Podcast 237: Just Press Play

We’re still making the podcast! We have not abandoned you, dear listeners. 💚

We’ve been busy producing material for our online courses – especially the Accessible Herbalism and Clinical Skills courses. We’ve also been enhancing our student experience and building up our student community, so that learning with us is more enjoyable and cooperative. You’re not out there in the world on your own, when you study herbalism with us!

Today, though, we wanted to hop back on the pod feed and convey this simple message to you: just press play!

Lots of our students get caught up in feeling like everything needs to be perfectly aligned before they start studying. The right quite comfy place to study, the right amount of private time, no distractions, a new notebook and a fresh pen – all those things are great! But they’re not essential, and if you only study when everything’s perfect, well, you won’t study very much! So just press play, and let’s get at it. 🤝

When you sign up for any of our courses – including our FREE Herbal Study Tips, Four Keys to Holistic Herbalism, and Herbal Business Productivity courses – you get access to twice-a-week live Q&A sessions, integrated discussion threads on every lesson, and a vibrant student community. Our courses are centered on video lessons you can watch at your own pace, and once you’ve bought a course you retain access to it (and any future updates!), forever.

If you have a moment, it would help us a lot if you could subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!!

Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.

Episode Transcript

Katja (00:13):
Hi, I’m Katja.

Ryn (00:15):
And I’m Ryn.

Katja (00:15):
And we’re here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts.

Ryn (00:19):
And on the internet everywhere thanks to the power of the podcast. Which may be intermittent, but it’s no less mighty.

Katja (00:26):
That’s right. That’s right. That’s actually part of what we want to talk about today. Should we just jump in?

Ryn (00:34):
We should start with that, yeah.

Katja (00:35):
Okay.

Ryn (00:36):
We got a message.

Katja (00:37):
We got a message on Instagram. Somebody messaged us to ask did you stop making the Holistic Herbalism podcast? And it was like no, no. In theory, no.

Ryn (00:51):
I mean, yes, but not forever.

Katja (00:54):
No, just temporarily. And the reason is because we have been cranking out a bunch of really cool course content that I’m super excited about. New videos and content in the Clinical Skills course. A bunch of new stuff in other courses: Energetics, the Herbal Business program. We have rebuilt our student dashboard and incorporated an herbal activities calendar where there are cool activities that you can have loaded directly into your calendar – whichever one you like to use – so that it like shows up for you every day. Like here’s a fun herby thing you can do today.

Ryn (01:32):
She’s been writing these. Some of them are little reminders to don’t forget to make tea today. Or grab a materia medica book, and flip to the middle, and study whatever herb you land on. Fun little prompts like that. And it’s super handy. I mean, I’ve got them in my personal calendar now. And I find it great, actually, just to have these little reminders. So, yeah. We’ve been getting good feedback on that from the student body too.

What We’ve Been Up To

Katja (01:54):
Yeah. I really wanted… You know, like every day is so busy for everyone. And I wanted some way for people to just have something to pop up in their day to be like hey, you love herbs. Don’t forget. You love herbs, and you can make a minute for them. You have a minute. And I’m so excited because that’s what people say is happening. And you know, when we get a cool idea, and we want to try something. And we get it all set up, and we do all the things. And then but you don’t know if it’s going to work the way that you want it to and help people the way that you want it to until you try it, kind of like herbalism.

Ryn (02:35):
Kind of like herbalism, yeah. That’s right.

Katja (02:37):
And so I’m very excited that people are enjoying it. And so actually you can download that calendar. Well, not download, but it’s a feed that will feed into your calendar that you subscribe to through your Google calendar, your Yahoo, your Outlook, whatever you use. You can get that. In our student dashboard on the left-hand side, there are instructions. The calendar is there, but there’s also instructions how to get it into your own calendar. And if you’re on a phone, you won’t see a left-hand side, but there’s a purple button at the top that says search and filter. And if you click on that button, it’s directly under the search bar. And if you don’t have a course with us yet, so you don’t have a student dashboard to log into, you can change that for free. You can change that for dollars too. We love it when you support the school by purchasing a course, but you don’t have to. You can go to online.commonwealthherbs.com. And we have three different free courses and then a whole basket of low-cost courses that are accessible for anyone that you can just grab. And that will get you access to all this other cool stuff.

