Behind the Curtain of Life Coaching

Pat sits down with life coach Sima Jones to discuss her personal journey, overcoming childhood trauma, depression and anxiety through the discovery of yoga, Zen and therapy. We discuss what truly happens in the transformative space of life coaching and along the way, Pat unexpectedly becomes the client in a spontaneous coaching moment that explores regret, self-forgiveness, and rediscovering alignment.

What You’ll Learn:

• How Sima’s path through trauma, anxiety, and motherhood shaped her unique coaching style
• The difference between therapy and life coaching — and where they overlap
• Why discomfort is essential to growth, and how to stay with it
• How clarity of self unlocks meaning and purpose
• The surprising power of regret — and how to work with it, not against it
• What a real-life coaching session feels like, in real time

Social Media:

• After Peter Pan Podcast: 
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• Connect with Sima Jones:
  • Website - www.simajones.com
  • Instagram - @simajonescoaching
    
    

Chapters

• 0:00 Hook and Intro
• 1:44 Defining Success and Personal Growth
• 2:24 The Journey of Healing and Self-Discovery
• 5:09 Tools for Navigating Life's Challenges
• 8:06 The Role of Coaching in Personal Development
• 12:47 Awakening Through Fear
• 13:34 The Power of Yoga in Transformation
• 17:13 The Journey of Self-Discovery
• 23:23 Unpacking Childhood Trauma
• 26:41 Transitioning from Fashion to Mental Health
• 30:01 The Evolution to Life Coaching
• 36:46 Understanding Client Struggles
• 40:41 Finding Clarity and Realignment
• 47:23 Exploring Regret and Its Physical Manifestations
• 50:34 The Connection Between Mind and Body
• 54:34 The Importance of Forgiveness and Self-Compassion
• 59:29 Understanding Life Coaching: Methods and Approaches
• 1:02:21 Challenges Faced by Young Men Today
• 1:06:11 The Significance of Presence and Purpose
• 1:07:50 Personal Growth and Ongoing Challenges
• 1:09:06 Defining Growing Up: A Journey of Self-Discovery
• 1:11:57 Outro

Transcript

Sima Jones (00:02)
30 year old just trying to do the best he can, right? Like when you look at him, is he doing the best he can with what he's got?

Pat Tenneriello (00:08)
Good question. he doing the best he could in that moment?

Sima Jones (00:08)
at the

Yes, with the

light that he had, the emotions that he was carrying, with the fears that he had in his brain, was he doing the best he could?

Pat Tenneriello (00:21)
Well, I feel like you want me to say yes, because then I empathize with Pat at 30.

Sima Jones (00:24)
I want you to tell

me the truth.

Pat Tenneriello (00:26)
Well, I'm a little, I'm a little ang- I'm a little angry with him. Like, I think, no, maybe he could have done better.

Sima Jones (00:26)
How about that?

Wow.

Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. you're angry with him, Pat.

Pat Tenneriello (00:35)
Yeah,

Pat Tenneriello (00:37)
Welcome to After Peter Pan, a podcast all about growing up and finding purpose. I'm your host, Pat Tenneriello In today's episode, I sit down with Sima Jones. She's a life coach. We've talked about life coaches a lot on this podcast. And so I really wanted to invite a life coach to talk about her process, her method, and of course her journey. Like how does one actually decide that they're ready to become a life coach and help other people?

with their lives. So Sima has a really interesting story, She overcomes obstacles that include depression and anxiety and childhood trauma.

And what's really interesting about this episode is we actually spent some time doing some life coaching with me. So at some point in the episode kind of spontaneously, the roles get flipped and Sima puts on her life coaching hat and we dive into elements of regret in my own life. And so for listeners, I hope this is an opportunity.

to get a sense of what it would be like to work with a life coach and maybe help you decide whether it could be a valuable resource for you. So thanks for tuning in and I really hope you enjoy the episode.

Sima Jones (01:43)
it's funny because I feel like my story isn't extraordinary, right? Perhaps to somebody else on the outside, might say, no, that's a, it's an extraordinary journey. But for me, it's always felt very ordinary and, and organic and,

coming from, you know, quite ordinary beginnings, but experiencing things like childhood trauma, things that I didn't know how to deal with as a child, put me in a very, very painful place at a very young age where I wasn't able to feel a sense of safety in the world anymore, but I also wasn't able to contextualize it or speak about it.

So there was a birth of that pain or suffering and it was very significant. And then the years that followed that, you know, through teenage years and early twenties were very much about avoiding pain. Avoid the pain, avoid the discomfort, anything that I could use, drugs, alcohol, anything that would take me away from this

sense of insecurity in the world. And it really wasn't until I experienced very deep depression and anxiety after graduating university, you know, with a really good grade, I looked perfectly functional. This is the thing. I looked so functional and you wouldn't really be able to tell unless you were very close to me that there was suffering. And also probably from my behavior choices, but

It was at that point that kind of crashing and burning, you know, with the obvious path in front of me just being ending really, right? It's like, we just follow, we go to this school, then we go to this school, then we go to university, and we keep studying, we keep achieving, and I'm supposed to feel good, right? I'm supposed to feel amazing on graduation day. I've achieved everything. My parents are watching me. They are so proud. And I felt nothing. I felt nothing. I felt empty.

And it was such a pivotal moment for me. And it was pivotal in the sense of how I define success. It was just like, wow, I've done everything. I've done everything. And I feel no joy. And I don't feel successful, actually. I don't feel successful. So that was a real turning point for me. I knew I needed help. I knew I needed help. Something wasn't okay. And it was time for me to like really start

reaching out and finding the right help too. And that wasn't necessarily from the adults who are currently around me, okay? Because yes, they love me, they do things their way, and they think that I should be doing it their way to feel successful and happy. And that wasn't working for me. That path was obvious, but it wasn't right. So there was even at that time a very deep knowing that there's something else.

there has to be something else. Like that really came from despair. And it was at that time that I discovered yoga by some miracle and just, you know, one class at a time, one pose at a time, one breath at a time, I started to be able to stay in my body. I started to be less afraid of discomfort, less afraid of pain and fear.

And to this day, can remember my yoga teacher's strong German accent, stay with the pain, stay with the discomfort. And I did it, I did it. And it changed something for me. Something else came online. was like my resilience started to reawaken. And honestly, from that point on, all I've ever done is follow my...

interest in my passions, that's it. It's just like this interests me, I'm gonna read everything about it, I'm gonna do everything. And then when it no longer has any life in it for me, doesn't feel enlivening or generative, I move on. I move on. So it's like, know, yoga, zen meditation, body, whatever it might be, just that constant evolution, constant...

How would I say it? Yeah, it's an evolution. I'm constantly learning, constantly growing, constantly putting myself out of my comfort zone. It never ends, you know? And I think a lot of people embark on anything, therapy, yoga, coaching, with an end in mind, right? I'm gonna get to a point where I'm fixed. I'm gonna get to a point where I feel amazing, I feel successful, and my work is done.

And that isn't reality. That's certainly not my experience. And I wouldn't want it to be because life is growth. It's growth. And you cannot avoid pain and suffering. You cannot avoid things that don't go your way. know, getting laid off from a job suddenly, getting the cancer diagnosis, your child is sick, right? Things don't go our way. And so...

