Academia & Entrepreneurial Escapades
First and foremost, since I was but a wee one, I am and always have been a nerd. And a very driven one, at that!
My disabilities and illnesses drove me to learn more about health, wellness, medicine, biology, and natural medicine, trying to understand why things like dietary changes, certain herbs, and acupuncture seemed to help me. I started down a path to understand my own body and health, and it just never ended. And while I have spent over a decade now studying the intricacies of natural and integrative healthcare, and even working in the field, I have always come at it from an angle of science. Wanting to understand the whys, seeing the studies, understand the mechanisms, and not just swallow conspiracy theories and “what your doctor doesn’t want you to knows.” It’s been an amazing journey!
I’m still working on my education, but my business ownership has wound down due to disability reasons. To everything there is a season.
Please find my academic work here.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Early on I started using my herbalism training to make teas, tinctures, and salves for myself and my friends. This blossomed into a little private practice called Natural Equilibrium that grew as my education and degrees did. I had offices in New London and Groton. I loved my work and kept my shingle up until 2020 when the Covid pandemic forced me to finally close my doors.
I also worked as a complementary therapist for Hospice for several years, which I adored.
My little tea-creations that I was creating through Natural Equilibrium got so popular that people were asking to purchase them wholesale, sell them at their cafes, and more! So I officially branched off from the private practice and opened Natural Equilibrium Tea Company, Or NE Tea Co, and sold handcrafted organic looseleaf creations retail and wholesale. I loved working with over a dozen local small businesses as wholesale accounts, and hundreds of individuals globally as retail customers (my friends were always my favourite though) It was pure joy getting to spend my days making tea and spreading joy! This business lasted until 2018 until my physical health could no longer reconcile with the demand of the business.
From Natural Equilibrium also spun off a business by the name of the Reiki for Military Program wherein I had a wonderful team of massage therapists, reflexologists, yoga teachers, LCSW’s and more working alongside me to provide reduced rate, sliding scale services to our local service members. While we gladly served veterans, our focus was on active duty service members and their families. Our goal was to provide a community and stress management services and techniques, as well as helping to care for these individuals’ bodies and minds to hopefully help make active duty life less traumatic and reduce the number of damaged veterans being spit out at the end. We were in business until 2018 and partnered with Balfour-Beatty, the VA, and others. It was an incredible ride, and I am so glad for the wonderful work we did.
I hosted a peer support group for folx with complex PTSD and other trauma and mental health disorders.
I hosted the monthly Southeastern Connecticut Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain Support Group for several years.
I co-founded a… support group, I guess? for small business owners! We were called Smocal (Small/Local) and we met monthly, created a space for small biz owners to share struggles and victories, tips and tricks, and connect with each other. We had guest speakers from local orgs, the state, the city, and more! It was a very cool endeavor.
My Writings and scribblings
I’ve been writing since I was a young sprout.
Journals, poems, short stories, blogs, articles, drafts of books, you name it.
Over the years, a lot of that has been lost or put away. But some of my writings have been published or shared in places that can still be found. Find them here!
Social Justice Work, Activism, And Other Cool Stuff
Most of my work ends up being disability related, or politics somehow. You can find the disability work I do here, and my political shenanigans above. But I am super glad to get to spend what few spoons I have left at the end of the day with some amazing people and organizations generally trying to make the world a better place. Allow me to highlight just a few:
My friend and partner in progressiveness Meg Blanchette and I founded a cool program called Stonington Pride! We are doing a variety of Queer Justice and Community work here in Stonington and SECT.
Did you know there’s a Social Justice Pop-Up Library in Southeastern CT? There is! It’s called Beyond the Stacks and I’m really proud to volunteer with them
I was glad to get to work for the Carbon Zero Fuel Project as their Public Relations Manager for nearly a decade. Carbon Zero was a program working with Reforest the Tropics, a 501c3 NonProfit, innovating new was to bring environmentalism and a low/no-carbon life to everyone, every business, and every vehicle. I was also honored to make my business, NE Tea Co Carbon Zero for several years running!