INTERVIEW WITH AN AROMATHERAPIST

INTERVIEW
Aromatherapy, Branding, Daily Life, Rituals, Healing

A fun interview with writer and brand consultant, Natali Drake. Fun stuffabout me, Falcon Rose, how I got inspired and what it's like to spend a day in my life! ​​​

How did you get into holistic healing and aromatherapy?
I have struggled with injuries, illness and grief during different points in my life. It was frustrating and at times exhausting that I was only ever offered drugs or talk therapies. Don’t get me wrong, therapy has been a wonderful part of my life, and drugs are sometimes needed – but I always felt like there could be a more holistic approach. 
 
I had always been interested in natural health, nature and the balancing the body and mind as a pathway to health. So I started to research and learn more about these therapies and try them myself. I benefited so much from time spent outdoors in nature, especially as an addition to more traditional healing methods. It became a huge passion resulting in years of study, and eventually becoming a certified clinical aromatherapist and masseur.
 
Did your upbringing inspire you in any way?
Yes, for sure. I grew up in a very rural and natural part of the USA. It was remote and you had to develop a type of self-sufficiency to get through the days - especially the hard winters. 

I also grew up with grandparents who fought in the second world war and ran a farm. They were very down-to-earth people. My grandmother was a nurse and a social worker but she also knew how to feed twenty farmhands on whatever she could find. So there was always this sense of making things comfortable and welcoming for others, while at the same time needing to have a strong connection to nature for survival.
 
How do you enjoy connecting with nature?
For me it can be as simple as looking out the window at a tree and telling it how beautiful it is, or thanking a storm for passing through and cleaning everything with rain. I absolutely love going to remote places on holiday and just being out in the wild. Hiking in the Swiss Alps, off-roading in the Outback, walking through the rainforest. You get to a point where everything is totally still and your body starts to attune to that. It’s a wonderful feeling. 

Tell us a funny story about working with spiritual energies and the world of flowers. 
I’ll never forget the first time I really connected with an essential oil and knew there was more going on than a glass bottle full of liquid. I was in a health food store in Upstate New York that featured one of those essential oil displays. I reached for the bottle of pine essential oil thinking, oh yeah it will smell like floor cleaner and I was completely amazed at what real pine actually smells like. I was transported in that moment and I saw myself standing inside a ring of pine trees in some primordial forest. 
I remember coming back to myself with kind of jump and looked around the health food store thinking, how long have I been standing here? It was then I realized there was a lot more to the power of plants, scent and essential oils than just something to pour into your bubble bath.

Many people are dubious about the healing magic of plants and  aromatherapy. What would be your answer to that?
Yeah, I can totally understand that. There are a lot of companies now who are making BIG money on this concept, offering products based on very little know-how or expertise. People are actually getting hurt because they’re sold an essential oil and not given correct information on safety and usage. 
 
Humans have been working with natural remedies since the beginning of time – it’s nothing new. For those seeking scientific research about how plant therapies can help support our health, there are many academic papers that have been published in leading scientific journals. In fact, I'm lucky enough to be have had my own paper on CBD and essential oils published in In Essence in the spring issue of 2020.
 
The world isn’t a binary place, and in order to appreciate and benefit from holistic health practices, that doesn’t mean you need to dismiss more traditional Western medicine too. There is space and need for both, and once you are in tune with your body it will tell you what it needs.
 
On a less academic level, I believe that if a person smells an essential oil and it brings them joy, or pulls up a long-lost memory that comforts them, or inspires them to want to stop using products full of these artificial smells and harmful chemicals, how can that be a bad thing? 
 
Holistic therapy means different things to different people – but it can be as simple as engaging with new perspectives that results in a positive change to the way you think about yourself or your life. 

How can people differentiate between a reputable practitioner and someone taking advantage of a person's fragile emotional state?
What a good question!
 
I would say you need to look for their credentials and check that it’s not from “abc123therapists”…you know what I mean. You can have a great love of plant therapies, massage, coaching etc, but that’s not enough to offer your services to others. Studying this type of therapy and receiving an accredited qualification prepares you for ethical and meaningful ways to connect with those who need your skills the most. 

You wouldn’t accept surgery off just anyone that wants to help you – so why should you seek help from an aromatherapist who can’t prove they have the qualifications and experience to help you in the right way. Do your research first!

You had to study really hard to get to where you are today. Is there anything further you'd like to learn in your field?
Absolutely! There’s always so much more to learn about essential oils, new ones being distilled, new techniques for applying them to the body and the new meanings they can convey to us as our understanding of the world changes. 
 
I’m also really interested in how flower essences can help us develop our own intuition and creative abilities.

What are the three things people should look for when choosing an aromatherapist?

• Accreditation. You want to see that they have studied for at least a couple of years with an accredited school and are listing this on their sites.
• Some type of commitment to ethics and sustainability. If you are working with natural remedies, hopefully this is part of your ethos.
• Enthusiasm. People can take this field so seriously that they forget to have fun and inspire their clients to also feel the joy of connecting with nature.​
  
  

What three things do you love about your job? 

• I love that every day I’m surrounded by all these magical little bottles of the most wonderful things which I can mix into blends any time I feel like. It’s so creative and supportive just to be around the oils.
• The people I meet. My clients are such interesting people. I learn so much about them and the world as seen through their eyes. I am constantly amazed at the bravery and courage of other people, and it’s really changed the way I think. If someone cuts me off on the highway, instead of being mad I send them love. For all I know they just got the worst news of their life and are racing home to their children. We all face so much in our lives and yet here we are. I try to start with compassion and leave judgment behind.
• The creative process. To me essential oils are like a palette of smell. And each smell can create a certain mood, healing effect on the body or just pure joy. 
  
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Tell us what a day in your life looks like
Well I do love my sleep! So coffee is absolutely the first thing to start my day. People can be dismissive of coffee but coffee grounds me and helps me feel like the day has begun.
 
I live in a small village in the Netherlands so once I’m ready to go it’s either a walk to the station or packing up my messenger bike and heading off to The Hague. 
 
My practice is in a cute little suburb called Zeeheldenkwartier. The building was once a schoolhouse for girls and young women in the 19th century and my office is on the top floor in what used to be the servant’s quarters. It’s extremely cosy and has a cool view. 
 
I meet with clients, prepare oil blends and keep up with my notes and records. If it’s a slower day, I might pack off early and enjoy a bike ride along the nature reserve near my house. I try to do this as often as possible. It’s where the falcons roost and also my way of “letting it all go” as I watch the greenery go by. 

Evenings are almost always filled with home cooked meals, lazy cats and my pretty sweet husband.