Wellness is a tricky thing. The amount of to-do’s that need to be checked off of a list in the day-to-day is vast, and sometimes it seems impossible to not to be flying by the seat of our pants with work, side hustles, and having a social life; and yet we persevere. It’s about finding moments to find quiet in the chaos via a nourishing meal, a dance class, sleeping a little more, and sometimes just letting go and recognizing that you are a living being that from time to time needs some self-care.
(Jack Antal)
In the age of ergonomic chairs, counting screen time, cleanses, and retreats, there’s no time more relevant than now for health to come to the forefront. We’re constantly seeking ways to be well whether it’s finding joy through folding clothes, discovering our own strength through a spin class, or healing through sitting cross-legged surrounded by crystals; and it all matters, truly, as it’s about making space for ourselves beyond what life demands of us. At the same time, we’re pushing back with our own needs—we refuse to be stuck in jobs that we hate, to sacrifice in one area of our lives for another, and to be told that we can’t do something. As one of our interviewees states, wellness is about resilience—where we can do everything we want and all at once so long as we also find time to counter it all with good for you activities.
We talk to five women in the wellness industry from an artist and tarot card master to the creator of a healthy detox granola to an acupuncturist on how they beat anxiety, stay inspired, and ultimately create balance. All entrepreneurs running their own businesses (some with multiple) within the wellness industry, they maintain onerous schedules but seem to be effortlessly doing it all. Here, they share their perspectives and insight as well as tips for a healthy routine.
Casey Zabala of Wanderer’s Tarot
Artist, writer, tarot reader, and contemporary witch, Casey Zabala, is the creator of the hand-drawn Wanderer’s Tarot. Created with an emphasis on female bodies and the female experience, her Midnight and Solar decks are meant to elevate feminine energy and the rule of the goddess. Gifted her first deck when she was thirteen, she uses tarot as a way to feel grounded and give thanks for all of her experiences.
For others, she recommends that they use the cards in the same way she does—with a tendency to pull hers out when she’s particularly confused or stressed about something. In her classes, she helps readers create a personal relationship with their decks. To create an intuitive connection between the symbols and happenings in your life, she suggests drawing one card daily for a month. As a tool for self-care and reflection, tarot is helpful in moments of major need, but also to mark personal development over time.
What does wellness mean to you?
“Wellness is about feeling whole. When I feel whole, I feel connected and at peace with my body, mind, and spirit. I believe that wellness operates on all levels of being, and when we are in balance we are truly well.
What are some things you personally do to be well during the week?
My morning rituals are an important aspect of my wellness routine. I wake up and make tea, record my dreams and journal, meditate, then draw tarot and oracle cards to tap into the energy of my day ahead. These rituals keeps me feeling connected and grounded.
Three tips for finding time to instill balance and make time for staying grounded in our busy lives?
1/ Taking breaks from the screen is a really important part of staying grounded for me. If I’m having a particularly busy screen day, I make sure to take a walk mid-day to clear my head and tap into being-mind. 2/ I try to make sure I prioritize cooking healthy and delicious meals for dinner, which helps me wind down and nourish myself. 3/ Taking walks with my dog is a simple and easy way for me to reconnect with nature—whether strolling around my neighborhood, or making a trip to the beach—which always helps me to feel more balanced and in my body.
What do you do to beat stress or anxiety?
I’m a big fan of adaptogens for managing stress and anxiety. I drink a lot of nettle tea to stay balanced, as well as daily doses of adaptogenic herbal tonics to keep me feeling even. In moments of high anxiety, I reconnect with my breath and remind myself that all is well.
How do you tackle days that you’re feeling uninspired?
As an artist, I’ve come to learn that inspiration is not spontaneous, it is something that is cultivated. When I feel down or unmotivated, I turn to my favorite thinkers, writers, poets, and artists for inspiration.
What’s your go-to ritual for days you’re feeling icky? It looks like tea, meditation, and pulling cards play a major role. What do these do for you?
