EP56: How Flowers Can Help You Feel Confident On Your Path with Katie Hess

This is winning with wellness, a podcast about inspiring the wellness warrior in you. If you are feeling lost or alone in your wellness journey, or are looking for new ideas and inspiration, you are in the right place, a place you can learn about all things wellness in business life and living. Your host Jenny Ryce, we'll be bringing you inspiring stories and practical tools to improve your overall wellness personally and professionally. Imagine what living a life of wellness would be like. Thank you for joining us today.

Welcome everyone back to another episode of winning with wellness. We are so excited and honored to have you here. Thank you for spending your time, space and energy with us and looking at ways to create new Wellness modalities in your life. I am so excited to have Katie Hess here with me today. Katie, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Jenny. Such a pleasure to be here.

I can't wait to tell everybody a little bit about you and then really we can dig into our conversation. So you guys Katie is a flower Alchemist. And I'm sure that you're probably like what is that a thing? I can't wait to dig into this topic with you. The author of flower flower evolution and founder of Lotus way, one of the world's leading floral apothecaries, with their signature lectures featured in O The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times and LA Times, her FlowerPower community is thriving. Katie teaches mindful awareness practices at flower lounge events around the world. Han hands out flowers to strangers in urban flower flashmob can we dig into that? Don't let me forget Katie I want to dig this flower flashmob thing because that sounds amazing. And hosts the flower lounge podcast with listeners in over 75 countries. She's founder of the self arising Nature Center in Phoenix, Arizona, a center for flower essence education experiences and practitioner training. Oh my goodness, I am like all these questions are firing, firing firing. But I'd love to start Katie on only again, welcome you to the show. But what does wellness actually mean for you?

I wouldn't say for me, it's like, where's your heart? You know, I think a lot of people think wellness and they may think like supplements or physical wellness. But for me, wellness is really what's happening in your heart. What's happening in your energy? How do you feel about the things in your life? Do you feel like you're in alignment? Are you fulfilled? Are you creating happiness? Are you expanding into your full potential? That's wellness, to me,

that is beautiful. And I really want to dig into how you got into your work. So flowers. Many of us of course, love flowers, but what inspired you to dig so deeply into the, you know, the power of that the power of the flower?

Yeah, I mean, I think it was just really seeing how impactful it was for people. I met an expert in flower essences. And Amy I think first was just enamored, you know, like, whoa, every flower does something for us. And and then my teacher was always saying that if we got a small percentage of people in the world to be actively working with flower remedies, it would create enough ripple effect that it would change the outcome of the future. So first, that was what excited me was like, Wow, just a small few of us can really impact the whole world. And and then when I came back to the states and started a practice, it was really just in seeing people transform in a very short period of time, like their face changing their body language, their stories. And really like from an inside out process, not like trying to force any changes in their lives. Just like organic like a flower blooming, you know? And and that was really, I think the motivation behind just to keep going because I didn't have any entrepreneurial skills.

Oh, dang. entrepreneurialship is a whole other Oh my goodness. That is a deep topic. And I'm sure, yeah, well, I am so thrilled to hear that you kept going. So when you think of I'd love for you to tap in a little bit about your book. So the you're you're the author of flower evolution. What does a flower evolution synopsis like what does that mean?

It's like, how do we become that flower? Like they're usually like, I'll ask people in classes like raise your hand if you feel like you've maxed and tapped out your full potential you like you've done it, Jenny, you're as fearless and generous and kind and patient loving and expansive as you'll ever be, like nobody would ever say like, Yeah, I'm done. It's like innately we know there's more. We know we're capable of more. And we also know that we have self limiting beliefs and fears. And like, oh my god, what if I do that? Right? With many different flavors, and many different layers. So where was I going with this kind of went off on a tangent? No, that's okay. I

was like, What was the inspiration behind your book? What messaging were you trying to instill? Okay, I do the same thing.

