48. Self care as a dynamic, seasonal, everyday practice: Cat Green on Self Care with Herbs

During this episode, I chat with Cat Green from Everyday Empowered. Cat’s a folk herbalist and grassroots community herbal organiser and educator. She's passionate about making it easy -and normal - for people to make simple, effective herbal remedies at home. Through Everyday Empowered, she offers a wide range of practical ways for people to learn about herbs. Cat’s journey down the plant path began during recovery from an extended illness. After seeking the guidance of a naturopath, she began to delve deeper, reading all the books and going down rabbit holes. Which left her wondering…why are there 20 herbs recommended for this one condition, how do I know which one to choose?  These questions continue to inform her relationship with herbs today…during her recovery, Cat came to realise that she was responsible for her own health and the only one living in her own body every day. That having a toolkit of herbs and other supportive practices is wonderful, but it’s tuning in to what our body’s need every day that helps shape how we care for ourselves. I love Cat’s seasonal approach and how her herbal practice, shifts and changes as she listens in to what her body needs as the world around her changes. We chat about moving from immune supportive herbs like Astralgalus through winter, to more nutritive and liver supportive herbs like Nettle, Red Clover and bitter salad greens as we move into Spring… During our chat, we talk about building habits (even boring ones like flossing our teeth) and how starting small and celebrating the tiniest wins can be really helpful at strengthening our neural pathways. One of Cat’s passion is home herbalism and we chat a lot about how getting to know ourselves and our own health issues and becoming familiar with the herbs is a way of reclaiming some of the power that has been lost. By relearning some of these lost skills we can regain confidence in home healthcare traditions. Cat shares how in her early days of delving into herbalism, she often found the sheer volume of information available overwhelming, when all she really wanted was the best remedy for nappy rash! This experience underlies her passion of making home herbalism as accessible as possible for everybody. So grab a cup of your favourite herbal cuppa, find a comfy nook in the sun and settle in to this inspiring and nourishing episode… *SHOW NOTES* You can learn more about Cat, her upcoming offerings, check out her blog posts and buy her herbal starter kits here. Or follow Cat on Instagram and Facebook to keep up to date with all of her offerings. Cat refers to her training with Non Violent Communication Certified Trainer Kate Raffin, you can connect with Kate and learn more about Non Violent Communication here. I mention Sally Kingsford Smith’s beautiful course The Art and Heart of Herbal Medicine which you can learn more about here.  During our chat we refer to a previous episode of the Elder Tree, where Cat was interviewed by Twiggy Dawn, founder of the Elder Tree. You can listen in to that episode here:  Episode 33: Building a Culture of Collaboration in the Herbal Community- Cat Green on Herbal Education To find out more about The Elder Tree visit the website at www.theeldertree.org and donate to the crowdfunding campaign here. You can also follow The Elder Tree on Facebook and Instagram and sign up to the newsletter. Find out more about this podcast and the presenters here. Get in touch with The Elder Tree at:  [email protected] The intro and outro song is "Sing for the Earth" and was kindly donated by Chad Wilkins.  You can find Chad's music here and here.