We recently connected with Janice Cruz and have shared our conversation below.

Janice, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

In 2019, I was dealt with a breast cancer diagnosis. Instead of feeling afraid, I actually felt relief. I had spent my life as someone who shied away from speaking up for myself, from putting myself first, and from prioritizing happiness. That diagnosis was the first moment in as long as I could remember where I felt that I had permission to choose myself. Cancer gave me a chance to pour all of my energy into my own wellness. I learned about how closely tied illness and emotions are and as one of the many actions I began taking to focus on healing, I started learning about what self-love meant. It was a single drop in a bucket of the multitude of things I was doing for my health such as eating for health, walking, praying, meditating, increasing joy, but self-love led me to a profound, amplified, incredible joy that I had never known existed. The joy was so expansive that it seemed to emanate from me. I would walk in rooms and spread happiness. That became my daily mission, to share vibrance and radiance so that if any person I met had never before known what peace, joy, and happiness felt like, they would know it when they met me. I have dedicated my life to sharing this way of living so that people can recognize how amazing they are and choose actions that are in line with their highest values and purpose.

Janice, 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?

I chose to become a coach after having spent a decade on self-development. I walked into my first workshop in January 2013 and within 2 months had quit my job with only enough money in the bank to pay for three months of bills. I had never experienced a motivational seminar, or even read a book that helped me to see that my life was a result of my choices rather than this force of malice coming at me and trying to prevent me from succeeding. I hadn’t grown up around success or healed people so I had no idea it existed. From quitting that job, I was able to get into a marketing role where I evaluated websites for online schools and I came across a university that had an Organizational Leadership masters degree which focused on Professional and Executive Leadership Coaching. The company I work for had a scholarship partnership with the university and I was able to obtain my graduate degree at no charge. I currently lead workshops for self-love and radiance.

Having worked as a technology test engineer and scrum master for eight years, I developed systems and processes for helping to heal more quickly. I shared this analytical and scientific approach to self-love with one of my grad school colleagues and he told me “that sound like you’re a Self-love Scientist to me.” I prefer a technical approach to holistic and metaphysical wellness concepts that allows even those who are not as woo woo to appreciate and enjoy the benefits of concepts that are not as widely adopted. I created a podcast called Self-love Science with Janice Cruz to share about the journey I went on through healing and the discoveries I made about the formulas and psychology of healing.

Some of the communities I work with and support are communities of formerly incarcerated people and those who are dealing with critical illnesses. In both of these communities, people are dealing with extreme circumstances and learning self-love has barriers and hurdles to overcome. I have been able to help people develop extreme resilience under their circumstances and to help place their self-care at the top of their list of priorities. A joyous existence is possible for everyone but we require our own individual formulas for how we can heal, our own practices that will support the journey, and an understanding of who we are.

Coaching provides people with a way to see more clearly through their own minds. I work with clients one on one for self-love and career coaching. My audience has many successful people in it who are at various phases of life and career. They are clear that they want something to shift in their lives and want support in navigating their own thinking so that they can establish the right path, the best mindset, and to have a strong ability to navigate their emotions to utilize them as a guidance system. With LoveDose Coaching, the goal is to educate and coach clients on the foundations of joy, self-love, and radiance so that they move through the world as their authentic and free selves and then spread more happiness into their own families, friends and businesses.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I started grad school for coaching in 2019. About two weeks into my first course I received my cancer diagnosis. My professor was the first person, before my family, to learn of my diagnosis when I emailed her to ask for an extension on my paper. A few days later I let her know I needed to pause the program. At the time, I wasn’t sure that I would even have an opportunity to graduate. Pouring all of my energy into myself and into making sure that when I did survive, the life I was like was one of fulfillment and purpose. These extreme circumstances force us to almost step outside of the game of life and go into a period of necessary isolation. I hadn’t set out on a journey to develop self-love, but it became the most rewarding of all the healing I did. I stood in front of the mirror weighing 98 pounds, bald headed, no eyebrows, a few straggling lashes and tried to tell myself I was worthy of healing and of living. When staring in the mirror, it is not possible to tell a lie because the body responds with whatever emotions are controlling our lives such as anxiety, shame, or disgust. Because I was under highly pressurized circumstances where I felt that my life depended on the work I was doing to be emotionally well, I found that I pushed through resistance and doubt unlike any other time in my life. Under all emotional states, under various states of illness and weakness, I found that I could pull out a hand mirror in my bed while sick, and still force myself to find something beautiful about my life experience to be grateful for. As I walked through my home, anytime a mirror was there, I would take advantage of the moment to try and conquer a new doubt. I believed that sunlight contributed to healing so I made my way outside daily and stepped barefoot on the grass and spoke words of kindness into nature, and nature unexpectedly spoke them back to me. There was a moment outside where I realized that the sun was shining more brightly, that colors were more vibrant, and there was a layer of hope and peace and joy that I recognized had been laid over my spirit. I was lighter and felt this exhilaration at every basic life experience. It was because I released all the excess weight of my past. I had let go of every belief that was blocking my joy and what was left was a more organic experience of the world. When I stepped back into the world, I decided I would do so as my most authentic self. I went to a barber shop and had a woman barber shave a mandala into the side of my head. I decided that if I had to lose all my hair, I would make my debut as someone who stood out. My barber, Sky, promised me that I would love my hair so much I would never want to go back. The amount of happiness I felt when I walked into the world for the first time since treatment was amazing. Nothing was holding me back, not even my old physical identity. If you ask me whether I would go back in time, to one single day before the diagnosis, and I could take it all back, change everything and some magical force would take the cancer away, I would say absolutely not.

