Podcast 284: Build Your Herbal Confidence – a Practice Game!

Herbal confidence takes some work to develop. The whole point of learning herbalism is to help people – but when you’re still a student, that’s a little bit tricky! You don’t always know the answer. It might be something you just didn’t learn about yet. Or maybe you know part of it, but you’re not confident about the whole story. Maybe the question was just really intimidating! So you feel hesitant and unsure about how to help.

As you learn more, your confidence will grow. It’s ok to wait – you don’t have to start giving out advice the moment you begin learning about herbs! That pressure isn’t helping you, and setting it aside is completely appropriate.

But the flip side is this: you do have to get some practice, right? Especially as you develop your knowledge beyond the basics. Otherwise it’s going to feel too hard forever. It needs to be real-world practice, too, not just theory. You need ways to put your skills to work, even as you’re in the process of developing them.

Fear not, friends: we’ve got solutions for this. Today’s episode of the Holistic Herbalism Podcast is all about a game you can play to get that practice in a way that is totally safe! It’s simple, free, and guaranteed to boost your confidence & capability for making accurate assessments and giving good advice.

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Episode Transcript

Katja (00:00:13):
Hi, I’m Katja. And I’m here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts. I’m really excited because I have a game to share with you today that I think you’re going to like. So, let’s jump in. The whole point of learning herbalism, I mean, besides that plants are really cool, and it’s fun to be outside and okay, those are also part of the point. But the whole point of learning herbalism is to help people. That’s why we got into this, to help ourselves, to help our friends, our families, our communities. But the problem is that when you’re still a student, that’s a little tricky, and awkward, and kind of uncomfortable sometimes because you don’t always know the answer. And maybe you feel like well, I know part of it, I think, but I’m not confident about that part. Or maybe the question that they asked you was really intimidating. And you’re just like maybe I knew that stuff, but I’m kind of intimidated right now, and it all flew out of my head. It can be a lot of pressure when your friends expect you to be able to just solve their health problems because oh, you’re learning herbalism. Sometimes they ask easy things that you know about that you’ve already learned like oh, what’s something I can do for my heartburn? Okay, well, they don’t want you to fix the whole every single thing. They just want to feel better right now. And you can give them a cup of many different kinds of tea. You could give them catnip. You could give them marshmallow root. You could give them lots of different things, and it would help them feel better in that one moment, right? So, maybe you’re like oh, well that question wasn’t too hard. Fine, I can answer that. That’s great.

(00:01:53):
But then sometimes people ask questions, and they really don’t realize how complicated the question is and how much work goes into coming up with the solution. And you’re like I don’t know the answer to this. And I’m not even sure that I know all the parts that I need to know to get to the answer. And I don’t know how to explain to you without offending you that this is way outside my scope of practice, and what you’re asking is not actually simple. It’s actually really hard, but I don’t want to offend you. It’s very uncomfortable. But then the flip side of that is what if you’re wrong? What if you try to help somebody and you’re wrong? Okay, well that doesn’t feel good either. And then if you have a plan, whether it’s somewhere in the back of your mind. Or maybe it’s like your absolute goal, and it’s right in the front of your mind that you want to be a professional practitioner someday. That’s awesome. But if you make mistakes now, that can build a reputation that will hurt you later when you want to start a business. And so that puts you in a little bit of a bind too. Okay, now you can always say hey, I’m a student. I am still learning. I am not really to the point where I can answer these questions yet. So, I will tell you some things that I have learned. But I don’t know if it is the best thing for you. I don’t know if it is what will help you. Yes, you always can make a disclaimer like that. And I totally recommend it. Because if you know you’re going to start a business someday, people don’t mind if they see you developing your skills over time. But if you just make a mistake, and you didn’t give any kind of disclaimer. Then later when you want to do this professionally, they’ll be like yeah, but you weren’t good at this. That whole never get a second chance to make a first impression or whatever. Okay.

(00:03:57):
My point here is that, oh my goodness, your friend comes to you and is like hey, you’re learning herbalism. Do you have anything for fibromyalgia? And they’re thinking you’re just going to give them an herb. And you’re thinking oh my goodness, this is something we can work on, but it’s really complex. And I think I need a few hours to sit down and map out what I would say to you. And I’m going to need to ask you a lot of questions. And I’m not even sure if this is appropriate work for me to do yet. And ahhhh, right? Okay. The flip side of all that is at some point you have to get some practice. You can’t just stay locked up in this frozen place of oh no, I don’t know if it’s okay for me to help this person forever. At some point you have to take a risk. You have to at some point branch out and actually help people. So, how do you get from that place of like gee, I’m really not sure if it’s okay for me to even say this or if I’m right, to hey, I feel pretty confident about where my boundaries are and what I can do to help you. That’s why I made this game for you. Every time that you go through this little practice exercise game thing, it is developing your skills and building your confidence. But you’re doing it in a way that is super safe, and you don’t have to be afraid that you might hurt somebody, or that you’re taking a weird risk, or whatever. And it’s free, and you can do it anytime, anywhere, whenever. So, before I show you how to play I’ve got all the instructions here I’m going to talk about. And then I’m going to go through an example version of the game so that you see how to do it.

Reclaimers, Coupons, & Clinics

(00:05:44):
But before I do that, I have two things that I want to say. Oh, and also I should not forget to do our reclaimer because that part’s important too. So, let me start with that. The reclaimer is I am not a doctor. I am an herbalist and a holistic health educator. The ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalist in the United States, so these discussions are for educational purposes only. I want to remind you that good health does not mean the same thing for everyone. Good health is not like some objective standard. It is influenced by your individual needs, your experiences, your goals. So, keep in mind that we are not trying to present some kind of dogmatic, one right way that everybody should be adhering to because every body is different. So, the things that we’re talking about might or might not apply directly to you. But I hope that they give you some new information to think about and some ideas to research and experiment with further. Okay. Today we’re talking about a game, and so it totally will apply for you, but anyway. Okay. So, the last part of this is finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility, which does not mean that you’re alone on the journey. It does not mean that you are to blame for your current state of health. But it does mean that any course of action that you’re considering, whether it is prescribed by your physician or something that you heard on the internet, it’s your choice to make. You are the one in the driver’s seat, and don’t let anybody take that away from you. All right. So, that was the reclaimer. Did that.

