Ep 7: Trusting Yourself & Following What Makes You Feel Alive with Jen Wyatt

What does it mean to be truly wild? Not reckless. Not unhinged. But deeply, unapologetically yourself.

In this episode, we sit down with their dear friend Jen Wyatt, founder of Wander Free Wellness, retreat leader, ritual guide, and creator of transformational experiences for women rooted in freedom, wildness, truth, and aliveness.

Together, they explore what it means to return to our authentic nature and how so many of us spend years navigating the expectations, conditioning, and beliefs that pull us away from who we truly are.

Jen shares her journey from growing up in the forests of New Hampshire, to teaching in Boston Public Schools, to experiencing a health crisis that ultimately led her into the world of holistic healing, yoga, ritual, and women's work. She reflects on the role that grief, self-trust, nature, and embodied healing have played in helping her reconnect with herself and build a life aligned with what makes her feel most alive.

In this conversation, we explore:

• What "wildness" really means and why it's often misunderstood
• The influence of Women Who Run With the Wolves on Jen's work
• Freedom, authenticity, and shedding the layers of conditioning
• Nature as refuge, teacher, and guide
• Ritual, myth, archetypes, and the power of storytelling
• Why being fully alive includes grief, rage, longing, joy, and pleasure
• Women's conditioning around self-expression and truth
• Jen's health journey and the turning point that changed her life
• The connection between self-trust and personal freedom
• Retreats, transformation, and creating spaces for women to remember who they are
• Ancestors, family stories, and the people who shape our path
• The advice Jen wishes she had received sooner: trust yourself and follow what makes you feel alive

This conversation is rich with stories, wisdom, laughter, and reflections on what it means to live in deeper relationship with ourselves, the natural world, and the life that is calling us forward.

About Jen Wyatt

Jen Wyatt is the founder of Wander Free Wellness and a guide for women on the path of wild remembrance. Through ritual, retreats, seasonal circles, movement practices, and immersive experiences, she creates sacred spaces for women to reconnect with their freedom, wildness, truth, and aliveness. Drawing from backgrounds in psychology, education, yoga, nature-based spirituality, and feminine wisdom traditions, Jen blends myth, archetype, embodiment, and creative expression to guide women home to themselves.

Connect with Jen:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanderfreewellness

Website: www.wanderfreewellness.com

Awaken Your Aliveness Retreat: www.wanderfreewellness.com/costarica2026

Connect with Lindsay & Scott: 

To learn more about our retreats: www.homesteadandheal.net

Connected with Lindsay: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaycourcelle/

Connect with Scott: https://www.instagram.com/alchemygardens/

Don't forget to subscribe, and leave us a review/ rating! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Homestead and Heal. I'm Scott.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

And I'm Lindsay, and we live with our three children on a farm in Vermont. Our lives revolve around growing food and medicine, working with the body, and trying every day to live in deeper relationship with the earth. And now we're welcoming guests to our farm for intimate retreats where they can slow down and feel deeply into this earth-body connection.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

This podcast is about remembering something many of us have forgotten: that we're not separate from the natural world. Our bodies are part of it. Our healing comes through it. And when we reconnect to both, our purpose often begins to reveal itself.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Through conversations with herbalists, farmers, body workers, and people walking unconventional paths, we explore what it looks like to step outside the modern paradigm and build lives rooted in connection, healing, and reciprocity with the earth. Okay, welcome to Homestead and Heal. We are so excited to have our good friend Jen Wyatt here. We got to know Jen a number of years ago now. What year was that, Jen, that we came into each other's world? 2022. 2022. And Jen applied to be a woofer, a farm volunteer on our farm. And actually, I don't even know how much I really told you, but once I knew you were coming, I started binging all your Instagram content and was like, Jen is amazing. I'm so excited for this person to come. And I sent you a couple messages in Instagram or something too. And I feel like you didn't respond. You were like not really as present on Instagram at the time. And I was like, I hope we're gonna be friends. And then you came and we've just been able to spend time with you ever since. And that was just such a beautiful opening into and such a beautiful experience of the right people finding each other. Because now I just feel like you're one of my dearest friends, one of our dearest friends, and we both just love you so much. And our kids love you. You're a favorite auntie, and I love your work so much. It's been so fun to be on your retreats. And yeah, is there anything you want to say, Scott, about meeting Jen?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

I feel like we hadn't been having many woofers at that point, or we had taken a break or something. So I think you were like got us going on that sort of deal again. And I remember a funny story about tell just briefly, is when Jen showed up. The space that we have has this huge sliding door in the front. And Jen showed up and was like, but what about locking the door?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Do you remember that's it's a huge bay of a barn or something? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Just because it's you are coming from Florida and different sorts of things. But I was like, oh, I was like, I'd never thought of that. So I quickly installed a little latch just so that you felt secure in there. And then I was like, and for what it's worth, we've lived here for 12 years and we've never had a key to our front door. You don't have to worry. But yeah, we had such a wonderful time. You are such a great woofer. I got to work on the farm with you a bunch and get to know you, and it's been so nice having you come into our lives.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

And yeah, if you want to just introduce yourself, Jen, and tell everyone, yeah, who you are and kind of work that you bring to the world, that would be great.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Yeah. I do just want to respond to that. That was one of the most magical summers that summer, and I did it again the following summer. And a few days after you installed that lock, I definitely heard something walking around and I was like, oh my God, they got locked in here. So the band get me.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

We do have bears in the neighborhood, so it's probably a good idea to have a latch on there.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

