Why Herbs are a Powerful Holistic Approach for Better Hormones in Menopause
curious about herbs and herbal remedies as a holistic way to decrease menopause symptoms?
This is an introductory episode to herbal remedies and what Correne calls Plant Medicine for hormone balance in midlife
When women come to Correne, or myself, and talk about hormones, they use the term “my hormones are not balanced.”
Hormones are such a broad topic. There's so many categories of hormones.
Here is the transcript of that episode.
Correne:
You and I were chatting about before we started recording this, how it's a shame that we learn so much of our anatomy and physiology at such a young age because many of us forget how many metabolic processes are governed, controlled, and integrated into the body.
Hormones, we're talking anything from sleep to, sex hormones, reproductive hormones, even digestion, have so many different functions governed by hormones.
When most people say I need help with my hormones, they usually mean they're reproductive and sex hormones. You've also got your thyroid hormones and so many others.
Tanya:
I would say that they think they're talking about their sex hormones, but women in perimenopause may not know that some of the symptoms of a thyroid disorder can mimic perimenopause.
We think of joint pain, brain fog and dry skin, that can come from sex hormones being imbalanced, or the thyroid.
Correne:
Absolutely. Understanding the inter-connective nature of that, is one of the things where I think holistic medicine shines, because we don't view things isolated in the body and we don't look at systems as being isolated.
Instead, we look at the whole picture and realize how when we have one hormone that's out of whack, it affects so many of the others in the body.
Tanya:
I love that you highlight that too, because holistically, there's other things that play into the hormones. It's your LIVER. If we were to talk about digestive health, we barely touched on the liver in the one episode we did about digestion.
I remember sitting in my Dutch training, where the naturopath was talking about changing one of the CYP enzymes. I know I'm getting really technical here. CYP, for those of you who are listening, there's a series of enzymes in the liver that helps detoxify things.
One of the things is estrogen.
These groups of enzymes that detoxify, you can change them, but when you affect one, if you wanna change it to affect estrogen, you're actually affecting everything that that series of enzymes is going to detoxify as a simple explanation.
You can't just tweak one thing without tweaking another.
There's a cascade.
Correne:
Absolutely. I kind of picture it like dominoes, and that's often how I explain it to my clients, because understanding, what does my blood sugar have to do with my endocrine hormones or my sex hormones? I try to keep it simple and basic in the understanding, but it is this cascade effect. It's very uncommon for me to see a woman come into clinic with only one hormone imbalance.
Now, their blood work may just say there's one, but if I look at symptomology, look at the way that they're navigating life, how they're feeling, you're starting to get this picture of: thyroid and adrenals. Then we have blood sugar and sex hormones, and you're like, whoa! It's really interesting to see how all of those weave in together.
Tanya:
when you see women in clinic, do you see a fair bit of women who may be perimenopausal and suffering from symptoms that come with that?
Correne:
Yes. I find this fascinating as I age, my clientele seems to also follow along with me. I am noticing more now in the last few years. But what I'm also noticing, is those perimenopause symptoms seem to be happening earlier. I'll have women around my age, early forties and they're already starting to deal with some of the hot flashes, disturbances in menstrual cycle fatigue and all of this.
To say it's only because of perimenopause, it’s kind of slapping not a bandaid, but you're not looking at the whole picture. There's usually a lot more going on with people by the time they come see me in clinic.
They're usually pretty frustrated with the allopathic medicine model.
It hasn't worked for them, and they usually have a lot of things going on.
It becomes sort of like detective work, the figuring out. Asking: what are all these pieces and how do we address all of them so that you can experience health and vitality.
Tanya:
And we can't look at that without looking at all the aspects we've talked about. The nervous system, the digestive system, I mentioned the liver. Back to that holistic approach.
Correne:
And when it comes to menopausal symptoms, perimenopausal, and even just endocrine, like those types of sex hormone symptoms in general, the liver is key because we really do have to do a lot of detoxing.
In the world that we live in now, we're exposed to so many, estrogen mimicking hormones that we really have to take that into account.
