Podcast 248: Can Herbs “Heal”?

What does it mean to heal? When are we “healed”? Are there some wounds that can’t be healed? If we can’t heal – in the sense of achieving “perfect health” – are we failures, as people or as herbalists? In this episode, Katja shares her thoughts on the words and ideas “healing” carries in our culture, offering a critique of their common (and commercialized!) semantic and emotional baggage.

Transcript

Lately, in conversations with several different people from different realms of my life, the word “heal” – healing, healer – has come up a lot, and specifically, what we mean when we talk about “healing”.

I have some strong feelings about this word that might resonate with you. I think that it’s an important discussion about how we understand health and care, how we understand our bodies, and how we understand the journey of being a human.

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Lots of people call herbalists “healers” – but we’re not doing any healing, you, the people we help, are! I don’t like to call myself a healer because it means that i’m taking credit for work that the people i help are doing; it’s disempowering. Sure, i motivate, i educate, i use my education to build a plan together with my clients – but in the end, they’re the ones that are doing the real work!

And what even is healing? If we’re talking about a topical wound, i suppose it means “the process of the skin growing back” – but what about scars? Is there such a thing as “healed”, even in the simple sense of a wound?

What does it mean to “heal” internally – let’s say, cardiovascular damage? Maybe you do a lot of work on your cardiovascular health and get your blood pressure down – that’s really good! Herbs and holistic strategies are really good at this kind of work.

But is that healing? The problem can always come back, if you have to deal with a lot of stress over a period of time, for example. If it comes back, is that a failure on your part? Did you “do a bad job at healing”?

I don’t think so.

I think that if you improve your health by working on it, that’s awesome, and if life gets stressful and you have a flareup, that’s just the reality of being a creature of fluctuation. We’re not permanent, we’re not static – we’re always reacting to our environment, and compensating for factors that are out of our control.

What about things that can’t be healed? I’ve had varicose veins since high school, and everyone in my family older than me has had their veins stripped. I’m a really good herbalist, but i still have varicose veins. There’s a limit to how much improvement i can make to a problem that’s been with me not only for my whole life, but for generations before me.

But if i didn’t “heal” my varicose veins – is that a failure? Do i need to feel bad because i didn’t “succeed”? How would i even define that success – by having smooth legs and invisible vessels? That’s a completely unreasonable and unattainable goal actually – i didn’t even have that in high school. And yet, the wellness industry so often has us chasing after exactly that: some unrealistic form of “healed” that isn’t actually even attainable – but like a beauty magazine, “they” tell you that you should be able to achieve their impossible ideas of beauty (or health) so that you keep buying the next issue of the magazine, so that you keep buying the products advertised in it.

My veins are not “pretty”, but they are much more stable than my mom’s were at this age, and i haven’t had to seek medical intervention. That seems like a better metric than some kind of cosmetic beauty contest definition of “healed”.

…So i don’t love the word “heal”.

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Health is not a switch that can be turned on or off. It’s not a yes/no question in an exam. It’s not a binary state that you either are or aren’t. It’s a constant adjustment in relation to our lives and all the factors that we deal with every day. There is no such thing as “perfect health” – it doesn’t exist.

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Health is not always in our control, either!

Many health issues that we deal with as adults started in childhood, when we didn’t have the autonomy to change the situation we were in. Some happen before we’re even born! Some are the result of generational malnutrition, damage, or trauma. Some are the result of environmental factors where we live – and sometimes we aren’t even notified about those factors!

Pervasive in our culture is this idea that if we’re unhealthy, we did something wrong. And right beside that is the idea that if we are doing everything right, we will be healthy!

But that’s a trap.

Because sometimes the best you can do is stabilize, and that’s ok!
Sometimes you can do all the right things and you’ll still be a little extra sensitive to whatever triggers your flare ups. Sometimes you get 75% improvement and that’s it.

But that’s not bad! Being able to reliably stabilize your situation is great, even if you’re still prone to some flareups. 75% improvement is fantastic! Even 50% improvement is great – just think, if you were magically 50% “healthier” today, what would that mean for you? I’d take it!

I’d like to normalize that. I’d like for people who work in the care of health, and especially for the “wellness industry”, to acknowledge that health is a daily journey. That it’s impossible to be “forever 21”. That aging is a part of life. That making it through the day in reasonable physical comfort is excellent.

That we don’t have to be perfect. That we shouldn’t expect to be constantly pushing ourselves without any maintenance days: bodies don’t work like that.

I think it’s ok if you have a few extra pounds, or if you could use a few extra pounds. Who’s the judge of that anyway? Throughout history, our concept of the “ideal” weight has changed drastically.
I think it’s ok if you need a little extra rest sometimes.
I think it’s not actually bad if your bum knee acts up once in a while. Maybe it’s just an indication that it’s time to rest.

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These things are part of life,
and making peace with them means accepting ourselves.

Obviously that doesn’t mean that we don’t try to make things better, and obviously we respond to acute situations and infections. And of course we continue to work to help people recover, and build, and grow, and live vibrantly.

​​But maybe it changes our definitions of what those things are exactly, and who can have them, and how we get them.

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And to answer the original question: just because i don’t like the word “heal” doesn’t mean herbs aren’t amazing – they are!

Herbs and holistic strategies are exactly what has allowed me to stabilize the varicose vein situation. They are what allows me to keep MS symptoms under control. They are what have allowed me to live my life this far without medical intervention for those issues – and that’s amazing! As i age, that might not always remain true – i may need to add more tools to my toolkit beyond what herbs and holistic interventions can do.

If that happens, it won’t mean i’m a failure at health, or a failure as an herbalist. It just means that every day, we’re all making adjustments and getting through this life in our imperfect bodies.

And if you’re an herbalist who works with your community or with clients, i think this is an essential message to be sending: you don’t lose “nature points” if you have to or choose to blend conventional medicine with herbal and holistic strategies. Nobody’s going to take away your Herbalism Club Card just because you combined various tools to find your best health right now. It’s ok if the health issues you’re working on are a life-work. It’s not wrong to have to care for the health of your body every day.

You’re not broken because you can’t “do it all” – nobody actually can.

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I know these are pretty nitpicky thoughts about a simple word.
But human health isn’t actually that simple, so i think it’s worth thinking about that complexity, and how we approach it.

If you continue to use the word “heal”, there’s nothing wrong with that of course! But i think it’s useful to redefine that word to include some fluctuation and allow that to be normal. To redefine it to include the reality that things are not “one and done” – that humans go through cycles and there’s actually nothing wrong with that.

And above all, to allow ourselves to let go of the pressure of the expectations that are on us to “be healed”. To allow ourselves to just be on the journey of being human and living in a body that can’t be perfect, because it’s human.