Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to the Tales of Recovery podcast. Today, my friend Naz is here to share with us some of her story. We were just talking about what we were going to talk about. All of it, right? Open book. Herbalism, earth, whatever healing experience that you've had. Our dark stuff. So it's going to be great. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for coming. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm really excited. It's been a long time coming.
And just, yeah, I'm really excited just to be here, to be in community and to just be able to share from my heart and to have this beautiful, you know, just conversation in regards to what life is and how life has been from my perspective. Right. Yeah. And to navigate it. I think I met you years and years and years ago. I think we've both have kind of seen each other's journey and the growth.
And I was asking, how do I introduce you? you know, Nasdira Cuevas, herbalist, medicine woman, community liaison, resource, educator, mother, daughter, sister, big sister, food is medicine, child of the earth, todo, you know, as like, oh, it's so beautiful because that's, yeah, that's who you are. That's, and so I don't know how we're going to start this, but if we just want to kind.
Because I have a lot of questions about healing, food is healing, and herbs is healing instead of, I mean, I don't like to go to the doctor and getting any of their prescriptions. It's been years that I'm like, no, no, no. You know, kind of like how we grew up. And then I drank a little Kool-Aid a little bit, because you think that's the way it is. And then you're like, wait a minute, this Kool-Aid is making me sick. Let's go back to the herbs and the tea. So, I mean, you know, just whatever.
Why don't we start with like, I don't know, should we start with the dark part? Yeah, let's start there. That's the juicy part. That's the juicy part. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned you had, you know, you want to talk about alcoholism and kind of how that, yeah, a little bit about how that pain was being done by alcohol and how you worked your way through it.
Yeah, I would love to share about that. But I think, you know, alcohol in my family has been something that has been a really huge, it's just really affected our family very, very tragically. And I grew up in a family that my grandfather was an alcoholic, a severe alcoholic. And unfortunately, he passed away due to his alcoholism. And a lot of the members in my family were alcoholics. And so I grew up in that environment.
And when I was in my, in my twenties till, My 30s, I was drinking a lot, and it took me to some really dark places. All of the things that I had experienced as a child kind of came out during that time, and I was numbing all of that with alcohol. Did you grow up in Mexico? I grew up in Mexico, and I grew up in L.A. I grew up in both. I was born in L.A., and then my mother took me to Mexico when I was nine months old, And then when I was almost nine, I came back to L.A.
And so I moved a lot. Back and forth. Yeah, a lot and kind of just uprooted, not really having much grounding. Pero sí, te digo, the alcoholism has been something that I don't really talk about because I felt a lot of shame. But it did take me to a lot of places where I almost died quite a few times. But it wasn't my time to go. And so the last time was a really, really intense time. And I felt very suicidal during that time.
And so I went and I seeked help. And I seeked help by calling a different therapist, but I found a hypnotherapist. And that hypnotherapist is the one that really helped me change my life. How old were you on the Sabbath? Mm-hmm. 32. So the hypnotherapist was here in San Diego? Yeah, the hypnotherapist was here in San Diego. And I found her because I was looking, I was working for the school district. And, you know, yeah, almost dying, getting a DUI. Okay.
And having to, man, I'm really going to go into this one, huh? Going going to like just like all the legal stuff that went with it was really hard but i called for my insurance company i called the insurance company and asked to be referred to a therapist they told me to go online i found her i reached out to her she told me that i don't know how she found how i found her but that my she didn't she wasn't under my insurance she didn't take my insurance.
But by the grace of goddess, she gave me about 10 free sessions. And that changed a lot of the trauma that I was navigating. It helped me process a lot of it and helped me really do a lot of healing in this realm, in the upper realms. And that helped me then be able to do what I wanted to do because I've always wanted to be of service. I've always wanted to help. I grew up with a lot of trauma and I knew that that wasn't the right way to live.
And I wanted to help children. I wanted to protect children and just be a safe space. And I couldn't do that because I was living in my trauma so much. So once I was able to get But the support that I did with the therapist, with the hypnotherapist that, you know, just changed the trajectory of my life. And I was able to like, then it opened doors for me to be able to, to, you know, do yoga and heal through yoga and also, you know, use other modalities.
To be able to heal myself so the hypnotherapist if it's okay for me to ask like what did she tell you like how did you because i had to stop drinking going through na meetings every day, for like years i mean as soon as i got there i didn't drink but i don't i couldn't stop going it was like so i'm just wondering like what did the hypnotherapist tell you or what did you discover through that? How were you able to not go get a drink?
Well, I did go to AA because of the legal stuff. And that was very humbling. Very, very humbling. And it also opened doors for me to see that, you know, I am just like everybody else in that place. And where I used to go was in the one in downtown, where the majority of the homeless people would be in the morning, early in the morning because I had to do it before I went to work. And sometimes I would have to take my little girl with me and we would sit there
and she would be with me. And this was very, again, very humbling. There's no way that I could go around it. I needed to do this. And it really showed me that I had to just be more compassionate. It opened up my heart even more. These opportunities, as hard as they were for me to deal with the shame that I carried because of all of this, it just kept, opening up my heart more and more to just the humanity of all of this. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
But what did she tell me? What did she tell? We went through the childhood trauma that I had experienced, the abandonment issues, the sexual trauma, the incest. And we did a lot of healing, forgiving, understanding. And just letting go, you know, and it's not easy and it hasn't been like a linear line of healing. I go through it every day. But it's different now. Yeah. Yeah, the way sometimes I see it, people ask, come on, I can't.
I need to get rid of it. I'm like, well, you know, I don't really get rid of my trauma. It's just now I have more space for it, like you said, to understand and also know that it's not my fault. It's not my fault. When you're a kid, it's not your fault. It isn't. It isn't, you know, but there's, but you, you, you, I would feel embarrassed because I thought, well, it's got my fault. But so that's, that's part of the healing for me. It's been like understanding it's not my fault.
And I don't need to be embarrassed about it. I mean, I would go to meetings in Tijuana, en la calle sexta, with all the teporochitos. It was like, when I turned one year sober and my mom came, she was just like, oh, she And I was like, these are my friends. Yeah. These girls are like puro corazón. They're my people, yeah. And they're sober. Yeah. And clean. Because I was also, I was an N.A., so even masculine. Yeah, yeah.
But thank you for sharing that because it's so powerful when we say these things. Because you never know who's out there listening. Yeah. There's hope. You know, there's possibilities. And these are not things that I talk about often because I've been having to do a lot of healing, you know, and just also want to respect my family, you know. But as I get older, I understand that there's things that like have to be spoken because like you said, we don't know who's listening.
And I know that you know I've heard things and I've I've been able to heal by just reading I was a reader I always read okay so then the reading is what helped me like understand myself. And understand that you know all of this is actually not okay and then going to go and get the help right yeah yeah yeah and and releasing the shame I think the shame was the biggest thing I think the shame is what I was trying to numb with the alcohol, is the shame that I felt and that I carried with me.
And I've done a lot of healing with that, you know? The last session that I had with somebody that I just had this beautiful session with this woman—, She helped me release a lot of that healing, that shame, that ancestral shame, that shame that is in my lineage, you know. Oh, yeah. I know. Shame, anger, pain, hurt, anxiety, the suspiración, depression, all of it. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, but we're lucky that we get to, you know, be able to talk about this and have access to being okay to heal it and process it and say, hey, this isn't mine. Or, yeah, it's mine, but can I transmute it? Because you, you know, like what happens after you go to this therapist? You know, you said you did some body work like yoga. I know that one of the first times that I talked a little bit more with you, we met at this, we were at South Park Yoga, I think, Andrei.
