I’m so thrilled to share the below conversation with my healer of 8 years, Jen Gnisci. I describe our work together in the first video clip - but I will say it again here:
working with Jen has fundamentally changed my life.
Jen writes the Substack Unsealed Letter and you can find more about her work on her website The Opening Point.
This is a condensed transcript of the above clip:
Sara: We have been working together with you as my healer for almost eight years now. And when I was getting ready for this conversation, I was thinking about how I usually describe our work to people as saying that you have fundamentally changed my life. And I think it doesn’t do you justice to say that you’re a healer or an acupuncturist.
I want to start by giving an overview of everything that we’ve worked on together over the past eight years. And then I want to hear from you in your words, how you talk about your work. I first came to see you in 2018. And at that point had had chronic neurological Lyme for almost 10 years.
I came to see you purely for acupuncture support. I had had multiple medical doctors tell me that best case scenario, I was never going to be cured and the best that I could possibly hope for was to manage the symptoms and that I was going to be on antibiotics for the rest of my life.
And you and your work got me off the antibiotics and we worked on the mental side of believing that I could be fully cured. And about a year later, I was completely symptom free and have been ever since. And then after we moved through that, we started tackling the grief from losing my dad nine years prior, which I had never looked at.
It was showing up in my relationships with men and the way I was eating; I was comfort eating to cope with the grief. And we completely broke that habit. We changed the way I related to men and I called in a really loving partnership. About a year later I started to get the inclination that it was time to leave the corporate world behind. I wanted to do that by taking time off and not lining up anything next, which was such a trust fall with the universe. And we worked to make sure that if I did that, I could do it feeling really expansive and joyful and not do it from a place of scarcity and fear. And I did resign. And I’ve never gone back to corporate. And that was one of the best years of my life. And then -
I called in the partnership that I write about in my substack and you really helped me level up my relational skills and expand as a woman and a human in how I relate to people and ultimately helped me leave that relationship at 39, which we’ll talk about a little bit more.
It’s quite a trajectory - I’m so proud of what we’ve done together. And I think more than anything, you’ve given me freedom. Freedom from disordered eating, freedom from terrible dynamics with men, freedom from limiting beliefs, freedom from physical illness. You’ve really expanded my life.
So with that very long intro, that’s how I would describe what you do. How do you describe what you do and your work?
Jen: Well, the first thing I would say is that you gave yourself that freedom. I simply called you in to this greater sphere of your being. I know a few weeks ago when we spoke, we talked about how a lot of people have kind of a misunderstanding of what a healing relationship is, meaning to see a healer for years - a lot of people would think, why? Why can’t they just fix your problem? Then you’d move on. Like, there’s something wrong there. And there’s a big difference between healing and symptomatic relief, right? There’s people that relieve symptoms, and that’s great. And that is also part of the healing process. But -
It’s really moving someone through all of the layers of their existence. And in my work, most people…showed up with a physical symptom of some sort, some kind of chronic illness. And the reason that is is because like the physical illness or the symptom is the messenger. It almost always is, right? Like I can’t say that exclusively, but having done this for 15 years, I can say that that's almost always the case.
The below is an edited and condensed transcript of the above video clip
Sara: I want to start with the topic of one of my Substacks, which was leaving a relationship at 39 facing the truth that the possibility of having my own child in partnership could potentially pass me by. It’s such a uniquely painful thing to face that both partnership might not look how we wanted and biological children might not look how we want. And to have two of these kind of massive life dreams wrapped up in something that can feel largely out of your control. And so I want to start with like, when you’re working with someone in that place, where do you even begin?
Jen: The work is at that point to essentially say, okay, with precision, this is what I want. Because so often, women are saying, I want to become moms. And then you check in and have a conversation about who they're actually dating. And you're like, well, that's not actually congruent.
…So you’ve waited, right? And you’ve waited because you were likely working some things out? For most people, it’s working things out in the relational field.
Because as soon as you do that and you know what you want, it’s so much easier to create the outcome. And when you lay out on paper - what are your values, meaning what gives you purpose? What gives you meaning? What gives you a sense of worth? Of being here in a body and in a human life. From there, once you identify that, it’s easier to make those things occur.
But also it’s easier to identify what the block is. So, there’s a twofold purpose in this precision work of, what are my values? And it’s not that a woman in that circumstance would have to separate those values of relationship or child but you’re getting clear. And by the way, baby spirits help call in partners for women.
