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Heal Yourself Podcast
A podcast diving into all aspects of healing; from nurturing your relationship with yourself, to functional medicine insights, to transforming your money story, we're here to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create lasting change.
Heal Yourself Podcast
Episode 63: Transforming Trauma: From Cult Escape to Spiritual Rebirth
What does it take to transform a life marked by profound trauma into one of healing and empowerment? Michelle Manley, a Soma spiritual coach and energy practitioner, shares her incredible journey of resilience and recovery in our latest episode. From the heart-wrenching losses of family members to escaping an abusive marriage and the grips of a fundamentalist cult, Michelle's experiences highlight the capacity for healing through somatic practices, Reiki, and the reclamation of the divine feminine essence.
We venture into the subtleties of recognizing and recovering from cult-like environments, often cloaked under the guise of religious guidance. By examining how these groups suppress individuality and enforce conformity, we discuss the journey of questioning one's beliefs and the importance of fostering a spirituality that celebrates personal growth. We also delve into practical grounding techniques, such as body scanning and energy visualization, essential for unlocking the healing potential within us.
About Michelle:
Michelle Manley has been on a lifelong spiritual and healing journey. She is a soma-spiritual coach, multidimensional energy practitioner, reiki master teacher and jungian tarot reader. She helps guide her diverse clientele to find their unique equilibrium in their daily life as well as their spiritual life.
Find Michelle:
https://www.facebook.com/MagentaRayne1/
https://www.instagram.com/mystichealingalchemy
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-manley-a5b962235/
Free Gift:
https://www.michellemmanley.com/home
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Welcome to the Heal Yourself Podcast, where we dive deep into all things healing. I'm Denise, a speech-language pathologist and a self-love coach for adults and teens.
Speaker 2:And I'm Kira, a traditional naturopath and functional nutritionist, and we are here to guide you through the transformative process of healing your body, mind and soul.
Speaker 1:From the latest in functional medicine to nurturing your relationship with yourself, healing trauma and even transforming your money story. We're here to empower you with the knowledge and tools to create lasting change.
Speaker 2:So, whether you're looking to heal physically, emotionally or spiritually, join us as we explore the many paths to wholeness and wellness. Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Heal Yourself Podcast. It is Kira today, and I am joined by special guest Michelle Manley. So Michelle has been on a lifelong spiritual and healing journey. She's a Soma spiritual coach, multi-dimensional energy practitioner, reiki master teacher and a Jungian tarot reader. She helps guide her diverse clientele to find their unique equilibrium in their daily life as well as their spiritual life. So, michelle, we love having guests. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you, I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 2:So tell us a bit about your story. What led?
Speaker 3:you to this place, where you're at right now. Well, I was really lucky. I had a really amazing family growing up, Really loving parents. I lived with my parents and grandparents in a multi-generational house and it was idyllic in so many ways. And then my father died very unexpectedly, pretty much right in front of me, when I was 14. He was only 42. That was a big trauma. When I look back on my life, I'd still say that's one of my core wounds. Everything changed in a blink of an eye.
Speaker 3:A few years later I started getting diagnosed with health issues fibromyalgia, you know, chronic fatigue syndrome and you know, in retrospect I can see that I was holding that trauma in my body. But at the time that was just another thing I had to navigate. I then lost my grandparents very in short succession. I was very close to both of them and I was the one that found my grandfather. So then another trauma. Um, yeah, it was pretty intense.
Speaker 3:I then ended up in a fundamentalist Christian cult for about six years. Um, that took a while to unravel. Um, I can look back and I see now why, why it offered me the solace it did at the time. You know, somebody came in and were like we know exactly what's going to happen after you die and if you do this, this and this, you're going to be reunited. Well, of course I'm going to be. If respond to that and unfortunately, a time in the cult definitely eroded my own like divine feminine essence in many, many ways and it primed me for then getting into an abusive marriage. And I was there for 12 years, really stuck sick, going through health issues. I was very overweight at the time. I was just, I was just not in a good place and I was being abused. It wasn't always physical abuse, but there was always a threat of it, and it was a lot of psychological and financial abuse. It culminated with my ex-husband actually trying to run me down with a van on Mother's Day in 2012. Yeah, it's been a lot of pretty dramatic moments and that really catapulted me into this life. I cannot stay here. This is I am going to die Like and I had children. I had three children that were under eight at the time. I'm like this. I don't want them growing up around this. This is insanity. So I came out of the marriage.