And you said you had just come back from, I think it was a seven day or 10 day Vipassana. That's right. The Vipassana retreat. After, yeah, after that, I was able to sit with myself. Yeah. So I had to learn to sit with myself in silence for days upon days upon days with no eye contact, with no phone, no notebooks, no books, just me in the desert. And it was really beautiful. I went to a 10-day Vipassana retreat. The first one that I went to was in Joshua Tree.
I had never been to Joshua Tree. I packed my little car up. I'd never even driven by myself. I think I was kind of very sheltered from all of that, from going to experiences where I felt that I couldn't take up any space. I think that was the biggest thing. I just didn't feel like this was for me. Okay. And I think, you know, we always kind of kept to ourselves.
I'm the one that kind of has expanded more and like really has taken up spaces and places where maybe, you know, we think we don't belong. But it was an all-women Vipassana retreat. And it was really amazing and transformational to be with myself and to be able to meditate for hours and just sit with me. with all of my things. And it was one, two, three. I think the last one I did was a shorter one. It was about a three-day one.
But I loved it, and I love it, and I miss it so much. But these were very transformational. But I don't think that I would have been able to get to that, again, if I hadn't done the work that I had done before. I'm a therapist. Yeah, there was no way to sit with myself before. Yeah, that's a big step. You remember your exact words you said. And I was like, oh, wow, that's great. Because I know I had done...
One of those retreats, it wasn't like the Vipassana, it was a different teacher, but it was the same, silent retreat, puro meditar, no talking, no phone. The first two days I'm like, wow, what the fuck am I doing here? And then like day three, day four, you're like, I can, yeah. So it's a process, you drop in, you're like, okay, well, I don't ever want to go back. Yeah, that's how I felt. It was so hard to come back.
Yeah, for me, it was really easy to drop in. I was ready. I was very prepared to do that, and I loved it. I loved not having to talk to anybody. I worked in education, and I had family. So, you know, being around children all the time, you're always talking. And for me, I was just like, that was a vacation. That was a real vacation. I remember you said, I just reset my nervous system. Yeah. If somebody dijiste. Me acuerdo.
Era tan diferente mi cuerpo. Yo me sentía tan diferente. I never felt that way before. And then also, I remember that that was very close to a time that I had started doing yoga, and I had never experienced shavasana. And it scared me. I remember how much it scared me because I couldn't talk afterward. I was so like, they did a gong bath. This was my first yoga class. They did a gong bath, and just my whole body just received it. And had never felt this peace. And never felt this peace before.
And so it just, it really, all these, these very pivotal, you know, shifts, they were really powerful. That's interesting you say that it was scary because a lot of times in the healing journey or when we're, you know, healing from trauma or trying to be better, our body's so used to being in like fight or flight and stress mode and shame that when something good comes, it's like, wait a minute, that's scary. Love, calm. Waiting for the shoe to drop.
Like what's going to happen? Can I really trust this? Right. Yeah. So it takes time to get in there and be like, yeah, I can trust this. It's a journey. Yeah. That's one of the things I always like to say here. You know, this process can take 10, 20 years. Hang in there. Yeah. You just have to start and keep going, but it only gets better once you step in. Yeah. Life continues. For sure. Life continues. Really tragic things happen.
Yeah. But I think the perspective shifts within us or we're able to hold, or I should say I'm able to hold and have more capacity to hold in a different way and can see the beauty and the tragedy. Yeah. You know? And the fact that this is what happens on earth. There's no running from it. People die. There's accidents. The market goes up and down. What are we going to do? Yeah, fires happen. Fires happen. Yeah, earthquakes happen. War happens.
It's been happening for lifetimes. Yeah, which is another important part of why I really like having you here is throughout this tragedy and whatever we have to experience on the earth, Because the biggest, most important, I think, for me is, besides my own personal work and healing, is the community, the people we surround ourselves with. So I don't know if you want to talk about that, like who supported you through this. Because usually, but it's usually not our like blood family, right?
No. Bless them. We came through them. I had to step away from my family to go do my work. Right. and heal and then be able to come back to my family stronger, more assured of who I was to be able to be. To be able to be an influence, a good influence to my family, because I knew what I wanted, but I had to step away. And who has helped me? Gosh, there's been so many people. I've been so blessed. Honestly, I've been so blessed. And unfortunately, I'm not really good at names. I forget names.
But I will name the people that I know off the top of my head that have been such a pivotal influence in my life. Erin Yaya Merriman. She's been like a sister to me for so many years, and she helped me open doors to new ways of being that I didn't know were possible. Marisha, my current teacher now from School of the Sacred Wild, she has also been a huge influence in my life and has helped me open doors to opportunities that I did not know were possible.
Those two women have been huge in my life. I've been really, really blessed. So maybe I could ask you this now, because I was going to say, like, how did you get into, I mean, you mentioned that, right, Yaya, the Medicine Mandala, Marisha, the School of the Sacred Wild, and then you get into, okay, you know, I am the medicine, and where are these herbs and these earth-based herbs, ancestral ways of connecting to our magic. Maybe you want to talk about that?
Yeah. So I want to talk about real quickly about the fact that all the women that I have relationships with that are my friends, that are my sisters, that are my confidants, those are all the women that have helped me, all the people that have helped me heal and to like really build and to strengthen myself. Healing the sister wound, I think, has been a huge part of all of this.
Understanding that when women hold each other, when women listen and witness to each other and each other's triumphs and each other's pain, like that is a big part of my healing journey as well. So all the women around me, I want to really give gratitude to. I've been very blessed. And it takes time to know who to connect with. It takes time to decipher through because we all have those challenges.
Of, you know, that experience of maybe not always having sisters that are really there for you, you know? But through the years, I've been able to really decipher and hold on to those beautiful women and also build some new relationships. And those have been the best, the best and most intimate and healing relationships.
And from my time with Medicine Mandala, that is one of the biggest lessons that I took from that was the connection to other women, the intimacy that women can share with each other, and the way that we can support and build and also just like create magic when we come together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, it's, when you talk about the women and stuff, I'm thinking like... The different type of intimacy and being able to be yourself with other women, like with friends versus with family.
Excuse me. Like I have a lot of aunts and cousins and, you know, there's like a Mexican, you know, there's like hundreds of them. And literally you go to a party with them and they're great. But it's mostly like what are the kids doing?
What are their successes? It's very surface. it's super surface like you try to get deep and somebody like this christmas dinner i try to like go deep or somebody asked a deep question and one of the one of the cousins was like i know no no don't start don't start the deep let's just talk about something and i was like oh man i thought it was gonna be a good dinner and here we go with the stupid shit it's like fine but okay,
yeah because you're trying to really build relationships with with our our blood family, real ones but also when you build them like you said with all your friends, the community to me my friends have been the most important they've been.
Healing the mother wound I have a cool sister maybe she doesn't think I was that good of a sister but I love her I'm older but with the friends with older women, And to me, it's been such a healing experience to be able to sit and just say it straight up and have other women not freak out about what I'm saying and see me and listen. And then they share it. I'm like, oh, you feel the same? You feel the same? Or you've been through this before? And that opens up what a relief. Yeah.
And yeah, what a gratitude, like really thank God for that ability to connect with those relationships and in that space. Yeah. Like, you know, where you're learning about earth, but I'm sure they're also sharing and nobody has any pretenses or past connections to, you know, other traumas that, I don't know.
Yeah. And sitting in, like, multi-generational circles, like sitting with other women, and you talk about the mother wound, I definitely can relate to that, you know, just being able to be held, to be listened to, to be witnessed by other women, women that are of age that have experience that can say, you know, mija. You know, can hold you, you know, don't go that way, or, you know, you're doing great. Because sometimes, you know, you don't get that from family.
Right. So, you know, and even like, you know, like you say, having conversations with cousins, I grew up with a lot of cousins. I have a lot of female cousins. I have a lot of all of my sisters, but we didn't have a lot of deep conversations. It was very surface. And at times it was very competitive too.