Ryn (03:55):
Yeah, as well as the student community, which has been really busy lately. It’s been like a lot of good threads and discussions going on. A lot of people sharing their successes and experimentations with plants, and remedies, and all that. So, it’s been really great to see that take off and grow over the past couple years. And as we’ve made some refinements and gotten some moderators to help us out, it’s really gotten to a very, very good place. And I’m happy about that.

Katja (04:22):
I think right now too, people are so sick of social media that they’re spending more time in places like private communities, like our private herbal community. And it shows people are just talking about what’s going on in their lives, and what herbs are influencing, and affecting, and helping that, and just all kinds of really great stuff. I love it.

Ryn (04:49):
Yeah. So we’ve been doing that. And we’ve been doing especially a lot of work on the Accessible Herbalism course. We’ve been getting that wrapped up and polishing off the edges and everything on there. And so we’ve been filling in activities, and journal prompts, and text lessons to explain some of these ideas in more detail.

Katja (05:09):
Worksheets.

Ryn (05:10):
Yeah. You just put in a whole new set of formulae, which are under this category we call cheapbest. Because they’re cheap, but they’re also the best, right? So it’s like yeah, you can make the very fancy version of elderberry syrup, or fire cider, or a sleep tincture, or whatever with the most expensive ingredients from far across the lands. And that’s great, but not everybody can afford that or put it together. So, what would be the least expensive, but still very, very effective version of each of those things?

Katja (05:44):
That whole course is really designed around that, accessible herbalism. First of all, usually when we think about accessible herbalism, we’re thinking about money. We’re thinking about making things more affordable for people. But it’s not just about money. It is how can we make herbalism more accessible to people with disabilities? How can we make herbalism more accessible to somebody with a chronic illness who has extremely low energy resources? So they don’t have a lot of energy to make a lot of things in their day. They need to kind of be one and done. And so, okay, how can we get the most bang for the effort or the most impact for the energy spend for folks in that kind of a situation. So, just so many different aspects of accessibility. And this is really geared towards folks who are right now or are moving into Clinical Herbalism or Community Herbalism. Folks who are working with other people maybe who are not your friends or family, like maybe they’re strangers. And how can we make sure that our work is accessible, that people can get to us, that we can actually help them and help them in ways that are meaningful. Not just say the things we know to say. But to then translate that into something that is going to work and is going to be affordable and fit into their lives. But that isn’t like oh well, you don’t have a lot of money, or you don’t have a lot of energy, or you don’t have whatever. So, I guess this is all we can do. Like no, I don’t want to settle.

Ryn (07:35):
We’re not trying to do that, yeah.

Katja (07:36):
Yeah. There are so many ways for us to do our work that are extremely potent, extremely effective, and accessible. And so I want the trifecta. I don’t just want well, it’s affordable. It might not really work very good, but at least you can afford it. No way. No, I want all three. Yeah.

Capstones & the AHG

Ryn (07:56):
Yeah. So, that’s been a big focus for us since we last spoke to y’all in podcast land. A couple other things that we’ve been busy with. I mean, since we last ran a pod, we’ve probably gone through 70 or 80 capstone assignments, I would say. So, capstones are at the end of most of our courses. There’s a little more detailed assignment to do there, not just a multiple choice or something like that. But here’s a case. You’re going to come up with some options and a solution. And you’re going to write out the language you would actually send over to a real person in the real world. Because we don’t want these to just be like abstract exercises that work your brain but not really have much connection to reality. We want to get you ready to help people as much as we can. And so all of the work we build into the courses is based on that idea. Yeah. So, we’ve been busy with those a lot. And then you…

