Interview with a Woman of Intuition, Arleny Abreu

Tell me about yourself and your practice. How did you get started? When did you know that you were meant to do this? And what drew you to Tarot specifically?

My name is Arleny Victoria Abreu; hyphenated, it’s Ava, so @iamuserava online. I founded Woman of Intuition LLC this February, but I started my content creation journey on social media about a year ago. And I've been growing organically to half a million followers across platforms, sharing motivational speaking and Tarot. I come from a long line of spiritualists in the Dominican Republic. So, my sister’s psychic, my mother's psychic, my brother's psychic, my dad is psychic, my grandmother's psychic, my great-grandmother-- like, we go all the way back. I come from a place called San Juan de la Maguana in the Dominican Republic, and if you research it, it’s called the magic city on my island. So, people from that zone, from that area, they're all like me. So, when I came into myself, I always knew that I was intuitive. But I didn't come into my full woman's intuition until before the pandemic, when I had my separation from my ex-husband. I feel like I was very suppressed spiritually and suppressed in a lot of ways. When you're in the wrong energy with somebody, [it brings you down]. I finally had time to meditate because the world slowed down.

So, I came back home, and my mom told me the origin story of our family and who we are. It was like this big secret was revealed to me. Like, you know, when Harry Potter found the secret school, I swear, it was just like that. And my sister introduced me to the Tarot, and I learned about candle magic from my mom. While the world was still, I had all of this time to meditate and practice and study and learn. I learned a lot about social media as well, but it was more of a time that was a super awakening for me. I've always had dreams; I've always been intuitive, but this was finally the right time. I feel like a lot of people felt like that during the pandemic.

In my work as a psychic medium, I do a lot of psychic Tarot readings. So, it's not the traditional Tarot. I am well-versed in [traditional Tarot], but when I’m doing a reading, I'm also giving you the psychic download from the Tarot as a tool. So, a lot of the information sometimes could be different, because not every Tarot reader is psychic. And not every psychic is a witch. I'm a little bit of everything.

That's so cool.

I have a little bit of an eclectic type of spirituality, where I believe in one consciousness. So, you know, I believe in the universe, I believe in God, I believe in the angels, I believe in the Hindu gods, I believe in the Buddha, I believe in a lot of Afro-type of traditions, I do a lot of ancestral veneration, just like they do in Asia. So, it's not really too much about being tied to a specific belief system, but understanding that everything is connected, and that all paths lead to one consciousness in the universe; we're all connected.

Do you have a personal Tarot card, a Tarot card that represents you?

The Empress.

I'm the Empress too! Sister. Oh my God, that's so much fun.

You are currently competing in top hosts to bring Psychic Lounge to life. Tell me a bit more about your podcast and what you hope to do with it.

If I get selected for that, I think it'd be amazing. I would like to interview other psychics. We'll talk about gemstones and spirituality. We'll talk about the history of witchcraft, women's intuition, and the science behind mindfulness. I mix a lot of my science with my spirituality, and I make it palatable and entertaining. Like, I'm still an artist. I'm still an entertainer. The goal is we're going to learn, but we're going to have fun.

I saw that you have your master's degree in public health. How would you describe your personal relationship to the intersection of spirituality, health, and healing?

Well, my normal day job is working for the Department of Health, sexual health. And then at night or on the weekends, I'm a psychic. It's about finding that balance. I have a manifestation mentorship, so I blend a lot of mindfulness with the spiritual prescription during the consultation. I do say, “Hey, listen, I'm a spiritualist. I'm not a doctor.” We do a consultation first, and we find out what's going on with you on an energetic level, on a spiritual level. And then I might come back to you [saying], I recommend that you do these certain mindfulness exercises. The last person that I saw, I recommended that she needed some grounding spiritually. So, I recommended for her that she come up with a morning ritual, but the morning ritual also has a lot of psychological, scientific benefits that are going to help her.

Affirmations and manifestation: manifestation is just a mindset shift in psychology. It's just a reframing. So, the affirmations that you say to yourself and you listen to, that's kind of rewiring your nervous system and your neural pathways. Instead of saying, “Oh my God, why isn't it working out? I haven't achieved X, Y, and Z yet; I'm so behind.” You're not behind; you're just on time, divine timing. It's kind of coaching them spiritually through it with mindfulness. I also recommend a lot of incense work. I've done the most powerful manifestations with no candles, no tools, just straight up incense and affirmations. It works very quickly because I also work with the elements. Earth, wind, fire, water. I also teach you how to use the directions: North, East, West, South. There are certain affirmations, certain things that you do if you want something to work faster. Facing East, the direction of where the sun comes up, getting up at a certain time and as [you’re facing East], you light an incense and as you are saying your affirmations and your manifestations, the elements of the air with the incense, it helps you bring your prayers and your manifestations up into the heavens because of the smoke going up. It's very simple, but it's very, very effective.

