What does it take to journey from a small Mississippi farm to serving as a military officer, traveling to 46 countries, and ultimately building a wellness community for women veterans? In this episode of Dog Tag Diaries, Dr. Natesha Smith-Isabell unpacks her unexpected path—a life shaped by resilience, faith, and profound transformation. Hear snippets about her near-death medical crisis, facing sexual trauma and moral injury in the Army, and how it all inspired her to co-found Arabella Wellness Center. This conversation covers women veterans’ mental health, military transition challenges, and the importance of trauma-informed support. Plus, discover how Natesha’s global adventures and her love for Marvel Comics contribute to her healing journey. If you’re searching for stories about female veterans overcoming adversity, post-military wellness, or building community after service, you won’t want to miss these insights.

As the CEO and Co-Founder of Arabella Wellness Center, Dr. Natesha Smith-Isabell leads a nonprofit organization that provides trauma-informed care and compassionate support to women, with a special emphasis on wellness services for Women Veterans, educators, and healthcare professionals. With over 15 years of experience in the field of counseling and mental health, she had developed a strong expertise in program development, implementation, and evaluation. She is passionate about empowering women and Veterans through education and wellness.

Connect with Natesha

 LinkedIn: Dr. Natisha Smith-Isabell

 Website: www.arabellawellness.org

Kim Liszka served in the United States Army/Reserves as a Combat Medic, Combat Nurse, Flight Nurse Instructor and one of the Top Female athletes in the Army. Kim worked 20+ years as an ER nurse and decided to explore the world as a travel nurse. She's an Advanced Wilderness Expedition Provider and Chief Medical Officer for numerous endurance/survival expeditions in different countries. Kim has a son, Jace and a daughter in law, Sammy and 2 grand animals, Joey & Bear. Her dog Camo is her best buddy. Camo is the sweetest yellow Labrador Retriever to walk this earth. He loves licking snow, riding the ocean waves, visiting carnivore food trucks and loves belly rubs and treats. Fun Facts: Kim's lived in the Reality TV World! Fear Factor, American Ninja Warrior-Military Edition, American Tarzan, Spartan Namibia and more to come!

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From farm life in Mississippi to performing for the Queen of England, Natesha Smith Isabel seemed destined for a life of adventure and service. That path led her into the U.S. army. But what she found there was not the safety or belongings she expected. Instead, she faced harassment, sexual trauma, and the weight of moral injury. Through those challenges, Natesha leaned on her faith, her resilience, and eventually a global perspective shaped by travels to 46 countries and even living in Afghanistan after her service. Today, she's a leader, an advocate, and the founder of Arabella Wellness, committed to creating better support systems for women veterans navigating transition. This is a story of courage, healing, and the reminder that resilience is not built alone.

You don't want to miss this episode. We made it Season 6 of Dog Tag Diaries where every military woman deserves a platform to tell her story and have it be heard. I'm your host, Captain Kim, and this community has already racked up over 4,500 downloads. So let's smash 5K together, share these episodes, and help us make season six our biggest yet. On today's episode of Dog Tag Diaries, we're joined by Dr. Natesha Smith Isabel, an Army veteran whose story is as inspiring as it is powerful. Natesha served from 1999 to 2006, and her journey reflects resilience, faith, and the courage to speak truth to some of the toughest challenges women face in uniform. She's traveled to 46 countries, lived in Afghanistan post military service, and now leads Arabella Wellness, where she helps others navigate transition and healing with dignity and purpose.

Beyond her professional accomplishments, Natesha is a Marvel Comics fan, a global thinker, and a passionate advocate for women veterans. Welcome to Dog Tag Diaries. How are you doing today?

I am doing extremely well today. Thank you for having me.

And you are in from Texas?

Yes, I live in Frisco, Texas, just a part of the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.

Okay. And so I have to know, did you grow up there?

Oh, no.

