
It’s Endometriosis Awareness Month and for the 13th episode of Period Story, I was so pleased to speak to Jasmin Harsono, a reiki master and teacher, sonic artist, intuitive wellbeing guide and founder of Emerald and Tiger. Jasmin shares her 20 year journey to getting an endometriosis diagnosis.
Jasmin talked about feeling like her first period was very strange and unnatural. She said that she was able to piece together what was happening to her from conversations with friends and then just got on with it.
Jasmin shares the journey she’s been on with her period, menstrual health and wellbeing. She says that she now feels very empowered by her period and feels the wisdom and power in it.
Jasmin says that it took her over 20 years of tests, back and forth with her doctors and a trip to A&E to get a formal endometriosis diagnosis. She says this has empowered her to share her period story so that others don’t have to go through what she did.
She says that sharing her story has helped others, when they’ve discovered their symptoms are similar to hers, to reach out to their GP and get help. Jasmin says that anyone with period problems needs to keep going back to their GPs until they get referred or the support they deserve.
Finally, Jasmin talks about her work as a reiki master and how this has affected her relationship with her period. She says that having awareness of universal energy within has helped her get unstuck emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally. Listen to hear the beautiful reiki treatments Jasmin gives herself everyday.
Jasmin says that we should share our period stories to help empower others and help break taboos around menstrual health and I completely agree!
Get in touch with Jasmin:
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JASMIN’S BIO
Jasmin Harsono is an Author, Reiki Master Teacher, Sonic Artist, and Intuitive Wellbeing Guide. Jasmin shares a wealth of healing experience offering transformational tools that can be used in everyday life. She is the founder of Emerald and Tiger, a conscious lifestyle brand promoting positive awareness through vibrant connection to the body, mind and spirit. Jasmin has collaborated with brands such as Goop, Selfridges, and Crabtree & Evelyn and has featured in Women’s Health, Vogue, and Forbes publications. Jasmin’s practise is based in London, where she offers one-to-one treatments, training, wellbeing guidance, creative consultancy, group and corporate workshops and retreats.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Le’Nise: On today’s episode, we have Jasmin Harsono. Jasmin is a reiki master and teacher, sonic artist, and intuitive wellbeing guide. She is the founder of Emerald and Tiger, a conscious lifestyle brand promoting positive awareness through vibrant connection to body, mind, and spirit. Led to reiki through her own experiences of ill health, Jasmin now supports others, guiding them to tap into their true self and to understand they have everything they need in order to live well and feel whole from the inside out.
Welcome to the show.
Jasmin: Thank you so much for having me.
Le’Nise: This is a question I always start every podcast off with. Tell me the story. Tell me about the story of your very first period.
Jasmin: Well, I remember it was my first year in secondary school. I was aged 11, and I remember that morning before going to school, feeling a little bit off, had pains and sensations that I hadn’t really felt before. And yeah, I guess my mood was a little bit … I was feeling a bit low. And then I went to school. And then after school, I remember rushing all the way to home and dying to go to the toilet. And I thought, “Oh, what’s going on,” had these cramps and stuff. And I went to the toilet. I went to my grandma’s house, my nana, and I went to the bathroom and it was my first bleed, discovered my first bleed.
I remember it quite vividly and very instantly feeling a kind of a shame attached to it. I don’t know why, but it was just like, “What’s going on? I’m bleeding.” It just felt very unnatural, my first bleed. And I felt very shy about it and I didn’t really discuss it with my family, as such, not that I can recall. And we didn’t really have talks about it that much before, either. It was just kind of a weird thing to happen. But yeah, that’s what I recall from my first period.
Le’Nise: If you didn’t discuss it with your family beforehand, how did you know what it was?
