Michelle Holling-Brooks
Healing and Spiritual Arts Practitioner & Teacher, Awakened Executive Contributor
Michelle Holling-Brooks is a best-selling author, trauma-informed specialist, somatic parts coach, healing and spiritual arts teacher and practitioner, astrologer, archetypal consultant, and a little bit of a soul embodiment activist. In addition to founding Unbridled Change in 2008, she is the creator of The Unbridled Change Method™ and the Bridge of Connection.
As a Spiritual Seeker, Michelle has gathered quite a healing toolbox!
- Certified Archetypal Consultant through Caroline Myss,
- Eden Energy Medicine Practitioner,
- Usui Reiki Master and Teacher,
- Certified in Somatic Experiencing Internal Family Systems Informed work,
- Certified Mindfulness and Spiritual Life Coach,
- plus extensive training in trauma and attachment theories with over thousands of hours supporting clients to rediscover and establish a connection with their True Self after complex trauma and attachment wounds through Equine Partnered Psychotherapy and CoachingTM, energy work, spiritual coaching, and sharing shamanic practices.
Michelle’s current project is the best-selling release of her second book, Trauma Informed Enlightenment, and its companion Oracle Deck and Guidebook – The Sacred Witness Oracle.
Together, her body of work establishes a trauma-informed method for supporting clients to establish a secure connection to fully living, loving, and leading their authentic lives! Connect with Michelle at www.unbridledchange.org.
Recent Articles
Into the Labyrinth: Journeys of Transformation
On a cool spring day in the Smoky Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, I had a break in the healing workshop schedule that I was speaking at and decided to walk the labyrinth that was on the retreat property. As the morning fog started to lift, I entered the labyrinth with the intention to unplug for a quiet moment of centering before diving into facilitation work for the rest of the day.
Relearning How to Receive Nurturing
Before I had my first child, I would have told you that I allowed myself to receive and give nurturing to all aspects of my life and the Beings in it.
Yet, during a quiet moment of looking at my infant daughter 17 years ago, I had a heart-wrenching realization that I was actually living in various states of cutting myself off from the soul-level medicine of nurturing and nourishing. Instead of truly allowing myself to be or give nurturing, I was acting from a place of performance and “shoulds”. As a result, I was cut off from the love and compassion that would naturally be available to me and others if I was willing to engage from my heart, not my mind.
Unbridled Blessings: Liberating Ourselves From Hidden Curses
What if, without realizing it, we are cursing ourselves throughout the day?
Not in obvious or dramatic ways… but in subtle thoughts, beliefs, and reactions that quietly shape how we experience our lives.
Self-Cursing takes on many different forms:
Unbridled Change: How a Coma, a Horse, and the Language of Animals Rebuilt Her Life – An Interview with Michelle Holling-Brooks
That is the question at the heart of this remarkable conversation with Michelle Holling-Brooks. After a coma at thirteen erased every memory, every feeling, and every sense of identity she had ever known, Michelle had to rebuild her understanding of what it means to be human from the ground up. What she discovered along the way through horses, trauma work, somatic healing, and a profound connection to intuition became the foundation for everything she does today.
Breaking Free From Fear’s Hidden Binds
Before entering the conference room, I reminded myself of my intentions:
I will have my own back and believe in myself.
I can honor others and myself at the same time.
I will not silence myself and people-please just to avoid conflict or dissonance.
The Seeker’s Journey: Awakening, Getting Lost, and Discovering True Self
Wiping the steam from the mirror there was a set of hollow eyes looking back. The reflection was a mere ghost, a shell of a person that felt completely broken, unworthy of love, laughter, connection, and even life.
But now I knew that the image and person I was seeing wasn’t the real me. Only thirty minutes before, I had spontaneously been shown a vision of the “real” me, a light that was so alive, vibrant, and emanating waves of joy and love. It was hard to imagine that the vision I saw was the true me; the gap between the image and the set of eyes looking back seemed almost impossible to bridge.
Embracing Our Empathic Nature: Shifting from Feeling Overwhelmed to Empowered
Standing in line to check out, my body was rapidly shifting from feeling just fine to being in real trouble; waves of nausea, vertigo, and pain radiated from my heart to my arms.
Glancing up, I saw a little bench just past the cashier. Collapsing into the bench, my eyes drifted up to where my cart was still waiting in line, and I noticed that there was a young woman behind where I had been just moments before that I hadn’t seen before. She was in a wheelchair, completely collapsed inward, had oxygen support, a