Ancient Egypt was a culture renowned for its knowledge and use of cosmetics and ointments. Cleopatra was famed for her beauty as well as her unusual beauty regimes. The ancient Egyptian god of perfume was Nefertum, who was also the god of healing. This inextricable link between aroma and healing spread through many aspects of their culture.

Now, thousands of years later, we continue to use many of the traditions this culture discovered and practiced, essential oils and the use of botanicals as healing agents are widespread. Granted, they’ve been updated a little since then!

The Nile River

Evidence of the earliest uses of essential oils has been found dating back over 5,000 years to ancient Egypt. Egyptian society and culture sprung up around the River Nile because it was a source of life on the continent of Africa.

Not only did the river provided an abundance of plants, which gave opportunities for a rich culture to grow, but the bustling culture that sprung up around it lead to advancements in writing, agriculture, and urbanization. Continue reading →

When we see the word relationship, the first image that springs to mind is the romantic relationship between two people. However, there are many different types of relationships that shape the trajectory of our lives. Whether that it is the connection we have with our parents, friends, siblings, or colleagues.

When these relationships are healthy, we become happier and more fulfilled. The world opens up into a place of endless possibilities for joy and love. Unfortunately, almost all of us have experienced one of them becoming toxic at some point in our lives. Others amongst us have the awful trait of repeating toxic relationships over and over again, in an endless cycle of personal suffering. Escaping one or escaping the cycle is essential, but is undeniably difficult.

Identifying the toxic element

A toxic relationship manifests itself in your life in the same way as an addiction. You feel the side effects of the toxicity but struggle to identify the source. Beginning the process of moving on from any addiction begins with admitting there is a problem. Identifying the toxic element in a relationship is, therefore, crucial to accepting the issue.

Most psychologists consider power to be at the heart of most toxic relationships. The use of power by one person over another is usually seen when one person belittles the other and ignores that person’s achievements or emotions to focus solely on their own. Continue reading →

Imagine being thousands of miles away on a remote island while the sun beats down on your skin. Most of us imagine this every day, but what if there was a way to use your mind to travel to that exact spot? This is where remote viewing comes into play, and it’s something the CIA experimented on for decades.

What is Remote Viewing?

Remote Viewing is a type of Out-Of-Body-Experience where a person can give detailed descriptions and information about something hidden from physical view and separated by a great distance. It is typically used through Extrasensory Perception (ESP) by sensing with the mind to create an image or shape.

Beginning in the 1970s, The CIA along with Stanford University conducted experiments on the phenomena and found multiple individuals were able to describe objects in rooms where their physical bodies were not, often in remote locations thousands of miles away.

Their objective was to use remote viewing as an espionage tactic in gaining intelligence during The Cold War. Continue reading →

You use your imagination every day, and you don’t even realize it. Let’s say you lost your car keys. You open every drawer, check coat pockets, open up your tote bag, and you still can’t find them. Stress begins to creep up your spine as the clock ticks away precious minutes before an extremely precarious appointment.

Taking a deep breath, you try to remember where you’ve seen them last. You went to the gym this morning, and you came into the house holding them in your hand with your water bottle, with your duffel bag over your shoulder. You walked through the door, and then your phone rang. Expecting an important call, you dropped your water bottle, opened your duffel to grab your phone… So the keys must be… You run across the hall and rip open your gym bag. Yup, there are the keys.

This typical situation utilizes your imagination. Yet some are not able to relate to this experience at all.

He Never Knew

Philip is  years old, and he never had reason to believe that his brain worked any differently than others. He is a successful photographer, married with kids, and yet he can never picture the faces of his family in his mind. “

“When I close my eyes, I see my eyelids. It’s just blank,” Philip says.“I never realized that people could see images in their mind when they were awake. When they said ‘imagine this’ or ‘count sheep’ I thought they just meant figuratively.”

One day he hears a podcast presenter discussing a condition called aphantasia and the inability to conjure mental images. He was surprised. “I was like ‘what do you mean? People do that?’” Continue reading →

Change is a guaranteed part of life! You might think it’s a BOLD statement, but it’s so true. Why? Let’s take a trip down memory lane… You were conceived because your mom and dad loved each other so much and then you were a fetus and then the change cycle begins. 9 months later, you were born, more change! Another 9 months and you were, crawling, then walking, then talking, and on and on and on. Literally, we are in a state of change since the day we were born! When we were kids, the change was more subtle, but as we get older, the change becomes more drastic and more stressful. However, there is no need to freak out because if we actually make peace with change, then it becomes part of our life-journey. My goal for today’s article is to help you make peace with change and to welcome it with an open arm while staying centered, collected and gracious. Are you ready? Let’s go! Below I have for you 5 strategies that will help you during periods of change. 1. Manage Your Mind During periods of change or as I like to call them “transitions times,” our minds are working on overdrive. Our mind has one goal in mind “no pun intended”, our minds want us to feel safe. So when we are going through a period of change, our mind is panicking on our behalf because it wants to take us back to safety. Continue reading →

 When someone asks us to describe the people we know, the adjectives we often use are kind, funny, passionate and intelligent. Colloquially speaking, we consider intelligence to be part of who someone is, yet we test it differently. Personalities are tested through questionnaires, but the IQ has its own particular test. Why is it that we consider intelligence to be separate from personality when it forms such a central part of who we are?

A new train of scientific thought is arising to challenge the psychological status quo. Led by Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, he hopes to see intelligence redefined as one of the central elements of personality. His extensive writing and research on the subject are revolutionizing how scientists view the human psyche and was voted by the business insider as one of the 50 groundbreaking scientists who are changing the way we see the world. 

Across his four critically acclaimed books Kaufman pieces together an argument about the central role that IQ plays in the continuing development of our personalities throughout our lives. His theory, regularly referred to as the dual-process theory of human intelligence,  argues that adaptation to tasks is the hallmark of mental capacity. The ability to adapt to tasks is based on a person’s goals and desires, and linked to what he describes as ‘creative greatness.’

The creativity to see what we want from the world and have the mental capacity to grasp how to go about getting it, whatever it might be, is the cornerstone of what we consider intelligence to be. From early man’s use of tools through to scientists discovering the human genome, the act of discovering something to improve our lives is what scientists consider intelligence.

Continue reading →