Meet Jeannie Kulwin

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jeannie Kulwin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jeannie , really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose
Thank you! I’m so grateful and excited for this opportunity to share my story.

I really feel like my purpose found me!

Being on a long, grueling and mysterious chronic pain journey forced me to do a lot of inner work early on. It was incredibly painful and lonely. Doing the emotional work, along with the never-ending medical appointments wasn’t easy. I was emotionally devastated and physically depleted when I didn’t see results or I experienced a medical setback.

When I learned about the mind-body connection four years ago and started implementing the concepts, I immediately started to heal. It was exhilarating and powerful. I felt hopeful about life again.

In order to truly heal physically, I had to acknowledge and feel my emotions. Breathwork came into my life at this time and it helped tremendously. I was immediately hooked and got great clarity regarding my purpose. Playing it safe was making me miserable and I just couldn’t ignore it anymore.

My feelings were communicating with me. I had been dreaming of becoming a Life Coach for many years, but I had so many fears about leaving a stable job with health benefits, tenure and security. Giving up that security, especially for a woman struggling with health challenges, seemed completely irresponsible.

Nevertheless, I decided to bet on myself and quit my job. It’s the best decision I ever made.

Now I get to guide people towards healing and help them find their purpose. I’m unequivocally doing what I’m meant to do.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Sure, I’m a Stress, Mind-Body & Breathwork Coach. I help overwhelmed individuals decrease stress so that they have guilt-free fun, make more money, and create meaningful impact in their lives. I also work in the tms/chronic pain community helping individuals heal their chronic pain and symptoms holistically through a mind-body approach (first recognized by Dr Sarno).

I spent 16+ years battling fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and a myriad of other chronic symptoms that left me physically & mentally exhausted. I healed all my symptoms and my biggest passion is supporting and empowering others to do the same.

My life changed when I realized my innate power. I stopped giving it away to “experts” to fix me. I learned that I could heal my own physical and mental health. It wasn’t just a fluke.

What’s so exciting is that it’s within us – we have the strength and capacity to create a big, meaningful life. Sometimes we settle and believe that our dreams aren’t possible. We get stuck believing that our circumstances make our goals unattainable. Once we decide to shift our thoughts and beliefs, we can take action towards our desires. With that, we gain clarity and learn to trust the process of achieving the results we deserve.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I’m sure my answers might evolve over time, but what comes to mind today is persistence, self-compassion and a dedication to continuous learning & growing.

Fortunately, persistence is a state of mind, so it can be cultivated. Napoleon Hill shares that “the fear of criticism is stronger than the desire for success” for many individuals and so they often give up after perceiving setbacks. The ability to keep moving forward especially after “failing” is a superpower and skill like no other. It’s not what happens that affects us, it’s how we choose to think about it. Those thoughts can make us feel sadness, anger, guilt, shame, etc. So we’re actually more fearful and avoidant of these emotions than what actually transpired.  Once we build the capacity to feel these so-called negative feelings, they get processed and released and lose their effect to hold us back anymore.

I know that “self-compassion” can seem so elusive and hippy-dippy, but we know from behavioral research that it works. Shame or beating yourself up can only work on a very short-term basis. That willpower just won’t last. Self-compassion is foreign to a lot of us and can seem weak. The truth is that it’s often not easy and it can be gut-wrenching. For these reasons, it’s vital to do this inner-work and start to cultivate a more positive relationship with yourself. We must do this, because the relationship with yourself is the longest and most important one we will ever have.

A final quality that’s crucial is being open to learning new skills. Developing a growth mindset is necessary for any of us desiring to achieve our goals and advance to the next level.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
If I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’m probably telling myself that there’s not enough time and I’m probably too much in my head. Grounding myself regularly is important. Even just a few minutes and coming back to it later is helpful. This can be through any somatic tool such as a body scan, breathwork, yoga, walking, tapping, yoga nidra, etc. Also get into nature! Many of these practices I mentioned are free and can be practiced immediately with or without someone to guide you.

Focusing on one task at a time is another tip. Staying in the present moment and avoiding multitasking is easier said than done. However, the research shows that it improves productivity, so it’s worth it to keep practicing. If you need a strategy for staying in the present moment, a mindfulness practice can be particularly beneficial.

Lastly, making sure our needs get met may sound cliché, but when they’re not fulfilled, we end up feeling frazzled. Often we believe that this frenetic energy is our normal state of being, when really it’s a dysregulated nervous system. Regularly checking in with ourselves, feeling our emotions, and practicing self-care are the ultimate acts of self-love and compassion.

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