Ancestral Regeneration Protocol·with Sarah Ryan
Nourish the ground.Tend the nervous system.Come home to the body.
The body was made to regenerate. We simply give it what it has always needed.
A slow, step-by-step protocol for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. We nourish the body with ancestral foods, restore balance in the gut, settle the nervous system, and return to the rhythms of light, nature and community. Walked slowly, week by week, with support beside you.
Book a free intro callSee the pathEveryone is welcome here. Whatever your background, culture, faith, body, gender, sexuality, age, ability, health or budget, you'll be met with respect, held with love and care, and supported exactly where you are. There's no judgement on this path, only gentle steps forward, together.
The Ancestral Regeneration Protocol was created by Bethany van der Harst of Vanderharst Homestead, through years of learning, trial and error, and a never-ending devotion to learning more. She gives it away for free, with permission and encouragement to pay it forward, never back. I share it here to honour her work and her beautiful spirit.
This season
Honouring the seasons
Our ancestors lived by the turning of the year: what grew, how much light there was, when to rest and when to gather. The protocol invites us back into that rhythm, honouring nature, the turning of the seasons, the times of each day, and the blessings each one brings.
The seasons of each day
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1
Ka mihi ki te tangata whenua
Honouring the people of this land
I live and work in Aotearoa New Zealand, and I want to honour Māori, the tangata whenua, the people of the land. Long before this protocol was written, Māori lived in deep relationship with te taiao, the natural world: reading the maramataka, the lunar calendar, to know when to plant, fish and rest; gathering kai from the forest, rivers and sea in its season; healing with rongoā, the plants of the ngahere; and understanding health as whole, held by the land, by whakapapa, and by whānau.
That understanding lives on in Te Whare Tapa Whā, the Māori model of wellbeing described by Sir Mason Durie: a whare, a house, standing strong on four walls, taha tinana (the body), taha hinengaro (the mind), taha wairua (the spirit) and taha whānau (family and community). It's the same truth this protocol keeps returning to: we are not made in parts.
Much of this knowledge was taken, or pushed underground. Land was lost and confiscated, cutting people off from the places that fed and healed them. The Tohunga Suppression Act of 1907 outlawed traditional healers for more than fifty years. Children were punished for speaking te reo Māori at school. New foods, new diseases and city life broke the threads between people, kai and whenua. I acknowledge that harm, and I honour everyone who has kept this knowledge alive and is bringing it home again: in te reo, in rongoā, in the maramataka, and in Matariki, now celebrated across the motu.
And it's true for all of us. Every one of our ancestors, wherever they came from, once knew how to live with the land: how to read the seasons, prepare their food, care for the sick and gather together. For most of us, through colonisation, industrialisation, and the move indoors and away from each other, that knowledge was lost or taken a few generations back. This work is a remembering, for every one of us, of what our bodies and our ancestors have always known.
I believe every being on this earth needs land: a place to belong, to grow food, to put bare feet on the soil and to be held by nature. Land isn't something we truly own; we belong to it, and we're here to care for it. In Aotearoa, I honour tangata whenua as the first kaitiaki of this whenua, and I hope for a future where the land is cared for and shared in ways that nourish all of us, people, plants and creatures alike.
This is personal for me. With Māori whakapapa, and Scottish, English, French and Danish ancestors, I feel all of these lines calling me home, and I'm committed to remembering these beautiful and wise ways of living, and to living them.
Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua.
Whakataukī, a Māori proverb
As people pass from sight, the land remains.
With deep respect to Māori as tangata whenua, and in the spirit of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, I walk this path as a learner, grateful to be here.
New here? Begin gently.
Start here
You don't need to understand the whole protocol to begin. You only need Week 1. Here's how to take your first steps.
- Open Week 1Read it through once. Each week builds gently on the last.
- Make your first meat stockOne litre of filtered water to every 450 g (1 lb) of meaty bones, simmered with mineral salt. Start with a tiny sip.
- Start a cabbage fermentFermented cabbage juice or sauerkraut takes 1 to 2 weeks, so start it now.