I’m learning to prioritize rest, as someone who tends to take on many projects at once! On days when I feel particularly icky, I will take a bath in the morning to help ease my spirit awake, and create a small but impactful to-do list that keeps me feeling productive, without over exerting myself. Somedays just simply need to be days of rest and recharge.
Rachel Budde of Fat and the Moon
Herbal medicine is part of Fat and the Moon founder Rachel Budde‘s Slovenian heritage. Plant medicine, she says, is an essential thread in the cultural fabric of Slovenia, and she’s been conducting ethnobotanical research there for the last six years on the traditional Slovene uses of plant medicines. “My aim is to reconnect to the ancient wisdom of my heritage and to inspire others to do the same,” she says.
Additionally, she has a background in fine art with a BFA from Pratt and an MFA from Hunter College, and has studied both Tibetan Thangka painting and Indian Miniature painting.
Fat and the Moon is where her skills as an herbalist and an artist converge. “I create self care products that are plant based and radically non-toxic in terms of both ingredients and message.”
What does wellness mean to you?
I think wellness is a state of mind. I think it’s multifaceted: it doesn’t just have to do with diet or exercise; it has to do with our community, with our environment, with our world. It’s such a loaded word—wellness, it can be another superficial, greenwashing term if it’s not really considered. We often put our wellness in the hands of others, but I think it is a relationship you have with yourself, and that has to be the foundation of what real wellness is. Coming into the right relationship with oneself as a microcosm for being in the right relationship with everything else around you.
What are some things you do to stay well during the week?
I try to take time for myself—I wake up at 5:30 in the morning so I have an hour to just be with myself. Now, after becoming a mama, I’m really aware of my limitations and how those edges are places I need the support of others. Getting acupuncture or chiropractic work from another practitioner, for example, are ways I get to be held by others. I rely on my community to stay well. I’ve also seen the tremendous importance of self expression and creativity to my personal wellness. Dancing, writing, potion making and cooking thread my life with creative expression and a deep sense of connection and peace.
Three tips for finding time to instill balance and make time for wellness in our busy lives?
1/ You have to make it a priority. It’s so easy to buy into the story of ‘I’m so busy I’m so busy I’m so busy,’ but we are creating our busy reality. It’s up to us if we need a slower pace to just sit here for for five minutes. 2/ Making time for real connection with other people you care about: face to face connection or a phone call. 3/ Not looking at your phone while eating! Being conscious and mindful while eating is where we have the opportunity to be grateful for our food. Even if we’re eating the most high-vibe food, we can miss it; miss the flavors, miss the gratitude, miss the nutrients if we are distracted and disconnected.
What do you do to beat stress?
It’s not about beating stress. It’s about dose. It’s about resourcing yourself enough so that the stress in your life is an activating force and not a debilitating force. In the nervous system, a bit of stress is actually good, it gets us stirred and motivated but our bodies really suffer when we’re under too much or chronic stress. I try to have gaps between activities, try to dilute the stress I have in my life with nourishing herbal formulas/ activities/ books / people/ podcasts/ meals. I depend on plants in a big way when I’m feeling like the scales are tipped, and I’m in survival mode. Taking herbs is like having a therapist in a bottle.
How do you tackle days that you’re feeling uninspired?
There’s always the possibility to pan out and see that you’re part of many cycles. You can’t feel inspired all the time; and the times you’re feeling uninspired is a good opportunity to rest and embrace it, because it’ll change. To place the demand on yourself to stay inspired constantly is like expecting you can stay awake forever. I am a total producer. In many ways, I see my worth in how much I can get done. Paying attention to the rest part of natural cycles in the non human world has given me some medicinal perspective. Rest is a necessary part of life. Resisting rest, in the best of circumstances, actually makes dull, half baked work; in the worst of circumstances, it makes for dis-ease.
What are your go-to products / how do you use them for days you’re feeling icky?
