‘Radiance exudes out of Gloria’, says Member Rev Deb Connor of her friend and colleague Gloria Tinu Ogunbadejo. So who better to tell us about her healing practice? But first here’s Deb to introduce Gloria’s contribution.
There’s a radiance that comes with the best kind of communities. I feel very passionate about the sense of belonging they bring and having each others backs. Just as the BAcC is a community of like-minded individuals, so the other group that I was welcomed into with accepting and loving arms is the OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation.
And that’s how I met Gloria – the most radiant person I know. Gloria does some wonderful work in the world. She is very humble, she doesn’t brag, she’s just amazing. Gloria is so radiant, and I absolutely love her. I hope you too are inspired by the thoughts she offers below:
Radiance, in my work, is not something cultivated from the outside. It is revealed through alignment, with body, spirit, and what in Yoruba cosmology we call Orí, the inner seat of consciousness and destiny.
What follows are brief reflections from practice.
The returning light
A woman came to me carrying long-term depletion. Highly capable and deeply relied upon, yet inwardly dimmed.
Her eyes were restless. Her breath shallow. Her face held a quiet strain.
Through gentle ancestral reflection and simple daily ceremony with water and stillness, something began to shift.
By the third session, she paused and said, ‘I feel like I’ve come back into my body’.
Her eyes softened. Her face settled. Not brighter in a superficial sense, but more present more inhabited. Her radiance had not been created. It had returned.
Scattered fire
Another client presented with a different quality of brightness. Expressive, generous, outwardly vibrant, yet profoundly exhausted!
Her energy extended far beyond her own centre. She was holding too much, giving too much.
In Yoruba understanding, this reflects a fire that is uncontained by Orí – inner divine consciousness.
Our work was not to amplify her light, but to gather it. Through grounding, boundary work, and quiet ceremonial practices, her presence changed. Less expansive. More rooted. What emerged was a radiance that could sustain itself.
The glow within grief
Grief often alters the field of radiance. One client arrived carrying recent loss. Her voice was distant, her expression flat, her body heavy with what could not yet be spoken.
There was no attempt to restore brightness. Instead, we created space for witnessing, through prayer, silence, and ancestral acknowledgment. Over time, a different quality of light emerged.
Not outward or expressive, but deep, steady and enduring. A radiance that did not seek to be seen, yet was unmistakably present.
Weaving the understanding
Across these encounters, radiance reveals itself as coherence. When Orí is honoured, the breath deepens, the body softens, and the spirit settles. From this place, radiance arises naturally. Not performed, not imposed. But true.
Radiance in my own life
I am also aware that radiance is not only something I witness in those I serve, but something I am continually nourished by.
I feel a particular radiance in the presence of my two remarkable daughters, both gifted teachers in their own right. There is a light in them that reflects both wisdom and becoming.
I feel it in the enduring, unconditional love I have received and experienced from my husband of 39 years – a steady, faithful warmth that has held and shaped my life.
And I recognise it in the generous care and love shared among my colleagues. In those moments of mutual support and genuine presence, there is a collective radiance that cannot be manufactured, only experienced.
These are not separate from my practice. They are the very conditions that sustain it.
Closing reflection
My work through Fematin958 Intl is grounded in this understanding.
A space where healing unfolds through ceremony, presence, and reconnection with ancestral support. Where the aim is not to necessarily create light, but to remove what obscures it.
Because when a person returns to themselves fully, gently, truthfully,
their radiance does not need encouragement. It simply shines.
Rev Gloria Tinu Ogunbadejo is an ordained minister, ancestral lineage healing practitioner, transpersonal & spiritual counsellor, and founder of Fematin958 Intl.
