Conversations with the Inspiring Rebecca Altman

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rebecca Altman.

Rebecca, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I got into the healing arts because I, myself, was in need of healing. I think this is a common story! But I’d experienced a psychiatric misdiagnosis when I was, in fact, grieving. I had no idea about emotional healing, or that grief was necessary and took a long time, so I was desperate to be free from the pain I was feeling. When I was handed a diagnosis, I grabbed it with both hands, and ended up, a few years later, on a cocktail of psychiatric medications that were really, really messing me up.

I’m blessed to have a wonderful family, and my parents dropped me out of university, and brought me home, and took me to a different psychiatrist who agreed that the whole thing seemed a bit fishy, and I began the withdrawal process. In the process of withdrawing, I started doing yoga, and in a yoga class one day, I met a herbalist, who offered me a job. It was a totally random sequence of events that happened at my absolute rock bottom. I started working for this man who taught me about health, nutrition, and plants. I started hiking, as I was living near Palm Springs with my parents, and the area is surrounded by mountains and hiking trails. And as I hiked, I started feeling the desert, and the plants there. And to the extent that I was able (keep in mind that the thing that scared me the most was the idea of losing my mind, amid all of these psychiatric diagnoses that I’d been dealt), I let myself sink into the desert, the plants, the messages I was hearing from the earth and myself.

And for some reason, that little spark of a voice that piped up at some point during this healing process was the one I chose to listen to. And the more I listened to it, the stronger it got. And that voice has guided me to learn lots of different things: somatic bodywork, shamanic energy healing, herbalism, meditation, yoga. But mostly it’s guided me to spend time outside, listen to the earth, the plants, and the deeper rhythm and pulse of the world around me. Everything I do is an expression of that tiny little spark, and it all has to do with healing and helping other people reconnect too. So now, I do a bunch of different things: I write, teach courses on reconnection, make products that help people reconnect to their deeper selves. It’s a good job, and none of that would have happened if not for hitting rock bottom in a completely life-shattering way.

Has it been a smooth road?
It has been both smooth and not smooth.

Smooth in the sense that once you have that connection, it becomes like a beacon that guides you, and regardless of how difficult the terrain you are navigating, or how battered you might feel, or how dramatically you might fail at certain things, you have that spark of knowing that you are doing the right thing for you, and that carries you through.

I have struggled but I’m not sure that listing my struggles would make much difference since we all experience our own struggles: the things I struggle with might look easy to other people, and vice versa.

But I do have advice:

Be kind to yourself.

That applies on all levels. Be kind to yourself when you’re tired, and be kind to yourself when you don’t want to do something. Be kind to yourself when you fuck up and want to beat yourself up about it. (This is not a good solution and just holds you in place. Let it go. Move on. Learn from it. Apologize to whoever you need to apologize to. Forgive yourself for being imperfect.) Be kind to yourself when you don’t work as fast or as hard as you think you should be (spoiler alert: nobody works as hard or as fast as they think they should, and it is the most unkind thing you can do, to constantly push yourself to try and be more than you are). Be kind to yourself when you don’t know what to do, and be kind to yourself when you are scared. Be kind to yourself when you see pictures of people who have something you wish you had: comparison is the death of self-love. Know that you, as you are, are absolutely worth loving too. Be kind enough to yourself to know that if you want something so badly, it is there for you and that you are worthy of it.

And if in doubt, do something that feels good: take a nap, read a good book, eat some ice cream, go for a walk. Come back to it later when you’re feeling better and it’ll look a million times easier.

So, you see, self-kindness is actually a big thing and can be a lifetime’s work, but if you commit to it, then every single area of your life becomes so much more pleasurable and smooth.

What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
I am a herbalist, writer, and educator.

I specialize in emotional healing, helping people rediscover their connection to themselves, to who they are, to the world around them.

