Prioritize work-life balance and well-being over everything: it's the foundation of your life, success and happiness

I used to spend my weekends from recovering the stressful overbusy workweek.

With my colleagues, we joked that we should measure each other's heart rates to see who had worked the hardest and had the busiest work week.

I often experienced arrhythmia on Fridays. I was barely in my thirties. 

On Saturdays, I woke up feeling groggy and exhausted, both mentally and physically. If I hadn’t a slight hangover from winding the week down with wine. 

On Sundays, I felt better but anticipated Mondays and the breathless busy work week again.

My friends knew I didn’t like Sundays. They didn’t know that it was because I felt depressed and so dull and low in energy on those days.

But I didn’t know any other way to work, to be, to live.

I didn’t even believe I could feel good, calm, and soothe my emotions and stress levels quickly. I couldn’t think of other ways to live because my mindset and beliefs were so limited.

I had started going to yoga a few years before. Breathing properly once a week and opening up my stiff, stressed-out body felt amazing.

I felt the shame of my stiffness, barely able to do poses, but did it anyway, even though I thought it’d take forever to get those steel-like muscles to melt. It was the best way to learn self-acceptance. 

After the class, I walked home slowly.

Feeling so balanced, calm, and happy, hoping the good feeling would stay a little longer. 

But it always vanished. Even years later.

My teacher tried to encourage me to start a meditation practice at home. 

I said I didn’t know how but mainly, it was more about not knowing how to be with myself, face my thoughts, and all of myself in the quietness.

It felt scary, too vulnerable, weird and uncomfortable.

Like I didn’t want to allow, myself to relax and feel good as I was. I was so used to being stressed out.

To help with the stress and melt the tension. I had great resistance to it. I said I don’t know how to do it right, but I was afraid to face my thoughts and feelings - me - and what would come up, how it would change me.  

A couple of years later, IT happened. 

Something I had anticipated and been afraid of: I dropped on the couch. I was completely burned out, struggling with insomnia and myself hard.

I realized the external would never change if I wouldn’t. I needed to take back control from all the over giving.  

Then I was ready to start breathing and take time for myself, prioritize myself and get to know who I really was. 

A couple of years later, I had a new exciting job and separated from a long-time relationship. I had all the time to work and decided to focus on my career; I was often the last one at the office, somehow thinking work needed me. 

With new social networks and hobbies, I kept myself distracted and busy without being able to see myself or feel my feelings. 

Soon I was suffering from insomnia and continuous respiratory infections.    

I knew I was not well, afraid that I would drop on the couch. 

It happened after a short work trip to Paris.   

I didn’t know what to do or who could help, but I knew I needed to do something. 

I didn’t have peers or trusted mentors or coaches who to turn to; coaching was not there yet. 

I just couldn’t talk about it at work.

The doctor was not able to help other than medically. I tried therapy. 

One said I needed to get better friends and I’d find new love soon. 

The other one said at the first appointment that I should think of my biological clock. I felt there was a time bomb inside of me. 

Conception was not exactly the first thing on my mind. Part of the burnout was the end of the 7-year relationship, which felt like a divorce.

I walked out of the room.

Feeling alone, helpless, and so misunderstood, unseen. I jumped in my car and felt my blood pressure was so high, my heart was racing. I was angry.

Some signs of burnout are:

Feeling abandoned and cynical, and often believing they have to take care of everything, they numb and sabotage unhealthy habits and substances because it’s an anxious and lonely place to be.   

So I sat on that couch and started listening to myself and learned to breathe properly also outside of the yoga room.

I thought of changing the job but realized it was not the solution; I’d still be working the same way. 

Also, I was still deciding whether to change everything in my life at once.

I dreamed about freedom and life beyond my ability to believe in it fully but it was not the time to take the leap. It was time to focus on my well-being and heal properly, focus on my relationship with myself and get to know who I was.

It helped me get my life force back, and a lot more.  

I wanted to keep what I had, my lifestyle, work, income, and give myself time to let the future unfold at its own pace. And it did, but not until three years later. 

