How Chocolate Meditation & Flower Essences Boost Mindfulness

Welcome to the Wellness Sherpa Podcast, where we engage with passionate leaders, holistic thinkers, and disruptors who courageously share their personal journey, mission, and wisdom with you. Together, we create a safe space to empower you to live your best, most vital life. Thanks for being here. Well, I am so thrilled to be here with Lisa Reinhart. She is one of the heart and souls of Lotus Way, which is a beautiful, beautiful flower essence company. And Lisa specializes in chocolate. And I can't even remember what is the name of your chocolate.

It's called Whey of Chocolate. Whey of Chocolate and whey. The same way that we use in Lotus Way. W e I. W e I. Yeah.

So you. You and. And your sweet friend Katie have brought this magic together with nature, which I love, and I just am thrilled to have you here. So thank you for taking the time to be here today.

Thank you for inviting me. My pleasure.

Yeah. So share a little bit about your background. How did you get into this? And share about your magical elixirs, because they are more than just chocolates.

Way more. Chocolate is like the. The coding, right? To get. To get to the goodies that it seems like everybody needs these days. We're really happy to have different ways to get it out there, but it started many years ago. And, you know, people say, well, yeah, how did you get into chocolate? And it's like, well, I fell in to chocolate. I didn't imagine that I would ever end up doing that. It wasn't like I went to culinary school or loved cooking even. I really. I really didn't. But I came through a roundabout way. I ended up when I was in my early 20s, I got a fellowship to teach English in France. So I was in France and I met my spiritual teacher, and it totally turned my world into a whole new world. And he said, well, he was telling me about what was going on in the Himalayas with the Tibetans in exile and the ancient traditions. And I said, I need to see this for myself. And so I went to Asia, and this is a long time ago. This was late 80s. And I ended up staying for 11 years.

Oh, my gosh. I went to go see something and I decided to stay for 11 years. And that's a magical number on top of it.

That's funny. I came back a couple times, but I would only come back just barely long enough for the. The jet lag to get over it. And then I would. Or the culture shock, really. And then I would go back. So what I did when I was in the Himalayas and I studied as much as I could. I practiced as much as I could. I met phenomenal people who have been practicing meditation for decades. And they embodied what we all knew meditation could do or thought. You know, gee, wouldn't it be wonderful if. And they were living it. I saw things people would say were miraculous, you know, and things that stretched my mind about what was possible. And at one point, I lived in northern India in a cave, and I did retreat there, and I met fabulous Tibetan master who had escaped from Tibet to come to that place because it was historically a special place. And, you know, crazy magical things happen. And so it was. It was just such a beautiful world for me. And I felt so at home there. I never thought that I would leave. But at a certain point, I felt life pushing me back to the States, and I thought, well, if it works here, it's got to work there. You know, I can go back. And I came back and had terrible culture shock. Like, for a year, I was still run into things that would be, like, you know, crazy for me. And really to the point where I said, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm not gonna be here. I think I really do belong in Asia. And I called up my teacher and I said, you know what? I'm gonna come back to Asia. This isn't my place. And he said, well, you can. He said, but you'll die.

Well, yeah, those are. Those are serious words.

