You might call your office desk your "home away from home." You spend hours at your computer. You make telephone calls, plan meetings, and sometimes even eat your lunch there when work piles up. Guess what else can be found at your desk? Germs. Lots of germs!

University of Arizona microbiologist Dr. Charles Gerba collected 328 samples in office buildings across America from cities such as Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, Tucson and San Francisco. He tested areas like the mouthpiece on phones, door handles, computer keyboards, desktops, and light switches. It is well known that cold and flu germs can survive on a surface for up to three days. What was surprising was where the most germs were found.

Dr. Gerba's study showed that the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat! The researchers found that bacteria levels continued to climb unless desks were wiped clean with a disinfectant.

The study was funded by a grant from the Clorox Company and concluded that germs were higher in personal work areas than surfaces in common areas.

With the average workweek now 47.1 hours (according to the Families and Work Institute), employees need to get up to speed on office hygiene. The university-tested essential oil blend Thieves is the perfect weapon to use. Thieves Wipes and Spray are the "pollution solution" that can keep your desk, phone, and computer keyboard fresh and clean.

(Based primarily on notes taken on Gary Young’s talk September 19, 2008, at the first Young Living European Convention, Vienna, Austria) It has been said that when there is a conflict between reason and feeling, human beings will always side with feeling. According to Gary Young, “99% of life’s decisions are made from feelings.” Therefore, if you want your life to be guided by good decisions that lead to health, happiness, and fulfillment, you need to be aware of and in control of your present feelings and to learn how to release the repressed emotions of the past.

Most of our feelings from day to day are not responses to current happenings. They originate from the programming in cellular memory that was imprinted by the emotional experiences of our past that we were unable to understand, process, and resolve at the time.

These forgotten traumatic experiences function as live programming in our bodies, affecting every aspect of our lives and particularly in the area of how we make decisions. When our thoughts are limited by fears, lack of self-worth, and not feeling good enough for more or better, we make decisions that limit our success. Limited thinking leads to limited decisions that lead to a limited life far short of the God-given potential we actually possess.

By focusing on fixing your feelings, you can fix most aspects of your life--physical, mental, and spiritual. Essential oils are perfect vehicles to help you in this task because their molecules pass directly to the emotional brain and can bring us into contact with the issues we have long forgotten and enable us to deal with them and resolve them once and for all. When we clear our emotional baggage, we clear the way to manifest our true and highest potential.

According to Gary Young, “Thought equals frequency. Essential oils absorb our thoughts. They are registered in the oils as intent. Intent is directed energy. When you apply an intent-energized oil on your feet they can saturate all of your cells within 60 seconds, stimulating creative thinking and pushing negative energy out of the cells, thus increasing the frequencies of the cells throughout the body. In that uplifted state you can create a new desire to be better tomorrow. You have no limitations but those you choose to accept.”

Gary says, “Use the Feelings Kit. Apply feeling oils before work and every night before bed. Do this for 30 days and you will change your life.”

The Feelings Kit, which was out of stock for some time, is available again in a modified version. It contains six oil blends: Valor, Harmony, Forgiveness, Release, Present Time, and Inner Child. Here is how Gary instructed us to use them at the Vienna Convention:

VALOR Put Valor Oil on the soles of both feet at nighttime along with Highest Potential Blend. These blends are effective to erase limited thinking. Valor balances and equalizes the body’s energies thereby increasing oxygen intake to the pineal gland—the seat of our higher intelligence and intuitive faculties. You will wake up in the morning more self assured and more alive to start the day.

HARMONY Massage one drop of Harmony Oil on each of the energy center points of your body. There are seven of them along the spine: Coccyx, Sacrum, Lumbar, Dorsal (heart), Cervical (where neck meets shoulders), and Medulla (hollow place at center base of skull), and Pineal (center of forehead). You can also massage Harmony on the crown of the head. Harmony balances the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems which, in turn, gives us progressive creativity and feelings of confidence. “The biggest sin is not having confidence in yourself,” says Gary, “He who lacks confidence lacks life.”

FORGIVENESS Apply Forgiveness Oil around the navel with the right hand going clockwise several times and think of situations where you need to forgive yourself or others. We beat up on ourselves, but everyone makes mistakes. Yet we struggle to forgive our own mistakes and those of others. Unforgiveness is one of the most common roots of physical, mental, and spiritual disease. Unforgiveness does not make the offending party sick. It makes us sick. Forgiveness is for our own benefit. It is accomplished in five steps. (1) Forgive yourself for allowing the person to affect your health and happiness. (2) Forgive the other person for any harm he or she may have caused you. (This need not be done directly with the person being forgiven, but is an inner adjustment on your part.) (3) Give the other person permission to forgive you. (4) See the good in the situation. (5) Be thankful for the experience and the lesson it taught you. Inhale and apply Forgiveness Oil while going through these steps and repeat as often as necessary toclear the feelings of unforgiveness.

