Can You Switch Careers Into Health and Wellness?

Yes.

You can switch careers into health and wellness.

And nothing.

There isn't a “but” at the end of that sentence.

You can.

The world needs more of this. Whatever you have to bring to it, the world needs that—and it needs you.

I wish somebody had told me that years ago.

Because Healing Thyme was never supposed to become my career.

It was a side quest.

Healing Thyme Started as an ADHD Side Quest

When I first took Reiki I & II, there was a section at the end of the training about how you could start practicing and building a business.

And I remember thinking:

Oh. I could do that.

So I did.

Literally.

I went home, started a business, built a website and within about 24 hours I was taking clients.

This was pre-AI, by the way. Starting something now is exponentially easier than it was even six years ago.

I had absolutely no master plan to leave my career and become a full-time wellness practitioner. Healing Thyme was just something I could do on evenings and weekends. I could take clients when I wanted to. I could teach occasionally. I could learn things that fascinated me.

I didn't really market it.

I didn't need it to become anything.

And maybe that's part of what allowed it to become what it did.

Because slowly, something started happening.

I realized Healing Thyme filled me.

At the time, I had a career I genuinely loved. I was extraordinarily passionate about the company, the industry and the work I was doing.

For years I would basically say:

“Healing Thyme fills me so I can go back and fill everything else.”

My corporate career took an enormous amount of energy from me. Healing Thyme somehow gave energy back.

That distinction eventually became impossible to ignore.

I Didn't Know Work Was Allowed to Feel This Good

This has probably been the biggest surprise of changing careers.

I didn't know work didn't have to be stressful.

I didn't know going to work could actually fill me.

I didn't know I could finish a workday with more joy instead of less.

Since moving into Healing Thyme full-time, I have called my husband over and over after sessions, classes and events just to say:

“Oh my God. I love my job.”

That's it.

I love my job.

I'm grinning when I say it.

There is a peace in my life that I genuinely didn't know could exist alongside work.

I had spent years believing that being really good at your job meant carrying it. Thinking about it constantly. Working ridiculous hours. Solving every problem. Being available. Producing. Performing. Achieving.

I was working 70- and 80-hour weeks.

Now I work a fraction of that.

And the strangest part isn't simply having more time.

My brain isn't heavy anymore.

Work doesn't have to take from me.

Sometimes it actually gives something back.

The First Thing You Need Isn't a Business Plan

If someone asked me what they needed before switching careers into wellness, I think most people would expect me to say:

Get the right certification.

Build a website.

Learn marketing.

Write a business plan.

Save six months of expenses.

Figure out social media.

Those things can matter.

But they're not where I would start.

I'd start with self-efficacy.

Self-confidence says, “I feel good about myself.”

Self-efficacy says:

“I may have absolutely no idea how to do this, but I know I can figure it out.”

I've had questionable self-confidence at plenty of points in my life.

My self-efficacy, however, is stupid high.

I genuinely believe I can figure almost anything out.

I don't need to already know the answer. I need to know how to find the answer.

That may be one of the greatest gifts my brain has ever given me.

There's legitimate research connecting ADHD traits—particularly hyperactivity and impulsivity—with entrepreneurship and self-employment, although the science is much more nuanced than the internet-friendly claim that people with ADHD are simply “50% more likely to become entrepreneurs.” Some studies have found positive associations with self-employment and entrepreneurial behavior, while broader research suggests the relationship is complicated and can vary significantly by individual.

For me, though, the ability to bounce between ideas, solve new problems, learn quickly, follow curiosity and think, “Okay, what's next?” became an enormous entrepreneurial advantage.

I love figuring out what the fuck to do next.

That matters.

Because you can learn bookkeeping.

You can learn marketing.

You can learn how to build a website.

You can learn what an EIN is.

You can learn scheduling software and client management and insurance and SEO and social media.

You don't have to know everything before you start.

But somewhere underneath all of it, you have to begin cultivating the belief:

I can figure this out.

You Also Need to Study

And I don't necessarily mean business.

I mean study whatever keeps pulling you.

My education started with Medical Qigong and Reiki and then exploded from there.