(00:07:26):
Okay. Two other things that I just want to mention. One is if you are listening to this podcast when it comes out in July of 2026, then you are in luck. Or if it just happens that you’re listening to this podcast a year from now and it’s July of 2027 or something, also good. It is our semi-annual 20% off sale. This year’s July coupon code is CATNIP, C-A-T-N-I-P. It will take 20% off of all of our online courses, all of our online programs. If you choose a payment plan, it takes 20% off every single payment. And so now is the perfect time to gather up some more education so that you can continue building your skills and your confidence. And if you are not sure where to start, if you have a specific goal that you’re working on, or if you have some education already, and you’re not quite sure where your next step is. Just send me an email at info@commonwealthherbs.com, and I am so happy to talk with you and help you through figuring out whatever is the right step for you. Also, you can find our complete catalog of all of our courses and programs at online.commonwealthherbs.com. Okay. Check that off the list. I did it.

(00:08:48):
The second thing that I want to tell you, which is actually part of setting you up for the game. Okay. So, if friends are asking you for help, and it feels way outside your scope. You are just like no way. I’m not touching this one. I definitely don’t know the answer to this. Okay. Well, it still doesn’t feel great, right, because your friend needs help. So, I want you to know that you can always direct people to our Free Clinic and also to our low-cost Student Clinic. Our Free Clinic is once a month, the first Wednesday of the month. Student Clinic has sessions available seven days a week. So, it is super easy to schedule and get an appointment really fast. Those are $50, and the money goes to the student who’s doing the work. But all of the cases are overseen by faculty. So, when you have a student clinic session, you’re getting our most advanced Clinical Mentorship students. They have been through so much work with us to prepare them for that point. And you’re also getting our review on everything as well. So, you can totally just tell your friend wow, herbs can help with that. But I am not educated enough yet to do it. I’m still a student. I don’t really know the answers that you need. But here is a resource where you can get really solid help, and it’s really easy to do. The link that you can give them is commonwealtherbs.com/clinic. And that will give them the information about our Free Clinic, about our low-cost Student Clinic, and also a link to our Faculty Clinic if they want to do that as well. You can schedule appointments with our faculty also. But our student clinic is amazing, and it’s low cost and super easy. You do not have to be a student at our school to get a session in our Student Clinic, or in our Free Clinic, or in our Faculty Clinic. Anyone can sign up for these. So, as we’re moving through this, and we’re thinking about how to answer these questions, I want you to know right off the top that you already have a bailout plan. You can always direct people to our Student Clinic, our Free Clinic, and you will have helped the person who asked you a question. But you will not be feeling like just this pile of pressure on you that you have to do all the work by yourself. Okay. So, that’s a way that you can still help your friends, even if you’re uncomfortable with the questions.

Building Herbal Confidence: “I’m Still a Student”

(00:11:36):
But let’s get now to the game that’s going to help you build the confidence, right? Okay. So, your friend asks you a question. The question is I have chronic constipation. I have chronic diarrhea. I have chronic pain. I have whatever. And you’re like ooh, I don’t want to know about your poop. But whatever it is, whatever their problem is, if you feel like you know the answer, and you feel like no, no, this is something I actually feel solid about, then your plan is super simple. Give them what you think will help them. However, sandwich it between this statement. I am still a student, and I do not know for sure that this is the right answer. But what I’ve been learning makes me feel like this could help you. And so if you want to try it, I’ll tell you what I’ve been learning. Then tell them what you want, what you think would help them, and then finish it with the same sentence again. But listen, I’m still a student, and I’m not sure that this is right. So, we can try it, but I just want you to know that I’m not sure that this will actually help.

(00:12:55):
Doing that saves you on multiple levels. First of all, it engages them. It makes them have to realize internally oh wait, I have to bear some responsibility for this. This is not all on you. If it doesn’t work, I’m not going to come back to you and be like how come it didn’t work? You don’t know anything. No, no, no. You’re telling me that you’re not sure this is the answer. So, I better put on my responsibility hat. But also if it works, great. Great. And if it is the person has PMS, and you give them really strong chamomile, it probably is going to help them. And then they’re going to be like wow, you’re a really good student. You’re really learning this stuff, and it’ll feel great. But if it doesn’t help them, then they’re not going to say well, herbs don’t work. I tried it, and it didn’t work. They’re going to say yeah, I guess you’re still a student, and you just didn’t know the right answer. And that doesn’t even have to feel embarrassing because you already said to them I’m still a student. You’re the one who said it. So, if later they come to you and say that didn’t work. Well, you can’t be embarrassed. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You already told them you didn’t know if it was going to work. So, that totally sets both them and you up for a relationship where nobody has to feel like an imposter, and nobody has to feel embarrassed or any of those other things. And everybody’s on the same page. Hey, neither one of us is sure this is going to work. If you want to try it, I’m interested to hear what your results are. Okay.

(00:14:31):
But let’s say that you don’t feel comfortable answering it because you know they take a lot of pharmaceuticals, and you’re not sure about herb-drug interactions. Or because it’s just more complex than what you have studied so far. Or it’s about a topic that you just haven’t started learning yet. All those are so valid. So, whatever their problem is, listen to them. Let them talk about it. And then say hey, I don’t actually know that, but I can direct you to this really good clinic option that is low cost and all that stuff. Commonwealthherbs.com/clinic.

A Practice Game: Pick a Person & Write It All Down

(00:15:09):
Now, when you go home, or when you go back to your car, whenever you’re alone after you have seen this person, write it all down. Don’t write their name at the top of it because we’re anonymizing things. But write down everything they told you. All their symptoms, whatever information they gave you, write it down. And write down anything else you know about the situation. So, maybe you know that right now their work is really stressful, more stressful than it usually is, and they’re not sleeping very well. And also they’re not eating very well right now. Normally they don’t eat fast food, but right now they’re eating a lot of fast food because of what’s going on at work. And you didn’t ask them about that. You just know because you’re friends with them, and you know that that’s what’s going on. So, whatever that kind of thing is going on, write that down.

