about michelle
she/her
Michelle Cassandra Johnson is an author, activist, spiritual teacher, racial equity consultant and educator, and intuitive and shamanic healer. She has led transformative work dismantling racism and systems of oppression, disrupting the wellness industry to make it more inclusive and accessible, creating space for healing in myriad ways, and through her work for over two decades as a clinical social worker. Michelle’s work centers on healing from individual and collective trauma, returning to wholeness, and aligning the mind, body, spirit, and heart.
Michelle has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary and a Master's in Social Work from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She has worked in several non-profits and served as an elected official in North Carolina from 2011 to 2016. She has led Dismantling Racism Trainings with large corporations, small non-profits, and community groups, including the ACLU-WA, Duke University, Google, Spotify, This American Life, The Center for Equity and Inclusion, Mercedes, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Auburn Seminary, Kripalu, Yoga Alliance, and Lululemon, and many others.
Michelle published the first edition of Skill in Action: Radicalizing Your Yoga Practice to Create a Just World in 2017; the second edition was published by Shambhala Publications in 2021. Her second book, Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief, was published by Shambhala Publications in 2021. Shambhala Publications also published her third book, We Heal Together: Rituals and Practice for Building Community and Connection, in 2023. Beacon Press published her fourth book, A Space For Us: A Guide For Leading Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Affinity Groups, in August 2023. Michelle's more recent books include Illuminating Our True Nature: Yogic Practices for Personal and Collective Healing, published by Shambhala Publications, which explores the root causes of suffering, how to disrupt them, and how to work toward collective liberation. In May 2025, her sixth book will be released—co-written with her best friend Amy Burtaine and published by Sounds True, The Wisdom of the Hive will offer medicine from the honeybees about collective healing.
Michelle facilitates workshops and immersions, leads retreats and transformative experiences nationwide, and offers an array of healing services for individuals and groups. She was a Tedx speaker at Wake Forest University in 2019 and has been interviewed on several podcasts in which she explores the premise and foundation of Skill in Action, along with embodied approaches to racial equity work, creating ritual in justice spaces, our divine connection with nature and Spirit, and how we as a culture can heal. In 2020, she created her own podcast, Finding Refuge, which ran for four seasons and explored the themes of collective grief and liberation.
Michelle leads courageously from the heart with compassion and a commitment to address the heartbreak dominant culture causes for many because of the harm it creates. She inspires change that allows people to stand in their humanity and wholeness in a world that fragments most of us.
Whether in an anti-oppression training, yoga space, individual or group intuitive healing session, the heart, healing, and wholeness are at the center of how Michelle approaches all of her work in the world.
She lives in North Carolina with her husband, sweet dog, Jasper, and her honeybees.
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