Women In Wellness: Deneen Joyner On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Make a commitment to yourself to face pain and trauma from the past before you are made to. Most people think they can continue hiding from their life’s pain, but I want them to know it’s just a matter of time before the bottom falls out and you have no other choice. Choosing to heal your life instead of being a hostage to pain is empowering!
As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Deneen Joyner.
Deneen Joyner is a renowned soul medium, spiritual coach, and storyteller whose mission is embracing her ancestor’s ancient Indigenous healing practices to guide others in healing and breaking generational curses. She uses her deeply-rooted intuitive gifts as a shaman, soul medium, empath, spiritual channel, and clairvoyant to read, heal, and teach. Deneen is also the author of Soul Wounds & Sacred Revelations, a nationally award-winning memoir examining the DNA surrounding emotional pain and providing a blueprint to examine the lessons sent in our lives to master pain and healing.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to “get to know you” better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?
Growing up, I was often described as a wise old soul who’s been here before. I was the ‘weird’ kid who would rather be reading under the sun at recess than playing kickball with other kids. I’m my parent’s seventh daughter and the black sheep in my family.
At five years old, I became highly aware of many spiritual gifts, one of which was centered around being so sensitive to the feelings of others that I felt compelled to help them feel better. Because I was a child, I didn’t have a filter and often blurted out questions that made adults uncomfortable and gave them unsolicited advice about confronting feelings and life circumstances. What I perceived as exciting, helpful, and enlightening, soon became something cringeworthy as my guidance became unwelcomed and embarrassing for the person I was reading as none of them took kindly to spiritual counsel from a child.
My emotional interpretation of not fitting in with others and the rejection of my gifts left me feeling like I wasn’t good enough or there was something wrong with me. This perception became the story I believed, and it manifested in painful, traumatic experiences in my life. I learned to live with pain by numbing and pretending to be happy.
Until, at the age of 47, the bottom of my soul fell out and could no longer hold my unresolved pain.
Feeling suicidal, I pleaded to God to help me. He responded. This set me on a sacred journey to find answers to my deepest “why” surrounding my pain, gifts, ancestry, and life’s purpose. Doing the internal journey to heal and learn everything about myself introduced me to my God Self — the being I was before I was born, before pain and judgment of others got in the way and made me forget.
My awakening and healing were much bigger than my surface success. My ancestors, who were highly gifted healers, enlightened me about emotional pain and why I needed to embrace all of my beautiful gifts so that I could fulfill my ancient soul contract.
Healing through major pain and trauma and finally accepting my spiritual gifts has enabled me to see the power inherent in teaching and guiding others to know and understand their own family linage and emotional DNA as instrumental tools in healing and releasing emotional pain, remembering who they are, and leading with greater purpose.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? What were the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
A big part of spiritual guidance when reading souls involves using my gifts to connect with the ancestors of the person I am reading. I can feel the energy surrounding their personality and hear them. Being able to channel energy from those who are departed gives me a panoramic view of the family’s history with unresolved pain along with the person’s pain, lessons that need to be mastered, and their gifts.
I had been estranged from my father since the age of 7. The things I know about my paternal side have mostly come from my mother. After having an ancestry test done, I committed for several years to learning about my father’s family and communicating with my kinfolk online. One relative reached out to me off and on for a little over two years.
Later, I became Facebook friends with someone I didn’t know. I can’t say how this came to be because I’m very selective with who I befriend.
This person and I hit it off. We both liked spirituality and often inspired others through our posts. I received a message from him wanting to schedule a soul reading. He was going through a rough patch at the time, and we lost contact for several months and he never scheduled. One day in the middle of the night, I woke up and he was heavily on my mind. What I thought was strange and random became so much more.
I meditated and wanted to send him good energy and peace, but this was interrupted by my sensing and feeling of his ancestors. These ancestors felt warmly familiar to me but also like strangers. This had never happened to me before, so I was intrigued. They didn’t speak to me, but I could sense their powerful presence, love, and gratitude. This overwhelmed me and I came out of meditation wondering what was going on.
I jumped on my computer and felt a need to go on my ancestry profile to reread old messages. I was drawn back to my relative who I had been communicating with. For the first time, I really looked at his profile picture and realized that my new Facebook friend was actually my cousin using an alias. My mind was blown.
My takeaway from this continues to be the importance of offering ancestral soul healing. Also, there is so much more power in following our intuitive gifts than we realize. I learned that remaining open to learning more about myself and my abilities allows me to evolve and grow spiritually on a personal level, as well as a healer for those I teach and guide.
This event gave me even more validation that there is a divine world beyond the earthly one, and how blessed I am to be used as a vessel to lovingly share messages that impart lost information to descendants, connecting them to their lost spiritual inheritance while bringing healing resolution to departed ancestors and breaking generational curses.
Can you share a story about the biggest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The mistake that stands out the most was paying for a spiritual hybrid publishing company to market my nationally-awarded book Soul Wounds & Sacred Revelations.
Months into the contract, a representative told me they had concerns. The owner, a retired Pastor, said that my spiritual memoir might not be a good fit for the company. He wanted to read the book himself and would get back to me with an answer on how to proceed.
One week later, I was told my story centered around very nebulous content in sharing my relationship with spiritual gifts and being able to connect to angels, spirit guides, and ancestors to heal myself. They said if I was willing to remove some of my story, they might be able to continue our work.
I took this as a lesson that there are many levels to spirituality. I thought partnering with a spiritual publishing company meant that they would understand me. I learned spirituality has many meanings and I must be especially careful when it comes to partnerships with my brand.
I learned so much about taking a strong stance and honoring my truth even if no one else believes or supports me. My healing work is God-centered and meets His approval. I could never deny the gifts I have been blessed with.
