We were lucky to catch up with Denise Michelle recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Denise thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
I worked in the corporate world for nearly 10 years before I started on the path of entrepreneurship. In 2006 I had been practicing yoga for 7 years and had a thought that maybe I could become a teacher and help people the way yoga had helped me. The main issue was that I was struggling to heal Borderline Personality Disorder. In 2008 I left my corporate job to save my life and entered into a 9 month outpatient program to help me gain tools and skills on how to cope with life and my emotions. The following year I gained the courage to become a yoga teacher with the intention that yoga would be therapeutic for my students as it had been for me. 10 months later I opened a yoga studio “by accident” but let’s be real there are no accidents. I decided to take a leap of faith and leave the corporate world for good and dedicate my life in service to help others. That risk paid off – I owned and operated The Yoga Place in Downtown Los Angeles for 6 years serving thousands of students on their path to healing and coming home to themselves.
The next risk I took was when I made a decision to close the studio because I was burnt out and knew I was meant to share my heart and message on a larger, more global level. In 2018 I became a certified transformational life coach and RTT Hypnotherapist. The next stage of my becoming was born and I began to connect all of my areas of studies over 20 years to develop SelfLove Mastery. I have since taken over a dozen certifications and weaved them into helping people heal and transform their lives so they can live from their authentic Self.
Currently I serve as a speaker, teacher, coach, mentor, healer, author and friend.
Denise, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’ve always had a love for learning and over the last 20 years I have become certified in multiple areas – life coaching, massage therapy, yoga, emotional freedom technique, RTT hypnotherapy, personality coding, human behavior, leadership and wealth mastery. In total I’m certified in over a dozen modalities. This is why I branded myself as The SelfLove Alchemist. At the end of the day EVERYTHING comes down to how we see, feel and treat ourselves. SelfLove is the foundation of all love, because we radiate love from the inside and pour it out onto others.
You see, we have been programmed to believe we aren’t enough, we aren’t worthy, we aren’t lovable and the negative self talk wreaks havoc on our lives, relationships and businesses. When it comes to mastering anything 80% of it is in our psychology and how we view ourselves at the core. This is why I do a lot of subconscious healing work with my clients and students – so we can get to the root cause of blocks, patterns and habits.
But with that comes integration and really truly embodying it – aka making it a part of your identity.
There is a beautiful method to transformation and I am here to help support people in creating long lasting results.
It’s funny because this isn’t something you stumble into or get a degree in, I really discovered all of this by healing myself and realizing my purpose in life is to help others also master SelfLove. What makes me most proud is that no matter how difficult things have gotten I have always made it through with this thought – “if I can help just one more person it will all be worth it”.
What I value most with my students and clients is love, connection and contribution. We are a tribe of heart centered Soulful Leaders. This, to me, is how we radiate love into the world.
The services I provide are:
Coaching and mentoring
Hypnotherapy
Trauma Work
Generational Healing
Yoga
Meditation
Digital Courses
Virtual Workshops
Retreats
Upcoming services:
Podcast
New book
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Showing up authentically and vulnerably. I first came out of the proverbial closet living with a mental illness in 2014 and I didn’t do it in a small way. After my spiritual awakening in 2013 (my surfboard smashed me in the face requiring 29 stitches), I was ripped open spiritually and emotionally. Through working with my therapist at the time I realized that if I’m going through the depths of my healing that means others are too and one night I poured my heart out and wrote a blog post sharing my biggest secret – that I had Borderline Personality Disorder.
I was terrified that I would be found out yet I knew that I needed to free myself of the shame I had been carrying around it. Interesting enough, I didn’t just write a blog post and send it to my students, I was guided to submit it to Elephant Journal to be publicly circulated. Oh and trust me, I was terrified. I hit the send button while having a meltdown from all the what if scenarios. I literally thought I was about to drive my business into the ground and I’d lose all my students. But when the article came out the opposite happened. All of a sudden I was seen as brave and I gave people courage.
This is when I knew I had a responsibility in the world – this really wasn’t about me.
So over the years I do my best to keep showing up through the pain, the darkness, the grief, the uncertainty so I can be the light for others to see.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Oh resilience…I guess we can call it that. My most recent dark knight of the soul happened from Sept 2020-Sept 2021 when I lost 5 family members including my Mother to Covid and my dog to heart failure. I learned a new lesson called grief. And trust me, grief was not what I thought it was. Grief became my teacher and almost took me out. That year my nervous system was shot to be honest. I was struggling to function, hold space for clients and grow my business. That was the year my book came out, I hired a team and I had to keep showing up. I did my best but what I didn’t see coming was a darkness that was beginning to set in. I became suicidal…again. I say again because I thought I had cleared it years prior.
The thing that shifted me was going to a Tony Robbins virtual event and I got to see how grief was taking over my life. I didn’t expect to invest to work with him. In 2 years I took 12 trainings (yes 12, over 1100 hours of immersion!) Through my work with Tony, not only was I able to break a 30 year cycle with suicidal ideation, I was able to recreate my life, my business and my overall WHY. I am the strongest I’ve ever been and learned true SelfLove mastery. 
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BridgeTheLove.com
- Instagram: www.Instagram.com/denisemichellexoxo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theselflovetribebtl/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisemichellelove/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DeniseMxoxo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DeniseMichelle
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/denisemichellelove/ https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5bohZnJ6c7U6iDTRGvFeJ1?si=e85db43eb4284135