Season 8 Episode 5: Emotions with a Therapist Turned Coach, Jess Johnson

Do you feel like you know the ins and outs of mindset work but yet…you’re still feeling stuck? You can’t think your way out of a past experience. You have to do the body work as well, and feel your feelings, and therapist turned life coach and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) practitioner Jess Johnson knows just how.  Jess joins master certified life coach Melissa Wiggins to talk about how to integrate those stuck parts of ourselves and ensure all of us feels safe to move forward, how EFT works to get our mind and body on the same page, and so much more. Grab a cuppa and listen in.

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Jess Johnson  00:05

Doing the work of feeling your feelings is literally the most courageous work that people can do. It's so important to learn how we think and how to choose thoughts that are in line with what we want to believe about the world. But you cannot think your way out of a past experience that is almost like holding you hostage to that remote moment that you choose to do something for yourself, it is never wasted. It's never going backwards is never not worth it. Because it leads you to the moment, everything changes.

Melissa Wiggins  00:56

Hello lassies. Welcome to coaching and a cup of tea with Mama Bear. And I have a very special guest with me, I'm so excited to have Jess Johnson, who is joining us from Hawaii. And we are so excited to get this episode done. Because I did not have power this morning. We have another hurricane in Florida, and the power has came back. So we're like, oh, we gotta like start this podcast episode. And get it done for you guys. This is season eight of the podcast, which is insane. And so exciting. And this whole season we've been talking about, you know, why do women go on retreats? What are some of the things we do on retreats, we've been talking a lot about what Jess says, you know, that below the neck stuff, right? Like what is happening below the neck, sort of that mind body connection piece that I think, you know, we can tend to forget about or put second. And so I'm very excited to have Jess come on. And we're going to be talking about emotions and feelings and things that are stored in the body. But I just feel like it's something really important that people need to know about.

Find the FULL Transcript Here: Season 8 Episode 5: Emotions with a Therapist Turned Coach, Jess Johnson

Transcript

Jess Johnson  00:05

Doing the work of feeling your feelings is literally the most courageous work that people can do. It's so important to learn how we think and how to choose thoughts that are in line with what we want to believe about the world. But you cannot think your way out of a past experience that is almost like holding you hostage to that remote moment that you choose to do something for yourself, it is never wasted. It's never going backwards is never not worth it. Because it leads you to the moment, everything changes.

Melissa Wiggins  00:56

Hello lassies. Welcome to coaching and a cup of tea with Mama Bear. And I have a very special guest with me, I'm so excited to have Jess Johnson, who is joining us from Hawaii. And we are so excited to get this episode done. Because I did not have power this morning. We have another hurricane in Florida, and the power has came back. So we're like, oh, we gotta like start this podcast episode. And get it done for you guys. This is season eight of the podcast, which is insane. And so exciting. And this whole season we've been talking about, you know, why do women go on retreats? What are some of the things we do on retreats, we've been talking a lot about what Jess says, you know, that below the neck stuff, right? Like what is happening below the neck, sort of that mind body connection piece that I think, you know, we can tend to forget about or put second. And so I'm very excited to have Jess Come on. And we're going to be talking about emotions and feelings and things that are stored in the body. But I just feel like it's something really important that people need to know about. And Jess comes on my empowered life and teaches the last season the group, all about emotions, tapping, feeling all of it. And every time I start a new group, everyone's asking if Chase is coming on. So I feel like it's kind of a tree to get to have you here on the podcast. And so Jase, if you wouldn't mind, just, you know, tell us a couple things about you. And then we'll get started.

Jess Johnson  02:31

Yeah, thanks, Melissa. I love your group. I think you have such a like a beautiful space, and I love coaching it I love being surrounded with that energy. Yeah, I'm Jeff Johnson, I'm actually a former therapist turned life coach. So I previously was a mental health coordinator in corrections system. And then I joined the army when I was 32. I did five years as an active duty therapists in the army and then got out in 2017, to pursue coaching. And I really loved mindset coaching. And along the way, I kind of fell into Emotional Freedom Techniques tapping, which is where I really learned how to embrace emotions and the power of really like getting mind and body on the same page.

