Welcome to mythic a podcast where we explore meaningful living through the power of myth. I'm your host fostered blank. My guest today is Jennifer Wetsel. I met Jennifer a few years ago through a mutual. And after about 30 seconds, she and I were deep in a conversation about archetypes and marketing. Jennifer has been in the marketing and advertising industry for over 25 years. She's the founder of lady Jane branding, which uses the power of archetypes to help companies develop unique brands and deepen their connections with their customers. She also initiated the women in cannabis study, which seeks to understand the journey of women working in the cannabis industry. Jennifer is whip smart. She's insightful. And in this conversation, we covered a lot of ground, but before we get to it, I want to let you know that I have a really cool announcement at the end of this episode. So please stick around for a moment after the interview. And I have a great invitation for you now. Here's Jennifer.

So my background is in marketing and advertising and research and, and business basically. And in 2017, I lost my job and I moved to Maine so that I could get a medical card cannabis card. And when I arrived here and I was. And spending some time with my caregiver, who was the one to introduce me to cannabis, to medical cannabis. I was able to see the beginnings of this new industry here in this state. And what I realized is that there were all of these entrepreneurs getting into the market who really struggled with something that I knew a lot about, and that was branding and. I spent a lot of time working in an advertising agency years ago. And my favorite thing to do was branding. I had read the book, the hero and the outlaw, and I realized that it was using archetypes as a way to help brands understand how to brand themselves and maintain consistency in their branding. It was a really amazing tool. And so while I was dealing with. Multiple traumas and PTSD and trying to heal from all of these things. I threw myself into this creative endeavor of trying to define archetypes that could be used. For cannabis companies to help brand themselves for, for those entrepreneurs who didn't really have a lot of background in something that I knew how to do. And so for that creative endeavor, I decided to define 16 archetypes to use, to help these entrepreneurs with their branding. What was it that captured your attention about cannabis? You moved to Maine to get your cannabis card. Where did you move from? I was living in the Midwest. I had lived there for about 10 years and I was dealing with an auto immune disorder and an immune disorder. So I thought, and my symptoms were overwhelming and I was chronically ill and cannabis was not accessible to me, legally accessible to me. It was difficult to find it at all, but I knew it was the only thing that helped. And so when I was going to find a new place to live. New that medical cannabis was an option. I only was looking in states where that, where I could move to get a medical card. And so that's why I moved to Maine and I was able to find that cannabis. And therapy and brain retraining helped me relieve all of my physical symptoms from the auto-immune and the immune disorders. So physically it made a world of difference for me. And one of the things that I learned in the women in cannabis study that I have been working on for a couple of years is that many women get into the cannabis industry because of their success in using cannabis to help with physical issues or mental health issues or. The mood and that's what happened to me. I was looking for a job. Couldn't find one that I wanted to do. And I was realizing that as, as a disabled person, I was going to struggle to work for someone else. And so I needed to find something to do that would make sense for me. And so building a business, which. Looking back was very difficult. It made me more difficult than I knew at the time was really my only option and cannabis was a great place because it was where I felt welcomed as a cannabis user. I was not shamed. There was no stigma. I could use cannabis during the day, during my work day and not have to hide. And so it just made sense to me. And when I was. Again, meeting all of these entrepreneurs, it was clear that I had a skill that would help. And that was another thing I found in the, in the women, in cannabis studies. When I asked, why did you get into cannabis? One of the top reasons was to use my skills in a new industry. So women were looking to give back to be able to take what they've learned in other industries and apply it to canvas. And so it just made sense that that would be. Where I would bring my new branding, my multiple choice branding with archetypes to make it easy. I love what you just said. What I hear in the background of it is not just industry, but I hear community.

you found this great way to serve an identity, a culture, and really bring your gifts to bear. And then through this language of archetypes, which it may not be unique, but it is certainly unusual. I still feel like it's this magical tool out there that people just, for whatever reason they don't want to lean into. And you read the hero and the outlaw, what journey did that send you on? It really resonated with you and you identified the 16. Archetypes of women in cannabis. What did you learn through that process?

