AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT: What is Essence Therapy and How Does it Work?

What is essence therapy?

In an animist worldview, everything is alive.  Everything has a vital essence or vibration that can be felt and perceived…animals, plants, trees, environments, stones etc. 

Do you have that one tree that makes you feel calm and grounded whenever you walk by? Or that person who gets you feeling inspired and lit up whenever you spend time with them?  Or that flower that reminds you of how perfect you are when you gaze upon it?  That is the essence or the vibration of those beings interacting with your own vibration and changing your mood, thoughts, emotional states, etc.

This is how essence therapy works!

Using water and the vital force of the sun (or the moon and other celestial bodies) to infuse the water with the vibration of something, often flowers and stones, we can capture the essence of that being and use it to intentionally shift and heal emotional and energetic patterns within us. This very subtle form of medicine is nothing more than water, some alchohol, vinegar, or glycerine to preserve it, and the vibration of whatever essence we are infusing into it.  Unlike a tincture or essential oil, these safe and gentle medicines don’t contain any plant constituents, they are purely vibrational. Therefore, they tend to work better on the energy and emotional bodies rather than the physical body. 

It may sound wild to you that taking a few drops of water infused with the vibration of a thing can do anything at all, but I have seen some AMAZING transformations in myself and other people by simply taking small doses of these remedies regularly for several weeks.  Creative blocks disappearing overnight, cathartic releases of energy from the body after long periods of stagnation, clarity arising after periods of profound confusion, childhood patterns revealing themselves, etc.

Sometimes all we need is a little help from our allies in the natural world around us (and even the sky above!) There are so many willing helpers who want to see you heal and radiate your authenticity into the world around you.  All it takes is spending time in their vibration every day for a relatively short amount of time. 

So, how do you choose the right essence for you?

There are many ways to choose an essence. Some people look to books and other resources to try and match symptoms to the indications of the essence.  Others use more intuitive ways of choosing. I tend towards the intuitive method for several reasons. The first one being that this medicine is energetic and I think it makes more sense to use our intuitive sense to connect with the right remedy, rather than our thinking minds.  This gives our emotional and energy bodies the chance to help choose what they might be needing at that time.  The second reason is that often our issues are complex, just like we are, and it may not be so obvious what is needing to unwind first in order to get to the heart of the matter. Sometimes it takes several rounds of different blends to really make headway on an issue because there are so many layers that we need support to release/unwind/repattern. Choosing the blends intuitively can help you connect with the right medicine at the right time in your process.

Sometimes all you need is the help of one ally in the form of a single essence. For instance, perhaps you are nursing a broken heart and feel like your heart is a little hardened and closed off. You might call on the essence of Rose to support your healing and help you remember your softness. At other times, you might be going through something that needs a team of allies and helpers, so you might choose a blend of a few different essences that will work together well. In this case, it is best to limit the blend to 3-6 different essences as things can get a little muddled if you get too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. When it comes to choosing an essence, you really just have to trust yourself to know what you are needing at that time.

How do you to take essences?

There are a lot of different ways to take flower, gem and environmental essences!  The most common is ingesting them.  Most store-bought essences come in dropper bottles.  How much and how often you take them is up to you, or the practitioner who gives them to you. I typically take somewhere between 3-7 drops frequently (3-5 times) throughout the day for several weeks (3-5 usually).  I choose all of these suggestions intuitively, so use your own authority!  I usually stop taking whatever essence or blend I’ve been taking when I start to regularly forget to take it.  That, to me, feels like a message that the medicine has done its work and I no longer need it.  In my experience, regularly ingesting them seems to be the most potent and long-lasting way of dosing essences, but other ways can be useful, especially if ingesting alcohol isn’t ok for you. It can be hard to find essences using vinegar or other non-alcoholic preservatives. They are out there though!  (Green Hope Farms makes good alcohol-free essences)  

Another way to use essences is adding them to a body or pillow spray. I often use essences this way for protecting and clearing of my energy body and for dreaming (check out my line of essence infused ritual sprays here). You can add your essences to a fine mist sprayer bottle with a mix of water, essential oils (optional), and some witch hazel or alcohol (to preserve it) if ingesting doesn’t work for you.  You can also add your essences to your bath water. Or add them to your food and beverages. Or put them in a humidifier with water. They are quite versatile and the sky is really the limit on how to use them!

I hope this helped you learn about these amazing medicines available to us! They truly are one of my favorite modalities for working with emotional and energetic issues as they are so gentle and the shifts they create are often quite profound, though seemingly subtle.

If you’d like to try this modality, I use essence therapy in many of my 1x1 offerings to help support the work my clients and I do in session together.