Kristen

Welcome to the Close the Chapter podcast. I am Kristen Boice a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice pathways to healing counselling. Through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories. We will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore. And open the door to possibilities and the real you. You won't want to miss an episode, so be sure to subscribe.

Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast I am so grateful you are joining me and tuning into this episode. And thank you for sharing episodes that resonate with you or you think that will be helpful to someone else. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate that. Because I'm on a mission to help as many people as possible in whatever way that is, it might be a seed that gets planted a different way to think. So thank you for sharing this. I am so grateful for you. I hope you're having a good summer. If you're listening to this during the summer, it seems to be going very quickly. It's to be going so fast. And I am just thrilled to be able to bring you today's episode, I actually got an advanced copy of her book. And it's called the wise little one, a prescriptive memoir, learning to love and listen to my inner child by Jana Wilson. And let me tell you a little bit about geonet. She is an emotional healing educator, meditation teacher retreat leader hypnotherapist and founder of emotional healing systems. For the past two decades, she has taught 1000s in group and private retreats around the world. She lives off the grid in the foothills and the mountain range of Santa Fe, New Mexico with her husband and business partner, Dr. Lance Wilson. When she's not guiding clients to heal, she enjoys hiking, playing with her rescue pups yoga and watching documentaries. I read this book in a day, I just devoured it. Now, if you have a lot of childhood trauma, or if you don't, it can be triggering at times, because her childhood story can be really hard in particular chapters. So want to give a warning, some may need to take it slow. If you're going to read it. It's a little heavy in terms of just reading about what she's been through. But her story is remarkable. And her healing journey and what she's done and all the self work that she has done, and then uses to facilitate healing and others. So it was a read that I felt pulled towards what I was reading it and I felt like I could just be with her and her story and her journey. And then she's working on a second book that's going to be coming out more about the emotional healing systems. So right now this book is number one on inner child on Amazon. And I can see why because it's all about her listening to her inner guidance for little Jana. It's about knowing that her little Janet is wise. And that's what I work with what I'm doing client work and on this podcast is connecting to your wisdom within and really trusting that part of you that wise part of you that knows answers to things, the answers lie within. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Jana Wilson. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Welcome to this week's close the chapter Podcast. I'm so excited about my guest I got a preview of her now released book. I haven't my hands and I've read it in a day. It's called wise little one. And Jana Wilson, welcome to the podcast. I am so glad you're here with me to dive into your book and your story with our podcast listeners.

Jana

Thank you so much for having me, Kristin. It's just an honour. I'm excited.

Kristen

I dove into the book I've highlighted so much from the book, your story is moving. It's a story that I think many people can relate to because most of us have had some sort of trauma and that word has gotten thrown around a lot. But some sort of changes us on the inside as a result of our inner child our childhood trauma. So I was so glad you're here with us today. Tell the listeners a little bit about you and your story.

