We were lucky to catch up with Suzanne Colucci recently and have shared our conversation below.

Suzanne, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I know, I know…….It seems like a cliche thing for a spiritual shop owner to say this, but Spiritual Guidance brought me to the doorstep that now greets customers at The Zen Den San Pedro and I’ve not looked back.

Imagine, if you will, a seemingly normal and picturesque life. I was living with my fiancé Jon and his young son Jay. We had a fun life, a life full of new experiences and adventures, a life full of discovery.. Then, one day, it was gone forever. Jon had suddenly passed away at 37 years old. I was distraught, sad, and longing for the life we had built up to that fateful day. In an effort to heal, I crawled home to my father and tried my very best to move past the loss and the sadness. A year later, I found the strength to emerge from my surroundings and give myself time and space to grow again. As I recreated my pathway back, I received guidance from an ancestor that still stands by my side to this day. I was simply told : “You must be of service to others to heal
Yourself”. I would hear this constantly. And one day, I took that advice and opened the Zen Den San Pedro. I had fallen in love with the community years before and felt that my need to be of service would bode well in San Pedro. I opened the doors in 2019 with a modest set up and a dream to create a safe space for people to reconnect with and rediscover themselves; a place to feel, heal, and be; a place that encourages self love and self care. My approach to being of service was one molded from immense loss and the need to transmute that into something positive for others. It’s a very personal approach to manifesting my Shop and one that has enriched my life 100 fold. I blessed, abundant, and beyond thankful for this opportunity to be a beacon of positive energy in San Pedro.

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?

To be honest, I’ve always been “different “. A handful as a child, simply because I asked questions incessantly and had to bluntly and candidly share the things I saw and experienced. That wasn’t always welcome, as it’s not always easy for people to wrap their mind around the gifts of clairvoyance, premonitions, and direct and clear connection to ancestral guidance and source. I would convey messages from visions and dreams I would see and when they’d come true, I’d simply see adults eyes on me like a deer in headlights. I have a legion of ancestral guidance that relays Messages through me to others in an uncanny way, more
Often than not. These were things I was scrutinized about as a child……Sent to therapists and expected to “change”. I never did change. As a result, I’ve been able to build a network of spiritual and healing community members that runs the gambit. We utilize our space for things such as community pop up events for healers and artists in the local area to introduce themselves and their natural
Abilities to those we serve in our community. We offer Astrology guidance, tarot and oracle readings, and informative classes on subjects such as herbology, gemstone knowledge, old world naturopathy, etc. Our mission is to create community through healing and natural practices.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I have had to learn as a business owner is quitting the people pleasing. It is the ultimate form of self care to set boundaries for yourself. There is a difference between being an expert in a field and simply being a contributor to a field. I have chosen the latter, in order to create work life balance and I cannot be happier! Being able to define how I move in the world by making my own business and then creating healthy boundaries has been a catalyst for that same energy throughout every aspect of life, resulting in an easy to manage approach to life.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Covid. The onset of the pandemic came 8 months after I opened the doors of my Business. It screeched progress to a halt. I lost 90% of my income, with imposed mandates and the closure of the doors during the worst part of the pandemic. From that hiccup emerged a need to problem solve and pivot. We approached the challenge with adaptability and transformed our business infinitely by incorporating e-commerce, social media content and presence, and by creating in house production of almost 40 items m, including candles, health and beauty products, tea blends, etc. our classroom became our production room and we leaned into the newly expanding resources that social media has created for us. It allowed us to approach customers where they were, in real time, and continue to operate.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zendensanpedro.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/zendensanpedro
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thezendensanpedro?mibextid=PzaGJu
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@zendensanpedro

Image Credits
All photos taken by Suzanne Colucci