Meet Jah Bruja

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jah Bruja. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jah , so great to have you sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our readers and so let’s jump right into one of our favorite topics – empathy. We think a lack of empathy is at the heart of so many issues the world is struggling with and so our hope is to contribute to an environment that fosters the development of empathy. Along those lines, we’d love to hear your thoughts around where your empathy comes from?

I would like to believe that my empathy comes from learning to understand my mother. I grew up floating from my grandparents to my mom, I’m not sure at what age I was finally fully with my mom but I do remember a time where my mom wasn’t living with me and my grandparents were taking care of me. I don’t know all the specifics and I’m almost 1,000% sure it was something along the lines of my grand mother and my mother had their own beef that they never got past from her adolescent years which ultimately resulted in my mother being removed from the house with my grandparents and myself. My mother wasn’t a bad mom, at least I don’t remember that way… She had me at twenty – three and was a bit of a wild child from what I remember growing up. I frequently remember her friends or family saying things along the line of “Oh a blessing you are for yo momma, she needed you!” and at the time I didn’t understand, but as I grew older and heard more about my mom I realize it’s because of the lifestyle my mother was living. My mom never put me in danger, threw parties, allowed me around people smoking, or to see men laid up in our space, but people judged my mom by her past hard and she was constantly held to it by family or friends. I grew up seeing my mother as the “black sheep” of the family because she was, by all accounts. Without giving the game a black eye, my mother was a lot of things and owned who she was in all spaces with no shame or remorse unless she was in the wrong. I saw my mother as a feminist icon, here is this young mother with her gay child, demanding respect, involved, making life fun while also embracing her youth and being unapologetically black. For the short time period before my stepdad entered our life, all I remember is sisterhood, community, and good music. My mother was the pioneer for young hot moms changing the stigmatism on having a baby early and owning it, I would say sometime after the relationship with my step father I started to see my mother struggle with aspects of herself. Who she was, who she is, and who she wanted to be, were really weighing on her while she adjusted to all the life changes that were happening to her. By this time in my life im probably about nine or ten years old, I’ve already decided that I would not be like every other person in my mothers life and tie her down to her past or not allow room for her to breathe and blossom into whoever she needs to be to heal. I had watched everyone I know who “loved” my mom belittle her or slight her in some way even when she was pushing through mountains to not only show up for others but for herself. I started to see my mother lose herself more and more as the years go on, the feminist pop hood icon I looked at as my mom growing up was now this woman who wasn’t sure what she was doing anymore and was trying to maintain everything. A lot of choices my mother made hurt me, and that’s no shade towards her I’m very open and vocal about it with her, but I never stopped loving my mother even when she made those choices. “Hurt people, hurt people” is a very true statement and I realized in my early twenties my mother has been hurting for a good majority of her life. I had to be able to look past all of my mother’s actions and how they personally affected me and look at from her perspective to figure out why she made those choices. I chose to really look at my mother for who I knew her to be in her heart, and not who was in front of me.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I go by Jah Bruja, psychic / hoodoo practitioner. Meaning I am a spiritual baddie, which is essentially figuring out what works for me along my path to becoming my fullest self without judging or taking from others in the process. I’ve been offering services to the public for a year now, I was called to make a push into this life about 3 years ago. I had tried everything under the sun so getting right with my spirit guides and figuring out my roots was my next quest in life. Tarot is my main source of divination, that allows me to intuitively read the cards and deliver a message based upon what you ask. In my readings I encourage all clients to talk to me like your favorite homie. Be real, raw and authentic with the questions you ask cause we will shed light and insight to figure out what is really going on and how to bridge the gaps. Along with my readings I also offer spiritual baths that comes from my root work/herb knowledge. These baths are made to help clear and unblock all obstacles in your energetic field that you may have picked up throughout the month. No matter how small of an interaction we can always pick up extra energies with or without our consent. Therefore, it’s important that we monthly, if not daily, clear our selves of these added on energies that are simply not ours. These add on energies can sometimes make us depressed, sad, angsty, angry, frustrated, or uncomfortable. These unpleasant things we feel sometimes are just the energy and or projections someone else placed on us, and if we don’t take the time to figure out if the emotions we are feeling truly belong to us or if they’ve been placed on us then it can fester in your energy field creating blockages within and outside of yourself. I myself am currently still in my transformative stage but I still accept new clients, while I currently attend monthly tarot night with other readers in Vista. I am always looking to be booked for private parties or events. There are still somethings i’m working on before you see more of me in my online presence, but you can always keep up with my on Instagram @Elijaahmatthew.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

You have to be able to be honest with yourself whole heartedly and not hold back, looking at everything form every perspective. There will be times when you are faced with something about yourself that you aren’t willing to address, or haven’t spoken about but the universe will test you and see how you react to it. Just because no one is watching you and keeping tabs of your actions, you still are acquiring karmic debt. Next would be heart, you have to believe in yourself. Faith is going to be the thing to carry you throughout your entire life, no matter what anyone tells you, if you feel it calling to you, follow it. Always be a student and allow yourself to constantly be open because creativity breathes of growing minds. There is still so much to learn in this life and we’re all here to teach each other.

What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?

The biggest area I could say I can personally say I’ve seen growth would be in me advocating for myself and trusting my power. I told myself that 2024 would be a me chapter, I would spend some time alone, learn how my own vibration feels and love myself more. In that process I had to realize that some of the love that was missing from inside of me or why I felt depleted was because I was allowing those I loved way too much access to me. I had to let people fall off in whatever capacity they chose this year because I had made the conscious effort to stop showing up for people, or over extending myself. There were a lot of nights alone, crying, over analyzing trying to figure out how I can create a healthy balance between myself and others. Many conversations with people where I had to remove my emotions and just speak the truth. Ultimately practicing radical honesty, helped me trust my power more as well. Now that I didn’t have any other obligations to anyone besides myself, I could see what I truly have to offer. I needed to see my own magic for myself, put al the knowledge I gained to the test and when I did this I was not disappointed. I don’t say it lightly when I say, I am a powerful psychic and hoodoo practitioner, time after time trusting my guides and gifts has landed me in the most beautiful spaces/opportunities. The minute I completely had faith that things were happening for me and not to me, things just fell in line in every aspect of life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Jahbruja.setmore.com
• Instagram: @Elijaahmatthew