Meet Paula Jane Newman

We recently connected with Paula Jane Newman and have shared our conversation below.

Paula Jane, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.
I get my generosity from my mother. She had a big heart, and was always thinking of others before herself. I watched her help others often when she would not receive anything near equal reciprocity.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a creative performer, meditation teacher and philanthropist. I am very excited that now I have found a vehicle to fuse all of my talents into one. I founded a nonprofit to help bring stress reduction techniques to people after getting hurt with a repetitive stress injury, working on a computer and filing over 20 years ago. The injury stems all the way down from my neck, both of my arms and my back, but the left-hand side is far more intense and restricts me from participating in regular normal activities. When I first got hurt, I thought that everything I ever wanted to have in life was over. I was too young to be experiencing this kind of pain, and yet all the medical world could do was give me narcotics and solutions that would simply numb my consciousness from the pain, but nothing that would help heal my body . After what I refer to as two decades of the dark night of the soul, I turned my meditation, teaching business, which helped me dramatically deal with my chronic pain into a nonprofit. As COVID-19 spread around the globe, and we were unable to teach meditation to people directly, it was so clear that we needed to laugh. We needed some kind of reprieve and stress reduction from having to deal with this pandemic. We introduced a comedy element to help heal people by laughter. The extension of the nonprofit – Rise Up Comedy, where people are given an opportunity to be on stage who normally don’t get stage time and folks who wish to try comedy for the first time do so in a safe space and a very positive environment. We have professional performers encapsulated in the event, which brings together a beautiful group. This has meditators, those who love, comedy and business people all together in one experience. Every event, of course has its challenges. However, the consistent thread is that people feel uplifted, and they enjoy it.

It has been such a joy to combine all of my talents together and see how this is growing. I have found that my own comedic talents have skyrocketed when in a positive environment and I’ve witnessed those who would usually take 10 years to get where they are now in the comedy scene within four! Having people be able to express their truth, who have no desire to be comedians and witness the healing is having us expand to new areas. We began our teaching class, which is only four sessions for individuals to create their first comedic set this year. It was an absolute success! Without my knowledge, there were comedic talent agents in the audience, who ran up to my students and encouraged them to keep going, as they could walk into a club right now and rock! This proves that we are striking gold with our unique program.

We are now collaborating with mental health professionals. Our program helps trauma healing. Not only from laughter but being free from the experience to write and express a point of view from tragedy and making people laugh.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The first quality I am learning is temperance. Everything happens all in perfect timing, if I can allow my own frustrations to be minimized and go with the flow. As a result it will usually come sooner, mainly because I am not stuck on when will it happen, but staying present.

I’ve also found that listening to one’s soul over one’s intellect is far more important when pursuing a particular path. Jim Carrey is right. When we follow and discover our souls destiny, and how we can fuse that to help others, then we are on our true path. We will find we enjoy life including the dips as well as highs and experience true happiness. The challenge is, we have been programmed to believe that happiness is dependent upon academic accolades/awards, romantic achievements or finances. This is not true. When on our soul’s path fused with our destiny, it doesn’t necessarily bring the riches. This is where the challenge has been for me. All that training that went into my psyche when I was younger about needing to have a stable income and fit into the boxes, and having to achieve certain things in order to be respected, in order to be seen as someone of value. I understand why it is part of our culture in society, however, it has actually caused me more harm than good. It created much anxiety in my physiology and psyche. Now I don’t value a person based on their worth financially, I value a person based upon how they participate in giving to society, and how they treat others.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I love to collaborate with others. When collaborating, I really begin to discover more about myself, including my flaws and areas to grow. I very much wish to collaborate with other like-minded comedians, who wish to help change the Consciousness of Komedy for a more positive environment and help others. Those in the mental health world that see comedy not only as the healing element. It has proven scientifically when laughing, but also to help people speak the truth we are wanting to associate and create more outreach programs.

And finally, being able to have the funds to create a documentary and then have people all across the world have access to this would be marvelous. I would love to have outreach programs all around the globe being fully funded so that artists can be able to pay their bills and those who need the help can have access to modalities that aren’t reliant upon prescription medication or mind altering substances .

I can be reached at my personal website which is paulajanenewman.com or the riseupcomedy page at awaremeditation.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Ashley Ware

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