Cristina Francy 0:05
Hey friends, welcome to this week’s episode of “Not Your Momma’s Podcast.” I am so excited. Today’s episode we have Jenna Wilson on who is an emotional healing educator, a meditation teacher, a retreat leader, a public speaker, a hypnotherapist, the founder of the emotional healing system, and also the author of wise little one. Jana, it is such an honor to have you on the show today. I can’t wait to dive into today’s topic. But before we get into it, can you give the audience a little bit about your background? And kind of how you got to where you are today and the blossoming of your wonderful book.
Jana Wilson 0:42
Oh yes. Thank you for having me. And, yeah, so I went on a healing journey at a very young age, I had a spiritual mystical experience when I was 12 years old, were during a domestic violence situation. My dad’s beating my mother, my bigger brother was always there, my older brother for kind of to protect me and support me when things like this would happen, and he wasn’t there. So I ran outside, and I just began to pray, to be saved really, from the situation when children are in that kind of violence on a day to day basis, it’s similar to living in a warzone. So of course, I was in chronic stress. And so I’m praying, you know, please, God help me and then all of a sudden, I’m pulled out of my body. And the experience was so profound, I just felt this peace that passes all understanding. I knew in that moment, I was told those are not your parents, that is not your life. And it was as if, you know, Christina could see my little self standing there scared, just so uncertain. I’ve been through so much trauma up to that point with my parents. And then I was back in my body. So that experience woke my soul, I mean, at a level that I could never go back to sleep, right? I knew I was here for a purpose. So by the time I went away to college, , all the mentors, teachers, people started to show up in my life, I’m 57 now, so we’re talking like late 80s, middle 80s When I went away to school, 84. And then I just began this path. And around early 30s, I realized, oh, that’s what I’m here to do. For a long time, I thought I was going to be a minister. But I really wanted to meet people. What I do now is really psycho spirituality. It’s a combination of psychology and spirituality. My husband’s a physician, and he works with me. And yeah, I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And we have a healing center here. And it’s beautiful, life. But I had to do a lot of work to get here.
Cristina Francy 2:58
Yeah! you know, we were talking about your book, which sounds amazing. kind of like going back reflecting on like, the childhood traumas that you had and like working through those. You’ve also been mentored by one of like, the top finest self-development, people, like the Dalai Lama, I believe you look, was it?
Jana Wilson 3:19
Deepak Chopra.
Cristina Francy 3:22
I’m sorry. Yeah, do you probably for sure.
Jana Wilson 3:23
Yeah, for a long time.
Cristina Francy 3:25
And so and then going through all of that. And your book is kind of like a love story, you know, going through the trauma. And one of the things that you have to do is shadow work. So I would like to dive into kind of like some of the shadow work that you had to go through and if you can explain to us the qualities we are judging in another person as we are really, having a reflection of ourselves,
Jana Wilson 3:50
So, shadow work I was introduced in around 2003 with Debbie Ford, she was a New York Times bestselling author, she wrote the book, Dark Side of the light chasers amongst many she’s passed away now, but I ended up working and training with her and becoming a staff member, my ex-husband was partners with Debbie. So that’s really the main bolt to along with repairing the inner child and my teaching so the emotional healing system is meditation, Shadow Work, and repairing in shadow work. I think the question that you’re asking me is, we’re always seeing a reflection outside of ourselves have a deeper self, meaning, you know, if you say or do something, and I get triggered by it affected by it emotionally. It’s just an indication there’s something for me to look at within. And often it is, people get a little confused with shadow work because if someone say is being abusive to me, let’s say verbal lying. So I would ask myself, what kind of person would do that, of course, an abusive person, right? So then I would have to look and see if I’ve ever been abusive, verbally abusive to others in the past, present or possible future, given the right situation? Well, of course, if I’m being honest, I’m going to say yes, because in the human condition we are that here’s where people miss in shadow work. The relationship with self is the most important relationship. So, if I ask myself, Am I verbally abusive to myself? Then that’s usually where I can say yes, oh, yeah, I criticize myself, I push myself we’re our own worst enemy, we can be really hard, right? Abandoning ourselves. And so, that’s the piece that I think really gets missed. In shadow work. People think, oh, well, I would never be abusive like them. Well, that’s not necessarily the truth, right? Because if you’re abusive to yourself, then that’s, again, the most important relationship.