Would you say that for manifestations to work, you have to believe it?

You have to believe it, but you have to put action behind it. I think that's where a lot of people kind of mess up manifestation because they think, “I'm [just] going to speak it into existence,” but you also have to put [in work]. I can write [that I want] $10,000 all day, but I need to create an avenue. Is it going to come from a man? Is it going to come from a business? It needs to come from somewhere. It most definitely will happen, but you need to take action. With manifestation, you're co-creating with the universe. I have to show up every day. Some things have taken me a couple of weeks, others a couple of months, some have taken me a couple of years. There are some that I've manifested in hours. So divine timing is [as important as setting] your intentions.

Tell me a bit more about your workshops. Who is your usual type of client, or is it just anyone and everyone who comes to you?

For readings, I have read for men, women, teenagers, geriatrics-- like all types, all over. I have had a client from every continent, every race, every age, straight, gay, woman, man, old, young. I've even done readings for pets. But with the workshops, it tends to be women who gravitate to me. I do a full moon Zoom meeting every month; we get together, and we manifest.

For some reason, it's never women my age who search for me; it's either women in their forties or fifties who are looking to regain their confidence and their feminine energy, or younger women, in their early twenties, who are trying to find their way.

One of my favorite workshops is to call your power back. How do you give your power away? What is your power? How to get it back? I do a guided meditation or energy and chakra alignment. We do breathwork. We do affirmations. And at the end of it, they say that they feel very empowered and they feel lighter because sometimes a lot of what you feel, like a lot of that heaviness, is not physical. It's energetic. And once you let that energetic baggage, the energetic weight go, then everything else, it falls into alignment.

I also do the Venus glamour magic glow workshops; [the next one is] on Friday, October 23rd. The first time I did it was virtually for Valentine’s Day. Women cried. There was this one lady in her fifties who said that she did her makeup every single day, but this was the first time that she learned to see herself for who she is in her first freaking 53 years of her life. I implement mirror work, glamour magic. For example, I have this [lipstick] right here. You hold it and set an intention: “Whenever I wear this, my words are powerful.” While looking in the mirror, you can see yourself in a different light. Maybe your confidence was being put down by your partner, or maybe you were bullied; sometimes people lose their confidence from trauma, so mirror work can be very powerful. 

We do a little body oil, and we hug ourselves. I have a perfume, and while I spray it, I say, “This perfume makes me have a perfect day; I'm going to be magnetic.” 

I've done pieces of this before, just like by myself in my room, and it's been powerful when I've done it just myself. But what's the difference between doing something alone versus in a community or with a leader?

The energy in the room, the energy when it's a collective, it's like, you're supporting each other. Hearing everyone say the affirmations together, it makes it stronger. If you have four women together saying, “I am beautiful, I am powerful,” it's a little bit of a coven type of energy. It’s powerful when you do it alone, but there's power in numbers, especially when it's women who have things in common. They're all looking to learn. They're all open to the magic. They're all open to the healing. Then we go around, and everybody says what they're wanting to manifest, and you get that energetic support of everyone else.

Do you ever do your own readings, or would you say that you typically do readings for other people?

I have my own intuition where if something dangerous is happening to me, it kicks in. But for me to dive into my own future, it's kind of like how doctors can’t do surgery on themselves. So, my sister does my readings, and then I do her readings. As a woman of intuition, you have your intuition about you; you have your gut feelings. I believe that all women have the gift of intuition. You just got to tap in. But I don't do my own readings.

So, you obviously do a lot of Tarot collective readings. Is there any type of collective that you say that you connect with more or very frequently?

Women. I tend to attract the girls and the gays.

Love it.

70% of my audience is female.

Love!

And that's who I want to connect with.

How do you tap into the collective?

I meditate before making content. I take at least like seven to 10 minutes to really ground myself, really do my breathwork and I have to get grounded to open up myself to receive the messages. You open up yourself with your breath.

My therapist tells me the same thing.

Actually, there is such a connection between therapy, mental health work, and spirituality. Breath is life.

What advice would you give someone who wants to start their spiritual journey?