(00:16:06):
Write down whatever you have observed about their energetics. So, do they run hot? Do they run cold? Are they always dried out, or do they tend to retain water? Are they tense most of the time, or are they really chill all the time, whatever? And that is in their body and also in their emotions. You could be tense in your body and maybe a little less in your emotions. Usually tension goes in both. But you could be chilled out in your body, like very relaxed and sort of floppy in your body, but you could have tension in your mind. That’s true. But just write down any of that that you have observed about them. And then make some notes about their four pillar states. So, if you don’t know what I mean by four pillars, then grab the free course that’s called Four Keys to Holistic Herbalism. It is going to explain all this for you and it’s totally free. But let me do the short version here for you. You’re going to make some notes about their food, about their sleep, about their stress, and about their movement habits. So, not just right now they’re stressed out at work, and they’re eating a lot of fast food, but even like a little bit longer term. They’ve always had chronic insomnia. They’ve never been able to sleep well, even if that doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with what they asked about.

(00:17:47):
Or this person used to be a very active person, but now work is so busy that they have gone from walking a few miles a day to just being 100% sedentary. And it was like flipping a switch, whatever. If you’re just writing down the current moment, and everything is sedentary, that’s one thing that’s true. But having that extra information about their past and sort of what is their baseline is also really helpful if you know it. So, here you’re just making notes of what you know. If you don’t know everything, that’s okay. It’s not going to hurt the game. Anything that you don’t know, if it turns out later that we need it, we’re just going to make it up. And that’s going to be okay because this is just a game. Okay. So, now you have something you can work with. You don’t have total complete information about every single thing in the world, but you have a really good starting point.

(00:18:46):
Okay. And then the last thing is, if you know that they’re taking pharmaceuticals, write those down. If you don’t know the specific name… You know that they’re taking medication for depression, but you don’t know exactly what medication it is, that’s okay. You can just put the category of thing. Put whatever it is that you know. If you don’t know, or if you think they’re not taking any medications, okay, that’s fine. Just make a note of that. But if you want to make this the extra challenging version, you can make up a bunch of medications and just pretend like they’re taking them. You can just be like oh yeah, and this person’s totally taking blood thinners and also antipsychotics. Sure. So, that would make it more challenging. If you want the easier version of this game, then pretend like they’re taking no drugs at all, even if they are taking drugs. We’re not actually going to give this to them. This is for you, this is for the game. So, you can change the facts if you want to. So, if you want the easy version, and you know they’re taking pharmaceuticals, just pretend like they’re not. And if you want the medium version, then just write down what they’re really doing. And if you want the hard version, then increase the number of pharmaceuticals that they’re taking. Just add extra ones in there to make it harder.

Describe the Symptom Set

(00:20:10):
Okay. So, now we have a picture. We have what, like half a page or a page of information. It’s not totally complete, of course, but it is a really good picture of who we are working with. So, now the next step is you’re going to start thinking about what could you suggest to this person? And for this part of the game write everything down. Do not start censoring yourself. If you’re like well yeah, but they would never do that. Oh, this could help. Oh, they would never do that. No, no, no. Just write every single thing down you can think of. We’re going to sort through it later. For now, list everything, anything you can think of. And it’s great to be as detailed as possible. So, let’s think about how we can break this down so that you can get detail into your list. First of all we have to think about what is really going on for them. So, not just the name of the diagnosis that they have, because the diagnosis is not actually enough information for us to select herbs and strategies. That’s because every body is different, and different people have different expressions of whatever that diagnosis is. So, you could have five people with Crohn’s disease, and they might have five different symptom sets. There may be some overlap, but they’re not all going to be exactly the same. Plus, each one of them has a different body.

(00:21:50):
So, maybe one person with Crohn’s disease is kind of on the dehydrated side, and they’re really tense all the time, and they don’t really get very much sleep. And another person with Crohn’s disease runs cold all the time, retains a bunch of water, and they actually sleep more than eight hours a night. Our strategies for these two people will be very different. Even though both of them have Crohn’s disease, we will not recommend the same actions to both people because they have different bodies. And their expressions of Crohn’s will be different because they have different bodies. So, we need to figure out okay, it’s great to know the diagnosis if there is one. That’s fantastic. But then we have to break that down. What are they really experiencing? What is the list of symptoms that they are feeling every day? Is their version of Crohn’s that they’re getting diarrhea multiple times a day? Or is their version of Crohn’s actually on the constipated side of things? It could be either one. All right.

(00:23:02):
Now, this is just a game. So, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know the total specifics of every single symptom that they experience in the context of their health issue. If you don’t know anything. If all you know is that they told you a diagnosis name, fibromyalgia, but you don’t know anything else. Okay. Well, this is a great time to go research fibromyalgia. And if you have our Neurological & Emotional Health course where there’s a whole section on fibromyalgia, that starts off with here’s what fibromyalgia is like in different people in different ways. And here’s all the things you can do about it. And you also can just look up fibromyalgia and see okay, well, here are the symptom lists. Now every single person is not going to have every symptom on the list. And some people are going to have some symptoms that are not on the list at all. And that’s okay. So, if you don’t know the complete details that the real person that you have in mind is experiencing, you can make it up because it’s just a game.

(00:24:11):
So, put in as much detail as you can, make up the rest. And remember you don’t need an entire page of everything. If we just have like two or three sentences, if we have a list of like two to five symptoms to get working with. Because again, it’s just a game. This doesn’t have to be the 1000% accurate version. Okay. So, now we’re going to look at those symptoms, the actual experience that they’re having or the made-up experience that we gave them. And what we are looking for at this point is where can we get our hooks into this problem? Or like what is the on ramp for us to work as herbalists with what is going on for them? So, for a doctor they’re saying oh, here’s the diagnosis. I match that up with one of these three treatment options. And it’s like a multiple-choice test. Herbs don’t work that way. For us we need to kind of analyze what’s going on and then figure out where are the places that the herbs and various holistic strategies are going to be able to do work to make an impact for this person. All right. So, we’re going to look at those symptoms and we’re going to say well, do we see tension here? If we see some tension, we might need some relaxants. So, maybe an example of that would be they have gut cramping. That’s a form of tension. Okay. So, some relaxants. That’s a place where we could do some work. Or do we see stagnation and water retention? So, an example of that would be somebody who’s just chronically bloated all the time. Okay. Well, in that case, we might be thinking about some lymphatic stimulants.

(00:26:04):
So, there may be other areas where we really can’t move the needle for them, and that’s not a problem. We are looking for the places where we could fit ourselves into the work. When you’re beginning you may only see one or two places. And that is okay because if you can make an improvement in one or two places, you have helped that person. Even if it isn’t a 100% resolution, help is help. As you advance, if you’re an intermediate student or a more advanced student, you may see 10 different places. Worse, you may see 15 or 20 different places where you could get in there and make an impact. Okay, well, at some point we’re going to have to narrow that down because they don’t have time to do 10 or 15 or 20 different things. But that’s okay. It’s good to write them all down right now.

