Well with Arielle Lorre - 29: ORGANIC OLIVIA - Healing, Harmony & Herbalism

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

In this episode I talk to Olivia about how she healed herself from a childhood filled with antibiotics and processed food (which led to being sick all the time with constant infections, stomach problems, food allergies, and viruses), the power of Chinese medicine and herbalism, and why balance actually is the key to health.  We also talk Ayurvedic doshas, specific products for different illnesses and SIBO tips.  Follow Olivia: Instagram: www.instagram.com/@organic_olivia YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTRhz6FP_Pqvc_pB9nDFzw Website: www.organicolivia.com   Follow Arielle: Instagram: www.instagram.com/ariellelorre YouTube: www.youtube.com/theblondefiles Website: www.theblondefiles.com   Follow the podcast: Instagram: www.instagram.com/theblondefilespodcastSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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would auto-huees-on-sor-sonder-zorger. Go to your reis-sadviseur or sunnycars. Today, I'm talking to Olivia from Organic Olivia. she has a really amazing story. So she was once on the path to becoming a doctor, but her own health issues led her to Chinese medicine and herbalism, and she healed herself naturally. And now

she helps heal others with her herbal products. She is in school for herbalism. If you head over to her Instagram, which I highly recommend you do, or go to her YouTube or her website, she has such a devoted community and she just puts out such valuable content. So go check that out. I am not going to do a long intro today because I'm sitting on my closet floor in New York. It's the only way to escape the sirens and all of that New York City noise. So I'm just going to get to the episode. And as always, please rate, review, subscribe, do all the things if you haven't already.

I really, really appreciate the support. And if you like the podcast and you like what I'm doing here and you want to reciprocate, that's the best way to do it to leave a review and to subscribe and, of course, share with all your friends. Enjoy the episode. I'm Ariel Lorry and this is the Blonde Files podcast where I talk to experts, influencers, and inspirational people in the world of wellness and health. beyond. Okay, so I'm here with Olivia. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for being here. I feel like this is perfect timing because we were just talking about before my health is kind of

like in peril right now. And so I'm really excited. I mean, that's really dramatic, but, um, but I'm really excited to learn about like your own journey because, you know, I was reading all about your experience from when you were younger and to like kind of the breaking point. And you were really in it as well. It's pretty, pretty dramatic. It seemed like you had a lot going on. So I'm really excited to hear kind of your journey to healing and talk about everything that you're doing now. And yeah, really get into it. And I feel like we have such a similar kind of history. Yeah. Of having like such intense gut issues and then that in turn impacting the adrenales with these like, I saw your story before that you're exhausted, that the jet lag is really hard on you.

and that's just like, of course, we're burnt out. But it's also like the inflammation from the gut that's driving that. Because when the body's inflamed 24-7, the HPA axis, our fight or flight mode is also activated all the time. Right. Yeah. I did the organic acid test and I told you that, you know, I had toxicity and I had the bacterial overgrowth. But I also had like whatever, I don't know exactly what was secreting. But when you have a lot of dopamine and serotonin, which happens when you're really stressed.

So yeah, my cortisol is like off the charts, I'm sure. And I think I also have like estrogen dominance because I'm not getting rid of it. And so yeah, there's a whole plethora. It's never just one thing, especially when it's like coming from your gut, right? It affects everything. Yeah. And I mean, dysbiotic bacterial overgrowth in the gut will actually recirculate estrogen on that level. Right.

Through the intestinal wall. So yeah, it's like such a cycle and that's what we keep coming back to and all the conversations I'm having in LA are like, wow, it all is just this web that's interconnected. And when you can at least understand the body like that, it makes things easier because it validates you in a way where you're like, okay, this makes sense. Even down to the stress, like that's why stress imbalances your hormones. It's a whole access. I mean, access. See, I can't talk either. It's a whole access. It's Monday. It is Monday. Wow. I'm like, what? How long have I been here? What are these palm trees? Yeah, it is. I think that there's definitely like power in understanding that, but it can also be so overwhelming

because then it's like, where do I start? And like I know for me, it's kind of felt like whackamol. And in one aspect, I kind of feel like, I feel like there's always going to be something that's just being a human, right? Not necessarily always being sick, but my experience has been kind of that whenever like I take care of one thing, another thing can pop up. so absolutely isn't it like that in life too it's like i was just talking to my boyfriend last night like right now i'm on this work tip and like recording my podcast and going going going but then your relationship suffers in a way because then that takes a back seat so yeah it's like when my relationship's really good maybe i'm not so focused in my work so everything it's life really is about balance as annoying and cliche as that is to say because it's like okay how do i actually achieve that but it's yeah that

that's really what it is it's a dance and it's staying blue and juicy and open to how can I pivot. Yeah, I love that. I love that it's a dance because I think when we hear balance, we feel like we have to have everything perfect, whereas we have to be malleable. And sometimes it is going to be the career. And sometimes it is going to be the relationship. And just being able to kind of be flexible is so important and be like patient, right? And like kind to ourselves that we're not, we don't have to do it perfectly. So, so I want to rewind and hear about kind of your health journey and so maybe let's like rewind and tell tell me about young Olivia.

Young Olivia. Oh my goodness. So our little sweet Olivia, she was raised on a lot of processed foods. You know, this was the 90s when we really didn't know a lot better. And so like my breakfasts were either cereal or microwaved Jimmy Jean breakfast sausages or bagels like a lot of gluten and dairy the two things I do not eat now for my gut right like but we didn't know this back then um and so growing up I was always overweight my parents were overweight and in some ways you know they they still do struggle with their weight like my mom had gastric bypass

surgery so this is just like a theme in our family um and I just had a lot of health issues just from the jump. Like I had severe anxiety from as far back as I can remember. I was in therapy and pre-K for being afraid that like the PA system the next morning was going to call me and say I'm in trouble. And I started going to therapy for that. And I just thought that that was normal because that's what my parents were dealing with. And really it's like, okay, sure, we can say these things run in a family. But like habits and lifestyle are more what run in a family and more what we learn and even attitudes about ourselves and negative thoughts and neural pathways of punishing self-talk in many ways, which also feed inflammation. But that's a whole paradigm talk.