I definitely have this thing where I just feel more secure, like in an enclosed locked space, even though I grew up in a rural area too where there was no crime or anything. Yeah, and Lindsay, I'll talk about myself, but also the it just felt so serendipitous meeting you. I looked at basically every single farm in New England to try to decide which ones I was gonna woof at. And it came down to you and Meadows B. But a big piece of why I chose it was the name and why I felt drawn to it because the alchemy piece, alchemy garden. And that's a big piece of what I study. I even was considering changing wander-free wellness to wander-free alchemy, like around that time. And that drew me in. And then I remember when I was emailing with you, Scott, I actually just recently found the emails where I was telling you, hey, is it okay if I take Tuesdays or something to go up and see this holistic women's specialist? And you were like, Oh, if you don't mind me asking, who are you seeing? Can you tell me a little bit more? And then I shared, and you're like, oh my god, that was Lindsay's midwife, and we're really good friends with her. And I don't know if you remember that, Lindsay.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, I do, I do.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

Yeah, yeah. And it just, yeah, the whole thing was just very serendipitous, and I do feel like we were meant to meet and become friends. Okay, about me. This is always my hardest question because I feel like I do a bajillion things, but what I'm focusing on now is ritual and retreats for women, and I guide women through these ritual experiences that mostly women. I have done some things with men.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Scott, you would I I participated once in our back meadow. That was really cool.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

You did. And I I create an experience with my own all of these modalities that I've learned. I blend movement and guided journeys, song, poetry, art, nature, myth, storytelling, archetype, depth, depth psychology, all of these things that I feel super passionate about. I combine them to create an experience of transformation. And the transformation that I'm desiring people to have is I'll use three words, but I do at some point want to go into what these words mean to me because I feel like these words get thrown around a lot. But freedom, because my business is called wander free wellness, wildness, and truth. And to live fully alive, which is a big piece of what I'm focusing on now. But that to me wraps up in really wraps encompasses all of that. But those words I feel like a lot of people use freedom or wildness or truth, and what does that really mean? And they mean very particular things to me in my work. So I do want to explain those more. Go for it.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah.

unknown 6:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

So freedom for me is I'm wanting to lead people into a sense of authenticity with who they really are. So their fullest expression, their authentic expression, and being free to embody that without the limitations and the conditioning and the stories and the beliefs that hold us back or cage us or block us from actually being able to express who we really are. So for me, a lot like a big piece of my work is actually like a deconditioning or trying to shed layers, which is why I use the snake imagery a lot because it's just shedding the skins and the layers of what keeps us from actually being our authentic being. And then the wildness plays into that because wildness to me, I follow it through how it's described in Women Who Run with the Wolves, where wildness is like the natural state, like the forest is wild because it's just in its natural state. And so, what is our natural state? If we weren't domesticated, if we didn't have these rules or guidelines or societal pressures, who would we actually be in our natural state? So something I explain to women on my retreats is when you see an abandoned building and the and nature is reclaiming the abandoned building. It's like this piece of land that was once domesticated. When it just is free to become its go back to its natural state, the wilds just reclaim it. And then so that's what I'm wanting to do for people is if you stopped being domesticated and let the wilds reclaim you, what would you how would you be? Like how would you move in the world?

SPEAKER_00 8:52

I love that description because I love abandoned buildings. I love watching that process. It's so beautiful to me. I think about that a lot.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

And I think Scott has also been tainted by the idea of wildness like girls gone wild or things like that, where it's wait, what? I just think sometimes had conversations around wild women and you feel like it, I don't know. It does it doesn't resonate with you.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

You're not a woman, but like this is what Jenna's describing resonates.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

No, I know that's what I'm saying. Like I feel like her description was is so great because I could just feel that. Oh, that is the description that Scott has needed. If I talk about wildness but don't exactly know how to describe it, he's what does that mean? You're my wife. What does that mean that you're gonna go and be wild?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yeah. I don't know. No, maybe some context. Are we gonna have to edit this part out? No.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

No, but I think this is good to bring up because that word is a weirdly loaded word that a lot of people she talks about this in Women Who Run with the Wolves, too, Dr. Estees. She talks about wild. We think wild, we think totally unhinged or out of control. So she talks about how people hear wild and they think out of control, as though it's something really, really negative or doing harm or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:15

And unhinged is actually also an interesting word because I do see women marketing things as come and be unhinged. And I'm like, I don't know that I want to be unhinged. I think I do want to be the abandoned building reclaimed by the trees. But unhinged to me is a strange word that is starting to be used as a positive.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

So I suppose there's just some nuance in language and what it means to people and how it's like white, and this is what you're alluding to, John. And great for you to expand on what you mean by these words because yeah, it can be maybe loaded or confusing.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Yeah. And even words like unhinged. I actually wrote a poem where I was like, yeah, I want to be the screen door, like slapping in the breeze, like that sense of, I don't know, like more free flowing and moving, like rather than but you're still on the hinges.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yeah, that's still hinged, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:11

I'll have to read the poem.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

I'm all for that. I'm all for that.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

I know it's all you're right, on the hinges. So just on the lawn. Yeah. I think, yeah. And that leads me into the next piece of aliveness and truth, because I also think a piece of this is embracing all aspects of yourself and all archetypes within yourself and all of them being important. And so I do think there is a time and a place to actually connect with the part of you that feels insane. And then I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Yeah, like I resonate with that a lot, to be honest. And I don't know if men resonate with it the same way. I don't know. I'm only within women's experiences mostly. But sometimes we we feel insane. We feel like we're gonna go in. There's so much, there's so much pressure, there's so much expectation, expectation, and then we have so much desire and so much longing and all these emotions.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