Jana

Okay, I would love to so I you know there's different types of trauma right, as a clinician, that we're now realising and I think we've realised probably for at least a couple of decades, that trauma can occur obviously in the womb. And we know the classic example of an alcoholic mother, a drug addicted mother. She's passing everything to the baby, of course, I just had a client her her sister, her mother was an addict. She was clean while she was pregnant with her but when she was pregnant with her sister, she was on heroin and the baby had to withdrawal from heroin. Well, in my case why My mother was clinically depressed, she was actually mentally ill. My father was beating her. So while she's pregnant with me imagine all the cortisol that's getting pumped into my system. And I'm in a state of fight or flight just like she is. And so I begin the story really there right in utero that I was taking in all those toxic chemicals of stress. And my mother, she attempted suicide numerous times. She was never really serious, obviously. And I think when somebody's serious, they just do it right. But it never really happened. And she even did that while she was pregnant with me. I didn't share that in the book. But she had shared that with me. And adverse childhood experiences. There's a quiz that we give people just to kind of ascertain what type of trauma did you have in childhood, and your developmental years at birth to seven years old, and I score 10 out of 10? There's 10 questions. I score Yes, on every question. So I think when you get so conditioned, it's like living in and I imagine people in war zones, right? Children who grow up in these types of environments. I never knew what to expect. I was hypervigilant. I disassociated a lot. The gift of the trauma that was what I really like to focus on, because I think if we look at trauma from just the level of Oh, I was a victim. And I certainly was, I had an alcoholic father who's actually was inappropriate with me changing my diapers, I didn't feel safe. In the world, there was only one person I felt safe around. And that was my grandmother, and maybe my big brother who kind of protected me through it all. And it wasn't easy. I grew up in the South in the Bible Belt. One of the gifts again of the trauma was I haven't really been shared, that was a deep connection to spirit. Because when the 3d world is too chaotic, and you can't live in it, you tend to go into formless right into your imagination as a child, which as Einstein said, is one of the greatest gifts because if we can make our imagination more real than reality, will begin to manifest what we're imagining. So from a young age, I think I was doing law of attraction and all these things that are really popular today, I started doing at a young age, to disassociate right from reality, mom and dad had an interesting story. And so in the book, I really, no one is inherently all bad. Be in Yemen is messy. It's complicated. And my mother had fierce love for me and my brother. She was a beautiful human in so many ways, and so flawed, and such a great anti teacher that taught me what not to do with my own daughter to break a cycle. And I call myself in the book, a cycle breaker and a disrupter of that dysfunctional family system of codependency and addiction, and even mental illness, right? People could say, oh, you know, well, depression runs in my family. Science today tells us epi genetics, we're not our genetic makeup. So I really began to see my parents as I do not want to do what they're doing. Like I don't want to grow up and be like them. And going back to the gift of the trauma was, of course, my imagination became very rich. And when you read the book, you see how I began manifesting at a young age. I mean, my good is at seven, I think I must have lived in my imaginary world that Elvis was my dad for so long that I ended up meeting Elvis in 1972. And he invites me up to his room. And so like, I mean, it wasn't a formal meeting, but he's standing there telling the security guard, right, and by her and her mother up, some really cool things happened to me. And I think it's grace for sure. I think from a young age, cleaving so strongly Christian to spirit, what I call spirit, then it was really Jesus. I was very rushed, and very bible belt, but I was having these mystical experiences as a child. And so that no longer work for me that fearful ideology, that the dogma and everything that they were teaching me and so I began to really open my mind and heart. And of course, at 12 years old, I had an out of body experience where I was pulled out of my body by spirit, in the midst of a really traumatic once again, domestic violence. I had so much complex post trauma at that point. I had already had the gun incident, there was so much I had happened. So by this point, I don't share in the book. I had a lot of suicide ideation. At 12 years old, I was really contemplating taking my mom's volumes, a bottle of aspirin, anything I could get my hands on. I didn't want to live anymore. And right in the midst of that I get pulled out of my body and told me What I feel is the truth. I am your father and mother and creator. And those humanly parents aren't. And this is your life and I felt one with a cosmos I felt so much peace, a peace that passes all understanding. I just knew it was an awakening. And from that moment on my life changed my mind change, to quote the Bible, it says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. My mind got renewed, and I started questioning everybody and everything. At 12 years old, I questioned the church, they kicked me out, I questioned the authority, I question everybody. And I began to really cultivate that still small voice, that voice of my intuition, and I call her my wise little one. And because I believe when we're born, we're innocent and pure, we're still tethered to the Divine, that we have the answers within us if we can connect to that

Kristen

your grandmother played a big role in your life. She was a nurturer constant stability, she kind of was your refuge, if you will. I mean, it seemed like in the book, when I read about your grandmother, tell me about how she played a role in your life.

Jana

Oh, thank you for asking. I think when we go through trauma, one of the things we know as providers Helping others is that if someone can find a resource, an inner resource, a refuge, a place that they can turn to, and really cultivate a really strong faith and trust, and something greater than themselves, is beautiful. And I had that. But externally, I had a grandmother who was stable, who was secure. Now, she wasn't that from my mother. Interestingly enough, she wasn't at all she didn't manage my mother. Well, so maybe she was trying to make up for me, my brother, not helping, but certainly soul connected to that soul so deeply that I can get emotional thinking about it. Just her smell, just her presence. Just I knew I was unconditionally love.

Kristen

I felt that in the book, and how helpful it's like she was one of the you guys kind of sold together like she was one of your safe places to go when things were so chaotic.

Jana

the only the only safe place. It was always so devastating to leave her. It was like being pulled from my mother. She was really my mother. And we lived with her. She was everything to me. And she gave every love language, even as a teenager, a young adult, young mother of single mom, when I was with my grandmother, she just stopped everything. And it was 100% attention on me and what I had to share, and it was always encouraging and uplifting. And she believed in me. I think I'm emotional, because I've been feeling her presence a lot. And my mother my mother passed this week will be one year on the 23rd. A year ago, she died of Alzheimer's and my grandmother died way too young. She was only 74. And I've just been feeling how proud they

Speaker 1

are of Me. That's beautiful that you can feel it really take that in.

