Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Joe Dinardo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Joe, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?
I was in my software consulting job for about 5 years. I had started my mindfulness coaching business about 2 years prior and was working on both of my jobs for that time – weekdays (and some nights) were spent in the consulting job and weekends (also some nights) were working with clients 1-on-1, doing what I loved. What I loved was Cannabis-assisted Psychedelic Therapy, which is creating an environment of safety and holding space for others who imbibe the Cannabis to elicit an altered state of consciousness and navigate the inner terrain of their body and subconscious.
My passion business, as I called it, was THE thing for me. Anyone who knew me in those last few years of software consulting knew that I “couldn’t wait to quite the corporate job and do my psychedelic therapy full time.” This phrase was something that I deeply felt and it was perpetuated by the views and opinions of other entrepreneurs I had seen on social media – the popular “I quite my 9-5 and am now living the life of my dreams!” post that I had seen all too often. I felt that I wouldn’t be “enough” until I had “done the courageous thing” and quit my corporate job. With a history of being hard on myself combined with the appeal of quitting a job that was no longer serving me for a supposed life of my dreams, I was not in the best place mentally or emotionally.
In the beginning of 2023 business was picking up, which was great, and I was on a very demanding corporate project in the consulting role. There was one weekend where I had back-to-back sessions with a client and then a really challenging week and it was then that I realized I had hit my limit, I was burnt out. My wife had mentioned I may be burnt out weeks prior but I couldn’t hear it. I knew burn out was a real thing, but certainly it wouldn’t happen to me. After this particularly tough week I realized that it had. Once I gave myself permission to admit I was burned out, it became clear to me that something needed to change.
I am the main provider for my family and quitting my job felt like too much of a risk and too dysregulating to my nervous system. Before I came to this realization I had been seeking alternative work options, talking to friends and colleagues about opportunities and nothing felt like the right choice. Finally it dawned on me to explore the sabbatical option my consulting firm offered. While the thought of my salary being reduced by 80% was scary, the thought of having 4 months off from my day job to reset, rest, and focus on my passion work was tantalizing. It felt like a bold move and a de-risked one since I had the guarantee from my company that at the end of sabbatical, they’d have my old job waiting for me. I made a plan with my wife that would ensure we’d both feel comfortable during the timeframe then I talked to my manager and my request went through the approval process seamlessly – I would be on sabbatical for 4 months and the relief I felt was immense.
I started my sabbatical with an anniversary trip to Costa Rica with my wife to nourish and rest within nature and when I got back it was time. I hired a business coach, creating my website, and was reaching out to friends and colleagues sharing what I was offering. While I could write a lot about everything that came up during that time and how I navigated it, for now I’ll share that I was face-to-face with old stories and limiting beliefs around success, money, and doing work I love. One of the biggest revelations was that it wasn’t the corporate job that was holding me back from doing work I love, it was the scared parts of my subconscious. The parts that are afraid to be seen, be vulnerable, make an offer to someone who will potentially decline it, questioning the value I bring, etc. It was a period of deep inner reflection. During this time I enrolled in a 6 month breathwork certification program, which was something I always knew I wanted to do.
By the end of the 4 months I realized I wanted more time so I extended it to the maximum amount of time of 6 months. By this time I was realizing what it actually takes to be self-directed in the creation of the vision for my life. Being a W2 employee for my entire career, it was expansive to learn the skills needed to be self-organized with my days and my work output. The biggest takeaway I had from this time period was realizing and accepting that I actually did not want to do the psychedelic therapy work full time. This was difficult for me to accept as, like I said, I was so sure this the work I was meant to do in this life. Once I cleared through the expectations and trying to prove that I was “enough” as an entrepreneur, I was able to find the truth of what I actually wanted deep down…or rather the truth of what I didn’t want. While I knew, and still know, that the psychedelic therapy work is a part of the value I bring to the world it is only one part. For me, the pressure of my income being dependent on this one revenue stream was too much for my nervous system to handle. I lost touch with my why the psychedelic therapy work because I was so focused on needing it. I learned that stability and structure are important to me and are actually very supportive for me to have so I can focus on the psychedelic therapy and breathwork, which is my new passion work.
As my sabbatical was drawing to it’s end I came across a new position outside of consulting within the same firm I was on sabbatical from that felt much more aligned. I applied and accepted the offer to re-join the firm in this new role that started right when my sabbatical was ending. I am currently in this new role and enjoying it. Not only do I prefer the details of the job itself but now I also have a lifestyle that is supportive for me to continue my passion work outside of the job. I am also exploring options of combining my passion work within the corporate space – leveraging my corporate experience with my mindfulness-based certifications to create a lifestyle where I am not only working a job but a vocation. I have seen firsthand the need for more mindfulness-based approaches within the overworked and overstressed corporate space and I am excited to see what comes next.
Joe, 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?
Joe is a Certified Psychedelic Therapist, Breathwork Facilitator, and Life Transformation Coach. He helps people from all walks of life who desire knowing themselves on a deeper level through cannabis-assisted psychedelic therapy, breathwork, and somatic (body-based) guiding.
