Today we’d like to introduce you to Jane Baldwin.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Creating community, bringing people together is my great passion. In the early 2000s my husband, Jimmy, and I co-founded The Double J Hacienda & Art Ranch, a 1940s Bonanza-style hacienda, about an hour and a half west of Dallas. It was a place where people came to visit from cities such as Austin, Dallas, and Sydney, Australia to see traveling musicians play in the Great Room, artists showing their work in our gallery space. There I also taught yoga, Harmonic Breathwork, meditation, in workshops and retreats.
When we moved back to Dallas in 2014, my focus became writing. Having hosted a hub for creative expression for many years helped me to develop my own creativity. I started with a blog and soon began writing nonfiction short stories and poems. Now I’m finishing my first book, Heart of the Womb: How Cancer Cured my Fear of Love and Motherhood. Jimmy and I have begun performing together. It’s been a great way to reconnect with people that came to our Art Ranch and to build that sense of community that I love. He’s a singer-songwriter so he’ll play a couple of songs and I’ll read a poem or snippet from a short story. We perform in intimate settings such as The Wild Detectives in Oak Cliff.
Another community-building endeavor is the creation of the Empowered Women’s Seminar. My friend, Kathy Groppe, a molecular biologist/ecologist turned jewelry maker, and I came up with the idea of hosting a monthly event at her ranch where we hike the trails, hang with the horses, do a little Harmonic Breathwork, hear a guest speaker, and then we have dinner together. It’s an opportunity for women to get out of the city for an afternoon and unplug in a way that feels like it’s been a whole weekend.
There is not one job title that fits neatly for what I do. In my work as a health and lifestyle consultant, I partner with local businesses and organizations to offer a perspective on health that sees the mind and body as one unit working together, with mindfulness the bridge that connects and aligns the two. Yoga and Harmonic Breathwork are tools that calm the mind and help the body relax. When the mind is subdued, the body can rest and rejuvenate. That’s why the key to alleviating stress is found through focusing on the breath. The breath calms the mind, the mind calms the body, and then the body functions better. I’m developing a program for groups in high-stress jobs such as police officers, social workers, and teachers to offer compassion fatigue training. It is a way for them to find relief from the strain and pressures of their work through mindfulness practice.
Food and digestion are also very much a part of the mind-body connection so a couple of years ago I became certified as an Ayurvedic chef. Ayurvedic cooking is very much, the yoga of food. It is the practice of cultivating a relationship. Whether it’s through breath and movement in your body or through preparing and eating your food. Learning to cook with healing spices has been an invaluable addition to my diet, not only in making everyday food taste amazing but it has also has changed my relationship with food knowing how to create irresistible curried vegetables, rich chutneys, and masala chai tea.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest challenge I’ve ever experienced is finding out I had cancer at 28 years old, in the prime of life, when I felt unstoppable. Cancer of the cervix stopped me in my tracks. I reevaluated every choice I had ever made that got me to that point. I realized I had been playing small. I had been putting off the things that mattered most to me until a later date when I would be older and wiser.
I had been avoiding love for fear of getting hurt, telling myself I never wanted to have kids. That was the biggest lie. When I found out I would have a hysterectomy and would never be able to have children, well, that jolted me into reality. My husband and I were dating at the time. We eventually got married and adopted a child. That was twenty years ago now.
The biggest challenge for me wasn’t cancer treatment, my fast-growing tumor required swift removal. It was the healing process after cancer. That’s where I developed the philosophy I live by today.
To heal I developed the 5 Elements of Balance from my studies of the five elements of nature in Ayurveda and the chakra system. The 5 Elements of Balance are Nourish, Play, Love, Dream, and Believe. The inquiry below is the questionnaire I developed as a checklist for helping me stay clear when everyday challenges arise:
• Nourish – Where am I getting my support from? What am I eating? Who is my support system, my community?
• Play – How am I nourishing my creativity? Am I taking creative risks? Am I being curious?
• Love – How is my communication with family members? Where could I strengthen my connection with family?
• Dream – What does my downtime look like? Am I taking breaks? When was my last nap?
• Believe – What am I listening to? Who am I listening to? Do they align with my core values?
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Janeuveda – what should we know?
As a Health & Lifestyle Consultant, I teach personal tools for living at the highest levels of health using the 5 Elements of Balance. While that may sound like a lofty goal, when the focus is on living at your own highest levels of health rather than someone else’s, it becomes much more attainable.
One of the main techniques that help my clients understand what balance looks like for them is through Harmonic Breathwork. It is an ancient breathing technique set to a curated playlist of music that clears the mind and nervous system. What happens next depends on the individual. Some will find clarity, others contentment. Whatever the experience, the breathwork offers a reboot into a fresh perspective.
I offer Harmonic Breathwork the second Sunday of each month at Sun Yoga Center in Richardson. This class is by donation with proceeds going to benefit Break Bread, Break Borders, an initiative created by Jin-Ya Huang to bring immigrants and families together in a celebration of food and culture.
The workshops I offer are a combination of restorative flow yoga and Harmonic Breathwork. I will often bring a seasonal food or drink to highlight the importance of diet and digestion as part of the mind-body conversation. I hold workshops at yoga studios such as Sun Yoga Center in Richardson and at The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. Clients also will host private workshops in their homes.
I’m most proud of my work with caregivers and civil servants that suffer from compassion fatigue. Two years ago, I spoke at Ed-U-CARE’s annual Compassion Fatigue Symposium in Dallas. The importance of this work cannot be overstated as emotional and physical fatigue for many types of workers has reached epidemic proportions. I’m developing a program where I will be able to offer continuing education credits. The idea that workers will be able to get credit for taking care of themselves is a win for individuals and the whole of society.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
To be successful is to genuinely love what you do with the intention of keeping that spirit of joy alive in your work. Then it doesn’t feel like work, well, maybe the writing does every once in a while. But there’s this sense of gratitude that comes with the feeling of, “I get to do this!” It’s not something I have to do, it’s what I’ve chosen. When someone sits upright after the breathwork, and they’re no longer carrying the weight of the world in their faces, and they are able to acknowledge their successes and forgive themselves for their failures, everyone in the room can feel it. That sense of community is priceless, and it fuels me every day.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.janeariebaldwin.com
- Email: janeuveda@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janeuveda/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JaneArieBaldwin/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/janeariebaldwin
Image Credit:
Vonda Klimaszewski
Jimmy Baldwin
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