Ep. 7 - Heartbreak, Hope, & The Wisdom of Joanna Macy (w/ Jess Serrante)

Transcript

Jess Serrante: Uncertainty inherently means that possibility exists. Possibility for all sorts of things. For the darkest fantasies and fears that I have, and for the most beautiful. And that, my life is a vote in the direction of a possibility or a set of possibilities, and I'm going to give myself to the one I want.

Jeremy Blanchard: Welcome to the Wider Roots podcast. A show about how we can use the power of coaching and personal transformation to help create the world we most want to live in.

I'm your host, Jeremy Blanchard. I'm a coach for social movement leaders. And today's episode is with my dear friend, Jess Serrante. If you listened to episode one, you might remember that Jess joined me to help introduce what the premise of this podcast Wider Roots is all about. And I wanted to have her back on the show to talk about the project she's been working on. It's a podcast also.

It's called we Are The Great Turning and it's an exploration of the teachings of her mentor, Joanna Macy.

If you haven't heard Joanna Macy's name, she is the creator of a body of work called The Work That Reconnects, which is designed to help us honor our pain and get in touch with our deep love for the world in the face of the existential crises we're facing like climate change.

And having listened to a lot of these episodes as Jess was working on them. I can say that they are full of the kind of spiritual wisdom and nourishment that I know I am really longing for as I go about my work for change in the world.

So in this episode, we covered two themes, heartbreak and hope.

For heartbreak. We're looking at this question of. What would it be like if more coaching models and healing modalities and spiritual paths helped us get in touch with our heartbreak for the world. As part of discovering what we are individually most called to contribute to the world.

And for hope we look at this question of what are the things we can use to motivate ourselves when things get scary, or we start to feel despair. Is that hope or is there something that's less fickle or more stable that we can draw on?

Jess was very generous to share some clips from the episodes that haven't been released yet episodes five and six. And we're going to play some of those clips during the show so that you can get a little preview of what's to come.

Episode one of We Are The Great Turning came out yesterday and you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.

And a quick invitation for how you can support this show Wider Roots. As you're listening. If you hear something that touches your heart, I invite you to take a moment to send this episode to a friend or two who might also find it meaningful. Since this podcast is pretty new, sharing it with others really makes a big difference. And if you're new here, make sure to subscribe in your podcast app so that you can catch future episodes.

All right. Let's dive in.

[00:03:02] The dream Joanna & Jess had for this project

Jeremy Blanchard: Hi friend.

Jess Serrante: Hey.

Jeremy Blanchard: Welcome back to the show.

Jess Serrante: Oh, it's so nice to be

Jeremy Blanchard: back.

So nice to be back after five episodes.

Our first repeat guest, our most frequent repeat guest.

Jess Serrante: All the superlatives.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yes, absolutely. So, This episode is going to come out on April 23rd, and your podcast, "We Are The Great Turning", the first episode comes out.

Jess Serrante: On the 22nd.

Jeremy Blanchard: April 22nd. Whoa.

So we've been just in the canoe on this track for this whole wild journey that been on for the last two years and this episode is a chance for us to just like share some of the magic that this podcast project is with Joanna Macy and, a chance to share some of your personal takeaways as someone who just went on a really big journey and like what that has to say about personal transformation systemic transformation.

Jeremy Blanchard: And really, I think this episode is going to be about Joanna's wisdom, right? She has done this project with you to impart ,possibly one of her big final projects in the world, impart her, life of wisdom and her, like, elder view on the crises we're in and how to face them our hearts fully present.

Jess Serrante: The heart's intact as we say at the top of every episode.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, I was like, why does this sound familiar? Because I've listened to so many of

Jess Serrante: How to live through these wild times with our hearts intact.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, for folks listening, you and I have been friends for over a decade now, as we mentioned on episode one, when you helped set up what the premise of this podcast, Wider Roots is about. We're housemates, we're dear friends and, yeah, if you were to give like the synopsis of what this podcast is so we can have the container, the context, going into the specifics. what's the project that you did with Joanna?

Jess Serrante: Yeah. So it's called "We Are the Great Turning", and it's a 10 part series where I have the great privilege of bringing listeners to Joanna's dining room table where we sit together with tea and talk about what it is to live in these times.

And the series follows, what we call the spiral which is the structure behind Joanna's work called The Work That Reconnects. And so we talk about everything from, what we call the three stories of our time, like a way to frame up and understand what's happening in our world right now, to gratitude, to deep anger and grief and heartbreak.

And then also into the like great opening into our love for the world that happens when we allow ourselves to honor our pain and we talk about death and we talk about eros, we talk about deep time and, climate action and the big questions that are up. So we explore these like really rich topics, over ten 20 to 30 minute episodes.

They're all somewhat short, which I think is right because they leave the listener full. They're really like rich episodes.

Jeremy Blanchard: And having had the chance to listen to many of the episodes as they were in development, what really part of the heart of this project for the spiritual grounding, the spiritual principles that Joanna is speaking to. She's not here to give us like the tactical how to of, showing up to the climate crisis and the like convergence of crises that we're in.

But she really, especially coming from her like Buddhist perspective and her systems theory perspective. She just has so much grounding to offer to keep like, how do we return The courage that we need to be able to show up in a time of like incredible heartbreak.

Jess Serrante: Yeah. you Introduced her pretty well, but I'm realizing we should probably say who Joanna Macy is in case anyone listening doesn't know, in which case, welcome. I'm so excited for you to know who Joanna is. So Joanna Macy is a, as you said, Buddhist and she's a deep ecologist and systems thinker and she is 95 years old and she lives here in the Bay Area. And, she created this incredible body of work called The Work That Reconnects that is by my calculus, at least, one of the best tools, tool sets, frameworks out there for people who, see the destruction and are like heartbroken by what's happening in the world and don't want that to stop them from being able to totally love their life and totally love our world and stay in sustained action to create a future that is more beautiful, more just, more life sustaining.

And she's been doing this work for almost 50 years and she's just an absolutely incredible elder. And she and I have been friends for 10 years. So this podcast comes out of, 10 years of mentorship and friendship that she and I have had together.

Jeremy Blanchard: Amazing, so many things in there.

I think there's themes in here that we'll get to about, coaching and personal transformation about how her teachings can really, inform the way we go about this intersection of, like, caring about the world and, bringing our full selves to it.

And, there's also your story that I want highlight because this was such a huge moment of you being in your purpose and on your path and that's something as coaches. Oh, we're both coaches. Both work with social justice, climate justice leaders. Jess is many things other than a coach.

Mm-Hmm.

