You Are Protected: Invoking Spiritual Support to Sustain Your Energy in a Fractured World
In this episode of Wild & Waking, Emily Reuschel interviews author, activist, spiritual teacher, racial-equity educator, intuitive healer, and clinical social worker Michelle Cassandra Johnson to discuss her newest (and, as she calls it, witchiest) book, You Are Protected: Invoking Spiritual Support to Sustain Your Energy. Michelle shares how spiritual protection can help us draw our energy back, return to our center, and discern what is ours to carry in a moment when everything feels urgent. This is not protection rooted in fear, defensiveness, or disconnection. It is about strengthening our spiritual resources so we can remain openhearted, fully alive, and engaged for the long haul.
Together, we explore ancestral healing and how to call upon healthy, well, and benevolent ancestors, especially when our blood lineages feel complicated or painful. Michelle offers
the more-than-human world as another place to begin, reminding us that the elements, ancient trees, bodies of water, and the earth itself are living ancestors available for relationship and support. We also talk about spiritual hygiene, energetic boundaries, micro-adjustments that interrupt our habitual overgiving, and the deceptively simple question that can return us to our power: What is mine right now, and what is not?
In this episode, You Are Protected: Invoking Spiritual Support to Sustain Your Energy in a Fractured World with Michelle Cassandra Johnson, we cover:
Spiritual protection and daily energetic hygiene
How to recognize energy leaks and prevent burnout
Creating boundaries while navigating caregiving and unavoidable responsibilities
Ancestral healing and connecting with benevolent ancestors
Working with nature and elemental energies as spiritual support
Staying engaged in activism without becoming depleted or dysregulated
Discerning “what is mine right now—and what is not”
Reclaiming witchcraft, magic, ritual, and spellwork as healing practices
Calling on archetypes, animal allies, deities, herbs, crystals, and other protective resources
Remaining grounded as you outgrow old identities and encounter other people’s projections
Protecting your energy so you can remain fully alive and continue showing up for collective change