We were lucky to catch up with Lacey Johnson recently and have shared our conversation below.
Lacey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. If you had a defining moment that you feel really changed the trajectory of your career, we’d love to hear the story and details.
There are two. The first was four or so years ago when my daughter was 5 months old. I popped her into her bouncer and was preparing to mix her baby food when I received an acceptance from O, the Oprah Magazine (now Oprah Daily). This came after several rejections from them. I swear, the Heavens parted a little–HA! Within a few months, I’d been published by them more than a dozen times and had two of those articles syndicated on the front page of Oprah’s website. If you’re a mom, please don’t ever let anyone tell you that your dreams have to become an old, abandoned house in the wake of motherhood. It isn’t true. You still exist and so do the value of your ambitions.
The next happened about two or three years ago, in the throes of yet another COVID surge. I cozied onto my couch with my laptop, interviewing one of my most trusted mental health experts, Dr. Kevin Gilliland, for a magazine story that explored the complex ways in which the pandemic era had dropped so many of us into the arms of unimaginable disorientation, weirdness, and grief. As we explored the nuances of how greatly humans need other humans to thrive–the uncompromising reality that we are truly oxygen for one another–Dr. Gilliland paused to tell me, “You know, Lacey, you’re like a therapist…”
It wasn’t the first time someone had given me that sort of feedback, and it wasn’t the first time I’d entertained the idea privately, but there was something identifiable about how he said it. It was as almost as though a divine invitation lay tucked inside of it, waiting to be unwrapped. For about 10 or so minutes that followed, my thoughts pulled me toward energizing visions of another work life, one beyond the pulse of interviewing, writing, and researching for content. At the time, I was in the early stages of writing my first book, Radical Life Renovation. The pull was so powerful that I kept mentally having to walk myself back into the conversation.
Suddenly, a movie started unfolding in my mind. I saw myself in intimate settings, counseling families through dimensions of grief and loss that had crushed their spirits and sent them to their knees. I saw myself situated on carpets, playing and chatting with children who don’t yet have the analytical skills or emotional regulation to accept why Mommy or Daddy won’t be coming home anymore, or why their surviving parent isn’t quite the same person anymore. I saw myself pointing defeated souls toward landscapes of resilience and opportunity, helping them to reconceptualize the failures and setbacks that had annihilated their self-esteem. I saw myself working with women grappling with their newfound identity as someone’s mother while grieving the loss of their childless self, and couples who might believe that resuscitation is impossible when, in fact, it isn’t impossible at all.
Today, I’m moving through my second semester of graduate school, working toward my master’s degree and licensure as a Marriage & Family Therapist, and recently having secured an internship at Ready Nest Counseling, a brilliant women-centric organization that is doing so much good in the world. My vision is to marry the two careers because I’m a creator and a storyteller at heart. I have so many more books I intend to birth. Being a licensed therapist will afford me the authority, credentials, and knowledge to spark conversations I wasn’t able to spark before. Every day, I feel further crystallized in my decision.
I’ll tell you this: never underestimate life’s ability to surprise you. The thing is, though, you have to give it your nod of permission. If you cling to the way things are, because you’ve spent so long investing in a particular endeavor or path or vision, you might be holding yourself hostage to a completed dream. Being a journalist was a dream I realized but it was time to evolve within that dream, which is exactly what I’m doing now.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a mental health and relationships magazine journalist turned future therapist (that’s a mouthful!) who has spent my career sparking conversations that aim to unlock hearts, reenergize minds, and celebrate the human experience.
Having worked with a fascinating range of top psychologists, relationship counselors, neuroscientists, renowned entrepreneurs, and spiritual thought leaders, including Deepak Chopra, Daymond John, Dr. Caroline Leaf, Dr. Shefali Tsabary, Dr. Josh Axe, and Gabby Bernstein, my words can be read in a vast collective of women’s magazines and media sources, including Oprah.com, Oprah Daily, POPSUGAR, Woman’s Day, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and Apple News, which is still wild to me. I’ve also been a featured guest on a variety of top Forbes and iheartMedia podcasts, from Lori Harder’s Earn Your Happy to 4 Things with Amy Brown.
I love people, and I have a fiery passion for smacking my readers in the face with comfort, epiphany, and truth. To do this well, I often call upon my vault of personal experiences in the realms of trauma, grief, resilience, and personal reinvention, including a family-wide tragedy in early childhood that included the loss of my mother, domestic violence in young adulthood, four years of infertility, and a near-fatal accident not long ago, writing and reporting boldly to fling open doorways of revelation, power, and possibility.
My first book, Radical Life Renovation: A Guided Program to Heal the Past, Reclaim Your Power & Build a Future You Love, boasts soulful storytelling, in-depth exercises, guided rituals, and empowering science, and was born from intimate interviews with some of the top mental health gurus and entrepreneurial overcomers of our modern day. I consider it a prelude to my first hardback, a dazzling, deep-dive exploration of the opportunities within pain and trauma, which I’ll finish and release in a year or two, once I’ve completed graduate school and taken my first licensure exam.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
I’d do everything the way I did it, all over again. And there’s a delicious freedom in that statement because I would not have answered the question in the same way a year ago. All of my personal and professional experiences, including the traumatic ones and the ones that felt like a punch in the gut (or ego!) at the time have served me in meaningful and soulfully refining ways. For example, years before I ever saw my name on Oprah’s website, I was rejected by her magazine multiple times. I’d relive all of those rejections because the harvest sure did taste sweet when it finally sprouted in my reality.
I’d change nothing about my path as a writer and a journalist–one that carried me straight into my new path, which is therapy, and it feels fantastic to not only say that but to know in my core that it’s the truth. There’s a certain potency when personal experience collides with professional expertise. It creates an alchemic passion and life force that you just can’t produce otherwise. This is to say, I believe that my lived experiences of deep grief, losses, and traumas, along with the risky, dizzying move of making a major career change deep into adulthood and amid parenthood, will serve my craft. I believe in the continuous pursuit of personal evolution and expression, and that’s exactly what I want to model for my readers and future clients.
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
Education, training, and the tenacious honing of your craft? Those are power players, sure, but nothing compares to heart work. Work that’s being steered by the heart is how you look around one day and find yourself having arrived at the glittering, far-fetched places you once pinned to your vision board. This is to say, whatever you’re trying to achieve, never force anything. Don’t do it for your mom’s or dad’s perception of you, or because you think a certain accomplishment is going to validate you in some way, or because you want to outrace your competition. If your heart doesn’t believe it, neither will your reality. At least not for very long and certainly not in satisfying ways. Your happiness and fulfillment matter. That’s what every journey is about at the end of the day.
Contact Info:
- Website: laceyjohnson.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/thelaceyjohnson
Image Credits
Antonio Fajardo