From Survival to Somatics: Redefining Empowerment in Photography

We took a tiny summer pause (thank you for loving our replays 🫶) and it just made coming back to the studio that much sweeter. Today’s guest is close to my heart—someone I met when she was a teenager working in my wedding business and who I’ve watched grow into a grounded, principled entrepreneur and artist: Michaela Rai.

Michaela is an embodiment-focused photographer (somatic-informed) who builds safety around perception long before she ever picks up the camera. She’s also a writer, speaker, and the creator of a collaborative business space in Duluth’s Spirit Valley. Her story winds through fundamentalist roots, health crises, survival, somatic therapy, and a tender homecoming to body and intuition—often with Lake Superior as teacher and mirror. This episode is about what happens when we stop hustling for approval and start honoring our nervous systems.

“Closed doors weren’t failure—they were direction.”

In this episode, we cover:

00:00 Back from hiatus & why this episode matters

00:50 Meet Michaela: embodiment-focused photography & redefining “empowerment”

05:52 Boudoir, safety, and shifting the process away from performance

11:11 Growing up in high-control religion & learning to trust the body

17:10 Health crisis, abuse, and the turning point into somatic therapy

24:28 Falling in love with Spirit Valley & the vision for a collective space

27:01 Buying the building off-market: clarity, criteria, and tenants who fit

31:36 Intuition in entrepreneurship: limits, tolerances, and saying no

37:26 Lake Superior as teacher: plunges, presence, and embodiment circles

40:43 Near-surface fine art & meditative water films—why the water saves us

Connect with Michaela

Photography & writing: https://whatwesawstories.com

Embodiment journaling circles & speaking inquiries: via her site and Instagram

If this conversation met you where you are, share it with a friend who’s learning to trust their own timing.

Hey Heart and Soul Collective!

This week’s guest, Michaela Rai, is someone near and dear to our hearts—an artist, a mother, and an entrepreneur who’s turned her personal journey of pain, faith, and resilience into a powerful creative practice.

Mariah has known Michaela since she was a teenager, back when she worked in Mariah’s wedding business. Even then, she carried a quiet confidence beyond her years—a grace that hinted at the woman she’d one day become.

Now, Michaela is a somatic-informed photographer and founder of What We Saw Stories, creating safe spaces for women to rediscover comfort, safety, and power in their own bodies. Her story weaves together creativity, trauma healing, faith deconstruction, entrepreneurship, and motherhood into one breathtaking narrative of becoming.

This conversation is an invitation—to look at perception as a sacred act.

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All Heart & Soul's Details:

Website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.heartandsoulmastermind.com

Join the mastermind program: www.heartandsoulmastermind.com/heartsoul

Say hi to Mariah on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@mariahmckechnie

Say hi to Monique on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@moniqueforcier

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