Ep 140: JJ DiGeronimo ~ Whispers of Destiny ~ Glimpses of Our Life's Work

Have you ever felt a gentle nudge steering you towards your destiny, only to have the noise of life's demands drown it out? JJ DiGeronimo, a visionary in tech and champion for women's leadership, joins us to unravel the art of tuning into those subtle whispers that beckon us toward our true calling. With her wealth of experience, she illustrates the transformative journey of listening closely to life's guidance, sharing how moments of presence can illuminate our paths and the profound impact of mentors along the way.

Embarking on a personal transformation isn't a task for the faint-hearted, and this episode takes you through the heart of such a metamorphosis. We navigate the waters of self-discovery, from embracing solitude as a source of empowerment to the significance of community for sustained wellness. The narrative unfolds a tale that pivots from turmoil to triumph, revealing that within our deepest challenges lie the seeds of joy and fulfillment. JJ's anecdotes provide a rich soil for listeners to cultivate their own stories of awakening.

As our conversation winds down, we explore the nuances of leadership, the strength found in vulnerability, and the wisdom in seeking guidance. JJ’s story is a testament to the marvels that await when we align with a higher vibrational energy and let curiosity chart our course. This episode is your invitation to shed self-doubt and stride confidently into the embrace of your life's work, armed with the insights and energy that have illuminated JJ's path to success.

Where to find JJ:
https://www.togetherweseek.online

SEEKING! JJ’s New Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Seeking-Findings-Sidestep-Self-Doubts-Insights/dp/B0BKQCWJ62

Energy and Lightworker Community: https://www.togetherweseek.online

IG:  https://www.instagram.com/jjdigeronimo/

ALL JJ’s Books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/jjdigeronimo

Free Power of No Resource:  https://jjdigeronimo.com/powerofno

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Truth and Transcendence brought to you by being Space with Catherine Llewellyn. Truth and Transcendence, episode 140, with special guest JJ DeGeronimo. I'm delighted that JJ could come on the show. With 20 years in the tech industry, jj is no stranger to navigating the twists and turns of moving from entry-level positions to leadership, and now she is focusing on unleashing leadership and insights from within. Jj is a light worker, a businesswoman and an author who creates a bridge for people to tap into tools, practices and mindsets to illuminate their path. She has three award-winning books for women and a new online community. Together we seek, and through those, jj provides, action-based strategies to unleash inner wisdom with an exciting combination of energy practices and key insights. Her latest book is 74 Key Findings to Raise your Energy, side-step Yourself Doubts and Align with your Life's Work. Jj is quoted in Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, fox Business, the Glass Hammer, working Women magazine and many more publications. So, jj, I'm thrilled you've come on the show. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 1:45

I'm so honored to be here. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Fantastic. So why did I invite JJ? Apart from all the obvious reasons above, I'm really experienced that JJ brings a fresh energy and enthusiasm to this whole question of how do we elevate ourselves in the face of challenges, and I actually believe that her project to create bridges for those seeking to do this is important and beneficial. So when JJ and I met to discuss this conversation, we had an in-depth meeting to look at what was really the theme we thought would be most interesting and valuable. What we came up with was glimpses of our life's work, which I think is so on the nail, because so many of us are saying what even is my purpose? Or I thought I knew what my purpose was. Is it still like AIDS? How do I find out what it is? Where's the book that tells me how to do it, etc.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Whereas something JJ was talking to me about was how you can actually get glimpses along the way that are all extremely meaningful, and then one day you actually know what it is, and I thought that was so real and so true, as opposed to I'm going on a workshop this weekend and I expect to come out with my purpose at the end by Sunday afternoon, and if not then. It's got to be by 5pm Sunday afternoon, otherwise I want a refund, which is crazy, and a lot of us are looking at what is our life's work. So, jj, I really appreciate you offering to share about your journey in relation to this. And can I start by asking you? I've just said a little bit about what I think glimpses of our life's work means. Would you like to kick off straight away by telling us what you mean by that?

Speaker 2: 3:41

It's a beautiful question, a great place to start. I believe glimpses of your life's work are ideas, messages, visions that you receive. It may not make sense, it may even be confusing. It would give you a preview of where you are going.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Yeah, so sometimes they're not totally clear, you mean, or sometimes we don't fully understand them.

Speaker 2: 4:12

Exactly exactly. I remember getting off of a stage one time after speaking out to a group of women and I got the message take the women outside. It wasn't going to happen. In that moment I was in a huge conference center in Seattle, they all had their next session to go to, but I continued to get that message and it really took some investigation and quiet time for me to figure out what does that mean? Why am I being asked to take the women outside? And I have multiple stories of messages that have come to me that make absolutely no sense when I first receive it and I almost deny it right off the cuff like that can't work or I can't do that. And it's funny how I've tried to sort of learn to receive without dissecting or deciding.

Speaker 1: 5:01

I totally get that and in your experience working with people and into your interactions with people, do you think that everybody gets these messages, or just some people, or what's your impression about that?