Melissa Wiggins  03:29

While you definitely do that, and you have taught me a lot about that, and definitely are amazing students in the group, which I agree and powered leads the group was amazing. And we just loved getting to have you twice this room was really beautiful. So just tell us a little bit about the type of work you do with your clients. Like if I was coming to you and you're gonna help me what would you help me do?

Jess Johnson  03:57

Well, first, we would help you define what it is you need help with, right? Sometimes like yeah, quite often people show up to consultations, and they're just like, I don't know what's going on. I just know I need help with my life and here are the things going on and quite often. That's what we start with finding clarity and EFT is amazing to learn how to get your mind and body on the same page like really kind of so what it does backing up even further, you're tapping on your points around the body called energy meridian points that these particular points their points that are used in acupuncture acupressure, but the specific ones we use in EFT help calm the central nervous system. And so you can calm your body you can get your amygdala out of that flight fright, fun freeze response and then you're able to think more clearly because you're not distracted by feelings of anxiety or sadness, or stress or anything like that. And so that is number one. If somebody came to me with like that kind of vague, how can you help me? I would be like, well, first, what do you need help with? And if they can't define it, help them find clarity. And then then we'd go from there, then we then it's, then it's the new goal, then it's the actual goal. Right?

Melissa Wiggins  05:25

I love that you do this type of work, because I think like, and I agree, I love both. I really love a mixture of mindset plus the identifying of okay, what is this tightness in my Chase? Why do I feel this way? Right. And I think that in the groups that I work with, you know, tend to be entrepreneur females where the entrepreneur female slash working moms slash very busy leadership, mom, like a lot of the time, as you know, you're very busy, like you, you can identify what your thoughts are, right? Like you can, I can tell you what I think is going on. But the ability to identify and my body took a lot more work. And I feel like, a lot of the time is because it's just so hard, right? Like, the thoughts of the feelings and our body feel like very uncomfortable, tightness in the chest, or the stomach, or whatever it is. And I feel like one of the things that you really helped the group with was, it's all key to have those feelings and work through them. And also like, best and approach, and can you tell you tell the podcast a little bit about that? Because I feel like it was just one of the things that resonated so much with

Jess Johnson  06:46

the group. Yeah, absolutely. First, I just want to back up just a little bit and say, like, I think that doing the work of feeling your feelings is literally the most courageous work that people can do. Because as you kind of just mentioned, you know, something happened is happening in our body. Right and, and what that is the amygdala, depending on your past experience, experiences, is sending down signals to your body that you're truly in danger. And there is nothing like entrepreneurship, to bring up all of our BS, we personas you'll be fine. When you are putting yourself out there it is it Yeah, it brings up all of your stuff, right. And so mindset work is so important, it's so important to learn how we think and how to choose thoughts that are in line with what we want to believe about the world. But you cannot think your way out of a past experience that is almost like holding you hostage to that, right? So I think about emotions I teach they're a physiological response inside of your body, right? So they're separate from feelings. Often, the our emotions are like the subconscious or unconscious experience of what's going on around us. And the feelings are the conscious experience. Because what happens is, our body starts feeling dysregulated, right? So say we are

Melissa Wiggins  08:28

I feel like we need to like turn this into, QUOTE CARD. Aha moment, we're gonna like be Mel Robbins for a minute. And we're going to be like, wait, don't guys listen to what she just said. Okay, say that, again. The emotion is the unconscious part. And the feeling is the conscious part. Is that what you said?

Jess Johnson  08:51

Yes. This is how I think about emotions unconscious, you feel that in your body. And a lot of times it is responding to something that's happening that's happened in your past? Not all the time, right? There's definitely times where we feel anxious, we feel, you know, sad. Something is happening in front of us. But here's one of the best examples even of sadness or grief that I've ever heard is when somebody has passed away somebody close to us, we don't know to be sad about it until somebody tells us that they've passed away. Right? Often, we don't know even to be sad about it. Unless somebody has taught us that. I remember. There was somebody of a relative once that passed away when I was younger, and it wasn't somebody that I was particularly close with, right? And I remember my mom asking me when after she told me like, why aren't you sad about this? And I was like, What am I supposed to be like, Why? Why would I be and I didn't know them that well. It wasn't somebody that was a big part of our life. I have like, Okay, I, it's not like I was happy, but I just was kind of neutral to it right. And I didn't even know to be sad about something that I should until she told me this was her way of saying this is the appropriate way to act when somebody passed away, but not necessarily, right. There's a lot of people who see celebrations of life in moments of people passing. And so coming back to that kind of emotional piece and that physiological response that happens in our body, a lot of times we learn those emotions, sometime in the ages of like zero to six, right, were scolded by a parent for doing something wrong. And maybe we didn't even do anything wrong in that moment. They were just distracted. And, you know, you went as a toddler and almost fell down the stairs. And parents freaked out and hollered. Right. And depending on like, the kind of level of that moment, like a three year old doesn't know to tell itself like, Oh, Mom and Dad was just scared. It's okay, I'm okay. They're okay. This is going to be okay. Right, three year old learned, like, Oh, my God, this is terrible. I did something wrong. And then depending how often that happened, when you were younger, you might grow up. And then every time somebody raises their voice, you immediately get that response in your body if I have done something wrong here. Yeah. And so that's what I mean, when I talk about like, the unconscious experience of our emotions. And then when our brains start going, like, Oh, I feel that I did something wrong feeling, it must mean I did something wrong. And then that's going to create the conscious feeling of shame, or the conscious feeling of guilt or something like that. Right. But when you are

Melissa Wiggins  11:51

and that's your main site work comes in, right? Like what I do my perception all the, you know, is it a problem except for but the, if you don't deal with the body part farce, like you can even get there? Yes. Am I safe?

Jess Johnson  12:08

Or am I not? Yes, totally. And what EFT allows you to do is calm that central nervous system while recalling that terrifying emotion of shame or fear, or whatever it was, or that painful voice, they hear that, you know, depending again, on their experiences, like let's say they didn't have a supportive parent, they had a parent or an authority figure figure that was constantly putting them down. And so anytime they're made to feel that same way, they see it as a parent and right growing up, we look at our parents, and like, oh, whatever they say, is factual. You know, we can grow up and do like personal development work and go to therapy. But when you find yourself in those moments where you're like, Okay, logically, I know, this isn't true. I know, I'm smart, and know that I'm accomplished. But there's still this feeling in my body that keeps coming up, that makes me feel like I'm really stupid, like, that's not true. EFT allows us to recall that emotion or that memory, and then really dispel the energy around it. So when I do my deep dive work with clients, we are finding those specific memories. And we are discharging all of that energy around that. So you're no longer carrying that with you, in your day to day that part of you is integrated. And you can often even think of the memory and be like, Oh, sucks that happened. And also, I know that I'm okay. I know that I'm smart. I know I didn't deserve that. It feels real. Instead of you're constantly in your head, trying to reassure your body. And often we don't do reassuring, right? We judge ourselves I know, for feeling that way. Oh, why are we doing this again, off, you're so stupid, you can see that we're not out, you know, we're not in danger right now. And then that just kind of continues to pile on all of those feelings on top of just a proportionate reaction to your having given on your path giving your past experiences.

Melissa Wiggins  14:22

The reason why I sort of I decided when I was designing empowered life over six months to have some of this body type work and it is because a lot of people just they'll go through years and years and years of therapy years and years and years of the you know, cognitive behavioral type therapy, you know, sometimes medication, sometimes no medication, they'll do lots of mindset work, you know, they'll do the things that you know, I teach them the tools I've created in the program, the thought resetting all of these things and they still feel stuck. And so when I was designing it, I was like so I have to have this piece that for those people who their mindset sharp, they understand how to thought reset. They know how to detox. They can do the journaling and the meditation and all the things. And they know how to do you know, go through the thoughts, the feelings, the actions, or results, the got it all down. And yet here, they are saying, this still doesn't feel right. I'm having these panic attacks, or I'm having this feeling of like, I'm stuck. And I and so I really just want stop for a second and see to the lesson. Or if you are listening to this, and you feel like you got all the mindset stuff down, and you've read all the self development books, and you've done all the therapy, this could be the missing piece for you, right? This is the part where now you've got all that thought work done. And I personally believe you need both right? Because no one's I learned how to control the body piece and let myself know I'm safe. And that, oh, this is just like a trapped emotion in my body. And I have to discharge it. Now I know, all right, to tell myself the right thoughts to get out of it. But unless I look at the body piece, I'm going to continue to feel stuck. I'm going to continue to feel like I'm not growing and what comes with that. And the experience of all the women I've worked with is shame and guilt of why am I not farther along? Why is all this work, not making me feel better? Why am I not growing, I thought I would be farther along. And I just want to like give all you lassies listening a big hug and say it wasn't worthless, I promise. There's just like another piece

Jess Johnson  16:47

is my belief that every minute that we're breathing, we're one step closer to the moment where everything comes together. Every moment that you choose to do something for yourself, it is never wasted. It's never going backwards is never not worth it. Because it leads you to the moment. Everything changes. One of my favorite beliefs is that is to remind myself like shifts happen in an instant. So it doesn't matter if like this morning, or yesterday, I felt like crap. And I felt like everything was burning down around me. And, you know, when we're entrepreneurs, it's always about our business, right? Like never gonna get a client like whatever. And when I reached for that, like, shifts can happen in in one instant. It allows me the space and grace, just know, what do I need to take care of myself? Right now. Instead of what typically, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs do is then immediately go into this action mode. Right? They distract themselves with doing another task, or writing an email or anything like that anything other than taking the step back. And really being like how do I give myself space and grace?

Melissa Wiggins  18:11

Well, one of the things that just made me think about there was for the listeners, Jason, I actually made an E coaching Master's six month coaching program with Lindsay dolts love. And one of the things that Lindsay has taught us that we get to give to our clients of a gift is I describe awareness like this, I tell this story about how I went on a hike with my four kids. And it's not a story. It's real life. Like I legit went on a hike with the four kids by myself to go see a waterfall. And I stared at the same that was like, you know, you are here. And I went off in the wrong direction, right? So I took my kids and my little girl was like three or four at the time, you know, so she's crying, the we don't know where we are like blah, blah, blah. And I tell that story to say if I just stared at the map a little bit longer where it said you are here, I would have had such a better fun time by going in the right direction to the waterfall rather than what I ended up doing which was horrible. And I kind of like look at this work like that, right? That awareness piece that you just mentioned there. I can't even know about the body stuff or the main stuff or any of it and lathe I do have that self awareness and the reason that triggered that thought there for me was like when you say it about distracting yourself, you start to see the things that you do and like you teach those when you come on the mastermind just being aware of I'm not shaming myself. I just like well that's interesting that I choose to watch three hours of Netflix and you know, eat the entire time. Wonder what that's about like What am I not looking at? or adult working on? Or what Am I distracting myself from? You know? Yeah,