So basically, I thought this was normal. I had a lot of recurring infections. Like, I was always on antibiotics. I was always drinking the delicious pink liquid of antibiotics amongst Cicillin. And I was just put on a lot of pharmaceuticals. It was like one after the other after the other, antidepressants. You know, I went into a lot of detail in my, like, my story podcast episode that we just recorded. So I don't want to take up this whole episode doing that.

But basically, I eventually developed gut issues that presented as IBS. That's what I was diagnosed with. And all they could tell me was, you know, IBS is just this blanket term. We don't really know what it means. It's just a syndrome. It means you're having these symptoms. but like we're doing these scans and we did the stool test and we see nothing wrong with you. And this was like, you know, your classic conventional doctor stool test.

And I was just left like, okay, well, this, I must just be broken, right? Like, this is just how it is. I was also put on antispasmodic drugs for that because I was having really consistent, painful, like spasm reactions to foods, like yogurt and peanut butter specifically. I would like be on the floor with these spasms. So I got on antispasmodic. asthmatics. Again, was like I got acne all of a sudden and the digestive issues in the acne, like now looking back, like, hello, the gut skin axis, the gut brain axis. Like, again, these connections

are real and it's important that we validate them. And when we look back at each of our own stories, we kind of put the puzzle pieces together for our young selves and we're like, don't worry. Like, it makes sense. I'm sorry you're suffering. And that's really the compassion I have for younger me who didn't have these answers. So I was on doxycycline for my acne and always on antibiotics and it would get better a little bit in the beginning and then I would get off them and it would just come back 10 times worse. But in the back of my mind I always had this thought of like, okay, but they're giving me antibiotics for acne. So it must be something with a bacteria or an infection like could there be this connection because I'm taking these, I'm swallowing them,

go into my gut like what's where is this deeper connection so I started kind of questioning and getting curious but I was still really trusting my doctors and um eventually I entered my senior year of high school and I started to learn about nutrition I don't even remember what it was that kind of got me onto that tip but I just started to read about this whole new discovery that was being publicized that oh my goodness your food can change your mental health your brain, your thoughts, it can help. And I had never, you know, I had asked doctors about this and they're like, oh, food triggering your IBS, no, food triggering your mood. No, you just need an antidepressant. You have a chemical imbalance. So I started experimenting with that. I cut out gluten and dairy.

I started eating like these small meals frequently of real foods. Like I would have half a banana and almonds at school instead of like a fiber one bar that had 75 ingredients because I was trying to eat low calorie because I remember that part of this puzzle was the weight piece. So in sixth grade, just to rewind for a sec was the first time that I ever went to Weight Watchers with my mom. We were both like really trying to do this. And you know, my parents, they had always tried to go on diets in the house. And it was always a we'll start tomorrow. We'll start Monday thing. And even like at one point I remember my mom was like, oh, well, let's just go to CVS and like buy all of our favorite stuff. We'll buy those like spicy spiral fritos and, um, M&Ms and we'll just eat as much

as we can tonight because we're totally going to start our diet tomorrow. And so like I kind of took on this like binge eating, restricting behavior from someone who was very well meaning and also had this same issue and didn't know how to help herself. Um, and was trying to help me in her way. But that wasn't working for her and it definitely didn't work for me. So going to Weight Watchers at a really young age, I started to associate food with points and food with calories and food with my daily allotment and like my daily limit, like all of these little tiny attitudes about food that just seep in and seep in and go really deep and they're so hard to muck up and get out. And so, yeah, I noticed that now I was eating these real foods and not thinking about calories in my

senior year and I started to naturally just my weight would balance out and I wanted to go to the gym and I could do the elliptical for longer and I wasn't as inflamed and my skin would get a lot better especially when I was consistently exercising and so my ibs and my skin stuff never fully went away but this was the first time that I saw something that I'm doing is helping and some there's a piece of this puzzle here though we're not being totally totally. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa. So that was like the best year of my life up until that time. And then because I was so passionate about nutrition and, like, wanted to learn more for my own benefit and for others' benefit, I wanted to really teach women the same things that I was learning and young girls that were struggling and on SSRIs and just being fed to the system.

So I wanted to study nutrition in college, but I didn't really have a lot of money to pay for a great college. So I kind of had to go with the one that I got a scholarship for, and that college did not offer nutrition as a major. So I decided to go pre-med instead. I was like, screw it. I'm very pitta, as we say in Ayurveda, so I'm like, I'll go all in. I'll be a doctor. and I'm going to help people that way. And like, yeah.

So I did that. I entered the pre-med program. And clearly as we can hear from my health journey thus far, my body's very sensitive and I'm very sensitive to stress. And adrenal weakness gets passed down as we can see from the paradigm of Chinese medicine and all of these things. So I didn't have this great big reserve for stress. And so what they do the first year of pre-med is that they try to hit you with as many

classes and as much as big of a pile of work as possible to weed out the people that aren't serious and aren't committed to basically sacrificing themselves for a few years to get this career. And it was way too much for me. And at that time, Mono was going around at my school. And I started to feel really weird. Like, I already had these issues, but now I wasn't eating right because I'm stressed all the time and don't have time to prep. But I started coming down with these weird symptoms.

swollen lymph nodes. I had swollen lymph nodes in my groin. I had a cyst on my groin. Like these things that they definitely weren't mono like all my classmates had, but there was like something manifesting. And it was to the point where I was like keeling over in the shower. Like I was fainting. I couldn't put my hands above my head to wash my hair. I just was like mom, something is wrong. Like for real wrong. So I would go to the doctor, the same doctor who all these years had been giving me these meds at like 7 a.m. before my 8 a.m. science classes started. And they would just keep saying, you know, we don't really know what's going on with you. Your liver enzymes are like through the roof. So there's some kind of inflammation or infection present. But like we can't

find it necessarily. So we're just going to give you antibiotics in case because I do suspect that there's something. So I started on the antibiotics. And meanwhile, I'm still on other meds. And it was just too much for my body and obviously my liver's already inflamed your liver is what process is pharmaceuticals. So basically I, I just started feeling like itchy and like something was wrong with my liver. And now like we know that itchiness and sallowness like that's basically early signs of jaundice. So we were not okay. So I called my doctor in between my break from class. He wasn't available.