I think what I do through my work is give people tools so that they can navigate their lives and not just tools, but a different experience of being in this world. So it's not just that they have their little toolbox and they walk away, it's more that, and this is the developmental side of it, where you actually grow your container or yourself. So you get

bigger, it's not that you avoid things, it's actually your capacity grows and then you can include the complexities of life. Because they're not going away, right? So it's how do I find that real, true, strong center within myself and live life and live life and feel playful and joyful and sad and you know, it's all gonna come, it's everything, we include everything.

And what I love about coaching is I'm coming from a place of wholeness. So I don't see you as somebody who's broken that needs to be fixed. Okay? You are coming to me as a whole human being. Everything is within you already. How do we wake that up? Okay? So that feels integral to me because I think a lot of times we can go into something or work with a teacher or...

some modality where it's like, well, I don't know, you're a little bit broken. And we see that about ourselves too, right? Like if only I wasn't so broken, if only that didn't happen to me when I was five years old, I would be something else. No, it did happen and it's part of you and your wholeness. And so how do we work with it? Like where do we take you from where you are right now currently and make your life even better?

And this is where that definition of success comes in because I will work with people who have plenty of money. They're in the job that they love. They're married to the person that they wanna be married to, but there's still something missing. And that can be really troubling, right? It's like, why have everything, now what? Why do I still feel aimless or disconnected?

And you know, so that's really important too. And you could be someone who is like, I do want to change careers or I do want to find the right partner, but you come at it from a whole place. Like this is who I am. And so through the process of working together, you know, there's a clarity that comes, there's an alignment that comes. It's suddenly, I'm clear about my values. I'm clear about what I want in this world. And then it's so much easier to create it. And not just that, you're getting the value of

being in relationship. I'm not an app, you know, I'm a human being and I have my own life and my own struggles. And so within the coaching relationship, which is different from therapy, it's more transparent. So I will reveal things about my own process and my own life, which is very humanizing for people. And I grow from my client and my client grows from me. So there's an exchange. I don't have to pretend to be perfect.

or I've got it all figured out, because I don't. I have challenges in my life all the time.

Pat Tenneriello (09:57)
so many questions I could follow up with there, but I want to go back to you. so you talked about the work. We're going to go there, but, back to the beginning of your answer, you talked about how, definition of success for you, it wasn't working and you, you were at graduation and you had done all the things that were.

you know, supposed to be successful, but you just felt numb is how I understood it. And so that success transformation at the time was success in the eyes of your parents. Is that why wasn't, you hadn't thought about what definition meant to you or yeah, can you tell me a little bit about that, that transformation of the word success to that moment and to, and to what, what, what it became for you afterwards?

Sima Jones (10:18)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah, absolutely. It was, yeah, it was, it was so defining and, and I, I had had that expectation that I'm going to feel a certain way when I complete this, I'm going to feel a certain way. And I could look at the faces of my parents and see the pride, right? You know, the expectation of pride in their faces, but I couldn't feel it in myself

I had followed what society expected, what my parents expected, and you know, that's fine. You know, it kept me on the straight and narrow. was a direction to go in and I certainly don't regret it. I look back and I think, wow, what richness I got from that period of time. But it made me question my reality. I think for the first time, really. I mean, of course there'd been moments of kind of looking around me.

Sometimes at the adults around me and just sort of thinking, God, this is madness. know, the decisions that they make or the reactions they have. But I hadn't had the experience for myself where, okay, I've done X, Y and Z. Now I'm gonna feel this. Now I'm gonna have clarity. I'm gonna know what to do next. I'm gonna feel confident. I'm gonna feel amazing. I'm gonna feel purposeful. And I was none of those things.

None of those things. And that was very difficult too, because of course the mind goes to what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? Everybody else is celebrating, what's wrong with me? And of course there were individuals there that probably felt the way I felt, but it's impossible to tell. But at that point, all of these questions and all of these experiences were very internalized for me, Pat. I didn't have someone that I shared my internal world with.

You know, I just didn't, I didn't know I could. You know, I'd never been raised to talk about myself. You know, even to this day, like right now talking to you is out of my comfort zone. I feel very uncomfortable talking about myself because it feels arrogant, selfish, self-interested, you know, all of those judgements. you know, when I say I'm a work in progress, I truly am a work in progress and...

Pat Tenneriello (12:35)
Hmm.

Sima Jones (12:47)
but I only feel alive when I face these fears and I do these things. So to go back to that experience, in a sense, it was an awakening. was, hmm, not this. And I think sometimes people think awakening is gonna be fireworks, hearts, flowers, unicorns, know, it's gonna feel incredible. No, sometimes it feels terrible. Like it's the worst you've ever felt. It's like dark night of the soul stuff.

It's, it's your inner compass telling you not this, something's off. Something's off in my thinking, something's off in my understanding of the concepts of the world around me. And I'm not in alignment. I'm not living the life that I was put here to live. And so it started me off on a completely different trajectory.

Pat Tenneriello (13:34)
And then you talked about yoga. You talked about how you were able to sit with that discomfort in your body, that it was very embodied and that yoga really helped you work through that. I'm assuming when you talk about body discomfort, you're not talking about yoga poses per se. You're talking about maybe that, what do they call it?

Sima Jones (13:39)
Thank

you

Pat Tenneriello (13:56)
that part at the end of yoga where you have to sit with yourself and you're laying on the mat and your body feels shavasana. Thank you. you tell me about that discomfort in yoga that you learned to feel in the body and then accept and, and how was yoga so, it sounds like it was really powerful on, on, on your transformation. And it was the first, sort of, tool or.

Sima Jones (13:59)
Oh, it's savasana Yeah, savasana

Hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (14:17)
Maybe use another word to help you on your journey. So I'd love to unpack that a little bit.

Sima Jones (14:23)
Yeah, absolutely. And interestingly, I'm remembering now my first experience of yoga was actually in Amman in Jordan, which is where my mother is from. And we were visiting friends there and we were visiting friends and family. And my aunt invited me to a yoga class. I'd never even heard the word yoga. So it was like somebody saying a word in a completely foreign language and me thinking,

Is that like frozen yogurt or, know, I, I honestly was like, I didn't know what she was talking about, but I said, yes. I was like, sure, I'll come. And we show up at this very tiny studio. This is when yoga wasn't, it wasn't as big as it is now. mean, this is like such beginnings. And the teacher was an 80 year old German woman living in Amman tiny little woman in a leotard, you know, so fit, so sprightly. was, I was a mate. was just like,

who is this person? She's incredible. And she started to take us through this class. so, and I was terrible at it, but I, you know, I went through the motions, I did the movements, it was a little bit funny, you know, as a first experience. But the bit that I remember that I think really planted a seed, because it's before I went through this huge, you know, dark night of the soul, actually.

was that when we left the class, remember sitting, and I can remember that memory vividly, I remember sitting in the car with my aunt and my cousin, and I looked out the window and I looked back to the studio, and the world looked different.

And I have emotion coming up now when I think about it and I couldn't understand it and I couldn't articulate it, but something was different. Objects looked different to me. The light was different. I don't think I'd ever noticed the light, the way it was hitting the bricks on the building. was, there was something and there was a voice in me that said, I don't know what this is, but I want more of it. There was a seed planted.

Pat Tenneriello (16:22)
If you could think of a word to describe that moment, what word comes to mind for you?

Sima Jones (16:30)
Grace.

grace. Yeah, it was a moment of grace and I needed it.

Pat Tenneriello (16:41)
and thus embarked your journey with yoga.