- Clear the kitchenSet aside seed oils, sugar and grains, and anything packaged that contains them.
- Begin your morningsThe electrolyte drink, and your morning repetition in the mirror: “It is a miracle to be here.”
Your first shopping list
- Meaty bones: chicken wings, legs, nibbles and feet, or leg quarters (all easy and inexpensive)
- Mineral sea salt (Celtic, Baja Gold or Redmond)
- Filtered or spring water
- A green or purple cabbage, organic if you can
- Glass jars with lids
- A large stainless steel, cast iron or enamel pot
- Potassium citrate, magnesium citrate and baking soda, for electrolytes
- Raw honey, butter or coconut oil, for blood sugar bites
- Next week: raw A2 milk and kefir grains
Some ARP is better than no ARP. Go at your own pace, and if you'd like someone beside you, I'm here.
We are not made in parts.
Body, mind, heart and spirit are one
There is no separation between our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. They are woven together, each one shaping the others, and they cannot be pulled apart.
What we eat shapes how we feel. What we carry emotionally lives in the body. How safe the nervous system feels shapes how we think, how we love and how we pray. So we never tend just one part. When the body is nourished, the mind steadies. When the heart softens, the body follows. When we reconnect with spirit, everything else has somewhere to rest.
The body always wants to return to wholeness.
Simple needs, wonderfully made
Our bodies are intricate, yet what they ask of us is simple. Our DNA still expects the life our ancestors lived: real food from living soil, sunshine, clean water, movement, rest and one another.
Our ancestors, and the traditional peoples still living on their ancestral foods and ways today, show us what the human body is capable of. Among them, the chronic physical and mental illnesses so common in modern life were, and still are, remarkably rare. When life ended, it was most often through infection, injury or accident, not the slow, lingering diseases many of us now accept as normal. Their health is a living reminder of how we were made to be.
Animal foods and their fats, meat stock, ferments, raw dairy, and seasonal plants, prepared the traditional way. Plus sunshine, and the minerals the body has been missing.
Gently reopening the body's own pathways of release, through morning sun, natural water, sweat, breath, the lymph, bare feet on the earth, and time.
Morning, I come to you barefoot,
the night still soft in my hair.
Warm me through, golden one,
and let me carry my dreams into the day.Let me walk gently and listen well,
A dawn blessing
and may my ordinary hours
become a quiet kind of prayer.
In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.
John Muir, 1877
In this work, every symptom is a message from the body asking for support. We learn to listen to it with curiosity rather than fear. And we regenerate the body as one whole system: as the gut is restored and the nervous system settles, hormones and immunity follow. We don't need to know every detail. The body finds many pieces of the puzzle on its own, and making peace with not knowing is good for the nervous system too.
Eating ancestrally doesn't mean eating what our ancestors ate. It means eating how they ate.
And we aren't trying to get back to who we were. We are doing a new thing: rebuilding the body from the gut up with good materials, and cultivating a life we don't need to heal from.
It is a miracle to be here.
A morning repetition from Month One, spoken in the mirror
I am a sacred universe of microbes.
The nervous system is precious.
Mind, body and nervous system
A nervous system built to heal
No amount of willpower, insight or positive thinking can replace what the body is missing.
If we are running on depleted minerals, a gut out of balance, or a body carrying more than it can clear, change is hard to hold. We can understand exactly what we need to do and still feel tired, foggy, or pulled back into old patterns. The protocol prepares the ground, so the mind, heart and spirit have something solid to grow from.
Talking with someone we trust can be deeply healing. Being heard, understanding our story and finding new ways of seeing can change so much. And yet much of what we experience as anxiety, panic, low mood, brain fog or emotional overwhelm also has biological roots: missing nutrients, an imbalanced and leaky gut, a toxic load the body can't clear, and a nervous system stuck in survival. Talk therapy and the body's healing work beautifully together. ARP tends the roots, nourishing and detoxifying the body so the mind has what it needs to heal, while talking helps us make sense of our story. For many people, bringing the body into the picture is the missing piece that helps everything else take hold.