Just to be clear when I started the archetypes, this the 16, it wasn't just for women. I entered the women in cannabis study about a year after that. But you know, what I found when I worked in branding a long time ago, is that using. To help companies understand and personify their brand. Like it really clicked for people. And so branding is this weird thing that no one thinks that they need to do. They don't want to do it. It costs extra. It's so easy. It's really easy. It's really about personifying your brand understanding. Who your brand would be in at a party? Like how would they act? What would they say? And it's those qualities understanding their values and their personality that allow you to develop content and design that is consistent with the brand and doesn't confuse people. And what I saw, particularly in may. Where it was still a baby industry, still an infant at that time was that there was no branding whatsoever. Really. And what was out there was typically focused to like a stoner archetype or a doctor archetype, which is two choices to go spa doctor or full-on stoner. Is that like a upper-middle-class white guy? And then. The stoner dude like the bro. Yes. And so to me, that's not enough variety in a, in a consumer market. We're talking about a consumer product consumer and you certainly didn't fit either of these models. Correct. And at the time in Maine, like there were no retail stores, it was just caregivers who were packaging their stuff in a baggie and handing it to you. You didn't need. You didn't really need a brand yet, but it wasn't until stores started to open and there was competition because you had to give your caregiver, your medical card and they grew for you. You didn't have, you didn't go anywhere else. You had your guy, but now there's over 300 retail stores in this state. And those caregivers have products in multiple stores. And now brand matters. If you've got people who are used to walking into the grocery store and picking beautiful brands off the shelf, it does matter. To people that they can trust the brand that they connect with the brand. Yes. Some people who just use medical cannabis just need that thing that works for them. For some, it's just a novelty of the fact that you can get it. But for a lot of people, it is about connecting with a brand that they really like that shares their values. What are some of the archetypes that you identified in your research? I've made some very specific ones for cannabis. So for example, I defined a stoner and a rockstar and a healer, an activist, uh, essentially list a socialite farmer. Uh, let's see the magician scientists. So it took a lot of, a lot of spreadsheet work weirdly to. Hone their values and their personalities and their, the tone of voice that they might use in, in developing content so that they were very distinct and different. Directions that you could take a brand because once you understand that your brand is a magician versus a doctor, it's very clear how to speak, how to act, what to post, what your packaging should look like. And it's very clear what not to do. So I actually developed during this whole process, a full brand model using these 16 archetypes. So it's not just these 16 different directions. They're actually grouped in a very precise way. I bucketed them into eight different emotional themes. So for example, action, grounding, innovation, guidance status, for example. So. When you're trying to develop your brand, understanding the themes that you're trying to achieve are you about action? Are you about status? Those are very different things. Are you about guidance or grounding, different things. And it really helps to very precisely define what your brand is about. Then I further grouped the archetypes into visual design categories. So. First you understand what your emotional theme is for your brand's story. Then you look at the visual design categories to help make visuals that match. So for example, the activist is. An action theme and the visual design category is rough and earthy. I've actually made this into a digital tool to help people see. So if you're rough and earthy or modern and minimal or colorful and simple, or can't remember the fourth one now, because it's. But I basically take people through this journey. So if this is your, if this is the theme of your story, if this is how your archetype should look and act, then it provides this whole comprehensive definition of their brand that holds together. Sometimes I talk to brands like, wait, we want to be exclusive and inclusive. You can't pick one, but like separating the themes. So if you, if you want to be about status and exclusive. Great be that, but you can also be inclusive. Like you have to go. I'm thinking of this parallel that happens when we're talking about internal archetypes. And in a moment, I hope we'll get to talk about Jean Shinoda Boland's work and how you're relating to that. But that people, individuals are not pure archetypes. We have all of them inside of us, but one or two will lead at any given point in time. Now, when you're doing a brand. You're not, you're not trying to capture everybody who is partly every thing a brand is more like one of the Olympian gods, it's a pure archetype. You're going for the distillation. So that when somebody says, I say Zeus or Athena, and you get the king of the gods, the goddess of wisdom and that a brand should have that kind of. Um, resonance. So this is very interesting that you bring this up because it's one thing that I explain as I'm taking people through the branding process, and I have to give a little backstory here. I turned this into a multiple choice quiz. It's a five question quiz. So people take this quiz from the perspective of their