Journey To The Soul

When Curiosity Becomes a Spiritual Path

• Jacenda Villa

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What if your hardest moments aren’t punishment, but preparation for the life you’ve been asking for? That single shift—paired with a kinder view of the divine—sparked our deep dive into Kabbalah, a tradition that feels less like a rigid system and more like a language for truths we’ve sensed all along: certainty, worthiness, and the courage to meet change with an open heart.

We trace the path from a strict, fear-shaped upbringing to a spiritual practice that feels like home. Along the way, we unpack how curiosity led us from human design conversations with Jenna Zoe to a 30-day journey with Kabbalah teacher David Ghiyam. The standout ideas are deceptively simple and wildly practical: treat challenges as training for capacity, anchor into the belief that the creator is fundamentally good, and remember that your worth isn’t conditional. When you stop bargaining with life and start receiving, optimism becomes orientation—not denial.

This conversation also explores how to build bridges across beliefs. Whether you call the source God, the universe, or the creator, Kabbalah’s openness invites you to keep what resonates and leave what doesn’t. We talk about integrating insights into daily choices—rewriting fear-thoughts, taking small aligned actions, and practicing gratitude when outcomes are still foggy—so growth isn’t just an idea, it’s a pattern. If you’ve been craving a spiritual framework that is ancient, accessible, and free of fear, this episode offers a grounded starting point.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who’s rethinking belief, subscribe for more thoughtful conversations, and leave a review to help others find the show. Then tell us: which teaching—old or new—has most expanded your truth?

Podcast mentioned in this episode: 