I decided I’d find a way to heal and feel myself again. 

Are you with me?

Much love, Jenni

P.S. If you are ready to get rid of continuous exhaustion or recover from burnout patterns for good, and take back control of your work-life, here are some options:

1. Start by Signing up to get the Clarity Life Inventory Workbook

2. Book a 30-minute Clarity Call with me

Strengthening your support system and relationships starts in you

As I time-traveled back to the past to meet the 16-year-old me in hypnosis, she felt insecure, lost, and alone.

Different from the others, like she was not belonging anywhere but desperately sought safety and acceptance externally that only made her overgive, trying to earn love, feeling she ever got anything back.

She was wondering how to be in the world, who to become, and how to make the right decisions that would secure the unknown future and make her happy for the rest of her life.

She felt she was alone to deal with it all.

She needed an empowering conversation, the guidance and support she never got then.

So we talked.

I helped her to understand and see what she was going through, why life felt so difficult and scary.

Why did she feel so sad that she needed to numb her emotions and ignore her needs and wants– affection, comfort, and safety had not been available.

I said life would be full of challenges in the future too… in one form or another but it was possible to learn to be happy and joyful every day and ride on the waves by shifting the obstacles to growth.

We had a good empowering conversation about feelings, self-respect, self-worth, women’s body, sex, and sacred sensuality...

How trusting the Self, the inner voice, and speaking her needs, feelings and opinions out loud and clear was important no matter how others responded.

I showed her how to learn to listen to her inner voice, body, intuition, and feelings– how she could support and help herself and fulfill those needs without trying to make others compensate for the parts that she had abandoned.

I guided her to use her inner wisdom bravely in any and every situation without hesitation because it is the truth of all the truth and it never leads us wrong.

She started to understand that her sensitivity, kindness, and compassion were the real strengths, not the weaknesses, and it was safe for her to be who she was and not try to make herself harder than she was.

We listed her greatness, her gifts, and abilities and helped her see that being confident, successful, smart, and talented meant she was reaching the fullest potential– and she didn’t have to be afraid of gossip, envy, or the threat of not belonging to the group– the abandonment she had experienced earlier.

She realized the ability to receive was as important as giving...  

That she could get love, success, abundance without overachieving and thinking everything should be earned a hard way.

We talked about how being a powerful and independent woman meant authenticity, self-acceptance, warmth, and compassion while recognizing what her superpowers and her real needs, wants, and desires are.

She realized how all that would keep her on the right track, and give her confidence, inner power, and clarity to thrive.

This self-healing journey was part of the subconscious inner healing and shadow integration work that helped me empower the new revised, confident version of myself last year.

Connecting with the parts that I had abandoned gave me the next-level vision and clarified the purpose and direction for the next successful steps.

all the relationships and support you need starts from within

Self-healing, self-love, and self-empowerment mean we have less criticism, less judgment, and less comparison and jealousy but more power, more resilience, and more feminine power collectively.

We don’t have to rise to the stages to make a difference. There’s much more work to make the world more equal and you and I can do a lot now.

We can support women, girls, and our daughters now: to help them feel more accepted, safe, and empowered– good as they are!

We can do that in everyday life by seeing others, listening to others, praising their efforts– showing the example of the good, encouraging and supporting women with the little things that matter a lot… trying to understand others and from where they come from…

…by checking in our own thought patterns, actions, and energy if it’s aligned with the change that we want to see in the world.

Are you with me?

Much love, Jenni

P.S. If you are ready for more, here are some options:

1. I help you swap out self-doubt and insecurities for confidence and certainty so you can unlock your full potential, resilience and purpose to create a more fulfilling life. Start by booking the Clarity strategy call with me

2. If you want a long-lasting confidence boost, and want to unblock and shift those old behaviors and insecurities for good, here’s a self-study confidence workshop, GROUNDED CONFIDENCE 

Bring Sisu into your life

Now that we are almost over on the better side of the pandemic, the world is in another crisis, war that is causing a lot of emotions… 

Last week I was on holiday in Switzerland, the same pretty village that we’ve been going to for years but due to the pandemic, we haven’t been able to go there for two years.

