The Everyday Type of Woman We All Need

We were about three days into a world-renowned life and wealth mastery retreat, traveling over 12 hours to the beautiful islands of Fiji in mid-July of 2018. We were sweaty, musty, hungry, emotional, and so keenly aware of how our bodies were processing the fast and juice cleanse that started on day one of this retreat. This was only one of the amazing (and very smelly) portions of the retreat.

Another was a series of exercises to discover, re-frame, and rebuild our life’s beliefs – a way to emotionally, mentally, and spiritually detox yourself. One of those exercises was a simple guided meditation. We did that elementary-style exercise of “pick your partner by the first person you lock eyes with, GO!”

The catch? It couldn’t be someone you’ve already partnered with for a previous exercise.

So, as my eyes scanned the wooden room with open windows of Fiji’s white-sand beaches, I passed my previous partner’s wide eyes trying to signal, “Hey, let’s just be partners again because it’s easier.” Gracefully skipping her again, I landed on a 5-foot-tall, red-headed young woman vibrantly smiling with her greenish eyes.

Her name is Jessica.

Prior to this retreat, I was a 21-year-old young professional who had recently graduated from college as the first in a family of immigrants from the Philippines and Japan.

I was a girl who had spent her childhood thinking the word “stupid” was bad until 12, practicing karate until I was 13, and always trying to play catch up or competition with my two older brothers.

I was a girl who always tried to do things perfectly and right the first time because I was scared of failure and judgment. I was a girl who battled depression and self-harm because I believed I was alone, I had no support, I had no love, and I would inevitably die alone. I was a girl who fought hard to get out of that dark pitfall.

I was a girl who went to college because of family and societal pressures that resulted with me at 21, working my ass off to graduate and complete an internship that led to my first career job at an agency. I lost my dreams in the chase of a success I thought I wanted.

Yet, I was unhappy, unfulfilled, lost, and deeply confused.

Then in March of 2018, our family lost of one the most influential women in our life. A sudden death that changed the course of our family forever. She’s my #1, my angel, my grandmother.

I’ll never forget speeding down the freeway for 2 hours to arrive at some hospital’s emergency room in San Diego with my face and shirt soaked by tears. The site of seeing someone I love in a physical state that is the farthest representation of who they are as a person. Or the deep, dark pit your stomach falls into as they wheel them away to hopefully change the foreseeable future. Or the goodbyes that never seem to stop because you’ll always miss them with every ounce of your heart.

I didn’t know how to let her go and desperately get rid of those feelings. Those mixed with my 21-year-old dramatic mid-life crisis of trying to figure out my entire life caused me to begin my soul searching.

In short, this is how I ended up in Fiji at the life-changing retreat in 2018.

Divine Timing

Jessica stood in front of me as another 5-foot little lady. We introduced ourselves and proceeded to follow the instructions:

“Pick person A, the one who will be guiding the meditation. Person B, you will lay down and listen.

Person A, use your intuition to guide them through this meditation, asking them what they are grateful for, imagine their loved ones, picture happy moments, and speak from your heart.”

Little did I know, I was someone who was now partnered with a powerhouse of a woman – one who naturally is an intuitive energy healer, a traveling yogi, advocate for wellness for all, and so much more.

Perfecto.

One minute, we settled in. I’m flat on the cold floor feeling warm, small hands hovering above the crown of my head with a soft voice trailing in the background.

Three minutes in, I am crying my eyes out to what was supposed to be a happy meditation to a woman I’ve never met in a foreign country surrounded by more strangers.

Ten minutes later, she’s just listening to my word vomit of sadness as the entire room exits because the exercise is over. Yet her wide green eyes never left mine as she listened attentively.

This was the first time we met. And as messy as I remember it, it was divine and beautiful because she held so much space for me to grieve. She shared stories about how she still chose to communicate with her past loved ones, how to grieve, how to move on, and how to ultimately rewrite the stories in my mind.

I found peace again that night. Hope and faith again. Love overwhelming my soul again.

An Everyday Woman

A week and a half later, we’re all saying our farewells to our new family from Fiji. I found out that Jess and her husband only lived 40 minutes away from me in California.

What are the odds, huh?

The more I saw her, the more I learned about who she was as a person and who she always aspired to be.

An east coast girl who grew up with a lot of core values of family, hard work, and giving to others. She was the first to graduate from college, going from business to theater, aspiring to become an actress, which eventually led to a bartending career.

It was around 2013 when she went through her own deep healing journey that forced her to prioritize her health in a way she never had before. It reminded her of what she was truly passionate about: helping people.

I learned one of the influential women in her life is Kelly Noonan, the director, executive producer, and writer of HEAL. A film about the power of the mind to heal the body, featuring Deepak Choprah, Bruce Lipton, and Marianne Williamson.

Jess said, “Kelly is inspiring because she doesn’t really care about what anyone thought and made a movie. She wanted to make it herself. She was always curious about the power of the body to heal itself.

The 8 or 9 months in her work environment, even though she wasn’t already a thought healer or leader, she didn’t let that stop her to build out that on her platform. For me, I’ve always struggled with having the knowledge or the training or a meditation guru, why would anyone follow me.

Working with her, I learned the everyday person can bring people together which leads to the work that I’m doing and putting myself out there as a teacher. It’s hard to make a film and she just put it out all on the line, I just admire that.”

An everyday woman who gave her all to make a dream come true. A dream that educates, inspires, and opens up a realm of possibilities.

That’s who Kelly is to Jess.

And go figure, that’s who Jess is to me.

The Lesson

I have the honor and blessing to be such great friends with Jess as well as a mentee. I watch as she lives so expansively, courageously, and selflessly.

