SAMIA: Hello, Salam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Hola, Ciao, Bonjour and Buna!I'm so happy to be with you today and I'm extra happy because I have Jess Johnson with me today and Jess is a life coach and EFT practitioner and I'm so so excited to be talking with you today Jess welcome… 

JESS: Yeah me too thanks for having me… 

SAMIA: Awesome and will you just jump right in and tell us more about who you are and what you do…  

JESS: Yeah totally... so I'm Jess I'm a life coach and within my coaching practice I use a series of self-help modalities called emotional freedom techniques otherwise known as tapping and I really love working predominantly with other service related individuals helping them to kind of embrace their humanness versus feeling like they aren't allowed… they have to have it all together… be perfect when they present themselves… I work a lot with people who want to help finding their voice... being able to show up as they want to being able to give themselves permission to practice self-care… give themselves rest really take it easy on themselves so I really love what I do…  

SAMIA: Yeah and I love what you do because our service men and women oh my gosh... they sign up and we sign them up for a really really difficult job and then you know there is this expectation for them to be really strong and our safety is depending upon them they're like literally front line of protection for all of us and it doesn't help like all the movies and the media that you know creates all these images of like these you know like almost like superhero kind of qualities for people who are you know in the service various armed services and so forth… and there's I know a part of me that really enjoys and appreciates like watching these characters who are like seemingly invincible and so competent and can just deal with any problem at all but it's not you know always reflective of the reality of the struggles that they have to go through and yeah... so tell me more… 

JESS: It's kind of interesting like because I know obviously we've had conversations or very extensive conversation before here so for anybody listening I'm also a veteran... I'm an army veteran I served five years in the armed forces as a licensed clinical social worker I was a therapist and currently now I work when I say work with service related individuals it's mostly people who are other coaches or things like that within that I do happen to have a lot of veterans who are also now in the service industry like offering either their coaches or EFT practitioners themselves or I have some clients that are in insurance or just making big life transitions… the transition coming out of military service can be a big one and I am really a general life coach so the way I think about life coaching versus therapy is therapy is a lot of like unpacking like this is where I am how did I get here… and a therapist really helps their patients kind of go back look and examine maybe family history family dynamics there's a huge emphasis on healing some kind of like being able to heal like that reconciliation between past and present… whereas with coaching it's very much like here's where I am... I pretty much I think I understand how I got here a lot of times because of my history as a therapist I attract a lot of people who who've had a lot of therapy and they feel as if they've had a lot of progress there but they're also not where they want to be in life and so as a coach I'm very much… we focus on here's where I am right now where do I want to be… that is a really difficult conversation sometimes or just an answer to come to it for people... when you ask somebody like hey you know well where do you want to be or what do you want to do oftentimes what I get is like a lot of answers about why it's not possible… well I would love to be making x amount of money but there's no way I can do that it's too much well I would love to be in a different career but I've invested way too much in where I am now it's all these answers that you know are in the way and so I love to think that one of my specialties as a coach is being able to help people slow down and give a voice to that dream they might have and then really think about what obstacles are in their way and how to work navigate their way around their brain in terms of being able to choose what they want to think about themselves and develop a self-concept that's going to give them… empower them to make decisions instead of just making assumptions about how something... how their dreams can't possibly be worth it or be out there for them to achieve…  

SAMIA: Yeah oh my gosh thank you first of all for clarifying what you meant by service because you're exactly right because of how I know you and who I know you to be when you mentioned the word service I immediately my mind went to armed services… thank you for clarifying that you are thinking about it in a broader context… 
All right... you're so right about you know... oh gosh I love the distinction you drew between therapy and the coaching approach… I think that for me is also very much how I distinguish between the two… yeah so what would you say is like a big obstacle that you see that like you mentioned for a lot of people it's that you know they are not able to see that the dream that they have that it would be realistic... but what's underlying that… like what is the root cause behind that and yeah what can we do about it…  

