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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
Hi, welcome back to Plenty. I'm so excited for you to meet today's guest. Her name is Jemie Seku. She's a dear friend of mine, and she is the CEO and founder of Psychable, which is the number one database and community for people to find legal self assisted, therapeutic, psychedelic experiences within a community that they can trust.
So Jemie combines her groundbreaking work of root cause healing and her masters in psychology with a deep knowledge of body work and detox and nutrition so that she can assist people, especially executives, high achievers and entrepreneurs who are experiencing burnout and autoimmune issues with their own individualized.
Internally guided healing journey. So today we talk about her own incredible experience finding healing in just four days after experiencing depression her entire life. We dive into how she healed her ambition. and learned to work with it in a more sustainable and soulfully aligned way. We talk about her new journey as a mother and how to work with psychedelics in a therapeutic, really safe, connected, soulful way as well.
So I'm so excited for you to meet Jemie and to go on this journey with us.
Welcome to plenty. I'm your host, Kate Northrup. And together we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time and energy and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week we're going to dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty.
Let's go fill our cups.
Hey, Jemie.
[00:01:28] Jemie: Hi, Kate.
Kate: Thanks for being here.
Jemie: Oh, my goodness. It's such an honor and pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:33] kate: I love you so much. So when we met, I just knew immediately that I adored you. And one of the ways I knew is because you are so present and you listen in a very present actually intense, beautiful way.
And I'm curious, have you always been that way? Or was that like later as part of your spiritual process of awakening, which I will ask you about. That you got to be such a present person. Like if I had met you when you were 25 would, were you like that?
[00:02:09] Jemie: Probably for a split second, and then I would just go into girl boss mode and try to think about all the agendas that we have to, you know meet and all that.
So I think it was a progression. It was an evolution. And, you know, I think it's life experience that really reminds you how important it is to stay in the present moment.
[00:02:34] kate: Mm hmm. Okay. So girl boss mode. Jemie 25.
[00:02:39] Jemie: You probably would not have liked me at the time. I was, I was like,
[00:02:42] kate: tell me about yourself. Tell me about Jemie at 25.
[00:02:46] Jemie: I was a go getter. I was taking names, taking cards, making deals making connections, just making, just making things happen. And pretty aggressively I would say. And. And I was just a total go getter. I mean, I, I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't say I would like step over people, but I was, I was a bulldog.
I was like, I see a goal and I lock in and I'm relentless and I would just keep going and keep going until I got to the goal.
[00:03:18] kate: Where did your ambition come from? Do you think?
[00:03:21] Jemie: Oh, that's a, that's a good question. You know, I think a lot of it comes from the way I was raised, particularly by a single parent mother.
So, I think having her model this just this curiosity and unquench unquenchable thirst for education and knowledge I think really. really impressed on me at a very young age to just always pursue and not relent and not settle.
[00:03:59] kate: Not relent and not settle. Yeah. You and I met after some significant experiences happened in your life that, you know, I don't know how you would describe as a headline.
Whether you would call it a spiritual awakening, whether you would call it, you know, some people call it that. I, I'll let you, I'll let you write the headline and I'm curious if you can tell me about, you know what were, what was like one, one to three of the key elements, key experiences that happened in your life between bulldog, girl boss.
Go getter, Jemie. And when I met you, maybe about a year and a half ago, two years ago now super intensely present, like, you know, we were crying together within 15 minutes of meeting, just so dropped in. Equally as ambitious and powerful, I might add. So yeah, like what, what, what, what happened? Because I would have a different flavor of ambition, different flavor of ambition.
For sure. I would, I would never describe you as a bulldog ever now focused, yes, but yeah, like what, what happened to transform that in you?
[00:05:15] Jemie: Number one, I went through a divorce at 29. Number two,
I got really, really sick to the point of death, like near death. And then three, I had to go through, and I went through a lot in my life, but I had to go through one of the biggest battles to fight for my life and fight for the work that I stand for. And I would say all three things, be it lessons, they were medicine.
They were medicine for me.
[00:05:55] kate: What happened? How'd you get sick? What was going on with that?