I told the owner that I was not willing to edit or change my story to accommodate them and that I would be self-publishing. This was a game-changing moment.
Let’s jump to our main focus. When it comes to health and wellness, how is the work you are doing helping to make a bigger impact in the world?
My soul healing work empowers people to awaken and take inventory of their life on their own instead of resigning to carrying emotional pain and hitting rock bottom.
Being vulnerable and transparent by owning my life story gives others permission to become curious about their own pain and to find the courage to look closely at their lives.
My soul guidance provides a proven spiritual vehicle for others to explore their own experiences along with uncovering their family’s spiritual inheritance tied to both spiritual gifts and traumatic karma patterns that have been passed on and replicated unknowingly from generation to generation.
Soul work supports people in having new relationships with themselves and others. They establish a new emotional framework that aligns with healthy ways of responding to emotional pain.
Can you share your top five “lifestyle tweaks” that you believe will help support people’s journey towards better wellbeing? Please give an example or story for each.
Being a spiritual life coach requires that I meet people where they are emotionally on their journey toward healing their souls. The top five “lifestyle tweaks” I would offer anyone would be:
- Make a commitment to yourself to face pain and trauma from the past before you are made to. Most people think they can continue hiding from their life’s pain, but I want them to know it’s just a matter of time before the bottom falls out and you have no other choice. Choosing to heal your life instead of being a hostage to pain is empowering!
- Find the courage to become curious about your pain and its history within your family. The emotional pain and trauma that most experience is something that has been passed down generationally. It only takes one person to become curious enough to begin to follow where it originally began. Having conversations with family members about your ancestors will enlighten you to better understand some of the ‘why’ behind your experiences.
- Become a student of your life. Have you ever taken a course or taken up a new hobby in something you are interested in? Healing your life requires that you become interested in yourself in the same way. Many painful things have happened throughout your life and because of that, you have unknowingly equipped yourself with emotional defenses to keep yourself from feeling. When you become a student of your life, you open up to learning everything about yourself and how you came to be.
- Surrender former ways of reacting to emotionally painful triggers. Once you learn your emotional defenses, you have a greater sense of your emotional framework and how you have been showing up in the world. Moving forward, you can become more consciously aware of your triggers and no longer react, but respond with emotional awareness and self-control.
- Never stop healing. Some people make the mistake once they begin to feel emotional freedom from their pain and trauma, that they are healed and no longer believe they need to be conscious of their former pain. Healing is an ever-evolving journey and requires a lifelong commitment to growing emotionally intelligent each day.
If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of wellness to the most amount of people, what would that be?
I would offer a movement by way of a spiritual course called Healing: Day 1.
Healing: Day 1 is an accelerated live intensive healing group course that teaches the Indigenous art of self-guided soul healing practices that organically partner with oneself to identify, understand, and begin healing childhood pain and trauma that is intergenerationally tied to unresolved ancestral karma.
This live course will show the world how to heal their lives using ancient Indigenous medicine, which highly promotes self-exploration, self-love, pro-family, and becoming a student of one’s life.
The movement will offer newfound emotional awareness, increased consciousness, and foundationally a healthier life perspective and emotional framework, making the world a more emotionally authentic place.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- To invest in my well-being as much as I invest in the people I work with. Being a healer requires me to utilize all five senses and, at times, can deplete my energy. Today, I make time to practice more self-care and quiet time for connection and self-reflection.
- Take your time. If you are doing something every day towards your business goals, they will manifest. Working smarter not harder is the way to go. Having a “to-do” list is good, but it doesn’t mean that you must do it all in one day. Use the list as a blueprint to keep you on track, not to make yourself a workhorse.
- Be honest about what you are good at and look for help in the areas that you are not. I learned the hard way that I’m not the strongest at things like bookkeeping or setting up automatic email lists, so I hired someone to help me. This allowed me more freedom to focus on the things that I really enjoy and to be more attentive to other areas in my business.
- Don’t forget to have fun! When I took over my family’s business, I had a lot of pressure on me because I wanted to make sure I was representing my ancestors in the highest regard possible. What I didn’t realize was that I could still have fun. I made things way too serious when they truly didn’t have to be. I was introducing people to something amazing that they had never experienced before and realized that we could still do it through laughter.
- Do it, even if nobody else gets it! I used to be a people pleaser. I’m recovered now, and it feels good to proceed with my ideas even if others frown and don’t get it. Although it is important to get honest feedback from people I respect, what’s not important is their feedback becoming the driving force. If it’s something I believe will add to the healing experience and education of the students I work with, I’m going to do it.
Sustainability, veganism, mental health, and environmental changes are big topics at the moment. Which one of these causes is dearest to you, and why?
As a retired social worker, I have seen the impact of both illness and mental health. Mental health is near and dear to my heart.
I have witnessed hundreds of families who have been through generations of pain and trauma and have seen how impactful these events are without formal support or counseling. I know that without mental health support, generationally similar events will continue to occur unless the cycle of karma is broken. Having a new perspective through spiritual coaching and counseling gives people a different way of being and seeing their life’s potential through a new lens.
Unfortunately, many people don’t believe in receiving therapy because it’s never been done before in their family before, and the family’s thoughts on asking for outside help are not good. My work as a spiritual life coach introduces people to something totally different. I am merely showing them how to use what they already know about their family’s history of pain and trauma and connect it to how it’s impacting them today. They become empowered to implement lifelong practices to not only heal themselves but their family.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
www.instagram.com/deneenjoyner7
www.facebook.com/deneenjoyner/
Thank you for these fantastic insights!
Women In Wellness: Deneen Joyner On The Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.