So, all this work is totally combined. What in me is preventing me from having the relationship that I want? Is it my ability to open my heart and be vulnerable? Meaning I haven’t fully worked through some of the defenses that have happened in life and they show up still in relationship. Is it that I’m still pulling on a particular type of person to get something from unconsciously? and I keep having this repeat of a negative experience in relationship? Is it that I don’t trust myself and I’m letting this person lead and I’m just not connected to myself? So there’s a variety of ways you would go into that.
I would bring her into her body and have her feel the pain that she is experiencing. The pain of the resistance of - I’m stuck here and I can’t do anything about it. I want this thing and I want this thing and they seem at odds.
I would bring her into her body and have her experience the anguish, the pain of that experience because it’s ultimately that resistance is really the cause of all of our suffering, of all human suffering.
It’s not so much the actual thing - meaning I’m having trouble getting pregnant or I’m having trouble finding a partner so that I can become a mother. There’s a reality there on one level, right? But the resistance to it - anyone that’s dated long-term in New York City can relate to - which is you keep doing this thing and it’s like banging your head against the wall where you’re having the same experience over and over again.
After something happens enough times, a defense comes in and we all have a different way that we express that defense - but the defense is what keeps it solidified and crystallized inside of us. So it’s almost like popping a bubble and so
In that circumstance, I would have that woman, I would lay her on the table and we would do an energetic process, bring her into her body, have her meet this part of herself that she’s been resisting to meet because
in her mind she thinks - if I meet this, that means I’m conceding, I’ve given up.
And so it’s really about letting yourself feel the thing that opens us
and when I say open I mean opens our energy body, to be able to be in this dance with the universe, with life itself. It’s a dance and and whenever there’s something in our life that’s not happening it’s the easiest thing to do as humans to say -
It’s life’s fault, it’s their fault, it’s my fault, it’s somebody’s fault, right? But actually, no, it’s just an energetic adjustment that’s needed - somehow, somewhere, the valve got closed. So how can we open the valve a little bit more to allow for more exchange, dance, flow between you and life? There’s always gonna be some block.
If someone’s struggling with, “I can’t have love”, “I can’t have partnership”, “I can’t have money”, there’s always some block that’s inside of them, basically begging to be attended to.
The below is an edited and condensed transcript of the above video clip
Sara: I think I’ve underestimated in the past how much your own work can shift the entire system around you.
And inevitably in group [self development] spaces, it’s mostly women there and someone in the course of the event will ask, “how do I get my partner to do the work?”
And I’ve been amazed through our work together how much shifting how I show up in relationship shifts the whole dynamic.
It really makes you feel like you’re not a victim to the situation, meaning you’re not in this situation where the man is doing this to you and hurting you and you have to just wait for them to change or wait for them to do the work.
I would love for you to talk about some of those skills and the fact that they are taught skills. They’re not this innate knowledge that we come here with.
Jen: So whenever we’re having any kind of situation that is painful, that we don’t like, that we want to move away from, right? We have three options, right?
We can leave it
We can change it
or we can accept it.
Like those are essentially the three options, right? And so what you’re asking about is the change it part.
And one part of your inquiry is like what you hear in those workshops when women are like, how do I get my partner to? They’re asking how to change it externally. And that’s the inverse of what we want to do.
If I’m interested in my own growth, in my own healing; I see the ways in which it’s bringing me fulfillment and meaning. I would love to have my partner come along on this journey. The worst way and quickest way to create more friction and pain and conflict in your relationship is to try and force that or suggest it.
You lead. That’s the practice - this is what John Wineland talks about. This is the devotion to love, right? Meaning this is the stickiest place where people get into places they can’t get out of with their partners because no one’s willing to step in first and somebody’s got to step in first. And somebody’s got to be that.
Sara: Even if it’s true that maybe the guy has more “work” or hasn’t looked at some of his stuff or maybe his stuff is a bigger trigger -
What I want more women to know is that you can still affect huge change, even if, in simplistic terms, he’s “the problem”.
Jen: Fully. You named it a few moments ago when you said it takes us out of victim consciousness, where we’re stuck in something and helpless to change it. Whenever I work with someone who’s in a relationship where they deeply care about the person and there are matched values and it’s not abusive or toxic, I’m never gonna move them into leaving right away. That’s like the last stop on the train.
There’s so many things to practice before then so that if it does come to that, you can leave with clarity.. You can move forward with a certainty and a knowingness, and just a clarity in your field so that you attract that next person in that energy.
Content Consumption
Jen wrote beautiful pieces about finding love and cultivating intuition on her substack, Unsealed Letter .
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Love love love. Omg I'm commenting on all your stuff like a mad person now. But I'm here to say I reasonate!!