🌿Herbs and Healing🍃

You’ll want to listen to this!

OOOooooooh baby, do I have a treat for your weekend!

The following is a delightful chat with Jane Wallwork, Medical Herbalist, Aromatherapist & Anthropologist.

Jane brings over 30 years of hands-on experience in plant and herbal medicine.

So much gold in this discussion. Jane speaks directly to herbs&healing from high control situations but there’s truly something for everyone here.

Do you know what herbs aid grief and loss? Did you know that there are herbs that can support a grounded self-worth and trauma release? Can herbs help marathon training?

I know you’re going to love this chat with a true sage (no pun intended!) and you are definitely going to want to share it!

This was recorded almost two years ago but ooh my, more needed now than ever. Bloomin’ enjoy!

(Apologies for my wonky gigs!🤓)

🌿🌱🍃

Interview with Jane Wallwork.  Herbs That Can Alleviate Trauma Particular to Leaving High Control Groups.

Suzy: Hey Jane, thank you so much for your time today really, really appreciative, We’re going talk all things herbs!  You are a practising herbalist. you practise Western Herbal Medicine.  Tell us a little about your career.

Jane: Okay, well my grandmother first introduced me to herbs and plants when I was about 9 and we’d go foraging in the words, we’d take the dog with us and then I’d be stood on the chair making nettle soup, quiche and things like that and she would always make elderflower fizz, which is just delicious, and that’s what really sparked my interest.

And the other thing I’ve always loved is cooking and putting herbs in just all sorts of different things and it’s a really good way to take your medicine actually. Medicine Food, what’s not to like? And even in cakes, I promise!  I actually did my first degree with Anthropology and Sociology and again, yet more things to spark my interest - what different groups/communities do for health that’s natural.  

I was a single mum for a while and whilst working full time and being a mum  I began to formalise my qualifications in herbal medicine. I joined a herb farm to make their tincture medicine, goodness that’s nearly 20 years ago now, and I’ve been teaching at plant medicine school for about 10 years. And a couple of years ago the herb school started up here, in my place, which is wonderful. 

The other part of my background is that my father, his parents and his sister were part of the Jehovah’s Witness movement. My father actually ran away to join the French Foreign Legion to step away from the group. He was brought back into the fold when I was born - a grandchild. Unfortunately when he was very sick with cancer he had to have some blood transfusions and we were cut off.  So I’m not coming at this from a person who doesn’t know anything [about high control religion]. I understand the stresses that it can cause and also how difficult it can be to leave a way of life that’s been with you all your life and start again.

Suzy: Really, really thank you so much for sharing that. Really, really appreciative. A very touching and poignant story.

I love those memories that you mentioned in your youth of foraging.  I think that’s what sings to my heart about all of this herbal world that you’re in. Last week I was making tea with lemon balm and hawthorn flowers, both, from my limited knowledge, things that are really good for grief and loss and emotions. Sometimes we just don’t quite realize how intrinsically linked so much of the flowers and plants around us are and how they can help us with our emotions and that’s what I’d  really love for you to talk about and expand on today, that would be just amazing.

Jane: Herbs can do so very much for us.  They can be so supportive on lots of different levels; they work for us physically and they also help support us emotionally. Just in the way that we might go and see a GP if we had something wrong with our stomach and they would prescribe some medicine or just as if we were really struggling with mental health, we’d go to the GP and they would probably prescribe some medicine.

 As a herbalist I don’t list sets symptoms.  I connect to the individual because actually you know that’s what we are: all people, with our own story to tell.  And I find that is best and most supportive  way to interact with somebody else is to introduce them to the plants. Anyone coming to see me gets an MOT in a funny sort of way.  We check things out and find out what’s going on and how that’s is making somebody feel. This is how we make the connections with the plant medicine - it’s a bit like when we go to the doctor and he pulls out his – I think it’s called the  British National Formulary book, no one bats an eyelid as he has a quick flip through to see which antibiotic might suit you best.  And we do the same.  And so what I’d really like to do is just talk to you about some herbs and plants that you might already be familiar with it that can be just so supportive. 

