I had been feeling really stuck for a long time.
Stuck at a set point weight that was higher than I was used to.
Stuck in certain patterns of communication and interaction in my personal life
Stuck in areas of my business where I never seemed to gain traction or make progress.
And then I remediated the mold from my home. (More Here) and…
- The weight started to fall off.
- My brain started to clear.
- Stuck thought patterns and limiting beliefs became more apparent and easier to modify.
AND my external world began to shift in really positive, powerful ways.
The act of physically eliminating the stagnant, toxic mold in my home helped to shift me out of the pattern of stagnation that was impacting my mental, physical, and emotional health.
Over the past month, I have finally been able to make changes that I honestly should have made years ago. Unfortunately, when I was caught in the vicious cycle of stagnation, even the smallest changes felt too hard.
As I continue to unravel from stagnation, I am able to clearly identify actionable steps (many of which involve the use of essential oils) that are helping me make positive progress back to health.
What is Stagnation?
Stagnation is defined as the lack of flow, movement, growth, or development. It’s literally the state of being stuck.
Stagnation can encompass a lack of action or activity—including non-movement, inaction, inactivity, or regression physically, mentally, or emotionally.
It can impact your mental and emotional state, contributing to depression or a loss of purpose in life, where you may feel like aspects of your life are at standstill or something is holding you back from moving forward. It’s often marked by a sense of inertia, where the status quo persists despite external changes or opportunities for progress, achievement, or advancement.
On a physical level, stagnation can impede the flow or movement within your organ systems, known as Qi or Chi in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Stagnation originates from the Latin word “stagnum,” meaning stagnant water or the cessation of flow or circulation in a fluid, which can apply to lymphatic fluid and blood flow, both of which are critical for health. For example, your body may retain excess weight as a protective response to stagnant energy.
Symptoms of Stagnation
Stagnation may be associated with the following signs and symptoms:
- Lingering procrastination
- Lack of motivation, drive, or enthusiasm to do anything, including things you used to love
- Constantly Feeling Overwhelmed, even by simple tasks
- Difficulty Making Decisions
- Feeling stuck or unable to move forward
- Inertia, Feeling bored or uninterested
- Life has become routine and monotonous
- Feeling a lack of engagement
- Resistance to new ideas or opportunities
- Negative or pessimistic attitude or assumptions
- Refusal to acknowledge or take responsibility for attitudes, actions, and circumstances well within your power to influence
- Rigid, Inflexible Mindset
- Loss of curiosity and sense of adventure
- Feel cynical, irritable, or apathetic
- Closed minded to new approaches and learning.
- Complacent; not stretching and challenging self
- Escapism and Task Avoidance (i.e. binge-watching TV, scrolling on your phone, and other mindless activities for comfort)
- Difficulty speaking up (your voice feels stuck)
- Lack clear direction forward in your relationships, friendships, work, or self-development
Qi Stagnation
Qi translates to “vital energy” that is believed to move constantly and smoothly in the body to promote the physiological functions of your internal organs.
Qi stagnation means that your energy is not flowing smoothly, like stagnant water in a pond. In other words, movement of Qi may be blocked, sluggish, or obstructed, causing your Qi to stagnate and obstruct the flow of energy to different organ systems and regions of the body and the brain.
Traditional Chinese Medicine operates under the belief that Qi is present throughout the body, and a deficiency of Qi in one system or organ can lead to different symptoms or a deficiency in another. Although Qi moves in every organ of the body, the Liver, Spleen, Stomach, Large Intestine, and Lung directly influence Qi movement, and stagnation may present as the following issues:
- Lung Qi Stagnation = Grief, shortness of breath, tendency to catch colds, low speaking voice, stifling sensation in chest, coughing
- Stomach-Qi and Spleen-Qi Stagnation = Worry, feeling of distension in abdomen, reduced appetite, nausea, abdominal pain, or irregular bowel movement.
- Liver Qi Stagnation = Anger, irritability, pain in lower abdomen, PMS, heavy periods, breast tenderness
- Bile Stagnation = headaches, motion sickness, nausea, pain between shoulder blades
- Lymph Stagnation = swelling, skin rashes, fatigue
- Fascia Stagnation (Qi stagnation in the meridians) = stiffness, feeling of heaviness, numbness, or tingling, or aching pain in the limbs.
