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The Plant Powered Collective Podcast helps women in their 40s, 50s, and beyond live vibrantly and nourish boldly. Hosted by integrative nutrition coach Lori Willinski, each episode blends science-backed nutrition with approachable strategies for hormone balance, energy, and healthy aging. Rooted in lifestyle medicine and personalized coaching, Lori shares her story of thriving on plants since age 14 and managing autoimmune disease with nutrition. Discover how a plant powered lifestyle fuels not only your health, but also your leadership and your future self.
Welcome back to the Plant Powered Collective podcast. I have my tea, a beautiful green tea from Hangzhou, China called Dragonwell Tea. And this feels like one of those episodes where I really just wanna sit down at the table with you and talk and sip my tea. No big presentation. No list of 10 things you should start doing tomorrow, just a conversation because I've been thinking a lot about the Plant Powered Collective Method lately.
Speaker 1:And I've been talking about it in short videos I've been sharing on social media. I don't know if you've seen it or not. I've been writing more about it on Substack, something I am just starting. Substack is really interesting and I'm having fun with it. And as I've been putting language around Method, I've realized something.
Speaker 1:I didn't really create it in one day. I didn't sit down with a notebook and say, Okay, I need seven movements for The Plant Powered Collective. The Method came from living. It came from decades of navigating very different seasons of my life and trying sometimes successfully and sometimes not so successfully to figure out how to take care of myself inside all of them. And I think that's really important because the Plant Powered Collective Method is not about creating a perfect wellness routine.
Speaker 1:It's about creating a lifestyle that supports you in the season you're actually in. And then when that season changes, because it will, being willing to listen again, clarify again, redesign, practice, reflect, and adapt. So let me ask you the question I ask here so often. What is nourishing you on and off the plate? And then I want to add another question today.
Speaker 1:Does your current lifestyle actually support you? I've been thinking about that a lot lately for myself. Not the lifestyle you had five years ago, not the lifestyle you imagine you'll have when things calm down, not somebody else's lifestyle on social media, yours right now. Before we get into all of this, just my usual reminder that this podcast is for educational and reflects my own experiences and my work in integrative nutrition. Okay.
Speaker 1:Now that I have that out of the way, let's chat. When I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder at 16 years old, I was already plant based. So plant based eating wasn't something I discovered because I received a diagnosis. Plants were already part of how I ate. But when I look back at that period now with everything I know today, I see so much more than I understood at the time.
Speaker 1:My home life was super fractured. My mother and father were fighting a lot. There was tremendous amount of stress in our family, and I was so super shy. I didn't have the confidence or the language to really advocate for myself or say something isn't right here, and I need help figuring this out. And something else I understand now, but certainly didn't understand then, is that I had been parentified in many ways.
Speaker 1:I was taking on responsibilities emotionally and practically that really belonged to the adults around me. But when you're young, you don't necessarily know that. You just think this is what I do. It's what I have to do. You adapt.
Speaker 1:You become responsible. You keep going. And I think that pattern of being intensely responsible started very early for me. So when I was diagnosed, I really didn't take ownership of understanding the autoimmune disorder the way I probably would today. I wasn't asking a lot of questions.
Speaker 1:I wasn't researching everything. I wasn't thinking deeply about stress or lifestyle or nervous system regulation. I was young. I was 16. I was shy.
Speaker 1:I was a bookworm. I was living in a stressful environment, but then something changed. I was diagnosed towards the end of the school year. At the end of the school year, every year, mister, our music teacher at the high school, would put on a musical. And this particular year, it was Guys and Dolls.
Speaker 1:And I was a hotbox girl. And the opening night, I was getting dressed in my hotbox costume, and one of my fellow castmates said, oh my gosh, Laurie. Like, there's red marks all the way down your spine. And I wasn't feeling good. My joints weren't feeling well.
Speaker 1:There was red marks down my spine. I had red blotches on most of my joints. I had the butterfly rash on my face. And needless to say, I wasn't a hot box girl on the opening night. I ended up going to the doctor instead.
Speaker 1:And then summer came. And that summer, I worked three jobs, which sounds ridiculous when I say that now. Three jobs does not exactly sound restful. But here's the interesting part. I was out of the house a lot.
