We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jay Janicki a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jay, appreciate you 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.

I love this question and I love my parents so incredibly much. I feel lucky that I get to say that.
It’s so funny, when we’re teenagers, we think they do everything wrong. As I write this at 30, I genuinely feel like they did so much that wasn’t only “right”, but CRUCIAL! The greatest lesson my parents ever taught me was this: feelings aren’t right or wrong, they just *are*. I also remember hearing “beat to your own drum” so frequently when I was a kid, and I sure did. These were two very important lessons I needed every single time I felt like I couldn’t get up again.
I think everyone’s relationships with their parents are different, complicated, and very layered. However, I think there’s so much beauty in the being different, feeling complicated and “too much”. The being different, being “too much”, all of those things I was labeled as by other people never really mattered. What mattered was that I was enough for me, and it took me quite some time to realize that.
My mom, in particular, really was never afraid to be vulnerable, show emotion, and speak her mind. I have carried that with me every day and I genuinely believe it’s what helps me connect with my clients the most! My relatability and vulnerability and unconditional love that I learned from my mom is what helps me every single day to provide that unconditional support my clients need from me. I am honored to be the one they trust to hold the space.
I always knew I wanted to help people, since my childhood, but the unconditional love and support that I got from my family when I needed to sort through things has carried me up to this very day. My parents did a lot right and helped shaped my career, whether they realize that or not. Shoutout to Sharon & Ed!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor at Better Minds Counseling & Services, Founder/Holistic Coach of Janicki Holistic Healing, as well as the founder of a nonprofit. I wear many hats, which is exciting for me. At Better Minds, I get to see clients individually and in group settings. I started multiple groups that I have the honor to facilitate which include: Queer & Neurodivergent Support Group, Narcissistic Abuse Support Group, Chronic Pain/Chronic Illness, more TBD. I am licensed in PA, MD, and DE coming shortly!
I got to live out my dream and start my own LLC that has been named for upwards of a decade, which will include holistic coaching 1:1, group topic discussions (not therapy), and I plan for workshops in the future! My family members work in healthcare, so we’ve even talked about my dad and mom joining at some point – maybe my sister if I’m lucky enough to have her!
It is so important to me that the people that I work with/will eventually work with know one thing: I will hold space and unconditional love for you. Yes, love, I said it! Many therapists shy away from this because of ethics and “professionalism”. I understand the ethics behind my work and still can care about you: both things are possible. This is RELATIONAL – you get to know me, too, if you want!
If it is radical to love my clients and those that I work with, so be it! If it’s wrong, I’m not sure I want to be right. All of the work I’ve had the privilege of witnessing my clients do? A byproduct of creating safety, security, and a loving space for a client. Ram Dass said “we’re all just walking each other home” and what an honor and a privilege it has been to help others walk home toward their most authentic selves.
I token myself the “unprofessional professional” therapist because I will curse with you, I will match your energy, I will share when I think it will benefit, I will be me. I don’t think that’s something that is seen enough in our field. I will always be me – and to whoever is reading this: you can be you, too.

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

I want to say something that *might* be a hot take and a bit controversial before I answer this: it’s okay if whoever is reading this is eyerolling about resilience, “ugh, but we shouldn’t have to be”. I agree with you, I think resilience is spun to be positive when it’s really what keeps us alive during active trauma, no matter the severity. I don’t looooove toxic positivity, but I must say, I am one resilient human being.
I grew up with two sick parents and have been going through my own chronic illness as well over the past few years. I have a lot of relationship trauma in different capacities. It’s really difficult to share one story when you feel like your whole life is one big ball of resilience.
Something that is sticking out to me is what I’ve experienced this year professionally. In a broader sense, this year was filled with a lot of change, fear, and shame. I lost both of my grandparents last year 12 days apart and my world collapsed. While this was happening, I had to leave my job that was keeping me extremely sick. I experienced psychological warfare from the circumstances and I felt like I was nothing. I was torn to shreds. Like a piece of me died with them, that past experiences professionally robbed me of all of my present joy. I thought I was going to leave the field of counseling/coaching in general. I was crawling through this year, so much unknown, my entire life up in the air. I lost friends. my nonprofit that I started fell apart, I felt like my world was crumbling. Every day I cried, wondering when I was going to stop questioning myself, my credibility, my kindness, “am I doing the right thing?” and there was a moment where everything just felt settled. Somatically, I felt relief for the first time in my life, fully present and showing up to my sessions for the first time in months. I have the best caseload in the world, as cheesy as that sounds. The grace they have given me is unbelievable.
I can’t really identify the exact moment, but what I’ll say is that through doing my own work in therapy, this summer has been transformative in so many ways. I’ve healed a lot of parts of me, and luckily, I found my passion and joy in what I do again. I’m lucky to work at Better Minds, which carried me the entire year. My supervisor, Brittany, has put so much trust in me and did that until I trusted myself again. I am forever thankful. I got to start my LLC I had always dreamed of! I had some of my darkest moments this past year. That helped me realize that if I can survive ALL of this, I can survive anything.

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

I had to unlearn a lot of things, one of the biggest lessons I had to unlearn was the idea that was engrained in me: my black and white thinking along with all the negative beliefs that came along with it. Professionally, I had felt that all of my integrity had been pulled into question out of nowhere, even my integrity outside the workplace. It was an absolute mess. I had people I respected for years telling me I needed to tell my clients I wasn’t the “standard of care”. A mortifying experience that even they were floored by. I had questioned my professionalism and ethics for months, so unsure of myself and waxing and waning between “I know that I do great work with my clients, look at how far they’ve come” to “I am absolutely awful and I don’t belong here”. One of my favorite people in the world said to me the other day that when we care about the people who are saying something about us, especially negative things, we’re going to believe it and internalize it — how true that is. A lot of therapy and support carried me through that. Also, PSA to any client: if your therapist doesn’t have a therapist, stay curious about that!
Unlearning this has taken months and months. I am lucky to have a great supervisor, mentors, family, and friends that carried me.
I genuinely had to unlearn hating myself. I beat the crap out of myself for most of my life, carrying guilt that did not belong to me, getting sucked into chaos that I didn’t need to be a part of, making mistakes and internalizing ALL of that as shame. My inner critic got pretty freakin’ tough, benching twice my body weight, ready to knock me on my feet. It took a lot of self work and working with a new therapist (whom I cherish very much, shoutout Anita) to stop hating myself and building enough emotional strength to challenge that critic and tell them to *respectfully* shut up!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.janickiholistichealing.com
• Instagram: @janickiholistichealing
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjanicki
• Other: www.betterminds-counseling.com
  Instagram @bettermindscounseling
  Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/jay-janicki-philadelphia-pa/863828

  Group schedule:
  Mondays @ 6PM – I Promise, You’re Not Crazy: Surviving Narcissistic Abuse + Building Community
  Wednesdays @ 2PM – Neurospicy Minds: A Support Network for Therapists
  Thursdays @ 2PM – Beyond Pain: Living with Chronic Pain & Illness
  Thursdays @ 6PM – Come As You Are: A Safe Space for Queerness, Unmasking, and Embracing Neurodiversity

Image Credits

@bettermindscounseling group info!