Origin's
The stories of our lives often define us. Listen to these interviews and learn how and why people navigate their lives.
Origin's
Insight into Jill Messura's Transition From Corporate to Heart-Centered Work
From a successful corporate life to the heart-centered world of life coaching and massage therapy, Jill Messura's journey is a true testament to resilience and transformation. Have you ever wondered what it takes to break from old patterns and venture into the unknown? Brace yourselves as we unravel Jill's fascinating adventure, one that's filled with life lessons, struggles and victories.
We kick off our conversation with Jill reminiscing about her corporate days and the unique skills she picked up along the way. It's not all about spreadsheets and boardroom meetings, as she reveals the importance of simple, yet profound lessons like proper handshake, maintaining eye contact and even where to place business cards. But it doesn't stop there. We deep dive into Jill's inspiring transition to life coaching and massage therapy. She shares her unique 'like-dislike' list strategy, a tool that helps identify what truly speaks to her heart.
As we journey through our conversation, we touch on sensitive and powerful topics. Jill courageously opens up about her struggle with substance addiction, and her path to sobriety. It’s a story of self-trust, honesty, and the unpredictable nature of hitting rock bottom. But her resilience shines as we celebrate her 15 years of sobriety. We conclude with the importance of setting boundaries, especially for empaths, and how Jill has learned to protect her energy. So, join us on this immersive journey as we celebrate the sheer strength, wisdom and resilience of Jill Messura.
Hi everybody. I'm here with Jill Messura. Jill is a coach, a life coach, and a very successful one at that. She works at Red Lotus Yoga and she has been, I don't know, whenever I go by her room. There's talking going on in there. She's very busy, which is great. Previously a massage therapist. Previously you were in the corporate world, right?
Speaker 2:I was, I was.
Speaker 1:So you have had a journey and I'd love to hear about how you, how you moved along that pathway.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know that's a long pathway, right when we look back. I was in anticipation of this today. I was out on run this morning and thinking about thinking about it all right and preparing for it and looking back on it and it has really been a journey. You know it's hard to sum it up.
Speaker 1:Doesn't have to be summed up. We have an hour. Give me give me give me like. So you got, you got out of college and did what.
Speaker 2:I got out of college and I did what every good girl did at that time, right? Or a person who was following the path of the status quo At that time. I moved to Chicago and I spent almost two years there kind of kicking around waiting tables and avoiding looking for a career, because nothing really inspired me at that time. But I was self-sufficient and I was self-reliant and that made me feel good about myself, regardless of the conflict that I was coming into with my parents at that time. And then, I don't know, something just shifted and I moved home and I began working. You know, a real job, as they used to call it then. I don't know if that's still a term that is used now, but you know, now I feel like any. You know everything's a real job, right? Are you supporting yourself, are you earning a living, or you know work is work, right? So, and I started working in events first and then in sales.
Speaker 1:So what were you doing in events Like what was that?
Speaker 2:I was working actually in a you know, an odd area that you wouldn't think that events would be in, but I worked for the University of Michigan Medical Center doing their the events that the medical school and the classes, you know, the Alumni Association had, events and things like that, and I really enjoyed that work a lot. You know it was very different, it was very creative, but it was also. It took a lot of organization and helped me utilize a lot of my skills and I really did enjoy that job. Unfortunately, it was a temporary job, it was like a contract thing and it didn't, you know, it only lasted a couple of years and then they, we moved on, for whatever reasons, and then I started working in sales.
Speaker 1:So now, what was your degree? What was your degree in? Where'd you go to school?
Speaker 2:I went to Western Michigan University.
Speaker 1:I went to Central Fire Up.
Speaker 2:Chips, all right.
Speaker 1:Central Michigan and Western were like arch rivals and they were the biggest competitors in the Midwest Michigan area. And that's so funny. Are we the same age?
Speaker 2:We are, I'm 55.
Speaker 1:I'm 58. So we were in college at the same time.
Speaker 2:Okay. Perhaps, we were cross-pans and a football.
Speaker 1:Cross-pans and a football game. Probably, we probably did, and so you were. You have events, event coordination, event planning, and you loved it. And then you went into sales. What were you selling?
Speaker 2:I did. I went into. I worked for an ad specialty company at the time, making all those low-gold things back in the day when there was no internet, right?
Speaker 2:Well, there was, but just starting out, that was just coming online. There weren't any spaces like that that you could just go and have things made for you and deliver to your doorstep the next day. So I worked at a company who did that and there were all kinds of account executives that worked there, and again, that was another really fun job. It took a lot of creative collaboration with clients and it was very high-paced, high-energy, high-stress, as you can imagine. I can.
Speaker 2:And it was. I look back on all of this with funness. I really do.
Speaker 1:So when you had to go find clients, were you door-knocking and cold-calling and canvassing.
Speaker 2:Not at that place I was not, but the job after that I was. So there were a lot of accounts at. The company was called CCA and so I just sort of went, moved along from being in merchandising first and then went in and worked on an account there. G Capital, which was kind of a big one, right, got it.
Speaker 1:When I graduated college, I was knocking on doors for an office supply company selling pens and pencils and paper and office supplies, so it's like a very similar trajectory it was. I remember it fondly because I was just the cute guy who would knock on doors and hi, I'm Brian from Modern Office Supply.
Speaker 2:Right Modern Office Supply. You may have knocked on the door of the business that I worked at.