Okay, we gotta hear. Yeah, let's start back when you were a child. Let's hear about you.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. So I am a Southerner, though. I grew up in Mississippi in a small town called Charleston on a farm. Charleston has a population of about 2,000. We still don't have any traffic lights. We have stop signs, and there is now a McDonald's that is attached to a gas station that's there. But growing up, we went to bumpers and spent time at the Texaco parking lot to hang out.

Yes.

2,000? Wow. That's so small.

Very Small. Yeah. My graduating class of 67.

Okay, so did you have siblings or did you have to make a lot of friends in that small town?

I have an older sister and she is three and a half years older than me. But like I said, we grew up on a farm, so it really was just the two of us down there. We started out when I was younger with animals on the farm. We had cows, some chickens, some pigs. You know, regular working farm. And then as I got older, we shifted to more of a crop based farming. And I just spent a lot of time outside with imaginary friends and playing with animals, climbing trees, riding my bike.

Okay, so how did you find your way into the military?

Part of my childhood, I say part of it. I was extremely active in all sorts of, like clubs and events. Like I did 4H, I did band, I did cheerleading. Like any sort of extracurricular sort of thing you could do. I was doing it and through cheerleading, because I was a part of a competitive cheerleading kind of program that was connected to our school. We would do like our summer camps with UCA Universal Cheer association. And during the camps, you could compete against other cheerleaders at the camp for a spot to participate in the London New Year's Day parade. And so I competed one summer and won a spot, won the trip.

And that was my first time traveling outside of the country. It was amazing. So traveled outside of the country and I loved it. I loved the entire experience. But it's really hard to put into words. It put into perspective for me just how small, like our world really was. Right? Like, what's the way for me to experience things like this and to also be a part of something greater. And like, the only two things that kind of came to mind for me were the military or politics.

And I said, absolutely not to politics. I wanted no part in that. And I thought military, that sounds fun, right? Like, you have some active components and people get to travel and you get to meet all kinds of people. So I said, let's do that. Let's do. Let's do the military. My father was at the time in the National Guard. He has since retired.

He served for 36 years in the National Guard and retired out. And I knew that I didn't want enlisted. I didn't want to go that route because I saw him in that route and I fancied that. I wanted more leadership, responsibility. And so I thought, I'll be an officer. Let's do Beth. And I was able to get my first pick, which was mi and so I commissioned as an MI officer.

Okay, yes, let's start talking about that. So you went from Camp Huachuca or Fort Huachuca.

Fort Huachuca, yeah. To camp, basically. So there's a little bit of an intro. While I was at Fort Huachuca, I had a near death experience that started to shape, like my military experience in ways that I didn't even realize then. But I ended up deciding to get on birth control. And I was on birth control for maybe four weeks, six weeks, and I ended up in the ER. So I was getting ready to hang out with my friend, like one weekend and I was coming down the stairs. I live on the second floor of my apartment building. I was coming down the stairs and all I remember is kind of walking around the side of the ocean.

She was in her car in the parking lot and I saw her car, saw the lights, then I didn't see anything. Next thing I know, my eyes are open and she's standing right beside me because I passed out.

Yeah. Did you develop clots?

Yeah. And so she convinced me to go to the hospital because I didn't want to go. Even though I passed out, I didn't want to go because I was so afraid of what was going to happen to my OBC slot, what that meant for like any sort of assignments or anything like that. Because my thought was, I'm commissioning, I'm going to be in this thing for 20 plus years. Like, I'm all in. Right. I ended up saying, yes, okay, let's just go. And so we went.

I did it more so to shut her up. So like I went. And the nurse at the time, jokingly, as he was willing me to like, the CAT scan or to get the MRI to get exactly which machine I was in, but he said, worst case scenario, you got some clots. So we get in there, they read it, they look at it. I have multiple blood clots in both lungs. And so they admitted me. I was there. My battalion commander came to see me, my company commander came to see me.

And I was in the hospital for about a week. Like, my mom came in, my sister.

Well, yeah, because that's a serious condition.

Yeah. My dad was actually in Iraq at that time. And they let him come back. Yeah, all those things. And all I could think about was, oh my gosh, what does this mean for my career? And so, because I was almost finished with obc, like, I put in a lot, like, and I didn't want to have to be cycled back, like, start over or like anything like that. I Didn't end up cycling back.

