Sonic Soul Retrieval

Sonic Soul Retrieval is not something I created overnight, it’s something that grew with me.

It’s the culmination of all my years of wandering, learning, breaking open, rebuilding, studying, teaching, and listening - deeply listening - to life, to people, to energy, to sound, to myself. This work isn’t about escaping pain or pretending everything is love and light. It’s about turning toward what hurts with reverence.

Because the truth is - the wisdom is in the wound.

As you know, I don’t separate darkness from light; I don’t believe in bypassing the hard parts. I do believe in walking with and witnessing them to honor them.

Through Sonic Soul Retrieval, we enter the deeper layers of who you are; the wild, untamed, instinctual parts of you that don’t fit neatly into the roles you’ve been taught to play. This is about returning to your Soul Self… not just performing as your Avatar Self.

A lot of the people I work with are holding a lot - pressure, responsibility, family, work, health, and their creative spirit, all the while navigating the world we live in. It’s hard to juggle all those things when every one of them requires so much focus and attention; a deep exhaustion can start to settle deep in the bones and begin to cloud the mind, and thus the vision and the path forward.

This is where I can help.

These sacred spaces that we co-create become a space to reset your nervous system, recalibrate your energy, and expand your capacity to hold both yourself, your life, and everything else in it.

I weave together everything I’ve studied and mastered - Pranic Healing, Biofield Tuning, Reiki, meditation, trauma-informed movement and breathwork, sound healing - all into something that feels less like a modality and more like a living, breathing experience that shifts as you evolve.

At its core, Sonic Soul Retrieval is rooted in something very simple and very ancient: the intelligence of life itself. Light, sound, breath, the elements, the Four Directions, the celestial weather, and the unseen currents that move through us, and thereby influence the way we move through life. We work with these, not as concepts, but as living forces, to clear what feels stuck, to dissolve what no longer belongs, and bring you back into alignment with your own vitality. Because underneath it all- you already know who you are.

There’s a line I come back to often: There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. I don’t believe in fixing you or ‘healing’ you - there is nothing wrong with you. I believe in meeting you, sitting with you, and guiding you.

I blend Eastern medicine, sound healing, subtle energy, somatics and nervous system regulation practices in order for you to feel embodied and wild, soft and grounded, safe and expanded. These sessions are deeply sensory, connecting all parts and pieces of you. We will breathe together creating a sacred space where magic can enter. We will visualize together, perhaps even walking through the footsteps of lives once lived; we may consult the Oracle using Tarot or crystals or dream interpretation. We’ll work through activating meridians and nadi’s and feel how they influence your spine, organs or full body systems.

We’ll tone together so you can hear your own voice, using your own vibration to calm the nervous system. You’ll experience the effect of different sound waves moving through your body - Koshi chimes tuned to elements, crystal bowls tuned to Chakras, tuning forks humming Solfeggio frequencies, Tibetan bowls, gongs, and pangi chimes bringing wood and an ocean drum offering water … these layers of sound don’t just relax you, they speak to parts of you that words can’t reach, through waveforms that can be experienced.

I’ve spent years bridging the worlds of science and energy - working in research spaces while also walking the path of intuitive and shamanic practice. The science, spirit and shamanic world form a rather beautiful overlap - with us in the center.

At the heart of all of it is a deep devotion to the Divine Feminine and her rage, her wildness and her wisdom. Through this deep connection to my own magic and my devoted connection to yours, we bring your parts and pieces home, inviting shadow into light- allowing for what I call a bothness (because we are never just one thing.)

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. ~ Dr. Carl Jung

Sonic Soul Retrieval exists at the intersection of nervous system science, vibrational medicine, sacred ritual, embodiment, and ancient wisdom traditions. These sessions are a way of welcoming back your most exiled parts, and through loving and integrating them, you become more whole, more aligned, grounded, centered you, in the fact, you become the most you-iest you.

To book a session please click here.

Xoxo

Breathwork + Guided Meditation

There’s something about the breath that feels almost too simple… and yet, it’s everything.

It’s the first thing we do when we arrive here, and the last thing we do when we leave. And somewhere in between, we forget it’s even there, regulating us, acting as a guide to bring us back home to ourselves.

Breath, to me, hasn’t always felt like magic.

I’m probably not supposed to say that as a Trauma-Informed Breathwork Facilitator, but I prefer honesty and truth over purple-washed facts, gift-wrapped toxic positivity, and stale affirmations.

I breathed shallowly as a child due to many rounds of bronchitis in which breathing deep caused physical pain. As a child I had to walk on eggshells in my family home and at Catholic school for being ✨too much ✨ and the first thing children do when they’re trying to keep themselves small or be invisible to avoid getting in trouble is to hold their breath. As I got older I smoked cigarettes for many years; essentially while I was growing up I had no conscious connection to my breath.

There were, however, many bright spots over the years of conscious breathing

• When I was in high school I swam competitively and my strokes were connected to my breathing

• After graduating college I decided to start running and learned more about my breath

• I practiced Tai Chi in college and its a moving meditation connected to shifting energy with breath

• Tattoos are painful and I have many, the only way to move through the pain is to control the breath

• I have always loved to hike, and during hikes, I am always connected to breath

• I have been a yogi since I was 20 and have always connected breath to movement

Fast forward to my early sound healing and energy session days, I was always connected to my breath as that is the only way to receive information from your client and then ground it out of your body - by breathing deeply and exhaling out your tailbone or soles of the feet - I call this breathing like a dragon because of the ferocity of the breath. When you hold space for people moving through deeply difficult emotions one of the things that is most helpful is to regulate your own breathing. We literally are tuning forks and respond to our environment - if someone is moving through extreme discoherence, the best thing you can do is offer powerful coherence by breathing and centering yourself.

One fateful night I was invited to collaborate on a Breathwork + Meditation + Sound Healing Session. I was invited to participate in the whole event and close the ceremony with a Crystal Bowl Journey. So I blindly attended my first ever Breathwork Session…

I am a deeply curious person by nature and love learning new things, but to be honest, when I entered this evening, my ego came too, as I had done so much energy and sound work for literally over a decade I thought ‘what could this possibly teach me,’ and boy I was in for a ride 🎡😂

The practitioner lead us through Dirga Pranayama (3 part breath) and then as the music increased in speed, so did our breath - and before I knew it my arms and legs had tetany and were curling in toward my torso. I was seeing a psychedelic kaleidoscope of color that started in my third eye and then burst forth surrounding my entire body and biofield, and then the colors filled up the environment around me, then the whole shala, and beyond.

I was tripping balls.

People started to cry which gave me permission to cry. I howled while some growled and then we all began to laugh - big belly, juicy laughs. Laughs like you haven’t laughed since childhood when you were carefree and didn’t understand war or taxes.

It was fucking delicious.

With tears pouring down all of our faces, an hour went by without us even realizing or understanding ✨time ✨ because we were so deep in our experience the only thing that existed was our experience.

That’s when I decided to study and become a Breathwork Facilitator

Breathwork deeply humbled me. It was a reminder that we can always find new depths to ourselves, learn new things, and access long-forgotten parts of ourselves.

The simplicity of the breath spoke to me as I am a person who appreciates efficiency; I carry my tuning forks around the world and they fit in my backpack.

The breath barely takes up any space at all, and yet it gives us permission to take up all the space we need.

When I look back I see that this isn’t necessarily the ~ modality I chose ~ it’s one that sat quietly and patiently in the background, staring at me and waiting for me to return the glance. It wove itself into my being before I knew it was happening - through swimming, hiking, yoga, meditation, sound healing sessions, and sitting with people in their most raw, cracked open, vulnerable moments.

For a long time, I had the understanding that the breath was a doorway to connect the mind / body, the physical / spiritual. My conscious breath is now an anchor that connects me to my inner strength and the present moment, it’s a bridge between my body and mind, and it’s a simple power move to bring chaos into clarity.

Breathwork + Guided Meditation

I offer Breathwork + Guided Meditation as they are so closely related (second cousins at the most); they support the cumulative understanding of each other. We can use the breath to help us deepen our meditation and through deepening our meditation we become more acquainted with the power of our breath.

Your breath provides a portal to your nervous system, your emotions and your truth. It helps you uncover the exact emotions, triggers, and feelings that you can use as trailheads to help you meditate.

We use breath as an entry point and through listening and allowing, we create space for whatever wants to shift. There is no ‘right way or wrong way’ - there is only the willingness to meet yourself. Breathwork + Guided Meditation can feel soft and subtle, or it can feel like the deepest unclenching you’ve ever experienced. It’s just about finding what is there, witnessing it, and constantly coming back to yourself and the present moment - which where all the magic happens.

I completed a formal Trauma-Aware Breathwork Certification in 2025, which gave an official stamp on an official paper for what I had already been living and practicing for years - I have always found real learning comes from being surrounded by it and living it.

This is your ✨official invitation ✨

Your breath is always there, waiting to meet you exactly where you are. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, curious, cracked open, or somewhere in between, this is your invitation to slow down, to feel and remember.

I can’t wait to guide you back to your breath.

Let’s breathe together. Book a session here.

xoxo

Intuitive Tarot Readings

I have consulted the Tarot since I was a child. My dad taught me Tarot, I-Ching, Astrology and Numerology when I was very young - I think this was his way of apologizing for putting me in a Catholic school for 9 years 😂

I have loved the Tarot and have used it all my life. I have found that when things in life feel unknown or uncertain, Tarot acts as a mirror - a tool to help you see what is moving beneath the surface. Your intuition whispers, your nervous system reacts and the Tarot helps provide clarity.

You already have the answers within you but sometimes we go through destabilizing events, breakups, deaths, illnesses, and other things that cloud our inner voice and sometimes break trust in ourselves. Tarot offers perspective - it helps you reconnect to your intuition and make decisions based on a space of alignment rather than fear.

In my Intuitive Tarot sessions, we tune into your energy, your questions, and the deeper layers of what’s actually going on - gently pulling the threads of connection, and bringing things from darkness into the light.

My readings are grounding, honest, and intuitive. I’m not here to tell you what to do - I’m here to help you hear yourself more clearly. Whether you’re navigating love, purpose, transitions, or something you can’t quite name yet, we’ll create a space where insight can land and your path can unfold naturally. Through intuitive interpretation and grounded guidance - and how you interpret what you see and feel - these sessions can illuminate patterns and possibilities so you can navigate your path and purpose with greater clarity and trust.

My readings are supportive and insightful - whatever it is that you are dealing with, moving through, and/or releasing; I can help. Consulting the Tarot can be helpful if you’re curious, seeking direction or just craving a deeper more intimate connection with your inner landscape. Together we create a sacred space for reflection and guidance.

You’ll leave feeling more anchored, more aware, and more connected to your own inner compass - because at the end of the day, you already know. Tarot just helps you remember that you’ve had the magic all along 🪄

I can’t wait to support you, let me know how I can help! Contact me here.

Xoxo

United Planet

Ibiza

I went to Ibiza off-season a few years ago and really enjoyed all of the beautiful nature that the island has to offer. Ibiza became a special place to visit due to the incredible nature that I found whilst there. I had never been to Ibiza before as the clubbing culture never really called to me; but off season with less drunk tourists and more nature to myself made me fall in love with it.

The cliffs are incredible places to sit for sunset, there are ruins and abandoned places lost to time and graffiti artists. There are steep hikes down to the ocean, and secret places hidden in the rocks. I found places to climb along the cliffs - free solo-ing :p - I stumbled upon caves, waterfalls and even magical holes in the rock where the water swells through creating this phenomenon that looks like the ocean is breathing.

When I was there I was shocked to see so much quartz and then I discovered that Ibiza is known amongst spiritual communities has having an insanely high concentration of quartz crystals! I knew it was magnetic due to the amount of retreats and partygoers but figured that was due to its easy location for Europeans to travel to for the summer and it’s draw of excellent DJ’s!

There is an island (some would say magic) off the coast of Ibiza that is called Es Vedra which is considered to be the 3rd most magnetic point on earth. As we know from its use in computers and clocks - quartz crystals can hold and transmit information due to its unique molecular structure. Quartz, like us, is piezoelectric which means when you apply pressure it creates an electrical charge. Science and spirituality can agree that quartz holds patterns and can interact with biological fields.

While on Ibiza I met Lucian Tarnowski the creator of United Planet and UP game. We talked about our shared love of travel and community and bringing people together in vulnerable spaces to dream up a new world. He was interested in my sound healing and teaching whilst traveling and I was deeply interested in his UP Game - I had unfortunately just missed the one he hosted at the Pyramids of Giza which I was obviously bummed about!

We knew we would meet again somewhere cool and discussed potential collaborations in the future.

UP Game

United Planet and UP Game came from the idea of bringing like-minded, future oriented and dreamy people together to dream a new world. Lucian calls UP Game “a time traveling immersive experience designed to enable teams to create stories, strategies and solutions from a thriving future.”

