My name is Tia, I'm from a town of 500 people in Iowa and have spent most of my life on SNAP benefits. Many times I've experienced what it's like to fear where your next meal is coming from or how to subconsciously curb your appetite because you can't afford more than one meal a day. I've seen first-hand that the system is not designed to facilitate individual growth to "rise above" their circumstances, simply by 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.' Many constraints that have been put around my success with education and career advancement result from financial opportunity and availability. Aside from the socioeconomic that I've personally faced, I also developed a chemical addiction to alcohol for the better part of my teen years and into my twenties. Growing up around an alcoholic father and a family that normalizes regular consumption would have me believe that many of my behaviors were normal. After many traumatic cycles and falling into more than one homeless shelter, I realized many of these roots within me could be cut at the source and I didn't have to live in the reality that I'd created for myself. At twenty-seven years old, I got sober from drugs and alcohol and started my journey towards healing myself. I've been a server in the restaurant industry since I was eighteen and the financial reward has been plentiful up until a few years ago. I've had the privilege to work in Orlando, New York, and Los Angeles. Most establishments range from high-end fine dining to Michelin-starred restaurants. Moving all over the United States while I was young and having fun with wreckless abandonment was thrilling. I also had a job that gave me a false sense of financial security, which I'd later discover was an attributing environment to my own addiction issues. After a year into my sobriety, shutdowns took hold, and my job security vanished overnight. I could no longer find a job the same day I walked in and applied, or move anywhere in the country knowing that there would be openings in my line of work. Those days are over. I've been in and out of serving jobs over the last few years, none of them sticking and most of them on the cusp of falling apart on any given day. So this has vastly impacted my beliefs in our system as a whole, and my role where I fit into it. Two years into my sobriety I developed an auto-immune disorder, however, after recounting my years, I've spent most of my life unwell without reason from modern medicine. My hair was falling out by the plenty, had early signs of jaundice, and was so depleted everyday I could barely get out of bed. As luck would have it, doctors were no help and I became my own holistic advisor. After obtaining a scholarship for my 200hr yoga teacher training, I kept going. I had a thirst to heal and live my fullest life. An ayurvedic nutritionist, NASM-cpt, ytt 300hr, and a behavior modification certification later, I've started giving it back to others. I now have a moral obligation to guide others back to wholeness because of the journey that my life took to get here. Growing up, I wanted to be a singer or an astronaut. After the hardship I've experienced, I know deep within my bones that I'm supposed to be a healer. In the long term, I'd like to open a non-profit that offers holistic services to individuals displaced by a very flawed system.

Over the last year and a half, I've been on a gut-healing protocol after developing an auto-immune disorder from a candida overgrowth issue that I've had since birth. It's not only passed down generationally but many modern practices and diets exasperate it into irreversible conditions. Growing up in a low-income household, we were mostly exposed to frozen, processed, and sugary foods. Demographics also have an impact on what you're told is "healthy" or a "balanced diet," and when this information is controlled based on where you live, it becomes the framework that shapes your perception of health and wellness. Currently, I've been sober for almost five years, and have been on a holistic healing journey since then as well. It started with quitting a toxic substance that has become a cornerstone for almost everything we do in America now and brought to light some shocking revelations for my own health. We've interwoven drinking with socializing in such a way throughout our culture, that many don't know how to engage or connect without it. We normalize alcohol consumption and ingest toxic food products because we're living in a time where we are marketed to constantly. Many of our modern-day symptoms can be resolved by eliminating foods we're not designed to eat but we're not always given correct wellness information when we go to the doctor, but instead a pill. I've now been symptom-free for almost four months by finding a new way to eat and live my life. I focus on getting adequate rest, micronutrient intake, and nutrient-dense meals, rather than eating based on emotion and what is the most convenient. Becoming a holistic practitioner is something that I never saw in my plans but it found me because I needed deep healing. I started with my 200hr yoga teacher training, then moved into my 300hr and last year I finished my ayurvedic nutritionist certification. All of these experiences and certifications have taught me the importance of having healthy eating habits on a daily basis and how it's rooted in how we want to feel every day. We don't take into account the minerals and nutrients we're putting into us because we have a framework of calories, protein, and carbohydrates. If we started thinking about what our bodies were deficient in first or the imbalances we have before we eat, we can start eating to balance our bodies vs. eating based on feeling or impulse. Learning how the body is interconnected and designed to work together was something I experienced within myself firsthand. It's become the foundation on which I've rebuilt my life and propelled me into my holistic nutrition degree. I know in my whole heart that I'm meant to help others live their best lives as well, which is why I'm finishing my degree to start paying it forward, full circle.

Mental health is such an important aspect of my day-to-day since I got sober from drugs and alcohol dependency four and a half years ago. It was through my treatment process that I found psychology and even majored in addiction psychology as well. Ultimately I found myself in multiple yoga teacher trainings, which has led me down the path to holistic nutrition. For me, finding wellness in mental health was about learning my own body's innate sense of self, what it needed at that moment, and how my daily habits were impacting my sense of stability. During my days of struggle, I found myself in more than one homeless shelter, genuinely worried about where my next meal would come from and losing my will to live daily. These experiences not only opened my eyes to a vastly flawed system but it humbled me in my human existence. My experience with poor mental health led me down a dark path within myself and it turned my whole external world dark as well. It affected my ability to hold a job for longer than two months, take care of myself financially, and exasperated my substance abuse. Though my time in the Alcoholics Anonymous program was intermittent, there's a saying that I've always appreciated and applied to my own life, "keep coming back, it works if you work it." While it's about coming to meetings, it can be applied to how you show up for yourself. That was the simple motivation I needed to just keep showing up for the day, but also how I can make my own life work for myself. I started working a healing program that focused on tackling the root causes of deep trauma, healed my gut bacteria imbalance that was causing a slew of symptoms that led to an autoimmune disorder, and took a deep dive with myofascial release to learn how to heal the physical trauma stuck in the body. All of this first-hand experience peeled back the curtains on just how interconnected all our systems are. My self-esteem and anxiety started dissipating entirely after months of a regimented nutritional protocol to heal Candida Overgrowth and leaky gut. During our 300hr yoga teacher training we learn about the chakra system and how they're energetically connected, but to experience such an awakening in my own physical form, was an entirely different story. Now that I'm on the other end of my healing journey, I'm focused on finishing my bachelor of science degree in holistic nutrition to start sharing everything I've learned with others. It's in my deepest hopes to make an impact in our recovery industry and quite possibly politically as well. We have a long way to go as a healthcare system and in how we approach mental health separately, when more often than not they're all working interconnectedly. For this reason, I believe that I have a unique voice for the future of mental health and broadening our approach to how we treat addiction in America.

My recovery is the cornerstone of everything I do and is truly the foundation on which I rebuilt. I’ve seen what it means to live on the other side of the struggle, fighting for my life because physically my body was ready to give up but still asking for more. I turned that drive that I used to find my next fix while I was drinking and using, into fuel to become my own success story. Recovery has given me purpose in myself and in paying it forward to others through leading by example that, we can, in fact, find a new way to live. Getting sober was my first step in my healing, but at the time I thought it was the only thing I needed. Recovery opened the door to finding myself as a yoga teacher because I received a scholarship for my 200hr, to which I continued on with my 300hr and decided I wanted to become a yoga therapist. Last spring I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder which was a root cause of not only my own illnesses but my drinking as well. Through obtaining my Ayurveda certification I realized I wanted to become a doctor of natural medicine. My goals now would've been insurmountable to my former self, and I express gratitude every day for the daily steps it took to get here. Without my recovery, I wouldn't have found my calling or come back home to myself.