Speaker 2: 5:18

I believe everybody gets messages, but I also believe that most of us are not living in the present moment, so it's often hard to receive them when we're not really in the present moment.

Speaker 1: 5:29

Right and do you feel it's being in the present moment that makes the difference, as opposed to some special skill or talent or whatever?

Speaker 2: 5:39

I do, I do, and it's not something that we are taught to do. In fact, everything around us in society focuses us on a point outside of our body that's generally in front of us, that we're driving towards, and so we live very much in the masculine energy as we all know, we both have masculine and feminine but we're really sort of projecting out forward of where we're going. And when you're out there, projecting and striving and driving to become, you often miss what's happening right before your eyes.

Speaker 1: 6:18

That's really interesting, given that we're talking about getting glimpses of our life's work. So it sounds like you're saying that because we're so focused on where we think we're going, that can actually get in the way of us being present enough to hear the messages that tell us where we're going.

Speaker 2: 6:34

That is exactly right, and it's something that I had to be trained to do, because I was such an achiever I was so busy getting there, getting it done, doing it now that not only was I missing out on the joy of life, but I was missing the whispers, missing the messages that were crossing my path, because I was so focused out there.

Speaker 1: 6:56

I totally understand that, and how did you feel when you realized?

Speaker 2: 7:00

that. Well, I went kicking and screaming. So I had a guide, which are people that cross your path and direct you. Maybe they direct you to go a little bit more right or attend a class or get involved in something that maybe you're interested or never even thought about. So these guides come across your path at different times in your life, like I've had a guide when I was 14. I had my guidance counselor. I've had people at my first job.

Speaker 2: 7:28

Different people have been guides for me throughout my life, and a guide at the age of I was in my early 40s suggested that I attend mindfulness training, and of course, I didn't go the first time she suggested it and then the third time she basically said if you don't go to mindfulness training, I don't want you to come back to my practice anymore. I was like wow, she's really serious about this. So I did end up going, but not willingly, and it took me a few classes before I really got into it. And one of those classes the instructor had to say you know you really need to leave your notebook in the car. We're learning to be present. We're learning to not plan for the future or dissect the past, and it was almost like I needed a two by four to kind of kind of lock me in the head, to be like are you paying attention? These people, these guides, are telling you what you need to learn for the next step of your journey, but you are stubborn. What are you stubborn?

Speaker 1: 8:23

Yeah, I've no idea what it's like to be stubborn. Obviously, I've never been so. Actually I am very stubborn. I know exactly what you mean, but that's great. So have you always been somebody who's experienced these sort of glimpses and messages? You know whole life or was there a time when you started to notice this occurring?

Speaker 2: 8:45

Well, it's interesting because once I really understood mindfulness, you know, mindfulness is really having the ability to step back and watch your thoughts go by like a conveyor belt. So, once really understood what mindfulness had to offer and for me it had to offer the ability to decouple from what I thought was me, which were my thoughts, that were on nonstop re-keyed cycles that were defining how I felt, what I needed to do, the next action I needed to take. And when I was able to decouple from that nonstop action and just pay attention to what was crossing, I had what I was thinking about and gave me the space to decide what I wanted to hold on to. A lot more came forward for me, including my past and things that happened in my past, because I don't think I really had the space to put those dots together.

Speaker 1: 9:44

I get you. So you've got a kind of retrospective awareness of, and in that retrospective awareness, how far back did that go? I mean, what sort of message is? Because I've had this where I've suddenly remembered something my father said to me when I was seven that at the time I didn't really take in. And then suddenly I remember it decades later and just recognize the wisdom of it and realize it's been with me my whole life. I hadn't realized Did you get anything like that?

Speaker 2: 10:17

I have an amazing story of glimpses and actions that have happened that have brought me to a space right now that I'm working on a global wellness center on Lake Erie. And it started when I was a child.

Speaker 2: 10:32

When I was under five, my mother started taking me to the beach on Lake Erie because we didn't have any money and that was kind of like a free thing to do on the weekends. And when I was 12, they started. My mom and my aunt started taking me to Lillydale, which is a medium community just outside of Buffalo, and then I ended up we're supposed to go to college in New York and I ended up going to Ohio randomly and then years later I ended up connecting with a man that I moved to Ohio when I started taking my kids to the beach and then we ended up with this amazing place on Lake Erie, this state that was for sale for 10 years. That kind of brings forward every step of my process over almost the last 50 years that have brought me to this space and I've been told that this will be a global wellness center and I think like started happening before I was five.

Speaker 1: 11:35

How beautiful. I think that is very special to recognize those beautiful moments from childhood that actually connect in with deep meaning. For us that kind of runs all the way through.

Speaker 2: 11:53

And I'll say that I just started putting those dots together over the last 24 months, so it wasn't like, oh well, I had this knowing before. I really wanted to do a lot of self work. I really have been working for the last eight or nine years to gift myself from working on the outside to working on the inside.

