We were lucky to catch up with Jen Wyatt recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

The biggest risk I’ve taken thus far in my life is my decision to leave everything I knew in my 10+ year home of Boston and start a completely new life in Naples, FL. This decision was many years in the making. After several very difficult years in Boston, I was stressed, grieving, and didn’t realize how my emotional state had taken a toll on my body. After the medical field failed me with some mysterious health issues I was having, I sought out help from a naturopathic functional medicine doctor. He listened to me, learned so much about my life and my circumstances, and gave me a plan that completely turned my health around! The clarity and happiness that came from this change in my health was the catalyst for me to embark on my yoga teacher training (YTT).

After YTT, everything changed for me. My personal health journey, combined with my awakening into a life of meaning and purpose through yoga training, ignited a passion in me for health and wellness. I realized that the job I was in (elementary education) wasn’t as aligned with my spirit as I thought it might be. After yoga training, I began to re-awaken to myself. I found joy in creating a new, more aligned path. I started to believe that I could create a life of fulfillment, rather than just clocking hours at a very stressful job. I also turned 30… The new decade lit a fire under me, and I asked myself, “If not now, when?” I realized how, most of the time, we hold ourselves back with our own limiting beliefs. My whole belief system about what was possible shifted and a new world opened to me!

After that mindset shift, it still took two years of deliberating and dreaming for me to take the leap. I decided to take a leave of absence from my job to try and start a life in Naples, FL. I had a place to live, but I had no job and no friends. In Boston, I left my job, my home, a relationship, and my entire community to start again from scratch with just an SUV filled with belongings. Yet despite all of the unknown, it felt like the next right adventure for me. I decided I wanted to figure out how to become a full-time yoga instructor.

Almost five years later, I am still in Naples, FL and I have been able to grow my little business of one to expand beyond yoga. It has definitely not been easy, and I am still working very hard to try to grow and make the business more sustainable. But I have a freedom I had never experienced prior to taking this leap. It became one of the most important decisions of my life. It expanded my world and my confidence in myself so much. I know that no matter what, I can do what’s necessary to make changes in my life. And I hope that it’s inspiring to someone who reads this and feels stuck in their life circumstances. There is always a way out, you just may not yet be able to see it. When we truly believe something is possible, the next right step on the pathway can appear.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Within my business Wander Free Wellness, I am a teacher and facilitator of yoga experiences, women’s moon circles, empowering and transformational rituals, wellness workshops, online courses, and retreats. I hold a Bachelor’s in Psychology, a Master’s in Teaching, a 500-Hour Yoga Teacher Certification, and a Reiki Level 2 Attunement. I also make gemstone jewelry and an all natural essential-oil based bug repellant that locals love, called Wander Free Bug Rub!

My mission is to help others unravel layers of societal conditioning and programming that keep us disconnected from our true, wild soul selves. There is a soul essence inside of you that is often suppressed and buried in the name of fitting in or belonging to a dysfunctional and disconnected society. Unlike many in the self-help community, I don’t believe that you are broken or need to be fixed. I believe everything you need is inside of you, and that we must shed the “not-you” in order to find the buried gem of truth within. When we find the authenticity within and choose a life in alignment with our soul, THAT is true freedom.

Each of the workshops or ritual experiences I craft is designed to help us come home to ourselves. We strip the layers to shed our skin and reveal the truth within. And I truly believe that liberation of the true authentic self – in all its weirdness and wildness – is the key to lasting happiness and fulfillment. I believe in connecting deeply with the earth, with nature’s cycles and rhythms, and with the depths of our often-buried imagination and creativity. I also believe that ritual and story are integral components of our growth. If you are attending a course or workshop with me, expect to dig deep in creative, weird, and primal ways.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Tenacity and resilience are most helpful for succeeding as a solo entrepreneur, probably in any field. I moved to a new town and had to build an entire client base from scratch, having no connections in the community whatsoever. I think the key is that I never gave up, despite setbacks or so-called “failures”. I have launched events and had no one show up and still I kept going. I have continued to put myself out there in a way that feels aligned to me, over and over again, and I’ve learned from what worked and what didn’t. If you believe in what you are serving the community, just KEEP GOING. Keep talking about your offerings. Keep networking and meeting people. Keep trying. Social media and our culture of instant gratification can make us think that we’re supposed to be overnight successes. The reality is that organic growth can take time. Stay connected to your aligned truth, and keep taking steps forward.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe that my commitment to authenticity with what I offer the community has helped me build my reputation. While social media has helped me spread the word, truly the most impact on my reputation has been via word-of-mouth. The people who come to my transformative classes, full moon rituals, or workshops are able to feel the shift within them, and that speaks for itself and becomes something they want to share.

There are a lot of opportunities as an entrepreneur to forgo your own authenticity or gut instinct in order to do what you think will be “popular” or most lucrative. That has never been my way of doing things. I won’t go against my values or soul-alignment in order to make a profit, and I believe my community feels that. I truly believe that if I wasn’t true to myself in the events I create, they wouldn’t have the same impact. I am so grateful to my community for helping to build my reputation and help share what I offer to the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wanderfreewellness.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/wanderfreewellness
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/wanderfreewellness
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/wanderfreejen
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WanderFreeWellness