brand. And then at the end they get there. And some people are very singularly minded when they go through the quiz, whether it's for their own brains or for their brands, like activists, activists, activist, activists, in some people all over the place, all over the place. The way that I explain it is that as humans we can tap into, we should be able to tap into any and all of these archetypes to help us understand how to act in any given situation, finding to be an activist. At some point, I know, okay, the activist is like this. This is how I need to act to be activists. Like, and then tomorrow I might need to be a scientist. And then the next day I might need to be a best friend and I can call on those qualities to know what to do and how to act. And I actually did some data analysis to see like how many single-minded people were there and how many well-rounded people were there. How many people were in touch with many archetypes. And it was kind of, it was very much a, uh, a bell curve, which was very interesting and not different by gender. When you're a brand, you have to pick one and you have to define it. It can, it can be a little bit of a combination of more than one. It doesn't have to be one of my 16. It can be anything you want, but it has to be one thing. And it has to be well-defined and you have to stick to it, or people are confused. But like I said earlier, you're not going to act like a scientist in the morning and a stoner in the afternoon. People wouldn't understand that, but as human. We have the full range of archetypes to tap into, to understand ourselves. And I've actually been using it. The archetypes that I designed as a tool for myself and my own introspection and development. I want to hear about that. So I am a newly met post-menopausal. Yay me. I have entered my third stage and I just read a book about goddesses and older women. Okay. I also have recently learned about some of my neurological issues. Like I'm autistic. I had no idea explains everything. It even explains how I need to really understand archetypes, to know how to act in any given situation. Cause they don't already know. Okay, wait a minute. Okay. Hold up. We're now we're in now in territory that I just don't know much about. So what is the autistic nature that, uh, That wields archetypes in this way, that, that creates this relationship with them. I'm still trying to understand that myself, but my hypothesis is, is that for me in particular, I know this is not for everyone, but it's difficult for me to know how to act in social situations, what to do, what to say. I practice, I have to practice before I get on the phone because otherwise I kind of melt down. I don't know what to do. As an example, like my typical writing style is very direct and to the point, but lady Gina is the best friend brand. So I have to be nice in an email to when like, oh yeah. What would a best friend say? Oh yeah. That's what a best friend would say in an email. And then I do that, but how I typically interact with the world, like I need scripts, I need guides. I need. To know what to do or else I just melt down in an anxious bull. What archetype do you think or archetypes do you think when you're, when you are alone with yourself in an environment where you do know what to do, what archetypes are most present for you? Oh, and it changes for me. I'm going to answer that question in a second, but I want to go back to when I, when I realized that I was autistic and understanding that I have been autistic masking is, is a big thing where you just pretend to be normal to fit in and it's exhausting to pretend. Yes, that's exactly the same. It's exactly the same. It's it's having to pretend to be someone you're not to fit in in the outside world. And when I realized. That my entire life was just a series of me having different masks on. And, and now that I'm, I had burnout and they broke the masks broke, like I just couldn't couldn't do it anymore. And I was like, well, wait a second. If all of these masks that I've been wearing are archetypes who's under. Like who's the narrator who is in charge. And so I pulled out my big list of archetypes. I'm like, well, who am I? Who's who's in charge. Who do I want to develop? Who do I want to tap into? And that's when I looked at the goddesses and older women, the wise women archetypes ones that focus on wisdom and transformative wrath. I love that one because I am terrible at anger. It's frightening for me. So to understand, okay. Here's how you use transformative wrap to make a difference. I'm using the archetypes to understand where I need more development or where I need to practice being in different situations that I haven't done before. And even like entering the third stage of life, like. What minors now. Cause what matters, mattered before doesn't really much anymore. So I needed to sit down and look like what's my theme. Is it action. No, it's not action right now. Is it introspection maybe? Is it guidance possibly so that I can take all of these things that I've learned and try and give back in some way. I'm terrible at asking people for money and charging for my time. So I'm giving back with all of the. These tools that I develop and that are useful for me, but like I'm having to learn how to, how to be additional roles that I didn't have to do before. Oh, what a rich way to work and an amazing path of self exploration. I also really hear what you say. I'm I'm 45 and I, the pandemic of course, has given a lot of us a lot of time to reflect and. For me, I I'm, I'm in the middle of the second