Jess is a woman who nurtures and heals everyone who comes into her life. She’s a natural connector and community-builder, a trait she learned from her mother as she hopes to always make people feel at home, valued, and welcomed. She is all the characteristics young women see in their mentors: confident, intelligent, sassy and classy, caring, heart-driven, successful, and constantly evolving the road for other women.

She envisions a dream, goes for it, and brings along the natural talents of others to co-create something special with the goal of always serving others.

I can easily go on about what an amazing person she is, but what I admire most about her is a lesson I’ve always learned from her: lean in.

Lean into love, lean into discomfort, lean into growth.

Lean into yourself, lean into others, lean into your challenges, and so on.

This simple saying, “lean in,” is immensely correlated to one’s growth. Meaning, you will discover profound insight from your awareness and your adversities.

Any time Jess faces a challenge or discomfort, she gracefully welcomes it with, “how can I view this? How can I shift towards my vision? Why is this important to me? What is the lesson here? How can I see this from a lens of love, compassion, and wellness for all?”

Simple questions that become part of a daily practice to become more aware and mindful of oneself. To open up and expand not only our thought process but our hearts to the world. A lifestyle of connecting deeper with ourselves and our emotions. A practice to become more for ourselves and for others.

The act of leaning into discomfort is where I’ve found the answers to my own troubles of my soul. Every time I have some sort of “issue” or “challenge” in my relationships, career, or any other part of my life for that matter, I think: “lean in and listen.”

Listen to understand myself, raise my own internal awareness, and focus on what I can control…my thoughts, my beliefs, my actions, my reactions, and my ways of being.

The Impact

Along my journey of self-discovery and self-creation, she was one of the firsts there as a catalyst to the woman I am becoming. I remembered my number one dream to travel and give back to the world.

As the universe will have it, Jess founded a nonprofit organization focused on travel and global give back the same year we initially met.

Jess and two of her guy friends traveled to Nepal for a 25-day trek around the Himalayas. She always traveled with aims to give to the countries she visits in a way that will truly impact them. On their journey, she was eventually introduced to Unatti Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides comprehensive programs for girls in Nepal who live in vulnerable situations.

“I fell in love with these girls, got to meet them, and popping in their life was so inspiring.

We thought we were helping them out and we brought them school supplies and clothes, and then they actually gave it away to people in the community who were less fortunate than them.

We thought we were helping them, and they turned it around to help their community. We then came home and raised $80,000 because they do so much for their own people.”

And that’s when Kind Footprint was born.

Fast forward two years later, one second Nepal trip, and a bunch of meetings later – I get to lead on the board of directors alongside Jess and an incredible team rebranding Kind Footprint into an even more amazing organization. A platform to connect the world to trustworthy organizations, a way to advocate for smaller organizations making positive changes in their communities, and a movement to redefine the way giving back looks.

Jess still teaches me to always lean into the discomfort especially today where we are experiencing so much physical, and perhaps emotional, disconnection. To shift my perspective in a way that is not naïve or “positive vibes only,” but to see things for what they are and for more than what they seem.

We have the opportunity as a global community to rethink the way we live and as Jess says,

“We are forced to have a hard stop and think of a new way. This is such an interesting time and as scary as it is, I am excited to create something special from scratch. We can move forward in building a beautiful world that’s more conscious and loving, find the ways we best express and connect with yourself - to really empower people and other organizations to really connect and rely on each other.”

My Hope

I wouldn’t be here, as an everyday young woman going after my dreams, if it wasn’t for having my own badass woman leading in her own life. It’s more about the questions I ask myself rather than the answers I used to desperately plead for. The quality of questions that forces my perception to be more open that leads to an abundance of knowledge and wisdom.

It’s now about creating my own dreams and laying it all out on the line. It’s about leaning into my own growth as a woman contributing to the world. Hopefully, in a positive and inspiring way.

One that I hope not only inspires the young girls I absolutely adore in Nepal, but one that inspires young girls in every country to continue rising above any challenge with grit and grace.

One that extends traditions from learning from mothers and grandmothers to expanding our reach as global sisters.

One that challenges women to live from the hearts as they continue building and nurturing communities of both men and women to promote unity, peace, and love.

One that gives more women the opportunity to create even more for themselves and their families professionally by first focusing on education. Not just improving various education systems globally, but also furthering education of the mind, body, and spirit.

One that empowers women to be more than visual influencers, but empowered women who use influence to truly influence and empower other women.

One that teaches women you can be sexy, smart, and silly. Or fierce and wild. Anything you desire, really.

I just hope one day I can be as much of an impact to other young women as Jess has for me.

To the everyday woman in my life, co-CEO of the Little Lady Group (a small group consisting of Jess and I), my mentor, my friend, because of you I am an ever-evolving, multi-faceted go-getter and go-giver of a woman on a mission to be a positive difference in the world.

Jess, with much love and light, I thank the gods and universe for you and celebrate the natural, inspiring woman you are. You are a woman who has created a lasting legacy on my life and for a fact, the lives of others – who would whole-heartedly agree.

My Challenge to You, Our Readers

How often are we asked to celebrate the everyday women in our lives?

How often do we actually do it, without a holiday, a month, a birthday, or any reason really?

If this story touched an ounce of your soul, go to the woman who has touched yours the way Jess has mine. Share with them why they inspire you, your gratitude for them, and why you believe in her just as much as she believes in you.

And for those with loved ones no longer with us in this physical world, you can still speak to them and send them your love. But that’s just my belief. A beautiful belief a 5-foot, red-headed gal helped me lean into and reframe a couple of years ago in Fiji.

Cheers to the everyday, global women in our lives who stand as inspiring leaders for future generations to come.