Yeah you know a lot very suppressing as well so then i did the work that i had to do and i i really can say this with a lot of with a lot of love that i've been able to be a good influence in my family by just healing myself and doing my work and then just showing up but continuing to show up that that's where it's at it's continuing to show up because i couldn't i couldn't feel like really complete when I was just sharing all of this deep, intimate,
loving time with my sisters that are not my blood relatives and then spend time with my family and not be able to relate to them. I needed to change that.
And it took a lot of work and it's taken a lot of work and it's still taking a lot of work, but I can see all of my sisters and my mom because that's that's that's my core my sisters and my mom and our children that we're healing that we're healing we're we're doing the work we talk about things that are a lot more than the surface level and we're helping each other grow i can see it and i can feel it and it just you know there's no more alcohol involved in my family we don't,
have parties with alcohol anymore, at least, you know, with my group of my sisters and my mom, like nobody drinks anymore. And that's so huge. It's such a win for our family, because we come from such a long lineage of people that suppressed, you know, their. Emotions, their feelings, their pain, as also as their spirit, because, you know, of all of everything that has happened, right?
All of the colonization, all of the things, you know, there was a lot of having to like really suppress the spirit because we are people that really want to be tending to the land. Like that is the life that I live. Unfortunately, I also live in this realm, unfortunately, so I have to work. But the majority of the time, it's like I'm with my land as much as I can. And that brings me so much joy and peace. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you living at now? Right now I live on a little nursery.
It's a private nursery in El Cajon. Nice. Yeah. So I have a little piece of land that I get to tend to. And our dear friend Julian just came over and helped me. Julian. Yep. Shout out. Shout out Julian. Helped me work on my land a little bit more and like do a food garden instead of just an herb garden. Okay. So, yeah, that was huge. And it didn't take that long. And I just needed a little support, a little like different eyes to show me, you know.
Right. The possibilities. Yeah, the possibilities. And now, you know, I'm out there watering my plants, my little sprouts that are coming through. That's wonderful. Like excited for these cover crops, excited for what new life is coming, you know. Jillian is great. Jillian Willing. If anybody here wants to start their garden or get help, reach out to Jillian. She's amazing. Yeah, she's helped me. This is my second garden that she's helped me build. She is an amazing, intuitive gardener.
Yeah, she knows her stuff. She does. Yeah, she helped me here with the irrigation, and I took a couple of classes with her when she was over there guarding with friends. Yeah, she's brilliant. She's my sister. That's right. I'm another mister. I love Julie. A lot of love for Julie. See, and her connection to the plants. She's always doing that. Let's do smell and tell. She gets all the plants. Get this, though, and I'm like, oh, that smells amazing. Right. She gets so excited about it. Yeah.
I love that energy from her. She has such a childlike energy. And, you know, my daughter loves her. We have such a, you know, great relationship with her because, well, my girl needs aunties. And aunties like her are just so great. For sure. That's great. That's so cool that you have your space and you're tending to the land. It's been like all the things that I've done for the healing, que las juntas de retreats and yoga and somatic therapy and compassion and great plant medicine.
The best for me is barefoot and just putting my hands in the soil and pulling weeds and oh my God, there's strawberries here and this is actually growing and the beans are coming up. Yes, I agree. It's just so soothing. So yeah, I get what you're saying about wanting to be tending to the land. And I do want to say that is amazing that you get to hang with your family and there's no alcohol. Yeah. And mine, todavía tomar. Yeah. You know, they're not falling over like maybe we were in the 80s.
But there's still, and it's fine, you know, no judgment. No judgment at all. It's just there's, it's hard to show up and there be no distractions and just, okay, we're going to get in there. You know, like that connection. So, so congratulations. I mean, that's beautiful. Yeah. It does feel really good. It feels like a huge win for our family. My sisters are all in their 30s or 40s now, too. In my 40s, my mom is in her late 60s or mid-60s.
And so, you know, we're all making big changes in our family or within ourselves. And it shows, you know, and just for us to be able to meet with like a clear, clear intention and an open heart. And to just, you know, be fully present, that takes a lot of courage, a lot of vulnerability. And yeah, this was the time for us to be able to do the work that we're doing. And I know that we're doing work, not just for ourselves, but for our lineage. Like I feel it. And I'm so proud of my family.
Like I'm so proud of them. I'm so proud of my mom. You know, we're doing a lot of work and, you know, it could be so easy to just be angry at what was, but I don't have time for that. No. I don't have time for that at all. Yeah. Puro amor. Puro amor. Puro amor. So, does your family, like are they, well, maybe you could just tell us about, I would like, if you want to talk about how you started or you figured out how,
because everybody knows you get sick, but no, at least that's what they would give us. Always. Since I can remember. But so how did you get more connected to, to remembering, you know, these, these, these, these plants and how to process them, how to work. Okay. I'll tell you, I'll tell you. Yes. So growing up with, with my great-grandparents and my grandparents in Mexico was such a privilege. It was such a privilege to be able to witness them and the way that they lived life.
I was a child. I was very young. So there wasn't a lot of like, this is how you do this. This is how you do this. It was more of like watching, witnessing, come and help, you know? And so I am the first granddaughter. And so I was my grandma's and my grandpa's assistant. You know, I was around all the adults, and so I had the honor to learn, yeah, like it used to be. And so from them, I learned how to be of service to the land, how to tend to the land, and how to speak to the plants.
But moving to L.A. at nine, you know, there was a big uprooting. We moved to Compton, so there was not a lot of land around us. And it was just a different time. It was the late 80s. It was the late 80s. I lived in Compton during the riots. Wow. So it was a very intense time. There was a lot of violence. So all of that really was kind of... Building a lot of anxiety in my body. And I carried a lot of anxiety for many, many years.
And when my grandparents passed away, first my grandma, and then my grandpa passed. That is when the changes happened, like big, huge changes happened in my life. That's when I started. I met Yaya, and I joined Medicine Mandala, and I was doing the Vipassana retreats, and I was taking yoga and learning meditation. So everything kind of all— Sus abuelitas are here and— Ellas me estaban guiando.
They were guiding me the whole time. But what the biggest, like, direct calling to the plants was I set up an altar for my grandparents because I was feeling very alone and lost in the world. I didn't know what I was doing. This was during my 30s. So this is very, you know, on time, on point, as far as like, it's a huge transitional time. And so building the altar for them, started cooking the foods that they used to cook for me. Epazote was like number one. That's the one that came through.
And then just praying to them, talking to them, speaking to them in real time, and just honoring my grandparents was what brought me to the plants. They told me that I should work with the plants and the herbs that I grew up with, you know, like manzanilla or chamomile and epazote and cilantro. And then just, you know, with corn, a lot of corn, a lot of beans.
And connecting to my ancestral food opened up the door for me to be able to then have more ability to connect with the plants and, And to be able to learn from the plants also, of course, learning from my teacher, Erin Yaya Merriman at Medicine Mandala, learning from Marisha at School of the Sacred Wild. Because, of course, there's a lot that goes with all of that, being able to really understand how to work with plants and what constituents and how to pull the constituents from the plants.
And, you know, different menstruums, different, you know, you want to do, if you want to do a tincture, if you want to do an oxymoron, if you want to do glyceride, all of those are all different. But, you know, it just began with really working with nettles and a nettle infusion, drinking a nettle infusion for 30 days. That was like my intro, my gateway to the plants in that room. That's so trippy. That's what I'm doing. This is like day eight of nettle infusion.
