Returning to My Roots 🌿

In this episode of Outside the Script, I’m sharing what “returning to my roots” really means for me right now.

This is a conversation about hearing the call back to the Earth, realizing how far modern life can pull us from what truly nourishes us, and beginning the process of coming home to a more rooted, intentional, and earth-connected way of living.

I talk about the pull back toward herbalism, the grief of feeling disconnected from the rhythms I want for my home and family, and why I believe women and families need Earth medicine now more than ever.

If you’ve been in a season of pivoting, re-evaluating, or trying to find your way back to yourself, this episode is an invitation to slow down, listen, and honor what’s calling you home.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back. Happy Wednesday, happy Mercury Day. Welcome back to Outside the Script. And we host Amanda Kukaroo, and I am so grateful to be here. Layla, my youngest, is out of school. Ariella, my middle child, she still has a few more days left of school. So if you hear her in the background or she may interrupt, I'm sorry for that. But you know what? The show must go on. And so today's episode kind of feels like a continuation of what's been unfolding for me over the last couple weeks and what I started to share with you on Monday. I feel like I'm in this season of returning, returning to myself, returning to what matters, and returning to what's always felt true underneath all the noise. And the words that keep coming to me are return to your roots. So I've been sitting with like that, or just like even like the last couple days of like, what does this actually really mean? And so, like, what just has been coming to mind is like my roots are my essence, my core, my foundation, the deepest truth of who I am underneath all the rules, all the pressure, all the noise, all the things I think I should be doing. And when I really listen, I feel like I'm being called back to the mother, to Gaia, and to the earth. And so a few years ago, right around Sawin, Halloween, I felt this very clear call to commit to the earth. It's one of those moments where you just know you heard it, you felt it, you kept it close. But if I'm being honest, I kept dancing with other things. I kept exploring other paths, other ideas, other ways of building a life and things that I thought I could be good at, or things that are practical, or just to like gather skills. I feel like skills are always important. And things that could make money and things that maybe made sense, like on paper. And I do think that's a part of being human, right? And sometimes we just sometimes we, you know, we do know what's best for us, right? And but then when we hear the call, we know what's true, and still we go dance with other paths and ideas before the truth becomes undeniable. It's funny because over the last several months, I kept hearing this phrase as well. And I I like it comes up so often. I want to go home. And every time it like comes through my mind, I'm like, what does that mean? What does that even mean? So I'd stop and I think, and I've like, because I didn't mean a physical house, it didn't mean a place, it felt deeper than that, but I couldn't fully name it. And now I think I understand. I think home was my higher self trying to get my attention. I think home meant return, return to the earth, return to my roots, return to the truest part of myself, return to what feels alive and sacred and deeply nourishing. And what's becoming clear to me is how easy we get swept up in the chaos of life. The pressure, the noise, the stress, the overcomplicating, the proven in trying to figure it all out. Guilty. We put so much pressure on ourselves as humans. We create all these timelines and like expectations and ideas about what we should be doing and what makes sense and what will make money, what will make us feel secure. But before we know it, we're living so far away from ourselves. And I know, I know all about it. I I've done it. And, you know, I feel like I'm still kind of in the middle of that, right? And I wanted to keep training in things and learning new things and building new skills because I thought, you know, all these things would be useful. They would open another door, and nothing is wrong with that, nothing is wrong with that. And I will be a student forever to the day I die. Um, and that's just the way it has to be. And some of the things that I have trained in in over the years were very useful in a lot of ways, but you know, I it was just like this perpetual circle, and and I had to be honest about some of the things that were pulling me further away, though, from myself and further away from what I'm actually passionate about. Even my job right now, I am wildly grateful for my job. I have this feeling all the time, like though, I want to be living a life of passion. I want my work and my energy and my days to feel and be in deeper relationship about what I actually care about in this lifetime. And I think that's the been the theme lately. And also, I'd like to share another little story with you, and that I find interesting is so my friend Grace, I think that you should definitely check out her work. Um, she owns flowers and stars. Um, I'll have to put the link in the show note, but anyway, so she makes flower essences, but she started this new line called a zodiac blend. So it's capturing the essence of your birth chart. And I've been taking it religiously for like the last, I don't know, maybe three weeks to a month at this point. And something started shifting, like it felt like it helped bring everything up to the surface with ease, like all the noise started drifting away, and the truth underneath got really obvious. Like, of course, right? Commit to the earth, return to your roots, become the herbalist you've always wanted to be. And when that landed, and and as this is landing, it felt so alive, it felt so true because Gaia is the truth, the earth is the truth. We all come from her. It's what holds us, it what feeds us, it's what reminds us of how to live when life becomes too fast, too disconnected, too unnatural. And I don't think this commitment to Gaia that I heard, you know, a few years ago is one giant dramatic leap. I think it's a relationship that's going to unfold over time. And I think it's a devotion I'm choosing to deepen into. And I'm also very aware that I'm still in a real season of life and I still need to work and I still need to provide for my family. And I'm not I'm not pretending I'm about to walk away from all my responsibilities and go live in the woods and you know, just, you know, hang out with the plants all day and communicate and make potions. I mean, sounds like a dream, and yeah, it probably will come into fruition at some point in time, but it's just not gonna probably happen at this season, right? And so this is this is more what I've been asking myself is like, how do I begin returning now inside the life that I currently have? So questions I'm asking, like, how do I make herbalism more front and center