We had the good fortune of connecting with Jennifer Carmack and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Jennifer, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I think of risk in terms of trusting myself. How do I feel about the decision and direction I am taking? Does it make me feel expansive, excited and curious? Do I feel anxious, dense and in my head? Feeling myself out for the right risk is a practice I have used in my career and business. Even if an opportunity is a big risk but I feel curious about it, win or loose, it is worth the experience of it. Over the years I have practiced building the relationship to my process and my knowing what my yeses and my no’s feel like in my body. I have taken big financial risks many times in my business and when I have felt that energetic YES in my body, I know I am dedicated to the process to see it through. I trust myself. From this perspective there is no failure, it is just following what makes me excited for the experiences I want to have in my life. Business IS creative, and anything is possible and from the analytical perspective of business, it is inherently a risk. I am my best being in the creative flow, working for the experiences and the yeses and trusting myself in the decisions and directions that I take. And knock on wood, in over 20 years of working for myself, it has worked out. I don’t look back at a single risk and regret the decisions that I made.
Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My art is a perspective on my experience being human. My business is working with humans to experience how we can occupy our humanness and fully live in our bodies. Over the years I have spent time with souls and bodies and what it means to walk in this world. My art is the alchemy of those conversations, those glimpses into capital T, Truth and living in our skin. Our culture doesn’t teach us how to access this as our super power. We pretend more than we actually feel. My art is a reflection of how it could be available to feel more, to live more aligned to all the aspects of what it means to be human and connected to community. Professionally this is what has driven my business. I create experiences for people to build a relationship to themselves. Whether it is thru visual art, an art exhibition, a retreat container or a practitioner training, my passion is for my clients to experience another beautiful aspect of their own process of themselves.
Is it easy? No, not always. But I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. It just IS me and what I am meant to do. I have learned over the years to refine how I do things and really to refine my relationship to everyone’s experience of my work. My job is to lovingly create the space. Not to manage any one else’s process but to witness my own and allow others to do the same.
Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
We go to the mountains of course! I live in Fort Collins and I love the Northern Colorado Mountains! There’s spots in Never Summer, Up thru Red Feather Lakes, Cherokee Park area in Livermore ahhh just beauty and energy every where. Then on the way home we stop at Paddlers Pub in Laporte to sit outside, listen to live music and have a beer. New Belgium’s 1985 is my current summertime fave. I definitely like to go to those places we can sit outside. We go to Old Town Fort Collins and go to First Friday Art Walk checking out my favorite galleries and artists. And we take sunset bike rides on all the awesome Fort Collins bike trails. I love FoCo and love living in a place all my friends want to come visit.
Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My shoutout goes to my mentor, my friend Dr. Jacqueline Fields, MD. She believed in me waaaaay back in my early 20s, back in the early 2000s when I was in college and taught me how to feel for what I really wanted to do. My business started when I was working for her. She offered me the space to create much of what I still do today, to follow my yeses in the directions of my education and training. Her excitement and support for what I wanted was the love and nutrients I needed to take the leap! And today she inspires me to offer my mentorship and do the same for others… its so good! What a gift!
Website: https://nocowildspirit.com
Instagram: @wildspiritcolorado
Facebook: Wild Spirit Colorado
Youtube: Wild Spirit Colorado
Image Credits
Ashley Boriack