And in a few minutes, I got an email from him like, it's Epstein. virus it's not a bacterial infection stop taking the antibiotic like it's too much um that's what's going on and we have nothing for you basically we don't we don't give anything to treat a virus so i just felt so frustrated and alone and isolated and like i had been being given the run around for years like why aren't their answers like why am i getting sick all the time why is it that this keeps happening to me like This is not just a one-off thing. I always feel this way. I always come down with these infections.

What's going on here? You have to have something else for me. And my stomach issues were flaring more than ever at this point. I remember that morning I had chugged prune juice because I couldn't even go to the bathroom. And I just like ran out of class. I got into my car and I googled Chinese medicine store near me. Like I still to this day, I talk about it so much. It's my favorite thing to study.

school I just have this love for Chinese medicine and I think that was just like spirit the universe kind of like whispering in my ear because I didn't know much about it at that time but I just had heard like a moment of clarity yeah so I'm like okay Chinese medicine a practitioner or like acupuncturist near me and I found this place like in Mount Vernon which is a town right next to Yonkers where I live and I walked in and the guy was like oh no he's like stick your tongue out I'm like what the hell are you talking about stick my tongue out so I did and he's like oh you're the love liver you have so much damp heat in your liver and I'm like how did you know like you're not even looking at my lap says this is crazy like could this be a coincidence and um yeah he just was like

we're going to give you basically you have damp heat so we're going to give you these like nice cooling and drying herbs to help get rid of some of that heat and in that paradigm again of traditional Chinese medicine heat would be something like an infection dampness in the spleen or the stomach would be gut dysbiosis, for example, and bloating and that's stickiness. So I started taking these herbs, and he was like, oh, and you have like fungus and parasites in your gut too. And I'm like, what are you talking about? I've never even been out of the country.

I've never been on a vacation other than to like Rhode Island. So. That's where I'm from, by the way. No way. What is synchronicity. I know. So funny. Ooh, okay.

We got some spirit with us now. So yeah, I just I took these herbs I took what he said I couldn't stop thinking about oh god the parasites like how did I get this could this be related to my IBS what is going on and I took his herbs

like he said he said put two ounces of this terrible tasting tea and two ounces of pure cranberry juice and do this for a week and start taking this yeast cleanse that he gave me it was like all these anti-fungal herbs and I started getting better Like instantly, like within the next day, the boils and the cystic acne and the lymph nodes started just going down and they were less angry and they were less red.

And I was so amazed and was like, this guy who looked at my tongue could help me more than my family doctor that's been treating me since I was a baby that I thought knew best for me. And not to shit on Western medicine either because like now I'm at a point where I'm back in balance and I'm like, okay, we can work together. We need each other. Western medicine is totally necessary. don't mean to like you know have this anti-doctor thing that's definitely not me but at that time i did feel like things were just being hidden and and still to this day i think there's a lot that we're not told in the interest of pharmaceuticals and money and all that stuff so i basically just stuck with that i started reading more about herbs and just um self-teaching and studying and um trying things on

myself being a guinea pig and I quickly realized that staying in this premed program and becoming a doctor and treating people that way and having to go by what insurance allows you to do to treat people was not going to be the path that was right for me to help people the way I wanted to help them. So I dropped premed. It was the best thing I ever did. I got my life back. I started studying psychology instead. I still finished college and I started my blog and I started sharing my journey as the guinea pig basically everything I was finding out and everything that was working for me and how I was healing my gut and how like guess what I took these parasite herbs and I actually did see parasites come out and by the way I took those pictures to that same doctor and he said I can't really talk to you

about this but there is a doctor in the city who can find parasites and anyone who walks through his door here's his number chow like that's what your that's what your GP said wow so he was kind of like I'm all for you like on this journey of self-discovery and holistic medicine but that's not my shtick and like I that's not something I'm willing to even explore because I have my way of treating and helping people and that's cool and that's fine. But he did kind of at least give me the hope of like oh but someone else out there is like also digging deeper and being weird and parasitie. So I think that this is so important for people to hear because something that you said like really resonated like when you're dealing with these issues and you're going to different

doctors and I've been through it too. I've I was put on SSRIs. I was put on steroids. I was put on steroids for two and a half years. Nobody ever thought to look at nutrition. I was diagnosed with IBS. And you said that it feels so lonely and isolating. And that's like exactly it because you feel like we know our body's best, right? And we know when something is wrong. And when people keep telling us either it's in our head or it's just IBS or, you know, it's like makes you kind of feel a little bit crazy. Absolutely. And it does. Something that you said was that there's a cause for a cause for every effect, right? Something like that. Yeah, there's a root cause you can find that relates to every symptom that you have. So when we're told that it's just in effect, I think it's important for

anybody listening who might be going through this and feeling that feeling of being alone and hitting dead ends and, you know, that there is hope and you really have to like kind of be your own detective, right, and just keep going. Because there are answers. It's just about like finding the right fit. And it is out there, but it takes a lot of work. Yeah. And not only is it even finding the right fit, like waiting until you're with a practitioner that you trust, whether it's a functional MD, a regular MD, a naturopath, an herbalist, you are the one who's hiring them. We're the one who's paying them and you have the power to decide. It's a little trickier if you're lower income and you're relying on insurance, that's what I feel so much compassion

