We were lucky to catch up with Jill Massura recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jill thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

At 40 yrs old, I found myself in a place of personal crisis, commonly referred to as “the dark night of the soul.” I was disillusioned about who I was, lost about where I was headed and scared to admit that I was unhappy, in spite of my life looking picture perfect on the outside. My decades long relationship with alcohol had taken a dark turn, following my Mother’s death, and had grown into a dependency that filled my life with shame and kept me from pursuing anything outside of the daily routine of taking care of my family by day and disappearing into the bottle at night. I was terrified that I was going to die but had no idea how to begin to live. A small voice inside me began to grow louder, urging me to get help, to find a place of support, to tell the truth about how I was struggling and allow myself to become the person I wanted to be, but had never felt capable or confident enough to pursue.

I took the ultimate risk to face myself and my problems head-on and that decision, quite literally, set me on a course of self-discovery that has rebuilt EVERYTHING I have in my life today-beyond my wildest dreams! Removing alcohol from my life was only the beginning but that risk was the cornerstone that set my life on a course of personal empowerment that included going back to school at 41, starting a business, in the healing arts, at 42, that began as a bodywork therapist, and ultimately expanded into the dream career I am living today…working as a personal empowerment coach, teaching mind-body healing workshops and creating small group coaching experiences to help others on their journey toward self connection, trust, respect and love. Today, I am using all of my personal gifts and talents along side my training and education to help others live lives they are proud of and excited to get out of bed for every day!

Taking that huge risk, 14 years ago…trusting that voice that said, “you are so much more than this…this is not good enough for you…” even though I was terrified and had no idea how to do it, or how it would turn out, changed my whole life-from the inside out. Breaking that cycle of addiction, and rebuilding the foundation of myself has allowed me to become the woman I am today – someone I respect, trust and love!

Jill, 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?

A little under one year into sobriety, I felt an urging to take another risk with my life. My youngest child was starting full-time in school and I was feeling a calling to work outside the home again. I had been a stay-at-home Mom for 9 years and had always told myself that if I returned to a career, it would be a career that was heart centered and served others. I also knew it had to be a career in an area I was passionate about and one that I would never lose an interest in learning. I had been making a list of careers that interested me and also a list of careers that were an absolute “NO” (it’s important to know what you don’t like, as much as what interests you) It’s a longer story with a lot of detail but ultimately it came down to a single moment of clarity that hit me like a lightning bolt and checked all of the boxes on my list of interests and talents.

I went back to school to become a licensed massage therapist, helping others heal pain, reduce stress and feel comfortable in their bodies. After graduation, I took another risk to open my own business (another long and divinely orchestrated story). This was something I never planned to do, but trusted in myself completely to achieve. This lead to pursuing certifications and licenses in other healing modalities – Polarity therapy, EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) aka “Tapping” (which is becoming HUGELY mainstream today) and 8 years ago adding a life coaching certification that has become Ignite Your Life Coaching today.

My coaching practice includes a 1:1 private coaching program, based on all of the foundational aspects of mental, physical and spiritual discovery that helped heal my life. I offer clients an opportunity to reclaim their lives in a way that feels right for THEM, using tools of small, sustainable action. I encourage clients to identify their core beliefs, recognize conditioned thought patterns and behaviors that are creating unhappiness/disconnection, learn how to set healthy boundaries and tune into their own intuition in a process of reconnecting with their true selves.

Having gone through this process personally, at the deepest level, sets me apart as a coach who understands how it feels from the inside. My clients know that they can trust me to understand their process and empathize because I have lived it. I have done the work to transform my own life and that puts me in a unique position of support for them on their journey, as this work is sometimes uncomfortable and difficult. It is also fun and rewarding and I love to cheer on and help my clients celebrate all of their personal victories along the way! Having a background and education in bodywork and mind-body healing, sets my coaching practice apart and offers a program of true mind-body-spirit healing and transformation.

In addition to my coaching practice I also offer stand-alone workshops and courses for groups. Some of the courses I offer include Vision Board workshops, EFT, or “tapping”, classes aimed at stress management, and a recently developed course based on New York Times best selling book, “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. Any of the courses I offer can be translated to corporate settings for team building and personal development within the workplace. I love watching how these principles can be molded to fit the needs and visions of different groups. Whether it’s a Vision Board workshop for youth sports teams, or a tapping class for a corporate sales team, there’s opportunity for application at all levels. Any current class offerings can always be found on my website, in addition to my contact information for any group interested in exploring how my workshops can benefit them.

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

At the beginning of my journey I felt like I had to unlearn everything that I knew. However, that process didn’t happen overnight. It happened in small increments of exploring my own thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors to decide which ones were actually serving me and getting me where I wanted to be. Through that process of reflection, I found a lot of habits in my life were just learned patterns which were actually keeping me from being who I truly am. I never questioned any of the ways I thought or believed or behaved- I never even knew I could! I believe that alone is what drove me into that desolate place and time in my life. I felt like I didn’t have a choice and like I needed to do life the way my parents had, the way my friends were, and the way the world expected me to. It wasn’t until I started challenging those patterns and discovering my own value system that I was able to break the spell I was under- that I had to be like everybody else. The lesson is you get to be whoever you want to be in this life. The more you trust that the happier your life will be. I am a living breathing example of that because I challenge everything. Even the version of myself I was yesterday is up for grabs today! When a new client enters my practice, I tell them that everything they think, believe, and the way they behave is on the table. We start here because everything we are has been conditioned on some level. The nature of my business is that I have to help people unlearn patterns.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I’m in a unique position because my entrepreneurial philosophy is based on the human condition. I’m in the business of the human spirit, but also all the things that keep us from that and trip us up regularly in our life. Of all the books I’ve read over the course of my career, and there have been MANY, there is only one that I give to every single client. This book is the bedrock of living a life with personal integrity and happiness. That book is “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. In fact, I love this book so much that I finally took a risk and listened to a voice which had been urging me for years to develop a small group coaching class around the principles laid out in this book. I’m happy to say that our first offering of this class sold out with a waitlist! Working these principles in a one on one setting and a group dynamic has been some of the proudest, most rewarding work I’ve ever done in my life. I look forward to regularly offering this class and am eager for the next session in early 2023. Watching people disentangle themselves from their conditioning, rewire new directions for their lives, and discover their brilliance has been the privilege of a lifetime.

Contact Info:

• Website: jillmassura.com
• Instagram: Jill Massura
• Facebook: Jill Massura-personal Ignite Your Life Coaching-business page
• Linkedin: Jill Massura
• Other: By signing up for my newsletter, though my website, you will receive notifications on all upcoming workshops and small group coaching experiences.

Image Credits
Picture of coffee cup and white notebook- Holly Mihelic Black and White laughing picture and personal photo headshot- Alcamo Photography- Kara Coraci