Today we’d like to introduce you to Sue Ustas.
Sue, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My earliest memory of rocks is when my family would go away on vacation to the White Mountains of NH. We stayed at a place near the Pemigewasset River, which has a riverbed with a massive layer of stones. I would constantly pick different stones out of the river to collect and take home. It seems like I have always found rocks and stones “special”, and would collect them from anywhere I traveled. Personally, I found (and still do) as much magic in a driveway rock as I do in the most expensive crystal or gem.
I had some psychic experiences as a teenager, but when my grandfather passed away in my senior year of high school and then visited me in the middle of the night with messages from the “other side”; it really fueled my interest in honing my spiritual gifts. During that time, I ended up reading cards for myself and friends off and on throughout college. Shortly after college, I moved out west for a couple years, and began practicing my gifts more regularly. After moving back home, I experienced a vision of an experience that changed my attitude towards my psychic gifts. At this point, I wasn’t working with a guide or teacher, and decided that I wasn’t ready for the responsibility that this gift brought me, and decided to stop practicing. In a deep meditation, I told my spiritual guides that I was “closing the door to this part of my life.”
At this point, I had a strong physical reaction and got very physically sick. After a frustrating year of many doctors, medications, and multiple diagnoses, I was guided to seek help through alternative medicine. After a year working with a Naturopath, I was able to ween off all medications and no longer experience symptoms. Intuitively I had felt that closing the door on my intuitive/spiritual abilities was like closing off my life force energy, and decided to work more consciously with my gifts and the metaphysical realm in general. And haven’t looked back since.
Years later in 2002, my artistic side brought me to creating beaded gemstone jewelry, and having sold other creations at fairs when I was younger, it naturally evolved into a side business for me. At fairs and events, I found myself offering intuitive messages through the jewelry customers selected, and this propelled the business forward tremendously. I sought out a spiritual community, and wound up at the Greater Boston Church of Spiritualism. I felt it gave me the foundation and support I was eagerly looking for, and helped me gain more confidence in my own abilities. Eventually, I felt guided to open a small crystal shop, and did so in my hometown of Saugus, MA. While slow to start, it did draw in a group of regular customers who were ready to explore the intuitive side of them, which led to offering an off-site, monthly class of different topics such as crystals, meditation, candle magic and more. I offered my own psychic readings at the shop, along with guest readers, and mini Reiki sessions that a friend would come in once a week to offer. After a few years of steady business and many, many offside fairs and events, I finally found a new, larger space to expand ZuZu’s in-store offerings, which brought me to our current location in Melrose, MA.
I had started my own Holistic Expos in 2005, and this year I’m offering ZuZu’s 13th Annual Summertime Holistic Expo on July 15th at the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in Danvers, MA. My healing center – ZuZu’s Healing Arts – recently celebrated its 16th anniversary for the business this past March, and is open Tuesdays – Saturdays. Currently I work the store most days, and also when the schedule permits, I offer private psychic & mediumship readings, crystal & sound healing sessions, crystal grid meditations, and several different classes on crystals. We also offer a list of guest readers, energy healing, classes & in-store events, along You can also find ZuZu’s vending at several off-site shows throughout the year, all over New England.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Definitely not an easy road! I tell customers I named the business ZuZu’s Healing Arts after the movie, it’s a Wonderful Life. In the movie, George Bailey has grand plans on how he wants to spend his life, but the universe has other plans for him, and it’s not until after all the obstacles and blocks bring him to his knees that he is able to see the blessing in what he has created. I constantly argue with the universe and my spiritual guides, and very often fall on my face, or go through health issues which I like to describe as the universe’s way of saying “I SAID, SLOW DOWN AND LISTEN!” I still go through struggles, as any business owner – never mind a spiritual business owner – will tell you, it ebbs and flows, heals and grows, and just as a spiritual journey, demands that I heal and grow with it.
Please tell us about ZuZu’s Healing Arts.
ZuZu’s is a Metaphysical Healing Center, which offers Psychic Readings, Energy Healing, Classes, Meditations, Talks, Guest Speakers/Teachers, In-Store and Off-Site Events. We specialize in Crystals, and I personally hand-pick every stone that we have for sale. One of my psychic gifts is that I communicate with crystals, and so I use my intuition to guide me on what to buy for the store. I also assist customers using this gift, so if they can’t decide which crystal to choose, or want to pick one for someone who isn’t there with them, I can use my intuition to communicate with the crystals to figure out which crystal or combination of crystals are stepping forward to work with that person. We are known throughout the community for unique, beautiful crystals at fair prices. Because I know what powerful allies crystals can be on our journey of healing and evolution, it’s important to me to help make them accessible to everyone, so I work hard to keep our prices fair. I hear all the time from customers in the shop, “I’ve never heard of this stone?!” and I love being able to find and offer unique and unusual crystals and stones.
We carry a good selection of Crystal Skulls, and once a year has an in-store visit event with Max the Ancient Crystal Skull. In my journeys over the years, I have met many readers & practitioners in this community, and I’m very proud of who I have been able to bring together to offer to the ZuZu’s community, as quite often it’s because of my own experience with a reader/practitioner/vendor that I will want to share that “gem” with our community.
We also started a “Crystal of the Month Club” last year that is a big hit with customers. For either 6 months or 12 months, you pay one price and each month receive a unique, hand-chosen crystal from me in a pouch with a detailed write-up of the stone along with a photo of a crystal grid made out of many of the crystals, so that you can work with the energies of it, delivered to your doorstep. We open enrollment for 2 months leading up to January for 6 or 12/months and to July for the 6 months membership.
I also travel annually to the Tucson Gem Show in Arizona each January, which is the largest gem show in the world, along with the Denver Gem Show in Colorado each September, which is another large gem show, so that I can find unique, powerful crystals to bring back to ZuZu’s and offer to our customers.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Honestly, I don’t know if I would change anything. I know that sounds corny, but I believe that each decision leads us to the next stepping stone on our journey, so I wouldn’t want to change anything, as it would most likely affect the connections I’m so grateful for, or the challenging lessons I’ve grown from.
Contact Info:
- Address: 122 West Emerson St., Melrose, MA 02176
- Website: www.zuzushealingarts.com
- Phone: 781-665-8844
- Email: zuzusbeads@comcast.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zuzushealingarts/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zuzushealingartsinc/
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