Have you ever felt "less than"? Less than is the feeling of not being enough. It is associated with performance anxiety, imposter syndrome, and other depressive self thoughts. That is learned behavior. I learned it as a child through my parents, my older siblings, other kids at school, and, of course, comparing myself to everyone around me and always coming up short. But whether I was an outcast because of other people's mental wellness issues, the fact that I was the odd black kid out of an entire grade of 40 kids (and only one of two black families in the school K-6), we will never know. And, frankly, does it matter?

What matters is I am a grown-ass woman who must learn to feed and keep herself. Whether anyone tells you or not, how you feel about yourself is directly tied to your earning capacity, the lifestyle you will enjoy, and how much reciprocal loving relationships are in your life. In the immortal words of Ru Paul, "If you don't love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?"

Experience teaches us how to close off from intimate connections. Our brains are wired to keep us safe. One way it keeps us safe is by keeping great mental records (memories) of what has been good to you and what has been painful for you in past experiences. If a memory has been stored with what I will call a negative charge, it acts as a safety reminder, "This looks like something that has hurt us before!" This is true of open flames on stove tops, as well as situations and people.

I remember a friend dating a guy and it was going really well. So well, in fact, that he invited her to come to band rehearsal and meet his band mates. As we all know, meeting the inner circle is a big, positive step in a relationship. Well, she went and he was testy to her all night, actually rude to his band mates , and clearly overly jealous of even the most benign conversations she had with his friends. She did not understand what had happened. I asked her how his last relationship ended. She said, his girlfriend of many years cheated on him with a a now-former band mate. I thought, well that tracks for the behavior.

He became triggered when he saw her friendly interactions with his band mates. It would have set off the memory of his last girlfriend and the betrayal. He probably thought the way she was trying to be welcomed into his inner circle, i.e. "please like me and give me approval", was flirting. Was she flirting? No. But he was triggered, i.e. the pain of the last betrayal was stored into memory with a big-ass negative charge. He saw something that reminded him of the situation and reacted. Let's face it, we do not make good decisions when our trauma is triggered.

To love oneself is to support your own personal growth. To support letting go of past hurts so you can live unshackled in the here and now. A great step is to clean off these negative charges and store memories with a neutral balance charge. This process is best when anchored with a scent that feels cleansing to you. The scent will allow you over time to not only clear these issues faster, but store that memory with a positive-leaning memory of feeling refreshed, lighter, and maybe even cathartically clearer than before the meditation.

Feeling loveable starts with knowing you are loveable. That means YOU must love you. The more you take steps to untether yourself to past hurts, the more capable, whole, and happy you will feel. You have the power to affect your world. Step one is retracing the steps that made you feel less than in the first place. Not to blame, but to release and forget.

Choose one triggering experience (i.e, not feeling good enough to do something, not trusting people, no trusting yourself, etc.) You will not cure EVERY issue associated with this feeling at once, but you can heal some layers of the onion of pain that makes up the idea of Not Good Enough, or I Can't Trust Anyone each time you use the meditative practice below. Remember, nothing happens all at once, but each step forward is a lighter step towards the freedom to be 100% you and 100% present in each moment. And that, you will find, is real freedom.

Anchoring Scent Practice
Use a scent that feels clearing, whether a eucalyptus diffuser, burning a sage bundle or whatever. Be safe when burning materials and be sure their is some ventilation in the room. Too much smoke is not good for nasal passages or lungs. Room sprays, perfumes, and diffusers are also a great way to introduce the scent that works for you.

Now close your eyes for a meditation. Allowing yourself to be grounded and connected to the Earth. Breathe through to relax muscles and step into a deeper sense of calm.

Now we will use your imagination. First, we will travel to the center of your head and here we will access your Control Center. This is the place where you can control everything in your life. I usually picture something reminiscent of the Captain's Chair on the Star Trek Bridge, but you can picture whatever feels right for you--a throne, the perfect gaming station with all the controls, whatever.

From your Control Room bring up a screen and ask that memories associated with whatever is triggering you be shown on the screen. The memories fly by, but they are light and blurry. The idea is not see and reexperience all the traumas connected to your triggering moment, but rather to let them flit by on the screen. Your brain will do this without your needing to select and assess each one.

Now imagine a tank, resembling a fish tank rises up around the screen and begins a deep cleansing of everything on the screen. Breathe the scent deeply and feel the detritus of past experiences cleansed away. There will remain a dark, sludge like substance that gathers at the bottom of the screen that remains in the tank, as we allow the newly cleaned memories on the screen to rise and re-file themselves in your memory files with a neutral charge. The dark sludge of the negative associations remain in the tank.

These we wash again with the intention of letting these triggering moments go. This is not a "forgive and forget" moment, rather a release of the poison associated with these triggering situations. Continue to breathe. As this sludge is cleaned a second time through the tank you watch as the sludge becomes lighter in color and less dense in mass, until it is a light grey fog in the tank. We then allow a rinse of rose gold light to shine through the gray fog, taking over he gray and watch as the fog becomes lighter and lighter and then disappears from the tank. All that is left is the rose gold light.

Now allow the rose gold light to filter out leaving the clean clear tank. Thank the tank and yourself for doing this work. Continue to breathe and allow the now empty tank to sink back into the floor.

It may seem like you have not done much, but you have leap-frogged your experience past old memories that can block your view of what is happening in truth, in real life, in front of you. Continue to breathe. Thank your control panel room at the center of your head and allow yourself to move out of this space, close the door, and inhabit the entirety of your body. Feel your body sitting, hear the sounds in the room and beyond, smell the scent you have added to anchor this experience and slowly, gently open your eyes.

You may find that the new experiences that tripped your trigger wires are not as upsetting as they used to be. In fact, you may wonder why that "thing" does not bother you as much. You are learning to take control of your present by being less attached to all the things that hurt you in your past.

Supportive Scents
Modern Peasant offers natural, supportive scents for sensitive people. These are our recommended formulas for this exercise. Spray to set the space and clear the energy that no longer serves you.
Cleansing Room Spray (Palo Santo + Lavender), Tough Love Room Spray (White Sage + Rose)

Aromacology Helpers
The aromatic forms of these plants can be used including essential oils, extracts, hydrosols, or, of course, the fresh natural plant. If you are using essential oil add a few drops to a carrier oil like coconut, almond, or even olive oil before applying to your skin.
Palo Santo, Sage, Lavender, Pine, Cedarwood, Lemon, Cypress, Juniper, Eucalyptus