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

Hi Jessica, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I have always understood the importance of being fit and healthy. Owning my own landscape architecture business, I never shied away from hard work and spending a lot of time outdoors, rarely went to the doctor.

Soon after meeting my now husband, I found myself starting a new career, planning the wedding, and relocating to a home that needed a complete renovation all at the same time. Juggling all the balls led to chronic stress, and not asking for help, I tried to carry on as I had always done.

We lived in a home renovation project that included some iffy challenges like mold and asbestos. It was chaotic and the stress of construction clutter lead to my gaining 40 pounds. Once we moved again to a home that needed nothing done to it, I thought the stress would leave and my health might improve.

By this time I was working as a sustainable building consultant and at the age of 39, started to deep dive into alternative medicine in my spare time. I continued to struggle with my health including gout and losing 70 percent of her hair – wearing a wig for a year. At this time, my husband and I were trying to conceive but nothing was happening.

We moved to a quieter area outside of Seattle and I began going to a fertility clinic and tried IVF until in 2016, we had our daughter. I was 43.

The pregnancy was far from easy. I experienced gestational diabetes. Once my daughter was born, things started to improve but within the space of a year, my hair started falling out again.

Juggling work and a short maternity leave, meant that our daughter was in childcare for 10 hours a day, five days a week and to top it all, my job was now unrecognizable from the one I previously had

Things came to a head with a shooting in downtown Seattle, and neither I nor my husband could reach our daughter whose nursery had been locked down as a result.

Deciding enough was enough. Something had to change for the sake of my health and my family. This is when I took a huge risk and quit my job to become a health coach. It was scary not having a ‘job’ but it was also exhilarating to dive so deeply into health and wellness. This was 7 years ago and I’m healthier now that I was in my 20’s!

Jessica, 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?

As I grew my health coaching business, and as a midlife woman, I started to focus more on supporting women going through perimenopause and menopause. I love this time of life because it’s filled with transitions both physically and emotionally.

Now I work with midlife women in my group coaching program, Vibrant Midlife Mastery. This is a unique group program because it’s also tailored to the individual using one of my favorite functional medicine lab tests. The transformations I’ve seen have been profound and sometimes extraordinary quick. Seeing midlife women embrace this period of life with confidence, feeling sexy in their body and regaining the energy they thought they lost is so incredibly satisfying to me.

I also work with clients privately, clients who struggle with alopecia and other chronic health conditions. For these clients, I use a series of functional medicine lab tests and precise protocols to help them rebalance their body.

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

During my healing journey I had looked to the internet and social media for people to model my diet and lifestyle after. I tried so many different diets based on what these influencers were adamant about helping them heal. From raw vegan to keto and just about everything in between.

What I learned is that every body is different. While there are some excellent rules of thumb for nutrition, prescribing to a dietary dogma simply doesn’t fit everyone.

It’s incredibly important to learn how to listen to your body. For my clients, I give them some basic rules of nutrient dense foods and then have them run experiments to see what feels good and what doesn’t. This becomes their ‘diet’.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective way I grow my clientele is meeting people in person. There’s something about physical connection, a handshake, body language and the nuances of tone of voice that allow me to really connect with others. Most of my clients are women I’ve met in person.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jessicagreenwellness.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicagreenwellness/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaGreenWellness/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-green-coach/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JessicaGreenWellness

Image Credits

Little Olive Photography