Katja (08:49):
Well, wait. I want to talk to one other thing about the capstones is that a lot of people feel stressed out about that word capstone. But it’s not stressful. We have it set up as like okay, so here’s the case that you’re kind of working on and whatever. And so figure all that out. And then you’re just going to write it up as if you’re writing an email to your friend who has this particular issue. And so it’s an informal way of taking all the information from the course and putting it into a really practical application. But the real thing here is that we are the only ones who read it. This isn’t something that’s going to be public or whatever. And we’re not putting numbers on it. It’s like oh, a 79 or whatever. No, no, no. We read it, and we send an email back and have a conversation about hey. Here were things that were super, super strong. And I love these suggestions. And also hey, did you think about this? You could also have done this, or that, or whatever. And if there’s a place where maybe you needed a little extra, then we just say oh, hey, and I had this question. And then we just have a conversation about it. It’s not like this stressful thing where you can fail it. It’s just the beginning of a conversation. So, I always like to tell people that because people get stressed about it. And it’s not stressful. It’s okay.

Ryn (10:12):
It’s true. It’s true. It’s good to do. And then a big capturer of your time for some while now has been working with the AHG.

Katja (10:26):
Yeah. I’ve been on the board of directors for the last two years. And it has really been ramping up, just the amount of work going on there. So, I’m transitioning off the board in December at least for one term. But I may come back after that, but I’ve really been excited about all the work there. There is so much happening at the AHG. And there’s so much growth that’s needed. And it’s recognized that growth is needed, which is so exciting. Like listen, nobody’s perfect. Nothing is perfect in any one moment. But recognizing hey, we want to be growing in these directions. And these are our goals, and this is what we’re working towards. And everybody’s working really hard to move in those directions. And so that kind of thing is really exciting.

Ryn (11:22):
Yeah. She’ll downplay it a lot, but she definitely made a lot of movement in the group. And she brought in some power, and some momentum, and some energy, and some close reading skills.

Katja (11:36):
I don’t know. This is my wonderful husband who loves and supports me. But really, there’s such an amazing team. There’s so much diversity on the team now in the board and so many people with really good experience that they’re bringing in. And the amazing thing is that even though diversity has increased a millionfold, the goals that everybody wants to move towards are actually really similar. And so, it’s fun to be in a group of people with lots of different backgrounds who live in lots of different places, like the full spectrum. Some of them are medical doctors, and some of them are complete folk tradition practitioners, and people in different countries, and everything else. And everybody feeling like hey, these are things we really want to achieve. These are directions that we want to move in. This is ways that we want to make things more accessible for people, more transparent for people, and to be more serving to the community. So, that has been really fulfilling and great, but it has also been a lot of time.

Ryn (12:45):
Yeah. But also I would encourage herbalist out there. Whether it’s the American Herbalist Guild that we’re talking about, or whether it’s a local group. Get involved, get some people together, multiply power. Help the people who need it. These are some of the best ways to accomplish that. So, don’t feel alone out there in the world. Find the others. Get together. Yeah.

Building Community Connections

Katja (13:06):
That’s something that we’ve been talking about a lot in the community space lately. People have been talking about how to build community at a very local level because there’s a feeling of need for that now for obvious reasons. And so people are talking about what is a good way for me to start sharing what I am learning about herbs? And everybody kind of talking about strategies for doing that and strategies for building local connections. So, I’m really excited to be seeing everybody across the country, across the world actually sharing their ideas about how to. This huge group of people from all over in our student community talking about ways that they can encourage one another to also make these connections locally with their neighbors and their… Yeah. So, that’s been really, really cool.

Ryn (13:59):
It is good to go local, like the little in-person workshop you did at our tiny, tiny local library.

Katja (14:06):
Our library is so amazing. It would fit in your pocket, and it is so fantastic. I love it so much. And they do community workshops and stuff like that. And so I recently did one on my four favorite cold and flu season herbs.

Ryn (14:27):
Hey listeners. Can you guess which four herbs they were? You can hit pause and come back…

Katja (14:32):
Yeah. Hit pause.

Ryn (14:33):
If you want to think about it.