[00:05:59] Jemie: So, go getter. You know, I had launched various startups. I climbed the corporate ladder. And I was I felt like I was invincible. Or I thought I was invincible. And I would skip meals, I would skip doctor appointments, I would just skip everything and anything that was around self care or about me.
Always over abundantly giving to everything around me that I committed to or that required my attention. The people around me, people pleasing. And after two years of, I would say, 140, 150 hour work weeks being in a leadership role with all men and being the only woman on the executive team, I ended up getting really, really sick to the point where I couldn't get out of bed.
I, I always. Thought of myself as a high functioning depressive person, like I can put on that mask and that smile to the world and just pretend that everything was fine. But at this point when I got sick, it was, there was no faking it. I was pretty much on the bottom of the barrel. To the point where I lost all purpose to life.
I didn't see the reason to continue living anymore. I, you know, I was just like, what is there more to live for? I've done everything that society has told me was the right thing to do to achieve certain success. I've traveled everywhere I've wanted to travel to.
I've eaten all the types of food I wanted to eat, right? I just, I thought I'd done it all, and I was just like, well, what, what more to life is there to live for? And I had these mysterious symptoms come up for me where globs of my hair was falling out, it was waking up in the middle of the night and puddles of sweat.
I, I work out and I barely break out in sweat. I developed brain fog to the point where I couldn't even formulate a sentence or have a normal conversation with anyone. And on top of that, I was so embarrassed, so embarrassed about the state that I was in. And also coming from, you know, the Asian culture, we don't talk a lot about feelings or emotions, or we don't bring shame to our families.
So we suffer a lot in silence often times. And so to the point where my own mother didn't know what I was going through. And I was just so embarrassed even. Share any of it with her. And Yeah, it was. It felt like eternal darkness and hopelessness and hell. And at that point, I had spent tens of thousands of dollars seeing all these Western medical doctors did all this lab work and nobody could tell you what was wrong with me.
As a matter of fact, they were like, You're normal. I felt like I was gaslit in a lot of ways too. And that I was, I was the one going crazy, but I knew I like something's not right and nobody could really pinpoint that for me. And so in a span of a week, I had two people in different parts of my life happened to share with me that they did this thing called plant medicine, specifically ayahuasca, and that it was very transformative for them.
And one of the things I'm really grateful for is that I've always considered myself a spiritual person. And and so I dropped in with myself and I, I was in prayer meditation and I was wondering, I was, I was curious, right? I was curious. I was like, why is this thing coming into my field twice in a week?
And I think it was that curiosity that led me jumping down the rabbit hole and researching everything I could about plant medicine, psychedelics, ayahuasca. And I think upon the research, I felt this fear come up in me and this fear was basically saying I'm afraid of dying. And this other part came in me and said, well, you're at this rate, you're going to die anyway.
So what's there to lose? And so I came to that epiphany, that, that question of what is on the other side of fear? There's death. And also there's freedom. So two days later, I jumped on a flight to Costa Rica. I sat with ayahuasca for four nights and it saved my life and it lifted my depression within that week.
And I came out of that feeling a dual surge of joy and anger, the joy of Wow, this is the first time in my life to feel what it's like to not have depression and anger simultaneously. Like, what the F, why did it take me so long to get to this point of accessing this medicine? And why was I so scared? So that took me down a deeper journey and a deeper devotion into the space, into this work.
[00:11:16] kate: Why do you think, I have so many questions about your personal experience, but I want to ask this first. Why do you think, at least in the United States, plant medicines have been categorized in such a way? And for us to fear them.
[00:11:35] Jemie: There's so much conditioning. There's so much narratives. There's always these like General beliefs that. Was really not ours to begin with, and I think a lot of it stems from At the end of the day. How much money can be made. And. Big pharma money. I mean, think about the fact that you cannot patent a plant.
Right? It is abundant. It is from nature. You cannot patent it. And so it's incredibly disruptive to the current systems or what is referred to as empires. And it is disruptive to the status quo. And the status quo has... They have a lot of money in play, and so there comes narratives and beliefs that get driven from people with larger agendas and with a lot of money.
