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Jaycee Gossett is one of those women who takes over every room with her exuberantly feminine power. It radiates and draws you in, and all you’re left with is either a desire to become her, or have some of “what she’s having.”
After interviewing Sakara Life founders Whitney and Danielle, I was invited to stay in the space to join a “Goddess Circle.”
While thinking to myself, “What kind of New Age sh** is this?”, secretly I was ecstatic about the opportunity. It was perfectly timed (as it always is), as I was calling in a stronger connection with my femininity, and movement was one of the ways I envisioned it happening.
At the Goddess Circle, we swirled, twirled, danced and screamed, and I felt a sharp sense of belonging that you feel when things unfold in the most magical, mystical and fulfilling ways.
After, I grabbed Jaycee by the hand, thanked her for connecting me back to myself, and insisted on a friend date.
Three months later, we were planning our first Goddess retreat to Brazil together (named one of “The 11 best wellness retreats in the world right now” by Well+Good!) I’m excited to be sharing this with you– an interview with the woman who changed the way I feel in my body and relate to my femininity, Jaycee Gossett!
I met you at a Goddess Circle you were leading at Sakara. How would you describe the experience you lead the women through?
It’s always tough to actually describe the Goddess Circles and what exactly happens at them!
You have to just come and experience it for yourself to feel what happens. We go on this transformative introspective journey back to the root of self. Through a series of different healing salves we move through energy clouding the goddess self. Reawakening it, reconnecting it and enhancing it.
People always ask me what a goddess actual is! The word can be charged with so much. It brings up many different things for different people and can cause a positive reaction in some and a super negative in others.
It is always interesting for me to watch that process in people, their reactions are little glimpses into where their wounds around the divine feminine lie. All kinds of images can come to mind–from fairy tale characters and princesses to sex nymphs, Cleopatra and Madonna.
The truth is….your goddess can look like whatever you want it to as long as it fires up a power in you that is your most embodied, potent, true and full self.
A fire that aligns you to your higher power as an extension of source.
The definition of a goddess that rings true for me is the following:
“A woman who is in the process of learning to know, accept and love herself on all levels, Mind, Body and Spirit. A woman who, because she focuses on personal growth and self awareness, experiences a life increasingly filled with peace, love, joy, passion and fun.
A woman that understands that she has unlimited capacity to make her life anything she wants. A woman who is inspired to give to those around her, a sense of gratitude and abundance.”
At the Goddess Circles, we create an evening with ritual, sage, breath, words, music, dance, powerful intention, magic and sound to evoke, spark and remember who we are in our innate natural goddess selves.
The Goddess circles are also a chance for women to connect with other women. To hear what other women are struggling with and also what’s working for them. We learn so much from sharing our stories with others! Sometimes the reassurance that we are not alone is where the healing takes place.
Why are gatherings like this important?
High vibration spiritual growth has so many benefits. Some of them are:
1. We need to evolve to stay alive.
2. Working in collective and in communitevey provides a very potent energy for growth.
3. Women need other women. We need to align with each other if we want to create change in the world. This is a new time, and a collective higher consciousness is awakening. We need to feel what it’s like to start supporting each other so that joining forces for change becomes the norm.
4. Women give a tremendous amount of energy to those around them. We are nurturers by nature, we will take care of everyone first and then get to ourselves last. It is vital to our self care regime to keep filling ourselves up so we can keep spreading higher consciousness out into the world.
5. By doing our own work, we help open pathways for others. This type of spiritual self growth raises the vibration for all beings everywhere. The Native Americans believe in the power of this healing work as a way to clear the ancestral lines in our families for 7 generations before us, and in turn, healing any negative patterns for the 7 generations to come. We have the power to prevent these patterns from being passed on.
What path led you onto doing this work?
There have been many life changing moments and mentors that have crossed my path and awakened the goddess within me.
That has been my inspiration to create these Goddess Circles. To share the teachings that have been so generously shared with me. I grew up in a family of all boys and the word “goddess” was not heard of until somewhere around my late teens early 20’s.
Growing up, I identified with feeling more like a boy than a girl. Teachers like Alison Sinatra, Gabrielle Roth and Shiva Rea opened deep opportunities of healing around the feminine for me.