Break It Down & Identify What We Can Impact

(00:26:54):
Now it’s important as we are looking for our on-ramp here, it’s important that we have a super clear goal about exactly what impact we want to have. So, let’s assume this person, let’s make an example here, they have rheumatoid arthritis. A really good goal is I want to get the fluids moving so that we can clear out the metabolic waste that’s causing inflammation. And bring in fresh nutrients so that we can start to repair damage from the stagnating waste that has just been sitting around. That is the mechanism that we’re going to use. That is one of the mechanisms that we’re going to use to decrease their pain level. Because if we take away one of the causes of the pain, their pain will reduce. It might not be the only mechanism. There may be multiple mechanisms that we work with so that we reduce the pain. And each one has an impact, and then cumulatively we get a really noticeable change. But this is one goal that we have, and we’ve said it clearly.

(00:28:03):
That cumulative part is really important. We’re not looking for one total solution, which is good because there isn’t one. There’s never going to be one herb or one formula that solves an entire problem for somebody, especially if it’s something like rheumatoid arthritis. That problem is too big for one solution. So, I want to stop their rheumatoid arthritis pain. That’s not a good goal. We can’t actually do that because there’s no herb for that. But when we break down okay, well, one of the causes of the pain is all that stagnating fluid. And then another cause can be inflammation that is specifically because of damage from all that stagnation. And then another cause can be other damage that’s caused because these are all stemming from the stagnation, but that’s okay. Other damage that’s caused because the cells in the area have been starved. They haven’t been able to get fresh nutrients because there’s been a total fluid traffic jam going on.

(00:29:04):
Now those are three things, and the bottom two were consequences of the first one. But the first one, let’s clear out the fluids. That’s great, but then we can add on. So, clearing out the fluids is going to reduce the inflammation, is going to help bring in fresh nutrients, but then we also can do a little extra to help reduce the inflammation. And then we can do a little extra to bring in fresh nutrients. Maybe we change their diet so that they have more of the nutrients that they need to support this situation. Maybe we do some topical stuff, like some seaweed topically so that they’re getting nutrients right in the direct location that they are having the problem. So, it’s okay if as we are writing down the different aspects of the problem some of them are related to each other. That part’s not a problem. But the key here is that we are looking for how we can stack up all the different places where we can make an impact, where we can get our hooks in, so that we can add up to a big change for them.

(00:30:16):
All right. So, to come up with this, we’re looking at every possible question we can ask about their symptoms. Where is the pain coming from? What kind of pain is it? Is there only one kind of pain or are there multiple kinds of pain? Is the pain localized, or is the pain systemic, or is it both? How frequent is the pain? What are the triggers for the pain? And every question that you ask yourself is going to give you more information. But it might also revert you back to the beginning and be like oh, that makes me think of another thing for a previous question I already thought I answered, right?

(00:30:55):
All right. So, we’re just trying to brainstorm in as many directions as we can possibly go in. And as you’re doing this, just let your brain roam free. If you come up with a question, and you don’t have the answer, just leave a blank or circle it so you come back to it. Here’s what you don’t do. Do not tell yourself well, I’m not good at this because I don’t know this answer. No, you might know the answer 10 minutes from now. You might’ve just asked those questions out of order, but you didn’t know what the order was until later. The answers to the questions sometimes give you answers to the previous questions or make you think about things to the previous questions. So, that part is just really important as you’re going through this. You’re breaking everything down. This is a new way for most people to think about health problems.

(00:31:51):
Most people grew up in this culture. And so we just think about the name of the diagnosis, and maybe we think about a couple of the top symptoms. But to really break it down like this, it’s a totally different way of thinking. So, as you are doing this, do not get down on yourself. Wherever you don’t know the answer, just leave it blank. It’s totally fine. Totally, totally fine. All we are looking for is what can we impact? And you might realize that even if you have some blanks, you still have found some areas where you can impact the problem. I want you to know that this is true for people who are clinical herbalists who have been in practice for a long time. When I do this game, yes, there are still for me times that I’m like I don’t know about that part, but I can do some work over here. And sometimes doing some work over here unlocks information that wasn’t really available before.

(00:32:56):
Sometimes my whole approach to a problem is I do not think that what we see right now is the clear picture. I think that what we are seeing right now is really clouded by the fact that you’re only getting five hours of sleep a night. And right now we can’t tell which symptoms are really being caused by the five hours of sleep and which symptoms are being caused by the actual problem that you’re having. And so what I actually want to do is spend a month working on the sleep so that we can get a clear picture of what’s actually going on for this other thing. You need to know that that happens to me all the time, and that that’s a valid approach, a totally valid approach. So that when you are playing this game yourself, you’re not thinking oh, there was a blank I didn’t know the answer to. I guess I’m not a good herbalist. Heck no. There’s often areas where I don’t know the answer. And later, after we’ve been working for a month or two, or sometimes even six months, things bubble up to the surface that make it clear what the answer was to that question but not until later. Okay. So, you’re agreeing with me that you’re not going to use this part of the game to get down on yourself. If there are gaps, you’re just going to say yeah, that’s normal. That totally happens. But I’ve got these other areas of impact where I can start. Okay, excellent.

Rank Your List of Suggestions & Craft Email(s)

(00:34:25):
So, now we have this big list of lots of things that might help us move the needle for this person. And we may also have a list of some questions, not a problem. Now, sometimes you make this list, and it’s really small. That’s not a problem. It’s what you know right now. It’s where you’re going to start, and you can build on it in the future. So, if you’re like gee Katja, I played this game, and I made the list, and there were a whole two items on the list. So, I guess I’m never going to be a good herbalist. Heck no. That’s just the two items you’re going to start with. We’re going to add to it later. It’s going to be fine. If you need help finding sources to help you expand what you know right now, right? Sometimes the list is small because you’re a beginner, and you just don’t know a lot yet. That’s okay. But if you need help finding sources to do that, then get in touch with me so that I can help you find what you need. You can toss it in a discussion thread. You can send us an email. You can set up a quick help session. You can ask in live Q&A. But if you need help figuring out like geez, I don’t actually even know where I would look for the answer to this kind of a problem. Don’t stew on it. Just ask for help. Okay.