[00:12:45] kate: So there you were, feeling elated and angry at the same time for the same reason. And then you were going back to your life, right? So, four days, this incredibly transformative experience, your depression is lifted in a very short period of time after having lived with it your entire life that you remember.
Yep. What was it like going home and reinserting yourself into the life you had created up until this point?
[00:13:12] Jemie: Yeah. That was really challenging. And this was, you know, a little over six and a half years ago, which was... It's still new now, this whole concept of psychedelics and psychedelic assisted therapy, but even six and a half years ago, it's even more new.
And so I was like, okay, how am I going to come out of the closet about this? How am I going to sound sane? How do I explain to people about this experience that I went through without sounding like I'm crazy? How, and it was that how that was, it felt really lonely. It felt really lonely and it felt like I couldn't really fit in anywhere, but that was okay.
And that led me to going really deep within myself even further to do the inner work, to integrate from the experience, to learn how to embody. The experience that I went through from this heightened state of consciousness and how I could bring forth solutions So that others who are experiencing similar things or are trying to access these medicines Don't feel so alone and feel safe and feel seen and feel heard about what they are going through and the journey that they and that's what I.
Chose. To experience so. That was. That was, I would say, just a deep introspection. It was a deep time of introspection.
[00:14:57] kate: When you came home after you came home in the 6. 5 years since has your depression come back? Like in your in your life. You know, I also know you're you're a new mom. At least for me, that postpartum time was a real doozy emotionally, and I'm just curious what's been your experience in your emotional life since, comparatively to before your first experience with ayahuasca?
[00:15:23] Jemie: That's a big question, Kate. The first thing that comes forth for me around that is so the depression has not returned. Wow. That's amazing. It's amazing. I mean, it's amazing. Come on. I know. That's so cool. I will say, I will share that one of the things that I received was the understanding of what depression meant for me.
And that was a misalignment with one's soul. And so coming out of that experience and integrating and really learning that lesson of Okay, I have to be really mindful of my choices. Anything that is not in alignment, that calls to me, does not serve me, and it's a no. So it's really teaching myself around what is a yes, what feels good in my body.
What does that yes feel like? And to follow that more. And because of that, I also feel more comfortable. That's why I haven't felt depressed. Wow. Yeah. Even in the most challenging experiences. Yeah, it's not like
[00:16:35] kate: life's been a cakewalk ever since, right? It's not like your life got easier necessarily. More evolved.
[00:16:42] Jemie: More evolved. Okay, I love that. I love that. And being a new mother, right? Being a new mother going through, so in, in the Chinese culture we have what's called the 40 day confinement. Which is you don't get up from bed and you drink a lot of soup and broths and you don't, you actually try not to shower or anything like that and you just allow the body to recover.
And that was a bit of initiation. And I, and there was a lot of processing, a lot of what was coming through was also, it felt like a psychedelic experience to be quite frank.
[00:17:14] kate: Birth did or the first 40 days?
[00:17:15] Jemie: Birth, birth and coming out of. Into coming out of the birth and into the 40 day confinement also felt like a psychedelic experience, and I was like, wow, all mothers actually know what it feels like to have a psychedelic experience.
But to bring it back. Even going through after birth and the recovery process. It was very challenging, but I felt like I had the tools and was resource enough. To identify what was coming up for me, to allow for it, not to suppress it, to be in communication with it. You know, what is this feeling I'm coming up with with wanting to produce and wanting to, you know, keep working and wanting to you know, make the revenue and you know, what is all that and where is that coming from and and.
Allow for that to come forward. Have a conversation with it and be like, Okay, we're coming into a new normal. We're coming into a new way of being. So how can we work in collaboration with what was before? And what is now? Yeah.
[00:18:29] kate: So something that that first experience that trip to Costa Rica, I know.
Instigated or inspired. Inspired is a better word. Inspired in you was a desire to. Help other people to receive that medicine in a really healthy, safe way. Mm-hmm. . And so how long after that did you then go and begin the journey of creating cyclical? Mm-hmm. And what, first of all, what is recyclable?
