151 Creating Sacred Spaces for Women's Growth with Jessica Joines

0:00 Well, hello and welcome to Connect, inspire, create. I'm your host, carol Clegg, a progress and mindset business coach, here to help you thrive and flourish and turn those challenges into opportunities for growth. I'm so pleased you're here. Join me for the discussions that I hope will not only encourage you, but also provide the dose of inspiration that you might just need today. This podcast is all about giving you your weekly dose of practical strategies, motivation and insightful conversations designed to boost your business skills, personal growth and happiness. So, whether you're looking to find balance, say goodbye to procrastination, or just in need of a friendly nudge towards your goals, remember we're all on this journey together.

0:52 So grab your favorite cup of something, be it coffee, tea or something else, and let's dive into this conversation today. Well, hello and welcome everybody. In today's episode, we are going to touch on some really exciting topics. Let's start with healing journey, rising above fear and building a supportive community. I am joined by my guest, Jessica Joines, who is a spiritual coach for female executives and the founder of Women's Purpose Community, a nurturing environment for women to explore their life's purpose, and she is the author of Dare to Believe.

1:43 So welcome Jessica. Oh well, it's lovely to be here with you today, yeah. I am looking so forward. I have so much I wanted to ask Jessica. It's like, how are we going to pack this in? But we're going to pack this in, right, we're going to pack it. We're going to pack it in All right. Well, let's start first with just sharing a little bit about your journey and I know that you're from a burnt out corporate executive in the advertising industry where that started to where you are now. Tell us more about that. Yeah, I mean it's, you know, the more I think about it. It's really a journey through being fear aligned to love aligned, and and a lot of that is the what we use, which of those energies to make important decisions in our lives.

2:28 And so, for me, when I decided, like, what do I want to do with my whole life, it really was hindsight, being 2020, from a place of what I will call a fear consciousness. So it was like figure out what you're good at right Rather than what you love. What you're good at is anchored to a belief in scarcity that feels being in survival mode. I didn't know that at the time. We kind of live in a paradigm that's built upon skills and abilities and all these kinds of things. So it took me a long journey and I was deeply unhappy for a long time, but I didn't know what to do about it. And then I had a few awakening moments. I'll tell you where it just said you know what you got to figure out what you love.

3:09 It's not too late, even though when I finally made the shift, I was 40 years old and this was a 20-year career in advertising, my last job in the corporate world. I was a global CMO of a really large technology company, and I realized, though, that what you choose to do with every single day of your life is such a sacred decision and it deserves nothing less than love. So that has been my journey, and today I lead a community of incredible women who are also committed to living with purpose, but really on that self-realization and self-actualization journey, and know that it's all connected and that the key to happiness is truly like rediscovery of self.

3:57 So, so important and we give so much away because we are we're on that hamster treadmill and there's certain ego that gets fed along the way and then trying to separate that and put those two apart and then just sit down with yourself and realize time to make change. So I know you have made a lot of change in your life and one of the things I love what you shared and I think I saw this on your site but your soul is now in the driver's seat. Tell me more about that. It's such a beautiful picture. Yeah Well, you, you know, you said the word, you know the ego and and look, I believe we're here to have an experience with the ego, and the way I define ego, in terms of how it presents, is that voice of fear in your mind that presents as the voice of reason.

4:43 And when we listen to that and we make important life decisions based on what that's saying, even though it seems logical, it seems real, but it's essentially coming from a place of fear fear being doubt, worry, insecurity, all these things we lead this the lowest trajectory of our life. When we're listened in a line to that voice, but instead when we make room for another voice and I call it the voice of your soul, and it's like that gut feeling, your heart, your intuition, that voice that's calling you, that's always trying to guide you to your highest potential. So my switch was when I stopped listening to this. It was still there, you know, as it still is today, but I stopped believing what it was saying and said, started witnessing it.

5:29 This voice you know, I call it the true self, you know became louder and more present in my life. And so, even though this felt real at times, it felt true at times, I consciously made the choice to stop taking action based on what it was saying, like where it was guiding me, and that is ultimately how I led to walking away from that job, stepping into the sole purpose journey that I've been on for the last eight or so years now in a very tangible way. That is so wonderful. I can relate to what you're sharing because I use positive intelligence's program with my clients and when you talk about that analytical side of your brain that we need it.

6:11 We need it at times and it serves us, but if we stay in that space and we don't switch over, we call it a sage approach and bringing in these beautiful powers of empathy and wisdom from your wiser, older self and allowing that to come back to guide you into you. Know this cause it's the fear that we we call those saboteurs and that this, this fear, derails us. And if we listen to the loudness of the voice, it's so difficult. Yeah, and look, the original intention of the ego was biological function to keep us safe. You know the original intention of the ego was biological function to keep us safe. You know a bear's chasing, you run right. And it took on a whole new level when it started being like this fear and anxiety all the time right.