Supporting the liver is one of the most sort of basic foundations for me when I'm working on menopause, perimenopause, and just menstrual type disturbances. I really do a lot of digestion work, but then really focusing on detox.
Tanya:
I think it's interesting that you brought up the word detox because this would've been a subject I would've not wanted to touch. When you come to the non diet approach, there is a camp that does say, detox isn't necessary.
It's looked at as a way to sell you product, and you don't need to detox.
Your body does that for you.
However, I'm a person who had mold in their basement, and sudden severe knee pain. So many things were going on in my body at the time, that I thought was just I was on my way to a knee replacement.
I did do a mold detox, and I think that this has to be talked about in a very individual manner.
Everybody is different.
And as a dental hygienist, when I was practicing, mercury toxicity was a common subject, and yeah, it's a thing. To say our body is going to take care of it, well, not everybody's body does.
So I think what I'm trying to say, Correne, is that from the non diet perspective, I always like to find the middle ground and ask people questions and give them self coaching questions.
I don't mean to belabor the point, but for those people who are thinking: I'm going on a seven day detox because I ate so much over the Christmas holidays. I need to lose five pounds. THAT is not what we're talking about. And I know you would agree.
Correne:
Absolutely. I often heard that mentality before, and I do agree, we have detoxifying organs in our body that are designed to flush out both fat and water soluble toxins within our system.
However, one of the first questions I ask my clients; are you re-toxing a lot? And they're like, well, what do you mean? Let's look at the products you're using. Let's look at the environment you're in. Things like mold, air pollution. What about the foods you're eating? Are you eating a lot of non-organic foods that have fungicides, pesticides, herbicides.
You see the shift in their face and they're like, oh, and I drink alcohol too. Oh, I see where you're going.
Is it possible that we are inundated with more that some bodies are able to handle. By giving our body a helping hand, we're facilitating a process that yes, it should do naturally, but in the kind of toxic soup world that we live in, it struggles to keep up with, and I'm not a big fan of like, you know, go to the health food store and pick up one of those kits and then spend five days in the bathroom and say you've done a detox.
That's not really how I work it either. My goal with my clients is how do we reduce toxic load to begin with and then support the body to help eliminate what may have already built up within the system.
Tanya:
I do feel that in the wellness space, sometimes we as practitioners also have to recognize that some of these things can be positioned in a way that they're not accessible financially to people. So when I think about supporting our own detox systems, I do think about the add-in approach and where the client is at.
I'm not a clinical herbalist. When this person is trying to help themselves, yet they're have competing things for their finances or their mental space. And if this is you listening, I always think about what can you add in and could you add in frozen beets to a smoothie to support pooping and some vitamin C and fiber and all those little antioxidants that come with that.
How would that work?
Would digestive bidders be something that you could add in for your digestion?
That's more my philosophy. How can we bring things in that are affordable for where that person is at now?
I think the whole concept that layers on so many products pushed people away.
Correne:
To be honest, I very much agree with that approach.
I live in a rural area where the level of income and finances may not be the same for people in larger cities. I completely respect and look at that add in approach, but I like to put a bit of a twist on it too.
What about the takeout approach?
What about the things that you're spending money on that you're bringing into your home, bringing into your body that's compounding your health situations, making them worse and adding in toxicity?
Maybe we don't need some of the snack foods. Is there a way to move those out?
Then you actually help free up some finances too, which I really try to challenge people a little bit with that too.
And say, okay, let's add some beautiful things in. But what are some of the things that we can take out that we know are contributing to your state of disharmony, imbalance, and disease in the body that you're willing to do?
I always work within people's budgets, within their ability to make change. And I like small changes because I find them sustainable. Whereas I think sometimes, we'll go to these natural practitioners and leave with a shopping list of supplements and 93 things we're supposed to do, and did we just set this client up for failure?
There's no way, right? You're telling me I have to work out, I never worked out before, but now I have to work out three days a week and I have to eat beets in my smoothies.
I have to take all these supplements. It becomes very overwhelming.
Add in, what can we add in? But also what can we take away?
