Michelle Ayn Tessensohn - The Way of Self-Healing

Home
Singapore
Toa Payoh New Town
Michelle Ayn Tessensohn - The Way of Self-Healing

Practitioner, mentor, and writer. https://linktr.ee/thewayofselfhealing

Healing practices and wisdom teachings that help you return to belonging—within yourself, your ancestral lineages, and the living wisdom of the Earth. Healer and Guide

Over two decades of experience in healing arts and personal development with training in yoga, zen shiatsu, psychospiritual counselling, life coaching, and mindfulness. My interest is in helping others to heal and embody their gifts, abilities and purpose more fully.

31/08/2025

I watched a clip last week from an interview of famous divorce lawyer James Sexton on Steven Bartlett’s podcast The Diary of a CEO. Sexton was talking about representing a pimp who had brutally abused a woman he had children with.

The woman, or victim, as Sexton calls her, had a state-assigned lawyer represent her. This lawyer was just out of school and didn’t know the specific phrasing needed to get an important photo into evidence—the photo of the face of the victim after she had been beaten up by the pimp. The judge was impatient and didn't help the inexperienced lawyer, which normally happens, according to Sexton.

With tears streaming down his face, Sexton recounted wondering why the judge was letting the lawyer for the woman flounder. He said he won when he should have lost because the woman was poor and she couldn’t afford to pay the $750 an hour fee for an experienced lawyer, which his client, the pimp, could.

The pimp patted him on the back as they walked out of the courtroom, saying that “a good lawyer is better than twenty stickup men” after the case got dismissed, and Sexton remembers thinking, “This is not a good day.”

Just because we can win, doesn't mean that we should.

21/07/2025

Join me this Saturday morning, where I'll talk about why it's important to develop self-awareness and how it helps you find balance and inner calm.

17/06/2025

In April, at A Tapestry of Sacred Music festival, I was listening to the hauntingly beautiful liturgical chants of the All-Night Vigil when I realised the man leading the choir looked familiar. Then it struck me. It was Father Serafim Bit-Kharibi, the Georgian monk I’d watched on YouTube singing for the pope. There are moments in life where reality feels a little bendy, and the universe conspires in your favour. This was one of those moments.

I first discovered Father Serafim two years ago while learning the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic, a practice that deepened my reconnection with Catholicism. Since then, I’ve woven Aramaic prayers into my healing sessions and classes. That night, I’d gone to the festival to hear Aramaic liturgical music, not knowing Father Serafim would be there. I almost didn’t go. No one I asked was free to join me, and I dislike attending performances alone. But I decided to walk to the Esplanade, counting it as my exercise for the day and the performance as my reward.

What followed was an incredibly moving 45-minute performance. Father Serafim and the Monastery of the 13 Holy Assyrian Fathers Choir sang psalms or hymns reflecting on the transition between night and day through the beauty of the setting sun and the spiritual light of Christ.

Just a few weeks before, I experienced another bendy moment—an email announcing that Ancestral Wisdom: Sacred Stories of Contact, Healing, and Care was about to be published. After our last edits, we were able to officially announce the book’s publication just a few days before that night at the Esplanade. The book is the result of three years of tending by the contributing authors and editors, and I’m deeply grateful to those who supported me along the way. I had the opportunity to give thanks in person at the pre-launch and virtually at the book launch recently.

If you want to find out more about my next event, Ancestral Stories: A Circle of Belonging on June 21st, where I'll share about the book by weaving together storytelling, ritual and ancestral reverence, go to the link in the comments.

02/06/2025

Thank you to everyone who came to the pre-launch at Maya Candle Co, It was so nice to celebrate with friends and clients!

It was a connective time and especially with special surprise guest Thea who came with Tiffany. So glad that you joined us Thea. Many thanks to Mandakini for the beautiful orchids and thoughtful card, plus post-event libation companions Debby and Greta. Not to mention Anju and Abhi for taking me there in style.

Good to see you all!

The venue was not too far from Tessensohn road, named after my great great grandfather, John Edwin Tessensohn—which I have found myself working in the vicinity of by "chance" since 2013. I count 7 locations around Farrer Park/Boon Keng/Jalan Besar in the last 12 years or so. It's nice to get these little signs that my ancestors are near.

If you missed the pre-launch the official launch is this week, and I’ll also be hosting more in-person events in the following months so keep in touch.

Hope to see you soon!

21/05/2025

Celebrate the launch of Ancestral Wisdom: Sacred Stories of Contact, Healing, and Care with us in June.

After three years of deep collaboration and sacred tending by practitioners in the Ancestral Medicine network, the anthology Ancestral Wisdom: Sacred Stories of Contact, Healing, and Care is finally here!

This powerful collection brings together voices from across the globe—healers, adoptees, educators, immigrants, and wisdom-keepers—who share their intimate journeys of ancestral connection, healing, and cultural reclamation.

The contributors—Velma Love, Daphne Fatter, Orson Morrison, Michelle Ayn Tessensohn, Kimiko Kawabori, Alexis Ioannou, Elah Marcel Zakarin, Litha Booi, Simon Wolff, Erica Lynn Nunnally, Banta Whitner, Catherine Dunne, Alyson Schwabe Lanier, and Jessica Headley Ternes—hail from diverse backgrounds, faith traditions, and lineages, united by a shared commitment to ancestral reverence and collective healing.

Why This Book? Why Now?
Guided by the wisdom of their ancestors, the contributors chose to make this work freely accessible through a collaboration with the Woodruff Library of Atlanta University Center and Pressbooks—an open-source platform. This decision honours the ancestors’ call for relational belonging, Earth reconnection, and cultural repair—prioritising community access over profit.

To read the book go here: https://pressbooks.pub/ancestralwisdom1/

Join us for this virtual launch!

Hosted by Ancestral Medicine, this event will be a free, public celebration of the book’s release. Come hear from the authors, witness their stories, and connect with a global community walking the path of ancestral healing.

Date: Thursday, June 5, 2024
Time: 12:00-1:15 PM EDT/NY (Please note the US timing)

Register here: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule/0794f918/?appointmentTypeIds[]=77131664

Everyone who registers will also receive a link to a recording of the event.

✨ All are welcome. ✨

With deep gratitude to our ancestors who guided this project into being

Spread the word! Share this event and the book link with your networks.

We can’t wait to celebrate with you.

29/04/2025

Join us for the virtual book launch of the book Ancestral Wisdom: Sacred Stories of Contact, Healing, and Care on Wednesday June 5th, 12-1.15pm EDT. This event will be hosted by Ancestral Medicine. I'll be present alongside Dr Daniel Foor, who developed Ancestral Lineage Healing and wrote the foreword for the book, as well as my co-authors.

Register here for the Zoom link:

https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=11414510&appointmentType=77131664

All those who register will receive a recording of the event.

Read the book here: https://pressbooks.pub/ancestralwisdom1/

06/04/2025

Three years ago, I was invited to write a chapter for an anthology on ancestral healing and I responded, "Yes, yes, yes!" I sat down to work on it, with the help of so many friends and loved ones who contributed their eyes, feedback and comments through the beta reading and editing process.

Truly, it takes a village, or as we would say here, kampong.

I will share details of the book launch soon, but for now, if you would like to read the book, you can go to the link below:
https://pressbooks.pub/ancestralwisdom1/

An important note about the choice to house our book with Pressbooks, an open source book management system: Perhaps the most important reason is that our wise and well ancestors, who entrusted us with this project, nudged us to do so. The book is distributed online at no cost to the reader. This format promotes public engagement and broad visibility, and affords a level of access that is in service to the larger community, rather than to profit or commercialism. It is our collective hope that this collaboration with Pressbooks will support increased opportunities for these sacred stories to be widely read and shared with a diverse global audience. Our ancestors asked that these stories be an offering to spread their messages of relational belonging, Earth reconnection, and cultural repair.