Speaker 1: 12:15

Yeah, so what have you had to do in order to make that transition? Huh, okay, we've only got an hour or so for this conversation, so I'm really ashamed that that's going to be a very big answer.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Yes, well, luckily I've put my transition down in my third book, seeking that I give people the playbook to do it for themselves. But I've really had to dig through a lot of the stories I've had to dissect, like why I felt the way I did it during certain circumstances. I had to understand my relationship with money, my relationship with my mother, how I continued to really hang my hat on the word perfectionism. I mean, I had so much work I had to do.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:02

I felt like it was all perfectly orchestrated so that I could help and teach others to do the same type of work.

Speaker 1: 13:10

Right.

Speaker 2: 13:10

Okay.

Speaker 1: 13:12

So that sounds like that really took quite a lot of commitment to go through that whole process. How much of that did you do on your own? How much of it did you do with people helping you?

Speaker 2: 13:25

I would say half and half I've worked with over now. I've worked with over 50 or 80 energy practitioners probably 80. And I include most of the ones I worked up with and in the book so that people can reach out to them as a reference and knowing how they've helped me. But I've also had this community now that I bring people like you and so many together, so it's easy, because I think so many of us get in situations or things crumble around us and we feel so alone and I feel like this is the time where you're really being asked by the universe to dig in and dig deep and oftentimes we need help. We need someone with us that can help us move that energy and move through those stories, understand why we're holding on to things that may no longer be serving us.

Speaker 1: 14:17

Yeah, and people often talk about feeling lonely in those sorts of situations. What's your understanding of what that loneliness is about or why it's there?

Speaker 2: 14:31

I'm a true believer that and I know most people that really do this work recognize, whether we want to admit it or not, that life is happening for us and that when we go through these traumatic situations some may call it dark night of the soul or the tower card in tarot it is to shake us and let go of what is no longer serving us. So, whether you've lost a loved one, or you're getting divorced, or you've got let go of your from your job after decades of being there, it is happening for you because the universe knows you have another level of awakening, more lessons ahead, but also more joy and more insight to move into, and oftentimes we don't make these large shifts unless we are forced to do so Understood.

Speaker 1: 15:27

So you see loneliness as one of the components that allow the awakening or that insist on the awakening in the way that you put it.

Speaker 2: 15:37

Yeah, it's a catalyst. It's a catalyst because how many times have you heard people saying I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired?

Speaker 1: 15:42

Yes, I've said it myself.

Speaker 2: 15:44

So, yes, I'm sick and tired of being by myself all the time or I can't take this anymore. Like it is happening for us and I'm no different. Like that happened to me too. You know people around me that I thought I had had my back or were connected a level that we committed to, like all of that was really shook up for me, where I felt like I was so alone. And because my parents I should say my parents, because my mother took me to Lillydale, because we relied on mediums, that's what I resorted back to.

Speaker 2: 16:24

I went to a spiritual site the first day. I felt like my whole world was crumbling. I showed up in a class and the woman's like you're not signed up. I'm like, no, I'm not. And she's like well, you really can't be here, please let me stay. And I think she saw it in my eyes and heard it in my voice that I really had nowhere else to turn. And so she let me sit in that first tapping class with her. And it's amazing, because that really was sort of the first step in me prioritizing myself, which I stopped doing years ago.

Speaker 1: 16:57

Right, but you did it before that. You know, did you have a period when you did prioritize yourself prior to not doing so?

Speaker 2: 17:05

Sure, before you're married, have kids. I was having a great time prioritizing myself, but then you say all these yeses like, yes, I'll marry you, yes, we can have kids, yes, we can move the suburbs. And then all of a sudden you're like where the hell am I?

Speaker 1: 17:16

Yeah, I understand, yes, but of course you also have a beautiful family, so that's not all downside.

Speaker 2: 17:24

It's the most beautiful thing is they've come with me on the journey. So, even though I didn't ask them to come, even though I didn't demand for them to come, I just did my own thing. It started back in 2016. And I feel like they have all been awakened at some level because I've been working on myself and it's like when you start to raise your vibration, people around you either rise with you or clutch away from you.

Speaker 1: 17:48

Yeah, and I think that's a great reminder that we don't bludgeon other people into trying to do what we're doing because that doesn't work, but your example and your vibration actually going to affect them and they respond in the way that fits for them. I think that's a really important reminder. Would you just tell me a bit more what tapping? I've heard a lot of people talk about tapping and I'm sure some of the listeners know all about it or may even be practitioners. Could you just say a bit more about what that is and how or why it was particularly useful for you?

Speaker 2: 18:25

So when I went to tapping, I was working on myself, my marriage, my kids.

Speaker 2: 18:29

What I found is that I had a lot of energy from my father in my body, that I was storing it, almost repeating in my marriage, like I noticed once I went to the first class. I then signed up for some individual classes and the concept of tapping is that we store this energy in ourselves and so when we're saying essentially a mantra, that we're guided by a tapping professional, we can tap into various parts of our body, so under our eyes, under our nose, under our chin, almost on our glands, our breastplates underneath and then the top of our head and we center of our forehead. And when you're tapping you're like tapping that, knowing that, into your cells. So either you're releasing energy or tapping energy in. And for me it was just a full body experience of remembering the energy I was storing in my cells way back from my childhood, the way my father and I interacted in my adolescence and how that was manifesting or showing up not only in my marriage but how I felt about myself now.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Yes, I think that is more common for women than most people realize. I was having a conversation with someone the other day where she was realizing that that's exactly what was happening in her relationship and she was shocked to realize that with the gaze. So I think that's really valuable. And it also sounds like tapping is a treatment that you give yourselves, but with the guidance of a professional. So it's not that someone else is tapping you, you're tapping yourself.

Speaker 2: 19:59

Is that correct? You're tapping yourself, yes, and you can find tappers all over the place. I mean, they're everywhere, which is great. If I don't know about something, I'll Google it on YouTube, I'll watch it. Then I'll find practitioners in my area. Sometimes I get a book about it. But I do think it was instrumental and it was just a really great place for me to start, because I didn't realize I was burying so much energy in my cells and in my body from decades before.

Speaker 1: 20:28

I got to this point Absolutely, and sometimes we wonder why we're exhausted, and I think sometimes we're not just exhausted because we've just worked, done a lot of work. It's because of that stuff carried on, carried over from much, much earlier, earlier years. So I'd love to hear a bit more about where you are now and the kind of revelations along the way to that, because you're you know, I've looked at your stuff online. It's beautiful, it looks really integrated, it looks like it was just designed by this incredible team. You know, and obviously you've been through a process of arriving at what that's going to look like and what the purpose of it is. And I said about you, you're creating bridges for people. So would you share a bit more about where this whole idea of creating bridges for people came from and how that kind of led into where you are now and what you're doing now?

Speaker 2: 21:26

Well, it's interesting because I don't feel like I tapped back or tapped into this energy until I had children of my own. So back in 2008, I had two children under the age of two and I was sort of lost in my choices. I had a really big job in technology, I lived in Ohio, I worked out of San Francisco, I had two little kids and I was really trying to just understand how to keep everything going. And I got a message back in 2006 when I had my first daughter to bring the women together. But I didn't really know what that meant and I really didn't have enough belief that I could do that. So I started going to all types of groups, trying to find myself in other people's groups, other people's gatherings, and then I had my son in 2008 and it came on really strong like you need to bring the women together, and I'm like I don't even know what that means. And so I remember starting to talk it out with some women in tact, like you think there's a reason we can get together, and nobody really stepped up the plate, but everyone had advice on what I should do.

Speaker 2: 22:36

So in August of 2008, I hosted an event for 12 women you just get together. Even though they were all in technology. It wasn't to talk about technology. It really was just to talk about how do you keep your life going when you're committed to so much. And the first event was 12 and my company paid for it and we just got together and talked and they couldn't wait to do it again. And every quarter I would host it and it was funny Magically, every quarter somebody covered it HP, ibm, dell, they all would cover a quarter.

Speaker 2: 23:07

And slowly but surely it started to grow and I'm creating an online community with it on LinkedIn and to this day it is still growing. It's not anything I made money from, but it was my beginning of listening to the whispers and kind of letting it guide me to what to do. And I would say that, you know, I've never had it all figured out. I've had a ton of self-doubt and I've kind of just pushed myself through it each and every time. But each of those steps and I'll share a couple more have really allowed me to gain the confidence that, even if I don't know exactly what I'm doing, that all I need to do is lean into what the universe is asking me to do and the universe will help provide the resources and the next steps. If and when I lean into what is calling me, I see Okay, great, I understand that.

Speaker 1: 24:02

I mean, that sounds a lot easier than it probably is to do.

Speaker 2: 24:07

Well, in hindsight it's very easy. When you're in it, you're just kind of like what am I doing? What was this going to work, you know? And so what?

Speaker 2: 24:13

After two years of bringing these women together, I had so many great stories of just them persevering and I started writing them down. Situations that would happen to them at work, like how the advice they would give me, I mean it was magical. And I really was intending to just write it down for my daughter so that when she became 20, 25, 30, that she could just read it. But then, of course, once I started writing it down, people started asking well, can you send me that story, can you send me this? And then another woman said you know, you really should put this into a book. And I'm like I'm probably not going to put into a book, I'm dyslexic. I got these on my English papers. Well, but that's really all it took was one person to say it. And then someone said they had an editor, and then I was writing a book and I had a full time job. So I was writing the book from 11pm to two in the morning, twice a week.

Speaker 2: 25:05

It took me three, two and a half years to write my first book and even though I kept, you know, I didn't get a big time publisher my first time I really just started asking around. I looked on LinkedIn for publishers. I just did a little bit every single week and I published my first book and I didn't even talk about it. I didn't market it because I had a full time job and I didn't want the people at my job to not take me seriously, which is so funny now because it is such a big deal to write a book. I didn't talk about it all. Little by little, people would ask me can you come talk about your book? The same women that were in the women's groups. I could come to HB in Cisco and talk about your book. And I did. And when I did, they started asking me well, how do I get promoted, how do I get on a board, how do I? And I wrote every question down and about two years later I started researching every question women would ask me and I started writing sections and blogs and things I would find. And I never had any intention to write a second book.

Speaker 2: 26:08

But I went on a trip to France with my high school girlfriend and we were going to do a wine tasting bike ride, but each day we would get so lost. We never had any wine because we would bike for eight hours. And we're four days straight. I biked for eight hours with my girlfriend. I'm no biker, let me just tell you. I wrote the entire book in my head the entire time we were biking and we came home and wrote the book in four months. The second book Amazing and I put it out there. It was like crazy. It sometimes is just crazy when you just create space for what is trying to come through you. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 26:46

Amazing, and it is. Tell me more about what you're doing now with your platform and, by the way, I will just say again that your latest book 74 key findings to raise your energy, sidestep yourself doubts and align with your life's work. I just wanted to remind the listeners that this new book has come out and it's beautiful. Seeking 74 key findings that's really yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:15

And the cover. I mean I could just well. It's funny because after I wrote my second book, I was then speaking on stage and that's when I was asked to bring the women outside. It's like what in the heck? We cannot bring women outside? I am a corporate keynote speaker, like we are in conference rooms. What am I going to say? Let's meet out under the tree.

Speaker 2: 27:34

So I sat on that whisper for a long time because I just didn't really know what to do with it. I was taking a rental car bus when I was looking at the mountains. I was at the Denver airport and it came to me again for like the fifth time and so I called Dora. I texted Dora on the rental car bus she's a medium and I said Dora, I keep getting this message, I need to talk to you Now. I hadn't talked to her for two or three years. And she said great, we can talk next week.

Speaker 2: 28:04

So I got on the phone with her. I drove to a park. I said in my car, I called her and I was telling her everything was going on. I go, I keep getting this message about bringing the women outside and she's like well, what do you think it means? And I'm like I think it means a retreat or something to get them out of the corporate, get them out of the office, get them grounded in mother nature. And she's like, well, have you gone to a retreat? I'm like, no, I've never been to a retreat. And she's like, well, you could do one of two things, you know. You could either go to a retreat and check it out, or you could just build your own.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Or both, of course, yeah, and.

Speaker 2: 28:42

I was like, well, she's like, well, what would you build? And I'm like I was kind of telling her I would bring my tapping teacher, I would bring an organic chef, I would do sound outside underneath this big willow, and I was telling her exactly what I would do. Is, though, like I had it all planned out. I didn't even realize it, but I was just kind of thinking, like what would I do? And she's like great, well, you know what you're going to do. And she goes well, why haven't you done it yet?

Speaker 2: 29:05

I'm like because I'm afraid to fail. These are all these women that take me seriously in the corporate space. What if I fail? And she goes what if you don't? Yeah, and that's kind of when I really started to see like, how much self doubt drives us, which is obviously the subtitle for this third book, but it's funny because I go in great detail about that but I you said to me at the end of the call. She said JJ, even if nobody shows up, you will have a self care day for yourself. And I think that's what got me over the hump of fear, because I needed it just as much as the women I was trying to serve.

Speaker 1: 29:49

Yeah, that's a great way to do it. I've actually done similar things with workshops, where I've said you know, I've created this workshop, I don't know if anyone's going to want to come, so how can I set it up that I have an incredible day, even if it's just me, you know?

Speaker 2: 30:03

and have they come.

Speaker 1: 30:04

Yeah, and of course they've come.

Speaker 2: 30:06

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Of course they've come. They've come when I'm no longer attached to them coming, which is exactly what you're talking about there, isn't it? You're putting something out, but you're not going. Oh, I need you all to come, Otherwise I'm meaningless and worthless, and that doesn't work.

Speaker 2: 30:22

Yeah, that detachment from the outcome is such a great lesson. I mean it has helped me so many times just really enjoy the process and not be so tied to the outcome.

Speaker 1: 30:33

Yeah, exactly. So what does your life look like now in terms of what you're doing, the kind of people you're dealing with, what you're creating at the moment, what's going on?

Speaker 2: 30:50

Well, I'll say, I just had. I think it was my 14th retreat a couple months ago.

Speaker 2: 30:55

The universe has delivered this amazing estate on Lake Erie. That's just five miles down the road from what I started having my retreats at when I've heard rumors that, like your case, you talked about a global healing center in 1947 on the Great Lakes, and I believe that this is it. I really, wholeheartedly believe that this estate has been waiting for me to get to this point of my lesson and my journey to cultivate a space for light workers, energy practitioners and healers to come. That is literally on the water. It's on a sacred site with bald eagles and 60 acres of lakefront property. But this amazing, just space In the room, the room, every corner of this one glass room where I host a lot of the retreats now, is perfectly aligned with the compass. Wow, perfectly. I believe. I'm so spiritual now. Not only do I talk about all the spiritual people light workers, energy practitioners I worked with in my new book Seeking. Now I have a community where I spend my weeks interviewing different energy practitioners and light workers.

Speaker 2: 32:13

I know you'll be joining me to share their journey and how they've gotten to their work and how they help others with their journey. I think for many of us, we have to eliminate our own path before we can help others eliminate theirs. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.

Speaker 1: 32:31

Otherwise you say I noticed on the wall behind you you've got a sign that says progress over perfection, and you mentioned something about attachment to perfection being a problem. Of course, as we keep going, there's always more illumination available, isn't there? Through our work, we don't arrive at a point where everything's done and suddenly I'm a shining beacon of everything. Perfect, yeah, and I don't want to mislead people.

Speaker 2: 33:02

I mean, it's been a lot of work.

Speaker 2: 33:03

It's been a lot of work, a lot of tears, a lot of alone time, a lot of laying on the mat, being like a thing on the mat, being like, okay, who?

Speaker 2: 33:13

I want to address this energy right now, but I will tell you that, looking back on the last eight years, I wouldn't change a thing Not the heartache, not the reason I ended up on the mat, not the reason I stressed in ways that I didn't even know were possible, but I believe that all of it was perfectly orchestrated to really get me into my life's work, which required every single one of those steps. So if you're questioning like am I in my life's work? Yes, you are. You might not know the destination. I didn't know when I started the first group in 2008,. That would lead to my first book in 2010, and then my second in 16, and the retreats in 16, and even the Lightwork community in 2021,. I would have had no idea that I needed all of those steps to get here, but I guarantee you that my next, like my next door, the next thing I move into will require all of those things to get that door open.

Speaker 1: 34:15

Yeah, but you're valuing the entire path rather than saying, well, that was a waste of time, but luckily I'm clear now.

Speaker 2: 34:26

Yeah, yeah, no, not at all. I needed every single one of those steps, every one of them, and, believe me, the ones that you try to skip over, it'll be a redo. So it's better to get into it and work through it when you have the opportunity because, as Oprah was saying, it starts as a whisper and ends up with a two by four.

Speaker 1: 34:46

Yes, I like that. It starts with a two by four. I know which I prefer, but I also know sometimes I don't get what I preferred because I didn't listen the third time. So that's really valuable. So you're following your particular path, which is unfolded for you over time and which I've no doubt, if we did this again in 10 years time, would have unfolded in other unforeseen ways, and I think that's part of the beauty of it, isn't it that life just unfolds like that and you're talking to all of these lightworkers, as you described them, and all these different people. Would you like to share an insight or a piece of illumination that's arrived with you very recently, something that's just kind of come really recently as the latest piece of wisdom?

Speaker 2: 35:46

Oh, my goodness. Well, I think the one that just came forward when you asked it is that what's happening on the inside is a reflection of your outside. So I think a lot of us believe like different people in our lives for different reasons, but in reality they are all aligned to where you feel like you are in your journey and if you're in relationships that you don't feel like you're validated or loved or appreciated, you really got to follow that string back to your heart and be like do I love myself, do I appreciate myself, do I value myself? Because generally how we feel about ourselves is what we create on the outside.

Speaker 1: 36:26

Yeah, Okay, that's a fantastic insight and also not necessarily one that everyone wants to hear at any point in time. Is it In your book? Do you talk as well about that whole question of the dynamic of not wanting to hear, not wanting to receive the lesson?

Speaker 2: 36:48

Oh, yes, I talk all about the lessons we're in, the lessons we've been through how we just what value we give to stuff, including what frequency or energy we give money, and how we let that drive our decisions. I think the second thing that I learned that has to do with money is that you just will give you everything you need, maybe not in the way you are expecting to receive it.

Speaker 1: 37:13

Yeah, yeah. So what's the difference between what we need and how we're expecting to receive it? What's your understanding of that difference and why that difference is there?

Speaker 2: 37:27

Well, I think many of us are linear, as we think we have to create it to get it to receive it. It's very linear, right, but what I've learned in the work that I'm doing is that my work is not linear. It's more like a teardrop and ripples out, and the way I receive things is often through other people. So I always thought like I had to make. Let's use money as an example. I had to make all the money to validate my work. In reality, you get all the stuff that comes to me that it's not a direct line and I had to do the self-work to receive it, because I only validated myself on one metric how much money am I making, how much money do I have in my bank account? That's how I validated my work, but in reality it's so much bigger than that. Things come to me all the time in UFs and offerings. It's crazy, exactly crazy.

Speaker 2: 38:24

This summer I met with a medium and we were talking and we keep getting messages like kind of where I'm going with my work and how I'm partnering with the Mary's, mary Magdalene, mother Mary but I need to start channeling. So every Friday I was like, okay, I'm going to start channeling on Fridays and every Friday would come and go, I'd have more work to do. I had more. I didn't get done in the week.

Speaker 2: 38:46

And just last month, seeing I was interviewing this woman and she was like I want you to be in my channeling class. And I'm like okay. And she's like I'm gifting you my channeling class. And I'm like okay. Three weeks later this woman came to me and says you need to be in my channeling class. So it was like the universe is saying all right, if you're not going to make time for yourself, we're going to give you these channeling classes and you better do the work. And so now I'm in these channeling classes and I am doing the work. But it's like I almost needed it to come to me in a way that I couldn't deny it, because I was not creating it with space on my own.

Speaker 1: 39:22

Yeah, I understand. Thank you. Yeah, that makes sense. So something I like to kind of bring in at this point in the conversation is I think we can all agree that the world is an interesting place at the moment. We've had a difficult few years and there are a lot of people in leadership positions of different kinds, and some of these are simply people who want to show up as leaders in their own lives more fully, and I like to think that all of these people want to be part of the solution. They want to try and help things be better, and some of these people are listening to this conversation right now and I'd just like to open to you the invitation to say what would you like to say to those people right now, those people who are trying to be part of the solution and trying to be leaders in their own lives and perhaps leaders of other people. For where you are now, with all this learning and growth and everything else that you're doing and that you've been doing, what would you like to say to those people?

Speaker 2: 40:32

As much as society would like to tell you and convince you that you can lead other people, the only person that you can change, shift or guide is yourself, and you have to do the work because there's so you know people. There's all different layers of why we're here on the planet and what we're doing here, but I am confident that a leader is about removing obstacles for other people to do what it's calling them and, honestly, really is more of a genuine offering to help. And the only way you can really show up to help is if you've really looked yourself kind of remove your own obstacles, then you could authentically help others remove theirs. And that could just be a mindset, that could be a physical thing, that could be something you know in regards to strategically even launching a product. So many people get into leadership, one super heavy in the masculine and two with a lot of insecurity behind that leadership, which is ill willed. So I really think, from where I am now, I can't really do anything for anyone unless I do it for myself first.

Speaker 1: 41:53

Yeah, beautiful. That's so true. I believe, and such a great reminder the only person that we can actually shift or change or grow is ourselves. And then we're offering to other people to help clear things out of the way, for them to follow what they need to follow Beautiful. Well, that's something you could actually discuss for an entire retreat, isn't it? You know several of the things you said today. Each one of them could be an entire topic for an entire retreat, I think.

Speaker 2: 42:30

That's great. I need an activator. In my life, you know someone who takes all the chunks like, okay, let's talk about this, because I get lost in all the content, all the lessons. I mean to have 74 key lessons in a book, I mean where do you even start? So I'm kind of at the point I told the universe I need an activator.

Speaker 1: 42:47

What do you mean by an activator?

Speaker 2: 42:49

I need someone to help me boil up what I should be focusing on regards to content, because I just have so much content, it's crazy. I just I have a hard time putting it into action, especially for, like courses or retreats, and I honestly wait now until the universe brings me somebody, which just happened last week. This one came to me and said okay, do you want to create a retreat with me? This should be it. This is what do you think, what will you bring. And then I can do it, like, okay, I know what part I'm going to play. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:20

And then I often go outside and tell the trees, like okay, this is the retreat I'm putting together, this is who I'm partnering with, this is the topic, and I just kind of wait to see what happens and if I'm on the right path, or when we'll pick up. The birds will go crazy, the leaves will pick up or what, depending on what season we're in, someone has a sun will shine stronger and brighter on my face, and so I use nature as a like, as a validator in a lot of ways. Am I on the right path?

Speaker 1: 43:51

Yeah, Absolutely, and that that's very interesting that you suddenly mentioned that about an activist, because I've noticed this in my own life and in other people's lives that sometimes there's a point where someone is being very generative and creative and really kind of colorful and three-dimensional in the way they're being what they're creating. But some they need someone to come in and help them knock it into what it needs to be knocked into, make it accessible. And an example came to my mind that have you ever come across Gabrielle Roth's work, the Five Rhythms Dance Practice? It was a movement meditation practice and she just ran this intuitively for years and her groups were getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and she was getting everybody into movement, conscious movement, which was proving to be transformative for them. And the whole thing was called the wave that's what it was called.

Speaker 1: 44:50

And one day a couple of people who'd been coming in frequently and you'd become good friends, they said you've got to teach other people how to do this now, because one day you're going to die. She has now passed, actually, and this was decades ago that you've got to and you can't teach the wave, you've got to break it into sections. You've got to teach people how to do the sections of it so that people go through a process which they're going through. But it's all intuitive, and these people basically took over, turning it into a modality which could then be taught to other people, and then hundreds and hundreds of people were trained in it years after that. But on her own it would have just been this beautiful, bright, shining thing, but very, very limited in its reach.

Speaker 2: 45:40

That resonates. I do so much intuitively. I just sit and wait and I need someone to help me with the packaging and because I do believe I'm kind of at a point now where I'm ready to do it. So I'm just kind of putting it into the universe. And this is what I do. I just put it into the universe where I think I'm at and what I think I need help with, and then I sit and watch this in Attention to what crosses my path, because the universe isn't going to act unless you ask for help, and me just articulating that to you now is a validation of how I do it. I just ask and wait.

Speaker 1: 46:20

Absolutely, and the energy in the way that you just did. That also is very appealing, because you're not saying I need this and so someone has to arrive by tomorrow because what I'm doing is worthwhile, and if no one arrives, that's a wrong.

