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Episode 21: How to Apply Ancient Wisdom to Your Daily Life with Holistic Hilda · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: When it started years ago, Sina, when the Weston Price Foundation, that I love so dearly, invited me to represent them to a small tribe of Maasai in Kenya in a town called Oiti on the border of Tanzania.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, this Maasai warrior had contacted the foundation.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: He said, please send someone over.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're all getting sick.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I have diabetes, my wife has asthma.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: He had seen the physical degeneration of his people and even in his own family because they had departed from their traditional food ways.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everybody, I'm Dr.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Stephen McKella.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Beyond Labels.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Today I have an amazing guest.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna love her.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Her name is Hilda Labrata Gore.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: She's also known as Holistic Hilda.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Hilda is a fitness and wellness expert.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: She is the host of the Wise Traditions podcast, which has received over six and a half million downloads.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations, Hilda! She's also a podcasting coach.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: She's written a book about podcasting called Podcasting Made Simple.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And she has even launched Holistic Hilda Productions, where she makes movies about ancestral living.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hilda, it is so great to have you on the show today.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining me.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, see, and I'm really glad to be talking with you.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I want to jump right in.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: On your website, holistichilda.com, you state the following the key basically to health and wellness is looking to the past for clues on how to live today.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: You say our ancestors were hail, hardy, strong, fertile, experiencing vibrant health.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: We live with anxiety, gut issues, depression, fatigue, food allergies, and more.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: So what did our ancestors know that we don't know?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I love this.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I want to start here because a lot of people have given me pushback when I when I promote this ancestral living, because they say, you know, that our ancestors really only lived to about the age of 35.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, that's not that's kind of reductionist thinking.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's a reductionist viewpoint of the longevity, the lifespan of our ancestors.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because as you know, if you take out um deaths from childbirth and the high infant mortality rate that they experienced back then, our ancestors on average lived to about 72 years old.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So similar to what we have today.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And like you just stated on your website, it wasn't only that they live longer, they had a better quality of life than we do.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't, you know, worn down with these chronic and autoimmune diseases.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: They often lived to long ages and died in their sleep, right?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: So what have you found in your travels?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you travel across the across the globe.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: You don't just like most of us, you don't just study from behind your computer.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: You actually travel, you get out, you see these cultures, you experience it for them, for them, for yourself.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd love for you to share some of your stories of what you have seen.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: What are these cultures doing to bring this longevity, quality of life to their um to their tribes, their culture that we necessarily are not doing here in America?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, it's a deep question.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad you're having me on to discuss it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like in the US and in a lot of kind of modern cultures, we're not living longer.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're dying longer.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, our the numbers may be longer, but like you said, the quality of life is lacking.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: We are lonely, anxious, all the things you read, and we're not well.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, people can live for years with kidney troubles thanks to dialysis.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: But is that really living?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a challenge, right?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I see people suffering longer rather than living longer.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So my goal has been to travel the world to find these indigenous cultures, much like Dr.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Price did, uh, with a little bit less of a scientific bent, uh, because my background is more uh as a journalist, an experiential journalist and anthropologist in a way.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to live with, observe, and learn from these people.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it started years ago, Sina, when the Weston Price Foundation, that I love so dearly, invited me to represent them to a small tribe of Maasai in Kenya in a town called Oiti on the border of Tanzania.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, this Maasai warrior had contacted the foundation.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: He said, please send someone over.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're all getting sick.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I have diabetes, my wife has asthma.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: He had seen the physical degeneration of his people and even in his own family because they had departed from their traditional food ways.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so basically the foundation looked for two volunteers.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was the first to raise my hand.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up over there, and it was amazing to be amidst these people who were still living in many of their traditional ways.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they had the sense of community and connection and rituals that were still a part of their lives.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember sitting in my friend's home, and there was a woman there with all of the beautiful, colorful Maasai clothing on the beaded earrings and everything.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: In one hand, she had a chai tea, a mug of chai tea with lots of sugar.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in the other, she had a white bread jam sandwich.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I could see what my warrior friend Dixon was talking about.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: They had slowly been leaving their traditional ways.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now they still had some of them.