My Journey To Becoming an Herbalist

In 2008 my 3rd child was born.  I began training for Strongman Competitions right after she was born. (I’d always been an avid weightlifter). My 1st competition was when she was 4 months old and I got 2nd place! After my last competition I got a bulging disk in my lower SI joint. I recovered from this but not completely, it would keep bulging. Problems then seemed to work their way up my spine. When I would work out I would get terrible shoulder and neck pains resulting in 3 day migraines. No amount of drugs would help the pain in my shoulder, neck or migraines. Sometimes a really good massage would help. I was in constant pain all the time. It started getting worse. Burning down my legs, arms, hips & back.  

I went to specialist after specialist with no help. No one could figure out what was wrong.  One doctor thought maybe I had Fibromyalgia, and said, I’ll give you Lyrica, if it works then you have Fibro, if it doesn’t, then I’m not sure what is wrong, & will just send you to a pain management doctor. Lyrica didn’t help, pain management doctor, didn’t help.  Scans showed nothing wrong with me, yet I couldn’t weight-lift anymore, and I’d been weightlifting for 20 years.

At this point, 2 years after my daughter was born, and about a year of seeing various specialist’s, I’d pretty much given up on getting help. I then was introduced to a wonderful nurse working towards her Nurse Practitioners licence. She is specializing in natural healing, mainly using nutrition & supplements.  In 2 weeks she had me working out again, by changing my diet and adding supplements.  I was amazed!  I was hooked on learning about natural healing.  I thought I was already eating a reasonably healthy diet. I learned my body just couldn’t tolerate some foods and I was deficient in nutrients. About a year later I learned you could use herbs to heal the body and learned about a local herbalist who was helping a friend of mine. I started seeing the herbalist to further my healing journey. This was all new and amazing to me.  I learned I could go to my backyard, pick a weed, and heal myself. In the past, I ran to the Doctor for everything, and now with most things I can treat myself and my family with the amazing herbs that God created. I can’t get enough of learning about herbs and their amazing abilities. I have lots still to learn and love learning.

My Current Goals:

I’m currently working with my friend who is still on the road to opening her own Clinic of Natural Healing. I will one day practice in her clinic.  I’m currently enrolled in an herbal intensive course with my herbalist. I’ve completed 1 year with her and am continuing on with her. I have also spent over 800+ hours taking various herbal healing courses/classes currently. I continue to take various other on-line courses. My main goal is to become a Registered Clinical Herbalist,  Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild. What this means is, a group of peers will acknowledge I posses the knowledge & skill to work with others on their own healing journey as a clinical herbalist.