Yeah, and it just changes you. It changes your cells. It changes the way that you feel. It really gives you the nourishment, the nourishment, deep nourishment from Mother Earth. And you feel it, right? Sí, me siento. Yesterday I noticed, and it's funny you mentioned that because it's been, I think I'm on... Maybe day nine, nine or ten, that I'm like, every day, every day, this whole thing, a nettle. Probably more. That's from yesterday if I didn't finish it. I love it. Yeah.
That's how my kitchen is. And I learned that from you. I'm like, oh, Nazita does it with the little. Yeah, with the little strainers. With the little strainers. Yeah. Yesterday I noticed, because I've been having this issue with my heel. I'm like, what's going on? Why does it hurt? The acupuncturist is like, well.
Inflammation. Uh-huh. for sure, you know, todo lo que me comí en tamales y cosas en Navidad, and so yesterday at night I was drinking the tea and I was, I didn't put it together, but I was like, it doesn't hurt. Like it's been all day and it hasn't hurt. And I'm on day nine or 10 of the nettle. And also, pues ya no estoy comiendo lo que me comí toda la Navidad, which was mostly just extra sweets. Yeah, it's the sugar. Le pegue al gluten cuando no debo.
But see, you do notice once you start, you know, drinking it for a certain amount of time, when you really commit to your own ritual, you know, to like really self-care, you can see the changes. And once you do that, it's like you don't want to go back. I don't have a day that I don't have herbs. Every day I drink an herb. Every day. Sometimes, you know, it'll be the same herb for 30 days. Sometimes it's not.
Sometimes, I mean, I've been able to work with different nerves for quite a few years now. So I just trust myself and I trust my intuition. And, you know, I look at my apothecary, I'm like, okay, today, this is what I want. And sometimes, you know, it'll be like, okay, I'm going to do this for 30 days, you know. And it feels great, too. It's just whatever my intuition guides me to do is what I do. And it's always right.
Are there some that you're not supposed to mix? Are there herbs, some herbs that you're not supposed to mix? Well, there's some herbs that some people can't take. Like pregnant people should not take any amenagogues. So herbs that will, you know, kind of help thin the lining of the uterus. Of the uterus. So there's herbs like that. Herbs that you shouldn't mix. I want to say that, you know, the herbs that I work with are mostly nourishing herbs.
And nourishing herbs are safe for all people. Okay. Of all ages and that are not, you know, going to cause any side effects or also not have any contraindications with, like, prescription medicine. So, like, nettles, oat straw. What else? Nettles, oat straw, linden. All of those herbs are so, like, gentle. Like milk thistle. Milk thistle. Those are different. That's a different category of an herb. Okay. Because that's not necessarily a nourishing herb.
That's more of an herb that's going to help you detox. That's going to help you cleanse. So that's a stronger kind of herb. And so that would be in a different category. That's something that I would be more mindful of. If I'm having a consultation with a person, I would ask the person what else are they taking. And then going with that and seeing if there's any counterindications with those. So people can call you to do these consultations? Yes.
Okay, good. I want to say that I am in transition of working on my website and just getting myself set up to be able to have consultations so that people can go online on the website, click the button, and we can set up an appointment to do consultations. The majority of my consultations happen when I am vending, you know?
And I was thinking as I was driving over here, I was like, wow, you know, like, because that's one of the things that I kind of, I give myself a hard time about, that I don't have a website. And then it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. It's money. And also I'm always evolving. I'm always doing something different. So it's hard for me to really like be like, this is what Nazdira does.
Nazdira, I do a lot of different things. but one of the you know things that I was, talking to myself about this morning is like, look, the work that I do is on the ground. I go to the community and I'm there. I'm consistent. And that's where people can find me and they can come and talk to me. And if they need to talk for 30, 40 minutes, I'm there. And that's when the consultations happen, you know, but do I want to have it be more organized? I do.
But the truth is, is that, you know, Nazira's Natural Remedies is not my only business.
It's not the only thing that i do it is not what's paying my rent you know it does help support me it is my passion but i have to do other things so that i i don't have as much time as i would love to to really invest into into like creating this whole you know business where you know that's all that i'm doing yeah yeah yeah you know and everything everything that i do though everything that I do, everything that I have my hands in is with love and with passion because everything
that I'm doing is really good. And I would like to, if you don't mind, I'd love to talk about that real quick. It really brings me a lot of excitement to kind of look at my life and see how I am a community member. I've been in San Diego for 25 plus years and it took me a long time to say that I am from San Diego now, you know? And it took me a long time to like, really like want to be part of this community. Cause I've always, I'm solo. I like to be solo.
And also I, I realized that I did, I need a community. So right now what I am doing is I am working with a good friend. His name is Charlie. He runs this, this program called Lineage Meals. And we're making meals for the children at the Waldorf school. And that's really beautiful because the meals that we're making are all organic, no seed oils, lots of love, lots of intention, lots of prayer that I bring into this space. And also, you know, like all the best ingredients that are available.
And when you think about that, like we're feeding these children, we're feeding these children like the best food so that they can be able to receive the nourishment, be able to be able to still be active and be able to learn. That is, to me, like such a service, such a service for Bluff. And I'm really happy that I'm able to do that. I also get to be out in events here in San Diego, vending my herb products, my herbal remedies.
And I just am like really feeling very, very grateful that I get to have these opportunities. I'm also an educator, so I get to like run herbal camps for children. I get to teach children. And how to work with plants, how to connect to their relationship to the plants and to Mother Earth. Again, all work that I do with so much love and passion. So I'm just really happy that, you know, this is what I'm doing. I just stopped working with Maya Moon.
I was working with Maya Moon for quite a few years, making truffles. And again, that was another. Those were amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much. It was such an honor to be able to work with Maimun and to be able to work in service to Kakao. And I did that because I was so in love and still am so in love with Kakao and the relationship that I have with her and the way that she has really helped me open my heart. And yeah, I'm just so grateful for all the work that I've done.
Prior to that, I worked in special education for almost 20 years. And, you know, again, just being able to be of service to his community. Simply the lineage food, you know, making these meals for the kids at school. I mean, that right there is the way, you know, to keep kids brain health, gut health, nourishment health, spiritual health, all the love energy that you put into that. I mean, most of the schools are getting like this cafeteria food that's just as bad as a food from the prisons.
It's soulless food. It's food that doesn't have nutrition. It's food that's dense, that doesn't really give any energy to our kids. And it makes you sick. It does make you sick. And what are we doing, you know, with our children if we're not helping them? Be their best. These are our future leaders. And if our future leaders, you know, don't have a healthy gut biome, then, you know, their brain isn't going to work very well and they're not going to be able to make decisions well.
And they're not going to live long because they're sick. Right. And, you know, a lot of, if somebody was asking me the other day, what do you mean we can't have seed oils?
Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Like, I know they're inflammatory yeah i mean this is something that you know this is all things that we've had to reprogram ourselves from you know growing up in the ways that we grew up eating the foods that we ate seed oils you know canola oil i know in my family canola oil exactly that's exactly like but we cook with manteca yeah and then they were like yeah manteca you know you're going back to You got to go back to the roots.
Basically, it's just going back to your roots and using... Using the products that we had before. Grandma used to use. Yeah. Beef tallow, manteca de puerco, mantequilla. And my mom, I've been talking to my mom about that. Just like, hey, mom, you know, because she has arthritis and I know that it's all inflammatory. So talking about the oils, they're inflammatory. We should not be using oils to cook our food. We could use ghee. We could use beef tallow. We could use duck fat. We could use lard.
You could use butter. You could also learn how to steam your food. You could roast your food. You know, there's so many ways that we can cook our food without using the seed oils. They're not good for us. They're rancid. They make us sick and they cause inflammation in our body. And it's really important to just like make small changes in your life that are not going to feel like it's going to deprive you from enjoying your life.
But just really educating yourself i think most important is just educate yourself do your own research tune into what resonates with you what is aligned what feels like truth to you because if it feels like truth to you then you're gonna do it right if you're just listening to somebody's rhetoric and you know going with whatever somebody else is saying you're not embodying it and when you don't embody it you really can't make the
changes you have to really embody it and but But in order to do that, you have to educate yourself. You have to educate yourself. And be in tune with what you're feeling. Like right now, you mentioned the needle. And I'm like, yeah, it's been 10 days. You know, to like see how this affects your. And my mom had a breast cancer diagnosis when she was like 50. So, you know, 26 years ago. And one of the things that she got educated. Let's read this.
Let's read that. never again Masola at the house she cooked with coconut oil or butter yes coconut oil too, and we had a lot of olive oil but she said we can't heat it up that's just for this maybe once in a while she did it but, se le curó el cáncer with all the food with everything never again, Anything processed, anything from a can, anything. I mean, it was insane where I was like, well, we can't eat anything. Yeah. You kind of have to get used to it. Digo.
Yeah. You know, but now it's hard to go anywhere. Even those tacos. I'm like, I'm sure you marinated that shit with canola. What oil did you put in it? What canola are you using? Yeah. It is really hard. And to be honest with you, it's such a challenge. I just had a conversation with my daughter yesterday. About this?
About food. about junk food about snacks and things that are not healthy for you so she wanted me to buy her a bag of of of pretzels at the gas station and she's asked me several times for the same and i'm like i'm not gonna do that i can't do that it's not good for you i have a bag of homemade bread in the back of the car that i can give you a nice piece of and she was just like no i want this And so we had this whole thing and I was going to drop it,
but if I drop it, it's going to happen again. So I just, we talked about it and talked about it until it was done. And there was a lot of tears and there was a lot of frustration. And what I understood from that is that she felt like she was missing out because she wasn't getting a bag of Doritos or a bag of Takis.
Instead, I would get her an alternative brand which she's like, I'm tired of the alternative option but I'm like, you don't understand and this is where the marketing is doing such a great job at trying to brainwash our children.
She feels like she's missing out on something that she cannot have a bag of chips or she cannot have a bag of pretzels or she cannot have a candy that has red dye number nine or blue dye or yellow whatever it is it's just like she's missing out and there was so much emotion to that and it's bigger than that it's bigger than that the society is like.
It's hard to be a parent during these times, and I'm sure that in any generation they had that frustration, but it's just like I feel like all I'm trying to do is protect her from the poison. And she's just like, give me some of it. She was like, it's almost my birthday. Can I just have that for my birthday? And there's all this guilt that's just like, let me just give it to her. No, you're a good mom. You're doing all right. No, it's not good for you,
and I'm not making a good choice if I give it to you. I can't reward you and say, oh, you're doing a good job. So I'm going to give you a little poison, just a little bit. Yeah. Like, why is poison and sugar a reward? How does that make sense? And she, turning almost 13, bless my daughter's soul, she goes, it doesn't make sense, mom. Yeah. I don't even know why I'm upset. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. It's so confusing. Yeah. Well, hang in there because for years, my kids were like,
what do you mean? and there's nothing to eat here. And there's like all these, you know, fruits and vegetables. And they wanted the Cheerios. They wanted the Frosted Flakes. They wanted the Takis. They wanted the this. I never had sodas. It was always like, what? You know, Santi in particular would sneak out wherever. There was a party and be like, the chiquitito. I've seen all of that. I'm like, no, no. And now, you know, he's 19 now. Hombre.
So now he tells me like, mom, I remember you would never, buy us lunchables so i'm like i want a lunchable i'm like that's plastic food that's been processed that's not even real that's chemicals no but they see we're not getting lunchable and it looks so appealing and it's and the other kids in school are eating exactly and yeah that is that's the problem but um you know after all of that i mean she knows she knows we have and that's there's no other option and not in this household you're
gonna eat healthy food and eventually like right now the healthiest person in my house is my 19 year old when he and he was you know the soda kid i mean they're always they come we're always eating healthy or always home-cooked meals.
And no now they're like aware this he's healed his own gut microbiome no more stomach aches you know after years of trying this and that and i'm not gonna eat this and i'm not gonna eat that they create their own awareness but so you're planting this seed when you're 13 used to have all the influence of like well hormones and i want to be like the world and so yeah i would say hang in there and any other mom that's listening to this that the kids are telling you how come
there's i can't eat this we're the weird person with vegetables with limon and the salad because that's better for you that's crunchy yeah you know crunch on that and so it's stay strong we're making good choices yeah we're kids yeah even if we're going against the grain you know and also So, you know, sometimes there's like this...
This addiction that has been created, you know, and so you eat these pretzels and it's like, I mean, I haven't eaten pretzels in years because I can't eat gluten, but you know, I'll go for the Siete brand sometimes and I'll just, I don't think I'm eating healthy, but it's still processed. It's still in the bag. It's still, and now Pepsi bought them. So now I can't have them anymore just because I don't know what the fuck Pepsi is going to do, you know?
So, but just like the crunchiness. And so there's all these other things that, they come along with why we're craving these foods that need to be aware of so yeah i think that's beautiful work that you're doing even though it's hard thank you yeah yeah and you know addiction does happen at a very young age and it starts with food i think you know there's other things but definitely well food is the easiest one to get a hold of sometimes they're you know the sugar the dyes yeah whatever
i mean i do see a lot of younger kids now figuring out, Well, it's better if I eat this grass-fed beef or grass-fed butter versus... I feel better. And Billy and I were trying to get raw kefir today, right, Billy? You know, when you're under the weather. And now there's no raw kefir in the store. ¿Qué está pasando? Like, you know. Yeah. And I think, you know, going back to, you know, how I've been able to tune into the plants, I think, and I know that healing my gut biome was a huge one.
Because I would have not been able to really tap into, you know, the gut-brain connection is real, obviously. We all know that. But like healing my gut biome allowed me to be able to receive the information from the plants. Right. And just to be able to also learn, you know, this new, it's a whole new thing. It's a whole new skill that it is innate. It is within us, but it did require a lot of work. And I'm still, you know, I'm still a student. I'm forever a student.
There's so much to learn. There's so much to learn. And for me, you know, like, I don't have the capacity to carry anything. All of the information for all of the plants. I work with a certain amount of plants and the majority of plants that I work with are the plants that I grow because that's where I am able to receive a lot of the information from is from watching them grow, from tending to them every day, from watching how they grow. Do they need more sunshine? Do they need more water?
Do they grow above the earth? Are they growing as a root? All of the things. What are their flowers like? everything that the plant communicates with us is how I am able to really understand and receive that information. So it's not like a large, I'm not, I don't carry all of the wisdom of all of the plants is what I should say. It's just the plants mostly that I grow. What are you growing right now? Right now, what I have growing in my garden is forever and always lemon balm.
Lemon balm is always in my garden i have mint growing in my garden i have motherwort growing rue thyme. Rosemary chamomile is growing in my garden uh i have mugwort chamomile grows right now in the winter it's that it has yeah well in my in my in my garden tower it does i have a garden tower and where i have it set up yeah like some some things still grow and some don't it just depends on how much sunshine it gets because I have some parts of my land that have a lot of sunshine.
Yeah, when Julio built this building we're sitting in, it's beautiful and it's big and here we are, but it covers a lot of the sun that hits on the outside of the garden. So there's still, I mean, there's raspberries and strawberries growing right now and it's literally January. I love that. You know, papaya, what? Yeah, it's so amazing, right? It's amazing. Yeah, so the chamomile is not flowering, but it's green. Okay.
But it's alive. Yeah, it's alive. It's alive. And then I just covered my earth with all these cover crops and clover. So soon I'll have clover as well. And so those are the, and nettles will grow wild in my garden. Cleavers grows wild in my garden. Chickweed grows wild in my garden. Those are not ones that I plant. Those are just, they come in the season. So those will be coming soon. That's great.
