Stop picking your nose.
As crazy as it sounds, you will never hear me say this. I have another way of working with the fingers wanting to go up the nose and I learned it from studying Ayurveda and the power of oil. Sound crazy? Read on…
It’s 2am in the morning and I lay half awake listening to Miles breathing through his nose with some dry, brittle, crackling obstruction. He breathes a little through his nose and then his mouth. We’ve got boogies people. Dry. Boogers.
I had noticed the dryness around his nose before bed and had invited him to put some oil up his nose, but in his current, 2 year old phase of asserting his control and individuality, he refused. Not a big deal to me, we moved on. Now it’s the middle of the night and I’m woken with him struggling to breathe through this nose. I don’t wake him. I lay and listen. I mean, what am I going to do? Put oil up his nose in the middle of the night?
I dose off and what feels like minutes later, he sits straight up in bed, in the pitch black and says,
“Mama, I need oil. Miles’ nose is all stuffed up. Miles can’t breathe.”
I don’t even hesitate. I turn on the light, grab the sesame oil that lives on my bedside table, squirt a small amount of oil in my hand and hold it out him. He’s half asleep and knows exactly what to do. He takes his index finger, dips it in the oil and sticks it up his nose. He takes his thumb from the other hand and then quickly changes his mind (smart kid) to his index finger and dunks it in the oil and sticks it up his nose.
I turned off the light and we all lay back down.
This to me is a parenting win.
It wasn’t about him eating more greens, him saying thank you without being asked or getting in the car without a tantrum. It was him waking me up in the middle of the night and KNOWING he needed oil for his nose, because he was having a hard time breathing.
The fact that he made the connection between breathing, boogers and oil is HUGE. The oil doesn’t miraculously clear up the nasal passage for clear breathing, but it certainly helps with general dryness. The oil is lubricating and the boogers slip right out in the morning before the body could start producing mucus.
This to me is a parenting win, mainly because one of my highest aims is to teach him how to have a body. See, normally if I notice him 
sticking a finger up his nose, I tell him he can do it as much as he wants, as long as his finger has oil on it. Sounds kind of weird, but true. He puts the oil up his nose and he’s done.
I’m all about oil, especially in the fall. It’s the season of vata, which takes on a very dry characteristic. Look outside at the plants and trees. Nature is reflecting back to us what is happening inside our own bodies. Notice all the dry, crispy leaves on the ground and most of the plants are drawing in and the outermost layer dies back. The dry nose is the symptom right before a snotty nose. The nose will start to produce more mucus as a way of lubricating the channels, as a result of being dry. Interesting, right?
Adding oil to a dry nose, lubricates the nasal passage and over time, expels the dry boogers, is a barrier for other virus and bacteria from entering and basically feels AMAZING. I’ve been massaging oil on Miles’ little body, using diluted essential oils on his back and the bottoms of his feet and the classic diffusing of oil in his room and around the house, since he was born. He knows which oils he can eat – coconut (and sometimes he’ll get his whole hand in the jar and GO FOR IT – I mean really go for it, like at least a tablespoon). And which ones he can’t – sesame infused with lavender for example.
We massage our feet in what he calls the “butterfly” pose every night before bed. He even asks for it, if for some reason he thinks I’m not moving fast enough in that direction. We even made up our own “Goodnight Yoga” sequence and Miles oftentimes sings goodnight to Yoga in our good night song, which our friend Jeanine taught us over the summer. This is where we sing goodnight to his family, friends, our garden, his toys, and recently goodnight to yoga. I like to think of it as a gratitude song. It’s so fun to watch him pick up on things and see what sticks and what just rolls off.
Recently he even taught me how to sing the sound OM. He said “you have to make an O with your mouth, Mama.” You might imagine that moments like this for a yoga mama are tender, precious and worth repeating, but there was something extra loving about him waking me up in the middle of the night and asking me for oil so he could put it up his nose. Given that the word for oil in sanskrit is sneha and it also translates to mean love, it’s really not a surprise.
Whether you are putting oil up your nose, on your feet or on your arms and legs, the act of putting oil on your body is a reminder to your body that you love it. To me, Miles knowing to put oil up his nose is just one indicator that my desire for him to love his body is sticking.
Not your normal parenting win, but a HUGE win for this Mama nonetheless.
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Rachel Peters is a yoga teacher, yoga health coach, lifestyle and habits expert, easeful living advocate, and lover of wild places. She leads others towards Embodying Ease through a yearlong wellness & lifestyle journey to dissolve perfectionism, embody daily habits that promote mental clarity, overall ease, and deeper connection to life on this wild ride of modern living. Learn MORE today!