On Her Journey:
Born and raised in New York City, licensed therapist and spiritual mentor Christine Gutiérrez started her career in mental health counseling. She got her master's in mental health counseling and specialized in trauma and family therapy. She also specialized in prevention and communities where she noticed a major gap. "There was a warmth that was missing, a feeling of being loved that was missing, and there was storytelling that was missing. I had already started studying spirituality and mindfulness, and I felt like if I introduced that, then I'd be able to change things a bit more," she told us. "I felt like if I shared my personal story, I would be relatable and my clients would trust me more, because there was not much trust in those communities, especially because a lot of them were mandated or they were there because of a more serious reason, whether it was potential child neglect or abuse."
Gutiérrez took it from there and got heavy into studying spirituality and mindfulness practices. She realized this was where she could make change. When she started slowly implementing these tools into her sessions, she noticed a drastic difference in her patients from being able to open up to it, even healing their nervous system. "I saw physically that they were changing. I think traditional talk therapy can be very westernized, and it was mostly heavily dominated by white males, so a lot of the ancient practices from different cultures and perspectives were stripped away," Gutiérrez said. "Talk therapy is actually more of a colonized form of therapy. A lot of what we consider more ancient medicine or healing were considered to conflict with science, but now we know it actually is science. It actually is therapy."
What She Does:
After years of being trained as a therapist to not include spirituality in the work, Gutiérrez began to embark on a new path. She not only started to embrace these ancestral spiritual practices in her own life but also decided she was going to now merge these practices and psychology into her work. But in order to do this, she was no longer able to work in a clinical setting because of the limitations and restrictions that came with it. She dropped the cap of working as a licensed therapist in a clinical setting and started offering private coaching while also putting together healing retreats, workshops, and events for women — women of color especially. She also relocated to her parents' island of Puerto Rico, where she's able to provide her services to Latinas who wouldn't otherwise have access to this.
"A lot of times, people need to see stats and research in order to know this is clinically relevant. I don't believe that's always necessary, but it is beneficial to merge the two worlds. And that's really what I'm about is merging ancient wisdom with modern therapy with psychology savvy and grounding tools, where people can actually use them in their real lives and become their own healers, and they can become empowered on their own," she said. "So you're giving them not just tools in the clinical setting and listening to their story but also giving them tools so they have their own medicine kit on their own, so when they leave that room, they have practical rituals and very practical tools to use."
Last year, Christine published her first book, I Am Diosa: A Journey to Healing Deep, Loving Yourself, and Coming Back Home to Soul, inspired by the Diosa (which translates to Goddess in Spanish) community she had built and fostered in her group coaching and healing retreats. Gutiérrez welcomes readers to healing, radical self-care, and self-love that "empowers readers to embrace the powerful Diosa within." She believes she's always been intuitive and connected to spirit since she was a young girl but didn't always know what to do with her gifts until she started embracing them and studying different spiritual practices. She grew up seeing people in her family lighting candles, praying, connecting to other worlds, healing with their hands, talking to plants, and analyzing dreams. The spirituality she practices today is a merge of different ancient wisdoms, from shamanism to energy work and even tantra, which is based on the feminine aspect of God, or what Gutiérrez likes to refer to as "La Diosa."
"I think we culturally have a lot of this medicine and knowledge inside of us, and I think we benefit best from this merging because we're able to process things in a way that is warmer, deeper, and I think honors some of the things that we grew up with," she said. "I also think there's a remembering that's happening, and we're remembering this wisdom that lives inside of us, and we don't want to settle for this whitewashed, cold version of therapy. Are all modern therapists like this? No, there are modern therapists that are actually fantastic. But I am called to merging therapy and spirituality because I believe that it's my calling but also that there are many people that are seeking this kind of work right now. People are wanting it. People are wanting a nondogmatic spiritual approach to healing. I think we even need to expand on the word 'therapy.' There are so many different kinds of therapy, and spiritual therapy is therapy. It's a real thing that changes and impacts people's lives for the better."
Where to Find Her:
@cosmicchristine
