Wellness is complicated and most wellness advice is general, vague, geared towards diet and weightloss, and comes across as one sized fits all. Even herbal advice!

As a person living with chronic illness, I understand that not only is health and wellness incredibly complex, it is further complicated by the effects that socio-cultural systems and forces have on the mind and body. 

Sometimes it can feel impossible to feel well in a problematic social system. Most people in the discussion of wellness fail to hold space for the social determinants of health. These Include:

• Economic Stability.

• Education Access and Quality.

• Health Care Access and Quality.

• Neighborhood and Built Environment.

• Social and Community Context.

I believe that talking about herbs and remedies while leaving out context is ineffective. 

Unfortunately, many of the socio-cultural structures at play in your life are bigger than you and thus are very slow and difficult to change. That is why I offer nuanced and socially aware wellness care and herbalism education that increases herbal AND wellness literacy.

Wellness literacy is the capacity to obtain, process, and understand the basic health and wellness information needed to choose and implement appropriate wellness interventions.

One of the main ways I do this is by using the Mandala of Wellness in my offerings, teaching, and client work. 

It has five key areas of wellness interventions. These are interventions inside of most folks control. This tool creates space for nuance and complexity in wellness habits while offering simple and easy solutions to help you understand how you can start to feel better.

I have seen time and again that if you can make small and gentle adjustments in these areas of intervention, they can lead to big changes in how you feel. If used as a platform for change, I believe they can lead to improved long term wellness outcomes, as I have seen in my self and my clients.