JEN AKS 0:00
Welcome to the Wisdom From Within podcast, where human stories inspire authentic connection and impactful leadership. My name is Jen Aks, and I am so psyched you’re here. Let’s get started.
If you haven’t heard of shadow work, you’ve got to pay attention, because shadow work is an incredible portal to help you heal and understand your life, and listen to your experiences, and use them as assets to empower and lead your life in all the ways.
Junie Moon is an expert in this, and she’s an author, podcast host, and expert in love, relationships, and shadow work. And this conversation, I believe, is going to awaken a lot for you. So join us. Share this episode with anyone that you feel needs it.
I’m so excited to share her body of work with you and her passion. Her passion is infectious. Here we go.
I’m so excited to be here with you today.
JUNIE MOON 1:04
Oh, wow. I’ve been looking forward to it.
JEN AKS 1:07
We met. It’s been at least a few years.
JUNIE MOON 1:10
It’s been at least a few years. Yeah, I think it was COVID, and somehow you got on my radar, and I was just like, oh my God, look at what she’s doing.
JEN AKS 1:19
It’s been a journey for sure.
JUNIE MOON 1:21
Yeah. What a journey.
JEN AKS 1:23
And I’ve gotten to know you through various ways, with workshops and doing this curating, this gorgeous video representing your life and your journey. I need to find it. I was looking for it. I don’t know what I titled it, but I’m assuming you still have it.
JUNIE MOON 1:41
Oh, I have it. I have it. So I need to watch it again.
JEN AKS 1:44
I need to share that with you. I am. It was so beautiful, so powerful. Your work is amazing.
Well, today is about you, and it is about your journey, and your brilliance, and how you found your way into this work through your body, through your growth, through that intelligence that rests within you. And I know that you are one to follow that. And that’s what this podcast is all about.
It’s all about helping people understand that there is this wildly intuitive intelligence within us that we tend to ignore because we haven’t been taught how to listen. And so when we listen, these are the things that happen. You happen. Like, Junie Moon.
She is the CEO of Midlife Love Out Loud, a global love mentor. I love that because you exude love in everything that you do. Junie is also an author of Loving the Whole Package: Shed the Shame and Live Life Out Loud. And you’re a speaker, and you have an expertise in shadow work.
All of these things I mentioned are so grounded in the human experience and helping people come alive into their highest, most empowered self. And so I’m grateful for you. I’m grateful for your expertise, and I’m so happy you’re here.
JUNIE MOON 3:05
Thank you. It’s such a pleasure. I love you. I love your work. And yeah, thank you. So good to be in this conversation.
JEN AKS 3:13
Yeah, in this conversation that is so important.
So I would love to start by hearing about you and your connection to that inner voice and that intelligence, and how it led you here. Sometimes in your life, you may have not listened to it.
JUNIE MOON 3:30
Never.
JEN AKS 3:31
Right. Exactly. I want to talk about that. But your stack of life absolutely brought you to this place, and it’s so inspiring because so many times we turn away from the life experience feeding our journey. And you really did the opposite. You allowed it to feed. So I’d love for you to talk about that.
JUNIE MOON 4:02
Sure. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I’ll start with now because I think it’s important.
I love my life. I’m comfortable in my body. I have the most amazing partner. I wake up every day excited, mostly. There are moments because I’m still human. But overall, I’m just, wow. Like, how I got here.
But there were more years than not where I was just putting Band-Aids on a lot of the things that were not okay. I wasn’t listening to my discomfort. I micromanaged everything.
And specifically, I was in my 20-year marriage, where it really was so apparent to me at the end what was going on. But during it, I walked on eggshells. I was so afraid to actually speak my truth, to use my voice. And I just suffered inside, but no one knew. I had a big smile on my face.
And yet people had to know because I was 200 pounds. I used food to soothe myself, to manage all the emotions and all the stuff that I really wasn’t in tune with and in touch with. And so I just pushed everything aside, to put everything in shadow.
And I was like, I’m just going to make the best of it, and I’m just going to stay on top of as much as I can stay on top of. And then I just crashed and burned because there was this moment, literally, with my husband at the time and my kid, where he was just bullying my kid, and my kid was already having challenges.