Jess Serrante: But that's been the heart of my work for the last eight years. Yeah.

Jeremy Blanchard: Absolutely. So let's just start at the beginning of this project. When did the seed of this project, find its way into your heart?

Jess Serrante: There's many ways to answer question. So in April of 2022, you and I loaded into your car and took a month long road trip around Utah. Do you remember that?

Jeremy Blanchard: I do remember that, Jess. I was, I think I was there. Was I there? I was there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jess Serrante: And I had just left my life in New York, I didn't have a place to land I didn't know where I was going. I just knew that my life needed to change and that was the first thing that I leapt into was this road trip with you and time in the national parks and we spent a ton of time on the road talking about our desires and our visions and the intersections that you talk about in this show of climate and social change and coaching and how those are at the core of both of our passions.

And I had this like seed in me that I wanted to start a podcast and, I had this funny moment when I found this notebook that you gave me while we were on that trip and it had a little list in it and it was like, I want to start a podcast. Who would my guests be? And on top of the list was like Joanna Macy.

Two months later from that. We had parted ways and I was in Costa Rica learning to surf and having the hardest time with it, terrified of the waves and of my board and like crying all the time, but I knew I needed to learn it.

And I was talking to Joanna on the phone and she was so interested in the sort of like spiritual journey that I was on with. this, like, why was I showing up at the beach every day with a board just to like stare at the waves and cry and feel afraid and so she would be like, okay,

call me after your lesson tomorrow. And so every day we were jumping on the phone and this podcast, fell into the conversation. We were like, maybe we should make something. Maybe we should record these conversations because we think that they're really great. And share them with people.

And that was the seed. That was the beginning of it.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

I guess I'm curious, that's what happened, and then there's the seed that was planted in your heart. And so I'm curious, what's the, longing or a possibility that you saw that had you say, I really want to share something about these conversations with people.

What was that?

Jess Serrante: I love that. I have had the life changing privilege of having Joanna's friendship for the last ten years.

And when we met, I was working, doing corporate accountability campaigning work at Rainforest Action Network, and she was really interested in what I was doing and wanted to have her finger on the pulse of what's actually going on in movement spaces, right?

Because she was in her late 80s, mid 80s at that point. And that was a big part of our like the reciprocity and exchange for us was like, she's this elder, even though she's always been a mentor to me, but she doesn't teach that way. She's not like sit down kid and let me like, drop all this wisdom on you, right?

She's like, tell me about you tell me what's going on in your life.

It has had such a profound impact on me and the way that I organize in the way that I lead to have Joanna's friendship over these years. And as you remember from being with me over the course of this decade, I was constantly telling people I talked to Joanna and I asked her this question about like how afraid I am of opening up the door of our heartbreak to the world in a room of activists when I was doing organizing with Extinction Rebellion and being like I'm terrified because there's so much heartbreak in that room right and then her reminding me that my only job was to open up space for that to be named that I didn't have to know how to contain it.

I didn't have to control it, right? And in fact in the moments when I did try to control it, I got feedback that people felt like they weren't being fully honored in their heartbreak, right? So it's like I've had all these moments like that where I was really felt like the trajectory of the way that I could be in the world as a coach and as a climate activist was shifted by my relationship with Joanna.

And that was what I wanted my peers to have. So really like we've made something that is available for a wide audience and it was made with anybody whose heart is broken at what's happening in the world in mind. But really, like the thing that brought Joanna and I to the table, to the microphones, was the fact that we wanted to make something where people who can identify with me as a, younger person, looking out at hopefully a long life in front of them and looking out at a really scary set of possibilities for the future, could feel and receive that mentorship and that kind of support, right?

Which I'm so excited to get to give that to people, especially because of the way that Joanna mentors right? Which like I said, isn't like, here's how you're going to do it. It's very coach-y actually, right? It's like, well. What are you going to do? What does break your heart?

What does give you hope? What is like moving to you about all of this?

Jeremy Blanchard: And let me sit with you in the pain like, yeah, that breaks my heart too. And I'm just like very, like a very present, like, validating, normalizing

Jess Serrante: And me, sitting with her in her pain. One of the things that I really love about, our relationship is the reciprocity in it. It doesn't feel like, she's caretaking me, she totally takes care of me and I totally take care of her, but it's, it's very mutual. And she was very clear about that from the beginning too. When we started the project, she was like, I know there's going to be a temptation to make this the Joanna Macy show. And I want to be really clear with you that's not what we're doing. This is the two of us teaching and speaking wisdom alongside each other.

And that, at the beginning, especially the hell out of me, because I was like, who the hell am I to sit next to Joanna Macy? This incredibly beloved and well respected elder and teacher who's transformed my life. But that's also a piece of the beauty in her mentorship and her friendship is her being like, Nope, you've got something to offer.

And I want you sitting next to me doing that. And it has been a hell of a road accepting that.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah. All of the ways in which, for all of us, doubt. Self-doubt. Making ourselves small, being scared of bringing our full presence into a project and the what ifs. That's what you and I work with, as coaches constantly with our clients. That's roles we get to play.

Jess Serrante: Right and to be like given the opportunity to lead in a project next to my hero, was just crazy. Like I have journal entries from maybe the year that I met Joanna, where I'm writing things like, I don't understand it, but I have this deep sense that my dharma is entwined with the work that Joanna has created. Or like, I have this longing to live a life like the one Joanna has lived.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: Yeah.

Jeremy Blanchard: And what a privilege.

[00:15:39] Heartbreak and honoring our pain for the world

Jeremy Blanchard: As we're talking, I'm having an insight about Joanna's work and coaching that I'm

that let's, let's, go there. So let me summarize the four steps and the spiral of The Work That Reconnects.

So step one is gratitude as a foundation is sort of resourcing ourselves for step two, which is honoring our pain. And really being present with the heartbreak.

Jess Serrante: Mm hmm. And specifically honoring our pain for the world.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah. thank you. Exactly. And then, the third step in the spiral is seeing with new and ancient eyes. So as we honor our pain, we alchemize it into something where we are suddenly available for a wider view on what's possible. And the fourth step is going forth. So now what are we going to do about it? Take some action.

All of those steps are beautiful. The one that's standing out to me in this moment is heartbreak, is honoring our pain for the world, particularly for what this podcast is about, about this intersection of personal transformation and systemic transformation.

Right. It could be easier to make the case that the other three steps are things that are already present in a lot of coaching and personal transformation stuff, right? Gratitude. Okay. We've got a lot on the gratitude and the psychology of gratitude. We've got a lot on seeing with new eyes as like, okay, we're going to transform your view.