Speaker 1:Maybe that sounds familiar to me. They were on Southfield Road in Birmingham or Bingham Farms for years. Dan Campbell was the owner and he taught me how to shake hands and look in somebody's eye. He taught me a trick where you put your cards in your pocket a certain way so that when you reach in and pull it out and hand it to the person, it always faced them and there's a certain way to put it in your pocket. And he taught me all these little sales things and I still remember all that stuff.
Speaker 2:I know I do too. The way to shake a hand, where to put a name tag at a networking event, all these little tricks that we learned, that we thought were so maybe trivial at the time, but they really do work and I really lean into some of those still today right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all that stuff's just become natural, like somebody hands me a card and they're fumbling through, I'm like no, just let me do it.
Speaker 2:Put this in your pocket like this. Let me show you something During on these traditions.
Speaker 1:Old school.
Speaker 2:I am old school.
Speaker 1:And so sales for CC.
Speaker 2:Sales for CCA. And then I worked for a hot minute at a telecom company and there I was cold calling and knocking on doors and that was so challenging for me. As outwardly going as I am, you know, and as people loving as I am, I just I lack the confidence at that time to do that. You know, I just would have rather dug ditches. I really it was hard, it was really hard. That was super short lived yeah.
Speaker 1:When I was in real estate I knocked on doors and co-called like three to five hours a day and it was. It's a very hard thing to do, but the people that are good at it, like who could just sort of let it just, you know, the slam doors to get out of here, don't come back again stuff the people that can handle that stuff and just let it sort of roll off them, that's a rare breed. Yeah, I think so I was at breed for a while, but then that stopped.
Speaker 2:You really can't. You have to be in a headspace of really believing it has nothing to do with you. You know, like just taking yourself out of that, and I was not, was not in that place at that time in my life, so that yeah, it's a hard place to get to. I think it is.
Speaker 1:I think it's a rare breed, you know, that can do that, and it allows them to achieve a lot of what other people don't want to achieve, because it's very uncomfortable to do. But to not be yeah and then to not be like so arrogant about yourself. Maybe that's what I was at the time, I don't remember.
Speaker 2:I don't remember. I think I was just really insecure and you know, didn't have that mindset. Yet you know that this isn't kind of a numbers thing and you know you're just, this isn't has nothing to do with you. They either will, they won't, you know move on I just keep moving and eventually something is going to hit, you know.
Speaker 1:Do you remember your numbers? Like you have to knock on this many doors to get this many yeses, to get this many sales.
Speaker 2:I don't. No, I don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for us it was 100 doors to get 50 people that answered, to get 25 people that might be interested, to get like five appointments to get one sale.
Speaker 2:Right Wow.
Speaker 1:Something. It was something like that.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so yeah, it was 100 today. It was just just numbers.
Speaker 2:A lot of doors.
Speaker 1:That was a lot of doors A lot of rejection, but don't you think so.
Speaker 2:When somebody comes to my door at home, you know the empathy that goes out toward that person on. You know, and I'm like God, it's the hardest thing I get it.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:I get it. I might not answer the door though.
Speaker 1:And that is the hardest thing is to say no, like I'm not, like. I almost always want to say yes, but I have this really bad habit is that when they're bad at it, I coach them Like no, you can't talk to me like that, this isn't how to do it. Let me tell you how to do it. Or the Girl Scout Cookie Sales. You know these little cute little girls come and they go. Would you like to buy a Girl Scout Cookie? So I said that's not how you ask the question. You have to say how many boxes would you like, and then just smile You'll sell them every single time, that's huge.
Speaker 2:That is a huge skill. Yeah, my husband is great at, but I'm not great at. Is that pause? You know I've become good at it as a coach, right? Not?
Speaker 1:over talking.
Speaker 2:You know that, those leading kinds of conversations where you just sit quietly, you know and you let something hang in the air, and most of the time people will, you know it's because it is uncomfortable. They'll start talking and perhaps say more, you know, or tell the truth right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, have you heard of? Or buy?
Speaker 2:Girl Scout Cookies.
Speaker 1:I know you know Carolyn. If you've heard of Carolyn, Miss NYSS, Of course, yes, yes. So have you watched any of her videos? There's one on the Holy Witness.
Speaker 2:I have not seen that one in particular, but I do.
Speaker 1:I'll text you the link. It's on YouTube.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So good about that process of sitting and listening and just being the witness for some, giving somebody a chance to get it out. It's such a powerful thing and it feels like you're not doing anything but you're holding space. It's such a it's really. I think you'll like it a lot actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know what that, what it will say, you know, but I really believe that's the only thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know and so much of our work you know and you coach as well, and it's the power of holding space for another human being is really one of the greatest things gifts that we can do. You know in this lifetime as human beings, and it does feel like you know in this productivity culture and you know that we live in where bigger is better and faster, stronger, harder, more, more. You know to sit and just witness feels like you're not doing much, but it's really everything.
Speaker 1:What do you think the shift has to be? For somebody to be a witness of somebody else? I think about myself going I'm supposed to be doing something here, because I think it's mostly ego-based. I got to get in there and I got to come up with the right answer and I get asked the right questions and I got to get it, and then you talk all over the person and then you haven't done anything but to shift to that place of I'm simply going to witness. What's that thing do you think?
Speaker 2:What do we need to do in order to do that? What helps us do that? I think being able to do it for ourselves. How can we give away what we don't have? How can we give anybody something that we don't really profoundly know by experience from the inside? And it's hard to be with ourselves. It's really hard to be with ourselves.
Speaker 2:I think that's what human beings struggle with the most. It's easy when we're in our ego self. Right, we're doing the things and having the things and attaching our success to goals and goals and knocking it out of the park all the time and all the things that we've acquired around us. But in those quiet moments, do you know how to be alone in troubled times, in crisis times and I'm not suggesting that that's a preferred space, because I'm certainly in a career of supporting others and I also have my own therapists and coaches and systems of support in my own life that are critical to me, crucial to me for that connection but to be able to be with yourself and that's something that is unfolded over a lifetime, I believe.
Speaker 1:How do you suppose people practice that?
Speaker 2:I guess any system of self-awareness lends itself to more understanding about what it is that we're going through, from a feeling level, from a thinking level, and also how to I guess words like motivation and resilience are coming to mind right now how to not only just be there in a still way, in an understanding, a whereway with yourself, but then how to also grab yourself by the hand and pull yourself forward in troubled times, crisis times. It's hard, it's hard. It's a work in progress, right.
Speaker 1:And also not being afraid to ask for help. That's what people find. I think the people I talk to a lot they don't ask for help until they're really, really stuck and it's like, well, you could have gotten help a lot earlier than that, but maybe it wouldn't work because they weren't so desperate. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I know it's hard to say. I mean it's so individualized it really is, and I don't know a person's past. What keeps them from asking for help? If that was something that was really encouraged in their childhood, that independence right, and they got patted on the back a lot for solving their own problems and not needing support, or seeming to need support from their families. We only I kind of have this strategy with myself and certainly with clients, people I don't could never know everything about. Right, is that it's like? But is that working? Now, you know, right like, does that, does the way that you're doing it? You know Dr Phil back in the day. I don't know if you ever watched him, but he has such a character used to say how's that working for you?
Speaker 1:You know well how's that working for you?
Speaker 2:You know kind of in a sarcastic way, but you know for me it's like is that still working for you?
Speaker 2:You know that pattern that you learned, perhaps in survival. You know, I don't know. All I know is that showing up is something that isn't working for you right now, and so you know, there we can always create something different, and that's that's. The best news, you know is that we can always, always break free from, from things that don't serve our lives. You know, at this stage in the game, and learn a different way. It is uncomfortable, it can be hard, but it's always worth it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you kind of did that. So you went from sales. Did you go directly to massage therapy after that?
Speaker 2:No, I went from sales to being a stay at home mom, so I've had that experience you know, for nine years I was a stay at home mom with my kids. I was lucky enough to to be able to make that work. You know, in my life at that time that was something that my husband I, you know when you take an income out of a household like how can, can we do it and how will?
Speaker 2:we do it, and you know. And so I was at home for nine years and once when my son, you know, I'd sort of been making a promise to myself that when my son went back or started first grade right and was in school full time, that I would look, you know, for the next thing. You know, maybe go back into the workforce and the next thing. But I had always promised myself that it would be heart centered work. That you know I had to. I tell the story a lot to clients who are in places of transition in their life and, you know, come in kind of soul searching like what's the next thing? For myself, I tell that I share the story about this super simple exercise that I did. I just took a blind sheet of paper and I wrote, like you know, probably with a pencil, not even a pen like, like you know, two columns like dislike and I thought about, you know, the work, using the work experience that I had and what was available you know, to me at the time, careers that interested me, and I just started making a list right of interests and circumstances. You know that either appealed or didn't appeal to me and the don't like list was like so long In the beginning, and then you just kind of honed in on.
Speaker 2:You know more holistic things. You know massage and nutrition. You know training. You know physical, being a trainer at the gym, you know things that that, really, that I my criteria was what? What would you never want to stop learning about? You know something that's so interesting to you you would you could spend your whole the rest of your life learning about it and something that you know, you felt like you could spring out of bed for every single day and I kind of honed in on on this area of massage. It actually hit me sort of like a lightning bolt not even sort of it was like a lightning bolt moment where I was getting a massage and it just like this is it you know, like it, it it's like you know, it's like you know it, it I embodied. It was very interesting and that was one of the first times that that had ever happened to me. You know, and I was aware of it Like wow, you're everything about you, right down to your body, is telling you that this is the right move.
Speaker 1:So you have this massage, you have this awakening. You come home and say honey, guess what? And he says we were.
Speaker 2:it's that funny. We were actually in Florida visiting my mother-in-law and I was getting a massage there and I came, you know, plotting, back to the pool where everybody was and I said I think, I thought, you know, I think I've got it, I think I'm going to go to massage school. And my mother-in-law says to me oh, do you like touching people? Yeah, better. Well, thanks for telling me how she felt about it, right.
Speaker 2:You know, as I understand, people are always revealing themselves. Now, right, but you know I was like yes and not. You know I love the body and I had always loved studying that. You know I'm that person who, if I can figure out how something works, I can figure out how to work it in my favor or how to make it work better. But I have always been intrigued, even back to high school, and you know who remembers their high school classes?
Speaker 2:Most people you know think about what they hated about it, right, you know, so awful, but I remember that anatomy and physiology class and I just couldn't get enough of it. You know, and I really am, that was that even at a young age. Now looking back, probably wasn't aware of it at the time. But you know, when you go to the doctor's office when you were little and they had the cutouts right of the body and you could see the systems that were now would just sit and stare at those, fascinated, like that's what I look like on the inside and so so miraculous and fascinating and intricate. And you know, and I still feel that way to this day. You know I still, having gone into coaching post, you know bodywork and I still do bodywork and lots of energy work with clients, but I still am still just as fascinated and blown away by the miracle, you know, of it all today and feel like every piece of my life was a stepping stone to where I am now. You know.