How has movement helped you discover yourself?
Many of my earliest memories in life involve movement. Those early memories were my first experiences of connecting, arriving to a feeling of tapping into something so much bigger than myself. Something so big, it was beyond my comprehension.
That feeling of coming home was what drove me to keep moving. It was all I wanted to do. No matter what was going on with me at home, in school, in life, I knew that it would all be okay once I started moving.
I always say that movement saved my life.
If I didn’t have the option of dancing, I really don’t know what would have happened to me! It gave me somewhere to put my energy. A way to safely and constructively express myself and transform current challenges I was experiencing. When I was moving, I was able to see past the overwhelming energies that I felt weighing on me. I could move past the present and remember who I was and why I was here.
What does feminine power mean to you?
Things that come to mind are:
- Lady power
- #Girlboss power
- Female superheroes
It means using your innate feminine abilities and magic for the greater good.
Using the powers we possess as women to put forth good in the world.
We are immensely powerful creatures, and I don’t mean that as “we are so powerful and men are not” or in any way that feels like manipulative.
It’s more about women using their powers together with the intention to create. We are way more powerful working together than working against each other.
Sharing our resources and abilities to manifest anything our beautiful hearts can dream up is feminine power at its best.
When we tap into our goddess nature, we are the true essence of abundance. So feminine power is also about fertility. And I do not mean that in a baby making machine kind of way.
We give life not just to babies… but ideas, dreams and movements.
We can help others tap into their own creative life force.
In our highest selves we shower beauty on those around us, enhance others and our surroundings!
We carry a 360 degree vision with empathic and clairvoyant abilities.
When we use all these powers for the greater good and are operating as the light forces of the world, we are capable of making anything possible!
How can every woman add more movement into her life?
Just start moving! Play music that taps you into your power and MOVE! Let your body move from the inside out in an inspired way. Forget the mirror, forget the moves you learned in dance class or high school and allow yourself to form a deeper relationship with your physical, emotional and spiritual body. Try new ways of moving, and don’t limit yourself to “go-to” moves or moves “you always do”.
What matters is the intention, so start moving with the intention of awakening yourself.
Awakening yourself to your power within.
Moving to connect to the universal power that is in all that is.
Moving to express your emotions and and free the physical body.
Utilize every part of your body in your movement. Let yourself get lost in the journey of exploring the many ways and directions the body can move.
Experiment with different types of fitness, dance, yoga, or martial arts classes–anything that gets you into your body and out of your head! The more you move, the more you are moved! Moving is what keeps us alive. Without it we can get dull, stagnate and energetically heavy.
What inspires you?
Movement is a primary source of inspiration for me.
However I am moved by life in general. I challenge you to find overwhelming beauty and inspiration everywhere you turn.
Nature, food, people, love, all the human emotions, change, growth, evolution. It all inspires me.
If I feel that creative life force dulling in me, I know I need to do something to fill myself up.
Sometimes it’s sitting in the sun, going to a class, dancing in my bathroom, or a conscious conversation with a like minded soul.
Sometimes removing myself from my current energetic experience and creating an opportunity to feel something new sparks a new way of thinking.
Sometimes it’s a need to just get out of the city. A drive to change up my environment.
Travel is something that deeply inspires me, too. Getting my music going and wandering around in a foreign land with no agenda creates a shift in perception.
What words do you live by?
Here is one that always does it for me… by the epic goddess Martha Graham:
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost.
The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you.Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
No satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
You had your own TV show! What’s the story?
Once upon a time I was a competitive latin ballroom dancer. I competed in Cha Cha, Rumba, Paso Doble, Samba, Jive and Salsa with some West Coast Swing, Two-step, Hustle and all the other variations of partner dance tossed in from time to time. I was obsessed with parter dance.
This experience ignited a mission in me to travel, studying the many dances of the world in their indigenous lands from the masters to form a deeper relationship with the dances.
I wanted to use dance as a way to travel and see the world. A way to connect with people and understand why and how dances were created.
So I started traveling and dancing. Then I started filming my experiences.