I was gonna say, were your commanders reassuring to you when they came.

When it came to obc, yes. But when I got released from the hospital, no. So I didn't realize that I wasn't supposed to fly and, like, until I was cleared, didn't realize I was supposed to take it easy with, like, PT and that kind of stuff because I didn't have, like, a real profile or anything like that. I just came back and came back into everything and tried to continue to, like, do things. I'm a little fuzzy on how much time. I think it was maybe like, another month left or maybe like another three weeks left of obc, and then it was time for us to go, like, to our assignment. I originally had Fort Hood, but I swapped it for Camp Casey, and I took that flight. I took that flight, that long flight to Korea.

And when I got to Casey, I was in a little bit of shock, but I got to Casey, and I was supposed to be going to the HHC discom, and I was supposed to be assigned to the S2 shop. I was identified as the, like, assistant S2. The captain was the S2. I was supposed to be an assistant S2 as a second lieutenant. I didn't even get to my unit first. They assigned me to training before I even arrived in country. And so I got there, dropped off, picked up gear, and they sent me down, or sent me back, I should say to Seoul for some sort of training. Honestly, I don't know because I didn't meet anybody in my unit.

First. They assigned me to the training, and I went there for a few weeks, and they came back to my unit, got there, and they wouldn't put me in the officer quarters. They put me in the quarters with senior enlisted. They had some senior enlisted in the officer quarters, though.

How did it get so discombobulated where your orders were going, right to training instead of going to your unit, and then. No, you don't.

When you're a body and not a person, and they have to assign bodies, a certain number of bodies, they're going to look at essentially assigning bodies that are going to create the less impact, right, like, on the mission. And so because I hadn't been assigned to anything in particular, then, hey, let's use this LT and send her down here. And so that's what they did. They sent me down. Like I said, I got back, got into, like, my barracks billets. Honestly, it was like this. There were, like, four rooms in this. I'm assuming a Building that probably should have been condemned.

And so I had a room. We had a shared storage room and we had a shared kitchen, and it was filled. I was only woman and all senior enlisted.

I was gonna say senior enlisted with a butter bar or second lieutenant. How did they take to you? And you being the only female. And so to put it into perspective for the viewers, senior enlisted has it going on. They know their stuff. They are.

They're like senior executives. I mean, this is like having. I was going to say an intern, but let's say the admin receptionist. Like staying with, like C suite level. Yeah, like execs.

Those senior enlisted are high and tight and they have a job and they know exactly how to perform, execute. And then a second lieutenant. And I could talk to this too, because I was a second lieutenant. They look at us as we were commissioned into the military. We really don't know the protocols. And.

And especially someone like me as an RLTC cadet. That's what I knew. Right. With all of these idealized, like, espoused value about how the army works. Like, no prior experience at all.

So how is that going into their quarters?

There were some good guys and they tried to help. Ish. Mostly they left me alone. Like, they were friendly. They mostly left me alone. There wasn't really a lot of focus on, like, educating and supporting or like anything like that. But after some other experiences, I was happy that they left me alone because it can look other ways too, where senior enlisted will prey upon gold bars. And that happened.

Yeah. But not the guys that lived, like, in the villas with me.

Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because I feel like that is more common than not in the military as a woman.

Let me give just a little bit more context and then I can go into that piece because, like, this part matters. Instead of me being able to stay in the ESU shop, once I got back to the unit, I was there for less than a month before they pulled me to be the XO of the hhc.

And XO is company commander as second lieutenant. Okay.

No. Just no. Again, not the way that things typically look or should look. So I got pulled in. And when you're talking about an hhc, again, like, for listeners, one, you're talking about usually an abnormally sized company. So our HHC had close to 200. And we are talking an hhc for a discom, which meant there were. I was the only lieutenant.

We're talking about, like a couple of captains. And I do mean two. There could have Been maybe four total, because we had some people that were part of the HHC that weren't right there on Casey. They were in some of the outposts and maybe, like. Like I said, three or four total captives. But everyone else is like a major above in the company that I'm supposed to be the XO for.

