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Transcripts
Nicole:
Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host Nicole Rose from the
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Solidarity Apothecary.
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This is your place for all things plants and
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liberation.
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Let's get started.
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Hello. Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.
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This is just a little courtesy episode to remind you that the Herbalism PTSD and
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Traumatic Stress course closes today.
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So yeah, get the.
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On it.
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No, I'm just joking.
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If. Yeah, so today's the day.
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Basically it's crunch time in terms of deciding if you're ******* up for joining.
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Now it is open again at the end of September for anyone who is like, I don't want to
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******* use this like capitalist ******* scarcity marketing tactics.
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Do you know what I mean? Like,
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but at the same time it's ******* closing.
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So yeah, last chance to dance.
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I'm gonna talk through a couple of reasons, if you're still on the fence, about why it may be
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a transformational experience for you to join it.
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I will put in the show notes as well links to several other podcasts where I've talked about
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the course in much more depth.
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Unfortunately, it's a Sunday so it's quite difficult for me childcare wise.
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But my amazing ******* glorious assistant Chantelle from Herbs, Roots and Remedies will
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hopefully be online like checking emails and things.
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If you have a trouble, if you have any trouble joining it.
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As long as you email the supportoldartypothecary.org or the info
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account within the time frame of when I'm going to close it,
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we will ******* make sure that you like get access.
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Does that make sense? Like I don't want people losing sleep over
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some problem at checkout and not being able to join it.
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So yeah, so please just drop us an email if you're struggling in any way.
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And yeah, as soon as Bubs is at nursery, touch wood.
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I hate saying that because then he'll get a fever or something.
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But Monday morning I'm gonna take it offline, take it off the website so it's not possible
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to join.
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It is annoying having to do open and closed enrollments, but the reason I do that is
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because I don't want to be marketing every day of my life and doing this much high energy
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promotion.
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Because I want to be a herbalist who supports people experiencing state violence.
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Which means I want to do one to one support with folks via the Black Flag Herbal Clinic.
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Via my clinic.
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I want to make medicine.
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I want to get hundreds of care packages out.
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I want to get thousands of books to prisoners
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out.
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I want to ******* do what the solid art
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apothecary does best.
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So having it open and closed in these periods means that I can focus on it for a short time
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and then I can,
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yeah, kind of like wrap things up, make sure everyone that signed up has access, like,
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troubleshoot any problems, like answer this new influx of people and their questions about
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the course and stuff.
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Like. So, yeah, it's kind of.
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That's why it's like that, if that makes sense.
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And I do think there is an element of, like,
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encouraging people to make a decision.
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Like, I'm terrible.
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Like, if a course is available all year long,
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it will just sit on my, like, wish list.
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Do you know what I mean?
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So anyway, but I'm just gonna quickly.
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While baby boy is having a bath,
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someone else has given him a bath.
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I'm not doing this while he's in the bath.
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That would be very neglectful.
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I'm just gonna run through a couple of the
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reasons why.
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Yeah, you should join the course if you're.
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If you're interested.
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So you can.
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I'm just reading this from the course page.
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By the way.
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You can develop a personal plant medicine
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practice.
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Right?
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So besides all the trauma stuff, you can learn how to create your own herbal remedies for
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nervous system support especially.
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You can learn tincture making and herbal teas and oils and glycerites.
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And yeah, you can master the practical skills to build this, like, epic personalized herbal
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medicine cabinet that can support you through a lifetime of experiences.
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And I know it's difficult with online courses to get that actual practical confidence, but
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******* loads of people have worked through this course and given the feedback that from
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my instructions they felt confident enough to,
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you know, gain the confidence in like, safely harvesting and preparing and working with
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plants.
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So, yeah, I do think it gives that to a lot of
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people who are kind of happy to follow, like, basic instructions and then just have a go
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and, you know, you can email me with any troubleshooting questions.
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And yeah, it's just like a fantastic introduction to herbalism to help you.
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Yeah. Develop those, those medicine making skills and build that kind of apothecary for
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yourself and other people.