We're going to get offer new perspectives. We're going to help you shift your

Jess Serrante: We're going to come into into our connection to the web of life and our connection to our ancestors

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Yeah.

Jess Serrante: Mostly real feel good stuff.

Jeremy Blanchard: Right. And then going forth, taking action, lots of coaching is about taking action already.

So in these sort of apolitical, personal transformation, healing, spiritual spaces, a lot of those three steps would already be there. But it's occurring to me right now, I'm like, Oh man, the juice right at the intersection of Joanna Macy and coaching, like the sweet spot there, at least one of them is our heartbreak for the world.

I mean, that's part of what drew Joanna to this work is like, she felt so alone

Jess Serrante: Right

Jeremy Blanchard: in her own heartbreak. And no one's talking about this and everyone's telling me, Oh, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. And she's like, no, I really need space to grieve. I really need space to like, let this despair rise up in me about what's happening in the world.

Jess Serrante: She went to a Cousteau society symposium in Boston in 1977. There were talks on all of the environmental catastrophes and it was just getting hit by one after the other, after the other.

That was the thing that sent her into a year and a half of heartbreak and isolation where she couldn't even imagine like bringing her beloveds, bringing her friends and her partner, her beloved husband, like into that pain with her

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: at first.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah I want to invite us to explore this thread for a little bit, which is, What's the role of heartbreak and honoring our pain for the world in showing up fully and bringing our full selves

to the world?

That's a big question,

Jess Serrante: it's

Jeremy Blanchard: it's big. Yeah. And maybe a place we can start is you've been so in the Work That Reconnects and in Joanna's teachings for a very long time. But this project was also like a huge deepening into your like, level of understanding and level of practice of this work.

I just feel like there's this, intersection of like, coaching and Joanna's work. It's like, if all coaching had this, heartbreak, let's honor our pain for the world. Let us, so get present to our heartbreak for the world as our foundation for discovering what we're here to do. do.

Jess Serrante: So one thing that it feels important to say as we tip into this is that no like aspect of the spiral can actually be separated from the others.

I say this because honoring our pain for the world can be such a revelation to people when we discover that we can do it that sometimes I feel like I see people out in the world actually just pulling that segment out and just focusing there and it feels just like sitting in it, which also Joanna has said many times, like the point of the spiral is always to get you to action.

Yeah, it feels really good when we honor our pain. It feels really good when we see with new eyes, right? But the point of the whole journey is always, always to get you back out into the world, right?

But Joanna always taught it in the format of a workshop, right? So she had a discrete set of time with people and she would take them through all the way into their deep pain and heartbreak and to grief ritual. And then she would lift them out and then send them out into the world, right?

So we don't just stay in it. So there's like these two extremes. It's like one in which we just sit in it really deeply. And we just hang out there, which is horrible, but I think for some people really like scratches and itch because we're so denied that,

Or we don't touch it at all. And I don't think this is true for everyone, but I think this is, I work with climate activists, climate leaders.

And, I have seen again and again, interestingly enough, it often comes up when the question that the client is bringing in is about vision and they're like, what do I want to do? What is my purpose? What can I contribute? And many times we've been in that conversation and then at some point I'll say to them, are you honoring your heartbreak?

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: And it's like, the floodgates open and all of this feeling comes out and it's like we get emotionally constipated You know, if we're not honoring that pain. We don't have access to vision in the same way. We don't have access to purpose in the same way because our pain is Joanna always says, our pain is the other side of the coin of our love for the world.

Jeremy Blanchard: Say that again.

Jess Serrante: Our pain is the other side of the coin of our love for the world. So if we cut ourselves off from our pain, we cut ourselves off from our love. We cannot fully touch the depth of our passion for our planet and for our contribution, if we don't also allow ourselves to feel the depth of our heartbreak, which is really scary, because if you're anything like me, your heart is so broken, my eyes well up just saying this to you, because even 10 years into this work, this never goes away, that I have spent many years feeling, and I trust this more now, but I spent many years feeling like if I allow myself to touch the depth of my heartbreak or my rage, I may never come out like that'll break me if I really understood could let myself express the depth of my sorrow at what's happening to our planet. I would just have a mental breakdown.

And what Joanna has taught me is you step in and you step out, right? Step in and let it bring you deeper into connection, which is resourcing and go out and be a part of the world and let that inform you. And then you come back into the pain and it's cyclical, right? So in that sense, Joanna doesn't talk about this stuff through like the modern lingo of trauma informed practice.

But in that sense it's so deeply trauma informed because we're not just like diving straight into the deep end. We're like walking in and titrating and. Touching what we can touch within our capacity, and then expanding our capacity and then going back, right?

Jeremy Blanchard: And doing it with others, right? An essential part of the whole work is that it's like never meant to be done alone. It's always at its core a group practice and that our ability, I remember the 10 day retreat I was on with Joanna, we would have a section where the news would be read to us, but as a group. And we would hear like summaries of some of the stuff because we were on retreat, we were unplugged, and someone would come in and be like, here's what's happening today in the world, and here's some of the heartbreaking things that are happening. And we're going to process this together, because these are things that are too big for any one of us to process alone.

Jess Serrante: love that you did that.

Yeah.

So the short answer is it's essential if your intention is to be in service. My opinion is that honoring our pain for the world essential for us to do that.

Jeremy Blanchard: And. I think what's beautiful about Joanna's teachings is that as you said, she doesn't just say this is the way we honor our pain, the end. With you, it was a very relational process where you were bringing your pain to her. You got to be in that together.

[00:23:59] Clip from Joanna Macy: What if my pain for the world overwhelms me?

Jeremy Blanchard: So I'm curious if we want to share the clip

Jess Serrante: to share.

Yeah. So something that Joanna taught me as I was expressing to her, I'm afraid that it, if I were to touch this pain, I might lose my mind. She said something really powerful that I can play for you.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, please.

Jess Serrante: So in this clip, I've just said to her, but I just said to you, basically, like, I'm worried that my heartbreak is too big for me to hold. And this was her response.

Joanna Macy: Yes, I had that. I think many are afraid of that.

Jess Serrante: That like, I might actually break my brain if I let myself touch the depths of it. That if I could like, tap into the vein of grief that runs through our world, that my little body couldn't hold it. That's my fear.

Joanna Macy: Yeah, and I've heard it expressed back then when I was starting this work of saying, listen, if I were to let you let myself feel, let alone tell you what I feel about our, uh, world situation.

If I wouldn't let you know that I wouldn't be able to hold my job. I wouldn't be able to support my family. I go bonkers.

