[00:00:02] Welcome to the Business Miracles podcast. I'm Heather Dominick, founder of www.businessmiracles.com and author of the book Different The Highly Sensitive Leadership Revolution, found at www.differentthebook.com. Since 2010, I've been training Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs and Leaders from around the globe to work less while making more impact and income by doing things differently. I'm so glad you joined me. Listen in and get ready. Get ready for a shift in the way you view yourself, your work, your life. A business miracle.
[00:00:34] Welcome, welcome to this special series of the Business Miracles Podcast, Hatching the Highly Sensitive Leadership Revolution. You'll be hearing from select highly sensitive leader authors who contributed their real stories of creating more impact and more income to my book, Different as found at www.differentthebook.com. In today's episode, it is my joy to connect with Jessica Procini. Jessica is the founder and leader of Escape from Emotional Eating. Since 2011, she has been helping women on a mission to heal the roots of their emotional eating so they can embody their full potential. Jessica, welcome.
Jessica Procini:
Thank you. So excited to be here.
Heather Dominick:
Ah, so excited to have you here. So we are here Hatching the Highly Sensitive Leadership Revolution. Let's start by having you just share a little bit about why you felt called to contribute your story to the book, Different.
Jessica Procini:
Well, our work together over these last nine plus years now, which is crazy and wild to even think about that we've been working together that long, but over those nine years, your work has changed my life, both personally and professionally. And I can confidently say I wouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing in the way that I'm doing it because when we first started working together, the way that I was working being so against myself just was not sustainable.
So it wasn't even an option to say no, it was an automatic yes, of course, because of the influence that it's had on my personal life and professional life.
Heather Dominick:
So appreciate hearing that, so powerful to hear. I really appreciate you speaking to that you wouldn't be doing the work that you're doing in the way that you're doing it. I wonder if there's an example that comes to mind, maybe like a before and an after or just an example from your day-to-day of your work, the way that you do it and how you're able to do it in a way that works for you as a person who's highly sensitive.
Jessica Procini:
So just to give a snapshot, before I knew I was highly sensitive and knew I was a highly sensitive entrepreneur and what that meant, and then to be a highly sensitive leader and what that meant because those are two other levels above just learning that I was highly sensitive. I was really just running my life from a place of adrenaline and cortisol until I would be completely burnt out. And then I would use things to numb myself, predominantly food to try to soothe or flush my nervous system to be able to then recover and then just do it all over again.
I just have this image of working from my apartment in Old City Philadelphia at the time and my entire living room being covered in papers. I was preparing for a launch and I was working around the clock to make that launch happen. I didn't know it at the time, but during launches, I would gain a ton of weight. Now, I know from just literally the load of stress that I was carrying during that time and then once I launched just really not even have the ability or bandwidth to go to the next phase of the launch, which includes serving my clients.
I would say even to just contrast that in the first month, so this is nine years ago when we first started working together, I was in the midst of a launch and feeling like my hair was on fire because I had just started on my highly sensitive journey and really was in a lot of denial of my highly sensitive abilities. But I remember you and I had one call together and I implemented things from that call. And that first month, not only did I make $20,000, which was three quarters of what I made the entire year before, but I was really excited about serving the people that I had brought in using your coaching and your techniques. And then it's only gotten better and better from there.
Then in contrast to that, also I get a good night's sleep now. I have firm working boundaries. I don't work all the time. And I feel like that's a really, really big deal.
Heather Dominick:
That is a really, really big deal. I so appreciate that you spoke to the launches and I really appreciate this because not only do I remember so very, very clearly when you and I first connected and the state that you were in, I also have the experience quite frequently of connecting with budding highly sensitive entrepreneurs and leaders who just can't let go of the belief that if they don't launch, they can actually create financial success for themselves.
And it's this really, really painful place to witness. It is exactly what you described where you're entrenched in this process that is nearly killing you while at the same time convinced that you can't stop.
Jessica Procini:
I can't even remember the last time I launched. I mean it has to be at least seven, eight years maybe, and not from, oh, I can't do that anymore, but real from the process of assessment and seeing where I was investing my energy and resources, how I was investing my energy and resources. And one of the things that I remember we talked about from our first conversation was just a return on my energy. And I don't even think I really understood what that meant because I had never really experienced the equal giving and receiving and the balance of that both energetically and financially. But yeah, that's just through this process of, okay, not only is this not working, it's literally not healthy for me physically and my business. It's not healthy for the business to be literally surging all of this energy and resources only to be out of commission both physically and financially.
