Hi, I’m Dr. Liz
Welcome to my corner of the internet!
I love helping people connect with their bodies and understand their healing process so they can grow into the best versions of themselves.
Guiding people through the process of learning to trust and listen to their body is my expertise.
I work through the lens of naturopathic medicine and Chinese medicine and I’m super passionate about making trustworthy health information affordable, accessible, and easy to understand.
You’ll find all of my teachings geared toward:
- helping you reconnect with your body, mind, and spirit
- discovering and addressing the root cause of your issues naturally
- increasing your confidence in your own inner ability to heal
- strengthening your resilience, self-compassion, and curiosity toward your inner self
I have 3 core values that provide the foundation for everything I do
Generosity
I’m allergic to gatekeeping so I give my best stuff away for free. Follow along with my newsletter and social media, or grab a few of my free downloads (the price is your email address) to start or continue your natural health journey.
Affordability
Access to natural health education can be challenging so I’ve created a variety of products to fit everyone’s budget. My workshops and group programs make my teachings accessible without breaking the bank. My 1:1 work includes a full pay and a reduced rate option for those who qualify.
Empowerment through education
Your body is always leading you back to health but it can be challenging to understand if you don’t speak its language. My mission is to demystify its signals and teach you how to tune in, be curious, and ask the right questions.
YOU are your own best expert and it’s time you learned how to flex that superpower.
My goal is to help you embrace who you are so you can rise to the challenge of walking your healing path.
Ways I can support you:
Get free weekly health tips by signing up for my newsletter. You’ll also be the first to know about new blogs, videos, courses, and special discounts.
Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.
Check out my ever-growing list of workshops.
Work with me 1:1 with virtual health coaching.
Or sign up for my waitlist to be the first to know about new offerings.
Fun things about me
I was born and raised along the mighty Mississippi River in Iowa and though I love the Pacific Northwest dearly, I still miss thunderstorms.
I will laugh uncontrollably 10 out of 10 times when my husband says “don’t smile” when I ask him to take a photo.
My guilty pleasures are baking and relationship reality TV shows and 90s Star Trek.
In my spare time I enjoy writing, knitting, sewing, photography, hiking, and dabbling in rock climbing.
Educational Background
My undergraduate education included pre-med studies and majors in psychology and women’s studies from Washington University in St. Louis. From there I made the trek across the great midwest to Seattle where I earned my doctorate in naturopathic medicine and a master’s in acupuncture at Bastyr University in 2011.
I studied craniosacral therapy with Dr. Faith Christensen and Dr. Masa Takakura, visceral manipulation with Dr. Ron Marrotti, and 5 Element Acupuncture with Jim Dowling and Lonny Jarrett.
My Story
How I learned to find healing despite a broken healthcare system.
I had the best family doctor growing up.
He was always running late, but once he stepped into the room he was thorough, kind, unrushed, and loved connecting with his patients.
From a young age I felt that I wanted to follow in his footsteps and planned to attend western medical school.
This dream evaporated during my second year in college when I shadowed physicians as part of my pre-med curriculum.
One doctor would spend 5 minutes in the room with a patient, tell them to eat healthy, and then get McDonald's for lunch for himself.
I shadowed others who:
- Were so burned out they couldn’t muster sympathy for patients
- Had no time to understand the full picture of people’s health issues due to insurance time constraints and patient load (and frankly some didn’t want to)
- Prescribed to deal with symptoms rather than investigating why those symptoms were occurring
During the same few months, I experienced an incredibly dehumanizing visit to the dermatologist that involved stripping down in front of two male residents barely older than I was while I had two active eating disorders and body dysmorphia.
Adding to that humiliation, I literally had to fight to keep the attending physician in the room for more than 3 minutes to answer my questions.
My brain wrestled with the meaning of healthcare as I had understood it versus what I was currently observing and experiencing.
I realized that my family physician as a child was the outlier rather than the norm.
There was so much hypocrisy and so many systemic limitations that being a doctor didn’t feel like it would ever satisfy my dream of truly helping people the way I had envisioned.
I learned that there was a difference between being a doctor and being a healer. I wanted to be a healer.
Growing up I wasn’t exposed to alternative medicine and really had no idea what was even possible outside of the western medical system.
Eventually, I stumbled onto a book that mentioned Chinese medicine and naturopathic medicine and their philosophies deeply resonated with me.
Chinese medicine and naturopathic medicine:
- View the body as an integrated whole
- Treat the root cause rather than chasing or suppressing symptoms
- Believe that the body is capable of healing itself
- Value teaching as a part of the healing process
I applied to Bastyr University in Seattle and spent the next five years studying naturopathic medicine and acupuncture.
During this time I learned that you’re not ready to heal others if you’re not ready to heal yourself.
Remember those eating disorders I mentioned? Yeah, they were still there.
I was using sheer willpower to deny they were a problem but my hypocrisy became clearer the longer I left them unaddressed.
When I started seeing patients in the student clinic, I asked people to treat themselves with compassion and to be patient with their process.
But I had never cared for myself in a loving way in my life so my suggestions felt empty and inauthentic.
This superficial pursuit of my dream made me start to question my integrity.
Deep down, I knew that I could only help people as much as I was able to help myself.
You can’t heal a part of yourself without understanding your whole self.
That understanding has to be earned through our own deep, messy, vulnerable work of confronting our shadows, our demons, our grief, and any dark, sticky places we find within ourselves.
So I started weekly counseling with a naturopathic doctor. I exposed my bruised and broken self fully to her which was utterly terrifying.
She held my vulnerability with compassion and without judgment.
She gently challenged my core beliefs of worthlessness and never feeling good enough. She encouraged me to look at the parts of myself I was spending a ton of energy denying.
After working with her I felt:
- Engaged with my body; I could listen to it and respect it rather than fight its signals
- More accepting of myself; my perceived flaws became areas to work with rather than failures
- Empowered to finally step onto my own path in life and shed old layers that were no longer relevant to the person I was evolving into
- Clear on the value and sacredness of the patient-practitioner relationship and the level of trust and integrity necessary to create a healing space
When I graduated from Bastyr University in 2011 with degrees in naturopathic medicine and acupuncture, I was determined to offer the transformational healing I had experienced with my naturopath to all of my patients.
When I started practicing later that year, I spent a lot of my time educating my patients about their bodies and their healing process.
I realized how much I loved teaching and that it would be a core part of my medicine.
After a few years of getting my practice established, I decided to start a newsletter and build a website dedicated to my teaching.
I’ve been slowly adding blogs, workshops, free downloads, and more since 2016 while continuing to practice. I got serious about social media in 2022 as a venue for my teaching.
Teaching for me is a compulsion. I love it. I’m constantly learning and figuring out how to distill that knowledge into bite-sized pieces that everyone can benefit from.
Because that’s what my naturopathic doctor and the healers in my life have done for me.
And I believe everyone should have access to that life-changing knowledge.
I sincerely hope that you find the information I share empowering and that it inspires you to live a fuller, happier, healthier life.