The Plant Spirit Podcast with Sara Artemisia

Nourishing Your Nervous System for the New Year with Rachael Cohen

• Sara Artemisia / Rachael Cohen • Episode 68

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#68 - Join us for a wonderful conversation with Nature based Spiritual Coach & Author Rachael Cohen on plant allies to support winter wellness and balance in the nervous system during the holidays and new year. 

In this episode, Rachael shares wisdom on the connection between plants and supporting a shift from the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) to the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) responses of the nervous system. She offers key insights on the importance of allowing ourselves to rest during the natural dormancy of winter. 

Rachael also shares plant wisdom on forest bathing and the benefits of working with seasonal herbal allies through the holidays and darker times of winter such as: 

  • Cinnamon: Brings warming, grounding energy and abundance
  • Rosemary: Supports boundaries, memory, and ancestral connection
  • Lavender: Facilitates deep rest and space for storytelling
  • Citrus: Supports connecting to the brightness of the returning light 

Rachael Cohen is a Nature based spiritual life coach, plant connector, intuitive medium and author. When her experiences as an environmental educator, wild animal specialist and mother left her anxious and distraught over society’s destruction of Nature, Rachael cultivated a creative relationship with plants that awakened her spiritual gifts and transformed her life. She first founded Infinite Succulent, specializing in plant art connections, and then Our Infinite Nature, for facilitating and growing spiritual connections with Nature. 

Rachael is the author of Self-Care for Eco-Anxiety: 52 Weekly Practices for Positive Personal Change Through the Power of Nature; Everyday Plant Magic: Change your Life through the Magical Energy of Nature; and Infinite Succulent: Miniature Art to Keep or Share 

You can find Rachael at: https://www.ourinfinitenature.co/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/ourinfinitenaturerachael/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ourinfinitenaturerachael
Books: https://www.ourinfinitenature.co/store?category=Books
and: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B07PTPHV4S/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=814bc8f0-249b-471a-8bdc-01a5a72b46b3

For more info visit Sara's website at: https://www.multidimensionalnature.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/multidimensional.nature/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saraartemisia.ms/
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/plantspiritherbalism
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@saraartemisia
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@multidimensional.nature
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/multidimensionalnature/

Learn how to communicate with plant consciousness in the free workshop on How to Learn Plant Language: https://www.learnplantlanguage.com/

Sara Artemisia:

Welcome to the Plant Spirit Podcast with Sara Artemisia on connecting with plant consciousness and the healing wisdom of Nature. To learn how to communicate directly with plant consciousness, you can check out the free workshop at www.learnplantlanguage.com. And for Financial Coaching, Business Development Coaching, Flower Essence Therapy, or one-to-one mentorship sessions, visit www.multidimensionalnature.com. I'm your host, Sara Artemisia, and I'm delighted to introduce our next guest to the show today. Rachael Cohen is a Nature based spiritual life coach, plant connector, intuitive medium, and author of several books. She is also the founder of Infinite Succulent, specializing in plant art creations and Infinite Nature for facilitating and growing spiritual connections with Nature. So Rachael, thank you so much for joining us today, really excited for our juicy conversation.

Rachael Cohen:

Oh, Sara, thank you so much for having me. It is an honor and really a joy to be here with you today.

Sara Artemisia:

Aww. Thank you. So great. So, yeah, so many different realms and topics that we could dive into. And the one that is really alive for me in this moment is about our connection with plants and the nervous system. And I know this is also a topic very dear to your heart as well. And so I'd love to start there with really, how do you see that plants help us with our energy and nervous system?

Rachael Cohen:

Oh my gosh, what a great question. And I see them as the medicine for our nervous system. I mean truthfully. And the reason that I see it this way is because I the way I came to plants was through my own nervous system need. I had a background in environmental education. I love Nature. I've always loved Nature, but I was never really that big on the plants. I was way more into the animals, and for me, the plants were kind of like food and habitat. I was a little bit plant blind at that time, but then I became a mom, and then slowed down a little bit, and I really wanted to bring more plants in. But after the birth of my second daughter, I had really, really terrible anxiety, very much associated with the environment, eco anxiety, destruction of the planet, all that kind of stuff. And I went into therapy. I was on anti anxiety medication, and my therapist recommended this great book called The Artist Way, and it really started opening me up to more creativity. And I found my creative flow through making art with Succulents, little clip Succulents and working with the plants and working with my own creativity shifted everything for me. Literally, making art with plants was better medicine for my anxiety and my anxious mind, then the anti anxiety medication and then the talk therapy. Just going outside and making art with plants quieted my mind to the point where I was in creative flow and present with what I'm doing, and it changed everything for me. Changed my entire life to the point where I started a complete new business and started to unlock my own intuitive gifts and skills. And all of this came because of the fact that working with the plants shifted me out of a sympathetic response in my nervous system into more of the parasympathetic, rest and restore. So when we're talking about the nervous system, we're really talking about the ability we have to expand and constrict and go in between those two energies. I mean, even think about how we breathe, which we can also talk about the plants and breath. Because I mean that first and foremost is how the plants have a huge relationship with us. They breathe what they breathe out, what we need to breathe in, and we breathe out what they need to breathe in beautiful symbiotic relationship. But when we're, you know, thinking about the plants and how they affect the nervous system, we can think about the fact that even in our breath, we inhale, we expand, we exhale, we contract. So there's just this natural expansion and contraction that's just a normal part of being alive, of breathing in general. And the nervous system is meant to kind of expand and contract. We need to have it within the nervous system, especially if we're talking about the autonomic nervous system, which is our nervous system that just acts kind of automatically. It just does these things. We can really divide it into two separate systems, the sympathetic, which is kind of our acting, doing side, and the parasympathetic, which is a little bit more of our resting, digesting side. Now when we go into acute stress, which happens naturally for every single person. If we're more dominating in this sympathetic our acute stress will lead to what we call fight or flight. We're either going to try and stand our ground and fight off the stressor, or we're going to flee from the stressor. If we're a little bit more dominant in our parasympathetic system when we have acute stress. Yes, we'll probably go more into freeze, which is paralysis, or fawn, which is people pleasing, putting everybody else's needs in front of our own. So the body itself really needs to be able to go between these two different systems, the sympathetic and parasympathetic. Unfortunately, in our modern society, where there's so much focus on productivity, we all get a little bit imbalanced or dysregulated in the sympathetic aspect of our nervous system, so that when it comes time to rest and digest, we feel like we can't. And I don't know about you, but I remember when I was the mom of young kids, I would go get a massage, and I'd be lying on the table, and the whole time I'd be like, I am not relaxed. Why can't I just lay here and enjoy this like my brain won't stop? That was me dysregulated in my sympathetic nervous system were that I really couldn't when it was time to be in my rest and digest, I just couldn't get there. Plants in particular help us move from that dysregulated of the sympathetic of the go, go, go, productivity, fight or flight, they very naturally help the body move into the parasympathetic of rest and digest, and the parasympathetic is also what governs our immune system. So in order for us to increase our immunity, we actually need to let ourselves rest and digest. We're not going to be good in our immunity if we're not eating, digesting or resting at all. So there's been actually a ton of research, especially out of places like Japan and South Korea and parts of Europe, especially around forest bathing. Have you looked at some of the forest bathing research, Sara?

Sara Artemisia:

Oh, yeah.

Rachael Cohen:

Oh my goodness. So forest bathing is one of the greatest places where we can see the impact plants have on the nervous system. They are testing stress hormones, spit, urine analysis. Sometimes they'll even do blood draws of people before they go into a forested area, have a forest walk or a forest bathing experience, and then afterwards. And the research has just been really, I mean, I feel like it's one of those very intuitive things. Like, yeah, we go outside, we feel better. But when we actually have the science to prove what's happening on a physiological basis, it can really even amplify what we know, what we feel right? And so with forest bathing, what they found is that just spending time surrounded by greenery, by trees, by shrubs, by ferns, whatever might be in the forest, decreases the body's stress response so it decreases stress hormones. But one thing that they found that I thought was absolutely fascinating, especially with forest bathing, was through the limbic system, through just inhaling the phytochemicals, the plant chemicals of the diversity of species within the forest, the body produces more of these natural T cells, these killer T cells, these are which are white blood cells specifically designed to find and fight cancer. So just having time spent in a forested area, the body produces more of these natural cancer killing cells, and the cells that produce are more robust. And another thing that's so fascinating about this is that depending how long we spend in the forest, it will increase the body's productivity of this particular white blood cell for an extended period of time, even after we leave the forest. So just being in a plant filled space creates this physiological response of greater immunity and stress reduction.