(00:35:49):
All right. So, you have this list. And before we move forward to our next step, I want you to just give yourself a gold star because this was a lot of work. This might actually have taken you several days. It might have taken you a week. Depending on your schedule, it could have taken longer. That is okay. And so when you told that person hey, this is actually really complicated and quite a lot of work. I can’t just rattle it off the top of my head right now. See, you were right. It took you a while to get to this point. So, gold star for you. And now we’re going to move on to the next step. All right. We’re going to look at the list that we’ve made, and we’re going to think about our person. And we’re going to think about what can we actually suggest to this person? So, some of the things we can’t suggest because they have a potential herb drug interaction, right? Okay, so fine. Some of the things on the list we could suggest, and maybe we really want to suggest, but they just don’t fit that person. They’re not going to be willing to do that. We just know oh, they’re never going to do that. Or they might do it, but they don’t have the resources for it. Now, part of working as a clinical herbalist is helping to motivate people to try things that maybe they would not previously have been willing to try. And helping to make those things accessible for them, whether that’s financially or in terms of their energy resources, or their time resources, or whatever else.

(00:37:22):
But for right now for our starting point, we’re just going to think about the things on the list that we think yeah, they might actually try that one. Okay. That’s where we’re going to start. And so we’re going to take whatever it is that we think they might try. We’re going to kind of rank it based on what do we think will get them the biggest impact. So, if you had a list of 10 things, and then you’re like well, these are the five things that I think they would be willing to try. Okay. Well, of that five, number one, I think it’ll only get them 5%. But number four, I think we’ll get them 25%. Okay, well then we’re going to start with number four, right? Because let’s get the biggest bang for the buck or the biggest bang for the effort right off the bat if we can. And then you might say okay, another thing would help. But it’s a low impact thing, but it’s easy to tack on to the first thing. Okay, well now instead of 25%, we get 30%. That’s great. So, whatever it is that we’ve chosen, the next step is we’re going to write them an email.

(00:38:31):
Now, we are not actually writing an email to the real person. We are writing something that looks like an email to this person, but we’re not actually going to give it to them. You can play this game for people who did not ask for your help, but you just know them, and you know what’s going on with them. Or you can play this game for people who did ask for your help, but you felt that it was not appropriate. Either way, we’re not going to be like oh hey, I thought of something that will fix all your problems, especially if they didn’t ask for help because they’re not going to appreciate that. This is just our own practice game. And so we’re writing them an email, but it’s not really going to them. It’s really just our practice. Okay. But imagine that you are writing it to them because everybody’s different. And different people have different experience in the kitchen or different levels of I don’t have a measuring cup, or I don’t have a teapot or whatever. Or I do have those things, and I’m really comfortable making tea.

(00:39:37):
So, if you imagine that you really are writing it to the person you have in mind, that is already going to build in new sets of challenges. Because you’re thinking about that person, and you’re like yeah, this person does not know how to boil water. Okay. So, the way that I explain this to this person is going to be different than the way that I would explain it to somebody who makes tea regularly and just wanted a little extra help. All right. So, go ahead and go through that process of writing out how you would explain it to them. And then put it aside for a day, come back to it, make sure it all makes sense to you. Make sure you didn’t leave anything out. Good. Now, as you go through this, the whole list and everything, you might realize that the only things that they would be willing to do are also low impact things. And so if that is the case. And you’re like man, this other thing would have a much stronger impact, but I don’t think they’re willing to do it. That’s a different email. And it’s important to practice that. In fact, you could write the email to this person 10 different ways just by arbitrarily saying okay, let’s shift the number of things that I think they would be willing to do, right? Okay. So, here’s that second email. You might say here’s the thing that I think will have the most impact. It might not appeal to you, but let me explain it and see if it sounds like something you might want to try. Okay, now we’re going to explain it. But then we’re going to go on. If that doesn’t appeal to you, here is another thing you can try. It will not have as strong of an impact, but it will get you started and now explain that thing.

(00:41:33):
If they in fact are not willing to try the thing you really wish they would do. And they say well, okay, I’ll do this other easier thing. And then they experience the results, and the results are not super impressive. That’s okay. Because you already told them that you didn’t think it would have nearly as much impact as the other suggestion. So, they know that there are more options that they could try, and they could follow up with you. And they won’t say oh well, herbs don’t work because I wasn’t impressed with my results. No, you already warned them that this was going to have less impact. So, this will encourage them to follow up with you instead of just giving up on herbs altogether. So, as you’re writing these imaginary practice emails, every sort of scenario like that that you can think of. Even if you’re writing the same email, but you’re just coming up with different like oh, they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t do this. Okay, now it’s a new email suddenly.

(00:42:38):
Every time you do that, you are building in flexibility and creativity into your skills. That gives you confidence. And then once you have, maybe you have six different versions of this email by now, right? All of this came from just one five-minute conversation with a friend last week. And now you’re here with all these different potential solutions and all these different imaginary emails where you have all these different scenarios that you’ve set up. Every time that you do this, you are strengthening the stuff that you have learned, strengthening your access to it in your brain, making everything go faster. Okay. It’s a little awkward at first, but every time you do it, you are increasing your speed. You are increasing your ability to be flexible when they surprise you and say oh, I would never do that, or I totally would do that, or whatever else might come up to surprise you. When you practice this, you are preparing yourself for those situations that are going to happen in the real world.

Get Feedback On Plans & Fill In Knowledge Gaps

(00:43:47):
All right. Now, once you’ve written this all out you might say gee, I really wish that I could get some feedback on this. So, you have a few options here. One is you can try it yourself. So, whatever it is that you’ve recommended to that person, just try it for like a week or two weeks and see what happens. Now, you may not have the same problems that they have, so you can’t be sure of exactly the impact that’ll happen to this person. But if what you were trying to do was relax gut cramping, and you don’t have gut cramping, but you still drank the tea every day that you were recommending to them, you will still feel relaxation. Okay, you didn’t have cramping, so you won’t know how much of an impact on the cramping it had. But you will know aha, relaxation did happen. Okay. I think this would have made an impact for that person, even if I don’t know exactly how much. The other benefit to trying the stuff that you would recommend to people is that if you have recommended them a tea, and it doesn’t taste good, then you know that it didn’t taste good. Sometimes you’re like oh, these are the perfect herbs for this person. And you’re not thinking about what it’s going to taste like. You’re just thinking about the actions and how it will help them. And then you try it, and you’re like oh, I can’t give this to somebody. They’re never going to be able to drink this. So, that’s another reason that it’s really good to try it yourself. Okay. So, that’s one way that you can know did this work or did it not work? Did I do a good job on this?

