Never in my wildest dreams did I ever see my career and passions moving in the direction of building nonprofits in the cannabis industry. And now I’ve been a part of building two of them.

After a life-changing car accident in my 20’s, I found myself facing debilitating pain and PTSD. Many years dependent on pain meds and unhealthy coping mechanisms led me to seeking out legal cannabis as a last resort to regain some semblance of the life this car accident stole from me. Cannabis saved my life. Literally. And more than once.

After finding zero support from my prescribing physician, I sought out a job working at a medical cannabis clinic. I wanted to learn as much as I could about using cannabis as medicine. This job provided me the first-hand cannabis education and guidance that I was so desperate for, and also introduced me to the cannabis nurse who would later become my business partner.

We saw a big need. So many people were looking for answers, for hope that this plant would be able to help them with their various ailments. Especially when the state-legalized industry was new, information on cannabis therapeutics from trusted resources was hard to come by, and very expensive, as evidenced by the stream of affluent people who walked through the doors of that clinic every day. Since medical cannabis care is not covered by insurance, access seemed limited to those who could afford it. A barrier we planned to address head on, in innovative ways.

Together, we built the nonprofit organization Leaf411, and operated the world’s first free cannabis nurse hotline, where anyone from anywhere could call and speak with a cannabis-trained nurse for free. For a plant so heavily stigmatized by American society, hotline callers could anonymously get affordable answers to their health-related cannabis questions from the most trusted profession there is, nurses.

What you could afford and had access to were no longer determining factors for people seeking information on cannabis therapeutics. We were addressing healthcare inequalities, and I was very proud we were able to create that business model for cannabis.

Since then, I have taken my passion for patient-advocacy and shifted my focus towards trauma survivors. As a PTSD patient myself, it was my time spent working with Veterans in the cannabis space that really opened my eyes to another need: a safe space for women and non-binary people to build community centered around trauma healing.

It is incredibly powerful to have people in my life who are also on their healing journeys, and as the Program Chair and a Board member of the nonprofit, This Is Jane Project, I get to serve alongside amazing humans while we shed light, build community, and uplift the lives of women and non-binary trauma survivors across the country. One of the programs I’m most proud of is our SB-34 Compassion program, Survivors Without Access, where we connect survivors with donated cannabis medicine. Seeing lives positively impacted is why I want to get up in the morning and go to work.

If I had not changed the narrative in my mind, the imposter syndrome that begged the question, ‘Why Me?’, into ‘Why not me?’, I would not be on this rewarding career path.

As I grow into the wisdom of age, it is so rewarding to look back and see how my story of brokenness and healing have carved out a unique space for me to give back. And I highly encourage entrepreneurs, especially women, to feel empowered by their own stories and the positive impact that they too can create.

I consider myself an Agent of Change and Impact Entrepreneur. I have been bootstrapping service-based businesses since 2006, and I am both the daughter and granddaughter of entrepreneurs. So you could say it definitely runs in my blood.

I am fortunate that what was modeled for me was not just entrepreneurial spirit and audacious dreams, but the desire to positively impact the community as an entrepreneur.

My grandfather used the GI Bill to put himself through school, and was the first person in my family to ever go to college. As a Hispanic man, he held a big dream to build a business that created jobs for people who looked like him. He used his desires, passions, and skill sets to create what he wished to see in the world. He made money selling cars, but he was in the business of changing lives. And to have experienced that legacy first-hand is a blessing, one that has propelled my own entrepreneurial journey and desires to create a positive impact.

It is truly an honor to use these blessings, paired with my skill set, my passions, and my ideas, to pay forward and make people’s lives better. I never felt the desire to become a mother, instead, I have a calling to be in service to others, to make a positive impact on the world around me and find innovative ways to serve the underserved. The nonprofit businesses that I have built are in answer to that calling.

One of the biggest life-lessons I’ve learned the hard way is that burnout is a lifestyle choice, not an unfortunate and mandatory byproduct of entrepreneurship. I let my ambition and lingering imposter syndrome drive me into the ground because I had yet to learn the power of self care.

A truth of the Great Resignation is that at the heart of it, it’s really a symptom of the Great Reevaluation. I know I am not alone in having found myself feeling burned out- mind, body, soul.

I felt chronically depleted, exhausted, unhappy, depressed, fearful, angry, and overwhelmed. My capacity to handle what the world was throwing at me in 2020 was non-existent, and I hit my breaking point.

I had been trying to pour from an empty cup in survival mode for so long that I had forgotten what it felt like to feel fully alive. I felt like a shadow of the woman I wanted to be, the best version of myself- for myself, my family, and my work. I had to make changes, to reevaluate my life and the role I was playing in the experience of it.

So I blew up my lifestyle as I knew it, changed jobs, and set to work figuring out how to put the pieces back together in a healthier way (starting with removing the narrative in my mind that self care was selfish), and it’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever gone through.

And it felt so isolating, not because I didn’t have friends and family supporting me, but because healing is a very personal journey, and no one in my life had experienced something like this before. I had no idea how to explain what I was going through, and didn’t have the energy to even try.

My burnout recovery journey towards living an authentic and flourishing life has been long, it hasn’t been easy, and it still continues to this day. But it was all worth it to get to this point where I feel alive again, moving towards the best version of myself. Now it is a way of life for me.

And I want to encourage and empower humans like me to recognize that they have the power to do the same, to live as their authentic selves with the support and encouragement of others who are also on their unique journeys of self-discovery and healing.

It was my personal burnout recovery process, self care discovery journey, and the recognized need for community support and celebration that called my heart towards building Loto Wellness Collective and launching our first wellness retreat in August 2022 to support women and non-binary people on their personal journeys.

The first business I ever built was a fashion styling and image consulting company in San Francisco, Beyond Black. I had studied business and fashion design in school, and this company was the marriage of both passions.

I loved working with clients, helping them to translate who they were on the inside, with how they wanted to present themselves on the outside. It was incredibly gratifying to watch clients look in the mirror and finally see themselves in new and improved ways, sometimes for the first time in a long time. Plus, I loved the clothes, all of the shopping, the travel, and the fashion shows.

It was an amazing period in my career, full of success. I was voted ‘Best of the Bay’ by SF Magazine every year that I was in business. Beyond Black and I were thriving.

A car accident changed everything, and left me with debilitating PTSD and dependent on over a dozen pharmaceutical pain medications. I had to sell my company because I could barely function anymore, let alone stand on my feet all day at work. I struggled to get out of bed for the next five years.