My Journey
Licensed Massage Therapist | EMMETT Technique Practitioner | Somatic Movement & Yoga Coach | Reiki Master | Spiritual Direction Practitioner
HI, I AM YOGA MICHELLE.
My work today has grown from more than professional training. It has been shaped by my own experiences with healing, loss, recovery, chronic pain and illness, and learning - again and again - to listen more deeply to my body, my inner wisdom, and Spirit.
I know what it feels like to search for answers. I know what it feels like when your body changes your plans. And I know how meaningful it can be when someone finally slows down long enough to truly listen.
That is the heart behind Be . Motivated Wellness.
A journey i never expected
My journey into wellness began in a way I never could have planned.
In 2011, I received what you might call a “nudge” from God—or a cosmic shove from the Universe—while attending a recovery yoga class, urging me toward an entirely new path. I left a 28-year career in mortgage and title insurance and began a journey that would lead me to bring recovery yoga to people navigating addiction—including food, alcohol, drugs, and codependency.
I launched Your Recovery Yoga and brought this practice into a variety of addiction recovery and trauma-focused settings throughout the Twin Cities of Minnesota. Along the way, I was introduced to somatics, where I discovered an entirely different way of relating to the body: with awareness, curiosity, gentleness, and choice.
Over the years, I continued to explore approaches that supported me personally as well as professionally—somatic movement and yoga, massage and therapeutic bodywork, EMMETT Technique, Reiki, meditation, and spiritual direction.
Each became another thread in the whole-person approach
I offer today.
Then life changed again.
Over a relatively short period of years, I experienced the loss of most of my immediate family, the isolation of COVID and the sudden end of the Recovery Yoga practice I had spent years building when lockdown restrictions closed the doors to the treatment and trauma-focused settings I served, the end of a marriage, and eventually a move from Minnesota to Florida.
Through all of it, I continued learning about healing—not only through professional education, but through my own body, my own losses, and my own life.
AND THEN EVERYTHING CHANGED AGAIN
After moving to Florida, I was preparing to open the wellness center I had dreamed about for years. That dream ended before the doors ever opened.
Following exposure to a water-damaged, mold-contaminated environment, I became seriously ill. I was hospitalized and experienced frightening changes in my ability to function - including difficulty walking, reading, writing, thinking clearly, and finding words. Eventually, I was diagnosed with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS).
Chronic illness changed my life in ways that aren't always visible from the outside. It changed how I think about my environment, where I can safely spend time, the places I travel and stay, what I eat, how I care for my body, and how carefully I have to listen when it tells me something isn't right.
And I grieved.
I grieved my health. I grieved the things I could no longer do without thinking about them. And I deeply grieved the loss of the wellness center I had spent years imagining, planning and preparing to open.
But somewhere within that loss, my understanding of healing changed again.
I know chronic illness.
I know autoimmune illness.
I know chronic pain.
I know what it is like when your body no longer behaves the way it once did.
If you have ever felt dismissed, misunderstood, or exhausted from trying to explain what you are experiencing, I want you to know this:
I see you. I hear you. And I believe you.
You do not have to prove to me that what you are experiencing in your body is real.
I SEE YOU. I HEAR YOU. I BELIEVE YOU.
There were times during my illness when I knew something was profoundly wrong with my body, yet the conventional testing being done did not provide an explanation for what I was experiencing.
I know what it feels like to sit in that uncertainty.
I know what it feels like to have symptoms other people cannot see.
And I know how much it matters to be heard.
I am deeply grateful for the functional medicine practitioner who listened, kept looking deeper, and helped me explore underlying contributors to what was happening in my body. I credit that care with helping save my life - and it profoundly changed the way I understand the people who come to me.
A Different Dream
I once believed Be . Motivated needed a wellness center - a physical place where everything I had learned could come together.
Today, I see that differently.
I don't have plans to recreate the center I lost. Instead, I am allowing this work to unfold in a way that feels more aligned with my life, my health, and where I feel Spirit is leading me.
Be . Motivated Wellness is now expressed in different spaces and different ways - through individualized Integrative Massage & Healing Therapy, somatic movement and yoga, Reiki, meditation, spiritual connection, private sessions, classes, workshops, and community offerings.
The location changed.
The calling didn't.
WHY MY JOURNEY MATTERS TO YOURS
My experiences don't mean that I know exactly what it feels like to be you.
They have taught me something more important: to listen.
I don't believe healing is about someone else having all the answers for your body.
My role is to meet you where you are, offer what I have learned through both professional training and lived experience, and create space for you to listen more deeply to what your own body, mind, and spirit may be telling you.
Sometimes healing means moving.
Sometimes it means becoming still.
Sometimes it means receiving supportive touch.
Sometimes it means finding a new way to relate to a body that has changed.
And sometimes it simply begins with finally feeling heard.
Move with Awareness. Listen from Within. Connect with Spirit.
Ready to Connect?
Choose the path that feels right for you.
Classes, Groups, & Retreats
Questions about public classes, Sanctuary Yoga, Recovery Yoga, Retreats, Workshops, or Group offerings?
private sessions
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