Jana

I feel him around me I feel I'm just in and my father and my uncle buddy, all four of them because they were inhumane. My dad, like I said before, we are so wabi sabi, that Japanese word and for perfectly imperfect humans. I mean, we don't have it figured out of the known universe, we only know like, I mean, this, to me seems like arrogance. But 4% I'm sure it's a lot less than that of what we know. So we live in this mysterious place. And these things happen, wars and trauma and abuse and chaos. And what's really lacking is this existential crisis of a connection to spirit. I use memory memory doesn't use me. So I go back into my past. And I've learned the lessons. The overarching lesson of my childhood Christian was, value yourself know that this is temporary, Jesus said it to you now be in the world not have it, that everything is this out picturing of how I feel about myself, I can love myself and I can make peace with the parts of myself that are like my dad, when I went through my training and Shadow Work and union shadow work and I teach this is I had to embrace. I'm crazy, just like my mother. There's a part of me that's crazy. Just like my mother, the ugliest parts. I'm weak and a victim like my mother. And it was painful to acknowledge that to know there's a part of me that can be weak and a victim and crazy like my mother. And I've had moments even writing this book. I got so spun out towards the end, my husband and I have no conflict. I mean, you read the story. It's really the love story of me falling in love with me and I finally draw my beloved and every Day is not an overstatement. MSA, I'm grateful for him a dozen times a day throughout the day, I wake up, it's one of the first things I think, Oh, thank you so much for bringing me him. He really is my rock. And during writing the book, I thought, gosh, I've done so much work, I can do this. It was intense. Its intense sharing and being so vulnerable. There was one podcast that he was a physician, he was talking to me said, use the word embarrassing. So I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of anything, I have healed all of this, I can say I'm a bit of a war, I'm, uh, I can own all of it. Because if I haven't been that way in the past, there might be the potential in the future. Or I might be that way to myself, right, bitchy and mean. Maybe I'm not to other people. But in my internal dialogue, if I'm that way too little Jana. It's interesting, sharing your life and knowing that there's some people who aren't going to get me, they're not going to get that I'm exposing all of this to show them light the path to say it's okay. It's messy being human. Yeah, we're not perfect.

Kristen

Absolutely. And you're gonna help other people by sharing your story in an is I think I want to acknowledge how hard it is because we think we're gonna do the work. And then we're gonna never feel this way. It's like, no, that's not how it works. I mean, we're like, I thought I worked through that, well, when you're being this vulnerable, and you're tapping into another layer. More is there. And in the book, one of the things that struck me because I love your title wise, little one, I was like, yes, inner child.

Jana

Thank you. I love him to me while getting a massage.

Kristen

I love that one of the things I work with clients on is tapping into the inner child listening to the inner child voice which you weave in throughout the book, your wise little Jana, I mean, that is like your theme throughout the book, if someone doesn't really like their little person inside, they're disgusted by them, how do you help them start loving their younger parts of themselves? Where do you begin?

Jana

Well, first of all, 19 years of doing inner child work with clients, I've never met somebody who had an issue with their inner child, they might have had an issue with themselves at 15, or 16, and choices they made and stuff. But if we go back to four or five years old, and I have, um, bring a picture, one of my big things is always on your phone to put a picture. So here's a picture of me to connect to that innocence in the purity. Listen, light, shadow work is harder than dark shadow work. This is really bizarre, but it's true. It's kind of the Marianne Williamson quote, and return to love where she says, but it's not your light. I mean, it's not your darkness that frightens you, it's your light, you ask yourself, Who am I to be brilliant and beautiful and fabulous and successful. And she says, Who are you not to be you're playing small, there's nothing enlightened about playing small and shrinking. So other people will want to feel insecure around you. When you let your light shine, you give other people permission to the same. So what I found in my work is people have a hard time, they have a hard time connecting. And it's because they're too identified with their adult child. So the adult child is I'm 57 years old today. And I'm behaving like a seven year old, emotionally, right, I was arrested developed at some place. And so I behave in certain ways in certain like road rage, classic example, adult child. So somebody who's wanting to heal at a deep level. And I have never experienced saying, Oh, I don't want my inner child, they really want to connect with their innocence. It's hard for them, because they've got years of compounded of guilt and shame, from choices and behaviour, ways that they were conditioned to believe that they weren't worthy. And gosh, I use stuffed animals. I use all kinds of things. I love little Jana so much that I think it flows out of me too. And it really helps a connector for clients. And even in large group retreats. I'll go around the room individually. My husband will say you work so hard to help people because it's such a passion. It's a calling, it's not even work, right. It's like I mean, you probably get it. So I want them to see their beauty and sometimes they can't and it breaks my heart but I'm helpless. Everybody's at their own point. Some people I'm planting a seed, and it doesn't take root maybe not even in this lifetime. But that's their journey. All I can do is sow the seed and hope they'll fertilise it and water it and continue to connect with their innocence and their love ability and their deserve ability. And Deepak Chopra is the MIT teacher the longest and when he came out with a book in the early 2000s, it was about love. The gift of love, or anyway, the first chapter, he says, repeat these words I am loved, I am lovable, and I am loving and I burst out crying. I was like in my early 30s. And I thought, No, I'm not. It just all kind of came to the surface like, and I realised, oh my god, there's a big disconnect between me and the part of me that is lovable and loving and loved. Because I didn't feel it. I had five step kids that reminded me all the time, something, I was an evil stepmother, which had nothing to do with me and everything to do with though.

