My Journey to Real Holistic Healing (and Why I Created The Passionate Herbalist)

I didn’t set out to work in natural medicine.

For years, I was convinced my path was in filmmaking. It had been my dream since I was a little girl. I studied film for three years after switching from psychology, but during my senior year everything came crashing down. Panic attacks took over my life. I was paralyzed by public speaking, performance anxiety, and the constant weight of fear in my body.

About a year later, I moved to California with my sister, hoping that being in the heart of the film industry would give me a fresh start and help me overcome what I was struggling with. Instead, the anxiety only deepened. Eventually, I made the difficult decision to return home on my own.

What once felt like failure, I now see as part of God’s plan, gently redirecting me toward something far more meaningful.

After years of medicating both my physical and mental health struggles, I finally reached a breaking point. I was tired of the side effects, the emotional numbness, and feeling disconnected from my body and myself. Around that time, I left a long, tumultuous, abusive relationship and made a decision to start taking my life and well-being seriously.

I moved into a condo in Midtown Miami and began reclaiming joy in the ways I knew how, weekly yoga and Pilates classes, rollerblading with friends at Crandon Park, dancing in intimate underground venues, surrounding myself with movement and community.

Then quarantine happened.

Overnight, all of those outlets disappeared. With extra paid time off and long quiet days, I finally had space to turn inward. I began learning about natural ways to support anxiety, depression, and overall health through lifestyle changes, nutrition, and alternative remedies. Eventually, I started a small YouTube channel to share what I was learning and reconnect with community.

While many people picked up healthier habits during the pandemic, for me it wasn’t a trend, it was a series of personal realizations that this path genuinely mattered to me.

The Missing Piece: Faith and Deeper Healing

As much as I was learning about natural health, something still felt incomplete. Sharing my mental health journey online stirred up old trauma I hadn’t fully processed. Vulnerability felt heavy. I worried about my past being twisted, misunderstood, or used against me.

I wanted to help others heal, but I knew I couldn’t do that without facing my own pain first.

One night, I stumbled across a Ruqyah video on YouTube, a Qur’anic recitation for inner peace and relief from depression. I didn’t understand the Arabic, but the moment I heard it, an overwhelming calm washed over me. For the first time in years, my nervous system truly felt at rest.

From that night on, I played it every evening.

That moment planted the seed that would eventually transform my life.

Not long after, I embraced Islam. Learning to pray and building salah into my daily rhythm brought a level of peace I had never experienced before. I later learned that prayer itself carries profound physiological and mental health benefits, which only deepened my appreciation for how faith and well-being are intertwined.

Islam taught me that caring for the body is not separate from spirituality, it’s an act of worship. We have the example of the Prophet ﷺ who lived in balance, caring for health while trusting Allah completely.

The Qur’an reminds us:
“Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest.” (13:28)

For the first time, healing wasn’t just physical or emotional, it was spiritual too.

During my first Ramadan, I came across the teaching that Allah created both the disease and the cure. That verse stayed with me deeply. It affirmed what I was already beginning to feel, that healing doesn’t lie in suppressing symptoms, but in working with the natural systems Allah designed, through food, lifestyle, environment, and plant medicine.

That realization sparked my desire to study natural medicine seriously.

Moving Beyond Surface-Level Wellness

I started where many beginners do, buying generic herbal books and teaching myself. But I quickly felt frustrated. Most resources were just long lists of herbs labeled “good for” certain symptoms, with no explanation of how they worked or how to understand the body as a whole.

Around that time, there was a huge surge of modern herbalists and wellness influencers online. Many meant well, but unknowingly practiced a symptom-matching approach, treating herbs like natural pharmaceuticals.

This happened largely because much of traditional medical knowledge was lost through colonization, industrialization, and the rise of profit-driven healthcare. Indigenous healers were suppressed, plant medicine was dismissed, and the deeper diagnostic frameworks were stripped away.

When herbalism resurged in the 1960s, it often returned without those foundational systems, leaving behind simplified “use this for that” advice.

I started there too, and after a few successes mixed with plenty of failures, I realized this wasn’t how herbs were meant to be used.

True holistic medicine had always looked at the whole person.

Finding the Right Teachers and Building a Strong Foundation

My search eventually led me to the School of Evolutionary Herbalism, where I discovered a systems-based approach to healing rooted in traditional wisdom and modern physiology. Under the guidance of Sajah Popham, I began formal training in clinical herbalism.

Instead of jumping straight into remedies, we studied:

• the roots of health
• interconnected body systems
• physiological patterns
• holistic evaluation methods
• constitutional and terrain-based healing

I finally understood how healing actually works.

Food was also emphasized as one of the most powerful forms of medicine, which inspired me to deepen my education in nutrition. I enrolled with Joyful Belly Ayurveda, completing advanced training in integrative digestion and nutrition, specializing in digestive health and studying dozens of digestive pathologies.

In traditional medicine, digestion is considered the foundation of health, and I learned how to build personalized healing strategies that support the gut as the root of overall balance.

Together, these teachings transformed how I viewed the body, not as isolated symptoms, but as a beautifully interconnected system designed to heal when supported properly.

The Birth of The Passionate Herbalist

Everything finally came full circle.

I realized that true healing isn’t about quick fixes or chasing symptoms. It’s about addressing the roots of imbalance, supporting the nervous system, nourishing the body, aligning lifestyle with natural rhythms, tending to emotional health, and honoring spiritual well-being.

This is the holistic medicine I believe in.

In 2024, I launched The Passionate Herbalist to share this whole-person, terrain-based approach to healing. I later expanded my training with science-based wellness coaching to help people build sustainable habits that last.

Although rebuilding my website from scratch came with unexpected challenges, every setback only strengthened my clarity around the work I’m meant to do.

Why I Do This Work

Every chapter of my life, the struggles, the healing, the faith, the education, has led me here.

The Passionate Herbalist wasn’t created to follow wellness trends or offer quick fixes. It was created to teach true holistic medicine as it was always meant to be practiced, rooted in traditional frameworks, real physiology, and whole-person healing.

In a world filled with misinformation, symptom-chasing advice, and surface-level wellness culture, my goal is to help people understand their bodies deeply, reconnect with natural healing, and move beyond trends toward lasting balance and resilience.

Healing is never just about one remedy or one system. It’s about tending to the interconnected body and spirit while honoring the natural design Allah created.

And if my journey helps even one person step into deeper healing and clarity about their health, then every step has been worth it.