Sima Jones (16:46)
Well, interestingly, no, Pat. It's like the mind just shut that down like it never happened. It was just like, meh, left Jordan, went back to London, didn't give it another thought, got caught up in life again, got caught up in just the ways I was living, the choices I was making. No, was gone, gone. And I remember instances where friends would say, do you wanna come and try this yoga class? Do you wanna come and I'd be like, nah, no thanks. I need to study, I need to do this, I need to.

And so through that, like even though there was that invitation, I didn't take it. I didn't take it. And that's okay, right? That's okay. I wasn't ready. And instead, I, it was still, was in that mindset of must succeed, must get this done, must work harder, must make it happen. And slowly, slowly, you know, my mental health was deteriorating. I mean, I was at the point where my anxiety was so bad I could hardly eat.

I thought I had stomach ulcers. I mean, you it was really, really terrible. I was in bad shape physically and mentally once I graduated, really bad. And it wasn't till, I want to say like a year or so after graduation and at the point where I was almost agoraphobic. It was hard for me to leave my house. It was hard for me to do normal things. It was just like fear had taken over my whole being.

my mind, my body, it was like I was paralyzed. So I would overthink everything, know, anything that I was asked to do or invited to, it was just complete overthinking. And eventually I had caught up with an old school friend that I never would normally bump into and she started telling me about this yoga class that she does near her house and I should come. And I thought in my head, no way, there's no way I can drive all the way there. There's no way without having a panic attack.

Like this isn't possible for me. And somehow I overrode that, like baby steps. Okay, well I'll just drive to her house and then if I don't feel good, I can just leave. If I did it, and it was almost like I had to map it out. But I went, I remember being in that studio, very small studio, it a ballet studio, and the teacher walked in, huge six foot four German ex ballet dancer, you know.

Not what I was expecting. Another German, I know the synchronicity, he walked in and he started to speak. He started to start the yoga class, you know, and he was so commanding. And I looked at him and I thought, I want what he has. I want what he has. He embodied something that I had never seen. And it was, again, it was like that voice in me that was like, you need this. Do what he says, like follow that.

Pat Tenneriello (19:00)
Another German.

Sima Jones (19:28)
And you know, it was, and then as the other thing I learned through that practice of yoga with that teacher was Zen meditation. So at the end of the class, he would, we would do Shavasana, but then he would bring out the Zafus, the black cushions, and we would each have one of those and we would have to sit for maybe 10 minutes. It wasn't even that long. It was hell on earth. I was just like, you know, what is this? Like, I hate it.

It's horrible having to sit still, but there was also something that I was so curious about. like, well, yeah, but what is this? And why do I feel better after I do it? And, you know, so there was a really interesting relationship to meditation at the beginning. And, and I want to answer your question as well about the discomfort because it's twofold. So the discomfort was in my body. It was a very strenuous, very hard yoga class. You know, it wasn't like come here and it was like, you know, that's,

Pat Tenneriello (20:16)
Okay.

Sima Jones (20:19)
I think how yoga works best is when you're reaching your edge physically, because you are stretching yourself physically and mentally. You can I do this? This doesn't feel good. I want to stop. I want to pull away. You know, that whole relationship that we have with discomfort and pain. So not only was I learning to lean into the discomfort, the pain, differentiating between pain and discomfort, but also mentally, I mean,

I was constantly psyching myself out. was negatively speaking to myself internally, judging myself, criticizing myself. So yoga opened that relationship for me to my internal world. It was just like, what is going on here? What is going? But also I felt better. I felt better after every single class. Soon I was going, you know, three times a week. He would let me come even though I couldn't afford it because I needed it. And I think he could see that.

Pat Tenneriello (20:57)
Mm-hmm.

Sima Jones (21:10)
and I was committed, you know? It's like I would show up and I would do the practice. So was, you know, it really was a love-hate relationship at the beginning, because a lot of people say, I hate yoga, I hate meditation. Yeah, you should, it's awful. But then as you continue to practice, it's the same way with lifting weights in the gym. You know, I weight lift three times a week and I love it. And when I first started, I hated it.

Pat Tenneriello (21:16)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sima Jones (21:37)
But the benefits that you get, that feeling of being stronger, of more commanding in your body, you it's like you reap the rewards. And so if you stay with these things long enough, you will start to love them. You will. And you will miss them the same way that if you didn't brush your teeth one morning, you would go, I feel kind of strange. What didn't I do? And then, you know, it's there because it's in the muscle memory.

Pat Tenneriello (21:48)
Mm-hmm.

you've talked about anxiety a lot. You talked about depression and you also talked early on about childhood trauma.

depression and anxiety was that rooted primarily in childhood trauma, would you say? And typically with childhood trauma, mean,

It requires some, oftentimes some deep therapy, you know, so I was just curious and I, I, you and I said this when we spoke the first time we have, I feel like our stories are intertwined in some ways. Like I also, I'm a survivor of childhood trauma. also connected deeply with meditation, yoga to a lesser extent, but I also get, get a lot out of yoga.

But when it came to childhood trauma, needed a significant amount of therapy to work through that. I knew it was kind of like that skeleton in the closet that I wasn't ready to open the door and try and face. It took maybe not rock bottom, but it took some upheaval in my life to kind of say, now it's now or never. So I was wondering if you could touch on, you know,

as much as you're comfortable, of course, with your childhood trauma and how it tied with your depression and your anxiety and how you work through that.

Sima Jones (23:23)
Yeah, that's such a good point, Pat. And, you know, I have to really say the same, you know, that my awareness or my willingness to even remember the trauma didn't come till much later in my life. And I don't know if I could have really allowed it to surface if I hadn't felt safer in my body. So even

though I was doing the yoga, the meditation, I was feeling better, there were still places in me that felt very shut down, I didn't know why I'd have certain reactions to certain people or certain environments or certain things. There was a part of me that I was still really protecting, like protecting with fight or flight, like survival. And it wasn't until

after having my first child and then embarking on therapy, which is a godsend. I I got very lucky with the therapist that I found and have worked with her for decades. mean, just, you and the relationship and the trust has allowed me to kind of become who I am and who I continue to be, right? So it's all these, all these things have a place at the right time.

I really do think that, that there's this timing to all these things. And when there's trust in a relationship with a therapist, there is space for these things to come up. And I don't, I think maybe I would have recalled it at some point. It's like, know, you know there's something that you're holding onto or hiding from yourself. And it manifests in different ways, right? Manifests just by like reaction, not being able to control your reactions.

shutting down, not knowing why, eating too much sugar, smoking, drinking. So all those years where I was trying to avoid and hide from the pain, I didn't know what I was hiding from. I had no memory of it. So there had to come a point where there was an acceptance of, my childhood wasn't perfect. There was actually some things that went on.

Pat Tenneriello (25:20)
Hmm.

Sima Jones (25:30)
that have really hurt me. And there have been some adults in my life who have really hurt me. And that was, that was a real deepening, Pat, because I think through the yoga, you know, I've been able to come home to my body more than I'd ever been able to, feel comfortable in my skin. And then the Zen meditation gave me a sense of vastness. There was something,

larger than me. There was something that I was a part of that was really powerful, you know, being able to access that emptiness that is incredible. I mean, you know it because you do the practice, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough. So I think, you know, that's when I was ready to like really dive deep into relationship, you know, and I think

If you have a good therapist or a good coach, that can give that to you, right? That trusted person where you can really talk about everything. so that, yeah, I advocate hugely for therapy. And if you try it and the first therapist you don't like, go look for another one and just keep looking until you find the right person. Because if you're working with the wrong person, you're wasting your time and your money.