Connection is a biological need too, especially for women. For most of human history, women gathered naturally: cooking, mending, tending children and sharing their days side by side. Our nervous systems settle in the company of other women, and that connection was never meant to need a calendar full of planning. A simple circle, women sitting together to talk, listen and share, gives the body some of what it has been missing: being seen, being heard and not carrying it all alone. Connection circles and sharing circles are a gentle way to bring this back into modern life.
Our nervous system is built and kept well from what we give it. We nourish it with the building blocks it needs to repair and grow, and we calm it with slowness, presence and safety, so that new ways of being can take root.
- Animal fatsThe rich, stable fats that nerve tissue is made from.
- CholesterolWelcomed, not feared, as a building block of nerves and hormones.
- Amino acidsFrom meat, eggs and dairy. Tryptophan becomes serotonin, and tyrosine becomes dopamine.
- CholineFrom egg yolks and liver, for healthy cell membranes and acetylcholine, the messenger of memory and mood.
- Minerals and vitaminsSalt, magnesium, potassium and iodine, the fat-soluble A, D, E and K, and B vitamins rebuilt one rung at a time.
- A settled gutMuch of the nervous system lives in the gut. You cannot tend one without the other.
From urgency to intuition
Understanding a pattern is a beginning. The nervous system still has to learn new ways. Many of our habits and compulsions began as ways to soothe ourselves, and part of us still believes we need them to survive. So we meet them with compassion, never guilt or shame, and practise regulating tools until they become second nature.
We learn to tell the voice of urgency from the voice of intuition. Intuition never rushes us, speaks harshly, or makes us feel ashamed. We aren't learning to suppress emotion. We are learning to feel it fully and stay regulated.
For gentle, body-based ways to feel and release emotion, and how Chinese medicine links each emotion to the organs and meridians, visit the Emotions tab.
Living like a healed person
There is a difference between feeling better and living like a healed person. Often the body has changed, but the nervous system is still running on old information, and life stays small. Expanding is part of healing too, and it deserves the same patience. When something new brings a wave of resistance, it doesn't mean we are going backwards. It means the nervous system has noticed a change.
And then comes the question that matters most: what is this healed life for? The strength that went into surviving the day is free to answer your calling, whether that is a quiet life at home or work in the wider world. We carry the lessons with us. A dream that costs you your health isn't the right dream.
Masculine and feminine needs
Men and women are made differently, and our hormones and nervous systems are nourished in different ways. ARP shares simple, ancestral guidance for each.
For men: time alone every day, traditionally masculine activities, and strength that comes from real work: carrying heavy things for the women in their lives, lifting, pushing and pulling. The best gym is outside, with rocks, logs, chopping wood and dragging food home, and even better when it's done alongside other men. Tasks are approached with a steady, responsible, warrior mindset.
For women: community and friendship. Talking things over with other women, sharing honestly for support rather than gossip, and meeting or doing activities together every week. Enjoying traditionally feminine activities, cuddling pets and children often, and building strength gently through carrying and moderate movement. Tasks are approached as creating and nurturing, rather than rushing to get them done.
Practise with
Two teachers whose free videos show you how to move, breathe and release, so you can practise at home.
We regenerate the whole, not the parts.
The pillars of regeneration
The protocol weaves food, body, mind and spirit together from the very first week. Nothing is added all at once. Each practice is introduced slowly, so you can notice how your body responds.
Nourishment
Meat stock as a core building food, sauerkraut and fermented cabbage juice, kefir and long-fermented A2 raw milk, generous animal fats and good protein. Seed oils, sugar and grains step aside for a time so the body can heal, and return later, prepared the slow, traditional way. Each meal is savoured as the information the body uses to make itself new.
Gut and microbiome
We are home to more microbes than human cells. Rather than wiping anything out, we gently rebalance: rebuilding the protective mucosa that lines the gut, feeding the beneficial communities, and welcoming back the microbes we were born with.