30/03/2025

In Buddhism, emptiness is the ultimate truth of existence—but this emptiness is alive because of how we relate to it. Like pouring tea, feeling the weight of the cup in your hands and the taste of the tea are transformed by how present we are to the experience. What’s ordinary becomes richer when we orient from a place of mindfulness.

Taoism echoes Buddhism’s emptiness with its own concept: Wu—often translated as nothingness or the void. Yet this void is dynamic and generative when aligned with the Tao, the natural flow of existence. This involves living in accordance with principles such as compassion, humility, and frugality. Practices such as Tai Chi and Qi Gong cultivate this alignment, as does Traditional Chinese Medicine, by unblocking and harmonising the flow of subtle energy in the body.

In indigenous animist traditions, there is a teaching called the hollow bone, which refers to how shamans or healers enter trance to become vessels for spirit. To be clear conduits, shamans have to be humble and free from ego. There is a warning that if you are self-serving and don’t have strong morals, you can be tricked into being a pipeline for powers of evil. To hone their intuition and work effectively, shamans must honour the sacred and live in respectful relationship with community, land, and spirit.

We all have the capacity to be vessels for love and healing. But this requires cultivating certain qualities within ourselves and ways of being: reverence for the sacred, living in a humble and mindful way with good character, including living within our means, and appreciating the experiences we are having, like drinking tea in cups made from vintage Singapore clay with a reformed gangster.

This is the path of awakening. In Zen Buddhism, awakening means realising the true nature of existence and gaining freedom from suffering as a result. It is not something extraordinary and is as normal as drinking tea. In Taoism, it is a gradual process of dissolving the ego and embracing Wu Wei, or effortless action, so you can align with the Tao. This is a lived experience of refining qi energy and returning to natural simplicity, or non-resistance to the Tao. Animism doesn’t have a goal or path as such but is about living a meaningful life by perceiving the aliveness in all things and honouring the interconnection of all creation, including spirits, deities, elements, and ancestors.

Different traditions offer complementary lenses on spirituality that create a fuller picture with cultural nuances unique to each. A classic Zen story captures an enduring truth that can be found in many wisdom traditions that have stood the test of time. It is about two students discussing how spiritually accomplished their respective teachers are.
The first student said, "My teacher can draw a picture on a piece of paper that is held by someone across a wide river."
The second student said, "Oh, my teacher is much more advanced than that."
"Really? What can he do?" asked the first student.
"He eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's tired!"

Sometimes, mastery looks like simplicity.

13/01/2025

Happy New Year!

I hope that you had a good Christmas and start to the new year. I had family visiting from Australia, which made me feel very loved and cherished.

There’s something about genuine, loving relationships that you can’t fake. They can get messy, strained, and go quiet for a time, but when you and another person care about your relationship and make the effort to tend to it in a meaningful way, there is warmth and ease that grows naturally. These are the relationships that nourish us and our lives.

What limits our ability to have these life-giving relationships is when we don’t give to them in an ongoing, caring way or when we have an agenda and want to control another person. Not seeing others as individuals with their own priorities, beliefs, emotions, and needs and respecting their volition impacts the potential for genuine connection. Sometimes we give with expectation and are disappointed or angry when others do not reciprocate or give to us in the way that we want them to.

To be in good relationship with our lives means to pay attention to how we are living. Are we respecting and taking care of our bodies? Are we making choices freely and taking responsibility for them, or living from a place of obligation and feeling resentful? Do we force ourselves to do things through sheer will without concern for how this will impact us? Are we living with integrity and fulfilling our promises and commitments?

It’s not that we need to relate perfectly either, whether it is with ourselves or others. But that we are extending heartfelt attention and goodwill over time. The relationship may go through conflict and change, but this is held by a greater field created through our tending and a consistent effort to stay connected in an authentic way. This can’t be forced and has to develop naturally. In the words of the writer and poet Kahlil Gibran, let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Wishing you goodness in all your relations and the new year ahead.