It's like flower evolution. It's like the evolution part. But it's also the revolution, like you kind of got to have a lot of grit to go through all those. Those stages. So the book was about how do I do two things. One is, educate, educate people What flower remedies are, because maybe in Canada, you all are more open minded, but in the US, is we're pretty skeptical here. And especially when I first started my business, like people just did not know what Flower Essences were in, still a majority don't know. So to educate people, but then also, there's a big, kind of choose your own adventure portion of the Book, where you choose the flowers you're most drawn to, and then it tells you something about you. So always at the mainstay of anything that we do is that education piece, and also like, how do we inspire ourselves? Like what? In what ways do we catalyze that awakening to happen, or that recognition of what we're truly capable of?

Love that, so harnessing really harnessing the flower and the essence of the flower as really a superpower, I would guess to help us move through transition. That's amazing. Kate, tell me more about this flashmob that involves flowers. What does that look like? What was the what was the motivation? What was the desire to make that happen?

Well, we were doing events called Flower launches, and we were touring all over the country and several places, we actually did one on Vancouver. And and we had to take a break, but we're actually starting up later this summer, which is really exciting. To get back to the events. So we would sort of the intention was we would plop ourselves into a new city. And we would do like a ceremony to kind of enter into the city and like, touch base and let you know, like, let the city know, we're here. And as a group, our intention is to benefit all the beings of the city with anything that we do here. And we would have a huge event, we'd end up doing a big, you know, flower offering the day after, because we'd pick up all the flowers from the event. And then I was like, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we just bought extra flowers than what we need for the event? And we just handed them out. And at the time, the first one we did, I think was February in New York City. And so it's still quite cold. And people were kind of like, you know, garden and. And it was just an experiment. Yeah. We weren't even we only at that time, like we didn't even put any information on the flower of who we were, it was it was literally just what can happen if you give a stranger a flower with no agenda and just like with love. And then we, you know, made a video of it of people's reactions. And that just like inspired us to do more, we ended up doing some in other cities. And it was, it is just amazing to like, it's like giving someone a piece of your heart. There's something about a flower and even men, you know, when you think like men are typically not buying themselves flowers, but that like selfless, giving a piece of beauty. And it's like saying, like I see you. I recognize the beauty in you. There's this thing that gets transmitted in a very wordless way. That's precious. It's like this deep connection with people. And so we just kind of play with that every time we're in a new city. I

adore that. I have to say I have been the recipient. I don't believe it was from your movement, but the recipient from a random stranger of a flower and it is absolutely one of the most beautiful experiences I literally think about you and Coover.

Yes. Because ever since we started doing them there was a woman that came to one of ours and then she has started doing them every year I think Almost every year in Vancouver, it's an ad is her name some Asian woman? I'll get you the information.

That is so interesting. I didn't see other people like it was just like this one off. It felt like a walk regardless, it doesn't. It's the the magic that happens, like you say, when you receive an on soliciting gift of like you say the beauty of a flower, a flower is just so uplifting. So what made you choose that medium flower? Like what drew you to that there's so many other mediums out there that you could potentially tap into why flowers?

Because there are so transformative. I mean, it's like, if you if anyone works with flower remedies, even if they don't believe in them, like in fact, in the beginning, the majority of my clients would always tell me at the door as they were leaving, like, Oh, you're so nice, Katie, I really like you. But I don't really believe this is gonna work.

Great, thanks so much.

It was actually great. Because it was like, Okay, great. You don't have to believe in it. It's going to work regardless, you know, and then I think more and more as time goes on. I mean, at that time, the meditation wasn't cool, yet. Yoga wasn't cool yet. Obviously, our population has changed dramatically. And we'll continue to do so. I think people are more now that more than ever looking for natural solutions for mood and feeling better, that don't have side effects or, or chemical pharmaceutical ingredients. And, yeah, really just because you feel it, like, literally in the course of one to two weeks, people feel different things that used to irritate them don't irritate them anymore, or they slipped a little bit better, or they just feel like weights been lifted. And then when you see that we live in this paradise, where like everything's on the menu, you know, like any neurotic tendency that we have any issue that we had, since we were kids, no matter how weird it is, there is a flower for it.

I love it. So when people hear the essence of flower, there may go strictly to thinking about essential oils. Are they comparable? Are they different? Like how do people how can we help them differentiate? Because I'm sure there's people that are listening right now that are like, Oh, I've got my you know, my orange essential oil, what's what's the differences so that people know and can be educated?

Yeah, they're totally different. Whereas essential oils more like really literally visceral. You squeezed that orange peel to get the right you get that fancy distillation equipment and you extract that oil from the roses. You need 40 fresh roses for one drop of rose essential oil. So like very labor intensive, you need tons of material. And it's wonderful. It's beautiful. We work with essential oils to flower essences are more tapping into that exponential power of Mother Nature. Where we're working with just the lifeforce, originally in ancient days, all over the world, you see evidence of it, it was the dewdrops on the tops of the flowers. So madness, medicine, and shaman doctors, you know, religious figures would have their patients or their community members go out into the wild look for this particular flower and drink the dewdrop every morning. And then in the 1930s and 40s, a doctor in the UK figured out how to scale it so that you could just you could bottle it, right? Because, like where I live, we don't even have to it's so dry.

Right? Right. I'm picturing this in my environment going Oh, I totally get it. You know, like I was saying and the BC rainforest. So like, Oh, I get the do i Yeah, where you are not so much.

Yeah, we totally work for you. Yeah. So it's more like acupuncture without the needles. About, like, when you walk out into the forest, kind of like the movie Avatar, it's like, if you could actually see the energetic properties of what's around us. It would be kind of like Florida or botanical Wi Fi. And that to some people may seem like, that's kind of weird. But then when you look at like, how does your cell phone work? You know, if somebody had said, Hey, Jenny, when you're a kid, you're gonna have this really cool box that is going to transmit invisible waves. And it's going to be like riding on a magic carpet on those invisible waves, your podcast, your videos, your poetry or images. Right, like we would have thought, no,

no, that's just crazy.

Honestly, does anyone actually understand how cellphones work? Anyway, no. Like, how is it possible that I can record a video and then hit send? And it's moving through space?

I remember trying to grasp that, because I'm of the generation where computers didn't exist. And then poof, they existed. Yeah, I am totally I remember being a young girl thinking, how is that the how does that information go from point A to point B and not, you know, not being able to grasp that tangible piece of paper or the things so yeah, I completely understand.

I mean, this will date me I'm, I'm sure I'm older than you. But I remember writing in my grandmother with my grandmother in her old Datsun and turning the dial on the radio like the am f4. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Sister, I think for my being the same. Oh, yeah. We didn't have remotes for the TV.

Like, get up off your lazy button.

I have a twin. So it was an argument on who had to be the remote.

If you look at technology, it's like, well, if we just figured it out in our lifetimes, and we know that humans have been around for a long time, but the but Mother Earth has been here for quite 5 billion years. Yeah, she's exactly like that beautiful rainforest that you live in, in British Columbia. doesn't have that already figured out for eons? Well,

and I think you bring up such a vital point. And many of us listening and our personal experiences, and they share this about actually coming to your area of where you live and stepping off a plane and just feeling energy connected to the space I was in. I'm sure people experience it when they put their feet into the water or go into the forest and quietly listen, you can feel the energy, they talks to us, the trees talked to us. I don't need some crazy hate mail that I'm losing my marbles, trees, talk to people, you have to listen. So So you've you've got a system on a practice that harnesses that, that floral energy that you prescribe, and recommend and people can use to support their health.