This is where my Dharma practice really helped me because, uh, these are just feelings and that these are, uh, not some objective situation that's going to come as an, you know, dark cloud.

It's a painful feeling. Feelings just come and go.

And joy can come just like that, and so can pain, and so can fear. You just pay great attention to what's coming up. And it's changing all the time, it's a flowing stream. And you're a flowing stream, but you just go, at this moment I'm feeling this, but that doesn't last long and it changes, you just watch it.

Jess Serrante: So, this was a wild moment in this process. So something that happened a lot over the course of this process was that like, when we started, I had this whole organized plan about what we were going to talk about and not so surprisingly, what emerged organically that was alive for both of us, our pains and our heartbreaks and our visions and what was exciting us wound up being what you really get to hear in the audio.

I would always show up to a lot of our conversations with a piece of paper and a plan for what I wanted to talk about. And, very rarely would it actually go that way.

Jeremy Blanchard: So you had this plan that you thought, okay, we're going to, I've got my outline for the conversation we're going to have. This will cover the X, Y, Z topic.

Jess Serrante: But the thing that rightfully that makes so much sense in retrospect was that the moments that we wound up sharing that were the most profound and I think the most interesting are the live moments of teaching right? Where we were both actually at our edge either in our relationship or in my understanding of something or in her understanding of something and you get to hear us figuring it out.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: When I was working on episodes four and five, which are the two episodes on honoring our pain for the world, was in the, early months of the genocide in Gaza, in Palestine. And to write two episodes on this, I had to go all the way down into the depths of what do I actually think about what it means for us to honor our pain.

And there was a moment, there were several moments where I was just staring blankly at the wall, like doom scrolling, just like looping on like, how the fuck is this happening? And I'm so far away, and I can't do anything. And my privilege, you know, all of the things that just all of the outrage and heartbreak at witnessing this happening.

And I couldn't write the damn episodes. I like couldn't find anything to say about them.

Jeremy Blanchard: What was happening in that moment?

What got in the way or what was the experience that was

Jess Serrante: It was like my pain for the world was so live that I didn't have any space from it. How can I say something of like wisdom to someone else, right? And this is always a thing that catches me with this stuff is like feeling the need, and I think a lot of coaches experience this, feeling the need to like have some sort of like emotional distance truth bomb thing to drop on someone about it as opposed which Joanna has always been brilliant about being like right down in the mud of the thing with someone and actually not needing to have my what I have to say be some like well polished like Dharma teaching kind of thing, right?

[00:28:58] Clip from Joanna Macy: Our pain is sacred

Jess Serrante: And so I was so in the pain that I couldn't find the teachings and I also felt like who the hell am I to have anything to say about this. Look what's happening to these people, and I called Joanna and It wound up being like I was literally crying on the rug underneath like laying on the rug that sits under my desk just like staring up at the ceiling being like okay what would she tell me to do if she would tell me to just feel this and so I did and then I called her and I wasn't planning to record I just needed her support and It wound up being so brilliant, and I'm bummed I didn't catch the whole conversation, but at some point I like ran over to my microphone and put my phone on speakerphone and just recorded as we talked, and here's what she said to me.

Jeremy Blanchard: Which episode is

Jess Serrante: this?

This is episode five.

Joanna Macy: I'm wondering if, if in some way there could be the possibility of a voice in you that says, that says thank you that you can feel that that you're allowing yourself to feel this degree of horror. And this human capacity is what has to happen for all of us. If we're going to grow up as a species, we have to feel the horror of which we're capable without an anesthetic.

You can't wish it away, the pain. It's a pain that you have to, bow to as a human being. That it is you wouldn't want it not to be true for you. You wouldn't want you to find it tolerable.

Jess Serrante: No.

Joanna Macy: And that somehow you've got to allow it to hurt like hell without actually driving you crazy.

Jess Serrante: Yeah. I think that's the fine line for me.

it, it feels maddening. It feels intolerable.

Joanna Macy: And in a way, it's sort of like a sacred pain. It is a good thing that we don't want it to be true.

Jess Serrante: Exactly. Yeah.

Joanna Macy: So it was a great thing you called me.

And maybe next time, I'll be calling you.

Jeremy Blanchard: What happened for you in that moment, or what did that shift?

Jess Serrante: I stopped needing the pain to go away. And that mattered for everything. It was like more intolerable because I just wanted it gone. And I think that's part of why I was like grasping for the like insightful thing to say, right? Like I get some freaking emotional distance from this feeling of my heart being ripped open.

Jeremy Blanchard: Too much.

Jess Serrante: too much Yeah,

Jeremy Blanchard: So in that moment, you didn't need it to go away, you weren't trying to push it away, you weren't trying to get emotional distance so that you could go do work, and instead you could just say, okay, this is here, I'm gonna allow my like full heartbreak to be here, I think there's something intuitive for us that's like, we live in a culture that says so often, Oh, you know, in US culture, like, Oh, put on a happy face. How are you doing? I'm fine. We were sort of like the polite to say we're good. I'm just curious,

like what happened? Like what did letting yourself be present to that pain and not needing to go away, what did that make possible?

Jess Serrante: The insight at the end of the day around all of this for me was about trusting the flow of life in me at all times and not needing to manipulate or control any of it.

I like having things my way, sure no one can relate to that. But I got it from that conversation with her that nothing needed to change and it didn't, it's not like I heard those words and they was like magic words and it all went away. And I think I just let myself sit in it that day. And that mattered a lot.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: Like the, it broke the spell of urgency. I have to get over this now so that I can go back and do my work because it's not impacting me directly. So who the hell am I to like need to take time off to sit in my heartbreak?

I

should be like, I should just get back to my work in service of a world where this kinds of crazy stuff doesn't happen.

Get to it.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: You know, there's a place for urgency, right? For people on the ground, like there's real urgency, and even people not on the ground, there is a real urgency around this issue and I was like gumming up what was going on inside me such that I was useless to myself, let alone anyone and it doesn't take a lot of time actually, this is another thing that Joanna's taught me is like we, we like, slam on the brakes at the gates of our pain because we're like, Oh, if I go in there, I'm never coming out, you know,

but the reality is that You might go in for five minutes.

You might go in for a half an hour. You might go in for a couple hours. If you actually let yourself go there, you don't need to stay there.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah you

Jess Serrante: You can come back out, you can go back in.

And there's something in my mind that like, it's taken a long time for me to understand that. I think it has something to do with being raised in a culture that doesn't adequately, teach us how to have a deep relationship with those kinds of feelings.

