Ep 3: Symptoms as Messengers | The Connection Between Stress, Fascia & Healing with Qiddist

In this deeply expansive conversation, Lindsay and Scott sit down with Qiddist;  body-based practitioner, land steward, nonprofit founder, and creator of the God Body Movement - to explore the connection between the body, nature, survival patterns, healing, and liberation.

Qiddist shares her journey from early environmental activism and birth work to experiencing chronic pain, burnout, anxiety, reproductive challenges, and the realization that so much “change-making” work comes at the expense of the body.

Together, they explore:

• Why the body is never working against you
• How symptoms can actually be protective survival strategies
• The connection between fascia, emotions, stress & the nervous system
• Nature as a guide for healing and thriving
• Childhood conditioning, pressure & survival patterns
• The relationship between body wisdom, leadership & intuition
• Farming, seasonality, and learning to move at the pace of nature
• The God Body framework: bridging science, psyche, spirit & the body

This conversation is grounding, expansive, emotional, and full of reminders that healing is not about fixing yourself — it’s about learning how to listen.

Connect with Qiddist:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/godbody.movement

Interested in learning more about Qiddists work? Start here!

Connect with Lindsay & Scott: 

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Homestead and Hill. I'm Scott.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

And I'm Lindsay, and we live with our three children on a farm in Vermont. Our lives revolve around growing food and medicine, working with the body, and trying every day to live in deeper relationship with the earth. And now we're welcoming guests to our farm for intimate retreats where they can slow down and feel deeply into this earth-body connection.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

This podcast is about remembering something many of us have forgotten: that we're not separate from the natural world. Our bodies are part of it. Our healing comes through it. And when we reconnect to both, our purpose often begins to reveal itself.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Through conversations with herbalists, farmers, body workers, and people walking unconventional paths, we explore what it looks like to step outside the modern paradigm and build lives rooted in connection, healing, and reciprocity with the earth. Okay, so today I am so excited to have Kiddist on our show today. She is a beautiful and amazing woman that I've connected with over the last few years online. I don't know her in real life yet, but I feel like I know you, Kiddist. And I found you through Instagram, through social media. And I feel like as soon as I did find you, there was this resonance of similar ways that we think about the body. And I've just loved learning from you in some of your programs. And I really admire all of the work that you're doing in the world. And you were an obvious person for us to ask to come on because I know that you have this strong earth connection and that you homestead. And I don't know if you have animals now, but I know you have, and things like that. So I would love for you to start by just introducing yourself to our guests, what your work is in the world, and just a little bit about you. Thank you so much, Lindsay and Scott.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

It's such an honor to be here. So I am Kittist. I live on a farm outside of Portland, Oregon. I grew up in the forests. I grew up with my feet on the earth. And gosh, my work and my life has really been to be a student of liberation. And when I think about what that means, I think about the conditions, the environment, the miracles, the possibilities that allow for an organism or an ecosystem to thrive. And that has led me into being a practitioner of the body, the female body in particular, a steward of land, a systems thinker and a builder of organizations, someone who is oriented to redistributing resource. And most of my time is spent with women and children's health and supporting them in the psyche, spirit, body, earth and collective connections between all of those in what allows their thriving. And yeah, there's there's so many directions to go in there, but I will say that one of the reasons that has been my particular path is I grew up with a heart for change, for seeing change in the world and in my family. I grew up with a mother with uh mental health challenges, and I saw the impacts of not only her health, but of our systems on her from a young age. I also was, you know, a child who was very drawn to the earth and very upset about what I saw happening to the earth. So from a young age, I'm like, okay, what is it that it's it's gonna take to change things? That was like, since I was seven, perhaps, sort of like what was on my heart. And that took me in a lot of different directions. I became a birth worker in my late teens. I was an elementary school educator, I studied midwifery, I studied policy, and I was an organizer and I was working at a labor union. Like I went into all of these different fields at a pretty young age, being like, where is the entry point where change actually happens? And I did that until I was um working three jobs, doing what I felt was going to change the world, and my body was really paying the cost. I had chronic pain. Some days I could barely walk around the block. I had stopped ovulating. I was having significant pelvic pain and reproductive issues, anxiety. And as I was looking to my mentors who were in also the fields of change making, none of them were faring much better. Most of them were also uh struggling in their relationships, in their bodies. And it was sort of just assumed that was the cost of doing work in the world that mattered. And that's when, you know, it was around that time I got went to the doctor and they were like, we don't know, we think these things are incurable, we can't really help you. And that was that sort of line in the sand moment of what the heck is the point of liberation work if our bodies aren't coming along with us into that. What's the point? And I know you speak about this too, Lindsay. Like, what's the point of the money in your business? What's the point of the social change? What's the point of any of it if it is coming at the cost of our bodies? And so that took me into a decade-long exploration of the quantum field, of the female health orientations from many different lineages that really has served me in understanding how patterns and symptoms actually work in a way that doesn't add more pressure because we have enough people telling us what we have to fix and what's wrong, and how we, if we just do a little better, then we can improve. And then and instead, when we know the map of how our body-mind actually works, we can see that every symptom, every pattern, the chronic pain, the fertility actually is so precise in how it thinks it has been protecting us. Just and then I'm gonna stop talking in a second, but this is this is the earth connection because nature does not sabotage itself. Nature has no reason to fight itself. And yet we say, Oh, your body's just attacking itself, oh, you're just sabotaging yourself, but we're nature, and it's like if nature only ever does what it thinks would be useful for its survival, then that is true for us, and even that alone is such a relief. And then the whole world opens up when we can see precisely how and why. And nature has been my guiding light of when I'm not sure how to move in my business or in my community organization or in my health. I'm like, well, how does nature orient? And I know that for you both, that is so central to your life. So I'm curious, yeah, how that what sparks in you from that?