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: They still, the Maasai diet is still comprised primarily of meat and milk and even blood from the animals, and maybe some wild fruits and honey.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's still primarily that, but they were now supplementing with foods from what they call the shop with sodas and white flour and sugar and wow.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it was amazing to be with them and to tell them, because I also went to share a little bit about Weston Price Foundation and eating more traditionally.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Don't eat our way, don't eat the US way, for goodness sakes, eat your way.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they were so um receptive and um excited that by the time my visit ended, uh the pastor of a small church in that community stood up in front of the congregation and he said, Starting today, our women will cook our traditional foods.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And at first I was like, Whoa, should he be just like dictating that out there as a dictum, you know?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then I found out later, one thing they have, Cena, that we're missing is that community, they had decided by consensus, probably leadership consensus, this is what we want to do.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so it wasn't just something coming from this one man, but from a group of elders in their community.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I returned a year later, that was 2015, when I returned in 2016, they had made changes.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And even Dixon's wife, who was a teacher of a preschool or something, had quit her job and was farming the land so that they could have more produce to have for their own family and to sell at the market.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, wow.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple of the keys I see that uh ancient communities had that we do not have today, um, that we're missing is community and that connection and also food that really nourishes.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you know, Dixon's tribe had one foot in the modern world and one in the traditional world.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we're all in with the convenience thing and getting something through DoorDash, and we're really missing that deep nourishment that real food without a label or a list of ingredients can bring.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's beautiful.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that resonates so deeply with me as I'm actively searching for community myself.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: I've realized, you know, from an academic perspective, I've studied it.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's one of the key predictors of people who live to be over 100 years old.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a predictor is whether or not you have community.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and now I'm trying to apply that, you know, academic knowledge in the real world by forming a community of like-minded individuals.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell you, especially now with everyone being so divided, you know, with the COVID situation, it's more and more difficult to find that community, you know, to just find acceptance, just to find somebody, a group of people that you can be yourself around, that you're not having to be guarded around, that you can laugh with, because you know, that laughter component of community is so important, you know.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, do you find that as well?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like in these other, you've gone to many different communities around the world.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Do they all have that in common where they have this sense of community?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: And if they do, what are they doing in community?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Are they laughing?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Are they playing games?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because we spend a lot of our time, it's estimated Americans spend about 70% of their time in fight or flight, right?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: And not in um healthy healing community, which I would consider laughter, you know, play, that kind of socialization, where you feel lifted up.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, in your experiences, when you've gone to all these different, you know, cultures, um, the ones that are thriving, the ones that are healthy, what does their community look like?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It so happens I had the privilege of going to Ecuador this summer in July.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I went to participate and observe in their Indi Raimi Festival, which is a celebration of the sun and also the earth and of community.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it was amazing.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: One hallmark of community that I really think is missing today for us is some traditional rituals, if you will.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we have holidays, but they seem so consumer-driven in the US.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Christmas is all about oh, buying packages and buying things for people.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It just all seems very contrived, I guess.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in Ecuador, my experience in the small community of Santa Barbara, where I got to experience the Intiraimi Festival, it was something that their ancestors had been doing for as long as the recorded history has been kept.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what characterized the Intiraimi festival was dance.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about play.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they said, What we think is this, by the way, these are just very superficial observations because you have to live in the community and probably be quichua to understand it fully.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: One of my guide friends, Apache, said it takes years to understand this.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: But my impressions were the following that the earth they see as kind of losing energy when it gives its fruit.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a woman after childbirth, you know, she's kind of exhausted and depleted and needing replenishment.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so they see the earth that way.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, right around the solstice, around June 21st or so, they do a lot of dancing to give the earth their energy.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like an energy exchange.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've received for you from you.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to give back.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so they would do this dance, I mean, for days, if not weeks.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of a stomping dance.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to join in.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I look like a girl that just got off a horse.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't pretty.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was struggling, but I was like, I'm gonna do this because the idea is so beautiful.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they did it um in a uh a ritual that it had the men doing it on one day and the women doing it on other days, and they would wear these, you know, amazing hats that they had designed and and just stomp around.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just amazing because I knew what was behind it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they would play music, and so it wasn't a dance in the in the sense of like, you know, uh twirling around, but it was a dance with a purpose to revitalize the earth, and then they would share a community meal.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the nourishment together was another aspect of the community there.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: They they spread a tablecloth.