Right. We just like keep them away.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, so there's two themes that I hear in here that are speaking to me. One is the theme of let yourself feel it, let yourself be in that flow of life, let it move through you, because that is what any feeling and emotion and experience will naturally do, will arise, it will be there, and then it will pass,

Jess Serrante: Mm-Hmm.

Jeremy Blanchard: and then it will rise again, usually.

Jess Serrante: If your heart's open it will rise again.

Jeremy Blanchard: That's right, yeah.

[00:35:34] Heartbreak guiding us to our calling

Jeremy Blanchard: So there's that theme, and there's another theme in here that I'm curious about, which is like, the way in which our pain and our heartbreak, becomes part of our, guidance towards what we care about. And I know this is something that Joanna also teaches about, of like, how to use your heartbreak, keep your heart open, let your heart break, and let that heartbreak inform, what's mine to do?

Jess Serrante: yeah.

Jeremy Blanchard: That's why it's a part. It's this necessary step on the way towards the fourth step of action and going forward yeah, I actually think that to talk about that, we need to talk about the phase between those two, which seeing with new eyes. So seeing with new eyes is the hardest of the four stages to describe. It's really about, the metaphor we'll often use is like our tears as we honor our pain wash our eyes clean so that we can look out and see the world with more clarity.

And there's two pieces that I think are really important to this, which is like when we honor our pain, the new eyes that we can come out with, first of all, it's about decolonizing. It's about telling the real truth about what is going on, like, about the violence of the empire that we live in and the absolute, corruption and violence of capitalism, right?

And, like, shedding the parts of us that seek comfort in believing in those systems.

Yeah

Jess Serrante: And, or like shedding as a white person, my loyalty and attachment to the culture of whiteness, as a place where I have thought I was finding safety, right? So when we can like, touch the pain, we can shed our attachments and see these systems for what they really are.

And when we lose those, what we find. And I'm careful about the way that I'm talking. I'm mostly, I'm talking about my experience, right? This is going to be different for everybody. But my experience has been that, like, as I lose my attachment to those dominant systems, what I find is attachment to something even truer and more beautiful, which is the web of life and the web of human history.

I don't find safety in capitalism and white supremacy culture, but you know where I find it? I find it in my ancestors and I find it in my connection to future beings and my like incredible loyalty to the ones that will come. And I find it in the way that I am inextricably linked to the great web of existence and all beings, not just humans that have come before me and all that has conspired together to make my life possible,

I mean, you want unshakable belonging, like that's a place to find it.

When you know that you belong to this world, there is no choice but to get the hell out there and act

And fight to protect what's, in danger, and fight to transform these systems and build better ways so that we can have healthy neighborhoods and communities and, like all of it.

One of the things that's happened for me in this process is that I have fallen more deeply in love with the third stage of the spiral, which I didn't have as much of a connection with before this, but it's like deepening honoring our pain deepens that connection. And then it's like, going forth is involuntary. And I don't mean like you don't have choice, right? But it's like if you exhale your body's naturally going to inhale.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: and it's just like This is what you do when you love someone or something, and it doesn't have to be as forced. The way we intellectualize action, there's plenty of space and room for thinking strategically.

I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't intellectualize it, but when that's all we're doing, we're like muscling in a way that I don't actually think we need to. That it comes a lot easier when we approach action from a place of love and connection. Which, unfortunately, so many of us are cut off from because that's what our culture is designed to do, to like train us into believing that we're individuals and that we're separate from one another and separate from our planet.

Jeremy Blanchard: There's like a thing that's alive for me right now around, if every coaching model out there suddenly included a piece about honoring our heartbreak for the world, and then letting, like, where's your heartbreak?

Great, that's your calling. That's where your dharma lives.

Like, connecting heartbreak. And, heartbreak is our love for the world. And our love for the world is what we're here to contribute for the world and service like what that would do to turn personal transformation work into systemic transformation work.

Jess Serrante: It's definitely one very simple and ironically personal way to break the wall. The like myth of individualism that is like a blind spot, like inherent in a lot of Western, in the coaching models that we see.

Jeremy Blanchard: Personal growth, spiritual models, healing models that say, okay, what do you want? What do you want? What's your deepest longing? And there's this implicit way that gets answered.

That's okay. I guess I want this and I want that and I want this and I want that. It can very easily be answered at the level of, it stops at me and my family and my friends, right?

Jess Serrante: Like I have no business asking the question of what's mine to give so long as I'm not connected to what's around me, right? Like it's an empty question.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah. Yeah. And, To have an individualist vision to ask only the question, what do I want and have the range of site be just, a few feet in front of me, basically. What I appreciate and what you're saying is that that is never going to be fulfilling. There's no way that I'm ever going to just make myself happy enough and like get the things that I think I want from this culture and rest easy at night because there's a fundamental like disconnection from earth and from living systems and from the web of life.

And so, yeah, there's something in here that our heartbreak opens our heart, lets us totally feel our pre existing connection to the web of life that is, I cannot be without everything else in the whole universe.

And it breaks my heart to see some of what's happening to life, people and beings and living systems.

Jess Serrante: right.

Jeremy Blanchard: But let me awaken to the heartbreak, to the tragedies, to the disconnection from life that's all around me and the violence that's all around me.

Let me awaken as a part of response, the quote unquote, immune system of the planet waking up

Jess Serrante: right.

Jeremy Blanchard: course-correct.

Jess Serrante: And it leads us to a different kind of action, right? Because then we're talking about action resourced from belonging and solidarity, not action resourced from some conceptual intellectual theory about my responsibility or something like that.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah

Jess Serrante: That's a heartbreak for me to watch in our movement, how many people are acting from their intellect? And I don't mean to say this as a criticism because I still do it and I have done it, right? I'm not separate from this, but I can see how differently I show up in movement space, when I'm like trying to perform like strategic action or

Jeremy Blanchard: Having a good analysis?

Oh, we've got a best analysis, and I've got the right way figured

Jess Serrante: out and then we're like fucking swiping at each other

and the this is, it's like virtue signal party and and it's all in the head. And I think there are some movements out there who really get this,

like Sunrise Movement is a movement that I really respect for their sense of what it means to bring soul and heart into organizing, you know? And they're, of course, pulling on the great legacies of the Civil Rights Movement that did this so beautifully,

Jeremy Blanchard: so maybe what is what you're saying, I wonder if it's not so much the presence of an intellectual analysis, but what I'm hearing is really the, absence or sort of, lack of a real connectedness to heart and heartbreak and personal, like where's my spirit showing up in this whole journey?

Jess Serrante: Yes. We want both.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, exactly.

