We recently connected with Paula Collins and have shared our conversation below.
Paula, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?
It all began in 2020. I had just been forced to retire from a career teaching high school English. I loved my job, but after a life-changing auto accident in November of 2019 that resulted in a permanent injury that affected my ability to read for long periods of time and hyper-sound sensitivity, there was absolutely no way I could continue. It broke my heart to leave my students and a career I believed I would be in for several more years to come.
I found myself home and alone not knowing the next chapter on my journey. One day I was speaking to friend and told her how this brain injury complicated my life; she told me to reframe my thinking. She asked me a very deep question: What if this injury healed your brain? I was totally flabbergasted. I couldn’t figure out how this could be possible, but I promised I would meditate and journal about it. This is how my own healing journey began. When I got stuck, I hired a life coach who guided me through it. On our last session, she prompted me with questions: What if you could do this for other people? What if you could help them find their energetic blocks, help them reset and reframe how they speak and think about themselves? Would you do it?
That caused me to once again do some deep introspection and soul-searching. But my ultimate resounding answer was YES!
My experience with an intuitive life coach enabled me to bring up some long-forgotten and buried emotions and thought patterns that plagued me my entire life. Things I had been told by others that clouded my perception of who I was and what I was capable of. Stories that shattered my self-esteem, self-worth, self-love, and confidence. This type of trauma from bullying held me back and did not allow me to dream or take risks. It kept me pigeonholed and small, never able to reach my full potential. It caused me to become a people pleaser and doormat. It kept me afraid and lonely for far too many years. But now, everything changed.
As I began to explore how to create this new venture and reinvent myself, I tried several different things. I knew I wanted to incorporate energy healing into whatever I did, but so many of my ideas fell flat because they did not embrace my unique gifts and talents. One of those talents is music.
On my own personal journey, I discovered how sound and frequency allow us to drop into different states of alertness and awakeness. I found things like different hertz frequencies, binaural beats, and crystal sound bowls. I started to wonder how I could use this to help others. It was then that I made the decision to purchase my first sound bowl and allow myself to immerse in its magick. When I played the bowls just for me, I noticed how my own meditation and healing evolved. I felt still-trapped emotions flood my heart and soul and allowed the sound and frequency to carry those away. I could feel the transformation taking place and it gave me such a sense of peace and euphoria; I just knew I had to share it with others.
I knew I was not the only person to every offer this service, but with my sense of empathy and my connection to spirit I was able to take people on unique journeys to deep healing. My ability to allow spirit to lead me and my openness and sensitivity to my clients journey allow me to have a unique perspective that enables them to see and feel the inner healer within themselves. I was able to create a safe space for them to experience a myriad of emotions, express them, release them, and heal.
What I love about sound healing is its ability to be experienced both in person and virtually which allows me to reach a much larger audience. I can offer my services 1:1 or in group settings. I can create ceremony for anything my client needs. I have been able to expand my services from healing to also include celebrating moon cycles, sabbats, weddings, and baby dedications.
I get the humble honor of watching my clients not only heal but wake up from years of generational and spiritual conditioning that has kept them trapped, unable to reach their full potential. I have watched as those who attend my group gatherings find soul-aligned connections. My ceremonies are also unique in that they involve several different energetic spiritual experiences such as cacao ceremony, oracle cards, sound healing, and reiki. These different modalities enable my clients to heal and connect on all levels of body, mind, and spirit.
I feel honored and blessed to have found and stepped into my true calling.
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?
Certainly. I have always had a love of all things spiritual from a very young age. I was raised in a pretty strict Catholic household by two amazing parents who also found spirituality to be important. Because I was a good little girl and a rule follower, I did what was expected. I immersed myself in my religious upbringing and for many years it brought me great comfort. The problem was, it never really helped me get to the root of my insecurities, depression, and anxiety. I always felt like I was sending up my prayers, but most were never heard or answered. I never really felt the peace many others did. I felt like I kept missing the message that would take me over into what I thought would answer and heal it all.
I first discovered Reiki when my daughter had bought me a gift card for a session. I fought against using it because it was something the church spoke out against. But she guilted me, so I went. I was cautious and guarded, but something happened during my session. I felt a shift in me I never had before. At the time I had no words to describe it, I just knew there was something different now. So I went back for more sessions and noticed that each time I felt more alive, more awake. After several sessions, I made the decision I had to learn how to do this so I could help others. The problem was I had deep wounding I was not aware of that prevented me from sharing this new-found technique. So I only offered it to close family and friends.
As I shared previously, I was involved in a serious car accident that forced me into early retirement from my high school English teaching career. This was the catalyst I needed to do my own deep healing and propelled me into reinventing myself. After I healed and was prodded by my life coach to consider a new approach, I immersed myself into learning what I needed so I could help others on their healing and spiritual journey. I felt a strong tug on my heart to do this, and the longer I left it unanswered, the stronger and more uncomfortable it became until I found the courage to step out of my comfort zone of working for someone else and allowed myself to shine.
I now offer my clients coaching that is tailored to their personal needs using sound bowls, reiki, meridian tapping, akashic records, oracle cards, and guided meditation. I offer different packages so my clients can choose what best fits their needs. I also offer short 8-week courses to help unblock and activate chakra systems, my signature My Empowered Me Course, group sound healing, and ceremonial services.
I know and understand that healing is not a one-size-fits-all process. What works for one person may not work for another. Some may not be open to anything they equate with spirituality because of the stigma and wounding they carry, and I am sensitive to that. My goal is to meet my clients exactly where they are on their journey and enable them to learn new tools and techniques they can carry forward into their futures.
Each person carries some type of trauma and wounding with them from the people they encounter to the situations and circumstances they have been a part of. Some of these are Big “T” traumas from abuse and some are Little “t” traumas from the families and environments they grew up in. Even those with the best experiences carry something forward that limits their beliefs and values. I help them to uncover it, make decisions on what they want to keep and what they want to release. My ultimate goal is to help them understand and embrace their own unique beliefs and values so they can go on to live their best authentic lives.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
This was a big one for me because of my strict Catholic upbringing. I had to learn that there are more ways to approach healing that fall outside of the normal realm of what I was taught. I had to learn that embracing energy healing does not go against anything from my upbringing, in fact, it has enhanced it. It has helped me to release old conditioned beliefs, enabled me to become more open-minded in how I look at others and the world around me. It has enabled me to see other belief systems that mirror my own, explore them, and create what I believe has been alive in me all my life. It has helped me to drop judgment, not force my ideas on anyone else, and grow in ways that have transformed me into a much sweeter, understanding, kind, and loving individual. I have learned I have more in common with others than I do differences and this has blessed me with some of the most rewarding relationships of my life. It has allowed me to come out of my shell so I can model that for others as well. It has made me a sensitive and empathetic person. I went from a narrow-minded woman to one who embraces and celebrates differences. I have learned there is no one way to believe or live and that everyone deserves to live that way as well. I have redefined what it means to be ProLife. Where I once believed it was to save every fetus, I now firmly believe it is to honor, protect, and celebrate every person on their journey in their own way no matter their culture, race, sexual identity, or belief system.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Absolutely. It all goes back to my auto accident of 2019. This event left me with unseen disabilities that prevented me from doing so many activities I used to enjoy. It left me unable to read for more than 25 minutes before my eyesight blurs. It left me unable to learn new things as quickly as I used to. It left me unable to attend concerts, go out dancing, or to most movies because the volume is too much for my head. It left me with long-term tinnitus that gets in the way of quiet times and at times sleep. I really wanted to give up, but when my friend had me reframe my idea that the accident actually healed my brain instead of injuring it, I decided to give that a go. I took on the opinion of So What? So what if it takes me longer? So what if I can’t do all the things I used to? So what if I have to reinvent myself? So what if I lose people in order to do this? So What?
Learning things in a new way has made me stronger. It has taught me I have the ability to overcome anything. I have the ability to learn new things. It has shown me a confidence and an inner power I never knew I possessed, but once I discovered it, my life changed for the better exponentially. It taught me I am not too old to recreate and reinvent. It taught me only I can limit myself. If that is not a wonderful lesson, I don’t know what is.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://serenewellnesswithpaula.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serene.wellness.with.paula/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/serenewellnesshealing/
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serenepaula Threads: https://www.threads.net/@serene.wellness.with.paula