Episode #395 – Doing Your Light Work with Jessica Zweig

Cherylanne Skolnicki:

I am Cherylanne Skolnicki, and this is Brilliant Balance, the show for those of us who still dare to want it all, who have big dreams and bold ambitions, I think we deserve to have a big, full life and the freedom to enjoy it. So let’s design our next chapter together for brilliance, not burnout. Each week I’ll bring ideas, insight, and a fresh perspective to keep you growing into a life that feels as good as it looks brilliant. Balance your life your way. Now let’s get started. This is episode 395 of the Brilliant Balance Podcast, Doing Your Light Work with my guest Jessica Zweig.

Well, today on the Brilliant Balance Show, I have the absolute pleasure of welcoming Jessica Zweig. She is a powerhouse entrepreneur, a bestselling author, and one of the most prominent voices in spiritual alignment in business and in life. Today, she is the founder and former CEO of Simply Be, which was a personal branding company that really helped visionaries clarify their message and amplify their impact through authenticity. She has been named a Forbes personal branding expert, a fast company, most innovative entrepreneur, and she’s worked with everyone from C-Suite executives to spiritual leaders. Her latest book is called The Light Work, and it really goes so far beyond the world of branding. It’s a really deeply personal, profoundly spiritual guide to aligning who we are with how we show up in the world. And her voice is so real, so refreshingly honest as she invites us all to do the inner work that creates true outer impact. I had the just delight of meeting Jessica in person earlier this year. We were seated next to each other at a dinner, and I just have to tell you that this woman’s vibe lights up the entire room. She is truly, truly a brilliant presence and one that I am so excited to introduce you to today along with her work. So without further ado, let me introduce you to Jessica Sweig. Well, Jessica, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you here today.

Jessica Zweig:

I am so obsessed with you, <laugh>, and so this was equally as exciting and such a treat to reconnect with you. And thank you so much for having me on.

CS:

This is gonna be great. I think our audience is gonna love that you’re like a little bit of a left turn from our typical guest and, um, and yet that’s been a bit of an evolution for you. So it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a really nice, like, refreshing episode. There are women in the audience who recently returned from Canyon Ranch, which I think you and I talked about when we had dinner and yeah, so they’re sort of all in this space right now already. That’s a small subset, of course, of the listeners, but we’re gonna bring a little bit of that vibe to everybody today. Okay. So let’s start with your journey. I think that I wanna hear a little bit about, like little Jessica, really briefly. Like what was life like for you? What were some of the early indicators that this might be a path that you would take if there weren’t

JZ:

Little Jessica? Oh, I think about her often. I carry her with me all the time. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You know, I grew up in a very affluent community and my parents were self-made and we lived in a modest house and drove modest cars. And my mom shopped at TJ Maxx while everyone wore Chanel bags and had nose jobs by the time they were 13. Like, so I was always a bit of an outcast. I never really felt comfortable in my own skin. I never really felt secure. I had childhood trauma who didn’t, you know, I was bullied by the mean girls. Like, I, I, you know, I went through a lot in that stage and I really found my home in the theater where I became like a thespian. And I like to say that I really got hooked on escaping who I was to play someone else, you know?

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Like that was a real, um, big part of my upbringing, but I, I really was able to find, you know, my voice through, through it all and loved being an artist and loved being creative and loved working in an ensemble with like other cast members and a director. And, you know, it was, it was a big part of how I think my identity formed as an entrepreneur, to be honest. I loved Brittany’s holding all her crystals. I got them everywhere, <laugh>. And at the same token, you know, I was born and I was raised Jewish and, you know, went to synagogue, got bat mitzvah, like, did the whole, like beat it was a very Jewish community. When I was 19 years old, I went to Ireland on a backpacking trip and met my grandmother’s spirit in a church. I had never been inside of a church for the first time in my life until I was 19.

