Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsey Horvatich.
Hi Lindsey, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee and that is a huge part of my identity and my story. Growing up, I worked in my dad’s steel plant, sold grilled corn at carnivals and festivals, started a babysitting business, and worked as a lifeguard. We were a very blue collar family – my dad was always in sales and my mom is a veteran elementary and early childhood educator. We had a lot of fun, and all four of us worked really hard. It wasn’t easy, and it taught me so much about how to connect with people and solve just about any problem. I moved to Charleston, South Carolina for college when I was 18 and then across the country to Berkeley, California for a post-undergrad internship in marketing and public relations for a well established and huge risk taking theatre in the Bay Area. I wanted to stay in California, but I could barely afford a studio apartment while working three jobs and I did not like being so far away from my family. I briefly moved back to Memphis to explore a career in non-profit business management and started a graduate degree in that field, but 2008 was not a great time to be in non-profit work. At 25, I was in charge of a multi-million dollar non-profit marketing department, and was coerced into resigning my job when I was already working 14 hours a day, working in bed through the night, and not eating or sleeping regularly. I didn’t know then that I could advocate for myself in the business world, so I walked away and took a job working in the kitchen of a former NFL player turned chef. He started every shift at 5am by blasting “Dr. Feelgood” over a food splattered boom box, threw knives, and cursed me to high heaven before buying me a six pack and a mushroom pepperoni pizza while playing a live concert version of “Atlantic City” every night. I loved it, and I hated it, and I needed health insurance and a steady paycheck. I took a sales and marketing job for a mid-size promotional products company for two years, and somewhere during that time I also left a life threatening abusive relationship. I needed to get out of my hometown and away from some of the choices I had made, so I started dreaming about what I could possibly do that would give me some sort of purpose. I changed majors four times in college, and wanted to be a farmer, a lawyer, a chef, an actor, and respected author all at the same time. That makes for a tough career counseling session. I have always been highly creative, skilled in problem solving, and full of grit. I attribute a lot of that to being from Memphis. As tough of a city as it is, it is this huge small town nestled up against the Mighty Mississippi and it has produced some of the most determined, most inventive, and most influential people in the world. There is something in the pristine water there that just makes us all appreciate life and completely loyal to our home and our people.
My younger brother, who is now a brilliant entrepreneur in Memphis, not-so-gently confronted me and asked, “What are you doing with your life?” and I couldn’t answer him. I knew I wanted to wake up every day and do something that matters, and I had no idea what that could be. At the time, I was waking up at 4:30 in the morning to go to the gym before work (because we are all somewhat indestructible in our 20s), and one morning I was slogging it on the elliptical when I felt something in my body say “Go be a therapist”. I started laughing and crying at the same time, and I am pretty sure the guy on the machine next to me just watched in terror. Everything in my bones knew this was something to pay attention to, and everything in me felt ridiculous in that moment. I met with every person I trusted and asked for their honest feedback, and every single one of them confirmed this divine call to action, or whatever you want to call it. So I started doing my research, and short story long I ended up applying to a very small cohort based psychology program in Oviedo, Florida. I had $2,000 saved up, no money for tuition, and the only place I could afford to rent was a room in the home of a 70 year old couple whose son taught classes at the program I would be starting. I signed an agreement saying I wouldn’t work while in school, and I proceeded to work three part time jobs while going to school, completing all of my student practicum hours, and digging into my own story and trauma for the first time.
After graduation, I worked for a few private practices in town and inside the Orange County Female Detention Center on 33rd Street. I facilitated addiction recovery groups, trauma education classes, and modified church gatherings inside of the jail for three years and I loved it. It also nearly took me out mentally, physically, and emotionally. At the same time I was living part time in a residential recovery program for women who had survived being trafficked for sex and drugs. I loved everything I was doing, and I was doing too much. My body started to shut down and I was diagnosed with multiple autoimmune conditions. I met and started dating my now husband during this time, and while he praised my work ethic and my gumption, he watched me enter a steep decline in my personal life. He staged an intervention of sorts with someone we really trust, and they both told me I had to slow down or life would implode or explode. Or both. I had to learn to do things differently or I wouldn’t be around to do them at all.
Fast forward to today, and I’ve been working in mental health in Orlando for thirteen years. I started Salvia Healing Collective in 2023 after working with some great practices in the area, and feeling the disconnect between helping people heal and trying to run a business. Salvia is everything I wanted when I left grad school and that I did not know how to do before. Salvia is a collective, not a company. It was birthed out of a desire for safe healing spaces built on radical inclusivity, values based practices, and decolonized wisdom. We practice intentional decision making, slow growth, and non-hierarchical leadership steeped in matriarchal knowledge, non-linear planning, and a people-over-profits model. Our official boiler plate is “We are a growing group of radically inclusive, embodied care providers who want to help you heal while honoring your innate dignity.” The language or the syntax may change, but that is what I wanted to build and that is who we are. We leave a lot of room for “getting it wrong” and acknowledge that there is really no such thing as “normal”.
I am more of a reluctant entrepreneur than anything. I have no desire to build an empire or get wealthy off of this work. I love meeting people from all flavors of life, learning their stories and what makes them move through the world, looking for patterns and misfires, and helping them develop a healing plan that is collaborative, dynamic, and practical. I also want to help teach the next generation of therapists that we don’t have to keep doing things the same old way just because that is what has traditionally been done. I am a clinical supervisor in addition to being a therapist, and I get to doula recent graduates into this process we call “licensure” in the field of mental health. It is so much fun, and it is also really hard. I show up every day and sit in rooms with people from all walks of life. I have broken up fights, witnessed reconciliations, been cussed out, been threatened, been proposed to, and been called every name in the book and then some. I’ve also done it all without a gun or any other weapon in sight.
