WISH Radio: Straight Talk for Women's Health

You have an ache, a pain, a cough, cold, the flu, fatigue, brain fog, a bite, sores, pimples, cuts, bruises, heartburn and headache. So you reach for your acetaminophen, aspirin, ibuprofen, antacids, antibiotics, Accutane, codeine and hydrocortisone to help ease the ache, the burn, the sting, the swelling, and a dose of something to help you sleep through all the discomfort. Although allopathic medication does have its place, food can also be your medicine.

Wild plant food in particular, boasts powerful medicinal qualities when you learn how to use them correctly. Here to talk to us about the wonders of wild herbal medicine and how the plants around your house can be alchemized into healing tinctures, poultices, balms, juices and teas, is the wild and weedy woman, Michelle Summer Fike. Michelle, thank you so much for being here to get a little wild with us today.

You can access the complete transcript to this interview with Alison Ramsay and Michelle Summer Fike (now Wolf) here.

• Exactly what to put in your own herbal first aid kit.
• The most important things to know about foraging and wild crafting herbs.
• How to recognize when plants are trying to get your attention.
• The hands-down, BEST way to start learning about herbs.
• The best ways to use herbs in your daily life. (It's SO easy you'll love it!)
• Inspiring stories that will make you fall in love with herbs and how to use them!
• And much, much more !!

Since the time of this interview, Michelle found the love of her life, and remarried. You can catch her on her website www.wholegreenheart.com and on Facebook proudly now known as Michelle Wolf.

"We are all on one great survival trip trying to figure out how to meet our needs for shelter, fire, water and food, preferably without destroying the planet in the process. That is really the bottom line. How can we sustainably meet our needs for shelter, fire, water and food without consuming all the earth's resources, without altering the climate and without being enslaved to a meaningless job until we die?"

This is a quote from my next guest's speech, The New Era of Self Sufficiency, shared at the Alaska Bioneer's Conference. He is the author of a wealth of books on wilderness survival skills, sustainable living, sustainable building, botany and relating to the natural world. He founded a Green University for young adults and an Outdoor Wilderness Living School for children. Just by spending an evening indulging in his website, hollowtop. com, I became even more knowledgeable, more inspired and more impressed by this man's passion and commitment to really living and really living in harmony with nature and with each other.

Here to talk to us about botany, getting back in communication with nature and affordable ecological housing is the author, entrepreneur and eco-philosopher, Thomas J. Elpel.

Learn More About Thomas J. Elpel here.

Learn More About Alison Ramsay here.https://www.facebook.com/alisonramsay.nz/

You can catch the full transcript to this interview here.

This interview was conducted by Alison Ramsay as part of our Back to the Wild Summit on Sustainable Living

We are all driven to become the best version of ourselves.  And to do this we think we need to try out the latest and greatest fad diets, fashions, products, superfoods and even pharmaceutical drugs that promise to enhance our health and happiness.

As we surf the net on our iPhones, iPads and MacBooks looking for the answers to love, life and an end to loneliness, deep in our DNA and just outside our door, quietly ever present is an answer to health, vitality and interconnectedness.   Time and time again the beauty, wonder and power of nature inspires and heals us physically and spiritually.   It teaches inner calm, perspective and brings us a feeling of well-being.

It speaks to the wild nature that is inside of us.  But in a world where technology reigns and the dollar is king, in a consumer driven world where nature cannot be bought and bottled and sold, so is therefore largely forgotten, we experience a great disconnect from this wildness.

But thankfully there are people out there like my next guest who have made it their life passion to shed new light on old wisdom and help us to understand again why we should switch off, unplug, ditch the fancy footwear and honor the rhythms, cycles and elements of nature to reawaken that wild creature that resides in us all.

Alison:

Daniel, thank you so much for being here to get a little wild with us today. Daniel Vitalis: Hey, and it's great to be here and I really loved that introduction. Alison: Great. Thank you. So I know you have gone really deep in your exploration of rewilding and have a lot of amazing knowledge to share.  But let's just begin at the beginning with a bit of an introduction into rewilding.

What is rewilding?  And why is it something we should consider doing to enhance our long-term health.

Daniel Vitalis:

You know it's so interesting when we think about ourselves as a species.  You know human beings – we tend to get into a mindset like we are visitors on planet Earth and like we're not really as much a part of it as we are observers here visiting, or even exploiting the earth, but not so much part of it.  Not the same way that the other animals are, not the same way that the plants are and the fungi are and the microbes are.  It's almost like we have an us or them mentality.

Now, the reality is I think when we look at ourselves more objectively for a moment, we see there's a lot of similarity between us and all the other organisms of the planet.  It's not hard to see the resemblance between ourselves and maybe some of those relatives of ours, the great apes, and we can see these tremendous differences.  But we also see that there's a lot of similarity.

And we see that our needs are very similar to so many of the other species, particularly the mammals.   And again as we move toward those primate animals – so similar.   We see that we need the same kind of foods and we need the same kind of environmental factors and we're born from our mother's womb and we nurse from our mother's breast and we're raised in community.

And we're so similar in so many ways.

It's almost as if in order to prove our difference we've divorced ourselves more and more from nature over time – as time's gone on.

And we're at this point today where we are frantically trying to figure out a solution to our diminishing health.  Not just physical health, but also our emotional health and our psychological health.   And we're frantically looking for answers and we're willing to take extreme measures in order to try to find – re-establish that homeostasis, that balance we're looking for.   But we keep looking in the places that we've been looking.

We keep looking to things that divorce us further and further from nature.  So we keep trying more drugs, different drugs, newer drugs.