And I’d always been a little con like woo woo since I was young. Like, I can find journals of, you know, my fifth grader writing about white light and the angels and the Goddess. Wow. Like literally at like nine, 10 years old. Wow. So I’ve always been connected. And then when I went on that trip at 19 and had that big spiritual experience in a holy building, that quote unquote wasn’t mine. Everything dissolved as far as what I believed I could believe. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So mixing my artistry background, mixing my spiritual and inclinations, I stumbled into entrepreneurship in my late twenties. And lo and behold, like ditched acting and discovered, I, I, because I went to school for theater and became an actress in my early twenties, fell into being a business person quite accidentally, but was really innately good at business. Yes. And so, you know, that’s a little bit about little Jessica and kind of today my life is somewhat of an amalgamation of all of those things. Yes. And it’s, you know, taken a long time to get here at 43 years old to finally feel, to be honest that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be

CS:

And like, integrated across all of those different chapters. Yeah. That’s the beauty of midlife. I think we really start to integrate the chapters.

JZ:

It’s the best. Uhhuh, <affirmative>, Uhhuh, oh my God, I love forties. I’m here for forties. Right. Best decade.

CS:

Right. I think that’s inspiring to people who maybe aren’t there yet thinking like, really, and I, I swear it just keeps getting better around the integrations and insights, um, as these chapters unfold. Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

JZ:

You give less. Can I swear in your

CS:

Show? Yes. Yeah.

JZ:

<laugh>, you just give less as you get older and you just are so much more embodied in who you are. You’ve, you’ve kind of, you know, made your mark, you’ve made your money, you’ve, you have your relationships. Like, not to say that ever you’re ever, there’s no destination on it at all, but you just become more true to who you are, have more confidence in your journey and perspective. So

CS:

Many people are into something bigger than your perspective. Yes, yes. Absolutely. And you have this, this is, you know, this is you today and we’re gonna get into this concept of the Light Work and, and your most recent book, but you have this interstitial chapter, um, probably a couple of them, but specifically when you were doing the Simply Be Agency. And I think it’s such an important part of your story because learning what a, like a brand, if that’s still what we wanna call it, really is for an individual, I think was so clear to you that it was about authenticity. Yes. And I didn’t read that book until after we’d met, but when I went back and like I did, I went back and read it and I thought it really, like you were ahead of your time in the insight around when you were having the insight. Right. I think you wrote it into the book, but your journey around really realizing how important being your whole self was, is so part and parcel of how you founded that agency. Can you just talk a little bit about that before we move into the light work?

JZ:

Absolutely. And the simply Be chapter really is the foundational material, if you will, into why I wrote the Light work. Light Work was somewhat of a response to my seven years running that agency and what happened to me on a personal and professional level. So it’s important to note that when I started my agency, I had actually, that was my second company, my first company, when I stumbled into entrepreneurship in my late twenties with a lot of unhealed trauma and a lot of insecurity. And ended up starting this blog in Chicago that blew up and became this big platform for women for seven years. This was 20 years old, 26 to 33. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I was like all of a sudden overnight running that magazine ’cause it came up, became an online magazine like a Chicago socialite mm-hmm <affirmative>. Okay. I was going out every night of the week throwing parties, being invited to parties, nightclubs, skipping the line, and getting into any restaurant I wanted.

Like I was running this huge platform for women in the city. Yes. And I thought it made me cool because I had all of this unhealed insecurity. Right. And I was really driven by ego. And what ended up happening was that business left me, broke, that business left me sick. That business left me completely out of alignment with toxic relationships. And I had a real on full like classifiable nervous breakdown at the age of 33. And that’s what really sent me on this deep path of knowing myself and doing all this personal development work and spiritual growth. And it was from that vantage point that I decided like a lunatic. Because when you fail a business, entrepreneurs are like, let’s do that again. And so I started my agency, um, a couple years after that and I got really, really clear that like I wanted to show up in my full truth and that meant my mess as much as my success.

Right. And this was in 2016, 17 at the dawn of what felt like everybody in the business world waking up and saying to themselves, I need to be on social media. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so my agency, which was a personal branding agency that started as a one woman consultancy, just me and my brain really hit the iron wall. It was hot. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And my business really popped, and that agency scaled to like a multi seven figure business that I ended up selling seven years later. I exited the business to a bigger company at 24. And, you know, all of that timeline of the Simply Be chapter was really on this, you know, premise of let’s just all be real. Like let’s get on the internet and build our brands from this place of humanity. Authenticity. It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of a multimillion dollar company, or you’re the janitor or the startup entrepreneur or the, you know, creative with the big dream and a side hustle.