Speaker 3:I slowly, slowly pulled back bits of myself, you know, through therapy. Becoming a Reiki master teacher was huge for me, like really getting control of my energy. Slowly, piece by piece, each part of my healing journey gave me a little bit more of myself back, a little bit more of who I really was supposed to be. I went into somatic healing, which has been profoundly life-changing for me. A lot of divine feminine, reclaiming of the divine feminine in me, reclaiming of who I meant to be. And now I'm, you know, pretty happy. My kids are thriving. They're all young adults now. They're doing great. I'm thrilled at the work I can bring forth in the world. I see the change in my clients. It's so affirming that I know a path out of the darkness and it works. And that has been profoundly affirming for me, Just like wow, Wow, Night and day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and gosh, there's so many pieces I could pull out of that. But what a you know? It's like you went through such a dark and I don't even want to say one dark moment, like many, many dark moments, but you came out on the other side and so many people can stay stuck and let it take them down and you said like I choose to have something different and that not just changes it for you, but now we're talking generational healing and now we're talking you can go out and help the world.
Speaker 3:It was amazing when I stood in my that courtroom and faced my ex-husband and he's got a lot of mental health issues he stalked us. It was a whole big mess. So I really had to face him in court a number of times and I truly felt the ancestors behind me cheering. I stopped generations of domestic violence in that family. It's like no more. It ends here and that is really empowering, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I want to go two different places. First one, I want this to be at your comfort level, but that trauma piece. I think this is such a powerful learning opportunity for our listeners, because I talk about this all the time with my clients. I'm like trauma creates issues in the tissues it stores in the body. We know that the higher the ACEs score adverse childhood events for those that don't know the more likely you are to develop autoimmune and chronic health issues later in life. And people have them so disconnected. Oh well, I have all these issues now, but I think my trauma's resolved and I'm like but is it? And you discovered that. So can I ask what were some of the ways that you started to cope or manage or work through that trauma?
Speaker 3:I found my way to Bessel van der Kolk's work. That was huge, just kind of reading and making literally the issues in your tissues, like making that connection, like, oh, my goodness, if I go have a really traumatic event within about two months, I'm in physical pain and I just started plotting it out Like huh, all right, something's going on here. Plotting it out like huh, all right, something's going on here. Um, it took a lot of shadow work, a lot of looking at my trauma and and, like you, I was like well, I dealt with it. I mean, my dad my father died in 1982. It's fine, I've worked through it. I'm not sad anymore and I wasn't consciously sad, I mean, there's a bit of sweetness but my body still ached and coming into connection with my body was huge and for a long time my body wasn't safe. I was sick all the time. I had a lot of health issues, my body hurt. So when I first started doing this work and everyone's you know you got to drop back into your body.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3:But I worked through that and breath, breath, work, breath work was huge, like you're going to breathe through the pain, read through the physical, psychological and emotional pain and staying grounded in the moment. Those were the real like turning points for me. And again becoming a Reiki master and understanding the interplay of energy and physicality was really big.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and then we always talk about trauma impacting the physical body, but the fact that you then joined a cult and then found yourself in a marriage that was not serving you could you link that back to the trauma?
Speaker 3:It took me a while. It took me a little bit of getting out of it. To the trauma it took me a while. It took me a little bit of getting out of it. The cult had my thoughts so upside down that I honestly believed, because I had left the church because we weren't allowed to marry outside the church, so I left the church to marry my husband and I honestly believed for the first six years of the marriage that this was my punishment for leaving God, like that's how turned around my thoughts were. So it took me a while of getting away from it to really see, plot it out and see, oh, okay, yeah, I think I knew this early that you know it was related to my trauma, but it definitely took me taking a step back and getting that thousand foot view.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's not a simple connection usually. Let's talk a little bit about the cult. How did you because this, for many, they don't get out, or it's decades how did you even realize, like, oh my gosh, I'm in a cult and I need to get out?