Pat Tenneriello (26:24)
you

Hmm.

In your professional life, I remember you talked about how you were in the fashion space and you transitioned to mental health. I was curious what that transition looked like for you.

Sima Jones (26:44)
Mm.

Pretty radical. I know, and I think that that idea of fashion was again, something that I had just sort of judged as acceptable. Like that's an acceptable thing. Okay, it's not quite related to my degree, but it's still, you know, quite privileged people that work or did work in the fashion magazine space at that time. So it wasn't such a shock, you know, kind of to a family or friends. But I very...

very early on knew this wasn't the right environment for me. And I had already started very deep yoga practice at that time. So they coincided, there was this overlap between going to these yoga classes and showing up to work every day. And there just being a huge disconnect. It's like, I could tell, no, this is interesting to me, this isn't, you know, they didn't match. So the transition that happened was,

And this was also a time where there weren't really teacher trainings. There weren't formal teacher trainings. There was perhaps one or two, but really you became a yoga teacher through apprenticeship. And my teacher was my mentor and I learned everything from him. And there came a point where he just said to me, why aren't you teaching? And I was just like, what? You know, no. He was like, yeah, you're ready. Go teach.

I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, cause I could never be like him, right? It was like this on a pedestal. I'm not that I'm just little old me. So those old fears were all there. but I listened to him, you know, trusted him with pretty much everything else. So it's like, yeah, okay. Maybe I can, maybe I can do this. So of course everyone around me, you've got to be kidding me. That isn't a real job. How are you going to make money? You know, all those questions and

But I did it, I did it because it was alive in me. I loved it, I knew it worked. And so why not? And I think it was at a time where yoga was becoming a little bit more known. There weren't a ton of teachers. And I loved that time. It was really special. It was really, really special. I mean, now everybody's a yoga teacher. You can get trained as a yoga teacher in a weekend. Same with coaching.

Pat Tenneriello (29:03)
.

Sima Jones (29:06)
For me, my whole kind of career in working life, career is a funny word for me, but has been through mentorships and apprenticeships and going incredibly deep into things within my own personal development. I couldn't do what I do if I didn't do this myself. Does that make sense? I can only take my client as far as I've been within myself. That's it. So...

Pat Tenneriello (29:32)
Hmm.

Sima Jones (29:33)
You know, there's always that learning and that growing. And I hope I answered your question about the trauma, but I think, you know, it comes up when it's ready and when you're ready to deal with it and handle it. And hopefully you have support with you. And if you don't find it, because it's really, it can make or break, I think.

Pat Tenneriello (29:52)
So how did you go from yoga teacher and then Zen practice to life coach? What did that leap look like?

Sima Jones (30:01)
Yeah, that's really interesting. And I really want to say, I never thought in a million years, I'd be a life coach. Okay. Like personal development coach, life coach. Like I never guessed this was going to happen. Friends will say, yeah, of course you're doing that. Like you've always been like that. It's like people can see us more clearly than we see ourselves. But for me, there was a shift once I entered motherhood and I had been teaching at that point, teaching yoga for over a decade and

I had reached a point where I still loved the practice, but there was something missing for me. It was like, this is great. Like I can put people through the movements and they're gonna have an experience. And sometimes we would talk about it. Students would wanna ask questions or wanna know more about it. But it felt like there was a level of depth that was missing for me. And it's not that way for all yoga teachers and it could have been just

where I was at in my life, but it wasn't enough. And at that point, so starting therapy and starting to explore, you know, the healing power of relationship and conversation and intimacy was really, really huge for me. So I continued kind of studying and learning and I went into a mentorship with a coach who

Pat Tenneriello (30:58)
Mm-hmm.

Sima Jones (31:22)
bases her coaching around a process of inquiry, which allows you to question your thoughts, concepts, et cetera, which is something I'd never done directly. How do I say this? So through the Zazen, through the meditation, which I continued to do, so many sesshins everything, I still didn't really know how to work with my mind. And that might sound crazy to people, because it's like,

You've spent decades doing this stuff. What do you mean you still have jealous rages or collapsing insecurity or these things that people start to project onto you when you've been practicing a while that you're not supposed to experience. But I knew then myself, it's like, well, why am I still reacting when my husband says that? Why do I blow up in rage when he's just asking me something really simple? So it's...

there was some part of me that didn't quite know how to work with my mind and my projections. And that's where I sort of reached a limit with just the Zen practice, just sitting in meditation. Because you can't meditate your life away. It just isn't gonna work, right? It's a medicine to a certain point, but then you need to go further. So through this inquiry process, I was able to really dissolve a lot of them.

concepts that I had about people in the world, the judgments I was holding. And it was really during that period, that mentorship and facilitating, you know, tens of people through the process, I was able to forgive a lot, a lot, Pat, that I was still holding, like so much resentment and fear and envy that was poisoning me, honestly.

I mean, you wouldn't know it. can ask the people around me, but it was, it was just, there was a level of disease, dis-ease in me that I wasn't willing to live with anymore. It was like, there's more to this. There's more to this. My mind is playing tricks on me. So that was incredibly powerful. just, and again, I did that just for my own interest, just for my own development. But at a certain point, you know, the mentor said, you're really good at this. You know, you're really.

Pat Tenneriello (33:12)
Okay.

Sima Jones (33:30)
And of course I was facilitating so many people as part of my training and working with people that it was a natural progression again to start working people in that capacity. And then at a certain point that also wasn't enough, okay? Because again, following that what feels generative to me, what feels enlivening to me, I need to bring more into this coaching. It's not just about this tool, okay?

I can bring everything. can bring all of who I am, all of my experience, all of my skills and tools and talents, and I can share those. So how can I serve people best without holding back? know, no, can't, you know, I'm not quite ready yet. Cause I think, I think a lot of people can relate to that too. It's like, well, when I'm ready, I'll do this. When I'm, when I've got that certification, I'll do that. When I feel confident, I'll do that. You will be waiting your whole life.

Confidence is built through doing. You have to do the things, even if you feel afraid, even if you feel unprepared. So, and I think that crosses genders, it's just human nature. And, you know, that's what I'm continually doing myself is stepping into the unknown over and over again. And I encourage my clients to do it, I encourage your audience to do it. You know, that thing that you're...

Pat Tenneriello (34:25)
Mm. Mm.

Sima Jones (34:52)
You're putting off that thing that you're, well, I'm not quite ready. I'm not quite sure. Do it. You're going to find out what it is by doing it. That's part of the evolution. Like if we had it all figured out, be so boring. Be so boring if I already knew what the pinnacle of my coaching is going to be or what I'm going to do next, right? Let me discover it. Like let it unfold because so much of it is

to do with our own development, but also the timing, the circumstances around us. Sometimes you haven't been through something that you really need to experience before you have the clarity to say, right, I'm gonna do that, or I'm gonna live here, or I'm gonna marry this person. I trust life, Pat. Like I trust the timing of life.

Pat Tenneriello (35:41)
I'm smiling because you're touching on a lot of themes that have come up in previous episodes that are really powerful and important. One is you're never going to feel 100 % certain. You need to be willing to take some form of risk. You need to have a relationship with failure where you can embrace failure as a learning opportunity. I had one, someone on the podcast.

