Ep#53 Embracing our Darkness : Trusting Your Magic and Your Voice with Mimi Young

In this episode of Your Story Medicine, I welcome Mimi Young, a Taiwanese-Canadian spirit communicator, and shamanic occultist. She is the founder of Ceremonie, an esoteric brand focused on imparting ancient and practical wisdom so clients can actively receive support from spirits and healing energies, heal negative patterns, and celebrate their path. Mimi works at the intersection of core shamanism, ancestral wisdom, dream work, chaos magic, and other Chinese mystic practices to communicate with the unseen, offering education & mentorship, private readings, and skin & aura care.

Main Topics Discussed:

• Why embracing our darkness is just as important as embracing our light
• Freeing yourself from the anti-aging culture and stepping into a pro-aging lifestyle
• How to use dreams to explore dormant parts of ourselves

What are you celebrating about yourself today?

Mimi: I’m celebrating the fact that I’m thinking only in the moment right now and not thinking too far.

How would you describe your medicine?

Mimi: I’m someone who is completely in love with three-dimensional reality and also completely in love with the invisible, non-dimensional, multidimensional, fluid-dimensional reality, too. Being able to have one foot in each of these realities makes life really fun.

How has your ancestral lineage influenced your path today?

Mimi: With my Taiwanese lineage, my parents and ancestors lived in homes that practice Buddhism where there is a fair amount of ancestral reverence as well as animistic beliefs and practices. There is also a Daoist element to it. That’s my background. Now, living in Canada where I am visibly not white presented new challenges, particularly when it comes to where I fit in. My mother converted to evangelical Christianity, so I had the Sunday school experience and could differentiate this belief from my Buddhist heritage. I had to come to terms with this start difference and discover my own path later on. My dad never converted to Christianity and was always in touch with spirituality but never outwardly practiced it, so he always encouraged me to explore.

Being someone from the Asian diaspora, what was it like for you to commit to the path that you’re currently on?

Mimi: It was a no-brainer. I attended church for a number of years and even met my partner there. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but there was a point when I was losing touch with who I was because I was being told over and over again that every stray thought was a sin. I felt like a bit of a shell and was deeply, deeply unhappy. I experienced depression and had zero trust in my own voice. I later realized that I had to embrace darkness because we all have it. We’re not all just light. I realized I was living a life of lies and avoidance and had enough of it. By integrating these aspects of light and shadow into my life, so to speak, I could tap into my magic and trust my voice and who I am as a person.

Who is “god” to you?

Mimi: Energies grow and expand when you feed them. When you stop feeding them, they go through degeneration, which is not bad—they just revert to that yin stage of potential so that something else can come into the following generative cycle. God, as an energy, can be that.

How did you begin your journey in using plant medicine for skincare and eventually bring your brand and business to the interwebs?

Mimi: I created the skincare and aura care line mainly as a response to my own needs. I launched a business shortly after my second child was born. I really wanted to take in only ingredients that honored me. It was for my personal consumption, so a few friends and even my mother asked for some. That was my initial “offering”. It was very grassroots, and one thing led to another and I eventually came up with my collection. When you do something well, people start asking you questions—and the questions are often similar. That prompted me to start small two-hour workshops that grew as I realized that I was meeting a need.

How do you stop comparing yourself to others as a business owner?

Mimi: I am a firm believer that we just need to be ourselves because it feels good, relieving, and joyous. Also, when we are ourselves, we get to naturally offer our gifts. Ultimately, any business, any projects—anything—needs you. You are irreplaceable. If you are redundant, that decreases diversity. Ultimately, what makes this planet beautiful and sustainable is diversity. Energetically, spirituality, and physically speaking, it’s not about being different for different sake, but just being who you are. That default is the most important part of who you are.

How do we decolonize the ways we look at age, grief, and death?

Mimi: Aging has been made to look like an illness, and that the way to avoid aging is to buy night creams. We shouldn’t see aging as a pejorative thing. Body positivity is not just about embracing your waist size but also embracing your wrinkles. Old things tend to be valuable. Why do old people, particularly those who identify as women, perceive themselves to have a short “shelf life” of value—that as fertility decreases, so does value? We look at the body from a production-based perspective. We’re not machines.

How can we use our dreams to explore dormant parts of ourselves? And when is it time to seek guidance in this area?

Mimi: A dream is any impression that takes place when you sleep. It doesn’t have to be a narrative with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. It can be a word, feeling, taste, or sound. Pay attention to that when you’re lucid or, if you’re not lucid, take note of those impressions when you wake up, and note it down. I recommend everyone to befriend their dreams. I say “befriend” as I view learning from dreams as a deeply relational experience. It’s not about dominating your dreams and coming up with just one interpretation, but being open and receptive to what comes through during and even after the dream. Messages come through during your dreams, whether through your ancestors or your body. Pay attention to the source of your dreams. Go to bed with the intention of dreaming by using “dream hygiene”: bring down stimulation before going to sleep. Don’t work in bed. Think of your bed as a “dream altar”. Be idle to give yourself a nice, steady descent into dream while you’re still awake. Give space for the dreams to come through. Spend time trying to make sense of your dreams first and lean into your intuition before seeking help from tools or other people.

What do you do to stay grounded and what is it that you’ve learned to release?

Mimi: I stay grounded through food. Not just eating it, but cooking it as well, particularly ancestral foods that incorporate traditional ingredients. I release old information that is not important. That’s what decolonization really is—not learning, but unlearning.

If you could envision yourself as a future ancestor, what is it that she would say to present-day you?

Mimi: I love you and you’re doing alright.

Conclusion: Magic is not asking for perfection. Magic is simply asking us to show up and be our real selves.

Action Integration: Experience the liberating feeling of shedding unimportant or unproductive beliefs. What paradigms have you held for years that have held you back from tapping into your authentic magic? Isolate and unlearn these roadblocks in your mind, body, and spirit.

Learn more about Mimi:

Visit her website: www.shopceremonie.com

Follow her on Instagram:  www.instagram.com/shopceremonie

Business Mentorship: https://shopceremonie.com/learn/evoking-your-business-project/

Upcoming Writing Retreat: https://shopceremonie.com/learn/writing-with-spirit-retreat/