Jasmin: I’d heard about it through conversation. I’ve got two sisters who are older than me. It’s not that it wasn’t unheard of, but when you just don’t know that knowing or feeling of what it’s going to be like yourself and it wasn’t a conversation that we had had in the house, like a sit down conversation. But obviously, it was going on and I’d seen sanitary wear and stuff like that around the house, so I was aware of what I had to wear for my period and those kind of things. But it was just not something that we would sit down and discuss as a family. And at school, there was a little bit of education in school and conversations within friendship circles. It was kind of that’s how I knew about it.
Le’Nise: When you had your first period, did you go to your sisters and say, “I need a tampon” or “I need a pad”?
Jasmin: No, I can’t actually remember where I got my sanitary wear from, but I don’t recall going to anyone. Maybe we had some around the house, I would imagine, because I had my mom, my two sisters. And so I’m pretty sure there would probably be some sanitary wear around the house.
Le’Nise: Okay. And so you went and you figured it out on your own. And at what point did your mom or your sisters discover that you had had your first period?
Jasmin: I actually don’t remember the conversation I had probably because it may have been a passing conversation. My mom had five children, so it was probably not something that I felt called to discuss. As I said, I was feeling a little bit strange about it as well. I probably internalized a lot of that and just got on with things. And that’s the kind of thought I remember with my period, just getting on with things and just dealing with it on a monthly basis.
Le’Nise: Why do you think that … You’ve mentioned a couple of words that are quite interesting and actually thread through a lot of the conversations I’ve had on this podcast. You’ve mentioned shame, shyness, feeling strange. If you think back now, where do you think those feelings came from?
Jasmin: I think through conversations in school with friends and the conversations that we had around periods was always … It was periods were gross almost. It was like, “Oh, no. You’ve got your period.” There wasn’t really an empowered message behind having a period. It was more like blood is yucky. It was that kind of thing, your smell, those kind of things. And I had that kind of connection to it. And I suppose I attached to that trail of thought for so long and that’s what I thought about periods. Every time that it would come, it was like, “Oh, no. Here’s my period and here’s a couple of days of really embarrassing moments to come,” almost. That’s how I felt about it.
Le’Nise: You think all of your friends at school felt embarrassed about their period?
Jasmin: Pretty much the conversations that I had. And embarrassment or that it just wasn’t … When you’re on your period, it’s not the great few days. No one would tend to enjoy their period or embrace it.
Le’Nise: Do you think that’s changed for you?
Jasmin: 100%. That was a very long time ago. I’m 38 now. I’ve been on such a journey with my periods, my menstrual health and wellbeing. And I’ve come around full circle. I talk about my period a lot to people and have discovered the reasons why I had so many awful symptoms for many years and suffered. And I am now feeling very empowered by my period. I honour my period, and every month I feel that I see the power and wisdom in it. And I use that time when my period comes as a time for reflection, connection, and self-love and healing. For me, it’s completely different. Before, I used to absolutely avoid any period talk or really feel disconnected from it, and now it’s a time to honour and embrace.
Le’Nise: What created that shift in you to go from almost this embarrassment and shame to the other end of the spectrum, feeling really empowered and honoring your period?
Jasmin: Definitely through knowledge and education, my own curiosity. I suffered with chronic pain from my periods. It would last pre, during, and post. I had severe heavy bleeding. I would flood. I would bleed all the way through my sanitary wear, my pants. That would happen to me every month. I used to go to the GP regularly, inform them of all these symptoms I was having, and it came to a point where I really wanted to know why this was happening to me because the more conversations I was having with other people, I realized that actually my period wasn’t the same as other people. Theirs were shorter. Mine were longer. My periods were heavier. Theirs weren’t so heavy. There was lots of things I was like, “Okay. Mine’s not the same.” And I think through my own curiosity, I began to really learn about myself, and that was in itself kind of empowering.
Le’Nise: How long do you think this journey took for you?