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say, you know, I don't know, not half the length of a football field.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not great with spatial dynamic dimensions, but it was quite long in the middle of their community plaza.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the men all sat around, and the women were just outside on the periphery of this table, and the women would bring the food, and it was a community meal.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: They all shared traditional flute foods, including gui, which is guinea pig, and uh quinoa and potatoes and uh avocado, and it was just eggs, of course, and just real, real food, you know, again that they had prepared at home.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but again, I noticed just as I did in Kenya, the influence of the Western diet.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they started serving sodas and beer.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: I guess you know, beer is fermented to a degree, but I know that their original drink was chicha, which is a fermented corn drink, I believe.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or maybe it's potato.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'll have to go back and look.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is they've shifted.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And even the dance scene that they used to do barefoot.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: As you can imagine, what an energy exchange that would be.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now the men do it wearing kind of these boots or military-style boots to really stomp harder.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's just interesting how traditions do shift over time, but they still had that community feel where I'd see the young boys learning to do these dances just like their fathers and grandfathers.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then I noted the nourishment they were taking in together.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: When I hang out with my friends here in the States, and I see like a young mom trying to feed her family, do the laundry, do all the things, and I'm just like, this isn't how it's supposed to be.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like the communities of old, someone would hold her baby, the grandmother or the aunt, you know, the broader community would help so that the mother didn't have to do everything.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's no surprise as to why we're so exhausted and drained and anxious and fearful, because we're managing quite isolated, you know, everyone's in their own little home.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and the communities I observed in these different countries have just blown me away.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I think notice that they're still in existence today.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's a way for us to attain that community or connect in community, even though we live differently in the US.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I do want to interject here real quick, and then um you can ask me whatever you have next.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: A little story of COVID and community that I learned when I was there.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So Abaoki and his wife Christina hosted me in their home, and it was just amazing to be with them.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: He would point to a grind, a little grinding area, and he's like, that's where we take the quinoa off of the you know, stalk, and then we made this quinoa soup.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my gosh, you all are doing it so amazingly again, eating these real foods.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then Christina, his wife told me, you know, a year ago in June of 2020, a lot of our community members got sick with COVID.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, What we did was many of us women gathered medicinal plants and herbs, about 20 of them.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm getting chills as I'm telling you this story, but it's just so marvelous.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: She said, and we took them to each household, and no one got hospitalized and no one died.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, I thought, can I see the list of those medicinal herbs, please help a sister out?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then I thought, you know what?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Those things were given in the context of community and love.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's no surprise that homemade meals, I do believe, nourish us in a different way, in a more profound way than those we get from KFC or Applebee's or whatever.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just the rancid oils that they're using that mess us up or the poor quality of the meat.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: It has to do with vitamin L, which we can put into our food when we make it at home, and that's love.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, wow, the context of in which those things were given to the people, I'm sure helped them.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: They knew they were supported, you know, and these are things that are kind of intangible.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: But as we like to say, science is catching up to modern wisdom.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I bet if we tried to measure it on some level, we would see that what I'm saying is true.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I believe that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um, there have been attempts in the literature to actually measure something like that, like the the energies of food and the energy of connectivity, you know, this is palpable.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you, as you're describing that, I had the image of these women going door to door, right?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Giving um, giving these herbs with out of a pure space of just love, you know.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I contrasted that in my mind to what we have here in the United States in our hospitals, right?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: These sterile hospitals, you're in your own bed, someone comes in and out to check on you.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes loved ones can't even come in to see you, you know, you're you're quarantined, sometimes you gotta wear a mask there, like just the visual of the difference in their community and our community, it it actually um my heart hurts as I'm thinking about that, you know.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so how how can we um we seem so so polar, polar opposites of what you're describing.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: How can we work toward what they have?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think one way to go about it is to be intentional.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: You told me earlier that you were seeking community, you know, we're and I think we all are, right?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: So um I attend the gatherings at Polyface.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just came back from the Wise Traditions conference, and though it's not we're not all living in the same space, you know, I did what I could and now I have connections, some of which I nurture using technology.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I would rather be with people in person, right?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But this this conversation is is warming my heart right now.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's reminding me, you know, even though I'm in a city where people are doing all kinds of things that I wouldn't do, um, you know, you and I are connecting heart to heart.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So uh let's not discount and cast aside all technology.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you and I love ancestral living doesn't mean we want to be Lydites living in a cave.