An Inspired Chat with Mickayel Thurin

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Mickayel Thurin. Check out our conversation below.

Mickayel, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
They are all important. But probably I’m most focused on my energy right now. I have never really struggled with intelligence or integrity. I don’t know if that is because I am neurodivergent, so my natural inclination is to say what I mean, be upfront, and I’ve been told often I am maybe too blunt at times. I am also have a very practical brain that is good with pattern recognition. New ideas come easily to me, and I am always looking to understand circumstances through varying perspectives so I can act accordingly. Energy is the thing I struggle with and have had to learn over time to preserve, protect, and nourish. I used to abuse my energy. When I was younger, I powered through, but as my responsibilities grew, as I gained a family, career, ect., I would constantly be in scarcity mode and would burn out because I did not respect my energy.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Mickayel Thurin. I am a Haitian American mixed-media artist. My work bridges the emotional, spiritual, and material worlds. Rooted in personal healing and transformation, my art explores ideas of consciousness, mindfulness, trauma, and the unseen layers of reality. I work with sustainable materials (textiles, felting, beadwork, and found objects) to build textured, multidimensional pieces that feel both intimate and cosmic.

Lately, each work is a visual meditation on what it means to evolve, to raise one’s vibration, to see beyond surface realities, and to reconnect with the soul’s higher awareness. My process is deeply intuitive, blending emotion into form. My subject matter draws on lived experiences as a mother, wife, and empathic observer of human energy.

My journey as an artist mirrors my spiritual path: moving from survival and self-doubt toward self-love, freedom, and expansion. I create not only to process, but also to express, and to invite viewers into their own awakening. To remind them they are awareness itself.

Currently, I am expanding my practice by experimenting with new materials and sculptural techniques, deepening my exploration of layered realities and the energy of soul evolution. I’m having fun! My work has been exhibited in museums and galleries across Philadelphia, NJ, Michigan, Delaware, and NY.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
Editorializing my circumstance. I try to just be in the moment and not get fixated on how I think things need to be or how they have been in the past. That pretty much just makes me anxious, fearful, and stuck. I aim to just be open, and receive whatever experience the universe has to give me. Anything I maybe once would have labeled as “bad” or “good”, I see as a learning experience for me, a lesson, or a growth opportunity. I try to see things as not happening to me but for me, and it has made life pretty amazing. I feel grateful to be able to cocreate alongside the universe.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
Oh yes! I’ve been diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorders. I’ve struggled with cycles of suicidal ideation and, more times than I’d like to admit, have thought about opting out of life altogether. There were times I even made plans, but something always stopped me. Sometimes fear, sometimes the thought that I didn’t want to be remembered with my room in a mess. Deep down, I also felt that this couldn’t be all there was to life. I kept thinking there had to be something I was missing. There had to be more than just stress, exhaustion, and fleeting moments of happiness or sadness.

Then 2020 happened, and everything seemed to fall apart. People I loved died. Others almost did. The world grew more divided and polarized, and everything that could go wrong, did. That year became my “dark night of the soul” — the beginning of my spiritual awakening.

I started doing my shadow work and realized I didn’t know my purpose. I didn’t trust, remember, or even like myself. I had been living almost entirely as a series of trauma responses rather than as an authentic person. So, I decided to change that.

I learned to allow myself to feel. How to sit with my emotions instead of repressing or ignoring them. I came to understand that emotions are just the body’s way of communicating, different energies moving through you. I began to process the experiences and pain I had been allowing to define and limit me. I began to delete certain behaviors and belief systems imposed on me by others. I purged anything that did not feel aligned to my best self.

I started noticing glimmers, those small, beautiful moments of peace or joy, and started expressing gratitude for them. I began listening to myself, loving myself, protecting myself and my energy. I relearned who I truly am, both the “good” and the “bad” and accepted myself fully.

Now, I’m doing my best to live as my most authentic self, without fear. Because honestly, why not?

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Is the public version of you the real you?
For the most part. I try to be, but may publicly I come off a bit more awkward than I feel I am inside. Or maybe that is how I actually am? Haha! I think no one is really able to experience me the way I experience myself. They can’t know every thought, and I cannot 100% accurately describe every sensation or emotion I have. Even if I could, people’s brains are different and they have different life experiences that filter how they process things. So everyone’s perception of me, and themselves, and each other is unique. However, I definitely aim to be as myself as I am inclined to be in any given moment. More and more I try to shake off any masks I wear to fit in, from having AuDHD, or from being a “minority”, or any of the labels society has bestowed upon me. I try to be just myself my own way.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
What I understand deeply, that many people don’t, is that what you practice, you become.

If you want a peaceful life, practice being peaceful, no matter what’s happening around you. Mind over matter is real. Everything we experience is processed through our brain, even something as simple as seeing color. Our eyes don’t actually “see” colors. They send electrical signals (energy) to our brain, which then interprets them into the visual world we experience.

Trauma, whether physical or emotional, can change how the brain works, even altering how we perceive colors and sensations. That realization showed me how powerful our minds really are.

So I’ve learned to intentionally train my brain to be grateful, to notice glimmer moments, and to seek peace. Over time, that practice has shifted the energy I put out and now my life is beginning to reflect that same energy of gratitude, light, and calm.

The best part? Anyone can learn to do this. It just starts with the decision to try and the stubborness to be consistent even when the universe is testing your resolve, which it always does.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mthurin.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickathurin/
• Other: Gallery: Gross McCleaf Gallery https://www.grossmccleaf.com/

Image Credits
philadelphia Magic Gardens and Mickayel Thurin