We recently connected with Dr. Michelle Cromwell and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Dr. Michelle, thanks for joining us today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.

I had been in higher Ed for about 18 years and the last 7 as vice president in diversity equity and inclusion. I had moved to Arizona for a new job and after a year it was just feeling as hard as the rocks in the desert. The November of that year I was doing a class with one of my favorite rainforest herbalists on medical astrology and during the class the teacher asked me if I was in the healing arts. My ego answered that I was a vice president at a medical school. But my heart and gut knew the real answer to that question. I had been in the healing arts for over 13 years as a yogi, reiki mater teachers and intuitive healer, but had been doing it hush hush and hidden because I was ashamed to let my colleagues know that the “I” the respected academic and c-suite executive was dabbling in traditional medicine. By the end of that class that November I knew that I had to make a difficult decision. What was interesting is that I was moving into my second Saturn return on the birthday that following March, so at the age of 57 I knew that it was the time for me to put on my big girl pants, make adult decisions, and really move into the life that I was supposed live. So, at the top of the year in January without a parachute and without a long financial runway I left my job and began the deep and meaningful exploration of birthing the medicine woman that was in me. I went back to school and began studying to become a clinical herbalist and connected with some researchers, traditional healers in West Africa, and began studying W African herbs. And the rest is history. That class was the defining moment helped me see the writing on the wall and was instrumental in plummeting me and pulling me through a portal to enable me to do what I know I have been put on this earth to do. I am clear that it is to be a medicine woman that uses the powerful West African herbs to support women to find and support their well-being. Had I not taken that class, I would have moved through my dreamland trajectory and become a university president whose head was in the clouds, feet dangling above my destiny, and living someone else’s drama and life.

Dr. Michelle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

For as long as I could remember I wanted to become a doctor unfortunately instead of going to medical school I took the roundabout route of education, the airlines, social work and ultimately went into academia and became a professor and executive. At my sacred center I’ve always been a healer. I would be able to concoct something that would help a headache, that will help us a stomachache, I will have just the right words to say to soothe somebody’s uneasy spirit or heart, and I was a go to for insomnia. Once I stopped running from what my true calling was I fell into this work of healing using herbs and holistic practices. I became a yoga teacher while I was still a professor and encouraged by students to practice. Every other year I added a modality to my suite of practices. First it was reiki, then whole food plant-based nutrition, kundalini yoga, Quantum Healing Hypnotherapy, and now herbalism. But my path of being a medicine woman began when I traveled to Benin, West Africa over 2 years ago and was introduced to some of the most powerful herbs that I have ever met. I also chose to become a Fa initiate to get a deeper and better understanding of my African ancestry and that opened the portal to a world of traditional medicine I only dreamed about. What I also recognized is that the West African herbs have this by bipolarity of scientific virtues which were very powerful healing elements and they also possessed spiritual virtues. Those encounters with the herbs at that time solidified the type of clinical herbalist I would become and that plant medicines I would use, were those that our DNA remembered because they came from the source of all civilization, Africa. The herbalism program that I’m currently studying in, uses planetary herbalism and traditional Chinese medicine as a foundation. We are trained in looking at the planetary aspects of herbs and also using the differential diagnosis of Traditional Chinese medicine to understand the nature of the symptoms that clients have and matching the best herbs for them based on the nature and energy of the herb as well as the energy of the symptom which gives the best support to the person.

This March, I had the opportunity to spend one month in Benin where I learned about traditional medicine from West African traditional therapists/healers. During that month almost every day I encountered a powerful West African herb that was used to support women with menopausal symptoms. When I returned to the United States I understood that I had a once in a lifetime experience. I also understood that this was a signpost, meaning that seeing those herbs and experiencing those herbs meant that there was something I needed to do with them for the women that I served. Being an advocate and practitioner of women’s health, I decided to create a new company called Soeur du Sol, which means Sister of the Soil. I also developed a line of herbal plant medicines, called Pour Soeur (For Sister) that could be used to support women experiencing menopausal symptoms. The very first product that we are launching this summer is an herbal tea, Pour Soeur, Where’s my mind tea, which is a proprietary blend of only two West African herbs that have been used for centuries in West Africa, the Caribbean and S. America to support women experiencing brain fog from menopause. It is sustainable, fast-acting and has data from scientific studies and traditional healers about how they are used. What I love is that the main herb in the formula has been traditionally used for other types of support that women need. That herb also supports hot flashes, and it also supports night sweats. I would be remiss if I didn’t say this herb has some powerful traditionally used support in that it is still used for oral thrush as well as a vaginal wash.

