When I was nine or ten I went fishing with my dad and older brother. We must have caught three or four good sized fish. Then my dad and brother gutted the fish which I considered disgusting.

When we got home my mom cooked up the fish, and I remember the entire house smelled of it. Then we sat down as a family to eat all this fried fish for dinner. I didn’t get all the bones out of my fish and I didn’t like the fishy taste. As a result of this experience, I don’t like anything to do with catching or eating fish. So my own rule is don’t eat the fish. This is a great rule for me because of a negative experience that I personally had. For many other people this would be a terrible rule.

How many of us follow rules even when we don’t understand why we are following them? Many rules that we follow are because of a negative experience that happened to someone else, or because of some unusual circumstances.

Mary was cooking a ham for dinner when one of her children asked her, “Why do you cut off the end of the ham when putting it in a pan? Mary’s response was “when I saw my mom cook a ham she always cut off the end of her hams.” Mary decided to call up her mom to find out why she cut the end of her ham off. Her response was, “my hams wouldn’t fit in any of my pans, so I cut the end off.”

Most things we do are based on how it was done in the past. When we get sick, what do we do, we reach for the pain relief capsules. We do what we were taught as children and young adults. We did the best we knew how with the knowledge we had at the time.

Now we know that with every man made drug there are harmful side effects, some minimal, others very dangerous, and compromising to our health. There is hope! I am excited to learn that there are essential oils that have no dangerous side effects, with positive results. I am happy to report my first line of defense when sick or healthy is by using powerful essential oils that have been studied for their positive properties.