Latest / Modern Sacred: Women's Work / Cannabis for Nervous System Regulation: A Resource for Embodiment
Transcript
- Chelsea Henderson: Hello, hello. Welcome back, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Today's an Abby and Chelsea episode. We're pretty excited about it. We love our guests, and then it's always really fun to just come back to this space, the two of us, and get to kind of ground back into what it is that we're doing here. ⁓ and today. Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Modern Sacred Podcast. Today I get to nerd out about a system in your body that you don't know that you have, most likely. ⁓ as a registered nurse and having worked with many nurses and doctors and surgeons and having met none of them who know about this system in your is wild. ⁓ Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: I'm gonna intro because today Abby's gonna take the lead. We're gonna talk about something I'm really excited about learning more about, even though I feel pretty well-versed as a practitioner. I don't feel well-versed on the knowledge side. Abby's gonna talk to us about the endocannabinoid system using her medical nurse background. Right? Nailed it, got it. That's the way it's the way we say it. Awesome. I can say words. Abby: Yep, you nailed it. That is impressive. It took me a while to get that down. Chelsea Henderson: And it's something I'm very passionate about. So today I'm excited to introduce you to a little bit more of your body that you didn't know existed, that controls everything from digestion to nerve impulses, muscle coordination and immunity, skin healing, wound healing, eyes, your sight. ⁓ cell in your body has a receptor for this system. Well, listen, like I said, I'm not unfamiliar. but I'm super excited for a couple of reasons here. I'm really excited to learn about th this from the medical side, right? ⁓ this from the actual like I know some of it, but I think ⁓ you know, I live in Colorado, you used to live in Colorado, it's a legal state. ⁓ a lot of us ⁓ you know, use marijuana recreationally, I've used marijuana medicinally, quote unquote. However that kind of fits in there. ⁓ And yet it is not taught. And this system has been around for a long time that we've this that we've discovered it. It's obviously been around forever. In fact, every animal other than insects has this system in their body. And we've known about it since the 40s, the 50s. I'm not sure on the exact timeline, but we've known about it for a long time, and yet you've never heard of it. this system is ⁓ you know, really, really helped me when I was having migraines. ⁓ was the thing that kind of helped really most with that. and I'm really excited to learn about you know what you you've done a training, right? You've done a nurse training specific to how it interacts with the brain, those different receptors, all of that. I'm also really interested to pick your brain, if you will, about ways to Abby: Yes. I have. Chelsea Henderson: The endocannabinoid system. The endocannabinoid system, which you'll learn about in this episode as Chelsea and I talk about it, is a system in your body discovered by and researching cannabis. ⁓ the plant, has been used as a medicine ⁓ as far back as we have found it along the Silk Road. ⁓ it was a medicine in the United States. ⁓ utilize it at this point in my life. I feel like I've used marijuana a lot in my life and there are moments where I'm like, I need a break from this. Like this is becoming crutch rather than fun, or rather than something that's helping me medicinally. This is actually now kind of a crutch. so yeah, that's what we're gonna talk about today. And I'm so excited. So maybe start by telling us about your Abby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so excited. Chelsea Henderson: was a regularly used medicine by physicians. They carried it in their medicine bag and used it to treat many ailments. ⁓ And of course, there are that you don't know about this system, and many of them are political ⁓ and ⁓ rooted in racism and white supremacy ⁓ ⁓ patriarchy, which all dismantling here. ⁓ So as part of dismantling patriarchy in your own body, I'm gonna teach you about. certification in this and how you kind of gained all this knowledge in your nursing career. Is that a good place to start? Or maybe we just say fuck it and whip out the bong and I'm just kidding. ⁓ Abby: Yeah, I think that's a great place to start. I ⁓ my god, yes. I I would love to I I'm a storyteller at heart, so I'll just tell my story with cannabis, weed, ganja, marijuana, whatever you call it. and then we'll kind of get into how I got into this. So ⁓ yeah, like Chelsea said, I'm Chelsea Henderson: Love it. Your endocannabinoid system. I'm gonna teach you about how it works and how you don't have to use cannabis in order to get the benefits from the system. So enjoy this interview style episode between me and And if you have any thoughts, feel free to put them wherever you're listening to this. ⁓ Pop them in comments or come on over to modernsacred.com and join our membership and we can talk about it in person at the next women's circle. ⁓ Okay? Hey, hey. Abby: From Colorado, and I was a bit of a stoner when I was in high school, like middle school, high school. I was smoking weed with my friends, you know, it was like whoop you did in Colorado, at least my version of Colorado. ⁓ and getting high all the time. And then I stopped, you know, I I stopped maybe like senior year or something like that. ⁓ I can't even really remember why I stopped. I think I became religious, honestly, and I was like, I don't need it anymore. Chelsea Henderson: Enjoy. Abby: ⁓ and it's bad, you know, and like it's drugs, you know, and and ⁓ I even didn't vote for it to be legalized. I voted against it because I was very religious and I thought all drugs are bad. I know it's like if it's such a testament for like Yes there is. Well, there's su it's such a testament to Chelsea Henderson: The other fixed No. ⁓ my goodness. ⁓ my goodness. There's an underbelly to this story. Abby: we can change, you know, we c I went from being a stoner to voting against it because I thought drugs are bad, guys. Like drugs are bad. We shouldn't do them. To becoming a certified cannabis nurse. So like change is part of life. Chelsea Henderson: Yes, gosh, yes. I love this story already. I love it already. I'm so in. Abby: so then you fast forward and I god I hadn't used cannabis for like at least 10 years. And it was during the pandemic I was working in the ICU in the on the night shift as a COVID nurse, and I had no tools for coping. I mean, they don't teach humans, let alone nurses, how to handle that and how to like de stress or Chelsea Henderson: wow, goodness. Abby: Take care of yourself. So I mean, a lot of us nurses, we would just go and get, you know, we would drink after work or eat big get a pizza and some beer and watch a ton of Netflix and like try to sleep and then go back to work and and that's what a lot of us were doing. And I n I was also taking care of a lot of alcoholics because during that time with COVID, people were isolated, people were Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Abby: Drinking more, people. I mean, we always have a lot of alcoholics in the ICU withdrawing for many reasons, but we had a lot more just with whole where the mental health landscape was. And some of them were my age. Some of them were just a little bit older than me in liver failure, on ventilators. And I was drinking like four beers every night trying to cope. And I'm like, I don't love this for me. This feels like slippery. And then, you know, sometimes when these patients would Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ my gosh ⁓ my gosh ⁓ Right. That feels that feels weird. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: off the ventilator they would tell them tell us their story and it was like yeah I was a normal right I was it it happens it happens to anybody and there would were nurses that I took care of who were alcoholics and would say like learn how to manage your stress and and it just you know it starts with a couple glasses of wine and then it becomes a bottle and then it becomes two and like it can just take on a life of its own. So it's like okay but if I'm not having a couple beers every night I'm not Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ my gosh. Abby: Coping. I'm not, I'm not gonna be able to do this. So it just kind of sent me on this like, what do I want to do for my stress? ⁓ and then I went to a doctor or a therapist or something, and they wanted to put me on benzodiazepines like Xanax. And because I was having so much anxiety and panic attacks and stuff with the whole situation, and I was also like, I don't want to do that, because those are very easy for you to become to physically dependent on. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Right, yes. Abby: So I'm like, fuck, like I can't drink, I can't. I'm like, I I need something. And I stumbled on CBD, right? Like CBD, especially maybe like what 2018 to 2024. I feel like it was maybe even longer stretch than that. It was CBD is in everything, CBD, CBD. So I was like, okay, I'll try this. Which actually Chelsea Henderson: Right. Where does this go? Yeah. Mm. Abby: Back up. First, I went on a camping trip, a backpacking trip with my friend Claire, and she had brought some weed, and I was like, I want to try it. It's been 10 years, and I used to be a stoner, so she loaded up the bowl, and I know how to hit a bowl. And so I ripped it to the face and I got so fucking high in the middle of the woods. Chelsea Henderson: Let's go. Of course. Yeah. It's like riding a bike. ⁓ no. Hm. Abby: And I thought that there were bears, every little sound. I was like, Did you hear that? Did you hear that? It's like and I and and then at one point she looked over me, she was like, So how's the high? Like, how are you feeling? And I was like, honestly, not good. She was like, ⁓ really? I was like, no, I feel I'm so freaking out. So she took me into the tent and had some snacks and put on some music and she was like, It'll pass. And I was like freaking out. Chelsea Henderson: No. Sasquatch is coming. ⁓ God. Awful awful ⁓ shit. Ugh That's a good friend that's a good friend And a good stoner Abby: She was great, friend. ⁓ So yeah, I had that And then when I was kind of looking into like, do I want to be on Xanax? Do I what do want to do for my anxiety? I was like, well, I don't want to just smoke weed because I tried that last summer and it was I got really paranoid and then C BD. So I was like, ⁓ I'll try C B D. ⁓ And ⁓ I found ⁓ can CBD flour. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: which is like inhalable, right? So you can smoke it just like regular weed, but it doesn't have THC in it. So THC, which we'll get into all of this, THC is what makes you high. ⁓ in your mind, it's it's got those cognitive effects, CBD does not. So I was like, I'll try that because when it comes to anxiety, especially someone who struggles with panic attacks, typically you want something that is effective immediately. You want to intercept that panic attack when it's happening. If you take like a gummy or even an oil, that might take 30, 45 minutes to really kick in. And it's like, well, if I'm having a panic attack, I need help now. So I did a little bit of research and it was like, ⁓ inhalable. So when you inhale something within three minutes, it's peaking in your bloodstream. So I was like, okay, that's how let's try that. And I I packed a little, I think I made a little joint or something and of just the CBD. Chelsea Henderson: Right, yeah. Yeah. Abby: And I was having some anxiety and so I did it and I took an an inhale and it felt like all of this weight on my shoulders and in my neck and my head just literally it's like someone came and took a really heavy backpack off of me. And I felt like ⁓ I felt like I could breathe deeply for the first time in like years, maybe. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ ⁓ my god. Abby: Ever I was like, wow, and better than beer, right? Because like you can have a couple beers and be like, ⁓ but like you're still you feel a little drunk. I just felt like wow, this is what it feels like to take a deep breath. This is what it feels like to be relaxed and to be worry-free. And that was just one inhale. And I was like, how the fuck does this work? How does this work? Like Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Magic Wow. Yes. Yeah. Abby: What's going on? So that kind of sparked the whole curiosity of just as a nurse, like as a medicine. I'm like, what is this? It's is it a central nervous system depressant? Is it, you know, how is it like doing this to me so quickly? But yeah, I was also very clear in my mind. I was completely clear. I could have driven. I could have done math. I, you know, not that I would have wanted to. But clear's day. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Right. That's awesome. Also, maybe we just take a second to honor the work of an ICU nurse because holy cow, I actually can't imagine. Like when you talk about it, it makes me feel like I can't breathe. And yet I know that in the back of my life there's an infrastructural element to life in the West. You just know Abby: I was like, this is so cool. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: If I get in a car accident on the way to pick up my son today, I'll be taken to the emergency room and I'll have a high likelihood of surviving. You know, if I have a heart attack, if I eat the wrong food and get poisoned, if I get bit by a dog, like all the things that can happen during a day, there are people who are willing to take on that burden, that immense overwhelming energy, that that heavy, heavy lift, that heavy energy and wear that heavy backpack. Abby: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: To help others. And I just think that is admirable, isn't even the word. And during COVID, forget about it. I mean, we all got to just cozy up at home and talk about smoking weed. Fucking A man. I was like, let's go. Like, we're not leaving this place for at least six months or a year. Let's go. And you went off to work and you let's let it rip and and did that. So I think thank you. Abby: Mm. Mm-hmm. Forget it. Let's r let it rip. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: I mean, ⁓ my God, am I about to say thank you for your service? I I feel like I am and I d it feels a little but but like yes, thank you. And obviously see the see that. I see it and I feel it ⁓ as a person who relies on that. So thank you for doing that and thanks for wearing that heavy backpack and thank you to all out there who do that. That's insanely, overwhelmingly Abby: ⁓ thanks. Yeah. The military gets it. We should get it. Chelsea Henderson: amazing and such an offering and I'm sorry that that was so heavy. That was such a heavy time and that you were wearing that weight. Abby: Yeah. Well, and it was so heavy for me. Some people handle that weight better than others, depending on nature and nurture, right? Depending on how you were raised, your experiences, and you know, your genetics. I mean, some people I worked with, it was it they wouldn't really bring it home in the same way that I would. I didn't know that I was a highly sensitive person. I didn't know that I was an empath. I had no language for these things. I wasn't Chelsea Henderson: Amazing. Yeah. Interesting. ⁓ yeah. Mm. Abby: kinda I hadn't started my spiritual journey in terms of like coming to terms with who I what would be the type of work that would suit my spirit and my soul as opposed to what kind of work would get me the most praise from society, which would be nurse, right? Teacher, those types of things. Especially for a woman. Yeah. Very conditioned to seek out roles that are approved of by society, that we help other people. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Especially for a woman, right? Yeah, yeah. Abby: But yeah, I had no idea that I was an empath, ⁓ HSP type person. So it would just, I mean, it would really affect me. I would feel and carry my patients who had just struggled or or whatever, even if they went on and did great, I would still carry the image of them in the bed and just like other people around me didn't seem to be as affected. And ⁓ yeah, I I lasted like six months in the ICU. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ my god. Yeah. Abby: As an ICU nurse before I switched to a different specialty. ⁓ which I had a lot of shame around at the time, because I was like, ⁓ I know it was a long time. But anyway, thank you for saying that. And thank you, yeah, to anybody out there who is in a profession where you give of yourself, whether whether that's nursing, teaching, mothering, with you whether you have children of your own body or not, but like where you give of yourself to hold space for suffering. Chelsea Henderson: God, that feels like an eternity. Holy moly. Yeah. Yes, yeah. Good grief. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: of other people, it takes so much out of you. And that is also what the endocannabinoid system taught me when I started to learn about it. Is the science of self-care on like the cellular level. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Okay. Okay. Well that's a really interesting per first of all, amazing segue. Good for you. You nailed that. Second of all, that's a really interesting perspective on that. I I like that a lot. Because I have a lot of folks in my life who use marijuana a lot for a lot of different reasons and we'll talk about okay, we have receptors for it, you know, like alcohol, yes, can give you the same kind of disconnect from harder emotions or harder things to carry, but it's Abby: Thank you. Chelsea Henderson: you know, essentially a poison. The reason you're getting that high is because your organs are strained, breaking it down and everything kind of slows down and your body is taxed, whereas marijuana has receptors. But now in a world where it's legal and life is so hard, maybe it's always been this hard, probably it has, but it just also feels increasingly so now we have people who are overusing it just like anything and getting sick. And so I I love the perspective that you're saying of this Abby: Yes. Yes. Chelsea Henderson: this is a way that you are able to kind of get in touch with some more intimate self knowing and self care. So please expand on that. Abby: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Okay. I'm like, where do I start? I was reviewing my old notes because I used to give this presentation called Cannabis 101. so I kind of reviewed my notes on that. So what what most people maybe don't know about cannabis, or maybe I would like to start by asking you, Chelsea, what do you know about how cannabis works, or maybe what are some Chelsea Henderson: Ha ha ha. Abby: misconceptions that you've heard or just to kinda connect with people who might be listening who don't know anything. Like, how do you think and if you don't want to answer that, you don't have to, I could just go right into it. But Chelsea Henderson: Mm. No, I love that question. I'm just trying to think. I probably don't know as much as I think I do on the medical side. Right. I was a young, I was a very innocent child until I turned 15. And then my entire life changed. My mother got diagnosed with stage four cancer. I started at a public high school. I'd been in private school my whole life. ⁓ this is a tiny little drop of story real here on my side, real quick, but and I went from being a little nerdy girl who liked to play with other girls and make believe and all that to being like kind of boy crazy, needing that validation. It was just a like it was like just a complete 180. You know, I just did a total flip because my whole life changed. Every structural element that I knew just dropped out from under me. And that's happened to me twice in my life actually. So it's a really interesting thing to reflect on. And pretty quickly I got introduced. So I had There were people around me, I was raised by hippies. Like they were smoking pot for sure. It's just it was not you just don't notice those things. I mean, they were drinking beers and wine too, right? It's like I'm a kid, who gives a shit? Like they weren't toking up and trying to pass me the joint, right? It was not like a meth house. It was just people were partying and they'd go off in the corner of the backyard and they'd quote unquote burn incense, you know? Like it's adult time. And like you're like, cool, awesome. Abby: Right. Amazing. Chelsea Henderson: Worst cover story ever. But like I honestly, it worked. I didn't care and no one cared, right? We were well taken care of, well loved children. ⁓ so I had been exposed to it. It was not like I didn't know what it was, but my first time trying it, using it, was when I was 15. And was just all of a sudden, it was like being shot by a shotgun in the stomach and having no treatment. Like I just had a gaping hole in me, and I didn't know. how to fill it or again, like you said, I didn't have any tools and I certainly didn't have any language. So I became very, very angry, right? That's the that's the origination of my rage and learned a lot of shame because people were immediately like, ew, that's gross. Please calm down. Like Abby: Yeah. Mm. So when you started smoking you felt this opening? Chelsea Henderson: The so th sorry, that was not very clear. The whole event of my life at that point, my mother getting sick, starting in this public school environment, was like this opening, right? This just wound where I was like, fuck and rage because I I mean, I was suddenly in a public institution. I was in a ch in a school with five thousand kids, and it was like being in prison. I mean, literally there were guards and there were and people were mean and they were Abby: Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And rage. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: awful to each other and themselves and it was just a completely different just a complete shift. And so when one of my friends was like, you want to try this, I was like, Yeah, I'll try anything because I don't give a fuck about anything. Like I just want someone to like me and want to be cool and which is never gonna happen. But like it's what I wanted so desperately. And I tried it and felt that disconnect from the pain, from the suffering. I felt Abby: Yeah. Yep. Mm, mm. Chelsea Henderson: Happy again. I felt content again. I felt good again. And so that was like how it started for me. And then on my 16th birthday, I did ecstasy for like eight hours straight. So I pr took a deep, deep dive into drugs. And it was not a healthy balance per se. I did drugs pretty strong from the time I was 16 until I was close to 20. ⁓ maybe even longer. And then I drank a lot of alcohol until I was in my early 20s. And so it was just a long Abby: Yeah, nice. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: many years of kind of doing the thing of just like, I don't like this feeling. I don't like my reality. I don't know what to do with it. So I'm just gonna try everything. ⁓ but that was like my first introduction to it. And honestly it did th I did that less. I smoked pot less than a lot of other things. But I would I had a friend who I don't even remember his name, but he was like a cool guy with baggy jeans and like, you know, kind of one of those guys. And ⁓ Abby: Course. Chelsea Henderson: had like a gravity bong in his car. Like we would hit this and then go to class. And like, I just, I mean, spoiler alert, didn't do super great in that span of my educational time. Just kind of was just like, where am I? What's happening? ⁓ literally one day, literally, I don't know why I said that, that's so obnoxious, but it is actually a literal story. It really did happen. I ⁓ got stoned in the car with this guy. Abby: ⁓ my god. Hey. Chelsea Henderson: I think his name might have been Kevin. It's coming back to me. and I was like, I gotta go get snacks, and I'm walking toward the cafeteria, and I don't even notice that these two gigantic sport sporty guys are getting in a fight with each other, and one of them goes to hit the other one and he ducks, and the guy punches me straight in the neck. I just walked right into it. I was so stoned. I was just like, ⁓ what the fuck happened? Like, I just got punched in the neck. Like, that's weird. Abby: ⁓ no. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: So it was that like just obliterate my consciousness kind of thing for a really long time. So then when I kind of got out of that in my 20s, it started to come back around in my life of like a thing of like the more peaceful people that I was starting to kind of be drawn to. Let's go, you know, canoe down the river and smoke a joint and like connect with nature. Let's go walking with the trees and like it was it so it my Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: The drug use that I had been engaging in to just kind of either get as high as I possibly could so I could remember what it was like to feel good or obliterate my consciousness, that was waning. And this new I was embodying more. And I was starting to be like, how can I get in here and feel good? How can I be around people that I like being around, that make me feel good, that are good people in the world? How can I engage with nature and the things that really light me up? Abby: Yeah. Yes. Chelsea Henderson: And so that's when I started to develop a relationship with marijuana that was a little bit more like, ⁓ this can be like a accentuator, you know, and this can kind of get me deeper into my body. And it's not about just get out of here, right? Like abandoned ship. so, holy shit, that was 10 minutes ago. You asked me, what do I know about it? That being my background with it, what I feel like I know about it is that. Abby: Yeah, yeah. Yes. Mm. Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: So, like you said, like the THC is what actually gives you that high effect. I know that there are receptors in our body for it. I'm guessing these are in the brain, but this is we're getting pretty far out of my vernacular and my knowledge here. and I know that CBD does not get you high, but can offer things like anti-inflammation or inflammation reduction. ⁓ Abby: Mm-hmm. That's all good. Yep. Chelsea Henderson: Which I think probably leads to the reduction of stress and anxiety. and I know that there I mean, obviously I know the stoner things, right? Indica, sativa. I think there's a lot of myth around that, right? Indica, you're in the couch, like sativa, you're more like hi. I don't actually find that to be true. I think different strains just pull you different ways. and Abby: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: I know how to use it. I know how to smoke weed out of an apple. I know how to smoke weed out of paper. I know how to smoke weed out of a ten-foot bong. I know how to smoke weed out of a gravity bong made out of a water bucket with a giant, you know, whatever the fuck. ⁓ my God. So many ways to get weed into your face. And I also know that just like anything else in my life, I have to be aware of the relationship that I'm cultivating with it. If I intend Abby: Yes. Out of a can. ⁓ yeah, I've done one of those when I was a teenager. Absolutely. Chelsea Henderson: For I to engage with marijuana, to bring that into my life, into my space, into my body. And I intend for it to be expansive and to connect me more more with my body, with the people that I'm around, to light me up, it will. If I'm like fuck life and I want to climb into my bed and eat Chinese food directly out of the carton with my fingers, it'll bring me there. You know? So like I have to be really cognizant of that because, you know, it can become really habitual. So Abby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: That is not a lot of knowledge actually now that I hear. It's a lot of history, but it's not a lot of knowledge. So I would say that's ⁓ thank you. Okay. Abby: Mmm, well you know more than you think that you do, I would say. Just from some things that I heard in there. ⁓ thank you for sharing just your story with it as well. Cause I'm I'm sure that there are many people listening who have their own history with it, whether they tried it once and they hated it or they've used it every day for years, whether they've struggled to quit, whether they, you know, wherever their people are at, it's Chelsea Henderson: Thank you for hearing it. Yes. Abby: very prevalent these days. I think last time I checked, 45 of the 50 states have some t form of legalized cannabis, whether it's CBD only or the whole maybe it's just medical or full recreational like Colorado. 45 of 50 states. So like it's out there and most people don't know how it's working in their bodies. So I've I love the education side of things to empower people. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Abby: To know how to use it and what it's doing and how your intention, like you were saying, can change how it feels. The activities that you're doing when you use it will change how it works in your body. So all those things that you have picked up on intuitively: taking cannabis, forest bathing, hanging with good friends, floating down the river, getting sunlight. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah, yeah. Abby: All of those things are having an interaction within your brain chemistry to change the way that the cannabis is working in your body. So it's just amazing to hear how people intuitively figure things out for themselves. Like, ⁓ yeah, I could go at home and order Chinese food and be in a dark room with no sunlight and no people and no connection and get high and it's gonna feel this way versus the other way where it feels different and Chelsea Henderson: Hmm. ⁓ I love that. Yeah. Right. Yeah Yeah. Yes. Abby: Yeah, like we're all just little scientists and we figure a lot out on our own. We just might not know how it's working. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ I love that so much. ⁓ my god, we're all just little scientists. That is the cutest thing. Mmm. Yes we are. Abby: We're very observant. Yeah. Okay, so I'll go ahead and start explaining how it works then. Chelsea Henderson: Please, cannabis one ⁓ one, lay it on me. I'm excited. Abby: Cannabis 101. ⁓ me too. I'm like dust off the cobweb, Zabby. okay, so so cannabis, first off, let's throw put cannabis to the side and talk about the endocannabinoid system. ECS for short, because endocannabinoid is like a big word. It took me a long time to figure that one out. So let's break that word down. Endo means comes from within. Chelsea Henderson: Хака. It's easy to stumble over. Abby: So, like endocrine system is hormones and things that we secrete. ⁓ so endo means come from within, and then cannabinoid, they they discovered this system by researching cannabis. So, to take it back a little, you know, to how they discovered this system. This system, I think, was discovered in the 40s or somewhere in there by researchers in Israel. They were trying to map cannabis. They were taking apart the molecules and they've Chelsea Henderson: Hmm. Mm. Abby: mapped THC. And this was, I think, Raphael Meshulam in Israel, big cannabis researcher for a long time. He was the first to map THC, I think. and realized like this is the psychoactive chemical within cannabis. And what they did is they tagged this molecule. They ⁓ tagged it, made it like a radioactive isotope. Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Mm-hmm. Abby: so that they could see where is it binding in the body. First they isolated it and then they were like, okay, let's tag it so we can see where it goes in the body under imaging. And they put it in the test subjects, I don't know, animals or something, and it lit up the whole body. It didn't just go in the brain. They thought, ⁓ maybe we'll see it in the frontal lobe. Maybe we'll see it like where is it going? It lit up, I mean, brain, spinal cord, like Chelsea Henderson: Okay. Wow. Abby: organs, liver, intestines, bladder, i eyes and they're like, Okay, how is th what is going on? And they they're like, What? It's going everywhere. Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Shut up Wait, wait, wait. Can I just say can I just say animal testing is one of the things that actually keeps me up at night? Few things really truly do. That's one of them. I get that there's necessity for it. What a lucky test animal to end up in that study. That's like a blessing within a shit storm of shit. So please continue. I just had to put that in there because I'm thinking of those animals like, ⁓ man, that's a rough Abby: Yes. That's so true. They're like, whoa. That is so true. Chelsea Henderson: Existence but that one not so bad. Although it's still against their will, so what do I know? Maybe they hated it. Ugh I know me too. Okay, please continue. Abby: That is a rough existence, but that one maybe not so bad. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I hate it. I'm definitely against animal testing. But that's how they first kind of thought about like, okay, what's going on here? So then, I mean, I'm fuzzy on like the whole timeline of the science, of course, because I'm not like a researcher, but they eventually found the receptor that binds to THC. Chelsea Henderson: That's crazy. Abby: Which is called CB1, cannabinoid receptor number one. And those are very prevalent in your brain and your spinal cord, also some of your internal organs like your liver and your spleen. They found that it fits like a lock and a key with THC. And so then they thought, well, typically if the body has a receptor for something, we make it for ourselves. Like you don't just have like a Chelsea Henderson: Okay. Right. Abby: thyroid hormone receptor because you make thyroid hormone. So then they thought, ⁓ we have these receptors, so we must make this or something similar. They kept doing some research and they discovered that we do indeed create our own cannabinoids. These are molecularly very similar, almost identical to the cannabinoids found in plants. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Yes, yes. Abby: But we make them in ourselves. So we actually make cannabis in our own bodies. Which is so cool. We do, yes. Yeah. That blew my mind. Chelsea Henderson: No shit. That's so cool. What what so that's that's like a hor let's how d I'm sorry, this is me not knowing a lot about internal anatomy, but like where's that coming from? What what is that part of our endocrine system that's creating that? Is that where's that coming from? Abby: ⁓ Yeah, so it is an entire body system of its own. So the endocannabinoid system, you know, most of us learn in anatomy as kids, like you have the skeletal system, the digestive system, the cardiovascular system, the endocrine system, and then we have the endocannabinoid system. It is a complete body system on its own, which is not taught. Chelsea Henderson: What Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓ my god. Okay. Yeah, no. They did not teach me that in grade school. 'Cause the other ones I knew about that ⁓ but Abby: in medical school and in no they did not teach me that in nursing school they don't teach doctors this in medical school they don't teach the endocannabinoid system to this day because of the history and weaponization of cannabis against black and brown people. So the Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Fun, of course. Abby: Before we get more into like the sciencey side, I always like to address the history of it because it is a very important part of why even I labeled it as bad and evil and didn't vote for it is because of false narratives that had been have been propelled by, you know, rich white men trying to control everybody. Yes. Reagan, yep, Nixon. Chelsea Henderson: Please. Nancy Regan. Thanks a lot. ⁓ what? I thought he was a good guy. Abby: Nixon was a big one. Okay, so I know, yeah, right. Okay, so to back it up historically wise, the United States Pharmacopoeia was basically the pharmaceutical textbook that physicians used before what we have now as pharmaceuticals. So this was herbs, this was things like Ipecac to make people induce vomiting, it was things like this. So they, I mean they have copies of this pharmacopoeia, and cannabis extract was listed as a medicine in the pharmacopeia for over a hundred different ailments. So physicians were prescribing and using cannabis extract and tinctures for a very long time. It was kind of a staple and you can go on Google and look up like cannabis ⁓ you know, before it became illegal and you'll find old bottles that say cannabis extract, it was used for insomnia, it was used for headaches, it was used for lack of appetite, especially like end of life, it was used for skin ailments, it was used for all kinds of things. It was one of their main medicines. And then as soon as cocaine was used as a numbing agent, Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ cool. Works for that. Wow. was like cocaine, right? Like the other plant medicines were utilized though that then also had recreational effects or whatever that then got black labeled, blacklisted, whatever. Okay. But maybe not as much as cannabis. Abby: Yeah, yep. So somewhere around yeah, cannabis. I mean so cannabis was used by physicians. And then around I think it was like World War One, like kind of after World War One, ⁓ people from Jamaica and other places they started to bring the cannabis plant over to the United States, especially in New Orleans. And people in the jazz movement, people started actually smoking the plant, not Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Mm. Mm-hmm. Abby: Creating it into an extract to be ingested by a physician, but smoking the plant, growing it in their own backyard. ⁓ And so pretty quickly this guy named Harry Anslinger, he was a ⁓ someone for Nixon, basically. And he came up with the idea. He came up with the idea that if these are the communities that are using it, black, brown, and hippies, these are the exact communities that we need to target politically. Chelsea Henderson: I was gonna say, he sounds like a certain kind of guy. Abby: To put them in prison. So they actually did a rebrand of cannabis. They took it out of the US Pharmacopoeia and they rebranded it as marijuana from Mexico. And that's where you see a lot of that like propaganda of those posters refer madness, people shooting up marijuana into their veins, like Chelsea Henderson: Hmm. Mm. ⁓ fun, of course. Right, no, that's one of my favorites. I love that one. Whoa. Totally. Abby: And just really like fear induced it. Fear induced it. And actually the physicians at the time really revolted because this was a main medicine for them. And there was a big study, a five-year study, that looked into the claims around marijuana that it makes people sex crazed, have orgies, doing all of this stuff. And they had they released a an official report saying that they've studied this and no use of marijuana. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Abby: cannabis increases risky behavior and ⁓ yeah Nixon literally Nixon threw it out Nixon's whole administration threw that study out and made it illegal anyway yeah yeah so that's why there's just so much around marijuana and I don't know whoever's listening to this what your thoughts are on marijuana you know is it good is it bad Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. All you have to do is try it to find that out. Fuck that guy what a dick And pun intended on that one. Yeah. Abby: Depending on when you were raised, depending on the rhetoric you grew up with, like a lot of the older generation still think it's the devil's lettuce, still think it's bad, but that is changing for some of them because they also don't want to be on opioids, but we'll get into that. so yeah, anyway, it is a medicine. It was used as a medicine. And back to the science of it, that we create our own cannabis. They discovered that we create these chemicals. Chelsea Henderson: Ugh, seriously, what a shitty trade. Abby: And the question is, how does that work? Where is that coming from? And I told you it's its own body system. What's unique about the endocannabinoid system is this thing called retrograde signaling. So a little bit of an anatomy deeper dive. You might remember learning about nerve impulses. They go from presynaptic to postsynaptic, and you have that cleft where there's that space. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Mm-hmm. Abby: And that's where your neurotransmitters go between presynaptic and postsynaptic nerves. So, how the endocannabinoid system works, it's called an on-demand system. So, within your postsynaptic, so most things go from A to B, presynaptic to post, they move downward. This is neurotransmitters that are very stimulating. So, cannabis is the only thing in the body that moves. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Abby: The opposite way. The end your endocannabinoids, not even cannabis, just the ones that you make in your own body. The endocannabinoids live in the postsynaptic neuron, and they can sense basically overstimulation. They can sense that there's too much going on from the presynaptic over, and they will create an endocannabinoid and send it to the presynaptic cleft. Chelsea Henderson: What? Whoa. Abby: Presynaptic neuron and it will turn the volume down on the excitatory neurotransmitters. It creates a calming effect. It reduces stimulation in that neuron. And that's called retrograde signaling. So brilliant. That's how our body does it. A hundred percent. Chelsea Henderson: Whoa. ⁓ my god, the body is brilliant. The body is brilliant. That's incredible. That's incredible. So it's like self-soothing, basically. That's how wow. Okay. Abby: Yes, self-soothing. So this is why I'm I'm sure you remember Charlotte's Webb strain. Charlotte, not not with the pig, but Charlotte was a little girl who had epilepsy. Not the not the pig. Chelsea Henderson: Yes, I do. No I Yes, yes, yes. I remember the movie too, but I knew what you were talking about. Yes. Yeah. Abby: So yeah, Charlotte's Webb, there was a little girl named Charlotte, and she had epilepsy, very severe, and she her family started using CBD with her, and her seizures stopped. And so certain excitatory nervous disorders like certain seizure disorders, multiple sclerosis spasms, ⁓ Parkinson's spasms, that is an over stimulation. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Abby: of excitatory neurotransmitters. And so when you introduce cannabis, which mimics our own endocannabinoids, it turns down that signaling in the brain to stop seizures, to stop spasms, and to stop a whole host of things in the body. Every single organ, tissue in your body creates endocannabinoids on its own. Chelsea Henderson: Wow. I'm having a hard time closing my mouth. ⁓ Abby: So cool. Chelsea Henderson: It's so cool. The body is so cool. It's so cool that you know this. I'm just having like I I have like hearts in my eyes right now. And I can't close my mouth. Wow. that is nuts. And I it's making me reflect on a lot of what we've been like these herbal medicines, right? What existed before we started to take these, you know pr part I don't know, you take derivatives of these Abby: That's so cool. Chelsea Henderson: plants and you bring them into a lab and you kind of finesse and fine tune and whatever it is that they do there to make what's considered medicine today that has to look very sterile, be in a pill form or some kind of like very, you know, it has to look very packaged and put together. But that what existed there in the world up until very recently, until we evolved medicine into a very kind of specific science, for better and you know, in some ways for worse, ⁓ There's so many things that exist in the natural world that are designed to meet the needs that our bodies will have over time. I mean, even talking about cocaine as a numbing agent, like there's a lot of times in life where you want to have a numbing agent and you know, there's a like holy shit, dude. Like and a bone craft, which is insane, right? You're feeling that that's torture. And so it's amazing. Abby: Mm, yes. ⁓ I just had a tooth extracted and I didn't feel a thing. Amazing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: n the natural world, I think ⁓ the reason I'm even calling this out is because I think in a modern existence it's really easy for us to forget where everything comes from, the origin of things, right? People experience this now, I think, in popular in in c in our culture, popular culture is not appropriate, but in in our culture, in our world with food, right? Like, where does food come from? Probably because a lot of it is unrecognizable. It's been morphed and perverted into things that don't even look like n wouldn't ever exist in nature. Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: But the origins of all these things exist. Nature has provided what our bodies need. That's insane. Well, exactly. Yes, yes. Abby: Yes. Yeah. And we are part of nature. So every animal has an endocannabinoid system except for insects and certain invertebrates. But every every animal has endocannabinoids that they make as part of their bodies. I c I think invertebrates do make them, but it's not insects don't. I don't know why. Don't know much about insects, but Chelsea Henderson: Interesting. But then do insects and invertebrates have the a nervous system structure in the same way? Hmm. They must not need it. Abby: Yeah, yeah. Their nervous system, their bodies work in a different way. But all like your cat, your dog, this is why people give CBD to their dogs and their cats for firework anxiety, because of that retrograde signaling effect as it's going and it's turning down the excitatory neurons in their brain. So what's that post-synaptic neuron that's creating these endocannabinoids and floating them back up? Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Babies. Yeah. Yes. Abby: Retrograde to the presynaptic binds to CB1 and CB2 receptors. So that's where those receptors live. What's really also interesting about endocannabinoids is they are made on demand and you need omega-3s and omega-6s for them to be synthesized. What I mean by made on demand is you have to have the building blocks. In your system, in order to be able to create these endocannabinoids, and you can be deficient in endocannabinoids. It's actually called endocannabinoid deficiency syndrome, where you don't create enough of your own endocannabinoids. If you don't have enough of your own, ⁓ you know, like you said, turning down the signal self-soothing, then you have out-of-control stimulation inflammation. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Is out of control stimulation, ⁓ irritation, a lot of the autoimmune disorders. And what they have researched is the three things that are most aligned with endocannabinoid deficiency is migraines, fibromyalgia, and IBS. Those three together, especially when someone has all three. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Wow. Abby: Is a big hallmark that you're not making enough endocannabinoids, whether that's because your diet is deficient in omega-3s and sixes, or you have so much stress that your body can't keep up with demand, right? It's pumping out as much endocannabinoids as it can. Chelsea Henderson: Okay. ⁓ my gosh, yeah. Abby: But probably your diet's not great because you're sick, right? You're not eating well, maybe you don't have an appetite, maybe you cancer, and you're not taking in the nutrition that you need. So the bot the endocannabinoids that your body can make, it's not enough to keep up with all of the overstimulation of our lives in modern world. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: You know, all of the noise and the technology and driving. I mean, driving on the highway alone is such a stressful thing for so many of us that we just d probably deplete our endocannabinoids on one drive. And then you're like, I guess I need more omega-3s. Yeah. Yeah. It depletes the modern Chelsea Henderson: Right. ⁓ my god. I know. It's i I I believe I believe it. It's exhausting. It's exhausting. Abby: world depletes us of endocannabinoids. Even when your diet can be really great. You can have a hard time keeping up with demand. It was not we weren't made to experience this much stimulation. cannabis is always also really great for people with autism. that's really being used a lot. Especially Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Wasn't really made for us. Yeah. Yeah. that's interesting. Because is that stimulation factor big in with people on the spectrum? Abby: It just soothes. It soothes. So I mean they're they're so overstimulated, easily so o easily overstimulated that certain a lot of parents have discovered this for their autistic children who are highly autistic, that when they start having really big, like om you know, almost those violent fits, that they will vaporize cannabis and give it to them and they will calm down and start playing with their Legos again. And it it soothes the nervous system. Chelsea Henderson: Interesting. Okay. Great. Right. Yep. Yeah. ⁓ my god, that like makes me so that's insane. That's beautiful. Abby: It's amazing medicine and it's a flower, by the way. It's a flower. Chelsea Henderson: It's actually such a pretty plant, I think. It's like very jagged, but it's pretty. It's literally a flower. ⁓ my gosh. ⁓ my gosh. Yeah, it like made for us, made with us, right? It's a part yeah. ⁓ my god, you got me with that Legos thing, honey. No, it's okay. It's just it's such a hard existence. I just my empathy. Abby: It's literally a flower. It's like this beautiful fragrant flower that God the universe has like given to us. Yeah. Yeah. Made to soothe us. Sorry. Chelsea Henderson: My compassion, you know, for living this life. It's just so it can be so hard. And and the fact that we have created this system that in so many ways benefits us, right? And yet is fundamentally kind of in contrast to our design. And it's so hard and you see so many folks out there who don't know and they don't understand and they think there's something wrong with them, you know, they Abby: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: They it's just it's it's hard and I just ⁓ I have a lot of feelings about it. So little guys playing with their Legos is like one of my happy places to go to and ⁓ that's really sweet. Abby: Yeah, me too. Mm-hmm. Anything that can help them play with their Legos and feel embodied. You know, like and that is that is where it's so heartbreaking how the politics has used this flower, this plant. Also, the hemp plant is amazing. It pulls radioactivity out of soil. It is healing for the earth. Like to plant hemp. Chelsea Henderson: Fuck yes. Hashtag Lego Yeah. Not to mention it's Abby: Neutralizes heavy metals. Chelsea Henderson: You can plant it over and over again without soil depletion. It it it can stand in for textiles like cotton that take enormous amounts of water and enormous amounts of land. It can be planted on like a quarter of the soil to produce as much. Like this is something that from a design perspective kills me that we have not invested in hemp. Even for paper, we cut down trees for paper, trees that function in a very, very important way and balancing. Abby: Yeah. It's incredible. Chelsea Henderson: Carbon dioxide and oxygen in our system. Witty politics has done to us. Greed. Racism and shitty shitty politics and bad decisions. Greed. ⁓ my. Abby: has done but racism and greed has done to yeah. Yeah, the hemp plant is amazing. The flower, the medicinal properties are incredible. It really does feel like it is such a gift to humankind that we don't we've been yeah, it's been taken from us in a lot of ways, but we're getting it back. 45 Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: out of fifty states have legalized some form of it, you know, hemp is becoming more used for different things. It feels like a big solution to a lot of the things that we struggle with. so I'm a big fan. So, you know, I I love to give this talk for people who have misconceptions about cannabis and about hemp because there's just a lot I didn't know ⁓ you know, and I'm a medical professional. I didn't know how this works in the body and ⁓ Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: You know, I think that knowledge is power and it really helps people to really examine like what are my beliefs about this plant and why. Why do I have this belief about this plant? And ⁓ we're coming out of the prohibition era of it. ⁓ just like, you know, alcohol and yeah, it's really an amazing plant. to nerd out just a little bit longer on the lifestyle question that you asked about Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: ⁓ so like I said, the endocannabnoids, you make these on your own. You don't need to ingest cannabis to make them, but there are certain things that you can do to help your system create more of them. So that would be omega 3s, making sure you have most of us get enough omega 6s, but we don't get enough omega 3s. You need omega 3s to be able to make endocannabnoids. And then also turmeric. Turmeric has an effect on Chelsea Henderson: Right. Abby: your endocannabinoid system in that when we secrete these endocannabinoids, turmeric helps them stay in this synaptic gap longer before being degraded. Chelsea Henderson: Is that what it is? Okay, so I've heard a lot about, you know, 'cause I think we'll be having this discussion soon, but the Ayurvedic medicine, right? Like turmeric is very strong in, you know, a lot of like Eastern cooking and it's anti inflammatory and th I've known this in kind of that more again, you know, the more hippie kind of sphere. And I didn't understand that that's so it's actually extending that period of benefit. Abby: Mm-hmm. Anti inflammation. Yeah, kind of like an SSRI for people who take SSRIs that serotonin reuptake inhibitors. And the the SSRIs for depression keep serotonin in the synaptic cleft gap longer before it gets broken down, before it gets reuptaked, before it gets pulled back into the cell. So basically that, you know, SSRIs increase your amount of serotonin. Things like turmeric and cacao. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ yeah, yeah. Okay. Right. Mm-hmm. Abby: keep the endocannabnoids active in the synaptic cleft longer before being broken down back into their building blocks. So inflammation, inflammation, right? Really helpful. I I think it's so fascinating that a lot of these Eastern medicines, they when you really look at them, they work on the endocannabnoid system. So a lot of the acupuncture as well, acupuncture taps into Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Wow. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Abby: releasing endocannabinoids and balancing endocannabinoids throughout the body. So the all of this woo-woo stuff is only woo because we aren't taught the body system. We aren't taught the body system that they utilize. It's like taking thyroid without us discovering the endocrine system and people just saying I don't know how it works, but it makes me feel better. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Yes. Bad politics. Right. Yeah. Abby: Like how turmeric and some of these other things work, as well as stress reduction, mindfulness, meditation, nature exposure, connecting with friends, singing, laughing, and dancing all increase our baseline levels of endocannabinoids in our body. So you're getting high on life. Chelsea Henderson: Man, you're kidding me on this one. I'm like gonna have to go sob after this. This is ⁓ beautiful. It's beautiful. It's so harmonious. You know, I feel like I one of the things I'm in contention with in this modern existence, which is a choice that I'm making, right? I I need to choose to to shift away from contention. I'm not that's not a I'm not putting that out. I'm I'm I'm recognizing that's within, but Abby: Yes, beautiful. Beautiful. Mm-hmm. Chelsea Henderson: I'm struggling, I find, with a feeling of just let's just simplify disharmony, right? It just feels like everything is is kind of a wall. You know, things are just, we're just running into walls, right? It's just one problem after another. And every every institution that has been built kind of seems to be rigid and exclusive. I mean, even this this history of Of the political kind of manipulation that exists in this topic that we're talking about. It just, I feel like there's so much of that in our history, right? And it it doesn't, with all of our advancement and innovation, it's not seeming to go away. And that's the part that's killing me, where I'm just like, wow, we know so much, right? Like we have created so much, and yet we still are struggling with this. That when we start to talk about something like this that's so harmonious and exists naturally, we don't have to, it's not like a daydream, it's not a a pipe dream. It it's real, it exists, and it's here. it's just a good reminder that it's not all tension, it's not all running into a wall, right? It's not all exclusive hierarchical. Abby: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Bullshit if you ask my humble opinion. Abby: And people and people I mean yeah, all of that has stuck around despite all of our innovation. And so has weed. You know, like cannabis, people smoking weed has grown. You know, it's it's only grown despite it being a schedule one substance on the same level as heroin. Chelsea Henderson: Hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: despite people getting thrown in prison for it. Despite all of these things, forty-five of the fifty states legalized it. People use it. And the elderly, like baby boomers, are one of the fastest growing populations for using it because they're realizing they don't want to be on per cassette and oxycodone. Because it doesn't actually help chronic pain. That helps acute pain. Chronic pain endocannabinoids are Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: Hugely effective for chronic pain. So people are starting to learn that. And it's like it's it's as resilient as like the human spirit in a way, cannabis. It's sticking around. It's like you can't get rid of us because I am you. Like the plant is us. It's it's a very symbiotic relationship that humans have cultivated for 2,500 years. They've found THC in like wooden Braz like. Chelsea Henderson: I am you. Yeah. Abby: Bowls in China along the Silk Road, people were smoking cannabis. So it's you can't get rid of it. It's part of our spirit. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Well, ⁓ yes, absolutely. And also you talk about things like Per Cassette, right? You talk about things like Xanax. It's like those things I have seen throughout my life have a very specific purpose and it is important. If you need something like that, you're grateful that it exists. I'm grateful that it exists. But the way that it has been used in our culture, we've seen that it also can create a lot of problems in your body. Abby: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right? mean, I I you know, I remember having a car accident and they put me on some sort of ⁓ what are those called again? The the Percocet, the codeines, all those are opiate. They put me on an opiate and I didn't get better very quickly and I also couldn't poop. Like it was problematic. And and I also felt like I had I mean I my nose was really itchy, ⁓ my body felt weird. I felt like I wanted to climb out on my skin. Abby: ⁓ opiate. Opiate. Yeah. ⁓ yep. Yep. Chelsea Henderson: And ⁓ the natural healing effect of something like CBD, right? We could take the getting high piece out of it because I think that's what's really triggering for people. We're in, you know, there's a lot of awareness now around getting high to dissociate from this existence and from participating in this existence, and it can be really harmful. I have a lot of folks in my life who, yeah. Abby: Yes. Yes, it can. And I've been in that place with can't with weed where I've had a hard time giving it up. Like once I started using it regularly, I started with the C B D and then I would introduce some THC and then I could I I would have a hard time going a day without it. I would have a hard time considering going on a vacation where I couldn't bring it. I went to the Dominican Republic with some friends and I was on Reddit trying to find someone in the DR who could hook me up with some weed. Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely. Yeah. Of course. Abby: Because I didn't want to risk bringing it in my bag, but n felt like I needed it. I felt like I can't go. No. Way too freaked out for that. I'm like, no way. No. Even though my my family member brought a whole vitamin bottle full of edibles, like it was no big deal. I'm like, I admire your bravery, but I I can't do that. That's just like I'm too freaked out. But I'll get on Reddit. Chelsea Henderson: That's amazing. The old condom up the vagina thing didn't work for you? Just like common drug mule. ⁓ my god. Amazing. Doesn't seem worth the risk. But Reddit Reddit in the DR feels like kind of like just you're never coming back from that. That's a dark alley with a very, very bad man at the end. ⁓ Abby: And try to find a drug dealer in the DR to meet me at our hotel. Dad. But that's that was I I felt so much like I needed it that I couldn't go a couple days without it. And I have tried to quit and not been able to. I have tried and been able to, right? Depending on where I'm at, depending on what coping skills I have, how much community do I have around me, how much connection do I have around me? Do I have access to green space? Chelsea Henderson: Absolutely, yeah. Yes, yeah. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Abby: These all release endocannabinoids. How's my diet? Am I exercising? Am I getting sunlight? All of these increase endocannabinoids. So if if your diet and you don't have access to green space and you're feeling isolated, you don't have many friends, and you try to give up cannabis, I mean it just can be challenging. So that's like that holistic view of knowing how this system works and why smoking weed works in your system. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Yeah. Abby: And also the dosage with cannabis is really interesting. It has what's called like a ⁓ kind of like a bell curve. So it's really effective up until a certain point, and then if you start using more, the effectiveness actually drops off. So less is more, and you do build up a tolerance. You build up a right? I mean you use yeah, like right now I haven't smoked in quite a while. Chelsea Henderson: Interesting. Sure, yeah. Yeah, ⁓ yeah. How you end up with the ten foot bong. Abby: That's how you end up taking one hit in the woods and being like, because I hadn't smoked for so long, or you end up going through an ounce a week and not ever really feeling the effects that you used to get from it. So there's this whole dosaging guidelines from the American Academy of Can Cannabis Nurses. There's different Chelsea Henderson: And losing your shit. Right. Yeah. Right. Abby: Practitioners out there who have made dosage guidelines that if you I'll just go over them briefly for anyone who this from what I can remember, if you're cannabis naive, you haven't smoked weed in at least a year, like you haven't had any in your system, what you're supposed to do is if you're doing an inhaled route, you take one inhalation and you set a timer for five minutes. If you feel absolutely nothing. After five minutes, you take another inhalation and you set a timer for five minutes. Once you feel the slightest something, that is your minimum dosage. Three inhales, four inhales, whatever it is. And then you can keep taking inhalations every five minutes until you get to your optimal effect. So if this is someone who has chronic pain, spasms, seizures, anxiety, maybe that takes another Inhalation, maybe two, and then you're like, ⁓ yeah, I just felt it lift off my body. I'm feeling calm. You write down five inhalations. If at any point you're finding that you now need seven, eight, nine, ten inhalations to get that effect, it means that you need to take 48 hours off. 48 hours is enough time for your body to prune your cannabis receptors to reduce your dependence, especially if you catch it early. Chelsea Henderson: Interesting. Okay. Abby: If you just keep smoking, smoking, smoking to where now you have a gravity bong and now you're taking an ounce a week, you're you might need a longer period of abstinence. But you find your dosage and those are your numbers. And you just pay attention if you want to have the maximum effectiveness for the lowest dose, it also is really cost effective. Cause you can I have I smoked weed every day for probably three years and I could get Chelsea Henderson: Right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Abby: rip roaring stoned after two inhalations every time because I knew how to work it and what to know what to pay attention to. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Nice. Right, right. Right. Okay, so then unlike so then maybe we're touching on the thing that like weed would have marijuana would have for as a I mean, that seems like the problem zone, right? Is that human beings just in general love to feel good, right? We have pleasure seeking built into us. And we love to not feel stressed. And we unfortunately live in a world that does not equip us well with self care tools, right? And even now that it's becoming more aware of an awareness in in our kind of common in culture and in in in all of our kind of awareness, it's ⁓ it's still kind of a commodity, right? We're not just teaching, we're not teaching it to kids in school. It's something that like middle aged women are like, ⁓ I need to go to Abby: ⁓ huh. Chelsea Henderson: Costa Rica or Mexico and you know, find it on the beach with a little bit of mushrooms and my ⁓ and my guru, you know, it's like and sorry, that's shitty of me to make fun of. I'm there's plenty of people that are like that that are probably just fine. But ⁓ but it seems like that's become commodified. Again, it's like an elite thing to have self care. And so then I think that might drive some of the problems that Abby: Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: we could see with something like this is overuse or over dependence. My question would be if someone is smoking an ounce a week, are they putting their endocannabinoid system at a disadvantage? Are they over providing externally what should be developed internally? Abby: No. Isn't that? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, they're over there any time in I think any time in the body, I think I'm safe saying that, that you're flooding your receptors with a constant supply, then they're gonna prune. So where you used to maybe have fifty receptors, so that they could soak up every little endocannabinoid that your body was able to put out. If you're smoking every day, you wake up first thing in the morning, you smoke weed, smoke weed all day long, last thing you do at night, smoking weed, smoking weed, taking edibles. Chelsea Henderson: Okay. Mm. Yeah. Abby: your 50 receptors are gonna reduce down to 10. So you're not gonna have as many receptors to bind to cannabis or cannabis like molecules. If you take this is why people they call them tea breaks where you know THC breaks where you take 48 hours off a week off. But when you do that it's like okay so you've taken now seven days off don't Chelsea Henderson: Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: try to smoke a huge bowl and get completely stoned again. Do the protocol. Do the protocol. You can find these online from practitioners. Do the five minute per inhalation protocol and see where you're at and and stay within that and just like know your dose ranges. But I do kind of feel like smoking weed can be like the poor man's coping skill. I mean it was for me. Like, you know, like you said, you can't Chelsea Henderson: Right. Start back at the beginning. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Totally. Abby: You're not in the place where you can go to the beach if you're working three jobs and you don't have much money for groceries, so you end up buying cheap junk food that has no nutritional value, your body is endocannabinoid deficient, and so cannabis becomes a supplement for your nervous system that you take, but you can take too much. It's just knowing how this system works. And guess what has lots of omega-3s? Hemp seeds, of course. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ my god. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Abby: Hemp seeds have tons of omega-3s. So hemp even provides hemp even provides the nutrients that we need to create our own cannabis, which is so cool. But learning how this works and ⁓ you're speaking personally as someone who has struggled with like feeling like I needed and having a hard time quitting, CBD has been helpful. Chelsea Henderson: Of course we don't have to overfish the oceans. Absolutely. Absolutely. Abby: Because CBD doesn't bind as strongly to CB1. CB1 is in your brain and spinal cord binds strongly to THC, and that's where we get high. CBD binds to CB2 receptors more, which is in your skin, your spleen, your liver, your organs, and in your brain, but in a different way. And it actually it can block CB1 receptors. Chelsea Henderson: Okay. Okay. Abby: Meaning that if you're someone who gets too high, like you take one hit and now you're paranoid, having CBD as a dominant strain because it's gonna partially block the CB1 receptor from THC binding to it. So you're not gonna get as high or as long. So like ⁓ the the things that the edibles that you had when you visited me are 25 milligrams CBD. Five milligrams THC, and that is gonna reduce inflammation and stress throughout your muscles and your body, and that little bit of THC will do like a little bit of a lift in your head without being like a full THC strain. But a lot of the cannabis at dispensaries, because they're they're GMO'd, and because of prohibition. So when you think about alcohol prohibition. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Abby: That is where we started to see moonshine and really, really strong forms of liquor because it was illegal. So you don't want to be, I mean beer is so much fluid volume to carry around. So people distilled it so that I could get around with like a little bottle of it and I would get more drunk per volume. They did the same thing with THC, they did the same thing with cannabis. Over the years of prohibition, they in basements and garages where people are growing it illegally. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Right. Totally. Abby: They didn't know what they were doing necessarily. They just realized this string gets me higher faster. I'm gonna breed that one with this one that gets me higher faster. And our THC percentage is now 30%. It in nature it is like three to five percent. The true plant, how it was. The true plant was mostly CBD and a little THC. We have bred out the CBD completely. Chelsea Henderson: Wow. way higher. Holy shit. Right, yeah. Abby: From a lot of cannabis and made it THC only, which is not how the plant was meant to be consumed. Mother Nature knows what she's doing. It is a higher THC, CBD to THC, or at least balanced one-to-one. And you can find these strains, or you can make your own. So you can get CBD flour and do, you know, a gram of that and a gram of the THC. Or you can do a whole bowl of CBD flour and then just like a little. Chelsea Henderson: ⁓ Abby: rice you know size portion of the THC weed on there and get like a really nice, more well-rounded, actually stress-relieving experience without just numbing and disassociating by using the THC. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Okay, using that truly ⁓ more medicinally rather than just like I don't wanna feel this anymore kind of a thing. Okay, wait, so is it true that a C B D is ineffective without THC to activate it? I've heard that before. Abby: Yeah. Yeah. I would say that that's not true. They work differently. Yeah, they just work differently. Now, THC is the appetite stimulant. So that's where the munchies come from. And that's where it's great for people with cancer and people who are having a hard time eating. They, if they're just taking CBD, they're not gonna have that increased appetite. So having the THC as well as certain pain relief. Chelsea Henderson: Right. Okay. Fucker. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Abby: THC is more potent than others, spasms, you know, it depends on what you're trying to treat. But if it's I mean, most people who smoke weed, it's anxiety. It's stress. So CBD is gonna be a really helpful thing for the stress in your muscles, in your body, in your organs, in your spleen. Chelsea Henderson: No. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: And then a little bit of that THC will help like the more mental component of the stress to feel a little bit like you had a beer, you know, to have that little bit of a lift. They complement each other really nicely. But most of us, when you go to a dispensary, I have not been able to find CBD only strains at dispensary. I have not been able to find only in the medical and even in the medical, it's hard to find CBD dominant strains. Most of them are still THC dominant. So Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Right. Mm mm. Only in the medical. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: But there's really great organic farms that I mean, C B D can be shipped to all fifty states. So you can buy indoor organic hand trimmed C B D flour shipped to your door anywhere that you live, which is really awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: I know, it's a bummer. Nice. That's awesome. I love this talk. I feel like there's more here. Maybe we should come back to this again and talk just so I have a chance to really rage out, because obviously I need more time for that. I joke, kind of. ⁓ but I think it'd be really cool to talk more about the politics and the culture, you know, because I think it has really been dumbed down into this. you know, there's a judgment there and there's something that I think our culture doesn't want to look at. I think again it's this fear of really having to acknowledge the deep, deep racism of this country and our history and the just utter devastation that we've caused to certain populations of humans for our own benefit or control or what I I don't even know. ⁓ I think it would be really interesting to touch on that just because I think it is a thing that is is taboo and I find that really interesting. Like alcohol is starting to get that attention, right? But I think it's one of those things where we always love a good enemy, right? We always love a good reason. My husband isn't a good husband because he's stoned all the time or because he drinks or, you know, like my child isn't doing well in school because they're doing and it's like I just really love to Abby: Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Talk about these things and dig in a little bit because I believe there's always some layers below that. And I believe that because of a lot of self reflection, right? My relationship with weed, I have to be aware of why I am using it. You know, if I'm using it because I'm enraged and I can't calm down, if I'm using it because I'm sad and I can't stop feeling sad. Abby: Mm. Me too. Chelsea Henderson: You know, that's a really good indicator to me that what I feel like works for me is to come back into all the practices, right? Get into that holistic, like you talked about. It's like, what am I eating? And I'm fascinated to learn about this naturally occurring endocannabinoid system that if I'm feeding myself more good omegas, it's producing more of that. I don't need to go to the pot shop. Abby: Absolutely. Chelsea Henderson: And buy from some guy who's got black circles under his eyes. It looks like he hasn't slept in a week. And when he did, he slept under a bridge, right? And that I mean, it's again, it's like trying not to be judgmental in that moment, but it's more an observation of how people are looking in this relationship with this new product, right? It's now a commodification issue again, where big corporations have bought out all the mom and pop shops, and it's just a bunch of wealthy, privileged people who own it and are kind of taking advantage, right? Abby: Yes. Yeah. Mm. Yep. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Not entirely, but that seems to be at play here. And a different proposition to go there and try to find something that's going to meet my need. Even ten years ago when we started we were living here in Colorado and going to, you know, a pot shop, you could have a conversation with someone who knew what they were talking about, who was a inspired, right? Abby: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's changed. Chelsea Henderson: you know, here's something you can use that I've found really gets me feeling creative. Here's something you can use if you're feeling nauseated and it helps you to come down from that. And and I think again, we've kind of stripped away and whitewashed the medicine right out of it. And so for myself, it's been like, how can I hold this well if I want to use it? There are some days that I just want to get high and I just want to fuck around and have fun, take a walk, go to the park, you know, like do something Abby: Yeah. Absolutely. Chelsea Henderson: just to fuck off. And then there are days when I I'm like, gosh, I my body doesn't feel right. And how amazing to know that there are other ways to skin that particular animal, if you will. Like it's not just about that. And that keeping a good balance with all of it and and being aware of what makes it taboo and why. And it just feels like a very broad issue. Yes. Clearly I have them. Abby: And your own yeah, our own biases about it. You know, when is this a supplement to me, or is this, you know, am I using numb out? And yeah, something I would love to do someday is like grow your own. Grow your own. It's it's actually so easy to grow. They don't call it a weed for nothing. Like it grows really well, it's good for like the rest of your garden, it detoxifies. Chelsea Henderson: Right, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Girl. Yeah. Abby: Soil and talk about like having a relationship with the medicine. And there's also, you know, there's incredible, really potent medicinal effects to raw cannabis. So most cannabis that we buy has been dried. And that process of drying it changes the THC A, which is THC acid, into THC, which is what gets us high. But if you have it in the acid form, meaning you Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Mm. Abby: Clip the flowers off and you blend them into a smoothie when they're fresh. They are some of the most potent anti-inflammatory and cancer protective that you can ingest. They are fucking super foods. Cannabis flowers are so incredible. I mean, there it goes on. There's like a hundred different cannabinoids. There's C B G, C B D, C B N, C B T H C, T H C A, T H C V. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. That's amazing. What in the world said. Abby: There's all of these different ones, and they all just do so many good things for us, especially in the acid form. So, like someday I, you know, having it in my garden, tending to it, I could imagine like drying it on your own. And then when you are using it, just like any food that you grow on your own, like you're gonna use it differently, you're gonna use it more sparingly, maybe. ⁓ yeah. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. ⁓ my gosh, yes. ⁓ and you're gonna just fall in love with it. I mean, every food that comes out of my garden is like one of my babies in a different way, because I eat it and I love eating it. It's it but it it is it's ⁓ it's magic. It's truly magical. It it it aligns me right back to my ancestry. Just like, ⁓ this is what it means to be in a joyous alignment with my humanity. This is insane. Abby: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be so cool. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. This is everybody's basic knowledge that you need to know to be able to understand further conversations that we might have about it. And I did just want to say one more thing. I'm sorry to keep talking, but I just love this topic so much. ⁓ when you when you were talking about Chelsea Henderson: Okay, well then that's a whole other episode. We gotta come back to this because I feel like we can dive into all of those. I feel like we can talk about some of the this is the one ⁓ one. This is one ⁓ one. We'll come back with Yo put please Keep going. It's so amazing. Abby: Just the self-care of it. Just kind of circling all the way back around to my story with cannabis where I started using it to manage my stress levels during the pandemic, and then I took this three-month-long certification to become a cannabis nurse where I learned all of this and more. I started to learn about the endo like this whole system. And then what I realized at the end of it is the reason I want to smoke. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: weed or C B D is because I'm feeling depleted. I'm feeling depleted. Like even when we use that term in holistic or healing or or spiritual spaces, like I'm feeling depleted, my brain goes endocannabinoids, high stress levels, poor diet, poor sleep, ⁓ not enough connection, not enough sunlight, not enough forestry in your life. That's that leads to endocannabinoid depletion. So when people say I'm feeling depleted, Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Yeah. Abby: And then we just want to get high. I just want to smoke weed. I just wanna, you know, do those things. I started to look at it as like, okay, what are some things I can do first before getting high? So after a really long hard shift at the hospital, all I wanna do is come home and get high. That is all I wanna do. But what I now know is that my body is in a state of endocannabinoid depletion. Chelsea Henderson: Yes. Yeah. Abby: So, what really my body is asking for is for me to light some candles, turn on some spa music, foam roll, make some turmeric tea, and help my endocannabinoids eat some hemp seeds, some omega-3-rich foods, and take some deep breaths. And if after 30 minutes of doing that after a shift, I still feel very fragile and like I just want to get high, then I can. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah, that's the beauty of it. That's the beauty of it. Yeah. Abby: But what I realized was most of the time, thirty minutes later, I felt renewed and I didn't need the cannabis or I needed one hit instead of ten. You know, and and it was different because I've helped my body to get what it actually needs. It's the same as taking any pill. You can take an omega-3 supplement that you buy at Costco. You can also eat foods that have that. You can take in cannabis that will Chelsea Henderson: That's what you needed. I love that. It was different. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: pretend to be endocannabinoids, they mimic it, or you can do things in your life that help create your own. So it's just knowing the science of it really helped me to see all of self-care as getting high. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Hell yes. Hell yes. ⁓ I I just have to reflect for a second on how ⁓ grateful I am to be friends with you and to get to soak up this knowledge and to be on this journey together. Sorry, journey is such a trendy word these days. I'm sure that's triggering for some, my apologies, but to be doing life together and to Abby: me too. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: To be doing this practice because I think I learn things, they come, they go, right? And every time we have these talks, I'm reminded. And there's something beautiful about a holistic approach that is very subjective to each of us, right? We are all different and we all have to pick our thing that works for us. Our bodies are different, our minds are different, our histories are different, our hearts are different. And The thing that connects us and makes us the same is that, you know, we can share these things and a lot of them are gonna work for a lot of us and ⁓ or work for someone that we love. And there's something incredibly expansive about also another buzzword. My apologies. I'm ripe with them today, but it's it's just I I mean, they they're there for a reason. I like take out try not to wear my felt hat. ⁓ but I I I just ⁓ the power that Abby: Yeah. I love ⁓ It's all good. Chelsea Henderson: we have with everyday choices, right? You're at Costco and you choose instead of the omega-3 pills, you choose the hemp seeds in the bag and you just put those on your cereal or blend them into your smoothie. You know, it's the same offering to the body, but it's a different source. And one source detoxifies soil and grows on small plots of land and can be grown over and over again while the other source Abby: É. Chelsea Henderson: Is is taking the food that whales eat. And and and it you know, it's it's it's like it's amazing to be reminded of these things because there's nothing wrong with taking the omega 3 pills. Like that's what the system is offering you. There's no shame in any of us as individuals, but when we have these conversations, your awareness just expands that little bit, and then you can practice things a little differently for yourself. It just makes life better, makes life richer, it makes it easier if we're really just Abby: Yes, exactly. Chelsea Henderson: Getting down to the the base of it is like this is hard. It's really hard to be a human. ⁓ at least it is for me. I maybe y'all have it figured out differently, but I I find a lot of struggle in this human experience and I find a lot of beauty in it. And I like sharing these things, sharing our knowledge, sharing our awareness with each other and anybody else who may benefit from it, amazing, right? That makes me feel amazing. ⁓ to Abby: Yeah. It are it is Chelsea Henderson: To just make this all a little bit easier, to expand our toolkit. I feel I feel like I learned a lot today about something that has been present in my life for ⁓ like whoa, almost thirty years, right? And I've had t I just yeah. Abby: Good. That's fucking awesome. That's my intention. Cause like yeah, I mean how many of us are out there using cannabis, not maybe understanding how it's working or or just like how we started the conversation with your intuition, like, ⁓ if I use this Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yeah. Abby: With this group of friends on a when I'm outside on a hike in the sunlight, it feels so different compared to over here. Possibly because you're you're already flooding yourself with your own endocannabinoids by being around other people and being outside and then and then the cannabis that you take in just brings that up in a different way. It's it it's Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yes. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Abby: I think we all know a lot of this. And it really gave me so much permission for all the woo-woo stuff that I felt like Yeah, there's no evidence for this, or like acupuncture and herbs and how do they work. I mean, so much of that western is like we have to understand how it works. And for some people out there, it really does help to understand how it works and you need that. And hopefully this has just helped you learn that those things that make you feel good, it might be this whole body system. Chelsea Henderson: Mm. Yeah. Abby: That you didn't even know you had. It some people even say it's more of a master regulatory system than the nervous system. That's how important it is to us. If we don't have the endocannabinoid system, we die. We die of immune malfunction, lack of appetite. It's essential to life to have a functioning endocannabinoid system. So all the things that we're out there doing for our self-care that make us feel good, we are Scientists, we've figured out what works. So I hope this is just a big permission slip to like keep doing the things that make you feel good. Chelsea Henderson: Yeah. Yes. And that something like this, there's always multiple layers, right? This isn't just about getting high. It can be about that. For me in my life recently, it's really not. Like the more in touch with my own baseline that I've gotten, the more regulation I've been able to kind of instill and create in myself. I don't really feel called to that in the same way. But you know, if you and I are curled up on the couch watching birders ⁓ I'm sorry, watching what ⁓ my god, no. Listers! God fuck. How could I forget? you know, that little that little lift felt really nice, right? And yeah, ⁓ it's just ⁓ all the potential of all the things. It's amazing. So, man ⁓ man. All right, well let's let's come back to this another time and talk more about all those little different Abby: Blisters. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Yeah. Chelsea Henderson: those different guys and, you know, talk more about how we use it or I don't know, whatever. Maybe we just ⁓ sit here and get stoned and talk about the secrets of the universe. Which Abby: Yeah, it I'm sure it'll come up. Yes. ⁓ there's so much more to this beautiful medicinal plant. And we yeah, so for anyone who's listening, this will be your one ⁓ one episode. For future episodes that we listen to, well that's right. Yeah. I gave you guys a lot today, so Chelsea Henderson: I love it. Let's come back with the 200 level at some point. All right. That's been a while. I love it. I love it. Okay. Well, Abby, you are a bona fide genius and you are a ⁓ gift. I mean, that's just such a cool thing to share. It's such a cool thing to share. I feel Abby: Thanks. You're so sweet. It feel it's a very cool skill to have. To ha I I nerded out on cannabis for a year of my life. So I'm like, yeah, I know how this shit works. And ⁓ yeah, it feels like it feels like an offering. It does definitely feels like an offering. Yeah. So thanks for being curious. Chelsea Henderson: It's amazing. It's amazing. Gosh. It is an offering. It's a massive offering. I appreciate it so much. Thank you for sharing. And thank you all for listening. We appreciate all of you and we love all of you. And ⁓ yeah, go out there and eat some omegas. Feed that endocannabinoid system. I'm going to stock up on hemp seeds. Abby: Yes. Feel feel it. Yes, feel feel the bliss. Feel the bliss. Chelsea Henderson: Feel the bliss. Okay. Love you, sweetie. Talk to everybody soon. Abby: Bye.