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Well, yeah, that's such a beautiful introduction. It sounds it's so cool to hear like your evolution of one, hearing how aware you were as a young person, like recognizing that you wanted to create change in the world, you know, as a seven-year-old, like having that thread come all the way through. And, you know, eventually figuring this out about needing to look after your body and then finding that earth connection. You're like, I'm so glad that Lindsay thought to have you on because you're kind of like a perfect guest. This is like the types of you know, this is like what we want to inspire people about is like when you make those connections with your body and the earth, the way forward really becomes apparent. So that's like a really beautiful introduction and cool for me to get to know your story a little bit. I'm curious as as we get into this conversation. Something that I'm always like when we're on calls. I'm always curious. So you're you're near Portland, Oregon, is that correct? Yeah. Um I kind of want to just I would be curious to hear like what is going on in the natural world where you are right now. Like, what is exciting in Portland, Oregon right now? Of like what's blooming, or what is the feeling like right there?

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yeah, so I'm about 30, 40 minutes outside of the city, right at the entrance to the Columbia Gorge. So there's waterfalls and forest and farmland, and it just feels like a cradle holds you here. And it's so beautiful. I grew up spending summers out here. I never thought I would live here, but landed here to be part of a farming community that we were building. And gosh, right now uh we're just getting our our vegetables in the ground. My tulips are blooming, our fruit trees have these beautiful little buds on them. And yeah, we just yesterday put in the ground a few hundred plants of collards and kale and onions and things that are gonna feed the community and getting ready for baby animal season as well. Goats and chickens and ducks, and our uh community farmers have sheep and yeah, lots of life at this time.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

All of life, yeah. Sounds like it. Sounds like you guys are just a little bit ahead of our season. Our fruit trees are like the buds are just swelling, and yeah. Tulips are just poking up, but they're they're not really like flowering yet. And yeah, what else?

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah, it's pretty, pretty similar, but we're a little behind. I mean, it did snow here like three days ago, so yeah, you guys it was a was a pretty cold winter, yeah. We did a cold winter.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

We did have a cold winter for sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yeah, thank you for orienting us to your land. And we're gonna dive more into kind of your childhood and those early connections, but I first want to just ask also what you're noticing in your body today, you know, this time right now, like how's your body feeling? And and are there areas of your body that are really awake and calling to you more than others?

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yeah, can I tell you a fascia story that happened a couple of days ago? Yeah, I would love that. Since you are the fascia queen.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

So the other day, I was about to teach a live call and I was playing with my dog outside, and we we throw the stick around, you know, we're playing fetch, and I'm a little absent-minded, I suppose. And I throw a stick and it hits the front window of our house, and it just totally smashes the window. Like of course, like 20 minutes before I'm about to get on this call, right? And I'm like, oh geez. And my first thought is like, and then I'm like, it's really not that big a deal. It's a window. And so, you know, I'm I'm cleaning up the glass, I'm getting ready for my call, and I call my wife and I'm like, hey, uh, I made a little, but don't worry about it. It's fine. She said, What happened? I said, I broke a window. She goes, Oh shit. And for some reason, her reaction in me, right? I went, Oh, I did a bad thing. I did a bad thing, and now my mistake is someone else's burden.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

That was my instant thought, right? And so, you know, I'm like, don't worry, I'm gonna call the window guy. It's no big deal. I'm gonna teach my class, it's all good.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

So I hang up the phone and I go and I'm sweeping things up, and all of a sudden, I have this. I've never experienced this before, this intense fascial pain that starts underneath my diaphragm and it spread across my side down to where my appendectomy scar is. Whoa. A lot of appendectomy scar stuff. And it I am watching it, right? I'm watching it move, I'm watching it grow, I'm watching this, it feels like this constriction. And I always have had this kind of tense fascia, right? At the sort of like central diaphragm spot. But I've always been like, oh, what is that about? So I can release it, I can move it, but like, what's really in there? And this moment was so cool because I was like, oh, that's what's been in there this whole time this very precise, my problems will become other people's burdens, and I'm bad for it. Oh, yeah, goosebumps. Yeah, and so I'm standing outside, I'm watching this like the fascial network like twist and turn and crunch. And I'm standing in the sun, and I looked back at the little girl who had the ependectomy, who felt like being in the hospital was such a burden to her family that was already going through a lot. And I look at my phone, and my wife had texted me, and she said, Don't worry about the window. Teach a class, it's gonna be great. She even said, she said, um, one time I totaled our car and it was actually great because it wiped our debt clean. We didn't really need the car anyway. And she said, You always total the car in our favor. I love that. And I see that text and I look back at that little girl who had the apphendectomy, and I was like, this is what gets to happen now. Now it's okay if other people have to share in your mistakes, and actually it's fine. There are more windows. Oh my gosh. And I watch the fascia just completely released, and now that place that is usually so crunchy in my diaphragm that pulls on my appendix scar isn't there. Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