You don't have the experience as a second lieutenant.

I never had a platoon. Never. I never had a chance. And so there were a lot of senior listed. There were people that I like, section leaders that I was responsible for, like, evaluating. And, like, it was a mess. I did what I could do. Like, I tried.

And so I did that. And oh, my gosh, it's like all of it happened so fast. And this is only like a year, like, a year of my life at Casey. But I got there in March, and I got pulled in by May, maybe like, end of May to be the xo. And then in July, my company commander went on leave, his annual leave for 30 days.

There you are. Just.

It's nice that we can laugh about it now, but you were probably so scared and uncertain.

Terrifying.

Yeah.

Because I couldn't move on Casey without some senior enlisted saying something like sexualized or derogatory or something like that to me. I couldn't move. And from leadership to people in the company to people not even in our company, making all kinds of remarks.

So now you feel unsafe, along with.

Uncertain, unfamiliar, but also pushing that down. Yeah, right. Not trying to even acknowledge that my health started to decline because, again, I'm still coming off this multiple clots. I'm still on the Coumadin injections. I stayed on those for the entire year I was there, not realizing that I wasn't supposed to be on them for a while. I still had the appointments. And so, like, because I'm at Casey, I had to go down to school, Seoul, for appointments. People in my unit are looking at me like, why is she going to Seoul? Like, what's going on with this lieutenant? And, yeah, so like, still try to manage, like, my image, trying to be a leader, whatever that means, like, in this, trying to connect with soldiers and trying to be taken seriously.

So drinking increased because that's also part of the culture. My health declined. And then the MSC happened. So it was someone in my unit, the enlisted that lives in the billets, heard it, made comments about it, like, joking comments, and I buried it and didn't acknowledge it, didn't talk about it. My health continued down. My drinking went up more. And kind of the last few months of my experience, there were horrible. I gained close to 30 pounds while I was there the one year in Korea, because, I mean, you cope, like, with how. You know how to cope. Yeah.

You needed those coping mechanisms. Food, alcohol.

Yeah. And body dysmorphia was already a part of it because I was always someone that had to get taped, whatever that number was on, on that chart. Like, I hadn't seen that since, like my ninth grade year of, like, high school. Like, my body just wasn't built like that. And so, like, I always made tape, but I had to make tape. And it was always like this pressure of, you gotta make tape.

And that's really embarrassing. It's really embarrassing to stand there, pull up your shirt, have them tape you.

It. And so during that year, like my company commander that was there when I came in, he had gone. And then there was a new one that came in. Because at this point, he came in after, like, the incident happened, and so he saw that lieutenant. And so in his mind, I was just a lousy lieutenant. Right. Someone that needed to go to medical a lot, Someone that was larger. And so he would do, like these surprise tapings.

Right. To make sure that I made tape. And I was still with them. I did every time because again, yeah, I was still running, working out, still trying to do things, but I was still eating. Like, I was still eating. And I turned to, like, lifting more. So that's what helped me. Like, the lifting and building the muscle, like, helped me with that.

Gosh, I feel like you were trying to build the security to make sure, like, no one ever did that to you again. Was there anyone on base that you were able to confide in about this? Or did you just have to keep it all really? Gosh.

And so I left Casey and was assigned to another glorious case. Everything. Proving ground in Maryland that most people have never even heard of. So not for Belvoir or for me, that people know, but Aberdeen Proving Ground. So Aberdeen Proving Ground is home to the only technical intelligence unit that the army has. That unit 200 is interesting setup. I was going to say experiment by the army, but it's not. It's been going on too long to be an experiment.

But it is a reserve unit with an active duty company. So as a reserve battalion with an active duty company. That's a part of it. I was not assigned to the active duty company. I was assigned to the S3 shop of the Reserve unit.

But you're active duty.

Yes.

Yeah.

