Healing is Not a Luxury

When I first began dreaming up this space you have found yourself visiting, I wasn’t launching something new. I was returning to something I had quietly started years ago. Rooted Soul began as a seed while I was working in nonprofit leadership and academia. It was a way to offer therapy and healing support that didn’t always fit inside the systems I was part of. A space where I could show up fully, grounded in cultural wisdom, trauma-informed practice, and justice-centered values.

Back then, Rooted Soul lived at the edges of my time and energy. It wasn’t yet a full-time practice, but the vision was there:
What would it look like to live and lead in a way that doesn’t cost us our health, our integrity, or our joy?

Now, after years of holding space for others in systems that are often under-resourced and overburdened, I’ve returned to Rooted Soul with full attention. Not as a side offering, but as the center of my work. It’s a commitment to care, to clarity, and to creating something different. After more than two decades in trauma recovery, community-based work, and systems change, I now know: Healing is not a luxury. It is THE work. When we treat restoration as extra—something we’ll get to after the crisis has calmed down—people suffer. Teams collapse. Missions lose meaning. We lose ourselves.

If healing has ever felt out of reach to you, you’re not alone.

Maybe you’ve been surviving for so long that slowing down feels dangerous. Maybe you’ve been taught that your worth is in what you do for others. Maybe you’ve learned to care for everyone but yourself. That’s not a personal flaw. It’s a reflection of the systems we’ve been shaped by. Systems that often reward overextension and treat rest as a privilege.

Healing isn’t selfish. And it doesn’t have to be grand, expensive, or perfect. Sometimes it’s as simple as:

Saying no when you mean no

Letting your shoulders drop

Naming what hurts

Taking a deep breath before you keep going

Asking for help and letting it land

These small practices aren’t separate from justice work. They’re part of it. Your healing matters, not just because of what you can do for others, but because you matter.

Rooted Soul is my refusal to keep doing things the old way. It’s a place for therapy, consulting, and somatic care that is culturally rooted and deeply human. It’s built for individuals, leaders, and organizations trying to move beyond survival and toward something more sustainable.

This practice lives at the intersection of personal healing and systemic change. It holds the belief that:

Healing is justice.
Repair is leadership.
Values alignment is the path.

So if you’re searching for a new way to live, lead, or serve—one that makes room for your wholeness—welcome.

Let’s begin again, together.