And, you know, it could have been literal. It could have been spiritual, but I did actually get quite sick in Asia. You know, there's a lot of problems with the water and Kathmandu at that time. And I had a whole bunch of stuff that nobody'd ever seen before. And so I took him seriously, and I stayed. And I realized that that was important, you know, that I couldn't just live in this beautiful world where everything felt perfect for me, that I had to see that it could work in our world and that we need this, too, you know? I came back, and it seemed like everybody needed. What meditation will do for you. But whenever I brought it up, I would get that, like, oh, no, deer in the headlights look from people like, oh, gosh, that thing with a breath. I tried that once. I'm not good at it. I don't have time. You know, my mind is too busy. And I thought, huh, I think we need a different way. You know, we can't. Not everybody's gonna, you know, get rid of everything and go to the Himalayas and sit in a cave. So what do we do instead? You know? And I Realized I had that aha moment and. And I realized something that most people already knew, which is chocolate is the answer. Yeah. And so if you take a really good piece of chocolate and you put it in your mouth and you let your body heat melt it instead of chew it, you'll do something that you'd want to be doing if you were learning meditation, except you'll do it much better, which is rest in the present moment. And I thought, oh, I can do this. This could work. You know, so the only thing holding me back at that point was I thought, but, gosh, I don't want to do something that's bad for people. You know, I can't ask them to do this every day or multiple times a day if it's going to erode their health. And luckily it was just when the study started coming out about how chocolate could be good for you. And this was late 90s, and at that point everybody was skeptical. Right? It was like, yeah, yeah, right. That's. Yeah, like nobody said it when I was a kid. Why is it suddenly good for you? And so I dove into the studies and I started connecting the dots in a way that really has not been done even now. You know, like if you ask people why is it good for you? They'll talk about percentage. Okay, Percentage factors in. But that's not the real reason. The real reason, I mean, it's like the dividing line between dessert and healthy chocolate is actually dairy. It's actually milk. And as you go up in percentage, you will decrease the amount of milk that's in there. So that's why they can percentages or better. But that's not the actual mechanics of it. You know, the real, the chemistry of it is that milk blocks the absorption of the superfood elements in the cacao. Just like you can't take some medications with milk. You know, it blocks antioxidants in tea. If you're looking for healthy chocolate, you want to find it dairy free. So that, along with some other pieces to the puzzle, allowed me to put it together in such a way that it's actually better for you to eat this chocolate every day than it is not to.

Wow. Yeah. Isn't that like a mind shift?

Yeah, to make chocolate guilt free. That was really a joy.

And so how many pieces do you eat a day?

Oh, that's a good question. You know, somebody asked me that, you know, a long time ago. They said, well, don't you, don't you overeat it? And I thought about it and it's like, you know what? At that time, I was literally surrounded by hundreds of pounds of chocolate, and I never overate it. And one of the things, Well, a couple of things I think contribute to that are the method, okay, so when you put it in your mouth and you let your body heat melt it, it takes between two and three minutes for one piece to melt. And it also, I've been told by a diabetic, well, that's not even enough sugar to spike your insulin. It's only 2 grams of organic coconut sugar. And so you don't get that M and M effect of like, oh, where's the next one? Where's the next one? Right? And then also, because it has the proper amount of cocoa butter in it, it's really satisfying. Like, it's got that good fat. They say cocoa butter is equivalent to, like, you know, the good fats, olive oil, the different things that help actually maintain health. So when you eat it like that and not like, chomp, chomp, chomp, Eminem style. You know, it's funny because in the old days I would say one piece a day. Like, I was like hardcore one piece a day. And then people would say, you know what? Maybe more than one piece is okay. You know, and then I think over the years, things have changed. I mean, I think the environmentally gotten worse and we need more chocolate. And so now I'm probably eating three pieces a day, four pieces a day, you know, but it's. I don't have any negative effects from it.

Right. That's amazing. And so, you know, there's a. There was this big opening of, you know, dark chocolate, really good for you. Chocolate is good for you. Cacao is good for you. And then all the studies that came out on a lot of the brands that are out in the world, oh, heavy metals, heavy metals, heavy metals. So can you share a little bit more about that? Because then, you know, then the pendulum goes the other way and everybody says, oh, I'm not going to have chocolate.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I know the studies were a big surprise because the brands that had heavy cadmium, lead, arsenic were some of the ones we really trusted, right? The natural ones, the organic ones, the ones that people thought were safe. As soon as we got wind of that, then we got a hold of our suppliers and say, hey, we need the latest information and studies that you have on this chocolate because it's a little bit unpredictable. It has to do with soil, it has to do with the process after it's harvested. And we were really relieved to find out that ours was super clean, that, you know, had like one tenth of the, the limit of most of those heavy metals. And so there isn't any concern with ours. But I know in general, yeah, it's a big deal. And there's other things that are important too. Like, you know, when I started out, I didn't even know if organic was important in chocolate. You know, chocolate is in pods, is, you know, are the pesticides getting through? And I thought about it, I thought, you know what, I don't, but I don't want to be the cause of adding more pesticides to the environment. So I'm going to go organic from the beginning. And I'm so glad I did because what I found over the years was that they use more pesticides in the so called higher end brands that aren't organic than they do in the cheaper ones because they want to protect the crop. And when they were analyzing chocolate that people feel is high end, they were finding chemicals that have been banned in this country for 10 years. You know, like things that kill lice and you know, that shouldn't be in food at all because most chocolate, most cheap chocolate is harvested in West Africa by child slave labor. And those people don't care about what's banned and what isn't. And I mean, then that's the other part of the picture is like fair trade or some, you know, facet of fair trade really matters with chocolate because the big companies to this day, you know, are still getting it from child slave labor. I remember 10, 15 years ago, I did a lot of research on this and people were trying to pressure them into not doing that. And they said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we have these programs now. We're going to put $10 million worth this and whatever, whatever. When I went back to look at the results of those programs, I found out that that $10 million went to a text messaging program so that the farmers would get text messages that said slave labor is bad. Oh, not effective. And it's actually worse now than it was then. So some kind of ours is Rainforest alliance certified. Some kind of, you know, fair trade ethical cocoa is really important. Wow. Yeah.