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And then, yeah, in terms of trauma,
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like,
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you can, through this course, understand trauma through a liberation lens.
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So there is a structure and recorded, you know, course lectures about the reductionist
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nature of trauma and, you know, frameworks such as kind of like faulty brain chemistry,
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for example,
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and you can explore how systemic oppression shapes our bodies and our nervous systems.
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While learning empowering frameworks that honor your experiences,
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you gain a deep understanding of how trauma manifests physically from sleep disruption to
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chronic inflammation, and how plants can support healing on multiple levels.
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The thing I get the most feedback on in this course is the trauma content in the sense of
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people are like,
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in hell.
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I needed that framework.
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Like it just brings it all together.
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And I think I can't remember who it was, I'm
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sorry, off the top of my head, but someone wrote in a recent testimonial, they were like,
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I've realized that my body has saved its own life like hundreds of times over.
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And you know, you can go from like pathologizing yourself that you are broken and
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up and all of these things and actually just realizing that like, no, you have been in a
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survival mode in a state that is completely makes sense in terms of evolution and yeah,
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survival,
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but that, you know, you don't have to stay kind of stuck in that state.
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And you can shift states, hopefully with support from herbal medicines.
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Okay. Learn the language of the nervous system so you'll develop an in depth knowledge of
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nervous system physiology and nervous system states that can help you make sense of how you
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are feeling and enable you to choose the plant medicines.
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Your body would be strengthened by being able to understand, describe and communicate to
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others.
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How we are feeling can be truly revolutionary.
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And I wrote about this in an email yesterday where I shared like my biggest ******* regret
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in life.
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And that is basically spending my 20s and half of my 30s, well, maybe not half the first few
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years.
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Being really ******* traumatized.
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Being in a state of traumatic stress because
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of so much internal distress in my landscape, like in my inner landscape.
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And how developing a language that can help me name how I'm feeling, understand what's going
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on in is just ******* life changing.
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Because that's how we can then, you know, learn the tools to shift out of it.
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And I know now when I'm triggered and I know when I'm in like safe or social and I'm
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feeling, you know, kind of.
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I hate the word regulated, but you know what I mean?
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Like I'm,
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you know, being able to connect with other people and plants and take care of myself and
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have clear like quality thinking.
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And I'm not living this intensely kind of like trauma driven life because of this kind of
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like unresolved unintegrated traumatic stress.
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******* side note on that.
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Lots of people are in a ******* traumatized
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state because they have to be because they're living in like an active ******* war zone or a
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place of ******* genocide,
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you know, like,
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or just, you know, like in prison.
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And it is kind of, you know, like dog eat dog
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survival.
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So yeah, understanding those nervous system
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states can help us understand, you know, like systemic oppression as well.
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So anyway, I'm not saying that, you know, like,
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oh my God, I'm going off on one, but I talk about this loads in the course about how for a
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lot of people there isn't this kind of like post aspect of traumatic stress and you know,
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how we can kind of like,
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like interrogate the concept of PTSD for example.
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Anyway, side rant.
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But yeah, having that language of the nervous
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system is ******* life changing.
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What else is life changing is building a life changing relationship with plants.
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So discovering how the more than human world can offer connection and stability when you've
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had your trust in humans shattered.
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So learning to develop long term reciprocal relationships with plants that go beyond just
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like taking medicines and through foraging, growing and medicine making practices, you'll
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create meaningful connections that support you through life's challenges.
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With plants, you are never alone.
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So like, this is like the mainstay of my herbal practice.
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Like it is all about ******* relationships.
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Like it isn't just a herb that we take that
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helps, you know, our nervous system feel different.
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It is that life changing relationship with plants where,
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you know, we know their names and we know what they look like and we can sit with them and we
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can ******* talk with them and we can harvest them and you know, make nourishing meals with
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them.
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Like it is a relational experience that humans and plants have had since the dawn of *******
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time.
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And it is only ******* colonialism and
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capitalism and all these systems of oppression that have just ******* severed that connection
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to the more than human world and to plants especially.
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So yeah, this course is like one route back to that, if that makes sense.
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Okay. Skillfully navigate nervines.