Speaker 3:realize like, oh my gosh, I'm in a cult and I need to get out. You know it was tough. The church is still going on. They have gotten away from a lot of their culty behaviors. They're no longer saying they're the only church and you know they've. They've grown. You know giving them credit where credit is due.
Speaker 3:But when I realized that how much they frowned upon us having relationships with the lost you know anyone that wasn't a member of the church they were really like you weren't encouraged to spend too much time unless you were trying to save them, then that was okay. So that was definitely a big red flag for me and, like I said, it took me a few years. I, you know, had roommates in the church. We were very insulated, so it just was a way of life and I truly believed it was a way of life that honored God and honored people, and it wasn't until I was out.
Speaker 3:There were definitely always things I, the entire time I was in the church I was told I was rebellious, but now I wear as a badge of honor because, you're right, I was. I did not believe a lot of the things they believed. I would dig my heels in at the you know the homophobia and the. You know political ramblings like no, I don't agree, no, but again, taking that step back, it was probably midway into my marriage that I was really able to kind of look at it and be like, yeah, that wasn't serving me and that was not serving my higher good at all, and it certainly wasn't serving source energy.
Speaker 2:You know, whatever form that may take, yeah, for those listening that I don't want to say are in a cult, but you know, like there's a lot out there that is cult-like and we don't recognize it. We definitely don't recognize it in the moment. So do you have any other clues or anything for people to look for, if that's something they're dealing with or they have a loved one who's like Ooh.
Speaker 3:You know. Look at the messages you're getting. Are they celebrating you and your individuality and your personal gifts and your personal strengths, or are they trying to make you conform to a certain way of being that doesn't feel right? Are they squishing you into a box of like this is right, that is wrong. Are they promising things that nobody can deliver, like we know what's going to happen when you die? You know those sort of things that you know sound wonderful, but then when you look at them, you're like this, this, no, you're selling me just puff and air. Like this makes no sense and being really. How do you feel afterwards? Do you feel like you're failing, like you're not living up to their expectations, or do you feel honored and affirmed, do you feel celebrated for your individuality? Those are big, big red flags for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oof, this is going to trigger some, but do you feel like a lot of churches are cult-like?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, I absolutely, 100% do. I think some of them are very much about a preconceived idea of what it means to follow whatever deity they're following, and they hammer people into that form, rather than really helping people develop their own interaction with whatever deity it is, you know, with whatever energy they're working with. Rather than celebrating individuality, they seek conformity, and that right there is just not healthy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a lot I could say about that, and Denise and I are talking about doing an episode on religious trauma and, mind you, denise and I grew up Catholic and I'm not going to say it's bad or something is good, but there are definitely aspects that we have discussed privately ourselves of, like gosh, this really didn't serve us Because, yeah, I mean for decades. I just heard I was doing things wrong and you know, I was conscious, like always looking over my shoulder oh, my gosh, like I feel like someone's watching me. Am I doing this bad? Am I going to hell? Like literally just yeah, and I know we're going to. We're not going down that road right now, so for listeners, don't worry, but I do think it's something that needs to be talked about.
Speaker 3:It took me a while I found the deconstruction community and they really helped me put a word to it that it was religious trauma, religious abuse, like I really carried those beliefs that it was me that was at fault for a long time until I could really look at it and be like, oh, that is not how you help somebody foster their spirituality, oh, that is not how you help somebody grow. Like it took somebody else saying no, no, michelle, look at this a little closer for me to really get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's hard because you hear right and wrong and then you even hear like okay, it says this in the bible, I'm like, but so much is open to interpretation. And people they'll argue you know left? No, no, it's not. This is what it says, I'm like, but I interpret that a different way. So what does that mean?
Speaker 3:and it's also the fact that the bible itself was a political instrument, with books being added and taken away by different popes and kings throughout millennia, so you got to look at it with a critical eye.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So our goal, guys, is not telling you, don't go to church, but question everything, right? Just question everything.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, okay. So you're out of the dark place, you're in this wonderful place. How do you help your clients?