And then just give them a few pieces and see how those few pieces can start to shift and change things for them, because then I notice they get hungry for more.
Tanya:
I love your point about not overwhelming somebody because I come from that restrictive phase where I tried to take it all out. Binge eating happened. I had a lot of body image issues. I got very obsessive. I always think of the person, and that part of their profile when it comes to taking things away. I'm not saying that that's wrong, but I'm also thinking about all those other things we spend our money on.
What are the things that we spend our money on that really aren't helping our mind? The things we watch on tv, this is a huge topic. Again, I always open up the topics to being too broader than they should be on a podcast episode!
Correne:
But I love it. I think it gets people thinking.
If people leave a podcast with more questions, that's a good thing.
That gets them thinking: I didn't even consider how my hormones might be affected by my nightly Netflix!
Holy moly. Then sends them down this interesting avenue of thinking, if I slept better, because I didn't watch violent television, at night, suddenly my hot flashes were less!
It’s a very interesting, “clicking” of pieces of information that happened.
I like that you leave it broad because it allows people to continue to expand their horizons.
Tanya:
We're actually on the same page here.
I use the term “mainstream nutrition advice” loosely because people will say, “I shouldn't eat wheat. I shouldn't eat gluten, therefore I will be sick. Or I might lose 20 pounds if I take that out of my diet.”
But there's people who have that food in their culture, and it is their grandmother's Christmas cookies, and they want that in their life.
And I think when you use the approach that you're talking about as well, we're holding it up, and encouraging that person to look at it with their own intuition, create their own inner knowing and make choices for them based on their own life and needs.
Correne:
I agree with that completely, and I think that it, it should be said that a strong, healthy, robust human can handle grandma's cookies.
There are times and places. I'm not one of those people that's like cut out all horrible things and, and totally deny yourself all happiness.
There's some perks to being human and food is one of them, right?
I think that we need to recognize that maybe while I'm healing, I might have to avoid overindulging in particular foods that irritate me. Once I get to a more healed state, where my system is able to handle something with a lot of gluten in it, as an example, your body can handle it.
Take a digestive enzyme before Thanksgiving dinner and you know you're gonna be okay because you've worked on those systems in the body to allow yourself to be able to indulge every now and again.
You're bringing this right back to where we started, I think is looking at that body holistically and when we start to isolate even in holistic health, things like, oh, you gotta work on your gut.
You know, the science is always changing. Mm-hmm. there is. Lots of science that's saying that, you know, maybe it isn't exactly the gut. Maybe it's a pathogen, maybe it isn't the gut, it's the gut lining. Like you could go on and on. And really it's bringing that perspective as a whole back to the body, even when it comes to the topic of the day, which is hormone.
Yes, and I, I think it's so important to be holistic in the way that we look at things, because the closer we narrow things down. When you're looking at something through a microscope, you have no idea what's going on around you. Okay? So I want people to picture that, right? Like, yes, we've narrowed it down to the gut lining, but if we're only looking at the gut lining, what about everything else in the body?
So we really have to try to remember, it's good to have, you know, accurate pathology, right? These are good pieces of information for natural health practitioners to have so that we have at least a picture of what's going on. But then to step back and look at the whole human every now and again, and not get tunnel visioned into a diagnosis or trying to pinpoint one particular thing that's causing all of their problems we're unfortunately far too complex for that.
Totally agree. And I think you've actually answered the question I was going to ask you. You know, is there a different perspective from you as an expert in plant medicine than say from the holistic nutritionist? And Well, you know, there will be a different perspective from the medical community because it is just a different philosophy.
So I think you
answered it, . Well, I, I mean, one of the things, I always start with the foundations, and I think we've touched upon this in a few of the episodes that we, we did together because, If, for example, here we are back at digestion, if your digestion isn't working properly, I can give you all of the most amazing tonic female reproductive herbs in the world, but your body can't absorb them.
So we have to get to a certain point where there are the basic functions within the system operating well. And what's very interesting, Is I rarely actually have to break out my female reproductive hormone herbs because when I focus on digestion and supporting the liver in the lymphatic system and removing some of the toxins magically, a lot of the symptoms resolve themselves.