I studied Medical Qigong extensively. Reiki. Sound therapy. Breathwork—including pranayama, holotropic approaches, somatic approaches, Wim Hof-style practices and plenty of others. Foot zoning. Ho'oponopono and forgiveness practices. Emotion Code and Body Code. Traditional Chinese Medicine concepts. Acupressure. Energy medicine.

I studied approaches to working with animals.

I studied anatomy, psychology and biochemistry.

I took classes exploring spiritual practices, intuitive development, different religions and different ways human beings across cultures have tried to understand the body, healing, consciousness and meaning.

And eventually the most interesting part wasn't collecting certifications.

It was realizing how many different languages human beings have developed to describe surprisingly similar experiences.

I wanted a gigantic toolbox.

Not because every client needed every tool.

Exactly the opposite.

I wanted enough tools that I didn't have to force every person into the one framework I happened to understand.

A skeptic should be able to walk into Healing Thyme and feel comfortable.

Someone who is deeply spiritual should be able to walk in and feel comfortable.

Someone should be able to say, “Explain this to me without any woo-woo,” and I can.

Someone else can say, “Give me all the witchy magic,” and I understand that vocabulary too.

The goal was never to make people understand the world the way I understand it.

The goal was to get better at meeting people where they are.

There isn't good evidence for one universal percentage of wellness practitioners who train across multiple modalities, but research in several complementary-health professions suggests cross-training is common.

That makes sense to me.

The more people I worked with, the more obvious it became that one tool was never going to be the answer for every person.

Credentials Aren't the Same Thing as Integrity

This is where I think the wellness industry needs a much bigger conversation.

I have a lot of certificates hanging in my office.

Part of the reason I accumulated so many early on was because I wanted credibility.

And honestly? In America, those certificates help.

People walk in, see that you've actually studied something and relax a little.

But eventually I learned something much more important:

A certificate does not make somebody ethical.

And in many areas of wellness, there isn't a regulatory body standing over you every minute telling you where the line is.

That means your integrity has to be stronger than your ego.

You are working with people who may be vulnerable.

They may be grieving.

They may be going through divorce.

They may be living with cancer or chronic illness.

They may be struggling with their mental health.

They may be desperately looking for an answer.

That creates an enormous responsibility.

One of the biggest lessons I had to learn was that helping someone does not mean telling them what to do.

A client may come to me and say:

“My doctor said this.”

“My therapist told me this.”

“My partner did this.”

“My other practitioner told me that.”

It is not my job to immediately decide who is good, who is bad and who is wrong.

It isn't my job to diagnose someone else's intentions.

It isn't my job to tell someone to abandon appropriate medical or mental-health care.

My job is to hold the space I have actually been asked and trained to hold.

Consent matters.

Scope matters.

Privacy matters.

Boundaries matter.

If somebody comes to me for Reiki, I'm not going to randomly decide halfway through that they're getting a completely different service.

If you are my friend, I'm not secretly “reading your energy.”

Did you ask me to?

Did you consent?

Am I actually in a practitioner relationship with you?

No?

Then it isn't my business.

I tell the practitioners I train that the work requires learning how to let people leave when the session ends, too.

Caring deeply about somebody doesn't give you ownership of their story.

Federal privacy law is also more specific than people sometimes realize: HIPAA does not automatically govern every wellness practitioner or private business. It applies to specific covered entities and business associates.

Regardless of whether a particular practitioner technically falls under HIPAA, I believe strong confidentiality practices should be a baseline for this work.

And laws, licensing requirements and scopes of practice vary depending on what you're doing and where you're doing it.

Learn yours.

Get appropriate insurance.

Get appropriate training.

Understand consent.

Understand scope.

Understand boundaries.

Join reputable professional organizations when they're available.

You can start before you know everything.

You should not start believing that enthusiasm gives you permission to do everything.

Before You Turn Wellness Into a Career, Let It Work on You

If you're sitting at your desk right now fantasizing about quitting tomorrow and opening a wellness studio, here's probably the least exciting advice I could give you:

Don't.

Not yet.

Study first.

And I don't mean study how to become a wellness entrepreneur