Roots of Healing: My Journey into Herbalism
A nighttime ritual of mine is preparing a spiced cacao latte, a ritual passed down from my grandparents, whose families grew cocoa in Jamaica. My grandad would drink chocolate tea with his grandmother before bed, and later treated himself and my grandmother to it every Sunday evening, always with a dash of nutmeg.
This simple act connects me to something I didn't even know I'd lost.
It Was Always There
I didn't come to herbalism in a straight line, and I certainly didn't grow up outdoorsy. My grandad kept plants indoors, but I watched my mother struggle to keep them alive. I would have told you I had no connection to plant medicine.
But six months into my herbal studies, a cousin told me about my grandma's great aunt, the woman everyone went to when they were sick, who delivered all the babies. She was the community herbalist and midwife. My cousin shared how her own mother would dream of the plants needed when her children fell ill, then go out the next morning to find them.
Discovering my family’s hidden herbal healing legacy had a profound emotional impact. I realised I wasn’t just learning herbalism, I was remembering it. I was following a path my ancestors walked. These stories showed me that herbalism ran deep in my bloodline and that I wasn’t disconnected at all. They showed me the spiritual and the intuitive dimension of herbs coming through dreams. And this knowledge had been passed down through the generations, particularly the women.
Looking back, herbalism was woven through my childhood in ways I hadn't recognised. Peppermint, chamomile, and lemon and ginger teabags were always in the cupboard. Soups were packed with thyme and allspice. The sorrel at Christmas. During school holidays, we'd drink cerasee as a "washout". I hated those bitters then, but so appreciative of them now.
The medicine was always there. I just hadn't learned to see it yet.
When the Body Demands You Listen
In my late twenties, after what felt like a breakdown (or perhaps a spiritual awakening), two decades of held trauma could no longer be contained. Somatic manifestations began to surface, which I couldn't ignore: anxiety, extreme fatigue, chronic muscle tension, gastrointestinal chaos.
The body keeps the score, as they say.
Navigating complex PTSD means living with a nervous system in overdrive, in shutdown, or oscillating between the two. I'd been running on fumes for years to avoid being with myself, which is excellent in a productivity-obsessed world, but the opposite of what healing requires.
Healing demands a slowdown. And certain herbs quite literally held me together during that time, helping me find adaptability when everything felt rigid and fragile at the same time.
Working with plants taught me the crucial difference between symptom management and true healing. These herbs didn't force anything. They offered support gently, consistently, like a trusted friend who sits beside you without trying to fix you.
Healing Is Never One Thing
My healing didn't happen through herbalism alone. It required (and still does require) multiple pathways.
Yoga reconnects me to my breath and teaches me to inhabit a body that sometimes feels unsafe through slow, intentional movement.
Craniosacral therapy showed me the power of gentle touch, of someone holding space for my nervous system to unwind at its own pace without rushing or fixing.
Nature connection, walking, hiking, sitting with trees, gardening, and hands in the soil remind me that I'm not separate from the natural world, but deeply, inextricably part of it. Nature doesn't rush, and it's teaching me not to either.
This is all medicine. Your combination will look different from mine. True healing requires a multifaceted approach, and I honour that in how I work with others.
Reclaiming What Was Never Really Lost
As a Black woman, my reconnection to herbalism is deeply spiritual. I'm coming home to something that was always mine.
Our ancestors knew these plants. They knew how to heal with what grew around them. Knowledge was passed through generations until colonisation and enslavement tried to sever those connections. Our medicine was dismissed as superstition, as primitive, as something to forget.
But you cannot kill knowledge that lives in the body, in the memory, in the hands that remember how to touch the earth.
I'm grateful to our ancestors who kept this knowledge alive at great personal risk. Working with plants now is an act of remembering and reclamation. It's resistance. It's saying that what was taken can be found again, that we have always known how to heal ourselves, and that knowledge is our birthright.
How I Hold Space for Others
I came to this work through my own healing, which shapes so much in how I practice.
I know what it's like to feel broken, to have a nervous system that won't settle, to need someone who understands that healing isn't about fixing what's wrong with you. It's about creating conditions for you to come back to yourself.
In my workshops and one-to-one sessions, I create the space I needed when I was struggling:
Where you don't have to perform wellness or pretend you're further along than you are
Where slowing down is encouraged, not judged
Where your experience is honoured, and so is your inherent wisdom about what you need
I work from a trauma-aware lens because I understand that for many of us, our bodies don't feel like safe places to inhabit. The herbs I recommend and practices I suggest are designed to help you find your way back into your body gently, to remember that healing is possible even when it doesn’t feel like it.
Holding space for someone else's healing journey is sacred work and a responsibility I do not take lightly. It is an honour that moves me every time someone trusts me with their story.
I'm not here to fix you. You're not broken.
I'm here to walk beside you, to share what the plants have taught me, to offer compassionate care while you find your own way home to yourself.
An Invitation
Hopefully, something you’ve read here resonated. Maybe you're also looking for a gentler way, a slower way, a way of healing that honours your whole self, body, mind, and spirit.
I'm building a practice focused on this approach.
In workshops, we explore herbalism not just as medicine but as relationship, as spiritual practice, as a way of reconnecting with ourselves and ancestral wisdom.
In individual sessions, we work together to understand what your body needs, what plants might support you, and how to create sustainable practices that actually fit your life.
Healing isn't linear (cliché, I know, but true). It's a practice, a returning, a conversation you have with yourself and the world around you for the rest of your life.
You don't have to do it alone.
If you're looking for support that meets you where you are with compassion and without judgment, I'm here. And the kettle is always on.
Ready to explore what herbalism might offer you? Join my next workshop or get in touch to learn more about working together.
Subscribe to my newsletter for updates on more herbal musings.
