I was at doTERRA Europe Convention that took place in Amsterdam at the RAI Conference Center. It was my first time in this type of events and I didn’t know exactly what to expect. I can say that it has not only reached but overflowed the expectations. It was a brilliant Convention with lots of useful information, inspiring presentations and emotional moments.
I had the opportunity to meet Emily Wright, one of the Founder’s of doTERRA and the only woman in the Direction Board of the company. Both her presentations were quite powerful, this woman is a true force of nature! In the first day she had an emotional and inspiring presentation on how doTERRA has started, the high focus on quality and one of the communities where doTERRA gets the oils from (Lemon and Bergamot from Italy). On the second day she shared some of the other communities where doTERRA gets the oils like Haiti (Vetiver – one of my favourite essential oils), Somaliland (Frankincense) and Nepal (Wintergreen). Emily also addressed the co-impact sourcing that doTERRA is having in each of these Communities, by bringing them access to potable water, access to education, access to female hygiene products or helping prevent and stop child sex trafficking. doTERRA has created a special blend called Hope that was delivered in some of these locations, like Nepal. The bottles have a hidden phone number that these children can reach in case they are in danger. And the funds of this special blend go entirely to humanitarian support of the Healing Hands Foundation and thanks to it, two schools have been built in Nepal. In Haiti, doTERRA has created access to potable water. And in Somaliland it was again the creation of conditions for the workers and their children (since Frankincense is the main industry and therefore source of income for the families), by giving them up front payments, valuing the workers and creating opportunities and working conditions (some of the trees are in dangerous places, such as the desert, high cliffs or inhabited by poisonous snakes) and removing children from work by putting them in schools. doTERRA and the Healing Hands Foundation have also supported the actions in Lesbos, Greece for the Refugees crisis. Essential oils are particularly powerful in these locations since they allow people to smell something beautiful, they put a smile in people’s faces and they spread love drop by drop, as this video beautifully illustrates it.
You can find out more about all these projects here and help or become a part of it here. Emily’s presentations were by far the most emotional and she got three standing ovations such was the impact of her words. And I believe these are just some of the reasons why doTERRA is so special: high quality products and high impact in the Communities where the sourcing is done.
Dr. Tory Parker, the Director of Research & Development also held two clarifying presentations: one entirely dedicated to the importance of Sleep and how it affects our organism and our overall wellbeing, because sleep is as important as exercise and nutrition for optimal health, mentioning both Serenity products for enhancing or balancing the circadian rhythm and explaining how they act in our system. The other presentation was dedicated to Live Younger, Longer where Dr. Parker enhanced the importance of supplements in the daily diets we are forced to have these days and addressed some of doTERRA’s supplements and how they can support the body, especially DDR Prime, an essential oil’s complex created by doTERRA to protect the body against oxidative stress. These presentations were both illustrated by insightful slides on how human body and external agents interact chemically and how we can understand and better assist those processes for our own advantage.
Akwasi Frimpong is a Dutch-Ghanaian sprinter, bobsledder and skeleton athlete who has won 4 bronze, 4 silver, and 8 gold medals in various national and international sport events and held a presentation on is secret to achieve or basically how do essential oils and doTERRA’s supplements support him and his body to keep his performance. I will be sharing a post on Essential Oils for Athletes in the upcoming future, but I can say in advance that you can take a look at Deep Blue for sour muscles (both the cream and the essential oil), Lavender for calming the mind and the body to obtain maximum peak, Wild Orange for focus and energy and the entire doTERRA’s supplement line to take the body’s performance to the top.
Bengt Emanuelsson, the Northern and Central Europe Director, including Norway, shared some of his tips on how to open the doTERRA portable diffuser for cars and computers (I will make a video on this one soon) and how to eradicate migraines (I will share his recipe in a future post dedicated to headaches), but I can give you a hint on the essential oils to be used: Frankincense, Peppermint and Lavender.
Lisa Burke shared her own 25 year old journey with essential oils which culminated in her recent union with doTERRA. Lisa discovered essential oils when she was a young Mother and she was known back then as the “witch village” (yes: I know that feeling!) because essential oils were even more unknown/unheard of than they are today. She specialised in essential oils, built her own company and wrote a book on the subject. Recently she was contacted by doTERRA to be a part of this company and she was so impressed with the quality of doTERRA’s essential oils that she joined the company becoming the Region Director for the Atlantic & Mediterranean, where Portugal is included.
In the Discussion Panel one of the main themes brought up was how essential oils can support and empower women, especially during pregnancy. It is safe to use essential oils to support a woman’s body during pregnancy, but the woman must be confident in how to use essential oils. It is therefore easier when she is already familiarised with them and using them in her daily routines, before pregnancy. When people know what they can use and how they can use it they have the power to assist themselves and there’s no better way for a Mother to be connected to her baby than making him/her feel good, knowing how she can support the baby’s health, connecting with her baby by rubbing his/her feet, by being the healer of her own home.
Rebecca Hintze, one of the biggest doTERRA Advocates in the United Stated of America, hosted a presentation on Change Your Mood, Change Your Life, where she addressed the plasticity of the brain and how most of the emotional issues faced today are affected by our routines, such as the direct impact that what we eat and our gut bacteria have in our organism: body, brain, mood. Essential oils and doTERRA’s probiotics can assist in this field. And as I have mentioned in previous posts a very insightful reading on the subject that I highly recommend is The Microbiome Diet: The Scientifically Proven Way to Restore Your Gut Health and Achieve Permanent Weight Loss by Dr. Raphael Kellman or Change Your Brain, Change Your Body by Dr. Daniel G. Amen, which I have mentioned here.
Dr. David Steuer held my personal favourite: a presentation on The Physiological Effects of Essential Oils. He explained what are essential oils, how our molecules and essential oils interact and how that interaction can support our organism and assist us. So Dr. Steuer started to bring us to the amazing fact that less than 2% of Medical Schools talk about alternative medicines, however and happily that number may be increasing. From 2002 to 2016 the number of internet users in North America who searched for personal care solutions before going to the doctor has increased from 5% to 97%. These facts point out to the direction of natural healing solutions. Essential oils are volatile aromatic compounds: it means it’s free and easy for the body because the body doesn’t have to spend energy to use these molecules, so it will always act upon these molecules first (and that is the base explanation on why essential oils are so helpful in supporting dieting and emotional eating). Essential oils bind both to the internal and external receptors of the cells (this was much easier to explain with the illustrations on the slides of the presentation) meaning that essential oils impact not only one cell, but millions of cells. Another important point that Dr. Steuer mentioned and that is directly related with the efficacy of essential oils is the quality: the location of the harvested plant is equal to the chemical variance of the oil or in other words the potency of the oils. And that’s what makes doTERRA the quality leader of the market, because doTERRA actually outsources the oils in the locations where it’s best for the plant to grow (where the plant can achieve more chemical variance, meaning where it is nourished with the most adequate soil, weather conditions and type of environment exposure). It was a brilliant presentation: very elucidative and funny!
This was an amazing Convention, very clarifying and insightful on the chemistry of essential oils and how they can assist human beings and inspiring and informative in doTERRA’s history, quality and impact! It made us feel powerful and confident, for knowledge is empowering. I am proud to be a part of this movement where we aim to change the world one drop at a time, one person at a time. As President David Sterling put it: “I am only one, but I am one. I can not do everything but I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And I will.”
If you like this post, share it in your social media and visit Skin at Heart’s Patreon Page.