Episode Transcript:
Stirling 0:11
Welcome to witchy wellness weekly. If you love learning and interweaving healthy self growth and making magic, this is the show for you. And when we come together This is where we share how to breathe magic into your daily practice with creative self care inspiration to empower your unique journey to easeful health through witchy wellness, so that you can remember that your health choice is always your own. We are here to empower your freewill to decide for yourself. I'm Sterling, your magical methods mentor, nature based medicine maker farm life purveyor and nerd for all things esoteric, you can find my alchemical experiments at WWW dot wild folk which muse.com We are joined by our co host. Hilary is a certified clinical Ayurvedic Practitioner with the eye of a fine artist specializing in customizing herbs, nutrition and habits that support your body's unique cyclical rhythms at WWW dot Wilde veda.com. To support this show, and we the creators or for behind the scenes content, early access, a member only experiences come join the tribe@www.patreon.com slash witchy wellness, our private community is a safe place to explore your inner magic, where you are the hero of your own story on a planet that is thriving. It's Prime Time to climb out of the broom closet, my friends, because our Earth needs your wild magic right now.
And I am so excited to be here with you having this conversation that we can share with basically anyone in the entire world that's ready to listen. And everyone is a little bit obsessed with releasing all the collective trauma that has been sustained and experienced over the past year, or generation or century or millennia. I mean, who's counting? I know that you wrote a blog post on the necessary steps and your recommendations when approaching how to clear out and prepare to set intention. And I would really love to hear you talk about it.
Hillary 3:18
Awesome. I would love to talk with you about it. Yeah, clearing out. I think there's such a big focus on food and nutrition like in mainstream, especially on social media, like cleansing and exercising. And it seems to be like that's where we just think that we need to cleanse but I think it's really layered. And I think we also need to cleanse our space and cleanse our mind and cleanse our emotions like it's like a bigger, deeper, broader topic than just food and exercise.
Stirling 3:56
So true. Yes, I agree. I noticed the knock on effect as well for myself. Personally, I noticed how much it helps me if I clear the clutter off my desk or I'm a I'm a Pilar I create Kyle's of you know, I lived in your house, I create a pile of strange things that I magnetize into weird little sculptures of life. And when I even just if I move the piles around when I consciously clear a space physically, I am way more able to approach a new topic or get my head around a thought form I personally had on a really intense journey with diet, and orthorexia, really, and being obsessed with eating.
Hillary 4:52
And they say that last part again because it cut out you said orthorexia and being obsessed with eating and obsessed with eating too healthy
Stirling 4:59
I'm really understanding that I actually damaged my organs by not being in balance. And I know that that's your specialty is the mind body balance and how important diet is to that. So it's interesting to hear you talk about how you think there's actually too much focus on diet when it comes to actually being able to fully cleanse. So I am super intrigued to hear your take on that.
Hillary 5:24
Yeah, I, I had the same issue too, with like being so obsessed with being so pure and so clean and so healthy. That it, it caused a ton of food allergies for me, and like a really reduced diet, which then, over time depleted, like you said, my organs and it messed up my hormones, and all of that. And so, definitely on the journey of recovery, from many years of almost being, like too obsessed with how I think it's an eating disorder,
Stirling 5:57
I really do. It's like, absolutely detrimental, psychologically, emotionally, and physically and so common in the circles that we've run in. And really, it's, it's an eating disorder that is okay to encourage. And that I think is really dangerous, especially if the social media stuff not actually great for everyone, and ketosis is your body responding to trauma and eating itself. And that might be effective.
Hillary 6:32
But that doesn't mean it's healthy. Right? Right. And I'm like, maybe we should just talk about this for a minute. Which is, this actually seems like a really, really common denominator and things that I see. And yeah, like you said, like when our body starts eating itself, basically, it, it feels good because you lose weight. And maybe you do have like, some clarity and things like that, because your body is literally eating.
Stirling 7:04
Right, and we call it clarity, retrospective, retrospectively speaking, that's mania. That's what being in a manic episode feels like. That's what like a hypoglycemia high, is, it's not really a clarity of thought. It's your body boosting your cortisol and adrenaline and going,
Hillary 7:26
Oh, shit, do something. This isn't good. Yeah, exactly. And over time, you're just you just get used to being in a constant state of stress and trauma and like chaos. For what, like, a couple less pounds, maybe
Stirling 7:44
a couple less pounds, a couple more followers, a couple good Instagram posts, a couple smaller bikini sizes. I don't even know. For me, it's interesting because it It wasn't specifically about losing weight. So I didn't identify that it was a problem. Because for me, it was an obsession about not putting dirty things in my body, because I wanted to be healthy and clean. So I was making this really intense judgment about what was good to eat and what was bad to eat. And I was judging other people about that, too. But I thought because it wasn't about how am I going to look, it was about how am I going to be how healthy Am I going to be that I didn't understand how much I was damaging myself and I would make the choice to not eat if there wasn't a healthy option on a very regular basis that I could eat. That was healthy enough. And so I was basically choosing to starve myself, but because I wasn't doing that because I wanted to look thin. I didn't make the connection that that's like really unhealthy. Yeah, and actually like that, and a little bit crazy.
