Our Story

The Healing Plug, originally named, Lavenglow Orgnics, was founded by a Black female therapist, in 2019 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

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My name is Gabrielle Renée Dejoie Smith. Dejoie is my mom's maiden name, my 2nd middle name and now, my daughter's 2nd middle name. I have so much gratitude for my mother's intuition guiding her to share her name with me. It is French (from our New Orleans Creole heritage) and means 'of joy'.

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My intention is for this space to bring you tools, knowledge and a community with which to unlock the joy within yourself.

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By training I am a mental health therapist. I attended The University of Southern California and graduated with a BA in psychology. I worked as a research assistant to a professor in the School of Education during my time in undergrad. I continued my training at the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work and received my Masters in Social Work with a concentration in Mental Health. I have worked as a therapist to people dealing with domestic violence, transitional aged youth, children, teens, adults in inpatient psychiatric care with diagnoses ranging from mood disorders (depression, bipolar, schizoaffective) and substance abuse to most recently working with patients suffering with eating disorders and co-morbid diagnoses through inpatient and day program care at a psychiatric hospital.

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I have taken my experience and through continued study and delving into the world of the "woo" (spirituality at various depths), have created this platform where I help you uncover your inner healer. We all need healing. Especially people of color. It's our duty and birthright to heal not only our pain, but also the pain we carry in our blood from our ancestors. To read more on the effects and implications of inter-generational trauma visit The Healing Plug Blog after this! The point is... we all can certainly benefit from help and/or a mentor from time to time. As humans in this currant age, we can also use an unbiased, non-judgemental open ear.

I am here to bring you tools that I believe everyone, regardless of attending or having access to therapy, should learn and know. Tools that can help you heal yourself and move towards your best self and your best life! 

I identify myself, today, as a Wellness Educator and an avid proponent of self-care. I am passionate about sharing knowledge, skills, theories and tools to help others help themselves.

I am a healer by profession and heart, but while I relate heavily to that term, I will say that healing cannot be forced upon you or bestowed upon you by someone else. You heal yourself, you have to put in the work, and you are the only one that is able to do so. I can hold space for you, however, and I can share with you a multitude of tools to help you on your journey.

I have known since I was about 12 years old that I wanted to “help people”. I hail from two clinical psychologist parents, both Ph.D.s that graduated from UC Berkley. I laugh sometimes thinking about how people would hear this and ask me wide-eyed if it 'messed me up' to have two therapist as parents. I think to myself how it honestly messed me up more to have two Sagittarius parents as a Cancerian child. (That being a joke for my fellow astro lovers).

I’m a Cancerian, which if you know anything about astrology, we are the mothers of the zodiac and labeled as just a tad bit emotional. I was generally the “jr therapist” to many of my friends and was always fascinated by how the mind works, people’s thoughts, and what made them do the things they did. In addition to this genuine curiosity about human behavior and being a self-proclaimed empath with initially poor boundaries, I have struggled with depression since I was a teenager. I realized in college during a depressive episode, what I had experienced as early as age 13 was major depressive disorder. I’ve struggled with “overthinking” for forever but I finally realized it as anxiety in my first year of grad school when I had my first panic attack. I am also a Capricorn rising, which means i have the gift of intellectualizing my emotions as much as i feel them deeply. I am ruled by daddy Saturn and need hard work in my life to gain the reward. I am willing to work hard to share my gifts and knowledge. I am willing to do the research and report back to you so you may benefit from that hard work as well. 

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My knowledge comes from a mix of schooling, being a therapist, receiving my own personal therapy, independent research, a lot of self-teaching through knowledge seeking, and personal experience dealing with depression, anxiety, low-self esteem, disordered eating and grief.

In 2017 I struggled with potentially losing my mom to esophageal cancer. I spent the first part of 2018 merely surviving; watching my mom transition, taking care of her while her spirit dwindled, and also showing up to my job as an eating disorder therapist to clients, many of whom had suffered trauma. I was dealing with my own (little t) trauma but there I was being a therapist to others, until I stepped back to take care of my mom full time. 

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My mom transitioned on July 22, 2018 and I was left to pick up my broken pieces after losing the person who loved me most in this world. So the end of 2018, came me dissecting and integrating my own trauma and attempting to come back to myself. My mom's transition also ignited my own spiritual awakening and led me to connect the dots between my work, my knowledge, and my purpose.