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we can be intentional, we can seek it out, of course, looking for in-person connections, but making the most of even the virtual ones uh when needed.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think eating, you know, good food together is also important.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited about a retreat we're gonna be going on this April where we'll get to do that, you know, food that nourishes that doesn't have that long list of ingredients because it doesn't necessarily even have a label.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And a third piece that I really think is important that I've noticed in these different countries.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, it's the community connections in person, it's the nourishment of the food, it's also nature.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: It really is nature.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was blown away when I was in Peru a few years ago, actually.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I spent time speaking.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I go to these countries to share some ideas about returning to ancestral living, but also to learn from the people.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I was speaking to a group in Lima, students in Peru, in Lima, Peru, in the capital, and they were so pale.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: They reminded me a lot of the people in the US, just not only just pale, but kind of with a uh pallor from being on computers all day long, hunched over, they were too thin, they didn't look happy, they looked stressed, you know.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I again I know it's university students, but I couldn't help but contrast that with a group of school children I met in the mountains outside of Cusco.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um, if not outside of Lima, I have to look back at my journal to see exactly where I was.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I was in these highlands very far from the city, and the children had ruddy cheeks, not from eczema or allergies, but from being in the sun, and their faces were more round and they looked so happy.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew it was because they spend more time connected to the land and in nature than their counterparts that are so educated in the city.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like the more educated I get, you know, the more I realize I have to learn, especially when it comes to being connected to the land.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think we find more of a sense of contentment, whether we're, you know, planting a small tomato garden in the backyard or just spending time in a park or at a waterfall, if you have that privilege, you know, the more we get outside, the more we lower our cortisol levels and remember our place in the world and remember what matters.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not about you know getting that one document to your boss by the deadline of Friday, although your boss may differ with me on this.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's it's about being human beings, enjoying this earth.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, we don't want to die longer, like I was saying earlier, we want to live longer.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: So looking for community, looking for good nourishment and getting outside are really key.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: It everything you're saying resonates so deeply with me, particularly at this point in our in our history.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my my husband and I are have constantly grappled with this thought that we don't have enough time.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where does the time go in the day?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we have three kids, including one who just our our youngest just turned one.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, a handful.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: We both work, you know, we homeschool and we don't have that community.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: We don't even have family around to help.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And every day it feels like what you're talking about, where it's this constant juggle and it's it's go here, go there, you know.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I do, I meditate, you know, I do I practice gratitude.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: We do gratitude before every single meal, you know, all these things.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I do the stress management technique.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: But one thing that I that has been a blessing for my family in this whole like COVID situation is that it's really given us an opportunity to stop and slow down, right?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: When everything was shut down and no one was going to do anything.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Slowed down and we started to ask ourselves, what do we really want in life?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of life do we want to build for our children?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of environment do we want them to grow up in?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and now my husband's going to be permanently remote, right?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because of the OSHA uh not really mandate requirement, right?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, there's a there's a scary component to it because this is very new.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: We've always been in corporate, but then there's this liberating aspect to it, where I told my husband just the other day, I said this is it's kind of an oxymoron because, in one hand, they're taking freedom from us, right?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's that can be your perception.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: They're trying to take this freedom from us by mandating something.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: But on the other hand, because they did that, we have more freedom now because he is remote.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: We no longer have to move wherever the job is, right?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: We no longer have to be under the control of this corporation and you know, jump when they say jump.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: We now can determine where we want to live, right?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: We can build a community, we can determine what kind of job he wants he wants to have.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe he does consulting sometimes, and then maybe that's a cyclical thing and he takes Christmas off or something, right?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's this it's this whole change, a complete shift in our perception about how we are viewing it, to the point where now we feel so free that we almost don't know what to do with that because we've never had that much control, that much freedom to choose where we want our life to go.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I'm saying?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: I totally do.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of your shift in the way you look at it comes from the fact that you do meditate, that you do have gratitude, because if you were too busy running around, you'd be more of a human doing instead of a human being, right?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I I try to remind myself because we I love to do, I'm I'm like you, I'm a high achiever, love to juggle a lot of things, but we need that stillness.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a lesson I learned in Australia, actually.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was with this amazing Aboriginal woman, Suzanne Thompson, and she said, Helda, I was gonna be a hairdresser, I was gonna be a hairdresser at a Vidal Sassoon salon until um my ancestors started talking to me through dreams, she said.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Dreams and some diderie.