Gabriel Ray shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Good morning Gabriel, it’s such a great way to kick off the day – I think our readers will love hearing your stories, experiences and about how you think about life and work. Let’s jump right in? What do you think others are secretly struggling with—but never say?
Unworthiness.
I believe many people are silently carrying the weight of not feeling “enough.” Not smart enough, not beautiful enough, not successful enough, not lovable enough. And it doesn’t matter how accomplished or put-together someone may look on the outside unworthiness is a quiet, persistent ache that hides behind curated smiles and well-rehearsed confidence.
What makes it so insidious is that it often originates in childhood, long before we ever had the language to name it. A parent’s absence. A teacher’s harsh words. A moment we were overlooked or misunderstood. And instead of seeing those experiences as reflections of broken systems or imperfect humans, we internalize them as evidence that we ourselves are broken.
But no one talks about it because admitting you feel unworthy is vulnerable. It strips away the armor. Yet ironically, I think that’s where our real power begins: when we’re bold enough to name what we fear most, we start to take away its grip on us. We reclaim our voice. We stop living to earn worth and start living as though we are already worthy because we are.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m a spiritual writer, truth-teller, and soul excavator. My work lives at the intersection of healing, love, and liberation. Through my platform and upcoming book Color in Love, I guide people back to the truth of who they are beneath the pain, the programming, and the pressure to perform. I believe healing is not about fixing ourselves—it’s about remembering ourselves.
My brand, Aura Gods, was born out of my own unraveling. I didn’t set out to be a healer I set out to find home within myself. I was raised in Chicago, steeped in tradition and Christian faith, but always aware of a quiet current of energy in my hands. Life led me through many rooms earning an economics degree from Northwestern, studying opera at UCLA, and working in both finance and music. On the surface, I was chasing success. Underneath, I was searching for meaning.
Everything changed when I uncovered my Jewish ancestry a spiritual awakening that led me to embrace Judaism and explore the mystical and healing traditions that had always been whispering to me. From there, I immersed myself in over a dozen healing modalities from Reiki and Pranic healing to Shamanic, Egyptian, and Jewish Tikkune healing. A pilgrimage through South America deepened that journey, where I sat with shamans, meditated in sacred places, and learned to trust the divine energy that had always been within me.
Now, through Aura Gods, I hold space for others to heal, to remember, and to reclaim the parts of themselves they’ve buried to survive. My clients are as diverse as humanity itself high profile and everyday souls, skeptics and seekers. What unites us is the ache to feel whole again.
Right now, I’m pouring my heart into Color in Love, a book that serves as both mirror and medicine. It explores how we transmute our wounds into wisdom and reclaim our worth not in spite of our story, but because of it. My hope is that through my words and my work, people are reminded that healing is not a destination it’s a homecoming.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
What breaks the bonds between people isn’t always loud or dramatic. Sometimes, it’s the quiet things the words left unsaid, the truths buried under politeness, the pain we didn’t feel safe enough to share. More often than not, disconnection is born in the silence of unmet needs and unspoken fears. We grow distant not because we stop caring, but because we stop being seen. We stop being known.
What breaks bonds is shame the belief that some part of us is too much, too messy, or too broken to be loved. And when that shame goes unspoken, it builds walls between us. It becomes harder to reach out, to be real, to let ourselves be witnessed in the rawness of who we are.
But what restores those bonds what heals them s truth. Not the polished, filtered kind, but the kind that risks vulnerability. The kind that says, “I was hurting and didn’t know how to tell you.” The kind that whispers, “I miss you, even if I don’t know how to come back.”
What restores the sacred thread between souls is presence. The courage to sit with someone in their shadow and not flinch. The softness to listen without trying to fix. The grace to forgive even when the wound still stings.
Love restores what fear tries to undo. Not the performative kind of love, but the gritty, patient, enduring kind. The kind that chooses to stay curious instead of judgmental. That asks, “What happened to you?” instead of “What’s wrong with you?”
In my healing work, I’ve learned that the medicine isn’t always in the solution it’s in the connection. When people feel safe enough to be fully themselves flawed, tender, messy and miraculous that’s when the bond begins to rebuild. That’s when the heart remembers its way home.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering taught me how to feel. Success taught me how to perform.
