When we talk about menstrual, hormonal or even mental health, how often do we think of the thyroid?

Actually for me, I'm always curious about it, I love when clients have had their thyroid levels checked so we can look at those as part of the picture - but I know in  many cases it is entirely overlooked.

We think about ovaries, maybe even adrenals, blood sugar, minerals. But we don't always think of the thyroid as a potential key to unravel the tapestry of imbalances. 

And actually for some people it can be!

Today's guest, clinical nutritionist and health coach Kasia Wrobel, speaks to her own embodied experience of her thyroid as a core pillar of her own hormonal and mental health journey - after a history of debilitating periods, years on the pill, and a mental health journey that had her nearly diagnosed with bipolar.

She is now a mama of two young children, her thyroid has regenerated and improved dramatically, and her cycles are generally feeling good - and she shares all about how she got here. 

Plus, we muse on a bunch of other topics. I loved this conversation!

Resources:

• Today's shownotes: Get links to Kasia's work
• Episode 63: Hashimoto's? Nutrition and lifestyle wisdom for optimal thyroid with Kamila Veljkovic
• Free 10 Key Herbs for your Hormonal Health 
• Free Womb Connection & Clearing meditation

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)

Grief can be such a profound teacher if we allow ourselves to "apprentice to it" as this week's guest, Siobhan Asgharzadeh says.

So many of us move through our lives barely touching our grief. Or if we do, we keep it quiet, hidden, placed on a shelf where others cannot see if because we live in such a grief-illiterate culture that asks us to fix or get over things.

But the truth is, real grief, big grief, is not the kind of thing that fits neatly inside a box or disappears after some number of months of feeling it.

It grows us, it changes us, it gives us a deeper sense of meaning and connection. And if we let it, it can help us expand our capacity to become more human, and perhaps even enhance our sense of belonging to this beautiful earth that is constantly speaking in seasons and cycles.

Today's episode is an exploration into these topics, and covers several pillars that Siobhan incorporates into her yearlong grief pilgrimage program called Becoming an Offering. 

It's a look at how we can bring more meaning, storytelling, seasonal living, and embodied practice into our own personal grief journeys. And what a gift it is to offer these elements into our healing path.

Resources:

• Today's shownotes: Explore Siobhan's offerings
• Episode 135: Re-enlivening a wailing culture w Siobhan
• Episode 233: Traversing the wild terrain of grief with herbal allies
• Free Womb Connection & Clearing meditation

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)

When people hear the word "womb" it is more common than not to associate it with pregnancy, birth or postpartum. 

And of course, that makes sense - it is where babes grow alongside the miraculous placenta in the ocean of amniotic fluid til birth. It expands in size far beyond any other organ in the body, and contracts to its pre-pregnancy size. No wonder the uterus is called a "curious" organ in TCM. 

But the womb is SO MUCH MORE than just a baby-generating organ. And when we connect more deeply, listen to the rhythms, signs, symptoms and what it's telling us, we can learn so much throughout our entire lifecycle.

In this episode, I share about how I came to center my life and work on the womb, and how I perceive its many faces to be a true gift to us, no matter what season of life we're in, or whether or not we ever have a babe.

Resources:

• Free guide: Womb connection meditation
• Join the Natural Contraception 2027 waitlist
• Today's shownotes: What are the many faces of the womb?
• Free PDF: Witches Midwives & Nurses 
• Episode 89: A return to wholeness with the womb at the center w Robin Rose Bennett

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)

It can be easy to overlook the importance of our digestion on our hormonal, menstrual or cyclical health... but actually it is foundational.

Literally, the foundations of our organs, tissues and hormones are nourished via our process of digestion, and our "digestive fire" -- referred to as Agni in Ayurveda or Spleen yang in TCM -- is the internal warmth that helps us to actually absorb what we eat.

We can eat the most high quality food and supplements, but if we are not absorbing and metabolizing it, what good does that do?

According to today's guest, acupuncturist and TCM practitioner Helen Spieth, everything from chewing to how we prepare our food to the time that we eat during the day and our nervous system state all have impact on our digestive fire.

She shares all about this, including the various organs involved in digestion, the importance of blood sugar regulation, the 24 hour TCM organ clock, intermittent fasting from a TCM lens, and addressing IBS and SIBO within this TCM nutrition framework and more.

It's a packed episode with such depth and breadth. I hope you enjoy it!

Resources:

• Today's shownotes: Get links to Helen's offerings
• Episode 147: Agni? The digestive fire in Ayurveda
• Episode 159: What is a leaky gut + how it relates to hormones
• Free guide: 10 key herbs for your hormonal health

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)

Click here to send me a quick message :)

Every culture has some relationship with bees, some stories, mythology, even deep reverence. There are goddess traditions centered around bees. Ancient Egypt considered bees to be keepers of the liminal space between life and death.

In these ways, honeybees could be considered healers in their own right. We so often center humans when we think of "healers" but what if we include other-than-human beings too? 

Today's guest, herbalist + beekeeper Allie Armstrong, speaks to bees as the original acupuncturists, and she even has some stories to share on how she's seen evidence of this in her own life.

She also shares about medicinal hive products - from bee pollen to propolis to honey to royal jelly - and some on the ethics and sustainability of these products alongside the medicinal benefits.

And beyond these practical realms, she also sees the bees as wisdom teachers, and shares some of the insights, and the energetic medicine she's received from them too. 

