[00:00:00] Welcome to Planet Spoonie, the podcast for lymies and spoonies healing themselves and the world. In this compassionate and collective space, we learn all about the foundations of truly holistic living. Traditional nutrition, herbal medicine, nature connection, and everything in between. These are the same foundations that have helped me rediscover the magic, wisdom, and innate healing capacity of my own body and the body of the earth.

[00:00:26] Even while living with chronic illness in the time of the climate crisis. I'm your host, Kelsey the Herbalist. Let's dig in. Today I am super excited to share a short and quickie episode all about what it's like to work with me as a client. So I think that the question I most commonly get asked is, what is an herbalist?

[00:00:47] Or what do you do? Or some iteration of that question. Because none of us, for the most part, are raised with any kind of knowledge or understanding of herbalism, herbal medicine, phytochemistry traditional herbal knowledge and wisdom and practices or different schools of herbal medicine, so Most of us have no idea what that is or what it is that I do, and that's totally okay because I did not grow up with this either, and I did not know about it, and that's definitely part of why I fell in love with it.

[00:01:20] But all of that aside, so I wanted to share this episode so you have an idea of what it's like to work with me. And so that there's no questions or confusion and know that you can always reach out to me if you do have any questions after this episode. So how this is going to play out is I am going to walk you through what it's like if you book a session with me and all the way to the, the end of the consult, what happens afterwards and all of that.

[00:01:47] And then I'm going to share a little bit about some of the philosophy underlying my practice. If you follow me on Instagram, you are probably familiar with some of these principles and guiding values. bEar with me, but I hope that you really enjoy it I know that you will learn a lot and at least get familiar with what it's like to work with an herbalist, whether you see me or you see another clinical herbalist.

[00:02:12] So first things first, you head over to my website by clicking the link that says book a one on one consult, assuming you have figured that out, then that takes you to my virtual practice platform. So here, this is a completely private, secure, HIPAA compliant platform where you can book your appointments, pay invoices, upload lab work and forms, where I upload any recommendations for you.

[00:02:41] This is also where you have access to private chat with me. So all of this is secure. All of this is private. You can basically chat and message with me on here 24 7. Of course, I'm not available 24 7, but you can message me at any time whatsoever. However, I check this every day. It may take me a day or two to get back if it's something that's not time urgent.

[00:03:02] Otherwise I will get back to you right away. So that is all on my virtual platform. So once you go there, you can book an appointment with me. And I have options for a three session, six session, or 12 session package. Of course, the more sessions you buy, there is a bigger discount for you. Those are cheaper per session.

[00:03:27] But the most popular package currently is the three session package. So let's say you book a three session package with me. So you go through You pay the invoice for the package, there are payment plans available, so you can see all of that. And then once you do that, you have the option to go ahead and book your consultations.

[00:03:47] So there are three consultations here, the initial consultation and two follow up consultations. Now the time is somewhat variable here, just depending on kind of what you need and what's going on in the movement. moment. So your very first consultation, your initial consultation will be an hour to an hour and a half long.

[00:04:07] And before we even start that you will have booked these appointments You will have the option to upload any lab work, any kind of current medical paperwork or information, and then you will fill out the intake forms that I have available for you all on that platform. It's super easy. Digital. You don't have to print anything.

[00:04:27] So you do all of that. I review it all before we ever meet that way. I'm familiar with your case and what's going on with you. So you book that I review everything and then we have our initial consultation. Like I was saying, this can be an hour to an hour and a half, and this is really to provide us with the space to go.

[00:04:47] deep. Something that I hear from a lot of my clients is that they have never had any healthcare practitioners spend this much time with them really going through their entire medical history and lifetime. This is something that is very common in more holistic, functional, and integrative medicine.

[00:05:07] This is how I was trained as an herbalist to really do a comprehensive overview and get a. Fully, full, thorough background on your history and your case and what's going on so that I can start to observe patterns and hear your story. So that is just a very relaxed one to one. We can do it either on the phone or on video chat.

[00:05:30] Again, we will do it through this virtual practice platform. It's super easy. I have never had anyone have issues getting on there. So we will have that first session. It will be on video or on phone call. After that session, I will review everything and I will come up with a recommendation form for you.

