Let's do Coffee: Welcome to the Conversation about Inspiring Healing and Finding Wholeness

Hi and welcome to The Art of Onward !!

Let’s grab a coffee, or glass of wine - depending on time of day - and get to know each other.

I suppose I should go first, as host of this moment, though if you were in my home, I’d make you a vanilla latte, and would likely forget what I was doing, because I’d be so interested in who you are, where you are at today, how you are feeling right now, as we would celebrate the new friendship we both know is being planted in this moment.

Except! I’m here, and you’re there. So here I go:

My name is Jewelle. My last names no longer identify with me - long story we’ll get to soon I promise - so yes, I’m Jewelle :)

I’m a mother of two fabulous, empowered girls, who have saved my life more times than they know - again, more on that soon - with their support, love, and advice. Oh yes! Their insights are keen and sharp, and I, as their mother, could not be more proud of my daughters as I continue to learn from them.

My entire life has been filled with a burning desire to make the world a better place. I know, I know, we all want that, but for me it’s a calling, a mission if you will, a life purpose. So as I find myself in a position to share my journey toward healing, strength, and renewed hope, I pray I can somehow bring light to your heart in some way.

I have been waiting for my voice to be stronger, louder, bigger somehow, as I had a certain image of what life would be like, and found myself silent on many levels - silenced by the wait of being someone, something more - when my oldest daughter looked at me and said “Mom, you’re writing a book, right?” “Yes.” “How’s that coming?” “Pretty good actually” and then she said these words, 8 months ago …

“You could help a lot of people, you know, if you did a blog.”

Stunned. I had never thought of this before. Sure I’ve read other people’s, but to share my own? Truth is, although my journey has been excruciating, life threatening, and the most difficult desert journey I’ve experienced, I know I am not the only person to be faced with this scenario of grief, betrayal, and the abrupt end to all I thought my life had been, was now, and would be.

I am not the only person to find myself kneeling on the living room floor, gasping for air, crying what I call blood tears, unable to do anything but hunt oxygen one desperate moment after another.

I am not the only person to find myself so broken, but I hope the isolation, the silence, the bone deep loneliness of my fierce fight to return to the light is not a part of your story. My purpose here is to remind all of us, we are not alone.

So yes, I’ve been percolating ideas, concepts, and methods since that moment. I also needed to continue my own healing, take a few more courses, travel through a few more dark places before I was ready to begin. I needed to clarify thoughts in my soul, and discern what has worked for me, when, and how, and pinpoint concepts I tried that really were just bandaids. I’m a straight up, honest person, and if I stand with something, I must first know it actually will benefit you as well.

After all that, here we are! (told you I take my daughters’ advice!)

Let’s start with a quick disclaimer/explanation:

I am not a therapist, I am not professionally trained to treat mental illnesses. I come from a family of psychologists / counsellors, but I have no paperwork to back up what I share with you, I will simply share my own story and what works for me.

UPDATE: I received my Life Coach Certification in Jan 2018! Yes, I feel great about this accomplishment as well as the amazing things I learned along that part of my journey!

I AM, however, a SURVIVOR. With good days and bad, just like any human, I am a survivor of trauma caused by severe grief, betrayal and the loss of someone I loved deeply who, I was forced to realize, never existed - after being married to him for 20 years.

We’ll talk about the why/how/what later (it’s a long story) but for now, please know I am here to share my journey toward light, toward life, toward healing, hope and, ultimately, toward a stronger, better, version of me, to help you on yours.

I have coached people for years, though since I was “broken” two and a half years ago, I’ve chosen to focus on my own, personal, strength building. Being an actress, my coaching was mostly directed at actors, people who need to find their own truths in order to be truthful on camera. I coached them in groups or individually, and it always came back to this one element we all can incorporate in to our daily lives: just be. Don’t worry about later, or before, just be. Now. In this moment. Never, ever lie to the camera, and most importantly, never lie to your own true self, because we need to believe. And denial now will only cause pain later.

I realized the best way to facilitate this "being", is to make someone feel safe. When we lose our safety, we tend to lose our ability to "be". So ....

Let’s just be. Right here. Right now. Together. Safely. You are not alone. Wherever you are in this moment, you are not alone. And you are not without hope. I pray I can provide a link in the chain that will allow you to find healing and wholeness again. Yes, sometimes we’ll need to fight tooth and nail to get to that next place, or just to get out of bed or off the couch, and that’s okay, because we are, indeed, strong enough to do just that: heal.

Every week I will share various aspects of my own healing process, to help inspire yours.

How was your coffee? Now it’s your turn, or not, if you’re not ready, that’s okay too.

Do come back soon, okay? I’ll be sharing some simple healing techniques I use every day. Tiny tricks you can easily do too, that I find have a continuously positive impact on my daily life, and the friends I've shared these with as well!

It’s Christmas time on this beautiful planet of ours, and grief strikes deep and hard during these days of nostalgic memories and idealistic expectations. I believe these ideas will help you get through the tough moments when they attack out of nowhere, the way they do for me.

Please take a second to subscribe to this page so I can let you know when the next post is available. I've planned video blogs, guest speakers, and a few other surprises I'm working to implement soon.

Much love, and honor, to each of you!!

~ Jewelle