Hillary 9:06
Totally. And yeah, I 100% agree with you. And I think he is kind of this like way of disordered eating. Like you said you didn't see it because it was more of like a mental process less for your physical body. And I think it can really happen in ways of like mind, body and spirit. I know that for many years of studying IR VEDA, it affected me on a really deep like spirit level where I had so much guilt around like, I can't eat anything aside from a very yogic pure diet, because of the karma that I will take on because of that. But because of that I was highly undernourished. And then, like I didn't have any energy, and so I went for really dense Sleep dense high energy calories. I didn't I wasn't consciously doing that. But I ate so much not not in seed butters. So, cow, because so much. Yeah, because it's like, it's pure and it's a plant food and it's healthy. It's healthy, but actually not in the quantity like we're not meant to consume that mentioned that since. And I would easily put down half a jar of nut or seed butter in a day, like me to 100% every day, every day. And to smoothies, I could go through a half a day. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it's crazy. And like, I was a, I was a raw food chef. And I was so obsessed with health for years. And I, I developed allergies to every food that I worked with, like, almost every night in seed, to where my body at one point, I was eating something with almonds in it. And suddenly my body like flushed with this really intense feeling. And I felt like I was so itchy that it was like my blood. Like I couldn't, I couldn't actually it's on the surface because it was internally. Like I was so itchy internally, that I I scratched my skin on this meridian on the digestive meridian. I scratched it until I was bleeding. And I was like, okay, something is happening here. And so I got a food allergy test. And I was allergic to like a laundry list of foods that I worked with and ate every single day. So yeah, long story short, I think there's a huge issue with, like, the shame that comes like the shame that kind of pushes veganism, bringing it back to like the spiritual aspect of like, caught like causing no harm with your food, but in causing no harm to like, animals or anything like that is causing deep harm to myself. And then it's like this psycho spiritual concept of like, well, do I choose to continue to harm myself so as to save other beings? Or do I nourish myself, and which case to take of eating animal products, or whatever it
Stirling 12:19
is chicken or the egg right there. That's guy old, I had a I had a similar experience. I haven't taken an allergy test that's really interesting that you actually have scientific results that show you know, under a shadow of a doubt that you should not be eating those things that constituted almost your entire diet. And so funny too, because to me, it was the nuts and seeds always my go to thing and cocoa crazy amounts of cacao. And that's ended up manifesting in basically liver and gallbladder damage. For me. I'm at the point where I cannot consume anything that has a high oxalic acid content without going into what's it called the Hicks Hicks smer reaction. The thing that happens when you're cleansing and your body basically goes haywire and you feel achy, like you have the flu, and you're going to die. Yeah, your skin's falling off. That happens to me. Now if I eat kale, which was another huge staple. If I eat anything that's not cooked. It's really, really intense. And it happened the first time I tried to go completely raw vegan, I got really sick, and I didn't make the connection. And every time that I've attempted to do that sort of adjustment to my diet ever since because I was basically surviving on kale salads, and green juices and smoothies and chia drinks, and Yep, four or five cow pods in my coffee every morning, and a jar of sunflower seed butter. And that was what I was eating. Because I thought it was healthy. And it's super trendy, and it's really easy to get in the leg. Yep. And I was sick every day, I thought I had a low lying infection. I thought I had something going on in my blood I was having what I realized now are the symptoms of liver failure. The whole list the whole list of what happens before an alcoholic is diagnosed with like cirrhosis of the liver. And I didn't know at the time that those were the signs. I thought that's what happens when you eat healthy, you just have these things happen like stool issues and smells and body responses that are basically your organs shutting down.
Hillary 14:38
And if you think about like the quality, like the thickness and the density of that food, like it's meant to be eaten in a very small amount. And so eating that much is going to it's really going to slow slow down the function of your liver because it's like is jammed up. It's having to deal with so much of that like thickness and that's another thing is like, because I ate the same way as you, I think we even like first connected on that, like, oh yeah. And I would live off smoothies and, and by the end of like this time, you know, I was studying higher beta I was seeing practitioners, every time I saw an Ayurvedic practitioner or an acupuncturist, you were like, you have no stomach acid, like you have no heat in your stomach to be able to digest these things, and you're dumping cold liquid in a stomach that is already like energetically like cold, it doesn't have the stomach acid to break it down. So you're just, it's like cold damp, on top of like this cold damp environment. And it's just putting out like an IV to your digestive fire. Like we have this stomach fire we had, it should be really like acidic, we should have this stomach acid that like breaks things down. But if it can't do that, then not only as not breaking down your food, but when pathogens come in, like viruses or sicknesses or anything like that. You're you're not killing it. And so it's moving through and then and then it just wreaks havoc on your whole digestive system. And then bacteria, the wrong bacteria gets into the wrong places that causes CBOE and like, all these different things. So it was a hot mess the whole time thinking I'm really healthy because I'm I'm having smoothies and raw kale and all the all the different things. So yeah, checking all the boxes. So what what do you do now that's different? Well, I, you know, I eat seasonally. So it's winter here in the Pacific Northwest, and it's very cold. So the way to counterbalance that is warm, and like anxious foods. So eating like soups and stews and things that are really enzymatic, like I had to I've had to really work to replenish my hydrochloric acid in my stomach. So like with lots of spices that have enzymes, I've taken hydrochloric acid to like get that boost lots of probiotics But yeah, I would say just chain like shifting my understanding around food and really focusing on warm cooked meals, like one pot simple to digest meals, no raw, like no cold, damp smoothies, things like that. And, and maybe in the summer, like I'll have that a little bit, a little bit of that. But even like my constitution and IRS data and yours to, like, our constitutions are not meant for that. That's more of like, like those foods are actually good for like Cappadocia, which we both are not that.
Stirling 17:55
None None at all. Not even a little bit. That is so interesting, too. I mean, I read is a super ancient practice that still practiced for a reason. Obviously, it has worked long enough to stay in practice. It's also really interesting to me because I once I realized what was going on, I had a problem. And I was attempting to address it. By doing the things that I thought were healthy, that were the things I would have recommended to someone having digestive problems or feeling sick or having any sort of infection. And the things that I all of my extensive research had told me and all of the weird dogmatic New Age programming had told me and it was totally by chance. Totally by intuitive. Random shramana googling?
Hillary 18:49
Wait. Well, it totally frozen pause. Will you go back to what you started saying after Shimano googling? I have
Stirling 19:04
been upon an interview with someone who I was interested in listening to for a totally different reason. I was not trying to find out anything about diet. I was just wanting to hear what this person had to say. And they mentioned that they had been hospitalized suddenly for a really bad case of kidney stones, and that they had had no idea they should have been totally healthy. This person had personal trainers and had been vegan for four years and was having spinach smoothies every morning with a handful of almonds and strawberry and oxalic acid content. Maybe that's what's going on and I started looking into it. And I was born with low bilirubin anyways, so I was born jaundice baby I was predisposed to an underdeveloped liver and like low bile production I had to they had to take me back and cook me more When I was four days old, I went back to the hospital and they put me in an incubator because I was premature. So my whole life, I have had that going on. And I had no idea I thought I was being so cautious and healthy, I had no idea that choices I was making were playing to that weakness that I inherently have. And so I started researching it a little bit more, I started making so much sense all these Phantom pains and symptoms that have been going on for years, all of these weird things in totally different parts of my body that I never would have guessed were related to gallbladder, liver, stuff, pancreas stuff was in any way related. I mean, I thought that I was sustaining muscular injury. And as soon as I switched my diet, like within a week or two of cutting these things out of my diet, my muscles didn't hurt anymore, my ligaments didn't hurt anymore. I realized these things I thought were like long term damaging injuries from being an acrobat had more to do with what was going on in my liver and my gallbladder than anything else. And it was really enlightening and really interesting. And I cut everything out of my diet, except for basically oatmeal with a lot of butter in it, because I realized I needed Super duper high calcium, because if you have too much, oxalic acid crystallizing in these organs that are supposed to be able to process everything that you're taking into your body, it'll bind to the calcium in your body, it'll like start leaching it out, if you don't have high enough levels of calcium coming in, in your diet for it to bond to. And, I mean, I imagine that's why women end up with a lot of osteoporosis during menopause and things like that. And it was amazing, because I felt the difference when I was consciously no more raw. No more chocolate no more cacau in my coffee, which I was living on, I lived on chocolate, and kale. Like, that's it and not butter. Like, that's what I ate. And, and all of a sudden, my joints didn't hurt. And I, I mean, I it might be psychosomatic, but I really feel like I could feel all the places in my body that had been leached of calcium filling back up with calcium. And it blew my mind. It's also really interesting, because I've been learning a lot about my genealogy. And I am basically 100% Celtic, some Native American. But even that was that line was intermixed with Celtic, and they basically ate warm cooked animal products and outs. Like that's it. So I've basically just been eating oatmeal with a lot of butter in it for many months. And my mom's got some stuff going on similarly, and we're together right now. So so she and I've been able to do it together, which has been like super supportive, and she's been really helpful. And we just, you know, make jokes about it. But like, we eat a lot of oatmeal. I got goats, so that I can like do my own goat milk thing, yogurt, I went really hard into yogurt, because where I live, there's a local dairy the cows that are gonna be my yogurt or my neighbors. Yes, I'm eating a lot of really high fat, good local yogurt and oats, because that's what my ancestors ate, and it worked for them. And it's really interesting, I would love to have this kind of conversation with people who have a more diverse ancestry to find out if they've had that experience to
Hillary 23:38
absolutely, and I am so with you, I think, you know, looking into, like your blood type and your blood type diet, your ancestry, where you're living right now, like what the climate is, and what's local to your current environment. And like what what your actual ancestors ate not like, not like one generation ago, but like, long term because I agree like I'm, I'm half German, half Cuban, which both animal products I'm also blood type O blood. And that's the type of blood that is not supposed to be vegan at all. We don't come from close to the equator, you know, if you're in like a tropical environment and you are close to the equator and it's warm, it makes sense to eat a lot of fruit and smoothies and things that are colder like it makes a lot of sense. So really figuring that out. And you know, that is one thing too with studying I or VEDA I was following this like iron Vedic diet but not applying it to like current day, culture, reality and like how much you know how different it is. I'm not a sage on a mountain, meditating all day, getting downloads of information. I'm very much like a householder, I have to work, I have to pay rent, I have to do things I have to be in the world. And so trying to live off this pure sattvic, yogic eye or Vedic diet of like kitri and, like steamed vegetables all day, which is awesome. steamed vegetables are great, but like subsisting off it completely. It really, really depleted me and then thinking about it, like, I'm not from India, like, I don't have an ounce of India in me, except for my love of, of the information and the culture there. Like, it's not in my blood. And so to be to be eating this way, and living a certain way. You know, it's more about taking the concepts of, of this practice and applying it to life now, but, but like, mung beans and rice and like Brahmi are not local to me. I love broccoli. I love broccoli.
Stirling 26:06
That's one of those things where I think I went into ketosis and had a super manic episode on way too much. Brahmi. Like, 19 hours straight from Colorado to California was like, it's fine. I'll just put my coffee and I'll just keep driving. I'm rolling. Dude. I was like,
rolling, which is fun, and it feels great and horribly dangerous. Driving next to the semi trucks rapping and drumming on my steering wheel. I don't drink my coffee anymore.
Hillary 26:36
That's probably really smart. Yeah, that's Brahmi. Maybe in some like milky, toasty tea or something better. We just kind of spun out on some topics were let's, let's bring it back. Where? Where are we going?
Stirling 26:52
What would be your guidance for someone who's totally inundated with social media and the subculture around them that they need to be dogmatic about how they're eating? But are possibly expressing symptoms that tell them otherwise? Like, how do we tune into our body and start figuring that out? Yeah.
