We were lucky to catch up with Michelle/chelle Cruz recently and have shared our conversation below.
Michelle/Chelle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a story with us from back when you were an intern or apprentice? Maybe it’s a story that illustrates an important lesson you learned or maybe it’s a just a story that makes you laugh (or cry)?
This is a story from my time as a student under a shaman trying to find confidence as a healer, channeler and energy worker…
Three years ago I was blessed with the opportunity to work with the Girl Gang Retreats. It was the second retreat I had ever worked at and I was really excited. They had a weekend of healing and fun activities planned and I was going to be doing Usui Reiki Energetic Healing & a Cacao Ceremony. I had never done a group energy session before like this one & was curious to see how I would do. There were 3 Healers that weekend, one also did Reiki, and the other did shamanic healing work + sound baths & yoga. For this ceremony, ladies at the retreat enjoyed cacao, a sound bath then a guided meditation called the Sacred Temple Heart Space Meditation while we worked.
For the cacao portion, we set our own personal intentions on what we’d like to receive, & release. We’re essentially using this medicine combined with prayer to achieve our goals. When working with energy you are using your body as a vessel to call in energy from Source. I am not using my energy nor taking yours. I am still getting really dialed in with this work and I find that it is something that is slowly ever evolving the more I practice. There is no requirement to touch anyone but when I do this work I end up channeling and I get messages. Sometimes I do need to place a hand on the patient, or use an essential oil, a shamanic perfume, or sometimes I need to play an instrument… its always different.
I can remember many of the women I worked on that night and what they experienced but theres one in particular that really stands out. When I got to her I was told to place my Celestine stone on her heart and my citrine on her solar plexus. I think the only place I touched was her feet and shins. She silently started crying while I worked on her. I pick up things from my patients but I don’t always get a lot of information. From this particular patient I could feel that there had been sexual trauma in the past (which I later had confirmed).
We got to catch up after the session, I told her what I felt then what she told me and what followed really blew my mind. When I went up to work on her, everyone was being guided in a meditation through a jungle that led to the temple inside of the heart. When I placed the stones on her, she saw her grandmother with her. She had passed 13/14yrs prior and they were never close but all the sudden she was there with her. When I placed the celestine stone on her heart, she was recognizing all of her “broken heart pieces” but hadn’t known how to acknowledge them or what to do with them, but in that moment she knew that she could surrender them to her grandmother and her higher self. She cried because she felt relief over finally being able to release these pieces. She felt that I somehow could see or knew that those pieces were there, that she held those parts within her.
Over time she learned that her grandmother is where she received her spiritual gifts from and why she was with her on that special day when I worked on her.
The funny thing about the Celestine or Celestite stone is that it is believed to help with heavenly communication, and calling in spirit guides, among many other things. Citrine helps to stir the soul into action, awakens creativity, and encourages new pursuits, among many other things. Placing it on her solar plexus was quite powerful since it is the stone associated with that chakra in particular.
Fast forward, two months later she was still so curious about reiki that she took a certification course and it broke open all of her spiritual gifts! Now she performs sound baths, reiki healings, she started a podcast about spirituality, she reads tarot, & she got certified as a yoga instructor.
Michelle/Chelle, 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 went through a lot growing up that really… broke me, to say the least. I was deeply depressed, suicidal, and angry. I had gotten into Aesthetics, was working in a popular, fancy hotel and I had started my own small business on the side. My work was peaceful to a degree but I was still seeking peace within.
When I was 25 I started dating this christian guy who was always spouting bible phrases and before you knew it, I picked up a Bible. This led me to studying Buddhism, trying yoga then meditation. I started to learn and see things about myself that were unbelievable. I started going to therapy and I tried many different types. I still wanted more knowledge and understanding, my desire to learn only seemed to grow. I went to massage therapy school to advance my career and become dual licensed. While in school I started the process of becoming an Usui Reiki Master, & I completed that a year after I finished massage school. After moving to Utah, I started working with a shamanic healer from South America. After working with him for 1.5yrs to heal, I started apprenticing under him. I did that for another 1.5yrs and learned a lot about the ancient ceremonial healing practices of the Shipibo peoples. During that time I also took a 3 month breath work course, that was so powerful! Next I would like to learn & offer shamanic drum journeys, yoga and hypnotherapy.
Currently I offer aesthetics, massage, sound baths, guided meditations, breath work lessons and shamanic healing energy sessions. I offer a safe space to learn, heal and grow with someone who is doing the same. I love to help people who want to learn how to work with their own energy. People who want to learn how to relax, who want to understand what their body is trying to communicate better, and people who want to get to a deeper level and uncover some truths about themselves.
This work is beautiful, messy, and vulnerable. Things may come up that you didn’t know where there or didn’t expect. Uncovering those pieces of ourselves, and integrating them back into ourselves is the work we’re here to do. I love expanding, I will never stop and that’s what I want to help my clients do.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
From the age of twelve til just a few years ago, I experienced something that I thought was normal for a long time until I learned that it wasn’t… I had suicidal ideation all the time. I constantly fantasized about not being alive. Life was too tumultuous, stressful, painful, confusing, I just wanted out. After suffering for most of my life with this issue, I started to seek answers from within. This path eventually led me to working with a shamanic healer. Within the first few ceremonies I had one of the most powerful experiences of my life! I experienced myself purging out all of my self hate and there seemed to be a lot of it which I felt so embarrassed about in the moment. Once I was done, I felt this expanse within myself open up and I felt self love come rushing in. Since that day I haven’t been able to say that I “hate” myself or anything near it. Over time I slowly got to the roots of this deep pain inside that had me wanting to escape this life. Now its very rare if I have any thought that comes through related to this and when the thoughts come, the context within which I have them is so different. The mindset is so different. This shift is part of what drives me to want to work with others.
Have you ever had to pivot?
When I was 17 I got caught shoplifting. In Texas you’re tried as an adult at that age so the sentencing I got was hefty. I ended up going to a military style bootcamp where I lived for 6 months. They shaved my head, I wore BDU’s, I learned how to march, cadence, obey. While I was gone my Mother had left her job under duress. When I got out things were not good or easy for my sister and I. I moved both of us to our fathers houses, mine was in NYC. A year later I met my fiancé and got engaged. We moved to California and started our life. That’s when things slowly started to break apart for me. I lived in a new state with no family, I had no close friends around me, I was in a long term serious committed relationship and I was constantly getting triggered. I was unhappy even though I had the man, the career, and the love and I just didn’t understand why. I ended up leaving him, I moved back home to Texas and I got into therapy not long after. I needed to get everything I thought I wanted in order to see that there was serious work to be done to find true happiness, regardless of what I thought it looked like or should look like.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
The headshot of me in the black tank top: TDS Images (Joe)