AMPstigator Season Three 16th Feb 2023
Ep. 46 - Women hold Wisdom with Jessica Zweig
[00:00:00] < Intro >
Lauren: This is AMPstigator. A podcast founded on purpose, but focused on the path to get there. Experience is the best teacher, right? And in this season of AMPstigator, we're going all in on female perspective of women and wisdom. As we answer one specific question - What's the lesson here?
Welcome back to AMPstigator. Today's episode is part of my double-dose, two-fer, release in our midseason relaunch. And we are staying with the theme - what's the lesson? For season three. And today is all about how women hold wisdom. We're the containers of it. We pass it down. It's sacred, and Jessica Zweig knows it, too, because she lives it.
I met Jess nearly a year ago. It was a hot day in Nashville. Somehow, she still managed to stay radiant and sweat free. It was inspiring, I was perspiring. And we talked so much that we barely touched our lunch. And when the hour was up, both of us were like, "Oh, my gosh, this was great, we need to do it again."
And there was something about her that's just different. It's authentic, and you're going to feel that. She brings lived experience, truth, and wisdom to every answer. And you are going to hear it in this episode. Jessica is the CEO and founder of SimplyBe. It's a personal branding company. She really specializes in crafting a person's message so that their authenticity shines.
She and her team have launched more than 500 personal brands. She also speaks all over the world about how personal branding is not a vanity play, y'all, it's actually your gift to the world. She's won some pretty big awards, like Female Entrepreneur of the Year, and she's an all-around boss babe.
But we don't really talk about that in this episode. I mean, sure, it comes up here and there because it is her life. It's a part of who she is. But that's not the focus of this conversation. As a matter of fact, at the end of it, Jess even said to me, "Oh, my God, I'm so glad you didn't ask me about how I built my business."
And I just smiled because if you're a longtime listener, you know my interest in a person goes far deeper than their resume. I'm interested in what they've learned. I want to know about how they've developed emotionally and spiritually, through what they've lived.
With Jessica, she's learned recently how to overcome herself. And we talk about her healing journey through physical depletion and depression. How she's healed her beliefs around her work, and her worth. She's really here with a dual lesson in this episode. Yes, women hold wisdom but also enjoy your life, find pleasure. She really gives permission on this, and you're going to love it.
As always, I am grateful when someone is fearless in sharing their truth. So that is what you get here today. This is Jessica Zweig with How Women Hold Wisdom.
What high-vibe emotion are you feeling the most right now?
Jessica: Oh, good, I love this question. Honestly, I want to say presence. I've been known to be a hustler, as a former identity, I'd like to say we'll see how this year fares. But I move fast. I'm very prone and oriented to action, as my mentors and coaches have told me.
I'm a double Leo, tons of fire. I'm an emotional generator in Human Design. I am a go kind of chick, which has served me really well up until a point. And I know you're going to relate to this because I remember what you shared on that panel, we both were on.
But it stopped serving me in a really big way in 2022. And I got a lot of downloads and a lot of breakdowns to break through. To realize, "Jess, you're missing your life. You're missing how good your life is because you're just thinking about the next thing, or surviving, or achieving."
And so, in the last couple of months, I've had a complete recalibration into more joy, and more fun, and more play, and more gratitude. But I think at the root of that is just the ability to be present enough to my life, to receive all of those things. So presence.
Lauren: Yes, was there a moment that smacked you in the face? That you're like, "This is all wrong?" Because what you just described is lots of things, lots of moments. But was there one that you look in the mirror and you go, "Oh, crap, this is not the life. This isn't the life?" Did you have one singular moment like that?
Jessica: I did. I mean, it's definitely been a lot of emotional breakdowns. My body is been broken down and I've gotten sick. I've been on a journey with that. I've also had moments of depression and anxiety, where my mind wasn't in the best place, and then I got myself out of it. But then I just kept falling back into my patterns, frankly.
Lauren: We all fall back into patterns because it's the programming.
Jessica: It's the programming.
Lauren: So the thing that takes the work is switching up the programming, changing the programming. Cutting and splicing and adding something new, and that's the work.
Jessica: That is the work. And I was very blessed enough to go to Egypt at the end of last year, for 15 days. I took a pilgrimage, a spiritual pilgrimage, with a group of about 20 people. Led by some very powerful shamans, and mystics, and guides. That first of all, I had to break out of the monotony of the matrix and the programming because I was in another country for 15 days.
And it was the first time I had traveled overseas since the pandemic. So I'm a huge traveler, I've been to 35 countries. But that was obviously all put on hold, that passion, during these last couple of years. So another country, another continent, Egypt, and it is truly a portal into the cosmos. The galactic kind of dawning of humanity here came from and stemmed from this place, and you step into it.
Lauren: It's a fertile crescent.
Jessica: It literally is. It reprogrammed me, going to Egypt, and I went into these sacred sites. And there was one particular time I stepped into a temple called Dendera, which is the Temple of the Goddess of Hathor. And she's the goddess of frequency, and vibration, and love, and play, and tantric bliss.
And I had a full body activation in that temple. And I just got all of this, I could say new information. But I actually think it was more of a remembrance of my truth, that I had the game all wrong. That it was really my job to enjoy my human experience versus suffer for it. And that encoded in my body and I feel like a different person.
Lauren: Yes, did your husband go with you?
Jessica: He did not.
Lauren: Okay, so you were alone. "Alone" quote-unquote.
Jessica: I was with my girlfriends.
Lauren: So you come home and you're like, "I'm a different person."
Jessica: Yes, we fought every single day for a month. We had a real tough time in integration but we made it through.
Jessica: That's so funny. My therapist would say, in that moment, the only thing that changed is you. So you have to take him and everyone else around you, you have to show them how to now navigate life with the new you.
Jessica: Yes.
Lauren: You're the only thing that changed.
Jessica: Correct.
Lauren: And I'm not always good at marketing that. We're married, we live in this container. We're very energetically, sensitive to one another. And I came home fully expanded, healed in many ways from my burn-out. And he was in the Q4 crunch, working his ass off, and hadn't taken a vacation in six months and was super burnt-out.
