How to Care for Your Family Naturally as a Home Herbalist

If you’ve been wanting to care for your family naturally as a home herbalist, you may be wondering where to start, what knowledge you will need to acquire and what skills you will need to develop. Searching online or tackling a pile of books can feel daunting, at best. Putting information into action can be another hurdle, especially when herbalism wasn’t necessarily part of your home life growing up. So let’s break it down into a few simple steps to help get you started on your journey.

One of the most important skills as a home herbalist is being able to hear your intuition, understand what it’s telling you and act on it. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to embark on an extensive meditation regime. Rather, you can start by turning the volume down on all the marketing and messages society bombards us with on a daily basis. Put those adverts on mute! Then, pay attention to your body - when something doesn’t feel right, when you have a gut instinct about what’s going on or what someone needs. Even if you’re not sure what to do about it yet, bring that feeling up to the surface and put it into words in your mind to bring it to life (or even say it out loud!). For example - I know she’s feeling poorly. I really think she just needs to rest instead of going to that family get together today. Or - I know I like the taste of that dish, but it always makes my stomach go off. I really think I need to stop having it for dinner for a while. Without your intuition, you’ll always be second guessing the herbal support you want to give to your family.

Yes, you can memorise endless lists of facts about what numerous medicinal plants ‘do’. Yes, you can save and repeat the many herbal remedy recipes you can find in books and online. But it’s equally important to understand the human body and how it works. That doesn’t mean you have to do a bunch of anatomy and physiology lessons or study all those pink and white diagrams of body parts. Instead (or additionally) you can tune into basic qualities, elements and energetics. There are many different systems for these (Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Western Galenics, etc.), but you can keep it even simpler than that because herbal medicine always seeks to bring balance to the body with opposites. So, if someone’s got a hot, red, inflamed rash, balance with cooling herbs. If they’ve got dry skin, balance with moistening herbs. If they’ve got perpetually cold fingers and toes, balance with warming herbs.

Confidence is important to build and maintain as a home herbalist. First, you need confidence in assessing your family’s needs - What is out of balance in their bodies right now? You also need confidence in your herbal remedy making skills so you know what you’re giving your family is both potent and also hasn’t gone off. Finally,  you need confidence in your ability to pair plants and people effectively. All of this comes with time.

But confidence isn’t a state of mind. It is a combination of knowledge, skills and experience. Confidence is also different from brazenness. It is just as important to be able to know when something is beyond your current set of skills and knowledge, when you need to seek a second opinion or the advice of someone with more experience or utilise emergency or specialist services, as it is to know when you are faced with something that you can support on your own.

Whether it’s home herbalism, cooking, parenting - the list goes on - trying to implement a new way of doing things in your home can be challenging on your own. Often, we know what we’d like things to look and feel like, but we’re not quite sure how to get there or what to do in the moment. For example - you’ve been studying herbalism intensely and collecting all sorts of jars of herbs and remedies in the making, but now your child gets a nasty cough and a fever to match. What do you do now? This is where having someone who can model being a home herbalist for you helps significantly - and that’s not the same thing as someone’s very polished social media profile. This is someone you’ve been able to physically make remedies with, who’s been able to show you what colour or texture that remedy should be. This is someone you’ve been able to work through matching herbs and people with. This is someone who can share anecdotes and stories and examples from their own life working with herbs to support their own families. This is someone who is reputable and there for you to ask questions. Find a course near you or someone you can apprentice, whether formally or informally. Your learning will be deeper and get into the fabric of your life much faster.

So what are the first steps you can take to caring for your family naturally as a home herbalist? First, turn up the volume on your intuition and put the marketing and messaging of the wider world on mute. Focus on what your gut, your instinct, your body is telling you. Second, develop your understanding of both medicinal plants and people. The two have to work together in order to have a positive impact. Third, remember being a home herbalist requires you to build confidence in a range of skills, but also in yourself. Finally, having someone model being a home herbalist helps significantly in terms of getting herbalism into the fabric of your life and helping you get there faster.

If you’re here in the UK, you’re very welcome to take the next step on your journey building your knowledge, skills and confidence as a home herbalist with us on our intensive herbalism course - Awaken Herbal Wisdom - which spans all four seasons and gets herbalism both deep into your bones and your daily life. Although it is intense, it’s suitable for a wide range of herbalists, including beginners! You can learn more about our herbal medicine course here. Be sure to put your name on the waiting list to see what the current cohorts are up to and get first access to enrolment before it opens.

Whatever your next step is in growing as a home herbalist, I hope you enjoy the journey!

At Rhodes Roots & Remedies School of Herbal Medicine, our practice of herbalism is rooted in the belief that we must remember, reclaim and relearn our knowledge of our bodies, our autonomy and how to work with plant medicine in order to bring control of our own health back into our families and homes for a sustainable future for ourselves and the planet. Through our intensive herbalism course, we facilitate the development of confident, empowered herbalists, attuned to the messages of their bodies and the natural world. Living the deep wisdom of herbal medicine within themselves, their homes and their communities, they uplift themselves and others, creating a stronger society organically. We do hope you'll join us on your journey!