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

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A Day in the Life of Tash

A day full of depth, contradiction, devotion, humour, faith, self-examination - and a fierce love running through it all.

A New Day

I wake with the most practical of physiological thoughts: I need to pee.

And then, almost immediately, a quiet, deep gratitude. How blessed I am to see another day.

My body is tired - reflecting the wrestling match with the shadows. My mind is tired too - but wired. There’s a hum beneath the fatigue, a readiness. I like to imagine that when my feet hit the floor, somewhere the devil mutters, “Oh crap… Natasha's up.”

Reality is less cinematic, there’s no sprinting. Just steady movement onward.

The first thing I reach for is my phone - not to scroll, but to check my kids made it safely to work. Even in their growing independence, my heart still does its quiet headcount.

The rhythm of morning is slow, deliberate, charged with purpose - and always laced with hope. Beneath it, though, is a yearning. A longing to begin with stillness. To sit. To pray. To set intention before the noise of doing begins. To breathe before the world asks anything of me. 

I haven’t mastered that yet. 

I carry the intention like a bookmark, saving my place for when I finally pause.

In Full Doing

Without pause, I am fully in motion.

Sometimes I’m driven by pressure - expectations, both mine and others’. But deeper than that, more often, I’m driven by choice. The choice to build something meaningful. The quiet satisfaction of ticking something off the list. The desire for a life that runs well. The devotion to making our home hum - instilling order amidst chaos.

Not out of restlessness.

Out of reverence.

I care about doing things well. Not loudly. Wholeheartedly. I want meaning and excellence to sit side by side. I want even the smallest act to ripple outward with intention.

And yet, I overthink everything.

Every decision. Every conversation. Every silent pause.

Was that enough? Was that too much?

And beneath it all, lives a quieter question:

Am I enough?

Or perhaps more honestly - am I too much?

I push through more than I should. My limits. My pain. My emotions. Even uncomfortable silences. I know how to endure. 

I am still learning when to soften.

Grounded By Presence

Around my children, I do soften.

My rigid edges dissolve. My heart opens wide. They are my compass - my greatest joy and my deepest responsibility. A living expression of the values I hold most sacred: love, loyalty, perseverance, chosen bonds. 

My life isn’t built on chance; it’s built on choice. The choice to love fiercely. To persevere. To grow. To keep believing in the goodness threading through our days.

Motherhood stretches me thin, though. There’s the constant quiet self-monitoring - am I guiding or gripping? Leading or hovering? I sometimes wonder if they see how intertwined my identity is with theirs. If I always know who I am outside of being their Mum.

Love, in the ordinary moments, looks simple.

All of us in the same room. Some scrolling. Some gaming. Some crafting. Some chatting. Me studying. No grand gestures. Just presence. Existing side by side in quiet contentment.

That is sacred to me. 

Grounded. Open. Attuned to grace.

When the Noise Lowers

Night is when I return to myself.

When the house quiets - seated beside my sweet man, my anchor - I finally exhale. This is when I feel most like me. When I can fully breathe. When I talk to God in the stillness. When I can hear my own thoughts without interruption.

But night also brings reflection.

That I don’t quite fit in the outside world. That despite a mind full of knowledge and reflection, my words sometimes tangle before they reach my lips. That I ramble. That I misstep. That I could have said it better. 

I replay conversations as though I can edit them after the fact. I ask how I could have been more. Or less.

And still - I am proud.

Proud of my resilience. My persistence. My dedication. My grace and grit intertwined. I am someone who builds and nurtures. Who reflects and renews. Who works hard and loves harder. 

Not perfect - present.

Still, there is so much unfinished.

My parenting. My becoming. The legacy still unfolding. The memories yet to be made.

Peace comes when the house is calm. When there is a place for everything and everything is in its place. When the tabs in my mind close, one by one.

The Deeper Thread

There are contradictions in me.

I say I have no regrets - because every moment shaped me - and yet there are things I would do differently if given the chance. I believe perfection is a mindset, and still I reach for it. I hunger for knowledge, while knowing the deepest answers rise from within.

I am learning to rest without guilt.
To question whether my values are truly mine.
To release society’s mould.
To stop pushing past every limit.

People sometimes misunderstand me.

They see adaptability but not the discomfort or the effort it costs. They assume forgiveness means open access. They mistake my faith for creed, when really it’s a current - a quiet presence moving through warmth, laughter, evening walks. A whisper that says: you are exactly where you need to be.

If someone followed me for a day, they might be surprised by how much happens in my slow, steady tortoise-like rhythm. How even in rest, I am tending something. How I can be both hard and soft. Structured and fluid. Comfortable in silence and steady in noise.

I even thrive in moments of uncertainty - knowing I am in the driver’s seat of my own life.

And maybe that’s what makes me, me.

Not perfection.
Not performance.
But devotion.
Steady movement.
Grace that rises - even in pause.

This is a day in the life of who I am.

Ordinary.
Layered.
Intentional.
Becoming.

Mine.

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