And my whole body, speaking of listening to my body, it’s like, first it was my fear. I felt the contraction. I felt the, like, oh my God, you know, my poor kid.
And yet I had started deeply learning how to trust myself, and trust my instincts, and feel. And then something else shifted. Instead of the contraction, I felt grounded. I felt strong. And I said, enough.
JEN AKS 6:06
How did you get there? How did you make that shift from contracting and being like, oh my God, my kid, my kid, to okay, now I’m empowered? How did that happen? Yeah. And that’s the shadow work. And that’s the body of work that I’m trying to. Yeah. Let’s talk about that.
JUNIE MOON 6:22
I’ve done a lot of different things for sure. The shadow, you know, therapy, years of therapy. I learned a lot about myself, all the stuff. You know, the books, the workshops.
Shadow work helped me not only identify what I was squashing and why. Big deal. Why did I push all those things down and away? But it helped me to build back to the truth, to reconnect and allow myself to feel differently.
And it wasn’t overnight. It used to be years of pain. Suddenly it was months, then it was days, and then it was moments where I rebuilt the inner landscape, where it was like, oh, I’m feeling this. Oh, I’m noticing that’s the old pattern. That’s the old way of being. Wait a second. I have another choice here.
And I know what that feels like, and I know what I can tap into because of the shadow work processes that I had experienced. So that’s the why. That’s why I do the work I do, because what used to be a long, torturous time, now could be seconds because we can feel differently. And we have a different way of handling those moments of fear, of doubt, of contraction.
So yeah, it was my journey that brought me there. And then I was like, wait a second. This is an old tape. This is an old experience. I could do it differently. Right? How empowering. So empowering. So profound. And I took care of my kid.
JEN AKS 7:49
Oh my God. Absolutely. So you’re taking care of yourself, and you’re taking care of your kid.
Can you talk to us about the shadow work? I mean, how does that happen? And how is it different from therapy?
JUNIE MOON 8:00
Yeah. Okay. So first, let me just say the shadow work model I’ve been trained in and licensed in is from Shadow Work Seminars. It’s a very different journey of shadow work. There are a lot of people saying they’re doing work with shadow and shadow work, and that’s great. It’s just different.
We’ve been taught how to do these special processes that help people really tap into the empowerment, really help them have that confidence and clarity, and the boundaries, and being able to be vulnerable. It’s a whole body of work that’s not like a lot of what people are doing. So I just want to say that.
JEN AKS 8:40
I want to hear how. Oh my God. I love you. I love your excitement.
JUNIE MOON 8:44
No, it’s so good. I mean, anyone that’s hearing that is like, oh my God, oh my God, tell me. Yeah. How do you do it? How do you do it?
Well, first let me just say what shadow is because what is shadow work? It’s dealing with the shadow, the part of us that we want to hide, the part of us that we think is icky, or people aren’t going to like us. People are going to leave us. We’re going to get criticized. We’re going to be left. We’re going to get hurt.
So throughout our years of living, especially in early years, we learn to be a certain way and not be a certain way so that we survive. So we do that for 30, 40 years. It sucks.
And eventually we go, I’m 200 pounds. I’m not having a life I want. I am not having the love I want. I’m not having the joy I want. And that’s where this body of work comes in.
So how does it work? We start with, well, what do you want? Like, if you could imagine your ideal scenario, even if you have to kind of make it up because maybe you’ve never experienced it.
And I’m a love expert. I work with people primarily that are single, wanting love. And so they go, I want love. I’m ready. I’m on the apps. But their shadows are still running them. They’re not showing up fully.
So we start with, oh, I want love. I want to have a different career. I mean, whatever it is you desire. Well, what’s showing up for you? What are the patterns? What are the behaviors? What’s the inner critic telling you? What is your inner landscape?
And with your body of work, literally, what is your body telling you? Oh, I’m going to go online, but now my body is contracted. Now my heart is beating, and now I’m sweating, and then my inner critic is telling me, who’s going to want you? You’re older.