in my home now? How do I bring my children into deeper relationships with the plants now? How do I create more rhythm and ritual and more connection now? How do I start building a life that reflects what my actual values are, even when I'm in transition? Because if I'm being honest, the last year has felt like a blur. It has been really stressful, it has been hard. Um, and one of the hardest things that I need to admit is that I felt I feel so disconnected from my kids in a lot of ways. Not in a love, not like I don't care, but in capacity and presence and rhythm and those little magical moments that used to feel so natural to us as a family. We used to have like new moon parties and cook and bake and make potions and arts and crafts and you know, ritual and connection was just such a a big presence in our life. And over the last year, so much of that has taken the back seat because life is full. My capacity feels extremely low. And you know what? That hurts, that hurts um me, and it doesn't feel good. And because I don't want to just return to herbalism as a topic, I want to return to it as a way of life, a way to return back to like even the way um I mother my children. I want to return to a home that feels connected with the earth, more connected to rhythm, more connected to joy, more connected to what actually nourishes us as a unit, a family unit as well. And the deeper reason that this matters so much to me is because I don't think I'm the only one who feels this. I think modern life is disconnecting us from what truly matters. I think it's disconnecting women from their joy, from their bodies, from their intuition, from their source, from their inner power. And I think it's disconnecting mothers from their children, not because they don't love them, not because of they don't care, but because they're overwhelmed, they're overstimulated, they're stretched too thin, and they're carrying too much. And you know what? It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart how many women are actually not enjoying their lives, how many mothers are just surviving their days, barely surviving their days, and how many families are living so disconnected from the rhythm, from the presence, from the slowness from the earth, from the simple things that actually help all of us feel alive. And I think herbalism matters right now because it offers us, offers us a way back, not the only way, but a way, okay? And to me, herbalism feels like bomb for the soul. It helps us soften, it helps us regulate, it helps us receive, it helps us slow down enough to start healing, hearing and feeling again. Reminds us that medicine isn't always something outside of ourself. Sometimes medicine is growing quietly in our backyards. Sometimes medicine is in the tea we make, the food we cook our family. Sometimes the medicine is learning the plants, touching the soil, playing with the earthworms, remembering the seasons and letting our bodies come back into rhythm. And I believe women need this medicine right now. We need, and we need women's medicine, we need earth medicine, we need practices that reconnect us to our bodies, our joy, our power, our home, our families. And I think if women and mothers return to the earth, if we return to our bodies and remember how to live in relationship again, it creates ripples in our home, in our children, in our communities and beyond. And that's what I want to be a part of. I want to be sharing the wisdom and the healing power of plants. I want to crack open people's wild hearts to the beautiful medicine that is available to all of us. I want to inspire moms and families and women to remember that healing doesn't always have to be complicated. Everything, guys. We really just do. But there's wisdom and there's nourishment here and there's medicine here. And I think also what this podcast has become, and I don't, you know, I don't fully know exactly what it's going to look like yet, to be honest. It's just all unfolding. Um, but I do know I want this space to evolve with me. I want to talk more about herbalism, healing, women's wellness, motherhood, rhythm, nervous system, cyclical living, and what it means to build a life that actually feels nourishing. And it is, it is basically the premise of kind of why I started, but I just started and I didn't know. You know, I'm just showing up. And I want this to be a space where women can come back to themselves, a space that feels grounding, a space that feels honest, and a space that reminds you that you're not crazy, you know, for wanting a more intentional life or more rooted life, or just in general, you're not crazy. You just have a lot on your plate, you know. And maybe like I don't have the whole roadmap yet, but maybe the next chapter is still revealing itself, which it is, it totally is. And I don't need every detail figured out before I begin. And that's been like one of my biggest lessons. And like what I said on Monday, one of the biggest lessons is clarity comes from action. So if you feel confused, take some action and the clarity will come, okay? And so I think the commitment comes first at this stage, right? I think the devotion comes first, I think the listening comes first, and then I think the path is going to reveal itself for me. So there is a deeper message in all this, and I think sometimes returning to your roots isn't about going backwards, it's about coming to home to what has always been true and about finally honoring the call and that whisper that I heard a few years ago. And it's about letting all the noise fall away, even though I still need to be in this messy middle. And for me, that call is the earth. It is Gaia, it is herbalism, it is healing, it's rhythm, it's family, it's living in right relationship. And, you know, I just think that I'm finally listening. I like feely, really do feel like I'm finally listening. I think all this noise, all this chaos, everything that I've been through in the last year with everything, life has just got so loud that I just I like it just became so clear and so evident in the life that I want to create for myself, for my family, my community, and the world at large. And so, yeah, and just I need to remember myself. I think for a lot of us, for me personally, I always think that like maybe I'm lost or all this. I'm letting this go, but like I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm 41. I don't know what I want to do with my life. Da-da-da. It's it's all noise, it's all noise. And so I want you to know also if you're in your own season of return, and if there's something that keeps whispering to you, maybe this is your reminder to listen. Maybe you don't need to have it all the pieces or all the threads or everything figured out. Maybe you just need to honor what feels true to you right now and let that be enough to begin. Okay, my friends. So I look forward to walking with you on this journey. I'm so grateful for all of you, and thank you for being here with me in this unfolding. I'm so grateful. I love you all. And you know what? I'll talk to you in the next episode. Bye for now.