03/17/2026
The other day I was standing in my kitchen holding a simple jar of roots and thinking about a season in my life when herbalism almost made me walk away.
Not because I didn’t love the plants.
But because studying them felt overwhelming. Compound this with the fact that we also have to learn the body and soon enough you start feeling like you're in our own med school 🥴
There were so many words I didn’t recognize… so many plant constituents to remember… so many herbs that it felt like I would never catch up.
I remember sitting with my books thinking, maybe I'm not smart enough for this.
Over the years, teaching thousands of students through our Everyday Herbalism, Family Farmacy, and Herbal Medicine for the Soul® programs, I’ve learned something important: that feeling is incredibly common for beginners.
Just recently two people in our online community asked questions that brought me right back to that moment in my own journey.
One asked how to study herbalism beyond the books.
Another shared that she’s a hands-on learner and that reading alone makes the whole process feel intimidating.
Their questions inspired me to record a short video where I show you something very simple I was doing in my kitchen with herbs, and how that moment reveals something many beginners miss.
In this short clip, I talk about:
• Why herbal terminology can feel confusing when you only encounter it in books
• A simple kitchen experiment that reveals what plant language actually means
• The moment herbal study shifts from memorization to lived experience
It’s one of those moments where herbalism suddenly stops feeling abstract… and becomes something you can actually experience.
And that’s the part that no book can truly give you.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed while studying herbs, I think this short video will resonate with you.
Watch the short video on our YouTube channel.