So that’s where shadow work comes in. It’s like, where did you get these messages? Where did you learn you’re not good enough? Where did you get, better be careful. Better be careful so I don’t get criticized, or judged, or left. That’s early on, and some of it’s just built into being a human being to survive.
And so then we dismantle it. And the shadow work, like I said, are specially designed processes to help you go, yeah, boom, no thank you. That’s a tape in my head. It doesn’t serve me anymore.
Oh, my body is so contracted with that message. Well, what if I give it a new message, like you’re safe? I’m safe. I can open. I have choice.
Oh, but the voice might say, yes, but you don’t know enough, or you’re going to get hurt, or no one’s going to want you. Whoa. Maybe you again do some work around, you know, shut the F up. Like, get the heck out of my head. No place for you.
And you feel your body, maybe something you’ve never experienced before. And that’s what’s special, in a container with someone like myself, a facilitator, where there aren’t real-life consequences.
You get to experience your voice, your power, maybe your broken heart, your vulnerability. And you get to see that, and you get to change it. And then you change it in your life. You’re just different after a session. It just is the way it goes.
JEN AKS 11:43
That’s so beautiful. I mean, it’s incredibly empowering, and you have a strength about you that is so beautiful and so captivating. And it’s most definitely, I would imagine, because you lived this. You didn’t just learn this work. You lived what it was like to live in that shadow and be on the other side.
And then you did the work, and you found the empowerment. Now you want to help people do the same.
JUNIE MOON 12:07
One hundred percent. One hundred percent.
And even with the love, I mean, I still am blown away. I mean, seriously blown away how easy it is with my partner, how deeply loving and safe it is, how extraordinary it is.
And it was not like that even a handful of years ago. I was still trying to empty out my shadows and befriend them, and learn how to love my life without the partner, love myself without external validation. I was still seeking that, and that was reflected in the men that I chose.
And so as I was still working my stuff, I was helping others find their partners, and I’m like, well, I’m helping them. Where am I still tripped up? Because I had my own journey of pain and questioning, like, why am I doing the same thing over and over? Oh, pattern. What else do I have to look at?
So we all have our own unique journey. Yeah. I’m a love expert, and I still needed to work on my own stuff to get to where I am. And it’s continuing, continuing, continuing, continuing.
JEN AKS 13:15
Yes, totally.
What I love so much about this, and what I’m about to say is really what this podcast is meant to do, is help people look within at their life journey. And as opposed to wishing it was something else, or why me, really going inward to understand that it is wisdom. The wisdom from within. The wisdom that is meant to teach us and guide us and bring us into our purpose.
I always say that everything happens — I do believe this — that everything happens for you, not to you, if we choose to engage with that. Then we can use all the stuff that we have gone through, as hard as it has been, and use it as the greatest opportunity of our life to go and serve, right?
Because ultimately, it’s about service. I mean, that’s what brings us home. What’s your connection to that? The service that you’re doing, that service element. How do you feel in your body that you have been able to look, and learn, and be the student, and now serve? How does that feel for you?
JUNIE MOON 14:22
Well, before I go there, I just want to say, like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes about the for, not the to. And we could think that. We could be like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Everything happens for a reason, and it’s happening for me and my growth.
But sometimes things happen, and they’re painful. Absolutely. And we want to just go, well, you know, screw that thinking. Don’t you know what happened to me?
And so I offer, it’s a yes-and. It’s like, yes, sometimes life throws us some painful curveballs, and we choose to take some responsibility. If we choose to say, well, wait a second. This just happened to me.
Like the other day, my ankle went over, and I thought I broke it again. I heard a pop. It was painful. It happened to me, right? But I could have been like, oh my God, this is going to screw up my vacation. I’m not going to be able to hike.
I let myself feel that because I’m a human being. Right? And I then stepped into, well, this is happening for me. How might I dance with this? Let me take care of myself. Let me be proactive. Let me do my acupuncture and my icing and allow myself to trust that this is all unfolding perfectly.
I don’t know why, but it is. And so it’s a practice. Thankfully, a couple days later, I’m like, oh, better. I have no idea. But if I stayed in the poor me and nursed it, I would have had a few days of hell. So again, it’s absolutely, how can I play with this?
