Today we’d like to introduce you to Cadija Barnett.
Hi Cadija, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My story begins with deep gratitude to my ancestors — the ones whose lives, sacrifices, and ashé cleared the path for me. I was raised by a powerful line of matrilineal women who modeled compassion, service, and spiritual devotion. My maternal grandmother, a Seventh-day Adventist and one of the founders of her church, kept an open door and an open heart. Her home was the place everyone gathered — family, neighbors, and even strangers in need. She fed, nurtured, and held the collective. My mother mirrored that same strength and dedication as a provider and nurturer. From them, I inherited the desire to serve, while gradually learning the importance of balancing service with self-preservation.
My spiritual sensitivity began early, nurtured quietly through my relationship with my grandmother and guided intuitively by Spirit. But as a young adult, I struggled deeply with identity. Being the darkest of my sisters, having the kinkiest hair, and growing up between Caribbean and American cultures, I often felt not enough — not American enough, not Caribbean enough, not Black enough. That internal conflict shaped a profound identity crisis in my late teens.
Around 2005, when I was nineteen, I turned inward searching for truth. This journey led me into Rastafari between the ages of nineteen and my early twenties. I locked my hair, immersed myself in Pan-African knowledge, prayed, studied, and lived with spiritual discipline. It was a period of reclaiming my Blackness, reconnecting with my African heritage, and beginning my journey back to myself.
Eventually, in 2012, I chose to separate from my locs through an intentional and sacred release aligned with a covenant I made with myself. It was a conscious transition that reflected my evolving spiritual path. The energy and teachings of that chapter remain with me even now.
Academically, my path began at FIU with psychology, but the traditional model felt too rigid for the holistic way I understood people. Still, I completed my degree and began working as a case manager — and quickly burned out. A mentor suggested I explore social work, and in 2011 I entered Barry University’s MSW program. Social Work felt like home — a practice grounded in meeting people where they are and integrating culture, intuition, and humanity into healing.
While my professional identity was forming, my personal life was unraveling. I left the father of my children around 2010–2011 during a period filled with instability and difficult choices. Not long after, I reconnected with someone I had known since childhood. We married, but for reasons misaligned with long-term partnership. We cared for each other, but not in the way necessary to sustain a marriage. We ended badly — and those endings, though painful, revealed patterns and lessons essential to my evolution.
Throughout these years, I carried the weight of functional depression. I was showing up for everyone but myself. Working, mothering, and surviving through sheer will.
And truthfully, if you had met me eight years ago, in 2017, you would have seen a woman striving but spiritually disconnected — working during the week and partying on weekends, using distraction to avoid the heaviness within.
But 2017 was also the year Spirit redirected me. I saw an online ad for Sacred Waters Retreat, a retreat for Black women. I didn’t know anyone there and didn’t know if it was even legitimate, but something in me said, “Go.” That decision changed everything. There, I met the woman who would later become my Spiritual Godmother and a community of women walking paths parallel to mine.
Everything — the heartbreak, identity struggles, spiritual longing, career transitions, and quiet depression — built toward 2018, the year my life cracked open.
2018 was my catalyst year.
The year the pressure became undeniable.
The year the choice became clear: darkness or life.
Spirit was calling me into transformation. I reached out to my Spiritual Godmother, and she opened her home and her heart to me. Through a sacred, private initiation — one that belongs to the realm of Spirit — she guided me into the most profound spiritual rebirth of my life. She helped me choose life. I am forever grateful.
Since then, I have been held by elders, guided by Spirit, and supported by a spiritual community rooted in Earth stewardship, ancestral reverence, and Light Work. My Starseed family — my Soul Tribe — continues to walk with me as I expand.
And this is who I am today:
Elemental Black Woman.
A Licensed Holistic Psychotherapist.
A spiritual guide and teacher.
A mother.
A woman shaped by lineage, lived experience, resilience, and Spirit.
I serve in the way I once needed.
I reach for those who are reaching.
And I help others return to themselves — the same way I returned to me.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road has been anything but smooth. My journey has been shaped by hardship, identity struggles, spiritual suppression, heartbreak, and a long season of functioning through depression while trying to hold everything together.
