Jenny Cornejo on Slowing Down Enough to Hear Yourself

0:00Hey, welcome to the Adventure Paradox with horses. The Adventure Paradox, it's both the adventure that you are called to and then the paradox are all the other things that don't have to do with the adventure that you have to do anyway. And here's the thing, the adventure, especially with horses, is going to call you to fall. You will fall. The question is, do you get back on again? Thank you so much for joining me. My name is Kat. I live outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and I'm so grateful that you are here. And I want to hear from you. You can send me a text message in the show notes and let's get into today's show. Hey guys, welcome back to the Adventure Paradox podcast. Today we have a guest who is an old and dear friend of mine.

1:00We've known each other for a long time since I was pregnant with my first daughter Grace. I'll tell a little bit more about that. But she also paid us a visit in the last month to the incredible Teton Valley. We had so many adventures. I can't wait to get into all of that. But first, without further ado, I'll give you a formal introduction in just a moment, Jenny Cornelho. How are you and where in the world are you zooming in from? I am feeling very live after being out of my family's land. And I'm coming here from Illinois, about an hour north of Chicago, 30 minutes south of Wisconsin. Awesome. And you say family's land. But that is actually a mic drop in and of itself. Because correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you on fifth generation land? Could you please say more? Yes, I'm the fifth generation of my family's land. It has been in our family for over 100 years. And I just know that I am being called to continue to store the land well and continue the path that my great, great grandparents laid before me. Wow.

2:01That is so cool. And I've been to your family's land and been there for circles. And we're going to talk about all of these incredible things. But I just think it's so incredible to hang out with someone who's so deeply connected to their roots and still living, so grounded on the very land that their ancestors lived on 100 years ago. That is rare and precious and such a special gift to share with all of us. So thank you. So Jenny Cornelho is the founder of Wildflower Transformation and a life transitions coach, the art of being guide, circle facilitator, and death doula who supports women in trusting themselves and building confidence beyond the identities and lives they have known. Her work is deeply relational, ancestor honoring and nervous system aware, guiding women through life's thresholds with emotional honesty and care. Through circles and one-on-one guidance, she helps women embrace the full spectrum of their human experience and reclaim their wholeness so they can live their truth with love.

3:03Wow. That in itself is a mic drop. How did you come out with that? Re-claim their wholeness so they can live their truth with love? It's beautiful. I honestly believe it started with organizing first. That's how we first met was with organizing. I wanted to help people organize their external world. And the more I got into supporting clients, I was like, wait a second. We're not doing the internal work. And I was recognizing there was like fragmentation happening with a lot of my clients and there was almost not just association but something along those lines. And there wasn't the recognition of the wholeness that what they already were. So the moment that we can just step into that, everything else starts to fall into place because now we're showing up from this whole version of ourself that we've always been. But now we show up into the world differently. Totally. Oh my gosh. Total mic drop right there. I feel like witnessing your journey and you've witnessed my journey.

4:06So I called Jenny and she was working for the organizing girls, right, which was like a group. Although you were one of the headhunches, not the boss, but pretty much the head girl. And you guys came out and I was six, seven, eight months pregnant and I had all these boxes to unpack and I just didn't have the energy or bandwidth to figure out, first of all, I literally couldn't even carry these boxes around. And I literally needed help. And I was so grateful for the support and working with professional organizers to really think about how am I setting this home up? Where will it make sense to have things? And what are all these things I've brought with me and do they serve me in this next chapter, which was motherhood for me? And I didn't even know what I was going to need really, but like, you know, it made sense to have diapers and baby clothes in the baby room and little things like that. Pots in the kitchen. So I look at my journey with organizing and ordering my life and what a beautiful reflection it's been.