I love that so much.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't broken the window, and that's what symptoms are so cool because I would really would not, I would not have seen what was living in my fascia unless I had had the window and had my wife go and me go. So that's what's been really cool in my body the last 48 hours.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

I love that so much. And I I love the way you teach on these symptoms being these amazing messages from our body and the ways that we can get awareness into these deeper patterns and the way they've been protecting us, you know, and the way they've been helping us really in a lot of ways, if we can orient around that. So that is just so beautiful. I'm a little bit teary because I just, yeah, I love, I love connecting with you because you get it, you know, like we get the same thing. Like we get how cool it can be when you connect to your body and also the earth, right? And what it's all to all connected. I wonder if you want to speak a little bit on what's most alive in your work right now, because I know you are leading this future in the flesh, which this will come out in mid-May. So you'll probably be done with it by then. But if there's anything that you really want to speak to that's most alive in your work before we get into kind of childhood stories and that led you there, I would love that.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Beautiful. Yeah. So uh one, so my work, I'm always like, my work is so many concentric circles. But so I have my land work in person where I run a nonprofit that serves farmers, uh, particularly black and brown farmers and land stewards. And then in my mostly virtual, sometimes in-person world, uh, I run an institute for women who are leaders and aspiring practitioners of really the medicine of their body and their magic and their heart-led missions. And one aspect of this is what we call the God body movement. And God body is the way that we talk about uh symptoms and symptom alchemy and what shifts in the body when we can be both with the body, the earth, the ache that's been here, the lived reality of our flesh, and simultaneously the wider field of the unseen, uh spirit, source, god, possibility. And oftentimes we go a little far in either direction, right? We can transcend the body and just meditate and positive think, but the body doesn't respond that well to that, or we can get stuck in the loop and another grief circle, another feeling spiral, another analysis of like, oh, but this thing. And so our work is really how do we get to bring in both at the same time in a way that really precisely helps us get to the root of what is happening with our symptoms? Just like the fascia story, it was like this moment, right, of being both with the lived reality of the past and the ache that little girl held, and also this sparkling field of her inevitable future, where it's just a window. And so I teach a program that is called the God Body Experience, and it's a four-month program where we go through for any symptom of getting to the root of what the psyche message is, uh, how to play with it in a way that doesn't cause more pressure. And it's really quite beautiful because yes, it's about the body and symptoms, but we really work with change makers and leaders who aren't just here to heal personally, they're interested in looking at their body as a signal for the type of leadership that they're here to steward. So that's a that's what's coming up. And yeah, right now I have Future in the Flesh, which may not be available later, but it's uh it will be starting in June. Okay, amazing. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah, that sounds like such a unique sort of offering that you're bringing to the world, and you're so articulate. It's it's nice talking with you.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Um I might have to share um some of your teachings with Scott. I know it's centered around women, but I think he'd really get a lot.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yeah, I'm kind of like, I I need I need to delve in some because I'm certainly getting some messages from my body that I I don't always know what to do with, or it sounds like really super intriguing to me. So that's cool. Even if you're just sparking that, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Opening.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah, an opening to consider what my body is telling me. So, all that being said, uh yeah, we're curious about like um what your childhood was like. You you talked about having your feet on the earth and in the forest as a child. So kind of just curious about, you know, when we're talking with people who were were excited that they're what they're bringing to the world, can you see the makings of what you're doing now in your child self? Were there, yeah, what was your connection with nature like and who were some of the people that maybe were super influential on you as you are today?

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Yeah, it's almost spooky when I look back and like, oh, of course I'm doing everything that I'm doing now. It was all laid out right there. Um I went to a K through 12 school that was quite unique in that it actually was on a piece of property that used to be a farm. And so we ate our lunch in this building that was called the barn. It was in the shape of a barn, it used to be a barn. We would have to run through a forest in order to get to PE. Um, when we would be in PE and running around the track, there would be goats that they had for eating blackberries, and the goats would be giving birth while we ran around the track. So that was how I grew up every day. Was there was an element of walking, especially in nature between parts of your day. From a young age, we had the freedom from first grade. They let they open the door and they would say, you know, run through the forest and down the field and around the paddock to get to, you know, your next class. And there was also an element, I don't think it's like this now, but there was an element of ceremony. You know, we would celebrate the equinox, we would sing around a fire. We there was just so much reverence for the natural world uh that my family also really held that was a value. In my family. My mother is from Ethiopia. And actually, the place where her family lived looks in some way similar to Portland, where it's kind of like the city is held in this very lush green bowl. And so when I first went to Ethiopia, I was like, oh, I get why Oregon feels like home to you. And my father spent most of his work taking people around natural places in Oregon and having them build relationship with uh the nature here. So that was always of real, of real value culturally. And when I was in first grade, I started a club called the Environmental Friends. Uh and I would convince everyone to spend their recesses picking up trash in the forest. And somehow I convinced someone to get me a megaphone. And I could then convinced a parent to donate trees. And I would gather everyone around and have them plant trees. I had us go to the mayor's office in third grade and plant flowers. I was like honorable. I don't I so I don't know what made me like that, but the earth and the body were always a fascination to me. And I do think, especially growing up with a mother who I could see how things out of her control, both her past traumas and also the way that her brain was processing information, was causing um such turmoil that I was so fascinated by the brain. I was like, well, what is it that makes that happen for one person and not another? And what is it that changes that? And I saw friends and other people, you know, I there was a lot of challenge in my childhood, but I was seemingly pretty okay. And I saw others, and I'm like, what is it that actually drives this? And so when I was a kid, the only thing I would ask for for Christmas, or remember when maybe I was like 10, was a book on neuroscience. And I would read this book and then I would create songs to remember all the information. It was kind of weird now that I think about it, but in a great way.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