We are all just humans. And that’s why I titled my book Be, you know, A No Guide to Increasing Your Self Worth and your net worth by simply being Yourself. And that was like lightning in a bottle for real. Like, that business just blew up and people really got it. And we really kind of cornered the market on personal branding done in this lens of authenticity. And it started with my own realization that like, I couldn’t be fragmented. I couldn’t present an image to the world and have this going on inside that had to be congruent. It had to be integrated in order for it to be authentic, in order for it to be magnetic. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And, um, you know, it was a beautiful run. Seven years. I took that business from one woman to 35 full-time people. You know, two offices that served close to a thousand clients sold the business. None of that would’ve happened had I not stayed true to those values. Yes. But it wasn’t all Sunshine

CS:

Rainbow was, that was not the end. Right. Right. And yet there’s more, I just, I wanna put a, just a button on one thing you said, which is, when we talk about this integration and being truly fully who we are and authentic, it can start to sound a little buzzwordy. And I think you and I have had some honest conversations about this and I’ve had them with others as well. That is the hardest thing I think for those of us who, and all of us have some kind of public persona, right? Whether it is you’re a corporate executive, you have a LinkedIn profile, you have a brand for kind of how you’re known inside your company, or whether you are online with your own podcast and have some kind of presence, you still are grappling with this like, am I enough? Right? Is the real me the full story, the messy middle? Like is all of it enough to kind of put out there? And also I think there’s this, uh, decisions about how much goes out there, what is, what is appropriate to maintain privacy around what stories aren’t ready to be told? Um, how do you think about that in the lens of authenticity? Where do you find that line? What’s your framework?

JZ:

Oh, I love this question. I’ve been asked about it a million times. ’cause authenticity is a buzzword and it is overused and it is misconstrued. So what actually does it look like? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I, I, I have a few ways of thinking about this, and this is really all in my book to help you kind of clarify your message. Because branding, as I often say, is an exercise in clarity mm-hmm <affirmative>. Right? We can’t be a hot mess and talk about whatever we want any day of the week and expect to be seen as an expert. Right. And an authority to get paid to do what we do. So you do have to pick your lanes, you have to stay really consistent with your messaging. And ideally, those lanes are a blend of your humanity, your personality, and your professional expertise. And at the end of the day, like you don’t owe your full life story to the world. Like certain things are meant to be private and exclusively yours. That doesn’t make you any less authentic though, as long as you’re showing up with love and service and truth. Right. For example, like my beautiful husband, but we don’t have a perfect marriage at all. Right? Like, we fight, like I don’t share that on Instagram. I’m not, it doesn’t belong to anybody. It doesn’t

CS:

Add anything to your story. Right. Does it?

JZ:

I’m not a relationship expert. Right. It doesn’t add anything to my story, but I can still show up on that same day having a fight with my husband and be really lit up about women leadership and empowering my community with tools that wake them up to their own power for whatever it’s worth. And I really believe that there’s a spectrum like authenticity and inauthenticity vibrate the frequency of love or fear. Mm. Inauthenticity is a vibration of fear. And fear manifests itself as competition, comparison, survival, and security. And that’s a vibration that people can feel.

CS:

Yes.

JZ:

That you’re like faking it.

CS:

The posturing. Yes.

JZ:

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. The posturing and love, love is not like kumbaya. It’s just like coming from your heart, compassion, empathy, community, abundance for all possibility, joy. Like those, to me it’s less about image. Yes. And more about energy. Yes,

CS:

Yes,

JZ:

Yes. And so that’s really when you can unlock that inside of your message and hold that and trust that, that that’s enough. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks. ’cause not everyone is gonna get you. And that’s the point of authenticity. It’s like you repel and you magnetize. Mm-hmm. Who’s for you and who’s not for you, the more you’re yourself. And that is, you know, just how I, I approach you today with a little bit of science that you can kind of frame in there. In my book, I,

CS:

I think that what you said, authenticity is less about image and more about energy. I think that’s like one of those mic drop moments that just, I hope people are taking that away. That the, it’s not even authenticity doesn’t mean complete honesty about every element of your story with nothing held back. It’s not like this open kimono situation. It’s that the choices you’re making about what you’re sharing are honest. That you’re not pretending to be someone you’re not. And that ‘s all done through this vibration of love. I think that’s exceptional. And it’s such a good, I mean, it, that really is kind of the direct link to the work you’re doing now, because when you closed the agency, it moved into this next chapter. You wrote the book, the Light Work, your whole life has been about light. I literally walked back from when we met saying she’s such a bright light, and like, not even realizing the pun, you know, <laugh> in what I was saying. So one, you know, you have so many themes in the light work. What would you say is the core message for the women listening today who might be able to go get a copy of that book?