JESS: Yeah I mean almost always fear right... fear of the unknown fear of uncertainty fear that what we're going to make it mean when we don't achieve if we don't achieve that dream right if we don't give a voice to this to our dreams if we don't give a voice or set goals I hear this goal setting I cannot believe how many times people are like oh I don't want to set goals because I'm I never meet them instead of like maybe what's getting in the way of you not meeting the goal right and oftentimes too it's fear... lost my train of thought for a second because I could go so many different ways in this but... change even positive change can be really scary and sometimes that is what holds us back to it's like we're making choices about changing ourselves when we every time we commit to a new stage of healing or commit to a new stage of growth and that has an impact on people around us and oftentimes again we look and think like well if I were to take a step in this direction who am I leaving behind instead of if I take a step in this direction who am I likely to meet that I don't... that is not in my life yet that might you know be exactly what I'm looking for in terms of relationships friendships anything like that… we're so often scared of what we might be letting go of instead of thinking like well what am I making room for when I let go of the you know something that is no longer serving us and in an effort to do something new…  

SAMIA: Yeah so what's your favorite way of acknowledging or dealing or healing your fear…  

JESS: Well I think that it's through embracing it... actually… and so because this is how I found EFT… tapping helps calm your central nervous system and so there are so many things when we take a step out of our comfort zone we don't want to go for the biggest leap possible because then our body is like literally our brain freaks out… it doesn't know what to do it starts shutting things down where we are like literal physical stress that we experience whether it's lack of sleep disease immune functioning goes down all of those things happen when our bodies are just so completely jittery and nervous and we don't know what to do with them with ourselves… so I introduce EFT with my clients because it's a way to calm the central nervous system I am teaching them how to do it so it is a tool that they can use for the rest of their lives during the course of our work together but when somebody is really struggling with getting clarity on what they want we bring in EFT... I also use it in order to... a lot of times based on you know who we are what our life experiences were growing up there may have been or there is with all of us right like limiting beliefs that were developed in childhood we saw our parents reacting to something a certain way the media authority figures all of these things… and so it's our main learning in those ways takes place in the ages of like zero and six years old so it's just something that is imprinted on us and so with EFT I actually help my clients apply EFT to foundational core memories where they might have learned these things helping them to kind of really kind of see through the weeds their teachings and then be able to choose something new for themselves and so the two modalities mindset coaching and EFT work so well together… one is soothing essential nervous system to make room for new ideas to take root and then the mindset work is like well what how do I think about this now and what do I want to think about this going forward…  

SAMIA: Yes I love that I love that because you're so right it's like if you are going to uproot a particular belief you can't just leave a vacuum there... 

JESS: Totally yeah 

SAMIA: …replace it with something else that you are choosing consciously that you know is positive and it's going to help you head in the direction that you really want because if you… if you don't choose that kind of conscious empowering belief then something will fill that vacuum and... 

JESS: Exactly… Yeah and then sometimes it's the same thing right we have to know like I tell my clients all the time a belief is just a thought that we practice and we practice our thoughts so often that they become truth right and truth is very different than facts…  

SAMIA: Yeah…  

JESS: Truth is something that it you know... a truth can be true for every single one of us but not your truth not my husband's truth not my friends… that's very what's the word... pertinent to me… I like to make up my own words sometimes I know that's not a made-up word but I like to make up how I use them but I think you're picking up what I'm putting down... 

SAMIA: Yeah... 

JESS: But facts are something that you know court of law can be proved and most people can see the same thing come to the same perspective or assumption or truth for themselves so it's very different and I love to remind everybody even people who already practice EFT that emotional freedom stands for the freedom to feel your emotions and know you're not going to die not freedom from your emotions… we're human beings... we don't know that we are happy if we don't have sadness... we don't know we're brave if we don't have fear... we don't know like if we're doing something new or can feel that excitement without that piece of anxiety… and sometimes we immediately categorize those emotions like fear and anxiety is like oh I'm anxious gotta stop… instead of I'm anxious this makes sense because I'm getting ready to do something new I don't know what's on the other side of this and it's okay I can be anxious and move forward not gonna be anxious be right here then alert danger…

SAMIA: Yes oh my gosh I love that perspective that you're bringing in and I so appreciate it because I also really really have come to value my emotions… every single emotion that I have I'm like thank you thank you emotion because it's giving me some really important feedback you know and especially the negative emotions you know we don't want to feel them because it doesn't feel so good to be feeling sad or afraid or you know whatever other emotion we think of as negative… however it's just trying to help us in some way by giving us some really important bit of feedback and... so with EFT I know one of the goals is that you just let yourself feel it and as you let yourself feel it that is actually what allows it to resolve and go away…