Jane’s Magic Workshop and Apothecary

Bilberries or blueberries have become exceptionally popular over the last decade. We tend to think, well it’s just Berry fruit, very nice, put in a smoothie or put in juice, but actually it can really help if you’ve got nervous digestion.  This likes Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which can come from a place of difficulty emotionally.  Visual disturbances - you know sometimes if you get little floaters across your eyes if you’re really tired or really stressed, they can really support that. It also supports something called somatic distress.  Put really simply it’s when you’re feeling all of your stress and your tension physically, in your body. My favourite examples for this is when our shoulders are aching and they feel really heavy,  quite often it’s to do with the emotional load that we’re carrying reflecting in your body. And it happens in other areas, for example, you could also hold a lot of stress and tension behind your knees. I know plenty of people with really clicky knees and sometimes it is related to that tension.

Other herbs that are less familiar like black cohosh wheat, it has lots of different actions, which is one of  the beautiful things about herbs that I love so much. It’s a fantastic herb for  pain. It acts in the same way as non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs, like your Neurofens and so on but it can  also bring back balance if emotionally you’re feeling a bit out of kilter.  It’s also excellent for those times when you think:  “Oh God, if anything else goes wrong I’m going to break into about 45 pieces!” and it can really support that.

There’s a very bitter herb herb called  Black Horehound.  It’s incredibly beautiful and the main thing that will help with is nausea; that sense of nervousness and sickness that comes from a place of upset or fear.

One of my favorites is Limeflower – absolutely love it. I will never forget my Great Aunt in the Pyrenees in France making me, a fresh Lime Flower tea,  it was absolutely exquisite, just wonderful. It’s such a superb plant to help you.  It will help you sleep. It will help with nervous digestion; feelings of loss and grief and really deep rooted emotional distress, when things have perhaps been buried for a quite long time.  It can bring things to the surface to help process things in a really gentle way and it works really well with a plant called Motherwort, which in a way does it what it says on the tin really – it holds space for you.

Motherwort, again, is fantastic for grief, anxiety, insomnia, palpitations.  Motherwort is actually a heart herb so we call it a cardiac nervine. It can really help when you feel like you’re a rabbit in the headlights – ‘Do I run? Do I standstill?’ That fight, flight, freeze response – Motherwort really helps with that.  And stress, it’s is absolutely the herb for stress.

Now along the Limeflower and Motherwort, something else that is so supportive in a tea is oats.  Oats Straw or the flowering tops, or Milky Oats -it has several names – but it is so, so soothing.  It will helps to calm anxiety, tension and any irritability and then as I mentioned before, when we’re really feeling everything, including pains in our body.  It will also support things like depression, low mood.

And Rose.  My favorite tea is Rose, Oats and Limeflower. If you think about a chicken who has been upset and all their feathers are ruffled and gradually as they calm down and become centered in themselves, all their feathers come back down and that’s what oats, rose and limeflower will do for a person – not that we’ve got feathers, obviously – but it calms the nervous system down. 

That tea helps me personally when, do you know when you have one of those days when things are annoying you?  If I get to third time and I’ve felt annoyance, I’ll go and have a cup of rose, lime flower and oat tea because I’m fairly sure by that point that the problem is residing in myself and not everybody else (Laughs).

Suzy:  Oh yes! I’ve been there! Whatever is being reflected back to us is usually a sign that there’s something going on with in. 

Jane:  Yes, absolutely (we chuckle).  But oh, the rose.  Such a beautiful plant. The scent, the way it grows.  I have a lot of favourite plants but the rose remains one of my absolute favourites.  Again, it works with the Limeflower on really deeply buried emotions; things that need processing really slowly and gently.  We all want a silver bullet or a quick fix sometime but actually we have to do the inner work, we have to reflect, we have to draw these things out.  And also, as we’ve just mentioned, it will help with the mood swings, when things are irritating you, depression, grief, and not just necessarily grief for people who have passed over but you know when we try to separate ourselves and move forward in a different way there’s grief there too because there’s loss. And so again, rose is a super herb for trauma.  For doing the inner work.

Suzy: I really hear you on that sense of loss. I know for me there’s been a lot of work around feeling of a lost life. I felt like I lost out on life. And so even though I was able to shed the doctrines very, very quickly the sense of loss was immense. Even things like the loss of hope for the future that you’ve kind of been living your life on hold for.  You’ve lived thinking you’re probably not going to die. You’ve  had since this Hope since birth, since the womb, and then suddenly it’s not there.  And with that can come a sense of real panic.  I think there have been many times when I’ve been feeling in a state of, or coming at life from, a state of emergency.  I felt like,  ‘Gosh, this is my life only life as Suzy, I’m going to die and so there’s a LOT to do here!’  It feels multi layered and complex, so when you speak of these things really, really sings to my heart to have that level of understanding.         