Nervous system
Slowing down, softening, body scans, one task a day done in slow motion, humming, gargling, ear massage, legs up the wall, laughter and kinder self-talk. We choose gentle, joyful media over fear and outrage, describe what we feel in neutral words, and turn our conversations toward interests beyond our health. When we hurry, the body thinks we are in an emergency. We teach it, gently, that it is safe.
Movement and fascia
Gentle, purposeful movement woven through the whole day: stretching, twisting, pointing the toes, dancing, squatting as we move from room to room. Collagen-rich stock, breath and posture nourish the fascia, the living web that holds us together and carries so much of what we have lived. If mobility is limited, we move what we can, as often as we can.
Rhythm and light
A morning routine built one piece at a time, so we never wake straight into decisions. Morning sunlight to set the body's clocks, a steady waking time, and rest that matters as much as food. A human pace, learned from people who lived close to the land, and carried with us for life. Our bodies remember the rhythm of the day.
Gentle release
Supporting the body's own detoxification with sunshine, clean water, electrolytes, castor oil packs, traditional enemas, sweating, lymph and belly work. Always in sequence, never aggressive.
Spirit, mind and community
Morning repetitions, letting go of fear, guilt and shame, forgiveness of others and ourselves, letting stuck emotion move through the body by shaking, crying, swaying and holding ourselves, co-regulation and inner child work, reconnecting with intuition and reverence, and leaning on one another. Healing is held in relationship.
I am connected to all life around me. I am a part of earth, I am made of soil.
A repetition from Week Thirty
I belong to community. I am never alone.
Week by week, step by step.
Two years · 104 weekly steps
The path
The protocol unfolds one week at a time over two years. Each month has a focus and a repetition to carry with you, and each week brings a food, a practice or a teaching. You always know exactly what is next, which gives the nervous system a rest from searching.
Open any week for its focus, morning repetition, recipes, amounts, timing and practices.
Weeks 1 to 16
Foundations
Getting to know the body: its simple needs and the things it doesn't need. We make meat stock and ferments, source raw milk, steady blood sugar, and build a morning routine piece by piece.
Open weeks 1 to 16
Weeks 17 to 31
Deep gut healing
The intensive gut-healing phase of soups and stock, approached with compassion, curiosity and neutrality. We rebuild the gut's protective mucosa, feed the birth microbes, learn vagal practices, choose intuition over urgency, and weave gentle movement into daily life. In the last week of soups, new foods are ready to return.
Open weeks 17 to 31
Weeks 32 to 52
Listening deeply
New foods return. We learn the building blocks of the body, from amino acids and vitamins to the 90 essential nutrients and how minerals balance one another, and journal on what the body needs as a whole and in its tiniest parts. We practise releasing what we are still letting go of, and set down illness as an identity. We explore co-regulation and inner child healing, daily detox check-ins and sauna, and celebrate a full year.
Open weeks 32 to 52
Weeks 53 to 104
Living regenerated
The second year turns healing into a way of life. A wider circle of foods returns, prepared the traditional way: sprouted, soaked and fermented. The body regains the flexibility to follow the seasons. We explore herbs and medicinal mushrooms, brain waves and GABA, and the B vitamin ladder, rebuilt one vitamin at a time. In the final months we build strength the way our ancestors did, through walking, carrying, squatting and working with our hands, and we learn to drink to thirst and trust the body's signals. We expand gently into a fuller life and ask what that life is for. We close with the things to carry for good: a rhythm to every day, the old wisdom of feast and fast, modern conveniences used wisely, an open mind free of dogma, and a slow pace for life. We never stop becoming.
Open weeks 53 to 104
Starting where you are. There are gentler beginnings for sensitive nervous systems, for histamine sensitivity, and for vegetarians and vegans. Foods you don't yet tolerate can wait until you are ready.
Bringing your family along. A friends and family meal plan helps you share meals with the people you live with, even if they aren't ready to begin the protocol themselves.
Less, not more.
How we walk it
- Slow and sequentialHealing happens in an order. We introduce one thing at a time and let the body tell us how it was received.
- Curiosity over perfectionMistakes are part of learning. We release perfectionism and meet each week with openness.
