Ayurveda, Trauma Healing & Authentic Wellness with Alexus “Lila” Swanberg

Zane Myers (00:00)
⁓ So we'll just start off a little bit, and you can tell me a little bit about your practice. You're in Ayurvedic medicine. Did I pronounce that correctly?

Lila (00:11)
You did a good job. Yeah. Ayurveda, Ayurvedic, somewhere in there.

Zane Myers (00:17)
So tell me about ⁓ how you got started in that practice.

Lila (00:23)
Okay, it's a bit of a crazy story. Do you want the crazy version or the

Zane Myers (00:27)
The crazier

the better.

Lila (00:31)
Okay, my first career was in software development and technology. And I was really focused on climbing the corporate ladder, making more money and going for bigger titles. So I have a master's degree in business and like that was where all my attention and energy was going at that time in my life. And as I continued to grow in my career and financially and started hitting all these milestones, I thought would make me happy.

I realized I still was very, very unhappy. Something in me was missing. My heart wasn't in it. And ⁓ I just wasn't feeling good physically, mentally, emotionally, like all of the things. And so I started to do things a little bit differently. And I ended up talking to a medium at one point, which is like totally out of my purview. It's not something I do. It kind of freaks me out. And she told me, all right, you're not meant to be at this job long term.

You're going to do something else. The word Ayurveda keeps coming up to me. ⁓ But just go explore. Just go start exploring things that make you happy and spark an interest and see what you enjoy and go from there, which is something I'd really never done before in my life. So I end up eventually, after that, I googled Ayurveda and I was like, this is like witchy medicine. I have no interest in this. This is creepy. Not for me. ⁓

A little time later, I did end up leaving that job. I left a relationship of 10 years. I kind of bummed around for a while and was trying to figure out what I was going to do. And I decided to go back and study functional nutrition so I could work on some of my own health things. And I started to take my first herbalism class. And I don't remember the exact ⁓ scenario of it, but I ended up taking an herb class under an herbalist who was an Ayurvedic doctor.

And so the herbalist course I was in was taught from three perspectives, Western herbalism, traditional Chinese medicine, and Ayurveda. And I was like, ⁓ crap, like here it is, I can't avoid it, it's here now. And so I started learning all of this herbalism stuff and my heart was just like instantly connected to the Ayurvedic herbs and the Ayurvedic concepts and I have just continued down that path. So I'm a clinical herbalist with an emphasis in Ayurveda and I'm also a functional nutrition counselor.

But the Ayurveda has my heart and I...

Zane Myers (03:00)
So tell me so that I can understand and that our listeners can understand, what's the difference between Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese herbal versus traditional American? So what makes it different?

Lila (03:17)
That's a great question. I would call Ayurveda the mother of all healing systems and all of these other systems in some way shape or form came from Ayurveda. It's the oldest continually practiced medical system on the planet today. So traditional Chinese medicine is really similar and most likely based off Ayurveda. They're about 90-95 % similar with a couple differences and each of these systems has their own way of viewing

the body and doing their diagnostics and assessments. So Ayurveda ⁓ has doshas and constitutions, Chinese medicine has something a little different. And Western herbalism practices a little bit more like Western medicine, where they're treating ⁓ two symptoms and they don't really have this diagnostic way of looking at the body and catching the imbalances. They also have their own materiomedicus, so each one of these use their own different herbs.

and different accessory things like Chinese medicine has acupuncture, Ayurveda does Marma point therapy. So they're very similar. It's similar to acupuncture, but they call them Marma points and they do massages or press into the Marma points throughout the body to ⁓ reflect into the organ that's out of balance.

Zane Myers (04:26)
with Marmot Point Therapy.

So similar to in acupuncture, there's, you know, your nervous system is connected to all kinds of different places. And even though you're connecting, you're doing something on one part of the body, your nervous system doesn't just work on that one part of the body. Am I following along with the concept?

Lila (05:00)
Yeah,

yeah, exactly. We have like energy channels that go throughout our body. And if you've heard of acupuncture, acupressure, it's the same exact concept and very similar mapping.

Zane Myers (05:11)
So give me an example of ⁓ diagnostic where you were able to use the technique ⁓ or the approach to diagnose something that was going on with, do you call them patients or clients? Okay, so with one of your clients.

Lila (05:24)
They're home clients.

