Alejandra Valenzuela Mares

There are certain people you meet who instantly feel familiar. I met Alejandra at an event hosted at Bell Arts Factory in Ventura, California, after being invited by Maria Dolores, the first woman featured in Women of the Blooming Path. What began as a simple introduction quickly became an afternoon of meaningful conversation, laughter, and connection. We found ourselves wandering the event together, sharing stories and discovering that we held many of the same values around healing, community, and reconnecting with ourselves.

As our friendship continued beyond that first meeting, I became even more inspired by the work she offers. Alejandra creates spaces where people are invited to slow down, listen inward, and remember that healing isn’t something we have to navigate alone. Through Kundalini Activation and ceremonial cacao sharing circles, she gently guides others back to their bodies, their hearts, and the communities that hold them.

One of the reasons I wanted to feature Alejandra is because healing looks different for everyone. There isn’t one path back to ourselves. Sometimes healing begins through art. Sometimes through nature. Sometimes through movement, conversation, prayer, or simply sitting in the presence of others who are willing to witness us with compassion.

Alejandra’s work reminds us that healing can also begin with something as simple and as sacred as sharing a cup of cacao with intention.

In this month’s feature, she opens her heart with remarkable honesty, sharing the experiences that shaped her journey, the grief that transformed her life, and the profound lessons she has discovered through community, ceremony, and self-acceptance.

My hope is that as you read her story, you’ll not only learn about Kundalini and ceremonial cacao, but also discover another doorway into your own healing.

Welcome to the August edition of Women of the Blooming Path.

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1. Before you began this path, what part of yourself was asking to be healed?

Before I began this path there was a part, probably the biggest part of myself that was asking to be healed was my inner child. I grew up as a very introverted child who subconsciously kept most of her inner world inside and quiet because she was afraid of speaking her truth, of that truth making others uncomfortable, of that truth hurting others, and in turn feeling like her truth would result in feeling even more alone and unworthy of love. This journey led me to face some very harsh truths that included experiencing abuse in different forms. It led me to realize that abuse can be often subtle and unseen, and that I had internalized these patterns and had adopted abusive behaviors towards myself, mostly through overeating, and inner judgement.

A lot of my journey has been about realizing the power and beauty of my presence and my voice. Growing up, I often felt unseen and unheard. I learned that through academic accomplishments, I was able to get notice. It felt like being seen, but I went through most of my life carrying a void despite the achievements. Feeling like no matter what I did, I was never enough. I went through my childhood and youth winning first or second place in almost every classroom, yet I felt so afraid to fail in life. A big realization came when I graduated from UCLA with a bachelor's degree, and I felt no satisfaction, it felt so paralyzing to realize I felt no closer to finding my purpose or sense in life, not to mention 0 job prospects or direction with my Comparative Literature degree. I started to question if there was something more, I was missing in life outside of academic accomplishments, which I had used to define myself.

I experienced other challenges along the way that led me to start my inner healing journey, but it wasn’t until I had a miscarriage that my need to dig deeper and get to know myself and start to heal became too overwhelming to ignore. Carrying a soul in my womb even for 3 short months changed me. I felt from day one of conception an inner knowing and connection that I never experienced before. I felt not just a deep love for that soul, but I felt the love of that being for me. Giving me so many insights on life in such a short time. I realized how precious life was, how purposeful and meaningful the life of my son was, even in such a short time. It forced me to seek the meaning of mine. This experience shaped me and made me feel a connection and love that transcended life itself, no matter how painful and devasting was the grief of the miscarriage, I could not even call it a loss, because everything in myself was telling me that my son’s love and purpose transcended everything I knew, even death itself. I knew the love, experience, and knowing I was given through this experience would never be lost.

On that journey of self-discovery, I stumbled across a Kundalini Activation experience, the session helped me experience what it was for the first time probably in my adult life, what it was like to release control, to avoid filtering, and censuring my emotions.   The quiet inner child of mine began to heal through very raw somatic experiences. It was like I was finally free to feel and express myself, I was no longer too much, I was no longer too sensitive, I allowed myself to be me. I screamed when I felt like it like crazy in my car or nature, I sang my unheard pain in the mountains, and I shook away my fear through dance. It was so liberating to not have to rationalize or analyze or overthink anything. I just need it to feel it fully to release it without attachment. 

