For one thing, the biggest supplement to help the “stop work orders” are omega 3s. Now, don’t get freaked out by the technicalities here. Basically, what happens is that when a cell tears open from an injury, both omega 3s and 6s leak out. The 6s sound the alarm- these are pro-inflammation markers, that signal the Immune system to respond and start work. The 3s are the job foremen who see when the work is done and send everybody home.
 
Here’s the issue: We as a society tend to be low Omega 3s in them because of 2 simultaneous issues

1. We’re not eating good sources of 3s as much
2.  and at the same time, we are eating more omega 6

 
The balance is like a homemade salad dressing- you want a nice balance between good olive oil and the balsamic vinegar, but not only did you not know you only have a tiny bit of vinegar left in the bottle, you also dropped the oil and swamped your greens. One or the other would have ruined the salad, but both happened and it’s a mess.

​This balance matters because we HAVE to eat them. Omega 3s and 6s are essential, meaning we cannot make them ourselves. I don’t give nutritional advice, but it is worth looking into a good quality omega supplement at your local health food store. Shop small, shop local! If you don’t have a local store, my local store, Holly Hill Health Foods, has a good selection and helpful staff if you can overcome your fear of the phone and call them! They’re online, look em up- Holly Hill Vitamins.com

​There’s more discussion of stress coming soon- so for now, suffice to say that these three factors (omegas, sugar, and stress) are all external influences you can work to improve, that will support how well your internal Immune system functions.
 
Obviously this is not a comprehensive examination of the immune system. It doesn’t address myriad factors that affect, for example, immune compromised or autoimmune issues, and is only looking at our Immune systems in terms of injury and healing. This is a public blog post, people! Personalized, individualized, specific discussions belong in personalized, individual, private settings. Book a chat with me here.
 
In the meantime, move on from Injury and Healing Parts 1 and 2 to Part 3: Lymph, coming soon.

I wrote a blog series over the winter of 2019- 2020, about my perspective on herbalism as an herbalist, which was really a catalyst to me embracing my whole-body wellness beliefs and doing a deep dive into the pelvic floor work I shared throughout 2020. 

I want to share some of what I wrote back then with you- especially part 2, and that ending in part 3.

​Now, it’s time I updated my position. I’m not just an herbalist, I’m a whole-body wellness teacher. It took me a long time to really blend my 2 things- call them passions, call them skill sets, whatever. My whole life I’ve been interested in herbalism, plant medicine, and taking care of your own self. 15 years ago I took a job as a pilates teacher because I needed a change, and it sure changed everything!

Movement- like pilates, pelvic floor support, foot mobility, and the myriad other physical-related conversations we've had online- is a major part of how I see and practice health. Our bodies are designed to move, a lot, and we're not taught how to do that. This is important to me.

Herbal medicine- whether practitioner-grade with consultations and protocols and upkeep, or food-grade by seriously increasing the quantity, quality, and variety of the fresh foods and spices you eat daily- is another fundamental component to my vision of whole-body wellbeing. Your body is only as good as the resources you give it to build itself, and choosing those resources on purpose is at the core of how I understand herbal medicine to operate.

From the outside, working with both movement practices and herbal medicine is a modern wellness “hybrid” approach. From the inside, though, they’re both exactly the same! Plant medicine helps move things in your body at micro levels, and movement acts like medicine at macro levels.

I understand that this hybrid style is a new experience for most people. It’s this blending that you’ll hear me discussing and elaborating more in the coming months.

I’d love your feedback and questions- what do you want to know about, in regards to a more truly holistic approach to wellness? What do you want to understand, learn, or ask questions about?

​

It's time for me to introduce myself again, and I've been thinking about what to say. There’s lots of things to know about me. I’m passionate about integrating your wellness, inside and out. Movement and plant medicine. Logic and proprioception. I like to read- fantasy, mystery, history. I knit, garden, ferment, and drink tea by the quart-sized mason jar. I love baths and naps. 

There’s also lots of NOTs to know about me. For example, I don't like waistbands or shoes, faffing around with my hair, or having wool right next to my skin.

Also: I don’t do guilt or bullying. Don’t try it on others in my presence, and don’t try it on me. That will be a short-lived relationship. I don’t often like the stories we usually tell ourselves, because they’re usually born from fear or shame or some other trauma. Get ready to be asked to examine them, and to try on alternatives for size. 

