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ABOUT ME

Jacqueline Wener

M.AC., CCUG., M.A., KRI Certified Teacher

I have spent the past 20 years acquiring a multitude of skills and experiences that have helped me to navigate the raw beauty and chaotic messiness of life. I have explored studied, and practiced the Eastern Wisdom traditions, including Chinese Medicine and yoga. I have coached individuals and businesses and have practiced wholistic psychotherapy both individually and in group settings.  

 

I have spent the past 20 years acquiring a multitude of skills and experiences that have helped me to navigate the raw beauty and chaotic messiness of life. I have explored studied, and practiced the Eastern Wisdom traditions, including Chinese Medicine and yoga. I have coached individuals and businesses and have practiced wholistic psychotherapy both individually and in group settings.  

Experience

I am a student, a fellow traveller, a guide and a teacher.

Offering

My offering comes from lived experience and is heart-centered, raw and honest.

Passion

My passion is bearing witness as my clients and students step into their lives in alignment with their deepest truths.

Promise

My promise is to show up unmasked, and take your hand as you navigate the waters of your own journey.

ABOUT ME

My Journey

I can still close my eyes and remember being a young girl and asking my mom what I was good at.  I had a sister who excelled in English, and another one who excelled in math, and while I did well in school I wasn’t particularly great at anything.  She looked at me with eyes that just knew as she always did, and said, “You are good at people.”  As a child her words confused me; after all, “people” wasn’t a class in school.  As an adult her words remind me time and time again that my life’s work has always been known to me.  Every course that I have chosen throughout my life has been a quest for its authentic expression.

 

In university I studied psychology.  Upon graduating, I knew that my course was going to be a little less than traditional.  I wanted to learn more about the human condition, the spirit and the mind-body connection.  I was drawn to the world of alternative healing and completed a Masters Degree in Chinese Medicine.   My training and practice as an acupuncturist marked one of the most deeply opening and moving times of my life.  My patients were a gift to me and through my work with them I came to understand, own and claim the gifts I had to offer the world. 

 

It is at this stage that my life took an interesting turn; a turn I have come to be incredibly grateful for.  I began to engage in a conversation about needing to prove myself in areas other than “people.”  And so, I decided to take an entry level position in an organization and “fight” my way up.  The short story is that I did just that and by all accounts I was a huge success.  The longer version is that as I struggled to prove myself, and show the world that I was bright and had a brain, I couldn’t escape myself.  My nature and the essence of who I have always been could not be denied and instead of managing the innovation side of the sales division of the organization as was my mandate, I got certification as a coach, and built an internal coaching consultancy within the sales division.  Essentially, my role as per my design was to work with leaders to help them identify their own inherent strengths, to tap into them, to help them own them, and then to watch them choose to move forward powerfully and in integrity.

 

And then I had a beautiful baby boy name Jonah, followed soon after by my daughter Laylah and my son Jude.  Life had changed again. I came to know myself as a mother, someone whose role is to be wholly and completely present to the essence that makes up each of my children.  I was charged by the universe with creating a loving space for each of them to become who they are meant to be in the world.  What I didn’t know then, was that each of these beings would become my greatest teachers. 

 

I continued to work part-time as a coach in private practice, and during this time was drawn back to the field of psychology, and energetic medicine. I completed a Masters in Counselling, became a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher and began to craft a new career that married my deeper calling; to work with people wholistically. 

 

My own process has brought me home.  My journey has been raw, real and messy. I have visited some very difficult places, and have learned over time, how to meet myself with love and compassion.  My teachers, my friends and my community have helped me to lean in, turn toward myself, and trust in the universe.

 

Founding, A Gathering Place, has brought things full circle for me.  The girl that was told by her mom that she was good with people has grown into a woman who knows that it is her responsibility to share the beautiful lessons and wisdom she continues to gather with the world.  

 

I look forward to having you join a growing community of people who are walking each other home, hand in hand, and  step by step.

Coming Home

An Autoethnography on Acceptance, Embodiment and Compassionate Awakening

My thesis is a raw, honest and messy account of my own experience of awaking to my deep inner wisdom, seen through the context of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey.  My hope is that in reading it, that you will be oriented to the teacher within, as you venture on your own journey home.  

And I said to my body softly, “I want to be your friend.” It took a long breath, and replied, “I have been waiting my whole life for this.”

 

- Nayyirah Waheed

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