Jasmin: Yes. Yes. I went back and forth. I got my period at 11. I pretty much got the symptoms of heavy bleeds, chronic pain straightaway, and I lived through that for years until I was in my late 20s. I couldn’t go on the pill or anything like that because it caused me severe migraines. I had to really go through this cycle every month. And I had very long periods. They would be around 10 days of bleed, heavy bleeding. And I couldn’t get any answers. I had tests done, and it was kind of like, this is what periods are like. That’s what I was told. And I kept thinking, “This is not it. This is not it.”
But I had an incident where I had a cyst rupture. I didn’t know it was that at the time. But I had this. I went to emergency A&E, and then I had some other tests done, scans. And I was told … I was diagnosed with endometriosis. By that time, I understood. I had a level of understanding that my whole life, all these experiences with my period were because I had endometriosis. Then I had a link to that and the more knowledge I had, the more power I had and the less blame I had on my period. It was like, “Oh, I actually had something wrong with me all this time. I had this condition.” And then I wanted to support myself in getting well. That’s how it became full circle in the end.
Le’Nise: How long did it take for you to get your endometriosis diagnosis? So that-
Jasmin: Over 20 years.
Le’Nise: 20 years. Oh my gosh. And you said that at one point you were told, “This is what periods are like.”
Jasmin: Yeah, the norm.
Le’Nise: And how do you feel about that, knowing what you know now and your experience of your period now?
Jasmin: Now, as I said, I share my period story a lot. I really want the next generation, our youth to be empowered by their period, talk about it, don’t be ashamed by it. And so really now I’m not angry or anything about my life or what happened because I can’t really do anything about that. But what I can do is bring my story to the forefront and like other women, just share my story and hope and enable that that helps to start to strengthen the education system because sexual menstrual health needs to be so much better. It’s more pointed towards men than women. And yet women have our periods every month. That’s something that I think needs to change still.
And then, really, I really honor my period now, as I said. I feel completely different to how I did before. There’s a whole change in me physically, mentally, and emotionally towards my period because now I have the awareness. That’s really powerful.
Le’Nise: What do you do to honor your period?
Jasmin: I use an app so I can really focus on my cycle, my moods. And so I know when I’m due. And so I use that time to reflect and connect to myself. I know that I need to slow down. As I said, I have endometriosis and so I don’t have a normal period as such. I still have symptoms, although I manage them much better. I have to use that time to slow down and rest. And so I use that time to tap into my creativity and really just look after myself. It’s all about tapping into self-care and self-love during that time.
Le’Nise: You’ve really taken a lot of learnings from what’s best for your body during this time. And what do you find that your period is different? If you notice that throughout your menstrual cycle, you’re pushing yourself a lot more, do you see the effects of that in your next period or maybe the one after that?
Jasmin: Yes. For example, last week, my period was late and I very rarely have a late period. And I know that the month before, I was under a lot of stress and I put a lot of stress on myself because I was very busy with my work schedule. I worked through quite heavily through when I had my period, which works against me and can cause fatigue in my body that can be long-lasting. My period came late, and I had a feeling this would happen. Period came late and then I had really heavy bleed on Friday, last Friday gone so that I couldn’t even walk down the road for a few minutes. I kept bleeding through and flooding, and it was just very awful experience.
And that’s the learning in it because I know next month I have to really schedule my work so I’m not doing so much during that time. I need to really honour, embrace that time to slow down. That is the part of the month for me, personally, that I need to slow down and not do so much so that I can honor the bleed that’s happening and just allow myself to take some time out. Yeah. There’s always learning in every month. Every period, there’s something to take from.
Le’Nise: And it’s almost a counter-cultural message where this idea of slowing down for however long your period is and connecting and resting and reflecting because I’ve talked about this before, but I know you have your own business and we get told as being entrepreneurs, it’s this hustle, go go go all the time. But this idea of taking a step back, just even a tiny step back, just you almost feel … Sometimes, for me, certainly, I feel a sense of, “Maybe I shouldn’t be doing it” even though I know it’s the best thing for my body.