So in reference to me doing this work, well, first of all, it keeps me green. It reminds me on a regular basis that I have choice, that I can be empowered, and I can feel strong as I’m supporting others that are questioning.
And I’m working in the trenches of doubts and inner critic. It’s like, oh, yeah, yeah, I was there, and I’m not. And I can still. And so it helps me in that way.
It’s a very selfish thing, helping other people. I feel so great.
All joking aside, there’s nothing more rewarding than seeing people go, oh my God, I didn’t notice that. Even just yesterday, I was working with a client, and there was just this one moment, and she’s a new client. So she dropped into this, oh my God, Junie. I didn’t even realize this.
In that moment, she had a whole shift in her perception of what she experienced as a five-year-old and how that has impacted all of her relationships in her entire life.
And it’s like, here she’s thinking, well, I’m doing this in relationships, and he was this, and he was that, and this is what happened. Well, underneath it, there was a story and an experience, and it has shaped her life.
So when I could be that for someone, when I could use those tools, and I see myself as the vehicle at this point, it’s like, I know all the stuff. I am a trained shadow worker for 20 years now. It’s like, I know it.
I get out of my way, and things just come through. And I see things in a different way because I’m not trying so hard to change people or fix people. Right? I am in service.
And that happens. There really are no words. It’s just, ah, how lucky am I to be using my life and my journey to help somebody else? Like, I have a flashlight through the trenches because I know the way out now. It’s brilliant.
JEN AKS 17:57
Oh my gosh. I love it so much. It’s so empowering.
I have a question about the shadow work. I would imagine that it’s very challenging for people, and there are a lot of people that are like, I just want to feel great, and I don’t want to go in and look at my five-year-old self.
How do you frame it so that it feels safe and people make that choice to step into that conversation?
JUNIE MOON 18:25
Well, if they’re feeling great and their life is great, they can just not do that. But they know that if there are some things that have a high price, that they’re paying for a dynamic in their life, I say to them, it’s more painful to not look at your stuff and transform it than to stay in this small bubble of comfort of what you know.
People think shadow work is this painful, scary thing. It goes fast. It goes fast. We do a session. You’re not in it. There’s science that shows you don’t want to stay in your trauma. You don’t want to stay in the pain. That retraumatizes you.
And frankly, there are a lot of shadow work people out there doing that. Not in the model I’ve been taught.
What we’ve been taught is how to create a place where it is safe. You decide where you want to go with our guidance, with our prompts. Like, hey, I’m seeing this direction. Let’s go there. Does that sound like, is that resonating with you? Is that feeling good? And stop, right? And then we’re going to be there, because sometimes stop is the biggest breakthrough.
So to answer your question, they’re not going to go anywhere that they’re not ready to go. We make sure of that because that’s the agreement. You only go where you feel safe enough to go. And if you don’t feel safe, we don’t go there.
And it’s just so transformational that at the end of a session, people are in a different place. They feel more excited and empowered and lighter. People have all these wonderful side effects. They came in for love, and suddenly they’re losing weight. They came in to lose weight, and now their career is soaring.
So it just helps. So why stay in the pain?
Again, coming back to how we’re wired as humans, we’re wired to not have pain. We’re wired to not enjoy the uncertainty. Uncertainty is scary. However, where we can be comfortable with uncertainty and the more we can stretch, the more juicy our life is. And so we play with both.
JEN AKS 20:50
I love that.
I’m also feeling into your clients, and specifically around love. And when they speak with you, I would imagine they’re really learning how to listen to their body, really learning how to pay attention to that shadow when it shows up, and develop a new relationship with it.
I would imagine it doesn’t go away completely, but it continues to inform them and guide them. Am I right?
JUNIE MOON 21:22
Completely, completely.
With shadow work, we definitely use our head. We have to kind of look at things and figure stuff out. And then, very often throughout the time, I say, close your eyes. Go into your body. What’s it feeling like? Where are you feeling energy?