- The body is speakingChanges and discomfort are messages from the body. We listen, slow down when needed, and adjust the pace.
- One path at a timeFollowing one clear protocol gives a busy mind somewhere to rest, instead of chasing every new piece of advice.
- Release fear, lean on each otherWe take our health into our own hands, and we do it together.
- Tend the terrainWe don't chase what is wrong. We build the terrain so the body can do what it was made to do. The food, stock, sun, rest and nervous system work remain the medicine. Deeper work, like gentle cleanses, waits for its right season, once the foundations are firmly in place.
- More of the basics firstBefore reaching for something new, we try more of what already works: more sun, more rest, fewer screens, more of a food the body is asking for. One change at a time, with a journal to notice what shifts.
- Believe in regenerationYour body is always working to bring you back to health. We trust it, and give it what it needs.
- Resilient, not immuneThis way of living isn't a promise that nothing hard will happen again. It builds a body and mind that meet whatever comes with far more resilience, wisdom and calm.
My body trusts rhythm. I begin each day the same gentle way.
A repetition from the final weeks
I am steady, I am slow, and I have nothing to prove.
I walk beside you, week by week.
Ways to work with me
The protocol can be followed on your own, but many people find it far easier with someone beside them: to tailor the pace, troubleshoot, and hold you steady when things shift.
Some ARP is better than no ARP. Whatever your season of life, budget, energy, health or family situation, we can work toward implementing things slowly, one gentle step at a time. There's no all-or-nothing here.
Work with me
One-to-one support, at your own pace
- A detailed intake form, so I can understand where you are starting from
- A personal written reply to your form
- A one-hour first video call together
- Ongoing one-to-one sessions as you move through the weeks, if you'd like them
- In-home support, where I or one of my ARP coaches can come into your home to help set up your kitchen and advise on food and lifestyle, for clients and their caregivers
First session NZ$200
Monthly and 3-month packages also available · enquire
Giving back. A portion of all Modern Wild sales goes toward supporting someone less fortunate on their own healing journey.
Hi, I'm Sarah
My own health brought me here. Living with thyroid issues, I went looking for answers beyond managing symptoms, and my path led me home to ancestral nourishment and ancestral ways of living. I came to see how far our modern way of eating and living has drifted from what our bodies were designed for, and how beautifully they respond when we give them what they truly need.
Along the way my body has healed from so much: histamine issues, leaky gut, vertigo, visual migraines, constipation and loose stools, chronic cold sores, recurring viruses, fatigue, insomnia, achy joints, thinning hair, skin issues like eczema and cracked heels, anxiety, hormonal issues and PMS. And without dieting or restriction, my body has gently settled into its natural, healthy weight.
The healing has reached far beyond my body. My relationships have softened and deepened, my confidence has grown, and the health anxiety that once followed me everywhere has quietly let go. One of my greatest joys now is nourishing my family with confidence, and passing these simple, powerful ways of living on to my daughters, so they grow up knowing how to care for themselves.
I'm a mum to two teenage girls, and we're an unschooling family. I've always forged my own path in parenting, learning alongside my daughters and trusting that we're each made to grow in our own rhythm. That same trust shapes how I walk beside the people I work with: slowly, gently, and at the pace your body asks for.
I trained as an Ancestral Regeneration Protocol Practitioner, an Ancestral Nutrition Practitioner and a GAPS Coach. I'm also a qualified psilocybin facilitator, trained at the Leela School of Awakening in Oregon. I'm always learning, and these days I feel called to explore energetics and frequency healing too.
My own healing has been a path of much trial and error, and it has taught me that no single supplement can reach the root of what the body is asking for. True healing comes from tending the whole terrain, in the right order and in its own time. If I were starting all over again, I would gently move into therapeutic ketosis and walk through the gut healing phase, then rebuild. Next would come the pathogen protocol, and then feeding the birth microbes. All the way through, I'd be learning and weaving in nervous system work and all the lifestyle factors, from sunlight and rhythm to movement, rest and connection, along with every other guideline the protocol offers. I feel deeply honoured to share from my own experience and healing journey, so your path may be a little gentler and clearer than mine.
