Today we’d like to introduce you to Saritha Nord.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Hello! Thanks for this opportunity! Sure — I’ll take you back to when I was 16. For my senior project in high school, we had to shadow a professional who worked in the career we were aspiring toward. I chose to shadow an Art Therapist. Back then, I used to write poetry ALL THE TIME. Using words or other creative means as an outlet for my emotions was a huge part of my life. I wanted to pursue a career in Art or Poetry Therapy to help others leverage that same outlet. Even at 16, I knew I wanted to become some sort of Healer. For a variety of reasons, I didn’t end up pursuing a Psychology degree as planned.
Feeling lost I embarked on an interesting career journey, which included becoming an Electrical Engineer, then Attorney and now (my day job) a Program Analyst supporting Navy projects. I’ve been around a bit! While none of this seems directly related to holistic healing, I’ve built up a ton of amazing skills on this windy career path, all of which I’m able to incorporate into my new business.
What’s relevant here is most of my past decisions focused on what I thought others expected of me. Now, I’m finally listening to myself and pursuing my passion. What truly led me to define this passion is a medley of health issues interwoven with the above career journey.
In my twenties, my body started to break down: I developed crazy, painful allergies. I was often covered in hives/rashes. I was consistently gaining weight I couldn’t lose no matter how “healthy” I ate. I was always sick. I had debilitating stomach pain — the list goes on. Doctor after doctor, no one had answers. One doctor tried telling me I was allergic to dust (no joke).
Finally, I stumbled into my naturopath’s office and learned you could treat a person at a holistic level, by considering the entirety of their collective self. I learned an incredible amount about holistic nutrition and wellness and began knocking down physical symptoms, peeling away layers upon layers of health issues. With these experiences I built a foundation of holistic health knowledge that I very much rely upon in my life and my business. But my story with my two kids is really what pushed me to launch Wellness Crafted.
I have two daughters — Aria (almost 6 years old) and Kira (almost 4.5 years old). While raising them, I grew weary of commercial formula, baby products, and over-the-counter meds. I researched options and began making homemade baby formula and natural remedies using essential oils. The remedies addressed anything from teething to congestion to fever to bug bites to diaper rash — you name it. This was my way of lowering the toxic burden on their teeny little bodies.
Kira’s story made things more complicated. At 12 days old, she was admitted to the Rady Children’s’ Intensive Care Unit (ICU). She suddenly became mysteriously ill, was having seizures and could not breathe on her own. She was placed on life support for 9 days and in the hospital for 16 days. She came back to us, but suffered post-birth brain injury as a result of the illness and was diagnosed with moderate cerebral palsy with no solid prognosis. We left the hospital only knowing time would tell the severity of her injury.
My way of dealing with the pain was to dive into intense amounts of research. I took her to my naturopath, a chiropractor, craniosacral therapist, acupuncturist; I controlled her diet 100% with homemade, real food to manage her damaged gut. We had appointments with neurologists, ophthalmologists, metabolic specialists, physical/occupational/speech therapists, developmental educators, she had eye surgery, ear tubes surgery — the list goes on.
After all the hard work, Kira is doing well. She has healed a great deal, but we still have our struggles. We actively give her the support she needs, but she continues to have some developmental delays, sensory issues, vision issues and anxiety/frustration that will likely persist for the foreseeable future. Things are still tough, but honestly it’s SO MUCH better than what doctors predicted back in 2014.
This looong, convoluted story is what prompted me to launch Wellness Crafted. Because I remember the pain of caring for a medically ill child. I remember the loneliness of motherhood. I remember doctors dismissing me. I remember feeling lost in my Google searches. I remember all the trials and errors. I remember the immensity of the health battles ahead. Quite frankly, I remember feeling hopeless. I don’t want others to feel as lost and lonely as I did on my own healing journey. I’m here to show them they CAN heal.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I don’t think I can say things have been easy. It took me quite a while to get to the point where I officially launched Wellness Crafted. I had the original vision about 15 months before launch. With a full-time job, raising two kiddos and a pup, trying to spend time with my husband AND work on on my own healing, it was very difficult to prioritize the limited time I had to develop my vision, website and everything else..
It was also hard to stay motivated out of fear of failure. I’ve always struggled with feeling like I’m not enough and had a strong fear of disappointing others. This has paralyzed me at times. Pushing through these limiting beliefs has been HUGE for me (still a work in progress). The other thing that stretched out development time was that my vision was changing as I continued to learn more and more about other healing modalities. I’ve learned SO MUCH this year about the energy body, chakra system, Reiki, and energy healing, that I would stop to re-imagine the entire business.
At some point, I decided I needed to do the damn thing! That it was ok to press forward and let the business evolve as I evolved. I didn’t have to be perfect. Things didn’t have to be perfect. I didn’t need to have the end-state figured out before I started. I simply needed to start. And I did.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Wellness Crafted story. Tell us more about the business.
Wellness Crafted is all about inspiring, empowering and supporting others on their healing journeys, which can be a very lonely place. I’m here to support women and Moms who are crafting their healing journey. I also am here to help them build their integrative healing toolkits, while empowering them to awaken their inner healer.
Additonally, I’m working toward developing an Energy Healing practice. I will be incorporating healing practices, such as Reiki, crystal therapy and intuitive healing, into my services to help clients heal emotional traumas creating blocks in their physical and energetic body, which impacts the body’s inherent ability to heal itself.
By breaking through these deep-rooted blocks, not forgetting a strong nutrition and exercise foundation, the body can legitimately heal itself. And this is what I want to bring to my clients.
For now, I have an online shop where I offer natural, healing products/remedies for Women and Kids. These are products I’ve used on myself and my own kiddos. I’ve also very recently launched some intuitive-based healing services for custom readings and remedies!
I’m most proud of the fact I’m putting myself out there and taking a risk on growing my passion into a real part of my life. It’s not easy to “balance” all of this, but I’m so happy knowing I’m making someone’s life even a tiny bit easier.
What sets me apart is my heartfelt authenticity. It’s important to me to share what I can – the good, the bad, the real, the raw, the funny, the silly, the sad, the happy – all of it. This is what connects us all. I want others to feel safe to share their stories, shed their baggage, bring about positive transformation and awaken their inner healer.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’m not quite sure how to answer this. I’ve dealt with a lot of struggles in my life, but I can’t say it’s bad luck, necessarily. What it has done is triggered my growth, given me perspective and made me freaking resilient. It’s brought me to a place where I can help others heal and transform. And that’s pretty cool.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wellnesscrafted.com
- Phone: 619.630.5005
- Email: saritha@wellnesscrafted.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellnesscrafted
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wellnesscrafted
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/WellnessCrafted
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheWellnessArchitects
Getting in touch: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