Lauren: He was like, "Well, you were gone for 15 days."
Jessica: Basically, I heard that a couple of times. And, so, that was a real moment for us to break down, in a way, to break through.
And something I've learned about being married, and I'm sure you can relate. As the female in the relationship, you are the gateway drug, and you can't tell them you have to be it. You just have to be it.
Lauren: I've learned that.
Jessica: And they'll follow in their own time, in their own way. But it's not about teaching them or showing them, it's just about being the example of what's possible for you in your own life. So that they can be a witness to it in action because actions do speak louder than words. And, so, that was really the journey that Brian and I have been on. But he's my person, I'm fucking going to die with him. I don't know if I can swear, is that okay?
Lauren: Yes, you do whatever you want, I don't care.
Jessica: He will be my knight for the rest of my life. But that's marriage, it ebbs and it flows.
Lauren: Well, and you're there for each other. And I don't mean it like, "Oh, thanks for being there for me, pal." No, I'm like this is your person. You are here for him he is here for you. It's just a beautiful relationship.
There are lots of us that have that, and then there are lots of people who don't have that. It's the cards, to me, it's like "Here is the cards." And, for me, I say the same thing about my husband. That some people end up being lost with a great job, some have great talent, some have great ability to make money. Some people have all sorts of different gifts.
My gift was my spouse. This is what I was given. He was the gift to me, to hold my hand through the crazy journey that my life is going to be. And that's part of the awareness that we have for each other. Of it's bigger, the journey for us together is bigger than any of the lessons we learn or anything because we're here for each other. Does that make sense?
Jessica: It does. I love that reframe because sometimes I feel guilty talking about how much I love my husband. How solid our marriage is. Not in this conversation but in circles of women who are struggling to either find love, or they're going through divorces, or they hate their husbands or whatever. And I love that frame of we've all been dealt different cards. And one of my blessings was my marriage.
Lauren: Yes, that was what you got.
Jessica: I got dealt that. And it doesn't mean that I figured out love and relationships any better than the next woman. But it really is a matter of what's divinely oriented, I think, for your human existence.
Lauren: I want to talk about something you had just brought up, about women setting an example. It's so beautiful that you said that because I see that. I look at it as the masculine brings the fire, the ideas. I don't want to call it action, but in a lot of ways, it is action.
Jessica: Totally.
Lauren: But women the female, for me, gives birth, it brings embodiment, it brings all of that. And I have found, in the last few years of my own personal journey. That same idea of women are here to be the bearers. Think of all the things women bear.
Jessica: Oh, yes.
Lauren: And I think wisdom is one of those major things. And I have a bone to pick that so many people, I think, really within our world. But let's look at American society, specifically, that we think that men are supposed to be the holders of wisdom. I disagree. I think women were always meant to be the holders and bearers of wisdom and we bring it forth. Don't you think?
Jessica: I don't think. I believe, and know, and wholeheartedly retweet everything you just said. Because this is what I feel I'm really here to do with my life, and my work, and my own work and my own lane. But the feminine, we live on a planet called Mother Earth. Mother Earth, we are in a feminine reality. But not to get all history on you, and I'm not even a historian.
Lauren: I'm here for all of it, bring all of it.
Jessica: I mean, I'll just give the cliffs Notes version of how I've interpreted what I've read, and what I've studied. In these last two to 3000 years the patriarchy was born. It was a complete repression and oppression of the feminine values of human life, which was all about the wisdom to know we are all connected, we are all interdependent.
That we are intended to be in harmony with each other because we are the planets. Just as we are the seasons, just as we are the animal, just as we are the moon cycle. And that was, literally, monopolized, and reversed, and trashed by religion. Which was really written by a bunch of men who were just seeking power, control and territory. And not to say that the masculine isn't beautiful because it is divine.
But these last couple of thousands of years, on this planet, has really knocked us off balance. And the masculine, there are elements of the masculine that are toxic and dominating for all of those reasons I just described.
The feminine doesn't need power, control, and she knows that all things are in equanimity. And to be, frank, we worshiped the goddess. It was a woman; it was a feminine deity in these temples. We didn't worship a masculine god that was written in paper, on parchment, by men. And we've been conditioned to believe that is truth.
And, so, everything you're talking about, Lauren, please say more because we are the ultimate holders of wisdom, and embodiment, and birthing, and giving life. And that doesn't mean that we're all love and light. We're fierce, we're strong, we take no shit.
Lauren: Yes, I think of the warrior goddesses like, "Oh, my gosh." Anger is divinely feminine, and it took me a long time to realize that. Because I think anger is I mean, not think, I know, anger is repressed, especially in women like don't lose it keep it together.
Jessica: Be pretty, be cute, be together, just take care of the family. Be polite, stay in your lane, look pretty, smell good.
Lauren: Yes, but feminine rage is the real deal. And let me tell you, nothing clears a room like a woman on an effing mission.
Jessica: And nothing will clear your body like you tapping into your own rage. I started primal screaming a couple of months ago.
Lauren: Did you? Did you do that with Rea?
Jessica: Oh my God, I didn't do that with Rea. I did that in Journey. She is amazing.
Lauren: She started, by the way, she talked about primal screaming on this podcast.
Jessica: Yes.
Lauren: Look at the show notes, I was about to say Cliff Notes. Look at the show notes, I'll link whatever the episode number of Rea's episode.
Jessica: But all things come full circle.
Lauren: Yes, they do.
Jessica: So hearing this, again, primal screaming needs to come into your universe. But if you think of the chakras; the root, the sacral, the solar plexus, it's the color wheel, because of our body. The sacral, which is our womb, is orange it's fire, tap into that.
Lauren: Girl, these are my sacral beads, right here.
Jessica: I love that.
Lauren: That's it.
Jessica: Yes, sacral is one of the most powerful, important, chakras we have to tap into as women. Our womb it's our creation space.
Lauren: Oh, you said womb. What does womb wisdom mean to you?
Jessica: Good question. Womb wisdom, I'm actually reading a book, now, called Womb Awakening and it's really good. And the birth canal, it's the void, it's the nothingness, and it's the infinite all at once. It's pitch black, as black as the infinite universe, we hold that in our womb.
