Michelle Smith
AUTHOR

Michelle Smith

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Michelle began a position as resident manager of a lodging facility for patients and families on a hospital campus in central Pennsylvania at the age of thirty. Feeling completely overwhelmed living and working in such a charged space, Michelle knew she needed to figure out internal peace. When Michelle suffered from a hamstring injury, a friend encouraged her to try yoga. Reluctantly, Michelle attended her first class thinking, “I am not flexible enough to do yoga.” Her first teacher pointed out, “Well, that’s kind of the point.” After her first class, Michelle not only noticed the physical benefits just doing modifications of some of the poses, but also felt as if she was “wiped clean” internally. She felt as if someone had hit a reboot button and she was able to return to her work and living space from a much clearer and healthier space.
After practicing yoga as a student for two years, Michelle pursued her first teacher training at Melt Hot Yoga in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania. The benefits of yoga for herself and her students were so great that Michelle next completed her Master of Science in Yoga Therapy at Maryland University of Integrative Health. In her last few months of her master’s program, the health system where Michelle worked announced that they would begin creating an Integrative Medicine program. Michelle reached out to the attending physician tasked with its creation and they began collaborating to create what is today a fully operational Integrative Medicine program.
Michelle has completed additional yoga trainings, is pursuing her Reiki mastery, and is a certified vibrational sound therapist. The modalities of yoga therapy, Reiki, and singing bowls have had a profound effect on Michelle in terms of healing from the loss of her father and the loss of hundreds of patients who became friends and surrendered to death through the disease of cancer. Additionally, the modalities helped Michelle find peace as she was simultaneously dealing with her own cervical cancer scare, a Crohn’s disease diagnosis, and a fiancé who relapsed into drug abuse and infidelity.
Michelle feels incredibly blessed to work with so many patients and families navigating through the extreme challenged of disease and death. Michelle shares, “Every day I come to work, my problems are immediately put into perspective. When someone shares with you, ‘I was just told I only have six months to live,’ everything else seems to fall away. In that moment, I simply try to hold space for the gravity of what is being felt. I give a hug as tears of shed. And in that moment, we are truly one.”
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