Kristen

I mean, all this work. One of the pieces in the book that I was curious about, and you were very transparent in is like this younger part of you was trying to grow. You found Debbie Ford, who was really deep in the shadow work that resonated with you at the time, you felt like, this is what I need at this point in my life to grow and to solo and you define, first of all, what is Shadow Work for those that might not know? What did you learn from that? Because you really, you kind of attached to her it sounded like and then as you were doing your work, you differentiated yourself? Yes, you grill your younger parts more into the adult self.

Jana

So Shadow Work is the parts of ourselves that we judge disowned. And I reject, we push out and like I said, it could be light or dark. Now dark gets our attention because somebody does something and we immediately say, Oh, they're so rude or unconscious, or the dark kind of, but the light when we project our light on others or light shadow, that's where we're inspired by others all they're so smart, they're brilliant, they're successful, they have it together. So we cast both light and dark and Carl Jung, this was psychologist who coined the term shadow it really goes back to my teachings with Deepak. So Deepak Chopra teaches and really popularised, you know, mind body connection and teaches Vedanta, which is non dualism, so it goes back 6000 years. So Carl Jung actually was studying the Vedas. The Sanskrit term is taught vom Ah, see, it means I see the other and myself and myself and the other. So it's this mirror. We're always in the mirror of relationship. And when I met Debbie, you know, I'm 35 years old, I'm been a mom stay at home mom running a business with my ex husband. And but on this path since I was 19. So I was really committed my spiritual path and evolving and growing and reading and but I had a part of myself that I award with, I would rage. Like if my daughter spilled their nail polish on something, I would just lose it and slam doors and put holes and walls and scream. I never hit her. But I had become my mother and my father. And one day was a day that woke me up. My daughter said she was 12 years old. She says, I don't respect you. Now. She's very smart. She's my teacher. Now she knew that would get me not I don't love you. She never said that. I don't respect you. She knew. Because I didn't respect my parents. And I was living my life that I felt like she should respect me. And I ran to my room. I went into the closet. I remember I punching myself acting crazy, like my mother. And then I come out of the closet finally want to calm down and go back into her room. And I said, Okay, tell me three things you respect. And she said, I respect that you help inner city kids I worked at I was a mental health aide at like, a home for boys that didn't have families. And I respect I adopted a black girl at eight years old. And I had mentored her and then brought her and homeschooled her and she's like, I respect that you did that. And I respect you went back to school. And I was in college. At that point. I was still in pretty good. I was like, wow, my 12 year old sees me like she sees things I'm doing like it's nice. But then she started to cry. And she was kind of pulling away from me scared and she said I don't respect your anger. And that was the wake up call. That was really the biggest wake up call or I was like, Okay, I've become them. As the universe has my back a series of events that happen and synchronicities. I meet Debbie Ford never heard of her. How could she New York Times bestselling author been on Oprah all this from Florida pass my radar. I felt like I had the pulse on anything that was happening in like New Thought and spirituality. So I go hear her speak and she gets up on stage and this is like a Hay House. So then Wayne Dyer's. They're all the big luminaries, and she comes out and she says, Hi, I'm Debbie Ford number pitch and I was like, oh, so I'm lie and I don't want to be I'm trying to put she used to tell me Jana. You can put ice cream on your ship for so long. She's like, eventually the ice cream melts. You just need to deal with your shit. I was like, Okay, I drink Kool Aid. My girlfriend was with me. We're no longer friends. She did not get shouted work. She was like, I'm out. And I moved. I mean, we moved to California I ended up being a staff member with her. I learned so much one of the first things they said to me was I was white trash, and I had to face that label that had been put on me so long ago, and it was freeing. Everything was fraying. But the student daddy was a master at being able to see someone shadow so I being so close to her, I was like, okay, teach me how to figure people shadow out. So I was kind of like a protege. There were certain people that she would pull clothes because she saw potential right. And I was one of those. And she said, it's really easy. Jana, she goes, it's just whatever they're wanting you so badly to think about them. She goes I remember when you first walked in together, nails done hair done dress to the tee, very prim, very proper, very go right to the opposite trash, or less than inferior because I was portraying I was superior. I've got it all together. And she's like, it's not hard. And I watched her I became a student of watching her soul slap people. And the soul slap is a term that I kind of developed myself, but it's jarring. It's like if it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change your she's kind of got that Tony Robbins like art or wake someone up with her words. And her words were sharp and cutting but they could totally just slap us somebody up like whoa, I've been asleep like let me get it together. I heard her tell a black woman at from Minneapolis, St. Paul, who was were all this African garb. And she told her that she was nothing but a slave. All she talks about is freeing are people she needs to free yourself. And the woman we all thought, Oh God, this woman is going to punch Debbie. But it woke the lady up. And she had such a transformation. It was like, and so I liked that. That it well with me. Her teaching was really something that I was like, this is natural for me. I'm a Sagittarius I shoot the bow of truth. I had been doing it my whole life. Girls were beating me up. And I was getting in trouble with all the time. But now I could find a way to make money and do it. Wow.

Kristen

truth teller already. And so that's what attracted you to Debbie, because she was truth telling. And you're like, oh, yeah, this is natural for me.

Jana

My ex husband and I had a company and one of the guys had heard her speak in San Diego. And he didn't know the connection between her and I he was just in our business and other and he called me one day he goes, have you ever heard Debbie Ford? So why are you asking me this is after I laughed. And he said because I just heard her speak. And I felt like it was you on stage. So I definitely modelled myself after Debbie. I love Debbie for love her. She was a fierce woman. And in the end, I don't say this lightly. But it was a little cultish. And I had to get out of that when you have one person who can't take feedback. And it's what she says, and everything's about her. And that's what happens. Debbie was a teacher in landmark education. And I love landmark. But it can get a little that way too. They try to keep everybody staying in it, it gets a little culty. So you end up having to use what the teacher taught you on the teacher. And that's what I did. I finally just was like, Oh, I get it. I don't need you. I can follow my own path. I can do my own thing. I don't need to follow you anymore. I was giving my power away

Kristen

still. Yes. And I felt like you return home to empower little Jana, like you came back to self, you came back to the truth within you and gave yourself power to listen to that. That's what I got from your journey. It's like you can go back to self and realise, oh, I am okay, even without her.

Jana

And then I went to the Chopra centre. After that, I started to do it there again. The pattern of these even therapists, you see it with transference, right? Oh, you're so amazing. And they fall in love with you and they want to give you gifts and of course there's lots of we have boundaries around that and things but I really watched and observed Deepak was masterful and so as his partner, Dr. David Simon, who really I was close with more so than even Deepak because he was at the Chopra centre, but they were very much like if someone's pointing to the moon don't worship the finger. So they weren't about idol worship. They weren't about being put up on a pedestal. But when somebody effects so much life change, it's hard not to really revere these people, right? Yeah, but they're just like us and they're pointing the way in any good teacher, I think turns you back to yourself like Deepak guru means teacher in Sanskrit. Ji You are you. You're the guru.

Kristen

Yeah, I got that from when you met. him that he was really inviting you to trust. You're in esh. And, and you were like, Oh, well, this feels a little different. It felt like that when you were sharing the story about your relationship, and I think that is spot on. I think that is what I'm here to do. I'm working myself out of a job eventually, they don't need me. I'm just the guy to facilitate the inner knowing of what lies within them in zone because if you put me up on a pedestal, I've only going to fall the we all are doing our own work. We're all on a journey of evolution and awakening layer by layer.

Jana

As one of my teachers rom das would say we're all walking each other home back to the heart.

Kristen

That's beautiful. I love that that's exactly what it is. It when I was reading your story, I think the thread that you are on and that's what you help others do is come back to themselves and you kind of founded this emotional healing systems. Can you tell us a little bit about what it is and how you've applied it to your life?

Jana

Yes, thank you. So go back my 30 So I start working with Debbie I start getting these trainings, and the Chopra centre. So spurs integrative psychology, you know, working with shadow, helping people see their 360 psychosynthesis The whole selves and then meditation consciousness all the spirituality yoga embodiment practice somatic practices, Heart Math, and I introduced that you know, really the power of the heart, the electromagnetic field, understanding really simple intelligent energy management techniques to calibrate and self manage and regulate emotion and stress. And then repairing inner child work connecting with my feelings like a sweet, innocent little girl, little boy, talking to them being a loving parent, the loving adult and US has one purpose that's to connect to spiritual guidance. Remember who they truly are, they are divine, they are lovable, they are love, and then give that love to sell first and then to others. When we do that we can manage these core painful emotions of helplessness and heartbreak and grief and sorrow and fear and present danger. There are painful feelings of being human, but a lot of them are made up. The Buddha said, sufferings optional. And what he meant was pain isn't. When my grandmother died, I grieved and I still he saw me get emotional before I still miss that soul so much. My daughter's gonna be getting pregnant soon and I'm a reincarnation er, so I'm like sand granny come in, I'd love to be your grandmother. Now. I don't know if it works like that. I don't know how it works.