And, so, womb wisdom is knowing that you are that infinite, that you are that powerful. That you have, literally, the ability to create the cosmos in your body. And when you really believe in that, when you get aligned to that, you will become unstoppable.
But you won't become unstoppable for yourself you'll be unstoppable for the good of everyone you touch. And we all touch the world, no matter how big or small our lives or platforms might be. So, I think, womb wisdom is just knowing your fucking power.
Lauren: Yes, isn't that amazing? I see it as like a sacred portal, too.
Jessica: Yes, it is.
Lauren: It's a sacred portal because I think, gosh, in my pregnancies and when I've had kids, it's like there's a connection in that moment where it's like, "I am doing something that women have been doing for thousands of years." And, for me, there was a lot of emotion wrapped in that of there was peace, of you're going to be okay, this is what your biologically your body was made for.
So there's some there's peace there. But then also, I mean, obviously, fear because we know childbirth is a dangerous business, and it certainly was for me. That's my personal story of, literally, three kids. Three kids, two of the times I almost died and, so there was trauma there.
Jessica: Of course.
Lauren: But the peace combined with the trauma, with all the realization of "This has been happening for thousands, and thousands, and thousands of years, we're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. This is what connects you to every single woman that came before you, this is that point, that portal.
Jessica: Yes, I mean, that is so powerful, to really connect to and think about the lineage of women that we all stem from. And how powerful and important it is to be a woman.
I got that download when I was in Dendera in Egypt from the goddesses of Hathor, which I'll talk about for the rest of my life. But the message was you were incarnated as a woman for a reason, not by accident.
You are of the goddess and the goddess creates, and whether she creates children out of her womb space, quite, literally. Or she creates ideas, businesses, impact, service, community, love, nurturing, it stems from this holy portal.
Lauren: And you're giving birth to something.
Jessica: Exactly, and we all have that, literally, written in our DNA because we're women.
Lauren: Do you think every woman has a need to create?
Jessica: I think that if she taps into that she will find healing, and new ways of expanding, and expressing. So, yes, I think, that every woman has a potential to be a creative and to see themselves as such. But I don't want someone listening to be like, "Well, I work a day job or none of my life is creative. Is there something wrong with me? Or I don't really care to be creative."
But looking for, and this is really tapping into the values of the feminine, which are available everywhere we look. That's beauty, stillness, nature, creating connection. The creative experience can come to life in a lot of different ways. You could be observing someone else's creativity and feel something in your heart open. So I would like to say yes because that's our biology. But I also am sensitive to people who have, maybe, the story that they're not a creative person at all, and there's no shame there.
Lauren: I like how you say that, "The story" because we can create any story we want.
Jessica: Exactly.
Lauren: We can create it, that's what I find is so fascinating. And, for me, personally, I feel I'm in this phase of co-creation. Where just in the last couple of months, it was like this light bulb went off of like, "No, you're being called to co-create."
So there is here is the star of destiny out there, and you see that. But I, Lauren, I get to create how I get there. That's the co-creation of how things can co-exist. Of like, "Hey, I know that I was meant to do this thing. "
Or, "I know I was meant to live in the city."
Or, "I know I was meant to work at that place or marry this person, I know that." Okay, so, if the question is, then, well, what's the co-creation with destiny? Well, if that's the destiny; how does a person co-create? Well, to me, it's like you co-create how you get there. That thing, that destiny point is calling to you, so then we cop-create the journey to get there.
Jessica: A hundred percent. What you're talking about, in my view, is empowerment. Really understanding that you have total control, in a way, of how you show up for your life. And, yes, there are certain things, I believe in predestine, and fate, and what's meant to be will be, and that's the caveat. The operative word is co-creator. You're not the creator.
Lauren: Yes.
Jessica: But there was a pretty significant unlock I had a couple of years ago, many years ago. Around this realization of what a victim I was being to my life.
Lauren: Oh, my God, girl, I feel you. Keep going, keep bringing it on.
Jessica: I didn't even see it. I didn't realize how much I was victimizing myself to my own life circumstance, in every which direction. I mean, I was working for a corporate job at the time, I hated my boss. It was all his fault for controlling my life. I hated my husband, who was in his own scarcity that was going through a job change. And didn't want me to quit the job that I had because I was the breadwinner. I hated him for that.
I was flying, all the time, to Dallas for this job where the headquarters was. I was resentful and hateful towards American Airlines because it was always [Inaudible 00:21:48] out my flights. I hated everybody. It was everyone else's fault what was happening to my life, and how unhappy and miserable I was.
Lauren: I feel like I'm looking in the mirror right now. It's true, I had this awakening a few years ago, too, amazing. Just amazing.
Jessica: Yes, and you know there's that expression, "You're pointing one finger at someone, you have three pointing back at you." And I didn't at all see that. And it wasn't until I spent $700 to go on this weekend-long women's retreat up in the woods of Wisconsin, that my best friend convinced me to go. And I was like, "I'm going to be the worst person there. I'm going to bring the whole group down. I'm in the worst place in my life."
And she was like, "Jessica, this is exactly what you need, you need to go."
So I went, and that two and a half days changed my whole, freaking life.
Lauren: I love it.
Jessica: And it was all about just holding up a mirror, one, to what a victim I was being. But two, it was like, "Yo, you created your sadness, you can create your joy." And that was an unlock for me. And that's when I started SimplyBe. That's when I started scaling my company. That's when the book deal came. All of these things came into a more right relationship because I realized I was a co-creator. What a freaking revelation.
And I think we go through journeys and dips of being the victim. But what you're talking about to me is like pure empowerment to know we are empowered. To know that life is happening for us, not to us.
Lauren: It's become a game for me, now, the realization of; "No, there's nothing special that I'm doing." We each have the power to just make it. Just make what it is.
And, so, truly, it's like a game, truly, now. Where I'm like, "No, I actually, really, want that." So if I really want that and I can align myself with that, I mean, it can come, and I can watch it come. And I get to sit around and wait for it to come. I can speak it to be. This is incredible. What an incredible opportunity, every single one of us has to truly create a reality.
Jessica: But I love what you've just said. It's like, "I speak it and so it is. I visualize it and it will come." And that's really the game; if you start to play it it's fun, and it's crazy, and amazing.
Lauren: Yes, and then I just get to sit back and watch it happen.
Jessica: Yes.
Lauren: You said something, though, that made me think of this. So I, in the last year, have started really trying to be very intentional about setting intentions.
Jessica: I love it.
Lauren: And that's where all of this started and it started with Psychic Frank. You haven't seen him, yet.
Jessica: I need to see him.
Lauren: You need to see Psychic Frank.
Jessica: You got to get me in. You got to know somebody who knows somebody.
Lauren: So it was Psychic Frank who said to me, he was like, "You have to set intentions." And he said to me, these were his exact words. He said, "Your guides, everybody is standing around right now, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for you to tell them what you want."
You're not saying what you want, what is it? So be bold, be daring, what is it? From that moment, it took me two full weeks where all I would do was think about, "Well, what's my intention? What's it going to be?"
And, so, I've been very intentional about intentions all the time. My most recent intention. It was like a breakthrough, now turned intention was this thing of it doesn't have to be hard. And my programming is like, "If it's not hard and I'm not killing myself, it showed two things.
It showed that it wasn't worth it, and, oh, you don't care unless it's hard." By it being hard, it shows that I care. And it was this realization, a couple of weeks ago of these are not equal, actually. So it can be easy, and you can still care about it. So I'm in this process of uncoupling hardship from this meaning of it being something that I care about. Does that make sense?
Jessica: It does. It really does.
Lauren: And, so, when you say, "This can be easy." This is also, now, part of my game of don't freaking kill yourself, this doesn't have to be hard. It can be really easy. And you can just take the power you have in your little, pinky, fingernail, and there it is.
Jessica: Yes, for me is if it's not hard I don't deserve it. If it's not hard to enough to kill myself for it, I'm not worthy of it.
Lauren: Yes.
Jessica: And what you're saying is this deep programming that we have from our ancestors, our lineage. Being a woman, speaking of our womb, I think a lot of this survival hustle lives there and we're in a different paradigm now.
I do believe that the planet is waking up. And our ancestors, and our great grandparents, parents, parents, they didn't have the perspective and the ability in the society. It was about survival, in many ways, and that's been programmed into our DNA, unconsciously. But we get to shift it by just simply bringing our awareness to it.
Working with healers like Frank, having conversations like this. Finding your people who are on this path, who are waking up or who are already awake, who know that it's a game too. And I think that it's just an amazingly exciting time to be alive right now. I really do. I say this all the time; the access, the resources, the ability that we have to start a podcast because we want to.
Lauren: And it can be heard all over the world.
Jessica: Exactly, with a push of a button. It's incomparable, this time that we're in right now. And I think the real unlock and the real next level is if we all, kind of going back to what I was saying at the beginning, start to really have fun with it. To enjoy it, to play the game, to be empowered, to be present, and to know that we're the co-creators, it's all up to us.
[00:27:46] < Music >
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[00:28:41] < Music >
Lauren: Give me a brief understanding of who this person was six years ago. Who was Jessica Zweig six years ago?
Jessica: I had just come out of working for a corporate job two years before. Or I'd been working for this company for two years, that company I hated. Prior to that I had been an entrepreneur. I had run my own business and it had been a critical success, but a financial failure. And I knew that I just couldn't work for the man anymore. And I wanted to go off and start my own thing, but I didn't really know what it was going to be.
I just had a vision to build a brand called Simply Be. And make it about authentic personal branding, and show up, and give the world my gifts. So I had a lot of gumption, I had a lot of grit. I had a lot of focus and drive on my purpose. But I didn't really have a business model. I just knew I could make some money consulting.
And, so, there was a part of me that felt like I needed to prove myself. I didn't feel very confident in my ability to earn money and be a true businesswoman. I was seeking a lot of validation. I was also running from a really bad business divorce I had with my former business partner.
So there was a part of me that was insecure about what she thought of me. I had all of this old projection but also some self-projection. But I was myself; I was myself regardless. And that was my source, to really starting to build momentum for this thing that I was starting to create and it took off real fast.
And I remember having a thought, Lauren, I think you're going to relate to this. Where my schedule was starting to get really full and I was getting asked to do all these things. And I was working on these projects and clients. And someone wanted me to host a retreat series with them across the world. And I remember thinking, like, "I'm like superwoman. I have enough energy to get it all done in a day." I can get it done in one day, what someone can get done in a week, I'm that motivated.
Lauren: Yes, and then your body talked.
Jessica: And then your body is like, "F- you."
Lauren: I'll show you how capable you're.
Jessica: Exactly, like not so fast, Sweetie.
Lauren: Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should.
Jessica: Right, you're not that smart. "I'm smarter than you." Says your body. And, so, six years ago, I was really just forming it. And if you would have told me six years ago that I would have built what I've built, I would never have believed you.
Lauren: Yes, oh, sure, somewhere there would have been some believe.
Jessica: Maybe it would have been a little too big of a dream. I mean, there was a part of me that would have cried knowing I could do it. And then there was a part of me that probably would cry being like, "I don't know if I can do it."
Lauren: Yes, that's a lot, "Can live up to that."
Lauren: So, to me, that was like a look in the past. I want to look at present, but maybe present before Egypt. When a person, like you, has all this grit and determination, but starts this healing journey, I see it as like you're going on this continuum of liberation on one side. I don't like using this word but for these purposes, bondage, So bondage on one side, liberation on one side.
So even though you were creating all these amazing things. You're still, in my view, on that bondage side of the continuum because you are bound to the things you're creating. So instead of it setting you free, it was keeping you shackled, all right.
But you're going on this healing journey. So you're coming on this continuum closer and closer to liberation, but you still have these chains. So I'm curious, where were you in this conflict of liberation and bondage pre-Egypt? Explain what that was; was that a head game? Was that a body game? Where was the conflict playing out for you in your life?
