Why I Practice Holistic Therapy (and How I Got Here)

When people ask why I practice holistic therapy, I usually smile — because the real answer is long, winding and deeply personal. My professional path and my personal evolution are completely intertwined. The way I show up as a therapist comes directly from the way I’ve experienced healing myself.

I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be a “holistic therapist.” It unfolded slowly — through study, heartbreak, healing and motherhood.

Finding My Way to Psychology

I still remember sitting on an L.A. city bus, my AP Psychology textbook open on my lap. I started reading and felt an instant spark. Suddenly, all my endless why questions — why people behave the way they do, why we repeat patterns, why pain lingers — finally had a place to land. Psychology didn’t just fascinate me; it made the world make sense.

Around that same time, I took a Kundalini yoga class to fulfill a P.E. requirement — mostly because I’d heard you got to nap at the end. Turns out, the “nap” was Shavasana and the class wasn’t just yoga — it was Kundalini yoga, one of the most energetically powerful forms you can practice.

During one meditation, my whole body tingled and my mind finally went quiet. I didn’t have words for it then, but that was my first taste of somatic awareness — the idea that your body can be a teacher, not just a pedestal for your head.

Learning to Heal From the Inside Out

Years later, when I started graduate school at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (now called Sofia University), everything clicked again. This wasn’t a program that let you hide behind theory. If you were studying family systems, you looked at your own family. If you were studying trauma, you faced your own. It was raw, humbling and transformative.

One of the most memorable courses was Mindfulness and the Therapeutic Relationship. Guided meditations helped me feel peace in my own body for the first time. I understood, in a lived way, the difference between self-awareness and self-connection. Healing wasn’t just about insight — it was about embodiment.

Those experiences taught me that to hold space for another person’s pain, you have to be able to sit with your own. That belief — that healing happens through honesty, relationship and presence — became the foundation of how I practice therapy today.

When My Studies Met My Reality

Halfway through grad school, my personal life fell apart. I was in an abusive relationship that I couldn’t yet name as abusive. I minimized, rationalized and ignored the voice inside me that knew something was wrong.

Meanwhile, I was literally studying trauma and boundaries. The contradiction was painful — I could explain the theory but couldn’t yet live it.

Everything came to a head when my family and a close friend confronted me with what they’d seen. It was the wake-up call I needed. I left the relationship, quit my job and moved home to Los Angeles to start over. Therapy became my lifeline.

When my new therapist asked, “What’s your goal?” I said, I just want to understand myself better.

That season was an initiation — the moment I stopped learning about healing and started living it. I began aligning who I was in the therapy room with who I was in real life. It was messy, but it was real growth.

Rediscovering Healing Beyond Talk

Back in L.A., I started with traditional talk therapy, but soon found myself craving something deeper. I saw a hypnotherapist — which felt a little “out there” at first — and the experience blew my mind. It reminded me that so much of healing happens below the surface, in the subconscious and the body.

That realization was the moment I fully understood how different holistic therapy feels from traditional talk therapy — it doesn’t just explore your thoughts, it helps you experience healing through the body, emotions and energy, too. If you’d like a deeper look at what sets the two apart, I break it down in this post on the difference between holistic and traditional therapy.

Around the same time, I tried acupuncture for chronic stress. It was the first time a practitioner had asked about my relationships, sleep and emotions — not just my symptoms. I left that first session feeling seen as a whole person, not a set of problems to fix. That mirrored exactly what I wanted therapy to be for my clients.

From there, I dove into all things mind-body-spirit: yoga, breathwork, intuition, moon circles, self-compassion workshops — anything that deepened the connection between inner and outer worlds. I wasn’t searching for one right path; I was experimenting, listening and noticing what helped me feel most alive.

Burnout and Realignment

Becoming a therapist is its own rite of passage. Before you can even sit for licensure, you need 3,000 hours of supervised experience — often unpaid — working with clients in crisis while receiving minimal support yourself. It’s a setup for burnout and I wasn’t immune.

I worked in settings that cut ethical corners and overloaded therapists with impossible caseloads. There was a stretch when my entire client list was reassigned overnight because of an administrative error. It was disheartening. I kept thinking, Once I’m licensed, I’ll finally do therapy the way I want to.

But the more I pushed through, the further I drifted from my holistic roots. I considered leaving the field entirely — maybe getting a PhD or switching careers — but what I really needed wasn’t a new degree. I needed a new environment.

So instead of escaping, I built a private practice where I could finally practice therapy in the way I believed in — slower, deeper, more connected. I chose a supervisor whose approach honored intuition, embodiment and energy and under his mentorship, I came home to myself as a clinician. For the first time, I could integrate everything I’d learned — from science to spirituality — into one coherent way of working.

An Illness That Rewired My Beliefs

Not long after, I got sick — the kind of mysterious illness where every test comes back normal but you know something’s wrong. I literally couldn’t breathe. I was exhausted all the time. Each specialist sent me to someone else. Eventually, I realized the only way forward was to look at the whole picture.