It's so disappointing, right? It's like something that can be so good for us just has that energetic weight to it.

Yeah, yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't want that.

Yeah. So how, Lisa, how are you pairing the beautiful flower essences and all of the tinctures and everything that you and Katie have created at Lotus Way with the chocolate? So, and then I want to talk More about meditation.

Yeah. So the funny thing is, Katie and I have been best friends for, like, 25 years before Lotus Way, before Way of Chocolate. She was doing individual appointments at that time and with flower essence therapy. And then at a certain point, I started Way of Chocolate. She started Lotus Way at the same time. And I was in the beginning, the very beginning, I was just using, like, adaptogenic herbs in the cacao. And she said, well, why don't you try flower essences? And I said, that'll never work. Why would that work? Like, all the flower essences are in liquid, and this is chocolate. Like, I don't think so. And she said, try it. So I did, and it did work. And then we realized that in the same way that water holds the frequencies and the crystalline structure of water, cacao chocolate has crystalline structures. You know, when you have a chocolate bar that's good, it's glossy, it snaps, it has, you know, good texture to it. That is the crystalline structure that is set up by a process called tempering of the chocolate. There's four different kinds of crystals you can have in chocolate, and three of them are not useful. You don't want those. You want that one that you make by tempering it, which is kind of a difficult process. But if anybody's ever had a chocolate bar that melts in the car. Right. You forget it and it melts, and then it hardens up overnight. Then you look at it and you're like, oh, it doesn't go back to the way it was before. Right.

Original structure and the texture and everything.

Exactly, exactly. So that shows you the difference in the crystals. So when you temper chocolate, it holds those flower essence frequencies so that you can use chocolate as another modality of. Of ingesting the flower essences. Yeah.

So you've got the beautiful sacred cacao plant, which is sacred in and of itself, and then you're bringing it together, marrying it with these beautiful, sacred flower essences.

Really awesome. And it's funny because, you know, on the one hand, it's like, well, they don't have a scent. They don't. You know, you can't taste flower essences. They're a frequency. They're a vibration. If I didn't tell you they were in there, would, you know, they were there. And it's like. I mean, it'd be really hard to identify except that people come to us and say, wow, there's something different about your chocolate. And one. One lady described it as. She said, you know, it's like it's alive. Yes, and then I realized, because sometimes I do eat other people's chocolate, either, you know, see what's out there or whatever in a desperate moment. But there is a flatness and a, like a lack of alive quality to chocolate that doesn't have flower essences. So once you've gone there, it's like, oh, this is awesome. You know, it's hard to go back.

