In Conversation with Jessica Staskiewicz

I am thrilled to bring you this conversation with the revolutionary and ever-evolving Jessica Staskiewicz. Jess is a feminine embodiment coach who offers electric mentorship to extraordinary women who are searching beyond success, to what makes them feel alive. 

One very chilly day, I caught up with Jess at home to dive deep into her backstory and understand more about her intentional practice.

You can find Jessica on Instagram, Substack, and via her website, where you can explore her private, bespoke offerings leading women back to their bodies.

You can find more online at morganjournal.com and on Instragram @morganjournal.

Transcript

MJ Podcast - Jess Staskiewicz

Hello and welcome to Morgan Journal, the podcast. 

I'm Morgan, of course, your host, photographer and storyteller. Here you will discover a collection of conversations with creative women who refuse to live as two halves of a whole, but rather intuitively intertwine their professional and personal identities with imperfect beauty. 

I'm thrilled to bring you this conversation with the revolutionary and ever-evolving Jessica Staskiewicz. Jess is a feminine embodiment coach who offers electric mentorship to extraordinary women who are searching beyond success to what makes them feel alive. 

One very chilly day, I caught up with Jess at home to deep dive into her backstory and understand more about her intentional practice.

Morgan Jess, when I think of you, the words that come to mind are powerful, compassionate, connected, deeply understanding, and soulful. Many will know you as Jessica Anne Embodiment. Your coaching has helped countless women tap into their inner selves, and I'm rather proud to count myself among those you have guided. Your personal story is one of monumental change, stress, and self-discovery. You have quite literally journeyed the globe, making life-altering decisions at every turn. Your intuition is one of the strongest guiding forces, I think I have ever heard of. How are you? 

Jess Hmm. That's a big question isn’t it? I am... many things, and I think I've really reached this, like, level of, grace and compassion with myself of, like, we can be so many different truths at one time. So on one hand, I am really good, and I'm settled and I'm grounded and really in love with my life. And on the other hand, I'm also feeling like a yearning for more. And on another third hand, I also feel like I'm personally in this period of identity evolution, which is both, exciting and it's a little bit scary, and it's definitely destabilising, but it also, it just holds that promise that there is something more and different ahead, which I like. Yeah.

Morgan Possibility.

Jess Yes. So much possibility.

Morgan Before we get into a few other questions, can you tell me more about somatic mentorship and embodiment coaching for those who may not be familiar with them?

Jess So it's a completely different process to a standard talk therapy or coaching session. I love it because it goes deep. I think “somatic” gets coupled with this idea of nervous system regulation. Because somatic means - "soma" is body. So we're working with the body and with the current kind of state, with the personal development world, a lot of that is nervous system regulation, which is really beautiful and necessary. But the way that I view it is that it is the first step of this longer arc. And I'm really here to support women, to feel juicy and alive and powerful in their own bodies and within their own lives. So I see the body as this beautiful portal where we can then come back into a state of regulation and centre. But from there, we can also go into that more potentially mystical subconscious self-exploration. We can feel ourselves again. We can receive the goodness of life again. We get juiced up, and when a woman, particularly, is alive and juiced up in herself, then it's like, like magic happens, and then you're like, “I can do that”, and “I can see that”, and “I care about that”. And I have so much more to give. And I'm really passionate about. I like women squeezing the juice out of life and be giving something of themselves to this world, not from a place that is tapped out, but tuned in and turned on.

Morgan Your story starts in a very unexpected place and continues into the unknown. Can you tell me where your journey began?

Jess My journey began as a little girl in the bush on a sheep and cattle station, in a very bloke-oriented place where I also had so much freedom to go off by myself and sit in trees and play with the dogs and ride horses and muster and really connect in with the land, which was just what it was as a little girl. But now, as an adult living in a suburban world, it seems like the most precious gift.

Morgan We share a bit of bush upbringing, which is really nice, which I hadn't realised to that extent. From being that little girl you came into Toowoomba, where we are now. Where did you go from school? How did you sort of enter this more cerebral - I think back then would have felt a lot more cerebral land. How did you journey through that stage?

