Dr Tumi Johnson, an integrative medical practitioner, joins me today to share her personal story and how to has informed her professional one. In this discussion, Tumi highlights the power of plants and how they are an integral part of our health.

Selected Links from the Episode

Dr Tumi Johnson website

Unstress episode with Professor Fred Provenza on Nutritional Wisdom

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Dr Ron Ehrlich:             Hello and welcome to Unstressed. I'm doctor Ron Ehrlich. Delicious healing. That's the name of today's episode, and it's a compelling title and a compelling goal for us all. My guest today is an integrated medical practitioner, Dr. Tumi Johnson. Tumi's personal story has greatly informed her professional and personal journey. I'll let Tumi explain that herself. I hope you'll enjoy this conversation I had with Dr. Tumi Johnson.

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Welcome to the show Tumi.

Dr Tumi Johnson:          Thank you, Ron. Thank you so much for having me on here.

Dr Ron Ehrlich:             Tumi, there's so much I wanted to talk to you about today, but I wonder whether you might share with us your own journey that's brought you to this point in your professional life.

Dr Tumi Johnson:          That's a lovely question. I think probably I would go back to, I'm the first generation Nigerian American child. So, I lived for the first 12 years of my life in Nigeria and then we moved to the states when I was 12 years old. I think that has relevance to what you're asking me because that background, my background, the West African background, I grew up with a lot of nature, and a lot of understanding that health was holistic. My father is actually a pediatrician, retired now, a 50-year pediatrician and the idea of food and the importance of good food was always really stressed in my family.

Dr Tumi Johnson:          And then when I moved to the states, I had this really hard time of acclimating to a new culture. To be honest, I was a tween, I was a 12-year-old girl moving from West Africa to Tennessee at the time.

Dr Ron Ehrlich:             Oh my God.

Dr Tumi Johnson:          To help with that, I would go to the public library all the time. I'd lose myself in books. And one book I found was a book by B. K. S. Iyengar who was one of the fathers of teaching yoga. I used to look at those pictures, and I would learn the poses to the pictures in that book. As I learned yoga when I was 13 years old, I began my own study of yoga and it's been transformational and it also was huge in my health journey and it really influenced me becoming a physician and a doctor and a holistic physician even later on.

Dr Ron Ehrlich:             Not bad. And then of course with that kind of an introduction or background to be thrust into a Western Medical School would have been quite confronting. How was it? I don't know. How was it?

Dr Tumi Johnson:          It's a really great question. I think the short answer is yes. I was so excited to become a doctor and again, my father was a physician and was raised in the western tradition, but I think because of his background had inside of him also a holistic way of thinking about things. But I did go the traditional route. I went through Western, a very good medical school in the states. And yet, I really felt that something was missing in my education. It was an incredible education. Again, I wanna stress that, but I was really craving the desire of how, knowing that yoga had helped me so much, knowing that nutrition was important and not feeling all of that in my education.

Dr Tumi Johnson:          So, I went to the Amazon, I did some medical volunteer work in the Ecuadorian Amazon, in the middle of medical school, to work with Shamans and herbalists to learn and really round out my education. So yes, it was confronting. But I think the lovely thing about confronting experiences is that helps you stand in your power.