I’m sharing a chapter of my story that speaks to the deep connection between the body and spirit. Like so many of you, I’ve experienced pain—both physical and emotional—that felt overwhelming and scary. For years, I struggled with symptoms I didn’t fully understand, from painful periods to the weight of unprocessed grief. It wasn’t until I began tuning into my body and honoring its wisdom that I realized how my physical and emotional experiences were intertwined.

My hope is that through my story, you’ll feel inspired to listen to your body, honor your emotions, and explore the healing practices that resonate with you.

Trigger warning: This series will trigger you in one way or another, please read with care…and be gentle with yourself.

My Soma & Spirit Connection

As I continued to experience the emptiness inside of me, I began to blame external forces, like my marriage. This is when I knew my relationship was in trouble. I am so fortunate to be married to a soul that sees me and accepts all parts of me without judgement. We started couples therapy, which was the step I needed to see that my emptiness was coming from within me. Eventually, our couples therapist became our individual therapist. We did some work with EMDR to process trauma. But, it wasn’t just my mental health I was working on—I was also dealing with physical health issues. I had struggled with extremely painful periods (dysmenorrhea & endometriosis) and had self-diagnosed myself with PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder). The symptoms were severe—I would feel completely dysphoric, even suicidal, right before my period each month. It was debilitating.

I eventually switched to a PMDD specialist and began working on my menstrual health. I dove into womb healing and tracking my cycle with the moon, my diet, and my symptoms. I used the “Cycles Journal”, which I highly recommend to anyone who menstruates. It is a great tool to start reconnecting with your body and womb energy. I tracked my physical, mental, and spiritual body for a year. I became an expert on my menstrual cycle, something I had never been taught before. And I was able to mitigate my PMDD symptoms by being proactive about my cycle. I was prepared for my symptoms before they arrived. I set intentions every month to release emotional pain through my menstrual cycle, and I synced to the phases of the moon! I felt deeply connected to my body and the universe. This was the time that I strongly started identifying as a brujita. Around the same time, I was going deeper into my private practice. I incorporated tarot and energy healing into my life. Though I initially began these practices for myself, I couldn’t help but think of how they could help my clients. Every time I did something for myself, I thought, "This could help someone else." I couldn’t separate my healing from the work I did with others—it was all interconnected. As therapists, we’re supposed to share resources and information that will benefit our clients, so that is exactly what I did.

I was also undergoing grief and loss training to become a specialist, but this training also became a pivotal moment for my own healing. It was through this training that I realized grief wasn’t just about the death of a loved one—it was woven into every day life. The loss of my family, the loss of relationships, the loss of what could have been, the loss of identities, the loss of the day, all of it was grief. I dove deep into my grief studies, too. Learning this allowed me to extend compassion to myself, to honor the grief I had been holding onto for so long. It also taught me the importance of spirituality when healing from grief.

I began incorporating the wisdom I gained from my grief training into my private practice as well. I realized that my spiritual healing work was just as important as my psychological training. This is when I specialized in integrating spirituality into the grieving process with client’s, helping them connect to their lost loved ones, ancestors, and pets. As well as integrating emotional limpias into my sessions. This practice, which helped me clear energy and release stuck emotions, was transformative. But it wasn’t just the clients who were healing—I was healing too. I began to feel the power of these practices in a way I never had before.

The deeper I dove into all of these practices the more I learned about traditional medicine and ancestral ways of healing. I couldn’t stop absorbing knowledge from Curanderismo to Jungian psychotherapy.