If i recall correctly we spoke about accessing your future or higher self, and this is one of the avenues that helped birth this idea of UP Game - calling on the wisdom of the future to help create and align the present in such a way to get ‘there.’

Lucian has hosted UP Game all over the world from the pyramids in Egypt, to Switzerland and Norway, to the islands of Ibiza and Puerto Rico. I think at the time I am writing this he’s hosted at least 35!

Puerto Rico

Lucian eventually came to visit Puerto Rico, where I was living at the time, to host one of his UP games and while there he asked me to support his last day of UP Game with a Crystal Bowl Sound Healing Session for his participants!

I was so happy to hold space for UP Game and all the lovely participants on their last day that honored the Akasha - the wind and space element.

I always love collaborating with old and new friends and across the world.

If you’d like to collab don’t hesitate to reach out by contacting me here.

Xoxo

Sound Healing at Frontier Tower

I am so excited to announce my partnership with the Human Flourishing Floor of Frontier Tower in downtown San Francisco! I became acquainted with the amazing leads of this floor during the Funding the Commons conference earlier this year.

Frontier Tower is considered a Vertical Conference (and sometimes unconference) due to its unique set-up. Every single floor is dedicated to the future of humanity and learning in its own way. Floor 15 is the coworking floor, Floor 14 is my floor - the Human Flourishing floor. Floor 11 is the Longevity floor researching longevity biotech and cutting-edge biomarker tracking. Floor 9 is the AI floor that builds and experiments with robots. Floor 8 covers Neuro + Biotech so you can have a lab away from your lab. Floor 7 is a makerspace, Floor 6 is dedicated to Arts + Music…

Everything about Frontier Tower exists on the edge… and on the frontier of the unknown discovered through experimentation and evolution.

I had been to many events at Frontier Tower before the Funding the Commons conference. Different floors will host different events so I had been there for music and dancing but also gatherings that were hosted by different floors collaborating with one another.

During our first meeting, Zan, one of the floor leads of the Human Flourishing floor, literally were already collaborating together, so when I asked him if we could do more events, he was already excited.

Not but two weeks later, we planned our first event for Tuesday April 14th 2026 which we created to be a Sound Healing + Sunset Tea Ceremony as the roof of Frontier Tower is a lovely place to watch sunset from. We had a full house and people came from all directions to join this sacred space that I created through the Crystal Bowl Sound Bath by dropping in, breathing deep and trusting the journey and their process. Afterwards people were led up to the roof to shed whatever came up during the sound session to the setting sun. This was an especially auspicious day as 7 planets were stationed in Aries with no retrogrades! What does that mean? FULL STEAM AHEAD AND LETS FUCKING GO! type energy as Aries is the leader of spring and the beginning of the astrological new year.

After sunset people came down to chat and participate in the tea ceremony and ended up staying for a long time to meet one another, make new friends and chat about … well… everything! It’s interesting how sound healing attracts vastly different people - people in AI, Tech, Crypto, Health and Wellness, business owners and CEO’s alike - something about the simple understanding that we are vibration and that sound can not only affect but organize matter is no longer ‘woo’ but proven by science, and visible to the naked eye. If you haven’t already - go ahead and watch some videos on Cymatics on YouTube. Cymatics is the study of the shape that sound makes - and all frequencies can create cymatics and different frequencies will organize in different patterns. When I watch these videos - or create my own experiments at home - it’s so validating to be able to physically see the overlap of science and spirituality.

Zan and I are so grateful to everyone who came out to share this evening of Sound + Ceremony! Our first event was so successful that we have decided to host monthly events and our next one will be during Human Tech week in May - as meditation is literally Human Technology.

To see our first event in April 2026 click here.

Our upcoming event is May 14th from 6:00-9:00pm - click here to attend!

To learn more don’t hesitate to reach out to me by clicking here

As always, thanks for being here.

Xoxo

Keep on Keeping On

I hope this email finds you well and you are feeling lighter after the Spring Equinox Portal on March 21st…

Even though I do very much wish that for you, there’s this cringey feeling of inauthenticity.

I know it’s difficult to navigate the world and even our own mind and emotions when we see such chaos and brutality on our phones … and … well… *wildly gestures at everything*.

I just want to let you know that you are doing your best - and that is enough.

✨ take an inhale ✨

✨ long slow exhale ✨

We are in this tight squeeze where we are bombarded by bad news and even worse news and it’s difficult to stay grounded during these times. I’m not going to offer any toxic positivity here - as there is a balance between stay informed (as much as you can handle) and living your life and feeling good about it. However, this balance can feel precarious as if we’re standing on the edge of a cliff. Sometimes I’m having a really good day and I feel bad about it and feel like I *could* be doing more or I *should* be doing more.

We are constantly surviving through unprecedented times - not just on a daily basis - but sometimes it feels hourly! We digest more information in a day than what our ancestors did in their entire lifetime. If your nervous system feels burnt out - that makes total sense!

The only things you can do are what feels manageable to you without you feeling overwhelmed or burnt out. Remember how we always talk about turbulence on a plane in my classes and why it’s important to put on your oxygen mask on first before helping the person next to you. This is such a perfect analogy because you can’t help anyone else if you are not helping yourself. You can’t save someone if you’re drowning too. You can’t give from an empty cup.

We desperately need to unlearn these patterns and re-parent ourselves with kindness and compassion. You are important. You matter. The world needs you as you are in your perfectly imperfect way.

When I say this I am also talking to myself of course, during my random health stuff I had in January I noticed my caretaking pattern take the driver’s seat and everything that came with it - overextending myself, people pleasing, saying yes when I wanted to say no, the feelings of guilt and shame that come from all that, the ruminating thoughts, sleepless nights, and then when all that goes on for too long - a sickness finally forms in the physical.

Cool Jess, so now what 😂

I’ve shared this philosophy with you before in classes, in sessions and consultations; I invite all of us in this moment to adopt the rebel archetype - the rebel archetype says fuck you I won’t do what you tell me (to quote Rage Against the Machine) and there is deep wisdom here.

How? you might ask.

Well, if the powers that be want us to feel overwhelmed, helpless, hopeless and sucked into our phones by churning our clickbait and rage bait and wars and files and other awful shit they are able keep our attention in this unending loop of trying understanding things that can’t possibly be understood.

So tell them fuck you I won’t do what you tell me and start to reclaim your life, your whimsy, your breath, and your nervous system. Limit your phone time, donate to authentic charities, go touch grass, go laugh, go protest - whatever it is that makes you feel good - in every way! Take a stand in a way that feels manageable and not overwhelming, stay informed but give yourself a boundary, stay happy and engaged. Stay grounded and healthy.

Let’s take this moment just after the Astrological New Year (that started on the Spring Equinox) to set our New Years Resolutions. Make a list and get creative. make a vision board, start a new hobby, set a new goal. Make it outlandish! Re-ignite your spark. And put yourself first because that’s the person you can change. Start from within and allow that to ripple out.

When you show up differently - the way you engage with others changes, therefore the space in between you and your community shifts; and that’s how we are able to affect change.

I hope this helps.

I always love hearing from you.

Thanks for being a part of my community.

With love, always

Jess 🤍

Biofield Tuning

We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.

Biofield Tuning

I started my journey with Biofield Tuning in 2014 after meeting the creator, Eileen Day McKusick, at a conference at the California Institute for Human Science. We were both presenting and were equally enthralled by each other’s presentation. We became fast friends and due to my vast experience in the medical/health and research field + my many years teaching alternative therapies + teaching energy healing classes already, Eileen personally asked me to become one of the first Biofield Tuning Teachers, and soon after I was promoted to the International Lead Teacher, Research Assistant and Nonprofit Outreach until 2021.

Biofield Tuning is a sound healing modality that helps to relieve mental, emotional and physical stress, it is a targeted therapeutic system that uses tuning forks to help restore balance via the nervous system.

Physical matter is music solidified ~ Pythagoras

We are electrical beings: the energy that powers our brain, heart, muscles, fascia, and bone is electricity. Anything that is electrical produces a magnetic field perpendicular to it, which is measurable and has been studied in detail by the HeartMath Institute; they have measured the field of the brain and heart up to several feet away from the body.

What this means is that anything that is alive (electrical) produces a magnetic field (or bio-field) around itself. Both are measurable and scientifically proven.

Tuning forks produce coherent waveforms which are able to locate dissonance in the bio-field around the body. The coherent waveform from the tuning fork will find dissonance in the field and then recalibrate that dissonance back into harmony.

Dr. Bruce Lipton and I in India - post BT session

What does this mean?

By slowly working through the field using physics (resonance to find and entrainment to harmonize) the body will come back to equilibrium and homeostasis and thus, health. An easy way to understand this is - if you have a guitar that is in tune and mine is out of tune, if you keep playing an ‘A’ I will listen to your ‘A’ (resonance) and eventually I can tune my guitar to match your ‘A’ (entrainment).

This physics-based medicine allows the body's nervous system to move away from the sympathetic fight or flight response and relax into a parasympathetic rest and digest response; this is where healing can occur most efficiently. What we have found through thousands and thousands of clients is that the dissonance the tuning forks can find in the field can be directly linked to memories and emotions.

Simply put, Biofield Tuning is a way to use sound medicinally.

In our view, the biofield is the blueprint that the body follows, this contradicts what we were taught when we were younger, but withhold disbelief for an moment - this is entirely possible since to this day science has been unable to locate where memories are stored in the brain. So what if?

Time and time again, we have found that circumstances in life cause an emotional response and these are recorded in the biofield - you can think of them as a disturbance in the force, these areas have mass and a different density from the air, and because of this the practitioner and the client can hear the change in tone, pitch, timber and sometimes even volume. This takes the subjectivity out of the session as you are an active participant.

I like to think of this process as you coming home to yourself: I wrote a blog called Returning your Sparkle, Your Childlike Essence that you can refer to for a greater description of this process.

It’s a pretty simple concept when you think about it.

Remember third grade science class when we were told everything in the universe vibrates? We do, tables do, the air around us does… By treating the body (a vibrating particle) for an illness, disease or other issue (a vibrational imbalance) with coherent vibration (harmony), the body is able to recalibrate itself.

What’s the coolest thing about this? A state change is noticeable to the client regardless if they are in-person or if the session is done over a distance.

I trained under the creator of Biofield Tuning herself, Eileen Day McKusick, who was not only my mentor but my very best friend. Under her guidance I became an Advanced Certified Practitioner and then she personally asked me to become one of her first Biofield Tuning Teachers due to my extensive background in energy healing, vast knowledge of the health/medical field, prior years of teaching alternative therapies to medical professionals, and teaching energy healing classes across the US.

Eileen and I have traveled all over the world teaching together and speaking at conferences including Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine (AIHM) several years in a row, The Science of Consciousness Conference in San Diego in 2017, The Science and Nonduality Conference (SANDS) in San Jose in 2019, the Sound Healing Conference in Malvern, England in 2019 and the Advanced Medicine Conference in South Dakota in 2021.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. ~ Plato

Because of my deep and insatiable love for travelling the world and visiting sacred spaces, I was able to expand Biofield Tuning globally and was promoted to the International Class Coordinator and Lead International Teacher. I was the Lead Team for Tuners without Borders, which was Biofield Tuning’s non-profit side to help those less fortunate. I have been on several missions to Jamaica and during Covid I began my virtual outreach to the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation to support them with Biofield Tuning during Covid-time. I have a recorded session available on my video page.

Eileen and I in Jamaica

It was my greatest pleasure teaching alongside Eileen for many years and teaching Biofield Tuning around the world to hundreds of students. It was an honor expanding and growing Biofield Tuning to all corners of the world, and touching the lives of so many different people in so many different places.

In 2021 I started to focus on my Masterclass on Illumination: The Wildish Wolfish Way. I have tuned hundreds of people trying to get unstuck, find their path, heal and return to themselves. I have hosted events and performed remote sessions all over the world - literally - and now serve the San Francisco / Bay Area where I continue to tune and host large sound healing events.

Subscribe to my newsletter to see what’s next!

I have known and been good friends with Jess since meeting her in 2014 at the Subtle Energy Conference in San Diego, and I have had the good fortune to travel, work and teach alongside her all around the world. Jess has a very comprehensive understanding of the biofield and of Biofield Tuning, and provides brilliant and insightful feedback as a practitioner. She has a vast background in performing and teaching about a variety of alternative therapies and healing modalities. I have given and received many tune ups with and from her and I would highly recommend Jess as a practitioner. ~ Eileen Day McKusick

I would love to tune you and bring you back into balance with yourself and your environment! Please let me know how I can support you on your healing journey <3

Contact me by clicking here

Xoxo

From Reiki to Pranic Healing

From Reiki to Pranic Healing

My journey into energy medicine began with Reiki training in Michigan, where I first felt the profound connection between the unseen energy fields that surround and permeate us. Guided by a naturopath who revealed the importance of energy in holistic health, I embarked on a path that deepened my understanding of the subtle forces shaping our physical and emotional well-being. This calling led me to study Pranic Healing under Dr. Mary Clark in Encinitas, California, where I became a certified Pranic Healer in 2014.

