#61: Brittany Asch

"I require stillness and quiet. Sitting in grass energizes me more than caffeine."

Aug 10, 2025

#62: Brittany Asch

Brittany Asch (@brrch_floral) is a floral artist and interdisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles. Her contribution today is incredibly generous (and maybe best read on web). You can explore more of her writing and cross-disciplinary work on Pouring.

Health Gossip with Brittany Asch
Los Angeles, California
Cancer/Aries/Aries

What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?

I’m still figuring that out — but most prominently, I believe listening to your body and responding accordingly with what it is asking of you gets you closer to it.

Does your body need to sleep 18 hours and that makes no sense to you? Seems strange and unnecessary to a logical mind, but listen. Do you feel the desire to sit with a tree or in the sun? Listen. Do you not want to see that person for some unidentifiable reason beyond a gut feeling or suddenly feel repulsed by a certain smell? Listen.

A longwinded way of saying: listening to the mind of the body. It seems most ailments are born in the mind and stored emotions, aside from genetic predispositions and freak accidents. There is no one-size-fits-all prescription or regimen and I think we tend to run into trouble when we don’t listen to ourselves or lose our ability to hear our instincts and body dialogue. The gut knows all.

Not overcomplicating things is healthy. Pairing back to the basics every now and again is healthy. I also believe health lies in laughter and getting to that place even if it means crying on your way there.

Feeling is healthy. Flow. Breathe. Expression. Movement. Rest. Release. Balance. Safeguarding your heart kingdom, a concept I learned through Chinese medicine, that has helped me make better choices… the connection of mind, body, and spirit (heart) — which we can see in acts of love.

How would you describe your current lifestyle?

My current lifestyle is pretty… quiet.

I have been in a somewhat monastic-like state for nearly a year now. I love sleep so much more than parties. I go to bed early most nights, ranging from 8–10 p.m., ideally, with certain exceptions. I actually get kind of giddy when I am brushing my teeth while watching the sunset. I really love to have a long wind-down. I luxuriate in it. I try to bookend my days with pure pleasure so the unknown chaos of the world in between and outside is more manageable.

I stopped taking the Magnesium Calm supplements before bed a month ago, and now I dream again, which is great. I stopped taking all of my supplements around the same time and switched to flower remedies. I wanted to give my system a break from ‘processing,’ and flowers have always looked out for me, so I trust them. It could be placebo, but the Alexis Smart remedies have helped me.

I’ve fine-tuned my social life to nourish the deep relationships I have. I find it to be so much more meaningful than stretching myself too thin in keeping up appearances.

In The Benefactor, by Susan Sontag, she says:

“If only I could explain to you how changed I am since those days! Changed yet still the same, but now I can view my preoccupations with a calm eye…Decidedly, I have become less interesting.”

I’m in my do not disturb era.

How do you start and end your days?

I wake up early, usually before my alarm, around 6 a.m., and either get going for work or stay in bed a bit and read or write. Sometimes I go back to sleep if my schedule allows. Sometimes, my dog will come to my bedside and, by some freakish telepathy, wake me as if she has infiltrated my REM.

Lately, I’ve been getting the body clock urge to start my day at 4 a.m. I don’t, and haven’t, but I’ve been flirting with it and will probably move more in that direction as I age. When I was younger, I would often stay awake until 4 a.m. to experience that quiet and stillness — but since I became a florist over a decade ago, that is not physically viable for me or I will short-circuit midway through the day.

I try to do things now that make my organs smile. It’s like getting a gold star of approval from one of the only bosses that matters — my stomach.

I finally started listening to the advice given to me at 23 to drink hot water with lemon right when you wake up. I do that now. I try to do things now that make my organs smile. It’s like getting a gold star of approval from one of the only bosses that matters — my stomach.

When I’m really on top of it, I will go outside barefoot (for grounding) on my porch, with my hair starring in its very own troll doll competition, and take my little butterfly sips of lemon water and listen to the birds dish to each other. It fills me with a deep calm that will later be disrupted by a man wielding a machete outside of the flower market, being told none of my orders arrived, arranging flowers in an alleyway next to a man that is talking on the phone about someone named Carlos that is going to chop someone’s head off; or the driving in circles to get a delivery to someone on the Warner Brothers lot after almost missing a call time because there is only one lane open to the Hotel Bel-Air due to construction.

I like to shower in the morning. It wakes me up (hot, and then a quick blast of cold at the end to pretend I plunged into the ocean — a trick my mom taught me when I was younger) and centers me. And then I get into even more hot water brewing a tea, usually green. I switch on and off with coffee and tea, but mostly prefer tea. Except when I am at someone else’s house… other people’s coffee always tastes really good to me.

I’ll stretch a bit, sometimes do yoga or ballet poses. On market mornings, I like toast and nuts. Raw, unsalted cashews and hazelnuts. I toss them in like movie popcorn while I drive to market.

I like to start winding down around sunset. Before I do, I’ll usually go to the park with my dog and try to fit in some time with a book. Once she’s happy and tired, I’ll head home and shower again — more of a rinse — light a candle or incense (sometimes both). I really love this company, APFR, I stumbled into the store of on my last trip to Tokyo — Maghreb Bukhoor. There are so many I like, but that is my favorite right now. I’ll cover myself in some oil (currently a jasmine/ylang ylang one) with a spritz of rosewater, and then get in bed like a mummy. I like to be wrapped and covered. I don’t really know what that’s about. It makes me feel safe. At the end of the day, I am usually so cooked it’s like I’m stoned.

I make some more tea if I want to — a peppermint rooibos, chamomile, or cacao mint. I open my beloved Notes app, jot down what I cannot forget — whether it’s an errand or idea or poem or email I have to send — and then scroll my heart out on TikTok or Substack until my brain says please feed the remaining cells, at which point I usually put on a podcast or audiobook on timer and fall asleep to the same chapter 10 days in a row, retaining almost nothing on a conscious level while achieving extremely proficient mastery in my subconscious.

At the end of the day, I am usually so cooked it’s like I’m stoned.

I fall asleep fairly quickly and miss a lot. It’s great. 10/10. (These rules only apply when I am alone. I am more flexible in a shared environment.)

Was there a moment when your relationship to health changed?

There were increments. Around 2010, I was having chronic stomach pain and, upon someone’s suggestion, cut out gluten to remedy it. That was the first time I really looked at the connection between health and diet, because it was actually sort of a challenging dietary choice at the time, and prior to that, I ate anything and everything and luckily had the metabolism to support it. I began to reintroduce gluten into my diet again around 2012.

Then, in 2016, I had all of these mysterious symptoms of extreme fatigue and arthritic-like inflammation and pain. I was working insane hours at the time, and to do so, I almost had to ignore and completely disconnect from my body’s signals — which was a kind of self-betrayal since I grew up as a dancer.

I am really in tune with my body because of that time in my life, but I had silenced it — or, as someone once told me, in the process of over-intellectualizing everything, I severed my connection between my head and my body. I overrode my own operating system to function at the highest capacity and ended up a floating head. A floating head with pain and exhaustion.

Acupuncture helped me a lot. It wasn’t until this past year that I reconnected the two again via a lot of personal growth work, and a lot of space to face the pain I had buried to function. I had to really get my shit together somewhat recently too, when my body essentially forced me to quit smoking at the end of February. It was a habit I picked up at the end of 2020, living alone when I was wildly depressed — despair is probably more accurate — and had ramped up again around the end of 2024 in the wake of grief. I was so ill from the smoking and heartache that I temporarily lost the curl in my hair, too. It was strange.

I started listening to the Allen Carr book, as recommended by a friend, and three chapters in, I was like, that’s it, I’m done, and haven’t smoked since. I asked that my body forgive me, and we are reconciling.

I was so ill from the smoking and heartache that I temporarily lost the curl in my hair, too. It was strange.

Do you have a spiritual practice?

My relationship to flowers is pretty spiritual. I pray in my own way every night and every morning. It’s part of my monastic era. That, and fine-tuning my intuition.

What’s your relationship to self-healing?

I was initially drawn to flowers as a means of self-healing. I think going to acupuncture, making my tea, going for walks, taking time with nature, doing what my body asks of me without judgment, stretching, speaking kindly — it’s all a form of self-healing. I love all my little luxuries, but I also try to be like, okay, what if you had none of this? And then cutting out all of the things weighing me down.

I believe in touch and energy and all that we tango with getting caught in our being. I really hate the word “boundaries,” as I think a lot of people use it as an excuse to be shitty or in place of productive communication, but I have gotten better at recognizing what mine are. It all goes back to the concept of the heart kingdom, and what I want to allow in. My self-healing has involved a lot of self-compassion and sleep. I got a Reiki certification a couple years ago too, so I could practice on my loved ones and myself.

How did BRRCH come to be?