Speaker 1:So so a question when you say, when your kids are like, I'm assuming your kids once to college, right?
Speaker 2:One is still in college, is just started as junior year, and one just graduated from college.
Speaker 1:Right. So when they were like, did your kids at some point feel pressure, like to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives? Did they go through that thing?
Speaker 2:They did not. Whether they felt it, you know. I guess you'd have to ask them how much pressure they have felt, but both my husband and I kind of took that pause after college. So there was no pressure for us because we're, you know, realistic that they needed to have a very defined path going into school. In fact, that bums me out, that they make you know that colleges make kids who have never spent a day outside of their, you know, parents home right? And they're a little doubt declare majors. You know, there's that.
Speaker 1:But like I'll get high school kids who work at our desk and they are feeling this pressure like they have to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives, I tell them my story and then hearing your story which is very, very similar, really about there's no way ever in high school you could have predicted that now you'd be a coach and previously massage therapist, previously sales full time I mean there's no way to predict that stuff, and so why put pressure on yourself for you for a future you have no clue about anyway? And so I just was curious if your kids had that similar experience or if, because you had that experience, they just kind of got a pass like you'll figure it out, you know, relax.
Speaker 2:That's what they got. They got the just take them. The first step that feels best, you know, is what we encourage from our kids always, you know. Is what's this next thing? What feels right, what feels the most right, right?
Speaker 2:now you know you don't have to know and you can, you know, change it at every time, but with the information that you have now, just take the next step. You know declare. So in terms of that example of them like declare, you know needing to declare something or define something for Grand Valley or MSU, you know so then they could choose classes in that category.
Speaker 1:They were always given permission to change their mind, you know that's awesome to have that freedom, because I'm sure look you know, they'll go to therapy and work out some other crap you did.
Speaker 2:But for this, no doubt.
Speaker 1:My kid too, I'm sure. But yeah, it's. I just see these kids have such pressure and it's like you know, it's like it's like you have as much control over your future at this moment in time as you do. That cloud in the sky, it's, it's coming, isn't that true? It's coming into something you can do about it.
Speaker 2:It's so true. And the things that impact that and affect that are, you know, I think it's good news that those are unknown to us. You know that shouldn't make us feel fearful, or, you know, the unknown is is you're going to be empowered at that time when that happens. That thing, you know that mysterious thing that's gonna redirect you. You're gonna make that. You're gonna go through that same process. You're just gonna make that next best choice at that time.
Speaker 1:Right, so if you can do, that here.
Speaker 2:You can do it here you can do it here. You know and that's all I think we really wanna know as people is like I have the tools you know to help myself, support myself, make decisions for myself, et cetera, at any time, no matter what.
Speaker 1:And giving them that confidence, because most kids don't have that confidence or the backing from their parents. Right, and it's such a, it's a great gift. I mean it's just a great gift. You know they always wanna try to figure it all out ahead of time. It's like you can't. You know, it's the adventure of life, but you know, I can say that at 58. Yeah, I know, at 17,. I couldn't, you know, I didn't know, anything.
Speaker 2:I know and that you know I love working with teens for that reason is because perhaps I'm delivering a message that they haven't heard yet, you know, in their life, or I'm just offering them another piece of another possibility really you know is and it feels like as a you know we were talking earlier about as a coach.
Speaker 2:You have to feel like you have to, you know, say something profound and impactful, and you know, to people's lives when really sometimes the biggest, greatest impact that you can have with somebody is to just offer another, you know option right or say it's okay to. You know, know that there's many things here that you could do or be good at and you know you don't have to put pressure on yourself to define one. There could be many. You know You're just gonna pick one for now. See how long are you ride it out?
Speaker 2:So, this is the longest I've ever done anything in my life, career-wise. You know this is the longest.
Speaker 1:How long did you do massage?
Speaker 2:So I always like stumble on the years here when I, kind of you know, started coaching but was still doing massage, remember that, and I was breaking the room down, setting it up with chairs, and you know, then I would break it down and put a massage table in there, and so we met each other. In another lightning moment, I should share that story with you about how that you know you and I came to meet at a perfect time, but that was in 2001,. Did you open the studio? Nine 2003.
Speaker 1:And then I moved to this space, this new space, in 2009. Okay, yeah, 2009.
Speaker 2:Right and you had been at the other one for like eight years or something like that before right. Yeah, okay, so 2009,. And then I went through coaching training like four years into that that makes sense, four or five years into that and you know, immediately hung my shingle out right for coaching but was still massaging. So I mean, what is that? That's 14 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, I still am a licensed massage therapist. I don't do it every single day, but so you know all those other jobs that we've talked about for like two years, three years, three years how did you?
Speaker 1:know how did you know you were ready to transition from only massage to or towards coaching, like what was the thing that made you go? It's time for a shift again.
Speaker 2:That little knock, you know that little knock that becomes louder, that I have learned to trust, like with my whole heart. But it was hard, Brian. It was really hard because it's like choosing, you know, between like two loves. Right, I still love massage, but it was hard on my body.
Speaker 2:I was starting to feel the effects of that and I was also finding my mind shifting. The things that I think about, you know, just when I'm in my quiet moments and just in my own head all day, were more coaching related, you know, and human experience related than they were body and it just I don't know, I guess, does that make sense, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it totally does. I just think that there's a lot of.
