I want to share a little bit about my story about how I fell in love with herbal medicine.

My journey to be an herbalist started before I was born. In my mother’s womb, the umbilical cord was tightly wrapped around my body and deprived me of oxygen. I came out as a blue baby with serious breathing problems. My mom said I sounded like a broken car engine having a hard time getting down the street. The accessory muscles of my neck and ribs were being sucked in with every breath because I had such a hard time breathing. It was that bad for the initial years of my life. Western pharmaceutical drugs did not help. My family took me to many Western medical doctors seeking relief for my breathing problems but none of them were able to help me. The Western doctors concluded I would have serious breathing problems all of my life.

An elder in the family suggested that my parents take me to a local herbalist who treated me with massage and gave me herbs to drink. After a few months of being treated, the phlegm was gone from my lungs, I had no more wheezing, and I never had breathing problems again. After years of suffering, It was the power of herbal medicine that cured me.

I was able to breathe in life because of herbal medicine. It became part of my blood and it has seeped into my bones. Later in life, my interest to formally study herbal medicine deepened when I spent a couple of years living with local and indigenous communities in the Philippines learning from their healers about the local plants, the art of medicine making, and acupuncture. Towards the end of this period of my life in the Philippines, I experienced severe trauma and injury.

When I returned to the United States, it was the healing power of East Asian Medicine that helped me. I needed surgery after the incident but I was able to fully recover faster and with no pain medication because of acupuncture and Chinese herbs. Through therapy, meditation and especially the energy practice of Qi gong and Tai Chi, I was also able to heal the psychological and spiritual wounds of that trauma.

It was this experience of trauma and healing that has taught me the powerful, indomitable spirit of the human soul and the incredible ability of our bodies to heal. What I discovered is the Little Sage in all of us.

After I graduated from East Asian medical school, I opened Little Sage Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine with the mission to help as many people as I can with this wonderful medicine. I feel deeply honored to have been called to practice this medicine. It has allowed me to discover my true self and answer my highest calling to be of service to others.