I was at a meeting a couple of weeks ago, where one of my colleagues was showing us some new aromatherapy scents she has recently begun to use. One of them was balsam. As I sniffed in the fragrance of the balsam oil, I was immediately transported back to a pine woods in the Berkshire hills of Massachusetts, where I lived for a couple of years. I used to go to the pine woods to meditate and, the moment I registered the scent of balsam, I was back there, settled in, sitting under tall pine trees, shafts of sunlight shining through, pine needles under me. The stillness of the woods again surrounded me, sending a message all through my body-mind being to relax and settle.

It was a delicious moment and reminded me of the psychological power of fragrances, scents, and odors. It also reminded me of the ways in which we can choose to use certain scents to shift from anxiety or distress to deeper experiences of comfort. For some people, the smell of cinnamon reminds them of quiet times in childhood, or the fragrance of peppermint draws them immediately into a cozy, comfortable state of mind. Whenever I smell roses, I’m back in my grandmother’s rose garden, surrounded by the color and scent of these beautiful flowers. Each of us has different associations to scents – those that settle us into experiences of comfort and those that remind us of scary or painful times.

For this week’s experiment, allow yourself to explore which scents give you an opportunity to settle in, relax, become calmer and more comfortable. I carry bottles of aromatherapy scents with me to use as I go through the day that help me feel more alert when I need to, or relax if I move in the direction of tension.

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