5:06The more I refine, the more I let go of. The clearer I can get about what really matters and what's really important. But I'd love to hear more about your journey because you're actually showing up and working with people and then what was it like for yourself personally? Because again, I've also known you as a personal friend. We've done some different coaching work together too. I'd love to hear what was going on for you personally in your own inner world and transformation as you sort of moved away from organizing. Although I know it's still a big part of your business and we'll talk more about that. But into more of this internal, deeper organizing work. Great for you to ask that question. It is very personal. I will share that because I think for me organizing was a way for me to have clarity in my external world. And as I was removing in just my own home space before I was like, when I was working with clients still, but I started to remove things and I started to gain more clarity. And then it became really clear that the marriage that I was in was no longer supporting me

6:07and it hadn't been for quite some time. So it allowed me to start to say yes to where life was calling me, which was getting a divorce, and really jumping into the work that I do with people internally. So it was a journey of letting go of the life, the stage, everything that I had ever created to start all over and walk into the unknown. And I think it continued to gain clarity as I was organizing with clients because it is such a physical job. Then I'm like, I also need a little bit more ease for my physical body. So how can I bridge that gap? And that's what led me into the life transition coaching is because I was like, I'm really good at holding space. This is something I've done. And once I had done my inner work and removed some of the excess that wasn't supporting me anymore, it opened up the possibility because I could now hold space for even more because I've gone some of the harder work. Beautiful. Yeah.

7:08You really coined it, life transitions, right? And leaving a marriage is a life transition. Losing a loved one is a life transition, right? Changing jobs or losing a job is a life transition. You've had so many life transitions. And I don't even know the number of life transitions you've supported others in. If you were to define those life transitions as having a couple of key elements or things they need to move through them successfully, what do you think those would be? So what we need when we're going through transitions is support. We need somebody that has maybe walked a similar path and they can shine a light where we may feel like we're in the complete darkness. So we need support as well as I believe a sense of a community that we can also lean into because having community can keep cheering us on when we're doing the hard things because when you're choosing divorce or leaving a job or all the other transitions I've had,

8:08sometimes you doubt yourself. Actually, not sometimes. A lot of times you doubt yourself and you just believe that there's more possible on the other side of this because you're just in the mess of it and you're feeling really messy and me having others to witness you in your messiness and say, yep, and I still love you and I'm still going to hold space for you. It still belongs. It's transformative because then you move yourself not yourself but that doubt and that disbelief in the fear because there's a lot of fear in the unknown and that would be the other piece that I would say is outside of like when you recognize that fear it's starting to use that fear to move you rather than letting the fear drive you. So good. Yeah, so good. Let it move you not drive you. You know, a quote that came into my mind this morning was be the thermostat, not the thermometer, right? And I think folks who hold space like you for people to work through big transitions, they learn to be the thermostat of, okay, what is it that we're going for here, right?

9:10What is it that I'm holding that I know is possible for you and holding all these things you've been going through and are going through and are in the middle of? Like you're in the fire, right? And then this person, they're hot, they're cold, they're in the middle, they're not quite sure if they're right, what's going on, right? So we be that thermostat and really hold that temperature for them. And I think when someone's in a huge life transition, they don't even know what their temperature is sometimes. That's sort of out of body experience. Can you speak more on somatic work and maybe embodiment work when someone is going through something? Hey, Kat, here for a quick commercial break. If you haven't heard my book, The Adventure Paradox is available on Amazon. And it's been getting some really amazing reviews. It's actually been a little bit overwhelming and maybe too much to say in the middle of this interview. So we'll get back to it, but I did want to let you know it is available.

10:13It was a bestseller in six categories. And if you really enjoy this podcast, I think you will really enjoy this book. So please go check it out. What I also discovered in my journey, Kat, was I was coming so much from my head and I was disconnecting from my body. So helping clients bridge that gap into the wisdom of their body is life changing because it's noticing those subtle things. So it's taking the moment to pause and recognize what is arising in you to then learn to be with it. And that takes time and practice, but having somebody witnessing you in it can make it a little bit easier. And I believe our bodies have 360 degrees of information, whereas our brains tend to operate with blinders on. And we know how horses work when they have blinders on. They see what's right in front of them. And we miss all the other possibilities. So once we can start to remove those blinders and come back into our body and check in on all of that information

11:17that's coming from 360 degrees, now we have much more information to keep discerning where we're called to go and keep building that trust and the health as well as discernment. So we can know what is for us and what might not be anymore. So good. I love that. And I of course love that you brought the personality in and the blinders. And I got to interview the, she's like the number one neuroscientist of horse brains and human brains this week. Very interesting. And one of the things that we shared on the podcast, and I think that her episodes dropping in June, but we shared how horses can see. And the truth is horses have a very small blind spot in the front of them. But their main blind spot is behind them, right behind them. They can actually see I think 320 degrees. So if you can imagine why it would be like to walk around in space, we can see about 90 degrees, right? Like we can see, I mean if you put your hands out and then you move your thumbs out, right?

