What’s Inside Our Travel Natural Medicine Bag
Packing for several months of travel with an unknown return date requires a lot of forethought. You want to pack as lightly as possible, but you also want to make sure you have enough to feel comfortable wherever you go. By far the greatest challenge of my packing process involved narrowing down our medicine cabinet to the essentials. I had to ask myself, “What do I really need to keep my family healthy through any minor injury or healing phases we may encounter?” In this post, I’m going to show you exactly what I decided to bring with us. [Full list at the end!]
First, I had to choose a bag to carry everything in. Initially I wanted a faraday bag (EMF-protected), because I knew we’d be going through several security scanners and I wanted to keep my vibrational medicine safe. I never did get around to purchasing one, though. What I did get was (1) this travel makeup bag and (2) these five small mesh zipper bags.
Now let’s get into what’s inside…
Homeopathic Remedies
The dimensions of the mesh bags are 3 x 4.5 inches, so I knew they’d fit my Boiron and Ollois homeopathic remedy tubes. With five bags, that gave me enough space to bring my top 25 remedies in a 30c potency. I alphabetized them and will soon be able to remember which color corresponds with which set of remedies (A-B, C-F, etc). I’ve already had to use two remedies since we left Austin and have found this storage system to be perfectly quick and easy to navigate.
If you have something like the Helios 36 Kit, that would be an even better option than the single tubes — I just don’t own one of those kits at the moment. What I do have is the Helios First Aid kit in 200c potency, so I packed that plus a few dropper bottles in our carry-on as well.
Cell Salts
I chose the top three cell salts that I most commonly use: Ferrum Phos, Nat Mur and Nat Phos. While I typically use the BestMade kit at home (highly recommend!), those bottles are glass, so for the sake of weight and convenience I brought the plastic Hyland’s bottles. Now that I think of it, I could’ve just put the tablets into tiny ziplock bags and that would’ve saved me even more space!
We did bring one of BestMade’s products, though — their blend of all 12 cell salts (use code SELEV10 for a discount if you get some!). I haven’t used the combo of 12 (the Hyland’s brand is called Bioplasma) in years, simply because I prefer using cell salts in a more tailored, intentional way. However, I was on a mission to find electrolyte powder that day and after reading 6+ ingredients lists and feeling dissatisfied, I figured I’d go with the cell salts instead. We took these during our 48 hours of travel and again a few weeks later when my eldest two children were recuperating from a digestive thing that left them mildly dehydrated.
Misc
I brought two creams: Calendula (for cuts and scrapes) and Badger Baby sunscreen. I was going to make my own sunscreen with shea butter, raspberry oil, zinc oxide, etc, but didn’t get around to it.
There are also bandaids, of course! Although funny enough, we’ve hardly ever used them in our family. (Who doesn’t have bandaids in their first aid kit though?!)
Finally, I put a small bottle of activated charcoal capsules in there. This is mostly for emergencies, to use as a binder in case we consume something questionable and need support moving it out of our bodies.
Liquids
In terms of liquids, I obviously had to pack those separately in clear plastic bags. I ended up filling three quart size ziplock bags with various oils and liquids, which may seem like a lot but I can assure you I have no regrets. ;-)
My plastic bags included essentials like Rescue Remedy/Five Flower Remedy, Yarrow Environmental Solution, an MMS kit, my beloved rose water spray, bug spray, 2 travel size bottles of Castile soap, my homemade facial serum, sesame oil, olive oil, nasya oil and a small glass jar of ghee. Having these liquids easily accessible was hugely beneficial to us in our travels. I was constantly oiling up our family — ears, nose, feet, etc — because of the extremely dry, vata-aggravating nature of planes. Uprooting your life and flying across the world can be very destabilizing. Warmth + oil calms vata and helps your system feel more grounded.
Rescue Remedy and Yarrow were also in our water bottles throughout our journey, to provide emotional/energetic support as we navigated highly stimulating, stressful and high-EMF environments.
What I Left Out
Biocides. Because we were traveling to India, many people advised me to bring things like Grapefruit Seed Extract, Colloidal Silver and other natural “antibiotics”, but that was a quick no for me. We trust our bodies and would rather focus on support as opposed to killing or fighting. Some ways that we support ourselves while traveling include emotional support for the transition (this is huge!), eating local food right away (especially local honey, fruit and yogurt) and making sure our drinking water is as clean as possible. We also don’t shy away from germs. Yes, including at the airport.
Another big decision was whether or not to bring my Bach Flower Remedy kit. Y’all know I am a huge fan of Bach Flowers — I even created an entire course about them — but the kit takes up a lot of space, so I decided to leave it in Texas. Bach Flower Therapy is more commonly practiced in India than the US anyway (my original teachers are actually based in India!) and I knew I could find remedies if I wanted to. The same applies for homeopathy. It is nationally recognized and respected here in India, whereas it is continually threatened in the US.
As a side note: I even considered leaving my homeopathic remedies home as well. This is because I’ve been using Source Medicine more and more frequently, even in acute cases. I haven’t gone into what Source Medicine is (also called Source Resonances), but basically, they’re homeopathic remedies embedded in a one-minute sound clip. What really sets it apart is that the remedy itself isn’t the energetic signature of a plant, animal, mineral, etc like traditional homeopathy. It is actually the energetic signature of the disease (or experience) itself. Here’s the story of how they came to be, in case you’re curious.
Tell me your thoughts! What would you bring in your medicine bag?
Full List:
24 Homeopathic Remedies (30c): Aconite, Arnica, Arsenicum, Apis, Belladonna, Colocynthis, Coffea Cruda, Cinchona/China, Carbo Veg, Cantharis, Ferrum Phos, Gelsemium, Hypericum, Ipecac, Kali Bich, Ledum, Lycopodium, Mag Phos, Nat Phos, Nux Vomica, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla, Rhus Tox, Staphysagria
Powders (in Ziploc bags): Triphala, Amla
Bandaids
3 Cell Salts: Nat Phos, Nat Mur, Ferrum Phos
In our carry-on:
Liquids in my quart sized plastic bags:
MMS Kit
Rescue Remedy/Five Flower Remedy
Bug Spray (almost 4 weeks in and we still haven’t used this one time!)
Oils: Sesame, Olive, Facial Serum, Ghee, Nasya
Our family “moving” blend (flower remedies!)
Small bottles of castile soap
If some of this is unfamiliar to you or you’d like to grow more confident when it comes to moving through illness in your family, check out my (very affordable!) guide: What To Do When Your Child is Sick (Healing!)