For a long time, I chased the metrics of achievement degrees, titles, applause. And while success gave me access, it didn’t give me intimacy. It brought me recognition, but not always connection. It polished the outer, but it left the inner untouched. It taught me how to stand in rooms with power, but not how to sit with myself in silence.
Suffering, on the other hand, stripped all that away. It brought me to my knees and that’s where I learned to listen. To God. To my own soul. To the parts of myself I had ignored in the name of being “enough.”
Pain taught me what presence never pretends: that you can’t heal what you refuse to feel. That worth isn’t earned—it’s remembered. That love isn’t something you have to become good enough to receive; it’s something you uncover when everything else falls apart.
Suffering introduced me to the places within me that success would’ve let me bypass. The abandoned child. The grieving man. The mystic hidden behind the mask. And in those places, I didn’t find weakness I found truth. I found compassion, for myself and for others. I found a deeper kind of strength, the kind that doesn’t need to impress or prove.
Now, I don’t run from suffering. I sit with it. I learn from it. I let it open doors that success never even knocked on.
Because suffering didn’t just break me it broke me open. And from that opening came the real healing. The real calling. The real me.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
That healing is a product.
That wholeness can be packaged, branded, and sold in seven easy steps.
That if you just buy the course, book the session, repeat the affirmation, or raise your vibration high enough you’ll finally be “fixed.”
One of the biggest lies the wellness and spiritual industry tells itself is that healing is linear, pretty, and predictable. That it’s always love and light. That discomfort means you’re doing something wrong, rather than something real.
We’ve created a marketplace out of people’s pain. We’ve turned sacred work into click funnels. And in doing so, we’ve risked bypassing the actual healing the messy, slow, deeply personal process that doesn’t fit into an Instagram carousel.
Another lie? That the healer holds the power.
In truth, no one can “heal” you. A true healer doesn’t fix you they hold a mirror while you remember who you are. The best we can do is create sacred, safe space for people to face their shadows, soften their defenses, and come home to their own divine essence. Anything else is spiritual codependency wrapped in glitter.
Lastly, I think the industry sometimes forgets that spirituality isn’t an aesthetic it’s a responsibility. To the truth. To the soul. To humanity. If our practices aren’t making us more human, more compassionate, more connected then they’re just another escape.
At Aura Gods, I hold these truths sacred. My work isn’t about pretending I have all the answers. It’s about creating space for people to ask better questions. I don’t promise transformation I partner with it. And I constantly remind myself: this path isn’t about ego. It’s about service.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
That pain is not the enemy it’s the portal.
Most people are taught to run from pain. To medicate it, bury it, rebrand it as “negativity” or “low vibration.” But I’ve learned through lived experience, not theory that pain is one of the most honest voices the soul has. It doesn’t come to punish us. It comes to point us back to the wound, back to the story, back to the part of us still waiting to be seen, held, and honored.
What I understand because I’ve lived it is that real healing begins the moment we stop asking how do I get rid of this? and start asking what is this trying to teach me?
I’ve held people in some of their darkest moments the grief that won’t move, the trauma that keeps looping, the shame so old it’s become part of their identity. And every time, when they feel safe enough to stop resisting, something sacred happens: their pain opens. It speaks. It reveals the memory, the need, the forgotten self.
And from that space, the healing isn’t forced it’s remembered.
Most people think healing is about changing. But what I understand deeply is that it’s actually about returning. Returning to the truth of who you were before the world taught you to abandon yourself. That’s why I created Aura Gods. Not to fix people. Not to elevate them above their humanity. But to help them come home to it.
So no I don’t see pain as failure. I see it as a sacred threshold. A spiritual intelligence. And when we learn to listen to it, instead of fearing it we unlock a deeper kind of freedom. One that success, strategy, or even spiritual performance can’t give us.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.auragods.com
- Other: Personal IG@faceofanartist
Website: www.auragods.comEmail: [email protected]
Phone: (323) 794-7983
Google Business: https://g.page/r/CV_T2M3yOXraEBM/review
Instagram Aura Gods: https://www.instagram.com/aura.gods/
Instagram Gabriel: https://www.instagram.com/faceofanartist
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Aura.God/