- Mind Qi Stagnation = Mood disorders, such as depression or anxiety
- Blood/Heart Qi Stagnation = Anxiety, Nightmares or Restless Sleep, Mood Swings, Sweating, Heart Palpitations
- Kidney Qi Stagnation = Cold limbs, hair loss, asthma, urinary problems
What Causes Stagnation
Stagnation can be caused by a number of factors, including:
- Emotional Stress: Excessive stress and intense emotions—especially anger and frustration—can quickly stagnate Qi. A stagnation of emotion corresponds to a stagnation of Qi as emotions that linger for long periods act on Qi, obstructing its physiological movement. In the same vein, stagnant physical and mental energy inhibits the free flow of emotions. Liver Qi especially suffers from this constraint, given its main role of facilitating the circulation of Qi generally.
- High Toxic Burden: Toxins—like mold, metals, pathogens, and parasites—can impede flow in the body. Any stagnation, congestion, or compromise in the healthy function of your liver allows toxic chemicals to build up and accumulate in your body. Several organs in the detoxification system work together to help remove toxins. If key detoxification organs, like the liver or gall bladder, are overburdened, stagnation can occur.
- Poor lifestyle habits: Prolonged use of drugs, like antibiotics, a poor diet, diet low in protein or high in cold raw food can damage Qi as can cold, damp climates or the accumulation of fluids or water. What’s more, a sedentary lifestyle, lack of exercise, or prolonged periods of inactivity can contribute to stagnation.
Essential Oils for Stagnation
Essential oils may help regulate, harmonize and enhance the flow of energy in your physical, mental or emotional body.
Essential oils can be powerful tools to help you surrender into your “flow” so you can release stuck energy, control, and stagnation. Connecting to nature can help you connect to your ability to increase flexibility, reduce rigidity, and be better able to surrender to and flow with life.
Oils derived from plants can help support flow, gently break up stagnation, and increase movement on both the physical, mental, and emotional levels. For example, plants with a pungent and warm nature are selected because pungency possesses a moving capacity and warmth may activate the Qi movement. Similarly, essential oils derived from plants that remove different obstructions, including expectorants, like those found in Sinus Support™ that eliminate phlegm, remove food stagnation, promote bowel movement, transform dampness, warm the interior, clear heat and release the exterior may help remove stagnation.
Chinese medicine has long incorporated essential oils to clear blocks in specific acupuncture channels and activate the related energetic organ systems. This is one of the reasons that I attempt to be super specific about application points. I have repeatedly found that using essential oils to activate acupressure points has a synergistic effect that is more powerful than using pressure points or aromatherapy as independent self-care modalities.
What’s more, willow trees and other plants with deep roots in the earth and flexible branches and leaves are known for their ability to bend without breaking, signifying flexibility, adaptability, and strength. The willow tree has flexible branches that twist and turn in a storm but do not easily break. The tree also has robust roots that keep it strong and standing against strong winds.
Essential oils derived from flexible plants may help support physical and emotional flexibility that allows me to be more flexible and less controlling and rigid in my life. Similarly, essential oils that support the Liver, Spleen, Stomach, Large Intestine, and Lung meridians are often used because these organs directly influence the Qi movement of the body.
READ THIS NEXT: Supporting Emotional Flexibility with Essential Oils
9 Essential Oils for Stagnation
- Limbic Reset™ for Mind Stagnation
Essential oils can be powerful tools to help allow you to work through your emotions and release anger and irritability. Your sense of smell links directly to the emotional control center of your brain known as the amygdala, where emotions and emotional memories are stored.
Essential oils inhaled through the nasal passageways enable immediate access to the regions of the brain that house these intense emotions like anger and rage so we can integrate and release them. The word “emotion” can be translated as “energy in motion.” Emotion is the experience of energy moving through our bodies. This emotional energy actually works at a higher speed than thought and essential oils can help us clear the energetic residue of blame so it doesn’t remain in our thought patterns, negatively impacting our energy field or our health.
Limbic Reset™ blend can help rewire neural circuits in your limbic system and calm an over-active stress response that involves mental stagnation. Inhale or topically apply over your temples to send safety queues to help reset your limbic system and support healthy emotional regulation. - Lymph™ for Lymph Stagnation
Your lymphatic system drains all waste from your body. Since it doesn’t have a pump, and lymphatic fluid can accumulate and stagnate, it causes lymph fluid to back up, impeding superficial lymphatic drainage from your head, scalp, face, arms, and legs. This stagnation can be due to an overload of acidity, animal protein, gluten, infection, toxins, or adhesions of the connective tissue, such as scars.