Hillary 27:17
Great question. So I think it's, it takes a bit of dropping back. And being less hyper vigilant on what things appear to be from your eye, and really starting to drop back into your body and your feeling sense. And your intuition of like that first, that first voice before the like scientific data and all that stuff drops in and like, what is your body actually craving? What like, if you really feel into it, like, do you feel that you need nourishment? Do you feel that you need cleansing like, but is it the programming, so it's a lot to sort through, but I think the first step is really dropping back from what looks sparkly, and the way to do it from outside and trying to get back inside. And really trying to deepen your connection to yourself and what your body needs. super important. And I think that goes with exercise too, of like, we're in this culture where we exercise, like women's bodies are very different than men's bodies, too. And so a lot of this research is done with men, and like the keto or paleo or whatever. But we're cyclical beings. We cycle through a whole month, which is a whole nother podcast episode. But just briefly, like realizing that we need different things during different periods of the month, and like after bleeding up until ovulation, like we have more energy, we can eat lighter, we have more energy to work out hard. after ovulation. We we actually need far more nourishment, we need more rest, we need more gentle exercise, things like that. And so really tuning into the cycles of your body, what your body needs, stop pushing yourself so hard. And like start kind of thinking in a more holistic way, like you said about your ancestors, your blood type, the season that you're in, what's local to you right now, like you're eating the local dairy understanding where your food is coming from, how to get food that is of the earth, less processed, less trending. Are you being marketed to take a step back from that, like,
Stirling 29:50
that's a really good self check question. We're getting to is is this person trying to sell you a T Yeah,
Hillary 30:00
that's really totally. And like all these super fancy products, and I think, you know, they have their place. And it's it's fun to get exciting things and fancy things. But ultimately,
Unknown Speaker 30:13
things should be more simple, I think, simple, simple of the earth. Simple
Unknown Speaker 30:20
sample.
Stirling 30:23
I think this is true of everyone. It's especially true for autistic people with ADHD, like me a certain amount of attention that I can spend on making a certain amount of decisions.
Hillary 30:34
Can you pause for a sec and go back to like a certain amount of decision making?
Stirling 30:39
What I'm gonna do is grab this little Gremlin can your Gremlin? Come on? Okay, yes. So I am learning about myself that, and I think this is true of all humans, but especially humans in our day and age, and especially humans that are neurodivergent, I have a certain amount of attention and energy for decision making. And it's the same energy that I use to decide what's going in my smoothie that I use to decide what's going in my artwork that I use to decide what's happening in my daily life. So when I don't have to go through 10 menu items, and think about where they came from, and ask if they were sourced locally and consider what pesticides were probably used. And think about who's in the kitchen cooking it when I just know that I will be having oatmeal to hear with hot water and a scoop of butter. And that's the same every morning. Wow, I have so much more creative capacity to make decisions about other things that matter more and my brain is working right because I got calories that I can actually digest and nutrients that are actually being used the way they're supposed to be used in my body.
Hillary 32:00
Yes, exactly. Instead of just subsisting off of like a little green powder and being a little fairy, what Chrono prana like huffing, prana be having manic episodes all the time. Yeah.
Stirling 32:16
Oh my gosh, that's the other thing when you mentioned the exercise. That's something that's been super real for me because I am still after a year or more of deciding to be more sedentary and not trying to recapture the fitness that I had as an early 20 something professional Acrobat. Yeah. My I have like, decades of whiplash stored in my body from such intense exercise regimens. And crazy like hundreds of crunches and handstands and dancing for 10 hours straight. 1000 different times. Yeah, like my whole body is still working those kinks out. And if like literally today, this morning, I had a vertebrae like slip of a disc that goes out sometimes because of all the wax shit that I've done to my body. And it went out this morning, and it hasn't gone out in so long. Because I'm not making it go out. But he did shit. Like, deciding there was a free five day exercise program with like a little bit of cardio and a little bit of yoga that was gonna start today. I had that thought like, Oh, I My neck hurts. I probably shouldn't do that. And I realized, Oh, your neck probably hurts. Because you shouldn't do that. Your body's like, Girl, we chillin you are capable of doing the tasks you need to do on a day to day basis. And yeah, okay, your ads aren't cut like they used to be. But why do your ads need to be cut like they used to be? You're not doing aerial silks. You don't need that core strength. Chill out. You're not 22 anymore.
Hillary 34:15
Yeah, exactly. And we don't have to keep pushing our bodies like we're like we're taught to hate our bodies so that we can perpetually by and push and do all the different things that are again, marketed to us. So that you know, the more that we hate our bodies and have to like, achieve a thing. The more we're like, looped into this consumerism, capitalistic, capitalistic thing, energy and the wheel just keeps turning. And so yes, exactly by removing yourself by having enough like, self respect and self love to actually listen to the needs of Have your body, whether that's needing more nutrition, like more nourishing food, whether that's needing less exercise actually like that is that's kind of the definition of self love, and self care, like beyond salt scrubs and taking baths. Like, that's actual self care.
Stirling 35:21
Yeah, it's so real. And it's really important to develop the ability to know the difference between the voice that insists you need the organic kale. And the voice that says, You need to do 45 minutes of yoga this morning. And it has to be focused on your glutes on the voice that says, lay in bed and eat Haagen dazs and watch Netflix. And the voice that says, maybe I'll just have oatmeal this morning and read up on a wall. Like
there's a lot of there's a lot of people living up here. Yeah, who's to everyone sit down, look totally out.
Hillary 36:06
And it's hard. I get it. I struggled for a long time, like, questioning what I don't know, I don't know if this is my intuition, or like, whatever. It's usually like the first voice, your intuition. It's usually like, the kind of like, knowing first thing before your logical mind kicks in and starts telling you, but I should. But I should do this because it's healthy to do this, or I should do this because it's healthy to stay here or whatever. The first voice, the the kind of known voice, but it's Yeah, it's true. You got to get to know the voices.
Stirling 36:47
I was just talking to my mom this morning. And she doesn't she hasn't read Game of Thrones. She hasn't watched it. But I was explaining to her that there's that term among the horse Lords like it is known. It is known. And it's just like a part of the culture like, Well, you know, there's just things that are the way they are, it is known. Because on a deeper level, we do we know. Right? And having confidence. Well, I guess faith comes first having faith that, you know, having faith that you know, and that you know better than anyone else. And that you are actually the person that you need to be listening to. Yes. And even if that means not letting anyone else know why you're eating, what you're eating, or what you're eating, like really this obsession with taking pictures of what you're eating and posting it on the internet for other people to really react to like that in and of itself seems like some strange psychologic psychological eating disorder. Why? Why does it matter? what other people think about the ingredients that you're about to put in your body? Are you tasting like this? Or does what it looks like? Like you don't eat with your eyeballs? Girl? With your eyeballs?
