I help women make room for themselves
with more ease, clarity, and joy.
I’ll help guide you to a place where you’re more resilient, connected to your own wisdom and life spark, and know how to nourish yourself, so you can feel lighter and more connected to who you are and really want to be.
I believe that outside in, and inside out - it's all interconnected. A small change in one area of our lives can create a ripple of shifts everywhere. Letting go and making room for what lights you up is truly transformative.
And as joyful, well-resourced women--we can't help but enrich everything we touch. Everyone becomes the beneficiary of our sanctuary-making.
There are voices in our heads that sometimes whisper these journeys are self-centered. But bringing ourselves back to center is 100% the point.
The world needs more women who comfortably & confidently take up space.
How I got here
I was born equal parts fierce and tender.
On the Aries-Pisces cusp, with a stack of other planets in Pisces. A Water Ox too - this girl lives for the Water element.
In my youth you'd find me cruising the neighborhood in my Wonder Woman Underoos, and taking big swings as the only girl on my baseball team.
Then scribbling poetry in my journals and devouring the mythology section at the public library - warrior queens, heavenly mothers, and creatrixes - yes, please!
But often we learn to stifle ourselves for the comfort of others.
We're asked to tone down our boldness, or taught that our tenderness is too much. We're asked to fit ourselves into boxes.
So how do we make ourselves at home in the world - bringing all of ourselves to the present moment, with more freedom and ease?
I spent years trying to figure out how to change the boxes.
First studying structures and social change, earning a degree in sociology, completing post-graduate work in comparative mythology, and a M.A. in Educational Leadership with an emphasis on equity.
I worked as a social worker, taught World Mythology and the Hero's Journey as a high school English teacher, and then crafted literacy programs and trained teachers as a coordinator of curriculum and instruction.
Then my passion for making room became personal again as I parented 2 twice-exceptional kids and cared for an elderly parent with significant health issues.
I needed to make room for myself in the roles and expectations I'd internalized and inside the home, nervous system, and mind that I inhabited day to day.
In my hunger for more breathing room I studied yoga, meditation, and Feng Shui. I became a certified wellness educator, integrative change worker and hypnotist.
All in a search for the answer to the question I'd had since I was in 3rd grade - how do we make room for all of ourselves in a world that wants us to fit ourselves into such small spaces?
How do we show up in all of our fierce and tender glory?
I first developed the Sanctuary Shift™ framework as a tool for myself. To help me navigate the bumpy transitions as I honored and integrated more and more of myself, while also continuing to show up for the people I love.
Now I help women embrace themselves fully, making space for all of themselves.
Each of our journeys is unique, yet there are patterns that are universal.
We all need breathing room to tend to our bodies, minds and spirits - space for the vision we have for our lives and to express our innate gifts.
Virginia Woolf wrote that women literally need "A Room of One's Own" in order to experience fulfillment.
I believe we need sanctuaries - inside and out - that nourish and sustain us as we make our way home to ourselves.
I'm here
to help you create breathing room inside yourself and in your life - in a holistic way that settles and energizes you - so you can experience more freedom & ease,
Let's make space for your big dreams and the unfolding of your gifts - the natural expression of yourself, your wisdom & joy.
Begin reconnecting with yourself today...
Grab the guide & plan your pause
Pressing pause doesn't come naturally to many of us, but we all need the time & space to downshift. Time to recalibrate, reconnect, and rediscover a bit of freedom and ease.
I've created this guide to share some of the best strategies (gathered together from a few of my favorite experts, artists, and entrepreneurs) for taking a break from autopilot and refreshing yourself quickly, with simple and accessible practices.
KIND WORDS From clients who've made space for themselves with me...
"Enlightening, informative and fun. If I had a question Jen was right there with an answer; with joy, intuition and encouragement. My home secretly speaks to me in new lovely ways."
-Gina Ehren, Artist
"Jen fostered a safe and welcoming space that led to community. She knows her material, knows how to present it and how to engage people. It was a boatload of fun!"