I would say start with prayer, meditation, and breathwork. The three pillars. Before you get into any candle work, before you get into any manifestation, you have to control the vessel. Starting your spiritual journey, you have to realize that we are humans; we are spirits having a human experience. The body is a very advanced machine that we've been gifted. But the soul is the conductor of the vessel. That's how I would [guide] somebody who's just starting spirituality, really understanding that the soul is the conductor of your vessel. And it takes you wherever it is that you need to go. It's your first home. The most important thing in spirituality is grounding.

Is grounding through meditation, breathing, and prayer?

Yeah, you're allowing yourself to be ready to receive the message. If I just open myself up to everything, I can get into spiritual psychosis very quickly.

How do you protect yourself?

The way to protect yourself is that you have to have a very, very strong boundary between you and spirit. Number one: you build that boundary through the tower of light or the bubble. Have you ever seen the Power Rangers? Well, they were in that [suit]. You build that for yourself energetically through visualization, breathwork, and meditation. You create it around you. It's kind of like you wouldn't leave your house without clothes. So, why would you leave your house without the tower?

How do you do that? Does it just require time?

In the morning when I get up, before I touch my phone, before I open my mouth, before I freaking do anything, I get up, and I say three things that I'm grateful for. Three ways that my day will feel good. And nine out of 10 times, at least two of those things come into the day. You have to have a lot of gratitude, like, I'm grateful for my little cup of coffee today. I’m grateful that I'm able to see outside my window and the trees. Almost like a child being grateful for small things, you know what I'm saying? If I do not start my day off with my prayer, my meditation, my breath, my little incense, it's just not a good day.

Do you feel a connection to the afterlife, to ghosts, to the beyond? What does that mean to you?

I do have a connection to the other side. The first time that I connected was actually Halloween in 2022.

Halloween is crazy!

Yeah, it was on Halloween. I had a couple of friends over, and I built an altar that day that had skulls, candles, flowers, and candy. I also had an ancestor altar for all of us. We were sitting there talking, and the lights were dark, the candles were glowing, and I was reading the cards. And then I remember I was like, “Who's Jerry?” And then one of my friends was like, “Oh my god, stop, stop. What are you talking about? No, no, this is not funny. I don't like what you're doing.” And I was like, “There is a message that I'm getting through someone named Jerry's [who is] here. He needs to speak to somebody.” It happened to be one of my friends’ biological dads who had passed away, and he's adopted. So, I had no idea about this Jerry person. I didn't know that he was dead. My friend got up and was like, white like a ghost. And then that's when I was like, “Oh shit, I'm a psychic.” I thought I was just intuitive, but connecting to that right there, [I realized I was psychic as well]. You’ve got to be very careful because I've done mediumship where, if you don't build that strong boundary between you and the spirit, they can linger inside of you. You have to reclaim your authority over the spirit; say, “I'm done now, you can leave.” Nothing has dominion over us, whether it's in your room or in your house or in your body or anywhere. They don't have dominion over your space, over your body; you have to be very confident in it. I’m very selective with the mediumship; I've had to really make it less accessible than people would like it to be because I don't want it to be something that I do for everybody.

Honestly, I don't think you should.

It's kind of like meeting people. Meeting spirits is like meeting people. There are good people, bad people, and dangerous people. Spirit is the same, you know? There's a lot of trickster energy too; you’ve got to pay attention to how your body feels with people, with spirit, and with energy. Your body is your Oracle; your body will always tell you when something is good, or when something is bad. Sometimes the mind won't, but your body will. That's why it's really good to do a lot of somatic exercise and movement. Dance is good at removing negative energy: yoga, walking, and dancing. I find that dancing is very good for connecting to your energies. Dancing in my country is a form of devotion to the spirit.

This is so fun to hear, because what you don't know is that I tell everyone that dancing in clubs specifically is my church. I love dancing; it's my favorite. I'm not a good dancer. But it's just the connection. You can feel it; you really can.

What is your dream?

My dream is to live a magical life.

Love it.

I want to live a magical life. I see myself being able to have my freedom, my peace, and my safety. It's not in my mind to be rich and famous or anything like that. I welcome it if it happens, but my main three dreams in life are to always have my freedom, my peace, and my safety. Because if you have your freedom, if you have your peace, if you have your safety, then you have your power. And if you have your power, then there's nothing that you can’t do. That's my dream. I want to always have those things.

I am obsessed. Actually, that's a perfect answer.

What is your zodiac sign?

My sun is in Capricorn, my moon is in Sag, and my rising is in Aquarius. I have all of the elements in my chart, but most of my planets are in Capricorn. So, I'm a true Capricorn to the core. I was also born on a new moon, so I'm a master manifester.