Speaker 1:I wasn't sitting inside that stressful family environment all day. I was riding my bike from one job to another. I was moving constantly, and it was summertime, which meant we had beautiful, incredibly fresh vegetables. Vegetables straight out of the garden. And I started feeling better.
Speaker 1:And, again, I want to be very careful here. I'm not absolutely saying that riding a bicycle and eating vegetables treated an autoimmune disorder. That's not the point. But when I look back at it now, I can see that several things had changed at that time. I was moving more.
Speaker 1:I was spending less time in an emotionally stressful environment and sometimes physically stressful environment. There was some natural stress reduction simply because I wasn't in the house as much. And I was eating an abundance of incredibly fresh plant foods. Movement, fresh food, less exposure to an intensely stressful environment, and I felt better. At the time, I didn't have language for that.
Speaker 1:I wasn't thinking, okay. I'm listening to my body or I'm redesigning my lifestyle. I was just noticing that I felt different. And now looking back, that was really one of my earliest experiences, which would eventually become the Plant Powered Collective Method. First movement in the method is listen.
Speaker 1:And I think this may be one of the most important parts of the entire method because we live in a world that is constantly telling us what we should be doing. Whether it's on social media, all the influencers, I know I hear all the noise. Have you heard it too? Eat this. Don't eat that.
Speaker 1:Take the supplement. Wake up at five. Drink this. Avoid that. Get 10,000 steps.
Speaker 1:Lift heavy weights. Meditate. Journal. Cold plunge. Sauna.
Speaker 1:And pretty soon, wellness becomes this giant list of things you're supposedly failing to do. But before any of that, I think we have to listen. What is actually happening in your body? How is your energy? How are you sleeping?
Speaker 1:How is your digestion? How do you feel after certain meals? What happens when your stress increases? What happens when your schedule becomes chaotic? What feels supportive?
Speaker 1:What feels draining? And what is your lifestyle asking of you right now? Because sometimes your body is telling you something long before you have language for it. And that's what happened to me. I knew I felt better during that summer when I was 16 as a teenager.
Speaker 1:I didn't understand all the reasons why. I just knew there was a difference. And sometimes listening starts exactly there. I feel better when. I noticed that when.
Speaker 1:I don't feel like myself when. Those are clues. And then life moved on. Right? School ended.
Speaker 1:Work became increasingly important. And then we moved into the nineties. And I think a lot of women around my age will understand exactly what I mean when I say this. It was the error of the superwoman. You could do everything.
Speaker 1:You know, there was a a commercial that was like, I can bring home the bacon and cook it in the pan or something like that. Bad analogy. I like to think I can bring home the kale and cook it in the pan. But, you know, we could be super. We could do everything.
Speaker 1:At least that was the message. You could build a successful career. You could be a leader. You could have children. You could take care of the house.
Speaker 1:You could cook good meals. You could volunteer. You can pay the bills. You can show up at school. You can show up at work.
Speaker 1:You can support your spouse. You can manage the family calendar and somehow do all of it beautifully and perfectly. And I absolutely bought into that. I was intensely independent. And honestly, I still am.
Speaker 1:And at that time, especially though, I took enormous pride in being able to handle everything. My now ex husband traveled a lot. He was gone all the time. And I had two little kids, fifteen months apart. And even when he wasn't traveling, the responsibility for our children and our home was largely mine.
Speaker 1:And I took on that. I liked doing that because I was independent, and I could handle it, and I could do it. And at the same time, I was working. I wanted to be successful. I wanted to be a leader in the company where I worked.
Speaker 1:I came in as a leader, but I wanted more. I wanted to continue to, you know, move up the ladder. And that was the thing as I could. I handled the kids. I handled the house.
Speaker 1:I handled work, bills, meals, volunteering, schedule, schools, appointments, and and and. Sometimes being highly capable can hide the fact that something is costing you because everyone looks at you and says, she's got it. And you look at yourself and you think, I've got it. And, technically, you do. But there may be a cost.
Speaker 1:And for me, one of those costs during that period was that I wasn't taking particularly good care of myself. I had systems. Oh, I had systems. I had a morning system that was down pat. You know?
Speaker 1:One of my daughter's first words because I took them took both my kids to a daycare and fantastic daycare in Atlanta. One of her first words was fast. Because I'm like, come on. Get in the car. We have to be faster.
Speaker 1:We have to be fast. We have to go faster. I have to drive the car faster. Because that was one of my systems, and that's how I could do everything. But the systems are largely designed to make sure that everything got done.
Speaker 1:They weren't necessarily designed to nourish me. That's a very different thing. And I think that distinction became important later. This is something I think quite a bit now. You can have an incredibly efficient lifestyle that isn't exactly supporting your well-being.
Speaker 1:Everything can get done. Everyone can get to where they need to go. The bills can get paid. The children can be cared for. The work can be successful.
Speaker 1:The house can function, and you can still be depleted. Efficiency and nourishment are not necessarily the same thing. And during some of those years, nutrition and lifestyle simply didn't receive the attention that they had in other seasons. I was still plant based, but again, plant based and deeply nourished are not necessarily identical. And I noticed that when nutrition became less of a priority, I didn't feel as well.
Speaker 1:When movement disappeared or became inconsistent, I noticed it. When stress was higher, I noticed it. I didn't always respond to those signals, but they were there. And that is another important part of listening. Sometimes we hear our bodies.
Speaker 1:We just don't have the capacity to respond yet. And that's okay because listening is still information. The next movement is clarify. And the older I get, the more I realize clarify isn't simply asking what's important. It's also asking what is actually mine to carry.
Speaker 1:That's a big one for me because I have spent a lot of my life being the person who carries everything for everyone. I told you earlier that I was parentified when I was young. Then in the nineties, I became the superwoman. If something needed to get done, I did it. Work?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Children? Of course. House? Yes.
Speaker 1:Bills? Yes. Meals? Yes. Volunteering?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Every Saturday. Kids in tow. School activities? Yes.
Speaker 1:Supporting my husband? Yes. And then probably three more things because, apparently, there was still a few minutes left in the day. And the interesting thing is I could do it. I was capable.
Speaker 1:I was organized. I created systems. I was fiercely independent. And for so long, my question wasn't, should I be doing this? My question was, can I do this?
Speaker 1:And those are two very different questions. I think that is where boundaries become part of clarify. Because when you're a capable person, particularly a capable woman who has spent years taking responsibility for everyone else, it can be really easy to assume that because you can carry something, you should carry it. I don't believe that anymore. I'm still practicing this, by the way, very much so, especially in my current lifestyle.
Speaker 1:I have my father living with me and depending on me. He has dementia and primary progressive aphasia. I'm building Plant Powered Collective. My daughters live in Atlanta, and being connected to them matters enormously to me. I'm in a new relationship with Chris, and that matters to me.
Speaker 1:My community involvement matters to me. The local chamber, our local crime stoppers, and a local farm animal sanctuary. And those are very important to me because giving back matters to me. There are a lot of things I genuinely care about. So clarify can't simply mean making a longer list of important things.
Speaker 1:At some point, everything on the list is important. Right? Clarify means asking what needs me the most right now? What deserves my energy? What can someone else do?
Speaker 1:What can wait? What am I doing simply because I've always been the person who does it? Where do I need a boundary? Sometimes the most nourishing answer isn't adding something. Sometimes it's saying not right now or I can't take that on or even this matters to me, but I don't have the capacity for it in this season.
Speaker 1:And that could be hard. I just did that, actually. I I was I belong to a rotary club, and I really enjoy rotary. They do a lot of great things. Again, it's community involvement in a different way, and I really liked it.
Speaker 1:And the meetings were at breakfast about forty minutes from where I live at 07:30 in the morning, so I have to leave at 06:30 in the morning. And I don't have a caregiver then. And I thought about bringing my dad, which would have been okay, but it would have been, like, really disruptive for both of us and extremely stressful. So right now, when I looked at everything I was involved in and looked at the timing of the rotary club, I decided to take a break from it. That doesn't mean that it will be forever, and it wasn't an easy decision.
Speaker 1:And I'm sad about it, but I also know that it was the right choice. Because, again, I had to look at everything. And just because it matters to me, it doesn't mean that I have capacity for it in this season. And that could be hard, especially because my identity has been tied to being dependable, capable, involved, and the person everyone knows will get it done. And I understand that identity.
