Reinvention on the River + Resiliency with Michelle Wincell O'Leary (part 1)

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you completely transformed your life in the span of just a few weeks? Michelle Wincell O'Leary found out firsthand when she experienced what she calls "the trifecta of change" in 2023 - leaving her career as a healthcare healing executive, ending her marriage, and giving up her house to live full-time on a boat on the Mississippi River.

The transformation didn't stop there. Michelle tapped into her background in therapy and her extensive training in Mastering Alchemy to navigate this massive transition with remarkable resilience. Rather than being crushed by these simultaneous life changes, she used them as a catalyst to discover her true calling as an author, teacher, and master of energy work.

Michelle's approach to alchemy - transforming stress and difficult emotions into manageable energy - provides a fascinating blueprint for anyone facing significant life transitions. She describes how she simplified everything in her life to gain clarity, and how writing from her "higher self" enabled her to produce an astonishing 80,000 words that would eventually become a series of eleven books. Her first book, "Resilience," debuted as a bestseller in 2024.

What's particularly inspiring about Michelle's story is how quickly she adapted to her new reality. Within just five months, she had not only adjusted to boat life but had created a new business teaching energy work classes called "Your Energy, Your Way" to her local community. Her journey exemplifies how embracing change, rather than resisting it, can lead us to unexpected fulfillment.

Whether you're considering a major life change or simply trying to navigate everyday stresses more effectively, Michelle's practical wisdom about staying present and consciously rebalancing yourself will give you valuable tools to transform challenges into opportunities. Join us to discover how you too can move from surviving to thriving through the power of resilience.

About Michelle 
@michellewincelloleary 
 

Chapters

• 0:06 Introduction to Reignite Resilience
• 2:19 Michelle's Dramatic Life Transition
• 7:24 The Trifecta of Change
• 9:31 Finding Purpose Through Alchemy
• 15:09 Building A New Community
• 17:22 From 80,000 Words to 11 Books

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Welcome back to another episode of Reignite Resilience. I'm your co-host, natalie Davis, and I am so happy to be back with everyone, and joining me, of course, is your co-host, pam Kass. Hello Pam, how are you?

Speaker 3: 0:54

I'm fantastic. This is like day four, but we've been together like three days in a row.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Yes, Not in real life.

Speaker 3: 1:03

Which is kind of nice, because we go for these long stretches where we don't talk to each other, see each other, and then it's like a drinking from a fire hose and then I think we have a break for a little while again.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Exactly. I am totally impressed by these podcasters that meet and they record like together in a studio, and I don't understand how that works. And I say that with Pam and I living no more than 10 miles away from each other. We've only seen each other virtually for the last four days.

Speaker 3: 1:33

But Kavya, I mean you and I do have like 15 jobs, that's exactly right. It's kind of one of those things Getting our schedules together is like an act of Congress. It is absolutely ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 1:44

Oh my gosh, Even when we think that we have plenty of time. We started out by talking about that today. You know, I was doing my setting up my schedule yesterday and I thought oh, Monday, it's a light day, that's nice, I have a pretty light schedule. I showed up for this session Like who am I? What day is it?

Speaker 3: 2:05

Busy I think the universe knows when we have a light schedule, because then they're like oh, perfect here take a call.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Here's an email. Here's an extra fire for you to put out. All right, love it. I wouldn't trade it for the world. Not complaining, I love it. Keeps us out of trouble, exactly, exactly. And we have a fabulous guest that's joining us today and I am excited to dive in to hear her story and how she is helping people everywhere. So why don't you tell our listeners who's joining us today?

Speaker 3: 2:32

Absolutely Well, super excited. Today we have Michelle Winslow O'Leary. She is someone who, through resilience, moved from unconscious to conscious and from surviving to thriving, after her life changed dramatically in 2023. Her book Resilience from Flow in the Present series debuted as a best seller in 2024. Her resilience skills and energy tools support those experiencing change and looking for more in life. Michelle is a career therapist and a healthcare healing executive, turned entrepreneur, author and master of energy, alchemy and consciousness. Welcome, we are so excited for you to be with us today and to share your story with us.

Speaker 4: 3:19

Thank you so much for having me. You guys, I feel so like it's right up my alley to be on your particular podcast and with your lovely presence. So it's right up my alley to be on your particular podcast and with your lovely presence. So I'm really really happy to be here.

Speaker 3: 3:29

I love it. Thank you so much. Share with us kind of your story that brought you to, kind of where you are right now and share with our listeners right now where you are personally, physically, right now. I think that's a fun place to start.

