Herbal First Aid and Beyond
Feel confident about treating a wide variety of ailments, injuries and infections using local herbs
~ a 2 day, hands-on, how-to, training for intermediate & advanced herb students
Greetings novice & intermediate herbies,
Have you ever thought about using herbs for first aid, but then stopped yourself?
“What if this doesn’t work? What if I make things worse? eek!”
You already know something about using herbs. You’ve learned enough to trust that herbs can work.
But the situation felt serious enough that instead of reaching for herbs, you reached for the over-the-counter (OTC) remedy that you’re more familiar with.
Instead of risking what might work, you opted for using a remedy that you believed would work.
We’ve all done it. Every single herbalist has had this experience.
It’s part of the learning curve for all of us, whether you’re a backyard herbalist or a professional consultant.
That’s because …
there’s a BIG difference between
believing that herbs can heal
and
knowing how to heal with herbs.
It’s the difference between information and knowledge, between theory and practice, between faith and trust.
Information about herbs is not enough! People need to trust that the remedy will work or they won’t even try it.
And until you have the experience(s) that you can truly trust the herbs, it will feel like a risk to use them.
[Part of the reason that herbs are often the last thing that folks try is because when you know that all the other options don’t work, you’ve got nothing to lose.]
I created this 2 day training to take you from:
“I believe that herbs can work”
to
“I trust the herbs, AND I have confidence in myself”
After doing herbal first aid for 20 years, I’ve seen herbs heal in ways that can only be called “miraculous”. I’ve also learned when it’s too much for herbs and medical help is required.
Have any of these ever happened to you?
You cut yourself. You grab the Yarrow and realize … how do you actually do this? Do you use the dry plant or the fresh plant? Do you use the leaves, the flowers or the roots? Do you eat it, drink it or put it on the cut?
Your child gets an insect sting/bite in the yard. You pick some plantain from the grass. You chew it a little and put it on the bite. But the pain doesn’t stop, the tears don’t dry. It didn’t work. Why?! What went wrong?
You have a severe headache. You’d normally reach for aspirin or tylenol, but you want to use Willow. Do you make tea with the leaves? Do you make a poultice or take some tincture? And what dose is needed?
Unfortunately, so much herbal information is shared in the format:
“X (herb) is good for Y (condition).”
Things like:
Valerian is good for sleep
Willow is for headaches
Hemlock is for politicians
But there’s a problem with this. (Well, there are actually many problems with this, but let’s start with the most relevant.)
It’s not enough information to tell you how to use them.
MAYBE, if you have experience using herbs, this MAY be helpful. But even then, you might discover that it’s not enough info to act on.
In a Crisis Moment…
When you’re experiencing a crisis (or pain or urgency), you need your trusted herbs to be ready to use.
Herbs can work fast, within seconds even, but they need to be ready for you.
This isn’t the time to go foraging. It isn’t the time to go searching through the tea cupboard. And it isn’t the time for making a remedy.
3 Things are Needed for a First Aid:
Your tools & remedies need to be pre-prepared, ready and easily found. This means your herbal preparations as well as your standard first aid supplies.
You need to be prepared. Are you ready to deal with blood? Screams of pain? Vomit? Fear - both theirs and yours?
Be Ready to Improvise. After you’ve prepared as well as possible, life will throw you a curveball. It's impossible to predict what will happen, so you need to be creative in how you use what’s available in the moment.
Pre-prepare Your Tools & Remedies
For years, I’ve been teaching this material at “primitive” skills gatherings where people can be idealistic about “living off the land.”
They often want me to teach them what herbs we can gather from the wild to treat specific situations.
It’s a lovely, romantic idea. And yes, it would be possible. But it is FAR FROM IDEAL.
You do not want to be searching for plants to harvest AFTER the acute need for those herbs has occurred.
If someone is feverish and vomiting from food poisoning, you want the activated charcoal ready to give them. This isn’t the time to start a fire to make some charcoal. You want to give them something ASAP.
Of course, life isn’t always ideal, and first aid crises, least of all. So yes, you might need to pick, dig, mash, steep, brew, cook, or prepare something ‘on the fly’. But if you can avoid doing that, you’ll have better outcomes and a lot less stress.
Even if you’re at home. You don’t want to be searching for the herbs.
If you find the tylenol before the Willow tincture, which do you think you’ll end up using?
Pre-prepare Yourself
The single most important part of any first aid training has nothing to do with the remedies or protocols. It’s about getting yourself ready to help someone who is struggling.
When you pretend that someone is hurt or sick, when you practise what you will do and how you will do it, this is getting you ready.
In this workshop, you’ll go through a number of small group scenarios that will get you ready to receive someone in distress. Even if you don’t know what to do or what herbs will help, you can make the situation better just by how you greet them.