Okay, so that's very interesting. So really, if somebody is coming to you for estrogen dominance or other things mm-hmm. , then you are working on that gut and you're working on all of these other systems with herbs. Mm-hmm. and things seem to fall in
line. They do. Um, and when we start to educate clients as to what these estrogen mimicking hormones look like, where they're stored in the body, like I said, I very rarely now it has happened where I do support female reproductive hormones, um, and get to that point, but sometimes I never need to because what all that's happened is that they had a buildup of toxicity in the system that was expressing.
As endocrine disruptions, and when we fix the gut and we help support those detox pathways, like I said, things tend to resolve, which is really beautiful to see.
This is interesting too. You know, you're making me think of the concept of the estrobolome in the gut, the connection between gut bacteria and the estrogen in our bodies, and so it totally makes sense that if we are supporting the gut, we may be supporting the hormonal processes.
Right. So we're talking a lot about the physical symptoms of perimenopause, menopause, hormone disruption, et cetera. I know I asked you already about the energy of plants and emotions, and that's one of the things that attracted me to you and your YouTube channel is how you talk about emotions when it comes to plant medicine.
Mm-hmm. . So when you are speaking and working with women who are in this stage of life, how do you weave in the emotional component of plants?
With them? Well, if a client is open to using flower essences, um, that's one of the easiest ways for me to do that because I can add those into a tincture or herb formula without actually having to maybe add in a Irvine component.
Because they so beautifully support the emotions, and they're kind of like an additional little boost to the tincture that I make. However, most women who come to see me for hormone disruptions, menopause, perimenopause, all of these things, they need some nervine support. So there's some really beautiful herbs, things like lemon bomb, lavender, rosemary, that while they are not necessarily.
Endocrine herbs themselves, they have this synergistic energy that blend really nicely with a lot of art tonic monologues and a lot of the herbs that I would use. So I would add in those allies because of their nervous system support. So I would work in that way. Like I said, adding in like my beautiful friends like lavender, LA and B and those types of things.
Um, but if the client's open to it, I would weave in flower essences too to be able to really pinpoint and target some of the emotional struggles that they might be working through. .
I love that. And I know we've had discussions about the emotions of this transition in life and even how it gets pathologized by the medical community where what we think is what might happen, you know, if we think we're gonna have a crappy transition and that it sucks to get old, it might actually just suck to get old.
There's a mindset shift that has to happen there.
I agree, and I think we've talked about this before too, but I wanna go back to, um, a point where our elders are revered, you know, and it's not looked as something to avoid that. Instead, it is an a, a shift in change in roles, in a family dynamic. It's a shift in change in how we contribute to our community, what we bring levels of wisdom and experience.
You know, and I, I really wanna honor. That. , but it is hard because we have entire industries that are geared towards not aging right? Or looking at aging as something, to look down upon. I think we might be, maybe a generation or two away before we start to see that come back to the, looking at becoming the elder in the community as being a positive shift and a positive change.
Oh.
You couldn't have said it better. You know, the way we, we , I hate to say it, be because I've done it myself. We warehouse our elderly because of our busy lives. You know, they're put in homes. I had to do that for my mother and it's a shame we miss out on so much. And I remember many nights there getting to know the people.
and it just struck me and, and really karine, this is why I ended up in a no diet approach when it comes to nutrition, because I was turning 50, my mother was dying, and all of these people had these lives that were important. There was an opera singer there with her husband and she couldn't speak her move anymore, like he was her voice.
And I just walked those halls one night and I thought, why the heck am I caring so much about the size of my ass? Like it's ridiculous. And so there's health, but then there's that obsessive. Health and weight loss can be separated, I believe, when it comes to looking at other things in their, in your life.
And I don't know if that even made sense what I said right
there. No, it, it did make sense because I think it's so interesting because I'm, I'm working on my next class for weavers, and this is one of the things that I was talking about with fad diets and, you know, What I mean, like the newest trend, right?