I am here because other wise, brave, and creative people intervened in my life, with consent, and showed me options I had never considered before. Now I get to do that for other people, and bring some incredible people along with me.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Hahahahahahhahaa that question made me laugh. Absolutely not! I just interviewed a potential new collective member and told her that I will get this wrong so many times before I learn how to do it well. I had no plan to start Salvia. I walked out of another group practice due to a clash in values and told my husband that I needed to try doing this on my own for a while. I did so with the incredible privilege of being married to someone who has a well paying job that he loves with benefits and who is cheering me on to live out my whacky dreams and crazy ideas. As a chronically ill and dynamically disabled person, I have to have access to routine and reliable medical care and we are not people who have a bunch of money lying around. I knew I was asking him to take a huge risk, and he basically said, “Ok, when do we jump?” This could have all gone horribly wrong. When I left the former practice, I gave all of the people I was working with three options for moving forward: follow me into a solo practice while I had no idea what I was doing, remain with the current practice and transition to another therapist (of which there were many!), or stop therapy/search for a completely new provider. A few people were wrapping up or moving out of state, so we parted ways intentionally. Every single other person followed me into the great unknown, and I never give them enough credit for that. They really took a risk by following me, and I will never forget that. I couldn’t actually afford to rent an office, so I joined one of those “rent a gray cement block by the day” deals and brought a wagon into the building to “make an office” one day a week, because that’s all I could afford. I used camping lamps, pillows, inflatables, and a oil diffuser to make it feel like we weren’t talking about someone’s deepest fears and hurts while sitting in a closet. I met with everyone else online in my little library/home office/creativity cave. People stayed. And people came back. And people told other people. I never paid for marketing in the beginning, other than ordering business cards. I put my cards on every coffee shop bulletin board, left them behind in waiting rooms, and sent them to friends. I had a wait list within a month, and just kept doing what I knew how to do. My friends, family, and community kept trusting me with their care and sending people my way.
I also undervalued myself, my work, and what I was offering. I undercharged, and did a lot of pro-bono work. I never wanted people to have to choose between groceries and therapy. At the same time, my full schedule was barely contributing to our mortgage. Then I would hit the month of December or Spring Break, and business would slow down as it naturally does in this field, and I would. have no safety net. I had no savings. I could barely set money aside for continuing education and taxes, much less set up a PTO fund. My husband Tim never told me I had to shut down, and he did ask me to get some help in learning how to actually run a business. So I did, and I am still learning, and it’s getting better. I had to learn to reject hustle culture and urgency, and embrace the limitations of capacity, time, and relational energy. I had to learn to do everything differently if I wanted to do this work and love my family, my friends, my community and even myself well.
We’ve been impressed with Salvia Healing Collective, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Salvia Healing Collective is a growing group of radically inclusive, embodied healing professionals who offer care that honors your innate dignity. We offer clinical mental health care for adolescents and adults both online and in person in the state of Florida, as well as non-clinical healing support through healing circles, groups, workshops, classes, and self paced education. In addition to care and support, we also offer clinical supervision, peer consultation, and ongoing education for other therapists, counselors, and coaches doing the work. We approach care from a collaborative and dynamic perspective, while prioritizing people over profits. We also enjoy locking arms with other business and organizations in our community, and find ourselves partnering rather than competing to offer care options to the Central Florida area and beyond. We also seek to make care accessible to as many people as possible, and choose to advocate for equitable and accessible care for all of our neighbors.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
There is no such thing as a self-made person. Yes, I have worked really hard to get to this place where I get to do what I love. I am also here because so many other people paved the way or showed me how to use a wrecking ball. Both of my parents taught us the value of hard work, fostered my creativity, and told me I could do anything I set my mind to. My parents are not perfect by any means, and they – as well as my grandparents – worked incredibly hard to send me to one of the best prepatory schools in the country to give me the gift of education through which I was introduced to dozens of teachers, leaders, mentors, counselors, and friends who still sit on my shoulder and tell me how to do this weird life thing. I also have to give a lot of credit to my brother, Sam Coates. We are so alike, and we are so different. He stepped into the world of business ownership long before I did, and somewhere along the way he became the wise younger brother. He is just as quick to challenge me as he is to cheer for me, and I love him for it. Also my Aunt Beth. She has been cheering me own and lifting me up since I grinned at her through my crib. My husband, Tim, is the most patient, strong, generous, kind, and nerdy man I’ve ever met and he is really the strength and the wisdom behind this whole outfit. He encourages my wild ideas and keeps me grounded at the same time. What a gift. I also failed earlier to mention that there are people in Memphis who gifted me the money to pay for my tuition in grad school. They didn’t get a tax deduction from it, and received no tangible return on investment. I could not do what I am doing if those incredibly generous people had not given of their own resources to allow me to go to school. I also probably would not be in this field if it were not for all of the therapists who cared for me along the way. I put those kind people through so much shit (crap, whatever is allowed here). I love being a therapist and I am a terrible patient/client. Those men and women put up with all of my antics and are the real heroes here. I also need to give credit to Katie Donzati, owner of the Peaceful Peacock yoga studio in Orlando. I walked into her office with a hair brained idea for collaborating and she became a fast friend as well as a bad ass business mentor. We need more people like her running things in The City Beautiful! I owe a lot of credit to the people who have trusted me a long the way, especially those who choose to work with me. My colleague, Vernitta McQueen, took a huge risk in coming to work with me and I am so thankful for her.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.salviahealingcollective.com
- Instagram: @salviacollective