[00:05:50] So the recommendation form is something that I try to keep somewhat brief, but still comprehensive enough that you feel like you're walking away with plenty of information. So This can depend on the client and what really you feel like you have the capacity for, but it's always a fine balance. And I like to give people things in order of priority so that to just focus on one thing at a time and then you can ladder or stair step from there.

[00:06:20] But again, I have learned to keep these a little bit more minimal because honestly, most of us get really overwhelmed. thE recommendation sheet contains a few different pieces. First, we look at the goals that you have for yourself and the goals that I am adding in for you or tailoring to you according to what your goals are.

[00:06:45] So I list out short term goals and long term goals so that there's just that bullet point. Directory for you to reference and resource back to and for us to update every single time we meet together so we know that we are on the same page and what we are trying to achieve in our work. So once we get past the short term and long term goals, which maybe some examples I could give you would be.

[00:07:10] So if someone, one of the major, triggers for them, that is inhibiting their quality of life is poor sleep. So that might be the short term goal is sleep support. And it might include things like supplements or lifestyle practices. Little rituals or routines that you can do that might include a personalized tincture, something like that to address sleep support.

[00:07:32] So the short term goal would be sleep support and then the recommendations will be tailored around that. Another short term goal might be immune support. If someone is experiencing Some kind of chronic allergies, let's say, and it's again really disrupting their quality of life, and we need to address that right away.

[00:07:53] Say it's excess mucus congestion and they really just feel like they cannot get their nose clean and clear, then we will address that immune support, likely with an herbal tincture, some kind of herbal formula, maybe a. Those are examples of short term goals because they're really immediately important and affecting your quality of life.

[00:08:11] Long term goals are a little bit different. I'll just use the same two examples for the sake of clarity of how these are nuanced and how these can be different. So let's say sleep support as a long term goal. When would this be a long term goal? So let's say we have someone who their primary concern is gut health, gut issues, they're having lots of pain or cramping, gas, bloating, indigestion, whatever it might be.

[00:08:39] And they also experienced you know, poor quality of sleep that usually affects them once a week out of the month, right? So this is, it's a corny example, but so obviously the short term goal for that person would be addressing this immediate gut, gut discomfort, but a long term goal would be sleep support.

[00:08:58] So you can see how it's nuanced depending what's going on with you. And when I talk to you, figuring out what are the things that are Affecting your quality of life most what are the things that maybe are impeding your body from recovering from a chronic infection a situation like that or maybe is you know triggering stress or flare ups so For that person, sleep support would be more of a long term goal and accordingly the recommendations might shift a little bit for how we support sleep long term.

[00:09:34] And it may be, tailored supplementation that also is addressing some level of things happening with the gut or nutrition or whatever it might be. And again, the other example, so say immune support. Say we have someone who You know, once or twice a year gets a cold or a flu, and they feel like it, has progressively gotten worse over the years, but for the most part it doesn't affect them.

[00:09:58] I'm just coming up with these on the fly. So let's say that's going on, right? But they have other things happening that are more pressing, really affecting their everyday life. And so those one to two colds a year aren't a huge concern, but they are progressively getting worse. So they're interested in long term bolstering immune support, right?

[00:10:18] So it might be like, making up a custom immune blend that they can simmer into broths right at home versus a tincture that's maybe more pricey and they can just make this broth in big batches and freeze it and try to have it like three to four days a week in a sipping mug of broth by freezing it in like giant whiskey cubes.

[00:10:39] I don't know, whatever it might be. So then the recommendation would be tailored. And that immune bolstering support would be more of a long term goal so that we can address this long term, but there are more pressing things to deal with in the short term. So hopefully that made sense to you so that you understand a little bit of the nuance of what these short term and long term goals might be, what they might look like, and how we address them.

[00:11:04] Another example, working with chronic Lyme, right? And there are different kind of angles with this. But as someone who has been through chronic Lyme, I feel very strongly about it is very important to open up detox pathways, eliminatory pathways before beginning any antimicrobial treatment.