stage of my life. So I'm also in tune with this idea, this realization that what mattered before simply doesn't matter now. Yes. And, and it's tricky because there's a habitual tendency to go back to the things that mattered before, because I think they're going to bring me fulfilled. And they don't. So the goalposts have all been moved. The cheese has been moved. And if I go down the path that used to make me happy, it doesn't work anymore. Not just happy, but like fulfilled and joyous. And this is a really important thing. And I relate it it's time for me, giving back seems to be the thing. I've also always been terrible at charging for my time. Like how to price myself and ask for money and all of that. It's just been, it's never been my strong suit. So there's something really validating in hearing you share. And this is the trick about this point in life. It seems because the world isn't getting any less expensive. I have not really gotten any better at asking for money. And there's a new, they like go get for me, energy has also changed into it's now about, it's starting to be about legacy and I don't know where it's going. It's a mystery. But the last thing I'll share about myself before we get back to you is I just started working with a young Ian analyst and we'll be. Doing some deep dive into my own archetypal realm. And I am both thrilled and terrified of, of what's in there of the process. And so you found a way to do this. I love that your work led you to this, this inner journey now. I looked at your air table of the goddesses in older women, which is like your women in cannabis cards. It's a work of art, your ability to fuse data and beauty is just uncanny. Thank you. And so looking at this at this database that you've made, what has surprised you about this study of goddesses in older women? Well, what was surprising and yet not at all surprising is how all of their stories have been changed or forgotten or, uh, minimized. Is there one in particular that is coming to mind right now? Oh gosh, you can't remember all their names. Cause my, my copy paste function in my brain doesn't work so great all the time, but I think it's so FIA, uh, perhaps who was the concert of God who remember, who knows that God had a concert? No one. Yeah, no. Yeah, no. Mary and that's complicated or let's see, what was the other one? It was made us. Meet us, the, the, uh, the goddess of cunning and wisdom before, before Athena. Yeah. The one who helped Zeus gain his position. And then he swallowed her. She was smarter, richer, cooler, and he used her and swallowed her. And that really resonated with me considering I've been married three times and. Three men. You're not talking about men that came out of you, are you? Nope. Not. And it's raising. Yes. Cause I, I read a lot of these stories and I was like, oh shit, all of these things have happened to me. I'm not alone. Yes. And these things have been happening since the Dawn of time. And one of the, one of the greatest things in. Jean Shinoda Bullins book was talking about how this happens to women when they, when they get to 50. And I was like, wait a minute, I'm 50. I'm right on time. I'm not behind for once. Yeah. I always felt like I was behind, but like, I hadn't accomplished what I wanted to accomplish in life. No, I'm right on time. So in understanding that all of these things that have happened to me happened to a lot of people, but that there's, there's ways to move forward. There, there are ways to. Activate these older wise woman archetypes and stand taller to, to have a different life in that third stage. Where it's all about me this time, but you asked earlier, how are things going for me now? Well, I've been dealing with burnout, so I've had to do a whole lot less and actually rest, which doesn't compute in my brain. Rest is not a thing that I understand. That's hard when I used to be able to do all the things and still not be able to sleep at night because I have too much energy. And now I'm like, it's. It's eight. O'clock too early for bed. I might make it to eight, but I might not. And I'm realizing in the third stage, it has to be about me. And so one of the things that I did recently, and maybe a little too quickly was I bought 40 acres of land in the woods so that I could go build myself, uh, a place for myself and also build some. I really want to make it into a retreat space for women who need. To get away from people and they need solitude and they need nature because since the pandemic started, I moved out of downtown Portland, Maine in a high rise to two house. It's surrounded by nature. And I've been spending my time in the woods and kayaking in the snow and really getting in touch with and in tune with the trees and the, the animals. And there's a Groundhog right outside the, the, the birds, everything, and that. Has allowed me to do what it is that I really want to do. One of those archetypes is hermit. Like I'm ready for hermetic ready? I did not really get enough of that during the pandemic. And, and it's okay for me to want to, to do that. Like I have to give myself permission to withdraw because I'm tired and I need it. And is that pressure, is that internal pressure not to hermit or do you have signals coming from the outside saying it's not okay to hermit or. Oh, well, the signals from everywhere, everywhere, including my own internalized, ableism, everything that's been projected onto me, capitalism, patriarchy, all of it. It's like, Nope, you have to be productive. You have to work. You have to be out. You have to be with people. I