Jessica: I love that description, by the way. That's a beautiful analogy. I often say I've built myself a golden cage and locked myself in it with the keys.
Lauren: Because it is so beautiful.
Jessica: It's just so beautiful and it's still a cage. So I would say that it was early 2022 from the book launch, which happened the year before, of just building a business for five, six years straight. I reached full-on physical depletion. And, so, I had manifested it as depression. And I was in a pretty dark place for the first few months of the year.
Lauren: And you had just moved to Nashville, at the exact same time. That's a hard time to move.
Jessica: I did. Well, I think what happened was because I'm from Chicago, originally, and spend most of my life there. That is a frenetic dense place, that just keeps you hopped up on the buzz of 8 million people in a concrete ten-mile radius.
So when I came to Nashville, in January, in this ten-acre lot, in this old farmhouse that my husband and I found on Airbnb. Something in me unraveled because I had the space to energetically to let it go.
And, so, I did a beautiful protocol; I went through a ketamine protocol. I did that through extravenously, through a beautiful clinic in Chicago, healed my sleep. I got my hormones in balance. My therapist thought I needed actual SSRIs medication, and I was open to it because I felt like such death.
Lauren: Awful.
Jessica: But I was blessed to be put in touch with a holistic psychiatrist. Who was like, "You don't need drugs. What you need is to heal your sleep, your hormones, and let's put you on ketamine." That really helped just restimulate my brain. But what it didn't do is heal my subconscious addicted patterns to workaholism.
Lauren: Totally, and that's the hardest thing to heal because that's the programming.
Jessica: Correct. So all of 2022 was just one big sort of feedback loop, of me figuring out how to heal my system and get some supportive tools. But not really change my core beliefs around work-
Lauren: Work and value.
Jessica: ...value, worth, hustle. And, so, by the end of 2022, before Egypt, I was honestly ready to dump my business.
Lauren: Yes, just sell it off, like I can't. The only way out is to cut the bars of the cave.
Jessica: Uh-huh, break free from that bondage. Cut it out, dump it, 99.9% done with my business. I didn't give a shit. I was just like, "I'll sell it for a penny stock. I'll shut it down. I can't do this anymore."
Lauren: Did anyone else know that?
Jessica: My husband.
Lauren: Yes, and he's in the business with you, we should point that out.
Jessica: Some of my executive team members knew. But my team certainly, didn't know. My community didn't know. My best friend knew. But I know, I mean, to a certain degree, you have to keep up appearances as not just like a face on Instagram, but a leader of your own business, as the CEO.
Lauren: Because, otherwise, people, they're going to be like, "Well, what am I here for?"
Jessica: What am I here for? And, I think, my team could feel it. I have 25 fulltime employees now and many of them have been with me for years. And they're around because they believe in me and they love what we're doing. I was just in a really dark place. I had to let go of people, I re-orgd.
We were somewhat impacted by the economic recession that I think is coming back. But there was scarcity and fear happening in the market. And, so, we had to prepare, as a business, for it. And one of the hardest days of my life was letting go of a few people, demoting another.
Gathering all my staff in the conference room, at the end of the day, and letting them know half the company has a new boss. This person isn't here anymore. And this person isn't here today because she's deciding whether or not she wants to keep her job because she was just demoted.
I have to say being the CEO or leader of an organization has, yes, stretched my capacity. It's like personal development school on steroids. But it's also been what's caused so much of this dark, heavy, sad burnout. I'm in a different place now.
Lauren: Well, yes, so I'm still considering that present. But now I do want to go like here you are now and moving forward. This is, to me, let's talk about future. You went to Egypt and you got this whole, I mean, it's not just a download it's an upgrade like you upgraded.
Jessica: It was an upgrade, that's the best way to put it and it saved my life. I really believe that that trip to Egypt, in a certain level, saved my life. So I will say that I was very blessed. In that reorg I brought on some new leadership, of course. And I have the best management and leadership team, in the history of the six years I've been running my company, that are now running my business.
And this one particular woman, I'm going to shout her out, Shawna Knuckles, she's changed my life. She came in as my integrator and she said to me, "Give me 90 days to get you out of the weeds." She was somebody who knew I was 99.-
Lauren: You were so close to just cutting loose.
Jessica: She saw it on my face. She was like, "I will get you out of the weeds. I will put you back in the visionary seat where you need to be." And she did it in 45 days.
Lauren: Oh, wow.
Jessica: So my business is running, it's beautiful. It doesn't need me to be in it anymore. It wants me and needs me to be on it. And then Egypt was that upgrade, it was a homecoming. It was a remembrance of my soul's truth. Which was, at the end of the day, I got so many messages in Egypt.
But the highlight, the headline, I would just say is, "Enjoy your life. This life is meant to be pleasurable. Don't focus on your suffering, focus on your pleasure, and everything will manifest in a line and flow."
And I, literally, came back, I'm new. I look back at that person, not even in 2022. But this Jessica, who I love, who I am grateful for, who I honor, that got me to where I am but I don't identify with her anymore. I remember things I thought about, or said, or did in 2022 that were so based on this programming. I'm like, "I left that girl in Egypt, she didn't come back with me."
Lauren: Well, you have love and compassion for that person, right?
Jessica: Of course, you have to.
Lauren: No, I feel that. I feel that being someone else and knowing; "That person, I'm not going back to that person."
Jessica: But I'm grateful for that person because she got me here. And all the lessons I had to learn as her and, literally, felt like I shed a skin. And I've been doing a lot of my own healing work with my own healers, and shamans, and teachers, too. And everything has been really pointing me to just get back into my body. Which has been very healing on my nervous system.
Lauren: Oh, God, I imagine.
Jessica: Yes, and, so, the combination of having incredible management leadership, that trip to Egypt. And the integration that I've had since that trip with my healers, has just put me in such a beautiful... I mean, I don't want to jinx anything, Lauren.
Lauren: Oh, God, no, you're not going to jinx anything.
Jessica: I know, thank you, I receive that. I just wanted to say out loud, and thank you for that affirmation, that I've never been happier than I am right now.