This is such a rich conversation, I hope you enjoy it.

Resources:

• Free guided womb connection meditation and clearing 
• Today's shownotes: Get links to Allie's website and offerings
• Episode 82: Late summer medicine making

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)

I think we forget sometimes that heart and cardiovascular disease is actually the leading cause of death for women and folks with wombs. Like, for real.

And the thing about it is, there are some very simple things we can do that make a huge difference, and it's been shown that only between 3-12% of us are even doing those. Not to mention adding our herbal allies in. 

In this weeks episode I cover the heart as an organ of the summer season from a TCM lens, simple ways you can make a huge impact on your heart health, and some beautiful medicinal plants we can call on truly as tonic herbs over time to prevent and even remedy cardiovascular conditions (on a physical and emotional/spirit level).

You may be surprised by which herbs I chose.

Resources:

• Free guide: Womb connection meditation
• Today's shownotes: Sensitive ecology of your heart
• Episode 50: Adaptogens & your hormonal health
• Episode 56: Womb & heart connection?
• Episode 233: Traversing the wild terrain of grief

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)

It's common for us to orient more to the parts of ourselves we love, feel proud of, or see as lighter or brighter.

But what about the parts that are messier, less easy-to-love, more challenging? We ALL have them, btw.

Most of us hide those parts where we can, we've learned how to move through the  world without outwardly expressing them a lot of the time, unless something comes up that triggers them.

Often this kind of trigger happens in intimate relationships but it can happen anywhere. 

In today's episode, Dani Granaroli speaks to the profound transformation she's experienced since incorporating shadow work practices largely  inspired by Carolyn Elliot's work with existential kink.

We explore her personal journey, and some ideas of what shadow work even is, some insights on a different way of viewing "healthy" relationships and why radical acceptance is key to all of this - including potentially your own healing path.

Resources:

• Today's shownotes: Grab links to Dani's work
• Free guided womb connection meditation and clearing 
• Book: Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliot
• Episode 197: Somatic practices for healing childhood wounds with Kristen Stake

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)

A couple months ago my childhood bestie told me she was hosting a period party for her daughter, and I knew immediately I wanted to reach out to the facilitators to have them on the podcast.

Turns out, these two are the real deal. 

Erica Evans and Darcie Black are both Fertility Awareness Educators that work in the reproductive health field in different niches. Together, they host these "Body Talk" period parties for children 8-12 years old.

They are actual parties, with gift bags and balloons and decorations, and they also teach all kinds of practical topics like vulva anatomy, "red and white flow," menstrual product options and so much more. 

My vision is for more and more of these "period parties" to exist, so I am honored and excited to have these ladies on the podcast to plant the seeds of possibility for all of us. 

Maybe you'll start a period party in your community, too?

Resources:

• Today's shownotes: Grab links to Erica + Darcies offerings
• Free guide: Track Your Cycle Naturally with FAM 

Click here to send me a quick message :)

Summer is often characterized by buoyancy, expansion, joy, creativity, vitality.

But there are times in our lives when we are feeling this life-giving energy of warmth around us and simultaneously navigating a deep season of grief.

This is what I speak to in today's episode. Some ways we might caretake our tender hearts in the peak of summertime, herbal allies for the journey, and more.

Resources:

• Info & registration for July 14th class: Herbal Healing after Pregnancy Loss
• Free guide: 10 key herbs for your hormonal health
• Today's shownotes: Traversing the wild terrain of grief
• Episode 65: Grief & pleasure postpartum & beyond with Stacey Ramsower
• Episode 112: How to tend grief with the earth w India Elyn
• Episode 135: Re-enlivening a wailing culture w Siobhan Asgharzadeh

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)

One of the core pillars hormonal health - the dynamic healthy dance of our hormones - is a resilient nervous system.

I don't love using the word regulated, because that sounds like we're trying to neutralize or dampen our nervous system response, when what we really want is to grow our capacity to feel all the things fully, and complete the waves.

So what can we do yo cool and calm our frazzled, anxious, agitated systems? Herbs can be amazing allies for this, really it's one of the places they shine.

In today's episode, I share about motherwort as a relaxing, antispasmodic, cooling nervine; milky oats as a deep restorative nervous system tonic; and schisandra as an incredible ally for stress resilience as well as nourishing our qi and retaining fluids in the body.

Hopefully these glimpses feel supportive in this summer season that tends towards heat, intensity, drive and excess activity. A time when we would do well to incorporate some cooling and calming herbal allies alongside.

Resources:

• Free 10 key herbs for hormonal health (incl. 5 herbal pillars of hormonal health) guide
• Today's shownotes: Herbal allies to cool + calm the nervous system
• Episode 17: How stress messes with your hormones
• Episode 32: Herbal spotlight on motherwort
• Episode 40: Herbal spotlight on schisandra
• Episode 68: Herbal spotlight on milky oats

If you loved this episode, share it with a friend, or take a screenshot and share on social media and tag me @herbalwombwisdom

And if you love this podcast, leave a rating & write a review! It's really helpful to get the show to more amazing humans like you.  ❤️

DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for educational purposes only, I am not providing any medical advice, I am not a medical practitioner, I’m an herbalist and in the US, there is no path to licensure for herbalists, so my role is as an herbal educator. Please do your own research and consult your healthcare provider for any personal concerns.

Click here to send me a quick message :)