From Paralysis to Purpose: How Jen Richards Redefined Her Life and Business After MS | Podcast

When my mind is negative, my body hurts worse. And when I'm able to make my mind be happy and acknowledge the good things, the positive things, whatever I'm feeling, whatever's around me, pick out the positive and my physical pain diminishes. And I think a lot of people do not understand the relationship between your mind and your pain sensors. They go hand in hand.

Welcome to the Rise, Shine and Redefine podcast where entrepreneurship meets purpose, mindset and the energetic flow of business. I'm Karen Meininger, your go to guide and business whisperer, here to help you cultivate the strategies, mindset shifts and alignment that allow you to rise above the noise and redefine what it means to succeed on your terms. In each episode, you'll discover the tools to create a business in life that feels authentic and powerful. So if you're ready to explore the deeper side of business, let's dive in.

Hi, welcome back to the Rise, Shine and Redefine podcast. We are joined by an incredible guest whose resilience and determination truly embodies the spirit of rising above life's toughest challenges. As a hairdresser since 2008, she experienced a life changing moment in 2015 when she was diagnosed with Ms. Which left her paralyzed. Instead of letting this define her, she embraced a journey of growth, integrating her expertise in hair care with newfound insights into how chemicals impact autoimmune health. She has since developed her groundbreaking Herbala hair care company which includes professional grade products free from harmful ingredients that didn't previously exist in the market. Her story is one of perseverance, innovation and the constant drive to uplift others. I'm thrilled to dive into Jen Richards journey, lessons and inspiring outlook on life. Jen, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you here. How are we doing today?

I'm feeling good. I'm excited to be here. I'm a little bit nervous, but to be expected.

Yeah, no, for sure. And you get to share your story and it's such a beautiful story and transformation and really shows other women, moms, entrepreneurs, what is possible and to. To overcome and be resilient and show up in the world in such a beautiful way and not only impact yourself, but impact others and positively. Positively and. And into the world. So you are a hairdresser or you're a hair. You are a hairdresser. And in my heart. So how long have you been a hairdresser? Since 2008. What's that math like?

It's a lot of math.

Yeah, it's a lot of years. Okay.

We're getting close.

Yeah, forever. And in 2015, everything changed when you were diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So let's go back to this moment and share what that was like and how it changed for you and what that recovery like. How did you get the diagnosis? How did you even know what were the signs?

So when I actually finally obtained my diagnosis, I was paralyzed from my chest down. And that was over the course of a few years. Honestly, there were things happening to me, different symptoms I was getting that just I wasn't relating to each other and neither were my physicians. I had some bouts of vision loss in the months prior to my diagnosis that were treated with steroids, but they never gave me the diagnosis at that time, even though my symptoms were consistent with optic neuritis, which is a very common inflammation of the optic nerves. A lot of people obtain their diagnosis that way. They start having the vision issues and then they get your optic nerves get swollen edema, and then it affects your vision. So usually you can get your diagnosis just by getting that, because it's kind of only something that happens with MSERs, that specific optic neuritis. But I didn't. I just got steroids and got sent on my way and kept living my 70 hour a week life of working and being a mom. And I wore myself down. I almost worked myself to death, essentially. It was the week of my wedding when I got diagnosed, and I had gone to a spa with my best friend the weekend prior. And I woke up that Sunday morning and I had bilateral numbness from my knees down. And then over the course of the next three days, it moved up and it stopped about here, mid chest. And so I could feel my arms, my neck, and my face. But everything else was numb. It was still functional. So I wasn't. There's different degrees of paralysis. Like Christopher Reeves had no function, no feeling, no function. I had no feeling, but somehow I could function. They don't really know how, based on, like, how many lesions were all over my brain and spinal cord, but I was. So I don't think that when I got the diagnosis, it didn't scare me, it didn't alarm me, it relieved me, which is very weird because knowing what I know now, I mean, Emma, it's lifelong, and it's something that I'm going to have to counteract for the rest of my life. But at least now I know how. I know what's going on inside my body, and I know how to care for it to prevent my disease from exacerbating. And before I just had no answers. I had no. There was no reconciliation between all of these symptoms. Why is this stuff happening to me? Because when it's your neurological system that it's affecting, it can literally affect anything in your body. It's just wherever it decides to attack. So it was relieving. And I think a lot of people think that's strange, to be relieved with a debilitating diagnosis. But like I said, it just. It gave. That was my ground zero. It gave me a place to. I could only go up. I literally could only go up because I could. I had to be knocked down really far.