Jess Serrante: We want both.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: And I have definitely fallen into the trap of thinking that my intellect itself is enough. And I burned myself out from there. It's not like the love was ever not there. It was that I was afraid of the pain that was connected to it.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah I feel like we're just truly in a Jess Jeremy conversation right now where like we're real-time exploring things that we're both like really

Jess Serrante: curious

Jeremy Blanchard: always trying to put new words to and like really deepen our understanding

[00:44:25] Hope (and other places to find our motivation)

Jeremy Blanchard: so I've been thinking a lot about hope. I know you think a lot about hope. I just interviewed Margaret Wheatley for the podcast, and she thinks a lot about hope. And we had a very interesting conversation about that. That episode won't be out for another couple weeks, but, I think, yeah, there's something in here that's deeply connected between heartbreak and hope in my mind of like, okay, I'm going to open myself fully or at least more to the realities of the world and what's breaking my heart about the world. I think there comes this obvious question of like, am I going to be able to handle it?

And like, am I going to see such a bleak reality? Am I going to see so much violence and pain and separation that I want to give up. And so there's so many questions that I know Joanna talks about, about hope, and you two had so many good conversations about that. So how does this connection work for you between heartbreak and hope? How does that show up?

Jess Serrante: I think for a long time hope was the thing that I relied on to buoy me through my heartbreak. I'm afraid, I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm numb from all of it. Overwhelm, all this, and that is so unbearable that the thing I will hold on to, to survive this is hope, hope, Like that it can be different that maybe it's not as bad as I think it is that like maybe you know some great silver bullet solution will fall out of the sky and like it will be Like, all the great sports movies where someone scores the winning point after the buzzer kind of it's just like the thing that's going to save us,

Jess Serrante: And for me, that's the connection.

It's like the hope that some miracle will happen. But what I found through the inquiry into hope that I did to write this. Episode six called the H word, that doesn't tell you something about how I feel about hope. Is that, I was using a version of hope as a source of false security for a long time. Like to me for a while, having hope meant believing in that, like there would be some positive outcome and what's changed for me through this process is that, I don't always think I know what we mean when we use the word hope and there are other words that are become more interesting to me,

Jeremy Blanchard: Such as?

Jess Serrante: Such as possibility and uncertainty and commitment and courage.

And I can talk about those words, like

something that I discovered through my conversations with Joanna that she helped me see and through really grappling, the hope episode was the hardest of the whole series.

Jeremy Blanchard: Absolutely. it got rewritten.

Jess Serrante: Three times.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: Three fully different drafts.

Jeremy Blanchard: I remember.

Jess Serrante: Because the first two drafts I was just like writing a bunch of bullshit because I was trying to, I was like trying to like, again, have the, this has been so good for my ego, right? Like the part of me that wants to like puff up my chest and be like, I have an answer here, you know?

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah, something insightful to say.

Jess Serrante: Something insightful to say. And then I was just like saying a bunch of crap that wasn't really it wasn't helping me. It wasn't helping anyone who was listening to it

and when I talk to Joanna about hope, she wants to talk about courage, or she wants to talk about possibility. And I, and she didn't like explicitly lay out like an analysis on hope for me. And I just had to like swim in those waters for a while to be like, okay, well, she's not going to tell me what to think about this.

But I know I need to talk about this because we can't, no one can talk about climate change and action without this word coming into the conversation, rightfully so.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: Because we're looking for, okay, what's going to carry me?

What's going to keep me in action and what I found was that for me, we talk about this in the episode, there's this sort of what we call like American style hope. It's like sunny Pollyanna optimism. It's all going to be okay, right? Like I just believe it'll all work out.

And that always felt unstable to me. Like it was a lie I told myself to make myself feel okay.

But then when I really went down to touch it, I was like, that is fragile. That like crumbles in my hands the second I touch it.

But the reality of the situation is that the future is unwritten and uncertain. And that where uncertainty lives, possibility lives. And that, that's just true. You know?

Uncertainty inherently means that possibility exists. Possibility for all sorts of things. For the darkest fantasies and fears that I have, and for the most beautiful. And that, my life is a vote in the direction of a possibility or a set of possibilities, and I'm going to give myself to the one I want.

And I can only do that effectively if I also fully let in the other possibilities that are present. And that's part of the connection between heartbreak. It's like it has to be in the room for me to fully give myself to the possibility that I actually want. Right. And this is why the podcast is called We Are the Great Turning.

The Great Turning in the work that reconnects is the transition to a more just and life sustaining society. It is one of the things that is happening in the world right now, while we have global corporate capitalism just like ravaging the planet and our lives and we have unraveling and collapse and war, right?

These are things that are also happening. But the possibility that I give myself to is the one that we call the great turning. And I have to fully let in the presence of the other two in that fully. And that was something that I don't think I fully understood until through the process of writing this.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're speaking to one of the first lessons that I ever encountered of Joanna's, I remember watching this YouTube video that I'll link to in the show notes that's Joanna laying out this very thing of when you, fall in love, you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know if the relationship's going to work out or not. Or when you get pregnant, you don't know if it's going to be a healthy baby or not.

And so on and so on, that everything has uncertainty with it. And that uncertainty and possibility are just true. And therefore they're not fickle. They're not going to, slip through your hands in the way that I hope we get this outcome. I hope we get it. I hope we get it. I hope we get it.

And that's such a, I don't know. It's so scary personally for me to take in that lesson of hers of like, wait, you're taking away my, I really needed that hope.

The other word that's relevant in here for me is motivation, right? It's like, where do I find my motivation? To show up, am I going to hinge my motivation on getting a certain outcome that I want, hoping that I get a certain outcome that I want. Okay. Maybe, maybe that's one, one path that's been a lot of my life has been spent with that as the source of my motivation and what Joanna offers and what you're helping share here is like this. Okay. Yeah. Is that stable enough? Is that the one I really want invest my energy in

Jess Serrante: at some level that certainty is a lie you're telling yourself.

Jeremy Blanchard: right. Brilliantly put. Yeah Like we can't know that that's going to happen We can invest in that we can I love the way you put it my life is a vote in favor of this possibility that I see. Feels like great I can do that even if that possibility isn't coming to fruition. I can still be a vote.

I can still invest my whole being into it.

Jess Serrante: And into, building it, right? Like it lives, The Great Turning is alive right now. It's not like a future thing. It is happening. We can see it all around us. We can see it in like, you know, the restorative justice efforts happening in our community and we can see it in our local urban farms and we can see it in like the healing, it's just like, it's every, it's everywhere. And that just energy transition in land back movements, right. It's all over.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: It's not as strong as we want it to be yet. It has, it's not the dominant story, but that's what we can choose to live for is the building of it. A line I wrote for the one of the last episodes was our relationships and also our lives are the bricks that the temple of the great turning are made of.