don't want to be around people right now. I need some space I need to, I want to go create and I go hang out in the woods. And I play when I sit and I listen and I watch and I make art and it's healing and it's necessary and we don't get enough of that. When I saw this land come for sale and I bought it like three days later, it's like, this is it. My end goal. My vision is to be able to provide space for women, to be able to do that in a safe way. Those who need nature, Butterfree are of it. Those who need nature, but are afraid of it because everything is mythology to me. Or in this case, just ancient Greece in general, if you were in ancient Athens, The city was the safe place. Everything beyond the walls of the city was dangerous and spooky and scary. And there's the story of, of Actaeon going out into the woods and coming upon Artemis bathing or Diana bathing. And he looked on her and maybe he looked a little too long or maybe he just caught a glimpse and turned his head. But in any case, she caught him. And turns him into a deer. And then he was torn apart by his own dogs. There's a whole lot in that myth, but your first mistake is leaving the confines of the city, leaving the city norms, leaving the structures and the laws that the nature is wild and scary and unpredictable. It's bigger than we are. And so we've lost touch with. I'm from Oklahoma where the weather is trying to kill you about nine months out of the year. I mean, if it's not scorching heat or freezing cold, it's a tornado. And because that wasn't enough, they started making their own earthquakes. So the nature I get and I need it being in California, we have the beaches and the mountains. And as I get older, I need it more, more time in it. Uh, it's never, it hasn't been frightening to me since I was a really, really little. But there's something in how you said that, uh, you said women who need nature, but are afraid of it. And how do you, you're making this adjustment very organically. As you tune into yourself, your recognizing your own needs, your recognizing the archetypes, getting their needs. Within you. And at one of those is Artemis. Even in this conversation, you have tons of energy because you're you, but there is a, there's a groundedness that I haven't felt from you before. Thank you. I've been developing that. And my experience with nature throughout my life, I've always, let's call it over exercise to deal with my abundant energy, to wear myself out, to sleep, but that involves. Yeah, let's bike really fast for three hours, but let's hike this mountain and get back in four hours. So there was no, let's just sit and look at stuff. And when I moved to this house, that's on a saltmarsh and has some woods right nearby. Like the first day I went out and I scared myself in the woods. I was just like, it's too much. But I saw evidence of humans and it terrified me that it was old evidence, but every day, And I spent more time and they walked a little bit further and then they built myself a shelter, a two room shelter that I slept in overnight. I built a trail. I. I spent every day for like six months outside every day in the winter in Maine bundled up because that's when it's fun, exploring more and like watching the tide change, watching the ice freeze and melt, watching the birds, just sitting and giving my brain time to just rest and think. And I started taking pictures of the little faces I would see in trees as loss and. Being out there by myself now, I didn't know that nothing was going to hurt me out there because there's nothing in the main woods that'll hurt you really? So there was a little bit of sense of security. Also. I can basically see my house where I was, so I wasn't far, it wasn't scary, but it took me time every single day to go out there before I got so comfortable that I could spend the night by myself. And then I bought land. I needed to have that comfort there, knowing that there are people nearby. There's not a grizzly, that's going to eat me, but it's been so powerful and healing for me that I want to be able to give that opportunity to other people, to just know that I'm just across the way and you're safe. Here's a nice little cabin, but go spend time in nature by yourself. Cause it's, it's important to just sit and be and not do anything. And it's hard to learn really hard to learn. Yeah. We have an entire socioeconomic structure built around. Don't allow that to have. Yeah, then it screws the whole economy up. Yep. And you mentioned Artemis. I just finished reading the book Searcy. Oh, it's so good. Madeline Miller. Yes. What'd you think? Loved it. Loved it. I mean, the thought of having my own island that no one can get to and didn't really like that. I'd like to turn visitors to pigs if I need to. So yes, reading that story helped me feel better about just wanting to, to be a hermit for a while and that's okay. That's okay. My therapist referred to my apartment that I, I love, I live alone for the first time in well, over a decade could not be happier. Congratulations. Thank you. My, my therapist referred to it as my 10 minutes, 10 minutes. Do you know this word? I had, I had never heard it, I guess it was coined by Cicero and it refers to a container. It was an island cut off from the rest of the land, and it specifically refers to a place where healing can happen. It's like an Al chemical container or a magic circle. And it's a place where your psyche can just unfold and unfurl and you can do whatever. The work is to be done and it has a, it now has a sort of mystical connotation, but I just, I