RELEASE Negative energy goes into the blood and then into the liver for cleansing where the toxins can remain trapped. Thus, the liver becomes a storage place for anger, resentment, bitterness, hatred, jealousy, envy, addictions, and a host of destructive feelings. Apply a few drops of Release Oil on your tongue to release the poisons of stored emotions from the liver. Rub Release over the liver area. Drink lots of pure water and do a liver cleanse.

PRESENT TIME When we live in the past or dwell on the future, we are not being productive in the present. Energize three drops of Present Time by making clockwise circles on the oil in the palm of your hand and then apply it to your thymus (the gland just under your sternum or breastbone). Besides keeping you focused on the tasks of today, this can also help you financially by increasing your abundance consciousness in the present.

INNER CHILD “When you are a child all things are possible. There are no limitations,” says Gary Young. “When you find your inner child, you have found your true self. The child in you is your creativity.” Apply one drop of Inner Child onto the pad of your thumb and then place your thumb onto the roof of your mouth. This opens the cranial sutures and stimulates the pineal, pituitary, and other organs of the emotional brain that occupy the space just above the roof of your mouth. Walking backwards while you have your thumb in your mouth looks stupid but it changes the rotation in the pelvis, elongating the spine, and decompressing the discs in your back. Thus, you can clear the nerve channels for energy to flow smoothly throughout your brain and body. In conclusion, Gary said, “Use the Feelings Kit morning and night for 30 days. You will feel enthusiastic. Your life will be full of excitement. And people will be drawn to you like a magnet.”

(NOTE: The Feelings Kit is available from Young Living Essential Oils as Item #3125.)

Reprinted from The Raindrop Messenger, a free eline newsletter, with permission from Dr. David Stewart.

People who use adulterated or synthetic oils worry about shelf life. Some British references on aromatherapy say one should throw away their oils every six months and purchase a fresh quantity. Such advice may be valid for certain carrier blend oils, but is not valid for pure unadulterated aromatic oils that are the products of distillation.

In order to discuss shelf life, you need to distinguish between various classes of scented oils. There are four types of fragrant oils to consider:

Essential oils (distilled).

Expressed oils (usually citrus);

Absolutes (solvent extractions); and

Carrier Blend Oils (essential oils in a fatty base).

The shelf lives of these four classes of aromatic oils are different. While expressed, absolute, and carrier blend oils contain large molecules along with their small aromatic ones, pure essential oils obtained entirely by distillation contain only small molecules.

Large molecules tend to be less stable than small ones. Shelf life addresses the question of chemical stability. Aromatic oils are mixtures of many compounds. If a mixture of compounds remains stable, that is, if it does not decompose or change its chemistry over a long period of time in storage, we say it has a long shelf life.

If you are using pure distilled therapeutic grade essential oils, as described in Chapter One of this book, then you don’t have to worry about shelf life. Essential oils have been found in Egyptian tombs that were still aromatic and effective—their therapeutic properties intact—even after thousands of years. These oils were in moderately cool, dark places tightly sealed from exposure to air and the elements. That is all they required to maintain their potency. No one knows what their true shelf life may be. All we know is that it is measured in millenia, not months.

As for the British oils, there is a so called aromatherapy grade of oil that is actually only 1-5% essential oil dissolved in a fatty base oil. The large molecules of fatty vegetable oils are not as stable as the tiny ones that comprise essential oils. Fatty oils also contain proteins, polypeptides, and amino acids—unstable compounds not found in essential oils. Fatty oils will naturally break down into smaller molecules over time at normal room temperatures. We call this “going rancid.” While large molecules have no smell, the smaller molecules resulting from the decomposition of fatty hydrocarbons do have a smell—an unpleasant one. Hence, an aromatherapy grade oil that is mostly vegatable oil does have a shelf life. Thus, the British texts that recommend pitching your oils every six months have a valid point in reference to “aromatherapy grade” oils.

A number of blends containing pure essential oils used in North America also contain some fatty oil such as olive, sesame seed, or almond. Usually, 80% or more of these blends consist of essential oils. These are not the same as the aromatherapy grade massage oils of England which are mostly fatty, but they do have a shelf life.

