The Healing Power of Scent
“I just did a hot steamy shower and applied all four steps of my skincare. I imagined I was at a fancy spa the whole time.”
A friend messaged me at this moment in her day. I felt this deep in my bones.
I also imagine myself at a fancy spa overlooking the Swiss Alps when I apply my skincare in the little bathroom of a one-bedroom apartment. It’s amazing how an experience triggered by our senses can take us places.
One of the most powerful senses is smell. In The Harvard Gazette, Colleen Walsh writes about these kinds of moments. They are called “Proustian Moments.” A French author, Marcel Proust describes a moment in one of his books written back in 1913. He describes a moment of having tea and madeleine cakes. It causes a physical, mental, and emotional response so deep.
“I quivered, attentive to the extraordinary thing that was happening inside of me.”
According to Miriam Webster, attentive means to be mindful or observant. How often do we mindlessly skip over the scents and tastes we consume every day? What if these small moments hold the power to wake us up, help us dream, or heal us in some small way?
We often smell in color. When you get a whiff of something citrus I think of summer colors – yellow and oranges. When I smell a chai tea latte I think in Christmas colors – all shades of reds and greens.
The same goes for taste. Try taking a bite of something with your nose pinched and you’ll most likely taste the texture, maybe if it’s sweet or salty. If there’s a true flavor to it, you will miss out. It’s said that we taste by smells hitting our olfactory senses as we chew.
All of that is connected to our memories and imaginations!
What if we slowed down enough to be attentive to scents swirling around us? Would it heal us in unexpected ways?
Would it lead us to a calmer nervous system? Would it open the door to dream dreams we’re afraid to write down or tell others?
Recently, I made chocolate chip cookies the way my mom made them. A few tweaks to the butter. Be exact with the slat and generous with the vanilla. Bake for 9 minutes and 30 seconds for a touch of golden brown yet slightly not done in the center. Let them sit for a few minutes to finish baking on the pan and then let them cool on a cutting board.
Enjoy!
I took a bite of a perfectly Barbara Jean chocolate chip cookie and it was the smell of the freshly baked cookie, and the taste of the vanilla and melted chocolate chips that transported me. Even more so, the bite of the uncooked cookie dough transported me back to my childhood kitchen.
I could hear my mom holler from the other room, “Brooke are you eating the dough?”
She thought I would die of salmonella poisoning due to Oprah’s latest segment on this hard-hitting horror.
To which I would snag another scoop and holler back, “No! Of course not!” I confess to you here and now, I lied every time.
Ultimately, that bite of cookie dough at the age of 37 years old, standing in my apartment kitchen, three and half months after my mom’s death was one of the most healing moments for me.
I slowed down to take in the scents, tastes, and colors of that lightly golden freshly baked cookie.
That scent made me feel connected.
That scent made me feel laughter deep down.
That scent is healing a part of my grief I have struggled to name…
Safety.
I felt safe in my mother’s kitchen – most of the time, unless she was accusing me of eating raw cookie dough.
Whether it’s skincare or cookie dough. Let’s slow down. Be attentive to the “Proustian Moments” of the smells around us. Let’s see if it heals a small part of us.
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