By then there was a lot of self loathing, a lot of hate towards the army. My health is not improving. It's getting worse. So much so that I. The med board process started for me there. Med board process, where all I wanted was just to be free. I just. I wanted out.

At that point, I didn't really have anyone to help me understand, like, the memoir process. All I knew were the doctors were saying that I should be fine, but my body didn't feel fine. They finally diagnosed me, like, towards the end of my time at Casey with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is. It was because I think now what the go to is is fibromyalgia. But at the time, it was chronic fatigue syndrome for me. So they finally. They diagnosed me with that after I was threatened by one of the medical doctors. He said that I was malingering, that nothing was wrong with me.

Then I got a new doctor, and he said, this is what I think is happening because of all of the trauma that your body has experienced. Not the sexual trauma, but the pulmonary emboli. He said, I think your body is, like, shutting down in certain ways.

It's getting tired. Your mind and your body.

Yeah. So I'm there at Aberdeen and still, you know, outwardly trying to present whatever I can as, like, success and being okay. And it was a horrible unit for me, too, in that I ended up having to submit an IG complaint because my. The S3 at the time didn't want to adhere to the profile that I had. He thought I was faking and that I should just be able to complete the mission regardless. It just had a lot of people kind of questioning, like, the profile, and I'm going through the mailboard process, essentially agreeing to whatever so I can get out. And, I mean, that's what ended up happening. I separated from service when I was at Aberdeen.

No anything, no farewell. I mean, I didn't get a hail, no farewell, no nothing. Just I was there and then I was gone. While I was there, though, to try to, like, begin to make sense of all the things, I started to lean into my faith again a little bit more. And I had a really great, like, church community that was there, and I decided that I wanted to go and pursue counseling because I knew if I didn't know anything else, that I could go back to school. Like, I could go do school, and I could do that. So I applied to a couple of different programs, and I was accepted, and I ended up getting my master's in counseling, actually, from a seminary. So not like pastoral counseling, but, like, just, you know, traditional mental health counseling.

But that Seminary environment was extremely helpful for me. It gave me, like, a sense of safety, and it was like, a reprieve from, like, all of the outside.

Yes. You can't thrive in an unsafe environment. No one can.

Yeah. And so I. When I say I threw everything away that was like, army, I. With the exception of two of my, like, brown green shirts, like my BDUs, my, like, all my insignia, everything, I chucked it. I wanted nothing to do with it, and burned the rest. I regret that now, but at the time, I was so angry. Like, so incredibly angry. And so I got to seminary.

I'm doing the things, but I'm also feeling lost now because I'm an adult. Yes. And I wasn't in for 20 years, but still, like, my identity was so wrapped up in, like, the military.

That was seven years. Seven years. You were.

Yeah. So my identity is so wrapped up in the military, and I didn't really know what to do, how to be. And I was going to school, but I thought, well, I can't live like this. I need to work. I need to be doing something. So I. This is. I can't help but laugh.

I worked at Toyota while I was going to school full time. I worked at Toyota for two weeks, just enough to complete my training to be a welder. It's like, this is not the life. I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. So I did that for two weeks. And then I decided, well, this isn't the life for me. And so I decided, well, I'll be a correctional officer.

Let's put this criminal justice degree to use. I completed the training to be a corrections officer. I spent one night as a correctional officer. I was like, this is not for me. This isn't for me either.

You're just trying to figure it all out.

Try my best. And so I left that alone. And from there, I decided, okay, let's try something a little less stressful than a factory worker or a correctional officer. And so I went to the other extreme. I decided I was going to work at the church that I was attending. I worked in the nursery. So I worked with kids. I did that because I had always been able to connect with children really well.

Like, I was a babysitter, tutor, like that kind of stuff growing up. And so I did that for a while, and then I worked at New York and Company.

That means you're a good soul. Because, you know, kids and dogs, they gravitate towards good.

And both have always liked me. Both. I work there on some Mornings and then I worked at New York Co. On like the weekends and stuff.

I'm going to take out some of the beginning, but I want to go into your Arabelle service. But we'll just go ahead, finish this and we'll go into Arabella.