Second of all, how, how long was the in-between and, and, and you don't, you know, share whatever you want. Yeah. But what, what did you need to unravel in your own life that were some of the systems and structures? that maybe had led you up to that point that then needed to be reorganized.
[00:19:14] Jemie: So Psychable is a online, one of the leading online directories connecting individuals who are interested in legally working with practitioners, supporting them around psychedelic assisted therapy.
We have a couple thousand practitioners on our platform to date, and we've had over 1. 5 million visitors to our platform since launching about over two years ago. And simply it's, if you're an individual and you're interested in the work and you want somebody to provide you safety and know how to prepare you, take you through the experience, and then also the post integration work, you come on our site.
You find a practitioner to connect with in your area or virtually. And you message them, and voila. So, we've created a way where it's, it just reduces the friction.
[00:20:04] kate: Yeah, and the fear And the fear.
[00:20:07] Jemie: And the fear.
[00:20:08] kate: Of feeling like, this is scary, I've been indoctrinated to believe it's unsafe.
[00:20:15] Jemie: Yes. And we have over a couple hundred articles written by subject matter experts that were medically reviewed as well to provide education, right?
Because at the end of the day, this is about empowering the individual to make the most informed decisions for themselves. So that essentially is what Psychable is today. And the way I came about it was after coming out of this. Transformative experience. With ayahuasca. I would say within weeks of just going deep within myself.
It was a lot of just asking myself. Why did this take so long for me to access this? What was the fear? So answering a lot of these questions internally for me. Led me to searching out for a solution. And when I didn't find it, I was like, Well, this has to exist. I'm going to go and create it. And In a way that was inclusive, in a way that was diverse, in a way that was non gatekeeping, and a way that was not informed by current systems.
So that was the intentionality and the the vision behind it. And I would say within weeks I came up with the idea. And we launched the platform in seven weeks time.
[00:21:41] kate: From the time you had the idea.
[00:21:42] Jemie: From the time I had the idea, it took me just a couple of weeks to think about it. Put it together. And then within seven weeks time, we put a team together of 60 to 70 people on the team.
And launched a platform in seven weeks time.
[00:22:00] kate: All the programming, all the everything. Yeah. Yeah. And you fundraised to do that? We did not.
[00:22:06] Jemie: No, you did not. We did not fundraise. That was after, after we launched .
[00:22:11] kate: I'll just ask it again. . So you fundraised to do that?
[00:22:15] Jemie: Initially we had we had some funds that was available to us that we did not fundraise for that went into infusing the team to launch the platform.
After that, we talked about starting to fundraise. And so that was a rollercoaster ride, to say the least. And we were on track to raising 3 million. We had 3 million committed in the process of collecting the checks. I learned a big lesson of money shows the real side of people. And... I started uncovering a ton of unsavory behaviors.
From those that were on our team. And it was, unfortunately, the wrong energy. And values were not aligned. And this wasn't the reason why I was doing this work in the first place. So, needless to say, and to keep it short, I had to clean house. I had to clean out all of the... Misaligned energy. And I had to painstakingly piece by piece, put everything together again and rebuild with our integrity, with our values in place.
And we said no to VC funding. And we also said no to Big Pharma. And so our independence allows for our freedom and our sovereignty to really do this in the right way.
[00:23:55] kate: So as part of that, what you were speaking to about, or, or, or maybe you were echoing, you know, future coming attractions when you said you wanted to build it in a way that was diverse, that was not gate kept, and that was not based on our current.
Systems that are not serving us. Can you can you speak more about that? Maybe in regards to the healing world or maybe specifically in regards to the psychedelic world?
[00:24:22] Jemie: Yeah, I think what's important for me to name is this concept of safety.
We all need to feel safe. Number one, to allow for ourselves to begin to do the inner work and the deep healing for ourselves. So the biggest thing about our platform is how can we provide that sense of safety for others? So Safety comes in different forms. Safety can mean one thing to you and can mean a different thing, another different thing to me.
