Now I could eat, drink, roll around in Clary Sage until the end of time, and it *is* a good remedy for *certain* emotional problems, but clearly wasn't the right one for this young lady.

So how do you find the right aromatherapy essential oil for YOUR specific emotional problems?

Well I explained to her that I use a different way of explaining the effects of the oils.

I don't use therapy or psychology words such as stressed, depressed, anxious, fearful, paranoid, ADD or whatever.

Instead, I tell a story.

For example, the Clary Sage story is about a woman in rags and with her hair in tatters, running in her bare feet across a frozen winter field, and crows pecking at her head as she runs for her life ...

Someone comes and catches her in their arms, chases the crows away, puts a warm blanket around her, and takes her inside, where there is a cosy fire, and it is warm, and safe.

So the woman is the description of the state of being, and the someone with the warm blanket is the action of the Clary Sage.

I said to the young lady, "Now when you hear this, you can tell if that fits you - if that's what you feel like.

"There are many other ways in which to feel emotionally upset.

"Instead of the crow woman, you could have someone sitting in a dark cave, covered in dust, in the darkness, dry, no light shines here, no movement, no sound ...

"And if someone feels emotions like that, they will RECOGNISE THEMSELVES in one of the stories, and that's the story that has the right essential oil for YOUR state of being, whatever that may be."

I'd never explained what Aromatherapy For Your Soul is actually doing with those stories to someone who has never heard of this before, and I was surprised how readily and easily the young lady understood exactly what I was trying to do, and saw the merit in it.

The fact is that people are DESIGNED to learn and understand BY STORY, not by dry fact listings or artificial words that mean one thing to one person, and a totally different thing to another (one man's depression is NEVER exactly the same as another man's depression!).

Stories are far more information dense than "just facts" because they include environment, energy, emotion AND ACTION within them.

Where "depression" or "madness" is this still thing, stuck in time, the woman being chased by the crows running across the winter fields, exhausting herself, hurting herself, being defenceless and terrified is MOVING, it is an unfolding state of affairs, as all stories are; and as the rescuer comes into the story, it BECOMES CHANGED and we understand how that happens.

That's the other amazing thing about story vs "fact" - people UNDERSTAND stories without having to go to University first for 8 years and read a mountain of "learned" books.

A five year old can understand the story about the Clary Sage, and if they're a bit switched on, could say, "That's just like Auntie Kate!" if you asked them who that woman reminded them of.

That's the true magic of story as an information transmission device - we understand it, it makes sense, and we learn something from it.

I bet that after reading this, you'll always remember that crow woman and the Clary Sage that comes to the rescue, and if you ever met someone in THAT emotional state, you could quite authoritatively tell them, "You need Clary Sage!"

As for the young lady who didn't feel that the Clary Sage "vibed" with her problems, she can now look through the pages of Aromatherapy For Your Soul, and find THE RIGHT aromatherapy oil FOR HER OWN emotional problems - whatever they may be.

Which is a very neat thing indeed, when all is said and done.