Jess Johnson  20:07

well, you know, I also believe that we are allowed to take it easy on ourselves. And sometimes it is okay to sit and watch Netflix and eat it, it's a choice. Right? And sometimes that's the choice that we choose to give ourselves. And, and it's okay. It gets to be okay. Always right. Because typically, that's when we look back on that know, like, and we compare ourselves to somebody else, oh, I just wasted that time. Rest is productive. Period. And whatever you you choose to do during that rest time is productive. And you get to own that to claim that. But when you give yourself that time, and Netflix, if you're feeling exhausted, and you're like, Oh, I'm just gonna go and hide away for a little bit. And absorb myself in some kind of feel good movie, or crap movie just so you can cry along with it. Like, let yourself do that. And then let that mean, man, I just took care of myself. And I got all that out. What am I feel like now? But often what happens instead is we do that. And then we're like, oh, I just wasted my time. What a piece of crap I am. Never, ever, ever has to be true. It just make an agreement. To never. And I this I'm a girl who loves to break my own rules. But I never say never, except in very tiny instances, right? The moment you catch yourself in that to something new. I needed that it was actually productive. If I believed it was productive for you believed it was productive. What would you do in that moment, instead of wasting any more time shaming yourself for taking that break? What you

Melissa Wiggins  21:55

just said is exactly why we must spend so much time on awareness. Right? I need to know when I'm numbing when in fact, I did a post about this on on Instagram today. And I say it's self care. Sometimes it is not responding to the text messages being alone and no asking for help. Sometimes self care as asking for help, not isolating responding to the tags, right? And it's like no way which of those I need, but if I don't do some of the internal work, none of it feels good. The not writing doesn't feel good. The writing back feels good. The being alone doesn't feel good. The being with people doesn't feel good. Like neither.

Jess Johnson  22:39

Yes. And that's why something further, that's why energy work is so important. Doing that honoring that work of there are parts of me that need help right now. And you you said about emotions, there's something I need to discharge, I think of it actually is less of like discharging and more of like just something I need to integrate. Because in my personal work, one of the things that I've I really had a big breakthrough in earlier this year was this part of me, I just kept feeling a lot of anxiety and a lot of deep, deep sadness. And because of this awareness that you're talking about, I know the difference in my body between like, I don't like to use the word appropriate, I use proportionate, right? What's proportionate to this moment versus appropriate because what's appropriate for me and how I feel is different from what is appropriate for you based on our experiences. So I'm always really careful with language. But I was feeling the sadness that just I couldn't feel where it was coming from I couldn't pinpoint in like the current and so I was working with my EFT practitioner and really kind of found this part of myself that was so scared of getting left behind. Right, like she felt unacknowledged. And, you know, that part of me was like the part of me that had made a lot of really terrifying decisions in a place of her life that felt really uncertain to do something new and so she was just kind of, you know, in that inside me or in my energy field, like just feeling so unappreciated and so sad and so like lonely. And when I was able like to go in and integrate that part of me and just be like, Oh man, like Thank you. We're not discharging you we're not getting rid of you. I still need you because we're getting really good to some more scary shit right doesn't stop. I still need I think we just need to like we know better now and here's some things that we can do and then you become like a co creator with that part of you that you still need a And then they integrate into who you are now and love. And then it just, it feels like this almost hit of power, like you feel that shift when it happens. And then you're going to ready to get up, go tackle the next goal, but that really being able to sit with that and you're right know, the awareness. What is the difference between what is proportionate to what's going on around me right now. And what doesn't feel like it's, it's mine, it's just too much for what's in front of me.

