The doctor who didn't take her own advice
In the years that followed, I returned to graduate school and became a doctor. For over 14 years, I had the pleasure of caring for thousands of people as a Chiropractor, a primary care provider and health coach. That also meant I worked seven days a week, easily 80 hours a week, for years. I truly believed the harder you worked, the more successful you'd be. I told patient after patient that the stress they were under was killing them, and it was showing up in their bodies. I could see it clearly in everybody except me.
In January 2023, a cycling accident stopped me. I was divorced, the only income, with a kid in college. My surgeon said ten weeks of rest and recovery. I went back after five. Then I tore a rotator cuff tendon, re-injured my leg, and was in excruciating pain all the time.
Sometimes the problem isn't what you know. It's what you've come to believe you have to do to survive.
Raised as a Lie
The story I had never told.
I grew up a little brown girl in an all-white world, raised to believe I was white. I carried that shame so quietly that I had never told my story to anyone. Eleven years into my practice, I wrote it down in my memoir, Raised as a Lie. The thought of everyone knowing terrified me. I told it anyway, then spent a year healing what it uncovered. I wasn't the same person after. My practice started to feel like a room I'd outgrown.
The greatest blessing of my life.
That accident was traumatic. It was also the greatest blessing of my life. It made me release my grip on a life I secretly didn't want anymore. I sold my practice that June. In October, I took an empty passport and traveled alone to 13 countries.
I want you to know this: courage in the unknown is possible at any age. You don't need the whole map. You just need the next step.
And when I'm not on a trail, you'll likely find me with a bag of Skinny Pop and a Harry Potter audiobook.
14+
13
Countries, traveled alone
Years caring for people's health
“Dr. Naeema has one of the most remarkable stories I've ever heard. Her courage to walk in her truth, confront life's challenges, and follow her callings along the way is incredible.”
Kailei C., Founder, The Asbury Group
One question keeps moving me forward: What is possible now?
Now I help Black women over 40 notice what they want, question the beliefs in the way and make choices that move them toward it. I work with body, mind and spirit, because that's how people actually change.