Katja (14:34):
I will say that they are four herbs that grow here in town. But they also are my four favorite herbs in terms of working with cold and flu. Chamomile is not in the list, but that’s my…

Ryn (14:50):
That would’ve been a fair guess, listener.

Katja (14:52):
Yeah. Chamomile isn’t, and ginger isn’t either, but those are my two favorite herbs just on top of everything.

Ryn (14:56):
Just universally, yes.

Katja (14:57):
Okay. But so you’ve had a chance now. I’m about to say them. So, if you want to push pause, now is your last chance. Okay, ready? It was pine but also hemlock or spruce or fir. And by hemlock I mean the tree, not water hemlock. No, I mean the tree.

Ryn (15:14):
I mean, that’ll stop you cold for good.

Katja (15:16):
Yeah. You’ll never get another cold again. If you’re new to herbalism, the reason we’re laughing is because that plant is famously quite toxic and actually could kill you.

Ryn (15:29):
The water hemlock.

Katja (15:30):
The water hemlock, right.

Ryn (15:30):
Not the tree hemlock.

Katja (15:31):
The tree is okay. The tree is great. But the celery/parsley family plant is the one that is kind of a lookalike for Queen Anne’s lace. That one’s not safe. Okay, so pine or any of the evergreens, and then boneset, and then goldenrod, and then elecampane, which technically does not grow native here in our town. But everyone in town has it in their gardens. And so at the plant swap in the spring, there’s always tons of elecampane because everybody’s thinning their gardens, and dividing their plants, and whatever.

Ryn (16:10):
Right. Well look, and you saw that because you went to the plant swap this spring. And then you knew this autumn that you could talk about that plant, and people in town would know about it. And this is what we’re talking about when we say local activity matters, right? And not just as a one-off. Or I suddenly appear, and I say I have all this knowledge upon you, my people. And then you disappear again, right? But to be involved, and to meet people in different contexts, and then to know what they need or to know what they’ve actually got already. Yeah, that’s some good stuff.

Katja (16:41):
And so, doing a little workshop like that. And we didn’t charge for it. I didn’t make any money. Nobody paid any money. It was just a free little Friday night thing at the library. And I really encourage that. Yes, we teach classes on how to make an herbal business, and they’re great. And if you want an herbal business, then you should because it’s fun and all the good stuff. It can support you. It can sustain you. It’s great. It’s better than many ways of making a living. But my point here is that it is completely valid to do things only for the purpose of building community. And you don’t need to be a professional herbalist for you to feel like you are qualified to build community. And you don’t need to always charge for your time. Because in this case, the compensation that you’re getting is community, right? So, I know that there’s a lot of memes and whatever about turn your side hustle into a business and all that stuff. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And we’ll teach you how to do it. But there’s also something to be said for, especially in these times, building community connections that you are going to be able to rely on, building your safety net.

Ryn (18:10):
Yeah. It’s hard to put a price tag on that kind of stuff. But when the need is there, then it’s very clearly very valuable.

Katja (18:17):
Yeah, exactly.

Ryn (18:18):
People have this experience, yeah. But what you’re saying here about you don’t have to wait for your training to be perfect, and finalized, and stamped, and everything else is kind of right in line with the other message we wanted to put out today.

Katja (18:31):
The actual thing we really want to be talking about.

Stop Waiting for Perfect: Just Press Play

Ryn (18:34):
Which is that not everything has to be perfect in the moment that you’re learning, in the moments that you’re learning either. And in fact, our message is stop waiting for everything to be perfect because we’ve noticed people doing that a little more often.

Katja (18:49):
Well, yeah. And I feel like in the last few weeks I have had so many conversations with people who have said oh, I just haven’t been studying lately because I’ve been too busy. I couldn’t get a quiet moment, whatever. And it’s just been coming up a lot. And every time I just want to say… Well, and I actually did say. But now I’m saying it to you. Don’t wait for a quiet moment. Don’t. Our work… I mean yes, there are printable things, and there’s stuff to read, but that’s supplemental stuff. Our main body of work is videos, and almost all of them are closed captioned. There’s a list you can get. Every month I post a list of our closed captioning status. We close caption our videos with a human. A human closed captions everything because the machine-made transcripts and captions are not accurate.