Kristen

You were talking about re parenting yourself in offering nurturing. The Divine is kind of your adult self that comes through, you're able to give it to yourself, and they are able to give it to others.

Jana

Yes, but always to sell first, Emerson said the best in the world for me and the best in me for the world. And so the system contains all these parts because for me, my 20s I was like I knew somebody has the answers out there. John Bradshaw became one of my first teachers Marianne Williamson, Wayne Dyer, Unity Church, metaphysics, I was really just voracious and studying. And retreats weren't happening back then. And the 90s I don't know who did many retreats. It was kind of a new thing kind of started in the 2000s. And so in 2004, when I began my retreats, I wanted to do the retreat that I had been looking for, like if I could find a retreat that taught me all these different things that were foundational. So then I started to see Oh, Travis Bradbury's book, emotional intelligence two point out, he says, there's four skills to emotional intelligence. One is self awareness. Okay, so this emotional healing system? Well, we first have to teach people how to ground and become very aware, we call it the witness. And so how can I become the witness? It's almost like I'm out of the body, observing myself washing dishes, so then I'd have free will, and say, my mind is lost in the past and stinking thinking or fearful thinking of the future. Now I have self awareness because I meditate because I do these practices that we teach, that I can shift and maybe offer up gratitude that Oh, I'm so grateful I have warm water to wash dishes and food to eat and right and so I can make the experience a mystical spiritual experience have just washing dishes. So that's foundational. So I realised people need to understand you can't build a house right on a shaky foundation on so what is the foundation of emotional healing system is consciousness is everything. We have to meditate. We have to be in nature. We need stillness and silence We are a very distracted society. And we keep looking in the material world to make us happy, even though we know it doesn't we still chase after those things. So we have to have awareness when we're chasing after something that's impermanent, and the exterior world, and then returned back home to our heart. So that's foundational. Then in Bradbury's book, he talks about the second skill set is self management without would be self regulation. So now I'm observing, like, while I was washing the dishes, I was lost in thought that was also self managing, I was aware. And then I began to regulate my nervous system may be slow, deep breathing, maybe I did a little somatic practice on horses do I love that one? air blowing out your lips, I do something to let expand and let go of whatever I was accumulating in my mind to rethinking that was causing stress. Because thought alone can create the stress response. Nothing's happening external, but the body's getting a message This bear is about law, man, there's no bear, you're worried about finances or your partner, or something in the future that hasn't even happened. And you're showing your mind the worst thing that can happen and the minds like, oh, that must be what they want to happen. We have to be stand guard at the door of our mind. And the third emotional intelligence is social awareness. And then the last one is relationship management. So in social awareness, if I'm doing a good job catching, when I'm projecting and judging someone else, that's a shadow. And I've been able to say, oh, where have I in that way might be that way. I'm that way to myself. Now, all of a sudden, my heart opens, I have compassion for someone who's behaving in a certain way, and I no longer judge them, I open my heart. And in that moment, I become coherent and coherent see happens when the heart connects to the brain, the cart sends more signals to the brain. So my heart begins to flood with connection, not separation. Now, I'm connected to this person who I am judging, I am judging myself, because they are made, they're a reflection of me. And then I come back home to my heart and just being in someone's field of energy that are coherent, they're in their heart, they're sending a strong, they give you an example, at 911, there were a lot of people on this globe, Christina or in their heart for what's happening. It was actually measured. There's a documentary called I Am the doc, it was actually measured, and the heart mass was a part of this study. There's random generators across the planet, they measured, they all started putting out the same numbers, the same sequencing, which meant that the electromagnetic field of our heart was so strong. When we're in our heart, did you know that the field is so strong, we could light a two and a half watt light bulb. Wow. And imagine so HeartMath I was trained with him, they have this thesis that if enough of us are living part base, and I believe Shadow Work is a part of that the meditation, the whole system I created is leading everyone back home to their heart, all the great ones said the same thing. When you see Jesus or Mary, they're all pointing to the heart, the kingdom of heaven is within to the heart. And that's where I think we truly heal. When we connect with the truth, that we are divine, we are not separate from our Creator Rumi said, You are not a drop in the ocean. If God is the ocean, you're the entire ocean in the drop, right? I am not the God but I am the manifestation of what created me as me. And when I identify as that, then all my traumas and everything just seemed like they were a part of the perfect recipe that made me an emotional healing educator that made me me. Yeah, I think one of the things you said that I've said that I am so grateful for my childhood and people like what you've had a lot of trauma, when you get the book, Why is little one, you'll read the traumas you've endured. And when you can come at it, as I'm grateful, I wouldn't have traded it. People can be shocked by that. And yet, that's the gift. You can see how it's led you on the path to do this healing work with others. That's the beauty and doing this work, you end up feeling grateful, which is so great or intuitive of what exactly would be the outcome. And in the end, that's one of the sweetest elixirs we have is gratitude because it holds an emotional signature in our body that something's happened. But guess what, it doesn't have to have happened yet. We can be grateful for our healing and advance. I'll work with people and they'll be like, Oh, this is gonna take so long. And I'm like, Well, this is hard. Well, it's hard. If you say it's hard. It's going to take long time if you say but things can happen like that in quantum physics. It can go from one state to another state like Oh, so it's are you going to argue for your limitations? Or are you going to say, the universe has my back God has my back. I'm so grateful for my healing. I'm so grateful that I'm seeing things, of course in miracles identifies a miracle as a shift in perception. I'm so grateful that today I'm going to perceive the things that I've perceived in the past through new eyes through a new lens. And that lens will empower me and enlighten me and set me free. Now, that hasn't happened yet. But if I think that way enough, my body's going to start to feel endorphins and dopamine and all the good chemicals are going to start flow and I'm just going to start to feel good. And then guess what happens when you feel good, you start attracting good things happening to you, right? Like attracts like, birds of a feather flock together. People say to me, I'm in a relationship with someone, they're abusing me. And I'm like, Okay, well, that means your abuse. No, I would never abuse. Well, you're abusing yourself, because nobody a value would allow that, if you valued yourself wouldn't even be in a subject.