(00:45:25):
Okay. But the other way that you can know is you can send it to your herb teacher. So if that’s us, send it to us. Ask us for feedback. And we can let you know yeah, this is good. Here are some gaps in your approach. And we can help you line up the resources that you need to help you boost up whatever areas you had gaps in. So, just make sure that you have anonymized it. Dear friend, not the person’s name or anything like that. We’re not putting anything that would identify that person if you’re going to send it to a teacher for feedback. And again, you’re not going to give this to the person. This is you building your confidence. And by now it’s not the same thing as that person, right? Because you’ve added in pharmaceuticals, you’ve added in all kinds of other things to make it more challenging. Totally fine. But getting that feedback is your opportunity to talk with your teachers about okay, how I thought this through, yes. Okay, I was good in all these areas, and my strategy was solid. And we can make a prediction about whether or not we think it would have helped this imaginary person or not. But it really is going to help you to say okay, I actually did this. And also somebody looked it over and said yeah, I think this is a good approach.

(00:46:48):
Again, you never have to tell your friend that you were practicing with the health information that they told you about. In fact, I would not tell them, right? Because your friends don’t want you to be an herbal nag. They don’t want to feel like you’re butting into their business, or trying to judge them because they eat Oreos, or whatever else. That is okay. You’re practicing, and this is just a scenario for you to work with. It is like a case study that is built, and now you’re taking it offline. It’s not really about that person anymore. It’s about your learning, but you have a person in mind that you are targeting your responses to. So, the more that you build up these scenarios, even though you’re not actually telling the people. That part doesn’t actually matter because right now this is about building your confidence. The more that you do these kinds of scenarios, the more that you are solidifying the material that you are learning. The more that you are becoming flexible, and creative, and fast at thinking through each step of the process. And the more that you are getting good at researching the gaps in your knowledge. You’re getting faster and faster at doing that. There are always going to be gaps in your knowledge. Don’t think that there will ever be a time when that disappears, but this is going to make you faster at filling them in.

A Heart Issues Example: Define Our Goals

(00:48:19):
All right. Well, let’s have an example, shall we? Okay. So, this one came from Q&A last week. Janet was playing this game using her neighbor as her example. So, here’s the information that she gave us to start off. A friend has a heart issue. He’s an older fellow, but we don’t know the age exactly. He’s got atrial fibrillation, and his heart rate is going fast. He has a pacemaker. We don’t know how long he has had it. He has Raynaud’s. He’s taking multiple blood pressure pills, multiple blood thinners, thyroid pills, and a statin. He was taking beta blockers, but he stopped. He’s been a big drinker in the past, but recently he’s finding that he really can’t tolerate it. His body is rejecting the drink. He just can’t do it anymore, even though he used to drink a lot and every night. He eats vegetables, but really what he likes is cake. Usually his meals are meat, and starch, and a little vegetable, and then cake. And he’s had COVID several times. And in practice, in the beginning of this process, she said my goal is to try and reduce his heart rate. Okay. So, first let’s think about that goal. And we worked through this in Q&A, but now we can do this as an example here. First, let’s think about that goal. Is reducing the heart rate even possible? You can pause this if you need to and just think about it for a few minutes.

(00:50:02):
All right, ready? No. That is not specific enough because he’s taking drugs that impact his heart rate, and his pacemaker impacts his heart rate. So, if we just say lower his heart rate, how would we even know if we did it actually? Now okay, we can get diagnostic information from the pacemaker depending on what kind of pacemaker he has and how new or old it is. Some won’t have that information available, some will. But the point here is that there are a lot of overrides that are already in place on the heart issue. So, it’s going to be challenging, especially if we can’t see the diagnostic information from the pacemaker. It’s going to be challenging for us to even know if we succeeded at reducing his heart rate. That goal alone does not really give us an entry point. Now, you might be thinking well, he could just take hawthorn. This is easy, right? Well, can he? We don’t actually know what drugs he’s taking. We know that he’s taking multiple blood pressure medications, and some blood pressure medications interact with hawthorn. And we don’t really know what gets his heart rate up to begin with, which is actually important. So, we don’t actually know enough right now to say that hawthorn could help. Even though if you’ve studied a little bit of herbalism, hawthorn probably jumped right to your mind.

(00:51:39):
Okay, put that aside. We’re not ready to say that yet. Okay. So, depending on the kind of pacemaker that he has, and depending on which drugs he’s taking, which we don’t know, one thing we might be able to do successfully is reduce the triggers that create the irregular heart rate in the first place. So in other words, if we can look at what gets his heart racing, then we might find areas that we can impact and impact noticeably. So, if we don’t know what his actual triggers are, then that’s okay. We can make them up, right, because this is just practice. So, we can just say okay… Because we don’t have this information, right? But we’re just going to make it up. His heart races when he has to go upstairs, and also when his temper gets heated up, and whenever he drinks alcohol. Okay. And then we can think about maybe some longer-term causes. Those are situational causes. If one of those things happens pretty fast afterwards, his heart starts to race.

(00:52:46):
All right. So, then we can look at some longer-term causes like sugar consumption and an overall high level of baseline inflammation in the body, which we know is there because of other factors. He has Raynaud’s. We know that that’s a chronic inflammatory/autoimmune-related condition. And this has been going on for some period of time. We don’t know exactly how long but a while. All of these are inflammatory, chronic inflammatory issues. So, we know that that has been a long-term contributor. We don’t know for sure, but it would not be unreasonable for this person to be pre-diabetic. So, that also is something that we can think about in our mind, right? Okay. Also, if we’re thinking about long-term causes, we can think about COVID. Because one of COVID’s biggest impacts is in the blood vessels. It damages the tissue of the arterial walls, and that creates more inflammation and can raise blood pressure. High alcohol consumption can also cause these same symptoms, and high sugar consumption can create that same scenario. So, we are seeing three causes in his history that are creating damage in the blood vessels. And we also know that’s a really good place for herbs to do work. That’s a hook that we can grab onto or like an on-ramp where we can have impact. Okay, good. So, we put that on our list.