A day after the war started I went ski touring with friends. 

I WAS REMINDED ABOUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT

It took almost 3 hours to ski up to the mountain top and less than 30 minutes to ski down. Then we needed to ski across the lake for almost an hour to get back.

On the way up I was thinking why we did it overall and if fresh, untouchable powder snow was worth it– especially when there are usually easier options for the lazier around there.

Also, I hadn’t had to do it for a while- hiking in a thin mountain air with heavy skis and all equipment was physically challenging for me.

I was coughing a bit after the virus, or another bug I got from Stella’s daycare…

In Finland we have this thing called Sisu, it’s like a Yoda-like force, grit, that you call in when things get tough.

A LITTLE OVER 100 YEARS AGO OUR TINY COUNTRY WON A WAR AGAINST OUR BIG GIANT EASTERN NEIGHBOUR WITH SISU

They didn’t give up. 

No matter it looked like they should surrender they kept fighting and they won.

So while I was skiing up there, thinking of all this, feeling physically challenged in the steep wall of the mountain, feeling the fear, sadness and anger that the war raised inside of me– I pushed through while knowing all the time there were some extra strength, power and energy in me if I needed it.

Whenever it feels like fear takes over I’ve learned to push those thoughts away– and not let it take over – it means that I’m not looking up or down but focusing on moving forward step by step, breathing on the moment, setting intentions, and the goal- whatever it is.

Now for me, it’s peace, connection, and knowing in my gut good will always win. 

WHEN WE CONNECT WITH OUR SISU YOU GET THE STRENGHT AND COURAGE YOU NEED WHEN GIVING UP IS NOT AN OPTION

It’s been beautiful to witness how the world has reacted and the nations have joined together, how people want to help, support, and donate. 

When we join our forces we become more powerful, a community is powerful and anything can become possible when we join our forces physically, mentally and energetically connect with our Sisu... but that starts from you:

• It’s safe for you to feel your feelings, and let go of anger and sadness.

• It’s safe for you to have inner peace.

• It’s safe for you to think you’re lucky and blessed wherever you are.

• You can take action.

We can do all this while thinking of others and helping and supporting the people who need our help right now and donate if you can

At first, I felt helpless as if there were nothing I could do other than sit and watch. Then the opportunities showed up. I donated for the World Food Organization and I emptied the closets from the old children’s clothes, shoes, and whatever I can find and take them to the Ukrainian church per their request.

Pick your favorite charity, organization if you can and help, even a little things will help. 

If that's not possible focus on sending good intentions, love and care. It all helps. We can always do something.

It feels good when you know you have done what you can and your aims and intentions focus on trusting the unknown will reveal itself the right way.

What thoughts and feelings has all this raised in you? 

Much love,

Jenni

Photo by Ioan Roman on Unsplash

How to deepen your intuition so you can listen and follow your inner voice

Just before the holidays, I sat down to chat with Tori Quisling who is intuitive and psychic.

Tori has been a professional clairvoyant and teacher for the past 35 years. She has been featured as an expert on news shows such as the Today Show, CBS News, as well as the New York Daily News and the Huffington Post. She is the founder of the Center for Clairvoyant and Intuitive Development and author of the books, The Clairvoyant Practitioner: A Simple Guide to Developing Your Psychic Abilities and Calling in Your Baby: A Clairvoyant’s Guide to Manifesting Your Pregnancy.

Her background includes working as a teacher at the Berkeley Psychic Institute in California and teaching workshops at the NY Open Center. We dive into how you can deepen your ability to hear your inner voice and actually take action on it.

Tori is offering a bonus workshop in the Conscious Creator program where she will guide you deeper into your own abilities to recognize the voice of your intuition and separate it from your emotions and patterns of the mind. 

Watch the full interview here:

After you have listened let me know your thoughts! If you know anyone who would love this episode, please share online and with your friends! 