We explore new ways to slash and burn our bodies in a hope to cut away what's bad, you know what's hurting.  We explore more and more ways to augment ourselves.

We isolate ourselves more and more from nature.  We seal our houses up more, we climate control more, we remove ourselves more and more and isolate ourselves more and more, not just from the natural world but even from each other. And re-wilding is sort of a different approach.

It says, "Hey, wait a second!"

We come from the natural world.

We may not remember it very well, but it's where we come from.  And even just a walk out in the forest on a trail brings us a kind of inner contentment and joy and a sense of belonging that nurtures something in us that a lot of us have lost.  And rewilding says hey, maybe the path back to health, back to happiness, back to psychological health has something to do with us re-entering the natural world again and beginning to honour and respect our needs for nature and the things, the food, the water, the air, the sunlight that comes from nature.

So re-wilding is – for me what it is, is it's an approach, it's a strategy, it's a path toward health that believes in and respects the natural way for humans rather than gushing over technological quick fixes.

Let's talk about your lady parts and pieces. You know your nose and toes are there to be adored and adorned. You brush your hair and floss your teeth and do those great butt-lifting exercises you learned in the 80s. You smother your skin with lotions and potions and love to take long, hot baths. And it's easy to take care of what you can see.

But inside your skin, a puzzle of parts you're not really sure about, are there pumping and thumping and throbbing and bobbing about. And if you knew a bit more about them, you could dramatically improve your overall health, energy and well-being for the long haul.

Perched beneath your pelvis, is a croissant-shaped treasure you likely know little about. Here to help you get acquainted with the power of your pelvic floor, is Dr. Belisa Vranich.

Listen in as we fill a few of the missing pieces and touch on anything that was missed, as well as more of Nadine's own wisdom for oral and overall health and well-being.

Listen in as Nadine Artemis and Tera discuss the key presenters in the TOOTH Summit and share a little about what to expect and watch for in this enlightening series of tooth truth-telling interviews with the world's leading daredevil dentists and renegade health heroes!

You curl your hair, spritz perfume, and prepare yourself, just in case today might be the day. You scope out the possibilities in the local produce section of your favorite health food store. You keep your eyes up, and hopeful, at the hardware store, the shopping mall, your friend's birthday party, and while walking down the street, and though you do not mean for your optimism to wane, admittedly you sometimes wonder if maybe you're just not meant to find "The One"--that special companion to walk by your side in love and life. Well before you hang up your glass slippers, sit back, and soak in the warmth and wisdom of one of the world's foremost experts in matters of the heart. Katherine Woodward Thomas is here to share what it takes to call in the one you've been looking for. Katherine, thank you so much for being here with us, and welcome to WISH.

• How to know when to take your friends' advice and when to ignore it
• The kind of support you really need to make your dreams and goals happen.
• Why we seem to get stuck in unhealthy or unproductive patterns of behaviour and how to break free.
• Where the work of calling in "The One" really starts and what it should look and feel like.
• How to find out what promises you've made to yourself or others that you may have forgotten about (but that are still subconsciously calling the shots on how you live!)
• The process you need to follow that will really help you make a breakthrough in the direction of love!
• And so much more!! Katherine could barely hold herself back in this call and it's loaded with juicy inspiration and wisdom to inspire you on the road to a love you deserve to have!

To learn more about Katherine and her work, please visit her website here.

He leaves crumbs on the counter when he makes his toast, tracks mud into the house with his dirty boots, stutters when he's nervous and snores if he eats peanut butter before bed. But you fidget with your fork, interrupt when you're excited and stack your socks in perfect piles. What if the things that bug you, get your goat and secretly annoy you about the one you love, could also be their most endearing quirks and characteristics. If there's any woman knows the world of love, finding it, keeping it and happily ever after, it's Arielle Ford, and she's here to talk to us about the wonders of "wabi sabi love."

• why a Japanese art for accentuating the imperfect can help you save and improve your relationship
• the inspiration you need to turn irritation and annoyance into heart-warming appreciation for others.
• beautiful stories that will make you melt your crusty considerations and learn to see the beauty in the rough.
• when "wabi sabi love" doesn't work--the conditions that shouldn't be just lovingly accepted and cannot be easily solved.
• stories and encouragement to help you keep love front row and centre in your life.
• fantastic examples of relationship foibles that were easily overcome with the wonders of wabi sabi love!

If you've ever felt too fat, too poor, too tired, too busy, too beaten down, shaken up or tossed inside out, then you know suffering.

You may have noticed that when you stopped to blame your bank account balance, ex-boyfriend and the size of your thighs, things didn't really change much. If, in spite of all you kind thoughts, good deeds and the very best of intentions, you still find yourself suffering, then lend an ear, pull out a pen and paper, and get ready to do 'the work.

• The number one most important question to ask children who are having behaviour difficulties.
• Alternatives to medication for children who are being labeled "ADHD."
• How the pharmaceutical industry twisted definitions of childhood behaviour to make it a "disease."
• How up to 40% of school boys in some states are now highly-addictive, stimulant drugs under prescription from a doctor.
• Why communication is vital to resolving upsets with children and how to learn to see things from their point of view a lot more easily.
• The dangers of getting so busy with our "to do lists" that we forget "to do" the most important thing of all--engage in sincere, attentive and interested communication with our kids.
• Amazing stories of recovery from extremely upsetting behavioural conditions with children using powerful communication tools.
• How drug companies play on parent emotions to make more sales.
• The family structure necessary to keep kids happy and co-operative.
• The effects of fast-paced media on the confidence and well-being of children and families.

You can learn more about Dr. Wedge here, and to make sure you're able to access all the calls in our Courage & Communication Summit, please sign up here.