Fat and the Moon’s Masa and Olive Face Paste is really good for sloughing and stimulating. It feels like a soul cleanse. I also love the combo of the All Cream and Moon Fat Bod Oil. Slathering myself with that combo always lifts my spirits after getting out of the bath. The plants that make up the scent of Wolf Shepherd connect me to my source of power; when I spray it, I can’t help but think of the ancient uses of frankincense to send messages to the gods.
Erica Liu of Gr8nola
Bay Area native, Erica Liu, went to Stanford on a swimming scholarship, competing at the 2000 and 2004 US Olympic swimming trials. Her path seemed set competing at the highest level of the sport, though in her sophomore year of college, she quit due to a chronic injury and because she just wasn’t happy. From there, she did her first internship at Yahoo, dipping her toes into the tech world before immersing herself in the industry for nearly 10 years after graduating. Through stealth, four-person startups to working for companies as large as Intuit, she quickly learned that she loved the startup environment and the ability to move quickly and make an impact; the only drawback? She wasn’t passionate about tech.
At the time she was making her cleanse-friendly granola at home (something that didn’t exist in stores), and decided this would be her thing. Within three months, she launched her product at her local farmer’s market and people loved it. From there, she was connected through to the food team at Google through friends, and she received a coveted invitation to their annual snack fair (yes that’s a thing), where employees voted her into their kitchens. “From that win, I had to go from baking out of my home kitchen for the farmers market to fulfilling Google’s first order of 1,500 pounds!” Now she supplies Twitter, Dropbox, Uber, Square, Slack, Microsoft, Netflix, Google, and more, supplying thousands of pounds of gr8nola per month.
What does wellness mean to you?
Wellness is holistic—to me, it encompasses eating clean (of course I indulge a lot too, but I try to do it moderately), getting enough sleep, working out consistently and making time for relationships (friends, family and networking), and taking pauses. To be honest, where I need to work on is the last one—taking breaks from work and my phone, especially.
What are some ways you personally do to be well during the week?
As an entrepreneur the work NEVER ends, so you can easily—and willingly!—work 24/7. I still try to look at Monday through Friday as a “work week” and the weekends as my “bonus” days to catch up on things. I also let myself sleep in a little more on weekends. This way, I have a cycle to my weeks and a feeling of rhythm. I think if you just go-go-go without ever stopping or slowing down, it’s SO easy to get burnt out. I approach my eating and workouts the same way; I’m fairly consistent and try to grind most of the time, but sometimes you gotta have days to let go and relax and little bit, and that’ll motivate you to get back on track with a reinvigorated mindset (body, or metabolism). It’s about balance.
Tips for finding time to instill balance and make time for wellness in our busy lives?
As I mentioned, having a rhythm helps, whether that’s allowing yourself a weekend, a day, or simply one hour to take a break. Also, it depends on where you draw your energy from. For me, I’m extroverted, so being around people and networking with others takes me out of the day-to-day grind and it motivates and inspires me to think bigger. Carving out time for my relationships is very important to my balance. Introverts, on the other hand, recharge by taking time completely to themselves. What is it that YOU need to recharge and find balance? Try to find what that is, and make sure to create space for it on a regular basis.
What do you do to beat stress?
Usually my stress comes from feeling overwhelmed about everything I have to do for the business, and that endless “backlog” of stuff you want to do but it’s been put off seemingly forever. Sometimes it’s hard to eliminate the true source of stress. I mean, I gotta GSD, right? No one else will run the business since it’s just me and I’m in true startup mode! So if my source of stress is something I can’t get rid of, I try to “manage” it by making sure all other aspects of my life are in balance. When I’m extra busy with a product launch, for example, I really try to make a point to eat clean, sleep well and fuel myself properly. The last thing I want to do is sabotage my diet when I’m already stressed about other things, because it will only compound.
How to tackle days that you’re feeling uninspired?
If I can’t force through it (which is always solution #1), then I just walk away. Just yesterday, I had planned to wake up and plow through work. It was Saturday morning and I had intentions of “getting ahead” on so much stuff. Once I got to my computer, I just had no steam and felt so unproductive from the get! Instead of forcing it, I went to the gym earlier than I normally do and when I came back, I was in a completely different mindset and able to get back on the horse. Know what your “hacks” are to address these moments, and just try to not to fall too deeply into a slump because then it’ll become your norm. Just accept that sometimes you’re going to feel unmotivated or uninspired, but that’s ok because your next hour, day or week may be a complete 180! There will always be peaks and valleys, so just expect highs and lows and roll with it.
What’s your go-to recipe with your granola for days you’re feeling icky?
Gr8nola with almond milk! There’s nothing that beats that old childhood routine of downing your favorite cereal with milk. But with gr8nola I actually feel good about what I’m eating. And, it makes the milk taste SO good afterwards.
Anna Lee of Mee Ra Rituals
Whether you believe in fate or not, there are incidents where events align, the cosmos connect, and things fall into place. For Anna Lee, it was when she found her birth mother that she truly understood her calling. As a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist and aesthetician, she holds a Master of Science in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Pacific College of Oriental Medicines and applied science degrees in both Medical Aesthetics and Clinical Massage from Saint Paul College.
Originally born in Jeonju, Korea, Lee was adopted to a loving family in Minnesota when she was six months old. She went to the bookstore with her mother where she worked and pored over pages on skincare and health. Lee had all the support she needed with encouragement and access to products, but it wasn’t until she met her biological Korean mother that things really clicked. She learned that while she was pregnant with her, she worked as a beautician teaching women how to take care of their skin. She also discovered that she came from a long line of health care professionals, and that her given Korean name, Mee Ra, means ‘to grow up to be beautiful.’
Grateful to both of her mothers for instilling and supporting her passions, Lee now offers an array of services including acupuncture with a specialty in acupuncture facials, cupping, moxibustion, food therapy, and herbal medicine. She also has a natural skincare line centered around the Korean routine, though more minimalist. Mee Ra Rituals melds East Asian medicine and Western science in a two minute skincare ritual that can be tailored to any skin type.
What does wellness mean to you?
Wellness to me is being able to eat an entire pepperoni pizza, dance all night, have a couple drinks, and be totally fine the next day! 10 years ago I was a pretty hardcore yogi and didn’t eat gluten, dairy, corn, yeast, soy, sugar, etc. I’ve always had a pizza addiction so whenever I’d eat it, I would feel like crap. Wellness to me is resilience!
What are some ways you stay well during the week?
Pizza, burgers and wings are life but I do keep it pretty healthy! I don’t count calories or anything like that but I always eat nourishing foods, and I cook/eat according to the seasons and my menstrual cycle.
Three tips for finding time to instill balance and make time for wellness in our busy lives?
To be honest, I’m working to find balance on the daily. I tend to go super hard for a few days/weeks/months and then go into super-chill-sloth-hibernation mode for one to three days. Here are three things that I do. 1/ Dance, whether it be a two-minute solo dance party in my living room, an hour long dance class in a studio, or gettin low all night long at da club. 2/ Schedule a date night at home with myself where I stretch, take a bath, and massage delicious products all over my skin. 3/ Play my singing bowls to my plants. This usually lasts anywhere between 10 seconds to 10 minutes.
What do you do to beat stress?
I’m all about self care (long hikes in nature, baths, etc.); but sometimes I need help! I get acupuncture, a facial, massage, and/or see my osteopath.
How do you tackle days that you’re feeling uninspired?
I don’t think I ever feel uninspired (which I’m grateful for). I’m often really hard on myself though and can get super overwhelmed! On these days I try to be gentle on myself! My previous self would retreat and not want to talk to anyone, but lately I’ve been talking/texting it out with friends and I always feel better. I’m lucky to have badass, supportive friends that I can have real talk with.
What’s your go-to ritual for days you’re feeling icky?
I gua sha and jade roll my face, drink tea, make soup, and then lay on my sheepskin and listen to whatever artist(s) I’m obsessed with at the moment.