[00:11:22] Of course, if you have Lyme or a chronic infection, it's very important to treat the infection. However, I would argue in the cases of a chronic infection, right? Acute is different. In a chronic infection, the short term, we need to get detox pathways opened up first so that second in the long term, which, it may not actually be that long of a period, but the second thing we can do is then actually start treating the infection because we don't want to overwhelm the body and overwhelm the system to where we're killing the bacteria.

[00:11:53] And they're releasing all these endotoxins and we have no way to get it out of the body, right? So that's what, that's why the short term and long term goals are important so that we can really tailor and gear what we're working on, what we're addressing, and then stair step from there so that you can sequentially see kinetic improvement so that things progressively get better and better.

[00:12:14] The longer we work together and the more that you are able to implement these different goals and recommendations into your life. Okay, so next after on your recommendation sheet, after we have your short term goals, your long term goals, then we have the lifestyle section. So again, as I said earlier, I really do try to keep this as brief as possible because I don't want to overwhelm people and I am always happy to provide more information.

[00:12:42] But they are still pretty comprehensive. I must say, I just, I try to keep it as brief as possible, but give you at least two to three tools in each category. So lifestyle, going with, we'll just keep going with the theme of what I said earlier. So say, it's this person whose sleep is a top priority.

[00:13:01] They're not getting enough sleep and it is affecting every area of their life. Lifestyle recommendation might include sleep hygiene pieces, right? So honing in on a bedroom, bedtime routine, setting a cutoff time for when all screens are going to be shifted into dark mode or night shift. Coming up with any other kind of sleep hygiene rituals, maybe a cup of herbal tea every evening that is custom formulated for you or whatever it might be.

[00:13:28] Maybe a lifestyle. There are so many different things that could come up in, in kind of the lifestyle category. Maybe it's around having a discussion about fertility. Maybe this client is really concerned about fertility in the long term. And so a lifestyle piece as we walk through.

[00:13:49] cycle tracking and the practice of getting familiar with the phases of your cycle. This is a course for anyone, for women and anyone who menstruates. So that might be a lifestyle piece. So there, there can be different pieces here. Again, I try to keep it simple, but also comprehensive. Okay, so now I get to the good stuff.

[00:14:09] So we had our short-term goals, our long-term goals, and our lifestyle recommendations. Now we have nutrition recommendations. So these are super individual, depending on the client. Different clients want different things. Some people are really just interested in an herbal formula. Some people are really more interested in nutrition advice or.

[00:14:29] meal planning or recipes that are custom tailored to them or a condition they're living with. It's totally dependent on the situation and I can do all of the above. So nutrition recommendations might be, some basic education around intuitive eating practices or, the different colors of fruits and vegetables, or, maybe someone is struggling with some gut issues.

[00:14:55] So They need to implement some level of food combining that way. They're not being bothered by certain foods, digesting quicker than other foods. Maybe someone has found out that they're sensitive to histamines or salicylates or oxalates or whatever chemical group. So it's totally dependent on the condition and what's going on.

[00:15:15] I am very much a practitioner that leans into your favorite food. I I have said this before on the podcast. I have said it on my social media. I will always lean into the foods that you love. I am not someone who is a big advocate for doing these long term, really strict diets or elimination diets, of course, there can be times where that is needed and helpful, however, most of the time, I think that is too much to ask and causes a lot of stress, and I think it's important that we can go out and enjoy time with friends and with family and eat our favorite foods, and I don't think that eating the foods you love is going to be the thing that keeps you from healing.

[00:15:56] There is. A lot of extremism out there in nutrition. So ultimately, the point is, I work with the crowding out principle. I am all about including more things that make you feel good. And, maybe that crowds out some of the things that make you feel not so great. But maybe you eat both, it doesn't, we don't, there's this ideal perfect diet out there that's just not a real thing. Anyways. That, the nutrition can take lots of directions it can be as simple as talking about water intake, or electrolytes, or like I said, walking through a meal plan, or recipes. And then very often, not with everyone, but very often I will also recommend some level of supplementation.

[00:16:39] So there are often just different nutrients and supplements that can be really helpful in relieving symptoms that we're having, or maybe managing them, improving our quality of life. I do not like to over recommend supplements. They can be very pricey, and I am definitely a believer in getting everything that we can from our food.

