I had the opportunity to discuss this with Janie Jaramillo Santoy, who has grown into an understanding of her own journey toward authenticity and whose energy work helps others do the same. Janie is a mother, professor, and business owner. But though she occupies those roles, she’s clear that her emotional and spiritual health requires that she define how those roles look in her life.

Janie lives in Brownsville, Texas, the city where she grew up. Ever the Yalie, she was on the express track to professional and personal attainment. Indeed, it was about 15 years ago when Janie–married, the mother of two small children, full-time faculty and Chair of the English Department at a local college, and speeding through her Ph.D. program–realized that what awaited her on the other side of receiving that degree was not what she wanted. Burnt out, Janie became anxious and depressed. Seeking help, she went “the allopathic route” but the medication prescribed did not make her feel better; it numbed her out.

Then she had an epiphany. Looking at her friends and parents who awaited retirement to finally pursue fulfillment, she realized that she was on “exactly the same road,” seeking external benchmarks of success and deferring her own aspirations. But when a colleague died a few months before their retirement, Janie “started learning about healing, spiritual connection, and how people can manifest illness in their bodies,” she shared. “For me, it was about exploring the different modalities and asking how else can I do life that isn’t focused on accumulation and material wealth.”

Janie explained that the modalities she sought were the myriad ways that people can access deep areas of spiritual understanding and truth that comprise energy work. These modalities, or spiritual technologies, include reiki, tapping, emotional freedom technique, energy clearing, shamanic healing, divination, magic and spell work, and akashic records work.

Ironically, it was Janie’s Ph.D. studies through one of this country’s first accredited online Ph.D. programs that opened her up to seeking online teachers to guide her spiritual exploration and release the knowledge within her. As she learned these modalities from teachers who spanned the globe, she found herself returning to curanderismo, a form of traditional Mexican medicine work and folk healing that was a part of her life growing up. Though Janie always had a curiosity about the beliefs and practices woven into the indigenous background of her family when she caught glimpses of it during visits to Mexico, she didn’t know what it was until she started learning from teachers online who had been trained by indigenous healers. That revelation led to another: both her great-grandmothers used traditional curanderismo practices in their daily lives.

Janie’s journey taught her that “my life is about me being fulfilled rather than fulfilling other people. I had to relearn how to focus on myself and my true purpose. It’s more than being a wife and mother. Those are roles, but it’s up to me to determine how I want to show up in those roles.” This promoted wholeness. “A lot of the healing that I had to do involved letting go of who I had learned to be and becoming who I wanted to be. Sometimes it was really difficult to let go of years of commitment to being the person I no longer wanted to be.”

This process has borne fruit on several levels. Janie founded her professional practice that eventually became Soul Actualized (soulactualized.com). Through it, she helps clients to align, heal, and discover their own path to self-actualization. While most of her own learning from teachers did not happen locally and her healing work is global, Janie is committed to disseminating what she has learned locally as well. “Lots of people [in her community] are familiar with these practices but don’t understand what informs the practices.” But by connecting what they know and the local terminology to the broader practice, Janie is helping to honor the knowledge of her foremothers that continues to serve her community.

Janie brings a core understanding to her work. “Before I felt like I had to choose between sacrificing myself or other people. And I would always choose to sacrifice myself. Now, I can show up authentically in a way that serves me and those I love. I don’t feel like I have to sacrifice anyone.”

Originally published in the Yale Alumni Magazine, January/February 2022 written by Erica Simone Turnipseed