Speaker 3:I love. You know my approach is deeply intuitive. I work primarily one-to-one, although I'm working on a small group coaching program now but I love bringing people back into communion with nature, the cycles of nature, because we are part of nature and I think so often we don't honor that. You know we try to push ourselves at a time when nature is resting, everything around us is like you should rest and we're like, no, we're gonna go try to help my clients get into more of a in tune with circadian rhythms. Then definitely back into their bodies, into really knowing our body, knows the way we have so much wisdom stored within us. You know our intuition resides deeply in our body and learning to help people just be still and turn inward and listen, and then I like to open their eyes up to the possibilities.
Speaker 3:You know there's, there's a million ways to live, you know, if you kind of step away from what you think you're supposed to be doing. You know we've all got those ideas working in our heads of what we're supposed to do and who we're supposed to be. But if we can set that aside, you know, and then maybe bring back what we really want of that and really kind of look at. Okay, who am I, who do I want to be, who could I possibly be? So that's generally where I like to take clients. I like to get them in touch with themselves and then with the energies around them.
Speaker 2:Love it. Do you have any favorite tools you use?
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness. Jungian Tarot? For sure, because my tarot readings are not a divinatory. They are about what is? What is this imagery digged up in your subconscious? Let's talk about that. That's where the magic lies. So that's definitely one of my tools. The energy healing definitely a big piece of it, but definitely somatic embodiment. I love, like I said, bringing people back in their body, like really channeling in that energy and then expressing it in their bodies. It's beautiful and it's the profound transformations that can happen when you come into communion with your body never cease to amaze me and that's a huge aspect of physical healing that I feel like is ignored.
Speaker 2:You know we talk about this on so many different episodes. I know I'm going to sound like a broken record, but so many times people are coming to me hey, can you fix me? I want you to heal me. Give me this supplement, give me this protocol, and it's like no, that's not how it works.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And it's funny I just wrote a big Facebook post about this because, as a Reiki master teacher, a lot of people think I'm a healer, like, oh, you're doing, you're healing people. I'm like, no, I facilitate, I set it up, I might direct the energy to some degree, but they are who are healing themselves. It's their energy that is rising up for healing. It is very little to do with me other than being the conduit, and it's so important for people to come into knowledge of that because in that is the empowerment Like, oh, I can heal myself. Knowledge of that, because in that is the empowerment Like, oh, I can heal myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I have it within me to be better. Yep, and that's magic and that is far more empowering. You know, other than, or rather than, oh gosh, this, this protocol didn't work. You must have given me the wrong protocol, I need a new one. And then I have worked with clients where it's one protocol after the next, especially when I was first starting out and I'm thinking what am I doing wrong? Without realizing it's their energy, it's not the protocol, like I could put you on the best protocols in the world, for whatever it is, it doesn't matter, it's you, it has to come from within.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I think that's a facet of healing, that we're only just scratching the surface of the energy piece. And I always tell my clients I work in body, mind and spirit. I do the somatic piece for body, I do mindset management for the mind and shadow work and then I do the energy piece for spirit. And I think we do the first two pretty well. But the third one people don't really pay attention to and a lot. I mean, if you're holding wounding in your body, where is it in your energy? You know it's, you know you're carrying it around. So working in that realm is can really be incredibly liberating for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a lot of energy, a lot of power. It's just we don't know how to direct it. We don't know how to use it 100%, we're like little kids walking around with swords like good luck.
Speaker 3:Exactly. We have so much at our fingertips but we are so unaware of it. Yeah, I always say that I think the world would be a better place if everybody just took Reiki one. You don't have to go and be a Reiki master, but just become aware of energy and your relationship to it. The world would be a much, much more smoothly running place and your relationship to it, the world will be a much, much more smoothly running place.
Speaker 2:Well, tell me briefly for those that don't know what does it mean? Coming back in your body? Because I know for some listening they're like I'm always in my body.