Speaker 2:It sort of consumed me in a different way. It consumed me and became just greater than symbol, you know, in my life. But it was really really hard and I prayed a lot about that during that time and I just asking spirit, like don't make me make this choice. Just I get chills just thinking about this process, but don't, I don't wanna have to make this like a definitive choice here, just do your thing and let this grow and let this die, drop, drop. You know that's kind of but and then it happened just like that.
Speaker 2:It was so fascinating to sit and witness it, right Like somebody would move out of town and then somebody would call for coaching Somebody would, you know, I don't know, they'd just stop coming or you know whatever. And then another person would, and this just built and built, and built. And I really wasn't doing that much, you know deliberate work at that time too. But you know, stop marketing one and really turn the deed up on the other one. It was just that process of intention over and over again Just let this grow and let this kind of quiet down. And you know, until COVID hit, and you know, we were forced to shut down, and at that time I probably had a handful of people that I was still working with. And that wasn't that long ago, three years ago, right. So and then I just, you know, said this looks like a good time really to just kind of shutter that piece of the business, so Got it Got it, Because I imagine there's so many people and I've certainly felt I've done this too.
Speaker 1:You know where it was like it's time to make a change. I don't know how to do it. I don't even know what the change to. You know, I don't have like a plan B, Like I don't know what the next thing is, but I know that what I'm doing is no longer of service and it's time to move on, and that is a hard, hard, gut wrenching thing, to just have faith that I'm supported, It'll be okay. You know that's so hard. I mean I've got. I mean, for me, my situation is a little different, in that the yoga studio supports my wife, my daughter, myself, and if the yoga studio isn't here, I you know, I'm driving for Uber, delivering for Amazon. I don't know what to do next. Right, Luckily we're not in that position at this point, but but if.
Speaker 1:I had to make that choice. It's like I don't have a B and I've thought about it. You know we all have burnout and you know, even for the job you love, you need a vacation once in a while, and time away, absolutely, and and.
Speaker 1:But I imagine there's a lot of people who are like you know just feeling so stuck in what they're doing, knowing in their body that they have to change, not doing it because they're either afraid or have too many responsibilities, or or whatever, and or maybe just lack the courage, or or I don't know what. I mean, there's a whole range probably. But you know, to see you go well, no, no, no, it can be done and it can be done, but it can be done. But I think that's, you know, I think that's a good thing to do. I mean, I think that's a good thing to do. I mean, I think that's a good thing to do. You know, it can be done, and it can be done with grace and it can be done with prayer and it can be done with. You know, the transition is isn't as scary as one might think. Right Like when I left real estate to become a yoga teacher, I felt like I was blindfolded, jumping off a building. I mean, I was terrified.
Speaker 1:Oh, I am, and, but it was just like the next natural step. But that's been for 20 years now. So you know, I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. Like this isn't a grownups job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't you get that. Sometimes I'm like pinch me, is this really like my job? You know, like this is and I built it all and you built it all. You know, and that is not without, you know, a support of others and and, and you know, something greater than us too right, that supports. But you know you really can. If ever there was a time I mean to be living, you know it's this time, right now, where you can get famous making dumb videos. You know I mean you can. There really is no limit to what you could. If you're looking to monetize a career, you know there's really no limit to opportunity and option. It may be out of your comfort zone, you know. Certainly there were no life coaches when I was in high school.
Speaker 2:If I would have tried to declare what I'm doing for a living. Now you know as a major that I would have had to go into like a field of psychology or something like that, right, right. And interestingly enough, a friend asked me that the other you know other day why didn't you go into that? Like you would have to understand that I was my first client.
Speaker 2:You know, I was my first and most important client, and I still am, and that I needed to go through the journeys and the foibles and you know things, that lessons that I learned along the way to be where I am now. You can't. No path is linear, right Like that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, and I don't know if she understood that or didn't, but I'm right, you know, I certainly look, look at it and go. You know, this was not, this was not a path that I even really Thought I'd be in, but well, it practically didn't exist when you first you know right coaching is a recent what blessed.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it's been around, but it's gotten really popular the last 10 years or so. Yeah maybe, and you've been doing it for how many years?
Speaker 2:five well more than five.
Speaker 1:So, like 2014, 11, 11, 10, 11, 12 years, something like that.
Speaker 2:I know that blows me away.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:That's what happened. I just felt like I was learning it yesterday. But you know, we use also who we are and what we, what we've learned you know along along the way, to not just textbook things. I think life experience is the most valuable you know for sure good and bad, certainly, and bad, you know.
Speaker 2:And something you know that we haven't even touched on talking today is the fact that I struggled with addiction Along the these path, you know so, for a uh-huh in, you know they're these early jobs, I mean, that was something that was part of my daily life. I didn't, it wasn't, and I was very, very and what do they call it? Like high performance, alcoholic or no, what do they say? They say functioning alcoholic.
Speaker 1:Functioning, yeah yeah, I function a alcoholic you drink and you drink well.
Speaker 2:I always showed up for work and I worked hard and you know work hard, play hard, right? That that's still something I see on t-shirts, right? And you know I didn't. I didn't really let myself take a very good look at how much that was holding me back, because I felt like, look around, you know, I've got a career, I've got a husband, I've got A great house, a great life. You know all the things that you would check off a list of saying you know you're doing well, that person's doing well. But it was the inner world, you know, that was in shambles at that time and I was holding it all up.