So with Ayurveda, it kind of gives you a cheat sheet to look at people and recognize patterns very quickly. if you can, most people come to you with 10 plus symptoms. They have a lot of things going on. And instead of treating each individual symptom, which is really inefficient, if you can catch the pattern and treat that, then the person will start feeling much better and the symptoms will correct itself. So one of the... ⁓

imbalances that we see is a pitta imbalance. So these are people that are really hot and inflamed and passionate and angry and productive and all these things. And if you can see that this is the dosha that's out of balance, then you treat that, you cool down that heat, then they will usually start feeling a lot better pretty quickly, depending on the imbalance and the ⁓ things going on. But I'm thinking of one client right now who

He's my favorite.

Zane Myers (06:26)
I was just about

to ask you, can you give me an example?

Lila (06:29)
Yeah,

he's like picturesque, pitta problems, really hot, really inflamed, he's in pain, he's dealing with all these things, and we start cooling down the inflammation in his body.

Zane Myers (06:40)
So

give me some more examples of like what his symptoms symptomatic things that are going on with him. You said really hot and inflamed. ⁓

Lila (06:47)
⁓

Okay, so

like in terms people understand. ⁓ He had chronic pain, mood issues, he had digestive issues and heartburn. We had early balding and graying. There was, what else? Sorry, was like 10 plus symptoms, but the biggest thing was the chronic pain, which I assessed from him was coming from inflammation.

Zane Myers (06:52)
Yeah.

Lila (07:18)
So once we started cooling him down, he started feeling a lot better. And one of the side benefits was he stopped getting road rage and he stopped feeling anger, like towards the world. And it like cooled down this heat and this kind of pumped up passion he was living on that was putting him in a really hyped up state. And once he was cooled down, he was calmer in all parts of his life. So we were able to calm down the system and the body so he wasn't in that pain.

but also he was able to interact with the world better just because we brought in that calmness.

Zane Myers (07:51)
So tell me how you went about doing that.

Lila (07:54)
I put them on ⁓ an herbal protocol. We used a lot of turmeric and a lot of other herbs. There were some supplements to address some nutrient deficiencies and then some dietary changes as well. But I would say that the magic is in the herbs.

Zane Myers (08:12)
So ⁓ Tumeric, ⁓ so you said, where do you, ⁓ so there's a lot of things that you can go off and buy on Amazon. And there's also a lot of stuff that, you know, when I just talked to various professionals, some of them are, don't worry about it so much, but other ones will say, ⁓ there's a challenge with Amazon. You you might be getting something that you don't really,

want.

Lila (08:45)
That's a great

question. Amazon is hit and miss. You can get good quality things on there, but you have to do your due diligence to make sure it's the true product from the true brand. So I will only buy or recommend things off of Amazon if they're coming from a trusted brand that I know. And you can tell like that brand is the seller. I don't get most of my supplements off Amazon. I have other supplement partners and ⁓

I have other herb suppliers that I trust so much more, but in a pinch, it's super convenient, but you do have to use all the discretion. Yeah. I've heard some horror stories about, yeah, people getting knockoff products and, ⁓ adulterated products and things like that. So you definitely do have to be aware.

Zane Myers (09:14)
Mm-hmm.

So ⁓ you had that one situation. So give me an example of how long would something take to start seeing some results?

Lila (09:41)
It depends. It really does depend. Obviously, natural medicine is a lot slower than pharmaceuticals. Usually, you can take a pill and start getting some result pretty quickly. Depending on what we're dealing with is depending on what we're going to get. Sometimes, if you're dealing with something super acute, like maybe you're dealing with heartburn, you can usually shut off the heartburn immediately. If you're dealing with something long and chronic, you might be able to get somebody feeling better.

quickly, but they're not going to get to that grand mountaintop of where they want to go for a while. It takes a while to undo all the damage that a lot of us have felt and experienced. For that client I mentioned earlier, within the first month of working together, he felt very, very different. But there was still work to be done after that. So it really is person dependent, but you can usually get people feeling good and at least a glimpse pretty quickly.

Zane Myers (10:35)
So how do you get, so some frustration that when I'm talking to practitioners that I'll hear is it's, they, in today's society, like you'd said, people are used to taking a pill and you get this immediate effect when you take a pill. mean,

even like a pain pill, I mean, any kind of pill that you take, like a pharmaceutical type pill, not any kind, but many of the pharmaceutical pills that you take will have some sort of an immediate impact on you. And with homeopathic types approaches, ⁓ their impact is not necessarily happen right away. So how do get your patients to say, to stick with you?

