I’ll go first. My marriage was falling apart and I was refusing to accept it. I had two little kids. And then came a diagnosis ,the kind that stops you cold. The kind that makes you realize you don’t have the luxury of staying asleep anymore. I didn’t know anything about spirituality. I wasn’t raised with it. I grew up in a communist country where pain was something you buried, not something you healed. Spiritual gifts? Nobody talked about that. You just survived. You pushed through. You didn’t feel, you functioned. And then my whole world broke open at once. That was my introduction to this path. Not candles and meditation retreats. It was crisis. It was survival. It was two babies looking at me and me realizing I had to find another way. I had no roadmap. I just started walking. And somehow that walk led me here. Led me to plant medicine, to ceremony, to the deepest parts of myself I never knew existed. So now I’m asking you What was your moment? What broke you open? What made you finally stop running? Drop it below. I mean it when I say this is a safe space. Your story matters here.

Ariella if you have a moment I have a question about your experience and knowing about grief and how it appears in our bodies and lineage. I’m really interested in the idea of Hucha “Hucha isan Andean (Q'ero) concept representing heavy, dense, or stagnant energy, particularly unprocessed grief, fear, or trauma trapped in the body and psyche. Rather than a sign of weakness, hucha is seen as a natural buildup that, when released, becomes nourishing energy for the earth, often cultivated through spiritual practices.” That stickiness that can occur when grief stays trapped. In your work with plant medicine have you seen grief as its own force? With respect to the privacy of your clients of course. It’s just a concept that makes a lot of sense. 🙏🏽

I had terrible back pain since childhood, like 7 years old. Which is weird because why would a child have back pain? There was nothing I could do to heal it and adults didn’t really believe me. Which led me to yoga in my teen years, then I spiraled down a spiritual path from there when I completed my 200hr yoga teacher certification. My parents are pastors so I always had a strong faith in God thru Christianity. Everything really changed for me when I was 25. My boyfriend at that time was very spiritual and he taught me so much. Unfortunately he was killed in a car accident and my world has never been the same. That accident and losing him really made me question God. And why He would allow something so tragic to happen to the man I wanted to marry and to someone so wonderful. And from here my spiritual journey really took off. I got married just 5 months after his accident however, I never stopped working a job and never properly grieved. But the weirdest part is I think losing him was probably the best thing to happen to me. That tragedy woke me up. In the years since I’ve been pulled toward so many things. Crystals, connecting with ancestors, moon rituals etc. I’ve also had two children so that connection to life and growth has only heightened my spiritual world. My second child was a surprise and not really one I wanted so I had a hard time with that. I started working with Ari in 2021 and she has helped me tremendously. I worked with her to experience plant medicine for my 33rd bday. And since then my back pain has slowly healed, I can actually feel connection to my spine and Kundalini fire flow within me among other incredible benefits. And now I’m just in a weird place because I feel like I’ve been in a fog and this is the first time in my life that I’m seeing and thinking clearly. But still showing grace and appreciation for past me who survived. I’m having a hard time with the church because while I still identify as a Christian, churches seem so lost. Especially after plant medicine where I saw how massive God is, I feel like the churches I’ve been to teach limited thinking. I don’t even like referring to God as He anymore. This is hard because I do want my children to have a strong faith foundation like I did from church.