Hillary 38:02
Yeah, you with your whole being like, What do you need? And that's I think that's where we just need to start heading as a culture is like, we're the experts of ourselves. We know I think a T shirt. I buy it with a sharpie on your own t shirt. I'm not gonna I'm not being marketed to.
Really though, like we really are the experts of ourselves and the moment that we like hand, the power back to ourselves. Wow, that is where things start happening.
Stirling 38:48
That's really interesting because it ties into everything everything we could ever possibly talk. You are listening to witchy wellness weekly. Our y is empowering the wild woman. For those of you who want more in depth guidance on herbs, wellness rituals, astrological forecasts and magical creations. We've created a newsletter subscribe@bit.li slash witchy wellness weekly. Our how to cleanse without killing yourself book and workbook bundle is on pre sale now. You can buy our books directly from we the authors at WWW dot pay hip.com slash wild folk or from other online retailers', if you must,
my mom, who obviously was in charge of feeding me as a child, as a different blood tight, and both my brother and I, she does not need to eat animal products, she does not process them in the same way. She actually has a totally different set of dietary needs for a lot of reasons, including that we're different blood types. But I was very lucky in that she started researching the blood type diet very early on. So when we were children, she would cook us what our shared blood type needed, even though she never ate it. It tastes disgusting to her, she had to learn how to cook it to do it for us, because she understood that we had different needs that her. And I don't think that that's common. And I'm sure a lot of the people listening grew up in a household where that wasn't, there wasn't even that level of awareness. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just as an adult, it is now each of our responsibility to tune into that first voice, figure out what do I need for my nourishment? Because I am the expert of myself and get beyond what I was told was good for me, what I've always been fed, what I'm used to what I was told I should never ever eat, you know, all of these strange psychological and emotional cues and information that we've taken in children in terms of what we consume. Because the reality is, it's very possible that the people closest to you who were in charge of your nutrition, did not actually have the same needs as you. So even with the best intentions, they may not have been, they were likely not able to give you what your body actually needed. So it's a whole new learning process.
Hillary 41:55
Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. And, and I think everything you're talking about, it goes with like mastering yourself fully, because it doesn't just apply to food. Like, I have an example of my hair. Like my dad, his hat is full Cuban, he has like a black Afro, my mom is almost full German, she has ordered straight blonde hair, I got a very strange, I'm in the middle of both of them. I have kind of straighter hair on the bottom, I have kind of closer to an afro on top, and my hair is red. So I but but I know it seems like a random example. But it goes to like your mom had to learn how to feed you differently. My mom when I was little with style my hair the way she styled her hair. And it never worked for me. And I would have bad hair days when I was four years old and locked up in the bathroom. Because I was like, This Is it right? This feels wrong. I knew when I was four years old, I knew that what that something wasn't right for me. Like it was it wasn't working for me the way my mom did her hair, just like the way your mom ate wasn't right for you. The way my mom did my hair, it wasn't right for me. Because we had we have different genetics, even though I'm made partially of her. I'm also made from someone else. So. So it's really interesting. So really, this is just like coming back to becoming the master of yourself. Understanding the functioning of your body, the way things work, what doesn't work, getting to know what doesn't work for you. And then making choices, even if it looks different from the people around you. Even if it is very different from the people around you. Having the competence in yourself to make choices that are actually right for
Stirling 43:49
you. Yeah, that is Oh, real. And it's interesting, because you were four year old and you were listening to that first real true voice in yourself. That was the master of you that said not this is not it. This is not it for me. Mom, I love you. I know you're doing your best but and wrong. We need change here. We need it now cuz you have such great hair too. It's amazing. And it is so very It is so very you. But I think how do I figure this out? Because it's a process? Obviously, it's a process to figure out well, what is that person and what they wanted for me and where does that end? And where do I start? And how do I figure out number one what I need but number two what I like but number three, like where do I even start? And I think probably the number one simplest, most universal place for every single one of us to start about any topic that we're trying to come back to our Tell us about his journaling. Yes. 100%. It's like how you have a conversation with yourself, and no one else ever has to be involved. And it's the same as you know, eventually you can have those conversations in your head. But when you write it down, you can go back and out of your head in a new place. Keep going, Oh, that was it. I don't hear what you have to say now.
Hillary 45:28
Yeah, I agree. There's something very magical that happens when you journal. And it's, it's in so many different, like, lineages, like I have a book that's like writing through your depression, I have a book that's like, reclaiming your unlived life. The artists way, there's like different, different things about different like aspects of life. But they all have one thing in common, which is saying, journal, and journal every day. And not just like, be like your perfect journaling self. But like, set a timer, like 10 minutes, and just free write. And in the artists way, I think it's called the brain dump. And you just, you dump, like, all the, all the access, all the things, you just free, right? Thought punctuation, like, you don't have to be perfect, you just write. And that comes back to the thing we're talking about in the very beginning of clearing out like cleansing your mental emotional space, so that you can actually be clear to hear that voice, to start to get to know yourself on a deeper level. And something happens, the more that you write and you clear out, the more clear you become. And then the more your writing starts to reflect that truer part of you, that is not just regurgitating everything you see on social media, or all the programming or all the emotional trauma or whatever. But your true or voice starts to develop and arrive. And then you can start seeing like, Oh, these are the things that I really want for my life. This is what I want to like, call and this is what I need to get rid of like. So I think yeah, I think free writing and then kind of writing about what you desire. Number one important step in reclaiming the fact that you know,
Stirling 47:32
yes, sing it from the rooftops, the hills are alive, having to be your perfect journaling self. And that is so real for me, because I love journaling. And I lean really heavily on it. And sometimes there are phases in my life where I have five journals on the Go at once, and I'm journaling for hours every day. And sometimes I'm not journaling at all. But universally across my whole life, I have always had the desire to be keeping a journal. And even as a child, I still have many of these things because I'm a little bit of a hoarder. Even as a child, I would get the most perfect diary. And I would start writing in this most perfect diary. And I would edit myself, I would self critique and I would not allow what I really needed to be writing to come out because I didn't want to mess up the diary. Yeah. And that's still super real for me that critic voice is here. I mean, it's easier to push it out of the way. But it's amazing because it was there over there for me as a seven year old.