[00:17:02] However, there are many times and situations where supplements can be a very powerful tool to help us feel better, and I think that is such a privilege that we have access to these supplements if we have access to them. So I do incorporate those sometimes, but I like to stay really practical and realistic about it.

[00:17:20] And again, this is always client led. I always work with what works for you. I am not the kind of clinician who thinks I know your body better than you or that I know best. This is a team effort. This is something we're doing together and I am here to guide and support you. So if you want supplements, we do them.

[00:17:39] If you don't, we don't. And I promise we can still make progress. So that's. That's my little piece about that. Okay, so we walked through short term goals, long term goals, and nutrition. So next is the super fun part that people always wonder about. So we're looking at our recommendation sheet. We have all those pieces, and now is the most exciting piece, which is the herbal formula, or formulas, depending on your situation.

[00:18:09] So Oh, I love this part. So the herbal formulas can take a lot of different iterations and forms. It totally depends on what is happening with the client. So this could be everything from something that is topical or external like a tea blend for bathing and your body for doing a sitz bath, maybe a blended powder that you are using to address some kind of skin condition or skin issue.

[00:18:38] Maybe it's a liniment or a spray or a hydrosol. There's, there are so many topical options. And then of course, teas and tinctures and soup herb blends or broth blends. There are again powders that you might be adding to like oatmeal or applesauce or smoothies. Really the sky is the limit and it is again so unique to the situation and to the individual.

[00:19:05] Is this, Uh, a tincture that you are going to be taking to support you through really intense anxiety or really intense menstrual cramps, then a tincture is going to be desirable, right? Because it's fast acting, it's absorbed very quickly, and you can take it with you on the go. And it's going to be much stronger than like a tea or a powder per se.

[00:19:32] But it may be something like, we want to support your immune system, and we're looking at hormone health long term, so you just need to take a little bit every day, so we might do a powder that you have in your daily oatmeal or your daily smoothie, or you mix into your coffee. It completely depends on the action that we're going for and what we're trying to address as well as the herbs that we're using because Different types of herbal medicine formulas or remedies will extract different chemical constituents.

[00:20:05] They will be absorbed in the body in different ways. So there's a lot that kind of goes into considering this. I love doing teas always. If we can do a tea, I aim for a tea. But like I'm saying, It is just totally dependent on the situation, and so I like to really select what kind of herbal formula we're going to be working with, dependent on what is going on for you, how you're feeling, and what we're looking to work with.

[00:20:33] Going off, let's say the, some of the examples we said before. So say we have this client with the sleep problems, right? So next, we go back to the kind of nutrition, cause I didn't say for that. So say, part of their sleeping problem is. Leg cramping or restless legs.

[00:20:51] So we might try electrolytes or minerals or magnesium to see if that's part of the reason why they're experiencing that or if that provides any support maybe they are struggling with, sleeping at night due to kind of blood sugar swings. So then we, I might make some nutritional recommendations based off of that.

[00:21:09] Maybe some fiber during the day or some kind of Okay. little something that they eat every single evening to help stabilize the blood sugar before going to bed. Maybe we try some different supplements for the same thing, like I said, magnesium or something else um, for blood sugar, just depending on what's going on.

[00:21:28] So we'll try different things there. Again, this is like just totally generalized, kind of corny example, because of course I can't give you like an actual client issue. So say that's the nutrition we work with there, right? Or maybe, we try something else. And then looking at herbal formulas.

[00:21:47] So say to start off, we work with a tincture because we really want it to be effective. So we want to start off with a heavy hitter of really high dose concentrated herbs to help slip. And shift the nervous system into more of a parasympathetic state, more of a rest and digest state, to calm the heart down, relax the body So maybe we start with a tincture that's going to be a little heavier hitting and then we slowly transition them into a tea over time as they get more used to sleeping.

[00:22:18] Maybe it's more they start with the tea at the very beginning and then they also take some capsules because tincture or an alcoholic extract is just not an option for them. Like perhaps that tea includes some just super calming and gentle herbs like lemon balm and chamomile and a little ginger or maybe passion flower and skullcap.