Then one day, I thought, maybe other people would like to experience this journey. Maybe it would be an interesting TV show. Fast forward to 2011, when my show “Dance The World”, aired on The Travel Channel.
That passion for wanting to share the dance still lives in me and I would love to turn it into some other doc series or a TV show.
I also currently have a TV show up on Amazon Prime, called Mind Body Go with Sonia Bahgdady and Alyson Charles where we bring you the latest in the health and wellness world.
What can our guests expect to experience at our Goddess Retreat in Brazil? What makes you excited about it?
OH wow, are you in for an adventure!
This is going to be a Goddess explosion. There are so many incredible factors all rolled into one exotic journey.
The guests coming on this retreat are in for a serious treat. Literally! Haha. Not only will they be eating your delicious breakfast bowls and smoothies, they will have an opportunity to dive deep within themselves and awaken their divine feminine. The women joining the goddess journey will be fully immersed in beauty from the land and from the energy of what we are creating for YOU!
Every day will include yoga, breathing, dance, nature, day dreaming, high vibration foods, intention setting, sharing, beach time, spa rituals, star gazing and so much more. ALL on the island of Ilha Grande.
I mean… seriously. I can’t wait! Plus just being around other inspiring women doing extraordinary things with their lives is always very special.
What are your morning rituals?
1. Quiet!
I believe that I am in my softest most malleable energy body in the mornings, so it’s important for me to start slowly and surround myself with energy that is conducive for the day to flow brilliantly. I stay off of technology for as long as I can first thing in the morning. That means zero social media or external stimulation for the first 20/30 minutes (or an hour!) to let the creative juices start flowing.
2. Gratitude Prayer
Before I get out of my bed, upon consciousness I like to start with a gratitude prayer. Simply just going through the list of all things that open my heart and direct my energy back to source help me immensely to start off the day in a right mind.
After that I enhance that love with some snuggle time with my fiancé Adam.
3. Replenishment
Water, tinctures, a green smoothie and some organic coffee or a matcha tea with almond milk and cinnamon.
4. Movement
If I am not teaching “the class”, I am taking it with Taryn or Nat, or moving my body intensely in some way. I feel the best starting my day off with a serious sweat session and 8 hours of sleep.
What’s your go-to breakfast?
I have had the true privilege of working with founder of Parsley Health Dr. Robin Berzin on a show we both hosted, The Juice. I also choreographed her wedding dance :) I love this woman. She is a force in the world of wellness and an innovator in functional medicine.
Being a Parsley Health member and a Dr. Robin devotee, I start my mornings with the Parsley’s Rebuild plant-based protein powder in a smoothie or just mixed with water or juice when the fridge is empty. The add-ons vary depending on what season we’re in.
Here’s a simple recipe and then one for the times you want to get fancy!
Simple Option Ingredients:
- 2 scoops of Parsley’s Rebuild powder
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
- 1/2 cup organic frozen berries
- 1/4 cup walnuts
- 1 Tablespoon almond butter
- 3 ice cubes
Fancy Option Ingredients:
- 8 oz of water, coconut water, or a mix of water & grapefruit juice
- 1 or 2 scoops of the Rebuild Protein powder
- 1 scoop of Vibrant Greens or spirulina
- 1 tablespoon of Chia and Flax
- 1 teaspoon of Maca
- 1 scoop of Glutamine
- Handful of greens
- Handful of whatever fruit I have in the house!
- 1/4 Avocado
Directions:
Vitamix that baby up and drink!
What’s next for Jaycee Gossett? (only big dreams are allowed
Oh jeez. What’s next?!
Part of the beauty is not knowing. Honestly… I never know what I am doing or what is going to happen. It all just keeps unfolding and getting better as I go.
As long as it entails me keeping on the “light” army mission and staying true to myself at my core, I am open to all of it.
More goddess gatherings, teachings, retreats, workshops, books, classes, a house on the beach.
Multi dimensional platforms of media around my offerings, travel, community, abundance in all ways, bi-coastal or bi-country living, a revolution of awakening and maybe one day a pet. :)
How’s that?
Connect with Jaycee on her website, Instagram @jayceegossettdance, Twitter, and check out Breakfast Criminals x Jaycee Gossett Goddess Retreat in Brazil!