In our western world, some people, for example, will say, Well, I feel safe if somebody is a licensed practitioner. I feel safe if this person has gone through, You know a licensure of the government and has their M. F. T. or L. P. C. C. That's the way I'm gonna feel safe. I need to see the letters. I need to see that they had the Western framework in place.
Great. That's for one person. But then there's another person who might happen to be a minority. And if you look at so I have my my master's in the field of psychology. If you look at the field of psychology and the way it was conceived, the way that it was built, the framework in which it comes from, the people that they center around, it is all white men, which can be okay for certain people, but for others who are like minorities.
There's a lot of nuances that go missing. There's a lot of cultural that goes missing. There's a lot of just the dynamics that goes missing from there, and imposing your perspective or view of the world onto another that comes from a different background, comes from a different culture, can be incredibly harmful.
And I think that is a big thing that's missing in our space today, is having. Diverse voices, diverse faces, and also let's not kid ourselves. These medicines originated from the indigenous communities in the first place. Right. Right. So having that representation come forward, honoring the sacred, honoring the indigenous, honoring the spirit which oftentimes is missing from our Western framework.
[00:26:53] kate: Mm hmm. So. What's important if you are somebody who maybe does struggle with anxiety, maybe does struggle with depression, and there's so much incredible data linking alleviation of some of these symptoms with psychedelic experiences. What's important? What are some questions that somebody might want to be asking themselves?
And how might you speak with someone who is scared?
[00:27:20] Jemie: In the way I want to answer that question is. The word connection comes forward. Feel into that connection with the person if for or even the work right if you feel a connection or a calling towards a medicine, whether it's magic mushrooms, whether it's San Pedro, Ayahuasca.
You know, there's the synthetic forms as well. MDMA, LSD. Try to feel into. Connecting with your body and allowing that feeling of like, am I feeling this connection? Am I feeling a calling towards a specific medicine? I think that's first and foremost. Then when you're like, okay, I've never done this before and I need somebody to help me through this experience.
Then looking for that person, it's I would say it's kind of like dating, right? It's it's got a weed through a lot of the stuff and just really feel into that connection with that person This is person come from an informed place. This is person have a lived experience. This is person have experience not only coming out from a a Western educational approach, but also an indigenous approach.
Does this person have a well roundedness, this holistic approach to this work with medicine? I think that connection is so key. And I think oftentimes we've lost a lot of that feeling into that connection. And we allow our minds to... Trump. You know, our intuition. So connecting with that intuition, connecting with that heart and allowing those decisions to come forward from that place.
I think it's critical when it comes to doing this work. And when so when we're talking about anxiety and depression, so I'm also a holistic practitioner myself. I have a private practice where. I help oftentimes high level executives who are incredibly burnt out or high achievers. They often times come to me with anxiety, depression, they have chronic conditions, even autoimmune conditions.
And for For me, it's a really around. How do we address the root issues? Right? What is underneath that depression? What is underneath that anxiety? And at the end of the day, the work is a collaborative work, and it's helping that individual connect into their own body's intelligence, allowing that intelligence to come forth.
And then we can be in collaboration together with it. So it can take it the form of doing psychedelic assisted therapy, or it can take in form of doing a detox or taking stock of your environment and your, your body of all the chemicals in your body and figuring out, you know, are there approaches to, you know, cleanse and detox from all those things first.
So, you know, I think all those things you have to look at from the root cause. And I think one of the things that's. Psychedelics is so transformative and is so powerful is that oftentimes it like it takes away the cobwebs Within you cleans that out and it allows you to connect back with your center It allows that truth that inner truth to come forward to be louder.
And I think from there You are the guru. No one else is your guru. You're the guru and I have the privilege of helping just and I think it's really important that the doctors guide you bring that intelligence forward and listening for that and listening for your body to say, Here's how we're going to heal.
Here's what's resonating for me, because there is not a one size fits all solution to healing and that one of the things that we have to be as as practitioner and practice is that humility. We do not know it all, and it's really honor and respecting that individual, their sovereignty and their agency to come forward.