for because that's exactly where I was. You know, I went to this herbalist in an herb shop, but that's all I could start with at that time. So it gets really tricky at that point, but I think even then you can kind of shop around a little bit and find someone that listens to you. That is the basic requirement. And even further, sometimes it takes a bit of a team because, like I kind of alluded to earlier, those emotional and spiritual components of illness, you've got to address those at some point, too. So it might be a team of you're seeing a therapist and you're seeing a functional doctor and maybe you're seeing a body worker or a massage therapist or a chiropractor, whatever it is that is kind of hitting all the facets and giving you this full picture of care. You have to explore all of those avenues that we're told to totally shut off and shut down. Right. Yeah. And I wanted to ask you, like, how your experiences that you had growing up and kind of like being in that environment and the binge cycles and like going to therapy, I was also put in therapy from a young age. And so like it was, I kind of always felt like I was like because people were always trying to fix me, like that I was always broken. And that's something that I really carried into adulthood. And I'm curious like how that kind of affected your health if it did. And

like how you carry that with you and then like how you've dealt with it since i really love that you put a name to that that you identify that um we we take in that attitude of i'm i'm broken i'm wrong for feeling this way so i need to be fixed i need to go see a doctor for it um i think that that is an attitude that is also kind of carried into maybe a bit of our modern well this industry too of like the self-help and like constantly having a project and like being fixing something improving something like well every day like you said is is balanced like having to do every single thing every single day like no sometimes it's getting to a place of acceptance first before you even seek out the care and the quote unquote fixing which by the way should be again

a collaboration between you and a trusted practitioner or a team to not fix but bring that awareness into that root, that cause and not even fix, but explain. Validate, see it, and then be able to act because you have seen it. Yeah, I love that. I think in my experience at least, like healing starts with radical acceptance. Oh, I love it. Radical acceptance and radical honesty. Yeah.

Yeah. So let's kind of go back to like your breaking point and Chinese medicine and why you chose that. Yeah. So, you know, it's Chinese medicine is often the, the paradigm or the lens in which I view patterns that I see in people, especially now in herbalism school. I'm in my third year. I'm becoming a practitioner, a clinical herbalist. So I'm seeing people one on one and my job is not to treat or diagnose. That is not what we do. But my job is to notice certain patterns. And I just feel like, you know, there's a reason we're still using TCM traditional Chinese medicine to this day. there's a reason that people still go to acupunctures because it works and it's time tested and it's ancient and it makes a lot of sense and to me that lens was the most empowering one because it gave me this again this explanation to me information is comfort and i feel like using that lens to be like okay instead of like oh you have this gut infection which often can make you feel a bit like dirty or again broken like you need to be fixed it's like right there's a bit of dampness in the spleen

It's all good. Like we're just going to use some like drying spicy ginger, cinnamon, you know, herbs that help to protect the spleen. That's way more palatable when you say it that way. And we're going to use some bitters to make sure that we're clearing the heat from the spleen, the quote unquote infection. And then looking at it that way as well gives you all these really tools, all these really great tools because you're like, okay, how else can I protect my spleen? like you know it doesn't mean your actual western anatomical spleen it means um it refers to like the cooking pot that transforms your nutrients from your food that digests your food so it's like okay i'm i'm now seeing it as a conversation not of like how can i kill this infection or like

heal my broken adrenals or blah blah blah blah blah blah or like heal my digestion and fix it it's how can I protect this organ meridian that like gives me this life, this chi from my food? Like what are the things that support the spleen? What are the activities that support the spleen? So it's looking at a person as seeing their strengths and seeing maybe where there is a little bit of weakness and how you can support that, make it stronger so that the person is stronger. Because really herbal medicine is when a person, when the terrain is strong, when the person is resilient, These things don't stick as much. These infections can't really stick around because we're secreting our digestive acids,

because we're getting that hydrochloric acid, that bile release. Those are our natural protective mechanisms to keep these bugs and these overgrowth out of those areas. So when the person is strong and all of those things are functioning, it's like sometimes you don't even need to worry about that and they self-correct. So it's making the individual strong instead of picking out all the little things that's wrong with the individual. I love that. So I know everybody is so different, but is there anything that you can say, like, universally we should be doing to support our bodies and support like all of our functions? Universally, I think that we're living in a world of stress. I talk about the HPA axis constantly. I think that that's like becoming the new theme of my life and what I want to teach. And so universally, I do think that adaptogens are really wonderful, but I also don't think like you have to go out and buy a trendy.

adaptogen powder and put it in your coffee and whatever i think it's like spend time either with an herbalist right which i love or you know someone who a naturopath who can find the right adaptogen or blend for you or if you want to go the self-educate route since i'm still that like little rebel and that's how i did it and that's how i started experimenting i'm down with that too get a really great book on adaptogens for example um david winston a really wonderful herbalist just launched the second edition of his book on adaptogens. You can get it on Amazon. And that book goes through a little mini monograph or like a deep dive into all these adaptogens that he talks about. And when you read the story and the actions and the energetics of each one, you can see yourself in one of them. And you

can find the one that resonates with you and your needs and that works for you and that you connect with as a friend. And you can bring that one into your life. So it's about making it really personalized too, just like a practitioner would. And about, learning and educating yourself about these herbs and about these tools. I kind of want to break down a little bit, like some of the different things, like hormones and gut health and all of that because, you know, I had so many questions and because we are kind of on a time crunch, I don't think we're going to totally get to all of them. But let's kind of talk about if somebody is having issues and they don't know where to start,

where do you think the best place is to start? Like what should you treat first? Is it the gut because it kind of is like a domino effect and affects everything? Or would it be like adrenal or? That's a really good question. And there's a few different answers that I can that are like running through my mind right now. So first I really like optimizing sleep and digestion. Those are the foundations of health, right?