Nazira is natural remedy. So, you know, on Instagram, because even on the webpage, I think most of us are connecting through the media. So they can find you at Nasdira's Natural Remedies. On Instagram, yeah. I'll put the link on here too. Yeah, right now it's like, you know, unfortunately, you know, I lost my business website. Somebody hacked it, couldn't get it back. Oh, shit. Or I should say my business IG. So then I had to rebuild again.
There's a lot of rebuilding. But, you know, it's a game. It's a game. Yeah. If you go out into the community... I think that's where you really build the connections. For sure. And so that's what I've been, you know, feeling the most of is just being out in the community and like building relations with people. Where are your, any next markets or events coming up? I have a market coming up this Sunday. I'm so excited. I'm going to be at the Hakamba Hot Springs.
Oh, nice. Yeah, they're having a really amazing series. I want to say it right. I don't want to say it wrong. So it's Ojas? No, I don't know. O-J-A-S. Ojas. Pues hojas o ollas. Sí. Algo así. Bueno. We're trying. Yeah. There's an event happening there. And that's all related to just like nourishment of the winter and like really deepening the relationship during the winter time. Okay.
And we're going to be there. A couple herbalists or myself and then I think another couple herbalists are going to be there as well. We're going to set up just a little space from 10 to 12 or 10 to 4. Inside the hotel or outside in the little? To be honest with you, I don't know exactly where we're going to be, but it sounds like it's going to be lovely. Yeah. Yeah, I got an email. They're going to have a really beautiful setup.
That's cool. So I'm really excited for that. It's a good time to be out there. If you haven't been to the Hot Springs in Hakamba, they're really beautiful. It's a great aesthetic, great food, great environment. You could stay there. It's really beautiful. Have you been? Yes, but we went in August, so oh my God. Don't go in August. Yeah, don't go in August. It was crazy hot, yeah. Well, when I went, the hotel wasn't ready yet.
We stayed at these old casitas that they had and walked around the beautiful lake that they rebuilt. Yeah, it's a great project. These chicks are doing a great project. They're doing amazing. You can also get a day pass, go in the evening. That's my favorite. Go under a full moon. Yeah, bea siempre en la santa diciendo, let's go, let's go. Gloria just went, yeah. Yeah, it's so sweet. That's cool. So I'll be doing that, but you can always find me.
I'm doing a lot of markets in Logan because that's where I want to be. I want to be in the community where, you know, there's not a lot of access to this. I want to open up the doors and also be able to help the señoras remember that we have this within us. That's my goal. And so, in the future, I hope to be teaching a workshop in one of the community centers, maybe Sherman Community Center, and, like, teach a workshop to the señoras.
I just missed the one you had with the, is it the, ¿cómo se llama la mujeres? At the Mujeres Brewhouse. The Mujeres Brewhouse. It was a couple Sundays ago. It was the Limpia. The Limpia. I was totally set to go. And luego, yeah. Yeah. I'm like, I'm not going to use the phone for a couple of days. Dejo todo. And then I'm like, oh, shit. I missed it. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to keep track. So thank you for bringing that up because I do not always respond to text.
I do not always respond to IG messages. I'm so sorry. It is hard to keep track of all of the things. And there are events that I want to go to. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Sometimes I just, that's one of the things I've been doing. Like, okay, just leave it. Leave it two, three days. I mean, during the week and if I have, you know, commitments or appointments, it's like. Yeah, it's too hard to keep up with the demand of being accessible to all people
at all times. That is not the way that we should be living. I keep my ringer off all the time. And that's something that at times frustrates people because I never answer my phone on the first call. I just don't. I am not available. I'm not available all the time. I mean, I grew up in the era where there was no cell phone. yeah as he can't before if you weren't at home you weren't gonna pick up that phone call anyway.
And it's nothing personal but i do for me it's part of trying to live a slower life, and not like ding ding oh shit let's go who was it yeah no it's really important you're never you're never like present when it's like that and then also it's kind of like the food it's like this drug is dopamine it is definitely a dopamine hit and i too grew up in an era where we did not have cell phones and also mothers didn't have cell phones while they were raising their babies and it is
very very different yeah it is very different because what i've noticed is how you know moms really can't be there for their children when they're on their cell phone yeah you know and there's a lot of disconnection and yeah especially now that you're trying to show everyone what you're doing so it's like oh this is a story here's my baby here's what i'm And it's like, okay, that's cool. I want to see your baby. But also. Are you really being present? Dejar celular.
See, that's the hard part. You know, I love learning from, you know, other people and their stories and what they're sharing. And also, what do we keep for ourselves and what is sacred? And how much of our time are we giving away? Right. You know, like my time is sacred. And, you know, it isn't personal. But I do want to have times where I don't. I'm not accessible, I wanted to spend time with my children. I wanted to spend time by myself.
I want to tend to my plants without having to answer a phone call or post a video, because it's not always about that. Yeah, for sure. And it's hard, it's like a learning process as well, like the food, like this, like that. But it's good to talk about it. It feels good to talk about it. Like, yes, it's a struggle, but yes, here we are trying to do counterculture, like algo diferente to take care of. I'll notice if I'm down the Instagram trap for like a while.
My son helped me set up this alarm like after 20 minutes. You've been on here 20 minutes. Is it time for a break? Good, I like that. I'd like to set up that. Yeah, they have these little. Remind me how to do it, remind us how to do it. But it's, otherwise, it's kind of like the tea. Like after 10 days of drinking the tea, I'm like, oh, this is working. I feel different. I feel stronger. I feel, after a certain amount of time on the phone, I just start to feel neurotic.
I'm like, oh, I feel in a bad mood. My eyes are hurting. Life feels like kind of dense. Yeah. It changes the way that you feel. It's the derroba.
Yeah. that's another that's a whole other podcast it is another podcast and as far as like how much how much of our energy it's pulling when we when we kind of get stuck in that i've i've felt that and i felt that these past few weeks even more well the fires have been really hard just witnessing you know i have a lot of friends in la have lost their homes family that have lost their homes and And so it's really like, you know, kind of just like feeling like, what can I really do from here?
Feeling their pain and also like having to pull myself out of that and be like, okay, you're not of service if this is, you know, you're going down this hole. You have to take care of yourself and tend to your nervous system. And then you can actually be of service, you know. So just, yeah, I felt that a lot. And so just coming back from that, just really finding the balance of like, I can help, but I don't need to like martyr myself. Right. And there they voy crying and feeling.
Because that does no service to anybody, you know. Yeah. Send some money, call, send support. Take action. Yeah, take action. No, it doesn't help. Just take action and pray. A lot of prayer. Yes. Yes, a lot of prayer. Yeah. Yeah, sending prayers and good, loving energy for anybody that's struggling with that right now. Yeah. For sure. Sending lots of love to all the people that are navigating all of this. And knowing that, you know, as everything else, we will come out of this. Yeah.
Things will change. The tides will turn. Yeah. It's crazy to see how the community gets together. And they do so much more sometimes than the government. Just friends, you know, go fund me de aquí and other people's organizations. And so what, for example, someone, what is a good herb that you might recommend or good teas to take to soothe the nervous system? So yeah, the nervous system, I love nettles. Number one, I'm going to always go to nettles.
I know that you said you had oat straw in that one as well. Oat straw is amazing for the nervous system to calm the nervous system. Nettles is grounding. Nettles is nourishment. Oat straw is also like just grounding. It helps also calm the nervousness in the body. So I would work with those if you have access to those. There's chamomile.