And I'd say those things hold true on either side, but the way it's expressed might be or the tendency of what to do with it, perhaps is different.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

It's less of a fear for men of I think with women, it's been there's like hysteria, like hysteric women. I feel like there's been more of that movement in the past of like when women were letting out whatever you want to call it, more of their wildness. They got institutionalized. So there's something about the fear of that for women that almost makes it a little bit, I don't know, just an interesting feeling of like by having pressure around it, it almost makes it more important to feel it. Whereas I think for men, I never think about like men going crazy and getting institutionalized, even though I know that happens. But like for me, I think of the stories of women with that.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

I don't know. I'm gonna have to, I'm really curious now to think more about this with men and women.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

Yeah. I do think a lot of us have, I have we're going down a rabbit hole now, but I have weird past, either ancestral or past life, some sort of weird memories around institutions. And I've had this since I was a kid. I've had this weird fascination with mental hospitals. And we used to drive past this big one called Creedmoor in New York when I was a kid, and we'd always drive by, and my mom would point it out, and I would feel this really intense, weird pit in my stomach just from looking at it, and it's like this weird, creepy knowing. And I don't know what that is, but I feel like a lot of us have we maybe just carry this wounding, and maybe it's this wounding around what you said. So many women were institutionalized for various reasons that were not actual, they needed support or they were just expressing what was natural to them.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

And I think just there's I just feel into that archetype of being kept in a box. And I'm thinking about actually when I was in England on Annie Dalt's retreat in Glastonbury, and we did this witness dance, and I was naked in front of this group of women. You could choose whether or not to be naked. I chose to be naked. It was like very uncomfortable, but I just knew I should do it. And I ended up just as I just let my body move to this music, I wasn't so much dancing, but then suddenly I was like clawing my way out of a box. And it felt very, and for the other women in the room, it felt very symbolic of yeah, just what we all have had to as women carry. And I again, I don't know if this is an experience men have, but this feeling of just having all these expectations, like you said, the expectations that hold you back from speaking your truth, from living into your aliveness and being your natural wild self because of societal conditioning and whatever else.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I would say in this present moment, I think all of that's extremely relevant for men as well. As we're like That makes sense. As we've just looked at maleness, masculinity is bad, is wrong, is is what caused all of these problems for millennia. And it's just like uh that's Nicole talks about this really eloquently of how that sort of the idea of masculinity, men don't know what to do with it because we're told that it's like what has caused all these problems that you're describing. That is the result of masculinity. But she turns on her head and talks about how it's actually there's there is something of value and special about masculinity. It's just that the scales have been so tipped, and that's just so I don't know. I think it goes it's different. The character is different for sure, but I think it exists on both sides, that feeling.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

I think that totally makes sense. Yeah, and the masculinity that maybe caused some of these issues is I wouldn't even say is true masculinity. It's like a distortion.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

And that that's her point, that's what we have come to call that. But I think it is really confusing for men and young men in this climate that we live in now. I think they're the message is that it's wrong or bad or something like that. So I think it can be quite confusing and pretty caging.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

And confusing for parents because for us, mothering girls and a boy, it's parenting. Sorry, parenting. Parenting girls and a boy, it's a very different experience to see our son and Remy, and he's a little wild, aggressive animal, and he needs to get that physical aggression out. And I don't mean aggression in a negative way. It's like I always thought of aggression as a negative thing, but then I learned of it as actually just being able to take action, that being able to take action to protect or defend or that sort of thing. So yeah, anyway, we are getting down a rabbit hole, but I think it's all probably interesting for people to think about and consider. And I think that these three words that you are orienting around are so beautiful and they definitely resonate with me. And I definitely, having been on your Costa Rica retreat, which was just, I'll just mention really quick because it was just so life-changing and magical that when I was pregnant with Serena, I think I was like 25 weeks, maybe 20 weeks pregnant, something like that. And I got my two best friends from high school, Attica and Michelle, to come on this retreat to Costa Rica. We all live in cold places, Michelle in Alaska and Attica in Toronto. And I hadn't even seen Michelle in, I think, 10 years, just because we lived so far away from each other. And the fact that we all got to come on your retreat, and we were all so healed and also so lit up in our aliveness at the end of that retreat. It was really beautiful. And I just love the way you hold space and yeah, just the magic that comes out of that sort of gathering and the different women's circles that you lead. And I think that those three words, I think we very much very quickly all three of us got to those words the to the freedom, to the wildness, and to the aliveness. Are those the three words? Did I get it right? And truth, a kind of words.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

Aliveness together. Maybe it's four words. Let's just make it four.

SPEAKER_00 18:45

I think you were starting to talk about the aliveness piece before we got done.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Okay, yeah, tell us more. That's okay. Well, it was tied into what we were talking about with just allowing all parts of yourself, whether you're a man or a woman, right? For me, truth is being with the truth of the moment and really accepting all parts of yourself. And that is a big piece of my work that I really want people to take away. It's not just, I do a lot on focusing on aliveness. And I just did this awaken your aliveness challenge where it was like, okay, you don't have to change anything in your life to feel more alive. And I gave all of these different practices and keys for how you can find the aliveness that is here right now. But one of those keys of the aliveness is to be with what is. So it's not that we're trying to only feel alive and only feel good and only feel joy and pleasure, but that actually the key to your aliveness is to be with the truth of the moment. And if that truth of the moment is grief, rage, frustration, fear, longing, all of those emotions that can feel really uncomfortable, that is a key. Those emotions are the key and they're a part of the journey that actually without like when you go into those things without trying, you do expand your capacity for joy and aliveness. But I'm definitely not in the camp of let's just focus on all of the things that feel good because the things that are hard and feel uncomfortable actually are so beneficial and actually have their role too. So if you're pushing away the things that feel uncomfortable, you're not actually fully alive in my mind. You're like half alive because you're only feeling like half of the human experience, and you're not expanding to your full wideness and capacity of what you can actually hold if you're only going into the things that feel comfortable. So that is a big piece of my work, is we'll do grief ritual or we'll tap into anger and we do things that feel difficult too. And then we do things like frolic around a Maypole and dance in the jungle in Costa Rica, and that feels really great too. But it's like my work is really spans the whole range of ex accepting all of you.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