Speaker 1:But clarity is not about squeezing everything important into your lifestyle. It is about becoming intentional about what gets you limited time, attention, and energy. And that is a really important part of nourishment too because boundaries aren't separate from lifestyle. Boundaries help create the space in which a supportive lifestyle can actually exist. So maybe the question isn't, how do I fit one more healthy thing into my day?
Speaker 1:Maybe it's, what could I stop carrying so there is actually room to care for myself too? That's a very different conversation. Then we moved to China. Then another completely different season began. Because when we moved to China, I wasn't working initially.
Speaker 1:I was home with the girls full time, and that was a completely different kind of stress for me. I was accustomed to working. I understood work. I understood structure. I understood leadership.
Speaker 1:I knew how to organize my professional life. Then suddenly, I was in another country. I didn't know how things worked. I didn't know how to navigate everyday life efficiently, and I didn't have any of my usual systems. Even buying food was completely different.
Speaker 1:When we first moved there, grocery shopping didn't look the way it had in The United States. I went to open air markets or wet markets for our food. And in retrospect, that experience taught me a tremendous amount about food. For one thing, it taught me about seasonality. You weren't necessarily walking into a supermarket and seeing exactly the same fruits and vegetables twelve months a year.
Speaker 1:What was abundant changed. What looked beautiful changed. You became aware of what was growing and what was available at that particular time of year. And I loved that. It brought me closer to food in a way that I hadn't really experienced before.
Speaker 1:There was also much less obsession with vegetables looking cosmetically perfect. You might see leafy greens with a hole in leaf where an insect had been eating. And at that time, I associated that with food being more naturally grown and less manipulated. I understand now that the holes themselves didn't prove that pesticides weren't used. Insects can damage crops whether growers use pesticides, organic pest management methods, or no chemical treatment at all.
Speaker 1:But what stayed with me was something bigger. Food didn't have to look perfect to be beautiful food. The greens could have holes in them. The vegetables could be different sizes. Things looked like they had actually grown somewhere.
Speaker 1:For instance, carrots still had dirt on them. And I became much more connected to where the food came from, what was in season, and how incredibly good very fresh food could be. But in the beginning, it was hard because I didn't have the system. I didn't know which vendor had the vegetables I liked or the the vendor that I could communicate with. I didn't know where to buy things.
Speaker 1:My family still ate meat even though I didn't. So I had to learn how to navigate that too. Everything that had once been automatic suddenly required thought, and that created stress. Have you ever experienced that? Something isn't necessarily hard, but because you have to make 20 decisions to accomplish something that used to take two decisions, it's exhausting.
Speaker 1:That was everyday life when I first moved to China. But eventually, I started creating systems again. I found the vegetable vendors I liked. I knew where I wanted to buy certain things. They began to know me.
Speaker 1:They knew what I like. Sometimes they would have vegetables ready for me. The butchers could have meat ready for my family. Suddenly, I wasn't reinventing grocery shopping every single day, and that's design. But there's really something important about the way I use the word system within Plant Powered Collective.
Speaker 1:A system is not supposed to become another rigid set of rules. I know system oftentimes has that connotation. It isn't supposed to be perfect. It isn't every Tuesday at exactly 04:15 I must go to this vendor and buy these seven vegetables. No.
Speaker 1:A system can be incredibly small. My relationship with those vendors were a system. Instead of walking through the entire market every time wondering where do I go and what do I buy, hi, Newf. These are the people I trust. This is where I start.
Speaker 1:They know what I like. They give me a good price. That one small shift removed decisions and made nourishing my family easier. That's a system. Not rigid, not perfect, just easier.
Speaker 1:And I think that's an important distinction. I want to stay with that idea for a bit because I think sometimes when we hear the words like system or routine, we immediately imagine rigidity. Everything's scheduled. Everything's organized. Meal prep containers lined up perfectly in the refrigerator.
Speaker 1:The same breakfast at 07:15 every morning. That isn't what I mean. Although, if that works for you, then that is a good system for you, but that is not a good system for me. At Plant Powered Collective, the system is simply a small shift that reduces friction. That's it.