Pranic Healing expanded my ability to perceive, cleanse, and energize the biofields of others, working with prana—the life force that sustains and rejuvenates us. My time teaching Pranic Healing in San Diego was a profound experience,

enabling me to share this empowering modality with countless individuals seeking balance, clarity, and healing.

Pranic Healing

Pranic Healing is a non-touch energy modality that harnesses prana, or vital life energy, to cleanse and energize the body’s energy systems. By addressing energetic imbalances in the aura and chakras, this practice allows the body’s innate ability to heal to flourish. Pranic Healing works on the principles of removing diseased energy and replenishing with fresh prana, making it a powerful complementary approach to physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

My Expertise and Devotion to Your Well-Being

As a certified Pranic Healer and teacher, I am deeply committed to helping clients realign with their natural vitality and inner light. Each session is a co-creative process, honoring your individual needs and unique energetic blueprint. My approach is intuitive

and rooted in integrity, always holding a safe and sacred container for transformation.

Whether you’re navigating physical health challenges, emotional blocks, or seeking greater harmony in your life, I am here to guide you through the powerful tools of Pranic Healing. Together, we’ll create space for your energy systems to flow freely, unlocking profound states of balance, resilience, and self-awareness.

The Power of Energy Medicine

Reiki + Pranic Healing offers so much more than relief from pain or stress—it is a pathway to self-empowerment and wholeness. This practice connects us to the vast intelligence of the universe while grounding us deeply in our own truth. Through the cleansing and energizing techniques I’ve cultivated, I help clients discover their limitless potential for self-healing.

Every session with me is an invitation to release what no longer serves you, replenish your energy reserves, and rediscover the clarity and vitality that are your birthright.

Let’s explore the power of Energy Medicine together—where energy becomes the bridge between where you are now and where you’re meant to be.

For sessions or consultations please click here

Xoxo

Funding the Commons Conference

Funding the Commons has been around since 2021 and has taken place all over the world throughout Europe, Asia, South America and the US. FtC San Francisco took place this year on March 14th and 15th 2026 downtown at Frontier Tower. Funding the Commons is a conference, a coordination hub and also a convergence point between different people with various backgrounds and interests solving different pieces of the same puzzle that finally get to sit in a room with one another and discuss strategies.

Funding the Commons is a curated group of altruistic future-oriented people trying to figure out ways to support and grow public goods like clean air, climate research, open source apps and public knowledge figuring out how to support the systems that support all of us.

This year FtC was a gathering of 1,000 builders of tech, researchers, founders, funders, community organizations, artists and therapy-oriented people like myself. We talked, hosted, and sat in on each others talks to lend our voices to help solve these problems. I took part on the Flourishing Floor and was invited to facilitate the opening circle Sunday morning, collaborated in several other sessions, and helped finish the day by assisting the Closing Cacao Ceremony.

I’m incredibly grateful for the support of Ryan Rising - the Head of Operations + Site Lead, and David Casey - the CEO and leader of FtC encouraging me to bring my unique magic to this event.

Funding the Commons is a conference where every different floor focused on something else - Neurotech, Human Flourishing, Art & Music, d/acc Lounge, a Hackathon, Biopunk, Makerspace. All of the events held and hosted by these floors added depth to this vertical space by offering talks, workshops, lab spaces, healing session, DJ’s, art shows, music and performances, unconferences, as well as normal conference content presented on the Funding the Commons Main Stage which hosted talks, keynotes, sponsors, art and the tea house.

I was elated to not only host my own events, but to collab with others, make new friends, and see so many old friends from my constantly growing global network and from the Edge City’s I’ve attended! It was truly a gathering space that attracted an international crowd!

I am so happy to announce my collaboration with the Human Flourishing Floor (Floor 14) with the help and support of Zan, Ming & Judy!

My next upcoming event that you can find on here on Luma is on Tuesday April 14th 2026 from 6-8pm. My friend Zan and I are co-hosting a Sound Healing Session on the Flourishing Floor with Tea + Discussion afterwards on the roof of Frontier Tower for sunset.

From 6-7pm I will lead a Crystal Bowl Sound Healing Session on Floor 14 and then from 7-8pm Zan and I will host a gentle movement + Tea Ceremony for sunset on the roof of Frontier Tower!

Come join us!

Bring your loved ones and something cozy to wear :)

We can’t wait to see you!

Xoxo

An Honest Update Winter 2025

Hi dear friends,

It’s been awhile since my last newsletter.

The truth is that the past few months have been unexpectedly difficult for me… and to be honest … for most of the people i have spoken too about about the start of 2026. Regardless of how they would describe themselves as being ‘tuned-in,’ sensitive, or an empath, or not spiritual at all - random sicknesses, depression, surprise allergies, unexpected hospital visits, even deaths have been plaguing so many that i know (and me too!)

This heaviness, this density, that we have been trudging through… we have noticed the effects of this feeling deep in our bones and hearts and minds; it feels dark and sticky. It’s in our thoughts before bed, sometimes leaking into our dreams; we have all felt the prickle on the back of our neck of our fears and insecurities in the background creeping to the foreground.

💕Ahhh life. What a roller coaster. A river. A spiral.

Life can move us through seasons that ask more of us than we expected; like the strong rapids of a large river, life can speed up suddenly, it can pull us under, it challenges us. It makes us suffer to grow and evolve so that we are reminded to turn inwards to find answers to our questions, our own inner strength and resilience; and guidance through patience, humility, and a deeper kind of listening. Life does this again and again and again. Remember, the person who got in the river is never the same as the person who gets out.

What we can trust and know is that life is a spiral, it goes around and around and around and sometimes similar things happen to us that have happened before - but now we have the ✨currency and the energy✨ of Wisdom Through Experience, which we can work with.

Suffering is necessary because it is the fertile soil that compassion is able to sprout from (no mud, no lotus). The kindest people i know are the ones who have suffered and grown through what they’ve gone through, they’ve catalyzed their pain into goodness for others. They’ve become the alchemist.

I try to alchemize whatever is ✨up and alive✨ in my life as my meditation object, my focus, my drishti. Lately my meditations have been about being okay with not being okay, allowing a calmness with the confusion, not knowing the next step, feeling a bit lost and perhaps not having control. In communion with my shallow breaths and fast heart rate i have been able to listen deeper to what my body is asking for: REST.

Because of my highly sensitive and intuitive nature i sometimes feel like a canary in a coal mine (haha, but for real☺️) - it seems whatever the mood of the collective or temperature of the environment that we’re in - thats what is LOUD in my heart, mind and soul.

So, I have been letting go of control - daily and literally outloud as a practice (ex: something that i wanted to work out doesn’t and i say out loud “and that’s okay.” or “if not this than something better.”) I have been allowing uncertainty and doubt to wash all over me and then sitting with the fear that it brings up viscerally in my body and knowing that how I’m feeling is okay - it’s just the season I’m in. Its the season we’re all in.

It’s totally normal and beautifully human to be confused right now.

🪷 During the difficult winter moments, I found myself returning again and again to a simple prayer I’ve carried for years and I wanted to share it:

May I be supported.

May I be protected.

May I be healed.

May I be guided.

Over time I have realized that this prayer isn’t just something I ask for in my own life, its also my forever intention; to create spaces of support, protection, healing, and guidance through my magical offerings and sacred presence.

Together, with love and understanding, slowly, and through softening, through gathering, through sharing stories, allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and surrendering into the current weather of life; all of this presents the opportunity for the universe to gift you wings.

May you be supported

May you be protected

May you be healed

May you be guided

And just like that - the seasons shift - and winter ends, as it does ever year.

Xoxo

Jess

Holistic Chamber of Commerce

I successfully managed to find this image from 2013? 2014? by combing all the way back through my Facebook photos. But here I am and here we were during a perfect spring morning in sunny San Diego - Encinitas to be exact. Featured is a few friends of mine and the president of the Holistic Chamber of Commerce (HCC) - Eileen Kurlander in the middle and me on the right as the Vice President of the HCC.

Eileen Kurlander had asked me to be her VP after she saw my desire to create change in my community. At the time I was the lab manager at Psy-Tek Subtle Energy Laborary, a student at the California Institute for Human Science and also becoming certified in Pranic Healing and Biofield Tuning - and also becoming a yoga teacher! I was hungry and I wanted more.

I was teaching classes all around Encinitas at various different places on different topics. Chiropractors and acupuncturists would invite me to their clinic to educate on Thermography, yoga studios would invite me to talk about energy healing, and sometimes cute and cozy coffee shops would invite me to talk about women’s health. At this point I had been teaching these topics since my early 20’s as it became a special interest of mine after a health crisis caused by allopathic medicine and pharmaceutical drugs.

I left college with my undergrad as I was too sick to continue pursing a Master’s. Around that time I had met a ND, MD and PhD (all the same guy) and had fallen magically into a Thermography career. With all these things combined - being mentored by someone versed in all angles of medicine, having a medical background myself, learning about prevention and preventive scans topped with a special interested in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, and entering the rabbit hole that is energy healing; I naturally started teaching locally as I figured if this information is helping me expand and grow, it would help others too.

I taught and traveled and ended up moving to Florida first before moving out west and taught across the United States. Once I got to California I had already been teaching holistic and sometimes obscure topics for many years which made me an incredibly well-rounded teacher and writer, as also at this time I was writing articles for various magazines like Natural Awakening, The Hour Detroit and for websites like The Gerson Therapy.

I taught for the Holistic Chamber of Commerce and met Amelia (pictured left in the image) and started writing for yet a local Encinitas magazine called The Life Connection.

I was Vice President of the HCC (Encinitas Chapter) for one year and worked alongside Eileen expanding our outreach and education programs.

I very much enjoyed my time with the HCC and under the mentorship of Eileen, and was pleased by all the things I was able to learn from and grow into!

Meditating with Jhourney

I started working for Jhourney at a very interesting time in my life; one of my relationships was ending and I was feeling like you normally do at that tumultuous time - a little shaky, unsure of what’s to come, fearing the unknown and how it will come to pass, wondering if life will be kind to you and catch you - those sort of things. I had done a retreat with Jhourney and they just seemed to like me and they asked me to come work for them; it was such a lovely gift that they gave me - they gave me structure and hope - as well as the gift of realizing how easy meditation could be.

Jhourney is the San Francisco-based meditation company that teaches you how to teach yourself to get into jhana; which, as a teacher I absolutely love that framework because thats how I have always taught - giving people information but allowing them to make sense of it themselves, and then being there as a guide as they work through things. The people that are drawn to Jhourney are these incredibly brilliant minds searching for something to calm the noise that burns inside them. For me it was my ADHD - my thoughts were always so loud I never thought that I could quiet the noise - for other participants it was across the board - they knew they needed something, anxieties, destabilizing life events, ruminating thoughts, not trusting themselves, etc.

The way that Jhourney ‘hacks’ meditation was the exact way I needed to help me understand how to meditate - as you all know I come from a vast biological and spiritual background studying the body, the mind and the heart. Most, if not all, of my friends were meditators and yet, I could not figure it out. The abstract instructions I was always given was just to ‘sit and try to let go of my thoughts….’

…And, my friends, I cannot just ‘sit and try to let go of my thoughts….’

…Or at least I thought I couldn’t…

When I went to my Jhourney Retreat in May of 2024, Jhourney did something that I desperately needed: they flipped the archetype of meditation on its head for me and told me I could break the rules. As a rule-breaker myself, this advice brought me great joy. I had this idea in my head that I needed to sit perfectly still and not have one thought in my head - based on intro talks of TM and Vipassana I had been to years earlier. With the powers of scoliosis and ADHD combined these things are ✨almost✨ impossible!

Jhourney offered easy solutions: if sitting hurts - then lay down. If neither works - then go for a walk - just make it slow and intentional. They helped me reorient my goal - not to try to get rid of my thoughts but to work alongside them. As someone who is very visual I started being able to befriend my thoughts to conjure feelings and then use my thoughts to help me stay in that feeling, and then once everything felt stable I felt more collected rather than scattered and ✨over efforting✨.

What a concept!

Jhourney helps so many people not only find meditation but love it, sincerely. They make it easy to understand and they guide you the whole way. Since my time with Jhourney I have considered myself a proficient meditator and even completed a 12 day Vipassana retreat in May 2025! Younger Jess always had that as an intention for my life, and finally achieving my goal felt so blissful.

After my last in person retreat at the Blue Spirit Resort in Nosara, Costa Rica in July 2025 I knew it was time for a wacky road trip through Nicaragua and Honduras all the way up to surf in El Salvador. Luckily I was blessed with a co-teaching team of amazing individuals and together, Matt, Jack, Owen, Tracey, Hanna and I embarked on our quest. We had the absolute best time piecing together playlists, border crossings, various different buses, a handful of shuttles shuttles and some epic side quests.