JESS: Yeah it's the feeling and also the acceptance of the feeling that is the most important part of EFT is that you're not waiting you're not saying like even though I'm feeling really scared because I've got this new opportunity and I don't… I'm feeling conflicted about that or whatever it is I know I'll feel better you know in a week or two once I make the decision and that's when I'm going to accept how I feel… with EFT you accept your fear you accept whatever piece of it is that doesn't feel super comfortable to you in the moment and then I accept myself and how I feel… so it's the acceptance of you with whatever motion you're experiencing that then allows you to process and move forward… and that doesn't mean that immediately you might not feel any of that emotion again… I worked with somebody around fear like getting ready to have a medical procedure in a couple of weeks and so we did some work the other day and she was like you know came to this… she was like well the fear is still there but of course I'm getting ready to go into a medical procedure where one of the risk factors is death but I'm seeing now how I just forgive myself for having that emotion and what I love about working with particularly like other coaches or newer coaches that oftentimes there is this pressure like thinking like I've got to be perfect I can't let anybody see that I am a human with human emotions right if I'm a successful coach it means I'm never going to feel these things ever again and it's like… my definition of success is being able to really like kind of show well yeah this is terrifying or yeah this is you know whatever it is for you and I can do things anyway… the coaching industry has blown up in the last 18 months particularly through the pandemic I think coaches are necessary I think what we do is necessary and needed but also it's been… we're going through the pandemic too right we're going through political turmoil too and being able to acknowledge that yes there are things I'm sad about there's things I'm deeply angry about and I can still show up every day for myself or my clients in all of those things…

SAMIA: Yeah yeah I know what you are saying and I can relate to what you're saying because I know when I first started coaching and training and healing I was genuinely in a super super positive place in my life I'd just been through... you know a lot of training and working on myself that made me feel really empowered and like in a super positive state and I was like yeah I don't see problems I only see opportunities…

JESS: Yeah…I think I remember those days...

SAMIA: And you know and I had this like sense of okay I'm a Happiness Expert now and I'm… I theoretically know how to only see opportunities and not see problems and so I was sort of like when I did see a problem I sort of put a certain amount of unconscious pressure on myself to be like no no what's up why am I feeling down or anxious or whatever I shouldn't be feeling this way I know better I can do better… and trying to immediately sort of move into that happy empowered state without properly acknowledging and understanding what my feelings were trying to share with me in terms of why I'm feeling stressed or anxious and so forth... and so it took me a little while to realize that you know wow I'm actually doing in some ways the opposite of what I learned about how to be emotionally healthy and I wasn't applying that to my own self in that particular context and now I talk about... I'm like yeah I still like to claim the fact that you know like in terms of creating that reality for myself that yeah I see opportunities I don't see problems because I want to be in that… and at the same time now when I feel something that is disturbing my peace or something I make sure I take some time to just be like you know do I just want to feel this feeling for a while you know and sometimes I actually really enjoy these feelings… like it adds like... you know like I was talking to my sister the other day who is also a brilliant coach and trainer and healer and I was like you know sometimes I just like to wallow in self-pity... it's fun… 

JESS: We get to decide right… it's like how long am I gonna stay here… and I think like we can be realistic right… there's nothing wrong with like looking at this and being like that is a problem and understanding that... and understanding like the thoughts around there that's making that a problem like we gain awareness around issues first and then once we gain awareness of… oh well what am I thinking about this right now why does this… why am I thinking about this as a problem versus an opportunity right now how is this making me feel… like getting to know it first and then being able to be like okay now I can decide how I want to look at this in a way that's going to cause me to take action in a way that is in line with my values… like being a human is intentional like showing up the way you want to in the world… well you have to know what that means first otherwise you know it is kind of willy-nilly and we're… we look a lot to external validation or we get so stuck in that judgment of ourselves when something doesn't go to plan and when you asked about the root cause of things earlier... it always comes back to how we talk to ourselves… like I am... so I just am such like a radical believer in like being able to love and trust and show compassion for ourselves is the foundation for anything… and we love to extend that everywhere else first and not give it to ourselves and one of my beliefs that I've been practicing for the last year that has paid off really well for me is that I'm at my best for others when I put my my needs first… that has helped me in my marriage as a family member in my business because I firmly believe that and I cannot go out and coach others who love themselves and get that if I'm not there with me first… and being able to like catch ourselves like we're always going to have thoughts our brain is always going to offer up all the reasons why we're crap at something first and being able instead of like jumping in the pool with our brains and being like oh yeah why did we say that was so dumb we're so stupid we're never going to get this… and just being like hey hey brain see what you're doing here this is not the way we want to think about ourselves this is not the way we talk to us you know….