Expressed oils, absolutes, and carrier blend oils are sensitive to heat, such as in a car on a hot day. Heat accelerates any chemical reaction and if the large molecules in these oils are prone to gradual decomposition even at normal temperatures, this process will be hastened by heat. You can tell if any damage has been done to your oils by heat by testing the fragrance. If it still smells the same as when you bought it, it is still okay. If not, then damage has occurred. Exposure to heat in excess of 90-120° F can shorten the shelf life of expressed, absolute, and carrier blend oils, but does not shorten the shelf life of true essential oils. (See section on Heat at the beginning of this chapter for a more thorough discussion on the effects of temperature on oils.)

Absolutes, expressed oils, and oil blends that are mostly essential and only partly fatty all have a shelf life. Experience has shown that their shelf lives can be measured in years, unless the oil has been exposed to excessive heat. So if you have any such oils, your nose will know if they go bad. To know if an oil blend contains a fatty carrier oil, read the label. If you want to extend their shelf life, refigerate them. However, if you are using such oils over periods of time less than a few months, you don’t need to go to the trouble of storing them in your refrigerator.

You don’t have to refrigerate pure essential oils that are the products of distillation. Refrigeration does not extend their shelf life. A cool environment won’t hurt them or help them. They will last indefinitely at normal living temperatures and will remain unaffected and intact even when occasionally exposed to the heat of a hot day in a car, provided you do not open the bottle until it has cooled down to normal temperatures. (More on this in the section on Heat earlier in this chapter.)

If anyone asks you about the shelf life of a pure therapeutic grade essential oil, just say, “5000 years at least.”

If they ask you about the shelf life of an oil that has been expressed, solvent extracted, or mixed with a fatty base, just say, “It depends.”

Essential Oils are the heartbeat of the plant kingdom, and are perhaps the most exciting life-giving substance we have in the world today. They represent in plants what blood represents in humankind - life! This heartbeat is the energy that was created to deliver the nutrients into every cell of the body Defined; Essential oils are the subtle, volatile liquids that are distilled from plants, shrubs, flowers, trees, bushes and seeds. An ancient process, oil distillation is a delicate and precise art that has been almost forgotten. Science is just now re- discovering the incredible healing power of Essential Oils, and beginning to acknowledge their value for our health.

More Potent Than Herbs...

Being concentrated, The oils contain virtually all of the plants healing nutrients, oxygenating molecules, amino acid precursors, coenzyme A factors, trace minerals, enzymes, vitamins, hormones and more. And because they are concentrated, EO's are from 50 to 70 times more therapeutically potent than the herbs or plants they are derived from. Unlike dried herbs that can lose up up to 90% of the healing nutrients and oxygen molecules, Essential Oils do not. Research further shows that Essential Oils when applied to skin will penetrate every single cell within 20 minutes.

Because the very life force of the plant is contained in EO's, and because this life force synergizes so favorably with the human body, Essential Oils are now being considered as medicine by some of the world's most prominent doctors.

Clinical research shows that Essential Oils have the highest frequency of any natural substance known to man, creating an environment in which disease, bacteria, virus, fungus, etc., cannot live.

Recent research has also shown that many of the so called "super bugs" that has modern medicine so concerned, cannot survive in the presence of essential oils...Nor has there been any pathogen known to resist EO's by mutating.

Best of all, 100% pure, therapeutic grade Essential Oils are freely available and safe for home use. Many people diffuse the oils into the atmosphere of their homes, creating a virus free and pleasant environment. Many of the oils are applied directly to the skin to receive almost immediate benefit from many ailments.

Others are inhaled for relief from headaches, nausea, emotional release, etc.

Nature's Most Effective Delivery Agent...

Because Essential Oils contain such high amounts of oxygenating molecules, they act as an effective delivery agent to bring food nutrients THROUGH the cell wall to feed the cell nucleus.

Without an adequate delivery agent to assist the cell to receive needed nutrients, the cell can become deprived of needed nutrition. Without adequate nutrition, the cell wall thickens hindering further delivery of nutrients. When malnutrition occurs, the cell begins to deteriorate, creating a host for disease-causing pathogens. Essential Oils are known for their ability to "fly" through the thickest cell walls. They have the ability to restore diseased and malnourished cells back to health. In fact, EO's are nature's most effective catalyst and delivery agent for feeding your body's several trillion cells.

Protocol that Gary Young has given us to soothe and balance the mind...

Valor - one drop on wrists or several drops on the bottom of the feet

Harmony- one drop over the solar plexus - above the belly button

Joy- one drop over the heart

White Angelica - one drop in one hand, rub the two hands together,
and brush the head, face shoulders, chest, body, down legs, (right
over the clothes), as though you were brushing on an "angelic
shield."

For more information about these and other Young Living Essential Oils visit my website.