Cristina Francy 6:04
Wow! that’s so true. Because, I am really hard on myself, I could say I am abusive to in somewhat way to myself, and I did just kind of leave, I felt like somewhat of like, an emotionally abusive type of marriage situation for me. And it’s true, it’s kind of like I allow it because I do it to myself anyway.
Jana Wilson 6:26
Exactly. So it’s a match.
Cristina Francy 6:28
Exactly. So I’m like, vibrating at like, the frequency of like, this is what I deserve since I’m talking to myself in this way. And, once you change that narrative about yourself, then you can attract maybe like, change the cycle of maybe dating an abusive partner or putting you’re getting yourself in like situations of like, things always go wrong for me. So things are always going to go wrong, like type of stuff. So it’s interesting that you say that,
Jana Wilson 7:00
When I have a woman who says, all I attract are duds are bad guys who are, abusive, and , they’re emotionally unavailable. And I say, Well, have you looked at how you’re emotionally unavailable to yourself
Cristina Francy 7:13
Yeah, exactly.
Jana Wilson 7:16
Because no woman who values herself would be with a man who’s emotionally unavailable and abusive, and so it comes back to oh, I’ve got to value myself because we teach others how to treat us by how we’re treating ourselves.
Cristina Francy 7:31
Yeah! you had like a very traumatic childhood experience. And also a big theme in the book is using your imagination, to manifest the life of your dreams. So tell me about the process that you teach, that could help our listeners manifest their own dreams and kind of work through, the shadow stuff, to tie in with the manifestation and also forgiving the little girls like trauma because you know, about a lot of it is bringing childhood traumas with us and forgiving our, younger versions of ourselves as well about, our upbringings and decisions that we’ve made and stuff and the traumas that we carry.
Jana Wilson 8:20
Okay, we asked him a couple of questions. So I’m going to address the question on manifestation first, and then I’ll come back and so on manifestation, I’ve been doing it since I was a child, I was really disassociating from the chaos in the family. So I would play with my Barbies. And I would live in a fantasy world and I didn’t have any imaginary friends or anything. But I certainly was creating my imaginary world, more real than my actual world, as a way to cope. But here’s the thing. Now we know to become supernatural, we have to hold images. Einstein said, Imagination is more important than knowledge. Because imagination will take you where knowledge never could. So the inner child loves its imagination, right? So when we’re connected with our essence, that inner child, it will show us an image of what it desires, the happiness, the relationships, the adventure, the fulfillment, all of it. So if we can train ourselves to spend 5 – 10 minutes a day, in an imaginary future with elevated emotion, feeling as if it’s already happened, then that’s how we manifest because the feelings change our behavior. If I’m practicing feeling grateful and excited, and at peace every day instead of stressed and fearful and worried. Then of course, I’m going to rewire my brain to have experiences of peace and happiness and I’m going to draw those experiences to me. Right, It’s just The classic Law of Attraction right I’m going to attract to me my vibrational frequency. And if my frequency is high, then I’m going to attract to me if it’s low, then I have to do the work. Now, one of the things you said about inner child is forgiving a younger self. No, it’s it’s really not about forgiving a younger self. So what it is, is understanding that when we were conditioned in those first seven years, we adopted certain beliefs and those beliefs became a reoccurring narrative of our life, right? So example, you don’t have to have a traumatic childhood like me to have wounds from your childhood. Sometimes, children have parents who don’t see or hear them. And this is a wound for a child, right to not be seen or heard by your parents.