When I was studying herbal medicine, it was Atkins. Everybody was all about Atkins eat steak and eggs for breakfast every day, and you'll look like a million. Yeah, you'll look like a million bucks, right? No, no, we weren't. Supporting it, but that was the big thing at the time. Yeah. And um, what's really fascinating when you start looking at these diet approaches that only take weight loss into consideration and they're not taking whole health into consideration, you're missing a piece.
They can be separated. They really should be separated. You know, if through making healthier choices, we shed some weight. Yay. But. It doesn't need to be the end goal. The end goal should be, my knee doesn't hurt anymore. I'm sleeping better. I'm not having hat waking up drenched my sheets, you know, five, six times a night.
My, my period cycle is normal and predictable and pain free. These are the be markers that we should be looking at. Not whether or not I look good in my yoga pants, at least that's just my opinion. ,
no, no, you're, I'm, I'm right there with you. I am wondering if a listener is interested in seeking, say, you or an herbalist for a natural approach to hormone support or a plant medicine approach.
Would an herbal consult look the same when you're targeting hormones? Or do you have different questions and different assessment tools that you
use? I think the beginning part of the consultation where I let my client just tell their story, so many people aren't heard. Right? You know, you're cramming these appointments in with doctors in like five, 10 minutes, right?
And so know those pieces can look different cuz everyone tells a different story. And then I go in and I kind of fill in the gaps where I start talking about maybe some of the other symptoms of the body. Weren't sending off quite enough alarm bell to the client that that's not what drew them to me.
But then if I ask them, how's your sleep? They're like, oh, you know, I sleep like crap. So it may not have come up in that first initial. So I mean, no two appointments ever look the same, but I cover all of the systems of the body, especially during that first appointment because I am trying to get a holistic capture of what this person is moving through currently in their life and that include.
It's hobbies that includes levels of joy, that includes stress at work, how their hormones are functioning, whether they're sleeping, what they're eating, all of those things. So it's, it's a pretty integrative, like I say, holistic approach that I take.
Karine, do you use intuition when you are assessing a human?
I think we all do to some degree, but I guess I'm thinking about hormone testing and herbal medicine. And do you like to do both? Have you done both or do you also use, because I know you have deep intuition, do you like to use that and encourage yourself to use that with an as?
I, I do, and it's something that I'm really starting to honor in the last, say, five years of my practice, that the intuitive nudges and hits that I usually get are usually on the Mark
And I'm learning to not ignore that. Now, that might be what particular Plat wants to work with someone and to me, and I have no other way. Explain this, except when a client, when I see them either over Zoom or in person, I'll just get an overwhelming wave of like, Rosemary, this client needs Rosemary or Meadow Suite,
And I write it down, I jot it down in my notes because that's that intuitive hit, you know? And is that the energy of the plant coming forward? I believe so. Um, but also intuition in terms of like figuring out the pathology, especially when they come to me with complicated cases that their physicians have no clue what's going.
Right, like some of the digestive issues. I had a client where their doctor was just like, I don't know, just take some Tums. I, I don't know what's wrong with you. We've run all these tests, just take Tums. And they came to me and I was like, I can't diagnose legally. I'm not allowed. But I'm thinking you've got parasites, we do some parasite flush work and boom,
Right? So I had no information in front of me from the client, but I just had an inkling. So, yeah, a very long answer to your simple question is I love leaving in intuition and I think it's a big part of what I do, but it's a supportive, um, mechanism for my training and knowledge and education as well. So I, I use those in conjunction with each.
Not a long answer at all. It's such a wonderful answer. Thank you so much. I love that. in previous episodes I've asked you, you know, the basic questions like what were the top two or three herbal supplements that you would recommend to somebody, and what I'm kind of curious about is that, I think a lot of women are familiar with, should I take Mak?
What about Ashwaganda? What's this holy basil? Like, what can I do with that? Those are the things that come up with women that I speak to. What about you? Where's your take on all? I know they can come and tease and tinctures that you can buy at the health food store. What is something that speaks to you when you think about this topic?