One of the biggest challenges has been navigating the world as a spiritual woman. Being deeply spiritual in a society that often mocks, misunderstands, or devalues spirituality created a quiet but profound struggle. I had little support and very few people who could understand the depth of what I felt or sensed. For years, I masked parts of myself — my beliefs, my intuition, my spirit — just to blend in. I tried to make myself smaller, quieter, and more acceptable. But in 2018, everything I had suppressed rose to the surface. My spirit could no longer be ignored.
Beyond my spiritual journey, I faced internal battles around identity. I grew up as the most melanated of my sisters, with the kinkiest hair, in a Caribbean household where colorism was present and painful. It shaped confusion about who I was and often left me feeling out of place — not “enough” in certain cultural spaces. Those early experiences planted seeds of insecurity that I had to unlearn later in life.
Professionally, the road was winding. I entered psychology believing it was the pathway to helping others but quickly realized the approach felt rigid and disconnected from my holistic understanding of healing. I burned out early as a case manager. Personally, I navigated difficult relationship endings, single motherhood, financial instability, and seasons where I felt isolated and overwhelmed.
And throughout it all, whether I recognized it or not, my family was always my safety net — the place I returned to, even when they did not fully understand me spiritually. Their presence grounded me, even in moments when the fullness of my path didn’t make sense to them.
By the time I reached 2017 and 2018, everything converged — the emotional weight, the spiritual suppression, and the identity wounds. Outwardly, I was holding it together. Inwardly, I was unraveling. It was the darkest and most transformative chapter of my life.
But it was also the moment Spirit intervened. Through spiritual mentorship and the community I finally found, I was able to choose life, healing, and alignment.
So no — the road has not been smooth. But every struggle shaped me. Every heartbreak expanded my compassion. Every identity wound deepened my understanding of others. Every spiritual challenge sharpened my intuition. And every dark moment prepared me for the work I do today.
My road has been rugged, sacred, and purposeful — and I am grateful for every part of it.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
It can be difficult to categorize what I do because my work spans across many realms — healing, creativity, spirituality, and community care. Over time, I’ve learned to describe myself as a Channeler of Creations. It’s a term I coined in 2024 to honor the vastness of what flows through me. My creations show up as books, workshops, programs, retreats, rituals, and spiritual tools — all rooted in intention and spiritual alignment.
What truly sets me apart is the way I infuse spirituality into everything I do. Every offering, whether tangible or experiential, is created with deliberate intention. My purpose is to help people reconnect with their spiritual selves so they can live more aligned, fulfilling, and expansive lives. My spirituality is not the traditional Black Christian lens, nor is it solely rooted in ATR. It is a synchronicity of the Universe — a living, breathing relationship with Spirit that guides every word, every creation, every interaction.
One of my proudest accomplishments is my first book, A Prayer’s Journey: Your Guide to Self-Discovery. This book was received through Spirit, and I only take credit for being the vessel chosen to bring it forward. I am currently completing my second book, A Prayer’s Journey to Divine Partnership, which offers a deeper exploration into conscious relationships and the sacred path toward divine union. It continues the prayer-fast tradition of my first book, but with a more holistic approach — weaving together somatics, mindfulness, and guided reflection to help readers explore love through spiritual embodiment and emotional attunement.
To name just some of the ways my work shows up in the world:
Mother
I am a mother to two beautiful children who are now stepping into adulthood — one of the most sacred roles I hold.
Workshop & Retreat Facilitator
I design and facilitate workshops focused on:
•Holistic Mental Health
•Spirituality
•Psychedelics
•Somatic and ancestral healing
•Emotional and spiritual integration
Most recently, I am the Creative Initiator and Love Ritualist behind EntheoRotica, a two-day consent-centered immersive ceremonial experience merging psychedelic wisdom, sex magic, sacred sexuality, and consent. We are currently working on bringing it to Miami in Spring 2026.