Okay. So I finished my degree, worked as a career counselor for a while, then pursued my PhD gap in counseling personnel services from there, though, like some of the stuff from the military because I decided to study during my PhD program. Women veterans and their transition into Higher education. So, like starting to open up things. I did that work and actually secured a book contract to publish, like, my research. But I could never do it. I couldn't do it. I would start and continue to push the deadline back.

And I now realize that's because I hadn't even acknowledged to myself what happened to me. And I wasn't ready to fully open that up. Like, I listened to some stories that were similar to mine when I was doing my research, but I was able to get through that. Like just the publishing of the dissertation. But after that I couldn't move it forward and so I lost that contract. And then I started to feel like the pull and the call to go and do things that I wasn't able to do while I was in. So I always planned to do airborne. Couldn't do that.

So I decided to do jumps on my own. So I did skydiving. I started doing skydiving. I did.

I love that you're making this full circle. You're like, I couldn't do it in the military. I'm going to do it on my own.

Yeah. So I started doing that. I started doing a lot more like hiking and stuff like that. Ended up doing a wonderful backpacking trip in Denali national park and loved every minute of that. Had a couple of close bear encounters while I was there. And then like, the biggest thing for me was the deployment because I always felt such guilt. Were not deployed, you know, like, you train for a thing. I didn't get a chance to be a true MI officer.

Right. So at minimum I thought I should be able to deploy. Like, I need to do this. I wasn't able to do that before being med boarded out. And so I took a job in Afghanistan after I finished my PhD. So I went and worked at the American University of Afghanistan. And as a civilian, I was there for about seven months. Because what ended up happening is that I was offered a tenure track position.

And it's kind of hard to like, turn that down. But I also have guilt associated with Afghanistan. Because when I left, the person that took my spot, my position, was actually killed in a bombing attack, like, three, four weeks after she got there. And so, because, I mean, it's. We're living in Kandahar, Like, I'm living in the city. We're not surrounded by Constantino wire and barricades and like, these true armed guards, like, our armed guards were Afghans that worked for the institution. And like I said, we lived in houses, like, out with everyone else. And so that always just kind of sits there with me.

That's survivor guilt. Yeah.

And so I left, that came back, worked at the institution there at Grammar University. I did it for as long as I could before I felt the pull to go again. Because that's the other thing, like, about the military, like, you need to go, you need to go. And so I ended up going back overseas and I went to the uae. And so I stayed in the UAE for a while. And so, like, while I was there, I started doing research on the MENA region in general. And so that's how I ended up in Kuwait and Iraq and Bahrain and Qatar and like all these other places as a part of the research that I started to do. And that felt better to me to be in the space where I thought I was supposed to be.

And then I came back to the us, did more work in academia, like, more faculty work. I ended up moving back to New York after, like, repatriating back to the US and while I was in New York, met my now ex husband, got married while I was there. I'm trying to squeeze it all in to get to Arabella, because all of this is how I got to Arabella. And I was living in Binghamton, New York, he was living in Middletown, New York. And my position as a faculty member is typically a little bit more flexible than the work that he was doing. And so we agreed that I would move to Middletown. And so I did. And the closest institution was West Point.

So I ended up taking a position at West Point, and I worked at West Point. And it was not the cathartic experience that I thought it would be. It opens up everything even more so because I, prior to marriage, I started the process of at least acknowledging the sexual trauma and dealing with that because I didn't want to take it into my marriage. I acknowledged it, and I ended up doing intensive outpatient program through Emory. And that program is still in existence now. And it is a great program. I can't say I have enough positive things about it, but I Ended up staying three weeks there doing that program. And that was the first time that I actually talked about it and did like the exposure therapy and stuff.

And I've been continuing like therapy since then. But I ended up with the position at West Point. And while I was at West Point, I was recruited by a West Point grad because I decided I wanted to work on my licensure finally, like my clinical licensure. And so I was recruited by someone within the BA system because I reached out seeing if I could do like hours on the side to work towards licensure. And he was like, well, how about you just come and work for the va? And so he explained to me what the program was. It was a program focused on my transitioning service members. And I got pulled into like that world, like that part of it, and based on my own experience and how long it took me to truly transition and the work that I saw there, the research that I became a part of there, the research that I did, all of that led me to. To like my side of Arabella Wellness Center.

