Welcome to Herbs + Ease

Hello New Friend!

My name is Kristen Prosen and I am so excited to be starting this project. I have been dreaming of this work for years and the stars have finally aligned perfectly to create space and time in my life to make it happen. 

I am a wellness educator, an herbalist, and a bodyworker. 

This means that I help people feel better in their bodies at the professional level.

• I see one on one herbalism consultation clients

• I am a licensed massage therapist and mobility specialist

• I do hands on bodywork

• I teach about anatomy + physiology, biomechanics, wellness, and self care with an emphasis on plant medicine.

Every week here at Herbs + Ease, I am going to going to share about all of those topics and MORE to help you develop the tools and skills to take really good care of your body because when you feel good and safe and at ease in your body, you can do good things in your life. 

I wanted to start this project because I get so many questions from students and clients about plant medicine, self care, movement, biomechanics and so much more. While it's really tempting to give quick and concise wellness advice to satisfy people, in reality, wellness is complicated, nuanced, and context dependent. 

As you will learn from this work, health and wellness is far more complicated than what we do with and put into the body. In fact, our daily lifestyle habits are only a small part of the picture. Health outcomes are significantly influenced by access to quality healthcare and education, access to food and clean water, our community and family environment, safe housing, and all the other conditions that make up the social determinants of health. 

Hold up! Are you an auditory learner? Feel free to LISTEN to this article in podcast format ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

Giving out wellness advice that doesn’t take into consideration the vast variables of identity, circumstance, and cultural context, as well as dominant social ideologies would be a disservice. 

With this project, herbs and ease, I am going to make sure that you understand the tools that make the biggest difference in health outcomes AND understand in what context they will be most effective and how to make the most of the resources that you have access to. 

Put another way, I am here to help you control what is yours to control. I’m talking about the everyday things that you have power over while emphasizing ease in the nervous system. 

There are a lot of “wellness behaviors, tools, products, and services” that when adopted, might not actually have the long term effect that they promise to provide and might even contribute to producing negative outcomes in the body.

This means that part of the work we are going to be doing on herbs + ease will involve a lot of cultural critique. Alongside learning new tools and learning about the body, we are also going to debunk some of mainstream wellness suggestions and behaviors that are coming out of the billion dollar wellness industry so that you can be empowered to make the best informed decisions about how you take care of your body. 

So I know that’s a lot and I want to remind you that above all, this is a podcast about plant medicine and self care that supports a healthy and resilient nervous system. I promise that even though we are going to get a little radical we are also going to have a lot of fun and there will be a lot of joy and pleasure.

THE MANDALA OF WELLNESS

You will notice in my work that I bring up something called the Mandala of Wellness. The mandala of wellness is a protocol tool that I use to to organize the wellness plans that I create for client. I also use it to help me map out my own self care routines. 

There are 5 key areas that I like to teach about and use as a jumping off point for making wellness interventions that are part of my education and professional expertise:

• Nourishment (which is the herbs part but can also apply to the many ways we nourish ourselves)

• Rest

• Mindset

• Bodywork

• And Movement

In this project, we will be exploring the entire spectrum of self care + wellness behaviors to make sure that you have the best success in making wellness interventions and taking care of your body. 

WHY SO MANY DIFFERENT LENSES FOR AN HERBALISM PROJECT?

Herbalism, as you might know, is a holistic practice. That means that we don’t just look at a singular system that is struggling. When practicing herbalism, we look at the entire person and their environment. Herbalism is a systems thinking practice meaning we attend to the systems in the body as they relate to one another ASWELL as the systems that the body interacts with. 

The functions of the body don’t exist in a vacuum. Again, context matters. The systems within and that make up your body and how your body is function are directly related to the systems that you are part of. 

We are interconnected with our surroundings, with our communities, our families, our socio-culutral-political climate. And we have to take those things into account if we are to effectively change how our bodies are functioning. 

Sometimes herbs aren’t going to be the most effective intervention. All the nerviness and adaptogens in the world aren’t going to make up for the fact that you are in a toxic work environment or that you don’t have access to clean water, or that you live in a food desert. 

All the tinctures you can find won’t help much when your identity is being assaulted or outlawed by emerging legislation or police brutality. 

Furthermore, there are so many different ailments that someone might work with and every ailment is so unique and I want to make sure you have all the tools you need to heal, recover, and feel good and strong in your body, because when you feel good in your body, you do good things in your life. 

So that’s what you can expect from this project: good, nuanced, wellness education, lots of cool information about the body, plants, biomechanics, and the intersection of the functioning of the body with the systems we are most likely coming in contact with on a daily basis.
Again, I have been dreaming and thinking of this podcast for years and the stars have finally aligned to give me the time, space, and energy to make this happen so I am very happy to share it with you. 

I know that it will change and transform and get better as we move forward so I am excited to see what direction it takes and what you are interested in hearing and learning about. 

I love hearing from you, I want your questions, I want to celebrate your wins and successes with you and I value any opportunity to put on my cheerleader hat with my students, clients, and community. 

Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to get regular updates on every New + Full Moon and if you would prefer to listen to these articles, you can find them in podcast format anywhere you get your podcasts!

Before you go…

Would you rather LISTEN to this article? Check out the Herbs + Ease Podcast for a more robust educational experience!

Kristen Prosen