Welcome to episode 3 of Soul to Life!

In this episode, I talk with spiritual life guide, activist and artist Michelle René Robinson about her inspiring path of sacred activism, embracing your authentic voice, and finding freedom through spirituality.

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MICHELLE RENÉ ROBINSON
is a Spiritual Life Guide, writer, activist, multimedia visual artist and inspirational speaker from Phoenix, Arizona.

Her work focuses on helping women create conscious, sustainable change in themselves, their communities and the world so they can live their purpose and embrace the life their soul is here to live.

Through her 'Jewel Box' of spiritual tools, Michelle brings the sacred into activism, offering an approach to social change that is driven by the power that comes when we allow ourselves to heal, decondition and center our most authentic selves, skills and vision as we seek to create change within the world around us.

Michelle's upcoming Jewel Box Academy, will be dedicated to helping women to rediscover their power, take up space and use their voices with grace in the pursuit of a humane and just world where everyone can thrive.

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:

Website: MichelleReneRobinson.com

Instagram: @MichelleRene_Robinson

TEXT TRANSCRIPT:

Stephanie Briggs  00:01

Welcome fellow traveler. I'm Stephanie Elizabeth Briggs and this is Soul to Life, a podcast for old souls on the multi dimensional journey of being human.

Stephanie Briggs  00:30

This is Episode Three featuring our very first guest, my friend Michelle René Robinson. Michelle is a spiritual life guide, writer, activist, multimedia visual artist and inspirational speaker from Phoenix, Arizona. Her work focuses on helping women create conscious sustainable change in themselves, their communities and the world so they can live their purpose and embrace the life their soul is here to live.

I have had the pleasure of getting to know and grow alongside Michelle in the liberatory facilitation training with Andréa Ranae, as well as more recently through our collaborative work on the Whole / Self Liberation team.

In this episode, Michelle shares her powerful work on sacred activism, including the story of how conflict in her close knit friend group led her to create her 7 Jewels framework.

We also talked about embracing difference, cultivating self-knowledge and acceptance, finding freedom through tarot and astrology, and the opportunities that we have right now to reclaim and raise our voice in the current energetic season of transits, through Michelle's lens of Human Design.

Before I share our conversation with you, I just want to share two quick updates:

First, a reminder that the Soul to Life Celebration Giveaway is closing soon. I have extended the deadline for a few extra days. So you can enter the giveaway anytime before Sunday, June 6. You can see all the details at www.soultolifepodcast.com/giveaway and this gives you a chance to win a one on one session with me.

Also I wanted to let you know that I will be hosting a free Summer Solstice Circle live gathering and that will be happening on June 20. You can go ahead and get on the waitlist for that at my website at heartblossom.life/summer-circle.

And now, onto my conversation with Michelle René Robinson.

Stephanie Briggs  02:52

Welcome Michelle, I'm so excited! Thank you for being willing to grace us with your presence and your wisdom today.

Michelle René Robinson  03:00

Thank you, Stephanie. You know, I'm a big fan of yours. With us meeting in real life and getting to know you and seeing you blossom. All of us blossoming together was wonderful. So I am very grateful that you have asked me to be on your podcast.

Stephanie Briggs  03:18

Thank you! Yeah, that retreat [part of our training with Andréa] was so amazing!

So to get started, I would love for you to just tell us a bit about yourself like: who are you? And what are you up to in the world?

Michelle René Robinson  03:30

I would say that I am a soul essence guide. I am very interested and have always been interested in helping women to to lead and live better lives for themselves and their families, their communities.

And so I've always been in that role of I would say maybe, social justice. Just human health, wealth, care.

My Existence has been in helping those who are in need in whichever way that I'm able to do.

Right now I am really in the trenches with helping women to use their authentic voice with grace.

Stephanie Briggs  04:19

Using their authentic voice with grace, I love that.

Michelle René Robinson  04:22

Yes, yes. No conflict; conversations. No debates. Let's have a discussion. And let's respect each other's opinion and see where we can find a common point to start with.

Stephanie Briggs  04:38

I know you have done so many things in your life, and I'd love to hear a bit about your journey with the ways that you go about making an impact in your community, the ways that you support women, and in your own journey with yourself.

Michelle René Robinson  04:55

I’ll start with a journey that led me to my 7 jewels framework. I was part of a group of friends that all of our daughters went to the same high school. And every Thursday, we would meet at a wine boutique. And we would sit on a purple couch. And we would share, you know, stories about our children, and just how we, you know, were living our carefree lives.

And 2015 came in, and our lives were destroyed. They did not look like anything that we had previously thought that they would. And we were always very, very conversational, and just soul sharing. Everything in life that you experience, we were able to have a conversation about it: life, death, joys, heartbreaks…

When that election cycle seeped into our conversations, we had women who followed their husbands into the ballot box, and voted against their interests, and they had lost their voice.

