We were lucky to catch up with Mary Howe recently and have shared our conversation below.

Mary , appreciate you joining us today. Was there an experience or lesson you learned at a previous job that’s benefited your career afterwards?

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my career came from working in healthcare—specifically as I grew into my role as a nurse practitioner. That role gave me a completely new lens for seeing people. I realized very quickly that I don’t actually know anything about the person sitting in front of me. That might sound obvious, but it’s a truth that applies far beyond the patient care setting—it’s relevant to how we treat anyone we meet in daily life. This perspective has brought me a deeper kindness toward others and a greater appreciation for the human experience as a whole.

In healthcare, we often only get a quick snapshot of someone’s life. It’s not until you truly talk with them that you uncover so much more, stories of loss, of caring for aging parents, of grieving a child, of carrying invisible burdens. Early on, I learned how much I didn’t know about my patients, and how easy it is to pass judgment without the full picture—something that’s especially common in today’s online world. Healthcare taught me to recognize my own biases and actively work to let them go.

That lesson was also shaped by my earlier foundation in the Air Force, where we were trained to assess situations in a very black-and-white way—’good guys versus bad guys’. In healthcare, I learned that people live in far more gray areas.

Extending grace and understanding often reveals that the story is more complex than it first appears. To bring it back, the lesson goes back to the basic principle of ‘you don’t know what people are going through’ and to extend kindness always as your first response.

Mary , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

To begin, I joined the military right out of high school. I spent eight years in the Air Force Special Operations as an aerial gunner on the AC-130U at Hurlburt Field, Florida. The experiences and the extraordinary people I met along the way profoundly shaped my life and personal growth.

While serving in the reserves, I embarked on a new journey—nursing. I knew my time in the military was drawing to a close as I was starting a family and preparing to welcome my daughter into the world. Transitioning from military service, I focused on my new roles as a nurse and a mom.

My nursing career began in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), where I cared for the most vulnerable and delicate lives. The work was immensely rewarding but emotionally taxing, especially as a new mother. I cherished my time in the NICU, but needed a career path that better balanced my professional goals with my family life.

This search led me to the world of medical aesthetics, a field where I could combine my nursing skills with my passion for helping others feel confident and beautiful. For the past three years, I’ve thrived in this specialty, finding deep satisfaction in assisting people on their journeys to rediscover their beauty and self-esteem.
This led me to go back to school, and I became a Family Nurse Practitioner as of March 2025.

Today, I work as an aesthetic injector in Pensacola, Florida, at Self Medical Aesthetics, located in Pensacola’s Self Care Studio. I offer Botox, fillers, laser treatments, and wellness services, always aiming to create an experience that is both results-driven and personally empowering for my clients.

Through life’s challenges, I’ve also found my way back to faith—keeping God at the center of it all.

After walking through some difficult seasons, I started a Blog! My website is marykatherinehowe.com. The blog features three series, including Faces of the Military Community, Wellness, and, most recently, Mindset Matters. This blog was born from two things: my love for health and wellness, and a desire to reconnect with the military community I once felt distant from.

I’ve experienced firsthand how powerful community and support can be. I believe deeply in the power of faith, connection, and shared experience. My hope is that through the Faces of the Military section, I can help build bridges between individuals and the communities that uplift them. Creating this space became a small way I could give back. I want to illuminate their stories, honor their sacrifices, and highlight their unwavering dedication. My goal is to help be another bridge and connect people to their communities. Sometimes it’s hard to find veteran-owned businesses or for military spouses, who have businesses and are uprooted every 2-3 years with military life, and this is just one way through social media that I can help to connect people.

In addition to my passion for sharing military stories, I have a deep love for health and wellness. My goal is to spark curiosity and create space for honest, down-to-earth conversations about health. And I truly believe that mindset matters. More than anything, I hope to be a voice that helps someone feel seen, understood, or inspired to take the next step in their own journey.

I think what sets me apart is the path I’ve taken—starting in one field that looked nothing like where I’ve ended up. My career began in the military, which couldn’t be more different from the world of medical aesthetics. But that’s exactly the point I want to make: your military service can be a foundation and a launching pad into something completely new. Too often, veterans find themselves stuck in an identity crisis, feeling like their skills or experiences only fit one box. My goal is to show that you can build a new chapter that looks entirely different, while still staying connected to the community you came from. What I want people to know is not to live to look back, but to reflect and move forward…

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’m glad one of the questions is about resilience. On my website, the faces of the military community blog series features the last question that is for everyone, which is their own resilience. I love hearing everyone’s different things that keep them resilient. And I love getting to share it because we all relate to people differently and find different things that keep us moving forward. Resilience was something that is taught and talked about in the military too often, and when I first heard it, I was honestly too young to understand what it meant. And I believe resilience has taken different shapes across my life.

I think too often we forget to talk about these messy, hard parts of life—and how much strength it takes just to keep going.
I think the story of my resilience really comes from my time in nurse practitioner school, when I went through one of the most difficult seasons of my life. I lost both my relationship and my job within days of each other. And it was messy.

I suddenly found myself without a place to live and no income. At 31 years old, I made the tough decision to move back to Texas and live with my parents for 11 months. There was so much shame and feelings of failure around that situation. Even one of my instructors suggested I drop out of school. The mental battles I faced with myself each day were… incredibly challenging.

But finding my faith again is what keeps me resilient.

For me, it truly is about looking at the lamp at your feet. Putting one foot in front of the other, and if you need to stop to rest, the only other place you need to look is up. This is what has grounded me through the storms.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Maybe I’m still figuring out exactly what I’ve had to unlearn, but for me, it’s really about the sacrifices we make in the military and what it means to transition back into civilian life. In the military, your sense of purpose is clear and powerful. You’re working toward something bigger than yourself, and no matter what, the mission has to get done. Even when resources are tight, you find a way to make it happen. That’s a core part of military culture, and it should be.

But when I transitioned to civilian life, I struggled with knowing when to apply that rule. I had to unlearn the habit of sacrificing myself in every situation—whether in relationships or at work—just to make things work. I realized I was giving too much of myself all the time.

So I encourage people to take a step back and learn that there’s a time and place to make sacrifices—and it’s important to find your own sense of purpose to decide when those sacrifices are worth it. Because if you’re constantly giving everything, how much of yourself are you willing to lose? Ask yourself: What am I willing to do to make this work? Is it the right thing? And will it make me better?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marykatherinehowe.com/
• Instagram: @_mary.katherinehowe (blog) @mary_self_injector (Aesthetics NP)
• Facebook: Mary Howe (aesthetics): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577183715544 Mary Katherine Howe (Blog) https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61577763003602

Image Credits

Amanda Leigh Photography + Kady Lawson Photography