You're welcome to contact me to learn more about how I can support you in cultivating life-giving relationships and reconnecting with yourself and your life in authentic ways.

14/10/2024

Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Potawatomi botanist and author, says that when we recognise the generosity with which nature provides for us, we understand that we will always have enough, so we only take what we need and nothing more.

Robin shares cautionary indigenous tales of greed and disrespect that teach us about living in respectful and reciprocal relationship with the ecosystems we are a part of. If we waste the corn, the garden dries up. If we disrespect the water, the spring dries up. The Orang Laut in Johor, Malaysia, have a folktale about being cursed if you overfish the seas.

To Robin, wealth in a gift economy is having enough to share, and status is determined by how much you give away. In contrast, there is a monster in Potawatomi culture known as Windigo, sick from taking too much and sharing too little.

It’s by being able to contribute and give back to the world in a balanced and reciprocal way, especially when we have an abundance of resources, that we feel truly happy, healthy, and fulfilled. Our bodies are also a gift, and gratitude for this gift fosters kindness and care for ourselves so we don't overdo it and push ourselves beyond our limits. This helps us to live fully and honour the life we have been given.

To live life with gratitude and graciousness, showing care and consideration for ourselves and others, is to contribute to a gift economy by our very existence and embody an ethos of respectful relationship. Not trying to hold onto things that aren't working and taking only what we need creates peace within ourselves and helps our communities and ecosystems to truly thrive. And when the ecology we are a part of flourishes, so do we, as we are all connected.

27/08/2024

It is important to consider context when working with spiritual teachings and beliefs. It’s not one-size-fits-all.

We cherry pick and misinterpret teachings in subtle ways when we aren't aware of our blind spots, which is why having a teacher, therapist, or mentor who gives us feedback is helpful.

We grow in awareness through our relationships, noticing how we interact with others and how they respond to us.

Are we honouring our commitments and being fair, or are we imposing our will on others?

Do we struggle with relationships because we don't assert our boundaries or communicate our needs?

Do we agree to avoid conflict and then not show up or disappoint others so we can feel autonomous?

Awareness starts with the intention and genuine desire to grow and know what’s real, followed by the commitment to persist until you do. It can be painful at first to face reality when you are unaware and have been avoiding the truth, but as you stay with it and work through it, it will free you.

Through awareness, we gain clarity, empowerment, and a deeper understanding of what is real and true. As our awareness deepens, so does our capacity to be at peace and align with our true path in life.

If you're interested in developing or deepening awareness, feel free to contact me to learn more about working together.

02/07/2024

Altered states of consciousness and peak experiences of joy or elation should not be a goal on the spiritual path so much as a way to help you gain insight that you have to then do the work to integrate within yourself in a sustainable and embodied way.

If you had the experience of going beyond yourself and merging with divinity and spiritual states of oneness, how does that translate in terms of how you show up in relation to others and all of life? Do you relate with respect, consideration, and goodwill in light of the greater goodness you are connected to?

The natural response to feeling content and abundant is to give back to the world from this fullness, not to hoard and collect more. Experiencing unity with existence must compel you to contribute, including by realising your own potential, so you can do your part in the cycle of aliveness that is creation. To observe how generous nature and the elements are and what a small part of living beings we are is to know our place in the bigger picture and be humbled by it.

Manari Ushigua, an indigenous healer and spiritual leader of the Sápara Nation in the Ecuadorian Amazon, says that humans are not the centre of life or the most important. We are a part of all beings that live in this world that are important. And when we can understand and accept that, that is where the great medicine of the balance of life emerges.

Subscribe to my mailer through my website to read the full post.

Address

Toa Payoh New Town

Website

https://thewayofselfhealing.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Michelle Ayn Tessensohn - The Way of Self-Healing posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Michelle Ayn Tessensohn - The Way of Self-Healing:

Shortcuts

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Toa Payoh New Town?