Lila (11:22)
That's a good question. And I'm going to make a quick distinction because I don't deal with homeopathy. That is a completely different discipline than, yeah, it's herbal medicine and what I do. So I can't speak into anything in that realm. How do I get my patients to stay with me? ⁓ I bring them on with a three month package and make them commit to three months upfront because that way we have built in check ins. We can remove the blockers. We can adjust protocols.

Zane Myers (11:29)
Okay, I appreciate that.

Yep.

Lila (11:51)
And you don't have to worry about the expectation that somebody's gonna get a protocol and all their problems are gonna get fixed, because it doesn't work like that. And so I build into what I do a lot of coaching and handholding and expectation setting of this takes time. You have to be an active participant. The faster you wanna move, the faster you're gonna get results, but we wanna make it sustainable. So it's a lot of just setting the tone and bringing them in with a bigger commitment.

Zane Myers (12:21)
And how do you get patients into the door?

Lila (12:24)
That's a good question. I do a lot of workshops and talks and networking and word of mouth. And I do have a digital presence that I am working on growing, doing some experimentation with some Google ads that we'll see how that runs. ⁓ I'm still in my first year of practice. So I've been experimenting to see what I enjoy doing, what's not going to drain me, what I find to be sustainable.

Zane Myers (12:43)
Mm-hmm

Lila (12:50)
and also listening to other coaches and practitioners have been doing and kind of just experimenting and playing with the mix. And I really think that talking, just getting in front of people, talking about what you do, talking about it confidently is really important. And not being afraid to go out and approach other practitioners to get referral partners and things like that in place is another one of my strategies.

Zane Myers (13:17)
So how do you do that with the ⁓ referral ⁓ strategies? Like you get other practitioners, what kind of like a good marriage, so I'm using that phrase, but it's really not a marriage, but where somebody is willing to say, okay, is, Lila really does this great thing on this and it really is not competing against me, or have patients who have this situation and I'm not gonna be able to address it, but maybe I can send them on to.

to Lila to help him with that.

Lila (13:47)
Yeah, that's a great question. And I see what I do really complimentary to a lot of other modalities, because I think no matter what you're dealing with health-wise, an herbal approach should be in your protocol. It's just life-changing, and it promotes longevity and health and just brings the body back into a way and a balance that other things can't. So I'm a little biased, but I think I go well with so many other modalities. But the main ones and the ones that are

actually open and willing to partnering, think are a lot of ⁓ body workers like massage therapists, physical therapists, things like that. There's been people in the field that I want to referral partner with, but I haven't been able to make it happen. ⁓ In theory, chiropractors should be a good fit, but I haven't had success there. ⁓ I've also been looking for people that are maybe outside of the normal wellness.

modalities but kind of like on the peripheral. like ⁓ people that do colonics, people that run wellness centers, people that do like the IV injections and things like that. I've been partnering with and exploring with ⁓ other functional nutritionists and things like that. I've been working on putting some partnerships together with. So I don't have all the data to tell you what's going to pay off and what's not, but so far that's what I've been experimenting with.

Zane Myers (15:14)
So when you have a workshop, how does that work?

Lila (15:16)
Ugh, they're so fun. Um, I-

Zane Myers (15:20)
So how do

you organize them and where do you have them and who do you invite?

Lila (15:24)
Yeah, so I work with other, like I just hosted one last week that was at somebody's IV clinic and we dual promoted. So I promoted and she promoted and we got a good mix and I try and make them interactive and fun. And we got people in with a raffle and you know, some light refreshments. I think that helps get people in the door. I've partnered with tea houses and tea shops. I've been looking at yoga studios.

local libraries or sometimes I'll just rent a space and then work on getting ⁓ people to come. I've worked on partnering with people that have audiences and following. So people that maybe run a big meetup group or something like that are a really good avenue because sometimes they'll let you post to their people and then you have a new audience that's not just your audience that is probably small and still building.

Zane Myers (16:10)
Mm-hmm.

Lila (16:21)
local libraries. I do a lot of networking and showing up with other business owners in the area and that opens doors. You know, you meet this person and they know this person. So yeah, that's where I've been going with that.