So my sister and I co founded it together. She's had like her own journey that led her to it. She is a general dentist by training and I had my own that led to it. I knew one population in particular that we wanted to serve were women veterans. And we do like, we have our Resiliency Pathways program that is a hand for transition. That could be any life transition that a woman veteran is going through. She can have her cohort of peers and she can have access to wellness services. Like the entirety of the program is a three month program that's planned out six weeks of that three months is essentially the peer cohort component.

And outside of their peer piece that they. Any person that's a part of the cohort has access to nutritional guidance, oral health education, body movement, as well as mental wellness. And so that we can one tap into the strength that we already possess. Because if you can survive in military, like it's something in you tap into that, continue to refine and rebuild and even improve like our understanding of resilience. Because oftentimes we don't even consider that rest can be a part of like the resilience journey and process. And so just help us to identify and connect with the community that we need to improve our wellness and the resources that we need to improve our wellness.

Do you feel like you found your home now? Does this feel pure to you?

Yes, absolutely. It feels like everything kind of came together working towards this. Like all of these Experience that I've had are to help other women that are going through or may have gone through, and then also to give me a better understanding of what it truly means to be trauma informed, what wellness may need to look like for us in particular, like, women veterans. Like, I was talking to a woman veteran the other day, and I was explaining to her that, I mean, talk therapy is great. I mean, I'm trained in talk therapy, but what actually worked for me was emdr. Things that connect to, like, somatic, like, movement and recognizing, like, how I'm holding trauma in my body, understanding that all of these TMJ issues that I have now are from unresolved trauma. Like, how does oral health fit into it? How does nutrition fit into it? And so all of that I can better understand and better explain to someone, because I've lived it. I'm living it still.

So, yes, yes, this feels like a great place to be. And the women veterans that I work with now that are in transition, I can share a little piece without, like, taking over, you know, like, the conversation or the story. But I can truly say I get that I could connect to that. And here are some things to look out for. And let's build a better plan for you, because I didn't have one. Let's make sure you get a plan.

I love that you found your place in the world, and I want to congratulate you because you were nominated for the Small Business Award with Women Veterans Alliance.

We were?

Yes, we were. And what's really nice is that you and I get to meet in November at the Veteran Business.

Very excited about that conference.

Yes. So I'm very excited. And I'm so happy that you decided to take time to be on Dog Tag Diaries and tell your story. And I just love how this came full circle for you because it's really difficult sometimes once you're stuck in trauma to see that there may be. Like, you kept going. You're like, I don't know where I'm supposed to be and what I'm supposed to do, but I'm gonna keep trialing and. And you found your place with your sister.

Yes, with my sister. And I finally understand post traumatic growth and how great that feels in, like, the last little bit for me, because, again, it truly is about finding my place with Arabella. Arabella means answered prayer. And we intentionally chose that it was an answered prayer to find, like, my purpose, to find out, like, what I'm truly supposed to be doing and to feel good in that space, knowing that I am helping. And then the other part is we would love to be like an answered prayer for other women that are also, like, on that same path, like, to help them to discover, like, their purpose once they have the wellness piece kind of mapped out for themselves.

Well, I can't wait to discuss this more with you because there is a lot of similarities, I hear a lot of similarities with our stories as well. So I'm really excited to keep in touch with you and learn more about you and discover together. And we are also going to work on a project together. So I'm super excited, very excited about that.

Yes.

To be announced.

There we go. Yes.

Well, to all of our viewers, Dr. Natesha Smith, Isabel, thank you. That's a wrap on today's episode of Dog Tag Diaries season six, baby. We're gunning for 5,000 downloads and 26 Apple reviews. And I know we can get there with your help. Share these Episodes Leave a review and let's show the world how can you powerful military women warrior voices really are.