Jasmin: Yeah. There’s shame attached to that as well, I think. All of these things like, “Oh, we shouldn’t take a break. We need to work really hard.” I think that’s the system that we work on, definitely in the Western world. It’s like go go go. The harder you work, the more that you achieve and more success you’ll get. It’s that mentality. But I do work for myself and I work seven days a week. But I know that in my body if I don’t take a rest, the consequences are much more, the knock-on effects means that I could then be out, have this chronic fatigue for weeks and weeks and weeks, which means I can’t really function 100%. And so then my work is not … I’m not really doing my work to the best.
I think it’s really good that if you really honor what’s happening with you during your cycle every month, you can see and be aware of how you personally function, to be aware of that, and then work around that. It really benefits you much more. And so the time that you can put into work where you’re energized and you can put 100% into that time and then know that that works for you. I think that’s the best way in terms for me, that’s the best way that I work. Now, that feels very powerful to do that. I don’t have anyone to answer to, so for me, it’s a little bit different.
If you’re in a workplace, I definitely think more and more now with their having discussions within work about period health and so hopefully, you can go to someone in HR and say, “Look, this is what happens during my period. And so can I take a few days to work from home or can I work shorter days so I’m not traveling during busy hours, the commute hours?” and stuff. That’s why sharing and having the conversations are really important. I definitely would be having those if I was working for someone else.
Le’Nise: And March is endometriosis awareness month and you said that you’ve been sharing your stories a lot, your story of endometriosis diagnosis and you symptoms. Have you heard any feedback about the impact that your story has had on others?
Jasmin: Yeah. I think through several talks that I’ve given, lots of people have felt more empowered to share their own story. And also, have discovered that their symptoms are very similar to mine, and then have gone and reached out to their GP and got some help and really gone in there and said, “Look, I’m not leaving until I get seen by a specialist.” They have this information now where they feel like, “Well, she did that, so I’m going to do that” kind of thing. And I have a Facebook group I started a couple of years ago, a community group that’s now grown to 6,000 women across the world. And I know that my message in a subtle way has empowered other people to get their story out. And in my heart, I feel like that they’re sharing their story, that they’re helping someone else, too. Even if it’s one person, you feel like you’re spreading the word. Word of mouth is really strong in this kind of area where women don’t have a strong platform. If we can just do a little bit each, I think that will make a difference.
Le’Nise: Absolutely. One story has the power to change so many other people’s lives, absolutely.
Jasmin: And I’ve also connected with so many people that are studying endometriosis, studying the pain, the science, incredible people that are doing so much work behind it and haven’t got much funding and are just so passionate about really helping people because endometriosis, adenomyosis, lots of PCOS, these conditions are relatively high. There’s lots of people, there’s one in 10 people have endometriosis. It’s something that we should all be talking about anyway, but yet, there’s still a lack of information, a lack of knowledge. People are being diagnosed every 10 years or something like that. It takes 10 years to get diagnosed.
I think it’s really important that we just keep sharing our story. And that, for me, starts an opening where hopefully you’ll get to the point where in the UK, the government will listen to this more and realize that women’s stories need to be heard, whether it’s endometriosis or a mental health condition or something else. Yeah.
Le’Nise: What would you say to someone who comes to you and says, “I went to my GP, but I just felt a bit fobbed off”?
Jasmin: I would tell them to go back and go back again. That’s what I did. I did that for years and years and years. I said to you I had problems since I was age 11 and had gone to the doctor’s regularly. I had been told to go on antidepressants, I had IBS. I had so many different diagnoses and went down different routes until I had my cyst rupture. I know what it’s like to be fobbed off and told, “You’ve got this” or “There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s a normal period.” But now, knowing this information, I can’t really stand for anyone just to sit back and go through it. The message is just keep going back to your doctor. You have the information. There’s an incredible lady called Nancy Nook who shares really all of the best consultants to seek around the world. And so you can go to your GP and say, “This is who I want to see.”