Zane Myers (16:36)
So with the last one that you did, give me an example of how that worked.

Lila (16:41)
What details do you want?

Zane Myers (16:42)
⁓ Like when you set it up, the time you set it up, or the last where there was ⁓ maybe multiple people involved or maybe just one, what did you do as far as marketing, as far as going out and finding people to come and then trying to follow up to make sure that they did come? Because some people you think they're going to come and,

Lila (17:06)
Yeah. ⁓

And I might not be the most diligent marketer on the planet. So I met the wellness studio owner and she's like, hey, let's do a talk or workshop here. And we picked a date and then we got together and took a few pictures for content. And I would post content to my social media and then she would ⁓ share it or collaborate on it and post to her following.

And then also within the physical space of the studio, she would hang ⁓ signs and postage to the people coming in for the foot traffic. And then just telling people and letting it spread somewhere in the mouth. And usually my workshops are small and intimate, which I prefer. I think we capped this one because then we can have like more engaging interactions and keep it really intimate. So that works out really well.

⁓ I try and do some sort of promotion schedule, announce it at least a week or two in advance, and then coming up, keep posting about it. That's my main strategy. And then if there's anywhere local in the community that you can post events to, my community has a site that hosts or posts local events. So I'll always post my stuff there to get people to see it. And yeah.

Zane Myers (18:30)
How often do you have those? Yeah. Or have you had them?

Lila (18:32)
Events? ⁓ maybe like

once or twice a month. Yeah, I'd like to do more but they're exhausting.

Zane Myers (18:38)
Okay, that's great. when you,

yeah, I bet they are. They're emotionally exhausting just the time spent going and doing it and setting everything up. ⁓ So I wanna ask, I have questions about promoting those, but I wanna ask you about ⁓ when you're there and you're talking to the people, how do you start that off? Do you have a presentation or you must have kind of a skeleton of, I'm gonna talk about.

this job.

Lila (19:09)
I have one talk slash workshop that I repeat and use and it's on how to find answers and relief to your chronic and mysterious health symptoms. And I walk them through a complete lined out talk that I have with visual aids and interaction points with the people. And like I said, I just, I reuse that. And then in the future, I'm sure I'll come up with new ones on more specific topics or different topics, but.

For now, that's working and it's helped me get out and be confident that every time I book a talk or workshop, I don't have to come up with something completely new because that's also really exhausting. And then I've experimented or I want to experiment with some other formats like doing some more like panel focused things where people can come and ask questions or I've done like mini health consults in other local stores and things like that. So I've played with some formats that don't involve so much.

Zane Myers (19:44)
Mm-hmm.

Lila (20:03)
Hey, I'm prepping a presentation and giving that, but hey, I can just come with my expertise and answer things on the fly because that's where I really like to be and that's something I really enjoy. I'm experimenting with new formats as well. Then I'm going to do a more interactive stress relief workshop that's going to be more hands-on with some Ayurvedic stress relief tools. That's not something that I would plan super well and just have a skeleton of

Zane Myers (20:13)
Mm-hmm.

Lila (20:32)
Hey, we're gonna do these things, touch on these topics, but I'm gonna make it really interactive and kind of let the group guide the pacing and the flow and where it goes.

Zane Myers (20:42)
So when you're talking to people, what are their hot buttons for your practice? What's your ideal patient look like?

Lila (20:50)
I see a lot of people that have gone everywhere and tried everything and still haven't found relief. And it usually comes down to chronic pain and or chronic fatigue. Those are probably the biggest pain points that I see people with that make them want to take action. Some people have some complex autoimmune disorders or things like that, but the underlying symptoms that get them in is the pain.

and the fatigue.

Zane Myers (21:21)
Is that where you feel like you can have the biggest impact?

Lila (21:24)
It is. I feel like I'm trained in a way to help people that aren't getting help elsewhere. I really do feel called to serve in that population. I have a couple people I work with with migraines that have just absolutely exhausted all their options. They come to me on nine plus medications and they are just like at their end. And I give them hope because I have a new way of looking at the body and the systems and tools that aren't very familiar to people that

we can make progress where other people haven't been able to help them. And the way I practice, I really get into the person's story and get a good picture of what's underlying this, how do we address this. And if we're not making progress, we're not going to leave any stone unturned. So you have a support system that's outside of most people's models. And I think that's super valuable, especially for the people that have just like exhausted their avenues.

Zane Myers (22:22)
So ⁓ do you find it all amusing that this is all new to a lot of people when it's been around for thousands of years?

Lila (22:31)
Yeah, my mentor said the other day, it's like we have amnesia, we have like natural medicine amnesia, and we forgot like what natural medicine can do and how it's supposed to work. And it is such a new field. And with that, we have so many practitioners that have like are practicing in a way that like the knowledge is lost. And it's super interesting because I don't think people even realize, even people in the field, how potent these things can be and how dramatic of

health changes you can enact when you're using these herbs and alternative therapies properly.

Zane Myers (23:07)
How do you get people to follow the protocol after they leave your office?

Lila (23:12)
I make them come check in with me. And if they're having issues, you you're reporting back to me every couple of weeks and you know, we check in between sessions. And so if you're blocked on something, then we're going to work through it. If you're having a problem incorporating something and the way I make people take herbs is not pretty. You know, you're slogging down a gross tea or you're taking a bunch of herbal powders. I use pharmacological dosing. So the doses are high.

Zane Myers (23:14)
Okay.

Lila (23:40)
This isn't going and getting a tincture from your health food store and taking a few drops a couple of times a day. It really is a commitment and you help people kind of tune in. And one, recognize that time that they're spending measuring out and taking their herbs as a gift to themselves and an act of love and self care. They start viewing it differently. And then if there are specific things that need to get.

worked out like, I'm really having trouble making a tea every day, I'm busy, then okay, let's figure out how we can incorporate this into your life. And that might look like, okay, we're gonna bulk batch the tea once a week, or we're gonna move you to powder. Like, I will get in the weeds and make sure that there are not blockers in that way, and we'll strategize to make sure that you have what you need to make this possible, and keep connecting people back to their why.

Why are you here? Why do you want to change? Why do you want to feel better? And that motivates them to kind of push through some of the blocks because the blocks will come up.

Zane Myers (24:43)
All right, so have you had somebody come in who was totally skeptical that was like, OK, I'm willing to do this because I guess I don't know. OK, let's give it a try. And then have been able to shift their mindset.

Lila (25:01)
Hmm, you know, I've been really fortunate because most people I've worked with have been super open to what I do And if they're not they're not and that's the end of it It's it's not something I force and we just we just part ways I actually just started working with a guy last week who's super new to natural medicine like so new So I will look forward to how that goes, but I think there's as long as people haven't openness

⁓ And you can give them a glimpse of something working then they become believers pretty quickly ⁓ And I can usually explain things in a way that people understand what's going on and why this works and it's not witchcraft or voodoo or ⁓ You know just some ancient BS like these are real herbs and real medicines and they get real results and Yeah, I really haven't run into too many skeptics yet

Zane Myers (25:52)
Okay, give it time, I guess. But if they come in, even if they're skeptic, ⁓ you know, then they have to have somewhat of an open mind. But you said a lot of people come in where they've exhausted everything else that they've done. So the people who come in, what percentage of them are people who were ⁓ recommended versus people now that you've gone out and done the workshops and kind of...

Lila (25:55)
Right? I'm sure they'll come.

Zane Myers (26:19)
Is that shifting?

Lila (26:21)
Not yet. Mostly, I haven't gotten into that ⁓ recommended layer yet. I'm still in the I am gathering everybody layer. Yeah.

Zane Myers (26:29)
Yep, yep.

So how do you balance out? So you're fortunate in some ways in that you said you were in software ⁓ sales that you understand what the hustle is all about. ⁓ But how do you balance out now? Because they're really quite different. You have to be this caregiver, someone who is really thinking about the people. And then you also have to be this

business person who's out there hustling. How do you balance your time?

Lila (27:02)
That's a good question. ⁓ It was software development, by the way. I have not been. It was a whole different hustle. It was a hustle. How do I balance my time? You know, it's really interesting because when you go out on this path and you're like, I'm going to be a healer of some sort, whatever that looks like, you don't imagine that a lot of your time is going to be spent building websites and marketing and doing all these things that really are not

Zane Myers (27:06)
Software development, okay, not software sales. Yeah, that's a whole different thing altogether.