[00:22:47] This guy's kind of the limit and it so depends on What else is going on for a person? So maybe there's a beautiful tea like that and they put a little dash of honey in it and that becomes part of their nightly routine, right? Along with whatever supplementation, nutritional changes, lifestyle changes that we've recommended.

[00:23:06] And this is why you can now see Looking at this whole picture, how this all really begins to come together. So once this all kind of layers, we have lifestyle, we have nutrition, we have herbs. And then of course, I am always happy. I love working with other healthcare practitioners. If anyone else on your team is willing to work with me, I have worked with many other healthcare practitioners in the past and I continue to do so I love being able to do that to really help you feel like you are being supported by a team of people to make sure that we are all on the same page and supporting you to get to your goals, to feel your best, to really manage your health in a way that feels very good. And so of some other additional considerations that I might put in there is recommendations of things that you might want to bring up with your doctor, any potential testing to ask your doctor about.

[00:24:01] And then any pieces that I want us to follow up on together. So we put all this together and you essentially have this really comprehensive recommendations form when you walk away from a client. And this ends up being several pages long. I try to keep it. Bullet points, like I was saying.

[00:24:19] So it is really comprehensive, but at the same time, it's brief enough that you won't feel overwhelmed that you're like, Oh, okay. I'm just going to do one thing from each of these categories to start. And that's actually a lot, right? If you just have one lifestyle change. And then you add your herbal formula in, that's actually a lot of change all at once.

[00:24:44] And it seems really simple, but it's so powerful. And I love hearing from my clients because so often they will be like, Is this supposed to work this fast? Am I just imagining this? Is this tincture do herbs really do this? And it makes me laugh because it's the plants sell themselves.

[00:25:03] The plants are so effective. And really, this is what herbalism and holistic nutrition, functional, natural, integrative medicine is all about. It's just about giving your body the tools that it needs to heal and function optimally. And I don't mean healing now or ever as in you have no diagnoses now, you are healed forever.

[00:25:24] That is like some idealized ableist fantasy. We live in bodies that will always have conditions, chronic conditions, diagnoses, things that happen. That's okay. How can we live our best lives with those things? What are the things that we can heal from? What are the things that we can manage? How do we get through flares?

[00:25:44] When I say heal, just know that is the context to which I'm referring. So yeah, that's that's the whole recommendation sheet. We have all these pieces. We have You know, our next follow up date plan, follow up pieces for you to discuss with me, things to discuss with your doctor or other practitioners and then really custom, customize and personalize short term goals, long term goals, lifestyle, nutrition.

[00:26:10] and herbal medicine recommendations and then your custom formula or formulas. And yeah, that's it. You have this awesome, comprehensive recommendation sheet to work through. And usually clients take these and it depends on the client and they get implementing with things right away. And then we'll check in through the platform via chat.

[00:26:32] You can let me know how things are going. Fill me in. Are you having a hard time taking the tincture? Are You having difficulty swallowing capsules? Is that maybe not going to work for you? We can just talk through and troubleshoot everything. And one other thing that I always do with the recommendation sheet to make it easier for you is I always do a little video walkthrough.

[00:26:54] So I try to make these as brief as possible. But I find that when I explain People's recommendations to them face to face that there's like this glassy eyed stare because a lot of things are going over their head So what I'd like to do now is I record a little walkthrough video where I walk through your recommendation sheet for you And I post it on your sheet in the portal so that you can just click on that link watch the video where I explain to you like Why am I recommending that you take magnesium or Why am I recommending that you start incorporating bone broth into your routine and how you can make it super easy and affordable Versus feeling like it's this huge fancy romantic thing that you couldn't possibly do I might explain some of the herbs in your herbal formula and mention that passion flower tastes really bitter.

[00:27:49] So would you prefer that I do X, Y, or Z with it? It just gives me an opportunity to explain the recommendations to you a little bit so that you can really understand why I'm recommending what I'm recommending, what some of the nuances are. And then it's there for you permanently. So I always hear from clients are like, I want to know more about this herb or that herb.

[00:28:12] That is the point of me posting this video. It's it is really just like this short, fun little introduction for you to get familiar with everything on your protocol. And then, of course, if you want more information from there. I will point you in the right direction. But this is just meant to be a resource that you have that you can always go back to when you need more support or when you need to understand why you're doing what you're doing or when you're feeling confused or unsure.

[00:28:37] You can just always go back there and look at your form and watch this video. So that's it. That is how the initial consultation goes. The process pretty much repeats for follow ups. Follow ups are just a bit shorter. follow ups tend to be anywhere between 40 and 60 minutes. Again, it just totally depends on the situation, what's going on for you and what feels good in the moment for both of us.

[00:29:00] So then we do, you just book the follow up, we do the whole same process. You don't have to fill out quite as comprehensive of an intake form, but there's just like a little check in form for you to fill out before the consultation so that I can update on anything that maybe we haven't talked about through the chat.

[00:29:17] and just get a little bit of info for you on how your recommendations are going that we meet. And then I basically recreate that exact same recommendations form again, just like an updated version two. Again, it gets posted into the portal for you again with a little video walkthrough and all of these will stay there forever.

[00:29:36] So you can access all of these at any time. If we made some changes after the second or third, session together. And you're like, actually, I really love that formula from session one, you can always go back and look at it. It will all be there. And I love that. I think it just makes it easier for both of us and really empowers you to have access to all the different pieces of your healthcare management.

[00:30:01] So that is really it. I really hope that this made sense to you and clarified for you what it's like to work with an herbalist, more specifically what it's like to work with me. I am really just so grateful to have the opportunity to help people in this way and to help foster the connection between people and plants because they're just amazing and so efficacious and it's so fun to teach everyone how to start doing this themselves at home.

[00:30:35] It just brings me so much joy. So if you have any questions or you are curious about booking a consult with me, head over to my website. And hit that book, a one on one consult link. You can always opt to book a free Q& A call first, if you're not sure, where we can just chat about what's going on with you.

[00:30:55] I can answer any questions that you might have. That is always an option. Just a reminder, again, my Practice is entirely virtual, which I absolutely love. I think it makes consultations a breeze because you can do this right from the comfort of your own home with a cup of tea in hand. I always strive to make this practice inclusive and compassionate.

[00:31:19] I am not into there being a hierarchy here. I fully want to be here to listen and support you. I am all about empowering and educating my clients so that they can really feel like they not only walked away with support and guidance, But that they really learn something, that you feel like you have a whole new toolkit that you're building out of resources and things that you can do to take care of yourself and to feel better.

[00:31:48] I am really just so thrilled to be able to provide these really detailed, individualized kind of custom recommendations and herbal formulas because y'all deserve the best support. You should not have to choose between. Taking incredible medicines that help you heal that are pharmaceuticals prescribed by your doctor and also eating, a wonderful diet and maybe working with a beautiful herbal tea made just for you.

[00:32:19] We don't have to choose between all these things, but it's important that we work with qualified healthcare practitioners who understand how to ensure that we are doing this safely and in a way that will be effective and bring us relief. I really love to embrace both modern and traditional medicine.

[00:32:37] We do not need to choose one or the other. Because everything has a place when it comes to your vitality and being. So I encourage you to book a one on one session today. Go ahead and click that link in the show notes to book a free Q& A call. Or go ahead and purchase the 3, 6, or 12 session package if you are listening to this in February.

[00:33:00] And for the rest of the month, I still have that 50 percent off promo going. So that's just about another week, and the code is plantpower24. You can find that in my Instagram, I posted a reel. I will repost it to my stories today on the day of the podcast airing, and I think that is it. So I really look forward to talking to you if this is something you are interested in.

[00:33:25] My highest goal with this is always to support the fellow Limeys and Spoonies out there who are living with chronic illness, chronic Lyme. autoimmune conditions, hypermobility, POTS, any of these neurodivergence, any of these kind of baskets that, that so many of us experience all at once. And it is my absolute honor and joy to serve you and to be here to support you.

[00:33:54] I am so grateful that you are here and please reach out if you have any questions. Remember that when we reconnect to our bodies and to nature, healing is truly inevitable. Our bodies are a direct reflection of the ecosystems we inhabit, and just like this earth, our bodies know how to heal.