Sima Jones (36:00)
No.

Pat Tenneriello (36:06)
recently who said, I don't believe in failure. I believe in mistakes and what do do with mistakes? You learn from them. And so I find that consistently the people that I have on the show have, a very positive way, a positive relationship with failure, willingness to take risk, a willingness to embrace courage over confidence. And by practicing courage, it's like a muscle. You just, you develop more courage.

Sima Jones (36:24)
Thank

Yeah!

Pat Tenneriello (36:31)
And so I feel like a lot of those themes came in, the answer that you just gave, which I thought was, was really great I want to get a more specific into the, into the life coaching.

what would you say is the most common struggle that clients come to you with?

Sima Jones (36:46)
Yeah, that's interesting because there are so many different struggles. Maybe if I say it this way, whatever the person presents with is never the problem. Like it feels like it's the problem. It feels very, very real. And we've got all kinds of proof that it's this. If I could just fix this, if I could fix my husband or if I could land the right job, or if I had this much money in the bank or if my, you know, my heart work probably, I would be okay.

So what I would say is what universally connects us is that we on some level don't feel okay and we wanna fix something or someone. Okay? But really what I see is the problem is most people are out of alignment. Most people don't know what they want. They don't know who they are. They don't know what they think. And...

There has to be a certain level of pain or discomfort, you the same thing we've been talking about, the pain or discomfort to seek help, to want something to be different. It's become unmanageable. It's, you know, I can't do this anymore. I'm fed up. Or I'm trying to create something. I want to create this business. I want to create this thing. And I'm stuck. I don't know how. So there's something going on that is calling for more clarity. There's something within the person that is calling

calling for growth, okay? Because it's like, what if you could never fix that person? If you can never change that, if you never achieve that, can you be okay?

Pat Tenneriello (38:15)
Mm-hmm.

Sima Jones (38:15)
And that's a tough

question to answer, right? Because most people go, absolutely not. No. Like, that is not OK. It's not acceptable. I don't want this. And it's not about condoning or allowing bad situations, but it's just, what are my choices here? Like, most of time, we don't see our own choices because we are so tangled within our minds.

We're a mess. So how do I find clarity? And I help people get clear, get really, really clear. And with clarity comes more joy, comes more love, more wholeness, more acceptance, more courage, more willingness to step into the unknown. And so it really doesn't matter what you present with because you're gonna go on a journey and it's going to...

Pat Tenneriello (38:50)
Hmm.

Sima Jones (39:02)
put you in a stronger and better place and a place where you understand yourself more and you know what you want. You know whether you want to stay in this relationship or leave. You know, actually this is the direction I want to go with my work. that's the next person to talk to for this project. I can do this. So there's an empowerment that I see happening, like visibly in front of me. A client will come to me and they have a complete different physicality.

from the minute I start working with them to the end of our time together.

Pat Tenneriello (39:30)
Like their body language, the way they...

Sima Jones (39:31)
Yes, the way they present physically, it's incredible. So, you know, we're working on rewiring, we're working on the physiology of the body, opening the heart, you know, all these things are happening at once, that wholeness, you know, coming back to that, you are completely whole, you're just confused. So let's start there, right?

Pat Tenneriello (39:36)
Got it.

you say clarity, bringing this back to myself.

in many ways. was the eldest child and I kind of put my needs second to my siblings didn't take the time to ask myself what I wanted or what I needed. And so in that sense, there wasn't a sense of clarity. then from, a professional perspective as well, like I was chugging along in a, in what

would traditionally be viewed as a successful career. But I had never stopped and asked myself, well, what does success mean for me? yeah, the money's looking really good and I'm starting to manage people. so on the outside that's, looks great, but why is it? I feel so crummy on the inside or, or that there's some void or there's something that's not, it's not really speaking to a sense of meaning and purpose.

need to know what you're aiming at. You need to define what that is.

Sima Jones (40:43)
Yes.

yes. Yes. I completely relate. And I think, again, another parallel with us in the same respect, I'm the eldest sibling and always being so aware of the younger siblings and what they need and what needs to be taken care of. And this label of if I focus on myself, it's selfish, or if I say no, it's selfish. So that's been a huge part of my journey is creating boundaries and

discovering myself, right? Not just as the caretaker, not just as the leader, not the one who has it all together, but actually who am I really and what do I really want and what really brings me joy? And not just like in work, but how I wanna live my daily life, how I wanna interact with my children, with my husband. know, that again, that definition of success, know, success to me feels like at this point in my life feels like...

my kids feeling safe enough with me that they can talk to me about things that are going on in their life, right? My husband being able to lean on me in difficult times,

how can I show up for him? Right? How can I continue to show up for myself and take care of myself, my business, my children, but also support him? To me, that feels successful. Really, being able to go through hard times with your partner and not kill each other, not attack each other, not kind of make it about them. Right? So being able to turn the light on myself.

Pat Tenneriello (42:00)
Do you think that we grow up and like, you know, there's, pressure from our parents, course, to, follow whatever success means in their eyes, but also culture, you know, from a society and culture perspective, we kind of instill in young people that career is like, is going to get you to that idea of success. And I think we do a tremendous disservice because I think at some point those young people wake up and they say, yeah, this, isn't

Sima Jones (42:19)
Yes.

Pat Tenneriello (42:27)
doing it for me. and, now that I have perspective, cause I'm a father and a husband, without a doubt, can say that a sense, a deep sense of meaning, like I would, I never have been able to achieve from a career perspective has been from playing those, from being in those roles. I kind of wish I would have woken up to that sooner, younger. And I wonder,

Sima Jones (42:33)
and

Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (42:51)
that, those, these are thoughts that you've had before,

Sima Jones (42:53)
Sure, and just a little, if you don't mind me coaching you just really quickly, but something, and I think everyone can relate to that, right? We can all find places in our life that we regret, if only. If only I'd known sooner. If only someone had told me. If only somehow, and then just really like, very gently as an inquiry, like, how does that regret serve me? Really? How does that serve me? Like, how do I feel when I'm in that regret? Like, maybe you could...

share right now a little bit about how you feel when you really like drop into that story of like, oh, I wish I'd known that sooner. Like, what does that feel like for you, Pat?

And I'm in it with you. I can feel it too.

Pat Tenneriello (43:34)
I would say that it feels like there were lost years as a result of it.

Sima Jones (43:42)
Yes. Yes. And you can see images of like everything that you would have been doing.

Pat Tenneriello (43:45)
Like, time.

Yeah, or more images of things I was doing that I wish I hadn't been doing.

Sima Jones (43:54)
Okay. Yeah, I do. I do.

Pat Tenneriello (43:56)
You know?

And you know, some of the, the career driven decisions, they, they pulled me away from my loved ones and my family. brought me to these really exciting places. And on, on one hand, I'm very grateful for that. And it was very exciting and I feel like there was a lot of growth, but on the other hand, there was at times it was loneliness, solitude, sadness.

And, you know, making new friends at 18 is one thing, making new friends at 25 is another thing. Making new friends at 35 is another thing. You know, at some point people are not, not interviewing so much for new friends. When they get to a certain age, they're kind of good with the ones that they got. And so when you get plunked into a new place and you don't know anyone, it's, it's not easy, you know, to build, build out a new network. so, and it was, the struggle was real. It was.