And that's, understanding that we are a part of a intergenerational project of building a culture and a world that is just and aligned with life and life sustaining. And it started way before us, lest we delude ourselves into thinking that we got that bright idea,

Jeremy Blanchard: Yep

Jess Serrante: You know, and it's going to go on way after us.

[00:53:36] Clip from Joanna Macy: Whistling in the dark to cheer ourselves up

Jeremy Blanchard: This feels like a perfect place to share another one of the clips from the episode. That was, I know one of your big turning points, where you were talking with Joanna about hope and, the way that you've made the great turning into

Jess Serrante: a god

Jeremy Blanchard: A god. just to set it up a little bit.

Pretty much every time you came home after recording, we would talk about the, like, huge shifts that were happening and the breakthroughs and the like, wow, Joanna really like messed with my head today when she

Jess Serrante: this

about

Jeremy Blanchard: about hope or said this about grief or said this about possibility.

And this was really one of the big ones that you came back and it was like, really rocking your world for that week and onward for many, many weeks of, how you'd been holding the great turning as like a future.

Jess Serrante: Yeah, so this is, this is from episode six, the H word. And, um, you get to hear Joanna school, me.

Jeremy Blanchard: Great.

Jess Serrante: There's a way that I have held this from time to time that's like As if the Great Turning is something to believe in or not, and I'm, I think I'm starting to see that that's a really flawed way of looking at it.

Joanna Macy: Oh, like you have to believe in it for it to work. It's like whistling in the dark. That's what you fell for, which is wonderful.

You still wanted to talk about it, but you thought it was just whistling in the dark.

Jess Serrante: What do you mean, whistling in the dark?

Joanna Macy: To cheer yourself up.

Jess Serrante: Yeah, yeah.

Joanna Macy: It's in a, it's a dark path, and I don't want, I would walk right by the cemetery, and the least I can do, I'm scared to death, but I'll whistle.

Jess Serrante: I realized I had been holding on to the idea of the Great Turning like a good luck charm, like magic, instead of seeing it as one of many realities of our world, a reality that I can see around me and can contribute to.

Okay, give me a moment because this is a breakthrough for me. It's so much simpler than I was making it. I've been using it as a way to, like, cheer myself up in the face of the incredible uncertainty that I'm living in. Like, oh, if I can just believe in a great turning, if I can just believe that this great paradigm shift is happening and, gonna win, that's using the great turning as a crutch.

It's using it to like, oh my God, I could cry right now. It's like using it as like a false protection.

It's like believing in God.

To create a certainty that doesn't exist.

Joanna Macy: I believe that you'll go to heaven when you die. You don't know. And no, it's not that. It's seeing that all around us, there is this happening and it's in us.

Jess Serrante: It is happening, and I am a part of it. Period. I choose, I can choose to be a part of it.

Joanna Macy: Which means, I can choose to remember that it's happening, and I can choose to see how huge it is.

Jess Serrante: I'm kind of speechless because what I'm getting in this moment is there's nothing to believe in. This is just what is happening.

And it is true that I get to participate in it and that I get to choose to see it. I get to look for it, like sniff it out in the world around me and be a part of it.

Joanna Macy: And not only that, I myself now am in goose flesh from my scalp to my toes. Because I'm just opening to what you're allowing yourself to see.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah that blew your mind.

mind.

What blew your mind about it?

Jess Serrante: Just what you heard, I saw the way that I was propping myself up. I believe in the great turning. And it actually made me unstable. It was a lie. I was telling I believe that this is going to happen. As opposed to the ease I feel, even though it's also very scary when I say what I can now say, which is this is happening with a lot of other shit that I don't like.

And I don't get to know how the cards are going to fall for the future. The end, and I think this is there's a lot of different people talking about hope and a lot of different ways, but it's it makes me think of that well known quote from Rebecca Solnit where she says, "hope is not a lottery ticket. You sit on the couch and clutch, it's an ax that you break down the door with in an emergency."

That really captures the heart of it.

So whether or not we use that word, it's the sense of our connection possibility that we love, that we like break through the bullshit. Our own mental bullshit, the bullshit in the world, right? Like we like cut through it to go and act in service of the thing that we want. And so this is also why when you first asked me about, what am I interested in if I'm not so much, not as interested in hope?

And I said, courage.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah

Jess Serrante: And I think I also said commitment. Like the thing underneath hope for me, that is just untouchable is my care for the world.

Jeremy Blanchard: That's

Jess Serrante: that like, you could shut off all the lights. You could take all my people away from me, you could take everything and you cannot snuff out my passion for life, for mine and the lives of others. It is a thing I will die with. And it is one of the truest things about who I am. And I know this is true for, I believe this is true about everybody else.

And it's like that, my connection to that feels so much more compelling.

Jeremy Blanchard: yeah

Jess Serrante: It doesn't matter what, like how, what's amount of what 0, 0, 0, 1 percent chance.

I think there is that things will go and I think the odds are higher than that, that we will, that I think we are, doing our work and seeing

efficacy

Jeremy Blanchard: even if it were.

Jess Serrante: But even if it were, we're like, we're living in on the road and Parable of The Sower, right? The image, the apocalypse image that always comes into my mind, nothing can take away my care and as long as I have care, I have motivation to act, so like when people get into this thing, this conversation that can come up with like, are we not going to act if we don't have hope? It's like that conversation is just irrelevant.

Jeremy Blanchard: We have care.

Jess Serrante: We have love. We have care.

Jeremy Blanchard: deep care for life. that's right.

I don't know what's happening for folks listening to this right now, but I know for me, whenever we get down to something so true, my whole system can feel it. I'm like, yes, it is true that there's uncertainty. It is true that there's great destruction happening.

And it is true that I care about life. And it is true that I'm committed to being of complete service in whatever role I see as mine to play.

That's true, and something in my whole system relaxed from that place where I was clutching on to I really hope it goes well, I really want it to, you know, and I can then just be like, oh, it actually, I don't need to invest any more energy in that.

I can actually just relax into doing what I'm called to do, doing what's needed of me in these times.

And from a coaching perspective, to loop it back around to that, I feel like this is like, there's so many coaching modalities, there's so many healing modalities, there's so many spiritual paths out there, all of them bring something beautiful to the table, and what would it be like to lift up the ones that are really equipping us, like the Work That Reconnects does, to look at reality with clear eyes and, show up fully out of our care and love for the world, regardless of how we think things are likely to turn out.