(00:54:25):
We can also think about herbs and other strategies for stress management to try to limit the times that his temper gets up. And we can look at the diet to think about some alternatives to sugary treats so that we can remove one cause of inflammation that way, right? Okay. So, to me I’m looking at this list, and I’m thinking stress management and lowering inflammation levels, especially in the blood vessels themselves, are two things that I can do and that will ultimately reduce the frequency of a racing heart. Now, we don’t know the size of the impact it will have for this person, but we do know that in a person it would have that impact. So, that’s a goal we can work with. Now, ultimately the net result is likely to be similar to her original goal. If we are reducing the frequency of the racing heart episodes, that does look like bring his heart rate down. But now we have a really specific plan about how we can do that based on the areas where we are likely to have success And in a mechanism where we can see if we actually did anything. Because if we just try to bring the heart rate down, well, the meds and the pacemaker are doing that already. But if we’re really trying to reduce the number of racing heart episodes that he has, we can get information back from the pacemaker – assuming it is a pacemaker that has diagnostic information available – to see how often did it kick in. And if it is kicking in less often, then we are in fact reducing the frequency of his racing heart episodes. So, we can actually even know if we did something here.

How Do We Get There: Choosing Herbs

(00:56:23):
All right. So, now we need to think about how can we do this? And we’re going to just list out all the things that can help us repair the damage to the vasculature, especially to the arteries. And that’s the first thing. So, pause this if you want to play along at home and go ahead and make a list of all the things that you can think of. Okay, ready? Now I’m going to tell you mine. All right. We know that one of the biggest areas of impact for the damage in the blood vessels specifically is the endothelial lining of the vasculature. That endothelial lining is what gets damaged by COVID. And also it gets damaged from alcohol, gets damaged from sugar. That is where the inflammation is biggest. So, we can be thinking about vulneraries here in the exact same way that we would think about them for the digestive tract or even for the skin, because it is all the same kind of cell. Your skin, the lining of your digestive tract, and the lining of your blood vessels, and the lining of many other things like the inside of your bladder and other areas of the body, it’s all thelial cells. It’s all endothelial cells except your actual skin. That’s epithelial cells because it’s on the outside. But it’s all the same kind of cell. So, we know that vulneraries that work in the digestive tract are going to help with the endothelial cells everywhere throughout the body. So, let’s make a list. We can talk about calendula, and plantain, and chamomile, and goldenrod, and self-heal, and that’s a good start. There’s a whole lot of vulneraries, but let’s work with those five.

(00:58:14):
So, we have this list. And now what do we need to think about? Well, first we need to think about his drugs, and do we see any drug interactions there? Now we don’t know exactly which ones he’s taking, but we know that there are multiple blood thinners and multiple for blood pressure. The thyroid med is not nearly as challenging to work with, and the statin is also not as challenging. Okay. So, it’s the blood pressure and the blood thinners that we’re thinking about here the most. And because we don’t know which ones he’s taking, that makes it hard for us to be very specific about safety. However, calendula and chamomile both have super safe profiles that have very little chance of drug interaction. And so if we stick with those two, we get really good vulnerary action. They don’t taste too bad. They’re pretty easy to get. And the likelihood of an interaction with the drugs that he’s taking is very minimal. So, that’s a really safe starting point.

(00:59:21):
So, now we’ve got our vulneraries. Let’s think about any other mechanisms that we have to repair damage in the vasculature, because what if he doesn’t like that idea, right? We should come up with some more. All right. Well, one way is antioxidants. Now, hawthorn falls into that category, but we’re already thinking about drug interactions for hawthorn. And so we kind of pushed it off the list because we’re just not sure what we’re working with. Does that mean that there’s nothing that we can work with? Pause me if you want. All right. Let’s think about some other ones. Garlic, really good except very likely to interact with the blood thinners. So okay, not garlic. Ginger, the same. But what about berries? Food berries here. Not like hawthorn medicinal berry, but food berries. Raspberries, blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, those are all fine. Totally safe and really very effective, plus they have fiber. And I am certain with this fellow’s diet that he has not mentioned any sort of bowel issues, but I bet they’re there. I bet they’re there. So, heck, we can do work in the vasculature and help in the digestive system at the same time. Right?

(01:00:41):
Okay. So, so far we’ve got calendula, and chamomile, and berries every day. Now, those berries can do dual duty here because if we can create a berry dessert that he likes, then that can help reduce his sugar intake if we’re replacing the cake with the berries. Which we may be able to do, especially if we put a little cinnamon on top and maybe put some slivered almonds or something else fancy with it. It might be appealing to him. He’s already reducing his alcohol, whether he wants to or not. His body is saying we have to reduce the alcohol. And so that base is fairly well covered. So, just between calendula, chamomile, and berries, we’ve actually got a lot of impact in a lot of different areas, right? Okay. Certainly there are many more suggestions that we can have, but these are good ones. Let’s stick with these.

(01:01:45):
Now let’s move on to stress management and think about that. What would be something that we could work with long term to help him create a more stable temper and short term when he feels his temper rising in a moment? This might not be the same thing. We might have two different solutions for this. Now this is not going to be the same for every person, of course, depending on what gets the temper up to begin with. So, we have to do a little imagination here, and we should be specific. Let us be specific about what the problem is even though we’re making it up, because that’s going to allow us to be specific about what we’re going to suggest. Okay. So, we are going to imagine that he is ruminating on things in his past that still upset him. And that when he feels sadness or grief, he masks that with anger because the sad feeling is too hard to bear. All right. So, that’s kind of two different… Let’s say something, a business partner betrayed him in his past. And when he ruminates on that, it gets him really angry again. And then when he has feelings of sadness or grief, he masks that with anger.

(01:03:03):
Okay. So, pause if you need to, or if you just want to, and think about what could we do here to help with those two things? Okay. So, we might be thinking about skullcap and passionflower to help with the rumination. We might be thinking about tulsi. We might be thinking about blue vervain, right? Things in the past that we can’t control anymore. We might also think about something like linden or rose for the sadness that is expressing as anger. Linden might help for the anger that’s expressing as anger also, but I’m really thinking of it in that sadness category. All right, that’s enough for us to think about for a minute. Obviously there are like 10,000 more ideas, but let’s work with these for the moment. So, before we make a choice, we need to think about our drug interactions again. So, overall, wait a minute, what were those herbs again? Skullcap, passionflower, tulsi, blue vervain, linden, and rose. All right. So, overall, these are herbs that are really safe and generally unlikely to have drug interactions. The tulsi, I think would probably be fine. I’m not worried about it too much as a blood thinner or with the blood pressure, but of all of them it is the most likely to have some sort of interaction. So, I think let’s maybe set that one aside. We can come back to it in the future if we want to. But let’s think about skullcap and linden just to keep things really, really simple. Skullcap to focus on the rumination and linden to focus on the sadness masking as anger.