I’ll say that again…
the secret to successful first aid is 99% about how you receive people and only 1% which herbs or protocol you use.
Maybe a group member pretends to have a burn or broken bone. They come to you fake crying at first, pretending it hurts. But they get into it enough that it sorta feels real.
And when they might give a real-sounding scream, you’re going to have some of your own feelings come up.
Maybe your heart starts racing and you’re thinking, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t do this.” You feel your body going into a panic state.
And then you freeze. Your mind is blank.
You know it’s pretend on some level, but you’re having an emotional response. To be clear, this is a completely reasonable emotional response. This is what happens to 9/10 people.
But I trust you agree that this is NOT how you want to respond during an actual first aid situation, is it?
To get yourself ready, you need to practise.
That’s what is meant when it says a “hands-on” workshop.
But it goes way beyond that. Because you’ll also learn what herbs work best for you personally to stay or return to calm and centred.
Note: this is not a medicine making course and not a foraging course. We’ll be working with pre-made remedies or pre-died plants. Depending on time of year and availability, we may include some live plants so that you can see what’s inside the remedy.
Resilience Comes from Your Ability to Improvise.
You won’t always have your full tool kit with you. You might spill all of your arnica liniment. Someone could have an unusual allergy. Or worse, there’s no Plantain in the grass.
Countless other less-than-ideal twists may happen that make it impossible to use your usual approach.
Question: What do you do when you don’t have your “go to” remedies?
Answer: You learn about the ACTIONS that herbs do rather than becoming dependent on specific herbs.
When you understand the various Actions that a plant does when it’s healing, you can find other plants that do the same things.
In this training, you’ll learn about the Action Categories of herbs because it gives you choices. And choices mean flexibility.
When you know 5-6 plants that are anti-inflammatory, then you aren’t stuck when the Arnica spills.
When you know 5-6 antispasmodic plants, then you have choices when someone says they’re allergic to Valerian.
When you have 5-6 plants that open airways (vasodilators), then you have options in how to treat an asthma attack.
The herbs and spices in your kitchen are different from the herbs you find in the park, right? And those are different still from the plants in the deep forest.
Your ability to improvise comes from knowing which Action Categories you need in a given situation.
Instead of thinking “Willow is for a sprain”, you start thinking about what Willow does for that sprain.
Now you’re thinking “a sprain needs anti-inflammatories and painkillers (analgesics).” And now you have many more choices.
Choices give you flexibility to improvise. And this creativity makes you resilient.
From this 2 day hands-on workshop, you’ll learn how to:
Treat your family and friends for common wounds, injuries, ailments, etc
Reduce pain, speed healing, prevent/reduce scarring
Stay grounded even in difficult situations, so you can hold a calm healing space for others
Be creative with your first aid treatments by learning about the Action Categories of herbs so that you can effectively and safely improvise if you don’t have your regular remedies at hand
Assess the severity of a wound, injury or ailment and decide within your capacity to heal or whether you need to seek medical intervention
My personal 4 step process to effectively and safely treat someone with herbs
First Aid, Second Aid, Third Aid, …
It’s a little misleading to call this workshop “herbal first aid” because it’s really just about healing with herbs, but starting from the moment of first contact.
My goal is to help you to make your first touch a healing touch with herbs.
But why stop there, right? Healing is a process that involves your body, mind and spirit. And herbs aid every step of that process.
So, why separate first aid from the rest of the healing?
In this workshop, you’ll learn healing protocols from the moment of first contact as well as the next steps, the continued care that’s needed until the person has fully recovered.
Pertinent Details for the Workshop...
This in-person workshop is 14 hours of training over 2 days, usually Saturday & Sunday, 9-5 or 10-6, with time for breaks and a brown bag lunch (unless local organizers are offering a catered meal).
It’s an intimate group with lots of practice time, so there’s a maximum of 20 people. This ensures time for questions from everyone.
The majority of the workshop happens in small groups where you’ll be running hands-on practice scenarios.
This is NOT a lecture. It is NOT a space to simply discuss or passively watch.
This is the time for you to find out and work through your response(s) to urgent first aid situations, whether it’s a freeze, go blank, hyper-analyze, etc. This is the space to practice so that you’re ready if/when you need to step into a live first aid scenario.
Cost/Investment:
Core Program: $375 - made in 1 or 2 payments
Premium Program: $525 = Core program + an Herbal First Aid Kit (worth $200)
How to Register:
This workshop travels around BC. Most often, it’s hosted by local organizers who actually take care of registration and collect payments.
Upcoming dates and locations are listed here…
Oct. 26/27 - CherryVille, BC
(in the North Okanagan just east of Vernon)
email Yarrow to register or ask questions