Or the other route is, if you have the money, you can go and book an appointment with a private doctor, have a consultation with them, and ask them to refer you back onto the NHS to see this specific consultant. And this really works as well. Say you pay £150 to see a private consultant and then get yourself back on the NHS to see the consultant, this route works really well as well. And that helped me when I was diagnosed with cancer, which was years ago. But I know that there’s ways of getting to your consultant much faster than through your GP, and that’s one of them.
You just have to keep supporting yourself and know that what you’re going through is something that you really need to support. If I had known how much it had affected my fertility, for example, I think I would’ve been at the GP every day knocking down the door, but I just didn’t have awareness. And so now, I just … The most important message is to get seen and be heard.
Le’Nise: And what would you say, once they’ve got the appointment, they’re in the door, how would you suggest that they prepare for that appointment?
Jasmin: The most important thing is to keep a journal, to really write down all of their … keep a diary of their symptoms, what they eat, their cycle, how long a cycle is, what their bleed is like, what their mental health symptoms, what their digestive experiences are. Just keeping a journal of everything so that they have that information before they go and see the consultant and therefore, they can pretty much show them everything they’re going through on a monthly basis. And that really helps them to be, “Look, I’ve got all the information here. This is what’s going on for me.” So they can’t be told that their situation is that you’ve got a normal period because there’s evidently not if they’ve got all these symptoms connecting them to whether it’s endometriosis or something else.
I think keeping a diary is the most important thing. And then to maybe bring someone with you at the appointment so that they can hear everything because sometimes you’re digesting information and that’s all you need to do. And someone else can just sit there and take the notes for you. Yeah, and just make sure that you stay with that consultant if you’re happy with them. Make sure you create a relationship with them because that really helps. And usually, my consultant was also the person that was operating on me. I think it’s good to create a relationship with someone knowing that they have your best interests at heart.
Le’Nise: Can you talk a little bit about your work as a reiki practitioner and how that has … We talked about energy and slowing and how that’s affected maybe your relationship with your body and your period.
Jasmin: Definitely having the awareness of universal energy within, which is this chi, this life force energy, has helped me to get unstuck emotionally, physically, spiritually, and mentally. I always have this feeling of never feeling alone. I feel empowered by what’s going on in my body. By that, I mean that I have this awareness that, okay, I’m not feeling so good today and I can check in with myself and see why, and I can bring together this timeline and knowledge of why I’m not feeling well. And reiki helps me with that. It just helps to open up this awareness to all that’s going on within. And so you have, in fact, a natural ability to heal yourself because you are not being this person that’s stuck and not doing anything about it.
When you’re more open and embrace what’s going on within, you’re able to really understand that information, that your personal information of what’s going on inside your body and therefore do something about it. It really just helps me to be more aware and in that, I’m able to take something from that and do something about it. It’s the awareness and the action that goes afterwards, if that makes sense.
Le’Nise: And so do you have any particular tools that you use that you would be willing to share with the listeners?
Jasmin: I use clary sage oil on a regular basis to relieve the inflammation, and I massage that into my womb, into my hips, into my thighs, and my back, my lower back, the areas where I tend to get a lot of pain from the endometriosis and keeps everything really moving. In Chinese medicine, they talk about that area, if it’s cold, that you’ll more tend to have the pain and inflammation hanging around in those spaces, so massaging the area regularly keeps it nice and warm and helps everything to stay in flow. That really helps me, and it feels really good. It also feels like I’m honoring my womb as well. It’s kind of like an offering of self-care to my womb.
And I give myself a reiki treatment every day. That’s with my hands placed on my body, scanning the body and just placing the hands where it might need some reiki. That’s just tapping in to see where in my body I’m feeling stuck or I’ve got any pain. And then I place my hands on that area and send reiki there. And reiki is always within you, but the touch element, it just helps to support you more and feel really connected. And it’s a really nice way to meditate, I find. I bring in the breath, take some deep breaths and just allow this healing process to happen.