Sara Artemisia:

It's so pertinent to the entire everything that's happening planetarily right now, what, what our nervous systems are being bombarded with on a daily basis. I know you've written about ego anxiety, there's just so much going on with that, even just more immediately coming up right now, with the holidays coming up. What comes to mind for you around ways to work with plants and really nourish the nerves for the holidays, because that can also be a really stressful time for people, a lot going on?

Rachael Cohen:

You know, I love that you asked this question, because it actually brought up this realization that I don't even know if I realized before, but if you think about some of the spices we use around the holiday season, some of the flavors and spices and herbs and teas we might drink, I kind of feel like all of those come in to counterbalance this weird cultural thing we have to make people do way more during the season when we're supposed to do way less. Autumn is that kind of gradual, slow down, breakdown of productivity, a little bit of a rush of harvest and prep for the eventual dormancy, and then winter is supposed to be this quieter, more connective time, and unfortunately, in most of Western society, it's back to school, back to all the things, and then it's holiday season, and you gotta shop, and you gotta party, and you gotta do all these things. And it's really even more jarring for the nervous system, because the body naturally, seasonally wants to rest. So we are fighting against the organic, natural urge we have as an aspect of Nature, to rest. So I think there's a lot we can do with the foods that we eat, what we drink, what we ingest, as well as if you think about the different scents we like to bring into our homes during the season, which are very often the smells and sense of Nature that we're trying to bring in. So for example, Pumpkin Spice. You know, everyone loves Pumpkin Spice in the Autumn. There's a lot within Pumpkin Spice that can be so supportive. There's cinnamon in there. Cinnamon is great for abundance. It's also a very warming, a very warming spice. Even though it's got this kind of fiery energy to it, it's kind of restorative as well. So even though it brings in a little bit of that fire, it brings it in with Earth element to it, that kind of grounds it, which is great as we move more into winter, I, Rosemary is coming in a lot for me for winter season. I think maybe that's some of like the root vegetables. It's great with potatoes. I think it's also really nice. I don't I personally don't drink because my body does not like alcohol, but I do like mocktails every now and then, and I do know Rosemary is a great one to use for some winter mocktails. Rosemary is fantastic for boundaries. I really like using Rosemary for boundaries. I also like using Rosemary for the minds, for remembering, and we can use it for more, like acute remembering. Like it's a great one to use if we have to remember something for a test, we can actually utilize the smell of Rosemary as we're studying and then use it again to recall. But I find Rosemary can is really great for ancient memory as well, like cellular memory as well. And so a little bit of using Rosemary to bring in some of the wisdom of our ancestors during the season can be great and kind of help us remember even rooting into what the basis of a lot of these winter holidays were based in, because I think now they've become so consumptive and so corporate, but if we get back to the root of what all these holidays are about, especially the winter holidays, it's really about honoring the light that exists within each and every one of us, and honoring the light that always returns every year as well. So I think we can use rosemary to kind of help us get back to the rootedness of the holiday, of those winter holidays as and move away from some of the more conditioned, more stressful aspects of the holiday season as well. Citrus is also coming through really strong, Oranges and Lemons. I mean, my family is Jewish, so we don't celebrate Christmas, but we do sometimes decorate with winter gear, and I do like orange garlands. I think they're beautiful. I think they smell great. They're fun to make. And when I think about the again, that kind of reminds me of that whole faith in the light returning, which I think is wonderful for us to do in winter. I also think these days, it's also really important for us to actually just lean into the sleep, lean into the darkness of the womb, and instead of looking at the winter holidays as being Oh, because the lights are turning like just need to get through this. But actually, what's the benefit of the dark too? I think that's really important as well. And so what are some of the plants that come into mind when I'm thinking about really allowing us to go into the dormancy of it? Just want to see what wants to come Wow. This is interesting. Not what I was surprised, but Lavender is actually coming up for me now. You're smiling to that. What? Like why do you feel like Lavender might come in here?

Sara Artemisia:

Well, it's just always interesting to me when we tune in and we're in receptive relationship with the plants, and we are honestly asking, you know, who's present here in the field in this moment? It's just, I just love the surprise of who is it? And it's Lavender in this moment, amazing.