And for them to tap into that.
[00:31:31] kate: So when somebody goes on Psychable, how, like, how have you vetted the practitioners to know that they're, you know, a safe person, that they're gonna, because obviously, you know, I think many people hear about psychedelics more from the vantage, and, and this is changing massively, and it's changing quickly.
Yeah. And I'm excited about that. But, but most. I would like to hear first about psychedelics more as like a party drug, which is a very different experience than a medicine in a therapeutic container. And so, just knowing that, number one, I just wanted to say that. And I would like to ask you more about that.
But, but yeah, what, what is the vetting process, knowing that these are highly trained professionals, they do have a lot of experience, when someone is seeking that connection and that resonance that you're speaking of? Yeah.
[00:32:24] Jemie: So, one of the things that we decided early on was that we did not want to gatekeep.
And if we followed that train of having humility that we don't know at all, then it was really around keeping the platform as neutral as possible. Allowing people to create their own profile, speak about their own work, and then allowing the community to leave reviews for the practitioners. And so a lot of it is a contingent around the community coming forth and talking about their experience.
And allowing that individual the opportunity to read about the practitioner, to educate themselves about the practitioner, to connect with the practitioner on a call. So for example, we've made it super easy where a practitioner can integrate their calendar and the individual can just go and select a time and date and right there and then they have a call scheduled and they can have that conversation, right?
So a lot of it is how do we empower the individual again to make the most informed decision for themselves? So that's first and foremost in terms of you know the way the vetting
[00:33:37] kate: I love that I want to just pause and highlight how different that is. You said like we're building it differently than the systems out there.
The systems that we've operated under are some external authority with a stamp of approval on something. That's right. And we are meant to just be like, okay, if they say it's good, I guess it's good. And sort of blindly follow. And so to turn that on its head and give the sovereignty.
It's it's a feedback loop where they can leave the reviews and it's sort of this own ecosystem and organism. I just I love that. Yeah. Okay. So you're saying other things.
[00:34:14] Jemie: It was, you know, radical ownership, radical accountability for oneself and for each other, right? So yeah, that's I would say. And I think it's really, really important that we don't gatekeep.
If you take the DSM, for example, this is the book that, you know, the field of psychology and all its practitioners use as the gold standard of diagnosis. Take a look at the profile DSM. It's all white men. And that becomes, once again, really problematic, right? Because healing needs to be reflective of everyone in our society.
And it's not just you know, reflection of a monoculture, right? Yeah, absolutely.
[00:35:09] kate: So what do you wish people knew about plant medicine, about psychedelics?
[00:35:15] Jemie: First of all, It is not for everyone. It is absolutely not for everyone. And, you know, I think oftentimes people have this notion of psychedelics. It's, you know, done in a recreational party sense.
And, you know, it's, it's unfortunate. Like, it's unfortunate that people don't understand necessarily the level of respect and reverence that these medicines deserve. Dr. Maya Chitre is a neuroscience and she wrote this book called The Master Plant Experience. And she talks about plants being beings, that plants have energy, plants have frequency.
And so we have to respect, just as we need to respect one another, we need to respect nature, we need to respect the plants, we need to respect the animals. So, first of all, having deep, profound respect and reverence for these medicines is really key and really important. And they are not just tools, they are medicine, they are beings.
So, oftentimes I think about this metaphor of a relationship, of friendship. When you choose to engage and you feel this calling towards, let's say, mushrooms, you are decidedly making a decision to enter a relationship with mushrooms. They are their own... Being their own energy, their own frequency, so you're entering into that relationship with them.
And just to really bring it home, so if you look at like people who are alcoholics, right? Using, abusing alcohol, or using it in a really chaotic way. If you look at it through the lens of it being a relationship, this person chose to enter into a relationship with alcohol, which are often times made from plants, right?
This person chose to enter this relationship with this particular plant, this particular, you know, call it substance alcohol. And it served them during that time. It took away their pain, it, you know made them forget all of their worries and their sorrows. And then they come to a place where. All of a sudden their life is falling apart because they're just overusing this, you know, overusing alcohol, right?