And I think food is really important to mention. We’re all very different. It’s really important to know what foods you digest well and to digest warming foods during the cold months. I always find that that really helps me to feel better. Soups and stews when it’s cold help me to, again, warm up the body and keep everything in flow. But just making sure that you’re eating well, drinking lots of water. And for me, I have a daily meditation practice, which really helps me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to stay connected.
And I think also, a period tracker. I use an app called Moody, which is amazing because you can track your moods, you can track your period, your cycle. You can also leave notes in there. You can journal. Anything that might be a little bit odd that month, you can write about it. And really generally, keep a daily journal of how you’re feeling, checking in with yourself. I’ll do a daily check in, “How am I feeling today?” And then I’ll just check through physically, mentally, emotionally how am I feeling. And that, I really find really powerful because I can look through that and just see if there’s anything that’s spiked, that’s peaked, that might not feel right, and then I can look into that more.
And I think also having conversations with others. If you’re feeling like something is not right or you feel … Yeah, it’s just basically sharing with other people, I think is really important, to find your trusted circle that you can talk about these things and not feel any shame or embarrassment. I called my sister on Friday and said, “I’m walking down the road. My period … I’m flooding through. It’s a nightmare. I’m not feeling well. It’s making me feel quite anxious.” I had all these conversations. And just in having that with someone who can relate with me because I know that she’s gone through that herself, then we have this connection where I feel like it’s not just me. And then it’s like that feeling of oneness, and I’m not going crazy. This is happening to someone else. I think connection with a trusted person who will relate to your story is really important.
And you can find that through Facebook groups or it doesn’t have to be a family member because it can be someone else, a stranger. You can find people online that are going through this, too. If you don’t have a community near you in person, you can find someone online to talk to about it. But I think that’s really important as well, to stay connected and talk about those things.
Le’Nise: You have quite a rich practice of honoring your body and staying connected with body using lots of different methods, which obviously I loved hearing about the food side of it, the meditation. Are there any specific, say, reiki techniques or meditation practices that you would share with someone who is going through something similar?
Jasmin: The most beautiful practice that I have is just a reiki treatment where I place one hand on my womb, so my right hand on my womb, my left hand on my heart, and I breathe into those spaces. I lay down, find somewhere comfortable, and I usually do this before I go to bed and in the morning when I wake up. But I share reiki in those spaces and I breathe into my womb. I just allow my breath to go in there and expand the breath into that space. You can visualize light, bright white light coming into that area, just receiving renewed energy into the womb. And then when you breathe out, you’re letting go of any tension, any pain that you’re holding onto. You’re breathing into the womb and then taking the breath into the heart space and just really opening and expanding these areas. And I find it really comforting. I find it really beautiful to connect in that way, and I see both spaces, I visualize roses in those space to … just an opening of beautiful red roses, which really helps me to feel like I’m loved.
And I think that’s really important for me in particular because sometimes we take on so much of the external world. And so this just gives you this time, even if it’s five minutes in the day, just to reconnect back and realize that your womb is creating so much beauty for you, and sometimes we get attached to, oh, this heavy period every month and that can really bring us down, like it did on Friday. When I reconnect through meditation, I bring an offering back to my womb to say thank you, in a way, for my bleed, for maybe being able to birth a child in the future or for me to connect to my creativity. It’s those kind of practices that I really embrace. And that’s one particular one that I will do on a daily basis.
Le’Nise: I think that’s so beautiful and it really shifts the narrative from … Certainly I see this with other women that I work with who have endometriosis. It’s the shift from this feeling of fighting with your body to honoring it, and that whole visual of visualizing roses, I just love that.