We are hosting meeting ups around the country called Sip and See for women and the men they love to attend, share stories, and learn more about menopause. They will also have an opportunity to taste our Where’s My Mind Tea and to experience its effects and provide us feedback. The next one is in Napa Valley in August, and Boston in September. We end in Chicago in October.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

You can’t make this up. I set my projections for the entire 2025 and 2026 and the year 2025 did whatever it wanted, especially with the business finances and partnerships. The first curveball was that my five -figure monthly consulting income was cut short when a contract ended a month before we expected. I knew that I could pivot and make some magic happen but somehow my wand seemed to drop to the bottom of a well, noting was giving. And after that first curveball we got hit after hit after hit after hit. This included our portal not working and not being able to sell our tea at our first launch. This also included someone who began walking beside me as a potential partner and co-founder suddenly in a matter of three days sending me an e-mail in the middle of the night saying that he was in Switzerland and that he would no longer be able to support what I was doing. All of this in the middle of launch season and launching our MVP. In addition, the woman that came on board as my chief of staff literally ghosted me and disappeared. She stopped responding to texts, to calls and spirited away with some money that we invested in her for an upcoming project. What was one of the more difficult pills to swallow was that mysteriously all our clients that were supposed to make their final payment for their retreat which takes place in November cancelled and some just said they couldn’t pay. It just seemed as though it was one thing after the next and if I didn’t have a different mental disposition, I would have been running down the 101 loop in Arizona butt naked. I share all of this to say that I talk about my resilience because I understood that everything that was happening and the failures that I was experiencing were not a part of my doing nor were they attributes of me not trying hard enough. What I clearly understood is that the challenges were all speed bumps placed by a higher power in the universe to slow me down for some reason. I began coming up with creative and viable ways to navigate them without sending shocks to my own system. So what did I do? I began to think of ways that I could turn this around and having no money is a problem but having no creative ideas of how you can dig yourself out of that deep hole is a bigger problem. One of the first things I did was to get a weekly session with my therapy to ensure that my mind and mental health was being cared for. I then proceeded to ask for help ask and to ask for it often. I didn’t ask for money, instead I asked to support to carry out the strategies I created to replace the runway I lost. I also worked on the shame I felt because of the failure and reframed it to lesson. This was my INTERNSHIP! . A large part of being resilient was banishing the negative self-talk which if I allowed it to take up residence in my mind, would have taken me down. I just didn’t because in my heart of hearts in the depths of my soul I knew that the decision that I made around this difficult and scary time would be the training that I would need for when it happened again down the road that I would have had the experience and on how to weather a storm like this. So, for me this was a good internship.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Rejection was never my kryptonite until I experienced unimaginable heartbreak in my early 30s and that planted a seed of rejection that reactivated that painful experience for me every time I felt I was rejected. Whenever people left me or turned down my ideas without a justifiable reason, I realized that those experiences reactivate a shadow that I was not aware of. In business you will be told no several times, and people will leave for no justifiable reason. Having experienced these constantly as an executive and also in business relationships those gave me an opportunity to sit and do some of my own self-analysis and look into my shadows to understand why if even for a fleeting moment, I was feeling what I was and why I was feeling it. I realized I was framing these events as rejection because I was probably reliving what my 31-year-old self experienced. It is funny how unhealed wounds can become ghosts that haunt you for decades until you peel back the curtains and let light in. When I was about 31 years old I walked in on my “committed” boyfriend whom I had just had a child with and planning a life together, in bed with his ex-girlfriend. They later got married while I struggled to raise my son as a single mother. That betrayal and the breaking of a sacred trust that I had with this person really shattered my ability to trust but also that feeling of rejection when someone left me without a justifiable reason began here. This was a backstory that I needed to pull from the shadows, shed light on and unlearn the messages I had internalized tied to that experience.
So understanding your back story and understanding the back story that causes you to have these negative feelings which can then lead to the negative self-talk which can then end in self sabotage is so important. One of the best things I did is that I’m in therapy so I can talk to my therapist about this and I also use alchemic practices that helped me to delve deeper into the depths of my own being so that I will understand not what I do but the motivation behind what I do which is the why. Understanding the why was a catalyst for unlearning think, to feel and to do the what.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://michellecromwell.com/soeurdusol
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedrmichelle
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmichellecromwell