#7: Jody Shield – The Power of Self-Belief, Passion & Discovering Your True Self
Join Kristina as she speaks with the wonderful Jody Shield, author of Life Tonic: A Modern Toolbox to Heal Your Life and Soothe Your Soul in our latest episode.
As a top wellbeing influencer, award-winning blogger, meditation expert, inspirational speaker, broadcaster, mentor and all-round inspiring soul, Jody's simple advice on tapping in to your true self and finding what lights you up is sure to inspire you on your own dream life journey.
Based in the UK and previously a high-flying Business Director in advertising, she has first-hand experience of the stress epidemic that plagues our modern world. She has been affectionately referred to by the Daily Mail as the 'Glamourous face of wellbeing,' and after taking the leap to leave her corporate career and follow her passions, she now supports people to process the past, be present and create a life they love.
She’s the first European meditation ambassador for global brand Lululemon Athletica, and has sell-out residencies across London, including her own LifeTonic events. As a consultant, Jody works with huge global brands, including our very own Dream Life to inspire, teach and change lives.
Jody is amazing example of someone who has taken control of her life, jumped in the driver’s seat, and by discovering her passion is now living a life of purpose.
In this fresh and inspirational episode, you’ll learn …
- How tapping into your inner child can help you get more in touch with your true self
- The importance of writing down and visualising how you want your life to be
- How finding what drives you, what lights you up, can help you live a more fulfilling life
- How you can shift your energy, raise your vibration and embrace an ‘I can’ attitude in your everyday
...and so much more!
RESOURCES
- Jody Shield https://jodyshield.co.uk/
- https://www.instagram.com/jodyshield
- She's Electric with Jody Shield Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/shes-electric/id1437647221?mt=2
- How does it get better than this? Downloadable image here
- Damien Wynne https://www.damien-wynne.de/
- Your Dream Life Starts Here, Kristina Karlsson
- Dream Life Journal
- 101 Dreams Audio Guide
THIS IS A FULL TRANSCRIPT OF KRISTINA KARLSSON’S CONVERSATION WITH JODY SHIELD
Kristina: 00:00:04 What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail, if you had all the money, all the time, all the knowledge, all the resources that you needed? What would you do with your life if you simply knew that anything was possible for you? My name is Kristina Karlsson, founder of Global Swedish Design and Stationery brand, kikki.K and author of the book, Your Dream Life Starts Here, and I love exploring these sorts of questions to inspire people to dream.
Kristina:00:00:35 Before I started kikki.K, I had a dream that I could bring Swedish Design to the world, to create beautiful products that bring sparks of joy into the everyday lives of millions. Now that I have achieved that dream, I want to help you dream big. I want to create a global movement to inspire 101 million dreamers, to transform their lives and transform the world in return. Each episode, I’ll be talking to some of the world’s most inspiring people, exploring the powerful impact that dreaming has had on their lives. We’ll be diving deep into the power of dreaming with real insights and ideas that you can use immediately to build a dream life of your own, whatever that means for you.
Kristina: 00:01:30 I am so excited to be speaking with the inspiring Jody Shield in this episode. Jody is a top wellbeing influencer, award-winning blogger, meditation expert, inspirational speaker, broadcaster, mentor and author of Life Tonic: A Modern Toolbox to Heal Your Life and Soothe Your Soul. Based in the UK and previously a high-flying business director in advertising, she has first had an experience of the stress epidemic that plagues our modern world. She has been affectionately referred to by the Daily Mail as the ‘Glamorous Face of Wellbeing.’ After taking then leap to leave her corporate career and follow her passions, she now supports people to process the past, be present and create a life they love. She is the first European Meditation Ambassador for global brand, Lululemon and has sell-out residencies across London, including her own Life Tonic events. As a consultant, Jody works with global brands including our very own kikki.K to inspire, teach and change lives. Jody is an amazing example of someone who has taken control of her own life, jumped into the driver seat, and by discovering her passion, is now living a life of purpose.
Kristina: 00:02:49 In this episode, you’ll learn how tapping into your inner child can help you get more in touch with your true self. The importance of writing down and visualizing how you want your life to be, how finding what drives you, what lights you up can help you live a more fulfilling life and so much more. I just know you are going to love this episode, so let’s get right into it.
Kristina: 00:03:13 Well, hello, Jody. Welcome to our Dream Life Podcast. Thank you so much for taking your time to speak with me today. I’m super excited, and know we’re going to have so much to talk about. You have had such journey from a career stock in the corporate cage, as you have referred to it, to becoming a wellbeing warrior, meditation expert and spiritual healer. I can’t wait to explore your inspiring story during this podcast, but first, I’d love to take you back to your childhood. What were your dreams for the future when you were a child?
Jody: 00:03:44 Wow. What an incredibly powerful question to start with. I’m going to get to that in a moment, but it was so interesting writing the book because when I took time off to write, I’m sure you can relate to this as well, the writing process was so cathartic, and it really unlocked those childhood memories and those childhood times more so than anything else that I’d really practiced. I really got into my childhood again through writing the book. I remember many things that I didn’t remember or have never remembered, so it was really interesting connecting to that aspect of me in a much deeper way than I had before and really talk to her and communicate with her and understand her more. I feel like when I finished writing the book, I had a much deeper understanding of my childhood. I could remember many more things.
Jody: 00:04:42 Anyway, to go back to your question, what dreams did I have as a child? The biggest thing for me was that I really, really wanted to work with animals. It was huge. I wanted to be a vet, and I wanted to look after sick animals. Then, I wasn’t particularly academic at school. However, I ended up having lots of animals in my life that I would nurture and nourish and look after. I feel like, that was the biggest thing. Through that connection with animals, I just became more and more intuitive. Say that, and then, that was my biggest dream. I wasn’t particularly interested in school, just wasn’t that driven or focused because that just wasn’t my journey with school at that time. I didn’t really have many dreams around career or wanting to get into Oxford University or any of those big milestones. I think my dreams were so much more about creativity and connecting with people and having animals in my life and just being in people’s lives and being present with people. Yeah, I think that was what was going on with me as a child.
Kristina: 00:05:54 What made you then go into being, I guess, a high-flying advertising business director to change your path completely?
Jody: 00:06:02 I feel like when we go into higher education, I sense that very often, we aren’t really ever aware of all the options that are available, especially when I was early 20’s, late teens. We’re not really aware of the options that are available to us. If you’re not necessarily on a path of academia and you’re a little bit more alternative, there’s not really much or there wasn’t really much available to me that would really resonate with who I was at that time, and so what I did was, I fell into a marketing course in my college. I really liked that. Something about that really lit me up. It was probably because it was in alignment with the first part of my journey. It really guided me into its industry, I sense. Then, I went to university, did a marketing degree, and I specialised in advertising, and so without really understanding what I was doing or, again, what the options were, I fell into a career in advertising. Then, I worked my way up.
Jody: 00:07:04 I remember distinctly. I have lots of memories like this, but a collection of memories, really, where I’m in this corporate office, and in that moment, just thinking to myself, “Is this it? This is it. This is it. This is the rest of my life here, right now. This is it,” and just feeling so trapped and suppressed and anxious and all of those feelings and sensations that you experience when you are off your path or out of alignment, or you’re not following your truth. I feel like so many people can relate to those feelings. On a deep level, for me, one of my biggest values, we talked about values. We’ve talked about values a lot, but one of my biggest values is freedom. I’m a Sagittarius star sign. I’m fiery. I want to be independent and free, and so when I’m stuck in an environment that doesn’t support that, it squashes me immensely.
Jody: 00:08:04 I think I just got to the point where my anxiety and my feelings of being squashed and not being able to breathe, really, just overpowered me so much that I had a meltdown. I was in bed on and off with illnesses, and yet when I look back, it was clearly stress-related. They were all stress-related. Then, I remember a particularly strong powerful experience where I was just lying in my bed feeling so hopeless and powerless and stuck that I started to dream. This inner light just flipped on. I started to daydream about where I wanted to be. I think it was the first time that I really allowed myself to dream and to connect to who I was and what I wanted out of life. It took me to a place that was way out of London and was full of really interesting new cultures and people.
Jody: 00:09:08 Yeah, a couple of weeks after that, I ended up giving in my notice and having a sabbatical from the job that I was in and booking a one-way ticket to South America, which is quite a big thing for me at the time because I hadn’t allowed myself to really tap into my freedom value. At that point, I was still stuck and thought I would have to be contained. I went off to South America, and lots of very powerful experiences awaited me there. The most powerful experience I encountered while I was there was that I had the opportunity to go into the jungle in Peru and work with an indigenous tribe. The indigenous tribe called the Shipibo people. They’re very prominent in that part of Peru and the Amazonian, and yeah, so to had the opportunity to work with that tribe, and when I say work, I’ll explain a little later about what I mean.
Jody: 00:10:05 Indigenous tribes, they often heal themselves and others through plant medicine, so they will go in isolation for six to eight months and diet plants and meditate with plants and tune into plants and receive insight and guidance from plants in terms of what the specific plants are used to heal or to cure in people. There’s one particular plant medicine, which is very, very powerful and should only ever be really ingested under the supervision of the people that have really worked with it for a long time. You take it in a ceremonial nature. Anyway, it’s really very powerful at guiding and just looking inside and to connect to the old traumatic memories from the past that you’ve subconsciously hidden away. You can really connect to those and bring them out and heal them and transform them and let them go in a very safe space.
Jody:00:11:09 I went into this experience, and I ended up healing many deep topics that I was holding onto that I was mainly in denial about, which was very interesting for me. I did a lot of group sharing with the group, and that was the first time I really opened up and shared and spoken about myself really, so extremely powerful experiences, and I’m, to this day, so grateful to have that opportunity to work with the Shipibo because it’s very rare that you get an opportunity to work with an indigenous tribe. When I came out of that experience, it was incredible because during the ceremonies, the Shipibo tribe had predicted many things for me. They predicted that I was going to be a doctor. They were calling me a doctor, and of course, my ego immediately went into, “Oh my gosh. I’ve got to go back to uni and train for seven years. Oh, no. I’m not academic,” and all of these stuff that was coming up, but really, I got what they meant.
Jody: 00:12:05 What they mean was that I was put on this planet to support people with healing. The first evolution of my journey really was being an alternative therapist. I was supporting people. I had a clinic in Marylebone in London. I was seeing people back-to-back over three days a week. I was seeing thousands of clients. My clinic was always full, and it was amazing. Then, yeah, then, my work slowly evolved over the years. I ended up doing something that I love actually, and I have woven in enterprise and conscious business and helping women find their power. Really, a lot of my work now as an advanced coach is to help people to tap into that inner power, but all of that started as my journey when I went into the jungle and really stepped into my truth and owned who I was and accepted that I was to go down this very, very different path of empowering people and helping people.
Kristina: 00:13:08 That is amazing. What a great story. You took such a big step leaving the safe career to pursue your passions to go traveling. I’m sure that wasn’t an easy decision, but what were the major obstacles you faced along the way to take that decision? How did you overcome them?
Jody: 00:13:28 You’re so right. It was a really interesting decision because being brought up and raised in a family who are entrepreneurs and business people and have never known what it’s like to really not work and to take time out and to go find yourself and go find what lights you up and all of that, which is why I did. Trying to explain to them that I’m just going to take some time out. I’m going to go and put myself back together. It was … Not that they weren’t supportive. They are supportive, but when you make big changes in your life, you have to … When you ask for support from people around you, you have to understand that not everybody’s going to understand what you’re doing. Some people will think you’re mad, so it was, I guess, people questioning. “Wow,” like, “What is it that you’re doing? Is this right to take time out at your age? Is that a good idea?” Definitely, the self-doubt started to creep in.
Jody: 00:14:26 Then also, I believe that as humans we have the capacity to experience the full spectrum of emotions and quantities within us, so you might label people as, “Oh, she’s very extrovert and out there,” or, “Oh, he’s very introvert and likes his own space.” I feel like I’m both. I feel like we all are both really, and so it depends on the environment, doesn’t it? For me, I’ve never really been on my own that much, and I’ve never really been without support and friends around me. To go into a completely new country, new continent, South America, to travel around different countries like that, which were deemed to be quite dangerous actually by us, by a lot of Westerners. It’s deemed that South America is quite a dangerous country, so I think that was the biggest thing. It was like the expectation that I was going to be unsafe while I was there and traveling around was quite scary.
Jody: 00:15:23 Then also, I am very much an experiencer. What I mean by that is, I don’t tend to take hours out of my day to do research and to read up on things. I very much believe that life’s about really showing up and tuning into yourself and all the information comes. Then, the energy that you might have spent in researching might be better off spending with your family or whatever. That’s just my view. It was my story for a very long time. Then, I realized that I was sabotaging my research side. Now, I have started to research at the same time. I didn’t do any research.
Jody: 00:16:00 I didn’t really know what I was getting myself in for, and I think that, looking back, was such a good thing because if I had known that I was going to go into that experience, A, I would have gone in there with fear and anxiety and nerves and probably would have been very afraid of what was going to happen to be. B, I feel like when you go into these experiences with an open mind, so much more can happen, so much more can happen. It’s really, you go in there with no expectation. That’s when magic happens. Yeah, they’re my main things.
Kristina: 00:16:37 Yeah, really interesting. I think we all need to do more of that to really experience what life can give us if we give ourselves the opportunity to do that. I know many of our listeners who will be listening to this and relating to your story of being overwhelmed by stress of the modern life, I think a lot of us are like that, so being able to take that leap must be so empowering. I also personally believe that we have the power to make positive changes in our lives, and that jumping into that driver’s seat of our own lives is one of the first things we need to master. How to do that is a subject of one of my early chapters in my new book, Your Dream Life Starts Here. Do you have any advice for our listeners who might be thinking about making a big change in their lives but might be a bit fearful of doing that?
Jody: 00:17:24 Absolutely. Yeah, something that’s really serving me well at the moment is this very, very simple shift in mindset. Notice environments and situations that trigger you. Notice when that little voice comes up and starts telling you, you can’t or I can’t. For me, it’s the gym. I like working out, and I like, at the moment … At the moment, tomorrow it could change, but at the moment, I like high intensity HIIT training. I don’t know why because I’m not really a HIIT [person, but for some reason, that’s what I like to do at the moment. It’s intense. It’s fast-paced. It’s like circuit training. As soon as I used to go into that room, and it’s a dark room, my little voice used to say, “You can’t do that. You can’t do that. There’s no way. You can’t run. You’ve never ran on this treadmill for an hour and sprint.” No, I mean a minute and sprint. “No way. You can’t do that. You can’t lift those weights,” and I immediately looked at myself in the mirror in the room, looked myself eye-to-eye, and I said, “I can. I can. I can.”
Jody: 00:18:31 I’ve started really embodying the phrase, “I can,” and I tune into everything energetically and emotionally as well, so if I’m saying affirmations, I really need to understand what the affirmation is doing for me on an energetic level, how it’s shifting, how it’s working with my body so that I can then teach it properly to people and help them understand any resistance that might come up while I’m there saying this affirmation. For me, when I say I can, I feel the sense of opening my body. I can. My whole energy field shifts to a vibration or a feeling of openness and possibility. Life is all about possibilities. My first spiritual teacher always said to me, “Whatever’s going on in your life, Jody, always stay open to all possibilities. Stay open to all possibilities.” That phrase is just stuck with me. This is five years ago when he told it to me.
Jody: 00:19:29 Whether I’m running a meditation, whether I’m going to do a coaching session or I’m helping someone get really tuned into their vision and mission and why they’re here, then, as soon as we hit some resistance, which is going to happen because resistance is a part of any creative process in any visioning process. If you just say to yourself in your mind, “I’m open to all possibilities now, and I can. I can. I can.” You don’t even need to go on to explain what you can don. Simply just saying, “I can, and I’m open to all possibilities,” those [00:20:00] statements as well as being very profound, energetically, they do really impact you and affect your energy body. You know this better than anyone else. Really, our biggest goal and objective in life is to keep our vibration high, keep our energy good.
Jody: 00:20:18 That really means if you’re not sure about the terminology, and I don’t use much, but you’re not sure what vibration means, it really just means feeling good, feeling joyful, feeling happy. If that’s your only mission, your only job, your only goal, your only objective every day is, “I’m going to … My job today is to feel good, is to feel happy, is to feel joyful.” Then, you’re winning. Yes. You’re going to come up against resistance, and life’s going to throw you things. Even when life does throw you things, you’ve always got a choice, so for me, I choose to protect what I call my alignment every day. I choose to protect my energy. I choose to protect my vibration. I choose to protect how I feel, and that way, even if I’m going through something that’s not so nice, my recovery time with that will be much faster.
Jody: 00:21:10 Staying open to all possibilities, I can immediately shift it. I feel like those things are really, really important. Just something else that I was just going to mention that came up when you asked me that question was, the reason why I feel like I was fearless in terms of handing my notice in and making that huge decision to change career and have nothing to go to … Actually, I had nothing, no plan B, so I gave in my notice. I just went off, and things started happening. That’s how it happened. I didn’t have a plan. I was naively innocent. Innocence is an incredibly powerful childlike quality. We all, we’re very innocent as children.
Jody: 00:22:00 The reason why it takes a little bit more work for us to cultivate that quality within us these days is that we’re mostly disconnected from our inner child because being a child …the inner child aspect of us is the part that’s maybe suffering a little bit or maybe being suppressed by you because at one point in your life, you decided that it was much better to be mature and grown up and adults. Then, you’ve separated yourself from that joyful aspect. When we connect to that joyful aspect of us, our inner child who exists in the psyche, it’s great because that’s curiosity quality and innocence. [00:22:30] Curiosity opens doors. Innocence is an amazing quality to display and own because it’s very naïve but in a beautiful way. Again, you can have really innocent conversations with people that end up very powerful ones.
Jody: 00:22:45 I think the word humbleness is coming through as well. I think you and I were talking earlier about qualities we admire in powerful women as well. For me, definitely, is a sense of humbleness, and that’s what you have, Kristina, in Spades and our other friend, Ella has as well, so it’s yeah, it’s childlike curiosity, naivety, innocence and humbleness and just allowing those parts of you to be here now in all the decisions even when the majority of your body or mind or heart is saying, “No, this is the wrong decision,” yet you know it’s right. Just keeping those things in mind is really powerful at helping you get to that next step.
Kristina: 00:23:27 I love that. It’s funny. We are talking a lot about that at kikki.K, that we tend to, as children, we used to dream. We get a lot of people saying, “Well, I don’t really know how to dream.” Obviously, that’s part of writing the book, but as kids, it’s easy to dream, but we tend to forget that. We’re going to bring that back to our everyday life. Being innocent, it’s just that when we were talking earlier, there’s just nothing better than not knowing or you don’t know because then, you can just throw yourself into it. If you knew every angle, and I think that’s maybe what fear does to us, stop us because we think that it’s going to be uncertain times or whatever, but if you’re really throwing yourself into it, there’s always some gold in there if you dare to do it.
Jody: 00:24:09 Yeah, absolutely. That’s so important. Engaging your inner child is such an important part of dreaming, as you say. I totally, totally resonate with that.
Kristina: 00:24:19 I think if you ask a child, “What would you do if you could do anything?” I actually did a dreaming exercise with Axel’ class sand one of the boys in his class said he would have pizza on Mars. That is a great dream because it’s not impossible. It might just take a little …
From an outsider’s perspective and especially, we were talking about this earlier again, that it’s so easy to look at people’s life from the outside. If I look at your life, and a lot of people who know about you would think that you living your absolute dream life. Of course, there is no such a thing as a perfect life, but do you feel like you’re living your dream life today?
Jody: 00:25:00 Again, lovely, interesting question there. I feel like again, we were talking about this earlier, but I sense that we have this innate drive to desire more and more and more. There’s a reason for that. The reason for that is that, and I’m a very spiritual person, but I feel like we have this life force energy moving through us that spurs us on, that inspires us, that triggers us creatively. That life force energy is consciousness. It’s spiritual energy. It’s consciousness. That aspect that we plug into, its sole purpose is expansion. We’re plugged into that, so therefore, one of our big objectives is expansion. We can’t get away from that. People at this point normally say to me, “Yeah, but what about the homeless people on the street?” I’m like, “Well, their soul is on a very different journey and a very different vibration.” That’s great. That’s what they’re going through, but people who are awake and aware and on a path of striving or high-flying in a career, they have this desire for expansion.
Jody: 00:26:05 That is interesting because it means that we’re never … It can breed the feeling that we’re never fulfilled, that we’re not quite enough. As we know from the brilliant Marisa Peer, “I’m not enough is the disease of humanity, really, and this sense that I’m not enough. I haven’t got enough. I’m not doing enough,” et cetera. That really is there. That is there. That’s always there, and so I say that right now, I am so grateful and so blessed and so lucky, I would say, to be where I am and to be having just an incredibly rich life. Not just financially but health-wise. There’s a lot of transformation happening for me this year, and I love transformation, so this has been an incredibly powerful year for me.
Jody: 00:26:56 It’s been a year where I’ve really realised my power and owned that, which is huge for most women to have to claim. Really, to allow myself to be full volume on stage and fully who I am and fully, to talk about, I don’t know, sexuality and all those juicy topics that I love to talk about with people. Normally, people find it uncomfortable. I’m very lucky to be able to be very open about money. I love having conversations about finances and helping people with those. I am very much living a dream life. I feel like the thing is, is that when we’re in it, we don’t always realize that we are in this very amazing privileged place that we actually worked very hard to get to. For me, I think the work within a work, that was my work. It was inner work.
Jody: 00:27:51 I feel like the inner work piece for most people is often the hardest because you have to look at yourself and face yourself and got to own those disowned aspects that you’ve been running away from for 20 years. That was the work for me. Then for me, doing the work and making action steps, that’s the easy part, really. For me, it’s like, the hardest is the inner work. If I reflect back on the last five and a half years because it’s been five and a half years. My journey with this business is five and a half years. When I reflect back and I’m like, “Wow. That’s crazy.” In fact, even if I look back six months ago, in fact, if I look back at the beginning of this year in January, my inner voice said to me, “Right, Jody. This is the time for you to turn pro.” Those people are looking at me from the outside who would be like, “You’ve been pro for the last five years.” I’m like, “No. Actually, I have been running away from turning pro.”
Jody: 00:28:45 What I mean by that, I’ll explain what I mean by turning pro. What I mean by turning pro is accepting responsibility and the power of who I am in creating a very abundant, conscious enterprise. That means that I have accepted the … It’s not even an idea anymore, but I am a very powerful force for change in the world. I have accepted that I’m a global leader for transformation, for change, for light. To do that, I need to have a sustainable, highly-profitable enterprise that’s conscious, that cares about the planet, that cares about what we’re doing to earth, that is also really powerful in giving back. That, for me, was huge this year, was to really start to go deeper with my why, go deeper with who I am, claiming who I am, claiming what my vibration was and finding, recruiting incredibly powerful partners in the not-for-profit sector that I could really get involved with.
Jody: 00:29:49 That really anchors in the purpose of why we’re here doing what we do and how, when we become a channel for great wealth, it’s not about you having the money. It’s about you being the channel to be able to then funnel out the financial reward that you’re receiving out into the world. It’s like we are this great funnel for resource. That basically my biggest mind shift from January this year. It’s been very powerful. Realizing that and also running away from that so obviously, and I think that stepping into those, I call them the big girl Jody pants. Stepping into the big girl Jody pants and realising that this is so beyond me. This is so beyond me. This is way beyond me, was really being powerful.
Kristina: 00:30:42 Thanks for sharing that. We got some really great things for our listeners to ponder. Thank you so much for sharing that. One of the things that I love about you when we met, and we just started kikki.K in London, you were so kind and helped me connect with so many people that you knew. First, I’d like to say thank you for that. That was so amazing, and I love that about you.
I’m really a big believer in the power of identifying who can help you achieve your dreams. I’ve included exercises in my book for people to really stop and consider the people that can help their dreams come true. One way of doing that is sharing your dreams because you never know who can help you, and I love that, but also, taking some time to write down who can actually help you with your dreams and who you want to meet who can inspire you.
Kristina: 00:31:31 Did you have a support network to lean on during your journey? If you did, how did they help you along the way, because I think that will be quite interesting for our listeners to hear, because that might trigger some ideas on how they can do the same?
Jody: 00:31:43 That’s amazing. First of all, to give you some background on me, I come from a family of very fiercely independent female business people and entrepreneurs who don’t find it easy to ask for support or help. When I started the business, it was challenging for me to ask for support from girl friends around me actually. Looking back, it was actually a way of … I find that when we don’t ask for support, it’s a way that we sabotage ourselves and our progress because none of us are as smart as all of us. If we don’t make it together, we don’t make it, so it’s really important that we have support around us. For me, my journey with this took me to my first spiritual teacher, actually. An amazing Irish guy called Damien Wynn.
Jody: 00:32:32 He is, still to this day, and I’ve met many, many spiritual teachers, but still to this day, he still remains the most tuned in egoless teacher-mentor that I’ve ever met. He’s not necessarily in the public eye. He’s big at what he does, but he’s not … He doesn’t have books out or anything like that. He’s actually dyslexic. His journey is not to be in the public eye and write loads of books. His journey is to be the light. That’s what he’s done. He’s channelled through his own technique and all of that. Anyway, I was so very lucky to find him because he really was the first person that supported me to do that really, really deep inner work. Meeting him really made me realize that unless I got myself out of the way, my limiting beliefs and fears, and that I started that early on, then the business wasn’t going to be as successful as it was supposed to be.
Jody: 00:33:27 This is not about Jody Shield needing the success. This is about Jody Shield being a very clear messenger for the communication, the energy, the healing, the inspiration that needs to come through and out into the world. He was my biggest supporter in the beginning because he … I mean I went on a huge journey with him, and he basically really taught me a lot about myself. It’s funny because I’ve met a lot of very, maybe a bit older spiritual gurus and teachers, and often, they say to me, “Wow. You’ve learnt so much in a short space of time. It’s taken me years to get to that idea about teaching.” I think that some of us are just meant to go on a faster journey for different aspects of our lives. I was just meant to go on a really fast journey and to know myself really quickly and then go off and do the work. That was my first big support system.
Jody: 00:34:25 Then, I started reaching out to my friends, and actually, I have let a lot of friendships go when I came back from that trip in South America because I actually didn’t know who I was at that point. I was going through so much inner transformation. I didn’t know who I was, and so I didn’t know how they would relate to me. I let a lot of people go, but then, when I started letting people in again, firstly, I expected no one would understand what I was going through but yet they did. That was amazing. They did understand.
Jody: 00:34:53 Then, I’d say that early on, I went into a group, an entrepreneurs’ association. I can’t remember the name of it now, but I was in a group, a community of women. That is very powerful because when you’re tuned into the energy of a very inspirational group who are all doing really incredible things, it inspires you to keep going even when it’s hard, even when you feel like you can’t do this. It inspires you to keep going. That, for me, just to surround myself with other women was really important both because of the results that we got from it and the connections that I made but also from a healing perspective for me, having not allowed other women in to support me for so long.
Jody: 00:35:38 I think that, and then, in terms of tips, I mean I would say this because I am one now, but having a coach has been one of the most interesting revolutionary things that I have done in my life now. I’ve had mentors, and I’ve had healing people. I’ve had vibration people. I’ve had loads of different people around me but never someone that was consistently showing up for me. I feel like even though that first investment that you make in a decent coach who’s high quality can be a big one.
Jody: 00:36:12 I really believe that when you make those investments, you get it back 10 times over, and so when you’re starting out on this journey, get some support from a coach or even enrol yourself in a coaching program, a group coaching program if you feel that one-to-one work is too much of an investment at this stage. We need someone who’s there solely for us, cheering us on, telling us how great we are, telling us that they can totally see our potential that we’ve got this. Whatever it is that you need to hear to really grow that muscle of self-belief, to help you keep going when times are tough is so valuable. Yeah, that’s what I would share.
Kristina: 00:36:49 Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I was also been part of EO, Entrepreneur’s Organization, and that’s been really great for me. I’ve also had a coach. Actually, it was funny. When I now launched a book, I got an email from my first coach, which she was my coach when I just started kikki.K, and she sent me the email I sent to her because I couldn’t afford a coach. My view was that I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t want to waste my first hour with her telling her about me, so I wrote her a massive email. She sent that email to me.
You are a self-confessed lover of kikki.K products, which of course, I love, so thank you for all your support on that.
Kristina: 00:37:27 I have noticed that you encourage people to use [vision boards and journaling in your teaching, which I also love because that’s also very aligned with what I love. I believe strongly in the power of putting pen to paper, as you know, and writing don your feelings and dreams consistently and not just a one-off thing, which is obviously a huge part of my new book, but in your opinion, how important is writing, manifesting and visualizing to you personally? What impact have these practices had on your life?
Jody: 00:37:54 Wow. The power of writing things down, the power of sharing things is just immense. I think that in those early days, and I’m sure you can relate to this as well. You know in those early days where you start these processes off, there’s a little bit of embarrassment, isn’t there, about like, “Oh gosh, if anyone sees this,” or “If I share things, people are just going to think I’m mad.” That embarrassment or awkwardness or shame around really putting things out there can often close us down from the beginning. I feel like that in itself, what’s going on there is just the form of you that is afraid of being visible. That’s all it is. Once you get over that and you realize the power of sharing and vocalizing them, saying them out loud in repetition, then you won’t even not do it.
For me, I journal every day. I also have a script that I read out on my phone. Now, I put my phone onto airplane mode when I do this, and I don’t ever sleep with my phone in my bedroom. It’s as far away from the bed as possible.
Jody: 00:39:03 What I realized was the power in actually scripting our lives and scripting in how we want to feel in the morning, it crosses over to journaling, but there are different types of journaling depending on different kinds of objectives whereas scripting, I found really powerful. I’ve got quite a long script, and I will literally … I’ll read it out every morning, and it takes me about 15 minutes. First of all, there’s a couple of journal paragraphs about how I want to feel just to boost my mood. It might be things like today, I wake up. My thoughts are naturally positive and how amazing my life is and how exciting my day feels. I know something incredible is about to happen in any moment, and anything else that I want to script in there.
