Becoming Her

What Clinical Placement Is Really Teaching Me…

The clinic smells like herbal tinctures and the quiet desperation of people who have sacrificed a lot to be here. Not desperation for healing - but for the finish line. For the degree. For the version of us that waits on the other side of it. There is something sacred about the moment before the door opens. But there is also pressure.

Becoming her starts long before I stand at that clinic door. Monday and Tuesday I move with timed precision because if I slow down, the weight of it might catch me. Up at 5:30am. Shower by 5.45am. Out the door by 6:10am. On the platform at 6.20am for the 6.30am train to Southern Cross. Always ten minutes early.

Those ten minutes are mine. I send morning messages - positivity to my mum, my sister, my best friend, my family. I delegate from afar. I check everyone is okay. I stabilise home before stepping into a space where I am required to hold other people. There is something heavy about being needed everywhere.

The Journey

On the train, I sit in silence. I people watch. I breathe. Sometimes I close my eyes just long enough to gather myself. The world already feels loud. My mind is already racing - cases, protocols, differential diagnoses, the possibility of getting it wrong. The rhythm of the carriage steadies the jumbled brilliance of my mind.

Southern Cross greets me with urgency - and the unmistakable stench of stale urine in the elevators as I transfer to platform 9. And yet, platform 9 becomes my confessional. I sing. Loudly. The acoustics hold me while the chaos swallows my voice. It is the last moment I belong only to myself - not assessed, not observed, not responsible.

At Melbourne Central, the escalators unsteady me. I am already slightly unbalanced and they amplify it. At the pedestrian lights outside campus, I pause. I breathe in the city skyline. I am steadying more than my breath. I am steadying the part of me that still whispers: Who do you think you are?

At 7:30am, I enter the clinic. First: I need to pee. Second: I check my family is okay and tell them I’ve arrived. Third: Almost instinctively - I compartmentalise. Not because I don’t love them. But because I cannot carry everyone into that room.

We begin at 8am. I use the 30 minutes beforehand to pause, to socialise, to feel the space. To switch. Not into someone else. Into the part of me that doesn’t get as much space at home. Practitioner.

Active Learning

What surprised me most about placement is that we are not playing pretend. From day one, it is us. We take the consultation. Supervised, yes - but the supervisors are not in the room for the whole session. They do not feed us answers. They guide gently if we drift. It is me taking the case. Me asking the questions. Me prescribing the herbs. Me suggesting nutritional and lifestyle strategies. It is responsibility before full confidence. And when you care deeply about not getting it wrong, that responsibility feels heavy.

Sensory Overload

The dispensary smells sharp with concentrated tinctures lining the shelves like silent witnesses. The hallways carry wafts of moxa that settle whether you like it or not — a scent I haven’t learned to love. Fluorescent lights hum overhead. For a natural health clinic, it is oddly sterile. Rubrics exist. Marking criteria exist. There is, for every case, a container of “right answers.” I struggle with that. Because people are not containers.

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome arrives when the clock starts counting down. When I must synthesise a case within a strict timeframe. When I present verbally. When I am asked, “Why did you choose that?” I know the answers. But academia prefers linear thinking. My mind is layered. It does not translate neatly onto a keyboard or into a concise narrative. My fingers fumble. My thoughts tangle. My words hover somewhere between my brain and my mouth. I chase precision because I am terrified of oversight. Underneath that is a quieter fear: What if I am not as capable as I feel in my own mind?

Sacred Moments

There are moments I feel profoundly aligned. When a client softens - shoulders dropping, breath releasing - it feels like trust. Like despite the sterility of the room, they feel safe in my presence. That tells me more than any rubric ever could. But what moves me most is not always the clients. It is my fellow student practitioners. We are different in age, background, life story, approach. Some travel extraordinary distances and still show up by 8am. Some carry burdens I only glimpse. There is a quiet determination in that space. It humbles me.

Clinic does not suddenly make me feel like I fit in the world. It can be overstimulating - noise, movement, layered conversations. But here, my uniqueness feels seen. My practitioner style has been labelled “earth mother.” The irony is not lost on me that even when I step away from home, the embodiment of mother permeates through every pore. Perhaps there was never a separation to begin with.

I don’t mind reception duty - it is ordered, predictable. Dispensary is less mystical than I imagined, so I make it playful: guessing what tinctures are for, choosing a nutraceutical of the day to study. I still yearn for teaching - to translate complexity into something digestible. And I feel something fierce rise in me when patient safety is sidelined for the sake of grades. When treatment plans are written to impress rather than protect, something in me tightens. I care more about integrity than approval. That may be the clearest sign of becoming.

Homeward Bound

The train home is not peaceful. I say I won’t run for it - and yet I do. I don’t delay being home. Home is where I am allowed to unravel. I crave the moment I remove my uniform and change into soft clothes. But on the train, I replay everything. The conversations. What I could have said differently. What I could have done better. By the time I walk through the door, I am depleted. And still, I begin reflection. Because exhaustion and purpose can coexist. I stop earlier than usual. Sustainability matters. Tuesday somehow holds more energy than Monday - as though the first day cracks me open and the second allows me to move within the fracture with more certainty.

The Reality

Clinical placement is not romantic. It is overstimulating. It is confronting. It exposes your gaps in real time. It forces you to think under pressure. It shows you where your ego lives and where your integrity stands. It is teaching me that healing is not linear. That listening is more powerful than fixing. That holding space does not mean absorbing everything. That confidence grows quietly - layer by layer, consultation by consultation - often disguised as simply showing up again.

And sometimes - in the stillness between questions, in the tapping of keys, in the scent of tinctures and smoke, in the subtle shift of a client’s breath - I feel it. Not certainty. Commitment. A whisper: I am really doing this. Not someday. Not when I graduate. Now. Not perfectly. Not effortlessly. But genuinely.

Becoming her is not glamorous. It is precise mornings. It is singing on platform 9 so I don’t disappear. It is choosing integrity over approval. It is holding others while learning to hold myself. And perhaps she was never someone I needed to become. Perhaps she is simply the woman who keeps showing up anyway - carrying both home and healing in the same hands.

I’m curious, what are you becoming right now - even if you don’t feel ready?

L, L, P,

Tash xo