Melissa Wiggins  25:31

I love that I when I do keynote speeches, I don't know if you can, obviously the listeners can't see it. But you can see that little dome over there. So that's little Melissa has a little picture of me when I was like seven or eight. And whenever I do keynote speeches, I take it along with me. And when I started, I will say to someone, I'll say to like the audience. All right, last thing is eight year old Melissa cannot do this keynote speech for you. Okay, she is terrified that one of you are going to laugh, you're going to whisper something to each other about something she said. So what I'm going to do is I love her and I have to take care of her. But in this moment right now 39 year old Melissa needs to do the speech, right? Like she has to Yeah, and so you you over here, will you look after her for a minute while I do this, and then I'll grab her back at the end because she wants to watch she just can't be up here, you know, using that analogy of all those things. And those parts of me that are fearful and scary, like you see, like normalizing it and integrating it. And I love that you distinguish between my word choice of discharge and integrate because I also do believe very much words are so powerful. Right? And you and I have been taught that with coaching to write what do you mean by a line? What do you mean by I don't know like authentic right? What is that to you? Right? And just and so I love that you said that like you're integrating those parts of you and yeah, a lot of it comes from the the awareness piece of it and moving from Ra. I got the mindset stuff down know, how do I help my body? Like how do I stop this tightness in my chest or like, you know, the world feels. And maybe it's because I'm in Florida, we keep getting hurricanes and it just feel pains, right? Like public feels tains j is Publix is my happy place. Okay, like Starbucks. And their teams like Starbucks is close again, because, you know, they always close when the storms come. Publix has like nothing, right? The water is gone, the stuffs gone again, last time they lost all of their their food because the generator didn't turn on. And so that emotion and energy is all around right now. And it's like, what do I do with it? You know,

Jess Johnson  28:06

yeah, and often, it's being able to sit with that, right? Pft is a lot oftentimes presented as a way to process you know, an emotion or shift on emotion or release an emotion. But the reason that it is known to be able to do that is because the first thing that you need to do in order to process or shift or release a feeling or emotion is to be able to feel it. And that is the part that quite often people rush in when you when I see people put the emphasis on EFT as a process. And I watch them rushing through tapping on these points, and it's almost very frantic. And then they're like, alright, I did this in three minutes. Why don't I feel better? Well, take your time with that. And you have to like feel into it first. So I teach people how to feel I use the language of feeling your emotions, knowing and teaching that that's what allows the shift or release. But I typically try to stay away from the language of this is for the purpose of shifting because and again, people rush it. They rush the feelings work when sometimes it's your it's just learning to be like, Yeah, I'm anxious today. I'm still anxious and I've calmed my body. And I'm still anxious, calm my body and I can also still move on with my day, right? You can calm your body down and then be able to move forward. It never has to mean that we have to take so much time feeling or processing and negative emotion that we stop everything. Right? It's a journey. It is a process and the process isn't some five step thing that takes you five minutes. And I think that's often what people get confused about when they think of processing and emotion.

Melissa Wiggins  29:56

You know, the what I was just thinking about when you were saying that Is that that is the theme across coaching clients, my clients that I see. And I hate to say do the best, because that doesn't really seem like, right what I'm trying to say, but the clients that I see feel really good at the end of a six month coaching program with me are the ones who are not in a rush. And I literally will, I will do a whole spiel video on lassies Do not rush this, please do not rush it. You cannot undo every teaching of the last 40 years and six months. It's impossible, right? Like we can and if you rush it, what happens as you miss the lesson? You just missed it. Right?

Jess Johnson  30:54

Yes. One of my favorite kind of affirmations is what's meant for me it will never be withheld. Yeah. So relax and let the next action be revealed. Yeah. And I know you and I know, as mindset coaches, we're always like, wait, we wait, we don't focus on the action, we focus on our thoughts, right, because our thoughts and how we think that's what's going to, especially how we think about ourselves is what's going to let the action be revealed. But that's what that affirmation reminds me of the relaxing part of it doesn't mean, go do nothing, it means that I'm thinking about myself in a different way. I'm thinking about, like, the my belief in myself and my confidence and the impact that I can make. And when I'm spending that time thinking about that, thinking about the clients I have and how to help them thinking about potential clients, and what I'm going to do to help them and what the world looks like, when people really feel like the power of this, like, then some amazing idea comes out, right? But if I'm constantly in this urgent state of urgency, I gotta figure it out right now, I am closing off that part of me. And I'm also not in that belief, right? Because if you are in belief of that, if you're in belief of whatever is meant for you will never be withheld, don't have the anxiety about it. That's not true. I'm going to be I'm known for my transparency and acknowledging I'm a human first and a coach. Second, I still feel like get anxious moments, right? But that I choose then to give myself the space and grace, to sit with that reminder. And really take the time to let myself feel that. So affirmations are not just something you look at and smile in the mirror, as you say them to yourself, right. They're just not a thing that you say they're a thing that you feel in your body. You believe those words?