That's not sustainable. And that's something especially over the years that we've worked together and even through the pandemic and through major loss recently with the loss of a family member, I think the thing I'm really seeing is the fruits of sustainability and to be able to literally go through many different phases of life and lifestyle and even devastation. My business is good. We are good. We are taken care of. The business is taken care of, I'm taken care of. It's not this do or die situation that often I felt before I even learned I was highly sensitive.
Heather Dominick:
So well said. Couple pieces that I really want to highlight and speak to is first how you said it's not that I can't do a launch, and I really appreciate that you spoke to that because as I always say to members in the Business Miracles community, if you come to me and you tell me, "Oh my gosh, I love launching. Launching is my most favorite thing to do. It makes me so happy. It brings me so much joy." Then great, we will absolutely do that.
And that differentiation is so important because it's not about what highly sensitives can or cannot do or any kind of weird rules about what highly sensitives should or should not do. It is about that health that you spoke to and what is needed to be healthy for yourself, to be healthy for your business, to be healthy, for your body, to be healthy, for your relationships to be healthy.
We work holistically as highly sensitives because of how our nervous system is wired. We literally can't compartmentalize. That doesn't work and serve us. So it's so important to know what will be of health for you. And that's what I so appreciate hearing and listening to you speak to so clearly. And I just really appreciate that you are able to speak to that so clearly because that really is evidence of how you have continuously showed up to do the real work, to get clear about what those things are and what they aren't for yourself. And to be willing to have courage to take actions in the direction of what to be clear for yourself. And then of course to be able to experience that sustainability as a result.
That is always my deep, deep intent for everyone in the Business Miracles community, every member is to be able to create long lasting sustainable success because that is what works for us as highly sensitives, yes. So in the name of doing the Real work, I want to speak to just a little bit of your story that you contributed to the book Different, which I'm not going to read it verbatim, but basically the story begins with, "And I was standing in the front of the room in a puddle of tears."
I would like to speak to that because I see it's important that we're not trying to give the message through the book different that, "Oh, if you just show up and do things differently as a highly sensitive, it's all rainbows, roses and unicorns." But that the real work does really require that courage that we were talking about. And it does entail sometimes where there are moments where you are metaphorically and or literally standing in the front of the room in a puddle of tears.
So if you would be willing to speak about that part of your story a little bit more and the ways that you've shown up to those moments continuously as a highly sensitive leader.
Jessica Procini:
Well, I think anyone who knows me knows how sensitive I am. So tears are part of the package that you get when we're talking or especially doing such deep work. But this was actually something I was thinking about even a few weeks ago how crying for me now comes up at certain points, especially doing this work. It's really such a sign and a signal of a cleansing of shame.
It really didn't dawn on me or really come into my awareness or even my understanding of how much I operated under shame. Not only personally being a highly sensitive but also professionally and just doing things so differently because I am a high achiever. That is my number one strength. What I really realized was so much of this deeper inner work, kind of like the work that happens behind the scenes in order to create the growth that I have experienced in my business, it really feels like this delayering of shame.
The best way that I can describe it is just this feeling of a layer that's melting. And that for me manifests through tears. So I've always really appreciated the relationship that you and I have and even the the unique relationship that exists within the community and the container to really allow that. I think that's also what I really love about this book and even just the title of it being different.
I remember when you gave me a copy of the book and I was like, "Wait, even the layout is different. This isn't a normal business book where the font is a size two and it's cramped and there's no space and you're just overwhelmed and you don't end up reading the whole thing because it's just overwhelmed." So I would say from my story, that moment of purging really was this shame and the shame that I had realized I was going back to these old patterns and that was what was really on the altar to be altered for me and what the rest of my story really speaks to.
Heather Dominick:
So brilliantly said. So, so brilliant. Especially because when a highly sensitive is untrained, there can be this association with tears as a sign of weakness. Once again, not being able to manage our nervous system. Once again, being overloaded. Once again, being over flooded. Once again, being overwhelmed or tears being associated with immersing oneself in sympathy to just reinforce the pattern and not actually moving beyond. And yet you've so brilliantly spoken to using tears for you and it looks different for every highly sensitive and every highly sensitive in the Business Miracles community.
But for you, the tears are the delaying of that shame. And that is part of the courage and it is part of showing up to do the real work as we talk about in the book, which is to be willing to acknowledge the shame that we might not have even realized was there just became ingrained from being different. And not really knowing why or not having the language to be able to speak about it or not having teachers and guides in our earlier years to help us through it.