Yeah, that's what my little group said when I took it to Mexico with me. They said, what is in here? Because I can feel the energy, the frequency. So people that are sensitive absolutely can feel. They won't be able to taste it, but they can feel those flower essences. Yeah, because it's, it's, you know, it's. There's ancient wisdom right. In nature that you're bringing in.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So then, so Katie and I grew at that time, Way of Chocolate was independent of Lotus Way and she. But we shared offices, we shared clients, we did everything together, you know, and we grew up these companies side by side. And at a point a couple of years ago, you know, she said, I need more help with Lotus Way. And I'm like, it's hard to do two things. I said, let's do one thing. And so we merged the companies, which was natural anyway, because we've always used the Lotus Way flower essences and the chocolate. And, and I stole the name from her when she started Lotus Way. I said, way. I like that Way. Can I, can I borrow that? And so w e I Way of Chocolate came from Lotus Way originally. That's beautiful. And, and so, and I've been there since before the beginning with Lotus Way. So it's like, I feel like, you know, I know the history and, and I've watched every step of it and it is phenomenal. I mean, flower essences are another thing. Like, like the plant stem cells that you work with. It's like, oh my gosh. Like, this is so incredibly powerful. And it's an ancient wisdom and ancient technology. And why isn't it more well known? Right. That's been. Katie's mission is like, this is, this is such a great answer to mental, emotional, spiritual well being, to say nothing to physical, you know, it also impacts and yet people aren't aware of it. And so to bring this knowledge out, it's like you really feel like we're on a mission because people don't need to suffer the way that they do.

Right.

When we.

Well, and, but I, you know, I went to the Barbara Brennan school of healing, which was a pretty Intensive four year healing school. And what I learned there is that, you know, imbalance in the physical body always starts in those other levels. Right. It's a spiritual crisis, an emotional crisis or something in the belief system. Right. And it's trying to work itself out in those levels, and when it doesn't, it finally lands in the physical body, which, you know, those people that say we're only physical can finally see the imbalance. Right. But that's why I love these beautiful tools with the chocolate and the flower essences and the plant stem cells, because they are working in those other levels. And it doesn't have to be hard. It's not. You know, oftentimes therapy is like, well, you have to go back and relive this. You don't have to relive anything. It's just like this gentle wave of, of releasing a layer and bringing us back to our wholeness.

Yeah, yeah, right. And it's like. That's like working with tuning forks. Yes. You know, like people say, well, how does this work? And it's like everything has a frequency, everything has a vibration to it. I know we do a special thing where we have people pick a flower, you know, because we're so in our heads most of the time, we want to figure things out. But if we show people pictures of flowers and say, what are you drawn to? It's. It's like uncanny. What the. People pick the flower they need the most. And I realized at one point that I had a little bit of fear or doubt, like, what if they picked the wrong flower? Right. If they don't get the one that they need. And then I realized, oh, my gosh, it's a principle of physics. It's sympathetic resonance. You know, when you have two tuning forks and you hit one, if the other one's the same key, it'll also start to vibrate and sympathy the other one. And so when you see these flowers, then that thing in you connects with that and, and doubting that is like saying in the morning, gee, I. I wonder if gravity is working today. Yeah, it's like it's always working well.

And, and I. You know, I met you and Katie at a conference in April in Dallas, Changing life and destiny. And I picked my flower and it was so spot on. Like, you cannot deny it. And then when I had the privilege of coming to your office space in Arizona, I was so thrilled because one of my dear friends, my best friend, was having a birthday and I said, okay, I am going to bring in Helen's energy and I'm going to stand and I'm going to pick the flower. And they were perfect for her. So I. What? She wasn't even there. I was channeling her, right? Because we do a lot of energy work and I was channeling her and it was like, oh my gosh. And boy, did she need langlang. I mean, I think three of the four that I picked for her had lang ylang in them. So it's like, it was so brilliant. And when you read, you know, when you read what's behind the picture of the flower, it's like you cannot deny that entrainment, that frequency, right? Where things, where the magic is happening.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's just such a brilliant way because you're right, we're living in our heads, right? And for 20,000 years we were in the patriarchy, the masculine energy, which is, you know, power over, climbing the ladder, it's using your head. What certifications do you have? Right? So it's all about this masculine energy. And I did a two year study with the 13 indigenous grandmothers and they said on December 21, 2012, is we ended that cycle and we're now in the divine feminine cycle for the next 20,000 years. This is not like a short little like, hey, you're just in it for a few months. No, we're in this for, you know, the rest of our lives and many, many lifetimes. And so, you know, it's amazing that, you know, we're now learning that the head will try to analyze things. It's always, you know, trying to figure things out, but the answers are in our hearts. And these flowers and the chocolate are bringing us to our hearts and to our core and our center. As does meditation.