If nettles is not an option, and you can always go to the store and grab a couple of tea bags of chamomile and just a strong, strong brew of chamomile with some warm whatever type of milk that you drink and a spoonful of honey really calms the nervous system. There's also lavender, you know, and that's pretty accessible as well. That's really calming to the nervous system. Lavender tea.
Lavender tea. But if you have access to fresh lavender, if you have access to, you know, or freshly dried lavender, freshly dried chamomile, I would make strong brews of those. When I said a couple tea bags of it is because when you go and get a tea bag of tea, I mean, the amount of herb that is in that is such a small amount that it really isn't going to do much to shift. The nervous system or shift the energy in the body. So you really want to work with a larger amount of herbs.
It needs to be stronger. It needs to be stronger. It needs to sit a little bit longer. And if you can, open up the bag and then, you know, throw all the herbs in a little pot, throw the hot water in there, let it sit for a little bit and then strain it and drink it. Yeah. Where do you get most of your herbs from besides the ones you grow? Yes. Besides the ones that I grow, Oshala.
Oshala Farms is a farm in Oregon. I had the honor of going to a camp there, like an herbal, nerdy herbal camp, which was to me, those are so exciting. So fun. You get to, you know, be around the herbs. They grow only herbs there. Oh, wow. It is amazing. Amazing. I remember us walking in the field and the scent of chamomile, just this wave of chamomile as you walk. They had chamomile. They had, what else did they have? They had all the amazing herbs there that you can think of.
So that's one of the places that I always get my herbs from if I don't have access to. Then there's Red Moon Herbs. That's another one that I order my herbs from. They have a great nettle and oat straw combo that they sometimes will have a great sale on. What do they call it again? Red Moon Herbs. Yeah. Those are the two ones. But I am part of like an herbalist community through school, the Sacred Wild. And so we fortunately are able to like share herbs with each other.
I have a good friend of mine. Her name is Maya. She's up in Northern California. And she has access to a beautiful farm up there. I can't remember names. I try, but I can't. There's a beautiful farm up there in San Luis Obispo, where she's at, and she tends to that land, and she'll send me calendula and lemon balm and red raspberry leaves, freshly dried, and that right there, that helps me really tune into the fact that we have so much abundance, so much abundance. That helps me feel rich.
I feel rich having access to this high-quality products that only happens when we trade from hand to hand. That's the only way. So, yeah, that's where I get most of my herbs from. That's cool. What about an herb or a tea for... I know you do the edelberry syrup for when people are having like a cold or what could we give Billy here to help us? So, you know, something that's really accessible that we mostly always have in our pantry is thyme and oregano.
Thyme and oregano. Yeah. So if you have, you know, thyme and oregano, if you have a little herb garden, add thyme, add oregano. If you don't have that freshly accessible. I have thyme. I don't think I have oregano. up them. It's great. It's easy. It does. It can take over your garden. So you have to like be mindful where you plant it. But those two herbs are so accessible. You make a tea of it? You make a strong tea of that. And then you strain it. You add a nice spoonful of honey.
You add a nice, you know, two lemons or a lemon and a half and just like very strong tea and drink that throughout the day and that will help you heal like yeah those are like you know remedies that the from your cabinet the kitchen cabinet right these are grandma remedies these are very accessible to all.
You know whenever there's someone that says oh i'm having a sore throat i have this i'm gonna go to your kitchen what do you have in there and we usually have lemon usually i have honey that's something that you know that's something else that you can do is just a spoonful of honey or two spoonfuls of honey and squeeze a whole lemon in there. Stir it, stir it, stir it until it becomes a little like a syrup. Maybe add a little bit of hot water and drink that. And drink it.
That's really, really good as well. Ginger. Ginger is so good. If you have ginger root, you can, you know, clean it up, peel it, and you throw it in the blender with some hot water, a whole lemon, wash your lemon, throw the whole lemon in there, blend it up.
Strain it, add some honey, and drink that okay you know so there's there's a lot of ways that we can stay healthy by just going into our kitchen and seeing what we can what you have apple cider vinegar is something that you should always have in your pantry not brags no no brags brags doesn't work no no more brags katy perry bought it i think and then oh i don't know someone else bought it and now it's not so which kind of Apple cider vinegar, just local.
There's other, yeah, there's other ones. Local, organic, unfiltered, raw apple cider vinegar. There's other ones that you can buy. My dad used to have a teaspoon. I mean, we all did. The apple cider vinegar every day. It's good for you. Yeah, they lute it in water. It's good for the sugar, like your blood levels, your sugar levels. It helps you not get, like it helps sugar cravings. Okay. It helps food cravings. It helps you lose weight. It helps the gut flora. The gut flora. Yes.
Apple cider vinegar was so healing for my gut flora. I used to have cystic acne, and I started drinking apple cider vinegar every day, and that helped me heal my sugar addiction. You just put it, like a tablespoon with water? I would put more than a tablespoon just because I tend to go over the top. I'm like, if something works, let's do it extra. It doesn't always work that way. But yeah, apple cider vinegar did. So I would get a gallon of water and I would pour a couple.
I don't know, one, two, three, you know, and then add a spoonful of honey, shake it up, and then I would drink that throughout the day. Okay. So I worked in special education during that time. And that's when I really was noticing how much food addiction was happening around me because a lot of people like to numb with chocolate, you know, and not just not cacao, but chocolate or, you know, diet sodas and chips and all of that.
And working in the education system, everybody was eating all the time, all the time. And I couldn't do that anymore. So I started, you know, doing that. And that helped me like being able to like to crave it. Yeah. And you got rid of your acne. It got rid of my acne. It changed my gut flora. I didn't have issues that I used to have Just like a lot of gut issues IBS, I used to have IBS I used to wear glasses I don't wear glasses anymore Nettles healed my eyesight.
No, de veras A lot of things changed I used to have my teeth I healed my teeth with oil pulling And tongue scraping Coconut oil? Yes I had, what is that gum disease? It's a gum disease, I can't think of Gingivitis or? Yeah, something where my gums kept receding over and over and over. And I had gum surgery and it just was not getting any better. And I went to the dentist and she said, you know, we were going to have to do the surgery again.
I was like, no, we're not going to do that. I'm going to do this instead. And I started oil pulling and I was going to the dentist every month. And she was checking my pockets and, you know, just actual surgery.
Actual evidence documented and documented evidence that it did change and it did heal me so the oil pulling how do you do that because i you took just a spoonful of coconut oil and stick it you know just move it around your mouth for 20 minutes or le pones clove or le pones you can so i i do it all kinds of different ways it just depends on you know what i'm doing sometimes i'm in a really great routine where i got everything set and sometimes you know i'm doing the bare minimum.
So it just depends. But if you can, yes, I would get like a little bit of coconut oil and I would add some essential oils like clove in there and put in your mouth and swish or even like peppermint, just peppermint oil would help, you know, but you in the morning, this what my routine is. I wake up in the morning, I tongue scrape, I go and I grab a spoonful of oil and I put in my mouth and I'm swishing as I'm getting ready, as I'm doing my daily morning routine, 15, 20 minutes.
Then I go outside into the earth and I spit it out or in the trash can, never in the sink. Don't put it in the sink. Never in the sink. Clog up your sink. Yeah. Never in the toilet, never in the shower. Yeah. Just throw it in the, and if you're going to throw it on the earth, you know, like put a little earth on top of it. Yeah. You cover it up. You don't want your animals to eat that. But what that does is that it helps cleanse your mouth. The tongue scraping cleans the ama from your tongue.
And we can do that with their toothbrush, but it's not the same. It's a huge difference. That has really changed also the way that I taste food. My palate has changed completely too, because I'm so sensitive, I can taste everything. But then the oil pulling, so you put it in your mouth, you switch it around every day. Before you eat, before you eat, don't put anything in your mouth. And that helps clean your mouth flora. It helps heal cavities.
