The Cavewoman Way
Michelle Rigling, PhD
Chattanooga, TN

Michelle grew up on 40 wild acres in Tennesse where she spent her time playing in the woods, telling tall tales, and learning how to listen to her intuition under the guidance of her mom. While she has several degrees and certifications, she considers her most important and relevant "training" to be a childhood filled with story, adventure, and freedom, enhanced by the time she has spent as an adult in close communication with the wild ones - trees, stones, animals such as her black bird friends, and an occasional talkative river. 

Michelle has over 16 years of social work, counseling, and coaching experience in trauma-informed settings. She spent about 8 years working in community-based social work agencies, gaining experience in clinical interventions, trauma responsive care, and evidenced based recovery. Along the way, she recognized that most interventions and practices she was trained to offer people ignored spirit and soul and rarely recognized or engaged intuition. She felt a pull towards a wilder, more soulful approach to healing and wholeness and started exploring transpersonal psychology and soulcraft practices. During this time she returned to graduate school where she obtained a PhD in Transpersonal Counseling while also receiving training in trauma-informed sacred plant medicine (including psychedelics), wilderness-based immersions and ceremony.