Elevating Deep Healing: My Personal Journey to CBD

Sarah Hrudka Behlke is a multi-passionate creative business owner, entrepreneur and mama to Sullivan. A born and bred Midwestern gal, her Wisconsin roots and current Minneapolis residing mean that she is a strong believer in the handwritten note and bear hugs. With a background in photography, design and marketing, she loves finding a way to merge her worlds professionally, and especially in the realm of wellness and motherhood. She has been a longtime supporter of Populum and today she shares her CBD journey with us!

You know how ducks sort of operate, right? They are floating on top and might appear to be coasting in several directions, but underneath they are paddling like hell. I really resonate with the duck. I have always dealt with anxiety and it most certainly has not taken a back seat during the pandemic. All things considered, I have been incredibly grateful and keeping perspective that I get to be safe at home, am working, with my family.

However in times of crisis, my MO has always been to over function. I don’t shut down when there is a lull, I overcompensate, as if to think I can circumvent any curveballs that would be tossed in my direction. Or worse, out of fear that I am afraid to sink if I don’t swim faster. But as my dear friend recently reminded me of the Alice in Wonderland quote "the hurrier I go, the behinder I get."

Between the aforementioned tendencies compounded with over a decade long journey to healing from chronic illness, you imagine that it is not easy for my body to tap into the parasympathetic nervous system. While others can slip into this state with the same ease as crisp sheets at night, I am out here with an ice pick on a glacier, valiantly trying to reach that internal barometer of calm. Contrary to that visual, I actually would not consider myself high strung. Though always juggling a lot (too much) I am very adaptable and love to move with the flow of things. Yet my body, due to a host of reasons, simply struggles internally mellowing out on its own at this point in time. And this...this is where Populum has seriously come into play, and I am forever grateful.

There are few tincture and supplements and remedies I have yet to try. For most of my 20s, I bounced from specialist to healer, desperately yearning to figure out why I did not feel as young as I was. Why, for someone who from all other intents and purposes was healthy, did my joints feel like sandbags? Why was my brain fog so thick that I was utterly stumped on forming sentences? Why was I so exhausted yet so wired and unable to rest? And most of all, how could these symptoms go and come at the drop of a dime?

The tsunami became increasingly more overwhelming as I continued to get looks of confusion, at a loss, or worse, suspicious ones that would lend themselves to believe they thought it was in my head. It wasn’t until I received my chronic lyme diagnosis that things started to finally come into play. I began to devour everything I could about wellness as I realized just how related it all was: the underlying infection was caused my anxiety to spike, my adrenals producing too much cortisol, my thyroid to tank, and my liver to become backlogged and taxed with all of the commotion and detoxing.

In terms of CBD, I have tried a variety of different kinds and I can tell you first hand, they are not all the same. While effectiveness was indeed of most importance, I was also mostly concerned about how this was derived. We cannot be 100% clean all the time but certainly such a potent method ought to be tested and regulated, and yet many weren't.

I discovered Populum through a dear friend who has similar health issues and was finding great results, and I did not take her opinion lightly. After falling in love with their brand initially, I continued to unearth more goodness, like the fact that each and every bottle is tested for quality and results are sent for peace of mind; not just a "take our word for it," which brought me so much comfort. Like anything new, I knew that I wanted to test it for a solid 30 days before giving it my seal of approval. Within as little as 2 weeks I found myself noticing a shift. By the month’s end, my body and mind began to have the visceral reaction that I had long craved. I remember one day finding myself almost a bit teary eyed, as I just unlocked such a key player in my arsenal of healing tools that will forever live in there.

Personally I love a few Populum products, for different reasons. The tincture is my main go-to, namely an hour or so before bed so that I can begin to let my body unwind. It’s one of the only things that has sent a little missive to my nervous system, allowing it to tap into a deep reserve that clearly resides within me. And then there is the Cold Therapy Hemp Rub. I can only describe magic as akin to my joint pain being like a tin man from Wizard of Oz and the salve is the oil I didn't know I needed to move.

Lastly, the lavender face oil, that has most recently wiggled its way into my nightly routine and also into my heart. The love for this is most punctuated in the fact that I look forward to the way it helps my jaw decompress after a day of unconsciously holding tension. When I was teaching yoga regularly, I always queued my students to: soften their jaw, relax the space in between their eyebrows, remove the tongue away from the roof of the mouth. The lavender CBD face oil takes it a step further and elevates all of these small but mighty actions, and only further encourages the body to let go of that which is no longer ours to hold. And bonus -- when you are a busy Mom, using the Lavender oil feels like you’ve created a spa at home.

I know that the holistic health sphere (and CBD especially) can feel like a platitude at points, but perhaps this is for a reason. We are overstimulated, our bodies taxed and we are living through a godforsaken pandemic – and those are just the extremes. At the very least, we are also just coveting a little nudge to aid our minds (and in turn bodies) to be able to adapt and function with just a bit more ease. In the wellness world parlance, Populum is a 'game-changer.' Take it from a woman who has seen such tremendous benefits, she even started her 12 year old, highly-anxious labrador on it during the onset of storms. Now that testimonial in and of itself should tell you, but canine revelations with CBD are for another time.

Sarah is co-owner of brands linyage and Velvet Raptor, a photographer and writer, and marketing assistant for Tiny Organics.