That's awesome. And I would say maybe there's another word, Jen, that ties into this that I associate with you, which is presence and how that sort of comes into the aliveness. I feel that's really a gateway into feeling alive is to be really present. And this is something this is why I love my work on the farm, is because I get to really be present with the land and with the plants. And I feel like just whenever we spend time with you or when I see you posting things, it's just like you seem to really embody that sort of I don't know, just letting life unfold as it does and having all the synchronicities, like animal experiences, and just following that. I'm I just I love that about what you're offering and putting out there. And the idea of presence gets me into this sort of next question that I have, which is around or just curious, you're in Florida right now. Now, right, you're in Naples. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So just wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what you're excited about in Naples, Florida, right now. What is going on that is exciting or blooming or things like that?

SPEAKER_02 22:14

In nature.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

We're in summer now and the rains have just started. So yeah, for those who aren't familiar with the with this area, I'm in southwest Florida. So we're in like zone 10, tropical, subtropical climate. So in the summer here, we have a rainy season and we have a lot of thunderstorms. So I'm really excited about that. I love thunderstorm season. It's hard down here in the summer. It's very hot, but the storms are amazing. And with the storms, we get the most amazing sunsets. Summer sunsets are beautiful. And the clouds in Florida are just so incredible too. Because I grew up in New England, so I wasn't used to the flat land, like totally flat land. And there's something about flatness that just makes the clouds, I think, just seem so intense and expansive. And then with the storms, like we get these big billowy storm clouds. So I'm super excited about that. The rainy season. And then everything grows so fast down here in the summer. If you are not landscaping, which is like the bane of my existence, by the way, like leaf blowers and things like that. That's one really downside to living down here. But it will just turn into a jungle if you stop touching it for two weeks. It's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

That is cool.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Yeah. And I just actually saw the last gardenia. I feel like it's like the main cookie because normally the gardenias down here are blooming in April. They stayed a little bit longer this year. And then I just saw one, I think it was last week. I saw a gardenia still blooming, and those are my favorite. Just that scent is my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Yeah, I can't remember if I told you that's a really special plant to me. My grandmother had a gardenia in Kansas, which I'm like, I don't know, I don't know how that worked. Like if the zone there, whatever, anyway. But she did. And was it outside?

SPEAKER_00 24:19

I thought it was inside her, like a pool.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah, but it was outside. Nearly positive it was outside. So that's why I I'll have to talk with my dad about it. But our mutual friend Dewey made some gardenia hydrosol and gave me some. Did I tell you that? No, but I know she made some. Yeah, it was so beautiful and it just took me right back to childhood. I don't even think I'd smelled that since I was a kid. And then I had the very last bit of it, and Remy added some mouthwash to it to make a special nice smelling potion. And I was like, no, I thought it was water. It was like classic kid moment, but it was, I love the smell of gardenias. I saw one at my brother's house in Texas, and I was just like, oh man, it's just I it's just one of my favorites.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

It's so intoxicating. I turn into, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I'm like left for doing gardenias. I literally, I'm like a bee. I just smell each individual flower. I'm like going from flower to flower just to see if the one's a little bit different. And sometimes they are. And I'm just like, oh, I just can't get enough.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

That's amazing. Well, you did mention growing up in New England, and so we are curious about your childhood and kind of like what makings of your current life you can see from your child self, either especially in relationship to the natural world or people that were really influential on and you feel like led you on your path even as a child.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

Yeah, I feel like so much of how I am now actually is me getting back to how I was as a child. So I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire called Jaffrey, and I just remember nature just being my refuge, like my safe space and my peaceful place. So both my parents moved from New York City. So they were both city people. Although my dad did have some time as a kid growing up in some of the nearby towns to Jaffrey, and his sisters actually went to my high school. But he left that area when he was 14 and spent the rest of his life until they moved to New Hampshire in New York. So it was like I had city parents transplanted raising us in New Hampshire. But my dad would take us out. We lived right at the base of Mount Mananock, and we had like all this forest behind us. And so my dad would take us on walks in the woods. He'd be like, want to take a walk in the woods, and we'd go out, we'd find like all these old horse trails, like horse paths out there in the woods, I think from the farmers. Because we had farms on either side. It actually would be interesting for me to go back and learn a little bit more about the history of all that.

unknown 27:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

But we had these walks in the woods, and that was a really big piece of my connection to the natural world. It was really exciting, and we'd go back in there. And my dad, even though he grew up in New York, I do feel like he had this deep connection to the forest. He wanted to be out there, even if he couldn't do it a ton because he was traveling and working. And he'd just, yeah, he'd take us through and he'd teach us like how to attempt to not get lost or drinking from the streams. He would, I don't know if we are allowed to do that now, or what people would say about that. He'd be like, If the water's moving and it's clear, you can drink from it, we would drink from it. And I don't, those are just really good memories of mine, is those walks in the woods. And then I had a couple special places in nature that I would one was a hammock that I would lay under these trees. I don't even remember. I think they they were probably birch and maple. And I have these vivid memories of just looking up. It makes me emotional to think about just looking up at the leaves of the trees and just being under the trees. It was like so special to me to just lay in that hand. I can look up and be like just totally covered by the trees. And I had another little special place where I would walk into the woods where these two rocks, there was like a taller rock and a shorter rock or the boulder, and then some sort of evergreen tree that would cover. And so it was like a little fort in nature. One we had a rock wall, and then I'd sit on the rock, and then there was this evergreen tree over the top. So I could kind of sit in this little nature fort. And again, going back to liking to be in enclosed spaces, I think it was like my own little enclosed space in nature. And we had this old stone wall that was right right next to it. And those are yeah, some of my just peace. I just felt such peace there. Oh beautiful. Yeah, it's really, it was really special to me. Just yeah, I just was had a natural connection. And I keep this memory keeps flashing in my mind actually because tying to my work. I remember when my goldfish died. And it's funny because I now what I do is ritual and I ritualize everything. And I I just I create little rituals in my own life, even to mark little moments. And I remember crying on my mom's lap when my goldfish died, and she said something about flushing it down the toilet. And I was like, No, it can't be. I can't flush it down the toilet. And I don't even know how old I was, you know, maybe I was like six, I don't know. And I I remember carrying my goldfish in a little cup of water, and I carried it out to the woods, to a different part of the woods, and found another big boulder that I knew of. And I dumped it out on the rock to just be in the woods. And I just thought of that recently where I was like, oh my god, I was creating a little funeral nature earth funeral for my fish, even before I had been taught to do that or knew about rich. So it is pretty cool how that was just a piece of my soul. It was like just this knowing of, yeah, this doesn't seem reverent to just flush this fish down the toilet, right? I'm gonna go create a little resting spot for it.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

I love that, and I can relate to that. I always I have memories of little like me and my best friend finding a dead mouse or something, doing little animal funerals, and when we had chickens for a while, always I just thought of this the other day. I had some really gross compost that I had to get rid of from some old bins of vegetables or whatever, and I had to go find a spot that I wanted to start this new compost pile. And I wanted to I dumped this stuff there and it was just laying on the ground. And this is just old rotten broccoli and cauliflower and stuff. But I took a bunch of, there's a bunch of ferns around, and I gathered a bunch of ferns and just laid that, laid it over the top, more for a kind of like practical matter of just so that it'll have something to help it break down and to have a stink glass, maybe thing. But as I was doing it, it reminded me so much of in the past when we've had laying hens die, and we went and had a little funeral ceremony with the kids. And there's something about laying something that has died on the earth and covering it with beautiful plant material that just even in itself feels like ritual. It just, yeah, it was really weird because it, like I said, it was just it was compost, but it it evoked that same sort of feeling of it's something that we would naturally do, and it was beautiful. The ferns laid on top of it, it was just a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

It's like a ritual for transformation, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:48

Yeah, I love that. And I still do stuff like that now. If I can, if I see sometimes I see bunnies that were hit by a car or something, and if it's not on a crazy busy road, but if it's in a community or something, like I'll try to move it out of the road and put it under a tree. Or I don't know, I just feel little things like that are a big part of my life, actually. I take it, I do take the time, even though I feel like I'm so busy sometimes and I'm trying to find more spaciousness in my life. I actually do really prioritize spending time on things like that if I see it, or like you said, being present, being with animals, being observant, connecting with.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

Yeah, well, you embody the work that you are the medicine that you're meant to share in the world. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

So did you want to ask any more about it? Yeah, I asked um ask this one.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

I'm curious about if you have any kind of first memories of connection with your body or ancestors, early memories of those connections.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

Body is an interesting one. I think just what pops up into my mind is my first period and fear I had around that. I actually I had a lot of anxiety. I had I feel like I had a weird connection, not weird connection to my body, but like weird introduction to learning about my body. It was very like I think my dad gave me a book on puberty or something. So it was like reading about it and then take having classes about about my body change and the fear around getting my period and the like just the intense anxiety around. My mom, I remember one day told me, like, oh, I think you might be getting your period. And I was like, and I just went into panic. I could barely eat that day. It's a very vivid memory for me. The fear was so intense, and I wasn't getting my period. I think I got my period like a year or two later. But it's funny that's what pops into my head first is like the awkwardness and the fear around learning about my body and its changes as a woman. Trying to think if I have any other real childhood memories.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

I think that just speaks to how little these things are talked about, or especially back when we were kids, and maybe more so now with women that we're in communication with. But I was just thinking I was at Ella's dance recital, and I was I volunteered to take a group of kids to the bathroom during the show. Like all these kids got up, and I wasn't really the volunteer, but I saw them all moving and the mom being like, ah, we've got to, someone's gotta take these kids to the bathroom. So I went and when we were in there, there were like, I don't know, five or six kids that were probably seven, six or seven years old. And one of them was like, What's this? And it was the tampon dispenser. And I was like, Oh, it's for I was like, how do I explain this to a group of kids I don't even know that in short amount of time, I was like, it's for mamas and women when they're bleeding and they're like bleeding from where or some some sort of question like that. They're like bleeding, like band-aids. And I was like, no, like bleeding from their vagina. It's what happens to women once a month. And one girl was like, Oh, my mom has that. And like another girl was like, Yeah, I think my mom has that too. But it was like for so many girls, they didn't see their mom experiencing that. I don't feel like I really had much introduction to that before it happened to my own body. And so it's, I feel like I encounter that a lot with women I work with that like they they didn't have any introduction to their body, or if they did, it was not with a lot of comfort. And so it was like anxiety producing to suddenly have these big changes happen, like your first bleed.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

Yeah, and reading about it in a book is way different than somebody lovingly explaining to you what it means to be female and what changes you're gonna go through, and that it's a beautiful rite of passage, not just this release. We're just gonna start growing hair in different places. And yeah, it's like, what? That's terrifying if you're just reading about it in a book.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

I know I feel like Ella in the book that we read, Ella's 10, and it's actually not just one conversation, it's so many little conversations that need to happen every single time that bit of anxiety comes up for her. Because I remember when we were reading this book together and she was like, I'm gonna start smelling. And I was like, don't worry, it's okay. But it's yeah, that's I think that's just it is it needs to be a really ongoing conversation with a really present parent in order for it to not feel like a huge shock. And it still might be a shock for her when her first bleed comes. But we have a lot of conversations around all these changes with puberty, and it's just I can see in her that it's such a big deal. And I don't even remember having any of those conversations with my mom, for example.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

And then ancestors, yeah, living ancestors that I got to connect with when I was young, or any other feelings or experiences or yeah. We have such a mutt of a background as a lot of people in the US do. And I feel I connected a lot with my Italian lineage through the my mom's side of the family because I do feel like Italian Americans actually they keep a lot of traditions, as I'm sure Scott. And so even if it's I'm trying, I think my mom's grandma was from Italy, so like a couple generations down, it's like the traditions were still happening, and so I grew up going to these huge holidays where we would Christmas Eve, we do the feast of the seven fishes and uh just have so much food and like it was yeah, so much food. And I think I just felt even though I didn't know uh cognitively about what those traditions were when I was a kid, it just felt like I was connected to a big piece of that lineage because so many people would come together and they were all living in New York, and we would travel to New York and it would just this huge extended family. We'd be seeing the cousins of the cousins and then the the my mom's cousins and their kids and the great aunts and the yeah, just this huge web. And so that's been that was really cool for me. And I've been slowly talking to some relatives and trying to piece together a little bit more of my family tree from all of that. I took a trip up there a couple years ago and started interviewing some of my family members and recording and trying to piece together some of our ancestry more on that side. And then on my dad's side, it's a little bit more of a mystery on my dad's side, but I remember as a kid, I just having very close relationships with both grandparents because my grandmother on my dad's side actually lived with us for a period of time. And she was a writer and an artist, and that was really cool to have that influence. And I'm a writer now and an artist who needs to start painting again. And then I was like soulmates with my dad's dad, and so was my sister. We were both very close with him, and he was just such a special person. He is the one that I credit my love of travel to and the travel bug, as we say. He took us on our first international trip to London and France when we were like 14 and 16 or something. Wow. With my parents. But before that, we'd be getting postcards from all over the world. He was traveling, he had friends all over the world, and this is obviously pre any sort of email or any electronic technology. So he made friends everywhere and he would stay in touch with them via letter or sometimes long-distance phone call. And he would just tell us all of these stories. He was a big talker and storyteller, and he had this crazy memory. So he would just tell us all of these stories in great detail and bring us little trinkets and things like little mini Eiffel Tower, little mini big interviews. And it just, I that definitely seeded my interest in exploring and exploring the world. And my parents, they took us on trips every year too around the US. But yeah, my grandfather was really he was such a unique person, really an explorer and lover of life. He loved the opera, he loved movies, he worked at NBC, he was a film editor, so he loved movies and film.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

And what was his name, Jen?

SPEAKER_03 42:35

Milton. Milton Wyatt.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Yeah, yeah. So I don't know a ton about his lineage, to be honest. I met his mother when I was a baby. She was still alive, Stella. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

That's cool. Yeah, that's nice. You alluded to this a little bit. Maybe you didn't. I don't know. Maybe it's because I know you or maybe that's a funny way to introduce this. But it sounds like you had like a special connection with the natural world as a little kid, and you certainly maintain that now in your adult life. I'm wondering if there is a time in your life that you felt disconnected from like from the natural world, from your body, those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_03 43:29

Yeah, I don't I feel like I always maintained a connection to the natural world through my knowing and my heart, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

I actually have one tattoo on my body that I got when I was 21 that is a symbol that means the divinity of Mother Earth. So I even it's funny, like I look back at that, I'm like, oh, that was really important, so important to me that I tattooed it on my Body. And but through my 20s, I was living in Boston. And I would always stay connected to nature through going to the parks or going to walk down by the water, looking at the trees, that sort of thing. But I was not in any way immersed in deep nature for a very long time. I didn't have a car. When I was dating someone, we would sometimes go up to Vermont, actually to Quichi. I would spend some time up there and we get into nature and we do some hiking. But for the most part, it was also a lot of concrete that I was around. And Boston, Boston's a beautiful city and it's very green as far as cities go. I feel they there's a lot of trees and some beautiful parks, but it's still a city, and you're still surrounded by concrete and buildings. And I do feel like throughout that time, even though I had that heart connection still to nature, I think it's moving in at a city pace and focusing on work. And for me in my 20s, I also really got into partying and drinking a lot on the weekends. And I feel like it's a big, at least it was a big thing in Boston where that was like the social scene was you're going to bars. At least that's what it was in my friend group. And so I think during that period, I did become a bit disconnected from my body, especially. Drinking to just have fun with friends, but then also sometimes drinking to just avoid emotions and not want to feel things. And so I would say my 20s would have been the time that I was probably the most disconnected from my body. I did the on paper things that were taking care of my body sometimes, like going to the gym and I walked a lot and I ate decently, but it was not really coming from a place of deep reverence, like I'm doing this to take care of my body. It was just coming from a place of this is just what I should do. This not going through the motions.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

And where do you feel like that changed what experiences happened that kind of put you back more on the path you're on now?

