We recently connected with Michele Rae and have shared our conversation below.
Michele, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
This is the first time I have written about this vulnerable experience. It has strengthened me and touched me deeply. Read on with a tender heart.
An unbidden opportunity for a courageous conversation on racism and white supremacy arose with my neighbor in Minneapolis a few months after the murder of George Floyd. She began by asking me if I am for the police or for people in brown and black bodies. What kind of a question is that? I was startled.
As are many people, I am aware of the propaganda being fed through various sources locally, nationally, and globally encouraging people to polarize, divide, and focus on what you are against or hate. Why are people buying into such a radicalized way of thinking and behaving?
This conversation was an opportunity to engage with my neighbor and learn more about her point of view as a white privileged woman. Could I do it?
As a transformational coach, I have been trained in and practice daily deep listening, holding positive regard for another, asking powerful questions, remaining curious and open minded, and validating another’s experience. My clients and I discuss the programing and conditioning that reinforces limiting and false beliefs. We explore how to live an empowered authentic life, live in our sovereignty. Yet, I have close family members who live in brown and black bodies. Racism is personal, one that can trigger judgement and rage in me. Could I take the risk to learn about her perspective and stay engaged?
Through this mostly one-sided conversation where I remained the active listener, I learned that she is genuinely afraid that if everyone had equal rights and opportunities, her entitled way of life would be threatened. I asked a few challenging questions. Her fear was so deeply embedded in the belief that only through oppression and excessive resources could she thrive and even survive. It was shocking. The conversation did not last very long. It put me in a high stress response, and it took me several days for my nervous system to rebalance and to recover.
The next time I saw her she thanked me for the conversation. I was stunned. She had talked to a black friend of her who had previously called her out several times on racist comments which she had dismissed. She was now ready to consider another person’s experience. It was a small brave act on my part to take the risk and stand my ground that everyone counts.
My resolve to be a part of the change I want to see in the world increased. Another risk I took is writing a book as a guide, inviting each of you to participate with intention, co-creating the emerging paradigms and stories about who we are becoming. It is an invitation for you to contribute to building a world that is abundant and sustainable for all life. Having courageous risky conversations is part of embodying and integrating sovereignty into our daily lives. Will you join me?
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
How did I become a transformational coach? What am I passionate about today?
What an incredible time of transformation, chaos, and awakening we are living in! I am passionate about supporting people personally, interpersonally, and professionally as we navigate co-creating in the new era. I am a transformational intuitive coach and founder of The Center Within. My book “Living From the Center Within: Co-Creating Who You Are Becoming” is designed as a roadmap for living your optimal life. I offer guidance through coaching, classes, transmissions, and activations to individuals and groups integrating and embodying higher frequencies and levels of consciousness now available during the shift we are experiencing. Working with me accelerates and amplifies your natural process of becoming your most inspired authentic self.
How did I get here?
Since I was a small child, I have been fascinated by the interconnection between the seen and unseen world. How did those saints float when they were praying? Why does my body feel so different when I walk in a crowded shopping center than when I walk in my favorite park? Where do insights and revelations come from? My curiosity led me to explore sacred teachings, human development, spiritual practices, and many areas of science.
The process of being human is amazing and complex. Why do people having similar experiences react so differently? Some people are resilient, happy, and satisfied, living from their strengths, passions, and gifts. Others with comparable circumstances are miserable and think they are victims. The unseen world of beliefs, intentions, and thoughts have profound influence on the small decisions we make every day.
By being mindful, I realized I could move my attention from drama and live with inner peace and contentment. From my calm Center Within, I have the freedom to respond to inner and outer knowings and events and make optimal choices in my life. This capacity has shifted my perspective and expanded my worldview and impacts every area of my life. I am more present in the moment and more effective in my roles as parent, leader, lover, coach, teacher, and friend.
This process of discovery of what it means to be a fully realized and awake human is continuous.
I have been blessed with amazing spiritual teachers, friends and communities that have and still do share and support my journey. I have been graduate faculty in the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing, College of Pharmacy, and the Humphrey Institute, where my students challenge and humble me. I have an MA in Human Development, am a Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach, registered pharmacist, spiritual director, executive coach, and trained in numerous Mind-Body-Spirt healing modalities and transformative practices. I have walked labyrinths all over the world, learned Reiki and Therapeutic Touch, Qi Gong, and biofeedback. I have learned to meditate, breathe deeply, and relax. I have studied and practiced emotional and social intelligence, spiritual direction, coaching, intuition, and authentic communication. I am a lifelong student of being human.
What about my coaching?
As a transformational coach and consultant, my individual and organizational clients open me to more clarity and knowledge through sharing their stories of courage, suffering, brilliance, and transformation. During my transformative coaching sessions, clients become more confident and engaged as they enhance their gifts, talents, wisdom, and passions. They access their genius and expand into more empowering perspectives. They gain clarity and power as they expose and unblock limiting beliefs, stuck patterns, and fears. I bring my abilities in deep listening, intuition, appreciative inquiry, spiritual practices, mindfulness, presence, and emotional/social/
Why did you write a book?