Kristen

And you kind of figured that out with your mom, why she kept going back to your dad, one of those like, as you grew, you're able to see the pieces of that, oh, my mother didn't value herself. And so that's why she kept going back. And her younger parts were the ones that were going back to your dad

Jana

when dad didn't drink. And of course, she knew him from childhood. So she knew him before all that he was just all love and heart. He was a musician he would sing and he didn't know how to navigate the world. I said this to my husband the other day, I said, I'm pretty sure dad drank because he was shy. And it gave him some sense of like, confidence or something because he was insecure and very introverted, and he would become the extrovert, I think But mom really solidified a deep love for my dad when her father died. He was there for her. I mean, for years, day in and day out. He died when she was 12. Mom and dad didn't really fall in love until like, 18. She actually dated his brother, my uncle. First.

Unknown Speaker

Really, you did me? The book. I don't think Dan

Jana

was a short one. But she only had she lost her virginity. He was everything to her. My dad was and never talked bad about him either. Never said, like, just allowed us to make our own choice and decision. We would be like, Why don't you know? And she would say, well, he's your father. And if I say bad things about him. It's really like saying it about you. So she had a lot of wisdom. And very wise, like one of the cool things. I don't know. I'm curious if you got this from the book. Were you aware of how and I think I talked about it in the book, when mom would have electro convulsive therapy, right. And they still do that it's actually a viable, it's a way to rewire the brain, right to take somebody out a really deep depression and shake it up. If their environment doesn't change. And then they go back, just like an attic. She was an emotional attic, we could say, but when she would come out, I mean, from an early age, I was getting downloaded with like, really esoteric teachings, astrology, near death experiences. Raymond Moody, the sleeping prophet, He would lie down his head on a book and absorb the whole book. I mean, she was teaching me things that my little mind didn't know. But my soul name. And I think it's exactly what led me on this path to where I'm at today, and probably is what woke me up at 12. Because I already had in my awareness of something bigger.

Kristen

Yeah. All right. It was like just downloading towards you. It was on a quest. I mean, you were just getting pieces. It was interesting when she came out of the treatment for the electroconvulsive therapy. She was the mom. I mean, you're getting bits of your mom back. Yeah. And then when she would go back, you would lose her again. It was like a go getter. Oh, no, no. I mean, it was like, I yell that, like you had her and then you will lose her. And then you would have her and you will lose ours. Like it's been a grief journey. For most of your life. We just didn't name it.