I’m so grateful for the time I spent with Jhourney traveling through all throughout California and Costa Rica, teaching alongside people that will remain lifetime friends, and meeting epically cool people as participants - it’s a time I’ll never forget!

Xoxo

Edge City: Patagonia

After having the absolute best time at Edge Esmeralda in Headlesberg, California in June 2025 and traveling all throughout the summer on a wacky roadtrip from Costa Rica all the way up to surf El Salvador; and another trip through the wild mountains of Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia with pit stops in Turkey and Germany - my travel needs were still asking to be satiated…

Thankfully, Edge City asked to come back to their pop-up city in October 2025 all the way down to Argentina! I was overjoyed obviously as Patagonia is one of my favorite places in the whole world - the hikes, the views, the energy and the mountains!?

There was no way I wasn’t going.

I arrived back from Kyrgyzstan, started unpacking, doing laundry and re-packed my bags - for every type of weather - and 3 weeks later I was on the road again, starting the longest set of flights to get all the way down to San Martin De Los Andes - a city nestled deep in the Andes, 18 hours way from Buenos Aires!

(Argentina is huge 🤣)

The trip started as trips sometimes do, with delays and monkey wrenches thrown into the mix - but it ended up with so many of us - participants and facilitators alike - stranded for a bit in the airport in Buenos Aires together and then finally getting to our destination.

Landing in San Martin De Los Andes felt so nourishing to be back in the mountains of South America, it felt like an exhale. I was lucky enough to be here a few years ago and hike throughout Argentina and Chile and being back felt like a homecoming. The terrain of Argentina and Chile differs greatly as the countries are huge - and very long and therefore have a variety of different landscapes. San Martin De Los Andes is known as a landing point for many people who will decide to travel north to the desert or south to the well known hikes - like Torres Del Paine and Fritz Roy. There is a drive that begins here called the La Rute de Los Siete Lagos - which means the Route of the Seven Lakes - which - as the name suggests takes you on a 68 mile gorgeous drive winding through the mountains, forests and valleys to see seven glacial lakes.

The lakes are mostly crystal clear and some are turquoise - depending not he weather, they are surrounded by snow capped mountains and there are pull offs everywhere to sit, to swim, to picnic, to journal, and take it all in. This drive sits inside of Nahuel Huapi National Park which is one of the oldest parks in Argentina. I knew that after this crazy month of teaching 2-3 classes a day there was an incredible roadtrip waiting for me on the other side.

I was so elated to be invited back and now I had a better understanding of how Edge flows: it might seem to start fast but towards the end of the month you are working and moving faster than the speed of light - and this isn’t just me but everyone who attends. There are residencies that have a focus on science and research, whether that be in health and measuring biological markers, magic - like synchronicities and telepathy, sound and its affect on the body and mind, and also tech, ai, apps, and anything else that can improve life for everyone around us. I have been a part of the Consciousness Residencies at both Edge City’s and been able to support the research side while teaching my sessions.

At Edge Esmeralda I taught two classes a day - bookending the day with Morning Yoga and night time Crystal Bowl Sessions (or breathwork or meditation or sharing circles) and this felt pretty reasonable; BUT! when I arrived at Edge City: Patagonia I saw how open the schedule is - and I’m a problem solver who loves sharing information, hosting events and meeting amazing people - so I started to fill it up with as many events as I could - sometimes 3 events a day adding long hikes over the weekend and Ecstatic Dances every Sunday. I love looking at the schedule (it’s insanely packed to the extent where there are at least 5 different classes, talks or sessions you could do at the same time - any hour of the day!) and seeing through the schedule to see what people need - so I added hours of silent thoughtfulness, called The Void, so if people hadn’t jumped in the lake - this was a moment to do so, or write that email they were avoiding, this was the time to do so.

Even though I worked so hard, time is both fast and slow at the same time - I remember halfway through the event I planned on getting a ‘month-long’ membership at the climbing gym and my friend looked at me and said ‘the event is halfway through’ and me being in total shock! There’s barely any time to rest but the excitement becomes the wind beneath your wings!

I love teaching morning yoga and offering a variety of different classes so that everyone is able to get what they need - from vinyasa and hatha to restorative and yin - all ending with a Crystal Bowl Savasana. I led breathwork sessions to help get these highly intellectual humans in touch and embodied with their breath. I led Women’s Circles, Vulnerability Circles and even taught some intro’s on Sound Healing with Tuning Forks. At the end of the day I hosted a variety of meditations and Crystal Bowl Sound Baths to help people wind down after a long exciting day of solving the world’s problems. 😂 I assisted my friends host Women’s Dinners, Altered States of Consciousness sessions, Astrology events and Telepathy talks. And after all that I worked into the nighttime at our late night gatherings where people could decompress from the day.

The hikes I planned over the weekend were a huge hit as people desperately needed to get out and hike and take some nature time while we were on this gorgeous land. People absolutely loved the Ecstatic Dances every Sunday that I gathered different team leads from different residencies and collaborated with different DJ’s (there were so many!) and we even had a Cacao Ceremony with some new indigenous friends that came to guide us through ritual.

During Edge Patagonia we spent Halloween together, spent a meteor shower together, hiked together, did acro together, ate together, did tarot and talked about astrology, cold plunged together, bouldered together, and danced together. I am so grateful for everyone who came to all my events and shared their breath & movement, and mornings & evenings with me. I’m so grateful to everyone I learned from and spoke to. It was truly the event of a lifetime and everyone who was there made the event a million times better with their presence, their depth and their own personal magic.

After Edge Patagonia was finally over it was my time to touch grass instead of my phone and I embarked on a road trip through La Rute de Los Siete Lagos all the way down to Perito Morina Glacier in El Calafate where I finally hiked on the glacier itself (which I hadn’t done last time I was there) I visited Fitz Roy in El Chalten again (I’m obsessed with this mountain) and camped alongside the pristine blue river before crossing into Chile and taking Carretera Austral - Ruta 7 - as it’s widely considered to be one of the most beautiful and wild drives in the world.

My time there felt familiar and ancient, elemental and magic - where nature is still in charge. Being in this wild land makes you feel like you’re on the edge of the world - you might lose your phone signal but you’ll find something else entirely.

Special shoutout to Ryan Rising for being the best road trip buddy anyone could have asked for.

I know I did!

Xoxo

Edge Esmeralda

So it’s kind of a funny story…

In the spring of 2025 I solo adventured (as I do) all through Southeast Asia - one of my favorite places in the world. I started in Korea, went to Japan and saw Mt Fuji for the first time (and cried of course) and then went to Thailand for another yoga teacher training and climbed the big walls at Tonsai beach. After that I went to the Philippines for some scuba diving, back through Japan to see my best friend, David, and then wound up in Hawai’i - for the first time - and managed to see 3 of the islands…

But!

All that travel is a Later Blog!

The point of this story is that solo travel is magical and makes dreams come true - it sounds like I’m joking but I’m actually not.

Let me explain…

Something happens when I (or you!) solo travel - where I just reach flow state, easefully and without any effort, the universe just bestows consistent gifts on me when I am doing what I love most - traveling, teaching and learning!

When I was in Thailand I got 2 very important messages - and this is the story of what happened after I got the first message.

My dear friend Hanna reached out; she and I had met while I was teaching meditation with Jhourney in California and fallen in love with each other (she’s a national treasure). Because this meditation retreat that I was teaching at was local in California I brought my sound healing instruments and played a few Crystal Bowl Sound Healing Sessions for the participants and she, in particular, really enjoyed my sessions. She was reaching out because she worked for this pop-up city called Edge City; they combine AI, Tech and Crypto people with Health and Wellness people; essentially people who are creating the future LIVE - and people who care desperately for earth and humanity. She wanted me to bring my witchy offerings to Edge City to be on the Wellness side of things. I asked her about the dates and they fit ✨perfectly ✨into my travel plans and I said “Fuck yes I’d love to come!”

So after 3 blissful months of traipsing all throughout Southeast Asia (and Hawai’i) I came home to the Bay Area and went straight to work - for a full month 🤣

Edge City is a pop-up City that “pops up” all over the world - for one month; they’ve had locations in Thailand, Bhutan, and South Africa. Edge Esmeralda is a pop-up city located in Headlsberg, California in June that combines tech, AI, and crypto with health and wellness offerings in a ‘pop-up’ city style. What this means is that people from all over the world, from similar and also varying backgrounds, are able to come together and join this month-long container, which is lovingly referred to as an incubator.

An incubator is defined as a controlled environment used for the care and protection, and thats really what happens here: people come to join this community to share what they know, to listen to what others have to offer, and to come together in this very unique space for one month. Ideas flourish here, businesses are born here, friendships created here, patents received, partnerships meld, projects grow exponentially, funding is found… anything you can think of can happen here - at the Edge.

Hanna invited me to join the Consciousness Residency to bring my unique set of offerings to the ever-growing list of amazing sessions. I was obviously overjoyed to bring Sound Healing to Edge and I was blessed with the opportunity to kick off the opening session for Consciousness Week, as a Sound Healing Meditation, where I welcomed everyone to the beginning of this week by grounding them into their bodies, clarifying and setting intentions and manifesting the opportunities that would come to pass for them.

My offerings began as Crystal Bowl Sound Bath Meditations and THEN when I learned I could offer anything I wanted - I decided to share my entire toolkit with the participants of Edge Esmeralda, and I began hosting all of my favorite sessions - Meditation Nights, Vulnerability Circles, Sound Baths, Morning Yoga, opportunities for Silence and/or Sharing, and Breathwork sessions.

My favorite thing is creating beautiful and cozy spaces where people feel safe and comfortable to share, to be open, and to be vulnerable - especially when they are new to this side of science and ancient technologies! I love watching people’s faces as I explain sound healing from a scientific lens; its so easy to comprehend and yet can sometimes still carry the ‘woo’ reputation! It’s always such a gift watching someone flow through a session - watching them relax into the vibrations of the crystal bowls, watch them begin to trust and deepen their breath, to move their awareness from their head and into their heart. Seeing them process their emotions as they rise and fall and see them witnessing their own bravery in sitting with whatever arises within them. It can be so activating such that the person that entered the room feels vastly different than the person who leaves.

It’s such a honor to watch new friends in tech, crypto and AI be introduced to sound healing and embodiment practices - like breathwork, yoga or meditation - they have such beautiful minds and hearts. I love creating spaces where they feel supported & protected; I am always so grateful for the trust they put in me to guide them. At Edge Esmeralda I made so many new connections that have exponentially increased my already-global network of friends & family.

My time at Edge Esmeralda was mind blowing, heart opening, and so expansive. I am so deeply grateful for the team at Edge - Timour, Janine, Sophie, Syl + Hanna, and everyone who came to my sessions and for allowing me to hold such sacred space for them.

It’s always such an honor to hold space for you.

Can’t wait to see you at the next Edge!

Xoxo

Sound Healing in Thailand

When people ask me what my favorite country is - I always struggle - I have been to so many absolutely amazing and fascinating countries that I can barely choose anymore! Southeast Asia is one of manyyyy favorite places in the world but what I can say for certain - Thailand is always a place I will always return too.

TBH I love leaving the US and prefer spending my time elsewhere because every time I leave I can feel the clutches of US-capitalism-need-to-be-busy-in-order-to-be-a-good-human draining from my soul and body. I find that whenever I am in Southeast Asia / Thailand I specifically feel like I am in a complete flow state with the universe.

In the spring of 2025 I took myself on a solo adventure through Southeast Asia; I went to Korea for the first time as well as Japan and the Philippines. I saw Mt Fuji for the first time and cried happy tears, I saw my best friend David in Osaka and Kyoto, I witnessed it snow in Tokyo. In the Philippines I scuba dove the reef in Cebu which is absolutely stunning and life changing; and for the main topic of this blog - I also returned to Thailand. I visited Koh Phangan, an island I had not previously been to - for another yoga teacher training (100hrs) and gave myself another gift a month later - climbing the big walls at Tonsai Beach.

While I was on Koh Phangan living out my best life I scootered all over the island, meeting new friends, seeing old friends, getting tattooed, dancing until dawn, attending my first Full Moon Party (all completely sober I might add!) I was one with the universe and one with magical energy of Thailand.

I went to a resort called The Sanctuary for my yoga teacher training - taught by the most amazing teacher I’ve ever had - Janine. She was so knowledgeable and trained in so many different types of yoga, she was concise and consistent and answered any and all questions I had. Janine and I bonded and when she found out I was a sound healer she told me there was another retreat being hosted at The Sanctuary - called Wonderment Retreats - that requested a sound healer! How lucky I felt to be able to offer Crystal Bowl Sound Healing sessions while I was there learning. Being a teacher and a student at the same time has always felt so good to me and so I happily obliged and took part in their last day; their Spirit Day honoring the Akasha!