When I work with, female reproductive, Pathology, I guess would be the best way to word it. There's sort of two groups of herbal categories that I work with. There's mi monologues, which a lot of people will be familiar with. Things like, red Raspberry Leaf, chased tree, you know, which would be Vitex.
Sorry. I'm so used to speaking in Latin things like partridge berry, you know, Angelica, all of these beautiful plants, but. The category of herbs that your clients are coming to you with are the adaptogens, and they have such a beautiful place in there as well. And that's where we have our ashwagandha's and our, numerous gin sing species that we have access to as well as, um, ginger and turmeric are some of my favorites too, because they're sort of like bridge adaptogens.
So it's a little complicated. But usually I do sort of two formula. Two weeks of our supportive tonic endocrine herbs or tonic monologues, and then two weeks of adaptogens to try to mimic the hormonal cycle that the client would've had, I guess during a period when they were menstruating regularly.
So if a client is no longer menstruating, right, I go back to, okay, what did it look like 10 years ago? Right? And then we kind of mirror that. Sort of two categories, of herbs that I like to use.
Totally makes sense to me because what we're talking about when I first brought that up with the Maka, the Ashwaganda, I mean, we're working on that stress response in the nervous system.
Yes. And that is so connected to, again, connected to everything but the endocrine system, the, the hormones.
And that's the reason why it's these, uh, adaptogens that have an affinity for the nervous system are the ones that everybody keeps seeing. So when they're doing their Google searches and why things like holy basil, tsi, these things are coming up and that's the reason why.
And you can go out and buy, herbs in individual teas or tinctures and potentially have some pretty decent results, but, Any of your listeners are feeling discouraged because they went out and bought the maka and it's not doing what they thought it would. You know, there's some levels to explore there.
I actually shared something in my stories on Instagram yesterday about, it was. It was a very high percentage of supplements they tested in like Walgreens, Walmart, and a couple of other places that didn't even have the herbs in them that the bottle said they did. Yes. Right. So I always question first, where you getting your stuff from , right?
Because we gotta look at quality but also sometimes you need a more integrative approach and you need that perspective from someone who works with. Medicine on a daily basis to help you. And in my humble opinion, any good herbalist will have, um, bartering, trading, sliding scales. We really do try to make this as accessible for people as possible, because I know finances are often a barrier.
Um, and why people don't see practitioners
on, I don't see a lot of herbalist offering that in the online space. I think that's amazing and lovely that you do that.
I wonder too, if you were to reach out, if they would. Um, but there is this interesting perspective. I think a lot of people are playing with is the idea that if they're not willing to invest financially in themselves, then they may not be willing to invest in their health.
And I don't not see, yeah, I don't know. Do I agree, disagree with that, but I think that's maybe some of the fields that people who don't offer sliding scales play in potentially .
Right, and we all have our belief systems. I'm not sure if that's mine, but I'm not sure. I'm sure that's not mine. ,
but mine. Mine either.
Right.
Okay. So two more quick questions. Are you familiar with the carrot salad, estrogen detox? I want to call it a fad, but it's been around for a while. I think it originated with Ray. Pete, are you familiar?
I am not. Please tell me more. . Okay.
See, I wanted to get your thoughts on it. So a lot of holistic nutritionists are showing, eating carrot salad because the long fibers in a carrot will bind with estrogen and
This kind of came across my feed and I was like, exactly. Huh. And I know I listened to another very popular podcast with Matt Blackburn. He was a little controversial and he loves Ray Pete, who came up with this whole estrogen detox with carrots and. because I'm sort of interested in how camps in the wellness space behave.
There was a very well known dietician influencer who not only slammed the Dutch test, but she slammed carrot at salad and said it was BS because, and it kind of makes sense in a way about being BS because all veggies have fiber and fiber binds to estrogen. So I don't know, is there something different about a.
Do
you know any of that? Okay, so here's my take on it. Here's my take. All right? Having very little information about the carrot salad. My take is the same take with fab diets that usually when people start doing something, they're eating and behaving in ways that were better than what they were doing before.