12:17You can see, wow, I can't see my thumbs anymore right about 90 degrees. So if you can imagine what it's like when we put a horse and a rider together and we can see so much of what's in front of us, we have double energy, double focus, double like this whole thing. And so then if you put blinders on, we're all, they basically see like humans, right? They see like humans. We ask them to only see what we see and not think about anything else. Because you know what? They got a lot more to think about otherwise, right? So I'd love to hear because you came out to Teton Valley. You wanted to ride a horse, you got to ride a horse, you also wanted to bless the land. And we wanted to do a little bit of a land ceremony. And then we had sick kids and like some different things going on, like being lify. What was your experience of being on a horse and all the work that you've done? I'd love to hear a little bit more about your experience because that was such a magical day. Yeah, it really was because there was like a little blizzard coming through at one point. So we waited. It was still going when I got on the horse.

13:18But for me, I've been doing somatic work for a number of years now. But the horses, they drop into like the deeper layers that you're like, oh, wait, there's still more. I'm like, oh, I thought I knew and I was leading. And I was like, and I guess I wasn't. So I've taken some of that home with me to start to tune in to some of those subtle nuances of the shift in energy of me. And even just you named it like when I retake deep breaths. But when I was singing and writing, I had so much ease and Jack had so much ease. And then I was at the same time able to bless the land with the song as we're going by like the two trees that have planted over two of your horses that have moved into the spirit realm. And it was such a blessing of having the contrast of the blizzard. And you couldn't see any loose guys to the sun coming out and loose guys. And like just feeling that energy shift. So good.

14:19And I hope I'll remember if I haven't already, let's make sure we drop some reels of you riding with the snow and you singing. It was such a spiritual experience. Just that moment and the way I really felt the ancestors were there. And there was someone and something more than us working in the space. It was really powerful. And I'm also thinking about the two trees and those we've crossed over and transitions and death and specifically being a death doula. And you've had a really, really big loss this year. And I don't know if there's anything you want to say about that because someone else may have had a really big loss this year too. Yeah. My mom moved to the spirit realm at the end of last year. And I chose when I knew she was getting nearer to the end. I chose to support myself and her really well by becoming a death doula. For me, it was really important to look at death based on and just be with whatever showed up to stay open to it and not shut down and not numb out.

15:26So I would invite those that are going through some sort of transition like this to be as present as you can be and take the time to resource yourself, whether that's out in nature, whether that's in community, whatever way you resource yourself so that when you are with the loved one that is shifting, you can be fully with them with your heart open and just connecting with great mystery. Because I saw so much magic in that time. And I even have chills as I say that. Me too, use that it's so beautifully connecting with great mystery. Yeah. And I feel your mom here in that. And I think all those who have had someone really close to them cross over like or closer to the mystery in those moments, if we open up and allow ourselves to be. And I think the paradox, which is so painful, is that so many don't,

16:26they put the blinders on and maybe they even fully shut down and just can't look, can't feel, can't anything. The clients who come to you who might be in that shut down place, how do you help them open up to the great mystery? Well, I'd like to say that one of my teachers says the soul is shy. So giving them permission to start to slow down, which in our very busy world, that can be a challenge. So we start small and I really work out the one degree shifts like Martha Beck talks about. And really supporting them to just learn how to be more present because so often we don't want to be with the harder emotions. So we shut them down and we keep busy or do whatever we do. To start to give them permission to be in that space and to have that witness and help so that when they're alone, they're more able to, they have more capacity to. If it's just for a little bit, we just, yeah, so really slow and right where they're at.

