My path into this work began with a childhood curiosity. Ever since I was young, health was one of the few subjects that consistently captured my attention. I was fascinated by the mind and body, by what made people feel better, and by the way a single insight could change someone’s understanding of themselves. Even early on, I loved sharing what I was learning. There was something deeply meaningful to me about offering someone a new perspective, a helpful principle, or a practical piece of information that might support their health in a real way.

Like many people who eventually find their way into holistic health, my path included several “waking up” moments. I began to see that the dominant model of healthcare had become very good at naming problems, but far less interested in understanding what created them. I realized that most conventional approaches to health were, to put it kindly, missing the mark. This eventually led me toward terrain-based healing, naturopathy, and the wider world of traditional and holistic medicine that had always existed, even though I had never been taught about it.

My own health challenges became part of that education. For years, I dealt with chronic low back pain, insomnia, brain fog, midday crashes, anxiety, and other patterns that forced me to look beneath the surface. In my late teens and early twenties, my life also included addiction and compulsive behaviors that I eventually learned to heal from and release. Those experiences humbled me. They taught me to examine the way I live, the burdens I carry, the patterns I keep repeating, and the relationship I have with body, mind, and heart.

That is where my deeper study began. I became devoted to understanding health from both directions: the things that damage and weaken the body, and the things that nourish, rebuild, and revitalize the body. I studied the terrain, the nervous system, nutrition, hydration, breath, movement, detoxification, emotional patterns, lifestyle rhythms, and the many environmental and internal stressors that shape a person’s health over time. I have explored many systems of medicine and healing, gathering what I found valuable from each and weaving them into a more unified, whole-person understanding.

Researching is one of my favorite things to do.

I study the relationship between nature, cycles, consciousness, and culture. I am drawn to old-world wisdom, symbolic systems, archetypal patterns, natural law, and forgotten ways of living and healing. I have always been interested in the deeper patterns beneath health, history, human behavior, and the stories we are handed without question.

One idea that has deeply shaped me comes from the classical Chinese medical ideal. In that tradition, especially when speaking of the highest kind of physician, medicine was not viewed as a narrow technical profession. It was part of a larger cultivation of the person. The physician was someone who understood not only the body, but nature, seasons, timing, morality, emotion, ritual, diet, movement, music, symbols, cosmology, and the patterns of Heaven and Earth. In other words, the physician was not merely a technician of the body. He was expected to become a cultivated human being, grounded in ethics, art, rhythm, nature, seasonal timing, and the study of life itself. Healing was understood as the restoration of harmony between the person and the larger order of life.

That is something I take to heart. Alongside my practice, I continue to study music, cosmology, symbolism, movement, ethics, and the many patterns that shape human life. I try to practice what I teach, and I do my best not to recommend anything I have not personally done or would not be willing to do myself.

In January 2026, I opened my terrain-based naturopathic practice, Know Thy Healing. Since then, I have had the honor of working with people from all over the world.

Outside of my work, I am a husband to the most loving wife, a piano player, and a soon-to-be father. I was born and raised just outside the Chicagoland area, where I currently live, though I also spent about eight years living in California, New York, and Michigan.

Much of my growth has come through study, personal experience, and relationships with brilliant holistic doctors, pioneers of natural medicine, and practitioners who walked a similar path before me. I stand on their shoulders with deep gratitude for all they have taught, shown, and shared with me. Their wisdom has deepened my understanding of healing as a dynamic, multi-layered process that is unique to each individual.