I wrote a book, “Living From Your Center Within: Co-creating Who You Are Becoming”, which arose from invitations by clients and students to make available in written form what we discuss in our sessions and classrooms. It is also in response to the urgency many of us are experiencing as we navigate the accelerating and often confusing changes in our lives and the world. This time of transformation provides an opening and calling to each of us to create a life and a world with more peace, tolerance, and equanimity. “Living From Your Center Within” is also a call to action for personal and societal growth and development. Fortunately, it is our natural tendency to develop, and we can actively cultivate our progression. The book has been written as a guide, inviting each of you to participate with intention, co-creating the emerging paradigms and stories about who we are becoming. It is an invitation for you to contribute to building a world that is abundant and sustainable for all life.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
During one year of my life my children left home to go to school, my softball team of 17 years decided not to play anymore, my spiritual teacher who was married had an affair with a married member of our group and the group fractured and I left, I got divorced, moved, and quit my guaranteed income job in a large corporation to go into my own consulting business full time. Seriously, so many pivots at once. I have a memory as a child around 9 or so of seeing into my future and knowing about halfway through my life it would completely change. I giggled as I remembered thinking this would be literally true, and I would live twice as long as I was that year. We shall see! Here is more about this pivot time from my book, “Living From the Center Within: Co-Creating Who You Are Becoming”.
When my children left home, I made space and time to contemplate the next stage of my life. I reflected on what I wanted to expand in my life and what to let go of that would not serve me going forward. I sold my home and decided to find a place to live that required few resources of time and money. Maybe rent a room from a friend or a small efficiency? It felt like a sabbatical and an adventure. My second intention was to invite more opportunities for teaching, writing, healing and leading into my life. This made my heart sing just imagining what might arise from the field of infinite possibilities.
It was magical watching the Universe respond. The owner of The Metamorphosis Center, a new holistic healing center in my area, called and invited me to present for an evening, which led to offering a four-week class, which led to an all-day conference, which led to monthly teachings, and an invitation to be on her board of directors. When I asked how she found me, she stated my name had come up three different times from people who did not know each other. Each person had recommended me to teach at her center after they had encountered me in various areas of my work. She decided to pay attention to the synchronicity and contact me to participate in her speaker series.
Another service opportunity arose when I was invited to participate in training and creating curriculum for potential new courses offered at the Center for Spirituality & Healing at the University of Minnesota. A brilliant consultant developed an amazing six-month training program on Emotional Intelligence and Mindfulness for organizations and leaders. She was retiring soon and shared her wisdom with our small group to utilize in our new program development. There were two other opportunities to teach that developed out this relationship.
I utilize these skills of mindful and intentional living often in my current coaching practice and have experienced the life-changing shifts people make utilizing these techniques. Mindfulness practices are designed to center, quiet, and open the mind-body-heart and focus attention and awareness in the present moment. These practices also encourage open receptivity, accepting and observing without evaluation or judgment. Through cultivating mindfulness skills, we can decrease stress, gain clarity, enhance creativity and deepen compassion. As we become more mindful, we are more likely to build trust, find common ground, focus on solutions, and make better decision.
Another synchronicity that happened during this transition going through my divorce, moving, and making a career change is dragonflies began to appear. I was staying with a friend who had a dragonfly shower curtain. I received an invitation to a birthday party with a dragonfly pin on the front. Another friend gave me a silk dragonfly scarf, and my sister sent me a card with a beautiful hand painted dragonfly. There was magic all around if I could remain open and notice.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
There were so many messages that came to me over my early years to stay small, don’t get too big for my britches. I have spent considerable time unlearning that belief and replacing it with empowered authentic self-worth and self-love. Here is a bit more of my story from my book “Living From the Center Within: Co-Creating Who You Are Becoming”.
Resistance to being our best self can feel like procrastination, fear of being seen, wounds, pain, or frustrations. We can stumble upon beliefs and limiting self-talk saying “It needs to be hard” or “It’s not worthwhile” or “I don’t deserve to be too big.” Growth and healing can kick up buried messages that we are unlovable or unworthy and attempt to squeeze our expanding self back down to size. The remedy to this self-sabotaging is to give our allegiance to that which expands us and trust the natural process of our own and all human development.
Deep into writing this book, I had an experience of not having or being enough. I decided to ask for assistance in supporting the completion of this book through a crowd sourcing fundraising process called Kickstarter. While creating the campaign, I could feel my resistance. What if nobody contributed? I would be humiliated and feel foolish. As I launched the Kickstarter campaign and began more actively asking for backing, the worry increased. Memories of times I had not experienced encouragement and felt sabotaged came flashing back.
A few days after the campaign launched, I headed up to the cabin on a beautiful peaceful lake in northern Wisconsin. While creating Kickstarter email requests to friends and family one morning, and I became dizzy and nauseated. I vomited and had diarrhea for 6 hours straight. I moved from the bed to the couch, staying close to the bathroom. My partner graciously checked in on me. He made some fabulous broth, and eventually it stayed down and I began to recover. The force of clearing in my body, emotions, and thoughts of times I had previously felt a need to stay small and protect myself was stunning. The process of writing this book has demanded more transparency, vulnerability and honesty than I had anticipated in many ways.
Healing the holes inside ourselves can be painful and frustrating. Developing our perceptive sensitivity to subtle energies and realities can come with second-guessing and confusion. The rewards of higher consciousness are worth it. We become more peaceful, trusting and confident. We have the freedom to choose our responses calmly and compassionately. We have greater access to our creativity and inspiration.
As we continue to heal, we free our attention and clarify our intention. The boundaries and limits that kept us small eventually give way and we expand permanently to a new and larger capacity. Our daily life becomes more congruent, integrated, authentic and coherent. We experience more joy, ease and flow. This process of experiencing higher states of consciousness happens again and again, sometimes gradually and sometimes suddenly, until we stretch back and forth enough to comfortably remain in our expanded perspective at a radical new higher stage of consciousness. We become more capable of intentionally participating in impacting who we are becoming as we transition into this new era of being human.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.centerwithin.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micheleraecw/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/centerwithin/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michele-rae-2b223713
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MicheleRaeCW
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@centerwithin
- Other: Sound cloud https://soundcloud.com/michele-rae-964138052