JZ:

Oh, I’m not gonna get emotional. I, I, you know, it’s been a second, like, since I’ve gone deep on it. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I mean, not that it just came out, but the core theme of the book, like the headline of the book, is that you are meant to enjoy your life. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. That joy is your birthright. And that we don’t shortcut our way to joy. In fact, the way we find our brightest light is in the darkest of our depths. And if you’re willing to meet the dark, if you’re willing to look at your shadows, if you’re willing to look at your trauma, if you’re willing to look at your shame, your, your tendencies that don’t serve you or don’t serve others or the world around you, it’s empowering, it’s empowerment, work and action. When you can call yourself out, out on your own, no one else can call you out on that.

JZ:

And then you’re free. And that’s really the, it’s a manifesto on what it means to be a light worker on the planet today as a woman, as a woman, uh, as a, as a spiritual being inside of a human body as a woman. And I go through the book telling my stories of all of my dark nights of the soul. It’s really a vulnerable, open kimono talk about open kimono. It’s, yeah. And all of my struggles with relationships and love addiction and body dysmorphia and my family trauma and my deeply unhealthy relationship with money at certain points in my life. Um, sisterhood, wounds, friendships, female projections, like feeling lost without a guide or mentorship, you know, all of those aspects come to life in the book with the end game being like, let’s not go around it, avoid it, shut it down. That’s where darkness lives when we ignore it and becomes toxic and festers, let’s face it, let’s turn on the light switch. Let’s look directly at it. This is like the hardest game of the human experience is to assume responsibility for your own art and the mess called your life. But again, that’s empowerment, that’s freedom. And on the other side of that is like joy, like to love this life. We get to live, that’s ours. And we don’t, we don’t fall victim to it anymore. And that’s really the essence of the book. It’s very, it’s a very dynamic book.

CS:

Yeah. It definitely is. And, and we’re gonna link it all so people can go find both of them really, I think are exceptional pieces of work. And you wrote this one out quickly. I mean, light work was almost like a download for you when you wrote this book, right? It it

JZ:

Was a pure cha channeling Yes. Three months. Yeah.

CS:

And I, I would, I would just encourage the listener, like, this is like sort of an alternate realm, right? There’s kind of like, um, I don’t know if you’ve read Phil Tut’s latest book that Elise Luon co-wrote. It’s out now. You should do this one. I think you would love it. But this notion of there sort of being like alternate realities. There’s like the reality we’re living in every day that’s very material and, you know, achievement focused and, and, um, goodies focused as I think of it. And then there’s this kind of alternate realm that is always available and it’s really where the whole soul journey is unfolding. And you wrote, that’s really what the book is written from and your willingness. Yes. It’s to embrace the dark, go through the dark, kind of grapple with the dark. Not even like defeating it. It’s not about defeating it, it’s really like, like encompassing it into a whole story.

Yeah. Correct. It is so incredible. And it takes so much courage to do that, right. Not just for you, but for anyone who wants to follow that path. Did you know that beyond hosting this podcast, I also directly support women leaders at the intersection of work and life as a member of Bold. You get direct access to me, the women on my team, and a peer group of exceptional women who are rewriting the rules and redefining what it means to have it all together. Go to brilliant balance.com/bold to learn more and apply for your spot today. So I, I’d love an inspiring story or an anecdote where you’re like, okay, here’s how I figured out how to dig for some of that courage.