Jane: Yes, it the onion skin analogy, there are different layers and kind of getting to the bottom of it.  With this particular blend, the rose, limeflower, tulia – And I do like to add to sometimes the motherwort or the passion flower – so when we’ve normalized things, when there’s been a lot of normalization and a lot of layers to this.  

I remember listening to an amazing talk and she was actually an incest survivor and so you’re a little child and you’re like, ‘This smells funny.’ But you keep getting told, ‘No, no, no, this smells of roses’.  The child eventually trusts that it must smell of roses. And there you have it – behaviors, thought patterns, indoctrinations that are not considered mainstream or are simply not ok are made to be normal.  You’ve been told that this is how it is.  This tea blend really comes into it’s own with those things and gives gentle support.

Oats are really nourishing and really balancing.  They’re what we call a nervine.   And the rose too is a cardiac nervine like a mentioned with Motherwort earlier. Even just oats in the diet are good, so helpful; warming, comforting.

A huge part of it is actually to be kind to ourselves, it really is.

Jane: A herb that most people are familiar with is rosemary.  Many have rosemary with roast veggies or roast lamb but it has medicinal uses.  Stress, tension, nervous exhaustion – that feeling that you can’t put one foot in front of the other or get up off the sofa, that bone-aching weariness when your whole bone marrow is exhausted –again that can come from stress, depression, you know mental fatigue, all that stuff is exhausting.  Rosemary for brain fog is amazing.  Some days your thoughts are a bit cloudy and hard to process, well a cup of rosemary tea will be hugely helpful.

Suzy:  We hear a lot about essential oils and now they help us.  How much truth do you think there is in how our olfactory senses can really aid us in healing?

Jane: They absolutely can.  Even something as simple as waking up in the morning in a low mood and using one of the citrus oils, lemon, grapefruit, bergamot, they give uplift and balance at the same time.  I particularly like grapefruit. 

 I think this is all we are ever trying to do as herbalists is get people back to their balance.  I’m going to mention Rose and Limeflower again but in terms of being essential oils. They are the most expensive oils but a mixture of those two just in a little tiny bottle that you can carry in your pocket or bag and if you feel stress rising or feel you’re being triggered by something just popping it on your pulse points or lifting it to your nose it can break a pattern of thought.  

Things like Lavender - so relaxing, really helpful at night time. And at the same time if you’re needing focus such as writing, study, attempting the accounts, well a bit of lavender and frankincense essential oil calm where the tension is but also help to bring focus.  

There are endless essential oils and it’s so personal.  Fragrance is so deeply, deeply personal.  This will make you laugh - I was out for lunch with a friend yesterday and I went to use the bathroom and they had a selection of old fashioned perfumes to be sampled and I was having a little squirt, thinking, ‘Ooh I used to wear that!’ 

Some people love Ylang-Ylang.  That can help lower your blood pressure and it’s not one of my favourites. Things like Rose-Geranium - the geraniums are so balancing and again, as a herbalist looking at aromatic medicine we look at the oil that resonates with the person.  Nobody ever said, ‘That smells disgusting, I’ll wear it everyday!’ 

Also, going back to feeling physical pain, essential oils come in really strongly because they’ve got a really powerful anti-inflammatory feeling, as well as working on the other levels as well. 

Suzy:  On the topic of pain, sometimes we can be in a lot of pain and not be able to get to the bottom of it. Recently I’ve experienced a lot of pain in my left hip. I’ve been poked, prodded, had all the blood tests and nothing can be found.  I know intuitively, however, that it’s to do with financial insecurity, not flourishing in that area on account  of a lot of self-limiting beliefs coming out of the religion.  Also the feelings of loss that come with starting over and losing friendships and so on.

Jane: Yes, sometimes someone will come to see me, quite hunched over and we gradually draw their story out.  What’s going on with the shoulders? Where is the pain?  You spoke of experiencing the pain in the hip and the back , the stress of carrying things reflecting on the shoulders.

And I think also in terms of managing stress, our spine has quite a lot to do really it's pretty much involved with most of the body and particularly when, as you just said, there's no diagnosis realistically and if you've had your MRI’s and whatever scans and you’ve beem wiggled this way and that way, as herbalists we want to get to the root cause rather than putting a sticking plaster over something and this is where the individual consultations come in and finding the right herbs for people because there's so many good ones.