-Rachelle Grabowski
"Jen is friendly and genuinely interested in others. She's so helpful in making changes, both large and small. Now I feel more confident in my choices. If you're looking to deepen your meditation practice or harmonize your home, you want what Jen's offering."
-Robin Lyons
"I am so grateful to Jen for offering accessible and approachable tools. I could take this course over and over again, and still learn something new!"
-Jenn Smith Thorpe, E-RYT500
MEDIA BIO
Jen Walthers is an expert in wellbeing, mindfulness, and archetypal myth who helps busy women make breathing room inside their full lives. As a certified wellness educator and hypnotist, and the creator of the Sanctuary Shift™ framework, she's passionate about helping her clients and students break free from others’ expectations, create space for their big dreams, and take center stage in their own hero’s journey.
She brings 30+ years of working with yoga, meditation, and Feng Shui, as well as an M.A. in Educational Leadership and certification as a wellness educator, to her work supporting more individuals in high-pressure environments to make space for themselves.
Prior to starting her wellbeing work, Jen taught foster parents social-emotional learning strategies as a social worker, received awards for her classroom teaching and curriculum development as a high school English teacher, trained hundreds of high school teachers as a Coordinator of Curriculum and Instruction, and spent 5 years doing post-graduate work in comparative mythology.
Recently, she's spent over a thousand hours combing through the latest research on the nervous system, mindfulness, and wellbeing, curating the findings and training future meditation teachers as a Guest Lecturer at the Joy of Yoga School of Integrative Learning.
When she's not coaching others on how to take their mind-body connection to the next level or how to make room for themselves, you can find Jen planning her next road trip (6 trips cross-country and counting), reading YA novels, or anywhere near water - swimming and kayaking.
Originally from Massachusetts, Jen lives with her husband and 2 sons in San Jose, CA.
Nerd alert!!! I've studied (a lot) and loved learning from these folks...
A Feng Shui practitioner's certification with Erica Sofrina, where I fell madly in love with the 5 Elements!
Certification as a wellness educator through Lisa Grace Byrne's Well-Grounded Life Institute.
Over 500 hours of yoga and mindfulness teacher training with Jennifer Prugh, author of River of Offerings. The foundation of my own inner spaciousness practices.
A certification in Integrative Change Work - a methodology that includes both neural plasticity and a process known as "therapeutic memory reconsolidation" to strategically harness your brain’s capacity to change - with Simone Seol and Melissa Tiers.
I then went on to become a certified hypnotist with Melissa Tiers, because working with the unconscious mind was creating such powerful results for myself and my family!
Rough Terrain Rescue certification: an adventure in rappelling, first aid, and rescue. Can you believe I'm afraid of heights but rappelled down a 180 foot cliff?!
A B.A. in Sociology with an emphasis in Social Change (THIS is where I learned my way around a research database), and a minor in environmental studies.
5 years of post-graduate study under the guidance of Harvey Birenbaum, author of Myth & Mind, with a focus on what myth teaches us about the human journey through change.
Writing courses with Virginia de Araújo, Suzy Cater, Marisa Corcoran, Chris Fink, Janelle Hardy and Ursula LeGuin.
3 years of glassblowing practice with artist Mary White - YES, I totally binge-watched Netflix's Blown Away!
A single subject teaching credential (hello English lit!), an administrative credential, and an M.A. in Educational Leadership studying with equity specialist and author of Courageous Conversations About Race, Glenn Singleton.
Additional yoga, meditation, TCM, and Ayurveda workshops and trainings with Jason Crandell, Löpon Chandra Eaton, Nelly Kavaldjiev, Jana Kilgore, Tias Little, Giselle Mari, Misako Matsuoka, Dr. Timothy McCall, Jules Mitchell, Alyssa Prettyman, Bridget Puchalsky, Robert Svoboda, and Paulie Zink.
And you can find me regularly geeking out over on edX, a platform with free courses from incredible universities around the world.
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Hear about how to make more room for you, behind the scenes peeks at my own real life practices, plus the occasional invitation to join one of my programs or work with me privately.