JZ:

I totally, totally love that. I would call that the 3D mm-hmm. Versus the five D mm-hmm <affirmative>. Which will, I’ll unpack in a second. Yes. So the story that I’d love to start with or just kind of unravel, ’cause it really is the impetus for the book and I write about it, is, so I was building my agency simply by crushing it. You know, Forbes, you know, Inc. 5,000, all of the, all the media outlets

Built this big sparkly team, multimillion dollar business, first book, number one bestseller. And at the peak of that, I had, um, been diagnosed with situational depression from full on complete mental, emotional, physical burnout. So when I was at the peak of my success running that agency, I had never been the lowest personally. And I wanted to burn my whole business down. And I felt like talking about inauthenticity, I felt like a total sham God, right. Because everyone thought I was killing it. And inside I wanted to kill my business. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. But I had trapped myself in this golden cage and I had no other option to just keep killing, hustling, to hold up the sky. I mean, I had a half a million dollar monthly payroll. I had this big tea, like clients riding on me. My ego was in it, whatever.

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I went to Egypt at the end of that year. I am a big world traveler. I planned this trip very serendipitously. Didn’t really know what I was getting into when I went on that 15 day spiritual pilgrimage. It was 15 days, it was not a vacation. It was an aggressive trip where you go from temple to temple to temple to temple every day at like four or five in the morning. It’s exhausting. But you’re, you’re in a pure pilgrimage, like a spiritual adventure. And in many of those temples, I got activated, I’ll leave it to the book. But I essentially in one of those moments, like I felt my ego d die. I felt my whole identity up until that moment in my life completely dissolved. And I had spirit speaking through me. And I’m very clear as they say it, where I can hear messages.

And these beings came down. I consider them to be called the Palladian, which is like an extra terrestrial like SARS system. Take that or leave that. But that’s what I believe in. That’s what I knew them to be. And they basically told me that I had missed the entire plot line of my entire life focusing so much on success and accolades and survival that I had missed the whole point of the human experience, which was to enjoy my life. They were like, every day is a gift. Every second is a gift. You get to have beautiful conversations with women like Cheryl Ann. You get to eat chocolate and have sex and wear cute outfits and accessories and travel the world and follow a purpose. Like they said those things to me. They’re like, you are missing the moment. Mm-hmm. And if you don’t enjoy it for you, please enjoy it for us, because we can’t be in a human body.

And I came home a completely different person from that trip. Like it just opened my eyes to that reality that you were talking about, which I call the third, third dimension, third 3D reality, which is a dual reality where there’s love, there’s fear, that’s it. And there’s a lot of polarity, a lot of divisiveness, a lot of hate, a lot of separation and illusion that we are separate from this thing called infinite source intelligence and divine love. Right. Like we are that. And when you start to really look at your life as one intrinsic part of that infinite web of love, really, not to make it sound cheesy, but that’s really our truth. That’s who we are. That’s our innate nature. Everything shifts. And so I got the book deal. I channeled the book in three months. I call, I go back and I read the book and I’m, I’m kind of like, I don’t remember writing.

Where did I find that? I don’t remember saying that. How did I come up with that? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Because I feel like it came through me. I was just the vessel, you know? And I really decided, you know, to, to share my truth. All of my messy, dark nights of the soul, simply as a mirror, as a sister. Like saying, Hey girl, I’m gonna hold your hand while you read this book to see yourself in my story. ’cause I know you will. ’cause I’m not alone. ’cause we’re, we all, as women have universal experiences when it comes to love, body, friendship, family, career, emotions, personal power. And for you to see yourself as new the way that I did when I came back from Egypt, it wasn’t like, go buy a plane ticket and go to Egypt and do this. Mm-hmm. It was, you have the keys to really unlock your own power right here in your own hands.

Why is there a key on the cover? And you know, I will say that it’s a very unapologetic spiritual book. Like I share my belief in the extraterrestrials, my belief in, you know, the cosmos, mother earth, Gaia, you know, our true purpose and divinity where we find our power and alchemize density in the body through like somatic breath work and, you know, movement and trauma releasing. It’s all in there. But also I think I’m really grounded at the same time. It’s not gonna talk over you. You don’t have to be a spiritual chick to like it.

CS:

To get it. Yeah. I found it to, I mean, clearly you, if there’s a spectrum of how people embrace this, you are at the very far end of that spectrum. And I think listeners should know that because you have to know where you are. Right. What’s open to you, what’s accessible to you. Totally. What, what are you, but you’re, you’re so generous with love, take what’s valuable. This is my authentic experience. It comes all the way back to what we were talking about in authenticity. Like your choice to say, this is my truth, this is what I’m gonna share. And then that’s really everyone. It’s polarizing and it should be because authenticity is right. It is polarizing. I think the notion that I was watching some people, um, who are listening live to this in the chat, talk about like, it can, we can get a little tired of the message.