Think of me as a health and wellness doula. Just as a birth doula doesn't do the birthing, I don't do the healing. Your body does. I walk beside you, holding space, offering knowledge, encouragement and steady support, so you never have to find your way alone.
I'm a Kiwi with Māori, Scottish, English, French and Danish ancestry, and I feel all of these lines of my ancestors calling me home to these old ways of living. I'm committed to remembering these beautiful and wise ways, and to living them. I am a curious and humble apprentice of all things healthy and human. I'd be honoured to walk this path with you.
Sarah Ryan
- Ancestral Regeneration Protocol Practitioner
- GAPS Coach
- Ancestral Nutrition Practitioner
- Psilocybin Facilitator
The Ancestral Regeneration Protocol was created by the incredible Bethany van der Harst of Vanderharst Homestead, drawing on the work of Mary Ruddick, Jen Donovan and many others, and inspired by the traditional tribes, past and present, who have lived and still live on their ancestral foods and ways, remarkably free of the chronic physical and mental illness so common in modern life. Shared here with Bethany's permission. I am deeply grateful for all of their work.
With a full heart.
Thank you, Bethany
Bethany, thank you for your extraordinary generosity in gifting this protocol to the world for free, and for the free training and endless support you have given me every step of the way.
You are such an inspiration to me. I will honour your work and your spirit in everything I share, and in every person I walk beside.
With love and gratitude, Sarah
Visit Bethany at Vanderharst Homestead
Questions
Do I have to give up foods forever?
No. Foods are set aside temporarily so the body can heal. From the one-year mark, a wider circle of foods returns slowly, prepared the traditional way: grains and legumes sprouted, soaked or fermented, and sourdough fermented for days. Meat stock, animal fats and meat remain the heart of every meal.
What if I'm vegetarian, vegan, or very sensitive?
There are gentler beginnings for sensitive nervous systems, histamine sensitivity, and vegetarians and vegans. We start where you are.
What if my family isn't ready to change how they eat?
There is a friends and family meal plan so you can share meals together while you follow the protocol.
Can little ones eat this way too?
Families are very welcome. There is gentle guidance on baby's first foods the ancestral way, where nourishing, meat-based foods come first and vegetables follow slowly.
Can I do this if I'm pregnant?
Yes, gently. Pregnancy is a beautiful time to nourish deeply with the protocol's foundations: meat stock, animal fats, egg yolks, well-cooked meats, a little liver, raw dairy and ferments, along with sunshine, rest, rhythm and nervous system care. What waits is the deeper work. Detox, metal and parasite protocols, chelation and strong cleanses belong before conception or after breastfeeding, never during, and we go slowly with anything that brings on strong die-off. Ideally, the protocol is followed for one to two years before conceiving, and the Fertility and Babies sections share more. If you're already pregnant, we'll keep things gentle and tailor the path to you and your baby.
I've recently taken antibiotics. Can I still begin?
Yes. When antibiotics are truly needed, they are a mercy, and there is no need for guilt. A course disturbs the gut and its microbes, and disturbance can be repaired. Rebuilding the gut and restoring the microbes is exactly what this protocol is for.
Is this the same as GAPS, carnivore or keto?
No. ARP is its own protocol. It draws gratefully on principles from many traditional and healing approaches, but it does things in its own way and its own order.
Might I feel worse before I feel better?
Sometimes, as the body shifts, people notice old symptoms or discomfort for a while. We see this as the body communicating. We introduce everything slowly, and slow down further whenever you need to.
Do you work online or in person?
Mostly online, so wherever you are in Aotearoa or the world, we can work together by video call, message and email. In-person and in-home support is also possible: I or one of my ARP coaches can come into your home. Just mention it when you get in touch.
Begin where you are.
Ready to begin?
Tell me about yourself and what you're hoping for, and I'll get back to you personally to arrange a free intro call.
Nearly there
Tap the button below to open your email with your enquiry ready to send to Sarah. Just press send.
If your email doesn't open, copy your message and send it to sarah.modernwild@gmail.com.