If you want to know more about Tori’s work and her programs, the best way to connect with her is here on her website. You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

Love, 
Jenni

From dusk till dawn: My first thanksgiving gets dark

We are waiting for the taxis to pick us up. Everyone looks beautiful and glowing.

There’s excitement in the air. We take a lot of pictures. We all have dressed up to celebrate Thanksgiving at Agung’s house who has been organizing our Sunday field trips around Bali and invited all of us, almost 30 people to his house.

I talk with Mirna, whose nickname is magic, for a reason. I admire her gorgeous earrings. They are golden and inside the earrings, there’s a golden Hamsa hand on the emerald green background.

Suddenly she says, “You know what I give them to you. You need to learn how to receive.” I’m astounded and of course, try to humbly say I can’t receive such a generous gift from her. It didn’t say I want them!

She insists and almost hesitates but follows through with her instincts. 

I put the earrings on right away. I want all the protection they can offer for me. They go well with my dress. 

It is my first Thanksgiving ever. 

At the end of November, we are almost at the end of our month-long journey where we gathered together to a retreat to write the first drafts of our novels, memoirs, or scripts. 

The month has been challenging in every way. I got a nasty Bali belly twice. Something you can’t really avoid when you come here, it happened to me on my previous trip too. 

I’ve been going through massive resistance and emotional havoc that has forced me to face my fears. I have struggled with myself but I have shown up for myself and sat down to write my story every day, no matter what.

Mastin’s coaching has been adding to it. On day one he wanted to crack us open and didn’t have to do much to make it happen. I’ve been doing yoga every day, journaling, and meditating to stay centered and grounded.   

I feel transformed and proud of myself, like a whole new person after living three weeks in this weird, healthy, spiritual vegan bubble in Ubud with all these women. 

It was nothing less than I expected. 

The ways the retreat showed up, and how I found Mastin from the USA, and how I knew I needed to follow the strong intuition and come to Bali to write my story and make my hidden dream to become an author real.

I knew my life was going to change, and a whole new portal would open up for me.

It was not the first time I was facing this kind of momentum when my dreams were becoming real so powerfully. It’s always been a bit scary to understand how powerful I am that I can consciously make things happen.

It all had started when I had decided to leave my career and follow my heart, my creativity, and my inner voice. 

Still, coming here had been a big, scary leap to the unknown as following our dreams is.

The sun is setting as we arrived at Agung’s house. It’s a beautiful place, the house is huge. He has born to one of the higher casts which means they have wealth. 

He is giving us an introduction to Balinese culture and Hinduism. 

His daughters perform Balinese dance with those beautiful costumes on. The music, the lights, the stars in the night sky, and their perfect movement make the moment magical. 

Agung’s wife has prepared an American-style Thanksgiving dinner. The table looks glorious, there’s everything, including Balinese delicacies. 

Everyone is so excited and almost emotional about food. We have all missed home, our loved ones and of course, thanksgiving is a huge holiday for Americans. 

TheRE’S big turkey in the middle of the table. Its roasted head is still pointing up to the ceiling.

That’s terrifying, almost disgusting for some people. 

I actually like the way they respect the animal that way-- showing it all and using it all. I’m used to cooking whole chickens and fish so I find some reactions amusing. We all love to close our eyes to reality sometimes. 

After dinner, we make a circle and share what we are grateful for. 

I hate taking the space and getting the attention. I feel so insecure about my accent and especially when I’m sharing personal stuff with others, which makes me emotional and it’s even harder to speak up. I’m in such a raw place, cracked open. 

But I don’t have any other possibilities than doing it. I can’t hide, I have put myself in this situation. This month I’ve been courageously facing challenge after challenge that has mostly been internal.

I say I am grateful for the first Thanksgiving and I am grateful for the experience, the evening, and the people. I finally feel I was belonging and accepted and free to be who I am.

I am grateful to have faith that I am guided in the right direction. My faith muscles have grown during the trip, I feel confident about myself and my unknown future. 

I am grateful for the transition I was going through.

I am ready to leave Finland, as I strongly felt it was time to go forward and I felt strongly that moving to New York was going to happen.