Lauren: I love that. I'm thinking about the people who are going to listen to this episode. And they may believe something that I used to believe, which is I, Lauren, I would say that I don't have the luxury to do this or to do that. I don't have the luxury to take time away. I don't have the luxury to hire this person or that person.
I finally realized, and clearly you've realized this, too, you can't afford not to. You can't afford not to take care of yourself. Because if we, as women, are these holders of wisdom. If we as women are the ones that initiate change in our families, in our businesses, our communities, in our groups, in our circles, if we are that.
All it takes is one woman who says, "This is what it's going to be. I am going to take that time for myself. I am going to heal my body. I am going to do those things." Because it's the permission, when one gives permission to self, we give permission to all, and you're doing that.
Jessica: Thank you.
Lauren: Don't you feel that?
Jessica: Well my vision statement at Simply Be is "When you set yourself free to simply be, you give everyone the permission to do the same." So thank you for that reflection. I'd like to say that I've talked the talk really well. And not to say that I haven't been authentic or sincere, but I feel I am really walking that walk now.
Lauren: You're embodying it. It's one thing to be idea, like you were giving people the idea of it. But you weren't in your own body, physically, being that. Now you are being that.
Jessica: Yes. Which is why when you ask me what's the high vibrational, feeling I'm in right now it's presence. I'm grounded in this body and this experience on planet Earth, rooted enough to receive.
And that's the woman who's listening, who's like, "I don't have the luxury to do this or that." You can't pour from an empty cup. Even if your cup is somewhat full, your cup has to be overflowing so you have enough to give and also be taking care of yourself.
And, so, for me, sure that's a luxury to take a 15-day trip to Egypt or hire somebody to help run my business, for me. But I think that taking care of yourself in any way that's nourishing whether it's an afternoon walk, or a nap, or eating something really good for you. It's all nourishment, filling your cup. And, so, finding that practice, it's easier said than done. But if we don't what are we doing it all for? If we're not taking care of ourselves?
Lauren: Yes, when I am with you, I've always sort of gotten high priestess vibes. But now this iteration of you, in this very present moment, I'm like, "Home girl has finally stepped into high priestess mode." Like you deserve a high-five for that.
Jessica: Okay, I'll take it, wait, before we knock the table. Thank you.
Lauren: For real, though, you are embodying high priestess vibes.
Jessica: That's why I wore my crown.
Lauren: Has that ever been an intention? Have you ever thought high priestess?
Jessica: Well, yes, I can't show it to you right now because I have a crew neck top on. But the priestess is an archetype that I've been working on-
Lauren: Is that your tattoo?
Jessica: It's a key.
Lauren: Is that your boob tattoo?
Jessica: It's my boob tattoo. It's the priestess key.
Lauren: Shut up.
Jessica: Yes, because she's the keeper of the keys.
Lauren: I love it; I didn't even know that.
Jessica: Yes, it's my priestess key, and I wanted it right here.
Lauren: When did you get that tattoo?
Jessica: About a year, last November.
Lauren: No way.
Jessica: Yes, in Costa Rica.
Lauren: Well, I was picking it up, girl.
Jessica: Thank you.
Lauren: I was picking up the vibe.
Jessica: I receive that, I really do. Just amplify this for your audience, I work with a coach, her name is Gina, and I talk about it all the time. And four or five years ago, when I was deep in hustle mode, she works with a lot of the divine feminine oracle cards, the goddesses, archetypes, blah, blah, blah. And she brought the priestess into one of our sessions and was like, "This is the vibration. This is the archetype that I see you really stepping into." And, so, the priestess has been, I mean, it was significant enough that I tattooed it on my body.
Lauren: In a very feminine place, which I freaking love.
Jessica: Thank you.
Lauren: You were like, "Where else can I put this? I'm going to put it in between the ladies."
Jessica: Uh-huh, I love it so much-
Lauren: And it's such a beautiful tattoo, too.
Jessica: Thank you. I like [Inaudible 00:44:46], it's like let it be seen. But the point is, Lauren, I really appreciate you saying that because it was aspirational for a long time.
Lauren: Yes.
Jessica: And I feel it's just been a more of an embodiment.
Lauren: But you know what this is? This is an opportunity, actually, as an illustration, that a year and a half ago, two years ago, that became like, "Oh, could I be that? Someone else sees that in me. Could I actually be that?"
And you started to say, "Yes, I think I could." You started taking steps. I mean, the tattoo, sure, that's a step, whatever. You started taking steps to embody that. And look at you now, you didn't tell me that. But I'm like I think of you and I think high priestess, totally.
Jessica: Thank you.
Lauren: And, so, here we are, two years later, and you are embodying that. So is that not an illustration of the game? If you just start to find that and be that it's how simple of a game, it is.
Jessica: Yes, I love that. It's really about creating conscious choice and knowing that you are that powerful. I love one of my favorite quotes is "When you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at change."
And I was looking at myself in a particular lens of like, "I'm this masculine, savvy female entrepreneur. I've got a hustle. I've got a grind." And the vibration changed when I chose to see that as a programming, a story, a lie. And like, "No, your magic and your gift is in your non-doing."
Lauren: I like how you said that, non-doing.
Jessica: Like lately, since this year started, I have so much space of nothingness. That I'm almost like a little bored.
Lauren: Wait, okay, hold on, does that mean that you're not putting things in your calendar? What do you mean by nothingness?
Jessica: Yes, just nothingness. I have time after work or during the day. Because I have this woman helping me run my business, my schedule has opened up. I'm not in the day-to-day minutiae of the meetings, so I have all this spaciousness. And I'll read a book, I'll meditate, I'll journal, I'll go for a walk, I'll call my mom, whatever I feel like doing.
And it's allowed me to be in this vibration, of this embodiment, of this, I guess, you would call it priestess energy. Not the masculine hustle, CEO, female entrepreneur, boss babe. I just think that's so dated, at least for me, and it's really how much can I expand my capacity to allow life to happen?
Lauren: And you be present for it.