So chances are the people who are eating the carrot salad every day maybe weren't getting a lot of vegetables. And so it wasn't the carrot, it was the fact that they. Now focused on a fiber rich meal side, whatever, however, they're consuming their carrot salad. I don't know if there were parameters as to when you needed to eat it, but that's my guess.
My guess is that what they're seeing is an overall benefit because they're now paying attention to what they're eating and potentially eating more vegetables than they did before. I don't think there's necessarily anything magical about a carrot, but that being said, I haven't really, um, , you know, I haven't, I haven't had a chance to dive into the carrot salad, so that's my first thoughts on it.
What do you think? Well,
you know what? I think I'm with you and. . I think there's a two-sided thing here. You know, unfortunately nobody's gonna put up the money to, to go and study carrot salad because there's no money to make and be unless you're selling carrots, um, and hormone detox, right? They're not gonna study that.
So it's very easy to say that that's BS because there's no studies because nobody's studying it. Yeah. But I think that the perspective that you have, you know, it's a very well-rounded and logical as soon as we start to inc. Behavior, like drinking more water, walking more, we feel differently, and that might be the change.
It might be, right? Like when people start doing things like paleo or the keto diets and all of that, they're usually eating better than they did before they started doing it, which is why people often will. You know, some semblance of success with them, so Yeah. But now I know exactly what I'll be doing.
After we're done this, I'll be looking into this carrot salad thing. .
Yeah. Well, and if I find anything else about it, I'll be sending it to you, but yet you're, you actually just made me think of the diet high. When you finish something like that, you think it's the best thing ever till it's not. Mm-hmm.
because you have a high from changing. The thanks, you know? Yep, exactly. Well, I have one more quick question, which is totally personal. When you talk to me through all these episodes, is there an herb that's talking to you that says, Tanya needs to take ?
Oh my goodness. That's so interesting. , valerian.
Oh Lord, that makes
to so much sense.
Yeah, I, you know what, and it's interesting because when we were talking, nothing came in. All I did was tap in to your energy just for a minute there and it was like, yeah, to, yeah. Yeah. Tanya needs Valerian, , and Yeah, not in, I wouldn't, Hmm. Valerian Tea. Valerian has a. An interesting flavor. I don't know if you've ever had it before.
It's uh, it's very stinky. Um, the stinkier, your valerian is the higher the quality people. So there, there is a little bit of interesting information. Valerian food is supposed to smell. I want you to picture like, Your son's hockey bag got left in a car for like six months and then you just discovered it, opened it up and went, whoa.
That's Valerian root .
This is very interesting. Before I met you, I had a tea blend, a loose leaf tea blend that had oats straw, valerian mint, and my cupboard actually stunk. And so the family's like, what did you buy? Are you actually drinking that? And when I would make it the smell, I was like, I don't know,
And that's like, That's likely why they put that aromatic peppermint component in to try to, so whenever I work with valerian and tincture and formulation, I always try to add those beautiful aromatic carative, right? Like our cat nips, our lemon bombs or rosemarys and our peppermints to try to sort of, I wouldn't say mask the flavor, but maybe, I don't know, just bring it to an area where it doesn't overshadow everything cuz Valerian can, can kind of do that.
It's a beautiful plant to grow and the flower smells phenomenal. So it's, it's a very interesting paradox in that this, the flower is one of my favorite smells, but the root is rather, is rather stinky. But yes, I'm thinking Valerian wants to be friends with you potentially in, flower essence form too.
Something to explore.
This is gonna be something I'm going to explore. You're gonna look at the carrot salad. I'm gonna look at the valerian. We're gonna come back together, I hope for some other discourse. Chat, all things plants and herbs. I so, so thank you for being on the show with me. It's been so great and I've learned so much.
It has been a beautiful journey and experience for me as well. I am deeply grateful that you reached out to me and, it's been my absolute pleasure to have this discourse with you.
Well, we'll talk again. How is this episode for you? Did it help you feel full and expansive? Did it create some thought or reflection on health, your body, or your life?
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No. And I'll do my best to address it either with a guest episode or a solo episode. And until we meet again, may your life feel full and uniquely yours.