The oils in Lymph™ may help fluid move through the vessels and reduce swelling. To enhance lymphatic flow and drainage, generously apply Lymph™ around the sides of the neck to relieve congestion, improve drainage, and reduce brain inflammation. - Fascia Release™ for Fascia Stagnation
Stagnation in the connective tissue in key regions of the body can create or increase muscle/joint pain and stiffness. Fascia Release™ helps release adhesions and fascial restriction, increase circulation, and decrease swelling in the tissue. By supporting the fluid dynamics of the fascial system, this blend may help ease a congested lymphatic system and decrease swelling.
As you may know, fascia lies just below the skin, so topically applying essential oils to the skin allows for easy and immediate access to the fascia. The skin is your largest organ and is relatively permeable to fat-soluble substances like essential oils that can easily penetrate layers of restricted fascia, creating warmth to break up congestion, increasing circulation, lymphatic drainage, and mobilizing adhered tissue.
Essential oils soften the myofascial tissue, allowing the deep and constrained tissue to stretch and move as it is designed to function. They also have an analgesic effect, relaxing the muscles and reducing pain. The essential oils in the Fascia Release™ blend are uniquely formulated to unravel deeply held tensions, constrictions, and energetic blockages in your tissues to reduce pain, improve blood and lymphatic circulation, and release fear, repressed emotions, and tension held in the body (organs, muscles, tendons, bones, and joints) or the mind. - Liver Support™ for Liver Stagnation
Energetically, your liver is responsible for maintaining harmony and the smooth movement of energy throughout your body, including the smooth transition between feelings and emotions as situations change around you. This liver energy supports your drive, planning, endurance, perseverance, quick/clear intellect, ambition, patience, and organizational abilities.
When your liver energy is balanced, you probably feel kind, benevolent, compassionate, and generous. When your liver is physically or energetically congested or stagnant, you might experience intense feelings of angry outbursts, irritability, resentment, frustration, rage, impatience, jealousy, or even depression.
Anger that we don’t process and release can get stored in your liver, according to Chinese medicine. Any stagnation, congestion, or compromise in the healthy function of your liver allows toxic chemicals to build up and accumulate in your body. Frustration, rage, and anger tend to build up when toxins build up.
Liver Support™ helps support the release of anger, including frequent irritation, impatience, resentment or frustration, being critical of yourself or others, control issues, an inability to express your feelings, feelings of not feeling heard, not feeling loved, and/or not feeling recognized or appreciated.
Liver Support™ is formulated to help move through and release anger and stagnant emotions attached to traumatic experiences from the cells of the liver to promote optimal healing. The oils in this blend assist the body to recognize, work through, and release the anger, fear, or frustration caused by traumatic experiences so they don’t overwhelm you.
It allows you to gently let go of negative emotions, including repressed anger, which can create stuck energy and impede an organ’s ability to heal.
Just place the bottle under your nose and breathe deeply, fully inhaling the oil for 3-7 breaths. It helps you breathe into and work through the emotion. You can also apply it around the ankles as this is often an area where we hold resistance to moving forward in life and block the ability to receive joy and pleasure. Start at the back of the ankle and apply under the ankle bone around to the front and back under the other ankle bone, all while allowing yourself to release challenging emotions. For more tips on detoxify emotions, read this article.
READ THIS NEXT: Physical and Emotional Support for Your Liver - Liver™ & Gall Bladder™ for Bile Stagnation
When your body detoxifies, it eliminates toxins by moving them out of your cells, into your blood, through your liver, and into your bile, which then carries toxins into the gut for elimination in your stool. As long as toxins flow in the right direction, they can be eliminated.
If there is a block in detoxification pathways, like a clogged bile duct, the fluids carrying the toxins out of your body are not able to flow out of your liver into your intestines for elimination. When detoxification pathways are blocked, toxins are forced to flow back into your bloodstream and either need to be eliminated through other detoxification pathways – your skin and your kidneys – or linger in the blood – contributing to blood stagnation.
Liver™: The liver produces bile, a yellowish-green fluid that aids in the emulsification of fats and the digestion and absorption of fat-soluble substances, like vitamins A, D, E, and K. The liver also stores fat-soluble toxins, including old hormones (like excess estrogen), in the bile for transport out of the body through the digestive elimination process. This means the liver needs to be functioning optimally to both produce bile and filter and store old hormones. You can support optimal liver function by applying Vibrant Blue Oils Liver™ over the liver (right side of the body, under the ribs) 2 – 3 times daily.
Gall Bladder™: Once the liver produces bile, it is stored and concentrated in the gallbladder.