Oh, I’m feeling it in my gut. It feels really tight. And we go there. What does it feel like? Oh, it feels like a dark hole, a black hole. And I feel like it’s empty, and it’s eating me up alive. Or my throat feels closed, and I feel like I can’t express myself.
So we go into the body. And so we could tune into, oh, that’s me in this state of being. When I’m telling myself these things, or I’m focusing on these things, this is what happens in my body.
Good. I notice. So when you’re out in the world and you suddenly go, oh, I’m feeling contracted. I’m feeling scared. My body is telling me that. It’s like, okay, great. I’m hearing it. Now what?
And then, of course, in shadow work, we then go into the experience. And then suddenly it’s like, oh, I’m feeling more relaxed. I’m feeling like I could have a deeper breath. My body is dropping into a place of grounded and open.
And suddenly there’s a new way, a new relationship. We’ve had an experience of the body. So we do that a lot in shadow work because we need that. That’s the thing. Most work out there is neck up. We need the rest of us. Exactly. The rest of our being to access.
JEN AKS 22:55
Yeah. I know.
Well, I talk about mindset and bodyset and bridging them together. Just recently, I had such a profound experience. I thought that I had my mindset and bodyset activated and connected, but when you go deeper and deeper, which I did this past weekend, I couldn’t believe what released and brought those two parts so in sync.
So it’s like we can continue, once we’re there and we have that connection, there’s more to access as we go, which is really incredible.
I’d love to hear also about the documentary that you started, right?
JUNIE MOON 23:32
Shed the Shame. Yeah. Yeah.
JEN AKS 23:35
Can you talk to us about that? Because it’s making me think about that in this moment, in this conversation, because we’re shedding, and we’re understanding this shadow.
Talk to me about the Shed the Shame documentary. I love that.
JUNIE MOON 23:48
Yeah. This is the thing I’m most proud of, of everything I’ve ever done in my life.
So after mega years, like up to 47 years old, I think that was when it was, or somewhere around that, so most of my life, I did not feel comfortable in my skin. I felt ugly. I felt so much shame.
If I was invited to a pool party, I would find a way to get out of it. I never had anything to wear. Sometimes I wouldn’t leave the house because I just hated myself.
And then in my 40s or early 50s — again, I don’t remember — I had an opportunity to have Andy Golub, a very well-known body painter, come on my show, a different show at the time called Midlife Love Out Loud with Junie Moon.
And so I said, how about you paint me while we’re doing the interview? And he said, yes, that’d be wonderful. But then I realized, oh my God, he paints naked people.
And then I thought, you know what? Let me sit on this. And so I sat with it for a month, actually, and I thought, can I really do this? Can I literally be naked on video for the world to see? And the answer was yes.
And that blew my mind, from all the hiding and the shame to the other side, from shadow work, that I loved myself. And there was nothing to hide anymore.
And more importantly, and this is big, I knew it would help so many people feel less alone and give them hope of what could be with their pain around their body image and body shame.
So I hired a videographer, and we did a documentary, a nine-minute documentary on body image and body shame. And I talk about my journey from hiding to letting the whole world see me.
And it went to film festivals. Last I checked, it’s been a while, I think it’s like at 50,000 or 60,000 views. It’s on two stations. So it’s gone viral.
And seriously, when I released it, I had people coming up to me on the street in tears saying, thank you. Thank you for sharing this. I feel less alone.
And of course, everyone goes, oh my God, I could never do that. I’m like, well, you don’t have to. It’s a metaphor. You don’t have to get naked to love your body. You don’t have to get naked to show the world.
It is my message of, you can do it when you look at your shadows and claim a very different relationship with your body. So I’m very proud of that.
JEN AKS 26:23
Okay. Wow. That is profound. That is profound. Yeah. I celebrate you.
I mean, what a beautiful gift that you’ve given the world. I feel that. I got goosebumps hearing that. I really am so grateful.
JUNIE MOON 26:45
I said yes.
And I will tell you that my finger hovered over the publish button to YouTube when it was ready to go. And I was like, am I really doing this?
And I said to myself, what’s the worst thing that can happen? And I thought, well, people can make fun of me, and people can shame me. And that would really hurt.