I had left my career a while ago and followed my dreams and passions step by step. 

Before I left Finland I had followed another inner lead and pitched a book for a Finnish publisher. They had offered me a book deal and the negotiations were continuing to after my trip. 

I am beyond grateful and excited about the opportunity of sharing another story and what I had learned about conscious, mindful living.

What I don’t share out loud is that I’m grateful for all the magic, meeting my partner and that we are possibly getting married in two weeks. 

Even that is uncertain and completely dependable on the move. I wonder if we would get married even the moving wouldn’t happen for some reason. It’s a huge step for me and I always thought it would happen differently, maybe in a more special, romantic way. I feel overwhelmed and so nervous making that kind of commitment to anyone.  

We come back to the hotel. It is so dark and raining heavily. 

My partner has sent me an update about his negotiations. Suddenly I feel really anxious, confused, annoyed.

The weird dark energy is taking over. I feel uncertain what are the next best steps for me. 

Can I really trust him? Myself? Us? 

All my dreams are coming real, it feels like it’s too much but also like a reward after all those years of suffering.

Moving to New York would mean I would be financially dependable on him until I would get myself settled, my coaching business set up and running in a new country, where I didn’t know much of anyone else than most of these women. Visas would be sponsored by his company. 

I have never even visited New York before. Intuitively I have known for a while already it is my city and I would be working in the USA at some point, but I’m not sure about anything anymore. I was curious to see how it all would happen but I never thought it would happen this quickly.

I sit with my feelings. I feel out of control, controlled by others and the circumstances and that makes me feel scared. Afraid to lose my independence, my power, and my freedom which is one of my highest values. I am afraid I am going to lose myself again. 

It has been happening to me in all my previous relationships and I have become a different person after committing to a relationship, slowly focusing on them rather than myself.

It’s been an automatic reaction and behavior, like internal coding in my that forces me to become a woman who focuses on nurturing their man, their health, their wellbeing. Even taking care of their emotions and issues. I had lost myself completely in my previous relationship and had promised I would never let that happen again. 

I now know I can’t be happy if I don’t feel free. 

We have known each other for only a year. Is there enough love to carry us through the challenging times we haven’t even encountered yet? 

****

Happy Thanksgiving!

Much love, Jenni

This chapter is one chapter of the first draft of the book that I wrote in Bali in 2014 with Mastin Kipp and 27 wonderful ladies, with one wonderful man, and amazing writing coaches. I am beyond grateful today to have had the courage to open up the book again and start working on it.

If you are ready to get unstuck and make your dreams and goals real consciously I’m launching a very limited-time Black Friday offer with my newsletter readers on 26/11 that you don’t want to miss! Sign up to get the emails below.

Feeling angry?

If you’re dealing with anger issues you are not alone.

We don't really talk about it because... there's so much shame related to it.

I’ve been personally working with my own anger issues that surfaced up after I suddenly saw the people-pleasing, codependent habits I had.

I was working on myself with confidence and wrote in my journal about what confidence means to me. How does she looks like, behave like, feel like.

From there I got into independence and stopped there. I felt I had lost a part of myself, my identity- the one that I was a few years ago. I wanted her back.

At first it was really hard to accept the patterns and behaviors. I suddenly saw it everywhere. It was like a web that had affected me my whole life.

I researched and studied everything about it. I felt sad as I knew it was huge and challenging to start healing and change it.

I went to my old coping mechanisms of mine, numbing the feelings, bottling up the confusion, and therefore feeling depressed.

After a week of feeling miserable I was ready to accept it and see how these patterns had played a huge role in all areas of my life.

At work, money and all my relationships had repeated the same patterns. 

All that was copied from what happened to me and in my family as a child.

My role was to put on the happy face, avoid conflicts and tuck the uneasy emotions away. 

Rather please others, ignore my own emotions than feel abandoned, rejected. 

I realized how self-harming it was and how angry it made me when I ignored my needs and priorities so I started healing the patterns step by step.

Then underneath the sadness, the anger started rising. I thought I had done with it already but there was more. This was the anger I had hidden for a long time carefully. And it was not all even mine.