just love that. And I that's Searcy's island and she has another book called the song of Achilles, which I loved. And have you read that by chance? It's it also takes place in the backdrop of the Iliad. All right. Let's see. So. Yeah. So Searcy takes place mostly in the backdrop of the Odyssey and song of Achilles takes place in the backdrop of the Iliad. And it's the love story between patrol clus and Achilles. And they also have time on their island with, with Kyron, the Sentara, where they're protected from the eyes of the prying world, and their love is able to emerge and flourish. And it's just. Madeline Miller man. She's brilliant. And this idea of a sacred space, you're cultivating that in your relationship with nature. And if you're interested in sharing that. Other women in the future and helping them do the same. And I just want to tip my hat to you for taking something like that on it's just a beautiful, beautiful gift to the world. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I hope I can make it all happen. I tend to think bigger than I can execute. Most of the time. My long-term goal is actually. Uh, land trust. I want to call it the wise women land trust, where women in their third stage donate money, so we can buy more land to maintain it, but also to have more spaces specifically for, for older women, but it's not a population that most land trusts or nature-based organizations typically target. And I think that it would be. Just really amazing to be able to dedicate resources to helping women heal. Cause you know, I mean a week, a couple of weeks in nature's a solitude. I can't tell you how many women I talk to. Like I just need some time away to do nothing. And so we'll see, we'll see how that goes. That's my long-term plan. W more immediately, I heard you say earlier, That you need to step back that you were, you had taken on too much. And so there's a slowing down is a really important part of this step of your life. Are there things that you are. Engaged in that are really satisfying to you right now, or missions that you are a part of that you aren't putting down what's front and center. Yep. So right now I'm on the board of directors for this is Jane project and that's an organization that's focused on helping trauma survivors access to medical care. And so obviously based on my stories, that's something that's really important to me. So I'm really thrilled to be able to participate in that. My partner and I actually have a business here in Maine called independent diamond brokers. And we put on events called the, the main growers marketplace. They're B2B networking events for growers and retailers and processors licensed in Maine, really small events outside. Cause the pandemic. It's a way to build community here. That's one of the things that I've worked on. I'm working on a book with an author named Michelle new heart. She wrote the book called the medicalization of cannabis. Uh, highly recommend that book. It's enlightening included in the show notes. We're taking the women in cannabis study data and turning that into a book to talk about all the things we explored in this study, including things like shame and stigma around. Not just using cannabis, but working in cannabis. Let's see what else, if she seems to be a lot, that's going on still, this, this is you stepping back and taking it easy. Yes. I've been reading a lot. So that's my, that is what I like to do most is just power through books and then see which books that it recommends and go read them. So that has been my sit down and rest time I realized I, I. Stopped breathing as much. And that is that's my pleasure. So yeah, I've been doing a lot of that. So when you were growing up, what were some of your favorite stories? Nursery rhymes, or children's books or cartoons or comics? Any medium really? What popped into my head when you asked that question was when I was a little kid and I did not like cartoons and I liked live action mystery type thing. And that didn't exist when I was kid on TV. Like there was one show and it was at six o'clock in the morning, on a Saturday. And I would get up early and watch that and go back to bed while everybody else watched cartoons. Do you remember? I don't remember the name of it, but it was about a little girl, I think who solved mysteries and her best friend. His name was Matt. I got to go find it, but I love to read I as a kid, I always had my nose in a book. I think. A big person book. I read, I was 10 and it was a tree grows in Brooklyn. And I always weirdly liked post-apocalyptic fiction, even as a, like a young, as a teenager and young adult I'm over that now experiencing it. It was way better as fiction way better. But reading all those books, I'm like, oh my God, I see where this is going. I don't like it. I know how this story ends. So then I had, so recently I've had to start reading like utopian fiction. What's what's what's the next one. That's something that you believe to be true that you cannot prove, or that cannot be proven. This is what popped into my head immediately. I believe that when we die, there's. And then it ends up being kind of these holes in the clouds and that's where you go. I don't, I can't prove that, but I saw it in a vision and I think it's true. So I'm just going to hold onto that one. That every time I see big, beautiful clouds in a nice hole in the middle. That's the portal. Beautiful. Thank you. In what ways are you the same now as you were, when you were a little kid in so many ways, I am still. Introverted quiet bookish. Thank you. Have