I can hold both of those things. think like the, excitement, the gratefulness and some really unique experiences. but on the other hand, that's where kind of some of that regret is, well, what if, you know, what if I, I knew deep down, like I wanted to be closer to home and yet I agreed to go and do this. And I thought, it'll just be a year. And then a year turned into two and two turned into four. And, and that's what I mean when I say some of these years kind of ran away from me.

Sima Jones (45:29)
Yeah, and I'm sure everyone can relate to this, right? We all have our own story of where we should have been and what we should have been doing. And I want to invite you just to stay or come back to that feeling of regret. Like really stay with that, okay? Because you've done a lot of practice, I can tell. So you've done a lot of work on yourself and the fact that you're able to hold both, you're able to move from one to the other, the regret to the great, the gratitude is how I would describe it.

shows that you have this capacity. So you've already grown your capacity, yourself, your ego enough that you can hold different experiences at the same time. But I feel like there's something that this regret is calling from you, this like little voice, this, and I want you to just stay with it. Can you describe how it feels in your body when you stay with that?

story of regret, but also the feeling. What does it feel like? Because it feels different for everyone. Like regret for me, I feel it like right here in my heart. You my throat kind of feels a bit constricted. Where does the regret show itself?

Maybe your shoulders kind of hunch forward.

Pat Tenneriello (46:37)
Yeah, I'm trying to think about that.

Sima Jones (46:40)
No, don't think. Close your eyes. Feel. Feel. Let your thoughts go to that time, the loneliness, the disconnect, the hard to connect with friends. Like, where do you feel that? Is it in your stomach?

Pat Tenneriello (46:54)
Hmm.

Yeah, that was so that that was, that's very vivid to me. That's, that's in my chest and in my stomach. And it's like a, like a void, like an, like an emptiness. and, you know, in, my case, I would fill that with manic, manic dating, you know, I'd just go on these dating apps and just try and, know,

Sima Jones (47:03)
Hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (47:24)
volume, just kind of meet as many people as I can. And, and I think that when I trace back that action, it was from that, that place of emptiness, but coming back to the regret, you know, there are other times in my life where I feel regret and even like the fact that I'm a bit older and I'm a dad, like that, that's okay. You know, like I feel like I, it's not such a thing for me, but what is a thing with regret? Cause I certainly can think of moments of regret is when

Sima Jones (47:26)
Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (47:53)
It's when I could have, I wanted to make a decision like,

Like an investment, like buying a house or something. But I, I was, I was afraid. And so would lean on people to kind of help push me. But what they did is they instilled anxiety in me and that, and, so I, you know, in, those moments, I didn't pull the trigger and now I have regrets. Cause I look back and say, well, that would have been so great had I taken that decision. And.

Sima Jones (48:23)
We don't

Pat Tenneriello (48:26)
And so what it feels like to me though is not in my body. It's these pangs of I'll be laying my head on the pillow at night or in the morning and I'll get these pangs of regret like in my brain.

Sima Jones (48:44)
Show me where you feel it because there's always a physical feeling. I want you to connect the two because you have a brilliant, brilliant mind and it would serve you greatly to be able to connect with your body and to be able to.

create that relationship between what is happening in the mind and how the body manifests that.

Pat Tenneriello (49:16)
I think it's, it's.

It's up here in the shoulders, tense, tense in the shoulders. Stress here, like in the neck and shoulders. Like I just, sometimes I find myself doing this. And so I think, yeah, I think that's one place.

Sima Jones (49:37)
Good, Pat, good, good. Yeah, just be in that. know, one of the themes that has been running through this whole conversation has been running from pain and discomfort, right? We wanna avoid. And one of the ways we avoid our pain and discomfort is through the mind running away with itself, right? I can find a million reasons why I shoulda, woulda, coulda, or how this coulda turned out differently.

We can be addicted to our thoughts. I know that sounds really strange, but we can. And we can be addicted to our patterns and we can be addicted to our stress. Okay? So what we're doing here is just kind of cutting or bypassing this story. Cause you're going to find a million regrets. I can, I know I can. I bet everyone listening can find a million regrets and how they should have done something differently. How do we make peace with that within ourselves?

Right? And it's not by figuring it out or beating ourselves up. It's like, can I stay with this feeling right now? Can I be here right now? This is what regret feels like to me. It feels like pangs in the head. feels like the short, it might be different for someone else. They might get a twitchy eye. They might get a headache. know, everybody's different. And so that invitation to just slow down, check in, what is going on inside of me right now? Feel that. Okay.

And then how is that serving me? Like how is that story of shoulda, woulda, coulda, or regret even serving me in my life right now? When you look back at him, when you look back at that guy, that version of Pat, who allowed himself to be guided by others around him about whether to make a purchase on a house or not, do you see him? Do you have a good sense of him?

Pat Tenneriello (51:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sima Jones (51:31)
Some people are visual, some people can feel it, but just, yeah.

That guy, how old is he? Give me an age. Doesn't have to be accurate, just roughly.

Pat Tenneriello (51:39)
35.

Sima Jones (51:40)
Okay, so 35 year old Pat, you there he is. So let's say 30, 30 year old Pat, he's just trying to do the best he can, right? He's got these people influencing, that's what he needed then. Like when you look at him, is he doing the best he can with what he's got? And we're not talking about, you know, the you that you are right now. We're not talking about the you sat in this chair who's...

Pat Tenneriello (51:42)
Maybe younger than that. I'd 30.

Sima Jones (52:05)
building a successful podcast and following his passions and doing it. We're talking about that guy. Okay? Was he doing the best he could?

Pat Tenneriello (52:12)
question. he doing the best he could in that moment?

Sima Jones (52:12)
at the time.

Yes, with the

light that he had, the emotions that he was carrying, with the fears that he had in his brain, was he doing the best he could?

Pat Tenneriello (52:26)
Well, I feel like you want me to say yes, because then I empathize with Pat at 30.

Sima Jones (52:30)
I want you to tell

me the truth.

Pat Tenneriello (52:32)
Well, I'm a little, I'm a little ang- I'm a little angry with him. Like, I think, no, maybe he could have done better.

Sima Jones (52:32)
How about that?

Wow.

Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, you're angry with him, Pat. What does that feel like to be so angry right now?

Pat Tenneriello (52:41)
Yeah. Yeah, I feel.

I'm, how does that feel like? It feels,

Sima Jones (52:51)
What does it feel like

in your physical body? Let's bring it back again. Come into your body. What does it feel like? I'm angry with him.

Pat Tenneriello (52:57)
It feels like I just released something from saying that.

Yeah, feels like that was a moment of, that's not something I've ever said or thought a thought before, that I was angry for that. Sorry, go ahead.

Sima Jones (53:04)
Good.

Yeah.

Can I reflect something to you that I noticed is when you said that out loud, I'm angry with him. You came alive. You came alive. You got bigger. You had more energy. I could see like a spark in your eye. Okay, something shifted.

What does that feel like?

Pat Tenneriello (53:33)
Like I said, like a release, a lighter, feel a bit lighter.

Sima Jones (53:39)
Yeah, I can see that.

Pat Tenneriello (53:41)
My spine, think. I feel something in my spine.

Sima Jones (53:44)
Yeah.

Isn't that interesting?

Pat Tenneriello (53:45)
It is, I want to forgive myself. know, like I, at the end of the day, like I, you know, when I meditate, this comes through, right? Like these thoughts. And of course I, I don't cling to them. I let them go. And then I think, well, if I do that off, like enough times, the thoughts not going to come back, but it does.

