We were lucky to catch up with Deborah “jaishree” Dow-spielman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Deborah “Jaishree”, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

We all have a seed potential for bliss. We all have to learn how to be radically honest. What my parents did right was to hold me in their loving gaze and bring me food to all my events. They helped me master the art of being messy. They paid for therapy. Through healing, teaching, and eventually becoming a parent myself, I understand the layers of healing generational trauma. Here’s how I saw it played out.

My Mom, a gorgeous and highly educated woman, clearly sacrificed. She didn’t buy high fashion, opened the door to all friends, answered every phone call, and only grew her hair long in retirement. My Dad worked every day but never on weekends. He was soft-hearted and hard-headed. He rubbed my back and came to every show– including my downward spirals.

My parents had a mood of sitting back and being neutral when it came to controversy. I wanted them to go to bat for me. I remember a time in high school when my best friend and I led a revolution against rules that excluded new actors from student-produced plays. We wanted to bring fresh talent into the scene. This was our way of giving back, but some didn’t agree. The administration enforced rules, the community divided, and the revolution became public.

My parents chose not to get involved. They were grappling with the narratives of their own culture and generations of fear before them. As my thirst for self-mastery grew, we hit rough patches. I felt them working with programming around affluence versus poverty, power versus humility, God versus Goddess. I benefited from their talents for forgiveness, tolerance, and humility, yet there was that feeling of being alone on the battlefield. That shaped me.

Mentoring is the sacred dance between spontaneous love and boundaries. My parents didn’t have instruction manuals for breaking generational chains, embracing neuroplasticity, fostering entrepreneurialism, or cultivating spirituality. Yet, they rose to the occasion every step of the way.

Actually, this unwavering presence became a great gift to me when I found my spiritual teacher. I’ll never forget my father grieving with me when my Srila Gurudeva, Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja, left this physical world in 2010. My teacher, Srila Gurudeva, embodied power through sweetness and gravity, raising awareness of the divine feminine’s importance in Bhakti Yoga. My parents held space for pain, glory, chaos, and transformation. Their example lives on in how I mentor and guide others today.

Deborah “Jaishree”, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Jaishree (Ji-yuh Shree), and I help people fall in love with themselves. I guide transformative journeys that spark bliss through healing. Being the CEO of Jaishree Yoga Enterprises can be exhausting, but the creative work and service mood is glorious. Our offerings include the Soul Mapping Matrix, a Life Mastery course; the 200-hour Soul Culture Yoga Certification School; and Mandali, a vibrant community of seekers dedicated to spiritual growth. There is an array of workbooks, courses, podcasts, and meditations ranging from free to custom available on my website www.jaishreeyoga.com

My earliest memories not only include singing but also traveling outside my body into the cosmos and missing what the teacher was saying in class. I could do that for hours. I had to learn to integrate my physical, emotional, and psychological learning into real time. I still journey. The gifts I come back with seem to be eternally stamped with transformational effects – at least that’s what my beloved clients say.

I had a first career as a classically trained SAG and AEA singer/actor. Once I reclaimed myself as a yoga priestess, I led over 30 retreats, across 3 continents and connected hands-on with thousands of students – before I was gifted my daughter. In 2021, we bought our first home in the mountains to support building an ashram while homeschooling with my beloved husband, who also has a career in teaching, business and the Arts. It is devotion that not only liberates us from fear but transcends our own boundaries to succeed. Seekers, healers and leaders need high level support 1:1 and in community. Mandali is as multifaceted as the people we serve—integrating yoga, mentorship, community, and personal transformation is always cutting edge.

It’s a complete joy teaching people how to break free from limiting patterns and live expansively. I suppose my mastery lives in alchemy—transmuting pain into power and chaos into creative bliss. I’m a compassionate lie detector. Integrating authentic ancient culture and global history into healing that is never bereft of that spiritual longing for love – that’s Soul Culture Yoga.

My methods may be bold, but they’re grounded in timeless truths that remind us we are divine beings navigating a human experience. Truth is raw and unshakable love. I want everyone to live their fullest, most delicious life with purpose and grace. This is the art of creating sacred sovereignty. Connecting the dots in business, relationships, and spiritual growth is blissful. I am blessed to do this work, and I consider it the ultimate love story.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

One longtime married client described me as the “midwife of their Coupleship,” and I think that captures the heart of what I do—I guide people through transformation in the language of their higher soul consciousness. I suppose my reputation was built on showing up, over and over again.

Consistency and the courage to embrace change have been the twin forces shaping my professional reputation. While I experienced my own career transitions as radical departures, my clients recognize something else. I’ve heard “unwavering presence and authenticity”. I love that. It means the world to me that my community sees life’s transitions as living art. Boundary work, rejuvenation, healing, educating, business, marriage, divorce, empty-nesting, devotional maturation and especially launching babies in business or art – these are my specialties. I know the alchemy of mourning bold choices to emerge blissful on the other side. People see that. The Soul Mapping Matrix works for them, and they come back.

At the height of my yoga teaching career, I had logged over 10,000 hours of hands-on teaching, mentoring couples, kids, and families, and quietly pioneering new models of wellness education. I’d pull off the road with a migraine to vomit before I’d miss a class. (Not advised). I asked for raises and mentored colleagues to value themselves, only to see them rise as leaders in their fields. I supported my community to be courageous and cooperative. In the face of politics, envy or strife, my goal is to hold space for myself, my family, and my student body to channel anger, grief, joy.

Turning the lie of perfection into gold has always been the mood in which I serve. Not taking off my clothes was a big deal in my first career. I’ve gotten punched in the face on stage, fan-kicked through the curtain, and almost asphyxiated wearing newly painted prosthetics. Polarity shows up in the physical and the subtle. Navigating those with a vision and a process is the secret to owning your values.

This pattern—of being pushed out only to rise higher—has repeated throughout my career. Each pivot is humbling and liberating. I speak about it and offer tools in my first book Discover Your Bliss, as well as in my courses, workshops, and coaching. Reinvention is authentic yogic adventure.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I’m unlearning the lie of perfection. I see yoga, healing and devotion as bound together in the Soul Mapping Matrix. Bliss, I’ve discovered, isn’t born from flawlessness; it’s the benefit of living practical spirituality. By embracing controversy, with love. Perfection is not the yogi’s journey. The Yogas are the tool to practice devotion. We need powerful muscle memory to surrender during a crisis, and to rise.

The yoga industry itself became one of my greatest teachers. I once believed that the sacred sciences could stand apart from societal dysfunction, but I learned otherwise. Part of ancestral alchemy is assimilating all spiritual values as truths and teachings.

This realization became the foundation of my second book, Soul Ascension. Writing that book felt like a necessary act of rebellion—calling out the cracks in the system even as cancel-culture reached its zenith. I no longer deny addiction as nature. I’m not afraid to say that the electromagnetic material in my body hates scrolling. I pray there are always perfected spiritual beings taking form as humans – but we will not realize this without healing and feeling generous – individually and collectively.

I’ve come to see that the sciences are not devoid of spirituality; they’re steeped in it. Every speck of dust holds divinity. True teachers and Gurus, who illuminate the path from ignorance to wisdom, are as real as the air we breathe. The sacred and the messy coexist. I may be different in that way, as a devotional mentor – I won’t downplay bonafide spiritual paths, teachers or communities as cults.

In actuality, regeneration is at the center of Soul Mapping. Knowing the greater cosmology of spiritual life is, I’ve found, the ultimate refuge. I can bring myself through the healing and remember who I am. That’s peace. My clients have called me the “best-kept secret,” and I’ve taken that to heart. We regenerate not by striving for perfection but by making real, lasting change.

There’s no perfect, only the grace of making the best of the mess. How? Love. An enduring, agenda-free love that whispers: “I love you. You can cry. Forgive me. I forgive you. You rock. Here’s a tool. Keep going. This is real. You are love.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jaishreeyoga.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaishreeyogaofficial/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaishreeDeviDasi
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaishree-dow-spielman-745237281/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JaishreeYogaOfficial
• Other: Mandali Mastermind Community: https://soul-culture.circle.so/