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

Jessica, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

My company, The Chrysalis Imagery, launched in June, 2022 as a online platform offering inspired imagery that celebrates the full spectrum of life. One of my signature offerings is a unique and candid line of greeting cards that speaks authentically about the messier side of life. These honest greeting cards feature words of encouragement for navigating adversity and challenge, inspired words of wisdom to bolster us through loss and grief, and simple, heartfelt messages of love and appreciation.

But I should back up a step and add a little context here. Like the fact that my beloved partner of 25 years died in March, 2021. And that I midwifed her in the process of dying. So, adversity, loss and grief are familiar landscapes for me. And these experiences directly inspired me to create this line of greeting cards which feature my original artwork.

But there’s an even bigger twist to this story…like the fact that I didn’t know I could draw until very recently!

When my partner died and my heart landed in acute grief, I was already deeply aware of how unprepared our social structure is to hold those of us who are grieving, or who are supporting loved ones in a death process. That awareness has only grown more poignant in my personal journey through grief.

Here’s the thing about death and dying and grief that no one can prepare you for. It cracks you open and invites you to go deeper, to look closely at the things that have been resting in layers within you, waiting for excavation.

The autumn before my partner died, I was musing aloud one day about how fun it would be to draw on an iPad. Mind you, I had never drawn before in my life and had no innate talent to do so! So, I wrote off that whim as far too expensive to justify. But she heard something in my musings, and for the holidays, she gifted me with an iPad. Ten days later, we learned she was dying.

In my acute grief, I put the iPad away and did not pick it back up until 9 months later. And for reasons I may never fully understand or be able to explain, I began drawing. I felt as if an ancient memory was finding its way to the surface, and something new and beautiful was emerging.

Through drawing, I found myself exploring the contrasting elements of life: the light and shadow, the fear and joy, the brokenness and simultaneous expansion of being human. In a nutshell, the cyclical dance of life and loss and grief.

I felt moved to carry these images into a line of greeting cards and grief affirmation cards that honors the challenge, pain, joy and beauty that weave through all of our life experiences. Without doubt, these cards are inspired by my own process of walking through grief, recognizing how hard it is to hold others in their pain without trying to erase, fix, or soften the sharp edges of their experiences.

I think about all of us struggling to make sense of a world that is morphing in unexpected ways right before our very eyes. Systems and institutions that are imploding and dismantling. Climate crisis and weather pattern shifts that stir our existential angst. If we are paying an ounce of attention, we cannot deny that grief, in all of its many iterations, is here with us. It sits with us at the table. Adversity and loss are not a niche. They belong with every one of us, and will touch every one of us during our lives.

The Chrysalis Imagery cards aim to normalize the fact that life is both hard and beautiful. That it’s okay to feel overwhelmed and unraveled. That it’s okay to feel like things are not okay! Who among us hasn’t struggled to keep our heads above water at times? These cards recognize the truth of that messier side of life, and remind us that not only is it okay to feel these ways. It is also an essential reality of life! In addition to these messages of encouragement and resilience, my card line also features playful messages of love and inspiration and a LGBTQ collection offering gay/queer-themed greeting cards as well.

Jessica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

In addition to everything I wrote about in the previous question, it might be important for your readers to know that I have been working in the wellness industry for the past 27 years, holding space for clients originally as a body worker and energy practitioner, and for the past decade, as a Nervous System Health Educator and Wellness Mentor.

I have spent my life teaching people about the innate intelligence and healing capacity of the body, and have prioritized helping people learn how to become better partners with their bodies. In my nervous system work, I teach people how to sit with the complexity of holding contrasting experiences in life. Like the fact that we can feel broken and whole all at the same time. Or terrified and courageous simultaneously.

Many of the themes that express through my artwork and my line of greeting cards, are inspired by the years that I have spent holding space for people in their unique and intricate healing journeys. And many of the lessons I have been sharing as a practitioner all these years, are embedded in the images I create that celebrate the resilience inherent in our humanity.

One thing about me that folks who have worked with me recognize, is that I am all about integrity and authenticity. I absolutely embody all of the practices I have ever taught as a practitioner. And the same is true for the imagery and messaging I put out there through The Chrysalis Imagery. This company is heart-fueled and deeply personal. Everything I create has something of me in it. And every image that comes through is an extension of my personal life experience.

In this world of content overload, I think it can sometimes be hard to find messaging that hits true without being uber-cool, or cheeky, or edgy. One of the signature elements of my messaging is that is simple, straightforward and compassionate, touching the heart of what we often don’t know how to say. And I like that this option exists!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think the story of launching The Chrysalis Imagery is the most recent and perhaps biggest pivot in my life. It’s hard to describe what it is like to lose your best friend and the love of your life, especially after having the constancy of their anchoring presence in your life for such a long period of time. Loss shakes things up in a seismic way. And you find yourself having to re-constellate around that shift. Which is exactly what I have been doing with creating The Chrysalis Imagery.

For me, the discovery that I could draw, after a lifetime of thinking I had no innate artistic talent that way, was one of those major pivots. The fact that the artwork afforded me a deeply nourishing and healing outlet for feeling states that transcended words, was a bonus. And because my life has always been a path of service, it was a direct link for me to recognize that there is a desperate need in our social fabric to prioritize naming and normalizing hard stuff. And the rest just kind of flowed naturally from there.

The other thing that I might add here is that it has been a really important part of my own grief story to embrace the opening and discovery that has happened in the midst of such acute loss and grief. It’s not this way for everyone who loses someone they love, but for me, the loss and the opening are inextricably bound. And it has been very helpful for me to open into this new direction in my life as a way to step forward and inhabit a new expression of self in the world that exists beyond the constant ache of the loss and the persistent claim of grief on my energy.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The goal or mission driving my creative journey is definitely the desire to help people learn to be more comfortable in recognizing and navigating the complexity of life and more literate in showing up to support others who are experiencing loss or adversity of any kind. If we cannot learn how to invite the realities of loss and grief and adversity to the table, and how to sit companionably with these aspects of our human experience, we are missing a huge and important slice of life.

I see how unschooled most of us are in holding these states of complexity. It might sound silly, but I believe the simple, candid messages I illustrate in my greeting cards, can help teach us how to be more comfortable with the full spectrum of human experiences, both within ourselves and with others around us.

I also see how in our current modern world that leans so heavily on technology, we are losing something important by relying almost entirely on digital forms of communication. There are entire generations of people who perhaps have never really received a greeting card and who don’t realize how important it can be to have a physical something that you can anchor to, a message that you can touch and hold and place on your counter, or on your refrigerator to gaze at again and again. I love the convenience of e-messages as much as anyone. But there is distinct medicine in getting a piece of mail delivered to you that you can connect with in a very physical way. It can be a lifeline for some people, especially during a challenging time. And I believe in that medicine and want to help others remember its potent place in the fabric of our day to day living.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thechrysalisimagery.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thechrysalisimagery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thechrysalisimagery/
• Other: Interview on The Dougy Center’s Grief Out Loud podcast, episode 249 https://www.dougy.org/news-media/podcasts/reconstellating-after-the-death-of-a-partner
  my articles on medium.com : https://medium.com/@jessica_66903 my personal Blog for The Chrysalis Imagery, Reflections: https://www.thechrysalisimagery.com/blog-reflections