And so that's where the soul journey began, just really looking for that diamond in the desert, because we were jewels. We were all jewels, and very capable of sharing our thoughts. But it became very divisive.

And so in search of that diamond in the desert, I came up with my 7 jewels framework. And the first is just to be self-aware, and able to rewrite this story. Because we can't go back to what it was, we're going to have to look for these jewels, and really mine for the jewels in the desert, in the planets, in tarot, human design, and I brought all of those things in to my jewel box.

Those are my tools that I began to use, because I really was desperate to not lose my friend group. You know, I was heartbroken. You know, it was a struggle.

But I sat down and you know, I love jewels. I love jewels. And I just started thinking about each of these jewels, how they correlate with human design, you know, the centers, the gates, your profile.

With astrology, the planets, communication, how we love, you know, how we move around in the world. You know, where are we beginning with our south node where we're going with our north node, or our Saturn returns. (I'm in my second Saturn return that started in December of 2020.)

So [I was] just searching for something new that I hadn't really used before. I needed some jewels. I needed something in order to help us use our voice, to have agency, to step in.

That started in 2015 and I saw the progression. And then that week after the election, it just blew apart. And so I said, Hey, can we still meet? Because we still have a lot in common.

But there's one thing that we didn't, and I just didn't want it to be so big that everything else that we embraced with helping, loving, growing, I didn't want to throw that away. And that's, you know, when I started with my 7 jewels.

I gave myself permission to dig more into astrology and tarot. Because growing up I was told that that was a No, no. That was not what we believe in. So I had to shed some of those beliefs that were really ingrained in my soul. I had to purge that and just embrace who I was becoming.

Stephanie Briggs  09:13

Wow. So you had this really valuable friend group and these relationships that were so meaningful and supportive and like a resource for each of you. And then when the conflict of political differences [came up], you saw an opportunity to take all these other resources that you had personally been cultivating and put them together to shepherd these relationships through this really trying time.

Michelle René Robinson  09:44

We're still living it. We got another boost of it with COVID, and that is very divisive. Because we went from in real life to Zoom, and trying to get that intimacy on the screen.

Because it's very easy to take that finger and press leave. It's instead of in, in real life, there's no abrupt ending, like Zoom has. So there's a different relating to difference on Zoom.

There's a lot that we are dealing with, you know, race relations, you know, we have so much that is going on in our world. And we can just even start in our home. Whether we share our home with someone or not, starting with yourself, and then moving it out as you can, if you can, if you want to even.

So, here comes that other layer, where there is, for me, a sense of urgency on working with our new normal. Because the normal prior to 2020—No. We have to work towards better.

We really need to work towards using our voice and looking towards the future with equity, not equality.

I'm giving everybody a two wheeled bicycle. Well, guess what? Some people need a wheelchair. Some people need a tricycle.

You get what you need, not what someone else thinks you need. And the only way that we're going to get to that is if we are using our voices, and if we are relating and caring about each other.

But we first have to start with ourselves. We have to have self-love. We need to understand our inner passion, our inner wisdom, embrace change within ourselves in order to have that change come for everyone, that equity. Let's push aside any any thoughts of feeling selfish.

Stephanie Briggs  12:10

Yeah, I'm noticing this theme of embracing difference which is so central to the work that we've both done with Andréa Rene and Whole / Self Liberation. And and here it is, again: facilitating the embrace of difference in your group, what you've been doing, and it's- and I hear that it's a continuing process that you’ve all been in for years, you're still in the struggle and the challenge at times.

But then also I'm hearing in our relationship with ourselves. We also are called to embrace our own difference in in terms of what's ours to speak about.

Michelle René Robinson  12:50

Right

Stephanie Briggs  12:51

What our way of of navigating our lives. Like you mentioned, it sounds like you're saying that through the 7 jewels framework we can get to know ourselves so that we can honor our own difference and then also be resourced and supported within ourselves to then share our voice and share our truth and what we believe in, in our relationships and in our communities.

Michelle René Robinson  13:16

Right. Yes, most definitely. and embrace the fact that, Oh, gosh, okay, here are some flaws within me. I'm embracing it, and I'm going to work with it. I'm on a soul journey.

This is a journey. It's not a race.

When you know who you are, your voice can be your singing, your poetry, you know, art, a conversation, a card. Your voice translates into so many mediums. You do the work because you are the most precious thing.

You need to know yourself like you know your favorite sports star, movie star, author, your partner or whatever. You know so much about everyone else. Know yourself the best. Know yourself better than you know anyone else. That's the journey that everyone should be on.