Lila (27:31)
of what you thought you were going to be doing with all your time. And I remember that was kind of a jarring moment and I had to really reframe my view of, ⁓ you know, from, I have to do all these things to get what I want to do to, ⁓ I get to do these things. I get to ⁓ put in this effort to get to what I want to do. And it's an honor to be able to do what I get to do. And it comes at a cost and there's a barrier to entry and not everyone's willing to put up with that barrier and that really sets people apart.

So I've really done a reframe for myself and really had to kind of just step back and understand like, this isn't just about like, get to sit and clinical practice all day. Sorry. I have to also do the things to support my clinical practice. And I've just had to reframe like, okay, I have days that are just marketing and networking, or I have days that are just clients. So I try and do some time blocking and things like that, but I'm a little ADHD and kind of have to work where

I get my spurts of creativity and inspiration. So I try to just let myself ebb with the flows. And so far it's working and I get all the things done. It's probably not the path for everybody though.

Zane Myers (28:44)
And I think part of the reason

for this podcast is that it kind of helps to humanize that you're not just a caregiver or a practitioner, that you're also a small business person. There's a whole different set of skills and challenges and problems and demands with doing that. So how do you balance out the, you know, how much you

will send out to somebody that you want, that you feel like, okay, I just don't have the expertise on this versus, okay, I'm going to just dive in and try to learn how to do this. How do you decide that kind of thing? On the business side.

Lila (29:27)
That's a good question. I haven't had to refer anybody out yet. ⁓ Well, let me amend that. I will refer people out to body work and the physical things I can't handle, you know, because I don't do physical body work for people.

Zane Myers (29:39)
No, meant,

although that's another good question, I meant ⁓ as far as ⁓ you're doing the website marketing and all that, that how do you decide whether I'm gonna, I wanna get in there, I'm gonna roll up my sleeves and I'm gonna go figure out how to do this, or versus, ugh, this too much, I have to find somebody to do this for me.

Lila (30:02)
Okay, totally.

Okay. I'm a bootstrapper and I'm a very DIY person. So most things I roll up my sleeves and get in there and do and figure out. ⁓ Eventually, I'd love to get to the place where I do get to farm things out. But right now, the most important thing to me is preserving my business and my resources so I can grow and do this as long as I want to do this. So

I personally have just kind of been under the ethos of I do it. And every once in a while there's something I get stuck on and I phone a friend, but I really haven't been farming much out. But what I will do if I need to is try and trade work and ⁓ trade services. If there's something that's really like, I'm blocked on this, I need someone else, then I'll try and get some arrangement going.

Zane Myers (30:53)
So is this a happier place where you are now than when you were in software?

Lila (31:00)
my God. my God. Yes, I feel I feel joy and love every day. And I when I was at the end of my software career, like I had brain fog and I was like, I was just a zombie. I was just like a shill of a person. And now I feel like I I'm just in the place I need to be. And whatever happens is OK, because my heart is so full. And I mean, every ounce of that, I'm a different person than I was in that life.

Zane Myers (31:28)
So tell me some more about some other patient stories. Those are always interesting to people and something maybe that surprised you.

Lila (31:39)
Mmm, okay, I remember to think of some.

trying to think of like what's interesting to the people.

I think some of my favorite client moments are when we get clients off of medications. And while I would never tell anybody to stop taking a medication that their doctor recommended, as you start doing the work and you start feeling better and you start needing them, that's a really rewarding marker of success. And I have one girl, we've been working together for ⁓ a few months now. And when she came to me, she really was on migraine medications. And we just got her off of ⁓

one of the ones that was most problematic and she's down to one medication now. So just seeing like that evolution and that progress is super cool. But I'll say that the most surprising and probably interesting part of what I do is I work with people's health, but once their health is freed up, it allows them to have space and make changes in other parts of their lives. So it's not really common. mean, it's not uncommon that when I start working with someone,

that they are making big changes in other places of their life. Now they start leaving relationships that no longer serve them. They make career changes, they get divorces, they stop feeling bad in one area and then they don't tolerate in other areas. And it really like sets them on this path of betterment and self growth and fulfilling their purpose. And I think that is like the coolest, most interesting part of what I do, whether we fix your hemorrhoids or not, like you're feeling better as a

person and it just like changes the trajectory of your life and that is the coolest part.