I also facilitate “Unleashing Your Spiritual Power”, a 5-week spiritual development program based on my book, guiding attendees through a transformative journey of prayer, self-discovery, and spiritual awakening.
Author
•”A Prayer’s Journey: Your Guide to Self-Discovery” — a 23-day prayer fast that supports readers in reconnecting with themselves, their emotional truth, and their spiritual alignment.
•”A Prayer’s Journey to Divine Partnership” — a continuation of the prayer-fast experience, exploring sacred relationships, divine union, somatics, mindfulness, and conscious love (coming soon).
Licensed Holistic Psychotherapist (LCSW)
In my private virtual practice serving clients across Florida, people seek me out specifically for my spiritually aligned therapeutic approach. My clients know they can talk to me about:
•Mediumship
•Spiritual awakenings
•Energetic experiences
•Ancestor contact
•Psychedelic journeys
— without fear of being dismissed, pathologized, or labeled.
I also provide psychedelic integration therapy and holistic mental health support grounded in mind-body-spirit connection.
Spiritual Coach & Creator of Sacred Tools
My coaching blends intuitive guidance, ritual, elemental wisdom, and spiritual discipline. I also create spiritual tools such as sacred prayer candles and prayer napkins, offering people ritual items that support their home practice and connection to Spirit.
What sets me apart is that my work is not about performing spirituality — it is about living it. Everything I create emerges from communion with Spirit, ancestral guidance, and a commitment to helping others awaken their own spiritual truth. I don’t create from ego; I create from alignment. And every offering — whether a book, a ritual, or a conversation — is designed to help people remember who they truly are.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
I already see major shifts happening — both aligned and misaligned. On one hand, more people are embracing the importance of spirituality in their lives. There is a collective awakening taking place where individuals are seeking deeper meaning, deeper connection, and practices that honor both the seen and unseen aspects of life. People want healing that goes beyond the mind. They want emotional healing, ancestral understanding, somatic awareness, and spiritual truth. That excites me, because it reflects the direction my work has always naturally lived in.
At the same time, I am witnessing a powerful movement toward decolonizing mental health, something I fully advocate for. This shift is helping people recognize that Western mental health practices are not the only valid approaches to healing. Cultural wisdom, ancestral traditions, somatic practices, holistic modalities, and spiritual teachings are finally being acknowledged as legitimate and necessary. The future of healing is whole-person, culturally informed, and deeply rooted in the body and spirit — not just cognitive understanding.
But with all of this beautiful advancement comes a shadow side: appropriation. As spirituality, somatics, and holistic practices gain popularity, many organizations and individuals are commodifying sacred traditions without relationship or reverence. Concepts like “manifestation,” “shadow work,” “ancestor veneration,” or even “medicine work” are being marketed to people without the depth, lineage, or integrity required to hold such practices. Healing has become trendy, and that trend-based approach often leads to people capitalizing on the desperation others feel to get better. It creates ungrounded teachers, unsafe containers, and guidance that lacks initiation, training, or accountability.
Despite that, I see the next 5–10 years moving in a powerful direction. Mental health and spirituality are merging in ways that honor the mind, body, spirit, and ancestry. Somatic and embodied healing are becoming central as more people recognize that the body remembers what the mind forgets. Psychedelic integration is expanding as plant medicine becomes more accessible, and people are realizing that true transformation comes from how we integrate the experience — not just the experience itself. Healing is shifting back toward community-centered practices, circles, retreats, and shared spaces where people remember that healing was never meant to happen alone. And there is a continued return to cultural and ancestral reclamation as people reconnect with their roots, rituals, and lineages.
In many ways, the industry is evolving back into what indigenous and ancestral cultures have always known:
healing is spiritual, emotional, physical, ancestral, communal, and embodied.
While there will always be performative spirituality and trend-based healing, the deeper movement is toward alignment — toward authenticity, toward remembrance, and toward practices that honor the fullness of who we are.
This is the future of the field, and it’s the future I am devoted to helping shape.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.elementalblackwoman.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elementalblackwoman/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elementalblackwoman
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/entheorotica/
Image Credits
Dr. Dextdee Livingstone
Rod Deal