Speaker 2:By, you know, putting the picture of myself in front of me and going look now, look at this, not this, you know. Look at, look at what's what I'm doing and not not. You know. The other thing I've done is I've been doing this for a long time. You know the other stuff, but struggling tremendously, struggling tremendously and I know I now I believe that that that was one of my biggest Gifts in my life was to go through that, through that and overcome that, you know.
Speaker 1:And when you realize you had to start doing a and like doing the work of staying sober, I imagine you probably had to reconstruct and look at every part of your life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I was my first client, you know. I really was the, and I still go through that fearless Whoo. It's hard sometimes. You know inventory of truth-telling with myself all the time, all the time, because we know, we know when we're, when we're lying to ourselves. Yeah now we know how bad that feels to Denial about it a lot.
Speaker 2:Just the denial of? You know, I know this isn't good for me when I'm doing it anyway, or I know this isn't right for me this career. You know that I feel like I've run it's run its course. You know, and, but I don't know what's next. I don't know how to get there. I don't have the tools. I don't have the tools. I had the awareness but I didn't have the tools and lack to the support.
Speaker 1:You know so what did you do? How did you get there?
Speaker 2:How did I get there In early sobriety you mean, or just making the choice to get sober? I mean for me.
Speaker 2:I Really ran my. You know it took, it took the time it took. You know I look back now but I, I wasn't a back-and-forth, I just, you know I'm gonna quit drinking for three months and then I'm gonna start again. I didn't do that starting and stopping, I just when I quit, I quit and you know that's a daily commitment now. But when, when I stopped and and arrived at you know the end, I was really unbended me and in a place of like, full surrender, like I will do anything, you know I had gone through all those that fighting. You know that that defensiveness, and you know that had been, had been years and years of that dynamic and I was really tired of that dynamic, even with myself. So I'm not up with my own right bullshit, as they say now you got sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Speaker 1:I did you're like I'm I've hit my wall. Yeah, it's so hard waiting for somebody to hit their wall. Oh my god, the pain of watching somebody just. Yeah, rush up against it, but not go. All right, I'm done now.
Speaker 2:Think of how they feel. You know.
Speaker 1:I can imagine. I just it's just you know, and it's, and I have sympathy for it because I've seen it, it's been a my, it's been in my Family, it's been the friends, all kinds of other things. And in waiting for that person to go Okay now, and and it wasn't the thing that you'd expect. So I had a roommate who Would call periodically from jail a I got arrested for drug driving or DUI or DWI or whatever it was, and you know two in the morning I'm getting this phone call.
Speaker 1:He was a musician, so he's at a bar. He was out late, you know certain they're certain drinks or whatever, and He'd been divorced twice and lost gigs and been in jail. None of that stopped him and and Went to a. I even went to Alan on with him. And then one day he was driving up north. He had an open beard, hadn't had anything to drink yet, reached over like just to change the channel on his radio or something, lost control of the car, rolled it, flipped it. He crawled out not a scratch and that was his. Now I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:That was just his thing. That you know, and and I had an uncle who Was in rehab stayed clean. So for 26 years Life went sideways started using, started drinking, went back to rehab but it didn't work. He couldn't get it. He wasn't really a rock bottom and he ended up dying of a heroin overdose. You know he was snorting heroin on his blue book. For those who don't know, that's the book that you get in a and yeah, it's, it's. You just never know what's gonna be. Somebody's sick and tired of being sick and tired thing, right if we don't die in the process.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean and that is a that's a reality that I see. Over and over again, as we think we've got another day to to f around, you know, yeah, and, and we don't always have that and yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like you know that that has. You know that that process for me has been the most profound process that I used to, for everything as a compass, for everything is like you know, but you did that and that's how you did that and you know all the facets of it, the denial, and you know I and and the readiness, the Geez, the empathy, also the awareness, you know, and to understand that, you know I started studying trauma pretty early on, right and started to study the body. You know that was something that was really coming forward and you know it's interesting. Just follow your interests, follow your interests and they'll never lead you wrong. Because you know I started really hearing about trauma and for some reason my ears tuned into that. You know other people's don't, but mine at the time tuned in to this new body of work around trauma and coping mechanisms. You know substance use is a huge coping mechanism in our culture, I mean, and just in, you know we look at it for everything we rely.
Speaker 1:Look around, you know I mean it's, it's you feel better.
Speaker 2:Every single thing. You know where I'm going to celebrate with it, but I'm also going to console myself with it, but I'm going to, you know, disassociate myself with it, but I'm going to connect myself with it. You know it's like geez, you know, and I certainly fell into that category of someone who used that for everything, but I used it in place of ever developing any real quality tools, you know, of being with myself, of coping. So I had to learn all of those, and so those are. You know I share that in my coaching practice with other people is we, we have to when we feel capable and competent. You know, whatever is coming, we say I might not want to face it, I might not love it, but I can.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I learned that through you know, when you overcome something that you think you will never, I will never be able to quit drinking. I had those, that conversation with myself the best I could ever do would be to manage it, or or white knuckle, you know days without it and stuff. And and certainly I was able to do it on behalf of you know, my, my kids, when I was pregnant, right, I you know easily, because it was like, oh gosh, that's for the greater good of you know them, but what was it about me.
Speaker 2:You know that that it's very it's complex. You know it's it's complicated and I never really looked at at even someone who was using it and there's all kinds of addictions. Brian, I know you know that, you know right and we could. You know it's not just substance that that people are addicted to and struggle with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you could be a distress but you could be a drift to distress and adrenaline and abuse and you know there's a whole range.