After Kundalini came Cacao, and it opened my world to something I did not anticipate, the power of community. It spoke to the part of me that was yearning for connection, to be fully witnessed in community and seen for myself stripped from the past identities around achievement that I had built in the past. Cacao is often described as a heart opener, and it truly was for me. After years of knowing the same people, in mostly surface work relationships, my world suddenly expanded and I began forming meaningful and beautiful connections, relationships, and friendships almost everywhere I went. Cacao opened my heart to a more expansive and unconditional love, and that love shaped my reality into a much more magical, and connected world full of synchronicities, purpose, and joy.

2. Many people hear the word “kundalini,” but don’t really know what it means. How would you describe it in your own words?

To me, Kundalini is in its essence, our life force, it’s in all of us, and it is expressed in different ways. Kundalini energy specifically is believed to lie at the base of the spine and flow through our main energy centers.

3. For someone who has never experienced a ceremonial cacao circle, what is it? Is there a difference between ceremonial cacao and the chocolate most of us are familiar with? What can someone expect during the experience?

There are many misconceptions about cacao and cacao ceremonies. In the Mayan tradition, cacao was used in everyday life, in difficult conversations to facilitate conflict resolution, as well as part of their ceremonies such as a fire ceremony. However, there was no such thing as a cacao ceremony or a ceremony to honor cacao itself.  To honor this lineage and tradition, I prefer to call it a cacao sharing circle when I work with this plant medicine and share it in community. There are many differences between what we now know as chocolate, and the cacao that is used in traditional ceremonies. Cacao used for ceremonies is cultivated with intention, the gatekeepers of the cacaotal (where cacao grows) have a deep reverence for the land and honor the land in every stage of the process. The cacaotal respects the biodiversity of the place, there is no monoculture, no use of pesticides, and the land and every stage of the process is prayed on from planting to harvest. There is a big emphasis on reciprocity, only taking from the land what is necessary, and giving back as much as you take.  Often the cacao is fermented, roasted, and grinded by my hand utilizing traditional tools like the metate, although depending on the size of the production, some elders to integrate more modern tools such an electric grinder to facilitate the process. I would say the biggest difference is the respect for the land, biodiversity, and the lineage with elders who have carry the tradition with integrity, reverence, and love. When you drink artisanal cacao grown with intention and care, you receive the frequency of the place, the people, and their blessings.  Unfortunately, much of the regular chocolate we consume nowadays comes from human and land exploitation and is full of additives such as sugar and milk among others. Traditional cacao has no additives, is pure cacao paste, and when prepared as a drink elders have different preparations depending on the occasion, but they are all using natural and organic ingredients such as honey, and corn among others.

4. What kinds of healing have you witnessed through cacao ceremonies, both in yourself and in others?

The healings that I have witnessed through cacao sharing circles have been about connection to inner self, lineage, and community. In my latest cacao sharing event, I was so honored to see how through cacao women who had never seen or met each other before were able to share their most intimate feelings around their womb and struggles with conception. I have also witnessed how people were finally able to express their grief and release deep wounds of guilt and shame.

In my personal life I notice its effects every day. I am more present and can more easily have difficult and deeper conversations. My marriage has benefited a lot from cacao. Somehow, sharing a cacao cup with my husband with intention has made our conversations more vulnerable and honest. Just last week, I noticed I was struggling a bit with depressive thoughts and isolating myself. I remembered to connect with myself with cacao and within 10-15 minutes, I naturally went through a whole list of people, I had not reached back. In the past, I would have continued the isolation until I felt better. Cacao has made it natural and almost seamless for me to automatically reach out to my community when I need to. It has allowed me to loosen the mechanism of hyper independence I had used in the past to survive.

5. Why is healing in community different from healing alone?

I feel that healing in community truly expands ourselves and the effect is much more profound and powerful. When we are able to be witnessed and seen in community as well as witness others be themselves, there is like a compounding effect. You are being held, and a weight lifts off. You get to see yourself reflected in others and can see yourself through a much more compassionate lens. In that process of healing in community, it’s very common and natural that connections and partnerships begin to unfold. I have seen many women meeting for the first time in these events begin to plant the seed of collaboration from the first encounter. These partnerships expand the impact to their families, their communities, and the world.

6. If someone leaves one of your ceremonies carrying just one thing in their heart, what do you hope it is?

Hope.

Follow Alejandra: @mares.goddess