Speaker 4: 3:45

It is a fun place to start, so I'll start exactly right there. So I'm joining you from my boat where I live now in the summers in Minnesota. So I'm on the Mississippi River, on a stretch of the river. That's also a lake called Lake Heffin, and it started out as a place to come on the weekends, so a little bit of a reprieve from full-time work back in the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

Speaker 4: 4:08

I was overseeing a large agency that was serving people with serious and persistent mental illness and folks that were without homes, and I was innovating around healing environments and bringing services online for people 24 hours a day, when needed, as needed, how needed Everything from food service to mental health support, to physical health support, to exercise, healing, wellness, the whole thing. So that was my lifelong career and in the summer of 2023, what happened was I had kind of set myself up with. I've done everything in this agency I could do all through COVID, all through George Floyd. I worked in the third precinct. So all of those riots and fires and all that stuff taking place while overseeing this agency, all these staff and helping all these individuals, and my own resilience came into call there. Right, everybody's did in one way, shape or form but mine certainly did in how I could support everybody through all of those things and I made it through that. I helped keep things afloat, if you will.

Speaker 4: 5:18

But during COVID I decided I have this boat I've been coming down to on the weekends and if I'm working from home, why wouldn't I work from the boat instead of the home? What's the difference? So this weekend getaway started to become I'm there three, four, five days a week and just driving home to do laundry and come back, and over time, it just sort of dawned on me like my whole lifestyle could shift. I could be immersed in nature, I could be working from this beautiful environment and in a community that's been very welcoming of me, and I could still maintain that career remotely, which I did for a couple of years and successfully. However, at one point in 2023, my boss says we need to have a talk, and I'm like she never wants to talk. So what is that about? I'm like, okay, something's up, hello. And we had a discussion.

Speaker 4: 6:13

The part of the agency I was not paying attention to, was not on my plate, was really struggling, and they needed to figure out how to make things work and one of the options was I could shift my work hours, I could do something different, I could leave altogether and I had to really pause and go. Whoa, I love this career. However, I could shift and I could go into my higher calling, which I knew was right. There sort of would eventually pop up and I thought this could be a really good time to make this shift, and so I did. I said you guys are all set up, you've got projects for the next decade, you've got all the infrastructure that you need in place and you're doing great work. So I'm just going to see this as an opportunity to do my own thing. So I stepped out of that and moved onto my boat.

Speaker 3: 7:00

Okay, when you did that, when you stepped out of that position and onto your boat, it was like you walked away from that job, the career, yeah. So now you're like now what Right you had this higher calling.

Speaker 2: 7:11

And lifestyle. Right, You're not going back to do laundry anymore. It is here we go. Yes.

Speaker 4: 7:17

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to stay. I'm going to stay immersed in nature. Now there's a caveat I haven't told you about that. You're probably like well, what about family and houses and partners and families? Well, the caveat is that in the course of the last several years leading to this point, my then partner and I had kind of grown a little bit apart and we were sort of like let's try and find our way back. And part of that was having a boat, like let's leave the stress and go down and hang out on the boat. Well then I sort of started spending more time on the boat. So now we're spending a little less time together. And then add to that COVID, where I was like, well, I might as well just work from the boat. So our distance just kept growing.

Speaker 4: 7:59

I tell you that because literally two weeks after I stepped away from that job, I'm in a conversation with my then husband on the boat, on the water, and we kind of come to this conclusion that it might just be time to let us go too. And I really didn't. I knew it could happen. I knew we were still working on this. I wasn't expecting that particular timing, like really within two weeks. It was like well, it sort of feels like the right decision for us, so I guess we'll just change everything then. I guess that's what happens. And then, of course, I thought I'm already living on the boat, so I might as well.

Speaker 4: 8:34

He wanted the house. I'm like, well, I mean, I might as well go full on clean slate, full on clean slate. So that's the other sort of component. That trifecta of my career shifted, my relationship status shifted and I let go of my house. So literally I stepped onto the river and in this new community and was like okay, I got to figure out what I'm going to do now. Essentially, I got to figure out what I'm going to do now. Essentially, I got to figure out what I'm going to do now.

Speaker 3: 9:00

That is a huge transition. We call that when your life is like a country music song.

Speaker 2: 9:05

Yeah, that's exactly what we do, we do right Like the truck broke down, the dog died, my girlfriend left me. That's the country song.

Speaker 4: 9:15

That's exactly right. That's exactly right, yes.

Speaker 3: 9:20

Yeah. So how long did it take you, in this new space, with all of this transition, huge transition, for you to get to that spot where you're like, okay, this is what my higher calling is, this is what that purpose is, that I've been looking for.