Jody: 00:39:49 Then, I go on in chronological order to script big life events that are coming up or, I don’t know, launches or things that I’ve got going on in my business or in my relationship or in my friendships and just transforming the energy and the way that I feel around those future events has really been a very powerful practice for me. Also, to look back and to see … I remember, last night, I was doing a script training, actually, in my group coaching program called Get In Flow. I was doing a bonus session, and it was all about script writing. I was reading out to the very end of the script, and it was so interesting because in December, I’d written something about how I feel about my finances and money. I was like, “Oh, I’m already there. That’s great.” It’s December, but I’m already doing it. I’m already there. I can totally relate to that feeling right now. Then, when that happens, you’re like, “Great. I’m going to expand that.”
Jody: 00:40:48 My most powerful mantra, Kristina, for this year, it’s more of a question really, is, and I tell everybody to say this about 15 times a day. How does it get any better than this? How does it get any better than this? That mantra for me is amazing when you’re feeling down because of course, it gets better, but equally, when you’re feeling on top of the world and your most joyful self, asking the question, “How does it get any better than this,” is an amazing invitation for even more expansion to happen. It’s great because we have to keep pushing ourselves into the space of learning and out of our comfort zone because we have to keep working our subconscious and working those limitations and expanding them. How does it get any better than this? I basically ask myself that 15 times a day, and it’s really, really amazing and helpful. When I notice something that I’ve achieved in the script, I’ll go back. I’ll expand it even more. I’ll expand on it even more. That was amazing.
Jody: 00:41:53 Then, in terms of visualisation, well, that’s a form of visualisation because I get very in tune with the feelings, how I want to feel, what’s going on around me. Basically, it’s like a movie script. When you’re scripting, I want you to be scripting a movie, and you’re really going to detail about where you are. You’re taking a moment to be like, “It’s the 15th of January. I’m sitting in this incredible place on Miami beach. Sorry, Malibu Beach, and I feel, I can smell the ocean. I can hear the birds singing. I can feel the sun on my face. I’ve just been brought a green juice, and I’m so excited to drink it.” Things like that is my way of visualising. That’s how I visualize the moment, but journaling is invaluable. I do practice what you do. I know because you shared it just before we started the podcast. I basically just … I’ll journal two pages. Then, I’ll rip it out, burn it. It’s just really a way of me clearing the pipes, clearing my channel.
Jody: 00:42:55 Then, on a full moon, so we’ve just had a full moon. On the full moons, the full moon’s a very energetically potent time for great things to happen. It’s an accelerator. When you want to let go of things and you’re openly declaring that to the universe on a full moon, you can literally feel those layers peeling off. Equally important is that when you’re wanting to manifest and call things into the space that you just created by letting go, then equally potent time. It’s very powerful to do an exercise of letting go and then calling in on the full moon. I do my journal, and those times, I’ll have a separate moon journal for this.
Jody: 00:43:37 On one page, I say at the top things I want to let go and on the other page, it’s things I want to call then or manifest. I just make a list of everything I want to let go off. Then, I’ll make the list about the things I want to call in, and I just light a candle. I just breathe into my heart centre, and I ask to get connected to this beautiful full moon and thank you for supporting and to let go. Thank you for supporting and to call in and manifest these things.
Jody: 00:44:00 Then, I just read out everything I want to let go. Then I read out everything that I wanted to really call in and I really get connected to the feelings and the idea of this already happening. Everything that we desire has already happened. It’s closer than we think, and so yeah, that’s how I’m really turning up the volume on my visioning and my journaling and my manifestation in the moment.
Kristina: 00:44:22 I love all that, we’re so aligned in so many ways. One of the exercises in my book is about visualizing it and then writing it down in the present tense. So if you want to achieve something in five years, you write it as its happened, and I do find that so powerful because you are drawn towards making that dream happen because you’re reminded all the time, especially if you’re repeating it all the time, and I love your … I’m gonna put that on my repertoire. Doesn’t get any better than that.
Jody: 00:44:51 How does it get any better than this?
Kristina: 00:44:53 Yeah. I love that.
Jody: 00:44:55 I don’t know if this is possible, but I will be absolutely more than happy to give you an iPhone screen saver, that with that information on, that you can upload to the show notes if anyone wants to download it. That would be-
Kristina: 00:45:07 Yeah. Absolutely.
Jody: 00:45:08 To have it, I think it’s so important to have it on your phone every day.
Kristina: 00:45:11 Yeah. Absolutely. It’s such a good reminder. I’ll add that to the show notes for sure. It’s funny. I have a thing that I say every single day many times, “Lucky me,” and when I say that, it just means that, how lucky am I to be able to do what I get to do because there’s so many of us that don’t have the freedom that we have to do what that we do and I always, even if it’s challenging times because we all have challenging times, regardless how it looks from the outside. We all, some things we need to work on and I always think if I say, Lucky me,” is that, how lucky am I to be able to go through these and then get through to the other end. So it’s really powerful.
Jody: 00:45:50 I love that. Really love that. Yeah, it keeps us humble, doesn’t it? Really?
Kristina: 00:45:54 Yeah. Absolutely. I’d love to hear any other wellbeing practices or habits that you made time for regularly to ensure you continue to live your best life. I know you have millions. You can choose a couple.
Jody: 00:46:06 I’ve got a million. I’ve got a gazillion. I’ve got 101.
Kristina: 00:46:09 Yes. Good.
Jody: 00:46:11 I tend to alternate with my tools in terms of what I feel like I need most of the time. So right now, I am scripting. I think I’ll always be scripting, I’ll always be reading out the script always. I think because that’s serving me so well and sometimes I go through periods in my life where I meditate every day [and sometimes I’ll meditate a couple of times a week, four times a week, and what I realized was that when we feel like we have to do something and it becomes like a very strict practice, it kind of creates resistance around it and yes, you know what? To do all of this kind of work that we’re talking about and to live your best life and to be a very powerful dreamer, you do need to, it has to be a discipline, a practice. There’s no getting away from that, it has to be, but if you just do one thing that’s good every day, it doesn’t need to be meditation, is what I’m saying.
