I was raised in an Irish Catholic family. My grandmother’s house was filled with rosary beads and holy water, and I went to church every Sunday.

As a young girl, however, I struggled to connect with church and religion. I believed in God, but I craved a direct, personal experience of Spirit that I just wasn’t finding. 

When I was old enough, I stopped going to church altogether and for the next several years I turned away from religion. However, I always remained curious about the nature of God and existence.

To satisfy this curiosity, I immersed myself in the existential literature of Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Sartre and would often find myself exploring the philosophy and spirituality section at Barnes and Noble (this was before the time of Amazon).

Eventually, I stumbled upon a book that would change my life, “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda.

“Autobiography of a Yogi” introduced me to the world of spirituality, yoga, and mysticism and showed me the connections between eastern religions and Christianity. It provided answers to many of the questions I was asking about the nature of reality, and it showed me that it was possible to have a direct, personal experience of God.

“Autobiography of a Yogi” woke me up, and I was never able to go back to sleep.

I started taking yoga classes and reading every book I could find on eastern philosophy and spirituality. I was alive and excited in a way that I hadn’t felt before, and I knew I had found my path.

This would eventually lead me to Boston College, a Jesuit university where I would major in comparative theology. It was at Boston College that my love of God, spirituality, Christianity, and eastern religions would take a firm hold.

At Boston College, I started attending candlelight Taize prayer, meditating in my dorm room closet, going on service trips around the world, and having my first real conversations about God.

I began to see the underlying threads of truth that connect all religions and began to have my own personal experience of God and spirituality.

So how did all of this lead me to naturopathic medicine?

During my final year at Boston College, I went on a service trip to Ghana where I was introduced to herbal medicine. One of the first nights in Ghana, I got really sick. I enjoyed a sip of the local libations offered by our host family and spent the entire night on the bathroom floor.

In the morning, an elder would bring me a ‘bitter leaf’ to help with my stomach. I was hesitant to ingest this unknown plant from a country that I barely knew, but I was also desperate for help, and to my surprise, it worked!

I was grateful for the relief and also intrigued by this bitter herb.

What was this magical plant that healed me??

(I still don’t know for sure, but I think it was Veronia amygdaline.)