And the first step is awareness. Right. It's like, once we have the awareness of, oh, okay, it's kind of like blocks, too, right? It's like in business or in life or relationships or health and mental. It's like, if we don't know we have the block, we can't use that as a stepping stone to go to the next level. So it's like, okay, I have the awareness.

Yes. Okay.

This is my reality. You can't change the reality of it. So you can either choose to use it, use it to be a voice, use it to change, use it to grow, or you can let it beat you down.

You can get bitter, or you can get better.

Yes, yes. Oh, my gosh. I heard that. You can get bitter, you can get better. I heard that recently, actually, from my husband's aunt, and I was like, oh, my God, that is so true. It's like, are you going to be bitter? Are you going to be resistant to life and be in this place of suffering? Or it's like, I don't know if you've heard of Byron Katie, but she has such beautiful work, and she says that suffering is resisting life. And it's like, okay, wait, I can choose to suffer, or I can choose to grow and be better and do something about it. And you have a choice on the way that you live. Yes. And what I'm hearing is that you were relieved from the diagnosis because now you could change it.

Yeah.

You could change your relationship with the diagnosis.

Absolutely. And, like, don't get me wrong, there was a long period of time there where I was not well, and it was a lot to climb out of. And I. You know, there were. There are days of defeat still. I mean, so my best friend actually has Ms. As well. And so there are days still when I wake up and I call her and I'm. And same with her. And I ball because I'm like, I just hate this Life. I hate that this is it and that I have days like this, and I do. And, you know, I don't want to put up a front like I'm this badass all the time, because I'm not.

Oh, you're human.

Yeah. I take my moment and sit in it when I need to sit in it. I just don't stay there. I can't stay there for my own mental health and for my physical health. When my mind is negative, my body hurts worse. And when I'm able to make my mind be happy and acknowledge the good things, the positive things, whatever I'm feeling, whatever's around me, pick out the positive, and my physical pain diminishes. And I think a lot of people do not understand the relationship between your mind and your pain sensors. They go hand in hand.

Well, it takes 90 seconds for an emotion to move through you. But what happens is we feel it in our body, and then we get in our head, and now we start thinking about the feeling in our body. So we're looping and looping and looping. And like you said, what most people do, right, Is they try to avoid the feeling. They're like, I don't like this feeling. I don't. I want to avoid it. So what do you do? You start distracting yourself with positivity or other things, or you jump into work or you jump into other ideas because you're avoiding the feeling. But the moment that you accept the feeling and you let it move through you and you just be with it without trying to avoid it. Oh, you get to move through it. It's like, now I get to move through this feeling. Yes, Right?

And it goes for. It goes for so many different. Everything. It goes for your emotion, like all emotions, whether it's being in pain or it's just an emotional pain or anything. It's important to find a balance between sitting with it and then moving on from it is completely different than avoiding it.

Yeah.

And I had to really learn that balance because I think the way growing up, I was not taught to lean into my emotions. I wasn't really taught to feel them as deeply as I feel them. And I think, honestly, that probably has a lot to do. I think it's like the two E's, I call them your emotional health. And now I'm having an Ms. Moment and blanking on my other e. La La la la la la la la. I don't know. We're gonna have to come back to it, girl.

Yeah. Yeah. No, we.

And look at me.

No, you're. Look, you're beautiful. You have come over so many challenges and just celebrate that. I want to celebrate that. And we have emotional health, and we're good there. And it's so true.

I got it. It's back. Ready?

Beautiful. Yes, yes, yes.

Your emotional health and your environmental health. And I think that those two things. Thank you for circling back. I think that those two things are so vital in both causing and resolving autoimmune issues. Not only my autoimmune disease, but others as well. I think that emotions and environmental factors play an enormous role in autoimmune conditions. And learning to process my emotions actually made my physical health and my Ms. Improve to the point where my brain scans look different.

Oh, I believe it a thousand percent. It's pretty cool because it's like what you think about is what manifests in your life. So it's like, oh, I get to almost reprogram my brain in a way by fully accepting myself.

Yep.

