September 30th, 2026

I posted this to my Facebook page in 2024, and it’s taken awhile for me to decide what to share here. I’ve lost clients, students, and patients due to my name change, mainly because some folks associate a name change with some form of unreliability or sketchiness. 

In my traditions, name changes are associated with personal healing breakthroughs, integrations of identity, and spiritual lineage initiations. 

Here’s what I posted on Facebook about my own name change:

Many folks know this already, but it’s time to make it official. I’m no longer going by Michelle. I’m going by Cloe. The folks in my life who already call me Cheetah or Chee or some other combination of my other names can keep calling me these things. If you have another nickname you call me, that’s still fine too. It’s just time to leave the name Michelle behind. 

Language it’s important because it both reflects and creates meaning. 

I’m choosing to change my name to something that has meanings that I want to embody, rather than carrying forward a name that contains a lot of meanings that I don’t want to carry with me anymore.
I don’t recognize myself in the name Michelle, and my entire life it’s been a name that I actively dislike. Michelle is my first name, and I actually hate it. 
The only person in my life who ever consistently called me Michelle was the person who abused me all the way through childhood and well into my adult life. 

Michelle is the name that I was called as a child when I was about to get beaten. 

Michelle is the name I was called when I was being screamed at, cursed at, hit (and worse), and being told all the ways in which I was not good enough. 
Michelle was the name I was called as things were happening to me that I have long since blocked out, only to have the memories of these awful events surface decades later, at totally unpredictable moments when some present sound, smell, event, or word triggers them.
“Michelle” to me has always meant “you’re in danger”. 

So while the name Michelle is on all of my professional degrees and other documents, I have always associated the sound of this name with something horrible happening to me. 

Even though I know that this name Michelle means “person of God”, and even though I really love that meaning, and even though I’ve gone through a whole trauma recovery phase with reclaiming this name, I have reached a point in my own healing process where it’s time to leave behind this name that carries for me an energy of all the horrific events I experienced through my formative years and into my early adult life. 

I’m also getting ready to do a whole bunch of BIG, exciting new things professionally, and I don’t want to carry a name I can’t stand into this new expansive and joyful phase of my life!

For a very long time I’ve gone by different names in different circles. 

I spend most of my Zoom conference time going by the middle part of my name that is Cloe Obelar, talking in Spanish to folks in Central and South America. 

And then I have my clinical practice where I’m speaking in English, translating constantly in my head from Sanskrit or Quechua or Spanish to English, and going by my first and last name Michelle Garber. 

I’m tired of constantly changing the name in my video conferences, and I’m ready to be called everywhere by a name that carries more enjoyable meanings for me. 

At this point, most people don’t call me Michelle anyway, and yet this name is still on my social media pages. 

I’ve invested decades on professional accomplishments, and these accomplishments have become known worldwide under this name Michelle, which is one reason I’ve kept it, but at this point that professional consideration is becoming a limitation for me rather than a benefit. 

Most of the people in my world at this point call me Cloe, Chee, Cheetah, or some variation on these things. 
Cloe Obelar is part of my name, and Cheetah Rae is also part of my name. 

I’ve also had various nicknames over the years given to me by close friends, and during different phases of my life I’ve gone by nicknames in certain circles. 

But one thing that has remained constant through my life is that hardly anyone in my personal life has called me Michelle. People call “Michelle” out in public and I won’t even realize they’re talking to me. But if you call Cheetah or Cloe, I will respond right away. 
So I’m leaving the name Michelle behind, and while that name will still be on my degrees and other documents, I’m not going to go by this name anymore. 

I will change my name here on FB in a couple weeks, to give folks time to adjust. 
If you still call me Michelle, I will understand that there’s a learning curve here, and I will help you remember. I just might not realize you’re talking to me…unless we’re the only two folks on a Zoom call together 😂