17:28I love that. I love the slowing down and it's making me think about your circles. I thought of them as full moon and new moon circles, not exactly sure what you're following right now or what's going out of your circles, but they're on the land and it's pretty much always all women. And I'd love to hear about that vision. I know there's a story behind it. I don't remember if how the women coming together and gathering in circle and ceremony on your land came to be. To be honest, Kat, it began with a grieving ceremony. I knew what I was starting on. The land was bigger than what I could imagine at that moment. And it was important that I grieved the blood that could have been shed on the land as well as the ancestors that walked the lands prior to us. And that's where it really began and that seeded the dream of I had a women's circle that I attended regularly in Minnesota. I was like one closer and when the church wasn't what I needed anymore, I had to cultivate it for myself. So for me, it's still around the moon because women cycle with the

18:33moon. And I call it a feminine circle because it's for women-oriented beings and some of them identify as non-binary. And what I tend to call the beings that join the siblings is wildflowers. And it's a metaphor for the land because I'm working to restore the land to all native grasses and plants as well as the women or the beings are wildflowers because no flowers says I'm prettier than you. I'm brighter than you. I've told it no. They just are. So it's a gentle invitation for them to just be who they are. And the experience of being together in these circles and there's often singing, there's like a meditative practice. We might even do a little dance or movement. I remember ones where we did art. If someone's coming into the magic of one of your circles, what could they sort of expect and anticipate they'll walk away with? They will walk away with a sense of belonging

19:34from the women that I attend that's something they have. But it is everything you just name. It's song, it's embodiment practices. It's ritual. So ritual is one of the big pieces that I always incorporate because our ancestors would have rituals all the time. We no longer live in ritual. So to me, ritual physicalizes the spiritual and spiritualizes the physical. So it's a physical act to know something internally is changing when you don't yet see anything. So it can kind of give your soul that solace of like, okay, yeah, I don't yet see anything and I say soul, actually, it's the ego. Give the ego the solace that, yep, it's not yet changing externally, but I just did this act and I know something shifting. Yeah, so good. I think we humans that doubting Tom thing, right? And again, I don't remember if it was the neuroscientist or someone else I was talking to this week. I saw a lot of interviews this week, but someone was talking about the percentage of our brain, human brains that is wired to visual cues. And it's either 60 or

20:3890% give the dyslexia. Either way, it's the majority. That's a lot, right? So when we start to realize we are so hell-bent on how things look, right? And I think we lose how things feel. And it's funny, this is just coming through like right now as I'm talking, because we live in this AI world. Is it real? What is it? What's even going on? And we lose the real energy and presence of what it is to be human, which I know is one of your favorite talking points, which is coming through, because Rumi has his poem, Disbeing Human is a guesthouse every day, a new, I don't remember what it is. Think a new arrival, yes. And we welcome them all, but it's like, what are your thoughts about some of those gray spaces of being human and moving through things? Because I agree with you, like we're missing ritual, we're missing ceremony, we're missing the village, hence the women's circles of coming together. Yes. I lost, let's try to what you asked me. Being human, being human,

21:47sort of those gray spaces, because I see you painting a picture and filling in, we need a grieving ceremony on the land, right? We need to bring circles of women together, right? You're doing all of these beautiful things and I'm just curious, because I do think there's this huge comeback happening right now. There's just really strong resurgence and calling and now is the time for it. And women, specifically I think, are finally ready to hear it and move with it and change with it. It's powerful. It's really powerful. And what else are you seeing or hoping that there might be more spaces and where maybe are you personally struggling with being fully human? Yeah. We have been programmed to be human doings. We are human beings. So the more we can be in spaces where we get to be, the more we can bring that into our life. Because one of my teachers says, this is great, but you can't stay here. Because unfortunately, we also have lives outside of this. The important part of when you come to circle or when you come to these experiences is you take

22:50the feeling of being in village and being fully witnessed, bring it back to your world. And that's where the magic starts to change because your body now knows what it feels like to slow down, to not have a full idea of what's coming, but staying open to the unknown. So that can start to trust that a little bit more in your life, because I think the gray might be the unknown, which most of us have a fear of. But the more we trust in the unknown, the more I believe we allow more magic in the mundane and more great mystery to really surprise us. So good. I totally agree with you. And it doesn't happen when we're holding on so tightly. Right? It must be this way and I must control and I must know. I must know. I don't think we're ever meant to know all of it. We're not God, right? Oh my gosh. Okay. I heard something interesting today and we're in paramedicos here. So, you know, let's pretend to be experts because we are,