My father passed away in 2010 which lead to a deadening in me and then an awakening which guided me to flowers. I studied for two years apprenticing and freelancing and then started BRRCH with a push from one of my mentors at the time in 2013. My life has revolved around flowers in some capacity since then. They have raised me.

The name is derivative of my full name and also pronounced like the Birch tree, which was a tree I was fascinated with in my yard growing up. I liked that it wasn’t a word so I could give it meaning over time. I thought about it for two seconds and have lived with it now for 12 years. I still prefer getting to hide behind it than having my name splattered everywhere.

Do you work with any practitioners, texts, or modalities on a regular basis?

Yes! Rebecca, my beloved acupuncturist. My time with her has been instrumental to me hearing my voice again — which again, to me, is the indicator of my own health. I always felt stagnation was a kind of death, but learned more through her and studying Reiki how important supporting our Qi is. I often go into deep meditations during our sessions and get what I like to call ‘downloads’ — some succinct messaging and guidance that is timely and clarifying. One time it was, “Stop trying to fit where you don’t belong, so we can show you where you do,” the ‘we’ being my ancestors or angels or spirit guides — incredibly genderless and divine. They were calling out my tendency towards being stubborn and gearing me more towards surrender.

Sometimes I get manual lymphatic massages that incorporate Reiki. My practitioner is pretty psychic and can identify certain emotions I have lodged in my body and sort of reads the story of my life through my body. It’s wild.

I did EMDR this past year too for the first time and it changed my life.

When do you feel the most nourished?

When I am laughing. When I am in awe. When gratitude takes over (often). When I have spent every minute of my day mindfully. When someone makes me soup. When I make myself soup. Looking at the moon. Right before bed. My favorite time of the day is when my head hits the pillow.

How do you reset?

I isolate. Hermit mode activated, phone on do not disturb and just reporting to myself — whether that is bed rot or going on a drive or looking at some mountaintops or laying in the grass. Watching the light. Minding my own business, reading, looking at art, sometimes cooking. I require stillness and quiet. I’m a huge introvert, but I also love people and human interaction. Sitting in grass energizes me more than caffeine. The flowers help a lot, too — when it’s just me and them. Nature and quiet. The sun, the rain. I need both. It’s hard for me to reset with noise, unless it’s music, running water, trees in the wind, rain, or birds.

I require stillness and quiet. Sitting in grass energizes me more than caffeine.

Do you have a favorite meal? What do you keep stocked in your kitchen?

It rotates a bit. I like to get my produce from the farmer’s markets or the stores that curate their offerings from the farmer’s markets. It’s one of my favorite things about living in California. I believe that the less time it’s been out of the ground, the better it is for you.

Lemons, garlic, onion, capers, olives, bread, butter, eggs, tuna, beans, potatoes, rice, pasta, ponzu, colaturra, frozen cherries, cabbage, herbs, cucumbers and carrots — sometimes yogurt and a good cheese if I’m eating dairy. I’ll get fresh fish sometimes. Sushi grade if I want to spoil myself. Whatever fruit and veg is nice that week and then whatever weird cravings I get for like a donut or pretzels or peanut M&M’s or something.

I rarely cook meat at home. I go through phases. I like to throw rosemary, mint, and oregano in my water, sage too. I love getting good ingredients that don’t really require much work. If I have a crazy work week, I keep it really simple. I only stock more for making special meals or baking or when I am cooking for loved ones and have a specific meal I want to make. But I currently live alone and enjoy eating tuna in a bowl out of a tin like a cat. I also make a really simple cabbage, ginger, carrot soup that satisfies me. One day I’ll get into making bone broth. I’m not there yet. Grocery shopping is one of my favorite things to do.

I will happily eat anything when I am in good company. But if I get to pick from anything it’s gonna be omakase. I love pierogis, a boiled potato with butter and salt, an open faced tomato sandwich, lemony pasta, salt and pepper Kettl potato chips dipped in cottage cheese, a chicken parm. Separately, not all together. I like bread and butter. It all depends on the time of year and my mood. At what point does having so many favorites actually mean you have no favorites…? I love food but I reallllly love simple heartfelt food and gear my meals around places where you can taste that love.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Oh god. My younger self would not listen to whatever I told her… my advice is actually so lengthy it could be a short novel, but probably keep studying dance. It will keep you sharp and make sure you don’t get whatever severed head syndrome you developed in your mid 20s.

To the person reading this?

Drink water, take a deep breath and remember you’re a miracle. I was about to send this through and then I saw this Martha Graham quote I love:

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

What would you like to see or create more of in the world?

Safety. Harmony. Tenderness.