I shared with someone how long I believed it took me to heal from everything, which I think was about four months, and she was told me that was incredibly quick. It felt like it took a lifetime, but with my survival instincts in full effect, the massive amount of action I was taking, and all the learning I was doing, I found this incubator of wellness that didn’t require a lifetime of to achieve. While going through chemo, surgery, and radiation I went back to school, started my coaching business, and got a promotion at work. I am also a single parent with a full-time job so I had to balance my dreams while putting effort into being a present a patient mother. I began leading a few workshops on self-love and started a podcast. Farther into the journey I began my public speaking career, joined an amazing non-profit for women as an events director, had another surgery, and just graduated with my masters degree. What once felt impossible is a normal Tuesday to me.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

There’s a saying I used to hear growing up in my Latino community that goes “asi es la vida del pobre.” It means “that’s just the life of a poor man.” It is a saying that gets thrown around anytime life is hard hitting. I heard it when debt collection letters came and when promotions didn’t pay fairly. When I was passed up on jobs I was clearly the best candidate for, I would remind myself that people like me didn’t win in life anyway. I had this fire inside of me that felt like I am meant to change the world, but this voice in my head telling me to stop dreaming so big because my destiny was to work at a job I had for pay that didn’t sustain me. I grew up in a low income community with many of the people in my family and friends circle who are formerly incarcerated. To me, hearing stories about being broke or about someone in jail is an every day occurrence. In this reality, it is not just a limiting belief that job opportunities aren’t given, it is a fact that when someone has to put their felony conviction on paper on a job application, it will likely get thrown straight out. I also grew up seeing that these people were good people who made mistakes but that fair chances didn’t happen. After the self-love journey, I saw myself more clearly. I was no longer a lifeless worker who would tolerate being handcuffed to a desk. I saw how amazing it is to be me. I no longer believed that I was worthy in spite of my past, but as a direct result of all that I had overcome. I appreciated my vigor for learning and helping others more. I learned to appreciate that kindness and empathy are essential business and networking skills. The voice of self-love was louder than doubts I had about whether I would be smart enough to climb the corporate ladder. I invested the last three years into learning about business, making connections, and if in doubt, increasing my knowledge and skills so that I could show up for myself in the ways I needed to in order to succeed. I started looking for proof that people make it based on their work and dedication, versus the sheer luck of the draw version of reality. This work was harder than a lot of what I had done because the voices were both inside and outside of my head. I surrounded myself with successful people and only had authentic conversations about my dreams and my business and that drew even more successful people to me. Soon, I was surrounded by educated, driven, highly successful people who could only see me as the big version of myself that I saw in my head. Eventually, the person who didn’t believe in herself was long gone and reality shifted. Now, my life is a reflection of that self-worth and belief that I will achieve all that I set out to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://janicecruz.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/coachjanicecruz
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachJaniceCruz/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janice-cruz/
• Other: Anchor Podcast: https://anchor.fm/selflovescience

Image Credits
Sky Montalvo – Sorted by Sky