Like our what we're, because it's not what you eat. It's what you absorb. So you got to make sure that you're actually getting what you're trying to get from all your wonderful expensive Arawan food that we're all eating right now. And number two is optimizing your sleep because that's when you're repairing and that's when you're restoring and that's when you're building that energy back. And that's what's helping you to have those nice juicy hormones and to lower your cortisol and that autophagy process of cleaning the waste and the cancer cells while we sleep. So that has to be a really nice deep restful process as well. So I would start with looking at those, kind of taking stock of like almost asking yourself questions the way that I would ask a client questions in an intake.

Like I mean, I've never really said this out loud, but this is kind of like what the answer to your question that's coming up is. It's kind of like, okay, how is my digestion? How do I feel before meals? Like, do I actually feel hungry? Am I eating when I'm not hungry? during the meal, am I being present with my food? After the meal, am I bloating? Am I feeling really tired and sleepy?

Does it feel like the food's just sitting there? How often am I using the bathroom? Like, just taking stock and, like you said, radical acceptance and honesty. Like, how am I doing there? And maybe if I just start there so that it doesn't feel so big and huge and overwhelming, that can create this cascade of, like, chain reactions. And same with the sleep. Like, am I getting to sleep easily or do I need to, like, listen to something or have the TV on to fall asleep?

Am I winding down properly? Am I looking at my phone and doing work emails before bed? Am I waking up in the middle of the night? And just getting curious and looking at those as our basic. Again, how can I support those? Not like, oh, these are wrong. Like, there's something wrong here. It's just like, okay, what are the steps I could take to kind of tweak these?

little bit. And something I really like, an easy practice that everyone listening can take home, is using digestive bitters. I make a blend of digestive bitters called digestive juice, but you can, any food that's bitter is a digestive bitter. That's why all these cultures around the world, like in Italy, they'll do end dives before a meal or they'll have like an apper teeth, like a drink that's a little bit bitter before a meal because it gets your digestive juice is flowing. The bitter flavor on the tongue, even though it's not all that pleasant and we're not used to it. because we're all eating sweet and savory things, that flavor will stimulate the vagus nerve to relax to get you into parasympathetic mode

so that you can actually rest and digest, and so that you are secreting those digestive fluids that are now going to help with your gut dysbiosis and the digestion and absorption of the meal that you're eating. So digestive bitters are really nice, just a little thing that you can pop in there, whether you're using a tincture or a spray, or you're just eating some bitter foods before a meal.

Yeah, I love that you're kind of talking about like not only what we eat, but how we eat. Because a huge thing for me was like the person that I was working with when I was healing my gut said a lot of my bloating. Yes, I had dysbiosis and pathogens, but I was also eating in front of the TV or looking at my phone and checking my email and probably not really chewing. Chewing. What a concept. Right. And like I never really thought about that. But I was not in my, my parasympathetic nervous system. I was in a heightened state. And I was kind of in like autopilot. And I think a lot of us are today. We're not, you know, we're eating at work. We're eating in our cars. We're on the go. So I love that you said that. And also like about the sleep. I think so many people want the answer to be like a supplement, diet and exercise. Yes. And I was just going to say that. Like I. When you asked that question, my first thought was like, oh, my God, like, what herb can I tell her? But really, and like I'm someone who has a supplement line.

So it's like I, and I'm saying this with that in mind of like, usually that's not the first thing you need. Usually it's your own behavior and how beautiful and how freeing is it that simply getting yourself into parasympathetic mode, whether it's a bitter food or whether it's five really deep belly breaths. How beautiful is it that that is the most. powerful first step before you even need to go and buy a $30 supplement. Right. Yeah. And it kind of comes back to like mindfulness, like being mindful of what,

what and how you're eating, how you're sleeping. I'm curious like, I'm curious if meditation is something that you practice. Yeah, that question's been coming up a lot. Also, I just want to give a fun little tidbit because you had mentioned eating. in front of the TV, watching TV, looking at your phone. In Chinese medicine, again, there's these concepts of the organ meridians. So we have the liver, liver slash gallbladder, spleen slash stomach. And there's this wheel of the five elements. And we look at which organ meridian nurtures and is the mother of other organs.

And then which ones can attack each other when one is overstimulated. So the liver opens into the eyes. And so when you're watching something and paying so much attention to something with your eyes and overstimulating your liver by over stimulating your eyes, while you're trying to eat and digest with your spleen and stomach, the liver will attack the spleen. And that is what will create a lot of digestive issues as well. So just I think that that connection to me is one of the most motivating things. Because remember, like I said, information to me is power. And so once I learned that, I was like, okay, I really am going to try. try to stop eating in front of the TV in my phone.

And then what is the question that you just asked? I don't remember. So sorry. Oh, I think I said that it kind of all like seemed related to mindfulness being mindful. Oh, you asked if I meditate. Yeah. So back to your question on meditation. I've also been talking about this a lot since I've gotten to L.A.

because I think everyone's like, oh, well, just meditate every morning. That's going to cure your life. And for me, sitting in a corner and being really quiet and. silent and still and like trying to clear my mind doesn't work and I think that when you tell people that or even when you say like oh try meditating it's almost like a turn off of like okay I'm going to stop listening now because so many people have tried that and so many people have trouble being alone and being still and being with their own thoughts so it's like that's actually really hard let's not even start there let's think about meditation as an active process and an active practice

and let's think about things that we can do that are meditative and I was just having a conversation earlier about going back to the things we did as children that brought us that joy and that flow and that presence of like just being there and now that mindfulness and and doing those things whether it's playing whether it's walking whether it's singing whether it's journaling all of those things can be a meditation as long as you're fully there and just flexing that muscle of presence is so healing in itself Mm-hmm. Kind of going back to childhood, I wanted to talk to you about healing, trapped, emotional trauma. I don't know if, I think I saw that you talked about it on your website, but I'm curious, like, how you healed the things that you went through in childhood. And again, like, I've had experience. I had a big trauma, like, seven years ago. And my body just, my brain shut down and I didn't deal with it for many years. And then. And that. And that. And I've had experience. I had. I had a big trauma, like, I didn't deal with it for many years. And, and I then when all of this started happening was when I was starting to process the trauma too.