Melissa Wiggins  33:08

Period? Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I think one. One is that that work is slower. But I think it's easier. I think the emotion work is harder, but quicker. It's almost like if you and your if I once I get to the point or got to the point of where understanding how for me that I process of motions and how to sit with them. Right, like know that I feel like I can do that. It feels like the the ability to do that, for me is quicker, right? Like I know, know how I'm able to do that. But it's for clients. It's really like something they'll take me actually the other day someone was texting me and saying, you know, I'm just, I'm in the emotions, like I'm just feeling really sad. And it's interesting, when someone says things like that, as a coach who as main, say, focus, but I've worked with this person for so long that I know it's not a mindset issue because she knows how to use her brain, right? Like she knows how to move and thought reset and move from Ra. Is this true? Like all the questions, we coach them how to do it all the self coaching stuff. That's not the issue. She really did just have to sit with the feeling of sadness.

Jess Johnson  34:43

Yeah, my favorite question to ask my clients or myself when I'm going through that is what is the most loving way I can treat myself right now what's the most loving way I can talk to myself to validate my Self acknowledged myself. Some days, it means the most loving thing is putting on my PJs cuddling with one of my cats and you know reading a book giving myself a break. Other days, it's giving myself that reminder, like, just you got this. Yep, you're feeling sad. And that's okay. That there's this task that we're getting ready to do in front of us. And we can do this, too. Let's just take one step towards that in this moment. Right? And so again, like you said, it comes back to that awareness and in knowing what is it that I need? Right now, what can I take on. And in that you said slower, but easier, like, I just think that the way I think about this work, too, is when you take the time to build a steady foundation, you're set for the rest of your life, you can do anything at any point, when you have a rock hard foundation, you can, you know, make an addition, you can build higher you can build out, you can knock the whole damn thing down and rebuild something entirely brand new that looks vastly different on top of that, but that doesn't happen. When you rush the foundation, you use shoddy materials. And you don't take the time to really think what do I want this to look like? Because there's some things about us that are never going to change, right? those core values, different values might change over time, depending on our goals. We all have those like, you know, three to four things that make us up that are not going to change. And when you build on that, knowing that you're set.

Melissa Wiggins  36:45

Yeah, I agree. I just, I continue to, really, you know, I love that space and grace that you say, but like, I really believe that so deeply, because we're so hard on ourselves. I am like lassies you are here you are like you have literally like, paid to be here, you've put your time and your energy. Like you're so far ahead of the game, you're like you said building that foundation. And just knowing please be patient with yourself know that? I don't know, I feel like the emotion work is like level two. That's what I tell them. Like, I'm like mindset is like, like you said the foundation, we gotta get this down. Otherwise you won't survive the other piece. But let's do this first. And then now you're ready to do the emotion part. Now you're ready to be in the sadness because you felt this strong? Like you said, foundation to know you can handle it. Think it's

Jess Johnson  37:49

Yeah, it doesn't flows, right, like so when clients come to me for Well, like I already, you know, kind of told you when somebody comes to me in there. So they cannot articulate their goals. They're like, I just know that I need help. I can't even fathom I can't even visualize what that is, I can't even like formulate a goal, then I know we're going to start with energy work. First, we're going to start with calming the body. So they can think clearly. Other times I you know, work with people, I tend to work with established coaches, stablished life coaches. And so they come to me having that probably to your point, like the mindset stuff, but then they're like, I know something else isn't connecting with me here. And then we focus on, you know, where their thoughts are about that, and then starting to energy work, and then just weave the two in between together each session.

Melissa Wiggins  38:42

And it getting to know themselves. I mean, there are clients that show up and they know their favorite movie, and they don't know what foods they really like. And that is a lot of my clients in the beginning because a lot of them are entrepreneur, Mama bears who, you know, have really started to put themselves to the site for a long time and had their kids or their spouse be the primary concern. And now they're like, Wait, something doesn't feel great anymore.