6:56 And putting the heart back in the driver's seat means it's still there, but it's serving the purpose of the heart, so it can help with the planning and all the thing, but it doesn't drive the big decisions. Right, as you say, it's not sitting in the driver's seat. Let's switch that around. So I am so curious. I know that you said when you took this aha moment and I think this was part of the process, but you took a year off. Tell us all about it, because I'm a travel lover. So tell me more about what it was such an important you know so. So for everyone who's listening or watching um, one of the most important points in my journey and it was going.

7:37 It would have been, if I can do my math right, still five years before, four or five years before I actually made an actual change. But you know, I was working in a job that I was working in 80 hours a week, living in New York city, just felt so trapped on that hamster wheel, like you mentioned, and didn't see a way out and I started literally like praying. I was like I am praying to get laid off because I'd had a pre-negotiated severance and lo and behold, it happened and you know it took me a couple of weeks. But I said I was like I'm going to, I'm going to go travel, and I had been um to somewhere in Southeast Asia like a year before and I'd fallen in love with it and I was like you know what I'm? Just I'm, even though I'm 35, and it feels, seems really weird to take a gap year, like that's exactly what I did at the time and everyone thought I was crazy and lost my mind and I said, well, you know, like maybe I have, and I think that's probably a good thing.

8:26 And, yeah, I gave my. I didn't know it was going to be a year, so I bought a one-way ticket and just decided I was going to give myself permission to really like, you know, step out of these cycles of suffering and try to get some awareness, and, and so it ended up being a little under a year that it was gone. Now this is, you know, 2011 and yeah, I mean you know too much for you know, this time today to go into all the things, but it was at one point in that, that, when I was meditating and doing some spiritual work, you know, I really heard and felt clearly this message, which was the truth in your heart, is more real than the one you see, and um, and that's just continue to take on meaning and it what it really means in a simple way, is like I can trust my heart.

9:14 Yeah, it might look like a world where dreams aren't possible at times. It might look like a world where a nine to five corporate option is the only thing, but, you know, the message was like but that's not true. You know what's put in your heart, these desires, these dreams you have. They're put there for a reason, you know. I will say they are put there by the universe and nothing is put there that does not have a path of potential connected to it. You know cause. The universe isn't cruel. It's not putting dreams in your heart that you can't achieve or do if you're willing and courageous enough to follow them. So tell me then about this community that you've created, because I know you've taken various different paths and I'm sure things came along the way, but now you're sort of giving back and introducing to women that are in corporate that you don't have to struggle and I'm guessing some of them stay in corporate, but you're offering them this community.

10:04 So tell us more about that. Yeah, well, look, the whole journey has been so different than anything I had done before, like there was really and it always troubles people when I say this there was no like plan. You know, my journey of this has been the tuning into my heart, seeing, like, what my next step is on the sole purpose journey, and so the first thing that came forward originally was I really had a vision around doing retreats for women that were for my former self, that had struggled through the same kind of things. I was and weren't feeling connected to other women, peer-based leaders in a heart-centered way, and so the first retreat I had was in 2018.

10:51 And then the retreats are really successful. My coaching business was going, I'd written my book and then COVID happened and no in-person retreats, and so I brought everything online and it was really through COVID and seeing the magic of what we could still do virtually together and really everyone wanting a deeper sense of community at the time, that I was really guided to turn it into an annual community. So today, women's Purpose Community, it is still for female leaders whether you're in the corporate space, you have your own business, it really doesn't matter but who want to focus with women that are going through similar things, right.

11:32 So if you're a woman in a leadership role and also a mom, that is a unique kind of challenge in life. But to focus on personal and, I dare say, spiritual growth together. You know all the communities out there. They're networking organizations, right. They're very transactional, they're focused on leadership development, which is great, but it doesn't get to a lot of the root issues that are blocking women from realizing all that's possible for them. So in many ways this community does that. We do have women that are looking to just stay within corporate and reinvent themselves and therefore the paradigm from within, and we have women that are feeling trapped, like I was, and want to figure out how to get out.

12:12 And then we have women that have started beautiful businesses of their own. So it's really a mix, but the common thread is they all want to go deeper on the soul level, work of self-discovery. I was just thinking that as you was explaining that soul connection, because, yes, we can go everywhere for marketing and advertising and networking and how to build our business and you know what you need next, but it's that special space to connect with other women are going. We're all in this in various different degrees. Uh, let's journey together. Yeah, and it's yeah. It sounds so beautiful and I can relate to it, because within the community that I'm in, with positive intelligence, we have something similar. There's just this beautiful, non-competitive, willing to give and share, share from the heart and with ease and flow and with a soft, gentle approach.

13:03 And it is. It's a beautiful place to be, because do we not spend more than enough time in this world fighting, you know, fighting fear, fighting this, fighting thoughts in our heads that are, you know, way too many and don't belong there? Yeah, and you know, I think the difference too is so many of these and I'm generalizing here and I'll be clear on that but they're all like you, don't? You need more skills, you need more training, and that's such a place of lack, and it's such a harnessing of the divine masculine energy, rather than like the divine feminine energy, which is like no, you've, you know, you've got it all within, you know it's. It's that deep inner work that I think is just missing in many ways in general.