Speaker 2:As we're talking, an Amazon truck is pulling around you know that shopping, that's a great addiction and I'm going that's, that's like, it's just a, it's a common one. You know, that's one that you know. It's on the, the shirts and the memes and the cut.
Speaker 1:Just one swipe and you can buy something. It's so simple.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, what am I addicted?
Speaker 1:No, you know right, okay, well, I need, I need these things. I need these things. How long have you been sober now?
Speaker 2:It will be 15 years.
Speaker 1:It's awesome.
Speaker 2:September 12th, soon when is that next week? It's coming up. Yeah, that's my proudest, proudest accomplishment to this day Hands down Hands down.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Because of what came from it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, without it, everything else would have gone to poop.
Speaker 2:I would not. I would have nothing that I have here today, nothing would be here. Yeah, you know, not in this way. If it was here at all, it would certainly not be in this way. And so that's a again. You know, it's like that, woo, my heart just just skips a beat with such deep, deep gratitude for that. And then, how do you?
Speaker 1:do you celebrate, like, all right, 15 years in not celebrate. Okay, I'm going to now go and have a drink because I did this, but celebrate like, like, what do you do to celebrate yourself for your accomplishment? Because most people don't like to do that in a healthy way, right, like? Oh, it's my birthday, I'm going to eat crappy food, I'm going to drink or smoke too much. I'm going to feel like crap tomorrow, but I had a great time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not really that's not.
Speaker 1:That's not really a great way to celebrate. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like a backhanded you know suffering or form of suffering or something like that.
Speaker 1:But that's like standard protocol for most people. That's how you celebrate, is you? You eat crappy food, you drink too much because it feels so good. What do you do to celebrate 15 years I?
Speaker 2:don't know, it might sound cheesy, but you know, look around my life with gratitude with. You know just the faces of the people who are here, who I love. Certainly you're included in that. You know Radalotus, the community that you have created there that I, you know, just so easily stimulated myself into, and my business, I don't know, I just look around my life, you know, and go, wow, this is all because of this choice and it's a daily choice. You know it's a daily choice, right.
Speaker 2:Not always it's easy, like it's easy for me, but I don't know what's up ahead. I always remind myself of that, you know, as I watch some really close friends recently go through unimaginable grief in their life. And I do think to myself, would I, you know right?
Speaker 1:Like would that be enough to get me to use again?
Speaker 2:Would that be enough, right? Like what would the tipping point back be? And you know, we can't always, we can't always know, you know what might tip us back, but I can't, knowing that I've gone soberly through all of that same. You know a lot of that stuff. When I'm speaking about my friends, I'm like I'm adjacent to it. You know I'm going through that grief too. Right, they are not as much because it's not, you know, my child, my spouse, but you put yourself, you know we have a way, our mind has a way of placing ourselves there emotionally, even if it's not us, you know. And I am a deep, deep feeling person. So, you know, I think that that's why I drank a lot too, because I just didn't have a way to. I didn't understand that about myself at the time. I thought there was something wrong with me, you know, and so I just kind of wanted to numb those, that aspect of me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've come into contact with a lot of, like, high intuitives, high empaths, who feel so overwhelmed and you know, like you know, when you have a burn and you touch it against something, it's so sensitive and they feel like that emotionally all the time. They don't know how to turn it off. They have no tools. Their parents from a young age said there's something wrong with you. You know, you're crazy. Yeah, and they. It's the only way they know how to deal. You know, and that's sad because it's like it's their kryptonite, but it's also their superpower, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, you know when. Kept in check right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's why boundaries right, you know that are created through self-awareness. Our personal boundaries is one of the I'm probably the place that I like to work the most with people I love to help them.
Speaker 2:People develop personal awareness and growth, but also like what's okay with you and not okay with you in your life and how do you feel the most safe? That's what boundaries are. They're a system of what do I want to say, like asks or requests or that come from awareness about what's okay and not okay with us, so I can feel the safest that I possibly can feel with myself and others.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a level of self-preservation that comes with that. You taught Kate and myself about that dealing with a family member that we have and it was so powerful and so beneficial and you are really, really good at that, I gotta say.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Brian.
Speaker 1:And the family's listening to this going well. We have problems with a person who breaks boundaries in our family. Talk to Jill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for that. Give us some really good insight, yeah Well nobody knows about breaking boundaries more than someone with addiction. Because we just break our own, we betray ourself every day. So it's hard to trust somebody who lets you down all the time too. So that's like.
Speaker 2:You gotta develop boundaries for that too, so you can develop that trust, that trust in a relationship, whether it's with yourself or with other people. This is what's known, this is the operating system, and you either abide or you don't abide and you get shown the door. But when it's yourself, it's just something else that I learned in getting sober and then learning all these other systems of personal development Never ends, it never ends, it never ends.
Speaker 1:What's nice is that you've been there and you've done that and, as a result, you're able to share your life experience with others to help them. Yeah, I can see the transition from massage to in massage you're making somebody feel good. Typically You're helping them release the relief, stress and you're helping them with flexibility and mobility and maybe rehabilitation of some degree or maybe just give them a break that they desperately needed in their lives. But then that's very one-sided, whereas you get into coaching and now it's very interactive. The other person actually has to do something. They can pay you to complain for an hour, but that's not helpful really. What you want them to do is take an active part in their healing and you be there for them as their coach. It's a nice transition, like now working with people who actually want to help themselves. They wouldn't be there, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there still are some who are reluctant to do the work. While I'm empathetic to it, because I get it that it's coming from a place of fear, I'm not afraid to be very direct in my approach, because the older we get, we realize that our limited time and energy.