Jess Johnson  39:09

Yeah, and when we're trying to set those boundaries to as women, because not only do we have the like, literal experience of whatever your current situation is, right? Like we have six sided society's expectations on us. And then we're like literally carrying the weight of like generations and generations before us that we're taught that it's our role and responsibility to be the caretaker, and that we are selfish, or doing anything different for choosing to do something different with our lives. And I always like coming back to language. The definition of selfish is boba like willful and purposeful choice to choose yourself to the detriment of somebody else. Right. So you're acknowledging like okay, this is going to put This is going to be terrible for somebody and I'm going to choose myself anyway, you don't put any thought into how it might impact people. Right? Which I just don't mean, we're all living our lives and we're choosing to take care of ourselves. It's just not selfish. Even if it does, it might hurt the other person, it's still not like we're choosing to take care of ourselves for the purpose of hurting them. Right choosing to take care of ourselves, we're choosing to put ourselves first in order to make sure that we're still there. For others, one of my other my whole self concept around in being an entrepreneur, and even like a wife, a family member, a friend is I'm at my best for others when I put my needs first fact. Agreed. Yep.

Melissa Wiggins  40:49

Yeah, I actually did a podcast interview the other day, and I was like, I don't know about you, but I don't know any, like selfish women. I've yet to meet them. Like, where are these selfish women? Where did they left cuz I've never met one.

Jess Johnson  41:03

I'm always like, I'm not selfish. I'm self centered. And then, you know, will I kind of look at me like, well, that sounds terrible, too. And I'm like, does it wouldn't die? Why wouldn't I be the center of me? Right, that's what leads to more confidence, being able to set boundaries, it starts with us seeing that, and then we're able to like pull in those opportunities and experiences and people that are going to see us in support us for where we are, and it's not going to feel like that drain on us. They're going to understand, of course, of course, you need this. How can I support this is how I can support you in this moment, right? Instead of asking people like vaguely for support or offering people vague support, when you are confident in that for yourself, you can look to a friend and be like, hey, you know, you're going through a hard time right now. This is what I'm available for to help you. Right? Instead of, I'm here anytime you need, like, because then sometimes that gets us into trouble. What if they call it a day? I'm not feeling it? And it's like, oh, I didn't mean that thing, though. Right?

Melissa Wiggins  42:14

Yeah, I, I just wanted to do an episode with you, because I wanted to really push into if you are feeling stuck, and like you're not growing, or you have spent years doing mindset work, or cognitive behavioral therapy, or medications, and something still doesn't feel right, it's probably because you got some body and energy work, you got what Jeff says below the neck type of work to do. And hopefully there are people who are listening to this, Jason say, Yeah, I do. That's what it is. That's the missing piece. Because that has really been true. For a lot of my clients, they get this piece down. And then they're just feels like there's something else not quite right. And that's why I do a lot of this work, the somatic type exercises, the magical Lake coasts on retreat, because there's space and time. And, you know, a lot of the time as you know, when there are these big emotional releases for people like they're, it's exhausting afterwards, right? Like you want to talk about needing rain after that work. Like for sure, there needs to be raised in space for it. And so I hope this episode just gave the listeners permission to say, I want to look into more of this work. I want to look into EFT I'm going to look up Jace Johnson and find out how I could do that piece of work and well like up all of the different things, your Instagram website, whatever you want to put, we'll put it all in the show notes so everybody can figure out how they can work with you because you're, you're a magician. You're amazing. And everyone in my mastermind always raves about every time we have you and I just really appreciate the work that you've put into the world.

Jess Johnson  44:11

Yeah, I appreciate you too. Melissa. I love it. You attract some amazing women. All right. Thank

Melissa Wiggins  44:17

you so much. Absolutely. Thank

Jess Johnson  44:19

you.