On the final day of 2020, i welcomed my daughter who is such a bright light in this world. I prayed for her to be as brilliant as my mom and i look back and laugh often about how i may have prayed to be perpetually in over my head with that prayer. 

On the second day of 2022, my dad transitioned suddenly. Almost an exact year after my daughter turned one. It was an excruciating blow after all the healing, all the optimism i had experienced since my mom's passing. It felt unfair and it was one of the times i turned to spirit in anger and lost my way for a bit. The thing about healing is that is can't be linear. Its is a spiral and even if you feel you have come back to the same exact place as you once were, you will always find yourself a level or more up from where you last had been. Not only had i become an adult orphan with an unsupportive partner and deep in the post-partum trenches, but i had a one year old daughter to grow, and love and nuture when i myself needed the nurture and support. So i did both, i journeyed back to love on and support my inner child and many different versions of my past selves all while i embraced motherhood. 

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In 2023 i recommitted to myself. I lost over 65 lbs and i went on my most intensive self-love and confidence journey... until recently. lol. 

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I realized quite a while ago... I will always be healing. And unlearning unhelpful habits and thought patterns, for that matter. The year of 2018 was my lowest in a sense, but also, I look back on it and realized it was one of the most graceful and best I’ve handled any extreme low because I was blessed to have been through low lows before and had built up an arsenal of tools with which to protect my spirit and my sanity. The old me may not have made it through that year. Or any of the subsequent years at that. But this me... I know her to be constantly evolving and growing through her pain instead of simply letting it consume her. 

Having the tools to take care of myself – mind, body, and spirit, the tools to honor myself and my pain, knowing how to care for myself, knowing the questions to ask myself so I could feel my feelings, and finding more deep avenues with with to connect with my spiritual team, my ancestors and God has saved me countless times. 

Furthermore, having these tools helped me to get from a place of surviving to thriving! So here I am. Wanting to share these potentially life-saving skills with you. Skills I wish I had known or been taught back in high school or grade school. Skills I have taught clients since I was a grad student interning up until last year. Skills that we all should be taught and be aware of. Skills I am utilizing, stumbling through and mastering everyday, myself. Skills that are so simple you may roll your eyes but when you put them into practice you see your life blossoming before you. Skills i have had the privilege to keep learning at a deeper and more intimate level. 

My deepest desire and dharma is to help Black and brown women love themselves unapologetically, integrate the idea that they are enough, gather tools they need to get through hell and back and create a community for us so we never have to feel like we are alone in this thing called life. Because we KNOW Black and brown women go through hell and back. Whether that hell is one’s environment, one's partner, our own mind or all three; Whether it is mental health or situational, black and brown women have always pushed through. We will continue to push through regardless, but I want to share tools to make that journey just a little less heavy and maybe a bit more enjoyable.

While I hope to reach many Black and Brown womxn who need to see themselves overcoming, I also want to create a safe space for all people who seek their higher selves and seek to be better and grow. Because the world is just hard sometimes and to go back to my original point, we could all use help navigating this life we are experiencing and living through for the first time.  To improve the world, we need to look at what messages we are putting into the world about how we all “should be”. We have a lot of myths to dispel and a lot of tools to learn. So my intentions with The Healing Plug are as follows…

May we have a little more support along the journey and feel safe asking for that support from ourselves and others. May we receive a little more validation that what we feel is valid, that what we all go through—stumbling through life-- is hard AF. May we feel less alone and less shame for our mere existence. May we be vulnerable in order to shatter the shame around our very human experiences. May we be able to feel our feelings in a healthy way that honors our highest self. May we lighten our loads – emotionally, physically, and energetically so that we can create healthier physical bodies and lessen our chance of disease. May we have more tools to help us love ourselves, cherish our spirit and remember who we are while we are going through hell and journeying towards the light. May we use these tools to create healthier minds, bodies and spirits. And may we use these tools to create a better world and healthier mindsets for our Black and Brown children.

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The Healing Plug offers a variety offerings to aid you in elevating and maintaining your optimal spiritual, mental and emotional health. Whether you are healing from trauma or simply want to improve your wellness,

The Healing Plug, provides the resources and information for you to take the reins of your own healing journey within a nourishing and friendly environment.

Sending soul much love to you on your own journey.

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- Gabrielle

Founder of The Healing Plug LLC

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