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in some of the Aboriginal tribes and their culture, they do this deep listening, it's called Diderie, not to be confused with the didgeridoo, which is an instrument.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: But so they do this deep listening and the stillness.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when we stop, we open up an opportunity for God or our ancestors or our intuition to speak into our lives.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm too busy doing, I'm not listening and I'm missing something.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: So now Suzanne, instead of being a hairdresser, is the custodian over the land that her ancestors were on outside of Barcalden in Australia.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And she showed me the land.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was beautiful, actually, Cena.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: She was like, This is our grocery store, Hilda.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is our grocery store.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, everything that grows and hops and is on that land.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, This is where we can, you know, be nourished.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I know she was also nourished on a deeper way because she was doing what she was called to do.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really, really think that we need to stop doing and spend a little more time being to really understand this time and our purpose in it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely love that.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Human beings instead of human doings.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think everybody can relate to that, right?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, most everybody's on the treadmill in some some way or another, right?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hence the 70% of our time in fight or flight.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love that too.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the best days that I have are the days when I wake up and I don't instantly look at my to-do list and start working.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's when I wake up and I breathe and I ask, what do you want me to do today?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: I put it out there to God, to the universe, and ask, what do you want me to do today?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm always shown this vision of what that day is to include.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I do it um with the same with our homeschooling.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'll ask, what do you want me, what do you want me to teach today?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: What message do you want me to send to the children?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, on those days when I can stop doing right and ask, ask for that divine guidance from the beginning, those days flow, you know, like it's like water just naturally flowing in a river.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas the other days, when I get up and I start to charge and I'm going on my to-do list and check, check, check the box, you know, I get that dopamine hit in that moment where I'm like, yes, I feel good, I got that done.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the but I need much more resistance through my day, almost like I'm trying to force things to happen.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that openness at the beginning of the day probably characterizes your attitude throughout the day, right?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: It sets the tone because from the outside, an observer might see you being just as efficient on the day when you opened up as the day when you didn't, but you can feel the difference inside.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so this is one reason I too, I start my day with gratitude.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I do sunrise before screen rise, which I think is really important to set my circadian rhythm.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I get outside.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not my whole day is not shaped by other people's demands, right?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's shaped by intention and and uh a purpose and where I'm looking.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really important, Cena, because there is, as we've been talking a little bit about energy.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I do sense the energy is heavier in Washington, DC, where I live, than it has been in the other little spots where I've been.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've been staying on farms on my little road tour recently to celebrate all those downloads, and it's a different energy.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I can either look at the geoengineering stripes in the sky this morning, um, which can worry me and bog me down thinking, what the heck is what are they spraying on us?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, or I can look at the sun, you know, we make our choices.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I choose to look at the sun, S-U-N and S-O-N.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I am a Christian.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I let my day begin by some foundational nourishment from the Bible and prayer.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And but it's like however you want to open yourself up to seek um something greater, if it's even just peace in your heart, you know, it really makes a difference how you start and end your day.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: That is so beautiful.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: It it really does make a difference about your whole perception.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's one thing that we're trying to find now is now that we have this freedom to explore, our family has set the intention that we're gonna go on these, you know, little trips, a weekend or a week-long trip, to see um different communities, you know, different places around the United States.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And what we do is we predominantly initially we rely on my energy, how I feel.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as we walk in, you know, I'm but I'm very much like you, I'm very in tune with energies, my energy and other people's energies.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we go into a place and instantly I'll say yes or no.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's just a you know, you can just feel it, you know.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we're taking this opportunity, we're seizing this opportunity to go find a place to live that has this sense of community where we can nourish ourselves, like you said, not only with food, with the with the love from the community, with the positivity, the positive energy that's you know, we're gonna help and contribute to keeping that vibrational frequency high.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we are seizing it and actively looking for this so that we're not just stuck here feeling heavy, feeling like, okay, I have to look beyond it every day.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you can do that too, right?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Some people don't have the ability to move.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can look beyond what you're what you're actually experiencing and reach beyond that.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: In a moment, you can shift it for yourself.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we're we're taking the opportunity to try to create something, you know, like I always say that um you create your own reality.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're trying to have that reality materialize at this point.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: So everything that you are saying to me is it's it's such a blessing for me today, because this is affirmation to me personally that we are on the right path.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is where I am being guided to go.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I I truly appreciate you and all the experiences that you've had and your willingness to come on the show and share them with us, you know, bring us hope, give us some insight into what other cultures are experiencing.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: And before before I let you go, I want to ask you a question.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: One more question.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: In all these places that you've gone, right?