I was raised with strictness and had nothing much to say about what I wanted. I learned to hide my emotions and opinions as it was not safe and I felt wrong to have them. As my emotions didn’t matter, I started believing I didn’t matter.  

Eventually, underneath the anger, it was all about sadness like it often it.

I deeply craved to be seen, heard, and able to express herself freely without fear of punishment or emotional abandonment. Without the need to be perfect. Already as I child, I stopped letting it in as I felt it was not available and therefore I rejected myself, the young one in me who deeply needed my attention, my tenderness. It was the self-rejection that actually made me reject the good that was available to me.

This is how the subconscious keeps us safe and protected, thinking it’s the way to avoid the pain. Then it comes out as anger.

The results of this healing work

I feel more empowered and have clearer boundaries and abilities to express my needs and desires than ever before.

There are fewer negative voices, self-criticism, and judgment in my head is gone- people-pleasers are terribly judgmental towards themselves.

I express myself and my emotions easier. I’m more forgiving and so much more accepting and loving towards myself and others. 

It’s not always a straight easy line to reach our desires but this is what I wanted. 

Anger is an emotion as well as other emotions but when it’s explosive, uncontrollable, and constant the patterns and their roots that are often subconscious need healing. 

You are not born angry, one of your characteristics may be frustration like mine, but your critical, judgmental or explosive behaviors can be healed. 

We all have been shamed for expressing our anger and that’s not how we “should be.”

There are inherited cultural and patriarchal patterns (which is not about genders) and of course, the unique family patterns and dynamics add to it. 

The triggers are stored in the body. We can’t avoid letting these things in when we are young, but we can stop passing it forward. 

We don’t even notice how these affect us but wonder why we feel we can’t express ourselves and feel free to be ourselves but rather feel neglected, suffocated, and shut off, betraying ourselves and our truth again and again. 

Hiding, trying to unfeel it, shaming ourselves for feeling anger doesn’t make it go away. It just starts to eat us from the inside and leads to other issues.

It’s safe for you to feel angry, be angry, and learn to let it go healthily and safely with high self-respect. 

It’s safe for you to heal the root causes and stop carrying the anger that only hurts you, no one else really.

We often like to fight for the needs of young selves, trying to desperately get our needs fulfilled, get justice, trying to force or hope people around us or in our past would change or miracles would happen.

Hope that parents would suddenly apologize, or partners or people who have hurt us would suddenly change their behaviors and see us as we all uniquely want to be seen to feel loved, safe and successful.

• Sometimes people change when we change and heal ourselves.

• Sometimes they don’t. It’s not up to you to decide.

We’ll never get the childhood we would have needed and that requires acceptance and letting go of the anger we might feel for our caretakers.

The truth is others can’t fill the hole inside us, but we can do it for ourselves so we can then receive it from others.

Until the old wounds are healed we keep fighting and battling and blaming others for our issues, feelings.

Emotions are supposed to keep us safe and protected.

Anger is often related to rejection and abandonment wounds we have experienced earlier.

Then the subconscious patterns keep us repeating exactly the same in our life later on what we have witnessed or experienced in our childhood.

If you are dealing with a lot of anger or even rage there’s nothing wrong with you but there are wounds to heal.

Healing yourself is your responsibility and also, a possibility.
 

How to start releasing anger:

1. Witnessing and accepting it's there.

2. Sit with it. Journal about it. Voice-record your feelings. Allow insights to come. Who are you angry with?

3. Breathe through it. Keep repeating it until it’s gone.

4. Ask what the child inside you need. Give that to the child, they crave to be seen.

5. What kind of action needs to be taken? What kind of boundaries do you need to set?

Do the work. That is often the hardest part but so worth it.

If you are ready to get more personal support I can help. Book a call here

The sessions help you to release the root causes and then you become free to change your habits, behaviors, and how you feel. When you change the relationships with yourself and then others change naturally.

If you like this blog let me know your thoughts in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you.

Much love,

Jenni

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Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash