We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jacqui Burge a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jacqui, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is to help women learn to soften to find their strength—to stop fighting their bodies and start trusting their wisdom. But this isn’t something I learned in a textbook. It’s something I lived through over three decades of recovery and rebuilding.
In my early twenties, I nearly destroyed my health with drugs and alcohol. It was fast and ugly. Even during the times I was clean, I dabbled in yoga but wasn’t clear-headed enough to recognize its magic. When I hurt my back in my late twenties, that became my gateway to real healing—not just physical recovery, but learning what foundational health actually means across every aspect of life.
They say teach what you know, and I know how to recover. How to overcome. How to get healthy from the ground up.
I spent the next decade building that foundation, then took a long break from teaching when my daughter was born. I needed to pour everything into her while supporting us financially. I never stopped practicing or learning, but I wasn’t sharing publicly until I opened Move Sanctuary.
The real transformation in my mission came during menopause. Everything that had worked for my health stopped working. I gained weight, couldn’t sleep, and felt itchy and uncomfortable in my own skin. I had to get curious and experimental again—changing my diet, eliminating alcohol and sugar, but also addressing something deeper.
I realized I was still gripping for safety I no longer needed. The hypervigilance from a rough childhood, this need to keep everyone around me safe—I wasn’t experiencing those threats anymore, so why was I still armoring against them?
That’s where my teaching truly transformed. I started working with women on how to soften to find strength, which became my “ungripping” philosophy. Because I saw that so many of us are exhausting ourselves fighting battles we don’t need to fight anymore, protecting against threats that no longer exist.
My mission is meaningful because I lived both sides—the destruction and the rebuilding, the gripping and the letting go. I know what it’s like to not trust your body, and I know what it’s like to finally come home to yourself. Every woman I work with is on some version of that same journey, and I get to help them find their way back to themselves.
That’s not just work to me—it’s a continuation of my own healing, multiplied.
With my studio Move Sanctuary, my private work with women and the menopause product line XO Jacqui the mission is a thread through all that I do in the world.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m Jacqui Burge, and I help women discover that their greatest strength comes not from pushing harder, but from learning when to soften and trust their body’s wisdom.
My path into this work began with destruction before it led to healing. In my early twenties, I nearly ruined my health with drugs and alcohol—it was fast and ugly. A back injury in my late twenties became my gateway to yoga, but more importantly, to understanding what foundational health actually means. Not just physical recovery, but emotional and mental rebuilding that permeates every aspect of life.
After becoming a yoga teacher, I took a 22-year break from public teaching when my daughter was born. I needed to pour everything into her while supporting us financially on a different level. During that time, I never stopped practicing or studying, but I wasn’t sharing the work publicly.
When I returned to teaching and opened Move Sanctuary, my yoga studio in Ojai, I discovered my approach had evolved dramatically. I was no longer teaching from effort—I was teaching from ease. I’d developed what I now call the “ungripping” philosophy without even realizing it.
What I Offer:
I provide private yoga sessions both in person at my Ojai studio and virtually worldwide, along with XO Jacqui supplements specifically formulated for women navigating hormonal changes. But what I’m really offering is a different relationship with your body and strength.
My sessions aren’t about perfect poses or pushing through pain. They’re about discovering that your core fires 30 milliseconds before any other movement happens—making it not just your physical center but your body’s internal wisdom keeper. I teach women to have conversations with their protective patterns, to recognize when gripping is serving them and when it’s limiting them.
The Problems I Solve:
The women who come to me are often successful and accomplished but exhausted from fighting their own bodies. They’ve been taught that more effort equals better results, that they need to push through discomfort, and that their body is something to control rather than trust.
I help them understand that real strength comes from the center and radiates outward—not through force, but through intelligent support. That you can do 60% effort and achieve 100% transformation when you’re working with your body instead of against it.
What Sets Me Apart:
Most fitness and wellness approaches add more—more intensity, more rules, more forcing. I teach women to do less and receive more. I’ve learned that the core is the first mover in the body, and when you strengthen from there, everything else follows naturally.
My approach is deeply informed by my own recovery journey and three decades of understanding what foundational health actually means. I also bring the unique perspective of someone who returned to teaching after menopause hit and had to completely reimagine what health and strength looked like for my changing body.
What I’m Most Proud Of:
I’m proud that I survived my early destruction and turned it into wisdom I can share. I’m proud of Move Sanctuary, where we do “sloppy” yoga and “ugly” poses because authenticity is more transformative than aesthetics. But mostly, I’m proud of the women who learn to trust their bodies again after years of fighting them.
What I Want People to Know:
Your body already knows how to be strong. It’s been trying to show you, but we’ve been taught to override its signals. The most revolutionary thing you can do is soften. The strongest thing you can practice is trust.
Whether you’re dealing with chronic pain, hormonal changes, or just feeling disconnected from your body, there’s a different way. You don’t have to white-knuckle your way through life. Your body isn’t betraying you—it’s been waiting for you to remember that it’s on your side.
This work isn’t just about movement or nutrition—it’s about coming home to yourself. And after decades of being away from home, I can tell you that the journey back is worth every step.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
I met Alexis doing what so many of us do in small-town California—raising our kids together and bonding over tennis. She had this incredible gluten-free baking company, and I was navigating another health battle with menopause, feeling sick from every protein powder I tried.
One day, in desperation, I reached out to her: “Would you be willing to make me a protein powder that wouldn’t make me sick?” Without hesitation, she said yes.
What started as a personal favor quickly became something bigger. Our friends started drinking it, then buying it. Two and a half years later, here we are with XO Jacqui, and I couldn’t ask for a better partner.
Alexis brings qualities I deeply value—she’s calm, resilient, and an incredible communicator. More than that, I really feel like we’re in this together. Creating a product line that you primarily sell online isn’t an easy task. We walk the hills and valleys of that journey side by side, celebrating the wins and problem-solving through the challenges.
The lesson I’ve learned is this: trust your gut when picking a partner. Building a business partnership is much like a marriage—you have to be 100% committed, kind, and forgiving. There will be moments of stress, disagreement, and uncertainty. What carries you through is mutual respect, shared values, and the belief that you’re building something meaningful together.
What I love most about our partnership is that it mirrors the philosophy of our products. We’re not trying to force outcomes or push through obstacles with brute strength. We listen to each other, adapt when needed, and trust the process. Just like I teach women to work with their bodies instead of against them, we work with each other’s strengths and navigate challenges with grace.
Our friendship was the foundation, but our shared commitment to helping women feel better in their bodies is what sustains the business. When you’re creating products for women going through hormonal changes—women who are tired of feeling sick from supplements that don’t understand their needs—you need a partner who gets it on both a personal and professional level.
Alexis gets it. And together, we’re building something that serves women in a way we wished we’d been served during our own health journeys.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Life is really a series of pivots, honestly. They started as far back as memory serves me—from my early recovery to returning to teaching after 22 years to navigating menopause and completely reimagining what health looked like for my changing body.
But one story that’s most recent and really shows partnership resilience and the need to problem-solve happened with our protein powder ingredients. The prices just went up—dramatically. We couldn’t find what we had easily acquired before at the costs we were used to.
We were faced with a choice: raise our prices and pass that cost onto our loyal customers, or find another way.
Alexis and I sat down and looked at every aspect of our business. We asked ourselves, “How can we lower costs for the short term without compromising the quality of the ingredients?” Because that was non-negotiable—the integrity of what goes inside had to remain the same.
The answer came when we examined our packaging. We realized we could go even more small-batch with our protein powders and use bags instead of more expensive containers. It meant the packaging would look different, but the product inside would maintain the same high quality our customers trusted.
The beautiful part was how our customers responded. Because we treat them like family, we were transparent about the change. We explained that the bag might look different, but the product was still the same high-quality formula they loved, and the price would remain solid.
Everyone understood. In fact, many appreciated that we chose to absorb the increased costs rather than pass them along. It reinforced something I believe deeply—when you build genuine relationships with your customers, when you’re honest about challenges and show that you’re willing to problem-solve creatively to serve them, they become partners in your journey rather than just consumers.
This pivot taught me that successful business isn’t about having a plan that never changes. It’s about having partners you trust, values you won’t compromise, and the flexibility to find creative solutions when challenges arise. Alexis and I didn’t just weather this challenge—we strengthened our partnership through it and deepened our connection with our customers.
The lesson: When you’re committed to serving others and you have the right partner beside you, pivots become opportunities to show your true values rather than obstacles that derail you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jacquiburge.com
- Instagram: @jacqui.burge @xojacquiproducts @movesanctuary
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquiburge/
- Twitter: @BurgeJacqui