Sima Jones (54:06)
Been

there, been there, done that. It does, doesn't it? I know, they won't leave us alone. They won't leave us alone. The mind does not leave us alone. And we need to work with it. We need a relationship with it. We need it to come home. We need, we cannot move forward in our lives when we are holding resentments. And you demonstrated this so perfectly that it isn't always resentments to others. Sometimes it's to ourselves.

Pat Tenneriello (54:09)
Yeah

Sima Jones (54:35)
then we can't forgive. can't forgive my teenage self for the terrible choices she made. I can't forgive my 20 year old self for what she did. It's crippling. And then we wonder why we can't create what we want to create. Because we need to free up that energy. We need that. That's our life force.

Pat Tenneriello (54:53)
This feels like therapy.

Sima Jones (54:54)
Yeah, but I don't, you know, but what we're not doing is, tell me about your childhood. Tell me about your, do you understand what I'm saying? I'm taking you. Yes. Sure. Yeah. That you shared, right? So it's like, we have a conversation and things come to the surface and we work with where you are right now.

Pat Tenneriello (55:02)
You're taking me back to a potential, not a trauma, but something that I'm a blockage, I guess.

Sima Jones (55:20)
Okay, and where you are right now could be 25 year old self, right? Cause he was in the room too. Like you're here, but there's also something else here that's kind of in the shadows that needs some attention that needs to be brought forward. So this is, this is, and I love that you say that because I do think the way I work is very therapeutic. It is. So there's some, there's healing that goes on. It's about like gathering the parts of yourself that have been trapped or stuck.

Pat Tenneriello (55:40)
Hmm.

Sima Jones (55:48)
And sometimes they are in the past. Sometimes it is about us. Sometimes it's about somebody else. But it's also about how do I move forward with this, right? So you experience that sense of relief or aliveness. Something was different. You could connect to your spine. You have an awareness now of, you know what? My thoughts keep coming back. Like my stories come back even if I meditate 10 hours a day. They still come back.

Right, you're human, we all are. So now there's like something in part that is more aware. And when that feeling of regret comes back, because it will, because we all feel regret, instead of waking up at 3am, you might just wake up, feel the tension, have the thought and go, yeah, regret. Yeah, yeah, I'm mad at him. He made such a stupid mistake.

Pat Tenneriello (56:39)
Hello, old friend.

Sima Jones (56:41)
Hello old friend, exactly. And to me, something that is valuable, really valuable is befriending ourselves. It really is, Pat. Because I think there's an authenticity in that. We live a more peaceful life and people are more comfortable around us. People trust us more. I I want to acknowledge how trusting you've been through this process, even that you would have done that, that you would have opened up.

and allowed me to guide you through just that very, very brief tiny experience or tiny shift. You know, that takes courage and I want to honor that. And I always feel grateful when people are able to, you know, reveal themselves to me, even if it's their 25 year old self or their five year old self or the self that was yesterday, you know?

Pat Tenneriello (57:29)
Well, I'm very grateful for it too, to get a glimpse behind the curtain of what a life coaching session or a piece of it might look like. That was integrated into the conversation very, I wouldn't say sneakily, it just flowed really kind of naturally. I didn't even know I was in it and all of a sudden we were...

Sima Jones (57:30)
this.

Okay, let's.

I'm sorry, you gave me something and it's like, I just did it like

it and it's like, that's the thing. That's the thing that needs to be worked on. So for me, the way I work and obviously not all coaches are the same, not all therapists are the same. My work is very intuitive. It's a lot about listening and I never know what's gonna come up. We never know, you know, what's gonna be worked on, but I want to acknowledge the shift that you had. And then I think a lot of people think life coaching has to be this like,

Pat Tenneriello (57:56)
Yeah.

Sima Jones (58:17)
hard grind. No, you naturally will shift. I think we're all so adaptable and we kind of want to find that higher ground or that peaceful place. And so my job is to kind of like guide you or see things that you can't necessarily see. You couldn't see your shadow, right? You couldn't see the shadow of your 25 year old self. He was hidden. So he doesn't frighten me. I can bring him forwards and you're gonna go through the next few weeks and I wanna hear from you about

Do know what I've realized since I had that shift? Do you know what I learned from him? It doesn't matter what it is, or I just feel better, or I'm talking differently to my son, or I'm something, but you will feel a difference. There will have been repercussions to the work that you just did.

Pat Tenneriello (58:54)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sima Jones (59:03)
This is powerful stuff, okay? This is medicine.

Pat Tenneriello (59:07)
And yeah, I mean, I can feel it in my body. It's still that lightness I described and, sort of like a, like a connection with myself. I would say still there as well. I wanted to ask you, like, how would you describe the method? Like in life coaching, are there schools of methods and you're following one or how do you talk about the method for your life coaching?

Sima Jones (59:12)
It's still there.

challenging for me because I feel like the way I work is very unique and I'm not the type of life coach, and I never say never, but I'm not the type of life coach that will go into a corporation and tell you how to run your organization or how to structure yourself. I can give very, very practical advice and I do to my clients, but my work, as I said before, is very intuitive. It brings together all of my

coaching experience, my meditation experience, my yoga experience, therapy that I've been through, it brings together everything, everything married together, all the healing work that I've ever been trained in. And it comes out like this. It just does. It's so hard. And the label Life Coach was very hard for me to accept. Okay. Because I feel like it's actually quite limiting. I like Self-Development Coach a little bit better.

Pat Tenneriello (1:00:11)
Okay.

Sima Jones (1:00:24)
because I help people grow, you And that's something that I think I've resonated with about your podcast because it feels like that's what this message is. It's like, well, how do we grow, right? You can do it this way, this way, this way. There's so many different ways to work with yourself and your mind and your life. And that's what makes life interesting. And all these voices that you've had, these different voices on the podcast are all speaking to...

How do I show up in my life? Given that all these factors, external circumstances are going on and they're challenging, how do I show up in my life? I wanna live my life to the fullest. I wanna feel whole. All of these things, right? And we talked about that failure to launch. Like when we fail to launch, we're stuck, we know we're stuck. Who can help me? That's all I do. I just help people get from A to B. You're here, you wanna get here.

I'll help you. That's it. And the difference with coaching and therapy is coaching, work six, 12 months maybe with a client and then you're flying. Therapy, you you can be in it for your whole life and that's fine too, right? It's just, I help people get unstuck and I use whatever tool method is necessary to do that. And a lot of times that skill or that tool will reveal itself in the moment with the client and I always trust that.

Pat Tenneriello (1:01:45)
have quite a mix of listeners and I'm grateful to every single one of them. But when I came up with the idea for the podcast, I thought that who would need that growing up message was mostly men. And so I was wondering that demographic of men, maybe, you know, early to middle age,

Have you done a lot of work with that demographic and what have you seen that that demographic is struggling with and what sort of tools have you found that they resonate with to help them in their personal growth journey?

Sima Jones (1:02:18)
Yeah, I think that demographic is struggling. And I have a son myself, I have a teenage son. And so I'm very, very aware of it, very conscious of it. There's a lot in the zeitgeist, in the media right now, this whole like women's empowerment, which is wonderful. And girls are excelling, doing better than boys at everything. And boys are absorbing this, by the way, okay?