And I said, well, what’s the worst thing if I don’t press that button? And then I said that I’m not sharing my gift, and I’m not sharing my truth, that I’m not sharing the message that healing is possible.
And I sat with those two risks. And this is the work I do. It’s like, if I do this, what happens? If I don’t do that, what happens? And I knew in my heart that I would always regret not sharing what I thought was the greatest thing I ever did.
And guess what? One person, of all the tens of thousands of people, only one person made a comment on Facebook about, you know, she should have kept her clothes on.
And it was so amazing that everybody, not even me — by the time I got there, they had swooped in and commented on this guy’s post, saying, you obviously didn’t get the message. You know, you should just keep your mouth shut.
But only one person. And yeah, I never regretted it. Ever, ever.
JEN AKS 28:00
Well, I didn’t regret it, but it did make dating a little interesting.
JUNIE MOON 28:05
What I would do, when it was time, was say, I’ve got to tell you something. Well, I didn’t say it on the first date, but, you know, I have a documentary, and I’m naked on the internet.
JEN AKS 28:20
Oh my God. Wow. Oh my God. And what courage, right? Courage that it took to do that.
JUNIE MOON 28:25
And the thing, so having the purpose, like you doing the podcast or me doing my show that I did last year, it’s like when we have a vision, and this is for everybody that’s watching, when you have a vision or something that’s calling you, and it matters to you, then you find the courage to do it because it matters to you.
You find a way. Exactly. Fear is not going to stop you if it’s so important to you. And if it is stopping you, that’s where the shadow work comes in.
That’s where we need to kind of go, well, why are you keeping yourself from something that matters so much to you? There’s a reason.
JEN AKS 29:00
Yeah, exactly.
And what you were saying, it’s what can take us into that level of service and helping people. And so if we don’t address the shadow and step into that, then we’re really taking something from all the people that are waiting to hear it.
So it’s not just about you at that point. It’s about the world that needs to hear your message, right?
So beautiful, so profound, so amazing. I love it, and I’m so grateful for you. I would love for you to share how people can see that documentary, and be in touch with you, and get into your world.
JUNIE MOON 29:36
Okay. So it’s probably the same thing. So let’s, I’m just thinking because the links sometimes, searching, it’s weird.
So what I would say is go to my website, Love Coach Junie Moon, lovecoachjuniemoon.com, and go to the media page. Actually, it’s called press page now. And if you go to the press page, the link is right there.
And so you can go to Love Coach Junie Moon for that, as well as some other resources.
And I would just encourage everybody also to go to Midlife Love Out Loud on Instagram. I’m posting things all the time about transformation, and love, and healthy relationships, and what’s possible. And that’s another way to stay in the loop of what I’m offering.
JEN AKS 30:18
My gosh. I love it. I’m so grateful for you.
JUNIE MOON 30:22
Oh, honey, I am so grateful that we are connected too.
This is where we all get very lovey-dovey. As hosts of podcasts, you know, it’s like we hold a lot. And then when we invite each other onto each other’s podcasts, it is such a gift to spend time with each other, and we know each other.
And with you and I, we’ve gone some years now, and I’ve done your work, and have a video of me going through my story with my body gestures. And I am just so deeply grateful to have this time to share my message with your people because, you know, we’re in it.
JEN AKS 31:00
We’re in it together and totally changing the world. We’re all in this world, serving the world, shifting the world, empowering the world. I love it so much.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Junie. And thank you all for being here on the Wisdom From Within podcast, where human story awakens the leader from within. That is what it’s all about, listening to that wisdom so we can rise into that leadership, into that thought leadership.
We are all thought leaders. We all have something to offer. So it’s about paying attention and having the courage to listen and go take action.
So thank you. I’ll see you next week, everybody, on Wisdom From Within.
JEN AKS 31:40
If something in this conversation spoke to you, don’t keep it to yourself. Send it to someone who might need that message too.
You can also send me a comment because I would love to know what it is that landed for you.
But most importantly, take a moment to pause and listen to what it is that resonated because that’s where your real guidance system lives. The one you can trust, the one you can rely on.
See you next week.