Yeah. And it's basically like when you say trees talk to you. I mean, it sounds funny, right. But we know that from multiple scientific studies, that bees are actually not drawn to flowers based on color, or scent, that the flowers are emitting an electrical frequency currents, like a very subtle electricity that the bees pick up on. And there's a very dynamic communication. And the same is happening with us. So just because it's not like, the trees, or like, have a mouth, and they're talking, it is a language that we speak, which is kind of exciting. It's like, oh, we know that language, we just forgot. And when we were children, we were much, much more tuned into that. And it's a language that's happening all the time. And it's almost like osmosis, you know, it's like, it's like when you it's like breathing, like, we have to make an effort to like, inhale and exhale. But also our skin is breathing all the time. Right? So it's a language that is happening. And the you know, you could say, flowers have messages or information. And if you think about in terms of technology, like I want to download or upload or a software like React, right. And that's essentially what we're doing is just plugging into that type of electrical current that refreshes our system so that we can be our true essential nature without all this junk, right? Because we know all the EMFs and the computers and the laptops and cell phones and satellite 5g elegies, we know that. Yeah, we know that they're affecting us and making us tired. So this is a way to bring nature into our system and find more balance.

So as we kind of want, you know, our time goes so fast forward, these interviews are blows my mind. What is if if there was something that you would love to share with the audience that's listening that maybe haven't asked yet? What would that be?

I wouldn't say that times are really crazy right now. I think that, you know, the last couple of years have given us perspective in terms of, you know, I think to myself, like, wow, I was really slacking before. Like, you know, I had my challenges and things. But in the last couple years, I think people have been especially challenged, and either they've been challenged on sort of like world events level, and if not, then they've had major, major personal challenges. And it almost seems as if the population on the planet is going through some sort of collective purification, which, you know, we have to look at our stuff, and it's really challenging, and it's really hard. And I believe that's happening and the, you know, it's not going anywhere. And this year could be really challenging for people as well. And it's ultimately a good thing. But it's not easy. And so my message would be, first of all, if you're having just, you know, fire after fire internally, or emotions arise that you don't understand, or like, Oh, my God, I've never felt this before. Or like the depths of grief, or fear, or anger or betrayal, or, you know, whatever is happening for your listeners, you're not alone. This is a phenomenon that is occurring, many, many, many people are feeling that way. And Mother Nature is always there to take care of us. You know, even if you feel alone, sometimes all it requires is just to go outside and sit under a tree and ask for help. You know, like, I literally sometimes put my hands on the ground and like, ask for help. Because it's just such a nice, I don't know, anytime I ask, I'm always surprised at how much support I get from the earth. So if anything arises, and you're having a really rough time, looks at Mother Nature, whether it's working with flower remedies, which I love, we're here to help, you can call us you can email us D DMS will connect you with the right flower that you need right now to help you through whatever challenge you're going through. And if it's not through flower remedies, then by all means, like really tap into it, you know, go outside, spend time outside, because it's a phenomenon that is occurring, you know, and we all need as much support as we can, as we can take, and it's there for the taking.

And I really believe too. And, you know, I've shared this on a few episodes, and it's some deep conversations I've had with amazing people lately, this is actually happening for us, not to us. And the other side is going to be exceptional. You know, this, this rebirth, this, you know, purification, as you said, is such a gift and unseen gift. And I think when we all ride through it, and we will and seek that help and support. Again, we'd never have to do these journeys alone. And tools. This is the thing that's so beautiful. You know, for those of you guys that are listening, Katie provides an opportunity and a tool to help support you. So whether you want to, you know, step into that or not just get curious about it. worst that can happen is it doesn't work for you. But that's the fun part, chances aren't well,

I mean, in the last 20 years of working with people, and myself, because it can only be as good as the effort I put in, I bought my talk. I don't know anything more powerful than flower remedies and meditation. Those two things. I haven't seen it, I haven't found it. I've looked I've worked with so many different types of practitioners and methods and I haven't found anything that goes to the root. Faster and gentler.

I love that. Thank you, Katie, so much for being on the show and inspiring our listeners. I appreciate you so much. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Jenny. Thank you, those of you that are listening to another episode with us. Katie has inspired us if nothing else, go in and sit with some flowers. Spend your time connected to nature. This is an opportunity to inspire the wellness Warren you don't forget you can find more information at your holistic Earth to enhance that journey. As well as we'll make sure that all of Katie's contact information is provided for you guys in the show notes. So if you need to find her, don't hesitate to look there. Again, Katie, thanks for being here. And thank you for listening everyone.