Jody: 00:47:03 I got to the stage where, I’m a very experienced meditator so it’s very easy. I can drop into meditation now literally on the phone. I can do it with my eyes open, I can do it walking around. I’m very self-aware, very tuned in and so I felt like I didn’t necessarily need to meditate every day, and yet at the moment I’m doing a Chakra Meditation, which is basically focusing on the energy centers in the body and visualising different colours at different energy centers. For example, if you focus on the root of who you are, I’m gonna say the anus. I’m very open about talking about different body parts. The anus, and you would focus on red, the color red. You might stay there for a couple of minutes and then you’d move up to, if you’re a woman, your womb, if you’re a man, your lower abdomen region, you’d focus on orange and then you move your awareness to just above the belly button and your focus on yellow, and so just focusing on different colors. It’s been very, very helpful for me, especially in terms of grounding.
Jody: 00:48:05 I’m a very high energy. I love being in the sky or an airplane. I’m very, very expansive. Yeah, that’s good, but we need to be grounded at the same time. So for me, coming into this human body, coming into my confidence center, my sexual center, my hips and pelvis, my roots, all those parts of me, it’s been extremely important. I’ve been focusing a lot on that recently. It helps me feel really grounded, very confident in my life, helps me get out of my head, and then also a really great and quite sure technique that I’ve been using a lot. I am an EFT practitioner, which means that I am trained in a technique called tapping. Tapping is huge. I’m sure many of you will have heard of it. Tapping is about, you basically tap on energy meridian points around the body to unlock emotion, and to relax the fight or flight response part of the brain and to release fear, and there are loads of benefits to this.
Jody: 00:49:12 In the morning, we lie in bed horizontally and that means that the energy in us is flat and horizontal. When we wake up, I sensed that we need a way of activating our energy body: that means that we need something that’s quick to get us in the body and helps us feel alert and awake and inspired. I begin and I’m gonna ask you all to do this with me, and I’m gonna ask Kristina to do this with me too. Look at your hands and then if you just hold your little finger with your thumb so that you’ve just got three fingers showing. Like you’re saluting. Three fingers., and you just take both those hands and tap on the top of the cheekbone. Just below the eye, there’s the cheekbone there, if you just tap on that. I do this 20 times in the morning and I breathe in very deeply at the same time.
Jody: 00:50:07 This corresponds with your stomach meridian, it’s very good at activating your tummy, your nervous system, and the tummy. Then I move onto your K-27 points. If you trace your fingers to where the ubone is, just below the collarbone, there’s a ubone. If you went to a school where you had to tie a tie, or if you tie a tie now, then it’s very easy for you to identify it. It’s basically like that U shaped bone just where your throat is, and if you just trace your fingers to the bottom of that U shaped bone, and then move the fingers up the U shaped bone to the knobbly bit where it joins the clavicle to the collar bone, and then just slide your fingers down to the fleshy part just below, you can tap on that place. That’s called your K-27 and that is directly related to your immune system. So if you’re feeling a bit cold like I am today, tapping 20 times on this point while taking some really nice deep breaths in is gonna really help energize your immune system.
Jody: 00:51:08 Next point is the thymus gland. If you take one of your hands into a fist, I find it easier to take my hand, my writing hand into a fist and I just start knocking on my heart center. The space in the center of your chest. That is basically activating your thymus gland, which is also known as the happiness gland. That just switches you on again, even deeper. Switches your thymus gland on, starts regulating the hormones in your body, your hormonal system, your nervous system, and then last but not least is your spleen points. You basically take both hands and tap on your ribs. You tap on your rib cage each side. If that feels a little tender, that’s okay. We tend to hold anger and a lot of emotion in our spleen. Just tapping on that point as well 20 times, taking some really nice deep breaths in, and just really releasing anything that you’ve been holding onto while you slept.
Jody: 00:52:12 That four part tapping sequence is very helpful for me and it’s the first thing I do when I open my eyes. I just start tapping straightaway on my cheekbones. Then I go to my K-27 point, then I go to my thymus gland, the happiness point, then I go to the spleen and then I go and do some script reading. I’ll go do some journaling, I’ll go do meditation and that’s generally how my morning looks.
Kristina: 00:52:35 I love that. Thank you so much for sharing. I’m definitely gonna start practicing that, and actually one of my next question was to talk about your morning routine, but we got that all sorted, so thank you so much for sharing. Absolutely love learning some new things, so thank you.
What’s your favorite Kikki.K product if you had to choose one?
Jody: 00:52:54 Oh my gosh. So many. Well, I absolutely love your sleep range that came out last year. I love that because it just, sleep is such an important part of recovery as a human being and for me to be able to create a ritual around my sleep was just so important, and I use the eye mask all the time. I’ve got three eye masks, and one is in the wash, and one is … They’re really, really good eye masks and then I’m on rotation with yours at the moment. I really like using yours, and just being able to release anything that I’ve been holding onto during the day. You have some really lovely tea and like I said, make it a practice, actually of going to sleep has just been so, so, so lovely. So I absolutely love that. I also love your, I don’t know what you call them, but they’re basically affirmation cards, and you make so many different ranges of that, of the cards and some you give out during dinner parties, they’re like conversation starters, which I love questions, but also I just love the affirmation cards that you have.
Jody: 00:54:01 I love just giving those out to people. I’m a great sharer of information as you know, a great sharer, and so I just love passing things on. Actually I had an idea, my own self, recently. I was on the tube, and I was sitting opposite, probably the 40th sad looking, depressed teenage girl that I’d seen that month, and I just was so affected by seeing this girl. I was like, “I’ve got to [do something about this.” Literally in 24 hours my assistant designed these little business cards, and I call them happiness cards, and you guys have been doing this for years, but little business cards and one of them says, happiness looks gorgeous on you and it’s blue, and one says never forget how amazing you are and that’s pink. The never forget how amazing you are: that was definitely for that teenage girl I saw on the tube. I now give these out to people all the time.
Jody: 00:54:59 I give them out in the tube, and I feel like, yeah, I sense that you guys definitely inspired me to go on that journey, but I give them out not only because it’s for them: I believe that whenever we connect with people, we open up this cosmic circuit of energy and it’s just so powerful. Even if it’s just an eye gaze or it’s an eye contact that you’ve recognized someone is just so powerful. So I give these happiness cards out on the tube in London, which is … So yeah, it’s good for them, but it also pushes me out my comfort zone because, if I had my way, it’s so easy to just kind of slip into being unconscious on the tube, and being unconscious in places where there are lots of people because we’re all just in our busy head. However, it’s just being able to ….
Jody: 00:55:44 For example, yesterday I just finished training with my personal trainer, and I was walking down quite a busy high street in London and there was a beautiful looking coloured man on the street and had his head in his hands, and I just went up to him, and I just put one hand on his knee, and I was like, “Are you okay?” And then his carer saw me and came over and said, “Oh no, he’s fine. He’s with me. I’m just getting him a wheelchair,” and I was like, “Okay.” I was like, “You know what? I’m just gonna give him one of my cards.” I went, sat in my car, and I gave it to him. He was just like, I don’t think he knew what it was, but he just smiled at me, and I thought, even if it doesn’t go to him, even if it goes to his carer or his carer’s family that’s still just so lovely, and I find myself doing that naturally.
Jody: 00:56:26 I walk along the street now, and I naturally go down without even thinking. I’ll go and speak to homeless people or I’ll go speak to people. It’s not about like helping them out financially all the time. It’s not enough. It’s not always about that tool actually, if you see people on the street, it’s just about telling them, “I see you. I’m here for you, and you’re a human being, and I acknowledge that.” Another great thing that happened to me yesterday really was on the tube. There was this elderly lady, she must have been about 80, I would say 80 – 85. She was on crutches, and she had the most incredible pink hat and also the most incredible gold sparkly shoes. I saw those shoes from a mile off because I love gold. Everything for me is gold. I love the color gold. I’m a magpie. So, ran over to her on the tube, and was like, “You look amazing. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how amazing you look.”
Jody: 00:57:20 She’s like, “Thank you. I’ve just been to a tea dance in such and such a site, and you’re on the tube. That is incredible. How do you find it getting around London,” and just had this amazing conversation. I’m like, “Hold on to the pink, never forget how amazing your cause,” and I was like, “I just wanna give you this.” I just got my Instagram humbled on the back. She’s not gonna understand. I said, “Don’t worry about the back, just focus on the front.” You know? I guess the cards are an enabler to have great conversations with people, but I told everyone anyway, but I guess the cards have given me more confidence to just … I really don’t care about what anyone thinks anymore. I’m so beyond that these days. I really don’t care, and I don’t care if people like me or not, I don’t care anymore. It’s like my mission is too important care now.
Kristina: 00:58:07 That’s lovely. It’s so lovely to hear all this because I do really believe that there’s so much we can do without financially supporting people; because that’s often stopping people. At Kikki.K, we actually have, in our stores, everyone reports back each day. One thing that I do above and beyond that could be within service, but it could also be helping someone over the street or telling them something or helping them. So it’s really very much aligned.
The last question for you, if you could go back to your younger self, say when you were about your late teens, what advice would you give yourself knowing what you know now?
Jody: 00:58:40 Never, ever, ever give up, ever. Keep going. Keep striving. You’ve got this, you can do this. You can do everything that you set your mind to. Anything is possible and you are such a radiant light. Just keep going. Keep believing in yourself even when no one else does, and stay true to yourself. Stop worrying about what other people think. That is not important. I know how much you love to fit in, but that is just not important. Really, it’s, just be you and everyone that’s meant to be there will come into your environment, and support you in the most beautiful way.
Kristina: 00:59:22 What a beautiful way to end. What a great advice. I could not agree more. Before we finish off, I just wanna say a massive thank you so much for first taking your time, but also for all the great things that you’re doing to the world. I love how you have connected with so many amazing people in London, and I love how you are opening us all up to being made more spiritual, but also to … I love what you do with your meditation to the mainstream because I think a lot of us are inspired by wellbeing experts, but you are really taking it to the people who might not have ever been exposed to meditation. I love what you do and I’m gonna tap first thing in the morning and think about you, and I think there’s been so much wisdom for us all to ponder and then apply to our own lives. So thank you so much for sharing and I cannot wait to have another conversation. We can talk for hours, so we’ll have to have another conversation of sure.
Jody: 01:00:15 Thank you so much, and to everyone that’s listening, just keep doing what you’re doing. Amazing. Never ever give up and feel excited in every moment.
Kristina: 01:00:24 Yeah. Thank you so much.
Jody: 01:00:25 Thank you.
Kristina: 01:00:28 Wow. I am feeling so inspired after that conversation. What a joy to be able to speak with Jody and learn how she came to be where she is today. I hope you enjoyed hearing her story and learning how she really took control of her life and followed her passion as much as I did. One of the most powerful things I took from her story was how by tapping into her heart, and discovering what drives her, what lights her up, and making the decision to pursue that, Jody was able to leave her stressful career and create a life of purpose. I believe so strongly in taking the time to focus on what you love, your passions. Personally, my journey is very aligned with Jody’s in terms of finding what I love and pursuing that as my career, my dream life, and in my book Your Dream Life Starts Here, you’ll find chapters that are very close to my heart on finding and following your passions, and the power of purpose.
Kristina: 01:01:23 It’s well worth reading and exploring for yourself to help you create your dream life. Whatever that means to you. I hope this episode has left you feeling so inspired and excited to consider how you can tap into your heart. Follow your own passions as a key element of creating your own dream life. If you haven’t got a copy yet, I encourage you to get hold of my book, and the Dream Life Journal that I have created to go with it. Which is a great starting point if you want guidance on your journey of uncovering and chasing your dreams. Another great way for you to tap into the amazing power of dreaming in your own life if you haven’t already, is to check out my 101 dreams audio guide@Kikki-k.com/dream life.
Kristina: 01:02:08 It’s a really powerful step by step audio guide I have recorded to help you tap into your heart and get down on paper a long, long list of potential dreams you may want to chase. I have helped thousands of people around the world with this, and I think you’ll find it a great use of your time, and I would really appreciate your support with my big crazy dream to inspire 101 million people around the world to write down three dreams on paper, and go and chase them. If you found this episode useful, be sure to subscribe to my podcast and leave us a review to help us inspire even more people, and please, help us spread this inspiring dreaming message and Dream Life Movement to even more people by posting about it on social media with the #101milliondreamers Until next time, dream big.
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