Ryn (19:48):
Yeah. They don’t even know the word diaphoretic, you know, let alone Inula helenium or whatever else.

Katja (19:55):
Right. And so we really want to make our work accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing community. But also maybe you just have a baby, and they’re taking a nap, and so you can’t turn the volume up. There are so many reasons.

Ryn (20:07):
Yeah. And people with English as a second or third language or whatever else. Yeah.

Katja (20:11):
And so all of the videos, you can watch them, you can read them with no volume, and there’s also an audio file for each one. So, if you are going to go do your chores. If you’re going to run errands, pick the kids up at school, do whatever you’re going to do. You can just bring it with you. You don’t need an internet connection for that part, for the audio files. And you can play them wherever you’re going, whatever you’re doing. Or if you’re at home, and you’re making dinner, you’re doing laundry, you’re doing whatever. Just bring your laptop into the kitchen, into the living room, whatever you’re doing. And just push play on any of the videos that you’re working on. And just have it going in the background.

Ryn (20:55):
Yeah. Just press play. You’re going to learn some stuff, right? It’s not exactly osmosis. You’re not turning it on and then ignoring it with the rest of your mind. But what we’re saying is you don’t need to be 100% focused with your notebook, with your calculator, and your everything else all lined up with no distractions, nobody else who could possibly interrupt you for the next several hours. That’s a nice thing to have when you can get it. But most of our students don’t have that available to them most of the time. And so learning what you can, while you can. Getting in a little bit in the midst of some other stuff that has to get done. This can actually be a very important part, a very large part of your learning time.

Katja (21:42):
Yeah. So, I think before we say anything else, I’m going to just add a little proof here. Because you might be over there thinking that wouldn’t work. I can’t learn that way. I will never remember it. And so before we talk more about that, you should really try this. I want to prove to you that it will work. And so here’s my proof. Are you ready? Think back to a show you watched when you were a kid. That might have been 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago, maybe more, but I bet you remember some TV show. When I was a kid, it was Little House on the Prairie, and the Waltons, and Mash. Oh, and there was this one cartoon. Well, I liked Bugs Bunny, but whatever, okay? It doesn’t matter. Whatever it was. And the thing is that if you think about that TV show, even though it was however many decades ago, I guarantee you remember things. You probably don’t remember every single episode and every single everything that ever happened. But you remember a lot, don’t you? Like Nelly Olson with her curls, and she took the doll. And then there were the leeches and then the whatever. Okay, that was Little House on the Prairie. It could have been anything for you, but just think about it. I guarantee that if you think about it, you remember things.

Ryn (23:07):
Or like that time on Star Trek, the Next Generation when everybody’s memory got all flashed weird. And then they were like who broke Worf’s wrist, right? So, you might remember who it was, and I do.

Katja (23:20):
I don’t right now, but that’s okay. I do remember the episode where they went to San Francisco back in time in the holodeck and yeah, right? My point is that when you were watching TV as a kid, you weren’t taking notes. You probably were playing with toys while you were watching it, or fighting with your sibling, or eating a snack, or whatever. You weren’t taking notes. Maybe you watched a few of those episodes more than once because TV used to have reruns. And by the way, speaking of TV, you probably also remember some of the commercials that happened in between the TV show too, right? Where’s the beef, like whatever. My point is that this has already happened for you. It has already worked once. More than once because I guarantee you remember more than one TV show. It will work again. And so trust in your ability to remember the plot. You don’t have to remember every single detail. Plus, these are recorded lessons. You can have reruns as often as you want.

Listen Whenever You Can & Reflect

Ryn (24:32):
Yeah. And that’s kind of the next point of guidance on this one. Not just to do it more than once as a good idea, but expect that, right? Expect that the plan from the beginning is I’m going to go through this course material. I’m going to watch all the videos, and listen to everything, and read it. And then I’m going to do it again. And maybe not immediately afterward, right? But I expect I’m going to cycle back through this content at least one more time before I’m done with it, before I set it aside. Because just in the same way that while you are letting this be on over on the side, or in the midst of your chores, and so on, you are not going to miss everything. In the same way, even if you sit down and give it your full attention, you’re not going to get everything.

Katja (25:21):
Right. Everything is never on the table.

Ryn (25:26):
Yeah, right. So don’t think of it as well, if everything is perfect, I’m going to just absorb all the information a hundred percent and have it forever. And also don’t think if I’m not giving it that full degree of focus, then I’m getting 0%. However you set it up, it’s some percentage. It’s some portion of what’s available to you. And so if you just accept that, then it’s not surprising that you say okay, I watched it once. And I watched it a second time, and I fill in those gaps and stuff I missed the first time.

Katja (25:54):
Literally, I don’t know how long ago this was, but I had some Paul Bergner CDs. And I was listening to them in the car. It must have been 15 or 18 years ago because I’m thinking about the apartment we lived in at the time. And I just listened to them on repeat in the car until I could sing along with the CD but say along with the CD. I probably listened to those CDs 10 or 20 times. But I would get to my place and just stop it. And then I would start again in the middle at some point and whatever else. And all of that is fine. If you are listening to a recording or watching a video, and one of your kids comes in, or your husband comes in, or your whoever comes in and interrupts you. Or the buzzer goes off for the oven, and you have to get up and go take care of something. Don’t worry about stopping the recording. Don’t worry about when you come back finding the exact place that you left. Just pick up where you left off. Kind of like in a TV show if you have to go pee, and there’s no commercial. Then you just get up and go pee in the old days before you could just stop it whenever you wanted to, you know?

Ryn (27:13):
Yeah. And if you hit pause or not, you’ll pick up the thread again when you come back to it, right?

Katja (27:20):
I mean yeah, you’re allowed to hit pause. I’m just saying don’t stress about it.

Ryn (27:24):
Yeah. The point is it’s okay to stop at any given moment. You don’t have to wait for the end of the lesson, or the video, or the whatever it is. You can just hit pause and keep on moving. And then when you’re done for the moment, for the day, for the session, whatever you want to call it. It’s a really good idea then to pause for just a minute, 60 seconds. Set a little timer if you need to, but like okay, what did I just hear? What did I just learn? What was something interesting? What was something cool? What was something surprising that I heard in this last span of time? And just try to hold onto that much.

Katja (28:05):
Right. And if it’s only one thing, that’s perfect. It doesn’t have to be more than that. It’s fine. If it’s two things, okay, that’s cool. But it’s not better than remembering one thing. Anything that you remember is something you remember. So, that’s really great. If you take that time at the end to just say what was one thing that I can remember that I just heard? That reinforces it in your mind, and it’s going to make it stick. If you want to push this a little further, then instead of trying to remember 10 things or whatever. Say what was one thing that I can remember that I heard, and do I want to try it? And so maybe you heard… Maybe you were listening about bitters, and you heard about calamus as a digestive bitter. And it’s a little bit unusual because most of the digestive bitters are cold. But calamus is really warming and has both the heat and the bitterness. And you’re like oh, that’s actually what I need. I would like to try that. Okay, well then there’s a thing that you remember and yeah, you would like to try it. And so that’s cool. You can just send yourself a text, or an email, or whatever so that you remember to order some if you don’t have it. And yeah. But that’s a way to solidify it in your brain and then to take action so that you also get it into your body.

Ryn (29:29):
Right. Because on one level, this is a way to tell yourself, tell your brain, tell the subprocessor of you that this is actually important because I’m making plans about it. I’m visualizing myself gathering the herb or getting the herb wherever, preparing the tincture, pressing it out later, having a bottle, taking it, imagining the flavor of it. These are all signals to yourself. This isn’t just a passing notion. This isn’t just like something I saw, and I’m like oh yeah. Okay, now I can forget about it immediately, right? You’re trying to tell yourself that this matters, and that you actually do want to keep that idea in mind. Put this one into long-term storage. . Yeah. So, we have to do this for ourselves in lots of ways, right? This is very similar to the way that we say if you want to take a remedy, you need to put it somewhere you’re going to see it often, repeatedly or see it at the right time of the day, right? Like put your digestive bitters on the table you eat at, not just any table.

