The April student and graduate spotlights demonstrate the power to connect with other like-minded individuals that social networks create. Several years ago, student spotlight Beatriz Sugarman and graduate spotlight Karen White met via the e-mail contact program CCNH has always made available on its Web site. The two women became friends and exchanged a few e-mails, but both of their lives became busy and they fell out of touch. However, when CCNH launched its Ning network, Sugarman and White found each other again! This time the pair decided to meet in person. Sugarman drove down to upstate New York from Canada and the pair spent hours discovering each other’s natural health passion and rekindling the friendship.
Join the CCNH Ning network today to connect and share your passions with others.
How did you become interested in natural health / holistic nutrition?
Self-suffiency has always been the primary motivator in my quest for holistic and natural health and for providing myself and my family with the best quality fresh food and natural health care I could find. The experiences I gleaned from living and working my first farm back in the 70’s and growing my own food was paramount in the realizations that the only person truly responsible for my health and well being was me, and no one could or was going to do it for me!
How did you decide on CCNH in particular…and how has this experience worked for you as a student?
We are a military family, and the nomadic life that we lead has not been conducive to being a student in the traditional type school settings, although I have managed to attend and finish many continuing educational courses at each new military base, including a paramedics course and a veterinary technician course. Secondly, some of the medical problems that I had experienced, coupled with a lack of good health care while in the military, made me realize that I needed a more holistic health type education and information to make clear informed choices when it came to my health care. CCNH provided answers to both those problems, as I was able to start working on my courses immediately. I found I could be a student and have a whole new world of natural health choices open up to me, continue to work at my job, and learn to care for my family from a whole new perspective and with more confidence.
Have your studies involved a career change, job enhancement, and/or personal healing?
Yes to all three! I am a caretaker farmer, gardener, and grower of plants and animals. When I’m not doing these things, I find I am spiritually sad, and working through the courses at Clayton over the last five years has opened my heart to a lot of those truths. Although I have struggled through some of the curriculum courses and may not have understood the meaning of them and their place in my chosen degrees at the time, not to mention life constantly getting in the way, I now find much solace, healing, and growth have taken place in my life because of the courses. I find I no longer seek a job for monetary gain, but for creative indulgence instead. I’ve even started a small herbal business in my community creating oils, salves, liniments, vinegars, and teas for folks wanting a more natural alternative and a better health regimen in their own lives.
Describe your “dream” career.
My dream career WILL be to own a large farm again, to grow and work a sustainable organic garden of vegetables, herbs, plants and animals where I can continue to create and experiment with plants, herbal formulas and teas. I will share this knowledge using hands on educational classes, well-written, honest and up-to-date pamphlets and literature, and children’s farming teaching-groups where everyone interested in learning about their own family health can become more self-sufficient.
Are you a teacher coach?
Although I’m not a licensed teacher or coach, I have been invited as an educational and motivational speaker at several different groups such as the Lion’s Club and smoking cessation classes in my community over the last few years. Also, I am now a monthly speaker with our local T.O.P.S. (Taking Off Pounds Sensibly) group. Some of the courses I’ve completed with CCNH have been absolutely essential to me when preparing for these engagements. I thoroughly enjoy talking, encouraging, and supporting other folks, and I always come away from these engagements knowing I have learned as much or more than my participants!
When I am asked to speak at any engagement, part of my preparation is to do extensive research for information to be able to write a formal informational paper on whatever subject I’m asked to speak about, and I always make handouts and use working props for the group’s ease of learning and participating. Due to the increasing requests for me to speak at meetings, I find that I have become an author, host, and expert simply due to the fact that I am extraordinarily passionate about finding the best information out there that I can and then delivering it to the people who attend the presentations. It’s a great responsibility to be offered the chance to participate in other people’s lives and to be a trusted and respected source for information they need in order for them to make their own choices so they can be as healthy and self-sufficient as possible. I am very happy to be known locally not as Karen White, but as “The Tea Lady.”
What would you like to convey about your applications of mind/body/spirit health, as relates to work philosophy/professional life?
I believe we have a great responsibility to strive for excellence in everything we undertake. Be it work or play, our spirituality is the driving force for that enthusiasm. It’s a belief system that provides a great deal of self-satisfaction when goals are accomplished. The rhythm that plays in my head since the time I can remember has always been that there’s no point even starting or working on something or with someone if I’m not going to give it my full attention.
Do you have a favorite quotation, health-related or not, that you’d like to share?
Something I have lived by, and repeated to my family over the years more times than they want to remember especially when they were caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar, is “It doesn’t matter what anyone else does, it only matters what you do.”
This article was based on an interview with the graduate.
|| Archived Graduate Spotlights