Zane Myers (33:22)
Yeah. So I'm surprised. Usually I'm going on for an hour or more, and I feel like I want to reach in my drawer of questions and go on. So ⁓ I'm actually running out of questions. So ⁓ I do have the luxury on this podcast that this gets cut up.

that if I run into a situation where I'm a little bit in between, that we can just cut it out. no, just want to keep it interesting for the people who are listening. So I'm looking for if there's something, some sort of little tidbit that you can tell me that's interesting about your practice and about patients I've asked you kind of those questions already, or maybe a funny story about

Lila (33:58)
Okay, I hope it's not because I'm boring.

Zane Myers (34:20)
⁓ when you're out at one of your ⁓ workshops, something that happened at a workshop that ⁓ was kind of interesting that either surprised you ⁓ or maybe a success story at a workshop where someone you didn't think would come in and then did come in or that you were able to reach somebody with the way that you were presenting your story to them and then they said,

geez, that really makes sense. really need to go see Lila. I think that she might be able to help me.

Lila (34:56)
Hmm.

Well, I'll tell you one thing I find really interesting is nobody actually knows what a clinical herbalist is. So when I'm out in the world talking about what I do, if I'm not careful about what words I use, they usually think I sell weed or I'm a drug dealer of some sort, or people think it's like really witchy and they have to like ask me questions like, do you work with the moon cycles or like you're doing seances and rituals and so like setting.

that expectation of what it is I actually do, think is kind of amusing. At first, it was a little like gut punch, like, man, like people just think I do drugs and that's not what this is. And I think that's very, that's amusing. ⁓

Zane Myers (35:41)
Tell me about the

science of the herbs and how you decide exactly what you're going to do with what kind of patient that you're going to address.

Lila (35:52)
Hmm the science of the herbs so When somebody comes to me, I do a really in-depth intake and I figure out okay. What are your biggest pain points? What are you here to work on and? Once we have that information I I keep looking at you. I look at your face. I look at your tongue I look at your demeanor your hair how you know how bright you are all the things I use you know my senses to gauge who I'm working with and I figure out

where that imbalances is that I mentioned earlier. Are we too hot? Are we too cold? Are we too wet? Are we too dry? What in the body needs to come back into balance? And then I...

Zane Myers (36:31)
So define

those for me so that I can understand. So I understand the hot is kind of like inflammation that going that direction and the cold is, would that be like stiffness or what would that?

Lila (36:46)
So a lot of times people with migraines are cold and dry. ⁓ There are other things like osteopenia or things like that that are really cold and dry conditions. ⁓ People with insomnia, anxiety, there's like these symptom pictures and that equates to cold and dry. And what that physically usually is is pain. Sometimes it's fatigue. Sometimes ⁓ it's...

things not moving through your system at the right pace, know, everything comes back to digestion, that's super important. The body really needs to be in balance and too much, too little or the wrong kind of anything is going to be detrimental to the health. And so we want our body to be really well lubricated. If it's too lubricated, things aren't moving, we're getting stagnation. If it's not lubricated enough, things aren't moving. We're not circulating as we need to. So it can be

a number of things in a number of different ways. It could be cold extremities, like usually that's a coldness and a lot of times a dry accompaniment.

Zane Myers (37:58)
So give me the example of like a wet so I can understand that.

Lila (38:01)
Like, too wet?

Maybe we're dealing with somebody who's got like really bad acne and they're oily, you know, that would be too wet. Maybe somebody who...

Zane Myers (38:13)
So how would

you deal with that? Because that's always a big deal for people. My son, he doesn't have acne, but he's a very sweaty person. I mean, my son, in his mid-30s, he's an adult. He's always been concerned about, I'm so sweaty all the time. I don't know what to do about it. And he does want to be on drugs. so he just kind of, you he...

watches what he eats as far as stays away from carbs and sugars and stuff like that. ⁓ I think he, and he has to stay trim or he'll sweat too. ⁓ But he's just, ⁓ I know that there's a clinical ⁓ name for being sweaty. I don't remember what it is. ⁓ But how would you deal with something like that? Would that be a description of?

Lila (38:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that would be a piece of information that would be like a diagnostic tool. So going back to what it usually has to do with excess, there's an excess in the body. We have excess perspiration or we have excess fat in our bodies. have an excess, too much of something. So we would need to figure out what needs to be most likely cleansed or detox to get rid of that excess to bring things back into balance.