Yeah, exactly. I know, I love, I love how it just the both flower essences and chocolate are so complimentary with meditation. I say that flower essences are the best support for meditation and meditation is the best support for flower essences. And then chocolate is, is a way to get people there. Like the people who say, oh, my mind is too busy, I can't do this, I, I'm not good at it. Nobody ever said that about chocolate, right?

Or even the plants, right? You know, I mean, what I, what I teach people and I, I saw this when I was there at your, at your place, is that, you know, you're forming a relationship. It is a lot. You know, it's a live being, a frequency, and you're forming a relationship. So even, you know, when I use your flower essences, when I use the plant stem cells. When I eat the chocolate, I'm giving thanks, right, Because I'm blessing it and putting it into my. My consciousness, into my being. And I feel like that's so powerful. It's almost like it amps the energy and the frequency up even more, if that's possible. But it. You know, it does. I can feel it.

Well, I think it removes the resistance to recognizing how things really are. You know, that's the key with meditation is, you know, people will come and say, oh, I want to meditate, because I want to relax better or sleep better. And it's like, okay, that might happen. But what we're really doing here is we're trying to peel off the layers that prevent us from seeing reality as it is. And the word dharma is not describing any particular path. There's lots of paths. But dharma means in accordance with the way things are, right? And when we move in accordance with the way things are, there's no friction. But when we function the way we often do in society, we're creating friction at every.

All the time. Yes.

You know, it's like, for instance, like the belief, or not even a belief. It's like not recognizing impermanence. You know, things are changing all the time. All the time. You know, but what is it in us that wants to hang on? And they say, well, what's the basis of all suffering? Clinging.

Clinging, attachment.

The breaks. And I mean, even in my. My recent trip, I just got back from Asia, from Nepal and India and Bhutan, and, you know, I had plans, I had ideas, I had things that I thought were going to happen and when. And in every case, it didn't happen the way that I thought it would, but it was so much better. And then when you take the brakes off and you stop putting in that resistance into the world and just, like, go with the ride, you know, wonderful things can happen.

So, yeah, I know you. You and. And Katie were in Nepal then, but I was at Dr. Naysha Winter's metabolic Health Day conference. And Zach Bush is one of my favorite people. I think he's just such a wise human. And he's. He was one of the keynote speakers. And he got up on stage and he said, we're all going to die. Everybody in this room is going to die. So why do we spend so much time trying. Trying to not die, right? And forgetting that we're here to live? We're spending so much time being afraid of death. And, you know, you see it in the conscious health space, this longevity. I'm going to, you know, all these things. Right. And it's really about, we're here to shine our light. We're here to. To fulfill our mission and our purpose and live fully and experience this. This earth. And yet we forget because of that, holding on to something that's inevitable.

And it's also like the whole pattern of seeing death as an ending. Yes. And it's like, well, back up a little and get some more perspective. Because what if it was just a transition? Right. You know, a periodic transition and that you didn't have to cling in that way. Like, this is my one and only, you know, it's like there's a lot more.

So much more. Yeah. I had the privilege of watching both my father and my mother transition. And, you know.

Wow. Yeah.

And even what's unfolded since, you know, I mean, my mom. My mom passed away a year ago, and, boy, she comes to me a lot. Yeah. So it's really beautiful. So how would you, Lisa, how would you recommend somebody who really struggles to meditate? Where to start? You know, people say, I don't have hours. Right. It's another thing on my to do list.

Right.

How, you know, how do you teach people to shift that mindset? And where to start?