Rachael Cohen:

And it is surprising because I often think like when I think like when I think ofLavender, I think of her as more spring energy. But for some reason, she's coming when I was asking specifically about a plant to help us lean into the womb, the void, the womb of where everything is birthed from, which is kind of what winter is, Lavender came through for that. So I want to go back to her to see what she wants to share, because I don't know what she's gonna say. She knows way better than me, right? So going back to the energy of Lavender, thank you for coming through for us in this way. What do you want us to know about? Okay, so first and foremost, she's saying sleep. So allowing ourselves. More opportunity to sleep during the winter season to rest, and she can help with that. She you know, she's well known, I think Lavender is well known as a nervine and great herb tea, utilize for rest. In particular, I like to pair her with either Chamomile or Passion Flower. Passion Flower specifically is really good for rest to assist with sleep as well. I want to ask her one more time, like or just one more thing, why she wants to come through? What's a message she has for us for the season of winter? She's bringing forward the energy of storytelling, that this is a time that we're supposed to sit around and tell stories. It's supposed to be a mix of stories that are rooted in what's already happened and also stories that bring us for what can happen.

Sara Artemisia:

Oh, yeah, we're writing the new stories right now that needs to be created in this in this moment, planetarily, right now. And, yeah, the plants are definitely helping us with that. So there's so much of what you just shared. There's five different threads I'd love to follow with that. But really, what's coming to me in this moment is, earlier, you and I were talking a bit about how the plants really help us remember. They help us remember. They help us remember. So I've been drinking Rosemary tea right now. I love Rosemary so much. How do you experience that? How do the plants really help us remember? Help us remember who we are, help us remember what our right aligned way of being is on the planet?

Rachael Cohen:

Yeah, you know, I'm gonna actually bring this back to the nervous system a little bit, because you were also talking about presence, and when we think about the nervous system, in order for us to actually be in the present moment, requires us to regulate our nervous system, because it requires us to be here now, which means we're not being hyper vigilant about everything around us. We're just going to be right here. And when I think about what's happening in the nervous system to get to presence, it actually reminds me a little bit of what's known as polyvagal theory. Have you heard of that? And this is basically about the vagal nerve, which is a big nerve within the nervous system that goes from the brain down into the pelvic floor, lots of nerve endings in there, and it runs on the front and back. And basically there's this theory that says that we can activate the ventral vagal which is the front part of this vagal nerve. It helps the body move into connected presence, which helps, basically, the body regulate the nervous system. And there's lots of ways that we can help the body get into this kind of ventral vagal response, plants and exposure to plants, I find to be one of the best ways to do that. One of my favorite ways is just to, like, go around and dust the plants in my home, check to see if they need water. Water them, touch them, feel into their aura, be present with them. To me, that really helps stimulate that whole ventral vagal. When I talk a lot about the plant medicine, I'm talking a little bit more about the passive plant medicine, which is just how the plants interact with the nervous system, with our energy, just with their presence alone, just looking at them, sitting with them, taking care of them, maybe making art with them, which is something I used to do a lot, or just like walking next to trees, or like sitting with a tree, as opposed to active plant medicine, which would be a little bit more of the ingesting of plant medicine, the making your teas and your tinctures, the harvesting, both of them are vital for our health and necessary for our health. I find that I tend to focus more on the passive plant medicine side of it, because it's a little bit more subtle, a little bit more energetic, and that's often what I help people develop within themselves, is more awareness of the subtle energetics of a magic of life.

Sara Artemisia:

To do that with a regulated nervous system is, is pretty key. Yeah.

Rachael Cohen:

In fact, with my book self care for eco anxiety, Pretty key. which are 52 Nature based practices for positive personal change, the power of Nature. And while the book is specified for eco anxiety, you can utilize the practices in this book for any form of anxiety, because the symptoms are usually quite similar, but the first practices that I share. So the way that I have this book oriented is that I find it really important that before we go immediately into giving back to Nature, I wanted people first to connect with Nature, create with Nature, so that when they're giving back to Nature, they're coming from a place of love and reciprocity, not coming from a place of guilt, blame or fear, because the energy that we put into things impacts what is created, right? So the first 18 practices are all about connecting with Nature. Then the previous eight that following 18 are all about like, creativity with Nature. And then the final 18 are. Or 17, or whatever it might be, are about like reciprocity, giving back to Nature in ways that also give back to you. And some of the first practices I share in this book are practices for regulating the nervous system. So practices to move through a fight response, practices to move through a freeze response, a flight response, a fawn response, and utilizing our relationship with Nature to help inspire us to do so because of that very reason, like, we cannot regulate the climate from an unregulated place. We cannot regulate our place on this Earth when we're coming from that collective dysregulated place. And so I think, first and foremost, each and every one of us has this kind of mission, this task, to regulate our own nervous system, knowing that when we do so, we ripple out, because our nervous systems, just like plants, like just like the plants, are connected with mycelial network. Our nervous systems are connected with these unseen strands of energy that connect everything in life, which is why when your best friend or when your spouse is having a bad day and they're dysregulated, we feel it, and it can impact the way we're feeling right. And one of the things we know with nervous system regulation is that we need to co regulate. We need to regulate with another think about a crying baby, right? Like a crying baby needs to be picked up, feel the heartbeat of someone else so they can regulate. It's very similar, and I find that we can actually co-regulate. It can be hard as humans, for us to regulate when everyone around us is dysregulated, which is sometimes the case for some of us in our healing past, is like all the people we want to regulate with are kind of dysregulated themselves, because we're all human, and we're all experiencing interesting, you know, times. So knowing that we can actually turn to Nature and we can regulate with Nature, which is what humans have been doing since the dawn of humanity, and I truly believe that our bodies are made to function better with exposure to Nature, because we evolved in Nature, which is kind of the Biophilia hypothesis, but I'm a big proponent of that, so we can actually go to Nature to help regulate the nervous system. And one of my favorite ways to do that, we actually did that before we started our podcast today here Sara, which is just grounding, just allowing ourselves to breathe deeply and open to receive the energy, the heartbeat of Earth herself. So with every inhale and every exhale, we are receiving and connecting to Earth, so regulating for the nervous system, and that's something we can do so simply with just our intention and our breath. I mean, yeah, it's great if we can do it bare feet on Earth. But that's also not even necessary. If it's storming outside, if it's wintery, if it's snowy and you don't want to put your bare feet on the Earth and get frostbite, you can do it through your home. You can do it through the carpet, through the foundation. Just let your roots extend down into Earth and let them absorb.

Sara Artemisia:

Oh, great. And so key. So tell us, Rachael, how can people find out more about you and your books and your work?

Rachael Cohen:

Yeah, so you can find me. Most of what you can find is going to be on my website, which is ourinfinitenature.co, and then on socials you can find me at, I'm mainly active on Instagram and on Tiktok, and my social handle is@ourinfinitenaturerachael. If you're someone who likes to also work with the energies of the moon, because I'm a Nature connector, so yes, Earth, but also moon. And as someone who's a cancer, sun, cancer rising, my entire chart is pretty much moon. I I'm actually a moon messenger. So I share about the energies of every new moon and every full moon in my moon blog, and I also do a YouTube video on the moon energy. So you can find that on YouTube@ourinfinitenaturerachael. And if you enjoy working with the energy of the moon and also grounding it to the energy of Earth, you can sign up for my moon blog, which comes out bi monthly with every new moon and full moon. And I'm actually, right now working behind the scenes to create an online moon community where we're going to have a lot of fun stuff, but that'll be coming in 2025. So I'll make sure that I send you that information when it when it goes live, Sara. So that's where you can find me in terms of what I offer. Yes, I have my books. You can find my books pretty much wherever books are offered. But if you like signed copy of books, which a lot of people do. You can find signed copies on my website. I also offer one to one sessions on plant consults. So if you're looking to bring certain plants into your home, where to place them, how to style them, also with the energies you're trying to bring in. So I offer plant consults. I also do spirit reads, which are kind of intuitive and mediumship reads and chakra reads. I also offer both in person and remote energy transformation sessions, which are kind of like Reiki sessions. I'm an intuitive, so my sessions are always a little bit different, and usually like, they're very they're they're amazing and magical, and no session is ever the same, which is because no person is ever the same, which is wonderful. And then I also offer coaching on spiritual connection, Nature connection, intuitive development. And I also do group coaching programs on intuitive development through our relationship with Nature as well. So there's a lot, I'm like you, Sara multi-passionate.

Sara Artemisia:

Yeah, so many different modalities, and yeah, just and they're all connected. So, yeah, well, thank you so much for joining us today, and I love that you brought in the moon connection there at the end as well. I feel very deeply connected with the moon as well. So, yeah, so wonderful to connect. And thanks so much for joining us.

Rachael Cohen:

Oh, Sara, thank you so much for having me. This was really so much fun. I, it's always so amazing to talk with kindred spirits, people who also talk plant.

Sara Artemisia:

And thanks so much for listening and joining us today on the Plant Spirit Podcast. I hope you enjoyed it, and please follow to subscribe, leave a review and look forward to seeing you on the next episode.