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Taylor here!
On our Flowerlounge trip to Charleston in September 2022, I got attacked by chiggers when we were out hunting wild orchids in the swampy forest.
Wtf is a chigger? Chiggers are nasty microscopic little red bugs commonly found in tall weeds & grassy areas that will crawl up your clothes as far as they can … and when they can’t go any further, start feasting on your skin tissue.
They don’t burrow into the skin like ticks (we had a run in with those in Maryland while flower hunting) but they leave an itchy bite that can last up to 2-3 weeks.
Well, that’s what all the articles online said at least.
My 20+ bites lasted almost 2 months! I used all the natural itching / antibacterial / antiparasitic remedies I could get my hands on … and while they would temporarily relieve some of the itching, nothing seemed to accelerate healing.
Here’s the protocol that ended up working for me:
Sacred Body Mist, Chicken Feet & Cacao Flower Elixir
Every time I used it, I felt comforted that I was being supported with the self-healing flower essences and that my body was being activated to do what it needed to do to heal in its own timing.
The cooling mist eased my flaming irritation & the colloidal silver prevented the bites from getting infected.
When I realized that I needed to explore the root cause of WHY my body was having such a hard time recovering … I reached out to Naturopath Dr. Kayla Eckart for help. Her prescription? A 3-day bone broth cleanse.
The connection as to why that would help didn’t make total sense to me until she told me this:
When you give your body a digestive rest, things heal a little more efficiently. Your body is no different than you, and has a to-do list. Anything that can’t quite get done gets pushed off to the next day – and healing little skin lesions are probably not top priority when there’s food to digest (which takes up an enormous amount of our energy expenditure)! If you remove anything extra that your body has to do (like digest), and you add in things like collagen from the bone broth, your body has a little bit extra energy to take care of the things that were a little less important on your to-do list.
When I asked her what kind of bone broth, she said variety was good & to add in chicken feet for more collagen.
Honestly, I had a huge aversion to adding chicken feet at first. When we were in Asia a few years ago, I saw so many people sucking sauce & skin off chicken toes, and thought I’d never be able to look at them the same. But now, I won’t make a soup or broth without throwing in a few chicken feet!
Chicken feet’s high collagen content is excellent for the skin. It stimulates tissue regeneration, accelerates wound healing, improves digestive function, and helps move the blood.
Health benefits aside, because there’s so much connective tissue in the feet, it makes the broth super gelatinous & gives it a thicker, silkier, fattier mouthfeel. Yum!
For bone broth recipes, go here!
At the time of the fast, Katie was formulating Divine Within. Before we launch a new product out into the world, the entire team will take the remedy recklessly for 1 month so that we have a first-hand & personal experience with it to know exactly how to talk about it with our community.
The timing couldn’t have been more perfect for this formulation because inside is one of my FAVORITE flower elixirs of all time - Cacao!
Cacao helped me make myself the priority. The timing of the fast was the week before our finale Flowerlounge at our homebase in Phoenix. Aka: the week we were busting our a$$e$ off to get the space ready & beautiful for our guests.
Cacao-less me would have said: “Wait until after the Flowerlounge to do a fast, are you nuts!? You have to have energy this week to get what needs to be done done.” But cacao-powered me said: “Despite the timing, you have to do this. You are the priority. If you can take care of yourself right now, your capacity to take care of other people will be greater.”
Cacao also made the fasting unusually easy & energizing. I’ve never been able to do a multi-day fast, because without fail, at the end of day 1, I say to myself: “I don’t want to deprive myself, so I am going to eat something.” And that’s that. But this elixir nourishes you on a level that makes you feel like you’re supported & that your needs are met – rather than feeling in a constant state of deficit or hunger.
Cacao also helped me tap into & trust what my body actually wanted to eat after the fast. I wanted oysters. I wanted beef to be cooked differently than the way I’ve loved it my entire life. I wanted more chocolate. I didn’t want vegetables. Etc.
Divine Within is flower offering in a bottle.
Every time I use it, it feels like I’m making a flower offering to myself. To my heart. To the most tender, precious, vulnerable parts of myself that often get overlooked or side-swept.
Anyways, I’m no longer suffering from chiggers (hallelujah) … and I hope you never experience them. But if you do, or have any skin issue that you can’t seem to kick, this protocol helps.
Here’s to flowers & chicken feet,
Taylor