Your liver energy works in conjunction with your gallbladder energy. If gallbladder energy is stuck, it can back up into the liver causing stagnation. When we eat a meal with fat, the bile should flow freely into the small intestine to break down the fat, so we can absorb it. Unfortunately, stress, hormones, and excess fat consumption can make the bile thick, viscous, and stagnant which impedes its ability to flow. To support the optimal flow of bile from the gallbladder, apply Vibrant Blue Oils Gall Bladder™ on the right side of the body under the bra under-wire or along and slightly under the right rib cage. - Lung Support™ for Lung Stagnation
According to Chinese medicine, feelings of grief and loss are stored in your lungs where they can obstruct the ability of your lungs to accept and relinquish, impeding their function of “taking in” and “letting go” of oxygen and feelings. Grief that remains unresolved can become chronic and create disharmony in the lungs, weakening the lung’s function of circulating oxygen around the body. Lung Support™ can help release these feelings of loss and support your ability to transport oxygen from the atmosphere into the capillaries so they can oxygenate blood and eliminate carbon dioxide from the bloodstream into the atmosphere. Apply 2-3 drops over the lungs, allowing yourself to deeply exhale any grief as you apply the blend. - Spleen Qi™ for Spleen Stagnation
The spleen, which sits in the upper left part of your abdomen behind your ribs, regulates and filters our blood, impacting the number of red blood cells that carry energy supplying oxygen throughout the body. The spleen is also part of our lymphatic system and a key player in our immune response, detecting pathogens in the blood and producing white blood cells to fight infections.
As blood filters through the spleen, it’s cleaned, and threatening microbes are engulfed and filtered out. Without the spleen working properly, we can’t maintain the red and white blood cells we need for ongoing energy which is why low spleen energy can be linked to fatigue.
TCM considers the spleen to be responsible for digesting food and carrying that energy into our cells, along with providing warmth and vitality to the body, providing physical energy for immune function and mental energy for work and creativity. Prolonged stress, cold weather, too much cold food, and mental overwork can exhaust or weaken the spleen’s energy or Chi.
Spleen Qi™: Can help support the Vitality of your Spleen and improve sleep quality. Apply 2-3 drops of Spleen Qi™ over the spleen (left side of the body, under the breast) or over the Spleen 6-point (inside of the leg just above the highest peak of your ankle) four finger widths up from, apply deep pressure slightly behind the tibia bone. - Circulation™ for Blood Stagnation
Your circulatory system controls blood flow into and out of the brain. Slow, stagnant, or blocked blood flow through the veins or arteries can restrict effective blood flow, which creates pressure and prevents toxins from draining from the brain.
Circulation™ blend may help improve circulation by relaxing the blood vessels and improving the health of the blood vessels. This helps more blood circulate through them, improving circulation in the process. Essential oils can also be used to help the veins contract, stimulating blood flow.
Apply 2-3 drops of Circulation™ on the sides or back of the neck, over the left clavicle, to help support circulation. When blood circulation to the brain becomes sluggish, it can impact your physical and mental abilities, including your ability to focus and concentrate. Poor circulation in the brain can also contribute to fatigue, vertigo, dizziness, memory loss, and frequent and unexplained headaches. - Heart™ for Heart Stagnation
Heart™ can help calm any intense or overwhelming feelings by redirecting you back to a space of love and gratitude. Feelings of love and gratitude can help you pivot out of the intensity of sadness and grief and act as an instant reset. In fact, an NIH study correlated a focus on gratitude with increased blood flow to the hypothalamus and a reduction in the stress hormone cortisol. Apply 2-3 drops of Heart™ directly over the heart (left side of the chest). During times of intense stress and fatigue, use as often as needed (every 20-30 minutes). During times of normal stress, use 2-3 times daily to calm and uplift the heart and the body. Read More about Essential Oils for Gratitude HERE.
Featured Oils:
- Sinus Support™ available here
- Limbic Reset™ available here
- Lymph™ available here
- Fascia Release™ available here
- Liver Support™ available here
- Liver™ available here
- Gall Bladder™ available here
- Lung Support™ available here
- Spleen Qi™ available here
- Circulation™ available here
- Heart™ available here
References:
- https://vibrantblueoils.com/intranasal-essential-oils-for-mold-remediation/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/qi
- https://vibrantblueoils.com/supporting-emotional-flexibility-with-essential-oils/
- https://vibrantblueoils.com/introducing-emotion-balance-blends/
- https://vibrantblueoils.com/physical-and-emotional-support-for-your-liver/
- https://vibrantblueoils.com/essential-oils-to-enhance-gratitude/