Jess Yeah, I was in school and I had, I really loved learning and I, I always wanted to be a vet. And this position of wanting to be a vet was because I found people really odd and really strange. And then I was sitting down doing the thing that you need to do, back then, to choose your... choose the degree that you were going to go onwards into university. And I really didn't have any idea, like vet was still an option, but I hadn't felt like I'd landed on it. And then I was scrolling through, and I saw this word, psychology, and everything within, like my body. My soul was just like, that's it. And there was zero question. I was like, I'm applying for that. I'm getting in for that. I'm going to do that. I didn't even know, technically, what a psychologist was. It wasn't something that I was aware of in the early two thousands or had been exposed to, but I knew that I had to do it. So I went on to university. I studied psychology, went through the graduate program. The honours program, the master's program and spat out the other side. And I loved every single minute of it. And then I entered the workforce, and I was in practicing as a psychologist for a few years, and I just had this question in the back of my mind of like, who am I as a twenty year old something woman with very little life experience to even consider that I would have answers or anything to offer the people that I was supporting in different ways. And so I was kind of at this point of like, just questioning whether this was the right. Not if this was the right career for me, but just questioning my place in it. And I was also in this point in my life where I was in a long-term relationship. I was seven or eight years into this relationship. I could see in front of me, I've got the career, I'm going to get married. There's going to be a white picket fence, two kids and a dog, and everything within me was just like, no. So I packed everything up. I quit the job, I quit the boyfriend, I quit Brisbane, and I went overseas with no real plan. And I met some really amazing people who just opened my eyes. It wasn't like your typical backpacking journey. I met philanthropists and countesses and worked for a countess for a little while and did the, the you know, the solo private flights through the French Alps and the furs and everything. And it was like a very weird, surreal kind of experience. But I also met incredible people who were doing really beautiful work in philanthropy around the world. And, I was offered to continue working for this particular couple, kind of as, like a personal assistant. And then they were like, come to the States with us. So I went from, Europe and Greece and London to the States, where they offered to pay for me to do some study at Harvard. I did some study in international relations. And then I was like, I need to do more. Like there is a need in this world to do more. And I ended up applying for a role with the United Nations, and I was working with the United Nations. and in the humanitarian aid, world for about ten years. And I loved it. And I gave everything to that career, including every single ounce of my energy.

Morgan Yeah.

Jess And I got very burnt out. And I had different personal things going on at the same time. Living in a developing country. And I was kind of at that point where I was like, I think this is another stage right for me. I think this is a time to reconsider what this portion of my life is. And I decided to come back to Australia. I was still half looking around in the development world, and then I realised that I was pregnant. And that's when, a whole other journey, reconnecting with my body began.

Morgan Yeah.

Jess Mhm.

Morgan In your work, you speak of pleasure-fuelled power and reclaiming our aliveness and returning to our bodies. And that's a really recurring theme. And these aren't just vibrant statements as you've seen so many women thrive on the benefit of your sessions. Can you tell me more about when you discovered that way of working? So this pivotal point in your life, when you chose to reconnect with your own body, and how then that transferred into helping other women do the same?

Jess I think that really started when, I was working abroad and it was a very stressful environment, and I would regularly turn to a yoga practice. I took that mat with me everywhere, and it became this thing that I absolutely needed to do. And if I didn't do a yoga practice, then the rest of my day was like, not set up. And I wasn't really necessarily clued into what was happening, why that worked. Except that it made me feel better. And then when I fell pregnant, I guess it gives you this whole opportunity to really slow down and to pay more attention and to listen, to see if you can connect with that little baby inside of you, to notice how your body is changing. And I was doing that more and more and more and just becoming more attuned to my body. And then it was really in birth where I had this experience, where my husband at the time was in the birthing room with me, and I was mid-contraction. And I was so in my body, and you know, like when you're giving birth, the all of the external world kind of just fades away, and you're thoroughly in that moment, and you're thoroughly in your body, and it is intense. But there's also, you know, you're riding those waves of contraction, and you're in the feeling state. And I was really surrendered to it, and it was mid-contraction. And I was in that state. And I looked across at my husban,d and I was like, this is not it. And I knew in that moment, after years of kind of like trying to make this work, that I was like, this is just done. And I felt so clear and so powerful in my decision. And it was probably just like a few minutes later that I roared Anya out. And it was a turning point for me where I was like, something radical happened in that room where I connected with a part of myself that I hadn't connected into before, and I was just interested. And then I got sucked in. I was in the newborn world and just in that cloud. But I kept on coming back to this, this like inquiry within myself of like, what was that? And does that extend outside of labour? Does that extend outside of birth? Like I feel like it does. And then yeah, I just started to explore it. And a very similar thing with what happened with psychology. I heard this, these words, feminine embodiment, which at the time was not a phrase that was bandied about at all. And yeah, everything within me was like that.

Morgan It's amazing how we have, and I don't know whether it's every decade, like we were talking before we pressed record, about what is it with our thirties or what is it with this time? Is there something in the air? And I understand what you mean, because I've started to discover yoga, needing to take that place in my life as well, and having practised yoga and then birthed my son in a very different way than I birthed my daughter. And having been able to tap into, I guess, that depth of being that you've not actually been able to connect with before because you've never been in your body that much. So it's so interesting to hear you say that. Since having that change occur for you, you've obviously then reached a new decade. How does that change feel now? Do you get to practice what you do for yourself?

Jess Yeah, and I would say for me, it's less of a ten-year cycle and probably more of like a seven-to-eight-year cycle where I feel this real like surge of reinvention or rebirth. And I think that is like a woman's prerogative. I think that we know that we are cyclical beings, like something massive changes within us every month. physically, hormonally. But then these identity shifts have just really been normal and amazing and interesting. So, and yes, to come back to your question, what I realised when I first entered this world of feminine embodiment. Because I had the therapeutic background, I was really still exploring it and viewing it as a way to come back to centre through regulating emotions or expressing your emotion or allowing like stress to be shaken off so that we could come back to regulation. But then there was my own practice began to evolve where I was, the more in my body, the more soft I began to feel, the more sensual I began to feel, and the more I really practiced letting more of life in and really choosing to honour the practices of sensuality, of really reclaiming pleasure not just from a sexual point of view, but from this full spectrum of like what pleasure is. Then I found myself becoming so much more alive, so much more radiant in my core, so much more creatively expressed, so much more interested in life, just so and so much more resourceful, like, so much capacity to hold so much more. And I was like, damn. Like, why? What the hell is this world that has told women, particularly that any pursuit of anything pleasurable or sensual or soft is somehow wrong or somehow like, just not important in the list of all of the different things that we have to get done first, when it is the thing that fuels us to be able to get all of those things done, or maybe to understand what are the things that we actually have to give our energy to, and what are the things that we don't have to give our energy to, to practice that discernment to hold boundaries like it's it's literally like the thing that fuels our life force and plugs us back into our power. And here we have this conditioning that goes back centuries, probably, that says that this is not important. So my embodiment practice now is really focusing on what feels good.

Morgan It's almost a rewilding, of sorts.

Jess Oh, totally. Yeah.

Morgan It sounds, you know, and this is coming from someone very uneducated but so curious about the world you work in, especially having had a taste of it from the one needing to be supported. And this is by no means throwing shade at the general psychology practice, but it's so interesting when you find what is right for you individually, and for me, that was your coaching. And to realise mid-session that something is so much older and bigger than you are. Do you feel that way when you are practising?

Jess I think that practice of coming back into our body is like a doorway into something that is very primal and very rich and something that is very difficult to put language to because it is something that existed before language, and it holds that pulse of something that is just. It's delicious, and it's rich, and it's so fuelling. I don't know how to explain that feeling of like coming into your body in a way where you're basically shivering or ripping off all of the crap, and you can just feel yourself again.

Morgan There is a vibration. I remember walking, as I was doing a practice in our room, and you know the chaos of the world around at dinner time, around our room. When you tap into that inner self or older self or a wilder self or whatever that is, there is a vibration that you leave that room with. You went in feeling like a much smaller version of yourself. And I think what you allow women, and I'm sure men, if they tried it. But women, particularly, I think there is a feminine power that I hadn't realised I had. Yeah, I genuinely had not realised its existence until this year when I sat down with you.

Jess Yeah.

Morgan To work in that way.

Jess And isn't that crazy? Like that. We hold so much. I don't know, conditioning, bracing, stress, smallness, shrinking within our own bodies. And I really think there is this epidemic of disconnection, distraction, disembodiment which has us living from that really cerebral place, really from the neck up, forgetting that we have this body, which is so much more than something that we just have to move and feed, but actually holds this real primal wisdom and aliveness. Yeah.

Morgan How has being a mother guided you to make the decisions that you have?

Jess I would answer that from what I think can be seen as a selfish position, where I realised that I need to be very well resourced in order to actually support and mother my daughter in the way that she needs and deserves. And when I'm not, shit hits the fan, and we get disconnected from each other. And she is disregulated because I am the nucleus of this family, and the state of my nervous system is what determines the flow of the morning, the day, the evening. So I have been very mindful of making sure that I have the boundaries and the space in order to fill my own cup or to refuel myself in order to be that mum. And then obviously, life is life. And so, I have a lot of permission for expression within our household where she gets to see me in everything, but it's the anger and the tears and the disregulation are all allowed, and welcome within our house, but it's, it's a big space of permission. Like, there's no apologies for it. And I think she actually models to me because they're so embodied little kids, what it is to be fully expressed and fully embodied too. So the first one is selfish. And then the second one, I think I just think it's so important for a child to have a role model. Where I guess they see someone respectfully, gracefully, compassionately walking in their own power, making decisions which are difficult but are right for both of us. Not settling. Like actually choosing to do things that give us both life. That set up a really good future for both of us.

Morgan There is something... I mean, it would be incredible, no matter what gender a child is, to see their mother in this space. Potentially, it's because we grew up in the eighties and the nineties, and we walked a very different path, following our mothers in a very different state of life. But to have a daughter myself, and to see you with your daughter and knowing that she is entering this world with such a vastly different kaleidoscope of colours and possibilities in front of her that we couldn't have dreamed of, let alone allowed ourselves to think outside of the box that we were given at the time, because that just wasn't done. Yeah, and she won't even question that now.

Jess No.

Morgan What does Anya think of your sessions? What does she think of the work that you do? Has she had any opinions yet?

Jess I don't think she does. I mean, she's seen me in practice. She just thinks it's like something that we do, or I do. And often I'll be having a private session, and she'll kind of just come in, and then she'll just sit there, and she'll curl up on top of me. And yeah, she just she is seeing that women need support. She's seeing women choosing to reach out for support. She's seeing women being in their bodies and being wild.

Morgan I'm sorry. That is what gives me shivers. Knowing that she will be able to guide others in a way, or guide herself, or even just make decisions for herself and those around her in a way that we didn't have the tools for that. That's magical.

Jess On top of the ability to feel and be able to regulate their emotions. What, like that would have been wild to have those skill sets when we were little?

Morgan To know that expression was not bad. To know that regulation was required or that it was even a word with a meaning. Like goodness, growing up through the nineties. Take the time to regulate. Take the time to express how you're feeling. What a game-changing couple of sentences that would have been, for girls in our era of youth. Also, maybe we're coming to it at a time where we are mature enough to hold it.

Jess Yeah. I think that we've kind of been conditioned to fear our bodies or to feel that a certain feeling is wrong or scary, and so we push it down, or we run away from it, or we eat it away, or we shop it away, or we, uh, Netflix it away because it's too much to feel. But yeah, being able to model to Anya that like she can feel the things and it's okay to feel the thing and it will pass on.

Morgan Oh, it sounds so easy when you say it that way. Have you been able to create a habit of self-devotion? Like, do you find yourself struggling for time for yourself like the rest of us do? Or is this something that you have truly been able to, sort of ingrain in your everyday?

Jess The practice of being in my body is something that now happens naturally through every day, and it could be something so simple as like swirling my hips as I'm cooking dinner or just noticing like ten or twenty or thirty minutes into being at my desk that I've been holding myself in a certain position and my body needs to move. Or maybe I need to pee, and I haven't because it's been, you know, like it used to be. Oh, I'd need to pee. Then three or four hours would pass. And actually, I'm thirsty. And actually, I'm hungry, but I've just been working so hard that I've completely lost touch with all of these different basic, fundamental physical signs that my body is telling me I need to go and address. So I've certainly moved from that to being much more in tune and responsive and listening to my body. But that has come through having more of a formal practice, or what I call a devotional practice and really setting up, habit. At the end of the day, it's just forming another habit and knowing that there are different tips to forming a different practice, like making something actually stick, like having a set place for it, and having cues that remind you to do it. Making sure that you know, you set up the minimum amount of time that you could say yes to, like a one-minute practice. Everyone has a minute, but you build on that practice. So I have, but I also am a regular human, and I go I dip in and out. So sometimes I'm very devotional, and I may spend thirty minutes to an hour every day in a practice, and sometimes a few days will go by or a week will go by, and I feel it. I'm like, I really think something is missing, and I need to come back to that. So I mean, the answer is yes, a little bit and no to that question.

Morgan I think it's always interesting to hear how people. You know, we all preach isn't the right word. We all have something that within our work we are sharing with others. It often becomes something completely different when we turn around, and our lives get busy, and we are then having to, in inverted commas, practice what we preach. Yeah, it's always just interesting to hear how people have managed to make it more second nature, rather than having to keep trying.

Jess My favourite thing is actually just if anything, at least I have my shower, and I will move, and I will feel, and I will express in the shower. And that is an every single day thing.

Morgan That's a nice easy one for people to implement, isn't it? How does it feel for you working from home? Is that as much a matter of convenience, or do you feel more connected here?

Jess Yeah, I love working from home, and I really love working online so that I can work with another woman in their home, because I think there is this feeling of, I mean, it depends on everybody else's home, but often we have spaces within our home that we love that we can nestle in, that feel like us. And that element of safety and containment that a home provides is really supportive and necessary to coming back into connection with that deep, primal, feminine, expressive, wild self. So I love being at home. I personally like I can breathe, I come in through that front door. I really make sure that there are touch points that feed me, like the sensual, pleasurable elements. I see it on a fluffy sheepskin rug here and also at my desk. I will often have a candle or flowers or plants around so that I'm. Yeah, I'm like sensually thriving in my work. Yeah.

Morgan I think having been on the receiving end of that and knowing and being encouraged by you to create spaces, not just when you're walking into the kitchen, and you feel good in that space because it's where you are all the time. But to not forget the other areas of your house where you are inhabiting, like put the incense on in your bedroom. Do those things in spaces that aren't just common spaces, but that might just be for you.

Jess Yeah, ritualise your life.

Morgan Yeah, that was a really wonderful point that you, sort of hit me in a way.

Jess Respond to it. There is something within us that's like, “Oh my God, for me?: This is my space. I get this is. Oh my God. Like, something happens where there is this, like, visceral body and also cerebral response that feeds us. So, yeah. Ritualise your life. Create little pockets, create a little portable altar, have a special candle that is just for you. Have a sarong or a sheepskin or a pillow that is just for you that you know when you land on it, you're like, yeah, this is my cue to come back to me.

Morgan Now that you're entering this next seven-year change, how are you feeling? What is next for Jess at this point?

Jess I keep coming back to this phrase, “squeezing the juice out of life”. And I get to a point where things feel grounded and settled. And I'm also like, there is just like there's a little bud wanting to poke out from the soil. And I don't honestly know. I don't know yet what that is. I can feel the shift within my own body. I feel sturdier in my steps. I feel like broader across my shoulders. There is a stronger part of me stepping out again, which feels much more rooted than before. And yeah, I can't force what it will be. I'm very much at the beginning stages of that listening. It definitely doesn't feel like a drastic step off the path. It just feels like a deepening.

Morgan It sounds like you have strength behind you this time.

Jess Yeah. And I'm very sure that I want to continue to work in this field. So I'm not about to change careers or anything like that. It's just what else is unfolding.

Morgan It sounds very seasonal.

Jess Yeah. Yeah.

Morgan Well, thank you, Jess.

You can find Jess on Instagram, Substack and via her website, where you can explore her private, bespoke offerings leading women back to their bodies. 

You can find Morgan Journal on Instagram and, of course, at morganjournal.com, where you can enjoy portraits of Jess that accompany this episode. 

If you've enjoyed this episode of Morgan Journal the Podcast, please like and subscribe and leave a review. 

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