A Wildcrafted Story

Hi everyone and welcome to the WILDCRAFTED blog! This is my first post since I had a blog from 2012-2016 (ok, now I feel old), but I wanted to use this type of forum to share my knowledge and journey with you in hopes that you may find some healing through the things that have truly helped me. I promise it will be fun. Also I am beginning a program to become an Ayurvedic Health Practioner and I thought you might like to come along for that journey with me. So whats this going to be like? Well, I will include recipes for teas, tonics and nutritious foods that I love. I will tell you all about herbal remedies, things you can do at home and my experiences with things like hydrotherapy, meditation, oil massage, etc. (PS if there is anything you want me to touch on or try shoot me a note in the contact section!) 

Okay so to dive a little deeper this is my story - the shortened version since I know we all have things to do, places to go, peeps to see.... 

A little over a year ago I had spine surgery for a severely herniated disc and spinal stenosis in my lower spine. In this year that followed I’ve had 2 steroid injections, 2 epidurals, 10 nerve blocks (more steroids!) and 2 procedures that involved burning my nerve ends so that I could no longer feel the pain I experienced on a daily basis. Instead of relief from the pain, I just was left with more chronic nerve pain, nerve damage, arthritis, inflamed joints and muscle spasms. Not to mention I couldn't even feel the right side of my foot. Everyday felt like it took more and more energy for me to do things. With a flip of a switch had gone from someone who once lived to exercise and be active (I taught kickboxing!!) to someone whose leg would randomly collapse from exhasution on a walk around the neighborhood. I had to let go of a person that I thought I was and change my life and my mentality. I could no longer rely on exercise as an outlet for my anxiety (oh hey bad thoughts!) or measure my self worth through how "strong" I was physically. Most of the time I struggled in silence and othertimes I would snap or become irritable (shout out to my bf and my family for sticking by me!) After my third doctor within eight months told me that there was no fixing this, I just had to manage the pain I knew would have to change my lifestyle in order to get through this.  

 I decided to rely on what I believe to be true; that I could use my 10+ yrs of health and wellness learning to fix this. I knew a lot about health and wellness but I wanted to learn more. You always hear stories about how people changed themselves through health and wellness. How? I wanted to be like that, so I read those books and those stories. 

I also read countless books on herbs, nutrition, meditation,and ancient natural healing techniques. Things started to work - slowly but surely. Just like a plant grows slowly from a seed into something beautiful these plants and herbs began to recreate my life and body. I created a line of products that with the knowledge I had gained. I changed my eating and my lifestyle in a totally different way then I had before and lost 30+ lbs in the process, more than I ever had in 6 years of hardcore exercise.  I worked on reducing stress, emotionally and physically. I treated my body as a WHOLE. I may not be “fixed” but I have weeks now where I am not in pain and for anyone that knows what that is like, it’s a lot, and the "bad days" they come less and less. It is a process, and it is hard AF, but for those of you who suffter from inflammation, auto-immune, hormone imbalances, chornic pain, fibromyalgia, etc. you know know what this is like and this is blog is for you as much as it is for me. I will be sharing the things that worked for me and continue to work for me because it is an ongoing process. 

I hope you will come along for the ride and find things here to wildcraft your own story.

Stay wild and comment below if you can relate!