I absolutely love the Soulful Shout Out series here on Soul Speak! I get to highlight and introduce you to beautiful people and their wonderful offerings!
I love connecting people and sharing products that I love, and so I’m just thrilled to be able to do that each week with you here.
If you would like your product/website/service promoted here, please click here to read the details and then email me to apply. (I take what I share very seriously and will only share products and services that I am in alignment with.) Please note that we’re scheduling into June – so be sure to reserve your space soon!
And now, let’s get to this week’s beautiful soul and her inspiring offerings!
This week, I am featuring Jane Duncan Rogers from Wild Wisdom!
Jane and I met in Leonie Dawson’s wonderful Amazing Biz and Life Academy. She is such a lovely soul who has been through so much throughout her life. She lost her husband, Philip, to cancer in 2011. She has also lost her money, changed careers, and still managed to find the good in each experience – no matter how painful.
She has been paying extra close attention to her soul lately and decided to rebrand her business so it better reflected her spirit. It’s her passion to help other heart-based business owners invite spirit into their businesses, too. We talk more about this throughout our chat, which I’m excited to share with you below!
She has written a wonderful ebook called “Stop Hiding, Start Shining, Watch Your Business Blossom” that she’s giving you for free! Plus, she’s offering a free Spirit in Business Strategy Session! We’ll talk about both soon, but first let me introduce her and share our heartfelt chat!
Welcome to Soul Speak, Jane! I’m so happy that you’re here!
Like I mentioned above, you’ve been through so much in your life (losing your dear husband, losing your money, moving, changing careers, etc.), and it seems that you’ve come through all of this with a deep sense of self and a deep sense of your place in the universe.
I would love for you to share one of the biggest lessons that you took away from all of these hard times that you’ve gone through. I think it will be so helpful to someone who is currently struggling.
Going through these struggles caused me to face both of my biggest fears: one, being a bag lady on the street with no money (it never happened in actuality, but the fear was rife for many months) and two, losing my husband early in life and not having children. (In fact, I had consciously explored this fear at 39 when it became clear we weren’t going to be having children of our own, and I made a choice then to stay with him.)
And now my biggest fear has happened. I’m 55 and my husband is dead. That sounds like a disaster, but in fact, even in the midst of my grief, I could see the ironic side of it. It was like life dealt me a side swipe in my most vulnerable area. However, what’s happened are two things: first, fear just doesn’t have a place any more in my life. It’s just not there. Of course I get nervous sometimes, or a bit apprehensive occasionally maybe about new things, but then the second lesson that I’ve learnt really kicks in: I learned that I am not this body, this mind, nor any of the emotions. In fact, there is no ‘I’ at all.
I was with Philip when he actually passed over, and it was so stunningly obvious to me that he was there one moment, and then suddenly the next he wasn’t. It was literally just a body. It looked exactly the same, but it felt completely different. This was so strong that almost immediately I could not look at the body – it just wasn’t him any longer. I had been talking to him and I had to start talking to the ceiling instead! There was no sense of his spirit hanging around, he had just gone.
The freedom that opened up from this experience was immense for me. I realized that through lack of engagement with the thoughts and feelings that arise in this body (which of course still happen – that is part of a body’s function), there can be a watching of the whole show of life moving through this body, as if it were a movie. It means that no matter what circumstances (negative or positive) I find myself in, who I really am deep inside cannot be touched – there is just peace that is always present and always accessible.
Now you have to understand – I have believed in life after death for years. I knew, more than believed, that we were not our bodies, nor our minds or emotions. At least I thought I did. But now I had had the privilege to witness this on an entirely different level. And it has led me to a place of peace so utterly profound and deep, that what I had experienced before was clearly just the tip of an iceberg.
This peace is always there now. It IS who I am – in fact to say it is ‘I’ is to limit it – in fact it is impossible to talk about. But suffice to say, I am no longer afraid of anything.
Not only was Philip’s cancer a gift for both of us because it brought us closer, but his death was one of the greatest gifts he could have given me because of this freedom that has arisen within. I know that sounds really a bit weird, and of course I miss him terribly, but it doesn’t take away from what has been learned. So above all, I feel incredibly grateful most of the time.
It really is true that out of apparent bad comes apparent good.
I really admire your ability to take such a tragedy and find the blessing in it. And I’m truly so sorry for your loss.
It feels like through this peace that you’ve discovered, you have been able to ground yourself and also your business. It feels that you’re more adamant about showing up authentically. And I think a beautiful example of that is your new business – I love how you are sharing your true self with the world – doodles and all! Have you always shared this creative piece of yourself? 🙂
Well, not until this last year! But I have always doodled or drawn like this since I was a child. Then it was only ever horses, horses, horses, with the occasional human face thrown in. At university, my lecture notes were covered with doodly patterns down the margins – I can hear things so much more easily if I am doodling.
But I have Leonie Dawson to thank for the fact they are on my website right now, and in fact that I doodled the whole site – I was so inspired by her confidence in putting herself as an artist out there that I remembered that any time anyone has seen my doodles, they have loved them. I have been so used to doing them that I completely discounted their value to others. (Of course, now I teach this lesson to other people, it’s a very valuable one indeed.)
Part of me can hardly believe that I get to do what I love best – writing and doodling – and get paid for it – within a context of being guided by Spirit and helping others transform their businesses this way too, I am in utter heaven. I feel incredibly grateful for the life I live, despite the grief I have been through.
You’ve definitely been through so much – from this deep grief of losing your husband but also losing all of your money. Because you’re someone who finds the blessing in each experience, what did you take away from this experience?
The blessing that I took was that was I lost my fear of money. I also learned that fear of not having money is never about the amount you have or don’t have. It looks like it is – but I found I was terrified of both having money and not having it. So it was clear it wasn’t about the money itself. It was about my sense of security in the world, my sense of who I really was, and my sense of what numbers and money were really all about.
That’s such a powerful realization! I agree that it’s never about the money itself – it’s about our beliefs.
Was this realization what inspired you to create the Radical Income Welcome Kit?
Yes, partly – I got so fed up with people limiting themselves by the way they thought about money that I decided to create a kit that used all the information I had found useful in my journey from fear of bankruptcy to finding my place of peace. It involved thinking about money in a very different way.
For example, the three principles of thinking radically about your income are:
- Money is not real
- You’re a spiritual being having a human experience
- Money can come from anywhere, anytime
These fit in with the Wild Wisdom message of daring to do business differently (i.e., upside down, back to front or the ‘wrong’ way round). When you do this, you have a lot more fun!
And now that I’ve had firsthand experience that anything can happen to anyone at any time, I know how very important it is to enjoy yourself as much as you possibly can – even while doing parts of your business you don’t like much. Life is just too short not to do anything else.
I agree!
Can you share some of the ways that you’ve decided to run your business differently than you did before? How are you bringing your spiritual wisdom into it?
Well I’ve been known to say that I have so many things I am involved in and love doing that I’m hard pushed to find the time to fit in my work, which is definitely the other way around from how most people experience work – even work they love doing!
But in fact there is some truth in this – I am quite clear now that the purpose of my life is to enjoy myself as much as possible.
I never ask others to do things I haven’t put into practice myself, so here’s a few of the ways that Wild Wisdom is different from more mainstream businesses.
- I no longer use rewards to get me to do things I’m a bit resistant to. I do the thing I really want to do first, which unleashes masses of energy and then I’m usually completely happy to do what I didn’t want to do in the first place (and it happens in a shorter amount of time too).
- I also use my mantra Stop. Be Still. Listen. And Only Then Act. This is definitely bringing in spiritual wisdom, which comes through much more clearly in a space less occupied by the mind doing its thing. It may mean that my business progresses more slowly than some, but I don’t mind that because the emphasis is on enjoyment in the moment.
- I do what wants to be done, not what I think needs to be done. Not all the time of course, sometimes it’s obvious that there are things that need to be done because of a deadline. For instance, this morning replying to these questions was what presented itself to me as an action – that’s where the enthusiasm was. On the face of it, it would have been more sensible to complete a series of autoresponders and have my VA put them onto the website. But that wasn’t what wanted to be done.
- I ask my business what its next step is. It often comes up with something my mind had not thought of!
- When things don’t go according to my mind’s plan, I pay attention to this quote: “I cannot know that this is not the next step in my liberation.” I have found this incredibly consoling in the last few years.
That’s so sweet that you’re giving everyone in the Soul Speak community your Stop Hiding, Start Shining and Watch Your Business Bloom ebook! Thank you! Can you please share more about it with us?
I created this last summer when I realized that is what I had been doing myself: hiding. I had good reason for it, you might think, dealing with grief and so on. But in fact to some extent I had been hiding in my marriage too. So what I talk about in the ebook is exactly what I have gone through and implemented – in fact that’s mostly what I do – go through things, learn from them, and share it with others because I’ve found that this is what others find the most inspiring.
You can click here to download it!
I love that you’re also offering a free 45-minute Spirit in Business Strategy Session! Please share more about this, too! 🙂
I offer these free sessions to individuals who want to explore where they want to go with their business, where they are now, and what’s stopping them getting there.
It’s for those who are really ready to commit themselves to their next steps and want support with that.
What’s next on the horizon for you?
I don’t know! And that’s what’s so exciting and another way of doing business differently. One of the online programmes that was emerging as Philip was becoming more ill is called ‘Appointing Spirit as the CEO of Your Business’ – it’ll be out later this year (assuming the CEO agrees). I am not in charge of Wild Wisdom, despite thinking I am sometimes! I just have to wait and see what Spirit is unfolding for me, which sounds easy of course, but, with a very enthusiastic ego thinking it knows best, can be very challenging!
What does your soul want you to know?
The words that are presenting themselves now are “Draw back from the energetic loss involved in wondering, and simply take the next step presenting itself.” Beautiful words, and easier said than done!
So I do the best I can, using how I am feeling as my benchmark. Anything less than feeling peaceful, loving, or a calm joy, and I know that something is out of kilter and there is exploration to be done.
Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Thanks for this opportunity to reflect on my life and put it down in writing. I’ve really enjoyed it and look forward to connecting with others who resonate with what I’ve been talking to you about.
Thank you, Jane, for sharing your heart with us!
You can also click here to sign up for her “Spirit in Business Strategy Session”!
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Big hug,
Thank you, Jane, for sharing your spiritual journey with us. I totally agree when you say “It means that no matter what circumstances (negative or positive) I find myself in, who I really am deep inside cannot be touched – there is just peace that is always present and always accessible.”…
Humanity is consumed by thinking, it’s almost like thought is the only dimension known to our mind to live life.
Being aware of the presence within our bodies (our true self)is the only way to make our mind aware of our true potential and power. I wish you well & thank you so much so bringing in this consciousness into the world.
Thanks Neil. The mind’s job is to think, I think! And it does a really good job of it 🙂 The trouble happens when it is the thing that dictates our actions instead of it acting as a conduit for the impulses that come from a different place. And as most of humanity is still dictated by mind, knowing there are people out there like you, Jodi and so on is really important.
I’m so happy to meet Jane and read about her optimistic mindset. We have such limited knowledge and it’s so refreshing to meet someone who is open to the larger experience of what life can offer.