I found a holistic doctor, a nutritionist and an energy healer. We looked at food, sleep, stress and environment. I learned that my home had mold — I moved and my symptoms immediately improved. I practiced Reiki, meditated and even explored what my body might be trying to tell me symbolically. In Chinese medicine, the lungs relate to grief. So I asked myself, What am I holding onto?

Healing came. And it reminded me of something I already knew: the body is wise. When we listen to it — physically, emotionally, spiritually — it tells us exactly what it needs.

The Law of Attraction and Spiritual Integration

Around that time, a close friend recommended The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein and I devoured it in a weekend. It was like discovering psychology all over again — except this time, the focus was on energy, intuition and alignment.

For someone raised in a science-first family, the concept of co-creating with the universe was radical. But it resonated. I started reading Pam Grout’s E-Squared, diving into manifestation podcasts and testing the ideas for myself. Slowly, I saw changes — and it was magical. When I acted from trust rather than fear, life flowed more easily.

It also changed how I showed up for clients. I never impose spirituality, but when someone talks about trusting the universe or finding meaning in a challenge, I can meet them there authentically. For others who prefer a more concrete lens, I meet them there too. Being holistic means being fluent in both languages — the psychological and the spiritual.

Motherhood as My Greatest Teacher

A few years later, my holistic philosophy deepened again — this time through motherhood.

Fertility

I’d always known I wanted to be a mom. But conceiving wasn’t simple. It took a year, with early losses along the way. That season tested every ounce of faith I had. I leaned heavily on manifestation, gratitude and surrender — trusting that our baby’s spirit would join us when the time was right.

I did weekly acupuncture, ate nourishing foods and focused on joy wherever I could find it. We even adopted a family symbol — yellow butterflies — as a sign that our baby was on their way. When we finally conceived around Christmas, it felt like the ultimate affirmation that patience and trust pay off.

Pregnancy

I approached pregnancy holistically from day one — mind, body and spirit. I wanted a physiologic birth, not one driven by intervention or fear. I watched The Business of Being Born, read empowering resources and chose a birthing center instead of a hospital.

Research shows that while many women hope for a low-intervention birth, hospital routines often lead to unnecessary procedures. That reality made me even more determined to prepare intentionally: weekly acupuncture, prenatal chiropractic (Webster method), childbirth education classes at Village Birth and hypnobirthing.

I surrounded myself with community, moved my body gently and filled my mind with encouragement instead of anxiety. Every choice was about creating safety and trust — within myself, not just the system.

Birth

When labor finally came, it was everything I had hoped for — raw, intense and deeply sacred. My doula, Becca Roth and the team at Moxie Birth supported me through each wave with calm confidence.

All the elaborate tools I’d prepared — music, oils, affirmations — fell away. What carried me was simplicity: breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth, one contraction at a time. The process moved faster than anyone expected. I birthed on hands and knees, fully present, fully in my power.

It was the most embodied experience of my life — proof that when we trust our bodies, they know what to do.

Postpartum

I wanted postpartum to be as intentional as pregnancy, so we planned for it. Before birth, my acupuncturist and herbalist prepared postpartum meals based on Traditional Chinese Medicine — warm, nourishing stews filled with ginger, turmeric and herbs.

Many cultures treat the first forty days after birth as sacred — a time when the mother rests, the baby bonds and the community provides care. I followed that model as best I could: reading The First Forty Days, practicing belly binding, receiving massage and acupuncture and accepting every ounce of help offered.

Still, postpartum was hard. My nervous system was raw and my baby didn’t sleep easily. Eventually, my husband and I decided to work with a sleep consultant. While sleep training isn’t typically called “holistic,” I believe holistic living means caring for everyone’s well-being — including parents. It was the right choice for us and it helped restore balance to our family.

Bringing It All Together

People often ask about my holistic approach to therapy, but it’s impossible to separate it from who I am. My personal and professional lives inform each other constantly.

If I’ve studied anxiety treatment in graduate school and also lived through my own anxiety, both forms of wisdom belong in the room. I don’t privilege the textbook over the lived experience — I use whichever truth helps the person in front of me.

I see the body, mind and spirit as one conversation. When a client mentions anxiety and a stomachache, I don’t treat them as separate. I see both the physiological and the symbolic — maybe there’s something in their life they can’t quite “digest.” Healing starts when we listen to those layers instead of dismissing them.

Holistic therapy isn’t a technique. It’s a worldview — one that honors how interconnected we are and how capable we are of healing when we bring all parts of ourselves into the process.

The same perspective that helped me through burnout, illness and motherhood is the one I bring to my clients every day. Real healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken — it’s about remembering what’s whole.

If my story and approach to therapy (and life) resonates with you, I’d love for you to learn more. Visit my Holistic Therapy in California page to see how we can work together.

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Disclaimer

This post is meant for educational purposes only and isn’t a substitute for diagnosis, assessment or treatment of mental conditions. If you need professional help, seek it out.

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About the author

Hi! I'm Natalie. And my passion is helping ambitious, creative millennials achieve everything they want in life, career and relationships. I provide in-person therapy in Pasadena and online therapy throughout California. Click here to get started.