About
Michelle Alveranga, Founder
Grief Counselor and Registered Holistic Nutritionist™
Grief is not good or bad. It is a journey with no endpoint. If this scares you, don’t let it. It is like energy; it cannot be completely eliminated, only transformed. At T.R.U.S.T. Wellness, we take this energy and transform it into a tool for resiliency. Add grief to your journey of wellness. With wellness, there is no end goal. It is a constant moving target of knowledge and understanding.
Mission:
Here at T.R.U.S.T. Wellness, our mission is to help the Black community achieve optimal health and wellness through building resiliency after loss.
Vision:
Our vision is healthy and resilient Black communities.
Beliefs:
We believe in authenticity, empowerment, and transformation through learning about the individual and their grief journey. Everything is connected. Resiliency is vital to health and wellness.
I like basking in the sun’s rays, learning about others through the stories they share, and I feel most free when I’m dancing. As a child, my two favourite toys were my Easy Bake oven and my science kit. Why? Because I love nourishing myself with the right foods, and I love to experiment with creating something out of what seems to be nothing. I experimented whichever way I could using that oven and science kit. And I never gave up, even when things didn’t go as planned. Like the time I spent hours trying to create fire by shining the sun’s rays through glass at a very precise angle. Or the time when my fruit tart creation came out undercooked and doughy – a mini light bulb for heat can only go so far! I persevered. The drive and resilience I had as a child prepared me for many of the personal tragedies I would face later on. But I also had to build upon my inherent resilient nature and acquire other tools along the way so I could continue to bounce back effectively and keep functioning. I have lost many things: my parents, my sense of identity moving to another country and back, my highest earning job and social networks to become a caregiver for a loved one, and much more. But these losses and setbacks reminded me that everything is connected. I truly believe that. I also believe that we are more than our losses and we don’t have to let grief bury us along with what we’ve lost. The stories we tell ourselves shape us. We can choose to find meaning from each loss and integrate them into our lives going forward. I have done that, and I can help you do the same.
In addition to my life experience, I am a registered Social Service Worker with the Ontario College of Social Service Workers, and a registered Holistic Nutritionist. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Health Studies, with additional formal training in grief and bereavement counseling and Narrative Therapy.
T.R.U.S.T. Wellness Inc. summarizes everything I am passionate about: wellness on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual level. Our health does not have to suffer because we are grieving. We can work together to create a life of resiliency from scratch or build upon what’s already existent.