Speaker 1:What can I do now that makes the big thing I want to do later a little easier? In China, it was knowing my vendors. I didn't have to solve grocery shopping from scratch every single time. In another season, it might have been knowing that there are always a few vegetables, some cooked grains, hummus, herbs, nuts, or seeds, and something acidic in the kitchen. I don't need to know on Sunday exactly what I'm eating on Thursday night.
Speaker 1:That's too rigid for me. Now that might not be too rigid for you, and that's okay. But for me, if those pieces are there, like some vegetables, some cooked grains, hummus, herbs, nuts, or seeds, and something acidic, I can walk into the kitchen and think, okay. What sounds good tonight? Maybe those vegetables go over hummus with herbs, toasted seeds, and a little vinegar.
Speaker 1:Maybe tomorrow, some of the same vegetables go into a simple pasta. Same preparation, completely different meal. That's a system for me. Or look at my lifestyle right now. When a caregiver is with my father, I know that there is a window of time, and that matters.
Speaker 1:I can't fit everything into it, so I clarify what really requires my uninterrupted time, like recording this podcast. Or maybe it's concentrated work for Plant Powered Collective, or maybe it's the time when I schedule my client coaching calls. Maybe it's something outside the house that I simply can't do when I'm responsible for my dad. I don't have to schedule every minute perfectly. The system is simply when I have support, I use that time intentionally.
Speaker 1:That's enough. Systems should support the lifestyle. The lifestyle should not become a servant to the system. And if the system stops working, then change it. That's where reflect comes in.
Speaker 1:Maybe something works beautifully when your children were little and it doesn't work now. That that's alright. That's fine. Maybe you used to grocery shop once a week, and now three smaller trips fit your lifestyle better. That's also okay.
Speaker 1:Maybe you used to exercise first thing in the morning, and now afternoons work better. It's alright too. Maybe you used to walk outside. And now, like me, there are days when walk the walking pad is just what works, and that's okay. There isn't a prize for maintaining the same system the longest.
Speaker 1:The system exists to make nourishment easier. And that's nourishment on the plate, around the plate, and at the table. When it stops doing that, then you have to redesign the system. And I think that's another place where the Plant Powered Collective method is different from the idea of finding the perfect routine. We aren't looking for perfection.
Speaker 1:We're reducing friction. We're creating support. We're making small shifts, and then we're paying attention to whether those shifts actually help. So eventually, started working in Shanghai, and that's another season. Now I wasn't simply navigating motherhood and life in another country.
Speaker 1:I was working again. And so once again, everything had to adjust. How do I work? How do I care for the girls? How do I make food work?
Speaker 1:How do I move? How do I manage stress? How do I maintain the things that help me feel good? And, again, I didn't call any of this the Plant Powered Collective method. I mean, Plant Powered Collective didn't even exist yet.
Speaker 1:I was just living. But in retrospect, I can see that I kept returning to the same process. Listen, clarify, nourish, design, practice, then reflect, and then integrate. And then life changes again, and we begin that process again. Then thirteen years after moving to Shanghai, we moved back to The States.
Speaker 1:And you would think that would have been easy. Right? I mean, we're coming home, except it wasn't quite that simple. We had come back to The States regularly while we were living in China, sometimes several times a year, but those trips weren't around normal life. We were staying with family.
Speaker 1:We were visiting cousins. We were seeing everyone we missed. It was almost like a bubble, you know, of a vacation version of The United States. And then suddenly, we were living here full time. And that was very different.
Speaker 1:I had to learn how to navigate everyday life again, not vacation life, regular life. Where do you shop? How does the school system work now? How do I build routines? How do I reconnect professionally?
Speaker 1:How do I build community? How do I make all of this efficient again? And there was stress in that. And, again, I had teenage daughters. Anyone who has raised teenage daughters knows that it is a season all by itself.
Speaker 1:There are so many beautiful things in that stage and so many responsibilities. School, community activities, university searches, campus visits, moving them into dorm rooms, moving them out of dorm rooms, moving them into apartments, the late night phone calls, the stress about an exam, the paper that's due, the relationship problem, the homesickness, all of it. And I was very involved. I wanted to be. Those memories I treasure, but they also required energy.