But that doesn't mean that that's the patterns that we need to continue into our adulthood and definitely not into our businesses and or our work and our careers. Before we wrap, I want to speak just briefly to or ask you to speak just briefly to what you mentioned in the very beginning of our conversation, which is that your life has changed not only professionally but personally.
So I know you spoke to getting a good night's sleep, which is a really big deal for us as highly sensitives. For many of us, I can definitely absolutely relate. I'm just curious if there's anything else that comes to mind in the same way that you spoke about your business wouldn't be what it is today without embracing that you're highly sensitive. If there's something in your personal life that perhaps falls into that arena as well.
Jessica Procini:
I would say that the next thing that I'm most proud of and really supports my highly sensitive, authentic, essential self is my marriage. I know we were talking about our work together in the very beginning, but Zach, my husband, said to me recently, he was like, "Yeah, when we first met, you worked all the time and you don't do that now." I had this moment of like, "Wait, what? I did?" I did. But so my husband and I have been married now for five years and we've been together for 10 and I've been self-employed for 11. So a lot of my awareness, understanding and then real ownership of my highly sensitive self really has happened and transformed within this most important relationship in my life with my husband.
What's really beautiful to give you just snapshots, when we first moved in together, I remember being so scared of him finding out of all the weird stuff I do like singing when I feel like it or the energy management tools that I use or even that I talk to my angels and things like that.
And through your support, I've been able to not only really own these things that support my mental and emotional and physical health, but to not be ashamed of them like we've talked about, but also to really advocate and give voice to it.
So now we just have this understanding that when an appointment or a family event comes on the calendar that we each have a choice of whether or not to attend. So for example, Hanukkah breakfast is coming up and it was a conversation of like, "Are you going to go? Are you going to go? Well, I'm going to go, no, I think I'm going to go. And each of us making an individual choice because there have been many times where he has wanted to go to something, an event, a party. He obviously is very social and that's what feeds him and I am highly sensitive.
There have been times where I've declined and said, "It's not what I need. It's not what I want to do. I need to do this instead." But I think you should still go. And for us to be able to take care of ourselves in a real individualized way, but still be able to come back together and not then have this passive aggressive or even unspoken expectation that you need to have this perfect attendance at all family functions. And that's been really beautiful and I feel like I've really found my voice and feel really supported in my marriage for my essential self.
The journey definitely continues. I think what's really beautiful as well is understanding his needs, also understanding my needs and then learning to work together of like, "Okay. Well, where's the intersection?" And then also where's the differentiation? And both can exist. I don't have to sacrifice myself to be in this relationship with this person and he doesn't have to sacrifice himself to be in a relationship with a highly sensitive.
And a highly sensitive who's self-employed, which is a whole other level to it. So I would say that my marriage is definitely probably next to my business, one of my proudest creations. And the journey continues just like it does with business.
Heather Dominick:
Oh my gosh, it just warms my heart so much to hear all of that, especially having traveled such a major part of your relationship and your marriage with you. I know that there's listeners who are really, really benefiting from hearing you share because it is the ultimate in terms of success for us and that as highly sensitive, that it doesn't need to be one or the other, but that you are able as a highly sensitive to be nurtured by both and to nurture both, which is amazing. Amazing. And the journey continues.
Jessica Procini:
Yes.
Heather Dominick:
Where can listeners find out more about you and the incredible work you're doing in the world as a highly sensitive leader?
Jessica Procini:
You can visit me at my home base at escapefromemotionaleating.com. That's where I am 24/7, unless I'm sleeping, or it's the weekend. But Escape From Emotional Eating is always on.
Heather Dominick:
There you go. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Jessica. Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you so much for your contribution to the book, Different. Thank you so much for all the ways that you continue to courageously show up, to do the real work, to contribute to our community, to contribute to the mission, to contribute to your own life and work and to change the lives of all the women that you serve. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
Jessica Procini:
Thank you.
Heather Dominick:
And for listeners, thank you for listening. Until next time.
[00:27:39] Thank you for being a part of this Business Miracles podcast episode and for beginning to dip your toe into the journey of highly sensitive leadership training. If you are ready to truly use your sensitivities as strengths in all parts of your work and life, I invite you to connect for a one on one chat. You will experience being deeply listened to and together we'll get a sense of whether the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Programs are the best next step for you and your highly sensitive journey at this time. Just go to www.claritycall.com to schedule a conversation. We so look forward to connecting with you. Talk to you soon!
