Facilitator
Jen Baranovic
When I was younger, I begged the Universe for Divine Access, for the deep knowings to be revealed. I could sense them all around me, burdened and heavy with the fruit of messages but largely silent to my own hungry ears. I sought a meeting with god in every innocent and reckless way the naïve often do. “Show me the Truth!” I shouted into the void. But this Truth I imagined, like a radiant supernova bottled in the eyes of the Other, like sparkling prisms of dew revealing the secrets of the akashic web, did not arrive.
The day the Truth came was the worst day of my life. It showed up in the tattered, dirty robes of grotesque and wanton destruction, clawing through my heart. It came and Took from me the most precious things this life had given.
And I sat there, bare in my grief, surrendered in pain, and watched the Door swing open.
This was not a cosmic joke, the Universe did not laugh at me in my ruined state. It simply sat there, holding me, as if to say, “Now you are ready for what you have asked for.”
Deep wisdom does not come for free. Even in knowing this, we will be humbled to prostration as our greatest revelations are not bought with what we think we have to offer. We cannot say, “This amount is the price I am willing to exchange for knowing.” It will take more, it will take what it wants. We will not have consciously entered the bargain, and we will not be so bold as to assume we are owed anything. We will not bring ourselves to our own arrival in the halls of Knowing. If we are able to raise our heads, though, we will find that our ears have been sharpened for Listening. We will feel in our cells the reality of our existence, slung in suspension in the paradox of its divinity and fragility. We will unclench our tired fingers from the need to name the mystery, and we will look at them in awe of their embodiment of it.
The truth is, most of us are incapable of experiencing the Truth, unwilling to expand beyond our own comforts and comprehension. We are the ones bolting the doors around us to keep ourselves warm and safe inside the house of our limitation. For those seeking understanding, we must consider that our work is perhaps less about learning to pry the hinges apart to see through, and more about learning to not turn away when the doors are blown off of their frames in front of us.
Bless this life, even on the days it feels impossible. Those are the days we are standing with our hands on the framework of Truth, realizing the full extent of what we have come here to experience.
About Me
My lived experiences will always be my greatest qualification. Those times that I have been annihilated and blown into outer space in a million pieces, completely surrendered in my life, have shown me again and again that the process of Becoming is a practice. My own healing journey honors those selves that I have been before this one as necessary aspects of myself that were always doing the best they could, despite conditioning that engulfed me entirely at times, despite painful choices that I made, despite all of the circumstances of my life and my being. My call into service arrived not on the day that I had mastered my life or collected enough certifications, but on the day that I looked at this life and broke open into complete devotion to it, exactly as it is.
I am a student of this life, eternally curious about what it means to thrive, especially after enduring trauma or loss. I am constantly expanding my own practice and education. My certifications include: yoga (RYT-200), Ayurveda Specialist, Creative Grief Support, Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy, and Reiki Level 1. My facilitation also includes techniques, information, and underlying philosophies from training, workshops, retreats, and practices I have attended and incorporated into my embodied wisdom, as well as my natural gifts. These include but are not limited to:
animism
shamanic journeying
soul retrieval
ritual and ceremonial facilitation
forest bathing and earthing
sound baths/ singing bowls/ resonance
dreamwork/ lucid dream medicine
rebirthing breathwork
pranayama
Kundalini and kriya yoga
Restorative yoga
Vinyasa flow
Yin yoga
yoga therapy
guided meditation
embodiment
Vipassana meditation
women’s circles
womb awakening
chakra assessment and healing
subtle energy containment and balancing
metaphysics and energy healing
Applied Polyvagal Theory
trauma as a gateway to healing
Somatic Experiencing
intuitive asana
intuitive dance/ DANCEmandala
mindfulness
ancestral connection
Prayer
Crystal healing
elemental medicine
5 element theory
Cacao ceremonies
Compassionate inquiry
Physical cleansing/ fasting protocols
gut-brain axis healing/ food as medicine
essential oils
herbal medicine/ wildcrafting/ foraging
self-empowerment/ breaking cycles of codependence and lineage trauma
divination
narrative therapy
positive psychology
social constructionism
INELDA death doula training
end of life education and outreach/ hospice volunteering
Hakomi Method
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
Somatic Stress Release
Internal Family Systems
Somatic Attachment Theory
Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR)
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)
Embodied Social Transformation