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So, you know, the big focus of the course is
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about nervines.
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So these are plants with a, you know, specific
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affinity for the nervous system.
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And through this course you can learn which
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herbs can help with different manifestations of traumatic stress, from anxiety to
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sleeplessness to emotional flooding and dissociation.
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And you'll learn how to match specific plants to your unique constitution and needs.
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So in all of my plant profiles, I go into depth about how to work with that plant.
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Like, is that a plant that has an affinity with people that are in a more like frozen
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shutdown state, or is it more like reducing the level of fight and flight in someone's
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system?
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Which herbs can support panic attacks specifically?
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Which herbs have more of an affinity with nightmares, which are more for people that are
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depressed.
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There's so much ******* nuance here.
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It's not just, oh, this herb is for anxiety.
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It's like, well, what is that anxiety caused by?
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Like, what's going on for that person?
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You know, how can that trauma be kind of like reframed?
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And also, you know, like, all the kind of,
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you know, other collective responses to traumatic stress are included in the course.
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So we look at what is the role of, you know, mutual aid?
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What is the role of like, resistance?
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Like, **** me, like, I want ******* child abuse to be ******* stopped.
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I don't want to support anyone else who's been through childhood ******* abuse.
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So it's like we can't just heal and recover ourselves and, you know, work with herbs and
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have this life changing experience.
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Like, we need to like, funnel that energy into like ending this root cause of this *******
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oppression, you know? Oh my God.
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Okay.
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And finally, yeah, develop herbal resilience for collective liberation.
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So in a world full of injustice and oppression, that can be deeply traumatizing,
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we need plant medicines more than ever.
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Connect with plant medicine traditions that have supported human healing for generations.
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Learn how these time tested practices can help us navigate contemporary struggles from
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climate change to state violence.
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You'll discover how plants can help us build
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resilience while working toward collective liberation.
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So in every ******* lesson, I'm quoting, like all different authors.
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I'm sharing links so that you can buy their books so you can follow their work.
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I'm sharing research papers, like, there's a whole ******* drive of resources of people's
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voices who have contributed to,
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you know, connecting these dots to collective liberation.
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And, you know, like, herbalism is just like one part of that picture, if that makes sense.
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But a big part of the course is, you know.
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Yeah, just like sharing examples from my
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organizing in my life of when, you know, oh, okay, we worked with valerian and you know,
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in this case and blah, blah, blah, supporting these people fleeing this invasion or when we
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work with this herb in Calais and blah, blah, blah.
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Like, I share a lot of that, like, rich embodied life experience with these herbs and
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how they have shown up for people experiencing distress.
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So it's not just kind of like theoretical knowledge, you know, like it's lived, embodied
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knowledge.
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And that's something that comes up in
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testimonials a lot.
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It's like how much people appreciate that
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nuance and that depth.
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Okay, I'm gonna stop talking because my bubs is coming back,
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but yeah, just again, last chance to enroll.
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Please don't miss it.
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If you're interested in joining, I have to be a really horrible, like, boundaried person
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after it's closed and just be like, I'm really sorry I can't let you do it.
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Which isn't the easiest for.
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And my, you know, people please.
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The tendencies.
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But sorry, I hate the time people pleaser.
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It's very patriarchal, isn't it?
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It's like hell anyway, side.
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Side rant.
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But yeah, no one is turned away for lack of funds.
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There's a whole podcast episode about that as well.
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I will put a link in the show notes to all the other episodes, talking about the course, all
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the other things you need.
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And yeah, don't miss it.
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If you're curious about it, if you're
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interested, if you want to just become a plant geek.
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You know, not gonna lie.
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Plant hot, right?
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So rock and roll.
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Anyway, I'm gonna stop talking now.
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I think I'm a bit hyper.
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I've had like four coffees today because I was
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visiting the.
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The baby daddy with my son, so haven't, you know,
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left a village in a long time.
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So I'm like,
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oh my God, I'm gonna stop talking.
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But yeah, please join the course if you're
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interested.
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And I will be back soon.
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Take care.
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Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast.
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You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the