SPEAKER_03 46:36

It was a very interesting series of events. One was the death of my ex. We weren't together at the time, but he died of a drug overdose. And then I was in my like one had to go through the whole breakup with him the year or two years prior while I was teaching in Boston public schools in a very tough neighborhood. And that was a really challenging couple of years for me. And then this was my Saturn return, by the way, for anybody who's into astrology. So then he passed, and I just I was in my second or had just started my third year of teaching, and I was having all kinds of health issues at this point, like a ton of inflammation. My hair was thinning. I had gut issues, I had such fatigue where I'd be reading a book to my elementary school students and could barely keep my eyes open. And it was intense. And I was going to various doctors who told me that I was fine. I talk about this a lot online, like just the how the medical system it has really failed me in a lot of ways, personally. So I feel passionate, passionately about holistic health for this is like near and dear to my heart, where I would go to various doctors. And I think I saw two dermatologists about the hair, I saw one or two doctors about everything else, and they told me I was fine and that I could take rogain if I wanted to help my hair. And I was like, I'm 29 years old or whatever. This is not right. I knew it was not right, and I just kept digging and digging, and I found a functional medicine or naturopathic doctor named Steve Cabral, who actually blew up. He's really famous now. So he has a podcast, and he was in Boston. And I wrote him what was going on, and he wrote me back this email that was like a full page long of this is what might be going on with you. This is what we'll test, this is what we'll do. But it was not like, oh, you're probably just fine. Just yeah, get some more sleep or whatever. Take some rogue.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

More rogue, best thing.

SPEAKER_03 49:03

Just wear. Just yeah, use the rogue. Just letting you know that when you stop using the roguein, your hair's gonna keep falling out. Thank you so much. This is a great solution.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

And so I went to him. Long story short, I followed his plan. I that was like the peak of my health, to be honest, was after working with him. Two months later, it was insane. Like all the inflammation left my body. I healed my gut. I was sleeping great. I had so much energy. People would stop me out and be like, what are you doing? You look so healthy. You're glowing. And during that period, this is where this is important. I had to stop drinking alcohol. That was part of my anti-inflammatory diet. So I was still hanging out with my friends, but I would go out with them and I would just have a soda water with a splash of cranberry or something. And this was like my reclamation, honestly. It was not only reclaiming my health, but then going out and not using alcohol and realizing that I could go out and have an awesome night. And I could come back. I used to have this mirror right outside of my door in my, I lived in the north end of Boston on the fourth floor walk-up. And I would see myself in the mirror and I would be so happy coming home. And I'd be like, oh my God, this is me. I'm feeling happy because of me, not because of because I'm drunk. Yeah. And that totally changed my life. And then I started to feel because I felt so good, I was like, I want to do things for me. I had energy to do things for me. And so I went to an info session about a yoga teacher training. And then ended up signing up for this yoga teacher training, not thinking I'm going to become a yoga instructor. I just had this intuitive sense, like, let's just do this thing for me. And then that was like my spiritual awakening that led me into now I've been teaching yoga for a decade. But ultimately, that's what led me to where I am through the yoga world or the yoga teaching world. Cause I was already practicing some yoga before then. But through that yoga teaching world, I was just opened up to then the world of ritual and the world of moon magic and women's circles and all of that. And so yeah, that's my origin story.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

I love that because your body, I just often feel into how pain or dysfunction in our body is actually just an invitation. And it was like your body was giving you this clear message that something's out of alignment. And then by not using alcohol, you were able to really feel into that truth of who you are and your intuition, and then it guided you on your path. So I just think that's so beautiful and special. Yeah. I guess I'm wondering just where you feel like you're going. And I do want to just put a little plug in for the book that you're going to write or are writing or multiple books that you're writing. And yeah, I know when you interviewed Scott, he felt that was really a really powerful conversation. He's, I wish we'd recorded that for our podcast, but it'll be in your book. So do you want to share a little bit about yeah?

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Maybe when you get closer, maybe we'll have a conversation on the podcast again around the subject of your book.

SPEAKER_03 52:42

Yeah. I also did record that conversation.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

Oh, I guess that's true.

SPEAKER_03 52:46

Send you if you're wanting to use pieces of it. But yes, I would love to have another conversation as it unfolds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

Yeah, just yeah, what you're excited about and what you're working on, where you feel like you're going.

SPEAKER_03 53:02

That is a question.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

And since you alluded to the book, would would you speak a little bit about that project? So that people aren't like, or is that are you still because it's so unformed?

