We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Yvonne Rosegarden a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Yvonne , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?
A client (I’ll call her June) was referred to me because her “energy was off.” June had to reschedule her appointment twice, because she her babysitter canceled on her each time. When June was going to reschedule the 3rd time for the same reason, I told her she could bring her 4 year old daughter with her, to which she reluctantly agreed.
June’s challenge was that she didn’t have time to focus on herself: she is a working, single mom with a young child, and felt like she was really stretched thinly. She didn’t believe she would be able to relax and focus on herself with her daughter there with her.
When June arrived with her adorable daughter Sunny, I ushered them into my studio, pulled out my tea set, and the three of us sat and drank tea and had some quiet conversation. We three enjoyed it, Sunny most of all loved the tea ceremony and the smudging ceremony. The studio was darkened, curtains pulled shut, with several lit candles. Singing bowls and hand drums played softly in the background. It was a magical, mystical atmosphere. I arranged a comfy space for Sunny with a pillow and a blanket. She got cozy lying there playing games on her tablet. The next thing we knew, Sunny had fallen fast asleep, and June was able to have the adult conversation she wanted to have and to receive the bodywork and spiritual counseling she came to me for.
June was so appreciative of the service she received, when she rose from the massage table, she told me she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so clear and so good! Sunny slept the entire 90 minutes of June’s Soul Prescription Journey, and had a big smile on her face when we woke her up. The even bigger smile June had on her face when she realized she could enjoy self-care and self-love even if she couldn’t secure a babysitter when coming to receive treatment from me—they could both come for some love healing! That made my heart sing! And the hugs I received from each of them when they left…priceless! Medicine of the heart! This is why I do what I do.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
YVONNE ROSEGARDEN: LOVE HEALER & WELL-BEING ARTIST
Love Healing = Medicine of the Heart.
I became a dedicated healer, fulltime in 2012. I say dedicated, because I’ve always dabbled in healing. It was thought that I would be the healer of my generation, but I had other ideas, and traveled the world instead, working as an events logistics specialist. I lived in Vienna, Austria and Paris, France, working with the American Schools in the capital cities. When I returned home to the States, I embarked on an amazing adventure, first as a model and talent agent, then as director of the model and talent agent in Santa Barbara, California. Working in the entertainment industry taught me much about human nature, ambition, desires and false imagery; a bank of knowledge that now serves me well as a love healer dealing treating diverse personalities. I never lost my love for event logistics, though, and worked as a consultant, producing music/arts//cultural festivals throughout the US. I still practiced the indigenous healing arts learned from my grandmothers, but offered them primarily for my family members and close friends, using loving hands and root medicines.
When I first moved to Atlanta, I generated publicity for local chefs with my company, The Chef Market. Serendipity led me to the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College where I joined their team, coordinating and managing international scholarly conferences in Africa, South America, the Caribbean and the United States. I am so appreciative of the wonderful opportunity of traveling the world! I helped create exciting, impactful programs, and met so many interesting people. I experienced the biggest honor when I was invited by local healers to research/experience indigenous healing practices in Brazil and in South Africa while there!
Community well-being has always been my passion, so of course I always have a community project going on in some form or another! The Mindful Community Project, a social program I created for children and adults links personal well-being, career education, real-world experiences and mentorships. This program has been implemented in the United States, Bermuda and Central America, with great success. I love to see people flourish and grow through knowledge and experience! Even so, as much as I enjoyed my community project work, folk medicine and spiritual practices still factored heavily in my day-to-day and family life. I studied curanderismo, Mexican folk healing from a maestra, and during an extended trip to Costa Rica, I was introduced a shaman who without any conversation from me, inquired as to why I wasn’t practicing the healing arts. I stumbled with my answer, but soon declared that I am indeed a healer and would dedicate my efforts in service. He accepted my answer, and I was soon allowed to study and learn indigenous Tica ritual and ceremony from him.
When I came back home to the States, I began offering bodywork sessions using Loving Hands, and discovered I did, indeed have healing hands. So, next, I wanted to increase my base of knowledge to include western and eastern healing hands methods, so I went back to school and became a massage therapist. I increased my healing powers by combining western massage therapy modalities with curanderismo, indigenous folk medicines and spiritual healing I learned from my grandmothers: Martha, of Saponi, Chickasaw, Scots Irish and African heritages, and Viola of Louisiana Creole and Choctaw bloodlines.
The folk medicine, ceremonies and rituals completed my package and the call to heal full-time became too great for me to ignore. I regrouped and rearranged my life by making the decision to dedicate my life to being a Love Healer—named so because my methods and treatments are heart-centered. My services and products operate under my RedMelanin brand, the name being a nod to my cultural heritage. I designed my practice to be holistic in content and structure as I address the body, mind and spirit in my treatments. I create my own organic, handcrafted body butter which I use during bodywork sessions, and as clients began requesting some to take home, I soon began selling it. You can find my organic body butter and body scrub, as well as my popular wearable remedy tshirts on my website redmelanin.square.site. My wearable remedies make you feel good by raising your vibration as you are wearing them!
The entire purpose of my love healing services is to help people feel better. To help people feel good about themselves. To help people feel GREAT! Whether someone wants to embark on a journey to transform their life by transforming themselves, or to simply address an area in their life they would like to improve in the areas of wellness, love, clarity, wealth, or purpose, I am here to help you love yourself back to who you believe your best, authentic self to be. I am here to help you focus on what it is you want in your life so you can consciously manifest it. I am here to encourage and support your best well-being practices to live a well-lived life. I am very proud that my clients are satisfied with their personal growth and expansion! It means the world to me to see people move themselves to where they want to be. That is the tangible proof of the value of my service, which is so satisfying to me. one thing—I am not afraid to love my clients—and they consciously experience my love, which makes a powerful difference in the healing process. Medicine of the heart, created with the unique global indigenous components I have combined, is what differentiates my practice from others.