SAMIA: Yeah oh my gosh I... that's actually one of the things I love so much about you Jess is this emphasis that you have of how important it is for us to be self-compassionate and you know one of the things I was realizing… just a few weeks ago I did an interview actually I was... so a few weeks ago I did an interview with another coach and she was talking about this idea called intuitive eating and I'd never heard of that concept before... and I was just realizing and recognizing that you know so in the context of intuitive eating one of the biggest principles that she shared with us in the interview was that you know this need for self-compassion and to treat yourself with kindness… and of course in her case she was talking about applying it in the context of how we relate to our bodies and how we think about our bodies and how we eat and what we eat and when we eat …and talking to her helped me to realize that there's all these areas of my life where I have already trained myself to think more empowered thoughts more loving thoughts more compassionate thoughts but because I never done as much work on this part of my life where I'm being conscious about how I think about my physical body and especially in relationship to food I was actually having thoughts that I didn't even realize were negative… you know for example I called myself... I said... oh I used to be really overweight even obese and sometimes even now I can struggle with weight issues and you know not even realizing because this kind of thinking is so normalized in our society… not realizing that there's this underlying negative judgment that I'm imposing upon my body and my... and it's impacting in a negative way my relationship with my body you know… and so like sometimes when you're feeling bad even if like theoretically you know about the ideas of positive thinking or this or that… that particular feeling in that moment in that context is still giving you that opportunity to become aware of a new aspect of learning and growth that you need to engage in… so it's just so important to take our feelings seriously…

JESS: Yeah and like it's… we get really muddled up now about like positive thinking and then spiritual bypassing and toxic positivity and I watch people get really kind of tripped up because they immediately go into the definitions of those things instead of like where am I where am I experiencing this in my life that I need to give some attention to stuff… and I believe in the power of gratitude I believe in the power of positive thinking... it's toxic positivity when we ignore what's in front of us we acknowledge this is what's here this doesn't feel great I don't want to be positive about this like when we're talking about things going on in the world right I am never going to be the person that needs to be like oh you just got to find the silver linings in the pandemic… it sucks it's miserable we're tired you know but I can know that and then also within that layer of suckiness that we're all experiencing like it doesn't mean I need to turn a whole positive spin on the global climate at large but like what is my responsibility and how do I break different parts up for each day so I am living how I want to and I am living... believing that I can have gratitude believing that I can be positive believing that I can be happy even when sometimes some days it feels more difficult than others and that's okay… 

SAMIA: I love that and you just mentioned the phrase spiritual bypass can you clarify what you mean by that please…

JESS: Yes... so spiritual bypassing is basically… and I'm not as in tuned with that one as much as like toxic positivity… but it's basically when you know you kind of tell people to tune into like the spiritual you know area or everything is energy and we have to kind of ignore that and get to someplace else… I should like really beep up on that definition a little more so that conversation doesn't because I feel like I know it when I see it but like articulating it isn't... my super strength…

SAMIA: Yeah yeah…no… I hear what you're saying though and like an example I think a lot of it also comes down to the same thing where you know just like with toxic positivity if you're using it as a way to try and escape and skip through the process of like… because like you said just acceptance of what you're experiencing what you're feeling is such a key necessary step and actually when you're looking at… well from a spiritual perspective how do you achieve peace and happiness and create change and make it more fun and easy… actually acceptance is also the first step… like you have to accept and a lot of times that's the I think the issue is that people want to skip the acceptance part they just want to stop feeling bad and so...