Jessica: And me be present for it. Not have to hustle and grind to make something happen. The universe is already making things happen for me; I have to be in my joy. Speaking of vibration, when we get into our vibration, our frequency of joy, of positive energy, we become like an antenna for that match. And that's what the universe is really wanting to call and send in. But when we're so focused on the stress, the hustle, the day-to-day, it's like the universe is calling but the line is dead.
And, so, I've really tapped into this understanding of joy is my job. And it's not every single minute of every single day, but the more I can find space and joy can come to fruition. And, for me, I love dancing, I love live music. I love being with my friends, and being social, fun times with high vibes. But fun and joy can be drawing with my colored pencils. I'm not kidding. So finding that frequency is really what I am studying now.
Lauren: And to remind yourself that the non-doing is so beautiful.
Jessica: It's so needed.
Lauren: Yes, I have been finding that for myself. Of that's my old programming that I continuously, I'm working through in real time of like, "I don't have to be doing something all the time. I don't have to. Every moment doesn't have to be filled."
And this is something I've been doing, I have this big window next to my dining room table. And it's my favorite place to sit, and I'll just look out and I'll watch the birds and I've got this little plant that sit next to me.
And I just put this little plant next to me, and I stare at the trees and the birds, and I'm like, "Here it is." And sometimes I'll pull out my journal and sometimes I'll write. But I'll just sit there and I'll stare and I'll have those moments of silence. And I have found it makes me so laser focused in the moments that I actually need to be focused. As opposed to my brain being in 37 different places, of all the things I need to do and can't get done.
I don't think people realize, we spend so much time living in our minds. And thinking through problems that are never going to be solved or all they require is just one bit of action. But when you're not in the right head space, things just don't get done. We run ourselves ragged in that way.
Jessica: We certainly do. When I was in Egypt, what you were saying, reminds me of a different temple I went to.
Lauren: I love it, let's hear it.
Jessica: And it was the Temple of Philae and that's the temple of Isis. And Isis and Osiris were the original, if you were to map them, Jesus and Mary. They were the mother and father of Egyptian mythology and faith, and Isis is the Great Mother.
And I was in her chambers, and I had a full on activation, again. And she told me, I mean, remembering, she is the Great Mother, she's the ultimate goddess that we are to worship, or at least, a collective of. And she told me that she's like, "You need to learn how to be still."
She was like, "Your greatest power is in your ability to watch the flowers bloom and the seasons change." She said that to me. "Jessica, you need to give yourself permission to rest." And that was like the medicine of Isis.
And what you're talking about is like that message of being so present in the moment of watching your birds, holding your coffee. Being in that moment and giving yourself that moment. So that you can give more to the moment that needs you to use your mind and be focused.
And I just think we override that so much in our society, especially as women, with all the things we juggle. Being moms, hosting events, hosting podcasts, running businesses, all the things it's like our job to be on.
Lauren: Yes.
Jessica: And it's not.
Lauren: But that's such a lie, we don't have to be on.
Jessica: No, it's not.
Lauren: Because the mothering energy is one that holds. This is also another reason why I have found it to be so beneficial, for me, to find stillness. My job, to be the best interviewer I can be, that is all dictated on my ability to hold space for you. And how do I hold space? By being still.
I cannot be a reflection. If you're going to look in the water and you're wanting to see your reflection. You can't see your reflection if the water is choppy and moving everywhere. My ability to reflect to you is truly just a reflection on my ability to be still.
So if the water is still, then you can see yourself more clearly. Do you know what I'm saying? And, so, that's been why, for me, meditation has become such a thing because it's how I increased my capacity to hold, to just be there.
Jessica: And you're really beautiful at it, by the way.
Lauren: Thanks girl, I receive that.
Jessica: You really are. And fun fact, the priestess, according to my teachers at least, has her element there's earth, fire, whatever. Her element is still water because she's intended to be that reflection, that mirror.
I think that frequency really is the modality of healing now. Just really getting so in tune with your vibration, how you feel in your body. And it's hard to get in touch with it when we're in these big cities. And we're around exhaust from cars and cellphone 5G. I mean, really, it's a challenge to feel frequency in your body or be attuned to it. Which is why it's so important, I think, going to sound bars, listening to music, getting into nature.
Lauren: Yes, for me, it's the woods, I have to go to the trees.
Jessica: Yes, and like Mother Earth, Gaia, she is the ultimate healer, ultimately. So if you can find enough space, and that's really been one of the biggest downloads I've gotten into 2023. Because 2022 was like, dark, as I've explained.
Lauren: Yes, can I add an asterisk?
Jessica: Yes.
Lauren: I find that darkness is always the path to purpose.
Jessica: Totally.
Lauren: Pain is like the linchpin; it's what is almost required. So please, if you're listening and you feel like, "I am in such a dark place." Girl, the next spot is purpose. The next spot is light. So just increase your awareness around like, "What's coming next?" Maybe it is a little more pain but next is always purpose.
Jessica: I just heard on a podcast, recently, this mantra of, "What's next is better." Which is such a powerful, simple mantra. But we need contrast where there is dark, there will always be light. When there's light there's going to be dark.
And I'm so grateful for the year that I had. It took me to a place I hadn't been in a long time, and I'm on the other side of it now. And I'm just like, "Where can I get into nature?"
"Where can I be with high vibrational people?"
"How can I spend my days doing more of the nothingness that Isis told me?"
"How can I get more into my joy, and fun, and play, that Hathor told me." Another one of the goddesses that I really connected in Egypt was Sekhmet. She's the goddess of power, war, and healing. She's part lioness.
And she told me that all my power is in my womb, which is what we've been talking about. All these codes, all of these messages, and I've been talking about that trip endlessly since I got back because I think it's so important for all of us. Those messages weren't just meant for me to know.
Lauren: Which is why you have the platform, you have. You have the platform so you can share the messages.
Jessica: Exactly, that's the whole point. And I'm just excited for this year, it feels so different already. And being in this city, frankly, Nashville is just, to me, a feminine frequency here. Very much so, compared to Chicago, and it holds me in a way that it's just a continuation of this healing. But we're done with this podcast, I'm flying to Chicago.