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: All these cultures that you've had the privilege to experience and take part in, have you experienced any of them where they have not had Western, the influence of Western food in the culture?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Do any of them consume you know the native foods, the the whole foods, or are they all has Western food crept into all of these cultures?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere I've been, uh everywhere I've been, it has it, it has crept in, unfortunately.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that still gives me hope because it means the traditions aren't completely lost.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in Kenya and in this small village of Awiti, as I mentioned, I told you there was Coca-Cola and other things coming in.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's no surprise, by the way, that's with intention too.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Coca-Cola noticed that their market share in the US was going down.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they put Africa in their crosshairs and they were like, okay, we're gonna go there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, they've made deals because I would be in the most remote places, Zina, and I would see Coca-Cola logos painted on small little, you know, huts with a tin roof or whatever, and um, where they will sell Coca-Cola and even vegetables, not necessarily even Coca-Cola, but Coca-Cola had made a deal with these proprietors and said, Hey, um, we'll paint your little stand for free if you let us put our logo on it.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're advertising all over the place.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: But in that village, when I was in Haiti, I remember one day they said, Okay, we're gonna have some goat, I think it was.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw this little boy cover the goat's nose and mouth to suffocate it.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: So he slaughtered it basically on the spot like that.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: They cut it open and they were eating some of the internal organs without cooking them.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, wow, this is awesome! And then they were drinking the blood, and then of course they did cook some, and we were literally sitting around the fire chewing the fat.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, wow, so their traditions are still kept in part.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: My hope is that we can um, you know, not just us, but that everyone can realize the value of those traditions and that they will remain strong.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that was one thing that Village did come to a decision about, and even my friend Suzanne Thompson, again, as people do deep listening, they'll see the kind of false promise of the modern processed foods.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they look so good.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: The packages will say natural or healthy, and you know, I I don't I just think in the end, you'll realize that not everything that's that glitters is gold, right?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: So my hope is that these different communities will recognize that too.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it may take some time, it may take sickness.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know as well as I do that sometimes people have a wake-up call when it hits home and there's a pain point, and then they realize I want to pivot, but I would like to see more people pivot without reaching that pain point.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but no, I commend you and your family for looking around for that community and being intentional.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of doing the same thing, actually.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to stay in the city that much longer.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking for land because I do know, again, the importance of catching that morning sunrise and being in a place where I can ground and be peaceful.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and actually, I will say one hopeful note also from my recent road tour, I met some people that completely live off grid and are establishing communities.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean just like a little suburb of Charlottesville, I mean like places that where people are working together and um it's like everything old is new again.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think this was a movement in the 60s or 70s, little kibbutzes or communal living, but people are looking into that again because they realize we're missing something today.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I the fact that we're connecting right now, again, I'm not dismissing modern technology and conveniences.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll buy sauerkraut from the farm stand at the farmer's market.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I could make it myself, but it's nice that someone else is making it, you know, so that we can make compromises in this modern world and still live ancestrally and still feel nourished and encouraged and happy.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't have said that better myself.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, Halistic Hilda, can you tell our listeners and our viewers how can they connect with you and where do they go to listen to your podcast?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you have a YouTube channel too, right?
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I am gonna put up some videos.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've already done some from Australia, but I hope to make some videos and short films about my experience in Ecuador and not just my experience, but the ancestral wisdom that I came across there.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was phenomenal.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, I've got a holistic Hilda YouTube channel and then the Wise Traditions podcast, I am pleased to announce.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: We just developed an app so people can download the app from their app store, either on uh Android or iOS, and listen directly to the episodes.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've an interview with Suzanne Thompson's that I mentioned in there, also with my friend Dixon from Kenya.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some ancestral voices in addition to my own.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think someone interviewed me about Ecuador, which was fun.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a little bit of everything on there.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then I've got my whole list ofkilda.com website where I do have a free PDF about three ways to boost your health anytime.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, again, based on ancestral wisdom, I'm trying to just really lift up wellness wherever people live.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you again for spending your time with us.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: We really appreciate it.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we hope that you'll come back again and be a regular guest on our show.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to because I have so much more to share.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you, Cena.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so we'll make another date.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, sounds like everybody for watching and listening.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: And see you next time.