I don’t recommend adding essential oils to a steam as that is a pretty potent experience of the oils, potentially causing unwanted reactions and discomfort.
Best to go the gentle route, using the herbs themselves. Pick up a packet of our Herbal Steam, or simply cut anything aromatic from your garden. Rosemary, calendula, lemon verbena, rose petals, mint, and thyme are some of my favorites.
After that, I mixed up a soothing mask with 1 tsp pumpkin purée, 1 tsp raw honey, and 1/2 tsp bentonite clay. I left this on, spritzing a time or two with my new favorite hydrosol blend, Lavender Chamomile, to keep the mask hydrated.
While I let the pumpkin work its enzymatic magic, I did a full-body scrub with a loofah glove and then a dry brush! I needed to get some layers off. I was not very good this summer at daily oilination or salt scrubbing, and it really showed!
I washed the mask off, spritzed generously with more hydrosol, then patted on my Lavender Geranium Facial Oil. I swear, that scent will never disappoint.
More exfoliation needed: I got into the shower and did a salt scrub. You can purchase scrubs, or simply mix a good quality, raw oil with sea salt. Easy. You can add essential oils if you have a favorite blend at home. But whatever gets you to the end goal of exfoliating, oilinating, and moving your lymph. My skin is so much softer now, and the relaxation is real. But there’s more!
Finally, I sat with my feet in a tub of hot water and a half packet of the Foot Soak. Summer flip flops are not kind to my feet: they are ROUGH. I softened with the soak, then did a little foot massage with Sunny Butter, slipping on socks afterward to let the calendula, sea buckthorn, and shea butter work their skin-repairing wonders.
It took a short amount of time to create real change in both my skin and my mood. Our nerves and skin are intimately connected. One expresses the other; both affect each other. Having soft, exfoliated, and moisturized skin made me feel calmer and more protected, which, I think, eases the judgemental attitude, encouraging more compassion and self-love.
Our skin is our armor. Let’s help it to be both soft, and strong, knowing that the easy rituals that help tend our skin are soothing our nervous systems as well.
Because food is medicine, I also made my go-to soup as part of Spa Day. This soup is nourishing, delicious, and oh-so-easy! Every time I visit my mom, I make a double batch, and we enjoy a bowl, then freeze the rest in pint jars for her future dinners. I highly recommend doubling your soup recipes and freezing some containers. You will thank yourself!
Use this recipe as a starting point and adjust to your liking. While I’ve never made it with a winter squash instead of sweet potatoes, I’m sure that would be delicious too. Let me know if you try it.
Along with this current Venus retrograde which ends November 13th, guess what? We are almost ready to welcome another Mercury retrograde from October 24th through November 13th.
With both planets going direct on November 13th, I guess that'll be a day to celebrate! Clarity of emotions and communication will be returning to us just in time for all the end-of-year gatherings we have on our calendars.
Retrogrades require patience, forethought, and a sense of humor. They also ask us to consider and reconsider, so move slowly and with intention.
And remember the power of a good salt scrub to shake things up and calm things down.