And often times when we come across people like that, it's teaching them that this was a friendship, this was a relationship that no longer serves you. And now maybe it's time for you to enter a new friendship or a new relationship. With yourself or with a medicine or a plant that can be healing for you.
So plants are here to either harm us or to heal us. So we have to be incredibly discerning when it comes to, to approaching these, these medicines.
[00:38:32] kate: What about so many healers who feel like because the healing work is spiritual or just. It's healing that it's not okay to charge, or it's not okay to do well financially in a healing practice.
What about that? Is that something you've ever struggled with? Oh yeah oh yeah, for sure. Well, tell me about your own personal experience with it.
[00:38:59] Jemie: I definitely struggled with it because I was like, wow, this is, this is, this feels like a calling. I'm in deep devotion to this work. It almost felt like, you know, I'm on a covenant as a like, as a nun, you know, being in service to humanity.
Right. And that I, I shouldn't get you know, compensated or paid. And so a lot of it was really healing. First of all, healing my relationship with money, which is a whole nother, you know I'm going to talk a little bit about the financial part. That we can or cannot get into for the time being.
Healing my relationship with money coming from that place of abundance as opposed to scarcity. Tapping into that flow and allowing and reminding myself that this might having my mindset be based on that abundance. And then also. Really taking stock of my time, my energy. Because when I'm doing this work as a holistic practitioner, I'm giving a lot of time.
I'm giving my energy. I'm giving my, my knowledge. I'm giving, it's a lot, it's a lot of giving, right? And, and money is energy, right? So money is a way where you are exchanging it for value, right? I've provided you some sort of value and you have given me money in exchange for that value. And so oftentimes, I speak with practitioners and they have this inner conflict around, I really, you know, I'm feeling the calling and I want to be doing this work, but I don't know if I should get paid for it.
But yeah, you should get paid for it. You need to get paid for it because we still live in this 3D world where we still have bills to pay. And at the same time, there can be this reciprocity, right? You can be the reciprocity. So for example, for me... As I am getting paid to help with a client, that money actually goes back into Psychable.
And then it goes into paying for the team, and also we have, also we have volunteers on the team who have given their time as well. So there is this sort of mutual reciprocity that goes on, and then also a portion of that goes into paying for my bills, right? So. I think it's a really personal decision.
It's a really personal approach to how you heal from money and how you allow for that abundance to come in. To support the things that you are feeling aligned on and that you feel called towards to be in service. At the end of the day, you have to take care of yourself first and you have to love yourself first.
Before you can do that for others, so taking care of that, whether it's through, you know, paying for your needs and covering your finances so that you can be in greater service to others is is important.
[00:41:54] kate: And for you, as you've been, I mean, I acknowledge that and I think it's like an ongoing process, so I don't believe it's like, and I'm done with that.
But what have been some of the key learnings or, or key realizations that you've had as you've shifted your relationship with money? You know, going from the boss girl mode to like I don't know if that was what you, you didn't say, but yeah, whatever. And, and like climbing the corporate ladder and, and being involved in the startup world.
Well, obviously you still are with Psychable, but different project. So what are some of the key things that have guided you or that you've realized about money that have helped you on your healing journey around money?
[00:42:33] Jemie: Number one, frugality. Number two, like being frugal, being frugal, and I'll, I'll, I'll kind of unpack some of those things, which also leads to a questioning.
What is this constant need of keeping up with the Joneses? Observing. Our environment and how I mean, I mean, we're like, let's not kid ourselves. We're in Miami. It's like the capital of hyper Consumerism, it's intense. It's intense. Yeah, so observing that and Really taking stock of what is the minimum need What is my minimum need that I need to cover?
So that I can free myself to do whatever it is that I want to do with my life. So, when I talk about frugality, you know, I think a lot of it is the application of minimalism. Like, just keeping things really minimal, and I don't need all this stuff. And I learned that when I went on a It was this like volunteer mission to Guatemala, and I had spent time amongst the indigenous there in Lake Atilan.