Joe realized the healing power of intentional Cannabis use and Breathwork in 2018 and has been using these modalities to support his own journey ever since. An experienced psychedelic journeyer, Joe found Cannabis and Breathwork journeys to be unlike other psychedelic experiences he’d had, mainly because these two modalities are primed for somatic (body-based) therapy. The more Joe focused on engaging with repressed emotions stored within his body, the more he saw his life change. In the years since, Joe found the courage to leave his unfulfilling job, learned to listen to his intuition, connect to the divine, and, as best he can on any given day, show up as the man he admires in all of his relationships. He’s tapped into the ease and fun that comes with living this life and is excited to support other’s in realizing their dreams.
With curiosity, non-judgement, and compassion Joe helps others explore how their past experiences may be impacting their lives today, gain new perspectives, connect to self-love, reclaim their power, and rediscover the sacredness of both their breath and the plant ally Cannabis. He focuses on how to take what is experienced in ceremony and integrate it into everyday life. He believes all ceremonies are a concentrated analogy of what we’re feeling in life and the altered states (either through Cannabis or Breathwork) provides the opportunity to interact with and get to know those feelings. Then, being closer to those feelings after an experience, we are better able to incorporate them into our every day lives.
Joe is passionate about leveraging these modalities to support others in their journeys. Joe focuses on agency (choice) that is felt when in the ceremonies with breathwork and cannabis. This is particularly helpful when processing trauma and showing, not telling, our bodies that a past traumatic event(s) is really over.
Certified through the Center for Medicinal Mindfulness, Joe takes a trauma-informed approach to prioritizing safety because he believes when the nervous system is regulated and one feels truly safe, healing is bound to occur. He leverages experience from polyvagal theory, inner child work, and mindfulness practices to live from his heart in all areas of his life including at home with his wife, Chrissy, and two cats, Max and Ollie.
Main thing I want others to know: I prioritize safety and going at the pace of the nervous system always. I take a nervous system-focused approach which means we don’t need to push past what feels unsafe to heal. I focus on finding the tolerable edge and moving at a pace that feels accessible to the nervous system. In a world where many are focused on “pushing through” and thinking that intensity = transformation, I am here to flip that paradigm. When we take a body-based/nervous system approach to healing and move only as fast as the slowest part of us feels safe to, transformation is inevitable. I am here to hold sacred space to allow your body’s innate wisdom to shine through.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One of the biggest lessons for me to unlearn was that in life I have to choose between work that provides financial abundance for me/my family and work I love. This was the primary reason why I stayed in a job I didn’t enjoy for as long as I did – the belief that this was the “sacrifice” I needed to make to financially provide for my family and it was my role as the man to not explore work that lights me up because there was “no way” it could also provide. How wrong I was!
It was when I started believing and feeling into what my life would look like if I was doing work I loved AND providing in abundance that things began to shift in my reality. I didn’t have a number in mind, and I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do so connecting to the feelings of what having that reality meant was the only thing I could go on. The word that kept coming to me in my meditations was “freedom.” Almost every day I would feel into the what true freedom felt like. Then, over time, it was like a spotlight was being shown on all the areas of my life where I did not feel free, and this provided the compass of what I would focus on to start shifting my reality.
I use this approach regularly still – identify how I want to feel in all areas of my life and focus on that feeling. Then, as is the way with the universe, all the stories, beliefs, and blocks that are hampering me from feeling the my desired way start to rise up to the surface where I can look at and move through them. This has and continues to be a powerful tool in my toolbox.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Strengthen your self-awareness muscle. A strong leader is one who is aware of his/her energy, mindset, and attitude. The fact that team members look to you for leadership and direction means that it is important to be aware of how you speak about projects, deadlines, other team members, other teams, and your tone. If you say things like “If we don’t get X done by this deadline, none of us are getting promoted” that creates a lot of unnecessary stress and is based in fear. There are productive ways to encourage and motivate that are not rooted in fear. For example another way to say the above may be “Getting X done by the deadline will demonstrate the value our team brings to the larger organization and supports the overall project’s goals in ABC way.” Often connecting people to the “why” of what they’re doing and how it relates to other work can be helpful in ensuring everyone feels like one team. When this is the case, people act from a place of wanting to thrive and excel.
Another important aspect is asking for (if they know) or learning your team member’s preferred ways of receiving feedback – both for ways to improve and for praise. This is something that is so helpful in effectively managing a team. For example, if one team members really gets lit up by public recognition it is good to note that and ensure that when they complete something satisfactorily to mention in when the team is all together. Similarly, there are people who would close up and be embarrassed by being praised in front of the rest of the team so a better approach may be to have a 1 on 1 chat and let them know how good of a job they’ve done.
Finally, I have found authentically connecting with team members to be a very powerful way to keep high morale. Whether it’s praise or general instruction, ensure that what you’re saying as well as how you’re saying it is intentional. What you don’t want is to just “say the words” of what you think your team wants or needs to hear because while the words we speak are important what is also important is how those words are received. Are they felt? For example, you could say “good job on project X” to someone but if it was said quickly without making eye contact, the fact that the words were said may not be felt by the team member. If this happens once it won’t impact team morale most likely but if there is a repeated lack of authentic connection and acknowledgement for the work a person does that chips away at morale and could create a toxic team culture.
How do I know these things are helpful? Because I’ve done the opposite to what my advice states above in almost every scenario and learned the results of those actions.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.embodiedhealingwithjoe.com/
- Instagram: joe.embodied
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joegd213
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jgdinardo1/