Speaker 1:And at the same time, my husband was still working in China. So once again, much of the day to day responsibility for our family was mine. And at that time, I really believed I was supporting him and supporting our family. I knew I could handle things, and I did. But there was stress.
Speaker 1:And there was more happening in our marriage than I understood at the time. Looking back now, I recognize that there were fractures much earlier than I really understood them. I didn't really understand the full extent of that until years later. And, again, that's part of why reflection matters because you only understand a season when you can look back at it from another one. And that's the next movement, reflect.
Speaker 1:What happened? What worked? What didn't work? What did I miss? What am I seeing now that I didn't see then?
Speaker 1:Reflection isn't about beating yourself up for what you didn't know. It's about learning. It can look at my younger self now and think you are under a tremendous amount of stress. You are carrying more responsibility than you understood. You were incredibly capable.
Speaker 1:And sometimes that capability prevented you from recognizing how much you were carrying. I can also see that whenever I returned to certain foundational things, I generally felt better. Plant forward nutrition, movement. Structure. Structure on my terms and how I defined it, not rigid.
Speaker 1:Connection. Time outside, community, a sense of purpose, some degree of predictability. Those things mattered to me, and they still matter. And that brings us to nourish. At Plant Powered Collective, nourishment begins very much on the plate.
Speaker 1:Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, plant diversity, fiber, color, texture, freshness, food that tastes wonderful, food that makes you excited to sit at the table. But nourishment doesn't end there. It's what happens on the plate and around the plate. Movement, sleep, stress, connection, relationships, purpose, community, the environment around us, what we put on our bodies, what we bring into our homes, all of those things become part of a lifestyle. And for me, community has always been a particularly important part of nourishment.
Speaker 1:No matter what stage of life I have been in, being involved in my community has mattered to me. Volunteering, giving back, being connected, helping build something, That isn't separate from well-being for me. It is part of it. That's by individuality. Someone else may need something different.
Speaker 1:But for me, connection and contribution are nourishing. And now I'm in another completely different season. My daughter's live in Atlanta. I live in Southwest Florida. So motherhood looks different now.
Speaker 1:I'm still their mother, obviously, always, Even though they're 29 and 31, that never stops. But I'm not driving them to school or moving them into dorm rooms. Now connection has to be more intentional because there is physical distance. I'm also in a committed relationship with Chris. Can you hear my smile?
Speaker 1:We've been together for about a year and a half, and that's another part of my lifestyle that is still evolving. What does partnership look like at this stage of life? How do two people who have already lived a lot of life build something together? How do we create time for one another? How do we maintain independence and also create connection?
Speaker 1:And then there is my father. My dad is living with me right now. He has dementia and primary progressive aphasia. He is dependent on me. As a matter of fact, he is just getting up off the couch as I'm making this podcast, and I'm making sure to see if he needs something.
Speaker 1:We'll see if I have to stop and start this podcast now for a third time. But he is dependent on me, and that changes almost everything about the way I design my days. I can't always leave the house when I want to. I can't always record a podcast when I want to. I can't always make plans without considering his care.
Speaker 1:You wanna have a seat? Sit beside me. Here. And here's your drink. Here's your water.
Speaker 1:So where was I? I might have already said this. But and that changes almost everything about the way I design my days. I can't I did already say this. Can't always leave my house when I want to or record a podcast.
Speaker 1:I can't always make plans without considering his care. I have caregivers who help. And when they're here, I often use that time to work on Plant Powered Collective or handle other responsibilities. So even my work gets designed around caregiving. And then I'm deeply connected to my community, and that matters to me.
Speaker 1:Volunteering matters to me. Giving back matters to me. And I feel like I've already said this, but I'm gonna say it again because it's important. Being part of organizations and projects that support people in Southwest Florida matters. And I don't want caregiving to mean that every other part of myself disappear.
Speaker 1:But I also have to acknowledge that my capacity is different. I'm still coming to terms with that, quite frankly. And that's where the method becomes very real for me right now. So I'm listening again. What do I need?
Speaker 1:What is my body telling me? Where am I feeling stressed? What is realistic? I'm clarifying. What really matters right now?