The body comes down to really two main jobs. It's building and it's detoxing. And so for most people, it's are we gonna build you? Are we gonna detox you? And most people actually end up needing a combination of both and it gets pretty tricky. But at the core, it's those two things. So somebody who has excess, who has excess sweat, we're probably gonna need to detox and do some removing. And then...

at some point, know, depending on what else is going on in the whole picture, there might be building involved, but that's like the very basic way of looking at it.

Zane Myers (40:08)
So if you're detoxing, tell me about how you detox. Is it what I traditionally would think of as detoxing where you're in the toilet and you're...

Lila (40:17)
No,

no, not at all. And people have such ideas about detoxing in America. You know, we think like, we're going on a juice cleanse, or we're doing a series of 50 colonics. We have these very extreme ideas of detox. So any foods we eat are either building or detoxifying. Fruits really detoxifying, grains are really building. So we would just want to shift that balance. And depending on who we're dealing with, we might be dealing with

Zane Myers (40:28)
Yes.

Lila (40:47)
you know, different levels of detoxing. I just wrote a parasite protocol this weekend. That's probably a more extreme form of detoxing and trying to get something out of the body than most people are going to be dealing with. But it's gonna be, let's bring in herbs to support your detox organs. Let's change your diet and lifestyle to make sure that your body is able to do its functions and jobs and make sure that things are getting out of the system.

Sweat is ⁓ our body's trying to get something out of the system, right? So maybe if we are over reliant on that way of getting things out, we need to look at how is liver functioning? How are bowel movements running? Is our body's other detox channels open? So it's really supporting the physiology of the body to let the body do the detoxing it already does. Sometimes that looks more extreme than others. Sometimes it's more specific than others.

but really it's supporting the body in a way that the body can do the job it's supposed to do.

Zane Myers (41:47)
Okay, well I think we're ⁓ about at the end here and I really want to appreciate ⁓ the fact that you came on and it was very great and what we'll do is we'll just cut this up and come up with a podcast. It'll go first out on YouTube and then on Spotify and then I'll give you back ⁓ a couple of shorts that you can use on your website.

And it will be shorts of you without me just saying ⁓ particular things that might be of interest to your audience. And that's our primary product, too, is helping ⁓ practitioners get a constant ⁓ presence on social media. ⁓ So I'll interview them once a month, and I'll have really specific sets of questions that are designed to elicit. ⁓

responses from them having to do with the way that they practice their craft. And then I would take those and based upon their answers, I cut them up. I don't do it, but I have somebody who cuts them up and then puts the animated text on the bottom. they're like 60 second shorts and they're either designed to educate or entertain or create ⁓ curiosity. And then we post them.

Lila (42:50)
Yeah.

Zane Myers (43:12)
and I can usually do this on two hours a month, I can get enough shorts that we can post at least one a day during the month. And so it gives you an instant ⁓ social media presence. If you're interested at some point, I can tell you about that, but I'll get you a couple of shorts and that's part of, you know, coming on the podcast.

Lila (43:34)
Sounds

good. I wish I came prepared with more examples on the fly I get like, tearing the headlights.

Zane Myers (43:40)
So if you did decide to do this, either now or later at some point, and it may be too early in your development of your practice, and that's fine. But if you did decide to do it, would prep you and give you, ⁓ we'd have a pre-meeting and I'd talk to you about, OK, these are the things we want in your practice that are special. And then I would design questions around those.

Lila (43:58)
Hmm.

Zane Myers (44:09)
you just talk. And I guess the real advantage to the way that we do it is so many people want to get presence on social media and they want to do all these short videos, but then they have to do all this planning and prepping and writing scripts and shooting and all that. And so we skip through all that and we go straight to, we're going to do it all in one hour. We're going to ask you a whole bunch of questions. You're going to just answer them on the fly. You're the expert. And then we're going to cut them up and we'll get rid of all the crappy ones.

Lila (44:22)
Mm-hmm.

Zane Myers (44:36)
and just keep the good ones and then you can have instant social media presence on a routine basis without all the work.

Lila (44:46)
Okay, that's very interesting. Thank you.

Zane Myers (44:48)
Yeah,

it may not be right for you right now, but as your practice develops, it sounds like it probably would be great. But I'll get you those couple, and we'll get this out and published sometime in the next couple of weeks. We have about seven more in the can ahead of you. And then I'll update you. Thanks so much for coming on. So hang on for a second. I'm going to push the stop button here.

Lila (45:10)
Thanks.