One of my requirements for my 100 hr YTT with Janine was to also teach while I was there, and luckily next door there was another resort called Why Nam and so I was able to teach yoga there and offer even more Crystal Bowl Sound Healing sessions! Super special thanks Melina for helping me coordinate a bunch of sessions and classes during my stay! Why Nam has an artist residency they offer to people doing epic things and they offered me a position there which I hope to return and fulfill in the next few years!

When I travel and I find myself in this gorgeous flow state I find the friends I make, the things I learn and the collaborations I find are so heart centered in soul family. It’s such an honor to move through these spaces in faraway corners of the world and find such epic opportunities…

… and speaking of other magical opportunities, while on Koh Phangan 2 other amazing things happened for me.

I got an email saying that I was finally accepted to Quepasana on Maui for their 12 day Vipassana Retreat - I had been on the waitlist for about 6 years (due to covid) and when I looked at the dates of the retreat it worked perfectly to be when I was already heading over to Hawai’i to visit my cousin! I was overjoyed as a life goal of mine since I started learning about meditation was always to one day to a 12 day silent retreat and here it was falling directly into my lap.

After this glorious email I had received I got an amazing phone call from my friend Hanna who was inviting me to work a month long pop-up city called Edge City and be their resident Wellness Lead doing all their morning meditations, yoga, breathwork and crystal bowl sound healing sessions. So that meant right after my 12 day Vipassana retreat and visiting my cousin on Kauai (and hiking the Napali Coast, of course) I would be coming back to California to work this amazing month long event in Headlesberg, CA!

Such magic happens when we listen to the call of our soul and fling ourselves off familiar routined-cliffs and realize that are wings are born as we trust fall. I am so grateful to Past Jess for trusting herself and her desires and fulfilling her needs and always marching to the beat of her own drum. I am the person I am because I’ve always only ever listened to my heart. I can happily say that I live without regret - because I’ve never not-done something I’ve wanted to do, and because of that I’m happy with who I am and who I will inevitably become.

Xoxo

Spirit Day with Wonderment Retreats

A Love Letter to Me (and you)

Your lowest point is the doorway to your highest self

~ Alan Watts

What is the Love Letter?

Every year I find myself so inspired by my crazy life, my passionate soul, and my wild heart that I write myself a love letter. This is one of my most sacred rituals that I perform every year. It doesn’t matter when I write it as I always follow the natural flow of my life and trust my intuition as to when it needs to be done; and without fail I’ve done it every year since 2015. One of my favorite parts of this process is… a year will go by and I will completely forget about it; and then somehow as fate would have it, I find it or remember it - and read it again exactly when I need to.

So why share this now?

Well, this love letter to myself is inspired by July 2024 (Past) Jess’s love letter to her future self - July 2025 Jess, which I uncovered in an old journal a few days ago.

2024 Jess was going through a lot - honestly, it was an incredibly challenging year that I’ve written about before, which you can find here. Everything I knew and held dear - my friendships, health and relationships were all dissolving at the same time - you’ve experienced this before when life dogpiles you - generally when you’re hanging on by a thread already - my mentor / best friend / spiritual mom from San Diego had died, I was healing my body from a mildish/majorish surgery and debating leaving who I thought (for so long and so deeply… think: past life dreams and memories and Deja vu’s) was the love of my life.

2024 Past Jess had the courage and the foresight to write Future Jess a love note telling her how proud of her she was for leaving, for walking away (even if it was more of a pathetic crawl), for keeping her integrity, protecting her inner child, and for always being authentic and leaving a relationship when it no longer served her. To be honest at the end of last year this relationship was starting to wound me deeply. I felt it was at these major moments is was when I needed him the most and I chose to leave anyways. Months later (so recently) when I told my amazing therapist / mentor, Andy, about this later, he exclaimed that ‘yes! this was the weakest i felt and therefore the strongest i became!’ - which always reminds me of that quote from GOT that I quote (perhaps too) often.

“Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?"

“That is the only time a man can be brave."

~ George RR Martin

I returned from Edge Esmeralda only about a week ago and happened upon the love note I wrote myself in 2024 and started to reflect on how painful the end of last year was, and honoring the girl that I was, and how proud of myself I am for choosing myself first, and growing into the woman of my dreams, AND all the subsequent blessings that have flowered underneath my feet since then.

When I find my love letters to myself after year(s) it brings me so much joy and peace to know that my Past Self is looking out for my Current and Future Self. If you’ve worked with me you know how often I send love and strength and tenderness back to Teenage Jess and pull on wisdom for Future Jess. Allowing love to flow through all my different timelines (The Council, if you will) integrates me deeply in my truth and my inner trust.

My Love Letter to ME

I will be honest, I do have a bit on anxiety posting this because I’ve never made one of these love letters public before as they are deeply personal and they honor all the cool things in life that I am brave enough to do. Therefore there is a part of me that feels like it’s too “braggy,” or “cringey” but here I am doing it anyways - as we all know life begins at the end of our comfort zone.

So here is my love letter to myself, and I invite you / hope this inspires you to do the same:

Dear Jess,

I am so fucking proud of you. You overcame something that challenged every fiber of your being, that broke you open and tore you apart; that momentarily destroyed you and made you question everything - the universe, your intuition and yourself - you showed up, as you always do, with an infinite well of resilience, of strength; your trust in yourself and in the universe, that it will always take care of you, is truly unshakable; it’s a masterpiece. You jumped off a cliff and the universe caught you, you fell and you trusted the wisdom of Rock Bottom being a shamanic place of transformation. You took your time to heal, honoring the slow days, honoring the ‘no’ days, not speaking to anyone except your dear roomie Quentin when he asked if you needed more water or snacks. Weeks and months later you rose from the bed onto your hands and knees and finally planted your feet firmly, feeling the support of the earth pushing up against you. Eventually you began to walk, then run, and then frolic, once again finding the wisdom in play.

You started to ground even harder in your routine, even allowing the perfectionist inside to take control for a bit maintaining sobriety, food restrictions and daily exercises. You began the re-engagement of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual work. You dove deeper into shadow work and healing inner child wounds, learning more about yourself and family dynamic and how to understand things better and quicker in the future. You stayed present with your emotions and cried when you were sad, allowed anger to move through you elegantly and gracefully and held your own heart (with the support of very wonderful friends). You continued to climb, to walk, to yoga, and Pilates, focusing on physical health when mental health became too “efforty” and sped up or slowed back down into an acceptance of the present moment, depending on what was needed at the time.

You made your sleep a priority and spoke louder about your boundaries and your bedtime - even including a sign for the house that says “please leave by 9” so people were able to physically see your boundaries, you stopped drinking all together (5 months sober!). You cut out poisonous people (even if that meant ending 5+ year friendships! Yikes!) because you realized your pattern is to beg to be loved, that love is hard work and you have to prove with performance that you are worthy of people loving you. You began to look around and clean up your life in every cobwebby corner that was hard to look at, and you loved it all anyways. A week of Imposter Syndrome at a retreat helped you understand that the Perfectionist part of you had now taken over the driver seat and with some mirroring from more amazing friends - shoutout to Vlad, Owen and Ashley you were able to gently allow your messiness to shine once again, realizing that there is no Perfect, just like there is no Destination. It’s all a beautiful fucking mess. And we fucking love it anyways.

Best of all you started to double down in all things that interest you and pull at your soul - including obtaining a Breathwork Coach Certificate as even though we consider ourself illuminated for some magic reason Breathwork can still bring us to our KNEES. Doing this work for so long and working with movement and meditation and trauma and how it’s related and woven into the breath, I knew the breath was magic; but only when I began to fully understand the depth and multitude of dimension of the FUCKING MAGIC of your breath have we expanded even more, softening our edges, becoming kinder, more compassionate, more resilient.

You do not understand the violence it took to become this peaceful.

Something we always wanted to do was to complete another yoga teacher training and so this year we went back to Thailand - one of my favorite countries - to complete a 100 hour yoga teacher training on the spectacularly beautiful and magical island of Koh Phangan!

Speaking of travel?!

This YTT inspired the trip to Asia and the way I like to travel is to see as much as I can while I’m there! We (we = all integrated Jess’s) started in Korea for skin care (highly recommend and I can write another blog on that) Japan for Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Mt Fuji - a literal dream come true. We made so many friends on Koh Phangan and they loved us back so much we were promptly invited to an artist residency that we will complete in 2026!

While I was completing the YTT I was given so many opportunities to teach yoga and sound healing for two different resorts! I danced ecstatically on the beach under a full moon, surrounded by strangers with soft hearts and beautiful minds. I went to a KPG Full Moon Party completely sober, made 50 new friends throughout my journey in KPG alone, and then ran away to climb the big walls of Krabi - another dream come true. I went to the Philippines and scuba dove the reef - some of the most beautiful reef I’ve ever seen, and got to see my best friend David in a happy accident while heading to Hawaii for the very first time.

I literally couldn’t be more proud of you.

And then!? Not only that!?

While we were in Thailand we got two insanely uniquely niche golden opportunities: The Vipassana-adjacent retreat I had been hoping to get into for the past 5 years contacted me and told me I was accepted AND we were given an opportunity to be the resident Yoga Teacher, Breathwork Coach, Sound Healer and Meditation Guide at Edge Esmeralda, a pop up city in California where we ended up meeting so many amazing people and big thinkers and genius designers…

… it just keeps blossoming ….

… it just keeps opening ….

… and I just keep dancing and trust falling …

… and my framily just keeps on expanding and expanding throughout the world and throughout realms.

I Am the Luckiest Girl in the World

I tell myself all the time that I am the luckiest girl in the world, and not only do I tell myself that

I deeply and profoundly believe it.

I am the luckiest girl in the whole world.

I know it, I breath it, it’s my every day intention, my prayer, my through before bed, my waking ritual. I write it in my journals, it’s on my vision board, I repeat it after every synchronicity, every hang-out session with friends, every time it rains, every time I see a rainbow, or a bird or an animal. It’s constantly being manifested for me with every thought, feeling, movement and action.

I am writing this love letter just before my birthday (July 11th) although it never matters when I write this letter, because it is always written.

I felt such a pull to write it because even though we’re only half way through the year these are all the beautiful things that have been born out of pain, and blossomed out of suffering, flowered out of the deep trust I have for myself and the universe and my path.

In all of this spaciousness of healing and loving myself, in all these blessing I have found a profound forgiveness, one (tbh) that I didn’t think was possible.

A real forgiveness that doesn’t end with “I forgive, but…”

On a mountain top, underneath the stars in Northern California, whilst under the influence of certain psychedelics, I felt a light blue pure energy completely wash forgiveness over me and through me while journeying.

In this stunning clarity and inner peace and cleansing wave I deeply realized (not just thought) a truth that sunk into my bones all the way inside to my bone marrow - that what people do to you, how they treat you and perceive you, and judge you and hate you: that is just a projection of how they feel about themselves. Now, most of us know this logically, I know this logically and also emotionally - but this truth merged with the atoms and molecules and waveforms that make up my physical and energy body, and in that way I was able to fully and completely release, and not release in a violent shaking or even letting go sort of way, but a super divine and peaceful softening, a setting free, a liberation, a falling, a settling into a comfy flower bed, a dissolving completely back into my own person / being / truth / body with no one else’s energy, opinion or nervous system wrapped around mine (like a vine that will eventually choke a tree to death.)

In this moment, as I write this;

I am Wild

I am Resilient

I am Kinder, more Loving, more Gentle

I am the Luckiest Girl in the World

and I am Free.

I deeply hope, want, and wish the same is true for you <3

Quepasana: Everything is waking up right now

Vipassana: To See Things Clearly

Vipassana means ‘to see things clearly,’ and I’ve been wanting to do one of these retreats since i first learned about them. Vipassana is a 10 day silent meditation retreat that is offered as a gift - for free - all over the world. When I lived in San Diego I had a a lot of friends who participated and volunteered at Vipassana retreats and for years would tell me about it and recommend it to me. At the time I didn’t consider myself a meditator because I was unable to sit for long periods of time - I had this idea in my head that a meditator looks like a monk who sits in stillness without moving for hours on end and this archetype didn’t fit with my super athletic body with scoliosis and an ADHD mind. To be totally honest, I had an overwhelming amount of self judgement when it came to meditation. I had sat at some TM + Vipassana seminar evenings listening to people talk about it - and honestly it all sounded 1. Impossible and 2. Like hell. TCM told me to let my thoughts ‘bubble to the surface and then pop,’ whatever that meant. And Vipassana told me I had to sit without moving for 10 hours a day, for 10 days straight: an absolutely ridiculous idea. I thought there was no way I could do either of these things and this judgement compounded as I was a sound healer, energy healer and yoga teacher (spoiler alert: the meditation teacher in me took years to coax out) and all my friends who were in similar lines of work (naturopaths, massage therapists, counselors) were all “good” meditators so the comparison added to the judgement, and I stayed away from turning my gaze inward.