I think that, you know, your purpose is to feel joy or your purpose is to enjoy this lifetime experience. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I think that’s really hard for some of us to wrap our heads around because it feels like we’ve been so conditioned to achieve and do work and have these responsibilities. I just wonder how you, when you talk about the dissolution of your ego and the ability to really get that mm-hmm. You hear it a lot in near-death experiences. People come back with that same message routinely, psychedelic experiences coming back with the same message. So clearly there’s something about being able to sort of get beyond the lens that we’re, that we’re looking at our lives through. Any insight there that you would share?

JZ:

Yeah. I have a lot to say about this and I could probably go off for the next few minutes. So we don’t have rights, we only have a few minutes. How do I, how do I articulate this? You know, who we are today in this human experience in 2025 as women in our thirties, forties, fifties, your community. You know, we are in a, we are a collection of our own personal experiences, good and bad. Many of us have had a lot of hardships and trauma. Um, but we’re also a collection of our parents’ trauma and their parents’ trauma. And an ancestral lineage of unhealed trauma that’s been living in our systems, our psyches, our DNA that has been passed on and has been kind of carbon copying, reprinting into how we move through life unconsciously. This is all unconscious. Yeah. For most of us, I call it the matrix.

It’s programming. It’s literally like we’ve been programmed. Our bodies are sacred technology. They’re super computers. They’re infinitely magical and quantum machines that can heal themselves on every level actually. And I think we live in an incredibly exciting time, honestly, to be, uh, have the access to conversations like this, to plant medicines, to somatic healing modalities, breath work, books to read, podcasts to listen to movies to watch. Like we have a plethora of resources that our parents therapists on, on the, on our apps, like mm-hmm <affirmative>. Our parents, parents, parents, parents didn’t have any of this. They were hardwired to simply survive. And that’s not our reality anymore. We have agency, we have sovereignty, we have choices that they didn’t have. And so I understand that it sounds really cute and like a swan song. Like, oh, joy is the way, in my personal experience, I will only speak for myself.

I know that I came here to experience joy and everything else that has told me that that’s hard or that’s a luxury, or that’s blocked or that’s a privilege or that it is a lie is actually not my story. It’s someone else’s. And when we are willing to do our own work, and when I say do our own work, what I mean, sheline is like, this is the mirror. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And you’ve gotta put it up. Like, and this is very uncomfortable for most people. It sucks to get feedback to look at your own, to take responsibility for when you didn’t show up in your highest Right. Where you are operating from a low vibration. Like this is a, this is a lifelong mm-hmm <affirmative>. Lifelong unlearning and unbecoming into who I think we’re really all meant to become, which is healthy, free, sovereign, joyful, abundant.

Like I really believe that that’s what we came here to experience on this planet. I just, I just do. Yeah. And so this, you know, and joy is very different from happiness. Like happiness is a fleeting emotion. Joy is a choice. Joy is an active daily practice. A devotion. Joy doesn’t necessarily mean like, oh, I’ve got a big house and a free schedule and I can travel the world. And joy can be like, I’m gonna slow down this morning and sit my coffee outside and listen to the birds for 10 minutes. ’cause that opens up my heart and gets me more connected to myself. Joy can be like drawing like we once did when we were little girls, like going to an art store and picking up. I mean, I started doing that a few years ago and it changed my life. Like, I get, I wake up in the morning and this is my mantra, and not every day, I mean, I’m building a business that’s stressful. Whatever I say out loud every day I get to do this. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. I don’t have to do this, I get to do this. And that one micro shift, like changes everything. So it’s a choice. Yeah. And I don’t want to bypass that. People have hard, hard real things in their lives. Absolutely. And, um, yet you have, you have more agency in how you respond to it mm-hmm <affirmative>. Then you give yourself maybe credit for.