In the best way.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

So just like, what drives human behavior? How does the brain work? What drives people to throw trash out their window? I really was like, I'm not getting it, people. You know, and I'm gonna get it.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

My kids ask right now because where we live in Vermont, like on our little road, there's tons of trash. We just visited my brother in Austin, Texas, and there was less trash on the road there. And they were like, why do people throw trash out their window?

SPEAKER_01 24:44

I wouldn't say there's tons of trash, but there's a bunch. I think it's like a couple of people who for some reason think it's funny or get a thrill out of like throwing stuff out their car.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

No, it's hard to more trash than feels appropriate, is what we're any amount is more than any amount. It's too much.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

I was just gonna ask, do you remember any of the neuroscience songs that you made up? Because I did show Scott a clip of you singing because I love your singing voice. And he's like, should we ask her to sing? And this you just brought it up, so I have to.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Jokingly, I was like, Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

I do, I think I do. I'd have to think about it. I remember one because I got this book for Christmas, and so I came up with a a song like to the tune of jingle bells. Just give us one line of it if you're it would be like frontal love, temporal love, no, frontal love, oxygenal love, temporal temporal prior. Okay, amazing. I literally mentioned the song.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 25:53

Nuts, absolutely nuts. And I will say one other experience that um really stands out in my memory is my first experience with energy medicine, which is that I was in kindergarten and I had a lot of, I had a lot of digestive issues as a kid, a lot of ear infections, a lot of things as I was processing what was happening, you know, in my family system in my experience. And I was in kindergarten and a friend had come over to play, and her mom was there. And I remember having a really bad belly ache, um, which wasn't uncommon. And I was kind of bummed because I had to It's actually the same thing as with the fashion. I was like, I remember having this feeling of like, oh, I have to sit down, but I feel like it's a burden because this friend came over to play, and now I have to like kind of sit it out. And her her mom came over to me and she said, you know, is it okay if I kind of see what we can do? And I'm like, sure. And I remember her putting her hands over my body and not touching me actually, but maybe just putting her hands a few inches above my belly. And I had this visceral memory of within maybe two or three minutes, it felt the experience I had that was causing this constriction in my belly was being magnetized to her hands. Like I could feel it leaving my body. And within a few minutes, the sensations passed. I don't remember talking about it with her. I mean, it was five. And then I got up. I remember getting up and going to play, but it really landed in me of what was possible. I was like, okay, if that's possible, what else is possible?

SPEAKER_02 27:35

So my other weird obsession as a kid was string theory, and I would stay up late and watch Nova Science Now and take notes because I was like, what else is possible?

SPEAKER_03 27:48

This miraculous thing. How could I be sitting there? And I was feeling this thing and I watched it leave me. I want to know how to do that. So all those experiences feel pretty on par for what my life is like now.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah, absolutely. I'm wondering with I don't know if you feel like sharing it all about your mom, but I wonder, does she did you sense that she had the same connection to her body and nature? Or I'm curious too about like ancestral connection, either your Ethiopian ancestors or otherwise, do you know much about your lineage and their connection with their bodies and nature?

SPEAKER_03 28:26

Yeah, my mom is incredibly intuitive. Incredibly intuitive. And in in some ways, and I think this is common, when you take high sensitivity and intuition meets intense experiences. You know, she grew up during the war in Ethiopia and she survived a lot of really intense things. It's it becomes challenging to trust your intuition and make sense of what was happening. And so she would have PTSD about things that had happened to her in the past, but she was also deeply connected to body earth nature. I remember going on a hike and it was a really dry, hot day, and the air was so still. And I remember her sitting at the top of this peak we were climbing, and she just goes, Spirits, I need a breeze. And all of a sudden it was like whoosh, this big wave of wind passed through. That is my mom. She was very tapped in. And sometimes the amount of tapped in caused her turmoil. And in a perhaps a less intense way, I actually work with women like that a lot when we teach our sort of our elemental magic and foundations of kind of working with the unseen, working with energy, is so many people who, and especially women who have been really sensitive, feel like the world is too much. I feel other people's emotions or I see things that other people can't see, and it feels actually like a burden. And so part of what I love to get to do is actually help women hone that in a way that it doesn't cause them suffering. It actually gets to serve them. Because I saw that in my mom. I saw her highly energetically attuned nature actually be a source of more suffering because there's just all this input that she didn't know what to do with, understandably.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