SPEAKER_03 53:16

I'm like, there's some part of me that feels hesitant. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 53:19

Leave it as a mystery then. That's that works.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

It can be a mystery. I can definitely say that it's about living close to the earth, living close to cycles of life and death, and looking at like eating animals. I know that's like that would be uh an interesting. I was telling a friend about it, and he was like, eating animals. That's the name of your book, eating animals. But it's about it's about our role and being tied with the cycles of life and death and being intimately a part of the cycles of life and death and nature. And so that's one project I'm working on and interviewing various farmers and hunters about their experiences. And then I, yeah, I am also working on another book that I have partially written that I kind of just I still have going, but this other book feels more alive for me right now. And my one of my main mentors and teachers, Danielle Dolski, I'm doing a writing, my third writing mentorship with her, and she was like, You always want to write from the place of aliveness. She's just heap writing from that place. So the other book's not going anywhere. It's the other book is a book form of my online course, Return to the Wild. So it's like I have all of that content in my being and in my course. But yeah, this other book, this I forget what I kind of my working title, but it's about living the sacredness of life and death and being an intimate part of that.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

Very good.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

So yeah, those and I have two other book ideas that are also swirling in me. There's a lot of babies that want to be born, but I need to make time to be to birth. But and then on top of that, I love writing poetry, and I also am leading my rituals and retreats. So I have a retreat coming up in November that I'm really excited about. It's my third retreat to Costa Rica, our awaken your aliveness retreat. And that Lindsay was speaking about. When Lindsay did it, she did my first one to Costa Rica. That was called Return to the Wilds, which again is a similar theme to my online course. And then this one, Awaken Your Aliveness, it is really focused on presence, like what you were saying, Scott. It's really doing a lot of practices of really being in the senses and how to really savor the moment and doing that in a place that is outside of your daily life and really immersing in it can be really incredible to take that week. I say it's like a time out of time, or you're just immersed in doing that work.

SPEAKER_02 56:23

I highly recommend those retreats. I feel like you're just such a skilled retreat leader, and I've been on a bunch of retreats, and that was by far my favorite. And the place that you're having it at Goddess Garden again.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:37

And that's just such a sweet place with the most delicious food. And yeah, just so beautiful. I loved everything about it. So I hope some of the people that listen to this will go on that journey with you.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

Yeah, I would love that. I would love that. They this is actually the last year. So I just led one in March, and normally I wouldn't leave them so close together, but the current owners are retiring. And found out, I was so sad. And she was like, Well, you could come back in November. And I was like, Can I? So I decided to put it out there, and there's 12 of us right now signed up. So that's amazing. It's happening. They rec they reserved the whole entire goddess garden for me and my group. So we definitely have space. And so this is like the last hurrah under the current ownership, and it is such a magical place. And the land is so healing. There's just something about the intention of the owners and the land and how special it is. Even if you just went and did no workshops, it would be healing. But doing the workshops on that land is just really special. So yeah, that's coming up. And then I also have a circle in two days about the threads of fate. This is just for people who are local to Naples, but I lead these like one evening ritual experiences where I tie in a myth or archetype into our experience. So we're gonna learn about the fates, the myths of the fates.

SPEAKER_02 58:16

I just read your email about that, and I or something about I think it was an email, and I was like, Oh, I wish I was there. It sounded so cool.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Yeah, I love myths and stories and finding how the myths apply to our own lives and creating experiences where the myth can come alive in somebody's life. So yeah, and I know I have a lot of things that I'm trying to do. I'm hoping that in July I'm gonna launch this other little mini experience similar to Awaken Your Aliveness, that's gonna be called the Undomesticated Woman. And it's gonna be similar to what we spoke about at the beginning of the call. What are the cages or the binds that kind of keep us from being our natural self? And so how do we recognize those and work to remove them so that just our true self can naturally shine forth? Love that.

SPEAKER_00 59:15

That's all very cool. That's great. We have one more one more question here. Is there any bit of advice that you wish you had received earlier on your path?

SPEAKER_03 59:33

Yes. Probably a lot.

SPEAKER_00 59:45

Take your time.

SPEAKER_03 59:49

Honestly, I think it would come down to trusting myself. I think that I lead this work because it's the work that I needed, slash sometimes still need. That's like add on to the things that we need that are our medicine. And I internalized other people's ideas of what I should be doing so much. And then I it created this voice, this part of me that it's the practical one that doesn't want to trust the more intuitive side. So that's been something I've had to really hone. And I do feel like at this point in my life, I'm seeing all of the ways that I trust myself, and it feels incredible. But it's like the first 40 now, and I'm seeing it come to fruition and start to even blossom more. It's like the first half of my life. It was a struggle to really feel into what do I really want? What is my soul really desiring, really truly desiring, versus what somebody else thinks that I should be doing or something? And yeah, I the advice would be to just trust yourself and follow what makes you feel alive. Trust yourself and follow what makes you feel alive. And you don't need to question that.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

That's beautiful and important. Okay, and can you tell people where to find you?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

Yeah, I would say I am the most active on Instagram, but you know how Instagram B. Sometimes it's hard to put up in people's feeds, but follow me on Instagram at Wanderfree Wellness. Wander W A N D E R. And I also have a website, wanderfreewellness.com. And I have an email list and a substack where you can get some of my writing and things like that. But I'm the most active on Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:08

Perfect. Thank you so much, Jen. We'll definitely have to have a second interview with you at some point because there are some things I would love to continue talking with you about. And we're so grateful that you're in our life and so excited for more people, hopefully, to find out about the magical work that you share in this world. So we're very grateful. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

Yeah, thanks, Jen. So nice to talk with you.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

Yeah, thank you both so much. Yeah, I'm so grateful to have both of you in my life and have our endless chats.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:39

It's beautiful. Thank you for listening to this episode of Homestead and Heal. If you loved it, please help us spread the word by subscribing to this podcast and leaving us a review. For more information about our work, visit homesteadandheal.net.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

We're wishing you the life of your dreams, one that feels deeply rooted, fully alive, and connected to the earth beneath your feet.