Because when you know yourself, you love yourself and you're able to relate to yourself, to listen to that inner voice, that essence that is guiding you on this journey, not all the noise outside of you.

Stephanie Briggs  14:32

Yeah, I think many of us who have felt like we don't fit in with our peers. I'll just speak for myself that I find it hard to love myself. And also find it hard to to share who I am with the world like sometimes it can feel really vulnerable. And so I'm just curious if you have any advice for that for someone who really wants to embody their voice, but maybe they're feeling scared?

Michelle René Robinson  14:56

Well, you embrace yourself. First. You have to To work with yourself and encourage yourself, just gorge yourself up. It's like Oh, good for you. Well, I was great. And you start loving yourself. I mean, you that self talk will flourish, it waters those seeds. And that should be what does it for you and not waiting for someone on the outside to validate you to say, hey, you are amazing. Right now inside of me, my soul essence is saying, Yeah, you are. That's what she listened to.

Stephanie Briggs  15:34

So it's cultivating that loving voice.

Michelle René Robinson  15:37

Listen to that. Yes, it's there. But you also know that you will Oh, gosh, I can't believe I did that. Why did I say that? Okay, I said it, I won't do it again. Or maybe I need to apologize or what have you and then move on. Don't let it fester inside and start to destroy all of that goodness, inside of you. So start that self care. You know, start that self awareness, you'll see that transformation. Your soul will congratulate you love you encourage you, but you have to listen, you have to start with loving yourself or maybe start with liking yourself.

Stephanie Briggs  16:22

Yeah, I really feel that nurturing energy that you have and feel like it's so woven into everything that you're doing. And this even like, I can feel myself, like basking in it right now.

You know, I think sometimes we have to, like, get an experience of it to even know what that can feel like. And then it sounds like it's a practice then of just like reinforcing it.

I'm curious to go back to one of the things that you mentioned, your upbringing and the way that astrology and Tarot and some of these spiritual practices were viewed. I'd love to hear more about your process of reclaiming these practices. And what was that like for you?

Michelle René Robinson  17:07

It was freeing. I was free. I mean, because I took all the judgment, “you cannot be this, and this too.” or “you be”…

whatever I want to be. First of all, first of all, like I can!

I just get so much joy out of moon mama, I love a moon goddess. I love the moon. I do you know my ceremonies with my little granddaughter we sit in at our little table with new moon and full moon and do our little you know offer things up, a little crystals and rainwater and stuff like that.

Love, love, love. Love that practice.

Taro. I have never, and I mean never drawn a tarot card with a question and it wasn't answered. I may have not liked the answer, but it was the truth. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I did a spread yesterday in a class, past, present and future. And we did words like what the cards look like and then we wrote, you know, elements like air, you know, water Earth, would you sit down and have dinner with this person.

And then the last exercise was write two paragraphs using words from the columns for each tarot card and say, “I.”

I did that exercise, and that was my memoir.

Stephanie Briggs 

Wow.

Michelle René Robinson

I was stunned. It was shocking. And it was interesting. I, my phone rang and I said, Oh, no, because I was sharing, and I hadn't put it on Do Not Disturb. And there was a little, a little piece of paper that was stuck to it. And it said, “significant.”

Stephanie Briggs 

Whoa.

Michelle René Robinson

And I was like, Okay, enough.

There's something about Tarot that I, absolutely giddy about.

There was no way you would ever touch one of those cards ever [growing up]. Never, you know, read a horoscope, some planets or something…

now, but it has opened I mean, all of those items that you know, like I say, I put in my “jewel box” helped me to know myself better, and to witness to other people and say, Hey, take a look at this. You're wondering why you've been in a funk for the past three or six months. Maybe we should look at the planets. Let's look at what planet has been in that same gate or that same sign for three or six months.

So use all the jewels in the jewel box to help you be your best self.

Stephanie Briggs  19:56

Mm hmm yeah, definitely. For me you know doing this podcast is is unsettling at times, you know, even though it's important for me to use my voice and, and keep finding ways and resources in my toolbox to to draw on in those tough moments.

Before we finish up, I would love to just talk about the transits of the moment. We're in between the eclipses, beginning of June. And I know we were talking before we started recording about some of the transits that are coming up having to do with voice. I think you mentioned the throat gates in Human Design.

So I would love for you to just share a little bit about that. And any words of wisdom you have for making the most of this time?

Michelle René Robinson  20:42

Well, we are in a new transit with the Sun and Earth. They're both moving through the gates with the six lines all at the same time.

The sun, which is your life force, is going through all of the throat gates. This is the time to use your voice to make an impact.