And they have the bare necessities. You were lucky if they even had clean water to drink. And I think immersing myself in that environment really just lifted the veil, and just was like, What is my constant need of keeping up with the Joneses? Why do I need the better car, or the bigger house, or the better clothes, or whatever?
And I will say, coming back from that trip, I had invited a single parent dad with two kids into my house, and I said, Take anything you want, just leave the bed, leave my books and my desk. Everything else can go. And that was the last time I had a television. Wow. That was the last time I had television, that was 2009?
So that was first and foremost, was really assessing what my basic needs are. Then I looked at what were the biggest money stressors in my life. And that at that point was having a mortgage. And so I was thinking of really creative ways of how I can neutralize. That big stressor in my life. And so, I Airbnb'd my house.
And it covered my mortgage. And that was what worked for me. Certain people might poo poo that. But that's what worked for me. And so I neutralized my mortgage then.
[00:45:19] kate: Did you live there while you Airbnb'd it?
[00:45:22] Jemie: I lived there while I Airbnb'd it. Yes. And and it worked for me. And it allowed me to really start stepping in deeper into what My calling as a holistic practitioner, as well as, you know, meeting and launching psychable.
And, and, and quite frankly, to this date, psychable has been a labor of love. It's, it's been a deep service. It's taken two years to get to this place. And. I have resourced myself enough where I had enough savings before so that I knew that it's going to take a couple years for it to start, you know, generating revenue and whatnot.
So we're this year. We're just starting to do that right this year. We're just starting to launch it, and we're just starting to realize revenue in a more sustainable way that feels in alignment with our values. For our practitioner community as well as individuals coming to our site.
[00:46:22] kate: I love this so much.
Have you read The Soul of Money by Lynn Twist?
Jemie: I have not.
Kate: It's phenomenal and something she speaks about, you are speaking about, which is really understanding our relationship with sufficiency and really getting to that place of what is actually enough instead of feeding this hungry ghost and the illusion that getting something else materially is going to provide us something that we don't already have access to right now.
Once our basic needs for like shelter and safety are provided for and food, obviously. But beyond that, it actually turns out that more stuff pretty much never sustainably increases our happiness. Correct. And so where are we sourcing our happiness is the question. Okay, so as we kind of bring it home here, if you were to be able to go back in time and give Jemie So I'm going to read to you 2122 graduating from college a message about money.
Mm. What would you want to let her know?
[00:47:26] Jemie: Everything will always be provided for. It will always be okay. Always come from a place of abundance and presence. And allow. And learn to surrender and let go. And tap into that inner intelligence within yourself. Tap into that intuition, and listen to it, because out of that place, abundance will flow.
[00:47:54] kate: And finally, what does the word plenty mean to you?
[00:47:59] Jemie: Abundance, embodiment, gratitude,
deep inner knowing. Thank you Jemie, I love you. Thank you Kate, thank you so much.
[00:48:13] kate: So, if people want to connect with you and learn more about your work, where should they go?
[00:48:16] Jemie: Well, I'm on Instagram at Jemiesaekoo. com, or excuse me, Jemiesaekoo, can we start over again?
[00:48:26] kate: Thank you. So, if people want to connect with you and your work, where should they go?
[00:48:29] Jemie: So personally, I am on Instagram at Jemiesaekoo, that's J E M I E S A E K O O. And psychable is at psychable. com. That's P S Y C H A B L E spelled out D O T C O M. You can start there. We're also on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube. We have our podcast as well. So, you definitely have a way to connect with us.
[00:48:56] kate: Amazing. Amazing. And all of that will be on the show notes. Thank you so much. I adore you. You are so generous. You are so wise. And I am so grateful we get to do life together here in Miami.
[00:49:07] Jemie: Thank you for being in my life. It's truly an honor to have your friendship, Kate.
[00:49:13] kate: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Plenty with my dear friend Jemie Sekou. I'm really moved by what she shared. And if you too are moved by what she shared, please share this with someone who needs to know about Jemie and Psychable. Of course, please follow the show, subscribe, follow us and subscribe on all of the socials, and I will see you next time.
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