Because once you accept, it moves through, and that is the way. Right. It's like we have to have awareness. Okay. I have the awareness of what is now I get to accept this part in all parts, and I get to remove the mind. Like, you're not your mind.

Right.

Your essence is your essence. And it's like when you start looping, is like, is this me or is it my mind? It's always your mind. Right. Your body is your subconscious. Right. And it's like, oh, once we get to be with that part of us in the subconscious body, it's like, oh, okay. That's why you're able to persevere, because you become a master of your body.

Yes.

You really have.

No one's ever really said it to me that way, but it's very true.

Yeah. And how beautiful is that? And it's like, wait a minute. I can have this really insane diagnosis that could ruin me, or I get to feel into it and I get to do something about it. Okay, it's not gonna win.

It might not be on my ass from time to time, but usually it's just because I need a timeout and I need to come back to myself. It's like, okay, you're not taking care of yourself. You're not giving yourself what you need. We're gonna slap a little vision loss on you, sit your ass in the corner, go get some steroids and think about what you've done.

And look how incredible that is, is that you recognize that it's serving you like it's knocking you down. Because it's serving you in some way. And for you to be able to recognize and have that awareness that, oh, this knockdown is just telling me I need to rest or I need to go journal or whatever it may be like. It's like I need to just sit with me.

Learning to recognize what your body is telling you is one of the most challenging things that I think any being could ever learn. But one of it's almost vital. It's so important to know what your body's telling you so that you can give it what it's asking for. Don't ignore it. And that's what I did for so long. I ignored the numbness in my legs. I ignored the bouts of nausea. Out of nowhere, I ignored all these signs that my body was like, girl, we are tired. We are tired. We need rest. And I just kept going because there were bills to pay and, you know, life. And for me it was, listen, you have to stop this now. You have to stop this now. I was only 26, and, yeah, it just. It completely turned everything around. It was like, okay, your life is not going to be about working. Your life is going to be about living. Your life is going. It just. It just changed. Working didn't. It was all that really ever mattered to me before was working and earning, earning a living. And then it was just like, no, there's so many things other than that in this life that I am meant to. To uncover and explore and contribute because I just. I don't know. I think that the things I was able to give behind the chair to people, both for their physical appearance and emotional, really prepped me for this journey because I'm still doing that. I'm still 100% doing that. It's just on a bigger scale. And I don't get as many direct interactions with people as I did. But now it's people coming up to me at the farmer's market and they've been using my product from one of my salons that retails it up in Madrid and telling me, you know, they are post cancer stories of how their hair came back after chemo and chemo just wrecks your hair, all of those treatments do. I lost mine from having to do it for my Ms. And what she was telling me about the way it grew back and how it's healthier than it's ever been. It came back less gray than it had ever been. And really understanding, I'm getting chills, really understanding the impact that me, one person can have on all of these people, women and men that not only is their like internal world being torn apart by illness and disease and medication, but then it's tearing them apart further because their physical appearance has changed so much and they're just like, I don't even know who the fuck I am anymore. I'm sick. I'm not the same inside, I'm not the same outside. And to be able to develop something that gets that back for them and even brings it back faster and better than it was prior to their illness. I never set out to do that. I never set out to do that. I had no idea that what I was creating was going to create the necessary environment for hair to thrive, because I didn't even know how bad the professional products were until I started doing this. I knew they were bad. I didn't know how bad. Yeah.

Okay, so tell me more about hair. Just let's give an education on regular hair, professional products and then how you came up with your hair care product.

Absolutely. So the biggest differences between like your store bought products and your professional products is always going to be the ingredients and how much of them are used in each formulation. So there might be a product at Target that has all of the same ingredients as a professional one, but they're diluted, they're very diluted. And so 90% of it is water. I mean, they can put a drop of something in a full vat of a formula and say that there's shea butter in it, but there's like a drop, you know. And so realizing that and what the actual makeup of these products was, I was like, well, no wonder. I just started to learn things, you know, And I'm like, okay. So the biggest difference with my line, number one, there's no endocrine disrupting chemicals or ingredients in it. And if people that aren't familiar with what the endocrine system is, that is your hormones, and that 100% affects your hair, your skin, your nails, your reproductive system, which is a huge issue with young women my age and, and below.

And what about menopausal women?

