It’s no secret that the past two years have influenced people around the globe to have an awakening of sorts. Whether it was changing careers, moving to another city, or pausing to connect with themselves and others on a deeper level, there has been a tone shift in how many perceive the world around them.

Enter Ellie Polsky, a west-coast native now turned Brooklynite. Polsky started selling jewelry out of her car in San Diego just two years ago during the pandemic, “I was in a really dark place, and it was a way for me to kind of find an escape out of my head.”

Ellie’s jewelry pieces are not your average necklaces or sets of earrings; they are derived from her experiences as a trauma-informed yoga teacher and her work with energy healing. She explained, “Over time, I eventually got certified as a trauma-informed yoga teacher, and there was this practice called drawing your breath, and I thought that was so beautiful. And I thought, why don’t I take that practice of drawing your breath and actually make a piece of jewelry out of it.”

When Ellie came to New York, she also became a Reiki practitioner. Unsure of what exactly this entailed, I asked her to expand on what Reiki is, “Reiki is an ancient Japanese healing technique that is a life force energy used to help clear and move stuck energy in our bodies,” she continued, “We have a lot of stuck and stagnant energy that is caused by trauma, and a lot of mental and physical pain is stuck energy.”

The energy force in Reiki inspired Ellie to bring that to her pieces as well, “When I became a Reiki practitioner, I was like, why don’t I infuse the powerful healing of Reiki into my pieces so everyone can feel that power.”

Along with the beautiful jewelry shapes derived from Ellie’s practice of drawing her breath and the energy from Reiki, she also fills her work with paintings or flowers she has found around New York.

Imagining it was no small feat to move across the country and bring her passions to life in one of the busiest cities in the world, I asked Ellie what she would say to people who would want to take a leap in life, just as she did, “Take it one step at a time. And that gives me chills thinking about it because I think about things big picture all of the time, where it’s like this big goal, and it’s just like, you’ll get there. Just take it one thing at a time; you’ll get there eventually.” She paused briefly and added, “Also, be okay with it not looking pretty right away. Like it’s not going to. It’s just not. And whatever that looks like, that rawness, people will see that and be like, ‘I like that, I like the rawness of it.'”

I was not expecting to learn so much about energy healing, creativity, and self-belief on my simple walk through Central Park that September afternoon, but Ellie’s welcoming effervescence stuck with me. She was sunshine in human form and could genuinely connect with each person who stopped by her jewelry stand. She even said herself, “I come out here to Central Park to not only sell my jewelry, of course, but to make connections with people. You know it’s so powerful.”

 

You can follow Ellie and her work at @piecesbyellie on Instagram and www.piecesbyellie.com.