Jana

Era. I should do this thing when we were in high school. My brother and I so now dad's out of the picture. It was kind of probably pre the gun incident with Dad where she shot him and after during that time, because she wasn't with him anymore after 12 Right when I stood up and I got my Dragon Slayer and I told him, she left. I mean, that was it. When he hit me. She was done. There was something that just clicked for her like, I'm not going to allow that. So from 12 to say, for about four or five years there when my brother's still at home, she would do this thing that teaching Heart Math. I don't know she made it up or it was just C came to her that she would have a standard left chest to left chest, heart to heart. We would have to do slow deep breathing this was our punishment if we fought, and we would have to stand and just breathe until we started to calm down, she would say, drop your shoulders, loosen your jaw, just breathe. Now feel the love. She would always say, feel the feel the love you have for your brother, feel the love you have for your sister. And then we would end up just getting flooded. The vagus nerve is firing and everything's just going into balance. And it was so beautiful. And then she would come in for the love. And then we would just all be loving each other. And that's how it was during my high school years. That was really something that she had to do that I

Kristen

like, Oh, I love that must have just come to her. Maybe she got it in her treatment somehow who Yeah, but yeah, and these are the things when they're gone. You wish you could ask her. I just want to honour that part. I lost my mom this year, too. So I understand. It's an it's a rough relationship. And there's a history there. It's another layer of grief. Like you're like, Oh, I

Jana

wish I could have asked her about that. When I'm sure I did. We talked a lot. We were very close. Because I took care of her. My ex husband. And I mean, we really my brother ended up on drugs and my ex husband and my mom and I really kind of bonded really strong to help him and he's good now. He's doing wonderful. He inspires me a lot. He went through so much, and he's lost so much. And he's still positive and happy works at Sprouts grocery store. And people love him and he gets employee of the month every month and eat takes care of himself. He works out and he eats healthy, and he's alone. And he has a relationship with a couple of his children. But two of them were completely estranged. And I hope they read the book because I feel like they need to know who their father was and what he went through. That made him make choices that he did. It's not an excuse, but it's still to understand his upbringing. But yeah, we're very different. But we trauma bond

Kristen

is gonna say there was a trauma bond there that I could feel and the love that you had for him and him for you. I felt that book. So yeah, maybe this will end up in their hands. Who knows? Hope so? Yeah. Like can put that out there. This has been a wonderful conversation. I feel like we could talk for hours away. Could I really do I mean, like, Okay, let's get more than I highlighted all these things. And we covered exactly what was meant to be covered. And I just thank you for your vulnerability, your authenticity, and sharing your story. If people are interested in working with you or learning more, or buying the book, where can they find you?

Jana

Yeah, so I have Janel wilson.com. That's the author website, I actually you can buy books there too. And I sign them and send them to you. Or Amazon, of course Barnes and Noble, all the regular places your local bookstore can order the book as well, because it's through Ingram Spark. And so they're available everywhere and emotional healing retreats. The emotional healing system is the parent umbrella. One of the subsidiaries is emotional healing retreats to emotional healing systems. And we do private, semi private and group. Now private happens here we have 11 acres, we live off the grid and my husband and I we have a healing centre 2600 square foot with a yoga studio and three bedrooms and clients from all over the world find me. People look up emotional healing and retreat and boom, there it is. But you're in New Mexico, right and nothing New Mexico. Yeah, in the mountains. Yeah, they come here and work. Those private retreats are usually booked about a year out. So I'm booking next spring, right now, the semi private, we only do men, semi private. So we'll do like two to six men. Men are I think because of my brother. I really want to support men, they're raised to really shut their emotions down, create safe space, and some of my best clients are male. Sometimes I'll joke I'm just gonna do emotional healing for men. Because that can be a tough teacher. And I think men can handle better sometimes. The group experience is a five day Monday through Friday. We usually do that some beautiful location. We just had one in San Diego, we'll have one in September in Florida will sometimes go to Hawaii or Costa Rica or somewhere like a destination. It's a deep healing immersive. Yeah, we're doing meditation. We're doing yoga every day. But the processes are very deep. There's hypnotherapy, brass, we're dyad work that I was talking about was shadow work where you're sitting in front of three strangers and they're telling you the worst thing you think about yourself. Exposure therapy. So we do some really powerful processes. People leave unrecognisable to themselves. They're completely transformed. The real work happens after right because then you have to have the discipline to do it every day, but I love what I do. I Imagine ever retiring. Thank you so much for having me. And I really appreciate it.

Kristen

Thank you, Jana and I encourage those that were resonate with your story to get the book wise little one. And let us know what you think. I'm sure you'd love to hear feedback and how it's impacted our listeners. So thank you for being here today, sharing your story, your heart and your soul. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoyed this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share with a friend or a family member. For more information about how to get connected visit kristendboice.com. Thanks and have a great day.