Yes, 100%. All of it?

Yeah, yeah, all of it.

And people don't. The thing that people don't realize is how much the products we use on our hair and skin get inside of us. Your skin is the largest organ on your body and it absorbs 80% of everything you put on it. Your hair is porous that it gets, you know, it goes in there. And so slowly over time, it's like you're just exposing yourself to poison and it's building and it's building and it's building. And if you're using Johnson, if you're using baby soap on your, you know, on your babies and you don't know what's in there, their hormones are getting affected from the time they're babies. So that when they are out up into their 20s and ready to have a baby and they start having problems, they don't realize that they've been disrupting their endocrine system just by the products that they've used. Because we've never been educated on it. So all of my. It's safe for every age group. I'm going to be launching a baby wash soon. But the formulation is very similar. It's just going to be a different fragrance, a little bit softer for baby. But really making sure that people understand what you put up there and on your scalp. It matters. My formula most formulas are made up of 90% water. Like I mentioned before, my base is actually aloe vera, which is a natural surfactant and cleanser. It performs a lot differently. So my 6 year old's figured it out. So I feel like if she can figure it out, grown people can figure it out. But it takes a little bit of time. It kind of performs more like a dish soap because it's more concentrated with that aloe vera in there. But there's. You want to know the ingredients or what do you want to. What do you want to know, girl?

Yeah, I mean, share. I. I really want to hear. How did you come up with the ingredients? That's what I want to hear.

So I'm not a chemist, I'm a career hair stylist. So I had to do some research into different manufacturers and chemists throughout the country. I wanted. It was important to me that it be made here. And I started sampling products that they had put together for me. And after I had found landed on the formulas that I liked, I started then researching the ingredients that were in there. Obviously I had researched the manufacturer as a company and knew what their values were and they directly aligned with mine. They had a whole list on their website of things they will not use and why, which 100% resonated with me. And the crazy thing is I researched several manufacturers because you don't always go with the first one, right? I totally went with the first one.

It was like, like when you know, you know.

Yeah, it was like it just landed. It just landed for me. And then so after I fell in love with it and I started having consistency because another issue for me My whole career and life was, I'll go through one bottle of shampoo, but then my hair, like, stops responding to it and it feels awful.

Oh, I have that same problem, too.

Well, there's a reason for that, Dory.

Oh, wow. I have to digress. I want to hear about that.

You're going to be getting a gift basket after this podcast anyway.

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We can level Up Like a Boss together. So we were just talking about how you came up with the ingredients, how you were re. You were researching the manufacturers. You found one that really aligned with your values. And I just want to say really quickly that values are so important. They're important at personal values and as a business and personal brand and entrepreneur because you want to live into your values. If you're living into your values, you're going to be lit up as a business owner, as a mom, as a personal brand, as your own personal values. When you start living in your values and learning what those are, you get to show up in your full, authentic self.

And I think an important thing to note with that is because you stick to your values and stay in them, things may move slower because you're not going to find yourself. I have followed my intuition largely through this entire process, and if I listen to that, I succeed. If I stray from that, which I haven't yet, but I've come close and I'm like, oh shit, I know that's going to be a big fail. If I do that. And following your intuition, trusting your values, and if you don't feel them or see them in someone who's trying to do business with you, walk away. If you don't feel supported and confident in somebody else that's trying to work with you, walk away. People say don't mix business and personal. I don't agree with that if I personally get a bad vibe from somebody, I will not do business with them because. Yeah.

And it's coming.

Will only work with good humans, you know?

Yeah. And it comes back to. To being intuitive and trusting. Your body. Right. Your body knows, and it's like, body knows.

And if you've got the ick.

Walk. Yeah. Walk away like, oh, is this my higher self? Or is this fear? Right. And like a way to discern that is fear gives. Makes you feel scared, makes you feel uneasy. Higher self is an inner knowing. It's easy. You use the ease. I use the ease too. I call it eee. Is it easy? Does it give you ease? And it's ease or easy enjoyment and the energy. Right. If it's.

I'm glad you could remember your ease. Good job.

And if you don't have those three E's, you do the fourth E, you exit. It's the same, right? It's just. It's the same. So just kind of bringing it back. Okay. So you find this manufacturer. You find the manufacturer. That feels really good. It feels in alignment. It has it. You align with their values. You're creating this product. I don't want to leave everyone hanging. So let's. Let's.

You brought it back. You brought. You brought.

Yeah, yeah. Right back to it.

Okay.

So, yeah, we're gonna bring it back.

After I got through and I had used it myself for probably about four or five months without having that drop off where I was like, my hair is not responding to this anymore. It's not getting clean. It's brittle, it's dry. That wasn't happening. And I was like, oh, what did I make?

And this is. And this is a shampoo.

At first, it was the shampoo and conditioner. Yep. And so then at that point is when I started having people test it for me. Different friends, clients, different. My product is also all hair types, which is unheard of. Coily hair, which is your textured African American hair, fine hair, thick hair, coarse hair. It works on everything. And I had never seen that in.

The entirety of my career.

Kids, too. It's not too heavy. It's not too greasy. It. There is a learning curve to. To the. To the wash, to the shampoo because it's got that aloe vera base. It's. So it's a little bit more difficult to spread, and it doesn't have sulfate, so it doesn't suds like your other shampoos would.

Right.

But it also gives a far superior clean to any other shampoo. I've ever used. And I've been doing hair a long time. A long time.

So your hair looks great, by the way. Like, it looks light and soft.

That's what this product does. It's just, it, it's bouncy, it's light, but yet it's hydrated and it's healthy. So it's actually, the wash and rinse are called. It's kind of a play on the company name or balia. It's Balance Wash, but it's a play on the word balance because it's got moisture and it's got protein. It's got a balanced formulation of everything your hair needs to keep it healthy, to keep that garden thriving and fed and nourished. Whereas other product lines deliberately leave things out or add things into a formula to make your hair thirsty for something else so they can sell it to you. And that's. And I hated that.

Oh, they're. They're putting you in this gap. Absolutely.

Oh, my gosh. Your hair needs moisture. Get this deep moisturizing treatment. But then by the time you do that, you've robbed your hair of so much protein that now it's melting off. And then. So now you've got to go and you gotta buy this protein treatment and you gotta do this. No, no. What do you do in a garden? What do you do in a garden? It's like, just go back to the basics. Give it everything it needs in the skin, same batch, and then it will be balanced. And. Yeah, I don't know how I did it, but it happened for me and.

Well, it happened for everybody.

Yes. And the more people that use it, the more different ethnicities that use it that talk to me about it. I am further and further amazed at my own product because again, I didn't set out for it to do the things it's doing. I just wanted people to have something safe to use that wasn't going to affect them with carcinogens or endocrine disruptors. And what I ended up creating was this, like, super formula that's just like gold. I don't know.

Yeah. And now I can't wait to use it and, like, have my son use it too. Because I am a huge believer in holistic health. Like, I will try to shortcut. I do the biohacking. I am here for short cutting health. And I do believe that 95% of the time, our body can heal itself if it has the proper ingredient for the proper gardening. Right. Like, it needs to have a proper gardening. Like, stop putting the. The chemicals in your body. Right. Stop using the disruptors and the shampoos and moisturizers, the skin care, the face creams. Right. I. I know as being in my mid-40s, like, I want to feel I look good. I'm not going to pretend I don't. Like, I want to keep looking ageless and younger.

Yeah, right.

And if I can do that by not putting chemicals in my body and keeping my body in. I know you call it balance. I like to call it harmony. Right. Like, the more harmonious that we feel in our body, the more we can have the mental health. Like the cancer patients that you helped. Right. It's like, yeah, you can be beautiful on the inside, but there is something about the external that helps us feel better on the inside too. And I am all about insourcing our own worthiness and feeling our best selves. But it's like when we can really like what we see on the inside and the outside and be able to do that without harsh chemicals and big pharma and all of these big brands that don't give a about you, they don't care about money. Right. It's like, oh, wait a minute. We can come back to the. This like organic, holistic health. We can start with hair. Right. And. And I'm really excited to try this out because I don't love the. I mean, I definitely use a brand that I don't think is the best ingredients, but I like how it makes my hair look. But at some point, like you said, it stops working. Right? And now you're switching to another brand that has all these other chemicals in it that's now like, oh, well, now you need this because it's drying your hair out at, you know, it goes on and on and just kind of go down this rabbit hole of constantly trying to course correct.

And I am right right now, this month, I'm right at three consecutive years of using the exact same formula for all style. Like my shampoo conditioner and my two styling products. That's all I've used for the last three years.

Okay, so you have shampoo. So let's walk me through how you would use your product. You would shampoo condition.

What I said segue. Yeah. So I have a shampoo conditioner that are called the. The balance wash and rinse. Pretty standard. The shampoo, as I said, is kind of a different formulation, and it does take people a little bit to get used to it. You have to like, you can't just like plop it on the crown of your head and Expect it to switch, spread. It's not going to do that. So you kind of have to emulsify it in your hands and then do a layer and then start scrubbing up. And then you might have to do another couple pumps and get it on your scalp. And then it's almost going to feel like the shampoo.

Like, where did it go?

Where did it go? And then your instinct is going to be, oh, I need more. You don't need more. Stick your head under the faucet and start scrubbing while you're rinsing. And that's when you're going to start to see a little bit of a suds. And then usually I tell people to shampoo twice just to make sure you get everything, because most people don't shampoo every day. So if you need to shampoo twice, that's just going to be up to the individual. You want to shampoo essentially until you get a little bit of the suds and then you're done. But rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse is the most important thing with that. And then the conditioner apply as normal. And then there's two styling products. I've got Split End Elixir and Elevation Essence. Split End Elixir is like a styling cream. It can be intimidating looking, especially I'm looking at your hair and I'm like, oh, a cream would freak you right out because your hair's more fine, you know. But my hair is actually really, really fine too. I just have a lot of it. So you can use both of these products wet and dry. I put in the Split End Elixir when my hair is wet right out of the dryer. Acts as my heat protectant, my smoother, my antifreeze, all of that. And then I also do my Elevation Essential Essence, which is a spray. And that's what gives this just insane lift. Yes. And there's no, like, it's not sticky, it's not heavy, it's very, very light. And it can be layered. Then if I wake up, like, I did just wash it today. But if it was day two, I would just wake up. If it was flat, I'd spritz it. I'd run my blow dryer through it, and it's just like. Again, my best friend uses it as like a texture, like a beach wave spray. So she sprays it on dry. Yeah, but that's. I mean, I only have those four products and I really. There's a couple more that I want to expand on, but it's going to be a small line because there's just. If you're. If the right ingredients are there, you don't need a line of 20 products. You just need a few.

And you know what's really interesting is when you have something that works, people are gonna. You're gonna start hearing requests for different products. People are gonna.

I definitely am. When are you getting a dry shampoo? When are you getting a purple shampoo? Like, when I get some money.

Right, right, right, right. And that. That's all on your way. So I have another question. Okay. Does this help with hair growth? Like, especially for men, Right? Like in their.

Yes.

Hairlines, like so much.

And again, that's just another thing that, like, I didn't set out for that. I did not set out for that at all. But when I started doing this was what year is it? So I launched in 2022. So I started doing all my stuff in 2021, which was right after Covid, when everybody was getting vaccines. And there was so much hair shed that I saw in my chair from either getting Covid or from the vaccination. So. And then in addition to the COVID the COVID kids, the cancer patients that I've had too, that have had to regrow their hair. It was incredible. The. The couple of clients that I had, they were testing it for me. So it was during that time and they had just significant hair shed. I mean, they had. They had hairs that were this just. It was so thin and then it was like, it was thick up here and then it was like thin here and stringy. And then they would come back in four to six weeks and there was just sprouts. There was just half inch sprouts all over their head. Like even, like you'll see new growth and stuff up here a lot on the hairline. But I mean, it was in the.

Middle of their head.

It was everywhere. And I was just like, what did I do?

Yeah, it sounds like a jackpot. That is awesome. I'm gonna make my husband.

And you know, my. My trainer. My trainer is a huge advocate for herbalia. He 20, I think he's like a 28 year old male, full beard, he's got a full head of hair. And him and his wife went on vacation one weekend and we had a session the following Monday and he was like, jen, I didn't take my Herballia on vacation.

Do you have travel? Do you have travel size?

I do, I do. But yeah, he was like, I had to use the hotel. And he's Like, I'll never do it again. I'll never do it again. He's like, I didn't even realize what a difference that it was making on my face and on his beard and in his hair until he had to use something else. And then he was like, never again. So that was a good feeling.