So I don't think that it was a coincidence. And I've been working on kind of releasing that. But there is a major correlation between old wounds and health issues. And we have to be careful for sure opening those back up. And that goes back to the practitioner trust because I think for me, the two things that have really helped me the most are one, going to therapy. I did EMDR for some of my childhood stuff. And again, you're doing EMDR and you're actually asked to bring that trauma back up and kind of go through it and how did you feel in that moment? And kind of you're being asked to revisit that place so that your brain can then compartmentalize it in a way and can shift it over to no longer being an active threat and can think of it as a long-term memory that's over.

And now we can process. So I love the paradigm of EMDR and it was very effective for me. but again, you have to make sure that you're ready and willing to do that. And while you're doing it, I think you need to complement releasing it from the mind and the psyche with releasing it from the body. And for me, body work, especially massage and stretching and opening up my hips where women store a lot of trauma. But specifically massage and bodywork from someone who, like I had a massage therapist who was a shaman and a rakey master and he really helped me a lot because he was like actively. kind of pulling shit out of my soul. Like he would be like making noises of pain and he would go to certain areas of the body

that correlate with certain types of trauma like resentment against the mother. And like he would get to that area and start crying sometimes. And so like having someone that can hold that space for you and help to get that out of your body, but actual physical manipulation in a way that can complement the fact like it's coming out here. So now it's coming out here. How did you, did you see your health change? when you were going through that? Absolutely.

I was actually able to lose a little bit of extra weight that I was carrying around this year very, very, very slowly. And in a way without really trying. Like, yes, I kind of was more mindful of what I was eating and like remembering that, okay, even if I'm eating like the most organic healthy food, like, you still can also overdo it in that sense. But I think a lot of it kind of just started when I, when I began. doing that and releasing those things and began getting happier and more in my body. Like I was avoiding my body so much, avoiding things like exercise or massage or breathing or like stretching. Like I wasn't doing those things because I didn't want to be with my body. So once I gave the body more awareness and more attention and more time and usually for me that looks like walking, like that's

my main exercise. I lift a little weights sometimes, but I was really just walking. But my body has totally transformed this year. And again, without going back to my old calorie counting weight watchers ways, just really happen naturally through releasing all that stuff and through like seeing her again. Like really like looking at myself, looking at my body, loving my body, self-touch, self-massage. I always tell people like literally taking time to massage yourself or do guasha on your face and like touch your own face, touch your own skin. Like that is so healing and often like you talked about binge eating earlier when I feel that like emptiness where I just want to eat and like stuff myself down with food.

If I do that and if I massage my face and do guasha, that feeling just naturally subsides. Wow. Yeah. It's it's the most powerful thing. Yes. So speaking of all of that, what is your lifestyle like today? I know you talk about it a lot on your site and you have so many helpful tips. But what are the like non-negotiables?

Oh, non-negotiables. Many hours of sleep. Like sometimes I'll sleep for just like 10 hours unapologetically. I wish I could do that. And I know when I have, because that's going to change. I know like with my work schedule now even in L.A., like that's changing a little bit. But sleep for me is sacred. And like I protect that at all costs.

So that's number one. Number two is nutrition and not not only in the. way of like making sure that I have the foods that I know really work well with my body. Um, and also part of that is like not adopting other people's diet paradigms of like, okay, great. Like you're vegan or you're on this journey and you think this is the best diet or you're keto. But like that doesn't have to be me.

I'm going to listen to my own body and I'm going to eat my grass fed organic red meat and I'm going to do all these things that make me feel really good totally unapologetically. So figuring out what that is owning that, eating that to my body without, you know, any concern. Which is like true intuitive eating, by the way. Yes, that really is. And nutrition in terms of like looking to the plants as an herbalist for that nutrition as well because there's so much richness that the plants have to offer us. And if we just know how to use that and harness that, it can change everything.

So like right now sitting with you, I just drank this oat straw infusion. and oat straw is like the seedless stalk of the oat plant that often just gets like thrown away basically because we eat the seeds as oatmeal. But oat straw infusions are like the richest source of all these different minerals of magnesium. Like talk about a bioavailable magnesium supplement that doesn't break the bank. Like this is it. And nettle leaf is another one. Like if you just get you can get nettle leaf for such a great price. Organic nettle leaf, a huge like five.

pound bag of it that'll last you forever. And just every night before bed, you just take a large mason jar, you pack it a third to halfway full with the nettle leaf plant material, cover it with boiling water, seal the mason jar, leave it on the counter. It takes five minutes. When you wake up in the morning, it'll be ready because it had all that time overnight to extract all of those minerals from the plant. And then you just sip on that throughout the day. That is like the best supplement for hair loss for any type of women's issues, has a ton of minerals, not only like magnesium, calcium, silica, but it's just so wonderful. And like that's a supplement too. So it's like changing the way that I see that. And then of course, like also targeting my actual supplements and my actual herbs,

because again, I do that for a living. I love them. But making sure that the other ones, like I said, the sleep and the nutrition come first. Yeah. So can you talk about your line? and yeah sure yeah yeah no I um so I started a like a little apothecary I like to call it and I'm working on kind of having a formula for everyone like something for everyone's needs so I have a subset of the line called my juices because usually tinctures of plants are in an alcohol base which like doesn't taste all that good and a lot of people don't want to consume alcohol or they're in recovery and it just doesn't taste good like I said like I just don't Love it.