I've got Wednesday, Thursday, Friday damn packed, and it's also giving me anxiety. Because it's one of those weeks; I haven't had a week like this in a while. And I had to check myself this morning, as I was thinking about how heavy it all felt.
Lauren: And where do you feel that? I'm just curious. Because when you talk about it, I feel it here. Oh, gosh, this would be my upper stomach, I suppose, right under my ribcage.
Jessica: That's your solar plexus.
Lauren: That's where I feel it for you. So where do you feel all that anxiety?
Jessica: I feel it on my heart. I feel it on my chest. I definitely feel it on my shoulders, but it weighs heavy on my heart.
Lauren: Is that your heart saying to you, "You know this isn't you. Why are you doing this or what is that?"
Jessica: I think one of my biggest core value in life is freedom. I'm a creative, I'm an artist. I went to school for theater, too, we're so alike. So being in this masculine paradigm of the patriarchal, nine to five, Monday through Friday life, it isn't why I create-
Lauren: This ain't it.
Jessica: ...this isn't it. This isn't what I signed up to be an entrepreneur for.
Lauren: Which is more of like you created this beautiful golden cage.
Jessica: Yes, like I said the bondage, the liberation, the cage. It's the truth, I did it myself. Back to you are the co-creator of your own life, and you are empowered. But at the end of the day, my heart is a place where I can feel in touch with my feminine. My creative side, my love, presence, play, it happens throughout my body.
But when you have wall-to-wall days. There's no real time for you to tap into your heart, and be in your own joy and love for the sake of it. You've got to deliver. You've got to show up. You've got to be on.
And not to say that I, and this is to go back to this morning. I was like, "No, you're going to switch the narrative because this is so exciting, what you're doing this week." And it's a joy to be able to do this work. And I'm grateful that I've created this beautiful business that I get to show up and lead every day, in my own style.
I'm hosting this three-day webinar event, and hundreds and hundreds of people have signed up for it. And they're all coming to learn from me, what an honor that is, just flipping the narrative.
Lauren: Yes, because you were going into victimization.
Jessica: A hundred percent. And then also being able to just take a deep breath and be like, "You know what, this is a sprint, a little mini sprint." I'm marathon.
Lauren: Yes, that's right and then you have your heart. You're going to have all this time, afterward, to fill your heart again.
Jessica: Yes.
Lauren: But isn't that why we take time in silence, and in nature, and with our colored pencils. So that once our heart is nice and full, we can go and spread it,
Jessica: And also, reframing that, what you get to do, not what you have to do, can fill your heart, too. And that was just such a beautiful reframe this morning. As I woke up, I actually left my co-founder a voice note. Because she had sent me this deck that I'm presenting this big webinar thing on at midnight. I got her email, and she had sent it at midnight which means Alexa was up all night doing this. And she's my co-founder, she's the first employee I ever had out of my 25. She's my sister.
And I left her a voice note, and I said, "I want to honor you for doing that. I know you pulled that much time. You've been working your butt off to get us here, me, too. We're going to have a great week. This is three days of our lives to really be in this energy of generation and exertion.
And then we're going to rest this weekend. And I can't wait to hear how still, and beautiful, and restorative your weekend is because mine's going to be too. And I just really want to honor you, and honor me, and honor us. And this is how we avoid burnout..."
I said this on the voice note, "So that we can continue to pour from these full cups because it will ebb and it'll flow." And just the consciousness of that versus the overriding of, "Yes, we've got the deck, cool. I got to perform tomorrow."
It's like "No, let's take a minute and really honor what we're doing, and how amazing it is, and how it matters."
Lauren: And that's why it's so important that you're doing it because you're giving someone permission. You're talking about it, so then you're giving anyone who listens to it permission to do the same. I think the biggest fallacy, any of us could believe, is that we don't have that kind of power. We do have the power to take control of our lives and then empower the other women around us. We have that.
Jessica: We really do.
Lauren: And it's incumbent upon all of us to do that.
Jessica: Right, and we're all that needed. We're all that needed. I say that in the last page of my book, and if you haven't read it, I'll spoil it anyway. But I say like, "You were born, and therefore you matter. You breathe, and therefore you are important."
And this idea of fully stepping into who you're truly meant to be isn't a choice you get to make, but a responsibility you have. You weren't put here by accident. Your life is divinely designed for you to use your gifts, your DNA, your snowflake, one-of-a-kind existence and do something with it. To better shift the planet into a different vibration, you are needed right now." I really believe that. And when we turn that on, everything starts to make a little bit more sense, I think.
Lauren: Great job, gal. Thank you for being here.
Jessica: Thank you for having me. I was so honored when you asked me. I'm like, "I'm back in town, I get to see you in person." I just am, also, wanting to reflect back to you. I see you on your journey and all the beautiful work you're doing on yourself. And this platform you give, and the things you talk about, the conversations you open up, it's needed.
Lauren: Thanks, gal.
Jessica: Yes, thank you.
[01:02:24] < Music >
Lauren: How full is your heart right now? Because mine is full. You guys, I was put on this earth to have conversations like this one. Nothing fills my cup like connecting so deeply with another person, about what really matters, and what they're learning, and what they're doing. How they're growing, and Jessica is there, too. It makes for such a beautiful conversation and a connection with just a beautiful woman. And didn't you guys miss this? Because I did.
I am so glad AMPstigator is back with new conversations. And you don't even have to wait very long for a new episode, because I released one yesterday, I released one today, and then I'm releasing another one in just a few more days. So we're going to get you back on your regular regimen of AMPstigator episodes very quickly.
[01:03:06] < Outro >
Next week, I sit down with J.T. Ellison. She's a New York Times bestselling writer. She's releasing her 25th novel, but this one's decidedly different because this one's, born from J.T.'s lived experience. She struggled with fertility, and after her 10th miscarriage she gave up. And she said, "You know what? I can't do this anymore."
It's taken her ten years to share any of that journey on the page. And it is a deep conversation with a woman who never shares her real feelings. She just lets her characters do it. It's a great episode that's coming from AMPstigator.
Now, as you go through the week, don't forget, shine your light, lead with your heart, and live life purposefully. I'm Lauren Lowrey, and this is AMPstigator.