When it comes to working with me, there’s another big NOT to understand right away: 

My first herbal teacher used to say “Don’t put me on a pedestal- we’ll both get hurt when I fall off.” At the time, I hadn’t yet had the experience of either admiring or being admired like this, and my too-logical brain imagined a human-sized statue falling off a Greek column and squashing someone below. I knew that wasn’t what she meant, but I just didn’t get it.

Now, it makes more sense. And here’s what I say to people who want to look to me as some sort of authority over themselves- Everybody knows something that someone else doesn’t.

Yes, I know some cool stuff about the body that you might not, about how it works and how to fix some things. It’s amazing, and I want to teach you what I know. But that doesn’t make me any higher up the human food chain than you. You know lots of things I don’t know, first and foremost about yourself. Everything I teach you has to be filtered through your experiences, and I’ll learn just as much from you and about you, as you will from what I can teach you.

Moral of the story is- when you work with me, it’s truly a “with” situation. If this is the type of exchange that you prefer, let’s get going!

Life is like a… no. That’s not right.

Your spine is like a stack of teacups. There, that’s the one!

Think I’m just being silly? Well, that's entirely possible but look at it this way: Your vertebrae (that’s the name of your spine bones) have flat surfaces, so they stack together. And they have padding between them, so the edges don’t chip. And they have handles, for attaching things to so they make it safely to where they’re going. Just like teacups.

Now imagine carrying a stack of 33 teacups. That would be quite the feat, wouldn’t it?? All wobbly and unbalanced and shifting… it’s a terrifying thought for someone as not-graceful as me!

You know those sets of cables that anchor telephone poles into the ground? (As an aside, now that they don’t carry telephone wires, what do we call them?) There’s usually two cables, coming off in a V-shape, held in the ground by the biggest metal tent peg you’ve ever seen. 

Maybe these cables have something to do with electrical grounding, I don’t know. But they definitely help with stability of those poles- and now apply that to your spine. Each vertebra has one or two bits of bone that look like wings, and they’re there for muscles to attach! Go figure. 

So all along your spine, right up against the spine bones themselves, are bits of muscles connecting the vertebrae with little V-shaped buttressing. They act like little fingers, holding the vertebrae together and allowing them to bend a bit, and also helping bring them back upright too. 

Ohhhhhhh, your back muscles say. We don’t have any of them! ::ouch::

But really, you do. Yours might just be tired and tiny and overtaxed, from constantly fighting poor posture and gravity and “tech neck” and scoop-shaped car seats and everything else we do to ourselves.

And here’s the key- it takes tiny movements to work tiny muscles. A big move, like a forward bend or a deadlift or a burpee, really hammers the big muscles in your torso and limbs. 

But the little adjustments you make in yoga, the incremental relaxation you get in a float tank, the itty bitty shifts you unconsciously make when you walk on texture instead of smooth, even, flat surfaces- that’s where you start getting movement and love into those tiny spine muscles.

So do your inner teacups a favor and slow down, change things up, rest a bit more, and see how that feels in your spine. 


​

So you’ve got pain, and you want to try “natural” stuff instead of a pill. Let’s talk about this!
​
I’m your friendly online herbalist, here to share my perspective- and that’s the first important part. Both plants and people are complicated, so the sooner you shift from the idea that you can “use” plants to the idea that you “work with” them, the easier this will go for everyone. 

The idea that we can "use" herbal medicine in place of OTC (over the counter) stuff isn't exactly a mistake people make, though. We've gotten the expectation of "use" in an exploitative sense ingrained in our culture from generations of being told that someone or something else will fix it for us. Please don't get me wrong- there are definitely times when someone or something else can and should! I was an EMT and believe me, I don't dismiss Western medicine out of hand. 

What I do believe is that there's still lots and lots of health and healing that we as individuals simply ARE in charge of, and responsible for. This is a radical idea if you think it through, because most of the messaging we get is that we're absolutely not, and it's why I say it's not a "mistake" to think it. It's a challenge to shift your thinking, especially when you can't quite see the whole new picture simply because of its newness.

So I'm asking you to practice this tiny step, and see where it leads you. When you start considering an herbal remedy, actively substitute "work with" every time your brain automatically says "use". That's all! Now, on to the main event- pain and herbs.