Rachael Gorjestani of Goldmine
You may know nutritionist and holistic chef, Rachael Gorjestani, from her plant-based delivery service, The Cupboard SF, or perhaps you may have met on her a retreat. With her ardor for cooking, food, and nutrition, she gets around from events to weekend-long gatherings in a yoga centric group. Sourcing ingredients from farmer’s markets or locally owned grocery stores with organic and seasonal produce, she cooks for all dietary from paleo and Whole30 to vegan and gluten-free. Meals are even delivered in sustainable glass containers.
Her latest venture is Goldmine, an adaptogen powder, launched with designer and creative director, Tina Hardison. With a vision for changing preconceived notions and beliefs about what healthy eating is all about, it was only natural that Gorjestani’s next step would be to start a brand of her own. Blending a powerful potion of mushrooms and herbs including ashwaganda, reishi, coryceps, chaga, astralagus, and rosehip, she continues to create easy and efficient ways to be healthy in the day-to-day.
What does wellness mean to you?
Wellness for me is a state of mind and body, where both feel spacious, alert, rested, and clear. It’s an ever moving target because what makes me feel spacious one day may not be the same as another.
What are some ways you stay well during the week?
Acupuncture! Weekly acupuncture has helped me immensely to feel more easeful throughout the week. A few acupuncturists in SF I love are Lauren Kaneko Jones and Eva Larson.
Exercise! I always make time to run and my yoga practice during the week (and weekend) because it gets me back into my body. I noticeably feel happier, clearer, and alert.
Take adaptogens daily! I take a scoop of Goldmine adaptogen powder in my morning drink every morning. Sometimes it’s a raw cacao tonic or my take on a matcha latte. Since beginning my adaptogen journey, I’ve noticed a big shift in my reaction to “stress.” I feel less stressed in general, even though I have a lot going on! And, frankly I don’t feel the same sense of overwhelm like I used to. Taking adaptogens daily has given me a sense of “I can do this” attitude which helps keep me motivated and level headed, even during hectic times.
Three tips for finding time to instill balance and make time for wellness in our busy lives?
1/ Take time for breath. The sort of breath that takes up all of your attention, where you can just focus on the sensation of fully inhaling and completely exhaling. Even if it’s for a few minutes throughout the day. It helps to reset the nervous system and calm the mind. 2/ Eat real and nourishing food. I consider food to be the foundation of wellbeing and health. If the diet is off, then the mind and body will follow. Eat a lot of vegetables, cook meals at home, and use minimally processed ingredients. In busier times, prep an assortment of dishes on Sunday to eat throughout the week. 3/ Do something you love daily. Whether it’s taking a walk, having a gratitude practice, cherishing that cup of coffee, whatever it is, be present with it and fully enjoy the moment.
What do you do to beat stress?
I make sure to enjoy each day and chose to work on projects that are in line with my long term goals. Stress creeps up, that’s inevitable, but I find by doing for myself daily and choosing work that I love, the stress is different and only temporary.
But, there are definitely moments of high intensity. Taking adaptogens daily really helps! I also like to write down my to-do list, organized by each day of the week. I find it makes me more productive and am less likely to waste time. The last thing I make sure I do is get enough sleep. I need around 9 hours of sleep to be fully rested and am very protective of this time (!).
How do you tackle days that you’re feeling uninspired?
Let go. I try to let go of expectations of myself. If I find that if I’m dragging my heels, or things aren’t unfolding the way I want, I know there’s a better way to spend my time in that moment – I step away – so I can come back feeling more inspired. I get outside, go on a bike ride, have tea with a friend, listen to a podcast with someone I admire, go to a dance class, or paint with watercolors.
What’s your go-to recipe for days you’re feeling icky?
Nap! Seriously, taking a snooze break without fail makes me feel better. When that doesn’t sound right (it usually does), then I do whatever I feel like; Maybe it’s a nourishing meal or a walk. When I give myself the break my body/mind is obviously asking for, I always feel better & more productive when I get back to work.
Leave a reply