Oh, so easy. It's so easy. So start with chocolate. Talk about lack of resistance, right? It's like, chocolate is always a yes. And like I said, nobody ever said, I don't have time to eat chocolate. No, said no one ever. So. So that's where we get started. And when I do meditation classes here at the San center in Phoenix, you know, the headquarters of Lotus Way, and we also do them virtually, you know, but we have the bars, each piece. So in the old days, I took a piece of Play doh, and I pressed it on my upper palette to see what the shape was. And then from there, I designed this shape that would fit perfectly there because if it fits perfectly in your mouth, then you're not. You're less likely to chew it, you know, so you just put the piece of chocolate in your mouth, let your body heat melt it, and stay in the present moment. And I've got some recordings of, you know, like, it goes two, two and a half minutes with the chocolate, and from there you shift even in two and two minutes into a different state of being. And from there you can take it in other places where you can explore what we talked about, like, what's the nature of reality and how are things really? And I think that's why nature is so powerful because, like, with Using the flower essences and the plant stem cells and things, you're breaking down that unnatural barrier between the two. We've been living in duality, right? Where we perceive self and other, self and object. But in those moments, you can dissolve those barriers and it's, it's a different kind of understanding and a different way of being that allows this frictionless healing to happen. So it's not hard. I mean, chocolate's not hard. I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what we need to do in meditation, but it's really slowing down, taking your awareness and putting it right where you're at, whatever you're doing. You know, it can be doing the dishes, it can be sitting at the traffic light. It doesn't have to be on a cushion. It doesn't have to be rigid like that. The only reason we sit on the cushion is so that later we can bring it out into the world and feel more fluent with it, you know, more experienced with it. But the whole point is that our whole lives should be led in this world of non duality.

Right? And, and observe. Observing, right? Being able to be mindful, be present and observing, which is, you know, gotten more and more difficult in our society just because of the gazillion distractions, right? The phones. I think the latest, the latest statistic I read is the average person picks up their phone 166 times a day. Oh, so imagine if you translated that eating 166 pieces of chocolate, drinking 166 cups of coffee, right? So think about, I mean, that is a. I mean you are basically spending your entire day picking up your phone and if you have it on the ringtone, it's almost like Pavlov's dog. You know, you're like, you know, so your nervous system stays in this fight or flight. And I know that's what I see in my practice and I work with people a lot is they're just in this fight or flight consistently. So even taking those two to three minutes to have that chocolate and be present will start to shift that pattern, if you will.

That's a really good point because someone else said, oh, this is beautiful because when you put something in your mouth, it puts you into parasympathetic. Like it's an invitation to go into parasympathetic. And then there's also that spot where right behind your front teeth. It's like a circuit. Like if you put your tongue there or you put a piece of chocolate there, it's an Important energy circuit that helps you go into parasympathetic. And so all of the pieces of that work together so that, yes, you can shift. You really can shift. Boy. And you telling me that about the phone, that makes me want to do a different kind of meditation recording or some kind, you know, like. Because if we are going to pick this thing up, then there should be. That can be the cue. Imagine if 166 times a day you remembered to notice the space in the room. You know, like our typical way of viewing things is to notice the objects. But what if we just shift our perception to notice the space in between the objects? And it takes just a moment to do it, but when you do it, you feel a relaxation in your body. You feel like a ha.

And what if you feel the life force energy, Right?

Yeah, it's beautiful. And then what if we did that 166 times a day? I mean, if we're. We're not going to get rid of our phones right away, right? I mean, this is as much as we wish. So if we could springboard off that and like, okay, tie that to something, have it be a cue. Because it doesn't take more than a moment, right. To shift like that, then. Oh, that, that makes me excited. It's funny, that's how I felt when I watched your documentary is I felt like, oh, there's something here. It's so encouraging. It's so like reunites that sense of we've got to bring this out in the world because it's so powerful. I love the synergy of that, that, that something that seems to be unrelated, like watching your documentary can be inner fuel for finding another way for people to be free and healthy.

Yeah. And I think we're, you know, we're at a point where the modern world is not working for us. The modern way of doing things of here, take a pill, right. It's blocking a pathway in the body that when you work with nature and you work with these sacred beings, if you will, you're actually working with the body. And, you know, I'm a big believer that whatever imbalance the body creates, it can uncreate it. It can move that out, right. With cacao, with flower essences, with plant stem cells, with essential oils, because they are informing the body of how to come back to its natural state, its blueprint, its original blueprint. And that is where. That is where true healing is.

Right. Well, and, and you know that in the core of your being because you did that. Yes, because there's Nobody. There's nobody on earth who can say to you, oh, that's not true, because you've lived it, you know, it's.

Yes.

That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.

It's just. Yeah. I mean, I. I feel like the ancient ways of being are starting to kind of slowly come back into our consciousness in a way at a time when we need it the most. Right. At a time where we're more stressed, we're more in that static and that clinging state. And these are amazing tools to help us shift into our inner world and live from the inside out versus our outer world.

Yeah.

And who knew chocolate was going to lead the way? I have my new mantra. I meditate every day. I have a piece of chocolate. Way, way of chocolate. I'm gonna have a piece every day.

That's great. Yeah. I mean, and then, I mean, even apart from that, it has physical benefits, you know, like they found. Well, I mean, the whole reason that this healthy chocolate thing came up was because there was a Harvard researcher who was looking at the Kuna people who live on an island off the coast of Panama, and they said, why are these people so much better off than the Kuna people who moved to the mainland? They have 18 times less heart disease. They have 12 times less cancer. What is it? Because it's not genetic. It's the same people. And they looked at what they were eating and they said, this is interesting. On the island, they don't have any good tasting water. So they take their water and they boil it with cacao pods, cacao seeds, and then they drink this cacao water all day long. And then they go to the mainland and they have, you know, processed chocolate, whatever. You know, I'm imagining something like Nestle's Quick or something, you know, something very different. Yes. And they lose all the health benefits. And that's what. That was the original impetus to this. Like, chocolate can be good for you. And it's. It spawned a whole, you know, bunch of studies. But. So Harvard found that having, like, even this size, one piece of this a day, can cut the risk of heart disease by 57%. Which that to me is like, oh, over 50% means I better be doing that, because that's better than not doing it. And then European Heart Journal found that it cuts the risk of stroke by 48%. It changes the consistency of the blood within minutes. It is awesome for pregnancy. Yale found that it reduced the risk of preeclampsia by 69%. The women who ate the most high quality chocolate in the third Trimester or maybe even through all of pregnancy probably. But so you know there's lots of benefits. It's also even good for the skin because it's an anti inflammatory and a lot of wrinkling is to going caused from inflammation.

That's why you look so young because you're having three to four pieces a day.

Honestly, I mean the only like my health, my, my skincare plan is chocolate flower essences and I use the, the flower essence serum and I threw away all my other skin care because it's.

Like you don't need it. So I, when I was there several months ago, I got the peppermints and the c. Cinnamon. So what, why don't you talk a little bit about why you chose those flavors and what are those adding to the chocolate?

Yeah. So peppermint. Peppermint is awesome. So I mean it's just a natural chocolate. The flavor, it's so smooth. It's just like, wow. Like silk. And it has flower essences in it. From Katie's product called Inner Knowing. Inner Knowing. She, she just wrote a great email about that one. And it's all about like when you're trying to do something that's never been done before and you don't have a path. And instead of getting caught up in like I can't move because I don't know all 15 steps here, all it does, it's got a beautiful picture of a fern on the front that's unfurling and it's like, oh, it's like that fern. You don't need to know all 15 steps. You just need to know one step and then it unfurished and then you take another step and unfurl some more. But in between those steps, what is there? And it's self trust, like believing that when I take that step, I'll know what to do. And that is such a key quality to have today. It's like when you talk about not looking to the outside, but looking into the inside. If we trusted ourselves, then that's the biggest obstacle to us. You know, we can be in touch with nature and we can hear the messages of nature and ourselves so that we know what to do. So that's in the peppermint chocolate. Yeah.

One of my favorite. Okay. Cinnamon. I love cinnamon.

The cinnamon one has a formula called Sacred Heart in it, a flower essence formula. And that one is for so sweet, so tender. It's for any kind of heart tending and it's the go to for any kind of grief. You know, when we lose someone when we're feeling separated, even if it's loss of. We feel like a loss of opportunity or we're missing a place. It's got seven, nine, nine flower essences in it that look at that from all different ways so that, you know, nostalgia and missing someone and even like dark night of the soul. There's sacred datura in there, which is really powerful for that. When we really hit bottom and we need something to bring us back, that's sacred heart. And it's, it's. The cinnamon is like not red hot cinn. It's like grandmother Cinnabon cinnamon.