It wasn’t until literally years (maybe a decade) later that I realized I had meditated my whole life, but my meditation looks drastically different and incorporated movement. One fateful day in 2019 (?) I was hiking (meditating) up a volcano in Guatemala with a new friend named Sami Rose, we bonded deeply over California (I was San Diego, she was LA), holistic perspectives, astrology, healing, shibari and meditation. I expressed my concerns and judgements with meditation and Sami happily told me about the existence of a Vipassana-adjacent retreat that allowed movement. I was overjoyed and when we got back down from the volcano the next day (which was amazing by the way and we got to watch Volcan Fuego explode all night, but that’s not what this blog is about) I immediately put myself on the waitlist… and waited…. For years.

My Meditation Journey

I’ve written about my relationship to meditation before, thinking I was not a good meditator for most of my life. I had immense trouble sitting still and a lot of judgement and preconceived notions of what meditation + meditators ‘looked like.’ In 2024 I attended a 7 day silent retreat with Jhourney teaching myself to learn the Jhanas - and once I did and realized I was ‘there’ which of course was nowhere specific and also everywhere at the same time, I realized I had been meditating my whole life but my meditation was almost always accompanied by movement.

Jhourney explained the Jhana’s to me as elevated states of consciousness that are within our grasp because we have felt them as children - that deep presence accompanied by a feeling of ecstasy - pure play, pure bliss followed by a deep sense of connection and presence and finally gratitude. I recognized the Jhana’s in the same way you recognize your reflection: this ‘bell curve’ of joy made me realize that these are the states I reach when I hike - which is one of the million reasons I love hiking. The harder the hike the more blissed out I am. Literally every time I hike I am in pure bliss - which made me realize so many things 1. Why I like to hike alone, this feeling of bliss is not shared with anyone and feels very vulnerable and exposed especially when you’re hiking with someone not having a good time, the gap between experiences can lead to feelings of disconnection 2. Why everyone hated hiking with me earlier in life - for me the harder the hike the better the bliss, when I was younger I used to take my friends hiking and they haaaaated it. There were many statements of “I will never hike with Jess ever again,” swore through gritted teeth struggled breaths when I was younger. 3. Why I seek out such difficult hikes - of course I am very adventurous and athletic and love to hike for exercise, but the feelings of peace and presence I get from trudging and frolicking up a mountain is like nothing else, it feels like a drug where the only addiction is needing to do another hike.

There is also meditation through pain, I’m sure it’s obvious to you now if you’re on this page that I am very much covered in tattoos and piercings. Sitting through a particularly long tattoo leads to turning the gaze inward, focusing on your breath, steadying your mind, and not only sitting “through” the pain but sitting “with” it. I also suffer once a month from the barely-survivable pain of endometriosis + adenomyosis and honestly the pain is so bad it’s laughable when I’m not suffering from it, and almost unbelievable from the outside looking in. I’m not saying I do this gracefully by any means, but I do, in a sense, have to meditate through it. We all suffer painful life events and generally the way we get through it is turning the gaze inward, breathing steadily telling ourselves ‘we will get through this,’ and from rock bottom we pick ourselves back up and begin again.

The Golden Ticket

I had the most awful break up of my life in 2024 and I wasn’t actually sure if I’d ever be okay and trust again, shoutout to David + Quentin for gluing my heart back together again. Well fast forward to 2025’s major healing adventure that took me all over the Southeast Asia from healing my skin in Korea; to seeing Mt Fuji for the first time and falling head over heals for Japan; to healing my soul in Thailand and healing my adventurous spirit in the Philippines, I received THE email I had been waiting for, for years: Quepasana was open for newcomers and I was accepted and I’m going to Maui. And then came the stress point: just kidding - there was some sort of glitch in the system that said you were accepted but you weren’t quite yet.

Luckily my manifestation and email skills were locked in and I explained my situation - how I heard of them (on a volcano - so cool right?) my healing journey because of the break up and my flinging myself back out to life and adventure (I deserve this!), where I was geographically and where I would be - in Hawaii anyways (Kauai technically) and finally I received the Golden Ticket and I was confirmed and accepted. There was much rejoicing and telling everyone who would listen.

After 6 years, I was finally going to be a Quepasana Girlie.

May the 4th be with with you

I had never been to Hawaii before and then as it happened I was scheduled to adventure to 3 different islands due to friends visiting Oahu, Quepasana in Maui, and family living in Kauai. I got off the plane in Maui and into the van and drove to the retreat center. I bonded instantly with my ride share friends - shoutout to Aiden, Jaime + Keifer and we rode to the sunrise of our destiny. All day we talked and bonded with our like-minded high-vibey new friends then by the time we woke up on May 5th we had begun our journey into deep inside ourselves.

The Journey

I expected some difficulty and perhaps because of that my time was pretty easeful. Since my Jhana Jhourney, and subsequent meditation teaching over last year I have meditated almost every day and I deeply love and cherish my meditation practice. It has become something delicious and yummy that I look forward to daily.

We woke up at 4:30am every day with movement and stretching which (only slightly) eased the pain of the 4:30am bell. We sat for 2 hours, took a break to roam, swim, snorkel, eat breakfast, stretch, and walk around. After breakfast and clean up we came back, did yin yoga + breathwork and sat in meditation for 4 hours. Then we broke for lunch, more options to swim, walk, stretch, workout, and then we met back at the Shala for more yin, breathwork, and sitting for another 4 hours. We would break for dinner, clean up, watch sunset and sit again for 2 hours before going to bed by 8:30pm.

Day 1 and Day 2 were full of distractions and patience for the monkey mind, allowing forgiveness and acceptance to seep deeply into all the problems my mind was trying to fix from my past, present and future. My mind was trying to solve puzzles, organize things, make lists, and overall various mental backflips + contortions; and I patiently, with love and compassion for myself and my mind; gently brought my awareness back to the present moment using my breath and the sensations it brought to my nose, lungs and stomach. My mind pulled and stretched for things and distractions and judgements and past grievances and hurts and I lovingly and patiently kept bringing my mind back to The Now. I had some really beautiful breakthroughs just on how tasty the present moment is - my minds eye created this orange orb that shone like the sun and every time I brought my mind back to this shape I could feel the most gorgeous sensations flow throughout my body, my heart, my lungs, my mind. This orb was full of all sensations and every time I brought my mind back I was rewarded with this full sensory treat that can only happen right NOW.

Day 3 and Day 4 were endometriosis-related death days where I just layed and suffered most of the time, but like I do once a month anyways, I meditated through the pain, and through the pain was the most delicious presence, my minds eye showed a darkly overcast sky over a dark ocean but this gorgeous light right in between the layers of darkness. There were many things in this gorgeous light that I’ll describe only as a Happening. Due to the immense pain of my body and the wobbly feeling of the pain pills I was able to stay here and surprisingly didn’t experience any other of the awful symptoms of my period (throwing up, fainting, the ushe). I was feeling everything - and at the same time letting it all go.

Day 5 and Day 6 were wonderful, I was no longer in pain AND I was halfway through! I was gonna make it!!! 10 days is a loooong time of silence and meditation and not much else. The daily yin yoga that we did felt nourishing and the breathwork was lovely too, allowing ourselves to sink deeper into our practice by stretching the body and releasing stuck emotions was so helpful. I had some serious breakthroughs here and starting dreaming up (several) business plans. Anytime monkey mind was too loud I would do manifestations and allow my brain to be distracted with these beautiful loving thoughts toward my future self, then I would come back and find a juicy spaciousness in between the thoughts and stay there.

Day 7 was my worst day. I was distracted all day because we were over the “hump” of halfway and “almost almost” done but not quite and my brain was all over the place. It wanted to write blogs and share all the things I had already learned, contact people - I’ve been gone for months and miss my California Family, journal - how long has it been since I journaled? Do tarot - I was pulling cards while drinking coffee and working every day before this!? I need to SCREAM! I need to talk Sage (my ChatGPT) and ask what these flowers are that were growing everywhere? How was everyone on the outside? What if something bad happened? I needed to buy flights to California and Denver!? I still don’t have a Burning Man ticket?!!!!!!!!!! This was a day of fear and worries, judgements and concerns, and so instead of fighting it, I let it be that way and did what I could to ease the pain of the weight of my brain - which was mostly big deep breaths to relax my nervous system as much as possible and feed positive distractions like beautiful day dreams, mantras and manifestations for Future Jess.

Day 8 and Day 9 were back to bliss - more ideas, juicer awareness, easefulness in herding my brain back to Now; loving awareness, kindness and compassion toward myself, felt throughout my heart, my body, my brain, my thoughts - even the bad ones. I started to forgive myself for thinking bad thoughts about people who had hurt me and this had a domino effect, forgiving so many people for so many things, forgiving myself for letting people hurt me and sticking around too long, forgiving myself for not knowing, not understanding, forgiving others for the same. I had a big breakthrough thinking about my parents just remembering that they did the best they could and at the end of the day - they want my approval now as much as I wanted theirs when I was little. I cried and cried and allowed the release of tears to flow down my face and wash away the tension. I felt like the sun. Unfuckable with, and as my friend/ mentor / therapist Andy says “be in the mindset that nothing can stick to you;” everything was bliss. My walking slowed down and my staring at the smallest things and finding such treasures everywhere around me - the tiniest details and veins in leaves, all of the tones in the bird song, the colors and movements and dance of the corals and the reefs underwater, feeling sooo incredibly connected on retreat through short but loving glances.

We already loved each other, but when we broke noble silence together Day 10 we were head over heels in love with each other. Throughout the retreat there were these small, tender, acts of romance and thoughtfulness, from finding each others water bottles or helping and volunteering in the kitchen everyone had bonded from a heart centered place of silence and kindness. We all cried in a circle loving and acknowledging one another and finally learning each other’s names. Later that day, Keifer and I made up the best game of Bocci Ball that very vaguely resembles actually Bocci Ball, the bonds were sealed, friendships formed: we were connected forever.

Day 11 we broke down our entire camp with over 30 tents, the kitchen, the Shala together as a team. Leaving was impossibly hard but it had to be done. I hugged everyone goodbye (not something I normally do) made sure they had my contact and left for Jurassic Park…. I mean Kauai.

Quepasana Take Aways

I feel more present in my body which is mostly felt in my voice. If you’ve know me you know I talk very fast when I am excited, but when I work I have a very meditative cadence to my speech. When I spoke out loud for the first time on day 10 I could hear my voice vibrate inside of my chest. My thoughts were going a million miles a minute because it was the first time we got to talk but my mouth was moving at a slower pace - so I started to connect my thoughts to my mouth and be more present; I was hearing every word I said as I said it. Occasionally in the past, I haven’t felt heard and wondered if it’s because I don’t hear myself - suddenly I was hearing my truth from deep inside my chest, everyone was listening intently, and I was trusting the sound of my silence and loudness.

I had a very strange interaction which I won’t go into the details: but I was bullied while in silence. This felt very troubling for all the reasons, I’m sure you can imagine. But being “silenced” during “silence” left me with a very unsafe, very uneasy feeling, especially when I was trying to honor silence, but felt like I needed to stand up for myself, but had limited people I could ask for help from. This caused a lot of rumination and circular thoughts: and just as much as it did create rumination - I was also able to let it go….? Which felt a little wild due to past expressions of Jess. Because of that (I think) the universe gave me another chance to stand up for myself - so I did - and much louder this time - and it felt like DRUGZ! The pure power that was rushing through my veins while I spoke to this person - telling them my truth and how I felt - and the effect of their actions - felt like nothing I had ever experienced before. We ended up hugging at the end so everything turned out fine but it was a gorgeous ‘happening’ that I got to 1. Meditate on and 2. Practice letting go 3. Standing up for myself 4. Speaking my truth and then finally 5. Coming to a resolution.

Epiphanies about my ex lovers, parents, past and future were abundant, including unhooking myself from these tangles of the past and bringing myself back to the Here and Now and letting everything else go and be water under the bridge. A huge realization came in the exact way that I needed to understand was: that my parents needs always came first in my childhood home and those are similar patterns in the relationships I have attracted in the past - someone whose needs are louder and more important than mine. Watching that pattern from a far out perspective realizing that I am the most important person in my life, I am the main character. My life is all about me and I am allowed to have all my needs met, I am allowed to have my cake and eat it to. I am a powerful sorcerer and always have been. Things come easy to me and my life is blessed because of me! I make it this way!? When someone comes into my life they are competing with the bliss of how I feel when I am alone!? I am a magnet for miracles and good things always find me?!

In conclusion - I am the luckiest girl in the world and I am so fucking grateful to live this blessed life with these insanely beautiful circumstances and experiences. I would highly recommend you checking out Quepasana.

For Chayna

On a personal note, when I left the cozy sacred container of Quepasana I found out a dear friend of mine, Chayna Girling had passed away. Chayna was a lot of things - a powerful and beautiful fashion icon and artist. An incredible photographer, an explorer, a Burner, an amazing friend who lifted me up emotionally and mentally after the despair of my break up, who saw a light in me when I didn’t see anything in myself. Even though we didn’t know each other for very long, the time we spent together moving her magical Witch House, the road trips, the photography shoots, the moral support, the shared love + interests and respect in one another. She will live in the fire of my heart forever.