Yeah. So we use glycerin instead, vegetable glycerin, so it still gives you the same potency as like a liquid tincture that gets absorbed really well. But it tastes really good because vegetable glycerin is naturally sweet. It's accessible to a wider audience of people. It's easier to stick to because you actually want to take it and it tastes good. We do have two alcohol-based tinctures in the line because you just can't really get the best out of those dense woody roots without it. So I do make an exception. but I try to do glycer in as much as possible.

And the juices, I have a brain juice, a liver juice, and even though they're herbal tinctures, I call them the juices because they taste good. But we have something for everything, a piece juice, for anxiety, a digestive juice, which is the bitters blend. You just spray it on your tongue, five to ten sprays before a meal,

and it really helps to rub up your appetite and get those juices flowing. And I'm coming out with a kids line now. It's coming soon, like in a few weeks. So we're about to have 20, three different products. That's amazing. Oh my goodness. So how did you learn all of that just in your years at school? Yeah, in my years at school and in my self-study years. Like just using these herbs on myself, figuring out what worked, asking around, playing around, and like even shadowing practitioners

and working with people who know this better than I do, asking what works for this? What are your go-to herbs for balancing blood sugar and people who need that? What are your go-to herbs for stress? Learning about the adaptions, reading those books, like the David Winston book. Like, there's so much power in the self-knowledge and, like, the time that you dedicate to your craft on your own. And then when I was ready, I went to school as well. And since then, it's like, it's just exploded. And now I have a million formula ideas. And I also have co-formulated a lot of mine with my manufacturer, who's been a clinical herbalist for 30 years. So having, like a partner to do that with to overlook every single formula that me the baby herbalist came up with. He's like, well, we're going to tweak this. We're going to

add a little bit of this here. We're going to put this to 20%. So, you know, really going to the people who know what they're doing and not being afraid to, like, lose that ego there and ask for help to create the best product line you possibly can. I'm going to ask you probably an impossible question. Okay. Go for it. But if you could only pick one, or like if you had to recommend one for people to start with, and again, I know, like, everybody's issues are so different. I would go with mood juice just because it's near and dear to my heart. I don't take SSRIs anymore. I know that that's not right for everybody either.

Like you do your own thing. I would never judge. But for those who are not on an SSRI because you can't combine the plants in there with a pharmaceutical. But if you're just looking for that support to just help on those darker days and to just make things a little brighter, that formula is so beautiful. it has really fresh St. John's worth that we get from a family farm in New Mexico. I've been there. I have pictures on the site of it on my Instagram highlights. Just such a wonderful family.

They were actually like big time lawyers in New York. And they were like, we're retiring and we actually want to do something meaningful. Like we're giving back and not just like litigating these people and focusing on money. And they bought this biodynamic farm and they grow exclusively for my manufacturer. So that St. John's word like when I felt it in person and you see that bright yellow. and that like solar energy and light in that flower that just brings that same light into your psyche. Like you understand. You get that greater understanding of how these plants work. And that formula is just really close to my heart, really beautiful.

I'm going to have to try that one. I'll send you one. I got you girl. So what's in it? You didn't really mention what's in mood juice. Oh, of course. So we have some St. John's work, which I just mentioned the flower. We have some kava root, which is really.

common because I find also with a low mood again I have to be careful with my language obviously but with like someone who needs some mood support often you also need some support for some tension and some nervousness and all that good stuff so cover root is really calming to both physical and mental tension so I love having that in there we have some motherwort in there as well which is like a big hug from mom and it's just a really like gentle uplifting balancing balance formula. Yeah. Sounds right up my alley. Sounds like I need it right now. I got you, Boo. But I would love to like see and like obviously do a deep dive into like how is your digestion. Like how often are you pooping? Like what's your sleep like? And look at all of these root cause factors. But I think for you,

our adrenal recovery formula would be really nice and definitely the digestive juice. Since you have that gut dyspiosis, I would really want you to be on some gentle bitters that just kind of start to get these things flowing because again even just releasing more bile can be so wonderful for the small intestinal bacterial overgrowth just kind of suppressing that a bit and making things flow better and can even just the digestive juice like I do have a formula for constipation but the digestive juice often is just enough to correct constipation in people um due to digestive deficiency right I know that um at least my audience on Instagram so many people are diagnosed with seebo. Yes. It's exploding for sure. Yeah. What is what protocol do you recommend? So you'd really want to

work with a practitioner who can be also monitoring. Like is this working and do we need to pivot? I think that that's something where you want to have that support, but definitely some temporary diet changes, like the low FODMAP so that you can stop feeding those certain species that are having a party with that fiber. I had to start that last week. But I was I was gone, so it was kind of hard. Yes. This week I'm on it. But also, like, I don't like doing that forever because then it's like you're missing out on

those fibers for when you do need to start refeating your, your colony. So a really good probiotic. We do have a probiotic in the line that also has some digestive enzymes, which I do like when you're dealing with some dysbiosis because the enzymes will even help to kind of eat away at parasites as well, if that's a factor. But a good antimicrobial formula for sure. I have a also a parapro formula, like a gut dysbiosis, but I don't want to be like, oh, blanket, that's for everyone that has SIBO.

