Hi! I'm Camille Freeman (she/her).

Becoming a practitioner is a journey.

It's one of the most challenging things I've ever done. 

When I started my practice in 2004, I had no idea how much personal growth - emotionally, spiritually, and skill-wise - would be required to start and run a practice.

Like many practitioners, I started with lots of education and no idea how to find clients. Or run a practice. It's common to feel insecure and overwhelmed at how many steps there suddenly seem to be between you and doing the work you were trained to do.

After you figure out those first steps, the complexity still remains - and maybe even grows over time. Cases get harder. Life pressures evolve. Rather than not having enough clients, now you're juggling too many. Keeping up with both growing as a clinician and holding a practice together can feel lonely and like a heavy weight to carry.

Especially when all you want to do is help people and sustain yourself.

I get it. And it’s why I do what I do.

Small steps add up over time.

I began my herbal studies in 2001, when I became an apprentice to Monica Rude in Sliver City, NM. During the apprenticeship, I loved growing and learning about herbs, and making salves, tinctures, fire cider, and more, but I realized that my true interest was in clinical work. Conveniently, the first master's degree program in herbal medicine in the US was just starting up at the Maryland University of Integrative Health. I moved there, became part of the very first class to start the program in 2002, and began seeing clients as a student in 2003. 

Since I knew I wanted to work with menstrual health and fertility, I dropped off physical copies of my CV (it was a different era!) with local OB/Gyn offices after graduating. One took me on as a contractor, and thus began my formal career as a practitioner.

Later, I went on to practice out of a home office, in a large fertility clinic, and in a group practice with other integrative healers. I got a second master's degree in physiology from Georgetown, became licensed as a nutritionist, and got hired as a faculty member at the Maryland University of Integrative Health, where I taught for almost 17 years and was eventually promoted to the rank of full professor. I also earned a doctorate in clinical nutrition while in my 40s, working full-time as a professor, and seeing clients on the side. 

In 2024, I left my job at the University to focus full-time on Bloom & Grow, where I've been happily bopping away, teaching continuing education programs and supporting other clinicians. Now, I teach an annual deep dive (a monthly continuing education lecture), run the Monday Mentoring community of practice, and provide 1:1 support for clinicians.

I also wrote a book, Write Better Newsletters, which is based on my experience running both my practice and the programs at Bloom and Grow using my newsletter as the cornerstone of my marketing. (I left social media in 2018 in the run-up to the mid-term elections here in the US and never quite made it back!)

A few things I've learned

Even 20 years after starting my clinical work, I still remember how hard it was to take those first steps (and the second ones, and the fifteenth ones).

In all this time, one thing has stayed the same: growing a practice with integrity and empathy while making a living requires more personal growth than seems reasonable. 

You truly cannot do this work without digging around in your own fears, learned behaviors, and mindset issues. I've learned that the only way to get better at running a practice is to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when you aren't sure what you "should" be doing. 

I've learned that no one knows what they're doing, and that I have to be the expert in what will work best in my particular situation - and the only way to know is to try things, see what happens, and adjust accordingly. 

It's shockingly difficult to do this, particularly on your own. 

But when you take surround yourself with a supportive community and experienced guidance, small steps can add up to bigger ones. Growth can take root from a place of alignment, professionalism, and sustainability.

It is one of the great joys of my life to mentor both new and experienced herbalists and nutritionists who're looking for help doing just that. 

Whether you’re brand new and trying to figure out all. the. things., or you’re a professional looking for help and peer support in navigating tricky cases, or you’re looking to grow and deepen your practice as a clinician, I’ve developed programs to support you.

Through group mentoring, monthly CEU webinars, online courses, my podcast, and so much more - I offer my work in service of an industry I love.

It is my wholehearted belief that when big hearted people create thriving, well-aligned practices that can support themselves and their communities in better health and wellness, we all rise.

My Teachers & Mentors

I believe that lineage is important. You can read more about my formal degrees & credentials at the bottom of this page. I began learning about herbs with Monica Rude of Desert Woman Botanicals in Silver City, NM (from the Michael Moore tradition) and then studied at MUIH with teachers Simon Mills, James Snow, Kevin Spelman & Jim Duke (along with a whole host of guest instructors). I continue to learn daily from books & workshops, from clients, from the plants, and from others in my community of practice. 

I acknowledge that much of my/our herbal knowledge was passed down or stolen from Black and indigenous communities and that subsequently people from these communities have been marginalized or excluded from mainstream herbal medicine. I give thanks to these unnamed teachers and ancestors. 

For business skills, I have been most influenced by the following teachers (some of whom I have studied with directly, and some of whom I have learned from less formally via workshops, books, and so forth): Mark Silver, Illana Burk, Trudi LeBron, Christine Kane, Tara McMullin, George Kao, Jenny Blake, Jenny Shih, Bear Hebert, and Rachael Cook. 

ON a personal note

I grew up between KY and SC, went to undergrad at Rice in Houston, TX, and then briefly worked in outdoor education through the W Alton Jones Environmental Education Center in RI and on Camp Orkila in Orcas Island, WA. I now live in Staunton, VA with my partner, our dog, and  our two homeschooled kiddos. I enjoy reading (you can find some of my book recs here), gardening in a very loose sense of the word, and doing puzzles.