The Plant That Made Me Even More Strict

Surprisingly not kinda not, a particular herb supported me firming up my boundaries in all my relationships.

To know me is to know that it is STRICT AS FUCK in this here house. I don’t tolerate foolishness in any type of relationship (for the sake of this post I’m going to say relationships to mean all types and will specify when necessary) and that can be applied to more specific moods or actions like inconsistency and selfishness. I’ve been called cold, strict, no nonsense, tough, you name it. However, to truly know me is to know that I wasn’t always that way - some people, like some of the people I dated or married, were able to circumvent my boundaries because I made a door for them to go through.

I was raised to believe that love was sacrificial, full stop. If I say I love someone, then it is unconditional and unending, it is meant to be work and it being incredibly difficult or making me unhappy did not mean to give it up. If you can’t tell, I am the kid that was always made to apologize first in conflict, no matter what was done to me.

When you are conditioned to believe that and live it, you inevitably lose track of or never develop boundaries. I fell into the former - it’s always been strict in here but once in love, I believed that sacrificing myself in good faith, the return on my investment would be an invisible award for loving hard, loving truly, being a good wife, and whatever the hell else I told myself to cope. I did the same with friendships allowing time and good memories to cause me to hold onto relationships that no longer were kind to me.

So to bring it full circle, I have always had boundaries and requirements for my relationships. I got divorced in 2023/2024 and that ending, as well as therapy and self study, taught me what I wanted going forward, what I required of my friends, and what type of person I wanted to show up as in my relationships. However, I was grappling with standing firm in my newly established rules of engagement, so to speak. Then I entered a 5 week flower medicine circle, a class where our teacher sent us a mystery essence to dose with during our time together. When she revealed the plant, I had to sit for awhile and reflect on what I noticed.

Flower Essence Medicine

Briefly, flower essence medicine is a subtle friend. It takes the energy of the flower, infuses it into a carrier (water), and then is combined with a preservative. It is a low dose, big impact type of healing where you get significant medicine from a few drops at a time.

Daughter of the Desert

Fouquieria splendens. Never had heard of her before this class. She lives in the desert, which makes sense. It’s kinda like a succulent, thorny, leaves hold a bit of water and are waxy. It looks really helter skelter until it blooms and you get to see it’s bright red flowers. It’s massively tall.

The common name of the plant is Ocotillo and daughters of the desert (my friend Sarah calls herself this as an LA native) who are familiar with the plant life in the west are friends with it. My teacher made that Ocotillo essence I think…10 years ago, maybe? So I got to take in medicine from a different decade, a different earth. It’s native to Mexico originally and is used by herbalists of all backgrounds, but a lot of its knowledge comes from Indigenous and Mexican healers.

The plant has many uses that I won’t dive into here, but if you are local to ocotillo I encourage you to do some research (a good start is looking for monographs) and then going from there. Build a relationship with the land, more on that below:

Why The Tea Isn't Working

So, What Did I Learn?

When any plant has thorns, you can be sure that it will teach you something about boundaries and protection. Ocotillo was no different and what I was left with was a great sense of calm and ease in vocalizing said strictness. I felt much less afraid or hesitant to simply…say what I want and stand on what I offer as a person, lover, friend, and community member.

This isn’t the place for me to list that out, but if you think I’m cute and you know you’re cute, then let’s talk about it.

I am actively building my community, brick by brick.

I can say that I am still examining my failed relationships and taking accountability where needed. With that, I am acutely aware of where I went wrong and what I allowed. So I’m no longer allowing it and one of those things is ample chances to piss me off. Sounds easy enough, but when you don’t hand out free chances like Monopoly money, it gets really quiet in your house. Really quiet in your phone.

The silence that comes with having boundaries and expectations for those who enter into your life can be the silence of a padded room or the silence of the birth canal right before new life is born.

So, I’m taking in the silence but once again, I am forever grateful to the plants who consistently give me my footing and deeper connection to myself. Ocotillo was a tough girlie. I cried a lot inexplicably and then…there was peace. I’m grateful for the forceful shedding and rebirth I experienced.