When you take an OTC pain reliever, it does its thing by (this is the EZ Bake oven simplified version!) binding to pain receptors and blocking their messages. This feels better, but can have some unfortunate side effects- for example, if you can’t feel the pain, you might not realize that you’re causing more damage. Or, in the case of NSAIDS, even though they do decrease inflammation, they’re simultaneously causing microperforations in the gut lining which increases your inflammation and can cause that upset stomach feeling many people get.

The first thing I want to say is that OTC is not evil. It is perfectly fine to reach for them when you need or want, just be aware of what else is going on! And some plants work the same way, binding with pain receptors, so the OTC actions aren’t inherently ‘wrong’ either, and working with plants isn’t inherently ‘right’. Let’s talk options.

I’ve got a few specific suggestions for you below, and I want to ask you to keep a question in mind- what’s the common denominator between working with the following plants?

Let's start 2021 already, shall we? I won't rehash why- we know 2020 has been a dumpster fire. You were there.  I was there. It wasn't fun. 

And January 1, 2021 isn't going to be some magic date when suddenly everything that made 2020 such a nightmare ends! So I decided to end my 2020 right now, and move ahead with planning my next year as if it's 13 months long. 

I know, these might be fighting words for some people. But I have a history of doing my "new year's review and planning" work at various times of the year, so it works for me!

This is a process, and it takes me several days to go through it all so I don't wear myself out. I want to share my tools with you so if you decide to follow my lead and move into your next "you", you've got somewhere to start.

First- I pull cards. 

You don't have to do this. I don't always do this when I plan, even. But this year I did, and I think it really helped me.

I used this deck and asked 4 questions: 

1. What do I need to learn about 2020?
2. What lesson do I need to carry into 2021?
3. What will be my biggest opportunity for 2021?
4. What will be my biggest challenge?

Next, I look back over 2020. Years ago I saved worksheets from Jamie Ridler Studio, about "Celebrating the Season that Was" and "Imagining the Season Ahead". Since then, she's expanded and refined her work into a "yearbook", but her original sheets still serve me well. 

I also use an out-of-print New Year's Workbook by Maia Toll, I think from an early iteration of her Witch Camp. I've written more about the journey she took us on in previous New Year's posts, like this one. 

Other tools you can use are Susannah Conway, Martha Beck, Hannah Bullivant, Tara Mohr, and more. This year I also plan to do Maia Toll's Winter: Journey of Inanna course again- it's an intense dive into shedding what you think you are and what you want to be, and laying your actual soul bare. I haven't gone through it in a few years, but I'm absolutely feeling it this year.

Much of the work I do to look over 2020, that I described in step 1, has looking ahead work built into it. Especially the New Year's Workbook- that's when I choose my WotY (Word of the Year)! This is one of my favorite exercises. The years when I've hung onto my WotY have been the most impactful for me. In full disclosure, I don't remember what my WotY was for this year, and only have a vague idea about where to even look for it... 

Anyway, once I've wrapped up these structured practices, I start a writing journey. Many people call it a "painted picture"- simply, you imagine every detail of your life in one day of the future.

My step 3 will be detailed planning for the coming year, so I'm going to explore a painted picture of my life three years from now, in 2023. Three years seems do-able to me- five years is too big a leap, and I'm already planning out one year, and I like the number 3. None of this is an exact science!

I'll also go through Racheal Cook's Plan Your Best Year Ever challenge. It's a 5 day event, but I've done it a number of times now so I can skip over some redundant or extraneous (to me) bits.

The point is, by reviewing the details of 2020 and dreaming ahead to 2023, when I start to work on 2021 in the next step I'll have really grounded myself in the reality of where I've been, as well as oriented myself towards where I'm trying to go. I've spent a lot of time, as my business coach describes it, like an octopus in roller skates- going nowhere furiously. This is how I put myself on rails and pre-set my direction going forward.

This might be the best time for me to highlight one of the quotes I live by:

It is IMPORTANT that you not be too precious about all this! If you don't make a plan, you won't get anywhere. But making a plan is really about just starting your journey- don't get attached to the steps of the plan, because I can guarantee you that they will diverge from your expectations almost immediately.

This isn't cause for cognitive dissonance. We contain multitudes, including the ability to both make beautiful plans and allow them to be composted at any time. We have to make the plans and allow for change. We're not machines- we are nature.

