Let’s dive into part 3 of our immune boosting series! Last week we talked about just a few of my favorite remedies used in our home to treat cold and flu. This week I want to talk about a less talked about part of caring for our bodies…our emotional and spiritual body.

Human-beings are not one dimensional. We have emotions and we have a spirit – the essence of who we are. These aspects of our selves need tended to just like our physical bodies. This is where the term “holistic” comes into play. Treating the whole person and not just one aspect. So if we were to leave out this aspect of the immune system, we would be lacking a big part of wellness. A fit and healthy physical body is going to be affected negatively by a neglected emotional and spiritual body. For ultimate wellness, all are tended to. So when we talk about keeping our immune system robust, this is important. Let’s dive in.

And I feel it’s important to say – this is not medical advice. Again, I’m sharing what works for our family and in this particular lesson, what wisdom I personally have gained over the the past decade and longer. And also take what works and leave the rest when it comes to anything I share or really anything at all in fact!

Tending to our emotional and spiritual body

Before we really dive in, let’s get this out of the way. It doesn’t matter how you connect to spirit. What religion or set of beliefs you have around spirituality. Spirit pertains to us all and we can all connect nourish this aspect of ourselves in our own way

The spiritual body

This is our essence. Our personality – how we move through the world.

There is no limit to how any one person can nourish the spirit and to each person it will be different. Here are some of my favorites

• Taking a walk while listening to a favorite tune
• Spending time alone amongst the garden or trees
• Meditation and/or prayer
• Dancing
• Journaling or writing
• Traveling
• Resting/napping
• Enjoying an amazing meal with someone I love
• Time spent with family and friends

We can feel when we are spiritually malnourished…we might feel blah, uninspired, we aren’t laughing much, not spending time doing what we love, feeling trapped, un-connected, the list goes on. Lean on your list of nourishing spirit activities in these times.

The emotional body

This is a range of how we respond/feel at any given moment about an event or our lives in general. A collective of feelings, desires, memories….that some say are a bridge between the physical and the spirit.

Emotions are so important – a guiding light to how our life is going….what we still need to work on and what we really want. Living our life just based on our feelings can make for a hard road in life. And so can living our life avoiding feeling. What I’ve found is the middle way seems to provide the highest level of well-being for me. Being realistic about my situation and checking in with where my feelings are coming from. It takes work for sure. And I don’t always get it right. But I continue to strive for the middle way.

Some of my favorite ways to nourish my emotional body are:

• Allowing myself to cry when feelings of grief arise…allowing the grief to be felt
• Allowing myself to feel angry but give myself time to calm down before making decisions in anger
• Finding time to laugh every single day
• Finding ways to nurture the parts of me that are feeling overwhelmed, jealous, depressed and sad (see the above nourishing the spirit list)
• Staying hydrated and physically fit – it truly helps support my emotional body
• Spending quality time snuggling with my family

Everything is connected in this world and in our body. We cannot separate our physical health from our emotional and spiritual health. One affects the other and so on. I hope this has helped you or even inspired you even if in a small way.

Thank you for reading and may you and your family be well.

We dive deep into preventing sickness using herbs in my program, Medicine Woman. This online course helps you weave plant knowledge into wisdom and to bring the medicine of our wild herbs into your every day life. This includes how to identify and harvest wild plants and how to make remedies and medicines with them as well as layer their medicine into your meals. I also teach practical tips on how to grow your own food and medicine using Earth-based and permaculture practices.

To stay connected for weekly writings, recipes and journeys into my gardens, you can sign up for my newsletter here (I’ll also send you a free plant-based and gluten-free recipe e-book 🙂

Gaia Blessings,

Audrey Barron

*This article is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Always do your own research before consuming a new plant.