Hydrotherapy Rituals: Goddess & Cleopatra-Inspired Baths
In this post, we're diving into the soothing realms of hydrotherapy with Goddess Baths and Cleopatra-inspired Milk Baths. These aren't just baths; they're a journey into self-care and luxury, offering a perfect escape for busy entrepreneurs and creatives. Get ready to turn your bath time into a rejuvenating ritual that refreshes and inspires you.
Hydrotherapy
Hydrotherapy is a fascinating and potent practice to support the elimination of toxins in the body. The euphoric feeling from an at-home hydrotherapy session is as good as anything at a spa.
In just a few minutes in the shower, you can improve your overall well-being, wake up the body and mind, detoxify, and strengthen your entire nervous system. In yogic traditions, hydrotherapy is called Ishnaan.
The practice basics: use alternating temperatures, moving from warm to cold, to influence your system. The warm water relaxes the muscles, and the cold water stimulates.
Key Benefits of Hydrotherapy:
The known benefits of a daily cold shower blast include boosting your immune system by increasing your white blood cell count and clearing toxins as the capillaries open. The practice is known to improve your stress response and willpower.
If you can endure a few minutes of high-intensity cold, you can endure day-to-day challenges and boost your metabolic rate. Although it may seem counterintuitive, there is science behind this practice. Start slowly, adding in a short 30-second blast of cold at the end of your regular warm shower.
As cold water hits your body, blood will rush to your organs. As our blood retracts, it flushes the capillary system, giving the system a vigorous workout.
Cold water stimulates the body in a way that can improve circulation and purify the organs. You'll exit the shower with a healthy glow, exhilaration, and an elevated emotional state.
Here's how to do hydrotherapy:
Before climbing into the shower, give yourself a quick full-body massage with plant-based body oil. Jojoba, coconut, or olive oil are all good choices. Start in warm water, as you regularly would when you shower. Get the cold water flowing when you're ready to begin the hydrotherapy.
Start by exposing your extremities - feet, hands, arms, and legs - to the cold. Move to your face next. Move in and out of the water several times, letting the cold water flow from your head and face all along the body, constantly massaging your body until you get used to the cooler temperature.
Start with 10 seconds in the cold, 10 seconds outbuilding up to 30 seconds and beyond. It's generally a good idea to protect your sex organs, the tops of the thighs, and the lower back/kidney area from long-term cold exposure.
When you're finished, dry off with vigor, working up the body, starting at your feet, working up the legs, and moving upward with the towel to simulate a dry brushing technique to help further inspire your circulation. I love this practice first thing in the morning to start my day with a serious glow!
Hydrotherapy isn't a practice for you if you're experiencing a fever, rheumatism, or heart disease or if you're menstruating or pregnant.
Taking a Goddess Bath: A Ritual of Self-Care
Water is ultra-supportive of your spiritual and emotional connection and helps you cleanse energies you may pick up from others around you. Venus represents sensuality, embodiment, and pleasure, the Divine Feminine archetype proliferating throughout history.
We associate Venus with the Roman goddess of love. Still, this Divine Feminine archetype has many iterations in other cultures, from Ancient Egyptian Isis to Inanna from Mesopotamia and the Greek equivalent Aphrodite. What they all represent is sacred and divine power.
For this practice, choose the goddess that resonates with you. Feminine energy can be thought of as yin or lunar energy. There are watery depths in the feminine.
Society is often taught to operate from an over-masculine space, emphasizing productivity, ambition, and achieving end goals. Yet, on the other hand, feminine energy is receptive and flow-oriented without using force to make things happen.
If the masculine is like an accelerator in active pursuit, the feminine would be a magnet, which sits back and draws her desires inwards.All can practice this practice; no matter how you gender identify, the intention is to tap into your body and your inner magnetism.
Here's how to take a goddess bath:
Add your favorite bath salts, dried flowers, and crystals to draw a sacred healing bath. Here are a few crystals for the bath and what they're best used for:
Amethyst- protection and relaxation
Rose Quartz- self-love and compassion
Smokey Quartz- grounding
Citrine- Balancing, cultivating creativity
Carnelian- Increasing libido and sexual energy
(Some crystals don't do well soaking in water; look yours up beforehand.)
Set the intention for your bath. Envision this bath cleansing and healing you on an energetic, physical, spiritual, and emotional level for your highest and greatest good. Consider the energy you wish to cultivate, for example, self-love, grounding, or creativity. Let yourself soak for 10-20 minutes minimally.
Water is a conductor of energy and opens connections with your spirit guides and highest self. Be open to receiving whatever messages are in your highest good, and journal afterward about anything that comes up for you.
Once you've had enough time to soak, exfoliate your skin with a salt scrub, adding a floral essential oil, like lavender or rose. Imagine the water purifying you and removing excess emotion from your energetic field as you sit in the bath.
When you finish your bath, visualize all these old feelings going down the drain with the water. Then, as you emerge from the tub, imagine your own rebirth. (You can practice this in your daily shower if you're short on time. Key components are the scrub, the essential oil, and the visualization.)
The Cleopatra-Inspired Milk Bath: An Ancient Beauty Secret
The Egyptian queen Cleopatra may be known for her captivating physical beauty. Still, she was also a celebrated intellectual and leader. She spoke as many as a dozen languages and was a mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy scholar.
It's said that Cleopatra was also quite the venture capitalist - owning her own perfumery offering blends from herbs, flower petals, leaves, or seeds blended with oil from pressed olives.
Many of the scents used by the ancient Egyptians - frankincense, myrrh, jasmine, juniper, and cardamom - have endured, making up the key ingredients in popular aromas today. One of the oldest wellness treatments of the record is the bath.
It's said that Cleopatra often bathed in donkey milk, honey, and essential oils as a part of her beauty ritual. In ancient Egyptian society, bathing with aromatic oils was a part of daily life. Milk calms and moisturizes the skin, vitamins A and E protect the skin from free radical damage, and B vitamins leave the skin silky and supple.
Recently, the art of bathing has returned to its rightful place as wellness treatment and luxurious self-care. Using ingredients from the earth and pH-balancing formulas will keep your body chemistry healthy and your skin soft and hydrated.
How to Create a cleopatra-inspired milk bath:
While Cleopatra was known to bathe in donkey's milk, it isn't as accessible to us as it would have been to a Queen, so using cow's or goat's milk is what I include in this recipe.
3 cups cow's or goat milk, preferably raw
1 tablespoon raw honey
10 drops of rose essential oil
A handful of organic fresh or dried rose petals
Once you've gathered your ingredients, melt the honey in water over the stove. Then mix the milk and essential oils, then add the blend into your bathwater. Finally, add the flower petals as an extra treat. Rose petals raise the energetic frequency of the bath.
They are said to reduce inflammation and anxious feelings as well. Feel free to get creative. This is a bath fit for a queen, after all. Add any other essential oils you feel drawn to, perhaps a few drops of rosemary and peppermint for vitality or lavender for sleep.
Sea salt enhances detoxification and circulation; olive oil will quench dry skin. Soak up to half an hour and finish the experience with a full-body moisturizer.
Embracing the Ritual
The Goddess Bath and Cleopatra-inspired Milk Bath are not just about physical cleansing but mental and spiritual rejuvenation. Taking time for such self-care rituals is vital in the hustle of entrepreneurial life. It's a moment to pause, reflect, and nourish body and soul.
So, I encourage you to integrate these practices into your routine and experience the transformative power of water.