Yeah. It's very subtle and it's interesting because I shared. I just lost my mother, so I came in and I intuited those two were the two that really called to me. Makes total sense again, you know, you can't, you can't make it up. You cannot make it up. You are called because there's a, there's a longing in each of us. Right. And when you see the flower or you see the chocolate, there's a knowing there's this, this alignment that happens, this relationship.

Yeah, yeah.

It's super beautiful.

Sometimes people come in and they just, they just cry. You know, it's like, it's like everything we've always hoped for, wish for, you know, didn't know if it was really out there to have that kind of support from nature, from the plant kingdom, you know, to know that they've always got your back and they're always rooting for you and there's something for everything. People feel overwhelmed by that sense of support and, and sometimes they just cry when they discover it.

Yeah, beautiful. Well, why don't you mention the other, the other goodies that are in the chocolate? Because you have like seven. Seven formulas. How many?

It, it varies. I mean, we've had up to 13 it, depending on what's going on. You know what we have and we've, we just, we just made another batch and we'll have more of dragon heart. And dragon heart was originally thought of during dragon year, and we're about to enter horse year, so we're, we're moving on. But it has dragon's blood in it, which is a botanical that's very powerful antioxidant and you know, supports the body in lots of different ways as well as a lot of the digestive herbs. You know, like clove is in here, Cinnamon, five spice black pepper, fennel.

Very warming and earthing.

Yeah, yeah. And. And chocolate is such a great grounding element, you know, and When Katie and I used to go out and do sales calls, when we first started the company, people had no idea what flower essences were, and we couldn't start there. So we would start with chocolate because everybody got chocolate. And we would think of it as like the earth, you know, it's like planting everybody's feet on the ground, and if we got them on the earth, then maybe we could get them to the sky. Right. Get them into the flower essence world where they would see things that they hadn't seen before.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Well, how can folks find you?

So we. The chocolate is now on the Lotus Way website. So it's the L o T U s w e I.com website. And you look for whey w e I of chocolate. And there we have all of the flavors that are available so that people can try them, enjoy them, meditate with them, commune with them.

Yes. Relate with them. And you have some big things coming up in the next year. Possibly a documentary.

Oh, yeah. Katie and Taylor have been working very hard on that, and we hope to follow in your footsteps of turning the world upside down with.

Oh, you will. You already are, but you will even more so. I'm excited to see that when it comes out.

It's nice to have, like, you know, it's almost like an army of plants. I saw something. Oh, it was in your documentary. Right. Where the fellow talks about plants can't move.

Yeah.

And so it's like there's a partnership with us, and I love that. That was so Ron Frank. He talked about that.

Yes. He's amazing.

Oh, yeah.

I work with him a lot. He's just such a wise. A wise man, a wise soul. And he's really taught me about this deepening, this relationship piece, that when you're working with something, you're in relationship with it, you know, so.

So we're like the mouthpiece for the flowers that can't talk.

Yes. There you go. Well, thank you so much for your sacredness, your wisdom, for everything that you're doing, and for teaching us that we can meditate with chocolate.

Yeah, Start there. And I hope to have more recordings available and like I say, virtual meetings available so that, I mean, sometimes all you need is like a little demonstration, you know, like get together with a group, listen to something like, oh, it's. It could be that simple. Like I tell people, it's like meditation isn't hard once you know what it is. Like, it's. It's hard to explain without doing it right. So that's why the class or the. The recording is helpful, but once you know what to do, it's not hard. What's hard is to remember to do it. So.

Yes.

So then if you. If you tie that to the. Your idea, like the phone, if we somehow had a cue like, oh, I can take even 2 seconds, 3 seconds and do this thing with my mind, then that's like opening a doorway to freedom.

Beautifully said. Thank you so, so much. It's been an honor and a joy to learn more about your journey. I had no idea you lived in a cave. I mean, oh, my gosh. I hope there's a book in your future, too, at some point, because. Quite interesting story.

Thank you. Thank you, Jen. I really appreciate you and all you do.

Thank you.