Ep 40. Beyond the Binary: Re-Enchanting Practice Without Losing Our Critical Edge with Miriam Latif

Non-Diet Naturopath

Casey sits down with herbalist, writer, and mentor Miriam Latif (Understory) for a heart-opening conversation about uncertainty, nuance, and practicing in the messy middle spaces of wellness.

They unpack the collapse of certainty, the harm of binaries, how capitalism shows up in diet and purity culture, and what it means to hold both clinical rigour and enchantment.

What You’ll Hear About:

• Holding uncertainty without collapsing into doubt
• The grief and liberation of “has everything I learnt been a lie?”
• How colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy shape purity culture, diet culture, and wellness narratives
• The tension practitioners feel living between clinical spaces and enchanted, earth-based ways of knowing
• The radical power of nuance in a culture hungry for "controversial hot takes"

This episode is a balm for practitioners who straddle worlds: evidence-based and intuitive, clinical and animist, scientific and soulful... and are ready to feel at home in their complexity.

👉 Free resource:
Download the practitioner guide Working with Clients with Disordered Eating for Naturopaths and join the waitlist for Body as Earth: Foundations in Disordered Eating Awareness for Naturopaths, Herbalists & Holistic Nutritionists (opening mid-2026).

LINKS:

Miriam's Instagram: @___understory

Casey's website: https://www.funkyforest.com.au
Casey's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/funky.forest.health
Casey's Instagram: @funky.forest.health
Non-Diet Naturopath Instagram: @nondietnaturopath
Grab your FREE practitioner guide + jump on the waitlist for Disordered Eating for Naturopaths

Grab your copy of my free e-book The Modern Yogi's BS-Free Guide to Wellbeing and sign up for my regular monthly newsletter!

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Chapters

1. Welcome & What This Episode Is About (00:00:00)

2. Free Guide + Body as Earth Waitlist (00:01:10)

3. Why This Conversation Hit So Deep (00:02:30)

4. Introducing Miriam Latif & Understory (00:05:55)

5. Postpartum Epiphanies & “Unf*ck Wellness” (00:06:10)

6. What Is Understory? (00:08:49)

7. Wellness Culture, Capitalism & Systems (00:10:33)

8. Caring for Individuals in Sick Systems (00:12:09)

9. “Your Body Isn’t Faulty, the World Is Indigestible” (00:15:05)

10. Redefining What a “Body” Is (00:17:41)

11. “Has Everything I Learnt Been a Lie?” (00:18:23)

12. Our Cultural Fear of Uncertainty (00:22:15)

13. GLP-1s, Non-Diet Work & Practitioner Purity (00:25:00)

14. Parenting, Compost & the Liminal Space (00:27:30)

15. Uncertainty as Medicine (00:29:41)

16. We’re Not Meant to Know Everything (00:31:43)

17. Asking for Help Without Shame (00:33:58)

18. Disenchantment & Why Wellness Feels So Magical (00:34:47)

19. Holding Magic *and* Discernment (00:38:36)

20. Capitalism & the Hunger for Meaning (00:43:32)

21. Collapsing the Wellness/Illness Binary (00:45:25)

22. Cycles, Chronic Illness & Composting (00:50:46)

23. Nuance Is the New Rebellion (00:52:21)

24. Social Media vs. Nuance (00:55:58)

25. Composting Self-Optimisation (00:57:53)

26. What Gives Miriam Hope (01:00:47)

27. Where to Find Miriam (01:03:21)

28. Outro & Next Steps (01:06:49)