you ever encountered a phenomenon that you just cannot explain and how do you think that happening or not happening has affected your worldview? A lot of time in the woods lately, I've been experiencing what I would call messages from. Stuff that I'm not sure came from my brain, cause I don't know why it would have or where it would have come from. And some of these messages have been felt life-changing in, in ways that are defining my purpose in life or understanding nature in a broader scale, like in a really broader scale. And I don't know where those come from, but I trust that they are. True. And I feel like they come from the same place where the archetypes live in the collective unconscious. So I feel like I've tapped into that unconscious when I'm out in nature. And that happens really out there, less so than in here. Oh, that's so powerful. Yes. And. My last question is when was a time in your life that you have experienced ecstasy? One of those times was one of the messages from the trees I had to call people. I was like, you will not believe what I just heard from the trees. And I was like, wait a second. Am I going to get committed? But it was beautiful. What I heard, I was trying to understand how a tree would view a human. And the reason I was thinking about that as I was watching this show on Netflix, it's called moving art and the cinematographer plays with perspective and time. And one of the episodes was about flowers and they were sped up and the flowers would bloom and move and duck. And they looked like little people because we were seeing it in flower. Not in human time. And so I was trying to understand what would it look like if I saw a time-lapse of what trees life like with the tree, be ducking out of the way from other trees? What a human just be a speck in their time line. Are they watching? Are they taught? I don't know. I was trying to think what. For example, what is so insignificant to us that we pay no attention to it, like a fly or the bacteria in our gut, right. Pay no attention, but for all we know, flies and bacteria in our gut could live in their own society. They could have a full life, a full lifetime politics. We don't know, we don't know trees could have the same, but it's the timescale that's different. And I was like, are we insignificant to trees? And then I thought, what is so big that we are as insignificant as the bacteria in our gut? Like, is it the planet? Yes, I think, and the answer was it's all the same. It's just a matter of. It's all the same. And so if we're talking about the earth, we just inhabit the Earth's lungs basically. And we do our job to clean. We eat, we. So pollute, I actually use what we do, but we're just part of the bigger system. We are insignificant in a part of a giant system, just like the bacteria in our gut is insignificant, but an important part of the entire system. But it led me to the quantum theory and all of the stuff that basically just says, we're all the same. We're all the same. We're made of the same building blocks from Quanta to uniform. It's all the same. And the next message was, so it doesn't matter do the best you can, nothing matters. And it felt so freeing that I started to cry. I was like, oh, thank God. I'm just playing my parts. I'm just playing my part in, in the end. It does not matter because I am insignificant in a good way. Oh, I love that. So, so very much. And I completely agree with you this. This was a message I got from mushrooms a really, really long time ago. And I forget like holding it is almost impossible because life is so significant to Boston. Yes. Everything matters so much. My, my hurts and my joys and my wants and living a good life and whatever my values are. And. And from this point of view, I am in the process of doing what, everything that has ever been either did, or is it in the process of doing, and that is rising and falling away. Like we grow from, we grow, we decay universal truth. There's no exception to it that we are aware of. And I also find that so freeing. And it also doesn't detract from everything that we say is important right now, because it is to us. And that's part of it too. Our feelings also rise and fall away there. They're just like living things in that they come and they go, they rise and they fall more quickly than we do. They're there and they're gone. So maybe that's the scale. Maybe the flower, if an emotion has a life cycle of 90 seconds. Unless you want to keep spinning it. And then you can like keep it on life support for a long time. And then whatever our role is on the planet, whatever that is, that we compost things. And maybe we needed to heat the planet up for a while. Like it was our job to cook it for a bit, raise the temperature we were created to do just that. I don't know. And I have my own ethics. I have what I believe is right. But I believe it's right, because I believe it's right. It's not like the truth, but what's so wonderful is I could also be wrong. We could be totally wrong. So just enjoy life. I mean, do your best live by your values because it makes everything better from your point of view. It's not like, because God said so, but before. Your life will be more enjoyable if you're living by your own values. Right. And the other message I got was was about my purpose. Cause I kept asking and asking like, why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing? Because all the messages I get from the outside, I don't like, I don't want to be more productive at work. Like that's not. Hello. They want it for me on your death bed. I'm