My Story
Hi, I’m Carrie. I was raised in Sacramento. I grew up living in the city but camping, exploring, and hunting with my family all over northern California. I have always had a deep connection with nature. I love the sounds, the animals, the beauty, the connection, the power. So much so that I yearned to live in the country. Fifteen years ago, I was able to finally achieve that dream and move to a 5.75 acre ranch in Loma Rica to raise my children and live with my horses.
I am a single mother with four adult children and a brand new grandbaby. I battled breast cancer and underwent a divorce during my illness. Being sick forced me to look inward to find and connect to the parts of myself that I was not listening to or utilizing. Through my healing process, I worked with allopathic doctors and did conventional treatments along with working with many different holistic doctors and modalities to help support my body in its healing. I worked with naturopaths and energy healers, took supplements, brewed Asiac tea, used essential oils, tried
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experimental tools, and meditated and journaled. I stopped letting others tell me what would be best. I learned to listen to my body and ask my doctors the hard questions that needed asking. I was an advocate for myself. After listening to the doctors and learning about the research of other countries, I followed my body’s lead and did whatever had to be done. Restricting my diet, traveling long distances to find alternative care, grounding in the back yard, hours of treatments, whatever was needed. When things took turns for the worst and doctors didn’t know what to do, I took things into my own hands and with the help of amazing healers and tools I made it through…herbs from Henry in China Town in Oakland to help with my skin, thyroid, and liver, a lymph drainage machine kept me alive for six months until I found a doctor who would do the surgery I knew I needed, light machines to heal my wounds, it goes on and on. I knew I had to survive to raise my children. There was no other option.
I've always had huge interest in Native culture, ceremony and holistic approaches to healing. Because my illnesses and raising my children as a single mother, I built a solid foundation in alternative therapies. From there, I continued to study, take classes and surround myself with amazing teachers and healers. Today, I am trained to work with many different modalities - some more "normal" here than others, but all of them have changed my life and other’s. I have done CranioSacral Therapy for over 12 years and with those clients, I often also use cold laser, Biomat, essential oils, foot detox, and lymph drainage to assist.
My life has thrown me some crazy ups and downs and I have lead myself into more sticky spots than I’d like to admit. Mostly because I was afraid to speak or stand up for myself. I was a co-dependent, chameleon, and pleaser. I have experienced abuse, rape, and trauma. Each of these has shaped me into the person I am today and give me first hand knowledge to help others experiencing similar situations.
I am also a medicine woman and coach. These two usually go hand in hand. I believe it is essential to work with my clients before working with any medicine. It is important for you to set intentions and so I will be able to support you during ceremony. With my coaching clients, medicines like Kambo, essential oils and energy work can be huge catalysts for moving beyond plateaus, supporting anxiety or depression, and assisting in releasing past trauma, etc. I am attending the CosmicSmith Medicine School to study other indigenous and non-traditional healing modalities. It's amazing how many things are out there that can be great tools. These healings may seem a bit off-mainstream but I have experienced firsthand their healing effects on myself and my clients.
I have survived a few big disasters firsthand – I lived and worked 30 miles from the epicenter of the 1989 earthquake, a levee broke 300 yards from my home in the 1997 Sacramento Valley Floods, in 2017, 22 people stayed at my home during the Lake Oroville Dam breach, and later that year my house sustained major damage from the Loma Rica Fires that took the lives of four of my neighbors and many other neighbors’ homes and possessions.
I have also been on the Yuba County Search and Rescue Team for over 14 years, many of which I was their Training Officer. We assist our Sheriff’s Department with evacuations, person and animal rescue, recovery, and finding lost people. Being on the Search and Rescue Team has influenced my survivalist mindset. I learned even more about and taught classes on how to make shelters, collect and make safe food and water, land navigation, map and compass usage, GPS navigation, along with ATV and horseback riding skills. I also am gun certified and have been an avid hunter for years with a deep respect and honor for the animals that grace my table.
I have always enjoyed teaching. For me, teaching is an amazing gift that not only shares knowledge and skills with the learner but teaches and blesses the trainer right back. I have been to many different healing and growth retreats and clinics that seem to focus on one single area of my being. I wanted to create a space that gives access to many different modalities at one time. Then, each part could be built upon individually once you are exposed to all that is available **. That is how my Wild Survival Retreats have been created. This is a place to come into community to learn survival skills and sustainability, be holistically supported, share knowledge, and find and grow your Wild.
If you feel a connection to me and my story, please join me in my Unearthing Call. It is a free 30 minute call in which we can discuss your needs. I look forward to working with you in the future to embrace your wild.