Speaker 3:What the heck are you talking about? To really, it's coming into a deeper communion. It's really embodying your body, like feeling every bit of yourself, like feeling. I, for me, I love to guide clients into body scans where we like, literally like, do you feel your feet? Do you feel your ankles, do you feel? And we go through everything and just till you feel the weight of your own body under you, like, oh, here I am, this what I feel, because so often we carry again so much pain, so much wounding, that we don't want to sit in our bodies it's not a safe place for us. And learning to just kind of breathe through the fears, breathe through the pain, like, no, just be still, be very, very still and don't dissociate, which is something we all do. But to just stop that just for five minutes, be still and in your body, and that's something people can do right now.
Speaker 3:It's incredibly simple, but incredibly challenging at the same time.
Speaker 2:Agreed, yeah. Any other tools or strategies for people that are like, okay, I just want to get started on my healing journey, whether it's getting back in my body or recognizing what my energy is, or working through trauma. Do you have like one or two things that you could tell them to do? Right?
Speaker 3:now, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I am a huge fan of grounding and releasing, and grounding to me is like you, really you center yourself.
Speaker 3:The technique that I usually teach my clients, because it's very simple, is imagining a cord going down from one foot into the heart of the earth, like really visualizing it, and then another cord coming up from the heart of the earth, like really visualizing it, and then another cord coming up from the heart of the earth and down, and usually I have the down cord, my right leg, and the left cord, my up leg, just how I work, and I visualize and feel like this really get in my body and feel the energy of the day, kind of releasing down that right side of my body, like I think of any interactions I had that were unpleasant, you know, things that I'm still carrying a little tension from work.
Speaker 3:You know just imagining that you know doing what I can to like really feel that releasing. Then at the same time I think of the molten core of earth and all that power and energy and I visualize that coming up through my left foot and really coming up and I try, again, try to really feel it coming all the way up, feeling it, you know, past my knees, past my hips, filling me with a warmth, and then I try to do a circuit of releasing and pulling up, releasing and pulling up. And this sounds complicated but it can literally be done in a matter of moments and I do it throughout the day and that's one of the first things I teach my clients, because getting just like here I am, I'm letting go of this, I'm pulling up this, all right, where are we going from here? It gives you just a moment to clear your head.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it and it's such a simple thing to do, but again not things that we do, it's like well, we wake up and scroll our phone and we get started with our day and, yeah, not serving us.
Speaker 3:No, but it's so easy, I know, I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, is there anything else that I didn't ask you, that I should have asked you, or that you need to get out?
Speaker 3:I would say the one thing is, if you're for me in the marriage at any point, at any time, you can put a play, a pause on the play button and say this is no longer serving me. And I have a great saying that I've heard that I really love. It's like don't continue a mistake just because you've put a lot of years into it. It's like at any point, you can step out of the timeline you're in and create a different one, and you really can do it. There are supports, there are people, there are energies that will help you get out of it and to really, you know, be brave enough to take a look is. Is my life serving me? Is my life making me happy in my soul? Am I being everything I can be?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and guys, we released an episode. I don't know when this one's dropping, but we actually released an episode yesterday on narcissistic abuse and relationships, so go listen to that if you're struggling with your relationships.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, my husband was actually diagnosed as a narcissist, so that was another whole avenue of healing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It is Well. Thank you so much for being here. Obviously, everything's going to be in the show notes, but what's the best way for people to find you on social? I'm Michelle.
Speaker 3:Manley. On Facebook. I am Mystic Healing Alchemy, Michelle Manley Mystic Healing Alchemy. On Instagram and LinkedIn I'm Michelle M Manley. I believe I am Mystic Healing Alchemy, Michelle Manley Mystic Healing Alchemy. On Instagram and LinkedIn, I'm Michelle M Manley. I believe there's an M there. My website is Michelle M Manley backslash home, and there's a freebie there too of five simple rituals to get connected to your energy, kind of similar to what I just showed you. Just very simple things you could do throughout the day to just kind of put a pause and get connected to your energy Love it Well, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. Thank you, this was wonderful. All right guys, we will see you on the next episode.