Hillary 48:37
Yes, totally. I, I have a very similar experience when I was like, I think I was like 13 or something. And that's like the first time I maybe got a journal, maybe even 14. And like, I think I had them when I was little but like actual really starting to journal. And I remember having a conversation with my mom and her saying that she would never keep a journal, because she doesn't want she wouldn't want people to like find it or read it. And, and I remember up until like my 20s I was mortified of people finding out what was in my brain thinking that I was like broken or something was like absolutely wrong with me or like my thoughts were crazy, or whatever. And the more like you can break through that programming and and that's that's like, like long term kind of trauma of like being afraid to speak being afraid of what's in your own brain being afraid that you'll be rejected because the thoughts in your brain are so crazy, like, no, we're all human. We all have really similar thoughts. Get them the fuck out of your brain. And if you need to burn the journal, do it. I've burned plenty of journal But there is something about getting out of your brain, like get get it out and onto paper and you will see you're not that crazy. Or maybe you are, but who cares?
Stirling 50:11
You're probably going to be less crazy. If you get it out of your head. Like, on paper, it's gonna do likely less damage than bouncing around inside of your psyche. Right? And there is nothing super about getting it out.
Hillary 50:27
Totally. And I think that's like the steps on healing, healing, the perfectionism that we've been programmed with healing the fact that we need to be like, these perfect things or only write poetic script, or like, whatever the fuck is going. Sorry, I'm saying fuck. I don't care. Okay. Radio, we can say whatever the fuck we want. Yeah, totally. And yes, I am with you. Like, I wanted to be. You know, I wanted to be rooming with everything that I wrote just like poetic downloads only. I'm like, actually, no, I just need to freak out on this page right now and right. I just need to freak out on this page right now. Put that on your T shirt.
Stirling 51:23
Or real I remember how liberating it was for me to find the beatniks like jack Kerouac. Or like Gonzo journalism, like contrast Thompson and realize like, Oh, these fuckers are crazy. And they're also really successful writers. People love reading they're crazy as manic he thought maybe I could write crazy and I have manic thoughts.
Hillary 51:47
totally totally. And that's part of this whole thing too is like the more that you allow yourself to be yourself. That's like the more people that are going to love you anyway because you just give permission to people to be there crazy ourselves when you are unapologetically your crazy
Stirling 52:07
the more the right people are going to love you anyway, the more the people that actually love you are.
Hillary 52:13
Right, that's like actually true. True Love and adoration instead of like, being liked by this like weird perfectionistic false self false. Yeah. Yeah, cuz
Stirling 52:27
the people that don't love you for being you probably just need to like go sit down and eat some oatmeal and journal a little bit.
Hillary 52:36
Here, eat this, this oatmeal with butter and come back to me in a couple months when you're nourished. Yeah, don't worry. It's local butter. sprouted oats. Okay, God. Yes. So I think that's the that's the key is like the beginning of cleansing. It's not only starting with food, it's really starting with cleaning out your brain. letting yourself come to the surface, listening to yourself, cleansing the like, chaotic societal pressures, by simplifying, stepping back from all the social media, going on long walks with you and your mind, and no Blinky, flasher electronic devices with you. Just letting yourself really come to the surface.
Stirling 53:36
Wow. Yeah, yeah, a really interesting exercise that I love to do. Because it's kind of psychedelic and trippy, but also because it's really grounding. And I think it was true for females and the feminine energy even before social media, but social media has exacerbated it and spread it to everyone is that when I am in a situation? And I think something about how it's being perceived? Like, if I walk into a room, am I in the room, in my body, walking in an experiencing it? Or am I seeing myself walk into the room from outside of myself? And assuming the perception of someone else perceiving me? Am I the observer, or am I considering myself to be observed, because society kind of raises us to not be the genuine observer and be more perturbed and concerned by how we're being observed. And that is fundamentally disassociative and really not good for you psychologically or emotionally. So I do it the other direction too, because I am sort of obsessed with polarities. Yep. So when I look at a picture, like if I am on social media, and I see a beautiful picture of a girl from behind, and she has her arm behind her, and she's leading the person off camera into the blue ass water, I think, what does it look like for the dude back on the beach that is watching this happen? What is that full picture? Like what's going on behind the camera, and that I love doing that it trips me out. But also, that was the most interesting thing about being in Hollywood and being in the entertainment industry was like, 99.5% of what's going on, you don't see on camera. And that's so important to remember in this strange parallel universe that we live in where everyone thinks everything is on camera. Well, actually, they're the ones on camera all the time. Okay, guy, what's actually going on? Are you walking into the room? Or are you watching yourself walk into the room?
Hillary 56:10
Huge. Yeah, I think that I know, it's like an kind of like, esoteric, but it's not. It's so real. And I think I lived probably the first 25 years of my life doing that. And then next, like six years of my life, trying not to do that, but still battling it. Because, yeah, I 100% agree, walking into a room, perceiving myself, as other people are perceiving me, which, who fucking knows in the first place, but also like, being in your body versus being 30 feet away, looking at yourself walking, like, what? so bizarre, bizarre, insane. fucking insane. We're insane. And we're very dissociated. And it's really weird.
Stirling 57:03
Really, really weird. It's really weird. And it's so pervasive that we're at the point where it's being pontificated upon in media, in really blatant that basically the premise of every single episode of Black Mirror, it's all about who's the observer and the observed. And it's interesting, because it's really easy to paint this parallel to social media and technology and the way we live now in a global society. But these are also the fundamental questions of all existentialism and all lineages of thought of all time and every Zen Cohen or Confucian or Buddhist, or any sort of little riddle of spirituality that you read from any point in time. It's all the same thing. Are you?
The finger pointing at the moon? Are you the eyes looking at the finger pointing up and down? Are you? Is the finger pointing at the moon the moon? No, those are two different things that are pointing at the moon will never be the moon.
Hillary 58:14
Yes. Oh, man. That makes me want to that makes me want to speak to something. There is this metaphor that my teacher of IRB, they used to give about these concepts of sattvic rajasic and tamasic. Stop making meaning that it's like its purity, its clarity, its consciousness. rajasic is like movement, turbulence, like a little bit more chaos. And then Temasek is like inertia, darkness like stagnancy, like yeah, just like the opposite of consciousness. And so there's this metaphor about the man of someone sitting at the lake, like the edge of a lake, and it's nighttime and the moon is reflecting in the water. And somebody that has like a purity of consciousness and a clear mind will see the moon reflected as like a perfect reflection and this is like when the lake the metaphor is like when the lake is perfectly still. And you see the perfect reflection, which in that is like the perfect reflection of God are the perfect reflection of like the source of all things, your your Clear Channel for this, but in like a rigid caustic state, which is like action, movement, chaos, like momentum, you see the reflection of the moon, but but the water is choppy, so you see many, many reflections and it's like, fragmented. You still see it, you see what's going on, but it's chaotic, and there's many different ones, so you're not seeing perfectly clearly. And in the tomasik state, the mud has been turned up from the bottom of the lake so much, because there's so much chaos that you don't see the reflection at all. It's, it's, you're not, you're not cleared, you don't see it. And so I think the more that we can get to this clarity of being this, like purity of consciousness, by listening to ourselves, instead of all the reflections of all the ways that it can be, or just like so muddy that we can't see it at all, the more we step back, clear out, like, purify, but not in a way that we were trying to do for so long, but purify kind of like the noise of consumerism, and society and culture, or whatever the fuck is going on here. Stepping back from that, removing yourself and and becoming like more of a pure vessel for clear thinking that the more that we can become ourselves, the more that we can hear and see what is right for us. And the more that we can live a life that is actually meaning full to ourselves, instead of meaningful by society's standards have the perfect picture on Instagram and the perfect plate of food and eating the perfect diet that looks perfect from the observed place, but not the place of actuality. If that makes sense.
Stirling 1:01:36
Ah, finger snaps, yes. Let it be known that I did have a very well defined six pack while I was forcing my liver into organ failure. Totally. A while going on jogs every day like, Hey, y'all drinking bottled water? Okay. It's really interesting, too, because, like your example of the tomasik, and rajasic, and all three of those varying abilities to see the reflection clearly you are not see the reflection of at all, the moon is still there. The moon is exactly the moon the whole time, only the perception is changing. But really, only the ability to perceive is changing.
Hillary 1:02:21
Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And that's like, that's the necessary component. clearing out and getting getting still enough to see. It's just a really good point. Like you said, you had abs and you looked really like a certain way that's like, the hot the hot form of you. Right now. That's like, what's trending is hot. And I agree, like, I would say, my body fit the social norms, like of late, when I was the most depleted the most in a trauma response in a horribly abusive relationship like way over over exercise overworked, over emotionally taxed, like on all levels. But from the outside. I looked hot, like I had halves, and a booty. And like, yeah, I mean, I still have all those things. It's just
Unknown Speaker 1:03:26
go anywhere. Go anywhere. Yeah, everyone actually had jobs. Yeah. And magic. Not maybe not like, as defined or as whatever they
Hillary 1:03:45
were. But it doesn't matter. Like, I wasn't happy. I was horribly depressed, like, horribly depressed. Social standards. Yeah,
Stirling 1:03:59
that's so interesting to consider, because it makes me think of various phases that I've gone through in terms of my health and well being overall. And pet snapshots, the pictures of those moments, and what people that I'm close with at other points in time would say about the version of me that they see in that picture, and I'm thinking of one picture in particular, and I'm thinking of when I was in college, and I'm thinking of it was the first Well, okay, let's be honest. I've had a few peaks of alcoholism in my life. And college was not the first one, but it was a large peak of alcohol and alcoholism because it was way more than alcohol use. And I had great tits, like I had such good boobs. And I looked so curvy and so cute, because I was so bloated because I was so drunk all the time. Yeah, and I look Really good in those pictures, I have tickets and I'm basically killing myself drinking way too much like clinically depressed, but you would never know from the victors. Good. cleavage never took like that. Yeah, I still have boobs, and I love them very much, but they are not the alcoholic boobs.
Hillary 1:05:23
Yeah, totally. And, and also, like, when we're young, we're so much more resilient in the way of like, we're less affected. It's okay, if we miss sleep, or like, if we're drinking too much. I mean, it's not okay. But we're, we're less outwardly affected by it. Because we're young. And we have, we have this kind of like innate strength. But the longer that we do that, the longer that we live those ways out of balance, the more that we deplete our bodies and, and then we think like, we're just in these old bodies, or whatever. But really, it's because we fucked them up for so many years, dieting and drinking and doing all the things that really not helping us get to ourselves.
Stirling 1:06:06
100%. And there's something really interesting that I've been pondering about, specifically, the things that we take into our bodies, whatever they may be food, drugs, liquids, what I'm talking about, like physics, yeah. And we just went there. This thing, it's, it's very challenging to reform the thought, because from a very young age, we see that we consume, and then we excrete, so we take something in and something comes out. But the thing that we take in, it's not the thing that comes out. And there are components of everything that we take into our bodies, that is still in our bodies, it might have been transmuted, some of it might have been processed as waste. But the vast majority of it is what is actually our bodies, it is what is actually making up ourselves. And a lot of it actually just like sits in our bodies in little pockets that are dark little corners that we never necessarily see, especially that we consider supplements or drugs that are fun to take, or whatever other reason that you're taking really weird research chemicals, maybe it's in your sniffle snacks that you were snorting on Saturday night, whatever it is, you're taking that into your body, and it is not coming out what you took in? Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that. Because I've been processing the fact that I have organs that are not processing things, and that these particular organs have a tendency to allow the buildup of chemicals over time to recrystallize and solidify in the organ tissue. And this is actually a thing that happens in the livers of mammals that have livers is that I might only take a very, very small trace amount of something into my body Every time I take it in. But it all goes to the same place. And it magnetizes and it all gloms together, and it becomes a big piece of that thing. And now it's in me, and it's not just gonna flush out.
Hillary 1:08:19
Yep, exactly. Yes, we all have different places to in our bodies that are more compromised than other people like we we have, there's like affinities in our, in our different bodies, like people have different places where as somebody might be affected all the time, in their lungs, for example, they might have asthma or like chronic, like infections in their lungs, whereas like you have a liver thing, I also have a liver thing, probably because we ate the same amount of shit. And also because that is compromised in my family line. So I was born into this world with places in my body that have stronger affinity to go out of balance. And we all have those different places, whether it's in our joints, in our blood in whatever in a different system in our body. And another thing in iron beta, which this kind of goes to like taking in the substances that you were talking about, and they're piling up. There's the disease process, I guess it's called the disease process. planetory Yeah. And what happens is something accumulates. So you, you have an accumulation of something that accumulates, that that location of accumulation in your body gets aggravated, but then if you remedy it, it will become alleviated. So it accumulates, it aggravates and then it should alleviate with the right. Right choices. But because we're So far from these right choices for us personally, what happens is something accumulates. For we'll just do an example of like, way too much nut butter and raw food and all the things, our liver becomes aggravated. If we change our diet here and change what we're doing and process our anger and all the different things because anger is of the liver. It will, it will alleviate, but usually that's not the case. So instead, it accumulates it aggravates and then it overflows into an organ system. So it's like accumulating in our lives, then it's accumulating in our blood after our digestive system can't process it, then it kicks it out into the liver. And so then it's overflown into the liver. Now it's out of the digestive system, it's out of the it's out of the lymph and the blood into an organ. This is the disease pathway. Then, after that, after it aggravates accumulates, and becomes overflown. Then, it relocates so it can go into other places if it continues. And then it manifests as a named Western disease. So like cirrhosis of the liver or a fatty liver or whatever.
Stirling 1:11:22
But the thing is, and oftentimes, that's a long process before it gets there,
Hillary 1:11:27
it's a long process. And that's the thing is like, it always starts with a digestive system, what we're consuming it, our digestive system deals with that first. And then it goes through our different tissue layers, length, blood, muscle, fat, bone, and then like our reproductive systems, and then our nervous system. And it goes through these layers. Those are the layers in order of what things go through. And so we're getting signs and symptoms and things all the time that we are in aggravation or overflow. And we can work the weight the same way that we work ourselves into fucked up situations, we can reverse them by prop by by making different choices. Every day, we just make simple shifts can reverse these processes. But by the time it gets to the Western medical diagnosis, it's it's late in the game, but it's not often it's not too late. But often it's told that it's too late and that you just need this medication. But if you make different choices, you can reverse yourself out of out of these situations, like we're doing right now with our diet, you know, and with drinking enough water and with getting rest and not pushing yourself by listening to your body coming back to listening to your body. Yes.
Stirling 1:12:52
So real. It's so interesting, too, because I mean, I know I mentioned this before, but I genuinely feel like I've been sitting still for a year I've been sober for a year, I've been paying really close attention and shifting my diet for a long time, but probably like nine months on this tip that we're talking about. And I still have not been sitting still long enough that all the repercussions of all the time I wasn't sitting still are like still slamming into me. Like it's like like a train you know, or like playing the slinky down the stairs. It's like I the engine have been at station for a while. But man those train cars are still rolling in.
Hillary 1:13:46
got a ways to go. Yeah, it's the ripple effect. It's like what we do causes an effect. The more we do something, it causes a bigger effect. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's,
Stirling 1:14:00
that's a really valuable practice for the journaling, too. I think even just to have one specific self check task is just writing down each thing I put into my body without judgment. It's a it's a tracking, you know, it's a record. It's not about questioning or lying or being concerned about the person that might see it that might judge a thing. But just actually being able to look back over a day or a week or a month, and go oh, okay, so that's what I put in my body and that's how much of it I did and maybe that has something to do with why he felt that way the next day. And being able to do that with anything being able to do that with amount of sleep amount of water, what kind of media I'm consuming how I'm spending my time because it's really interesting to consider goal setting some systems and like how much time you need to allot for each task, because how can I even pretend To know that I need 45 minutes to do this particular thing, if I've never actually timed how long it takes me to do the thing know, like, How am I supposed to know that this is the healthiest diet for me or that I feel this way after I eat this thing, if I don't even know how I felt after I ate buffet, because I didn't write it down and I ate five other things.
Hillary 1:15:24
Totally. Yes, this is why we need to simplify.
Stirling 1:15:30
Yep, simplify and journal. Yeah. Well, that's like the conclusion to this whole long. We're like so good at this. We're really gonna mess and journal. Everybody, right? No fucking journal and shut up. Exactly. Can you talk in here yourself? catch up with us on the blog at wild folk which muse.com to stay up to date with our latest book release and receive exclusive discount codes. Be sure to sign up for the email list, subscribe and join the tribe. This episode is brought to you by the witchy wellness weekly subscription. If you're ready for recipes, rituals, resources and original artwork to uplevel your craft and self care, sign up to receive the weekly witchy wellness kit@bit.li slash witchy wellness weekly that's bi T dot L y slash witchy. wellness weekly. For everybody listening we love you thank you for being here and all these things will be linked below.
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