That's totally not my vibe. Like, that's something that if your practitioner likes those ingredients for you and what you have going on based on your GI map and they choose that and can supervise you, that's awesome. I almost feel like that's like a nice practitioner formula. But definitely having that of like the probiotics as well. And even like looking into a bit of a low history. diet as well with the FODMAP because sometimes when you have bacterial overgrowths, the histamine response from those bugs and then adding high histamine foods on top of that

can just make all your symptoms and your inflammation so much worse and cause these headaches and all that good stuff. So again, it's very individual with those triggers. I don't I don't want to give too many. And you remind us what a histamine is and histamine foods? Oh man, I need my list on my phone. Yeah. It's like really quickly like aged foods like Yeah, like any foods that are high in histamine would be like anything that's aged, like aged meats, even like some fermented dairy products. There's a lot of nuts and fruits and vegetables that are high in histamine. So I would suggest just looking up a list on Google of like high, low, high moderate and low foods and kind of like, and again, asking your practitioner, do you think that's something I have an issue with? There's certain telltale science people can have like a histamine ear where like the top of their ear gets really red after they eat certain things.

wines and alcohols, unless it's tequila, will have high history in as well. It was weird because when I was in New York last week, I had a day where I was podcasting all day. I didn't plan well ahead, so I didn't really eat anything. By the time I got back to my apartment, I was starving. And I ordered this salad that I always get. And I always order it vegan. Well, they delivered it to me with like tons of cheese on it. And I was just like, fuck it.

Like, I'm so hungry. And I don't eat dairy. And I woke up the next morning. first of all my gut was a mess I was so bloated and I had like eczema behind my ears it's crazy it's amazing how fast that your body will tell you what it doesn't like um that's a nice situation where you could do some digestive use before bed like even and people that are gluten and dairy intolerant like you'll see in the reviews they're like oh my god like it wasn't that bad when I had it this weekend because I was at a fair and like what else you're going to eat at a

fair when you have no other options I will say I just had a good sebo moment pop into my head so maybe I want to change my answer. Okay. Not products from my line, but there's two things that you really need for SIBO, and that's, one, to go longer in between meals. So that's going like four to five hours in between your meals and snacks, but to be consistent still. It's not like, oh, intermittent fast all morning and then, you know, eat all the things.

It's have like these good portions. Go four to five hours because you're migrating motor complex, which is like the peristosis that happens that helps to, like, wave and push that bacteria. overgrowth needs to happen and that only happens in the absence of food in those breaks. So give yourself time in between your meals to get hungry to promote that peristolisis. And then two, in order to further support that along with your antimicrobial protocol would be pro-kinetic agents, which are also going to help to move things along. And that's something as simple as ginger tea in the mornings.

I like to do ginger in the morning and daytime, not at night. It's too hot. And then also something like Iberogast is something you can find. on Amazon, which has a bunch of different like gut motility herbs and agents. So that is my herbalist educated brain turned on. Cbo answer. That's our great tips because I think, you know, again, a lot of people probably just here go on antibiotics. Yeah. And I mean, that's what happened to me a couple years ago when I was diagnosed with it. And this can be with your antibiotics. Right. You know, I'm not judging. Yeah. Yeah. I am. Um, no. I, I think.

I looked it up, but I don't remember. It's the hot one. I would say your pitta with like a little bit of Vata, but maybe it's like a Vata imbalance currently because you're traveling a lot. You're doing a lot of things. Most of us have a Vata imbalance. It's very rare to make someone who doesn't. What?

Let me see your wrist. We're going to do. Okay. We're doing a wrist check. What is this? Okay. So from taking your Ayurvedic pulse, yeah, it's like you, you do the three fingers on your,

a woman, so I would do your left side, your feminine side. And so you take your three fingers, and it's Vata Pitacoffa, so starting from your pointer to your middle to your ring finger, you kind of dig in and press down really hard, and then you just pull up just a little bit. Like you're still keeping that pressure,

but just a little bit, and you're feeling where that initial pulse is, and that's your Procrati, which is the dosha that you were born with, your constitutional docha. And so you're at my middle, finger was like pulsing for you really you're pitta like very like that that's someone who would be very prone to being a perfectionist and eating everything to be perfect and look perfect and like oh my gosh

same i'm i'm kafa pita and then you pull up to like the highest just gentle superficial level and then whatever's pinging there whether it's your um for you it was the pointer finger and the middle finger so when that doesn't match up with your prokity it's a bit of an imbalance so your vasa was there you have a little bit of a vata And your pitta was there too. So you could have a little bit of a pita imbalance, which again, most pittas do because we like to do things that make us more pita because we like being more of who we are. We don't like being in balance. So what do I do?

Oh, girl, we're going to avoid some spicy food as much as possible. We're going to try to be more kaffa because you're having the vat and the pita. Let's try to embody more of the kafa, which is like, you know, a kaffa person would be like slower and more stocky and like. You know, eating a little bit richer foods, maybe healthier fats. I'm not like greasy and fried foods, but more healthy fats. And just like slowing down in life rather than like doing 700 things at once, which is the Vata imbalance. Weird. That's what I was just saying on my stories today, how I need to like pump the brakes because I know that I'm like caught in this cycle of going zero to 100, getting run down.

I take a couple days to kind of like rejuvenate whatever, reenergize. And then as soon as I feel a little bit better, I go right back 100 miles per hour. And then I'm and then I regress back to like exactly where I was. So I'm trying to. Don't we all? Slow the F down. Dicious cycle because we're so excited like, oh, I have this energy and I have so much to give to the world and I'm really inspired. And I want to do this.

But then it's also like my worth is not derived from being busy and doing these things and accomplishing. It's from being. Yeah. And it kind of goes back to like what we started the podcast with like full circle like the balance thing. and not trying not having to be perfectly balanced but just trying to yeah you know be flexible and adapt i love it so where can everybody find you so you can find me on instagram at organic underscore olivia someone took the one without the underscore and i bet they're like inactive they don't post like literally don't post um have you messaged instagram no i haven't my website is organic olivia.com

that's where we have our formulas as well in the shop and my podcast is coming out soon we're here in LA filming for that so it's going to be called what's the juice the organic Olivia podcast so good amazing I can't wait to hear it you're such a wealth of knowledge and it was so good meeting you same here and I wish we had another hour but next time yes yes it's when I'm in New York maybe perfect all right thank you thanks