Speaker 1:What are you?
Speaker 2:looking around here for you get this one chance in this particular lifetime, regardless of how you feel about reincarnation or that type of thing. This one you're in right now is the only one like this what are you making of it, Right?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We have this ability to make up all kinds of excuses and loopholes and do all this work. At the end of the day, I just like to hover over all of that nonsense and go did I do the best that I?
Speaker 1:could today.
Speaker 2:Did I do the most with what I've been given today? Maybe really know the answer to that, but I'm not here to lie to myself, right?
Speaker 1:That's good stuff. I had a client recently who has cancer and it's under control, but she has to take maintenance drugs to maintain it. She's got a full-time job, she's married. She didn't seem like she was enjoying her life. She wasn't doing the things that she knows she loves to do. I heard her story a couple of times and I finally said the fact is you have cancer. The likelihood of you living till you're 70 or 80 is less than the average person. She immediately goes well, but anybody could die tomorrow. I said, yeah, but that sounds like an excuse for not living your life. What are you doing? How come you're not doing the things you love to do? How come you're not wasting? I never want to say why. Why are you not sucking the marrow out of life? Because why feel so accusatory?
Speaker 2:It gets me so defensive when somebody does a. Why?
Speaker 1:It's like well, what do you want to do If you do have this limitation and you don't know when it's going to be? What do you want to do with your time? I almost had to say why are you wasting your time? What are you doing? She sat on it for a while and finally got back to me and she said what you said to me made so much sense and I finally figured out a couple of things. But sometimes you got to be really straight with somebody, not in a mean way, but for the sake of skillful means of wanting them to achieve the reason. They came to you, whatever their goal was, and kind of slap them in the face and go well, what are you?
Speaker 2:doing.
Speaker 1:You have options.
Speaker 2:I believe that being as direct as possible is kindness.
Speaker 1:That is love.
Speaker 2:That is compassion. To be direct, I'm not judging you when I question your motivations. I'm just asking you to take a good, clear look at it. Right, you're just f**king back and speak to it.
Speaker 1:This is what I see. This is what I see you doing. Is that right? Yes, am I.
Speaker 2:Okay, I could be wrong, but let's talk about it, because what you're saying doesn't match what you say you want. What you're doing doesn't match what it is you say You're saying you came to me.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I'll remind people of that.
Speaker 2:You came to me. I didn't call you saying would you like to get into life coaching right now? You came to me because something was off or wrong or troubling. How much are you willing to put into making the shifting arm of that? Nothing feels worse as a coach than doing more lifting.
Speaker 1:I learned that in AA.
Speaker 2:A lot of the principles of that of the foundation of AA are just great principles to use in life.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:That was never care more about somebody's sobriety than they care about it themselves. I can never hold up more or care more or lie awake at night more than somebody who's not doing more than that on their own behalf.
Speaker 1:I can't.
Speaker 2:It's not. That's just a disproportionate kind of codependent place to be as a coach. It's probably not going to bring your clients to the place that they want to be.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it never does, it never does.
Speaker 1:Being the enabler doesn't help you help them, and it doesn't help them help themselves. It is what it is, but that's probably why you're a great coach.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I do endeavor to be a great one.
Speaker 1:Do you have a sense of? Is there anything next on the horizon or this, is it? Until you get that gut feeling again.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just enjoying creating new opportunities for people to come, maybe in a group setting, to some things. I love what I do. I love it. I still love it. For somebody who didn't believe, thought everything was kind of a flash in that because I'd had those two year, three year lost interest, this isn't for me. I now realize you weren't there yet. You were on those stepping stones again to that place. For right now this just feels like a really good space for me. Are there other avenues within the coaching field that I'd like to pursue? Yeah, I'm just kind of creating those one by one and doing that as I get those little knocks from within and keeps things interesting and exciting to diversify in the field. It's fun.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great place to stop and keep listening to those knocks. How do people reach you if they want your coaching services?
Speaker 2:You can go to my website. It's my name, jill Massura, j-i-l-l-m-a-s-s-u-r-acom. There's a way to connect with me there. You can email me also, jill Massura, at gmail. Those are probably the two best ways to get a hold of me. I've got some nice events coming up at the studio too.
Speaker 1:That's right. You do pretty regularly. You do a four agreements workshop. It's like five weeks and you go through the four agreements and talk about them in detail and give people some life advice. You also are a tapping teacher.
Speaker 2:Help people with tapping. Tapping is a nickname for a tool called EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. It has a physical component to it where you tap on certain points on the body. Then there's a talking component too, of affirmation and self-awareness that goes with it. The tapping the physical component, actually reaches into the part of the brain that's responsible for stress and tells that signal to dial down and turn off. It's a really profound technique for stress management of any kind physical pain, emotional pain, things like that Cool Trauma-related issues that keep coming up in the body. There is no separation there. We work with those pathways between mind and body there. Really profound tool. It's hard to sum it up in a couple sentences.
Speaker 1:That's enough of a teaser that people may want to come. Those workshops you can sign up for through redlogosyogacom at the studio or just go online and check that out. Awesome, Michelle.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much I love doing this with you, great.
Speaker 1:Thank you, see you in the building soon. Be around the neighborhood All right Bye, take it easy. Thank you.