The Holistic Herbalism Podcast
The Holistic Herbalism Podcast
Just Press Play
We’re still making the podcast! We have not abandoned you, dear listeners. 💚
We’ve been busy producing material for our online courses – especially the Accessible Herbalism and Clinical Skills courses. We’ve also been enhancing our student experience and building up our student community, so that learning with us is more enjoyable and cooperative. You’re not out there in the world on your own, when you study herbalism with us!
Today, though, we wanted to hop back on the pod feed and convey this simple message to you: just press play!
Lots of our students get caught up in feeling like everything needs to be perfectly aligned before they start studying. The right quite comfy place to study, the right amount of private time, no distractions, a new notebook and a fresh pen – all those things are great! But they’re not essential, and if you only study when everything’s perfect, well, you won’t study very much! So just press play, and let’s get at it. 🤝
When you sign up for any of our courses – including our FREE Herbal Study Tips, Four Keys to Holistic Herbalism, and Herbal Business Productivity courses – you get access to twice-a-week live Q&A sessions, integrated discussion threads on every lesson, and a vibrant student community. Our courses are centered on video lessons you can watch at your own pace, and once you’ve bought a course you retain access to it (and any future updates!), forever.
If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!!
Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!
<silence>
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Katya.
Speaker 3:And I'm Ryn . And
Speaker 2:We're here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts,
Speaker 3:And on the internet everywhere. Thanks to the power of the podcast. Woohoo . Which may be intermittent, but it's no less mighty.
Speaker 2:That's right. Yeah, that's right. <laugh> . That's actually part of what we wanna talk about today. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Um, should we just jump in? We should
Speaker 3:Start with that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. So we got a message, we got a message on Instagram. Somebody messaged us to ask, did you stop making the Holistic Herbalism podcast? <laugh> ? And it was like, no, no. In theory, no. <laugh> <laugh> ,
Speaker 3:I mean, yes, but not forever. No.
Speaker 2:Just temporarily. And the reason is because , um, we have been cranking out a bunch of really cool course content that I'm super excited about. New videos and content in the clinical skills course. Um, a bunch of new stuff in other courses, energetics, the Herbal Business program. We have , uh, rebuilt our student dashboard and incorporated an herbal activities calendar where there are cool activities that you can have loaded directly into your calendar, whichever one you like to use, so that it like shows up for you every day . Like, here's a fun Herbie thing you can do today. Um,
Speaker 3:She's been writing these, some of them are little reminders to don't forget to make tea today, or , uh, grab a material Medica book and flip to the middle and study whatever herb you
Speaker 2:Land on
Speaker 3:<laugh> . Um, fun little prompts like that. And it's, it's super handy. I mean, I've, I've got them in my personal calendar now, and I find it great actually
Speaker 2:Just to have
Speaker 3:These little reminders. So yeah. We've been getting good feedback on that from the student body too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I really wanted, you know, like every day is so busy for everyone, and I wanted some way for people to just like, have something to pop up in their day to be like, Hey, you love herbs. Don't forget you love herbs <laugh> , and you can make a minute for them. You have , you have a minute. Yeah . Um, and I'm so excited because that's what people say is happening, and like, you know, when when we get a cool idea and we wanna try something and we get it all set up and we like do all the things and then like, but you don't know if it's gonna work the way that you want it to and help people the way that you want it to until you try it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> kind of like herbalism.
Speaker 3:Kinda like herbalism. Yeah, <laugh> .