Everyone is very switched on. They are well aware of it. My son will mention things like that to me. And I don't think boys should be left behind. I think there's a real problem with viewing toxic masculinity, not really understanding what it is, but that there can be very integrated and whole masculine showing up. I mean, the masculine is very, very important. And

Men are struggling because they're finding it hard to express masculinity in a healthy way or in any way without maybe getting canceled, getting shot down. You know, it's confusing. How do I show up? Like it's been done like this. People don't seem to like that anymore. So how am I supposed to show up in the world? How am I, you know, how do I know, right? So that's very specific to what I see young men dealing with.

And then something that transcends both genders is failure to launch. I mean, that can happen to girls too. That can happen to young women, right? So again, I think it comes back to or ties back to clarity. What do I want? What do I think and believe? Not the shoulds, not the should nots that are all around me, the way I've been raised, my conditioning, okay, which is so solid, so concrete. If I deviate from this, you know, I'm gonna be shunned. I mean, humans want to be

accepted, we want to belong. So it's very hard for us to step out of what is expected or what other people want for us. Like that's a biological survival tool. Okay, so when we talk about, just do what you want. just, it's not that easy. We're not wired that way. So it's helping young people, men and women figure out what they want, what they think and believe beyond the way they've been raised.

And some people have been raised wonderfully, right? Some people luck out and they have great parents, great communities, and they know exactly what they want and they go get it, and that's wonderful. And bad things still happen in people's lives, right? We get the diagnosis, something doesn't go our way. Everybody has suffering, everybody, that's universal. And so I think for young men, gosh, being in relationship is so key.

Okay, so whether you do embark on therapy or a coach, just being in relationship, not online, not losing yourself in the video games, the online pornography, the dating apps, et cetera, but learning how to communicate, learning how to be intimate in a safe container, I think is beyond valuable, beyond, because it's gonna give you skills that are gonna stay with you for the rest of your life.

Something we didn't mention, Pat, which I think is so fundamental to my work is the importance of death, the importance that we only have a certain amount of time. And I always hold that present and not in a morbid way, but just, this life and death is very precious. And how can I carry that with me throughout the day in my interactions? Like if this was the last conversation you and I were ever gonna have, because it could be.

then what is the quality of that conversation? It shifts something, right? Immediately I'm like more present, yeah. So when I work with people, the skills that you get, the tools that you get, the embodiment that you get, the change that you get, you will have on your deathbed. You may not remember me, but you are different. And that to me is why I do the work I do. Because I can't give a greater gift, I can't.

Pat Tenneriello (1:05:49)
I love that.

Sima Jones (1:06:12)
I give it to myself and I give it to the people I work with. So I think that's just like a really important thing for me to mention.

Pat Tenneriello (1:06:19)
That reminds me of something you said in our first conversation where you said, you said clarity of self, and then you said purpose is always centered around service. So.

Sima Jones (1:06:25)
Hmm.

Yeah.

yeah. yeah. And that, you know, Pat, it doesn't have to be in your work, right? It's how I make the sandwiches for my kids in the morning. It's folding my husband's boxer shorts and putting them in the drawer. It's the presence. Until I could bring presence to my life and find purpose in the mundane, there's no hope in having it anywhere else. Can I wash the dishes on purpose? Can I show up?

and coach someone on purpose. It's about bringing my whole self. And I'm not always successful at it, okay? I'm not, I'm human. I have my good days, I have my bad days. And that's why we need things like coaches, therapists, yoga teachers, whatever form it comes in, these voices that penetrate through the fog, right? It's like, I say something and you're like, yeah.

Right? And you start to think in a different way. We need those voices. We need them. I've needed them my entire life. And now I give that to others, which feels very much in alignment with my whole being,

Pat Tenneriello (1:07:39)
I really appreciate your story. And I'm wondering, you seem to be in a remarkable place in your life and so much so that people want to work with you.

And it sounds like you're successful at helping people, which is what brings you a sense of purpose. And so what's your Achilles heel? Like, is it? What do feel like you're still trying to work through?

Sima Jones (1:08:03)
that's such a good question. think daily, you know, confidence and, we've talked about confidence. doing things, even though I'm still afraid, having the conversation, even if I might be a bit nervous, stepping into the unknown.

when things don't go our way, how do I work with my emotions? Like the regret, right? Should have done it sooner. Should have done, you know, I've been through all of that.

I do, I still feel all those things. I still struggle. And luckily I have a supportive community and I have people around me I know how to work with my mind. I know how to care for myself so that these things don't take me under, right? Or I don't get overwhelmed with stress. So I think I do still have Achilles heels and I still do have questions and doubts about myself, less so.

and I just keep moving forward. It's like those things don't cripple me the way they used to. They don't have a hold on me the way they used to.

Pat Tenneriello (1:08:58)
I'd to end an episode with this question. If you've listened to some of my episodes, you may already know what the question's going to be.

Sima Jones (1:09:07)
I've forgotten, so surprise me.

Pat Tenneriello (1:09:10)
everyone has their own growing up story. Growing up means something different to every person. What does growing up mean to you?

Sima Jones (1:09:13)
Hmm.

I actually love that question and as you're saying it to me I'm remembering I did hear it. Gosh, well my concept of growing up has changed a lot over the years and for me right now growing up is it means to me like becoming so becoming more of myself so I've done the whole physical growing up I've done the you know I'm as tall as I'm gonna be I'm you know the age that I am.

But now growing up is a deepening. It's an intimacy. It's knowing myself in a way that I never knew I could, feeling at home in my skin. Like I'm truly, truly comfortable with myself. And I didn't know that was possible. And it feels incredible. It really does. And I'm no different from anybody else. Like everybody can do this. Everybody can have access to this.

But it's, would say, growing up for me is a deepening. So I'm no longer sort of growing this way, I'm growing this way. Yeah, and through that deepening and that growing up in myself, all my relationships are more enriched, all of them. I love to be in relationship. know, people used to scare me a lot and it's less so now. You know, we really are connected and you and I have found so many common threads.

that have just revealed themselves as we've gone through this. you know, yeah, thank you for having me and allowing me to talk about what I love.

Pat Tenneriello (1:10:50)
So in the description to the episode, I'll put any links, links to your services. If anyone is interested in learning more, connecting with you,

Sima Jones (1:10:58)
Mm-hmm, my words.

show.

Pat Tenneriello (1:11:02)
feel like I learned a lot more about life coaching. got to be a part of a mini session. So I got a sense of really a real sense of what is, I hope listeners were able to be a fly on the wall in that moment.

Sima Jones (1:11:10)
Yeah.

Okay.

Pat Tenneriello (1:11:17)
also get a sense for what life coaching is about so they can figure out whether it's right for them or not. And so, yeah, I'm just really grateful that you agreed to come on the show, Sima Thank you so much.

Sima Jones (1:11:23)
Yeah.

thank you for just letting me kind of spontaneously coach you because, you know, I always ask if we're not in an official coaching session, it's like, can I coach you on this? people are going to say no. But I just felt that came up so strongly and was such a great example of what we all do. Okay. That's universal.

that theme of regret, that theme of rehashing all those things that we did or didn't do. And that was so beautiful.

So thank you. Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (1:11:56)
Thank you. Likewise.

Pat Tenneriello (1:11:58)
Well, that's a wrap on this episode of the After Peter Pan podcast. I hope you found it insightful. If you did, please drop us a rating, give us a like, it really helps to widen our audience and grow our community base. Thank you again for tuning in and until next time.