Skullcap actually is another one, again, insomnia, depression, stress, grief, bereavement, and you know, as you said, it's not just about a person actually physically [moving forward] there is bereavement, loss of friends, family, connections that you can no longer have. It’s a real inner conflict because you still have the feelings of love for the people but you're trying to move on.

I love the way you said about it keeping you small and you tend to become a little bit bigger in the world and start to carve out your own path.

Suzy (seemingly rudely interupts) Confidence. If you can touch on a herb for confidence because I think that’s another thing - humility can get very, very skewed in some religions and actually humility is often very confused with just putting up and shutting up and I always remember being at a funeral and there was a couple of ex-members of of the religion that came to it and they stood really tall and I remember at the time thinking ‘Oh how supercilious they are,’ and now I realise, no, they just had a very healthy sense of self, and, indeed, I find myself now standing and walking differently. But it's a hard thing to find that confidence you know, when you’ve kept yourself very, very tiny

Jane: Yeah, and it's kind of finding the roots for that to grow. Herbs that can really help us feel grounded, which is a fantastic starting point for confidence are things like dandelion root. It does a lot on many different levels. It works with digestion. It kind of reminds your digestion of what it's meant to be doing. It’s very grounding, you know you can feel that you've got your feet on the floor and so strengthening.

I think rosemary is also good for that as well because it's clearing through the brain fog to allow you to kind of be clearer. And the blueberries that I first mentioned can also help give you clarity and can be really, really supportive.

And another one that gives the clarity and aids in shifting the brain fog is the Ground Ivy that beautiful little, unassuming plant that often runs around the edges with the dear little flowers - it's quite power packed and it takes away that fog. Because the confidence comes from a place of clear thinking and clarity and it comes from having a sense of security again within ourselves and that can be hard to find. You know, even when we've actually made a conscious decision to leave something it can still leave us feeling like we've been uprooted.

Suzy: Hmmm. Uprooted and upended, funily enough is an expression I use a lot. It descirbes me life a lot this last two years so that grounding really appeals to me. Just that kind of grounding… 'cause I think in that peace, that's where the freedom is. And that's what we're looking all looking for at the end of the day hey, just that kind of peace, when we can kind of turn off the mind chatter and just feel ‘Ahhh, everything's OK,’

Jane: Yeah and that everything is right. I mean things like Valerian can help with that as well, that grounding. The roots are really good too, which goes without saying, doesn’t it?In order to feel grounded and rooted in your new environment, the root medicine will help.

And some of them are also essential oils as well for example valerien root is one I will put in for making a cream for pain. And also vervain, which is quite bitter, it’s very beautiful with dear, little purple flowers, again [helping with] tension, stress, depression, we’re back to nervous exhaustion.

Vervain is also good for things like people with agraphobia, where suddenly they can feel, ‘OK I've done this and now I need to go out’ and all of sudden they’re thinking: ‘I don't know if I can go out’, that will bring bring confidence.

One of my favourites is wood betony. It really links so many things - again we’re back to the pains that will feel in the body because our emotions and back to anxiety, but it's really good digestive herb and it's so important that our digestion works because there's a huge impact from our brain to guts and back again.

Wood Betony can also support you if you're feeling kind of low in energy and you know sometimes when we're anxious, when we're making big changes that feel very big, when we’re reflecting, it's tiring. That sort of emotional work is absolutely exhausting and so wood betony can certainly help with that.

And then finally, we have a lovely plant, last but not least, wild lettuce and if anybody's read the Beatrix Potter Peter rabbit books they were eating the lettuce in the garden and that's why they went to sleep because it helps insomnia. Again, back to stress, those feelings of restlessness - I think I coined word for it, I'm sure the word doesn't exist but it was: “upheavaled”! It’s the sense of hyper arousal, constantly looking what's going on, you know, getting going out and getting into cafe and literally as you go in you're planning how you might get out.

Suzy: That kind of level of panic attack or that fear of a panic attack - it's almost universal is as far as the conversations I've had with people coming out to the religion, or just waking up from the religion. I had some monstrous panic attacks in that process.

Jane: Yeah, and particularly if you haven't been able to move away physically from place, you know, going to the shop and fear of bumping into somebody…

Suzy: Ooof yes. I'm so aware of your time Jane, but there was just a a couple of questions I had that I wanted to put to you. Why is it important to follow our nose when it comes to what plant we feel drawn to - how can this help us somatically?

Jane: It's important because actually we quite often connect with things that are going to help us the most. I can remember, just as a personal example, and I make myself chuckle a bit about it because yarrow - which is now one of my absolute favourite plants. So I was looking at the tincture medicine and as I was pouring it out in the job that I used to do and I thought, ‘yes that's fantastic, I'll have me some of that,’ and I looked at it and it was Yarrow, and was like, ‘Really?!’ And of course, I'd just been to see my endocronologist and he told me that my blood pressure was higher than he would like, and it's the perfect herb for circulation. I mean it does many, many other amazing things. But quite often you will need what you are attracted to.

Animals are the most amazing example of this. They will self select, they will choose what they need. And if we can just kind kind of sit in that space and see what we're drawn to.

One of the things I will quite often do for people in a consultation is while I'm talking, and more importantly hearing, a list of herbs will be coming up in my mind and I would ask the person to smell them or ask them to taste them and ask ‘how this makes you feel’ and with the essential oils it's just wonderful because, Susie knows, my workshop has got huge amount essential oils and it's kind of like an essential oil buffet that people can help themselves to…

Suzy: I love that we can see the magic behind you. It's such a special space, it's so so precious.

On that note, I am drawn to cardamom. I put it in everything, my coffee, my bath, it just it goes in everything. I love it. Are there any reasons why that might be?

Jane: Cardamom is immensely calming. It's calming to the digestion and when your digestion is being addressed and it's calming there, there's also an element of of mental calming as well.

And one thing about putting cardamom in coffee is that it actually stops the coffee jitters, so cardamom, rose and cinnamon in your coffee and they just kind of give you the nice bits that the caffeine's doing but you haven't got the sharp edges. It works energetically as well I think, but mainly used a digestive.

Cardamom is also used - this is a secret now, don’t tell anyone - but it's the way that I know a few of my herbalist colleagues, if they can't use licorice, if people are bit resistant taking the tinctures, it it kind of sweetens and brings a lovely flavour to the medicine and so quite often they put some cardomom in it and it brings the medicine together.

Suzy: It’s a beautiful thing. And finally, and if this is too big a question just say so but I'm training for a marathon in October the great London Marathon, it's been a dream my entire life, and just 18 months ago it was something that I thought was completely impossible, and so I'm doing really, really well are there any herbs that you can think of that will really help you as regards your joints, or you know, endurance!

Jane: Things like the nutritive tonic herbs, like ashwagandha, also for women shatavari roots, those are two kind of super foods. Schisandra can give energy.

In terms of your joints, make a salve or just an oil, with some essential oils with things like lavender, sweet marjoram, maybe a bit valerien oil, spiknard. Wintergreen is fantastic.

Birch oil is great, it's kind of like a homemade tiger balm. Ginger is another really lovely, warming oil that you can rub on the joints.

You can make yourself little energy balls with the powders and so on, with cacao, it's like a healthy sweetie.

Eat regularly. Shove as many herbs in as many food as possible!

Suzy: Is there any parting words that you would like to offer for someone who's thinking, ‘I like the sound of all of this, where do I start?’

Jane: Well, if anyone's interested in learning more, I do little short courses that usually can be a day or a weekend, just as a taster. I have my private practise if anybody felt that they would like to come and see me.

I can never remember what the right words are but people who struggle a bit financially, those who are adapting to a new way of living, I do reduced consultations because I think actually helping people is more important than anything.

And just some really good books out there as well, some really practical books. There are so many books…

Suzy: I think the one that I love the most thus far is the Rosemary Gladstar one that you recommended and it is a really, really great book for for starting out I think.

Jane, I am so grateful to you for your beautifulness and you're talking today really, really grateful.

Jane: It's been a pleasure. Using herbs in this way is one of my passions and I firmly believe that whatever changes anybody's gone through in life however unstabilized by it all they feel, we should be helping and supporting in the way that we would somebody who’s gone through a physical issue - it's all part of it. It's important that people get the support that they need and also actually remember to be kind to themselves. We can actually be really hard on ourselves.

Suzy: It’s the most, probably the most, important lesson and yet the most slippery.

Jane: Yep, my partner would say small by small.

{🌱Suzy pops kettle on for a vervain and motherwort tea🌿}

If you would like to contact Jane for a consultation or to learn more about learning herbs, you can do so by email:

Jane@theplantmedicineschool.com and here.