I never had a huge “Aha moment” with nutrition and natural medicine, it’s just always been an innate thing in me since as far back as I can remember. When I was young, my mum was all about the acidophilus and wholegrains -long before it was cool. Taking probiotics was on my daily chore list and I was one of the few kids with brown bread in my lunch box. I was exposed to plenty of spiritual practises and healing modalities growing up; energy healing, vibrational medicine, kinesiology, affirmations, reiki, iridology, homeopathy, you name it. And I got well accustomed to green powders and gnarly tasting elixirs. And although I can’t say loved it at the time, the seed was well and truly planted.

After my parents separated when I was 9, my home life started to fork in two different directions. While health, wellness & ‘new age’ healing were at the forefront in my mum’s house, it wasn’t so much at my dad’s, where things were a lot more conventional. So I know what it’s like to grow up on both sides of that fence, it was like two different worlds.

There’s something about natural medicine that really interested me growing up. I remember as a kid, making ‘potions’ in the back yard and as a teenager I loved making home remedies, herbal teas, skincare and researching natural treatments for everything. In high school, I was drinking green (let’s be honest, they were grey) smoothies before my 8am classes and started really delving into personal development work.

After I finished high school, I left Australia for the very first time and backpacked around the world for almost a year before coming back and moving to Brisbane to start a degree in tourism and event management at UQ. Now, I loved travel and events so I thought this was the path for me, but after a while, I realised it didn’t fulfil me and I knew I wanted to be doing something in health and wellness. So in true Emalyse style, with a lust for adventure and guided by intuition, I packed up and moved to Melbourne to study Naturopathy and discover all the hidden laneways, street art and coffee I’d been hearing about.

And that’s where my official naturopathy journey began! I lived in Melbourne for over 3 years while I studied naturopathy and worked in a health food store -surrounded by health, wellness and kombucha. I loved it. Studying naturopathy was so interesting, challenging and life-changing. The body is incredible. It’s one of those things where the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know. I studied herbal medicine and nutrition extensively, as well as chemistry, biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, muscular anatomy, communication, business, history and philosophy, iridology, flower essences, prescribing, even massage! It was in-depth, and that’s what I like about naturopathy, it’s so holistic. 

After Melbourne, I packed up my life once again, sold everything I had and decided to go on the biggest adventure of my life to date. I went on my first solo travelling adventure and moved to the other side of the globe. I backpacked around Vietnam and Cambodia for 2 months, then travelled around England and up to Scotland for another 2 months, where I helped to set up a wellness retreat and lived off herbs in the garden. Then I was in Greece for a month and ran a herbal workshop at a festival in Croatia, before moving to Bristol in England for a year and a half and creating a life for myself where I didn’t know anyone! What a journey.

And that leads to where I am now, working as a naturopath back in Australia. I feel like I’ve lived 5 different lives in the past decade, but the consistent thing through it all has been a passion for health and wellbeing. Living in all these different environments has really shown me what’s important in my own life and some universal truths about health around the globe.

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