My Journey to a

Clinical Herbalist

I’m a Christian Clinical Herbalist in the Bellevue/Omaha, NE area. My passion is to work with you and empower you to take charge of your own health.  I will work with you on lifestyle, & dietary changes, and give custom herbal blends you can take to help you on your healing journey. I can also show you how you can make any of these things for yourself.  If you’d like to set up a consult with me please take a look at my services available here..

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! 1 year into this 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, and the 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 after a year of seeing various specialists, I’d pretty much given up on getting better. I then was introduced to a wonderful nurse. She specialized in natural healing, mainly using nutrition & supplements.  In 2 weeks, I was 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 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 help myself and my family with the amazing herbs that God created.

EDUCATION:

I have over 2300 hours in herbal education to date and am passionate about continuing my education. The following is a highlight of some of my educational experiences.

2015-2018 Herbmentor.com courses: Over ten courses completed. and 4 separate intensive courses.

2015 – 2016 Aromatherapy Courses: Basic Aromatherapy Course -Aromatic Studies.com; Basic Aromatherapy Safety and Aromatherapy -Kate Bodmann; Aromahead.com introductory course; EO Ingestion & Aromatic Med. Masterclass -Jesse Hawkins w/Vintage Remedies.

2016 – Present American Herbalist Guild Webinars: I’ve covered the majority of their webinars.

Clinical Skills Part One & Part 2: -Paul Bergner 16 hr Course + his  Essential Medical Interview Skills for the Herbalist. I’ve also had 2 other clinical skills classes.

Anatomy & Physiology: with Tammi Sweet 24 hr Credit course

2016 – 2018 Rooted Wisdom Herbal Intensive Led by Kate Bodmann. Year 1 60 hr course. Year 2 60 hr. Intensive. Many of her other mini classes.

Rosemary Gladstar’s: The Science & Art of Herbalism 50hr course – Part of the above Rooted Wisdom Herbal Intensive

2018: Naturally Healthy Clinical Herbalist Course: 600 hr Course taught by Shonda Parker.

Nov. 2018-May 2020, I completed the Family Herbalist Course, the Community Herbalist Course, and the Clinical Herbalist Course at the Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine online courses. I finished 22 supervised clinical cases through this school with over 100 hours of clinical review. Due to Covid it took a while to be able to take the test and the requirements for my certification were completed in Feb 2023.

Oct 2019 – June 2020: Intensive with local Herbalist Mo Horner at the Free Wild Root’s People’s Clinic located in South Omaha Where I received 170 clinically supervised hours. I also continue to serve here as an herbalist and in other capacities.

I’ve been seeing clients since 2017 and am passionate about researching and learning new topics to better serve you.