Justina Prenatt lives deep in the mountains outside of Asheville, NC on a rural homestead with her family. She is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (LCMHC) in the state of North Carolina. Justina graduated from Western Carolina University in 2010 with a Masters of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, after which she began practicing as a family therapist in Asheville. Prior to her work as a counselor she was a long-time community health advocate and practiced as a direct-entry midwife, providing holistic care and advocacy for families seeking safe, natural options for their health and wellness needs. 

Through workshops and classes, Justina has engaged the Western North Carolina community with lively and enriching opportunities to develop healthful lifestyle practices, cultivate self-love, improve relationships, achieve wellness during the childbearing years, and engage in supportive parenting. She has been a featured teacher for multiple years at the Southeast Women's Herbal Conference and at Western North Carolina's Firefly Gathering.  

As a counselor, workshop facilitator, and teacher Justina offers a creative, holistic, and evidence-based approach to support those entrusted to her to achieve physical and emotional wellness, personal success, dreams and goals, healthy relationships with partners, family, and friends, and overall life enjoyment. 

Additionally, Justina has engaged in numerous community building and organizational capacities that run the gamut from serving as president of the Board of Directors at the French Broad Food Co-op in Asheville, NC and participating in the Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council to organizing amazing artists in creating "theme camps" that offer interactive, group performance experiences at local and international festivals. Justina also provides facilitation for sacred ceremonies, such as weddings, rites of passage, coming of age, and consecration for event openings. 

"As a young woman I envisioned possible careers based on what would allow me to create a peaceful and healthful world that fosters people living lives full of love, joy, and freedom. I was serious about 'saving the world.' I still am.

In seeking wellness for myself and wanting to share it with others I have walked many different paths. What I have learned through my varied work is that optimal wellness can be cultivated in our lives only when two sets of essential needs are met.

First, we must live in safe homes and communities and have love and support from family and friends, plus we must have unconditional access to medical care, nourishing food, clean air, water, and soil, and ample opportunities for education and self-expression. These are needs that can only be met collectively, and we must work together to ensure that all people have access to these essential resources on a societal level.

The other needs that are crucial for achieving your desired levels of wellness, health, bliss, and success are to develop a deep and appreciative relationship with yourself and to learn to unconditionally love yourself. Self-respect, self-esteem, self-regard, self-worth - these are all ways of describing authentic self-love. Through research and observation I have come to believe that self-love is the cornerstone of the foundation for anything we may hope to build in our lives, be that healthy relationships, thriving families, successful careers, or unfettered self-expression and the ability to live as our most authentic selves. Achieving true self-love is work that only we can do for ourselves, and work that we must do to realize any of our dreams. My personal mission is to compassionately and skillfully guide as many people as I can to open their hearts and minds to their best possible relationships with themselves and to finally, fully, freely come to unconditionally love themselves."

- Justina Prenatt