23:51because we're in it, right? But I heard something interesting that when women enter their 40s, a certain hormone, and I don't remember which one, but listeners, if you know what it is, please email me the Adventure Paradox at gmail.com because I would like to know. But it's okay that I don't know what I do know is that this resonated as my experience, which is that this certain hormone, whatever it is, thank you hormone in my body, it is the hormone of nourishing and caretaking. So, a lot of women step into this space of, there's certain things I'm not going to tolerate anymore. I'm just not going to do this or that or whatever it is. I am leveling up. This is what I'm okay with. This is what I'm not okay with. And I think it's so amazing that women cycle. We organize our lives around our cycles and my oldest daughter is 10 and a half. And I know at some point she's going to start her cycle. I was 12 for the record and they say statistically your daughter will start six to 12 months earlier than you did. So, we're kind of like starting to enter that potential window for

24:53her. And I've been thinking about something you said about one of your teachers who said when you were at that time of the month, we're going to slow down to your cycle, I believe. Will you say more and really speak on because I really think there's some connection around organizing and organizing our lives and the cycle of our lives as women cycling and then moving into the space of no longer cycling or some of the changes that happen in these final chapters, which are long by the way, like we're partly at the midpoint. Come on. It's a big pivot. It's a big pivot. It is. It is. Finding ourselves again, you know, in a way. So, for me, it's when we can start to witness ourselves in the different seasons of our body. So, women go through every four seasons every month with our cycle. And when we can start to listen and notice when we're in our fall, for me, what I notice when I'm in my fall is the inner dialogue begins to get a little bit loud because it's there so that when I'm in my winter, when I'm bleeding, then I have the stuff to work with. It's kind of like

25:59my inner ceremony time. So, if I can schedule out my calendar and organize myself so that I have a little bit more space in my time. And so, I'm not booked to the rim and beyond busy. So, I can have that downtime and space to just be, to can now do what I need to do and witness some of those inner stories that are arising. It allows me not to be in as much pain as I used to be back in the day. So, there's more ease of my body because I'm listening and I'm honoring and I'm allowing it to be there and not make it wrong. Totally. So good. I hope you have more teachings out there on this because I feel like it's a really important topic and you're a really beautiful teacher on this as well. People are going to want to find you. How do they find you? We'll put all these links in the show notes. But what are your favorite websites, social handles, where do you want folks to connect with you? So, I have my website, wildflowertransformation.com. They can find me on Facebook and Instagram under that same handle wildflower transformation. And I think those would be the best ways. I have a

27:01free gift on my site. So, there's lots of ways just so they can start to get a feel for what I bring and what I'm here to support those that are navigating transitions in. I love it. Thank you so much. Anything you want to leave our listeners with right now that you feel like we didn't catch on or want to hold space for. I think the last piece is when you're navigating transitions. We so often want to get to the other side. We want to get through the not knowing, the messiness. But when you can learn to just be there in the threshold and maybe you stand in a doorway as a physical remembrance of, okay, I'm in between right now. I'm not yet there. And imagine like your ancestors are there besides you. Imagine like your very best friend, your partner. Whoever it is standing at that threshold with you saying, keep going. I love you. You are being supported beyond measure. And there's an army that is surrounding you. I mean, if you go back seven generation,

28:02it's over 2000 individuals that came together to make you into existence at this point. So, if you can just take that remembrance of, okay, it's okay to not know right now. I've got people saying, I love you. They're standing with me. I'm going to be in the unknown so that when the next step appears, I will take the next step. Love it. Hats off to you, girl. And to the work you're doing and all the incredible wisdom and magic that you shared with me in our audience today. Thank you so much. Love you. Can't wait to see you again. Hi, Kat back here and our show is over. I'm so sad, but it is. Hey, I've got like almost 200 episodes. If you want to keep listening, please go find another one. I would love to continue to share my guests and wisdom and all the fun that I have speaking my truth through the Adventure Paradox podcast, especially in this season of horses.

29:05And if you loved this show, please send it to a friend, share it, write me a review. If you send me a screenshot of the review, I will send you a free gift. And thank you so so much for listening. Love and appreciate each and every one of you. I really hope that this episode changed your life and the life of someone you love. Pass it on. We'll see you next time.