Katja (30:31):
Yeah. The real place that you actually eat. And if that’s the coffee table in front of the TV, fine. Put your bitters there. Yep

Ryn (30:37):
Or it’s also like put the materia medica book that you’re playing with right now right there by the bed. So, last thing before you go to sleep, you read one entry about one herb and get a little trickle of info coming through. Same kind of idea with this. We’re trying to tell ourselves what’s important. We’re trying to give ourselves those cues and to make a habit out of it so that it’s sustainable.

Kid Friendly Learning

Katja (31:02):
Yeah. I want to put a little asterisk into all of this for the parents out there, or grandparents, or whoever is taking care of kids. A lot of times you’ll hear something like, or you’ll notice yourself saying something like well, the kids don’t want to listen to me learning about herbalism. So, I have to put on their music in the car. Oh no, you don’t. You’re driving. They get to listen to whatever you want to listen to. And I’ll tell you, we spend a lot of energy making sure that we do not cuss in our lessons, and in the podcast, and whatever else, so that it is totally acceptable for your kids to be listening. And you don’t have to worry that maybe some weird thing is going to come up. And so I just want to encourage you. Don’t put off your learning just because your kids might complain a little bit. First off, they might learn something too.

Ryn (31:54):
They might learn something.

Katja (31:54):
But secondly, it’s good for your kids to see you learning. Yeah. They think they go to school, and they think you’re done with that. But if they see you learning, and then they see you doing these exercises of okay, hold on. We can’t get out yet. I just have to remember one thing that I learned. And yep, it was this thing. Okay guys, now we can go. Whatever it is, it’s good for your kids to see you learning. It’s good for your kids to see that you value the skills that you need to take care of other people and to take care of them. And you will be surprised. They probably will learn something. And if your kids are in the car right now while you’re listening to this, hi kids. Don’t give your parents a hard time. Because they love you, and they’re watching out for you. Also, herbs are cool, and it’s cool to learn about them.

Ryn (32:48):
Very nice. Very good.

Katja (32:50):
Also kids, make sure your parents do their homework.

Ryn (32:54):
Yeah, yeah. For sure. All right, so that’s our message to you today. Just press play. The learning will happen, and you can enhance that in lots of ways. But the first step is just press play.

Katja (33:06):
Yes.

Ryn (33:08):
All right. So, we have not abandoned you, podcast listeners. We are here. And we’ve got more on the horizon. I’m excited about another series of episodes that we’re going to run starting soon. And that one is going to be about herbalists’ views on top-selling herbs. So, we’re going to go and check out the top 40 or 50 popular herbs in the commercial world, right? Amazon, and Vitamin Shoppes, and Whole Foods markets, and any other place that you would happen across supplements. Yes, including things that are at CVS, and pharmacies, and whatever else. Because look, these are the herbs people are taking most of. Just like if you ask a random person on the street, these are the plants they are more likely to have heard of or to be working with. And so as a practitioner or as somebody who loves herbs in this world, in this time, you should know these plants.

Katja (34:05):
Yeah. And also you should know about the differences between working with those plants in different modalities. Like the capsule that you can get at the local drugstore, versus the long infusion made with the plant, versus all the different ways. Yeah. So, that’s important too.

Ryn (34:24):
Yeah. So, that’ll be coming soon.

Katja (34:29):
And if it’s not coming fast enough for you, then that’s because there’s even more new course content happening in our online courses. So, if the podcast is just going too slow, that is just freeing up more time for you to grab some courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com, so that you can dig way deeper into your learning. And also join our student community and just talk to us every day. We would love that.

Ryn (34:59):
Nice. All right, everybody. That’s it for today. So, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea.

Katja (35:07):
Drink some tea.

Ryn (35:08):
And just press play. Bye.

Katja (35:11):
Bye.