Having said all that about planning, it's about to seem like I'm contradicting myself. Remember, we contain multitudes. Let's wade in.

Now that I've looked back and into the farther-off future, I'm ready to dig into what's immediately in front of me. I'm doing this with Racheal Cook, my business coach and mentor. In preparation for her Q1 CEO Retreat coming up, she's given us a bunch of steps to break it all down. Essentially, the steps are:

1. Decide what you want for 2021
2. Break it into quarterly objectives
3. Break Q1 into monthly targets
4. Break those 3 months into weekly tasks, 3 per week max

She gives us a planner for each quarter for our weekly CEO dates, and I'll go through and enter my weekly top 3s at this stage. (You can join the next CEO Retreat, it's awesome.)

At the end of the retreat, I have a pre-planned quarter in front of me! I usually end up changing my mind or switching things around- remember, don't be too precious. The important thing is that now I'm not randomly or spontaneously making it up as I go along, and I can be confident that these are the right steps for me to take. I planned them with an eye to my bigger picture, even if week-to-week I'm not zooming back out to re-examine that picture. 

This process will take me a few days, so I have time to rest and clear my head before diving back in for the next bit. 

It's not the same every year, and sometimes I do it more than once a year. But In some capacity, at least every winter, I cast my memory back and my imagination ahead, then I stare down the upcoming calendar. 

I know we're not going to talk about, you know, the dumpster fire. But I will say that adding in that last step, where I drill down into the immediate future and reverse engineer my goals into weekly tasks for my next quarter, saved my game this year. 

I did her Best Year Ever challenge by myself in late January 2020, then joined her Collective and her virtual retreat in March. That means the Q1 retreat coming up will be my 5th run through for these steps, and all I can say is I can't believe this guidance and information has been there for years and I didn't know!

I usually don't regret not learning or experiencing something earlier than I actually do because I recognize that I wouldn't have been ready or accepting earlier- but not this. If you need to get your business in order, start with her Best Year Ever work today. This isn't an ad, I'm just that inspired by it!

So this is my New Year's Plan for 2020-2021, starting now. By December 1 2020, I'll be living in 2021 already. Wonder if that means I'll learn to write the correct year faster? But '2020' is so easy to type! If you have your own routine, or if you try mine and like it, I'd love to hear from you.

Note: some of the links in this article are affiliate links, though most are not. Thanks for supporting me.

Pop quiz- how many joints do you think you have in each foot? Five? Ten or twelve?

Thirty-three. There are more joints in each of your feet than there are days in a month! Isn't that wild?!

Now, the total number of joints in the human body depends on some variables, including things like whether your call the plates in your skull joints, or when you're counting- babies have more bones than adults, which fuse together as we grow. In general, we have between 250 and 350 joints.

If we assume 250 joints, in an adult, counting only the places bones both meet and move, 66 foot joints is 26.4% of your body's total. That's over a quarter of ALL your body's joints that you're standing and walking around on every day.

Here's why I care- we don't use most of those joints. And just like when you take a cast off an arm and it's weak and thin, both the muscle and the bone wasted away, when you put casts on your feet they waste away too. This leaves you with weak joints, and a tendency to injury. And feet injuries quickly impact the rest of your body in not-good ways. When your feet have problems, the ankles, knees, hips, spine, and even shoulders can take on the work of moving you in inappropriate ways, and cause further injuries quickly.

But, wait, back up a few sentences, you say. Casts? On your feet?

Sure! A cast is something hard and immobile, that prevents movement. In the case of a broken arm, a cast goes over the elbow joint (or wrist or shoulder) so the joint can't move because that would pull on the break, preventing healing. In the case of feet, a cast goes over the feet so they don't have to feel things in the environment that are hard, sharp, cold, hot, wet, etc.

We call them shoes.

I get it- shoes are helpful, and they can look awesome, and there's lots of people that can't handle the thought of going barefoot in their own house, let alone outside. But we have to take off the casts to be truly strong in our whole bodies!

Yes, I'm saying don't wear shoes- but not all the time! I'm also saying, wear less shoe-y shoes, as much as you can. Here's what I mean:

In order to strengthen a newly-healed broken arm, you'll start doing "normal" things again but find that the weak arm needs to build strength back up. OK, you'll move that cast iron pan with the other hand. You'll carry that grocery bag with both arms. Maybe you'll ice it or rub it or elevate it at the end of the day.