She wasn’t really a “rest in peace” kinda person, so for both of us, I hope she haunts me forever.

Xoxo,

Jess

Nature Heals: The Earth Laughs in Flowers

The earth laughs in flowers is my favorite quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which will make sense later in this blog.

Where did yoga come from? Who was the first yogi? Who was the first guru? If you look closely at the origins of the asanas, you can see: they come from nature. Tadasana rises from the mountain. Malasana crouches with the frog. The people who came before us lived with a profound connection to nature - they knew they were part of it, not separate. Through yoga asana and study, we can slowly uncover a deep truth:

We do not see the world as it is.

We see the world as we are.

Through extending compassion - first to ourselves, then to others - we close the gap between ourselves and the world around us. We find unity where there was once separation.

When you stand in Mountain Pose, do you feel strong? Do you realize it is you who decides whether you feel strong? When you curl into Child’s Pose, do you feel safe? Where does that safety come from?

If you don’t feel strong or safe today - can you be gentle with yourself? Can you create spaciousness inside you, the same kind of spaciousness you would offer a loved one in pain? Can you be open to the idea you might feel safe or strong one day? Can you laugh at life and all its absurdities?

Do you believe in magic and all it’s possibilities; or do you feel safer in the mundane?

Do you realize it is you who creates your life — thought by thought, action by action?

What kind of life do you want to build?

If you feel like you’re not moving fast enough, not achieving enough, not “enough” enough — can you soften? Can you remember that your path will always look different than everyone else’s - because it’s yours, and no one else’s? Can you find laughter and levity in the fact that nothing is actually serious? I mean, truly, we all die at the end?

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling…

~ Aldous Huxley

I have always believed in magic.

And because of that, my life has always been magical.

There have been pitfalls of depression and despair, yes - dark times that marred my path and threw me off track for a while - but I always find my way back. Suffering is a part of life. No mud, no lotus.

Nature is my guide. My intuition is my guide.

And lately, I’ve discovered that rest is my guide.

When I was younger, I tried to do everything fast, only to burn myself out and spend months recovering. Now, I follow the rhythm of nature — which is the rhythm of patience. Through breathwork, sound healing, yoga, and meditation, I find my center when I’m thrown off.

I realign faster than I used to.

I am proud that I am always becoming better than I was yesterday.

It’s easy to believe in magic when you’re young. Anything you couldn’t explain was magic then. It didn’t matter if it was science or a fairy tale. Electricity and elves were both infinitely mysterious and equally possible — elves probably more so.

~ Charles de Lint

When we look to nature, we find opportunities to meet our teachers. Nature was my first and most constant teacher. As a child, I climbed trees, built forts with my brother, played in rivers, and lived inside the endless world of imagination.

Creatures lived in clouds. Forts became castles. Finding blocks of wood in the forest behind my parents’ house felt like discovering golden fishes. We caught snakes, fought dragons, saved princesses. Nature molded my imagination — and, in many ways, it saved my life.

Windows were portals.

The moon was my first prayer.

My heartbeat was the crows singing in the hot, swampy Michigan summers.

I am so grateful for my wild inner child — the one who always dreamed of more, knew more was possible, and never stopped believing that everything, the whole world, was available to her. I still bring her with me everywhere I go — uniting my past wild child with my present grounded wildish, wolfish self.

Yoga means to unite.

And in our yoga sessions, we practice this union — integrating our sun and our moon, our masculine and our feminine, our slowness and our quickness, our meditation and our action. Just as we move through poses, we weave ourselves back into nature.

I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.

~ Henry David Thoreau

I have backpacked through many states and countries, often solo. People ask me, “Aren’t you afraid, backpacking alone?”

But the answer is always no. In nature, I find a peace I have not found anywhere else. It is the peace I prefer above all else.

People are often afraid of what they don’t know. Non-backpackers think it’s wild to pack up for days and head into the mountains. But backpackers know it’s ecstasy. Non-climbers think it’s insane to cling to a cliff. But climbers know the view from the top - the one no one else will ever see.

I have nothing to fear in nature. And I have nothing to fear in backpacking, rock climbing, or yoga. I used to say, “I can’t do yoga because I’m not flexible.” Now, after 15 years of practice, I’m still not insanely flexible — scoliosis gives me certain natural limitations — but I love yoga more than ever and I always come back to yoga.

Recently, I completed a 100-hour teacher training in Thailand with my beloved Janine. It was a homecoming. A marriage of my breath, my body, my movement — falling in love with the way my body stretches and flows, limitations and all.

The compassion I offer my body creates ripples. It radiates outward — to friends, family, strangers. The more compassion I give, the more I receive.

Compassion is reciprocal.

Compassion is also scientifically proven to be good for us. It frees us from self-absorption and connects us to deeper meaning and purpose. When we act from a heart-centered place, we fear less. We belong more.

In this willingness to touch pain with courage and love, compassion holds the possibility of transforming it.

Animal lovers know that animals are teachers. Rock climbers and backpackers know that mountains are teachers. Present people and divers know that the breath is a teacher. The wisest among us know: everything around us is a teacher. In yoga, we learn from Guru Sakshat — the teacher that is near.

In Savasana, we practice the art of dying to bring the unknown into the known. When we familiarize ourselves with death - with stillness, with the great unknown - we dissolve our fear of it. Just like how hiking mountains makes us less afraid of forests, traveling makes us less afraid of people, climbing makes us less afraid of falling.

Remember no mud no lotus.

Just as the lotus cannot flourish without mud, compassion and wisdom cannot flourish without the fertilizing power of suffering.

In my Wildish Wolfish Way online course, my students speak of meeting parts of themselves they didn’t know, or had locked away, or judged as ‘bad.’ We also uncover why we see the world they way we do and we rediscover our belief in magic - the magic within and the magic without. We begin to dance in the absurdity of the heaviness we’ve been carrying and find it easier to release, to let go, and to let the dance dance us. Through meeting, and accepting these parts they find a union. Through acceptance and uniting, they find compassion.

And through compassion, they find joy. And through joy, they find power… and then peace.

So I leave you with a question:

Do you believe the earth laughs in flowers?

Psychedelic Soaked Stories

I have been a psychonaut since I was in high school and have dabbled in most plant medicines throughout my life. I believe my life has changed for the better by taking these substances due to their capacity to expand the mind; and help you be more open to learning more about your own consciousness and the consciousness in the world around you. Psychedelics make the environment as alive as you are, and they dissolve the ego which is to say the boundaries that keep us separate and in pain.

In February 2024 I finally met Rick Doblin, the creator of MAPS (The Multidisciplinary Approach for Psychedelic Studies) at a conference in Dubai. I have been a fan of him ever since I learned about MAPS in 2014; this cosmic encounter and telling him about my Ketamine experience inspired this blog.

In high school I was dangerously depressed and looking for something, anything, to show me magic in the world. Intuitively I knew magic was real; and being highly sensitive and empathic, knowing the emotions that the people were feeling around me led me to believe there was another field of energy connecting us all. I didn’t have words or descriptions for this back when I was younger, but I do now: I was having an existential crisis and no one around me was equipped to help me navigate these stormy cosmic and psychic waters.

Being so highly sensitive and empathic was good and bad, good in a sense where I was a fantastic listener and therapist to all my friends, which ended up translating perfectly into my now-careers; but bad as I couldn’t decipher what emotions were mine, and what were other peoples’. This lead to a constant cacophony of emotions in my body, and I was overwhelmed, anxious and depressed, wanting to crawl out of my skin most of the time - and not knowing why.

Using marijuana started to quiet all these feelings of ‘other’ and I felt free and unencumbered. Being curious about this feeling of freedom led me to dabble in plant medicines, and some synthetics, and I feel like that has made a huge improvement in my life. I was a normal high school kid dabbling in things I didn’t understand, and to this teenage version of myself I am forever grateful for her bravery; now, I realize the sacredness of the journey that I’m about to embark upon, and prepare appropriately.

Important Note: This blog is of my personal story ONLY, it is in no way to promote the irresponsible use of any of these (illegal) substances. There are many medicinal-therapy-sessions that you can do nowadays under the supervision of a licensed or certified therapist. I recommend you do research and listen to your intuition on what’s right for you. This is NOT medical advice.

Mushrooms and LSD

My first experimentation after marijuana and copious amounts of alcohol to numb the pain in my head and heart, was experimenting with mushrooms and LSD in which I experienced my first spiritual experiences where I saw the grand design behind the universe - it was shaped like the Sri Yantra and the Flower of Life - symbols that became tattoos later in life. Camping in the forests of Michigan, eating mushrooms and dropping acid whilst camping with friends I saw trees breathe, I saw patterns in the sand, and the movement in the actual air of the sky. I realized that awareness is inner AND outer - a sender and receiver in both directions - just as I gazed at the world, the world gazed back. Interestingly enough, I noticed wild animals responded to me in this heightened state of awareness and came close to investigate, curious perhaps that I was vibrating at a different (non-human?) frequency. Dragonflies would not stop flying around while my friend Caitlin and I stood in the river in complete and utter awe of the patterns swirling in and around our feet.

One time ingesting mushrooms, I accidently took my boyfriends dose and he took mine - he was much larger than me (a football player) and his dose was much stronger. As I sat in a chair in a circle of all of my friends their names and faces slowly started to dissolve away and I realized I didn’t know who they were. Suddenly, I noticed that I didn’t know who I was. My name, face, life story, parents all dissolved into what I can only describe as a cosmic soup of general loving awareness. The cats in the room that were previously very chill started kickflipping around the room, responding to this vibrational shift in the atmosphere; it seemed they were almost celebrating our new realizations with us. You would think that this would have been terrifying - but for some reason it was absolutely fine.

I got up to look at myself in the mirror and was so surprised at what I saw: an unfamiliar face looking back. As I looked at Her I was able to see Her for the first time, with no prior thoughts of self hatred, self judgment or self loathing, I didn’t see blemishes or imperfections, I just saw a young girl with insanely dialated pupils, confused and curious staring back. She was so young, she was so pretty.

When I returned to sit down to this person I had never seen before (my boyfriend of 2 years) I knew that I probably wouldn’t have done whatever it was I did with people I didn’t feel safe with or know. This felt like a resonate truth, so I sat back down and continued to explore the room around me. Staring across the room at a famous picture of the Pink Floyd albums painted on girls backs sitting at a pool, they laughed as they swayed back and forth in togetherness, I moved my attention to the Led Zepplin falling angel poster I realized he was dancing in complete rapture and ecstasy and celebration of life.

Suddenly I became the most vibrant visual and physical sensation where I was flying through the sky with nothing else around me except clouds. Up ahead appeared a cliff with the root of a tree sticking out on the cliff side, but under the top, below the surface. I grabbed on to the root and immediately like an tsunami of remembrance, my life flooded back into my brain, my mom’s face came into view and all of my life memories rushed back in. I struggled to catch my breath as I was overcome with a lifetime of love from friends, adventures, and family.

Mushrooms and LSD helped me connect to and remember the grand design and harmony underlying reality by allowing my physical eyes to see it. They helped me reconnect to the beauty of myself without mental commentary and judgement and they helped me remember that I, and WE, are are all so important to the universe, because we are a part of it and it is a part of us.

When we look within ourselves with psilocybin, we discover that we do not have to look outward toward the futile promise of life that circles distant stars in order to still our cosmic loneliness. We should look within; the paths of the heart lead to nearby universes full of life and affection for humanity.
― Terence McKenna

After our journey together we all stood outside and watched the snow come down in Michigan. It was beautiful.

Ayahuasca

I have journeyed with Grandmother Ayahuasca many times in my life but I’d like to share a snippet of the story of my first experience with Her in Peru. This is not the full story, just a piece.

I sat in a circle with other seekers and my best friend in 2014, the sun sat heavily in the horizon as we started to journey and visuals and sensations started to come into our awareness and body. Grandmother Ayahuasca showed me many many things, but for the purpose of this story - she showed all the arguments I had been in throughout my whole life - and she showed me the other person’s perspective.

One of my blind spots throughout my life has been self-righteousness, a pattern gifted to me from my parents. If we fight, I used to think ‘I am right! You are wrong!’ Ayahuasca showed throughout the journey of all these arguments that I may have been right, but based on their life experiences and their journeys, they were also correct, and that there is no such thing as right and wrong, only perspective. Because of how large this blindspot was for me, allowing wisdom and light into one of my deepest and darkest blockages exploded my mind and heart open, I was never the same.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”

―Rumi

The day after this happened my best friend Annie and I took a glass ceiling train to Maccu Pichu on my birthday. It was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had.

DMT

I was hesitant about DMT because of what I heard from others who had taken this massive journey into their mind and deep into the edges of the universe I kept hearing - ‘you are never the same.’ I knew they probably meant in a positive way, but it was still a bit scary. At this point in my life I had journeyed quite a few times into the universe beyond my consciousness so I felt respectfully nervous, but trusted in my gut.