Speaker 2:That's , and that's right . So I'm very excited that people are enjoying it. Um, and so actually you can download that calendar, well not download, but like, it's a feed that will feed into your calendar that you like, subscribe to through your Google calendar, your Yahoo, your Outlook, whatever you use. Um, you can get that in our student dashboard. Um, on the left hand side, there are instructions there . There's , uh, the calendar is there, but there's also instructions how to get it into your own calendar. Um, and if you're on a phone, you won't see a left hand side, but there's a purple button at the top that says Search and filter. And if you click on that button, it's directly under the search bar. Yeah . And if you don't have a course with us yet, so you don't have a student dashboard to log into, you can change that for free. Um, you can change that for dollars too. We love it when you support the school, buy a , purchasing a course, but you don't have to. You can go to online dot commonwealth herbs.com and we have three different free courses and then a whole basket of like low cost courses that are accessible , um, for anyone that you can just grab and that will get you access to all this other cool stuff. So
Speaker 3:Yeah. As well as the student community. Yeah . Which has been , um, really busy lately, <laugh> Yeah. It's been like a lot of , uh, a lot of good threads and discussions going on. Yeah . Um, a lot of people sharing their successes and experimentations with , uh, plants and remedies and all that. So , um, it's been really great to see that , uh, take off and grow over the past couple years. And as we've made some refinements and gotten some moderators to help us out, <laugh> , it's, it's really gotten to a , a very, very good Yeah . Good place. I'm very
Speaker 2:Happy about that. I , I think right now too, people are so sick of social media that they're, they're spending more time Yeah . In places like private communities, like our private herbal community. Um, and, and it, it shows like people are just talking about what's going on in their lives and what herbs are influencing and affecting and helping that and just all kinds of really great stuff. I love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So we've been doing that and we've been doing especially a lot of work on the accessible herbalism course. Uh, we've been getting that , uh, wrapped up and polishing off the edges and everything , uh, on there. And so we've been filling in activities and journal prompts and text lessons to explain some of these ideas in more detail
Speaker 2:Worksheets.
Speaker 3:Yeah . Yeah. You just put in , uh, a whole new set of formula , uh, which are under this category we call cheap best . 'cause they're cheap, but they're also the best. Right. <laugh> <laugh> . So it's like, yeah, you can make the, the very fancy version of elderberry syrup or fire cider or a sleep tincture or whatever with the most expensive ingredients from far across the lens. And that's great, but not everybody can afford that or, or put it together. So what would be the least expensive, but still very, very effective version of each of those things.
Speaker 2:That whole course is really designed around that, like accessible herbalism. First of all, usually when we think about accessible herbalism, we're thinking about money. We're thinking about making things more affordable for people, but it's not just about money. It is how can we make herbalism more accessible to people with disabilities? How can we make herbalism more accessible to somebody with a chronic illness who has extremely low energy resources? So they don't have a lot of energy to make a lot of things in their day. They need to kinda be one and done. And so, okay, how can we get the most bang for the effort or like the , the most impact for the energy spend spend Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , um, for, for folks in that kind of a situation. So just so many different , um, aspects of accessibility. And this is really geared towards folks who are , um, who are right now or are moving into clinical herbalism or community herbalism, like folks who are working with other people maybe who are not your friends or family, like maybe they're strangers. Yeah . Um, and how can we make sure that our work is accessible, that, that people can get to us, that we can actually help them and help them in ways that are meaningful. Not just say the things we know to say, but to then translate that into something that is going to work and is going to be affordable and like fit into their lives. But that isn't like, oh, well you don't have a lot of money, or you don't have a lot of energy, or you don't have, like, whatever. So I guess this is all we can do. Like, no, I don't wanna settle. I'm
Speaker 3:Trying to do that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Like, there are so many ways for us to do our work that are extremely potent, extremely effective and accessible. And so I want the trifecta. I don't just want, well, it's affordable. It might not really work very good, but at least you can afford it <laugh> . No way. No, I want all three. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that's been a big focus for us since we last spoke to y'all , uh, in podcast Land <laugh>. Couple other things that we've been busy with. Um, I mean, since we last ran a pod, we've probably gone through 70 or 80 capstone assignments. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , uh, I would say so , you know, capstones are at the end of , uh, most of our, our courses, there's a a little more detailed , uh, assignment to do there. Not just a multiple choice or something like that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . But , um, here's a case. You're gonna come up with some options and a solution, and you're gonna write out the language you would actually send over to a real person in the real world. 'cause we don't want these to just be like abstract exercises that work your brain, but not really, you know , uh, have much connection to reality. We want to get you ready to help people. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> as much as we can. And so all of the work we, we build into the courses is based on that idea. Yeah . Yeah. So we've been busy with those a lot. Um, and then you,
Speaker 2:Well, wait, I wanna talk, one other thing about the capstones is that , um, that like, a lot of of people feel stressed out about that word capstone. Um , but it's not stressful. It's, you know, we, we have it set up as like, okay, so you're gonna, here's the case that you're kind of working on and , and whatever. And so figure all that out, and then you're just gonna write it up as if you're writing an email to your friend who has this particular issue. Yeah . And so it's like, it's, it's an informal way of, of taking all the information from the course and like putting it into a really practical application. Yeah . But the real thing here is that we are the only ones who read it. Like, this isn't something that's gonna be like public or whatever, and we're not putting numbers on it. It's like, oh , 79 or like whatever. Like , no, no, no. We read it and we send an email back and, and have a conversation about like, Hey, here, here were things that were super, super strong and I love these suggestions. And also, Hey, did you think about this? You could also have done this or that, or whatever. And yeah , if there's a place where maybe you needed a little extra, then we just say like, oh, hey, and I had this question, you know, and then we just have a conversation about it. It's not like this stressful thing where you can fail it, it's just the beginning of a conversation. So yeah . I always like to tell people that because people get stressed about, it's not stressful. It's okay.
Speaker 3:It's true. Yeah . It's true. It's good to do. It's good to ,
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um, and then a big , uh, uh, you know, capturer of your time <laugh> , uh, for some while now has been working with the A HG .
Speaker 2:Yeah. I've been on the board of directors for the last two years, and it has really been ramping up just the amount of work going on there. Um, so I'm transitioning off the board in December , um, at least for one term. And , um, but I, I, I may , uh, you know, come back after that, but I've really been excited about all the work there. There is so much happening at the A HG, and there's so much growth that's needed, and it's recognized that growth is needed, which is so exciting. Like, listen, nobody's perfect. No , nothing, nothing is perfect in any one moment, but recognizing like, Hey, we wanna be growing in these directions and, and these are our goals and this is what we're working towards. And everybody's working really hard to move in those directions. And so that kind of thing is really exciting.
Speaker 3:Yeah. She'll downplay it a lot. But , um, you, she definitely made a lot of movement. <laugh> <laugh> in the group, and I dunno know , brought in , brought in some power and some momentum and some energy and , uh, some, some close reading skills.
Speaker 2:I don't know , this is my wonderful husband who , who loves and supports me, but really it's just, there's such an amazing team. There's so much diversity on the team now in the board, and so many people with, with really good experience that they're bringing in. And the amazing thing is that even though diversity has increased, like a millionfold, the goals that everybody wants to move towards are actually really similar. And so it's, it's fun to be in , um, a group of people with lots of different backgrounds who live in lots of different places. Like, like the full spectrum. Like some of them are medical doctors and some of them are complete like folk tradition practitioners and , um, people in different countries and everything else. And everybody feeling like, Hey, these are things we really wanna achieve. These are directions that we wanna move in. This is ways that we wanna make things more accessible for people, more transparent for people, and to, and to be more serving to the community. So it is, it's, that has been really fulfilling and great. Yeah . But it has also been a lot of time <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But also I would, you know, I would encourage herbalist out there, you know, like , uh, whether it's the American herbalist skills that we're talking about , or whether it's like a local group Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , um, get involved, get some people together, multiply power, help the, help the people who need it. You know, like this is , these are some of the best ways to accomplish that. Yeah . So don't feel alone out there in the world. Uh, find the others. Get together. Yeah . Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's something that we've been talking about a lot in the community space lately. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , um, people have been talking about how to build community at a very local level because there's a feeling of need for that now for obvious reasons. And , um, and so people are are talking about like, what is a good way for me to start sharing what I am learning about herbs? And, and everybody kind of talking about strategies for doing that, and strategies for building local connections. Um, so I'm really excited to be seeing everybody across the country, across the world, actually sharing their ideas about how to, like this huge group of people from all over in our student community, talking about ways that they can encourage one another to also make these connections locally with their neighbors and their, you know. Yeah. Uh, yeah. So that's been really, really cool. It is
Speaker 3:Good to go local , like the little in-person workshop you did at our tiny, tiny local library.
Speaker 2:<laugh> <laugh> , our library is so amazing. It will, it would fit in your pocket and it is so fantastic. I love it , um, so much. Yeah. And they do like, you know, community workshops and stuff like that. And so I recently did one on , uh, my four favorite cold and flu season herbs.
Speaker 3:Hey listeners. Can you guess which four herbs they were? You can hit pause and like come back if you Yeah. Hit pause
Speaker 2:If you wanna think about it . <laugh> , I will say that they are four herbs that grow here in town. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . Um, but they also are my four favorite herbs. Um, yeah. I, in terms of working with cold and flu , um, chamomile is not in the list, but that's my <laugh> .
Speaker 3:That would've been , that would've been a fair guess
Speaker 2:List . Yeah. Caramelo isn't, and ginger isn't either, but those aren't my two favorite herbs. Just on top of everything. It just universally, yes . Yeah. Okay. But so you've had a chance. Now I'm about to say them. So like, if you wanna push pause now is your last chance. Okay. Ready? It was pine, but also hemlock or spruce or fur. And by hemlock I mean the tree, not water. Hemlock, <laugh> , <laugh> . No , I mean
Speaker 3:The tree, I mean , that'll stop you cold for good
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Yeah. But , uh, you'll never get another cold again, <laugh> . Um, if you're new to herbalism, the reason we're laughing is because that plant is famously quite toxic and actually could kill you.
Speaker 3:The the water hemlock.
Speaker 2:The water hemlock, right? Not the, not the tree hemlock. The tree is okay. Yeah . The tree is great. Um , <laugh> , but the, the , um, celery fit parsley family plant , um, is the one that is kind of a lookalike for queen ans lace that that one's not safe. Yeah. Um, so, okay, so pine or any of the evergreens , um, and then bone set and then golden rod , and then Ella campaign, which technically does not grow native here in our town, but everyone in town has it in their gardens. Yeah . And so at the plant swap in the spring, there's always tons of Ella campaign because everybody's like thinning their gardens and dividing their plants and whatever. Right.
Speaker 3:Well, look, and you saw that 'cause you went to the plant swap this spring Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And then you knew this autumn that you could talk about that plant and people in town would know about it. And this is what we're talking about when we say local activity matters. Yeah . Right. And not just like, as a one-off or like, I suddenly appear and I say, I have all this knowledge upon you, my people <laugh> , and then you disappear again. Right. But like, to be involved and to meet people in different contexts and then to know what they need Yeah. Or to know what they've actually got already. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Exactly . That's some good stuff. And so if you like doing a little workshop like that and like it's, we didn't charge for it. We didn't , there was no, no, I didn't make any money. Nobody paid any money. It was just like a free little Friday night thing at the library. And I really encourage that. Yes, we teach classes on how to make an herbal business and you , and they're great. And if you want an herbal business, then you should, 'cause it's fun and, you know, fun and all the good stuff, <laugh> , it can support you. It can sustain you. It's great. Um, it's, it's better than many ways of making a living, living, but my point here is that it is completely valid to do things only for the purpose of building community. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And , um, you don't need to be a professional herbalist for you to feel like you are qualified to build community. Yeah . And you don't need to always charge for your time, because in this case, the compensation that you're getting is community. Right? Yeah. Right . So like, like I I, I know that there's a lot of memes and whatever about, about turn your side hustle into like a business and all that stuff. And there's nothing wrong with that. Um, and, and we'll teach you how to do it, but there's also something to be said for, especially in these times, building community connections that you are gonna be able to rely on building your safety net.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's hard to put a price tag on that kind of stuff. Yeah . But you know, when the need is there, then it's very clearly very valuable. <laugh> . Yeah,
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:People have this experience. Yeah. Yeah . But I , you know, what you, what you're saying here about like, you don't have to wait for your training to be perfect and finalized and stamped and everything else is kind of right in line with, with the other message we wanted to put out today,
Speaker 2:The actual thing we really wanna be talking about <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Which is that not everything has to be perfect in the, in the moment that you're learning, in the moments that you're learning either. Right. And in fact, our message is stop waiting for everything to be perfect. Yeah . <laugh> . 'cause we've noticed people doing that a a little more often.
Speaker 2:Uh , well, yeah . And I feel like in the last few weeks I have had so many conversations with people who have said, oh, I just haven't been studying lately because I've been too busy. I couldn't get a quiet moment. Um, you know, whatever. And it's just been coming up a lot. And every time I just wanna say, well, and I actually did say, but now I'm saying it to you like, don't wait for a quiet moment. Like, don't just our work. I mean, yes, there are printable things and there's, there's stuff to read, but that's, it's supplemental stuff. Our main body of work is videos and almost all of them are closed captioned. There's a list you can get. Um , every month I post a list of our closed captioning status. We close caption are videos with a human , like a human closed caption, closed captions, everything because the machine made transcripts and, and captions are not accurate.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They don't even know the word diaphoretic, you know? Yeah. Let alone like <laugh> <laugh> , let alone alium or whatever else. Right.
Speaker 2:Right. And so we really wanna make our work accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing community, but also like, maybe you just have a baby and they're taking a nap and so you can't turn the volume up. Like it's, there's so many reasons.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And people with English as a second or third language or whatever else. Mm-Hmm
Speaker 2:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And so, so all of the videos are like, you can watch them, you can read them with no volume, and there's also an audio file for each one. So if you are gonna go do your chores, if you're gonna run errands, pick the kids up at school. Do you know whatever you're gonna do, you can just bring it with you. You don't need an internet connection for that part, for the audio files. And you can play them whatever, wherever you're going, whatever you're doing. Or if you're at home and you're making dinner, you're doing laundry, you're doing whatever, just bring your laptop into the kitchen, into the living , living , you know , like whatever you're doing. And just push, play on any of the videos that you're working on and just have it going in the background. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Just press play. You're gonna learn some stuff. Right. It's not exactly osmosis. You're not like turning it on and then ignoring it with the rest of your mind. Right. But what we're saying is you don't need to be 100% focused with your notebook, with your calculator and your <laugh> and your everything else, like all lined up with no distractions, nobody else who could possibly interrupt you for the next several hours. Right? Yeah. That's a nice thing to have when you can get it. But most of our students don't have that available to them most of the time. Right. And so , uh, learning what you can, while you can getting in a little bit in the midst of some other stuff that has to get done, this can actually be a very important part , uh, a very large part of your, your learning time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . So I think before we say anything else, I'm gonna just like add a little proof here because I, you might be over there thinking that wouldn't work. I can't learn that way. I will never remember it. And so before we talk more about that, you should really try this. I wanna prove to you that it will work. And so here's my proof. Are you ready? Think back to a show you watched when you were a kid. That might have been 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, maybe more, but I bet you remember some TV show when I was a kid. It was Little House on the Prairie and the Waltons and Mash. Um, oh. And there was this one cartoon. Well , I liked Bugs Bunny, but whatever. Okay. It doesn't matter. Whatever it was. And the thing is that if you think about that TV show, even though it was however many decades ago, I guarantee you remember things you probably don't remember every single episode and every single everything that ever happened. But you remember a lot, don't you? Like Nelly Olson with her, with her curls and she took the doll and she, you know , and then there were the leeches and then the whatever , you know, like, okay, that was Little House on the Prairie. It could have been anything for you, but , but just think about it. I guarantee that if you think about it, you remember things
Speaker 3:Or like that time on Star Trek, the Next Generation when everybody's memory got all flashed weird. And then they were like, who broke Wha's wrist?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:<laugh> . So you might remember who it was and , uh, I do.
Speaker 2:Right ? I don't right now, but that's okay. That's, I do remember the episode where they went to San Francisco Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> like back in time in the Holodeck and Yeah. Yeah . Right. My point is that when you were watching TV as a kid, you weren't taking notes. You probably were playing with toys while you were watching it or like fighting with your sibling or like eating a snack or whatever. You weren't taking notes. Maybe you watched a few of those episodes more than once because T TV used to have reruns, <laugh> <laugh> . Right. Uhhuh <affirmative> . Um, and by the way, speaking of T tv , you probably also remember some of the commercials that happened in between the TV show too. Right? Right . Um, where's The Beef? You know, like whatever, <laugh> , my point is that this has already happened for you. It has already worked once more than once because I guarantee you remember more than one TV show. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> it will work again. And so trust in your ability to remember the plot, you don't have to remember every single detail. Plus these are recorded lessons. You can have reruns as often as you want <laugh> , right?
Speaker 3:Yeah . <laugh> . And that , and that's kind of the next, the next point of guidance on this one. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> is , uh, not just, not just to do it more than once as like a good idea, but expect that Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> right. Expect that , uh, that the plan from the beginning is I'm gonna go through this course material, I'm gonna watch all the videos and listen to everything and read it, and then I'm gonna do it again. And maybe not immediately afterward. Right. But I expect I'm gonna cycle back through this content at least one more time. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> before I'm, before I'm done with it. Before I, before I set it aside. Um, because just in the same way that while you are letting this be on over on the side or in the midst of your chores and so on, you are not gonna miss everything in the same way. Even if you sit down and give it your full attention, you're not gonna get everything <laugh> . Right.
Speaker 2:Right. <laugh> , everything is never on the table. Yeah. <laugh> . Yeah . Yeah. Right. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Right. So don't think of it as like, well, if everything is perfect, I'm gonna just absorb all the information a hundred percent and like have it forever. Um, and also don't think if I'm not giving it that full degree of focus, then I'm getting 0%. However you set it up, it's some percentage, it's some , it's some portion of what's available to you. Right . And so if you just accept that, then it's not surprising that you say like, okay, I watched it once and I watched it a second time, and I fill in those gaps and stuff. I missed the first time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> ,
Speaker 2:I literally , um, I don't know how long ago this was, but I had some Paul Bergner CDs and um, I was listening to them in the car. I , you know, it must have been like 15 or 18 years ago. Yeah . Uh , 'cause I'm thinking about the apartment we lived in at the time , uh, and I just listened to them on repeat in the car until I could sing along with the cd, you know, but , but say along with the cd, like, I probably listened to those CDs 10 or 20 times. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . But like, I would get to my place and just stop it . Right . You know, and then I would, and then I would start again in the middle at some point and whatever else. And all of that is fine. Like, if you are listening to a recording or watching a video and you, like, one of your kids comes in or your husband comes in, or your whoever comes in and interrupts you, or like the buzzer goes off for the oven and you have to get up and go take care of something, don't worry about stopping the recording. Don't worry about when you come back finding the exact place that you left, just pick up where you left off. Kind of like in a TV show, if you have to go pee and there's no commercial, then you just get up and go pee <laugh> . Like , you know, in the old days before you could just stop it whenever you wanted to, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And when , you know, if you hit pause or not, you , you'll pick up the thread again. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> when you come back to it. Right. Um, and
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, you're allowed to hit pause, so I'm just saying don't stress about it. Yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. The point is, it's okay to stop at any given moment. You don't have to wait for the end of the, of the lesson or the, or the video or the whatever it is. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , you can just hit pause and keep on moving. Yeah. Right . Um, and then when you're, when you're done for the, for the moment, you know, for the, for the day, for the session, whatever you wanna call it , um, it's a really good idea then to pause for just a minute, 60 seconds <laugh> . Right . <laugh> set a little timer if you need to, but you're like, okay, what did I just hear <laugh>? What, what did I just learn? What was something interesting? What was something cool? What was something surprising that I heard in, in this last span of time? And just try to hold onto that
Speaker 2:Much. Right. And if it's only one thing that's perfect, it doesn't have to be more than that, that's fine . It's fine If it's two things, okay, that's cool, but it's not better than remembering one thing. Right. Anything that you remember is something you remember. So that's really great if you take that time at the end to just say, what was one thing that I can remember that I just heard that reinforces it in your mind? And it's gonna make it stick. If you wanna push this a little further, then instead of trying to remember 10 things or whatever, say what was one thing that I can remember that I heard, and do I want to try it? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . And so maybe you heard, maybe you were listening about bitters and you heard about like, you know, Calamus as a digestive bitter. And it's a little bit unusual because most of the digestive bitters are cold, but Calamus is really warming and has both the heat and the bitterness, and you're like, oh, that's actually what I need. I would like to try that. Okay, well then there's a thing that you remember and yeah, you would like to try it, and so that's cool. You can just send yourself a text or an email or whatever so that you remember to order some if you don't have it. And Yeah . Yeah. But that's like a way to solidify it in your brain and then to take action so that you also get it into your body.
Speaker 3:Right? Because I mean, on one level, this is a , a way to tell yourself, tell your brain, tell the subprocess of you that this is actually important because I'm, I'm making plans about it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> <affirmative> , I'm, I'm visualizing myself gathering the herb or, or getting the herb wherever. Right. Preparing the tincture, pressing it out later, having a bottle, taking it, you know, imagining the flavor of it. These are all signals to yourself. This isn't just a passing notion. This isn't just like something I saw and I'm like , oh yeah, okay, now I can forget about it immediately. Right? Mm-Hmm . You're, you're trying to to yeah. To tell yourself that this matters and that you actually do wanna, wanna keep that idea in mind. Yeah. Right. Put this one into long-term storage <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we, we have to, we have to do this for ourselves in lots of ways. Right? This is very similar to the way that we say like, if you want to take a remedy, you need to put it somewhere. You're gonna see it often, you know, repeatedly or, or see it at the right time of the day, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> like , put your digestive bitters on the table you eat at, not just any table <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The real place that you actually eat. And if that's the coffee table in front of the tv, fine. Put your bidders there. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yep . Or it's also like, put the, the, the material medica book that you're, you know, playing with right now , uh, right there by the bed. So last thing, before you go to sleep, you read one entry about one herb . Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , you know, and get a little trickle of info coming through. Same kind of idea with this, we're trying to tell ourselves what's important. We're trying to give ourselves those cues and to make a habit out of it so that it's, it's sustainable.
Speaker 2:Yeah . I wanna put a little asterisk into all of this. For the parents out there , um, or grandparents or whoever is taking care of kids, a lot of times , uh, you'll hear something like, or you'll notice yourself saying something like, well, the kids don't wanna listen to me learning about herbalism, so I have to put on their music in the car. Oh no, you don't. You're driving. They get to listen to whatever you wanna listen to. And I'll tell you, we spend a lot of energy making sure that we do not cuss in our lessons and in the podcast and whatever else, so that it is totally acceptable for your kids to be listening. And you don't have to worry that maybe like some weird thing is gonna come up. And so I just wanna encourage you, don't put off your learning just 'cause your kids might complain a little bit. First off, they might learn something too.
Speaker 3:They might learn something.
Speaker 2:Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> . But secondly, it's good for your kids to see you learning. Yeah. They think they go to school and they think you're done with that. But if they see you learning and then they see you doing these exercises of like, okay, hold on, we can't get out yet. I just have to remember one thing that I learned and Yep . It was this thing. I said, okay guys, now we can go, you know, whatever it is, it's good for your kids to see you learning. Yeah . It's good for your kids to see that you value the skills that you need to take care of other people and to take care of them. And you will be surprised. They probably will learn something. And if your kids are in the car right now, while you're listening to this, hi kids, don't give your parents a hard time <laugh> because they love you and they're watching out for you. Also, herbs are cool and it's cool to learn about them . <laugh> <laugh> ,
Speaker 3:Very nice. Very good.
Speaker 2:Also kids, make sure your parents do their homework. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. For sure. All right , so that's, that's our message to you today. Just press play. Yes. Uh, the learning will happen and you can enhance that in lots of ways. But the first step is just press play. Yes. All right . Uh, so we have not abandoned you podcast listeners. Uh, we, we are here <laugh> and , uh, and we've got more on the horizon. Um, I'm excited about a another series of episodes that we're gonna run , uh, starting soon, <laugh>. Um , and that one is gonna be about , uh, herbalist views on top selling herbs. So we're gonna go and check out the, the top 40 or 50 , uh, popular herbs in, in like the commercial world, right? Mm-Hmm . Uh, Amazon and , uh, vitamin shops and Whole Foods markets and any other place that you would happen across supplements. Yes. Including things that are at, you know, CDS and pharmacies and , and whatever else. Um, because look, these are the herbs people are taking most of Mm-Hmm . Just like if you ask a random person on the street, these are the plants that are more likely to have heard of , uh, or to be working with. And so as a practitioner or as somebody who loves herbs in this world, in this time, you should know these plants.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And also you should know about the differences between working with those plants in different modalities. Yeah . Like the, the capsule that you can get at the local drugstore versus the, you know, long infusion made with the plant and versus, you know, all the different ways. Yeah. So that's important too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah . So that'll, that'll be coming soon. Um, and uh, and if
Speaker 2:It's not coming fast enough for you <laugh>, then uh , that's because there's even more new course content happening in our online courses. So if the podcast is just going too slow, that is just freeing up more time for you to grab some courses@online.commonwealthherbs.com so that you can dig way deeper into your learning and also join our student community and just talk to us every day . We would love that.
Speaker 3:Nice. Yeah. Nice. All right everybody. That's it for today. So take care of yourselves, take care of each other, drink some tea, drink some
Speaker 2:Tea,
Speaker 3:And just press play
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Bye . Bye.