That totally makes sense. And I see that a lot too with women I work with, where yeah, where I think just in our modern world, to be a highly sensitive and intuitive person in a world that isn't set up for those kind of people, it can feel really confronting.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Well, the world is overwhelming just in a just for anyone. I mean, in this like modern moment, yeah. In so many ways. Just like the pace of our life, the expectations on our backs, plus like the world news and like what we're doing to the environment and like what that looks like with moving towards nine billion people on Earth.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah. Yeah, it was nice to come home from Austin and my kids last night or the night before at dinner, my daughter was just like, I'm so glad we live where we do. I'm so glad we get to just be outside. And, you know, they were immediately like right into my son was catching nudes and they were like noticing the flowers that had come up since we left. And yeah, it's just somewhat lacking. And I think all of my children are sensitive, but especially my son. And I feel like when he's home and able to just be like grounded, it's so I can see how, yeah, especially if you've you're highly sensitive, you've suffered some big big traumas and you're really connected. Doesn't you don't always know how to move that energy through you or how to kind of create enough of a barrier within your body, mind, soul to protect yourself and have your own experience and let the world kind of God source, like move through you, if that makes sense. And how about like ancestrally? Do you know much about further back than your mom and dad and their connection to earth, body? I know a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

My mom was mostly raised by her, her grandmother, her paternal grandmother, who was a midwife. And so I often say that like she and my mom says like she, her spirit must have come into you because ever since the first birth I attended when I was 19-20, I felt like even though I didn't have the content knowledge yet, it felt natural. I knew my hands knew where to be and what to do. So, yes, my my great-grandmother was similarly very connected to body, and she was the town medicine woman where people would come if they had something with their tonsils or something with their baby. And in many ways, our home and our land has become that spot where the people in the community come when something is up with their body, they come and they land here. And in terms of tradition, I mean there's so much there in terms of how they related to the body. But what I think is really standout to me is that and I think this is true of all intact cultures, is that the body is not separate from nature. It's not nature and then our bodies, it's all one thing. And so what is possible, what is possible in the nature in nature is also possible in our bodies, and that knowing. And there's there's all these sort of mystical traditions about how energy changes matter. And that has been something that I found particularly fascinating in studying from the sort of like a quantum mechanics perspective. But you can call it whatever you want, call it quantum mechanics, you call it God, you call it prayer, you call it energy. And you know, she tells stories and other my uncle was telling a story about like, oh yeah, there are there are people in the community who, you know, their thing that they work with is the weather. And you can ask them, you know, if you're having an event and they'll work with the weather to shift the clouds. And those same people, you know, will help you orient to how to shift something in the body. And it's just sort of it's taken seriously in a way. There's a deep reverence. It's like you gotta kind of come at this with respect because of the power of what's possible, but it's woven into the realities of the culture and the place and the land and the honoring of all the seen and unseen forces. Yeah, so well.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Yeah, that's amazing. I feel like we in the United States suffer from like the opposite end of the spectrum of that of like, if we can't see it, if we can't prove it empirically, like we don't believe it, it's not true, it doesn't exist, and which is so ridiculous because we've only scratched the surface with any of our best science. You know, it's like most of it is miraculous and unknown, and so hearing about traditions where that's more intact is inspiring for sure. I feel like you alluded to this a little bit earlier, but I'm curious if there were if you can remember times in your life where you felt disconnected from body or earth, which we're you know, discovering are one and the same, but just to sort of like hear your path back or if and it sounds like the depletion you experience when you're pushing so hard is maybe part of that answer. But yeah, curious about disconnection.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

Yeah, absolutely. When I was living in Chicago and was also in this state of heightened pushing forward movement, you know, work three jobs, pay for school, change the world, help everyone, you know, though that that season, that season of life. The strategies that I learned as a child to do what I thought would best protect my family's survival and therefore my survival, which looked like do more and do well, were so loud that my body was was paying the cost. And certainly being in a place so different from Oregon where I was mostly around concrete. There was Lake Michigan, which I love, but a lot of concrete, a lot of being indoors, plus this feeling of like if I stop, I won't make it, which is how I learned to feel like I had agency as a child under conditions that I couldn't control. Well, what I can control is do really well, help other people do more, to be more accomplished. And I think the way back into body relationship in a deeper way really did come from coming up against the edge of hearing, and my mother was like this too. You know, hearing a doctor say this is just what it is, this is just what it is, and we can't actually help you any more than this. And coming up against that and knowing having that light actually turn back on in that moment of being like, that's not true. I can't explain how or why, but my felt sense is that isn't true. And so that moment was in some ways the reconnection light coming on, just like the broken window was actually the light bulb moment that brought me back into what Fasha was trying to say. And then it just sort of spiraled from there in the best of ways. I went to clinical herbal school. I was already doing midwifery studies at the time, but I really dove into female health from whether it was minerals or hormones or homeopathy and herbalism, uh so many different layers until I really landed in this psychobiology piece, how our psyche impacts our biology. And a lot of what I learned was really beautiful and helpful, but it also added more things that I needed to be good at, you know, which I think a lot of us experience right now in the wellness space. It's like, okay, I need to do this and I need to do that, I have to make sure I'm hydrated, I have to take my supplements, I gotta, oh gosh, now I'm not good at this part, and I didn't do my 30 minutes of fascia care every day, all of those things. And when I landed in the psychobiology piece and like really how our brain back to the brain, how our brains evolved, and how each organ system, each part of the body is governed by a part of the brain with a particular goal, particular function. It brought so much relief of being like, oh, actually, the chronic pain is still there, not because I haven't done enough yet, but because the part of the brain that thinks that would be the useful survival strategy still thinks it's a useful survival strategy. Oh, my ovulation hasn't returned, not because I haven't been good enough at taking the right supplements, but because it thinks that would be the survival strategy. And that's, I think, what I love about what I get to do is that I think most of us know there's an emotional connection to our symptoms. There's a spirit level connection. Okay, we get it. Our body is trying to help us, but how, right? How would my pain be related to what body thinks is used for survival? Getting to that level of specificity just like opens up a whole world of possibility.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