so glad I was more productive at work. Yeah. And the message was care for nature, care for yourself and take your part in the food chain. So I bought the land like days after that, cause I was like, oh, I, I have to care for this nature. I'm going to take this piece. And I was like, oh, there's all this, these animals on my land. Is that what I'm saying? Am I supposed to eat them? Is that the point? And I learned late. Well, I think I interpret. Differently later to understand that as a woman, I'm not less, I'm still at the top of the food chain and I am not less than a man. And if I want to buy land, I don't have to ask anybody's permission. I can just make the choice and do that thing because I've struggled to give myself permission to do anything like no. You get to do the things because of where you are in nature. And I had to take that to heart. We may hunt and fish on the land, but that wasn't the point up for yourself. You are, you are where you belong. And so that was comforting as well. The other thing I'll say is that. Being autistic. I experience my emotions are huge, huge, lots of joy, lots of bliss and ecstasy for things like watching the wind blow on a pond and seeing the ripples go or watching the ice melt or watching little things that people don't notice to me can be. Unbelievably gorgeous and amazing. And, and that also comes with really big down emotions, but the fact that I can tap into those things and see them when others can't, I think is one of the joys in my life is that I can experience those things. So bank that's beautiful and cheers to big feelings. And they're really getting to experience this world, this mystery, as weird as it is. Is there anything while we're together? Is there anything, any topic you really want to touch on something you want to share? Yeah. One of the things that I forgot to talk about when we were talking about creating the archetypes or defining the 16 archetypes that I use for branding, because one of the was actually going through therapy at the time. And we were a therapist was using a modality called internal family systems. Are you familiar with this one? Okay. So. I know, I know what it is. I don't know a lot about it. And I, I probably can't explain it as well as I should, but the best way to explain it is when you're thinking, well, this part of me wants to do this, but this part of me, doesn't, it's really understanding who are those parts? Why do they want to do what they want to do or not? And how can, how can I support them? So there are, there are, um, Parts that are protectors. There are parts that are damaged, children who have been abused, whatever it is, but how do you navigate and understand who's in charge in any given moment, which is very similar to archetypes. And so I think that the. Therapy, because again, I pulled out the spreadsheets, I named the parts. I, I like, I, I listed out what's important to them. The questions they ask, I really had to get in touch with who was in my head and the feelings that I was having. And I think that really led me to understanding how developed the different archetypes, how to define them and. Use them for not just branding, but for introspection as well, because they are well-defined and you can look at them and go, oh, I'm, I'm being that person. And maybe that's not what I need to be right now. So who do I need to be right now? Oh, I need to be that person or how to calm myself down or how to identify who's protecting and why. So it allowed me to get really deep into that archetype work. So I was really pleased with being able to. To use therapy to build, oh, that's just so cool. You go do this inner work and there's this outer application. And while yes, it exists in a business context. This is ultimately about people understanding themselves and each other and what motivates us and other people. It's a pathway to empathy. And if you're doing the work in this way, instead of coming from an archetype that saying, how do I get this from them? If you're just trying to get something and you're stuck in one mode versus how do I understand somebody that, that is transformational branding or branding as a transformational experience? And so the process becomes the thing. More than the product, right? Jennifer, this has been fantastic. I, I really appreciate you taking the time out to come and have this conversation with. Thank you. I don't get to talk about archetypes enough. It's obviously one of my favorite topics. How can people learn more about you and the work you do? Website is lady Jane branding.com. And my email is jennifer@ladyjanebranding.com. That's usually the best way to reach. I'll add that to the show notes as well. Excellent. Thank you. Uh, thank you so much, Jennifer, for taking the time out to talk with me and being so generous with sharing your story and thank you to all my listeners for listening. And as I mentioned at the beginning, I have an invitation for you. As part of my initiative to foster a conversation around mythology, around stories and folklore, I founded the mythic network. The mythic network is hosted on the mighty networks platform. It's a private online space. It's a way from Facebook and the other social media monsters. I want to hear about your favorite stories, the myths and legends that you love. And what do you think about modern myths? What do you think about Loki, Lucifer? Supernatural. And you can request to join by visiting mythic-network.com. Again, that's mythic-network.com. Membership is free. I would love to see you there and until next time journey on