ABOUT

MY STORY

My life has taken many turns on my pilgrimage home to myself, through many unique settings. Yet in this chapter, the chapter of Now, I am the most founded I have ever been, as I seek to use the knowledge of my expertise and experiences to help other’s on their own path towards their healthiest, most vital self. 

Not long ago, a student mentioned at the end of the semester that my course “felt like what [they] suppose church is supposed to feel like.” Any religious space is meant to remind us of our larger place in the cosmos, in that infinite oneness with all that was, is, and will be. I took this as a sign that I was pivoting to the right path. Academia served me for many years, but after a decade, I knew that I had outgrown that space. I had to create a boundless setting which we all shared once upon a time. 

Before I began my time in academic settings, I took to the stage and the page to express myself. Creativity has always been the vehicle in which I navigate experience (I define myself as a writer and creator before all other titles). The more reserved aspect of my character took to poetry, myth, story, as a way of decoding myself and the world around me. 

Eventually, my more social and performative part of self took to the vehicle of acting. At eighteen, I rebelled against the concept of college and moved to Los Angeles, then Dallas, then New York City. I auditioned, studied, struggled, preformed, fell madly in love with improv comedy, but ultimately that lifestyle could not hold my attention. I longed for more. After years of swearing I would never, I decided to take college writing courses. This pivot in my plot quickly sucked me into a demanding relationship of study, creation, non-profit work, and lecturing for many years. My studies took me to many thrilling settings: from West Texas to Western Ireland to the cradle of the Rennaisaince in Italy to Keep it Weird Central Texas.

Along this pilgrimage, two major themes shifted my character’s development: chronic illness and a love for gastronomy. I was a chronically ill child and teenager and in my early twenties I was hospitalized with Toxic Shock Syndrome and almost lost my life. I survived a week in ICU, blood transfusions, pneumonia, and my organs almost shutting down, only to be let out of the hospital as a shell of my former-self. 

This is when I first turned to holistic health practices; a naturopathic doctor developed a diet and supplement regiment for me to try to find a resemblance of health again. My health stabilized for three years, until I was wrongly diagnosed with severe depression, eventually to be told I had hypothyroidism. Given a blanket diagnosis and medication, I was sent on my way with no idea what to else I could do to just feel ‘normal’. Where I had a diagnosis and medication, I was still chronically exhausted and sick most of the time. Years later, seeking guidance from another integrative doctor, I was finally diagnosed with Hashimotos, an autoimmune condition related to hypothyroidism. I changed my diet and lifestyle and found relief, but the biggest change was that I began to see myself as the leader of my health journey. 

I sought out integrative and sympathetic doctors, refusing to accept “your labs look normal” when I knew I was not well. Even though I was in charge and “doing all the healthy things”…I struggled to maintain feeling optimal. In my early thirties, I was diagnosed with a massive fibroid, hormone imbalance, and endometriosis. When I say I can relate, I believe I can, I was made a “wounded healer” for a reason. After a major surgery to remove a watermelon sized tumor and endometrial tissue, I began a new aspect of my healing—more informed on what can cause disease, root-cause mentality, and how to heal myself from a place of loving, conscious awareness. I am now the healthiest I have ever been, but health is a journey not a destination and I am always adapting. 

One aspect of my story which has kept me growing, grounded, and joyful is my meditative relationship with food. It started with cooking and wine courses while I studied in Italy. Next, I began growing my own herbs and vegetables. As I got older, I found a deep connection with feeding others, as Joy Harjo poetically notes that “everything begins and ends at the kitchen table.” 

Food became my portal for healing, community, and creative expression. As a writer, I can become cerebral and myopic, but food brings me back into the physical world, as an embodiment practice. Trying to find a way to connect words and community to food, I came up with a book and wine club, Vino Verse and Vinyl. It made for incredibly fun monthly meet up with old and new friends. 

From this, I was inspired to further research the intersection between food and literature, food and faith, as well as food and healing. Research organized into my development of an Honors level college literature course: Literary Gastronomy in American Literature. While teaching the course and discussing with students on the power of food for connection and awareness, I took my baby steps of growing herbs and miscellaneous vegetables further, I began to research and practice permaculture gardening. 

The connections between food, literature, permaculture, and spirituality felt abundant. It is an endless space for me to grow, a home with no limits. I began speaking about these connections at conferences and found land to purchase with enough space to homestead. 

At a synchronistic moment, the Institute for Integrative Nutrition came to my life. I fell in love with the program, I studied under healers I deeply admire: Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Andrew Weil, Julia Cameron, Joshua Rosenthal, Dr. Terry Wahls, only to only name a few. I graduated the program as a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. During my certification program, it became clear that what I was doing with students in college courses was not giving them a grade, but giving them tools to find themselves, to build a church of their own within their body, mind, and soul. 

My hero’s journey led to me to accept this deep truth: my calling is to mentor other’s on their path to healing through mindfulness, food, story, and holistic practices. This new chapter is sustainable, as I guide others to healing, I too heal. In this story, we are on an adventure which is unconcerned with an ending, but enraptured with the present moment. We all deserve the best life possible, we deserve vitality. 

Let’s develop that story together. Once upon a time, we…