I’m probably best known for the products that I make, under the brand name Kings Road Apothecary– I’ve been doing that for 10 years, and, I think because of my connection with plants and the way I hear them whisper things to me, I’m a really good formulator. I love coming up with interesting, tasty combinations for things, and to make things that affect us deeply. I’m a Scorpio– everything I do goes deep. I teach a 2-year course, called The Wonder Sessions, that is a long-distance exploration of self and our relationship to the world, where my students learn how to connect more deeply. We start off learning to let the world in and end up listening to trees, rocks, plants, connecting to the spirits of places. In the middle, though there’s this great abyss where we have to go and explore what our ‘self’ is and how it affects our perception. It’s really deep, and intense, which is why it spread out over 2 years so that people can really work at their own pace with it. One of the most magical things that happen is that over the course of it, people start really listening to and trusting themselves, and really feeling out their own paces with things. I’ll have students show up to meetings and say ‘I haven’t done anything for a month’ and not apologize, just be who they are, and that’s such a good feeling: having people show up as themselves, feeling absolutely worthy of their place in the world… man, it’s such an incredible feeling to be facilitating that, and connected to all of these blossoming spirits! I think this course is the thing I’m most proud of because at least up to this point in my life, it’s taken absolutely everything I have to do it. It’s the best writing I’ve ever done, the deepest space-holding I’ve ever done. It has a life of its own at this point, and I’m just holding the reins going ‘ok, I guess you’re in the lead!’, I’ll just slow us down if I need to.

Another thing that I do that I’m really proud of, and want to shout from the rooftops about, is my newsletter. I send it out once a week and it’s basically packed full of information. Each one takes me a few days to write. They are on various topics– things like anxiety, depression, how to deal with flu season, the lymphatic system, how to help your liver, what to do when the world feels really shitty, how to fuck up and get back up… the topics are kinda diverse, but all have to do with the interaction of our emotions, our bodies, and being in the world. They usually follow the same format, with an essay; a list of herbs that can help, and descriptions of what they do; some exercises or a meditation; links for further reading. It’s entirely free, and will always be free, and I love being able to share so much with my audience.

Who do you look up to? How have they inspired you?
I feel really lucky to have some truly amazing women in my life.

My mum.

She’s an artist, and basically had to put her career on hold for 30 years while she raised me, then my brother, then me and all my step-siblings, and then when we were almost out of her hair, she got pregnant again and repeated the whole process with my little sister. It’s not like she wasn’t painting, drawing, and creating the whole time (I mean, she got an MFA in that time, too), but she wasn’t able to immerse herself fully in her work like she needed to. She was and is a really, really good mum. And basically, the day my sister moved out and went to university, my mum went and signed a lease on a studio and started painting again. And about 30 years of backed-up creativity is coming out of her. She’s there all day, every day, and just keeps going. And her work is SO beautiful, so expressive, and so authentically her. And I just find it so inspiring that she picked up right where she left off (seriously- there’s a painting that she did 30 years ago, and one of the first ones she did in her studio looked like a progression from one of the last ones she did in her old studio, when we still lived in Scotland), and I find that amazing– that something can sit dormant inside a person for as long as it needs to. And then, the dam breaks, and she’s just unleashing herself on canvas. It’s incredible. She’s incredible. And I’m so proud to be her daughter.

And then, I really feel inspired by people who live their own truth, often moving against the tide of society, or the tide of public opinion, to express what they need to say in the world. People who are utterly themselves. It’s such an incredible, bright, beautiful thing. I feel so lucky that the majority of the women I am close to are like this.

But often, I find people inspirational at the moment. You start chatting to a stranger and they open up about their life and you see the incredible depth, resilience, beauty in a person’s spirit.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wonderbotanica.com
• Email: rebecca@thewondersessions.com
• Instagram: @wonder.botanica
• Twitter: /thornwonder
• Other: Newsletter signup: http://eepurl.com/ejSxk

Image Credit:
James Coyne

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