We were lucky to catch up with Meredith Ruben Daniels recently and have shared our conversation below.
Meredith , appreciate you joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.
My childhood dream was to be a kindergarten teacher. I never wavered in this, and went on to earn my Bachelors and Masters in education, spending nine years in the classroom. I absolutely adored my students, but the Universe kept giving me signs from day one that this was not where I was supposed to be. I fought this feeling for a long time because I didn’t have a plan B and had no idea what to do with my life if I wasn’t a teacher. Finally, when my second son was born prematurely, I decided it was time to stay home.
While I was earning my Bachelors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had the opportunity to do a teaching practicum in Sydney, Australia. When that was over, my parents and boyfriend met me there and we traveled the country for two weeks. On the day we were supposed to come home, my Dad had a brain aneurysm hemorrhage and passed away very unexpectedly. I was devastated, but became determined to continue my relationship with him even though he was no longer physically with us. This began my spiritual journey, and I have spent the past eighteen years attending classes, seeing healers, and discovering my own spiritual gifts.
My husband, Kevin, is a phenomenal high school math teacher with a true gift of creating meaningful relationships with his students. Several years ago, he was asked to be the math teacher for a new program for the 60 most at-risk freshman in his school. While he and his team worked miracles with these students, it took a heavy toll on them. Kevin would come home almost daily with stress induced migraines and had a difficult time jumping into family life when he got home from school. I felt helpless watching him struggle, while knowing that he was making a huge impact in his students’ lives.
One day, I remembered that I had learned all these tools throughout my spiritual journey to help align and protect your energy. I created a protocol for Kevin to do, and he began to feel better. It truly felt like a miracle. While Kevin was doing better, his teammates were still struggling. I decided to put my protocol into a presentation and share it with them. During this presentation, I realized that while these four teachers were in an especially stressful situation, they were by far not the only four stressed out teachers in the world. I knew I needed to get this protocol out to the world, and decided to write The Aligned Teacher: A Guide to Sanity When You Just Want to Quit. I was so grateful for this moment, because I had been so confused as to why I had teaching on my heart from such a young age if I wasn’t supposed to be in the classroom. I now know that my impact on the world of education is supposed to be much larger than I ever could have anticipated as a little girl.
Meredith , 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?
First and foremost, I am a wife and mom to three awesome boys. As I mentioned earlier, my background is in teaching, but I began discovering my spiritual gifts after my Dad passed away. Over the past almost two decades of rebuilding my connection with him, I have become a Reiki Master, a certified Generational Emotional Mapping Ancestral Healer, a certified Ho’Oponopono practitioner, a best-selling author and speaker. I have said from the beginning that my Dad is my silent business partner, because he guides me in everything I do. For as painful as his death was, I would not be where I am today without living through the experience of losing him and finding him again.
At this time, I have two main aspects of my business, Soulful Wellness. The Aligned Teacher is a passion project that I truly birthed from my heart as a gift to the world. It came from a wife’s love for her husband, wanting to see him thrive both as a teacher and with his family. Teachers give so much of themselves to their students that they often come home feeling drained and burned out. They deserve to be able to enjoy their families and their lives outside of school. I wrote The Aligned Teacher to give teachers tips and tricks on how to feel less stressed, happier and healthier both at school and at home. I began speaking about the book at schools to expand my reach in helping teachers learn these simple techniques and exercises to make an impact in their lives. My hope is for them to teach these tips to their students, as well, creating the ultimate ripple effect. As a result of my presentations, teachers feel happier, school morale is improved, and the teacher retention rate increases. I would be honored to come and speak at your school.
I also offer Generational Emotional Mapping (GEM) Ancestral Healing sessions. Many people don’t realize that we are carrying the emotions and patterns of our ancestors that they were unable to process during their lives. How many people have ancestors that lived during or fought in a war, survived the depression, were slaves, made a difficult move to a new country…? The list could go on forever. We all carry this generational trauma that shows up as mental, emotional and physical ailments in our lives. During a GEM session, I am able to identify and clear the emotions that are stuck in my client’s energy field, allowing their energy to realign and heal. The beautiful part is this not only helps my client, but it also helps all of their ancestors, as well as future generations. Some of the issues I’ve helped my clients with include pain, difficulty walking, an inability to cry, birth trauma, and difficult relationships. You can read more about GEM in my chapter of the best-selling book, Energy Healing and Soul Medicine.
I am so proud of the work I do because it all comes from a place of loving people and wanting to help humanity elevate and heal. School administrators, teachers, and GEM clients all comment on how they feel my authenticity and passion for wanting to help them. My goal is to help make the world a better place, and I want Soulful Wellness to reflect that.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Word of mouth has been the biggest thing to help build my reputation in my field. Most of my clients come as referrals from previous clients. I truly believe that being authentic and truly caring about the people I work with is the most important thing I can do to promote myself and attract people to me.
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
I would choose this a thousand times over! While it has been quite a long, windy path for me to get where I am today, I am so grateful for everything that has gotten me here. I have mourned not only the loss of my Dad, but also the loss of what I thought was supposed to be my lifelong career in teaching. Being able to let go of that dream allowed new opportunities to come into my life, which ultimately led me back to the path of education, just from a different angle.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.soulful-wellness.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/meredithrubendaniels
- Facebook: Soulful Wellness with Meredith Ruben Daniels
- Linkedin: @meredithrubendaniels
- Other: https://www.amazon.com/Aligned-Teacher-Guide-Sanity-When/dp/B0CCCPH1H7/ref=sr_1_1?crid=YEQRB1B0MNHA&keywords=the+aligned+teacher&qid=1699401943&sprefix=the+aligned+teacher%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-1
Image Credits
Lisa Kelly Photo New Moon Lifestyle Photography