Speaker 4: 9:34

I have to kind of back up a little to help explain that, because one of the things that's unique about me is that I've had this like spiritual sense since I was a child, and so I've always had, you know, I've always delved into kind of different and fun things. And in about 2011, a friend of mine said I'm a part of this class, this group called Mastering Alchemy, and I really think you'd like it, and she was a healing practitioner. She is a really great person, and I thought, okay, I'm going to check it out. And the minute I heard Jim Self as one of the founders, I heard his voice and I saw him and I just was like I am mesmerized by this human. You're amazing, and the energy coming from him was like overwhelming, like I think this is where I'm supposed to be feeling. Okay.

Speaker 4: 10:24

So 2011, my husband and I did that together and then life happened. I'm a newlywed, I'm a young mom, blah, blah, blah. Seven years-ish later, about 2018, I have this weird experience in the middle of the night where my phone alarm goes off three o'clock in the morning. I'm like, okay, weird, turn it back off. Two seconds later, my husband's phone goes off and we're just like okay, that's weird, we turn that off. Yep, third time my phone goes off. I'm just like, all right, like who's with us? Like what's the message? What is going on Now? Mind you, I have spiritual connections. So for me to say to you, I heard three names and a message, kind of how things happen sometimes when you listen and tune in, we all have places we hear things from. So I heard Michael Gabriel, Uriel and in unison. It's time and I'm like I know what they mean. I need to get back to Mastering Alchemy because I kind of let that go and I have more courses to complete that move me into my higher purpose. So I started back like immediately.

Speaker 4: 11:26

So by the time I got to 2023, when this trifecta happened, I knew my life was going to eventually shift. I didn't know how much, when, where, what that would be like, but when it shifted I had the benefit of almost being at graduate level in Mastering Alchemy and all the tools of consciousness, awareness, presence, using energies, creating, releasing present moment skills that I had integrated somewhat with my therapeutic background and building healing environments and supporting people. So I was kind of mulling all those skills together. So, to answer your question, when the boat comes out of the water in October. I've got a winter to figure out. I don't have a house to go back to or a relationship to lean on, and I'm entrepreneurial doing contract work.

Speaker 4: 12:20

While figuring out what to do, I traveled, and during that travel, part of the underlying purpose was figure this out. Let this happen, let this come to me. Spend some time getting to know myself and integrating, which led to a book. The book on resilience is the first in a series of 11 books that I wrote. I can tell you how that happened too, but it's the first set of energies that I got in touch with to become as adaptable and flexible and present and aware to each moment to kind of decide what's going to fit for me to integrate all this and start a business for me. So the answer is five months, but it took a little bit to get there.

Speaker 3: 13:01

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 13:03

I mean five months. I think is very impressive to reach that point. I think even if you're working in like that conscious healing space or traditional Western medicine type of therapy to have those big changes like your environment has changed, your significant other important relationship has changed, your profession, which a lot of us connect our identity to, has changed, most people would start to spiral right, even though it is for your higher purpose. Most people would start to spiral in those settings.

Speaker 4: 13:32

Yeah, I won't say, I didn't ever spiral.

Speaker 2: 13:36

Of course, okay. Thank you for keeping it real, michelle? Of course, of course.

Speaker 4: 13:41

I called Anjim Self at Mastering Alchemy and I said I know, when you talk about the kind of spiritual or higher conscious work, that your life shifts quite a bit in that process because you're changing so much about how you think and how you manage emotion and how you just step through day-to-day life shifts and there's a way in which, when that happens, that the aspect of linear time and worrying about the past or having anxiety and concern about the future becomes not in the present moment and what you have access to in the present moment is a lot more options because you choose how to experience each moment.

Speaker 4: 14:24

And I was calling on things like ease and relaxed and nature inspired and watery and fluid and buoyant and the beauty, and I was calling in all those energies to support me every single day, without disruption from a boss or work or partners or kids or animals or responsibilities. Are now all this. That is also something most people don't have. I didn't even have a house. I mean I have this to take care of that. I simplified everything that I could so that I could get this as clear as I could and that makes it, I think, a smidge easier to step into.

Speaker 3: 15:09

Absolutely. Now for our audience, who has never heard of alchemy, could you give just a quick kind of exclamation so people understand, kind of, what you're talking about? Natalie and I both know about it, but our audience may not. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: 15:23

People ask me that a lot, and what I say is alchemy is really how you just transition from one form to another form. So I had a day like you guys had today. I had all kinds of stressors coming at me. I didn't know what day it was or what time it was or what time zone it was Things I thought weren't real, I mean just all that stuff. And so it's a matter of how I walk through those moments and, instead of falling apart, I just kind of hold my energy where it's preferred to rebalance myself. I'm constantly rebalancing myself, so I'm transforming stress, if you will, into a way to go through my day that I'm not falling apart over. I didn't call you to cancel. I'm right here on time and I feel good about it, but I've had a day. That's the everyday way to explain what alchemy is. That's why resilience fits so well with it. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 16:17

Well, the movement that you did with your hands, michelle. It actually reminds me of the boat, right, like if you're on the water, waves are coming your way, other boats are going by and causing additional waves, but you just readjust, right, you're not gonna topple over. The boat's not toppling over, it's just doing a readjustment to keep everything balanced and in place, like you're. It was so beautiful to watch you just describe that and to find yourself on a boat now living this next season of your life. Well, for the summer.

Speaker 4: 16:46

It's my third summer of being here all summer, which makes it just special, really, really special.

Speaker 2: 16:52

And have you been able to build community there in your new space?

Speaker 4: 17:00

Absolutely, and I'll say it's the third summer. I've been here all summer, but it's the ninth year in this marina and in this community and in fact I actually had a local event where, during Lake City Days, community comes out and I kind of stepped up and said, hey, I'm a local artist and thank you for inviting me into your community. Here's how that came to be. Here's my book, and from my book I also do some classes. I call it your Energy, your Way.

Speaker 4: 17:26

So I met with people of all ages who are interested in rebalancing, whether it's mental health, oriented family stress, work stress, life change, whatever. And so I'm doing a two-part series. So when we finish today, I have part two with a group of local individuals who I love doing my class live and connecting with what's actually happening in your lives and how can the tools of energies and words and different tools I can put in place in the moment, how can I translate them so that you can use them in your life? So they've welcomed me to the point that they're paying for me to do my course and came out and buy my book, and I have lots of conversations about this all the time.

Speaker 2: 18:09

So I feel really fortunate. Yeah, yes, that's great. Congratulations to you. That's awesome, thank you.

Speaker 3: 18:13

Now you said you have seven books and you share that story. I would love to know, because Natalie and I just finished the first but we're pretty much done with the second one. The second one's at the editor book in a series as well, so I'm like 11. I'm like okay.

Speaker 4: 18:29

Well. So details matter. Let me give you the actual. What happened was when I first started writing this would have been early in, like March. I found a book coach because I'm not a writer by nature. I like creativity and writing, but I don't have a background in writing, for example. So I had a book coach and she was really good. She did NLP programming, neuro-linguistic programming, so she could kind of I don't know if the right word is tease things out of me in a really nice way. Devagini Mahapatra Chuan, by the way, if anyone's yeah, okay. Anyway. So in 12 weeks, each week she would give me prompts and I would go back and write a chapter. So at the end of 12 weeks, chapter. So at the end of 12 weeks I had 80,000 words and 11 chapters.

Speaker 4: 19:17

But part of it is in my practice in working with energy. I'm familiar with where to view things from. I can view from heart, I can view from mental, I can view from sort of a more spiritual, I can view from like the etheric or dream time spaces. I can also go into higher mind or higher self. I've spent a lot of time cultivating that. So what I did in terms of writing is I purposely wrote from higher self or higher mind, and what that does is it opens up the flow of information of my own inner wisdom and it just like poured through me. It poured out. So the 11 chapters, 80,000 words.

Speaker 4: 19:54

I took the first chapter and asked for feedback from I don't know 20-ish people and they all were taking a really long time to get me feedback. And I'm like, okay, what does that mean? Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? I don't know what that means. Well, what it meant was there's a lot to my book. Well, what it meant was there's a lot to my book.

Speaker 4: 20:10

Most people say it's really great and I need to like reread it or kind of soak it up a little bit or go back and forth a little bit. It's not like I can read this in two hours and I'm done. It's just not what it is. So the first chapter became the first book. Each chapter has enough content that each chapter is a book and each chapter is a level of energy, starting with resilience on that survival to thrival mode and kind of weaving its way up to different energies, tools and types of strategies or experiences one would encounter if you wanted to go down that path. So I've only released the first. The second is in editing. So, like you right, it does take time to get it kind of right where you want it, but the structure is there for all. 11 have been written.

Speaker 2: 21:01

Wow, amazing. That is great. Congratulations yeah.

Speaker 4: 21:05

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2: 21:06

Yeah, I had an opportunity to attend a writing retreat almost 10 years ago now and it's interesting when you get into that flow state and there were 20, 25 of us that were participating in that writing retreat and you're exactly right it is kind of like the floodgates open and you are just it's pouring into you and everything you can do that your fingers just can't keep up with the message that's going through. During that time I had also received the message that I had three books that were there. Like I knew that there are three. So we'll see, I'm just going to keep getting those little taps until I get it done. I'm sure it's in there.

Speaker 2: 21:42

I have three in me and I need to get those out. Fantastic Congratulations. Well, I've got to get there first, michelle, but thank you, thank you. There, you'll get there. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1: 21:54

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.