Design a Protocol, Communicate Expectations, & Track Progress

(01:05:02):
Okay. Now we’ve come up with calendula, chamomile, skullcap, and linden. And that is not a bad formula. It will taste pretty decent. If we make it in equal parts, it’ll taste pretty good. And if we’re just making one tea blend for him, that is a lot easier for him to manage. So, it’s just this one infusion. He can drink it throughout the day. If he makes a quart in the morning, then he can just have it all day long. And if we keep it super simple like that, then he is more likely to do it. And that is just as important as the herbs that we choose, right? Because we could choose the most perfect herbs on the planet, but if he doesn’t take them, it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter how perfect they were. So, I think that these four herbs are actually really pretty perfect. And we can package them in a way that makes it very easy for him to actually do it every day. So, that combined with the food changes that we want to make, I think we’re looking at a really good starting point for the first month. We can reevaluate. We can make adjustments based on how he feels, based on what results he gets. Obviously we would tell this person that this is our starting point. This is not like the solution to his everything. This is a supportive assistant to try to reduce stress, reduce inflammation, reduce the number of times that the pacemaker has to kick in, hopefully. And I think that we can make an impact that way.

(01:06:42):
All right. Obviously there’s so much more we can work with. He certainly has some food sensitivities. Raynaud’s alone is an indicator for that. We could definitely be looking at improving liver health, especially after the lifetime of heavier drinking. We could definitely be doing more work on stress management for him. And we haven’t even talked about sleep yet, but sleep is probably also an issue. Movement is going to be important, but we’ll have to be a little bit careful there. Because we don’t want to get his heart rate up too much through movement, but we don’t want him to be sedentary either. So, that’s an area we can investigate with him or that he might investigate with a physical therapist. He might have a physical therapist because he has a pacemaker. Or he might have had one and stopped going, and we could encourage him to start that back up again. But in terms of building a starting point that is likely to have a perceptible impact, something that he will feel, that he will notice, and also be simple enough for him to succeed at daily, I think this is a really good goal.

(01:07:50):
Okay. So, now if we are going to communicate this to him, we need to explain where is he going to get everything? How is he going to make it? Exactly how. And exactly how is this going to fit into his day? And we’re going to need some collaboration from him on that because we don’t really know what his schedule is like. But we need to fit our work into his schedule in a way that he likes, including the acquisition of the things. If he has a habit about how often he goes to the grocery store, well, do berries fit into that habit? Does he need to go a little more often because berries don’t last super long in the refrigerator? Whatever it is, we need to figure out that what we have planned is actually feasible for him. We also want to make really sure in our communication with him that he understands what the purpose is and what the results are that we expect. And we want to be really specific. The specific part wasn’t just so that we pick a good strategy. It’s also so that he understands what he’s doing and why he’s doing it. Because if he understands what he’s doing and why he’s doing it, he is more likely to do it.

(01:09:04):
All right. We want to explain any potential for adverse interactions if we see any. Here I don’t expect any, but we can leave it open-ended. We can say something like if anything feels weird, or if you don’t like it, let me know right away so that I can make an adjustment that’s better for you. If we know that there is a potential adverse reaction, then we can tell him to be watching for that specific thing. But in this case I don’t expect one, but I don’t want to say nothing. I want him to know that if something feels weird, he should tell me right away because I don’t want him to feel weird. And also, what if there’s an adverse reaction that I didn’t think of? What if there was something that I didn’t expect? What if there was a drug he didn’t tell me about? Okay. And then ideally we would want him to get some data. So, we need to think through how do we want to track the results in a way that’s not onerous for him? Now in this case, again, his pacemaker might give us the results we need depending on what kind of pacemaker it is and whether or not he has access to the diagnostics himself. If he does, he may be able to see how often the pacemaker kicks in to bring his heart rate down. And we can compare that against the previous month.

(01:10:28):
But we can also think a little bit more subjectively about this. We can just have him make a tally mark on a calendar every time that he feels his temper rising or his heart racing. And if we have a little bit of before data, even if it’s just a couple days, then that will help us for comparison. And so each day you can just have a regular, the kind of calendar that has a whole month on one page and has a picture at the top. It doesn’t have to be anything fancier than that. And just make a tally mark on each day however many times that happened. So, each day we can count up the tally marks. And ideally at the end of the month there will be fewer than there were at the beginning of the month. And then at the end of the month we can talk about it, and we can make adjustments, or we can move on to the next goal. But if we have a little bit of data, then that helps us know for sure did what we tried, did it actually work?

(01:11:25):
So, there you go. That’s our game. That’s how we play it. And if you can set aside time once a week to play a game like this. You don’t have to start off with a complicated situation with a pacemaker, and a bunch of drugs, and whatever else. I use that example because I want you to know you can play it on hard mode, and that’s totally fine. But you could start with something super easy. My friend gets headaches, or my friend has indigestion after eating meals that are too large. It can start off with the easiest possible thing. That’s totally fine. Whatever it is that you think is easy. But the more often you do this, and the more that you push yourself a little each time to get a little harder, a little harder. I promise you the more comfortable you are going to get with your skills, relying on yourself, relying on the knowledge that you have learned and the skills that you have developed. I mean, that’s why you’re doing this. That’s why you’re learning this stuff so that you can rely on your own brain and your own guts to help other people. And this is how you’re going to get there.

(01:12:35):
And of course you can get there by studying with us. Remember that for the whole month of July, it’s our semi-annual sale. Everything is 20% off. Use code CATNIP at online.commonwealthherbs.com. And if you need any help choosing a course, or figuring out where to start, or what courses will meet your goals, seriously, I’m not kidding. Really, you can email me. I will answer you. It’s info@commonwealthherbs.com. All right, this is the part of the podcast where Ryn would say take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea. And play a practice game to increase your confidence. Bye-bye.