Speaker 1:What can wait? What deserves my energy? I'm nourishing. What foods make it easier for me to feel well? How do I keep plant diversity and fresh food part of my lifestyle even when I'm tired?
Speaker 1:I'm designer. How can I move when I can't leave my father alone? Right now, one answer is my walking pad. Would I sometimes rather walk outside or go to the gym? Of course.
Speaker 1:But if I leave the house, that's not realistic. The walking pad allows movement to stay in my lifestyle. That's the point. I'm also designing around caregivers. If someone is here with my dad, what needs my focused attention during that plant power collective, community responsibilities, an appointment, something for my daughters, time with Chris, rest, Those things have to be intentional now.
Speaker 1:And then I practice. Some days, it looks beautifully. Some days, it absolutely does not, like yesterday. That's real life. Then I reflect.
Speaker 1:What worked? What didn't? What made the day easier? Where did I create unnecessary stress? What can I change tomorrow?
Speaker 1:And then I integrate whatever is actually helping until something changes again. This is probably the thing I most want you to hear today. The Plant Powered Collective Method is not one and done. You do not listen, clarify, nourish, design, practice, reflect, integrate, and then graduate into some perfectly optimized life. Life doesn't happen that way, neither does a lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Your lifestyle evolves because your life evolves. Think about how many completely different versions of my lifestyle I have just described. A shy young woman living in a fractured home environment, the nineties superwoman trying to do absolutely everything and doing it, by the way, a working mother, a full time mother suddenly living in China, learning to navigate a wet market in another language and culture, working in Shanghai, moving back to The United States, raising teenage daughters, rebuilding professional and community connections, going through the end of a marriage, living apart from my adult daughters, building a new relationship, starting Plant Powered Collective, caring for my father, these are not small changes. Why would the same exact lifestyle design work to every one of them? It wouldn't, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:The method also has to adapt not only to different seasons of your life, but to who you are. That is where bio individuality comes in. I am intensely independent. That has helped me tremendously throughout my life. It has also probably caused me to take on more than I needed at times.
Speaker 1:That's something I have to understand about myself. Someone else may struggle with confidence and need more structure and support. Someone may love cooking. Someone else may absolutely hate it. Someone may thrive with a strict routine.
Speaker 1:Someone else needs flexibility, like me. Someone may be dealing with menopause, like me. Someone may be navigating an autoimmune diagnosis. Me, someone may be caring for a parent. Someone may have young children.
Speaker 1:Someone may be building a company. Someone may be retiring and thinking, who am I now? The method is shared. The application is bio individual. This is essential.
Speaker 1:There is a sentence I've been coming back to again and again. The method should adapt to your lifestyle without disappearing from your lifestyle. I really believe that. Because adaptation doesn't mean, well, life is stressful, so I guess I'll take care of myself later. I've done that version too many times.
Speaker 1:It doesn't work particularly well. Adaptation means asking, what can this look like now? Maybe movement used to mean a gym, and now it means a walking path. Maybe dinner used to be elaborate, and now it's roasted vegetables, a grain, hummus, herbs, seeds, and something acidic. Still nourishing.
Speaker 1:Much simpler. Maybe you used to have an hour, and now you have fifteen minutes. Okay. What can fifteen minutes do? Maybe you used to see friends several times a week, and now connection has to happen through a phone call or a Zoom while you're folding laundry.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of laundry right now upstairs in my room. This just reminds me that I need to fold a lot of laundry. It still counts. The method isn't asking you to preserve an old lifestyle. It's helping you build the next one.
Speaker 1:And that's why I love the word practice because practice leaves room for imperfection. There is no performance here. There is no grade. There is no wellness report card. You practice.
Speaker 1:You try. You notice. You adjust. You come back. Maybe one day, you eat an incredibly diverse plant forward meal.
Speaker 1:The next day, you are exhausted, and dinner is much simpler. Fine. It's okay. Maybe you get outside and walk one day, and the next day, your father needs you and you're on the walking pad. That's also fine.
Speaker 1:It's okay. Maybe one week, you are socially connected and doing all the things you love. And the next week, you need to pull back because you're tired. That's also okay and fine. Consistency is not sameness.
