We recently connected with Nicole Deroy and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Nicole, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
Ever since a young girl I was faced with chronic issues with my health. I was always getting sick, and had to persevere at a young age with chronic pain, and struggled with feeling at home in my body. Into my teenage years it would just get worse and worse and persisted into adulthood. I was poked and prodded by doctors for well over a decade, told I had incurable conditions and put on endless amounts of pills to manage symptoms. It wasn’t until my early 30s that I was finally diagnosed with Lyme disease, Endometriosis and SIBO, and this was all while I was putting myself through a stressful tattoo apprenticeship. Ultimately, I was told by doctors there was nothing they could do for me, so I began to seek alternative therapies. I found holistic approaches that helped to support my body at a cellular level, and also dabbled in energy work. I began getting reiki done and finally started to catch some relief from my decades of dis-ease. I underwent surgery during the pandemic in 2020 and after recovery, from nutrition and lifestyle changes, was able to achieve remission from all of my conditions. It took a lot of dedication, but I decided that I could not go on feeling like I was dying every single day of my life, I HAD to get better, I HAD to take action to save my own life. I had to put to rest the person I thought I always was, the one who I had identified with my entire life, and mourn my egoic attachment to that person. I had to reinvent myself and learn to step into my power and reclaim my sovereignty. I finished my apprenticeship and also simultaneously started to take classes to learn Reiki. I have since then become a Reiki Master and have also taken training in reading Tarot. Energy work has become a central heartbeat to my lifestyle and I knew in my soul that I had to incorporate it into my tattoo work. It has been 3 years since I achieved remission, and every day I’m becoming the most healthy, and strongest version of myself. I look back at all of my suffering, the days I was vomiting in pain, the days I felt like I was a zombie, and remember how far I’ve come, that if I can overcome all of those adversaries, I can overcome anything. It’s not always easy, mindset and shadow work has brought a new level of consciousness into my awareness and continues to be a journey of unraveling old wounds, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, and this is why I show up in my work the way that I do, the reason I feel a burning passion to assist others in coming back home to themselves with spiritual healing through the sacred act of tattooing. If I can turn my life around, I know that with proper support and guidance, anyone can do the same, regardless of what their story looks like.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Ever since going through my own healing journey, I wanted to bring tattooing back to its roots with ancient ceremonial practices. I knew that getting tattooed has assisted me in so many ways to feel good in my own skin, and learning the energetic aspect of it sent me down a rabbit hole that I could never come back out of. I feel that energy imprints during a tattoo, so being intentional with every step of the process assists in holding the good energy. My favorite process to serve in this way is through the act of spiritual ceremony. I create a private container for my client by clearing the energy within the space and blessing it with Reiki energy. When my client arrives we sit down and they’re welcome to have some herbal tea if they’d like while I guide them through a brief meditation to ground their energy. I call in their spirit guides, ancestors, and any benevolent entities which are called to assist them, and we work with oracle and tarot cards to deliver spiritual guidance. I open up space for them to express anything they wish to share and assist them with sharing parts of my process that has helped me. I also allow myself to be a channel for any additional guidance that is coming through from their team. After my client feels satisfied with what has been learned, we collaborate together to pick imagery to represent an intention, with spell-casting, that we co-create together with Spirit. I offer a reiki infused tattoo session immediately after the ceremony and imprint that energy into their tattoo while their guides remain present to support them. It has been a profound experience for each of my clients and has assisted them in feeling loved, supported, heard, seen, and empowered in various ways unique to each of them. I love empowering their soul and honoring it with their new tattoo talisman, which acts as a permanent reminder of who they are at their core, where they’ve been, and where they’re going. It carries them throughout their life with the intention they set and reminds them to come back home to themselves no matter what trials and tribulations they encounter in the future.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Do I really have to pick three? Okay let’s try this…
1. Humility — if you think you’ve learned everything you need to learn, or if you think you’ve mastered your skill, you’re done. Stay curious, stay open and receptive, and if you find out that you’re the person in the room with the most knowledge, it’s time to get into bigger rooms. No one is ever finished learning, and those who think they are, stop growing.
2. Eagerness to learn — see number 1
3. Be open to new perspectives — again, see number 1
Truly, just stay hungry, by staying humble!
Who is your ideal client or what sort of characteristics would make someone an ideal client for you?
I’m here for the weirdos who are rediscovering their soul, the black sheep, those who have dared to be different. The people who are pushing the envelope on who they are and the perceived limitations our society pushes onto us. I desire to assist their journey, to remind them who they are, empower them to figure out how to honor their direction and discover their inner guiding light. The freaks, the witches, the dreamers, the starseeds… those who desire to break out of the prison of self limiting beliefs and the status quo, the empaths, the healers, the leaders, the way showers. Tattooing is rooted in celebrating life’s journey, the milestones, the wearer’s inner strength and courage, self empowerment and expression. I’m here to skip the small talk and go deep, have those challenging conversations that most are afraid of, build community, and show up for one another to leave the world a better place than we found it. We’re the pattern breakers, the derelicts, the outcasts of society, but not because we’re degenerates, but because we dare to dream of a better way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nicolederoy.com
- Instagram: @nicolederoytattoos
- Other: TikTok: @sacredrebeltattoo
Image Credits
Headshot and Action shot: Sabrina DeCoursey
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