Unlocking Your True Potential with Human Design

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome to another episode here at Journey to the Soul. I hope you guys are having a beautiful day, a beautiful start to your week or the end of your week, whenever you are listening to this. As I am recording this, it is a few days after the fall equinox, and I am getting ready to go on a wonderful trip with my husband. We're getting ready to travel for the next six weeks. It's actually been a few weeks since I recorded an episode, but I wanted to share a little bit about something that I have been learning about. And I wanted to kind of give you insight on one of my newest obsessions, I guess you could call it. But my newest obsession is Kabbalah. And it's something that I just started learning slowly. And for those of you that are familiar with human design, I am a one-three in human design. So learning about different things is one of my love languages. Whatever that's supposed to be for me, like whatever energizes me. And all things like spirituality and you know, learning about cultures and different things, that's something that I really love to learn about. So I'm just sharing with you my newest rabbit hole that I have been going down, which is Kabbalah, and it's something that I've been wanting to learn for a while, and I hadn't started learning it. The timing wasn't actually right. I mean, I have a long laundry list of things that I want to learn in this life, so it's hard for me to really find time or to choose and discern what I should focus my energy on because my energy does want to go in so many different places. So Kabbalah is one of these things that I have been wanting to go deeper into, but the timing just hasn't been right. But I mean, truly, my curiosity does drive me. You know, cultures, religions, I absolutely love it. And over the last few years, where that has kind of taken me is learning a lot about Buddhism and different schools of thought there, reading about different spiritual teachers and you know their philosophies on different things. And I myself am a deeply spiritual person, but I'm not religious. That's something that evolved a lot over time in my life. I grew up in a very religious upbringing household. So my life, I kind of went through an evolution of finding my own truth among everything. So that's kind of how I began learning about a lot of these things. And I am still on this journey of expanding my own truth with all of this. This is a lifelong journey, I feel like, for any of us, as you keep learning and expanding your mind and being exposed to new things, your perception of what you believe to be true is going to change because you're going to change. And I definitely feel like that's been the case for me, as I have exposed myself to different things, you know, to different religions and you know, schools of thought that I was never exposed to when I was younger. But when I got older, I got curious, I wanted to know like what was so different about all of these many ways of thinking, you know, versus how I grew up. But that's a story for another time. And for me, Kabbalah is me just expanding this realm of my life, of trying to develop a deeper understanding of what all of this is, you know, and I have been wanting to learn about it for quite some time. So the time just happens to be now. But one of my favorite human design teachers who I've followed for quite a few years, her name is Jenna Zoe. She discusses Kabbalah quite a lot in her just teachings in general. And when I first heard her talking about it, it really did spark my curiosity. And not that long after she actually had David Guillaume on her podcast, and hearing him talk about Kabbalah even sparked my curiosity even more. I had this deep urge of wanting to learn and understand to a deeper level. And for those of you that have not heard of David Guillaume, he is a Kabbalah teacher. And like I mentioned, Jenna Zoe is a human design teacher, and Jenna Zoe, she has been a student of Kabbalah for many years. But after I came across David Guillaume and his stuff, it allowed me to go and study something that I had been wanting to study at a whole nother level. So for me, when I look at spirituality, it has to be something that feels freeing and empowering, but it also can't create extremes that keep us in fear. I don't believe that your devotion to whatever greater power you practice towards or like any religion or whatever your spiritual practice might be should be done from a place of fear. And this is my personal belief. Of again, this might not resonate with you, but for me, when I think of, you know, connecting to this deeper part of ourselves, to this relationship to God, the divine, the creator, the universe, whatever you want to call it, I don't believe that fear should be the primary thing in there. I actually feel like fear should be a very small aspect of this. And this comes from my upbringing, what I was exposed to from a very young age, and my relationship with religion as I was growing up, and growing up in a religion that instilled so much fear in me, with everything, every thought, every action, every interaction was always from a place of fear. You know, if I don't do this, then that means, you know, that it's just these very large extremes. And that's part of why for me now my spiritual practice, my journey, and my path down this life of trying to deepen my truth to everything that is has to be done from a place of freedom and also from a safe space. You know, for me, it needs to feel like a like a hug, like home. It needs to be comfortable. And this is what I look at when I am wanting to learn and understand different things when it comes to religions or different schools of thought in this realm, is it needs to feel safe. That's not to say that I'm never gonna learn about, you know, other religions that are a little bit more, you know, strict or have fear more in them or anything like that. But I take pieces from the ones that feel like home, more like a universal truth. And from the little that I have studied from Kabbalah so far, that is what it feels like. For me, it gives language and understanding to the many philosophical and spiritual beliefs that are in this world, and that's really what drew me to it. It was the language that they used to talk about these things. It didn't feel like a religion, it doesn't feel like a religion, and for me that's really important because then it stays rooted in what is actually important. So that's kind of what drew me into it and to David Guillaume's teachings as well. And I recently actually just finished a 30-day journey with him that we did. It was really amazing, but it was 30 days to manifesting a new destiny, and it was my first time doing something with David Guillaume, and I thought that it was such a transformational experience considering that I do so much work in this realm in self-help, in personal development, and spirituality, in all of these things, so many of the concepts that overlap in all of these things I'm aware of. So I'm always, of course, expanding myself and being exposed to new things, but I feel like from all the many things that I have been exposed to or learned about or even practiced on my own, I feel like the teachings that he brought in this journey were concepts that I feel like would really serve anyone. And it almost seems like self-help in how universal it feels. That's how open it feels. But the teachings of Kabbalah are really based off of deeper truths that have existed for thousands of years. It really is an ancient teaching school of thought. And it allowed me, like this journey, to go deeper into things that I had already worked on at some point in my life, but I knew that I really needed to let go of. So like the timing was also pretty divine. And I think that it's powerful that this journey started with us looking within ourselves to see how fears, limiting beliefs, different things that we hold on to, how that all translates to the outside world. And it really also gave me a new perspective on more challenging experiences that we go through, big things or small things. And David Guillaume says any challenging situation is simply preparing your vessel, which is your being, for miracles that are about to come into your life. And this is more or less a belief that I already had that everything that you experience is just preparing you. It's giving you the experience, it's giving you what you need to step into the new version of yourself. We've talked about that before in this podcast. And it's something that, you know, is a backbone to my life, but it feels even more rooted in me now, ever since taking this course with him. And it gives you a feeling of optimism and peace as you move through life. Because who doesn't want to know that everything is working out in their highest favor? That what we call negative experiences in our life have a greater purpose, right? Don't we all want to feel that way? Like this is all happening as it should be. These challenging times in our life are part of a greater truth. They're part of a greater plan, right? And that's what we all kind of seek when we are trying to find something to connect with, whether it's a religion or a spiritual practice, but we want to feel like something, someone has our back, that we are going to be okay, that we are going to get through all these ups and downs that life springs. Gabbala also brings this concept of certainty, which is knowing that the creator, which it is who created this world, is ultimately good and has your best interest at heart. And that the creator wants you to receive miracles and blessings in your life, even when it feels difficult. And it's this belief that that's taught that we are inherently worthy of being taken care of, and the creator wants our highest timeline to come into fruition. And this is again such a stark difference for me from what I was brought up to believe. For me, these teachings and the energy that they are invoking is a vibration of like universal love, which I believe to be the highest vibration in the world. There is no fear here. It is again that everything is for our highest self. It's for, you know, we are inherently worthy of all the things that we want in this life. The universe, God wants to give you everything that you want. You know, that's what you're meant to have, to experience, whatever those things are meant to be for us. And if you are still feeling like maybe, you know, you might not know where this could fit in your life, Kabbalah is more spiritual versus religious. So, regardless of any religion that you practice, you can learn Kabbalah because Kabbala discusses the ultimate creator. But in the verbiage, you can use whatever you want to use, whether that's God, the universe, you know, whatever feels comfortable for you. And I am gonna keep learning about this, but I just wanted to share the new rabbit hole that I have been going down because the 30 days that we did was just such a transformational experience, and I'm taking another course now, and I'm actually gonna be seeing David Guillaume in I think it's three weeks actually in Dubai for a live Kabbalah event, and I'm so excited for that. I'm really looking forward to that, and that's kind of what gave me the desire to want to start learning Kabbalah because we decided to book this live event with him, and everything kind of played out, so now I I just want to learn and understand it more. But the point of all of this is for us to simply stay curious and open. And in doing that, we can learn so much from people who practice and believe different things than we do. You know, there might be certain things that you've never been exposed to, certain religions, certain belief systems, and they can show us a different path. You know, they can show us something that is actually more aligned with us than what we know our current truth is. It's also a way for us to be more compassionate and loving towards others that have different belief systems, because unfortunately, religion is something that can really separate one person from the other, and it really doesn't have to be that way. What if the conversation was focused on how these two different practices that you and maybe a friend or another person in your life have showed the light in their own unique way versus the countless ways that they may be different? If we constantly focus on the differences between our beliefs and another's, we will continue to draw a line in the sand. But if we focus on the goodness of them, we build a bridge, a way to connect with one another, a way to learn, a way to be shown a new perspective. Because truth can really be found in everything. And we are really not that different from each other if we choose to look closely. And that's what I've been learning and sharing so far. But I'd love to hear from you what traditions, philosophies, or spiritual practice have expanded your own truth? Is it something that you were exposed to when you were younger? A certain religion perhaps, or something that you decided to learn later in life. I would love to know. If you want to share it with me, you can send me a message on Instagram. And thanks for being here with me on this journey. I can't wait to talk to you all next time. Take care until then.