¡Queridos amigos!

Estamos explorando nuevas formas de mantenernos en contacto, así que hemos actualizado nuestras plataformas de redes sociales. En español, ahora nos puedes seguir en:

• Instagram, como @lamagiadelosaceites.shamay  Aquí estamos colgando a diario fotos bonitas con usos prácticos de los aceites esenciales, así como citas inspiradoras.
• Twitter, como @shamayaceites Twitter también estará centrado en los aceites esenciales y crecimiento personal.
• Facebook, en nuestra página Shamay Soluciones Holísticas. Aquí publicamos nuestros próximos eventos (por ejemplo los cursos de Reiki), compartimos artículos que nos han resultado interesantes, e información variada sobre temas holísticos y de crecimiento personal.
• Y como siempre tienes nuestro canal de YouTube, donde vamos próximamente a colgar una nueva serie de vídeos (en español y en inglés) sobre conocimiento de las energías.
• Y esta web, con su blog.

Puedes consultar las redes que mantenemos en inglés leyendo la versión inglesa de esta entrada de blog.

¡Gracias por seguirnos! 🙂

I’ve been living in Sweden for 2 years and 10 months now. I didn’t start appreciating the light until I was here. In Mallorca, light was taken for granted.

(post originally posted on April 25th, 2014)

On my first summer I was shocked with the sun rising at 4 am – right into my bedroom, which had no curtains. Summers in Sweden are particularly bright.

As the autumn progressed, the days grew shorter. I got used to being in the dark. It was sad, though, to sit in the office and watch the night come at 4 pm. I appreciated cozy homes with bright lamps and heating, and cute winter lights. Now I understood why Ikea’s lamp section was so huge.
Now suddenly the days are growing longer and longer. Now at 6 pm the office is bathed in sunshine, and the sun is still pretty high up on the sky. Was winter long? It seems to have gone by in a wink. Did I really grow used to it? Or was my life in such turmoil that I barely noticed?

Coming from Spain, I marvel at nature in Sweden. The plants that lay sleeping all through the winter, suddenly break into bloom. Fresh green leaves cover the branches of certain trees while others are sprouting blossoms in white, pink and yellow. The sun shines and human life forms find their way out in the streets and parks, craving sunlight like a little plant. This morning the fountain on my way to the office was singing its happy tune, and I became aware that it had been empty all winter. And even the ducks are out taking a stroll downtown. I absolutely love living in Sweden.

Spring is here! I feel grateful. And it feels it has been very sudden.

In life sometimes it is the same. Life gets darker and we get used to it. In the middle the winter of our discontent, we may realize our discomfort but cannot find a way out. We lose track of our real dreams and goals and settle in with realities that are less than what is worthy of us – worthy of our essence, that part of ourselves which is grand and magnificent and often lays dormant… Then one day the first signs of spring start showing, but we do not dare believe it can be true. Will the light really be coming back? Will nature become green again, or is it just a false attempt and winter will still be here longer? And one day, like today, you get to say… then came the spring! Spring is here! It is true, look at all those flowers on the trees, when did they get there? Look at the sun, shining brightly at 7 pm! Is it really spring? What a miracle. What a blessing.

Today I also received the package with my course materials: in one year, I will be a Holistic Health Coach. Studying Integrative Nutrition represents a dream come true, something I have been craving ever since I said, as a small child, that I wanted to be a «baking doctor» in order to heal people through food…

This wonderful process coincides with a spiritual and emotional reawakening in me. A time for getting back in touch with my health, my emotional needs, my spiritual needs – and what a blessing, start seeing growth in those fields as well. Becoming aware of needs I had been repressing, and being able to feed my hungry being.

May we each recognize in our lives the blessings we already have and be capable of experiencing, with gratitude, the spring in full bloom in our soul, as the warm sunshine heals the wounds of the emotional winter that we leave behind. And unlike Nature, may we retain that warmth and sunshine from now on, week after week, as we grow and thrive.

I’ve been called an «optimist» by nature. Whatever the reason, I’ve always chosen to see what good resided in even really bad things. And I’ve always found it. Life IS bright, never let yourself not see it!

I’ve also come to realize that when we speak of «the light at the end of the tunnel», we don’t realize that tunnel is twisting and bending all the time. Thus, the light may actually be just around the corner, even if you cannot see it now, as you walk in the darkness. Do not despair, the light can be so close now! Hang on!

Love,
Tisha

(Lo siento pero esta entrada está sin traducir todavía)

I am only one of the many people who like helping others. This might be a troubled world, but there’s so many who care, many who volunteer in some way or simply have a passion for making the world a better place and not leaving anyone behind. And that’s great.  That is how we get to make the world a better place, one by one, contributing with what we have, the best we can.

But offering help also has some challenges, especially when you are outside the frames of an organized volunteering activity.

Let’s talk about the help we offer to each other in our local societies.

In Reiki we learn that it’s important to have a proper energy exchange, so that the person receiving really values what is being received. It can take the shape of being paid for your services, but between friends it is most often some kind of tangible or intangible exchange.

There is a place for everything, and volunteering expecting nothing in return is perfectly fine – as such, I decide to take aside X amount of time and spend it on the cause of my choice. Volunteering, in an organized manner, has clear boundaries.

But what happens with friends or with certain groups where you recurringly help? Unfortunately, very often we are taken for granted, especially when the skill requested happens to be your day-time job as well.

I am a translator by profession, and it has happened to me repeatedly that people expect me to translate for them (either translate some minor written text or more often interpret at some event). Most people do not seem to realize how very exhausting translating actually is. And that I do not have “8 hours per day to translate”: my brain capacity is limited in a given day, so the time I take to translate a small blurb of something is time that I have taken away from my paying clients.

Worst is the feeling when I have been making an effort to do simultaneous interpreting for someone at church or elsewhere and they were not even paying attention – perhaps get distracted checking their phone for messages!

That’s what can happen when friends and acquaintances want to use your professional services for free, with no energy exchange at all.

More people will relate when I apply this to us who are therapists of some kind. In particular if you are a coach or psychologist, where you get paid to listen to your client’s problems. What happens when a friend comes and needs to be heard? In an optimal friendship situation, the exchange is mutual: we talk about you for about 50% of the time, and then we talk about me for about 50% of the time. In specific periods, one of the parties may have more things to share or discuss, but as long as it varies, it’s fine.

The problem occurs when a given friend needs 90% of the shared time, on a regular basis. If there is no exchange, the person giving often ends up feeling drained, exhausted, and often with a feeling of being abused.

So what can you do to prevent such a situation? Setting up boundaries becomes a necessity. Decide that you will turn off your phone at a given hour in the evening, perhaps take a whole day off every week, or more. Do listen to your friend in need, by all means, but if the problem is large, try rather to empower your friend by giving him/her tools to deal with the issue, or even refer to a professional (or another professional rather than yourself who might be too close to help, as a friend). And if the problem is «chronic», then make sure your friend is not just complaining about it, but is also taking steps to actually deal with the situation. We all need to vent, but venting alone will not fix the issue.

Constantly «helping out» can be like giving the fish to the hungry person – but teaching them how to fish is the only solution in the long term.

Learning to say no is sometimes a heart-breaking experience, but remember your first duty is towards yourself. Remember the instructions we are given in the airplanes, about putting your own oxygen mask first and then helping your own child? Well this is in fact the same. If you give and give, never recharge your batteries and never rest, you will burn out. And then who is going to help the others? You need to recharge your own batteries first, and be mindful of your strength and capacity! The world will be better off with you helping «a little» but over many years, rather than you helping «a lot» and then nothing, being burned-out. You can only love your neighbor if you love yourself! Please, do take that much-needed time for your own meditation, yoga practice, or «recharging exercise» of your choice. Then, and only then, can you be a long-term tool to help people around you.

May you be inspired to make the right choices!

A principios de 2012, dos personas diferentes se pusieron en contacto conmigo al mismo tiempo, hablándome de que en Alemania se había conseguido una mejoría en pacientes de Fibrosis Quística (calidad de respiración, mejor capacidad pulmonar y mejor resistencia contra infecciones bacterianas) por un sencillo proceso de inhalar vahos de aceite esencial de lavanda. Esto es, el procedimiento antiguo de hervir un litro de agua, tirarle unas gotas de aceite esencial, y respirando los vahos bajo una toalla durante 10-15 minutos.

Esto inició una investigación que me ha permitido ayudar a mejorar las vidas de muchas personas hasta la fecha, incluida la mía propia.

Empecé por inhalar aceite esencial de lavanda, en vahos, durante unos meses yo misma. La capacidad pulmonar mejoró un poco, pero tal vez lo más importante es que mi bacteria pulmonar residente (Pseudomonas aeruginosa) pasó de resistente a todos los antibióticos a sensible a más de la mitad de ellos, en solo 2-3 meses.

Al llegar el verano, hacerse vahos ya no era una opción, así que empecé a explorar otras formas de administración, y aprendí a aplicar aceites esenciales de múltiples maneras, para múltiples fines y problemas de salud.

Según pasaba el tiempo y tenía que comprar nuevas botellas de aceite, probé muchas marcas disponibles en tiendas en España, observando para mi gran sorpresa y desconcierto que aunque todas decían “100% aceite esencial puro de Lavandula angustifolia”, el olor de cada una era diferente, y peor: aunque algunas me hacían respirar mejor y más profundo, otras me daban tos y molestias. ¿Por qué?

Finalmente me quedé conforme con un par de buenas marcas que me resultaban agradables en los pulmones.

No fue sino hasta 2015 en que me sumergí a estudiar la química detrás de los aceites esenciales y las leyes que dictan lo que se puede escribir en la etiqueta del producto. Para mi gran consternación, me enteré de que mientras el líquido contenga sus 4-5 constituyentes principales en los porcentajes adecuados, por ley la etiqueta puede decir «aceite esencial 100% puro» ¡cuando de hecho ha sido sintetizado por entero en un laboratorio! Cada aceite puro, al extraerse de la planta, tiene docenas o cientos de constituyentes, de modo que las fracciones de los mismos obviamente no tienen el mismo efecto que la totalidad, especialmente si nuestro objetivo es mejorar la salud, y no simplemente obtener un bonito perfume.

Pronto empecé a compartir mis conocimientos sobre aceites esenciales en foros de salud, especialmente los relacionados con la Fibrosis quística. Uno de mis proyectos personales es comunicar enfoques de salud de todo el mundo a los hispanohablantes, en otro blog que tengo (puedes leerlo aquí). Me resulta extremadamente satisfactorio, especialmente cuando los usuarios vivien en países con poca asistencia sanitaria, cuando me cuentan sus testimonios de que usando los aceites esenciales que les sugerí han podido evitar/reducir el uso de antibióticos y mantenerse con mejor salud en estos últimos años.

En diciembre de 2015 tuve la experiencia yo misma, de aplicarme aceites esenciales en diversas formas simultáneas y poder evitar completamente un ciclo de antibióticos (que por lo demás son frecuentes en la Fibrosis quística), mejorando a la vez mi capacidad pulmonar de una forma bastante notable. ¡Me sentí entusiasmada de haber encontrado algo tan eficaz!

Al enterarme de la multitud de poderosos usos de los aceites esenciales, siendo la forma más concentrada de medicina vegetal, ahora tengo la pasión de compartir mis conocimientos al respecto. Si no fueran para ti o tu familia inmediata o amigos en el presente, nunca se sabe cuando alguien puede enfermarse: me gustaría que todos supieran de ellos, y en ese momento tuvieran la tranquilidad de que los aceites esenciales les pueden ayudar. Es por esto que me he puesto a dar unas breves clases, desde enero de 2016: para aportar algo de información básica y ayudar a tomar una decisión informada acerca de esta maravillosa herramienta de salud, y poderte ofrecer una guía en caso de que quisieras comprarlos para uso propio.

Mi madre (Mayni) también estará dando estas clases gratuitas desde enero en España, se ha entusiasmado con los aceites ella también.

Totalmente naturales, 100% puros, ecológicos, pura potencia directamente desde la Naturaleza – ¡y además huelen divinamente! ¿No es estupendo?