And that and the earth, it feels related to farming to me, you know, when I think about like why these plants go together or how this bug and this plant have a relationship or this kind of yeah, this kind of is just reminding me of a lot of the way Scott kind of talks about growing food is like similar to what you're describing in the body, that like you don't, yes, it's helpful to know how to you know balance the minerals in your soil, but like so much of it is actually just more like observation and listening and seeing and yeah, I'll often like have a specific idea of I'll have like a tree that I want to plant and I've been observing our farm for the last 15 years now.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

So, you know, like get to know like every little like aspect about and sometimes not like I built a garden in a spot a couple years ago that I'd never really considered building a garden there, and then our son Remy was like wanting to spend every day catching newts in the pond. And so I was over there with him and I was like, wow, like just hadn't recognized that there was an opportunity there because the way the sun comes through and then it happens, this one spot happens to step up a little bit out of the wet spot. And I was like, wow, this is actually like I've never considered having our garden here now. It's one of our main gardens because just having been there to observe that what I'd say about the trees is I'll think long and hard about where I want to plant trees because like they're gonna outlive us, you know, and I want them to have the best opportunity to like really thrive and be amazing. And I'll often have thought about it really analytically and figured out the spot, and then I'll arrive there to plant the tree, and I'm like, no, no, this is not it. Sometimes it can be a bit of a burden, like it's hard to have to sit with it longer. Sometimes trees end up, I'll put them in a bigger pot because I didn't figure out where it's going this year, you know? Cause I but yeah, just like being able to tap into those messages that are there for our yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

And similarly to the body, like when you have an ailment, it can be even for me and knowing that I need to broaden my perspective, knowing the fascia connects from head to toe and things like that, when it's my own body, it can be hard to just remember to kind of zoom out, you know, like you're saying. Like it's easy to think like, okay, the problem is my left shoulder. So I need to do this, this, and this, or like the problem is my whatever thyroid. I need to take this medication, this supplement, this, you know, all these things, as opposed to like the full picture, really is yes.

SPEAKER_03 43:08

Well, and I can hear that. I see that in your work, Lindsay, in terms of like this whole body-fascial connection of zooming out and even in hearing you, Scott, and just seeing this sort of image of like it feels like this relational communication loop between you, the tree, the land, and you. And it just sort of spirals, right? And you're like, here.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

Totally.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

And the land's like, eh. And the tree's like, and then you're like, okay, taking that here. And that's actually so similar to how I think about working with the body. And, you know, another sort of example of that where it's like, oh, it's not what you think. You're like, yes, it's gonna be in the tree, it's gonna go here. And then the land's like, no. I remember having a call with a dear, dear woman who was was pregnant and experiencing right. Is that right? Yeah, right scapula pain. And you know, we're talking and I'm listening to how she's talking and what she's speaking about. And she's speaking about her family and like money and her parents and because I know a little bit about this zoomed out map, right? Of like, okay, I'm hearing how she's talking, and how she's speaking sounds like the voice of the liver and what the liver is oriented to and resource and scarcity. We just had her bring her hands, and I'm at distance, and I'm with her and her liver, and she's with her and her liver. And it took us back to this moment in time, this resource, family, parents, money. Will I get support? And as we attended and just listened, just like Scott, you're kind of listening, like, okay, here the body went, oh. And then the shoulder pain went away and it didn't come back. And it's not what I would have thought with my thinking mind. Just like it's not what you would have thought with where the tree you thought the tree was gonna go. But that skill that you have with the land and Lindsay, that you have with the fascia and the body is what my heart just sings with, and what I want for all of us, and especially women who are wanting to be in leadership around the body, is to get to that place of being with someone and in that soft zoom out, being like, here. And you don't even have to know if you're right, because the body will tell you, just like the land will be like, that's not where the tree's going, bro.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

Yeah, absolutely. I love that so much. Do you have any? We have a few more questions, but I feel like we've jumped around kind of all over the place. Is there anything that's coming up for you, Scott?

SPEAKER_01 45:47

No, I mean, I just love that framing. Like I for me, I have I've had some health things going on in the last several years, and my sort of like go-to is just like power through. You know, like I feel good when my body is like doing productive things, like at our place, like being on the land, planting, and and sometimes that works, and sometimes as I'm getting like slightly altered, sometimes that doesn't work as well. And I guess for me, it like that kind of works because when I'm out there, I just feel so in the flow and so like held by the earth that it just sort of like it works. Like it doesn't allow my worrying sort of mind to get ahead of myself. And so that kind of works. But the aches and pains don't go away. My thyroid health hasn't been improving, this sort of thing. So your framework of like listening to these messages is just really inspiring to me. Um I'm excited to like learn more about what it is that you're doing and what you've learned.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Well, and just I can reflect just from seeing Scott, for example, like get a lab report that he's like, what the fuck? But like his body actually in that moment is feeling pretty good. So it's like this interesting, you know, it's it's one thing if you feel terrible and then you get a lab report that kind of confirms that. It's another thing to be feeling good, get a lab report and be like, like suddenly be like boom, really tripped up by it, by like, wow. Oh my gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

So yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 47:24

Yes, yes. And because a lab report is one snapshot of a moment in time. And let's say it, let's just say it's thyroid. If the time when you got that lab test, body mind has been thinking, for example, oh, hey, we're actually gonna need to move faster. We're actually gonna need to do more and move faster in order to get the planting done this season, right? That's gonna create a different thyroid lab.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

Sure, sure. And I mean, that could be the answer. That could be why my TSH is always showing up super high, but it is like years of that pattern. But again, yes, years of that pattern of I do generally, I'm a really slow moving, slow speaking. I want to say I'm slow thinking. I feel like my mind is quite like busy, but it is I'm typically trying to like catch up to the demand of the world in the season because I am just like so slow in my process. That maybe that is certainly part of it.

SPEAKER_03 48:28

Yeah. May I may I ask in a follow-up?

SPEAKER_01 48:30

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03 48:31

About that. Um was that kind of your general disposition in your family too? Like a little bit slow moving in the body.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I had an aunt who was like, I'm so glad you like turned out like good and normal. I was like, what do you mean? She's like, you're just so odd as a kid. Like I didn't, I didn't know. But I think that's kind of what she was getting at.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

Uh uh. Like not at the pace of everyone else.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:01

Yeah. And what would have been the what would have been like a consequence of you not being at the pace of everyone else?

SPEAKER_01 49:10

I can relate to that more like in my farming career. Like, so we have a short season here, and in order to like pay the bills, selling carrots and things like that, it is such a hassle. And so, yeah, and I would be always conscious of like our our soils tend to be a little too wet to work in the spring. But like, I kind of need to work them. I kind of need to get this happening so that we've got like all this produce coming in at the same time as other vendors and other farmers. And like it was such a big push to make that happen. And it was just kind of like a little bit against my nature to um I I always get this um, you know, sometimes in our tea bags they have the little like bit of wisdom on the little um cardboard piece. And one that I feel like I get a lot or always occurs to me is nature doesn't hurry yet, like everything gets done. Everything's accomplished. Everything's accomplished, and I'm always like trying to get back to that. But like the realities of running a produced farm, an organic produce farm, like it's hard. It's a push, you know. And I feel like even now that we plant a lot less, I feel like I'm so conditioned to that pace that sometimes sometimes I feel like stressed out about things. I'm like, oh wait, like the seeding, I'm not gonna spend the whole day doing this seeding of whatever crop it is. It's gonna take me like 20 minutes because I'm doing so much less than I used to, but I still have that sort of built-in conditioned sense of like, oh, I have to like seed the tomatoes soon. Like there's some like stress response because of the way we operated our business, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:56

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. It makes so much sense. And Ethan, if you hadn't said anything about thyroid, if I had heard you speak, probably one of my first questions I would ask would be, Do you have any thyroid stuff? Because I can hear your thyroid speaking when you're like, there's a cost of me not keeping up. And on the one hand, that experience is real. You're like, no, literally, we're not gonna make the money with the carrots if we don't keep up the pace and go a little bit, what did you say, against my nature?

SPEAKER_01 51:33

A little bit, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

Yeah. And so there's the there's the 3D reality of what's been happening. And then there's how mind is attached information to it. So it's like if if we're on a safari and our zebra sees a lion coming and the zebra starts running away, I might say, Whoa, the lion made that zebra run away. Right. But you, Scott, would probably tell me, like, actually, the lion probably would prefer the zebra to be sleepy so it could have punched. So the lion didn't make the zebra run away. Zebra's mind was like, Whoa, there's a threat here. Time to run away. So I'm hearing that in your experience too, of like the carrots, right? And your body mind learned at some point, probably earlier, especially if this has been going on for years, there's a cost to moving at the pace that's true to our nature. It would be better to move faster because if we don't, fill in the blank. We don't make the money our aunt thinks we're weird and won't turn out normal. I don't know, my my family leaves me behind, whatever it is. And so Rain will think we love having high TSH for Scott. We love turning up the metabolism so that he can go faster, so he can make sure that he stays with his family, so he can make sure that he gets the money. And obviously, this is like a 10-minute intro into it, but that's where things before the the the phrase, the beautiful phrase he said of nature doesn't rush and yeah, everything gets done. That is the truth of what you get to receive and slash, but the young Scott who was like, No, you guys don't get it. I actually have to go faster because I'm weird and everyone else is expecting something of me, isn't isn't gonna buy that story probably yet. He right, he probably needs like he's gonna need to know. Yeah, of course your TSH would be high. Of course, you would think going faster, feeling the pressure of going faster was gonna be what you needed to do to survive and make the money. So that would be the place that I would go anytime you're in the field. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

I didn't know I was gonna be working on myself here today, but thank you so much. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

I mean, I didn't have that as an ulterior motive, but I know you're a genius. So I'm I'm very happy about this moment right now. And I do, I mean, I can just see that for 13 years, this really intense pressure of farming and getting to this point of eventually just, I mean, I would say that it was largely from my pushing of like, this isn't working for your body, you know, like you need to slow down and also just recognizing its gifts.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

So Lindsay's business picked up to a point where like it became obvious that trying to sell produce to like pay our bills was not the thing that was gonna work fantastically for us.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

And just not, it just doesn't support your your true innate like essence of who you are.