Cristina Francy 10:50
Before I dive into my four questions, is there anything else you would like the audience to take away today?
Jana Wilson 10:56
Um, yeah, that it’s, you know, possible to fall in love with yourself. The night before I met my husband on a plane that I wasn’t supposed to be on, I left to retreat. And I talked about it in the book. The little Jana showed up. And it was like, she showed me the history. I mean, no one knows yourself better than you and your life. And she showed me all that I had been through to arrive at this place in time in my life, and how proud she was of me, a lot of people get really triggered when people, you know, in any way elevate themselves, like brag on themselves, or, if we had a child, it’s acceptable to talk uplifting about your child. Well, we also want to do that with ourselves. Right? And little Jana showed me what a badass I had become, like, I went through a lot to become, at a place in my life. At that point, I was 49. And I kept telling myself a story, that getting love from other people felt better than giving it to myself. And I had to stop that story and tell myself giving love to myself feels better than getting it from others.
Cristina Francy 12:07
Well, so I want to dive in as my questions, and I can’t wait to hear what your answers are. So my first one to you is who and what inspires you?
Jana Wilson 12:17
I would say my grandson, He’s seven years old. And children just still live in, magic and wonder. And so anytime I’m with any children, I just fall in love with them. Because, they’re still so tethered and connected.
Cristina Francy 12:37
Yeah, And, talking about imagination, we lose a lot of our imagination, like the older we get. And so we forget about it. So it’s a good reminder for the listeners to start, revving up that imagination to start, manifesting the dreams that they want, and start actually acting like a child again, Okay, so then my second question is, What is something you wish you knew when you were younger?
Jana Wilson 13:13
I think I wished you know, that when you’re young, time is so slow, and everything and especially when you’re going through such heartache that I was going through that, this idea of this too shall pass like things are temporary, I started to gain that awareness as a child. But I certainly wish I would have known that as a child that, things are temporary Hang in there, somebody could have come in and gave me that, knowledge, that wisdom
Cristina Francy 13:51
Yeah, we only know so much, life’s a circle and you only have like a little slice of the pie, so it’s hard to know. And then my third question is, what’s the essential part of your daily routine?
Jana Wilson 14:06
Well, RPM, which means rise, pee, meditate, you get up into your bladder, you meditate spiritual hygiene, you do it before anything. 30 minutes every morning. working with Deepak, I trained him in primordial sound meditation. 15 years ago, I’ve been a teacher. But even before that I was meditating wasn’t consistent because I didn’t have a teacher. So, everybody that I teach, I’ve taught over 1000 students to meditate, and they all say, well, I can’t meditate because my mind is too busy. So, I listen to guided meditation and guided meditations, fine, but it’s not foundational. Guided meditation. You need stillness and silence to clear your mind. And yes, the whole purpose of the practice is to be aware when you’re lost in thought. So, you’re not taken away, right? You’re not just lost, you’re more present. So meditation for sure.
Cristina Francy 15:00
I love that. And then what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Jana Wilson 15:08
Um, the best advice I’ve ever received be open to feedback and immune to criticism.
Cristina Francy 15:15
Love it That’s a good one.
Jana Wilson 15:17
Deepak would always say that, like, we live, and we don’t see ourselves. So if we’re not open to feedback from people around us, of course, they need to ask permission. A lot of people get feedback and it’s just a projection of their own stuff and its criticism. So, we want to always be receptive, emotionally intelligent people ask others. What can you see that I can’t see within myself? That could be sabotaging me or limiting me?
Cristina Francy 15:48
Yeah. Perfect. Well, Jana, thank you so much for coming on this week’s episode of “Not Your Momma’s podcast”. It was such a fruitful conversation. All of Jana’s links are down below in the show notes. Don’t be shy. Go say hi. And I would totally check out her book. It has a beautiful story. And I can’t wait to see you guys all in the next one. Thanks, guys.