There's something so energized. Imagine coaching sessions with our clients. I mean, you and I have these sessions, but imagine everyone having more coaching sessions where the conversation is, what breaks your heart about the world? How does that inform you about what you're deeply called to? How does that show you what you love? Where does that point you in terms of the service that you want to be to the world? Great. Now let's talk about if we're doing a visioning exercise as we do in coaching. Now let's talk about your vision from that as our ground.

What would that be like?

Jess Serrante: I can tell you as someone who has done this many times, it's freaking beautiful, right?

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Wow. We've covered a lot of ground.

So as we do, oh my gosh, there were, like 15 more topics on my list of potential things for us to talk about that we will have to save for a future conversation.

[01:02:51] Jess' sources of nourishment

Jeremy Blanchard: So I didn't get to ask you this the first time you were on the podcast, but it's a question I ask all of my guests at the end of every episode, which is where are you getting your nourishment, resourcing, is that books or poems or teachers or practices that you want to like offer to our listeners

Jess Serrante: I think that lately for me, the answer is always like back in my own body. My mind has been so full writing and creating these episodes The things that have anchored me this year are dancing alone in my room. And just like letting feelings move as I wiggle and shake and being alone has really mattered to me cause it's just about feeling.

And then also through Muay Thai. I've gotten into Thai boxing this year and it's a return to an early, a younger version of myself because martial arts was my primary sport as a kid and getting to reclaim that in my thirties has been deeply nourishing.

Jeremy Blanchard: The

inside joke between Jess and I is, and I'm sure many people can relate to this is, oh gosh, I have that, I want to go work out or run or go to the gym or do my thing for, my body moving Jess would always say, should I go to Muay Thai? I should probably go to Muay Thai. And we have enough evidence now to say that the answer is

Jess Serrante: The answer has never been no.

Jeremy Blanchard: The answer has never been no.

Every time you get back from Muay Thai, it's, Oh god, I'm so glad I went to Muay Thai. I really needed that. That was absolutely the right choice.

Jess Serrante: It's like a total reset on my brain, getting into my body that way. It's an intense sport, I needed a practice that pulls me out of my head and totally into the present moment and totally into my body.

It's like better than a power nap in terms of like reset. It's like the hard reset button every day.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: Yeah.

[01:04:46] Closing

Jeremy Blanchard: I think before we start to draw to a close here, what I most want to say is I've read Joanna's books and I've had the chance to go to a 10 day retreat with Joanna.

So And having listened to these episodes, I feel like Joanna is such a Dharma teacher. Her wisdom comes through when she speaks. And there are only a handful of things out there where Joanna is speaking. Most of her public teaching has been her books.

And there's something so alive and electric about the conversations you two had that comes through in this podcast I can tell I'm going to go back to these over and over again because they're so deep and rich.

So thank you for spending two years of your life fully devoted to bringing this wisdom and these like very intimate conversations forward because yeah, our movements need all the spiritual nourishment we can get.

Jess Serrante: It was the clearest thing in the world for me to do You're welcome, I

guess I did once the seed was planted, there was no other way that this went other than me giving myself to it fully. And I feel, I just feel so grateful that it's out, that we get to share this.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah

Jess Serrante: I hope that these conversations can impact people, even a fraction of the way that they've impacted me. Yeah.

Jeremy Blanchard: I love you so much

Jess Serrante: I love you so much.

This wouldn't have happened without you or it would have happened, but it would have been very different like you have held me through every step of this. The many tears and the many overwhelming self doubt conversations and fears and can I do it and do I have what it takes You know the many months period where I didn't have funding there was so much challenge, extraordinary amount of challenge.

This called me to my edge in every way possible it's such a gift to like have you by my side in those moments and also all the celebration and the deepening into figuring out, like it's been such a gift to me to get to think deeply about these topics. And yeah, you've been essential to all of that.

So I want to thank you

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah.

Jess Serrante: for all that you've done and all the grace you've extended me as a friend, in this process.

Jeremy Blanchard: Yeah I love you a lot

It's been a deep honor to get to be alongside you, because I love you so much, and be alongside this project, because I love this project so much. And to have a project that's such, a clear Dharma purpose project that as I said, before we started recording, you caught a Dharma wave and you've are riding it in a way that as coaches, we are always like helping our clients, get in alignment with their deepest calling and it has been so deeply inspiring to me to feel what it is like when someone is so fully on purpose and to just be a part of it and to support you and to support this project.

So love you

Thank you so much for listening and a big thanks to Jess for being so openhearted and vulnerable and sharing her journey with us here.

You can check out the show notes for all the resources that Jess and I discussed on today's episode.

And if you made it this far, please take a moment to open your podcast, app and search for We Are The Great Turning, so you can subscribe and catch all of the magic that is coming in the future episodes with Jess and Joanna.

Episode eight comes out in two weeks with politicized somantics trainer, Staci Haines.

Staci Haines: There's no such thing as personal change outside of a social context. You actually can't separate a person from our social context. And that that is just like, duh, how did they ever think we could do that? And that social context is based on power over. And what we're committed to at whatever level we're working is transforming all of that to a social economic conditions that are based on power with each other, but also the planet.

Jeremy Blanchard: So make sure you subscribe in your podcast app of choice so that you can catch that episode and all the future ones.

As always, please head over to widerroots.com to sign up for the newsletter. If you have not yet to get a lot of resources that don't fit into these episodes. And you can always reach me by email podcast@widerroots.com. And you can follow the podcast on Instagram at wider roots pod.

Shout out to Meg, trustee and Anya for offering feedback on this episode.

Thank you so much.

And thanks as always to Wild Choir for the theme music for this show. You're currently listening to their song, Remember Me, which will play us out.

See you next time.

Jess Serrante: start, Did

Jeremy Blanchard: one the other day that was like a fuzzy spider.

Jess Serrante: And there's another one up there.

Jeremy Blanchard: And another

Jess Serrante: another one over there.

Jeremy Blanchard: another one there.

Jess Serrante: we got a live audience. This is a live podcast

recording.

Jeremy Blanchard: then another

one there. Uh huh. Jimmy there's so many

Jess Serrante: Jeremy, there's so many bugs on your

Jeremy Blanchard: There are so many bugs.

Jess Serrante: Yeah. Great. All right. Well, we're recording in front of a live audience

Jeremy Blanchard: a live audience today. The fun thing about recording with you is I have too many bloopers to choose from at the end.