Jasmin: Yeah. Because you can go even further and use your senses. You can smell them and journey with the roses, which is really beautiful and you can extend into a meditation. And that’s just so beautiful when you can just visualize them growing and growing. And rose tea, which I drink regularly, is really beautiful. You can also honor your womb in that way, of just creating, making a little bit of time, a mindful moment of boiling the kettle, putting some rose petals in the cup, pouring hot water in, waiting for that to cool down, taking some deep breaths, and drinking that tea slowly. And just visualize that rose tea moving through into your womb space. Rose is really great for digestion and for your health of your skin and stuff like that. It’s got great qualities to it anyway, but that’s a really nice mindful moment of having a tea ceremony for your womb, which is really beautiful.
Le’Nise: Yeah. Wow, so lovely. Can you talk a little bit more about your work as a reiki master, your business, Emerald and Tiger, and maybe talk a little bit about your amazing book that has just come out?
Jasmin: Self Reiki came out in December in the UK and January, US, Canada. And it’s a book that focuses more on one specific area of reiki, which is hands-on healing and the power of touch. And hands-on healing has been around for a very long time, way before reiki has, the system of reiki has. But what it is in the book is just gives you these tools, these 40 exercises and meditations around health and wellbeing to help you to tap into your natural ability to heal yourself. In reiki, we do give achievements to awaken you, to bring this awareness of life force energy moving within you. But we know that we were all born with this energy. We are all created by this energy.
And so, really, the book gives you a little bit of this background information of what reiki is, history, and insights, and then there’s so many different exercises that you can follow. The wellbeing ones will be … For example, today’s a full moon, so there’s a full moon meditation in there so you can really exercise the process of writing down all the things that you want to let go of under a full moon and feel empowered to let go of those. That’s a really nice exercise to do. Or there’s ones around if you have chronic back issues, you can follow a reiki treatment to help to relieve that pain and see why that pain’s coming up for you because often when we talk about working with reiki, we find that the roots of the problem isn’t the physical back pain, that there might be an emotional attachment to why that back pain is coming up.
Yeah, there’s lots of exercises in there that would be for everyone, generally, on a daily basis. And so it’s really about creating this daily treatment for yourself every day, a little bit of self-care to really honor yourself and be more in tune with yourself personally because although I feel that we’re all connected and we are in so many special ways, we all individually go through things personally. And so it’s really about tapping into that and finding why that is, who am I, what’s going on with me today and having that check in.
Jasmin: And my business, Emerald and Tiger, I offer one-to-one guidance, corporate group workshops, events, retreats, and products such as my book. And Emerald and Tiger fuses the synergies of modern life and conscious living and ancient practices, so practices such as reiki and sound healing to help people to tap into their natural ability to heal. Really, I am the facilitator to help to bring people … come back to their true self. And I offer, for example, a session called Breathe Love, which is about people breathing love back into their bodies. It starts with a breathing exercise for 20 minutes, guided meditation and then lots of sound healing. And all of these tools help to bring us back to the energy that’s within us, that life force energy. All of my work always comes full circle back to the essence of who we are, what we are made up of.
Le’Nise: If someone wanted to get in touch with you … As someone’s listening to this podcast and really connecting what you’re saying about circling back to the energy and the ability to heal yourself and the meditations that you talked about, how would they connect with you?
Jasmin: I have a website emeraldandtiger.com. They can reach me at hello@emeraldandtiger.com, send me an email if they’re curious or have any questions. And I’m also on Instagram, Emerald and Tiger.
Le’Nise: Brilliant. One last question, if listeners, if they take one thing away from all of the beautiful things that you’ve talked about, what would you want that to be?
Jasmin: I would definitely start with keeping a journal of their period and creating their own period story, so really finding out on a daily basis what their mood’s like and tracking their period and understanding their particular cycle because everyone’s is different. That’s really the key thing. But also, if I can add to that, is to share their period story, to have those conversations because that really empowers other people, the youth, the next generation that are coming, we hope that they’ll be talking about it more and more and more so that it doesn’t stay a taboo subject anymore, that we can really honor our full femininity and the amazingness of our womb, that we don’t often do.
Le’Nise: Beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Jasmin: Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure. Thank you.