Wow. Oh, my gosh. I am really excited to try this product out.

I'm really excited to send it to you.

Yeah, no, that's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing everything. This is, I think, one of my favorite podcasts. I probably shouldn't say that on air. I, I just, I really appreciate you sharing your story and everything that you've been through and being brave and courageous and leaning in to being seen and being heard and creating a product that can change people's lives and getting them on a new holistic path and, and recovery. Because it's like, yeah, like, especially for women, like, our hair is, is so important to us and just feeling so good in, in our body and how we radiate our glow and being able to be in that mindset of health. And, you know, the beauty industry really messes with us, right? It really does. It messes with me. I'm not gonna lie. Like, you know, I'm super holistic. But I also want Botox, right? Because it's like I want to, I, you know, I want to put neurotoxins in my face even though I will not eat, you know, any chemicals.

You know what neurotoxins are. There are different levels of them. So I don't want you to feel bad about using Botox. Well, I use Botox for treatment in other areas of my body, for my muscle spasticity, for my ms, rather than taking the disease modifying treatments that affect all of my systems. Because the neurotoxins for the Botox are injected directly in that muscle. They don't, they don't leave that muscle. They don't do anything but act as a paralytic to that muscle. And so I don't want you to feel like, like that's a hypocrite. I don't. Because for me, I think that's the better, the better option. Because the Botox doesn't give me brain fog, it doesn't give me diarrhea, it doesn't make me vomit, it doesn't make me have all. It doesn't make me lose my hair, it doesn't make me have all these symptoms that the DMTs are 100% guaranteed to give me, but it does help with my spasticity so that I can walk, so that I can exercise, so that I can lift weights, to take care of my body. And that's what I need. So don't you feel bad about your Botox? Great.

I'm gonna go get Botox with.

I'm gonna get a full syringe right now. Yes. I love it.

So good. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so where can people find you if they want your product?

Yes. Website is the easiest place to Purchase, so it's www.Herbalia.com. h E R B A L Y A. And then I'm on socials, Facebook and Insta's Herbal hair care company.

Awesome. And I'll put those in the show notes so it's really easy for people to link. Click whatever they can find you. Perfect. So I have one more question for you. What would be something that our listeners could do right now in the next 24 hours that could start the change of their life right now?

Oh, Lord.

No pressure.

I think that we already kind of touched on it a little bit. And that is the power of positivity. And that is the biggest swing that my heart and my soul had to take. I'm gonna cry to start.

Go for it.

I'm like, sorry. I feel it. It's coming. That's the biggest shift that I have had to make and that I see still. I still have to make. I still have to choose that every day. And it changes the trajectory of each day individually. And the only way that you can have change, like big change is by doing it, looking at it like that. Break it down. You don't have to be amazing every day. You don't. You don't even have to do big things every day because I certainly don't. It has taken me two years to get as far as I am because I still have to put my health at the forefront of my life. But when I feel good, I make a list of five things I'm going to do and I do them. And then I. And then I let myself feel good about the things I got done. And there. Even there's. There's times when I don't. And my friend is going. Did you celebrate yourself today?

Yes.

No, I didn't. Thank you for pointing that out. I'm going to go do that right now. So power, positivity and sel. Celebrating yourself. It will take you miles and miles and miles.

Yeah. I'm a huge proponent of celebrating yourself because what happens is we get in the gap and we're like, oh, my gosh, I have so much. I have so much further to go.

Yes.

And then we lose momentum. Stop looking at the end game, how far you've come.

Stop looking at the end game and enjoy the journey.

Yeah. And be so proud of yourself. Be so proud of yourself.

I mean, I'm trying, but it's just like, you know, I don't look at myself as, like, that I'm doing something so that I can be proud. I'm just trying to do something so I don't have to live off Social Security the rest of my life. I don't have to accept being a disabled person. I don't have to, you know, I can show my children that you can still live a big life even with the debilitating disease. And so I can continue to help people because that's what I set out to do in my career anyway. And I love it. It was just a great path for me to take and I'm so glad that I'm on it.

Yeah, I'm totally celebrating you. And thank you so much for being here today. It was.

Thank you.

You are such a gift to the world.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. We'll be back soon. I'll have you back on for sure.

I'm excited.

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