Speaker 1:Consistency is returning, and that is a much more sustainable way to think about well-being. So you may be listening to this and thinking, well, Laurie, I don't have a method. I wanna suggest and have you reflect on maybe you do. You just haven't named it. Maybe you buy vegetables on Sunday because you know if they're in the house, you'll eat them.
Speaker 1:That's a design. Maybe you've realized you feel terrible when you over schedule yourself. That's listen. Maybe you've decided that sleep is more important than attending one more event this month. That's clarify.
Speaker 1:Maybe you started adding herbs, seeds, beans, and vegetables to meals because you enjoy how you feel when you're eating more plant variety. That's nourish. Maybe you've tried walking ten minutes after dinner every night. That's practice. Maybe after a month, you realized evenings aren't working and moved that walk to lunchtime.
Speaker 1:That's reflect. And maybe, just maybe, lunchtime walking becomes something you rarely think about because it's simply part of what you do, and that's integrate until your schedule changes. And then you listen again. I have been sharing a series of short talking head videos on social media about the Plant Powered Collective method. Each one focuses on one piece of the method.
Speaker 1:And I like doing it that way because I don't think we always need more information. Sometimes we just need one good question, something that makes us stop and think. Is this actually working for me? I've also been writing more on my personal sub stack. I kinda like it.
Speaker 1:Still learning how to navigate it. But I love having that space because I can go deeper there. I can reflect on things like caregiving, nutrition, brain health, midlife, relationships, lifestyle, community, and the experience that have shaped how I think about all of this, and the experiences that have shaped how I think about all of this. The videos give you one idea at a time. The podcast gives us a conversation.
Speaker 1:Substack gives me room to reflect and write more deeply. I used to write a lot. I did some freelance writing while I lived in Shanghai, and I loved getting back into it. And the Plant Powered Collective Community is where we can begin turning these ideas into practical sustainable action and sharing and finding connection. Because I'm not recommending or coaching this method from some perfectly curated life where everything works.
Speaker 1:I will tell you right now, mm-mm. It's not happening. I am living it right now in a very complicated season. I am listening, clarifying, nourishing, designing, practicing, reflecting, integrating, and adapting. So before we finish, I want to ask you something.
Speaker 1:And maybe this is something you think about later when you're walking or cooking or drinking your own cup of tea. Does your current lifestyle support the season of life you're in? Not the one you used to be in. Not the one you wish you were in. This one right now.
Speaker 1:What is working? What isn't? What do you know makes you feel better? What keeps getting pushed aside? Where are you carrying too much?
Speaker 1:Where would a simple system make something easier? And what might you need to redesign? You don't have to fix everything. Just listen. That's where the method starts.
Speaker 1:If there is one thing I hope you take away from today's conversation, it is this. You are not building one perfect wellness routine for the rest of your life. You are creating a lifestyle that supports you. And that lifestyle is allowed to evolve. Actually, it needs to evolve because you will evolve, your relationships will evolve, your family will evolve, your work will evolve, your body will evolve, your responsibilities will evolve, your capacity will evolve.
Speaker 1:And when those things change, you don't need to feel like you're starting over. You listen again, you clarify it again, you redesign, you practice, you reflect, and you integrate what works now. That is adaptability. And that is bio individuality. And that is the Plant Powered Collective Method.
Speaker 1:If you want to explore the method more deeply, go back and watch the Talking Head videos. I've been sharing them on social media and YouTube. Each one focuses on a different movement and gives you something simple to think about in your own lifestyle. And if you would like to go deeper with me, come over to my personal substack. That's a Lori Walinski.
Speaker 1:That's where I'm writing about the experiences behind these conversations, nutrition, lifestyle, brain health, caregiving, midlife, relationships, community, and the things I am continuing to learn as I live all of this myself. And if today's episode made you think of someone who is carrying a lot right now, share it with her. Especially the woman who looks like she has everything handled. Because sometimes those of us who are extremely capable are also the ones who need to stop and ask, Is the lifestyle I have created actually nourishing me too? And that's your reflection question for this week.
Speaker 1:What is one part of your lifestyle that needs to evolve for the season you're in right now? Just one. Listen, get curious and start there. Thank you for sitting at the table with me today. Until next time, keep nourishing yourself on and off the plate.
Speaker 1:Nourish boldly and live vibrantly.