First, introduce yourself and your background:

My name is Michelle Glassman, a licensed acupuncturist, breathwork facilitator, and the
founder of WAKE Collective.

My father worked with plants and hybridized rhododendrons since I was a little girl, so I think that relationship with plant medicine and the natural world started much earlier than I realized. When I moved to Colorado in 2015, I started working with hemp and learning more about its medicinal properties, which coincided with being in relationship with people who introduced me to different ways of healing that I honestly don’t think I would have been exposed to otherwise. Some of them would have called themselves healers and some of them probably wouldn’t have, but I was around people who were much more connected to the body, energy, plants, ritual, and mostly themselves.

This is where my journey with “healing,” aka self acceptance, really started. My friends would likely say I’ve had always been someone who held space for people, but being around that kind of community helped me recognize that I had a real capacity for it and that I wanted a legitimate modality to work through. That is where acupuncture came in. I came back to Pennsylvania in 2018, earned my Master’s degree in Acupuncture, and started practicing in Philadelphia in 2021. In 2023, I trained in breathwork with David Elliott in New Mexico, and since then those two modalities have really become the heart of my work.

My clients come in for Five Element acupuncture, fertility, facial rejuvenation, emotional support, breathwork, all kinds of things, but I think underneath all of it is usually some version of the same thing. There is where someone is, there is where they want to go, and then there are all the things that can come up in between. My work is about supporting that process and holding space for someone to move or clear some of what is keeping them from getting there. I’m a conduit, if I’m being honest. The work is not coming from me, it comes through me.

What led you to this path of healing? What is the most rewarding aspect of what you've built?

I have always been interested in what is underneath things, I can thank my natal 8th house for that. Why we keep doing the same thing even when we know better. Why certain patterns feel so much like who we are that we forget they are even patterns. A lot of healing is remembering who we were before some of those things took hold, or at least understanding them well enough that they stop running the show.

I also have always been a connector. I worked in business development for a long time before becoming an acupuncturist, and that part of me never really went away. I love connecting people to other people. Even when WAKE was just a solo practice, I was referring out constantly to therapists, hypnotherapists, bodyworkers, herbalists, other practitioners, other acupuncturists to be honest, and people were referring into me in the same way. I think that is honestly how I see healing too. It is a web. I don’t think one person is meant to be everything for someone.

So having WAKE become a collective has been really rewarding because it feels like an outward version of something that was already happening. These are practitioners I admire, people I refer to, women I go to myself, and now we are all under one roof. But the biggest thing for me is probably the trust. I have clients I started working with in 2021 who still come to me now, and I have watched them move through so much of their lives. Relationships, grief, fertility, pregnancy, career changes, loss, becoming different versions of themselves. And knowing I have been trusted to be part of that process is everything for me. And when someone I have worked with sends someone they love to me, that’s the root of it. That trust is probably the most rewarding part of all of it.

For people who are unfamiliar with breathwork and want to try, how does it work?

Breathwork is a somatic technique, so it is about working through the body rather than trying to think your way through everything. The style I facilitate is active and it can be intense. You are using a specific breathing pattern to build energy in the body and move through some of what is stuck or being held there. I focus a lot on the heart in my breathwork practice. And I don’t even totally know how to explain what breathwork has done for me personally because it has been so monumental. It is jarring, intense, and incredibly freeing. It has connected me to grief, to my ancestors, to my lineage, to parts of myself that I knew were there but maybe did not know how to access. It has helped me understand patterns in my life in a way that thinking about them never really did. There are things you can understand intellectually for years and still keep living out. Breathwork can get underneath that.

And trust, it can bring up a lot. Emotion, sensation, memory, resistance, release. But for me, that is what makes it so powerful. It is not necessarily about relaxing or getting yourself into some peaceful state. Sometimes it is about activating the part of yourself that needs to be felt so you can finally move through it.

Five Element acupuncture works very differently for me. Breathwork is much more about movement and release, and Five Element work is more about understanding who you are and becoming a little more accepting of that. We all have duality. We all have really beautiful qualities and also qualities that can make our own lives harder. I think we get into trouble when we decide one side of us is acceptable and the other one has to go.

Five Element acupuncture has taught me a lot about becoming friends with that. Not trying to minimize who I am or make myself less of something, but understanding the patterns and qualities that are mine and learning how to hold them in a healthier way. So for me, breathwork has been a lot about release and recognition. Acupuncture has been a lot about acceptance and relationship with self. And I think both are ultimately about helping us get closer to what is actually true underneath everything we have picked up along the way.

There are so many incredible offerings at WAKE! How do all of your offerings work
together and what do you recommend for people just starting their journey in finding the right path for their wellness?

There are so many ways to move energy. There are so many ways to come back into relationship with ourselves, and there are so many different people we can experience ourselves alongside of. So when somebody asks me where they should start, I really want them to start with what calls them.

Acupuncture isn’t a one size fits all shoe, and honestly no healing modality is. People will sometimes ask me, what do I need? And I’m usually like, I don’t think it is about
the modality as much as it is about the practitioner. You can have two people practicing what seems on the surface to be the same thing and have two completely different experiences. So much of healing is about who you feel safe with, who you trust, who you feel seen by, who you are able to actually open with.

The modality is the vehicle, but the relationship matters much more. That has been a huge part of how WAKE has grown. It has been really organic. I have never sat down and said we need this modality and this modality. The people who have come into the space have come through relationship, referral, trust, and honestly just that feeling of, yes, this person makes sense here. I really believe that what is meant to be in this sphere finds its way into it.

We live in a society where we are told what to do all the time. What to eat, how to exercise, how to heal, what is supposedly good for us. And I think part of healing is actually getting quiet enough to ask, okay, but what do I want?

What does my body say?
When you look through the website or read about the practitioners and offerings, who are you drawn to?
Is there something about the way someone speaks about their work that makes you pause?
Is there an offering where your body kind of responds before your mind has figured out why?
I would start there.

Especially as women, I think there is an intuitive relationship with ourselves that can get lost when we are constantly in doing. We are working, moving, caretaking, thinking, figuring things out, making decisions. And the mind is an incredible tool. But at some point, what does the body have to say?

So much of healing is about receiving. It is about being. It is about acceptance. It is asking, what does my heart want? Who am I? What is my body actually telling me?
That is really what I mean when I talk about somatic work. It is trusting that the physical body has information too. Sometimes the mind has been talking so loudly for
so long that we have forgotten how to hear it.

So I wouldn’t tell someone that acupuncture is the place to start, or breathwork, or movement, or bodywork. I would tell them to notice who they feel pulled toward, what
feels like it has something for them, and trust that enough to begin there.

What is your favorite AMJ piece that you own, and what is on your wishlist?

I would absolutely say my Laser Links.

I’ve always been someone who attaches meaning to things. I like objects that remind me of a person, a time in my life, a relationship, something that happened. So there is something about the Laser Links that feels really aligned with that. They are incredibly simple, and maybe that is part of why I love them. They aren’t about putting something flashy on. They almost disappear into your everyday life, but you know what each one means.

And I love that they are actually connected to people. I can look at my wrist and be reminded of the people who have been beside me, who know me, who have been part
of different chapters of my life. I think there is something really grounding about having those relationships represented physically on my body in this way. It feels less like jewelry and more like something I carry with me, a ritual and a way of honoring myself and my relationships.

That being said, I am absolutely a ring girl. I love rings because they feel a little more expressive and you can build them over time. I really love the baguette stackers, especially mixed together in silver and gold. I’m always drawn to mixed metals because I like things that don’t have to be completely one thing or the other. Duality? lol.

And then the Trilogy Wave Ring is just insane. I mean, come on. There is the meaningful, accessible, everyday part of me, and then there is also the part of me that sees that ring and is like, yes, obviously I need this. Both things can be true.