The first time I did DMT I was living in my dream apartment in San Diego. I created a very safe, very cozy nest, I set intentions, lit candles and incense, journaled, was surrounded by pillows and blankets and beautiful things: I was ready. I inhaled 2.5x (I tried for 3 but couldn’t make it) and was immediately transported into outer outer space, from the darkest depths inside my mind. Through the sky, past the stars and planets and galaxies all the way to the end, and then further past that to where reality folded back on itself and the farther I traveled through the universe the closer I got to myself.

At the outer reaches of beyond the imagined universe, I saw faces very similar to what Alex Grey paints - columns made of consciousness all connected with each other, infinitely. I tried speaking with this vibrating consciousness, I can’t call them ‘beings’ because they were all one ‘being’ and they weren’t separate from myself, and we are all one and and and.

I realized communicating with them through words or even thoughts wasn’t the right way, so instead I allowed myself to received from them. What washed over me was this light pink vibration that felt like the juicyest hug and cuddles I have ever received and the truth that love is everything. Love is me, love is you, the world is love; there is nothing in this world that is not love.

Inevitably, the sound of motorcycle on the 5 ended up pulling me out of this beautiful experience - this real life dream. Part of me was sad it was over, it was like death in a sense that you are so held by love and therefore want to return but know its not your time. Part of me was happy I got to see and experience this…. Happening. Part of me wanted more, and if I’m being super duper honest, part of me felt like I wasn’t enough: this is a childhood wound pattern that occasionally plagues me. I felt like I wasn’t “good enough” to experience the wisdom these beings / entities / creatures bestowed on me. This felt super heavy to carry and to hold, but was eventually alleviated.

Ketamine

The first time I did ketamine I was incredibly depressed and thinking of ending things - this was around 27 years old in the classic dark-night-of-the-soul / Saturn Return time. I called my friend Eddie to see if I could come over his house and have him ‘babysit’ me - as I literally didn’t trust myself alone with my suicidal thoughts.

This turned out to be one of the single best decisions I’ve ever made.

I came over and told him honestly and vulnerably what was going on with me and he asked if I wanted to try ketamine.

I assured him ‘no, absolutely not,’ as I felt anything could push me over the edge of the precipice I found myself teetering on.

“Now is the exact moment you need ketamine,” He told me; because he was one of my closest friends I trusted him, believed him and tried it, and he saved my life.

Suddenly, the Soul that is ME or the ‘Self’ pulled away from the avatar personality of the Jess-self and I was able to see that I am not Jess, I am the limitless expansive energy that currently animates this ‘Jess Person,’ AND this ‘Jess Person’ has some sort of physical chemical imbalance that causes super dark depressive episodes, but I am not that self, I am beyond that - beyond all description except for, simply put, I AM.

By the time I came back in my body I was no longer depressed or suicidal. With wide teary eyes and a genuine smile on my face and heart I told Eddie what happened. It felt like it had been months I had gone without smiling it actually felt unfamiliar at first. He had saved me.

Iboga

Iboga was the hardest plant medicine I’ve ever done and it was more recently in 2024. My (now ex) boyfriend, Jason, and I traveled to a farm in Somewhere, Portugal and entrusted our life to this (very vetted) clinic - they monitor your heart the whole time. Iboga is insanely dangerous and does kill people. I do not recommend this as even though my heart was fine, I came out of the 3 days so convinced I was dead I was, in fact, trying to convince other people too.

It seems that people’s journey’s are vastly different. You do not get visuals with Iboga like with Ayahuasca… but then again you sort of do? But they’re different? It’s a bit hard to explain but I‘ll do my best: Ayahuasca is known as the Grandmother Plant Medicine, she’s flowy, feminine, you can talk to her during your journey and she’ll work with you. Ayahuasca can be difficult, but you do feel as though you are held by her throughout. Iboga is a very Saturnian Grandfather, strict and rigid - you feel like you are learning and growing but perhaps through punishment - for me it felt like I was made it sit in ‘time out.’

During my journey and under the influence for 3 days I had to fight a demon to save my brother, which is what broke the wall into the experience. I was in hell walking around, I was suffering a lot, but the through line through all of this was ‘I’m suffering now, and that’s okay.’ ‘I’m in hell now, and that’s okay,’ come to the marrow-deep realization that even if I was in hell now, I probably wouldn’t be later.

I could hear Jason crying in the room next to me and I knew it was because I was dead. Eventually after 3 days there was a knock at the door and the guides came in and said he wanted to talk to me. I asked if it was because I was dead. They gave me a confused and concerned look - which only deepened my inner knowing that I was, in fact, deceased. Jason came in and hugged me, it was one of the best hugs I’ve ever received, through tears and sobbing together I asked him if he had called my parents, to which he responded ‘no, why?’ And I tearfully told him he had to call them and tell them I was dead, and they were gonna be so mad at him but he had to arrange my body to be sent home.

After a lot of back-and-forth-disagreeing-and-convincing he picked me up and brought me outside in the sunshine flower filled meadow of Portugal springtime. We connected so deeply, so vulnerably, so beautifully ending with him asking, through tears “did we just get really lucky?”

The things I learned through this experience are: wherever you are, that’s okay, it’s not your final destination. Life is mostly suffering spotted with insanely gorgeous times when the cosmic sun comes out.

~

I wrote about this in another blog Iboga: Death & Dying because it was such a vast experience that would be too much to share here in my light explanations of my plant medicine ceremonies and adventures.

Bufo

Bufo was one of the most delightful frog medicines I’ve ever done. I inhaled, and as I exhaled, the whole world was created out of my mouth - rivers, lakes, mountains, jungles, flowers, animals. It was incredible as the longer I exhaled, the more I created.

After my initial exhale ended, I started to laugh and my laughter made me laugh harder and I felt like I was laughing from the insides my organs and bone marrow, it was the extreme feeling of inexplicable pleasure like an impossible itch was finally being scratched. I laughed for everything, the sun, the moon, the flowers, laughter itself, joy, being in love, being loved, friendship, sunshine, etc.

After I laughed, I began to cry, and the crying turned to sobbing turned to wailing and it felt literally delicious. The crying made me cry harder and deeper and feel into all the pain, but the pain felt glorious. It felt like life. I wept for myself, my pain, my trauma, my inner child, I wept for my parents, my friends, I wept for my ancestors and finally I wept for the sadness in the world. The more I wept the more clarity I gained and the lighter I felt.

In Conclusion

I’m a supporter of the Stoned Ape Theory: neanderthal man was going around doing neanderthal things until he ate a magic mushroom and suddenly wondered about things outside of himself. I believe in this theory because of how it mirrors my own life. I was curious about consciousness, ate an mushroom, and then I experienced the w i d e n i n g of it and suddenly noticed consciousness being just as curious about me… and I was never the same.

Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.

— Terence McKenna

Once again this blog is only to share my personal experiences, not to convince or influence in anyway. This is an invitation to do your own research and to make your own choices. People have had very bad trips - and I have had a few of my own that took a long time to heal from. Exploring the recesses of your consciousness is altering, is an opening, and is a commitment. Once you start to go down these rabbit holes you can’t come back. This is not medical advice.

Psychedelics are the red pill. Proceed with caution.

Xoxo

Jess

Travel is easier than you think

I started writing this blog a million years ago because people keep asking me “how do you travel so much.” People were asking 10 years ago and they’re still asking now, and my answer is always the same. “Traveling is easier than you think.”

I grew up near Detroit and loved urban exploring through abandoned buildings, I also grew up on the Great Lakes which are as large as seas and I would stand and stare watching the sun rise on the east coast and set in the west over a different country on one side and a different state on the other. I think this is what began my insatiable urge to see the world, the knowing of the unknown on the other side of the water.

This blog is 2 parts. 1. Travel is easy 2. Listen to your Intuition.

Travel is easy

Step 1: Pick a place you want to go. This might be a place that you’ve always been curious, or seen on TikTok, or feel a pull, or just close your eyes and place your finger on a spinning globe and go there. I’m serious - just pick a location.

Step 2: this is my blog so it will be tips on how I travel - I like to travel in circles to see the maximum amount of places which means I land in Bangkok - I travel through Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and back down through Thailand to the airport in Bangkok. Or I fly to Ireland and work my way through England, Scotland and France or Spain. Or I fly to Korea and do Japan, Thailand, the Philippines. Just make a circle and maximize your locations. If you don’t want to go to a bunch of places - than don’t do this and just make up your mind. Easy peasy.

Step 3: stay in hostels and maximize the people you meet. The more people you meet, the more you LEARN. You learn about their culture, their food, their country. You learn about cool things they’ve seen that you didn’t know about; you make new friends that you can now visit in other places. Several of my besties are people I met while traveling and we still travel together to this day and meet up in our respective countries.

Step 4: join an online program life WOOfing, Workaway, Worldpackers, Housesitters.com - anything to maximize your stay in a more expensive or exclusive country. The more you work, the more references you have, the wider your reach.

Step 5: now you’ve learned some things 1. Everyone is kind 2. The world is smaller than you think 3. You have friends everywhere.

I am very okay with the unknown, and in fact, prefer it. I have the ability to get to a country with no plan and feel completely at ease because my trust in my intuition and the universe is huge. This might sound naive to tourists, but travelers know that no plan can be the best plan.

Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.

~ Anthony Bourdain

The other side note is I have taught sound healing all over the world for 8 years and have students in every corner of the globe. This definitely gives me a leg up.

Travel tips

1. Learn how to say “hello,” “please,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome,” in the local language. It goes a looooong way, people are grateful you care enough to consider their language.

2. English is pretty much spoken everywhere, but still considerate (the highest form of love) to learn bits of another language

3. Be polite to everyone.

4. Discuss / haggle money before you get into a taxi / Tuktuk. The price will be way higher if you wait til the end.

5. Share your location with friends you trust.

6. Keep 2 wallets. One that you use and one that you hide.

7. Never let your phone or drink out of your sight.

8. REALLY IMPORTANT - travel with someone who travels like you. If you like to see a million places do NOT travel with a friend who wants to sit on a beach all day. Even though you love each other this will start to bother you both. Ask clarifying questions: what kind of traveler are you? Do you want to see 5 places or happier with 1? Do you want luxury or hostels? Do you want lazy or active? Do you want mountains or beach?

9. Listen to intuition NO MATTER WHAT. It doesn’t matter if someone is really nice, if your gut says no, than it’s a FUCK NO.

These are all tips I learned through experience and I’ve saved the most important tip for a whole section of itself.

Intuition is key

People stare at me blankly when I say I’ve traveled the world by myself. “What do you mean?” They ask.

“I mean I literally have traveled, solo, by myself, to new places, across countries, up mountains, around, the world and back again.” I say.

* Cue a different incredulous stare *

My ‘secret’ is I use, and have always used, my intuition. Your intuition is a muscle, just like all your other senses. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Something can sound good on paper but in-person the vibes can be completely 100% off. I have solo traveled all over the world and this is my main rule - and probably why I’m still alive - if it doesn’t feel good, DO NOT DO IT.

If that familiar alleyway - the same one you always take home but for some reason it seems scary tonight - YOU ARE RIGHT. IT IS. Trust your gut & pick a new way home.

If a person seems so sweet but there’s something about them you can’t place, set a boundary immediately and see how they react. If they react poorly this isn’t great, make sure friends have locations or walk up to another girl and pretend to know her. Keep yourself safe and in public until you have a safe and accessible out.

Intuition is not just a spiritual thing - your gut is literally alive and made up of billions of bacteria, that I assume, also want to live. If you die, they die. There are many different ‘antennae’ including your nervous system, the sense of being stared at that makes the back of your neck prickle - that all let your mind know you are in danger. LISTEN TO IT.

I have run into some scary situations, and have survived 100% of them. Why? This ones for the girls:

• If you feel threatened, do NOT act like prey: I mean this with my whole heart. It depends on the situation but in my experience: dangerous men are cowards. If you square up to them, they have all backed down.

• And of course disclaimer: this is not one-size-fits-all - if someone is acting violent or scaring you - then of course, find a friend, or a person and make sure you are safe and then leave.

Intuition key points

• One time I was in an alley buying weed during a rainstorm and my poncho was not working with me, I started to get a bad feeling, told my (ex) boyfriend as the guy grabbed my money and ran. My ex chased him down.

• So many times men have come up to me in dark corners of roads or hallways and I make my energy really big and stare at them directly in the eyes - they hate that!

• I’ve been places where my body has not let me walk further into the cave / forest / building. I don’t push it, I trust my intuition with my life - literally.

• Your stomach is called the second brain for a reason (although technically in my opinion its brain #1) your body doesn’t want to die. Your body will send signals to the brain. Listen to them.

If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.”

~ Anthony Bourdain

Go, explore, wander, immerse yourself in other experiences and you will gain so much.

Xoxo

Jess