Speaker 1: 46:35

It's very open it's welcoming and it's inviting and I could imagine if I was that kind of person I would be calling you and offering my help with that. Because the way that you just put that out and I think that's great, because often for a lot of us getting to the point of recognizing we need some help is challenge number one. And then challenge number two is how do I express that? And often it's very difficult to express it without coming across kind of needy or demanding or whatever it might be. So I just want to say to you that that whole energy of the way you put that out is a beautiful example for any of us. I think I can take that myself, because I sometimes need help and don't have it and I just, oh yeah, the way JJ did, that is actually a beautiful way to connect with it, put it out and then receive that would come in whatever way it's supposed to come.

Speaker 2: 47:35

Well, thank you, I was definitely not planning on saying that, but for some reason, I don't know, it's amazing, but it gives people and listeners an idea. As you mentioned it, there's no demanding, there's no must haves, there's no like. If you don't, I'm not going to believe in this. It's just kind of like. This is what I think I could use help with right now, and if I'm on the right path, send me the next.

Speaker 1: 48:01

Yeah, beautiful, wow, excellent. So, jj, I mean I could carry on talking to you for hours and I hope we talk again. It's been such a delight. Where would you like people to go if they want to find you?

Speaker 2: 48:18

Oh gosh. Well, definitely, you can check out the links below, but also, you know, knock with me on your favorite platform. You know I'm on LinkedIn I'm on all the time as well as Instagram, and then you can find me on YouTube or Goodreads if you love books. I put up all the books I read. I'm an avid reader, a listener, an audible, so that's my favorite tool. I'm always listening to books and on YouTube, I'm always listening to meditations, and I really believe that life is about energy, life is about frequency, and I'm always working to keep my energy slash, frequency as high as possible, and a lot of ways I do that is by listening to podcasts like this, listen to YouTube videos and really just making a point of surrounding myself around the energy in which I want to sit.

Speaker 1: 49:04

Yeah, beautiful, another brilliant gem, nugget. Thank you so much, and something I always like to ask my guests is we talked about a lot today. Has there been a favorite part of our conversation for you today?

Speaker 2: 49:23

Well, spending time with you is always wonderful. Just the energy is so beautiful and I think it's just great that we've spent really showed so many dimensions of one how things can come to you and how vague they may be, the fact that it is so important to lean into what is calling you, even if it's making a phone call or sending an email or doing some research. Like time is passing us by and I really encourage you to take a step today and that could be just adding something to your to-do list that inspires or activates you on something that has been calling or showing up for you.

Speaker 1: 50:03

Yeah, beautiful. Thank you. Fantastic, remind. I mean. I've heard that idea so many times, I've said it so many times, and yet every time it's fresh and real and so valuable. It's a decision we have to make over and over again, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 50:21

Remember. That's why we're here. We're here for that experience, those experiences, what is calling us and we have as many guides as we want to tap into. We are not doing this journey alone. And just as we practice asking before, you can do the same thing and asking for help. And then being in the present moment is where your wisdom, where the insight, where the guides come and show up. And that could be at the grocery store, that could be at the movie theater, that could be in the parking lot I mean, you Bankline, you get guides come to you at the most random places.

Speaker 1: 50:55

Yeah, absolutely Well, amazing. Thank you so much. Now, is there any? We're going to end in a moment. Is there anything else that you, if you don't say it before we finish that you will keep yourself as soon as we've completed the conversation. Anything else that you would really love to share with the listeners?

Speaker 2: 51:13

Oh gosh, I mean, I just think, if you're curious on what is happening now, where you are in your journey, I always ask myself if you can use whatever name you want let's use a universe, but you can switch it out with anything that makes sense. What is the lesson for me? What am I to learn in this moment to help me move along my path? Because some of us get stuck and we are not really sure, like why we're there or what we're supposed to be doing, and that's okay. Just ask what is the lesson, Show me what I'm supposed to be learning and then paying attention, because there is a lesson in everything we do.

Speaker 2: 51:51

There's insight, there's wisdom, and I think so many of us are eager sometimes to get out of a situation, but we're still in it and I think sometimes we just need to ask ourselves why am I in it? Just like Dora asked me what do you want to create? When she asked me, I knew exactly what I wanted to create, but I had never asked myself what do I want to create or why am I in this moment, or how do I get out of this situation. Your wisdom comes within and you have access to it all the time you can just put your hand on your heart center and ask the question and just be quiet and see what bubbles up. See what bubbles up, yeah, beautiful.

Speaker 1: 52:30

Thank you so much, jj, for coming on. It's been such a delight and I want to wish you a beautiful afternoon.

Speaker 2: 52:40

Oh, thank you and thanks to everyone for spending this time with us.

Speaker 1: 52:47

Thank you for listening to Truth and Transcendence and thank you for supporting the show by rating, reviewing, subscribing, buying me a coffee and telling a friend. If you'd like to know more about my work, you can find out about mentoring, workshops and energy treatments on BeingSpaceworld. Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time.