CS:

Yes. And I, so that, that, um, refrain will be familiar to some of our listeners that shift from my have to, to I get to do this. And kind of that is a pathway through to tapping that reality of like, it’s always there, right? Like the sun is always there, even on a cloudy day, that ability is always there, even in the midst of life storms. And I think it’s just, it’s such a timely reminder of that because it is so easy, especially in the tumultuous political environment that we’re living in the economic environment we’re in. For people to lose touch with that kind of omnipresent ability, right. To have something that’s, that’s just, it’s always there for us no matter what. No matter what. Yes. You have built such a beautiful presence, I don’t wanna call it a brand, just such a beautiful presence professionally, personally.

And I think, you know, you’re not all getting to watch this. Some of you’ll just be listening to Jessica, but when I got to meet you in person and had that experience of being in the room with you, that vibration is palpable. Like you’re the, the emanate light. It is literally palpable. And I think that’s so important for people to know that like you are hearing her words, but like, if you match that with the energy that you get from being in the room, you would see where that belief comes from because it’s so deep. It really is. My cry might make

JZ:

You cry. You’re gonna make me cry. No, really, thank you so much for saying that. And I actually just wanna hit on this, this thing of joy and embodied light and all these beautiful things that we’re talking about. If you actually would do me Yes. One I wanna, I I, I just, I just got the hit to do this. I wanna just read the very last paragraph. It’s short of this Oh great. Of my book, which is, yeah, I’m kind of emotional, so just thank you. Mm-hmm. But I feel like this really speaks to the heart of this whole conversation and what we’re really hopefully getting at when it comes to joy and, and to be the light and to do the work. Right? So this is what I wrote. Uh, it’s one paragraph. The word light can also be defined as brilliant, luminous, rich, sunny, glowing, unobscured, lustrous, bright and radiant.

Imagine the woman who embodies that frequency everywhere she goes, who gets described that way when she’s not in the room, who has a sparkle in her eye and a smile that beams across the room when she is the one you can’t take your eyes off of. The one who makes you feel safe and championed to shine brightly in your light because she’s so clear and confident in hers. The woman who radiates a palpable sense of joy, magnetism, and fun that you feel in your own heart whenever you’re around her, the one who makes this world a better place simply because she’s in it. This is a woman who has not had it easy. This is a woman who has done her work. She has done the light work. She is a living miracle. She’s you, that’s the last page of the book.

So like, thank you for recognizing that in me. I recognize that in you right away. I felt so lucky I got to sit next to you at that dinner. And that’s really the invitation. You know, it’s like, this is what’s possible when we’re willing to meet our darkness. It’s not let’s just cut to joy. It doesn’t work like that. But when you really are able to, um, accept that assignment to like go all the way into it, you, you come out on the other side in a way. I guess you just described me. So, and I receive that so deeply. Like I don’t take that lightly. I’m deeply touched to hear that reflection. Yeah. Um, you know, it’s come with a lot, a lot of work. You’ve done the

CS:

Work. Yeah. You’ve done the work. And I think that’s, that’s why it’s such a beautiful and fitting end to the book. And also the episode is like it. That’s the person who’s emerged on the other side of having done the work. And of course it is a continuous process, right? It is ever evolving forever and ever. Amen. So every day mm-hmm

JZ:

<affirmative>. Yeah, you die <laugh>

CS:

Man. You are magical. So I just wanna thank you for being here today with us. It, um, I’m sure the listeners are just like radiating just from hearing you do that reading and, um, y’all, we have this linked up in the show notes for you to go get your hands on a copy of the Light Work or Jessica’s earlier book, whatever’s resonating with you. And I hope that you’ll just take that core message away with you today, that you have the chance to be that light in the world for someone else and how powerful it truly is. Thank you.

JZ:

Thank you.

CS:

All right. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope you got as much out of this as I got out of the conversation with her. Jessica is the real deal and I think it comes through even in the audio version of this podcast. If you would like to pick up a copy of Jessica’s book. Either of them are actually linked for you in the show notes. Um, she also has an incredible podcast that you can find. Um, and I’ll link that as well anywhere that you listen to podcasts. And I hope that you do continue to be inspired by and uplifted by her work. If you are new to the Brilliant Balance podcast, thank you for being here today. I am so glad to have you and I hope you’ll come back again soon. That’s all for today, my friends. Till next time, let’s be brilliant.