In these new days, post-Pandemic, I have my sights on impacting more people, by helping to raise the vibration everywhere I am, by holding a strong, steady peace vibration, inviting positive connectivity between strangers/neighbors in our communities. Want to join me in sharing a peace vibration? Come check in (FREE) at a pop-up “I AM” Peace Station. Follow @iam.peacestation on Instagram to see the latest goings on.
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
I believe compassion and respect for your patient (operating from a heart-centered perspective) is key to being a healer, whether your practice is based in indigenous knowledge/traditional healing/folk medicine, or modern medical methodologies. As healers, we can assist you in the healing process by administering or prescribing medicinal, pharmaceutical remedies, and/or healing practices, but the individual being treated must have faith in the healing. Healing is a dance, a partnership between the healer and the person seeking healing, combined with a faith system or belief. Compassion and respect shown to the person in need of healing allows them to feel seen and heard as a unique individual. A swifter recovery can be the result when a person feels acknowledged, affirmed, and valued as human being with feelings.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
This question really resonates with me—it speaks to my current location along the paths of my journey as a love healer! My specialty is touch medicine, loving hands. The Covid-19 pandemic, and its aftermath created a global social crisis so incredible; a norovirus so deadly, with unknown factors about transmissibility created an atmosphere where people became afraid of each other. None of us anticipated we would be kept away from vulnerable loved ones for over a year: couldn’t visit our loved ones in hospitals or nursing homes; couldn’t say goodbye to loved ones who transitioned; afraid to gather, and restricted from gathering in groups, or for holidays, being isolated in our homes. People were terrified to touch one another, even close relatives, afraid that close contact could be deadly.
Healers on the front lines and in hospitals and care facilities: paramedics, nurses, technicians, doctors, caregivers, hospital workers, never stopped working in the midst of chaos, fear and uncertainty. Love healers such as myself, massage therapists, bodywork specialists faced tremendous challenges with sustainability during those times, as one can imagine. Fortunately, I was able to retain my core clients, and expanded my practice to offer online spiritual consultations for individuals and guided meditations for organization as in-person ritual and ceremonial services slowed. Additionally, I placed more focus more on my RedMelanin “wearable remedies,” featuring my super popular, best-selling t-shirt designs “Vibrate Higher” and “mySoulPrescription,” available at redmelanin.square.site.
In the aftermath of the pandemic, people are shell-shocked, unaccustomed to people entering their human energy field by standing too closely after social distancing for six feet for nearly two years. There were no rules for re-entry, no readjustment process back into society, post-pandemic, and and the world reflects that. As more people spoke out about experiencing social anxiety, stress and PTSD, I thought about how I could satisfy my desire to be a more active healer, because I love what I do, and I live who I am, In my healing sessions in my private studio, Prior to entering the touch medicine component of the Soul Prescription Journey (body/mind/spirit healing session), I offer tea, deep breathing exercises, and affirming, positive conversation. My clients really enjoy the easy, inviting entry to the healing, and I do as well. It is a wonderful way to connect to yourself, and to connect to each other.
It came to me that I could easily offer tea, compassion, personal, well-being practices to the public, as a social mental health intervention. I would do what I know how to do: help raise the vibration by popping up and sharing a high vibration in various public places. With those thoughts and feelings in mind, I conceived, “I AM” Peace Station: a simple pop-up in public spaces around metro Atlanta. The set-up is simple: I have a chalkboard sign, tea to share, music, and offer deep breathing exercises or a short, guided meditation, Best of all, I offer to share a hug! The amazing responses to the hugs have been epic! Beyond my wildest dreams! People want to connect without obligation. People want to feel loved. People want to share love and peace. It is proven every time by the positive responses! Did I mention that check-in to the “I AM” Peace Station is free to the public? Simply give your consent to experience peace—check in by saying, “I AM PEACE.” I tell you, it feels so good to share peace with passersby, and I love to see the high vibrational effect it has on the people! I know they are carrying a peaceful feeling with them as they walk away, and that cannot help but cause a ripple affect of positivity! I know I feel renewed and revitalized after each pop-up! I love connecting to the people of communities wherever I pop up! My clients are telling me can they feel my energy more strongly these days, and I am more attuned to how they are feeling. I am so appreciative to have expanded my practice. The pandemic created such a challenge to the way my practice was structured, yet opened the door to even more fulfilment. The requests for “I AM” Peace Stations have become so numerous, I just launched a fundraiser on gofund.me to raise resources to create 25 “I AM” Peace Stations to be staffed by volunteer Peace Ambassadors!
My next goal is to provide positive emotional and mental health support for law enforcement professionals on-duty with a pop-up “I AM” Peace Station—stay tuned!
I followed my heart, which knows what is best for a love healer and my heart supports my resilience. Following my heart turned a gargantuan challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic inspired me to create one of my most satisfying endeavors to date. I am so thankful.
Contact Info:
- Website: redmelanin.square.site
- Instagram: @yvonnerosegarden, @iam.peacestation
- Facebook: Yvonne Rosegarden and RedMelanin page
- Linkedin: Yvonne Rosegarden
- Other: PLEASE INCLUDE — THANKS! https://gofund.me/e0364b73