It helps heal your gums. It helps heal inflammation in your gums. It helps heal bleeding gums. Yeah, it's helped me tremendously. And I've been doing this for many, many years now. And it's not something that I stopped doing. It's something that wherever, whenever I travel, whenever I go somewhere, I carry my little jar of coconut oil with me and my tongue scraper. And it's made a huge difference.
I go to the dentist not very often, maybe once in a while, just to see how my teeth are doing and to get a cleanup. But other than that, I don't do anything else. I just take care of my teeth at home. And how was it before there were dentists? How was it? What were people doing before there was a dental system, before there was a medical system? We were doing something to take care of our teeth or our bodies. And just going back to that.
Yeah. Yeah, the whole tooth situation thing changed for me also with the coconut oil. Years ago, a friend of mine told me, oh, if you just do the oil pulling, I'm like, what, read about it? She gave me a book about it. And I'm telling you, the kids were little. Yeah, go to the dentist, todo está bien. Yeah. Yeah, I only go once in a while, honestly, just to get a cleaning, but because, and I don't do it every day.
I'll have like rachitas where I'm like, yeah, every day, and then I forget for a couple of weeks, then I go do it again, and, but yeah, now you've inspired me to start every day, every day. Es que si sirve, las rutinas te dan como una tranquilidad, a mí me gusta. A mí también me gusta. I've always been a creature of routine. I like to have structure. I like my structure. I like to be able to do certain things during the morning that help set me up for my day.
And it helps me just be more successful in my life. You know, when I self-care, self-care is so huge. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So I have to wake up early to self-care, then I'll wake up early to self-care. But that is priority.
Because in the society that we've grown up in, you know, and I don't know, maybe for you if it was not like that, but, like, there's a lot of martyring of ourselves, women, to give, give, give, give, give, to be able to be, I don't know, to be acknowledged, to be witnessed, to be seen, to be important, you know, in people's lives. There's a lot of giving of ourselves, and that creates a lot of bitterness. Yes. And it's nobody's fault but your own.
So the only thing that you can do is just take care of yourself because no one, no one, no one is going to take care of you the way that you're going to take care of you. Yeah. Take care of yourself and ask for help. Yeah. And ask for help. Yes. No one's going to be reading your mind. No. I know. That one's hard still. Yeah. Asking for help is hard sometimes. But I'll see taking care of yourself is so important. Yeah. So I had to learn that the hard way. Yeah. Yeah.
I know. Me too. I used to think it was funny to. I would read these things about how, like, oh, before you go to bed, the moms or the babies, put another washing machine and another laundromat and clean here and do this and clean that. And it was like, yeah, you're getting the price of doing all these things. And I'm like, fuck that. What is the precio? You're going to have a bitterness, get pissed off.
And also you enable that nobody else has to do anything because why should they even do anything if mom's taking care of it all? They don't know how to do it. So then what generation are you raising now, a generation that doesn't know how to take care of themselves, that doesn't know how to do things? Your laundry. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of unlearning. There is a lot of unlearning and really understanding why we do the things that we do as women.
I'm getting that more and more, understanding that this is not the way that you need to be in order to receive love. you are worthy just as you are. You don't need to overextend yourself. You can just be kind. You don't need to be nice. You need to be kind. There's a big difference. Oh, I did a whole podcast about that. Kind versus polite. Yeah. Because polite and be nice. It's an act. Yeah, it's fawning. It's fawning. It's an act.
In Mexico, they would call it like muy bien educada. Está muy bien educada. No, she's domesticada, a que haga lo que tú crees que tiene que hacer. Versus if she's taking care of herself, self-love, self-kind, then I can be kind to you with my good boundaries of not doing things for an exchange of you thinking that I have worth or, yeah. Exactly, out of guilt. Yeah, all of those things. I think, yeah, all of that is really important. Those are all things that I've had to really work through.
Unlearning the the fawning the the being domesticated i like that word that you used because that is something that i really rebelled against in my family is just to not be because you know it's wrong you know it's wrong i won't play into that role i won't i won't play into it i did play into it for a long time and i was just like fuck that shit yeah i can't do that that is not who I am. It's fake. It's suffocating. It is. It makes you sick. It does. It does.
And I see people that, you know, that carry that energy and it's just, it makes me sad because it's, it's, it's you, you inflict that cell, you know, it's like you're creating this gel for yourself that you can't go outside of. And I can't live like that. The prison of politeness. No, no, no. I I'm not polite. I'm sorry. I'm not polite and I'm not sorry.
No, yeah. Kindness and when, you know, when you've done the work, it went through, you know, like you said, the hypnotherapist and reaching out for help and que la yoga and vipassana and winning with the earth and all these wonderful connections. You are, you can be in a space where your essence is kindness. Yeah. You know, and it's not like this fake politeness or, you know, but your essence is kindness and you can say yes or a nice, soft no. You don't want to do something.
Or let me think about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me think about that. Let me get back to you. Yeah. Instead of the initial, oh, yes. And then why did I say yes? Yeah. Because that was my domestication. That's the training to say yes when you don't really want to say yes. To people please. Yeah. Yeah. To make somebody like you. Yeah. I think that, you know, that's, those are all things, you know, that, As I'm getting older, I'm able to release and feel good about,
you know, and not feel afraid. Right. You know, that I might not... I don't know, meet people's standards. It doesn't matter anymore. Those are stories that were ingrained, that were told. And I don't subscribe to that anymore. And it feels good. It feels liberating. Because life continues. Life is still hard. Life is still challenging. There's so many things that continue to. You don't need that extra burden of having the people please this person or that person.
Quedar bien aquí, quedar bien, quedar bien para qué. They're not going to pay my rent. Exactly. And for who? Yeah, I'm going to go to bed thinking about that. No, I'm not. No, it doesn't matter. Yeah, those things don't matter. Which is another thing that's important, I think, that I see, that I sense in you and in all this healing work is las exigencias. These demands, not just for the other people, but that we put on ourselves. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
Versus, no, self-love. I'm going to do up to here today. leave the phone, read my book, you know, or I don't know. To me, it's been really huge to see like. Who's keeping tabs on how much shit I get done in the day or, you know, how many words I wrote in my journal or how many plans I tended to like. Only me. Only me. Yeah. And who's my biggest judge is myself. Yeah, there's a lot of really giving yourself a lot of grace.
I've learned to give myself a lot more grace than I used to before, you know, and that has helped me, like, be more tender towards everybody else, you know? It's important to give grace and be compassionate and realize that at the end of the day, like. This life, this one life that we have, this one experience that we get to have in this body, in this time, in this moment, is so quick. It goes so fast. It goes so, so fast that, you know, it's like we have to really enjoy what's around us.
And as I get older, every day, every day, I realize how miraculous this life is and how perfect, how perfect it is. Perfectly orchestrated. Everything, every little event that happens, timing as far as when things happen. Because sometimes I get frustrated. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I should already be here. I should already be doing this. I should, you know, all the I shoulds. But no, everything unravels in the most divine time. And it's the work that you put into it. That's it.
And the capacity to be present with it, right? Instead of, ay, cuando llega aquí, well, then you're not present with what's happening right now. And yeah, it's a whole art of living. Thank you, Ness. This has been really fun. Thank you. Really cool. I'm going to put all the ways to reach you, Instagram or webpage coming soon, or the Nazira Natural Remedies. And I'm just, yeah, I'm really grateful that you're here, that we're sharing this time together.
Thank you. And thank you for hopping on this. Thank you. It was really beautiful, really special. Thank you for having me. I feel really blessed to have this opportunity to just be able to have this wonderful conversation from the heart of all the waves of life and all the ways that, you know, that we are interconnected. Thank you so much. Thank you. Aho. Aho.