Talking Self-Care and Herbs with Alana House

Self-care is such a tremendously important aspect of being human. I’m grateful for the opportunity to reflect on this with you.

As an herbalist, self-care is important because I am living and seeing the results of what I am promoting with my clients. If I am not taking care of myself, my offerings will lack, and I have seen this manifest. My mind and intuition become dulled and I am not able to offer my deepest support and healing to those who I am working with.

I am a mother and partner. If I am not taking care of myself, I am trying to nurture my family from an empty well, which leads to depletion of all of us. If I am not eating well I am not feeding my family well, and if I am not taking time and space to replenish, then I am drained and irritable.

Self-care is so important because we are dynamic beings who live in a world with many stressors. I believe that the society we live in does not put self-care at the forefront of life and its easy to get into a daily rhythm of taking on too much while caring for ourselves too little. It wears us out and often times we forget that we need to replenish. If we are taking care of ourselves then we go into every day feeling full and able to give our all.

Checking in with ourselves is the cornerstone of self care. For me, this looks like journaling and body scanning. I take a lot of time to journal, even if it means pulling over for a moment while driving, sitting down on a bench, or while walking, to jot down important thoughts and ideas, to process something that feels important, or to just dump thoughts and feelings out onto paper.

There is something so magic and real about pen to paper. Body scanning is a mindfulness practice that allows us to take a moment or two to check in with our physical and energetic bodies. I like to practice it in the morning and at night, while laying in bed. It’s very simple. You just lay still and scan your entire body from top to bottom and back tot he top, noticing any discomfort or sensation. This allows you to notice small (or large) things that your body is needing. For example, you may notice that you are holding tension between your eyebrows or in your neck. By noticing, you have the opportunity to consciously relax those areas.

The other simple thing I recommend, which is hard myself and many of my clients is to remember, is to take your supplements each day. I have the tinctures that I take on a little shelf in my kitchen. That way when I get up to drink water they are there. If I keep that space fresh and lovely then I am more likely to hold myself accountable.

This is a great question! I have spent a lot of time working with this, and believe in the healing power of plants in this way so fully.

There’s the scientific way that the herbs used for this physiologically nourish and nurture the glandular and endocrine systems, balancing hormones and nourishing sex organs.

There are also the energetics of plants. The practice of using them brings us closer to our roots and intuitive knowing – our wildness. For example, rose – its taste, smell, and energetics – invokes love and a strong heart connection. Plants are sexy in their whole form, from seed to seed. When medicine is made with them in their whole form, the energetics of those plants are captured in the medicine. You are experiencing them more fully.