JESS: Yes and if I ignore it it's going to go away… So I just looked up the definition real quick… it's a way of hiding behind spirituality or spiritual practices …it prevents people from acknowledging what they're feeling and distances them from both themselves and others avoiding feelings of anger feelings of detachment… so it's yeah like it's just being... like have you heard the term you know… what we resist persist… right so we think we've got to you know just ignore things and then they're going to go away or put a positive spin on it I watch people who because I'm an EFT practitioner because I do energy work like I hear a lot about law of attraction and people really get twisted up with the law of attraction thinking that it means that they've got to think that they can't possibly give any attention to anything negative in their life they can only focus on the positive where it's like no you just... look at it… I'm not going to say make friends with it or at least acknowledge it …hey you're there I don't like you what are we gonna do about it like you know I'm gonna but I'm willing to at least recognize this acknowledge it and forgive myself for any part I might have played in this being part of my life instead of again going back into that cycle of blame where we're like ugh what did you do to get here and and I know I've mentioned a lot I'm very big on knowing and understanding and using your core values with intention and one of mine is personal responsibility… and because I believe so strongly and personal responsibility I also… compassion has to play a part in that too because people get really twisted up thinking personal responsibility means that they've got to shame or blame themselves for choices that they that have maybe an earlier version of them made or even a current version... when it's… taking responsibility isn't about blaming yourself for anything I take personal responsibility in treating myself with a lot of love and compassion when things aren't going my way instead of... ugh what did you do to get us here you deserve this you're not worthy of the things that you want and period… 

SAMIA: Yeah… no I... oh okay again just one more thing I love about what you're sharing because yeah this is actually a huge problem that I have dealt with myself and also seeing my clients struggling with is that the way we are oftentimes taught about how to take responsibility is so full of blame and shame and judgment that… make... and it makes you feel so bad when you're blaming and shaming and judging yourself in those ways that I think it's actually the part of you that says you know I don't want to feel that… and wants to avoid it… is actually a wise part of you because blaming shaming judging these are such destructive energies and the more you allow them to take root in the way that you think and act… my gosh the more difficult it becomes to create change... whether it's in your own life or in the world around you or in your relationships etc. so...

JESS: Totally I think it taps into this other subconscious part of the psych well that a lot of us have like that this part of us that says we're not worthy of anything else and so it's like feeding that part of us and so when we are subconsciously running on these core beliefs that well we don't deserve happiness anyway we're not worthy of that and it's giving more fuel to that part of us versus acknowledging okay that's there but I don't believe that I believe like I'm worth… you know all the love and compassion and success that I wish for other people too…

SAMIA: Yeah so a question that's just sort of popping into my mind right now is... when you think about acceptance do you see that as like a process that you go through to come to the point of acceptance or is it more like a matter of okay you become aware of what is and then you just make a choice or a decision to accept it somehow… I think pretty much everything is an evolution every single day and I think that being able to... I accept... so I kind of follow for my life like you know a lot of people are taught this with food like the 80/20 rule …like 80 of the time I'm gonna eat like nutritious foods that I can pronounce and you know 20 of the time chocolate… but I kind of followed that because I don't want to be like when we start putting all this pressure on ourselves like oh I got to move through every day accepting accepting accepting… like the way I think about it is like the moment my attention is alerted to something in my life that I don't like I have a choice and it's really like the moment of choice where I'm like oh I'm doing this again… I see that this is here I'm accepting that this is part of being a human being now I'm gonna move forward so it's not always… like the more it gets easier and easier sure but that doesn't mean that... it doesn't mean gone for good and I don't ever want that right because again what we said a while ago like all of our other uncomfortable emotions exist to tell us there's something that needs attention tells us when we're growing tells us when we're getting ready to do something new and without them too we don't have happiness joy excitement all of those things so it's just I think... when we build into our self-concept like I'm just... I'm somebody who's gonna give myself like a lot of grace in these moments then that and you're putting your attention on those moments more it makes less time for the other stuff and it does it in a way where it's not a pressure thing and it's not as hard it's always like I do practice the thought every morning okay well today I'm just gonna move through my life here's my goals for today and if they don't go as planned I'm going to love myself through that… 

SAMIA: Yeah I really appreciate that Jess and... there's so much more that I want to talk to you about and I think we need to start wrapping up for today… do you have any last thoughts or ideas you want to share with us for today…

JESS: I think yeah... if anybody is listening… just being able to practice that when things trip you up like start just pick with… pick one intentional thought that you want to have about yourself each day and practice that until that becomes a new belief of yours and it is as easy as that... easy... and simple and easy… it's as simple as that... maybe not as easy and yeah just practicing it…

SAMIA: I love that… it's not always easy but it is simple… I agree with you on that…Thank you again so much jess and for all of our dear listeners please check the show notes for this episode because we will be adding Jess's links so you can connect with her and I'll also add my links in case you want to get connected with me and Yeah until we connect next time I wish you lots and lots of peace and joy….