But your feet, all the way down there, as far away from your brain as they can get? If you just start living your normal life in bare feet or minimal shoes, after a lifetime of wearing the stiff, structured ones, you'll be injured before you notice it. So we have to do this gently:

1. Wear thinner, flatter shoes more often. Get used to feeling more of the world underneath you
2. Stretch your toes, feet, and ankles
3. Wear yoga socks to start separating your toes
4. Practice lifting your big toes, scrunching and spreading your toes, pointing and flexing your feet, when you're barefoot

Don't just ditch your shoes and go full Hobbit- for starters, you'll never be allowed in a public space! But start paying attention to how stiff your feet are, how many ways you can move and stretch them, and how much work you can get them to do in your day. They'll thank you for years and years to come.

Work With Me to learn more

Is healing a system? Can you exercise it? Sure, I say!

I think we often understand healing, vaguely, as a process: there’s an injury, then thru some processes it’s fixed, and there’s no injury anymore. Broadly speaking, this is a perfectly OK understanding.

But have you ever had a road crew fixing pot holes on a road you travel frequently, and they just didn’t quite finish up? Sure, the pothole is filled, but now it’s a bump on the road, there’s loose gravel or something all over, water pools when it rains… but then you turn into a fancy neighborhood or cross into another township, and the roads are purrrrrfect. Smooth, even blacktop; crisp, bright lines; wide, even shoulders bicycles can fit on. It’s like a dream.

So what’s the difference between the town that has bumpy pot hole repairs and the one with perfect roads? 

Resources. The time, budget, raw materials, and skilled workers to get the job done right, completely, and in good time.

I’m not here to bash local politics. Organizing things like road construction is well beyond my purview. But I can help you influence YOUR local resources, and encourage you to look to yourself- what resources are you providing to your own healing construction and repair crews?

Yes, healing is a process, and it’s one that the body often can’t do a complete job of because it’s so busy putting out fires (literally and metaphorically) all over. So providing enough resources to the systems that establish and direct the healing processes can help them do a better job, as can reducing the overall demand on the systems in the first place. ​

RESUPPLY YOUR CONSTRUCTION CREWS
When there’s physical injury, you need physical molecules to repair it- proteins, fats, fluid, etc. 

So eat clean proteins, and collagen- we simply don’t make enough to overcome the damage this life does to us. Eat healthy fats. Drink more water. Get nutrient dense foods so your micronutrients are lavishly supplied as well- Iron, Magnesium, Calcium, Sulfur, all the vitamins, all of it.

Drink more water! Your body needs water to deliver nutrients and wash away waste from your cells. Your body needs water to create the waste you eliminate- solid, liquid, and gas. Your body needs water to keep your membranes healthy- and your WHOLE digestive system is a mucous membrane. 

Eat good fats! Every single cell in your body, your entire nervous system including your whole brain, and all your mucous membranes are made of fats. They're not the enemy, they're essential. My rule of thumb is if they're from something I recognize I eat 'em- like olives, avocados, coconuts, eggs, and yes, animals.

Here's a common question: Should you take supplements? A concrete answer to this isn't within my wheelhouse. But I will tell you, hardly anyone is harmed by a quality multivitamin, Magnesium, Omega 3s, and Vitamin D. ​

​​Ah, the Rose. You can probably name me 6 popular references to Rose from poetry and songs without even trying. What's up with Rose's popularity??

Like the rest of nature (humans included!), Rose isn't just one thing. She just does all her things so well! Yes, she's a pretty face with a heavenly smell! And the scent and taste of rose will soften and open a hard heart, which can be startling or overwhelming if someone's not ready for that. 
​
But she also has thorns, for straight up protection. Don't just take from this beauty, she'll fight back- as she should. Plus, her leaves are a fantastic astringent, tightening loose or drippy tissues, the opposite of the opening and softening of her flowers.

A Rose person may have grown themselves too many thorns, trying to stave off the outside world. They might need some softening, some gentle opening, in the realm of the heart and the feelings. And holding themselves so stiffly, so apart from people can leave you cold and stagnant, so Rose leaves can help tone up tissues that aren't flowing right- maybe some in a bathtub, along with flowers, might help improve the quality of menstruation or varicose veins or sluggish lymph. And what a lovely experiment to try!