SPEAKER_01 54:48

No it's really but now I get to still be farming. Like I spend all my time still working on our place, growing our food, growing our medicine, but without that external pressure, although I'm still learning not to have the pressure.

SPEAKER_03 55:03

But a lot of ahas here. This is amazing. Yeah, it's probably pretty because that's only been in the last what, like year, uh couple years, couple years now, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So a lifetime of move faster or else, and then a couple years of like, oh wait, I actually get to do this, and the pace can be different now. Yeah, it's such a such a rebuilding of neural pathways that have had decades. So if you have worn in, to have been worn in, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

That's been that that was amazing. Thank you. It was so beautiful to just witness this connection here. And I'm just curious, you know, if you what advice would you give someone that, you know, I just feel like clearly you have you're on your path. You are living your dreams in so many ways. And like if there was some advice that you wanted to give someone who's listening to this who feels inspired, but just kind of like, what do I do next? And having that, you know, they're in their mind, they're trying to think about how to get to this place where you are or where we are. What what advice might you give them?

SPEAKER_03 56:22

The first would be you get to change your mind as many times as you want. Because I know for me, sometimes there's this pressure of like I have to know what it is that I'm doing and then stick with it. And it's really more like a path of you know, you step on one stone and then the next one appears, and then the next one appears, and it might take you in a completely different direction. I never thought I didn't set out to have a farming nonprofit and have like an online psyche body science magic school. That was not what I was like, and this is what I will do. You know, it evolved. You know, allowing your curiosity to lead you and knowing that it gets to change, it will change. And then the other one is that just playing with the question of what if the thing that's looked like it's been in the way, the thing that's been like, oh, the reason I can't, the reason I haven't, whether it's a physical symptom or like a mental emotional loop, like what if that actually held the key for what you're here to lead and receive.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

I love that so much.

SPEAKER_03 57:39

And you don't even have to know how yet, but if Scott's time pressure thyroid is actually part of, and it is, I see the medicine through what Lindsay has shared of you, Scott, and this like I do I even feel it in your presence of like this earth pace, right? Like I get to receive a medicine from you of like, oh right, the pace of the earth.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

Like the symptom actually holds the thing that like is the medicine that you get to receive and share that I receive from you. And there's so many reasons why the wor like society will tell us, like, oh, we're not ready because or this thing's in the way, or once you heal the mindset, once you don't have the pain, once you but like what if it held the thing that is what you're here for? So that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

That's so beautiful, and I love the way you bring play in, and just I think that will be a fun thing for Scott and I to both work with more is just kind of play when these symptoms come up.

unknown 58:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Yeah, I feel inspired. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 58:52

I'm not that it takes that much to inspire either of us, but I'm just feeling so excited to have this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

It takes a certain sort of thing to inspire us, something that resonates.

SPEAKER_00 59:04

Yeah, and this really has resonated so much, Cadiss. I'm so grateful. I'm wondering if you want to share anything else about where people can find you. I know you shared a little bit about your programs, but anything else that you feel like would be really, really great to share with people so they can find you and connect with you.

SPEAKER_03 59:22

Yeah, you can connect with me on Instagram at godbody.movement. We have our Godbody program that's for anyone that wants to orient in this way that meets science and spirit and body and symptom, not just for the purpose of feeling better, although that's amazing, but also as something that gets to amplify your leadership and your medicine that you're here for in the world.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

And are you doing some of that with your wife?

SPEAKER_03 59:51

Pardon that now? Okay. Yeah, my wife is she is a pastor and a DJ and a lawyer. And yeah, don't hear that every day. Um she also um teaches with me uh inside that, in inside that space. We have our institute that I co-hold with a dear teacher friend, Mora. We've been working together for the last decade. We have an institute for women who are really like, yeah, I want to hone my work in the world through this paradigm. And then I have a nonprofit you can find out more about at Black Oregon Land Trust. And we are building a land-based community out here in Corbett, just east of Portland. We've got five farm sites and a little over a hundred acres across these sites building a food security and land sovereignty movement. That's pretty, yeah, pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

Gosh, that's so exciting and amazing. And yeah, all goosebumps hearing you talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:49

Maybe someday we can come and visit the farm.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:52

Yes, please. And I was thinking the same. I mean, yeah, it's so inspiring and a good reminder for me hearing about how much time, again, haha, time you all have put into your land and how you're building it and creating these spaces for people to come and gather. I know that we've only been doing our our land work here in Oregon for four years. We started the nonprofit. And so we're just in our infancy, really. And it's so inspiring to see the love that you've poured into the land that you steward and how you're opening it up to others. And this like long, long-range time of what you're growing and the intention that goes into every tree. Uh, it's a really lovely reminder for me, especially when I get in into my nonprofit mode and I think about like, okay, but are we serving all the people and all the sites and all the food we gotta grow and all same same stuff, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

So I I would love to visit you all one day as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

Yes, we would love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:51

Well, thank you so, so much. And we are so grateful that you came on today.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

So nice to meet you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

Thank you for listening to this episode of Homestead and Heal. If you loved it, please help us spread the word by subscribing to this podcast and leaving us a review. For more information about our work, visit homesteadandheal.net.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

We're wishing you the life of your dreams, one that feels deeply rooted, fully alive, and connected to the earth beneath your feet.