- I think the biggest thing that working
with plant medicine has taught me is that
I'm my best when I'm in flow
with everything around me.
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She likes to be included all the time.
Hi, thank you.
I started getting into plant medicine
and herbalism around
four or five years ago.
I've had a lot of mental health battles.
A bunch of different things
that oftentimes had me feeling
like I'm out of control
and kind of just at the whim of my mind.
I also started learning
more about my native history
and discovered that I was a witch.
I started diving a lot into that history
and those groups relations
with plants and plant medicine
and then started to experiment
with different herbs
and roots and plants and
really began to develop
a relationship with some of them
that have 100% changed my life.
I am by no means an expert on any of this.
This is just personally something
that I use for my self care practice.
But there, herbalism and plant medicine
has been around for thousands
and thousands of years.
And everything that I'm learning,
I'm just learning from researching
my native and African ancestors.
My witch ancestors and local herbal
experts in the community.
So just self assessing and
seeing whatever it is you need.
How does my heart feel,
how does my mind feel,
how does my body feel.
And then answering those
questions with herbs.
It's a really special practice.
One of my favorite things about playing
around with plants and learning about
them is that you can
incorporate the benefits
into your life in so many different ways.
You can create tinctures which extracts
all of the goodness in
the plant or the herb
or the berry or the root in
this super concentrated form.
So here are tinctures
that were actually made
by a local Brooklyn herbalist
company called Homebody.
And it's run by Geovanna Fisher.
She made these personally for me based
on the things that I love to embody.
So this one has shatavari,
damiana, oatstraw, and hawthorn.
So this is really great for heart opening
and getting your gut feeling good
and the juices flowing in your body.
Helping with cardiovascular circulation.
And with this, I just put a few drops
into my water for the day depending
on if this is what I wanna embody
and internalize during the day.
This is also a tincture
that has CBD and skullcap.
And CBD has personally,
I know everyone, it's very trendy
and everyone has a lot to say about it,
but personally for me and my anxiety,
it's been life changing.
I noticed that when I'm
dosing regularly with CBD,
whether in a tincture or
putting a salve on my body
or taking a bath with CBD.
If dosing regularly, it
completely lowers my stress brain
into just feeling calm
and more easy and myself.
And then I can literally
exist as a real human.
And not some airy, fragmented,
all over the place version of myself.
Another thing that I love to use
very regularly are adaptogens.
Adaptogens are this amazing thing
that basically acts as a thermostat
in responding to your stress level.
So your body produces cortisol.
And people who have a lot of anxiety,
your body typically produces more
or it spikes more frequently.
So adaptogens are really awesome because
they basically read where
that level is and help fill
in the gaps and help release
some of that from your body.
But so, this company, Mood Belly,
create a line of adaptogenic powders
because a lot of adaptogens are roots.
So when they're ground into powders,
they're a lot more accessible.
This one has cacao and reishi.
And cacao is very heart opening as well
and is also a sacred medicine
that my native ancestors
used for different heart
opening magical rituals.
But yeah, I would just say dive in.
It's a great relationship to be had.
You can find me
@saraelise333 on Instagram.
I also own a catering company
and that can be found
@harvestandrevel all spelled out.
And subscribe to
Well+Good's YouTube channel
for more videos like this one.
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