13:44 So yeah, break down the barriers. You know also what comes to the word that comes from is vulnerability, and so when you have a safe space amongst women, that you can be vulnerable and you can take off that hat just for a moment and go, this is okay, we understand each other, yeah. That's beautiful A lot of what we do, yeah. So tell me more about Dare to Believe, because that sounds fascinating in that it's it's not just a book right it's so much more started as a course book, literally. So I you know, um, and I know you know this, I'll say, if you're listeners and viewers from my very first job in advertising, I was unhappy and I was like, oh well, I made a mistake, but I didn't know how to get out.

14:31 And all the traditional ways you go about it some we've already addressed, like figuring out your skills and abilities, like career assessment, all these things were not revealing the thing. They were not giving me the answer. So during this trip in Southeast Asia and when I came back and I really wanted to start figuring this out, like literally what I want to be when I grow up, even though I'm almost at midlife, all the traditional tools out there did not work. So I went back to a lot of my spiritual studies. The problem with a lot of the spiritual studies is it still didn't give me like, well, what do I do? Like the practical application, even though it was anchored to a spiritual teaching or approach, which for me was the answer, because all those teachings were like, it's about what you love, okay, but now what do I do?

15:14 So I created it as a course book to really take my experience of what I did and make it tangible, real, practical, something that people could do. And the course book was just kind of boring and I thought you know it was. I think my mom probably suggested she's like you should add your own story to it, so it became part autobiographical story about me and my journey with the courses, and so you know how to truly live your sole purpose. I see that because I saw some of the feedback and some of the reviews basically saying it's 12 simple lessons and it's like having you as their coach in the palm of their hands or on their Kindle or wherever it might be.

15:54 And then stories how important, yeah, stories are always so important. We want to know, we get encouraged, we get inspired, so that, so that that is wonderful. Well, Jessica, you mentioned retreats and I know that you're online with your community. Are there still retreats on the horizon of you? We do, yeah. So we we just had one last week. Actually we have twice a year. It's for community members, but and then any guests that they want to, you know, nominate to bring. So the big one is the woman's purpose retreat and that's always in the fall. We'll have be having it in October this year and it's usually about 40 or so women I would say 80% community members.

16:39 But yeah, that's coming up, so super excited about that. And where is that, members? but yeah, that's coming up, so super excited about that. And where is that? We we have that in a little community called Sarenby, which is outside of Atlanta. Okay, okay. So here in the U. S. Yes, I tell you because that's dear to my heart. So with COVID was I was wanting to host retreats in Portugal, because Portugal is dear to my heart, and had all the planning in place. You know, did all the recce trips, went there, everything was absolutely perfect. And then, you know, the same thing just totally derailed and it was like I have to give that up and then I had to close the door and let that go. But I feel that in the future, something like that, you know, you just never know You've got to listen to your heart. You never know.

17:19 I could see that happening for you, absolutely. But yeah, you know, our members are US based and a lot of them. It's hard to get away and travel, absolutely. Yes, and for a decent period of time. So if anybody's interested in finding out more about the community and joining you, where do they go? Yeah, so the best way is you can go to my website, which is just my name it's Jessicaessicajoinscom. From there there's links to the community and then links to social media and other things that I'm doing, so that's really like the best hub that'll get you anywhere you need to go. Sounds wonderful, so. I'll make sure to have all those links in the show notes. Is there a preferred social media spot?

18:00 that people can connect with you. I do mostly everything on Instagram, though I did recently launch on TikTok a few months ago but and both of those handles are the same it's at Jessica L joints. All right, lovely. So as we wrap up, I'd love to just ask you if there was one thing that my listeners took away from listening to us today, what would that be? Can you say that again, if there was? just one thing that you wanted the listeners to walk away with today. What would you want them to be thinking? Just gratitude for anything that's currently unfolding. You know, like you know, gratitude is so over-talked about, but I think it's because it is the magic, it is the everything.

18:47 When you just notice what is and you live in that energy, um, whether it's good or bad, grateful for both, I feel like everything expands from there. I love what you said Grateful for both, because it's so often that we concentrate only on what the goodness is and you've got to find three things to be grateful for today, journal about them, et cetera. But there's a lesson to be learned on the other side of the coin Both yeah, for what is good or bad yeah. Lovely, Well thank you so much Thank you for the inspiration and thank you for being my guest today. Oh, it's lovely to be with you, thank you.

19:31 And today I encourage you embrace your own unique way of connecting, inspiring or creating, and let it bring a sense of joy into your world. In my role as a coach, I love to work with women, business owners, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and help them explore fresh ways to focus on their projects, find the right tools for accountability and learn how to build a positive mindset which, in turn, allows for more empathy, not only for yourself, but for others and situations. With my personalized accountability and progress coaching, which I combine with the powerful positive intelligence program, you will find ways to shift into an overall happier space.

20:14 If you would like to take the complimentary saboteur assessment, I offer a follow-up complimentary coaching session to help you explore your results. Take a note of the link in the show notes or visit my site carolcleggcom. Until the next time. Thanks for listening.