And on my Instagram, I you know, do videos and you know, do you know the tiles and everything that tells you each week, what gate the sun and the earth is in and what type of energy it is. But this is the time to really embody your voice, to do the speaking to plant seeds, you know, that are going to sprout in October. You know, to really solidify your stage of how you communicate, whether that is on a podcast, it's on a stage, just as I said, in your artwork, your art form…

Or if it's on a park bench saying hi to those who are passing, or maybe just with your eyes, because you have your mask on and you give them a nice smile.

You know, we're going through a lot here in our world, and we need to be able to communicate better. And it starts with ourselves.

And so this time, it's kind of it's supercharged this next few months with the gates in the throat.

It's that time right now to dig and look for those jewels inside of you. Because you may feel like a desert, but it's your jewel box and all the jewels are there.

Give yourself grace first to not know, to maybe, you know, flub it up. To not have the right words at first.

And your word maybe, you know, “peace”, or “Thank you” or “No”.

Stephanie Briggs  22:33

So it sounds like this is an especially significant time to take those steps, maybe out of the comfort zone, if we've been holding back. And whatever small or big steps are available.

Michelle René Robinson  22:47

Yes, whatever. And be gentle with yourself.

Sometimes our world is like, do it until it hurts. Give until it hurts. No, if I'm giving I really want it to feel good.

And it may be uncomfortable because you're not used to doing it. As far as your voices concern. Allow yourself grace, because we're looking for our authentic voice.

I tell my jewels in my class, read out loud for 10 minutes a day. could you be able to pick your voice out in a crowd? Would you be able to recognize your voice?

Most people can't. You need to hear your authentic voice. So practice everyday 10 minutes.

Stephanie Briggs

So literally literally

Michelle René Robinson

yes. So you know your voice. You need to know all the aspects of your voice. Because once it starts, and you're like, you know what, that's not me. That's somebody else's voice? Or I'm taking it?

No, no, let me get my authentic voice. This is who I truly am.

Stephanie Briggs  23:43

Yeah, this is definitely, from the perspective of just the astrology and the eclipse season, you know, for sure has so much to do with our worldview and our beliefs about the world.

And then of course, like where we fit into it, and then how that impacts the ways that we express ourselves and how we show up in community.

Yeah, but the north node in Gemini like that's really where that's like our collective destiny right now. is exactly this. Embracing our difference individually and collectively. And then each of us gets to share what we have right? in that community.

And so I just love the way that you support people and women in particular to just be more resourced in that.

Michelle René Robinson  24:31

on any level.

Stephanie Briggs  24:32

Yes. Wow. So I know you have amazing work on Instagram. What are the ways that people can connect with you in your work right now,

Michelle René Robinson  24:41

my Instagram handle @MichelleRene_Robinson. And the Jewel Box Academy will launch in July and it will have all sorts of wonderful magical classes on there for you to participate in. I'm looking forward to that.

it's an exciting time. It really is. I look at this time of, I think people see a lot of chaos, and I do, but there's opportunity to really help us move into a better direction for everyone.

Stephanie Briggs  25:17

Yeah, it's definitely a really potent time. And I'm just so grateful to you for showing up and sharing all that you do and all these different resources and pathways to connecting with our power and our voice thing.

Yeah. So I will put into the show notes Michelle's Instagram and website and all that goodness.

And the jewel box Academy sounds absolutely amazing.

Yeah. I always think of you as as the crown jewel.

Michelle René Robinson  25:47

Oh, thank you. I do I love jewels.

Stephanie Briggs  25:51

Michelle is the queen.

Michelle René Robinson  25:53

Oh, thank you. And I can't wait until we see each other again. In real life.

Stephanie Briggs  25:57

It'll happen. Maybe 2022. Fingers crossed?

Michelle René Robinson  26:01

Most definitely.

Stephanie Briggs  26:03

Oh, beautiful.

Thank you so much, Michelle. It's been just a pleasure as always.

Michelle René Robinson  26:08

Yes, thank you.

Stephanie Briggs  26:16

I want to thank you so much for spending your precious time with me today. You can find the full show notes and an archive of past episodes at soul to life podcast.com.

If you'd like to learn more about me and my work, you can go to my website at heartblossom.life. And that's also where you can get on my email list to be notified about new episodes, and to receive other subscriber only goodies and updates.

You can also follow me on Instagram @heartblossom.life or by searching for soul to life podcast.

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Soul to life is created and produced by me. Stephanie Elizabeth Briggs, in collaboration with my guides of earth and sky.

And our theme music is the song Pleiades by Starry Eyes. This is my musical alter ego.

Thanks again for being here with me today. Until next time, wishing you all the best on your journey. Take care

Transcribed by Otter.ai [affiliate link]

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  Soul to Life is created and produced by Stephanie Elizabeth Briggs. Our theme song is “Pleiades” by Starry Eyes.