This week I have the honor of interviewing a very special person–in fact, the most special person in my life: my wife, Jodi Chapman.

Aside from being the most amazing, loving, caring, beautiful, brilliant, genuine, and wonderful person I’ve ever known, she’s also an inspiring writer, speaker, and soulful-community-builder.

Jodi has brought together her heart, her wisdom, and her friends–over 35 soulful contributors–into a brand-new course called Coming Back to Life. It’s a six-week ecourse starting October 1.

Today, Jodi joins us to talk about her journey and how it led her to create this amazing course.

For those who are meeting you for the first time, please tell us more about yourself.

If you’re just meeting me for the first time, I would love to start by saying hello. 🙂 I’m grateful that our paths have crossed, and I look forward to getting to know you better!

I am an inspirational writer. (I still pinch myself when I write that because it’s such a dream come true.) I am definitely evidence that our lives can change drastically once we make our minds up and begin to leap toward our dreams. (More about that in a bit.)

For now, I’ll say that I write the blog Soul Speak, and I am so grateful for the loving community there. I also co-wrote (with my amazing husband!) the bestselling Soulful Journals series – 11 writing-prompt books that make getting to know yourself fun. I am the author of the upcoming book, Coming Back to Life: How An Unlikely Friend Helped Me Reclaim My True Spirit, which is what my new ecourse is based on.

What inspired you to create the Coming Back to Life Ecourse?

I was given a helping hand when I needed it so desperately, and this course is my way of offering my own hand to anyone else who is stuck and needing to wake up to their own life.

Just two years ago, I was in a very different place. I definitely wasn’t awake. I was feeling lost and numb and completely disconnected from my soul and from all of life. Like so many of us, I was living my life on auto-pilot. I was alive in the sense that my body was functioning – my heart was beating, and I was getting up each day and going to work, but I wasn’t REALLY living. I was just going through the motions – sleepwalking through life – and I wasn’t even aware of it.

And it’s not like this numbing out happened overnight – it happened gradually over a period of many years. Throughout my life, when something or someone hurt me, it felt like a little part of me left. I’ve always been a sensitive soul, and sometimes it was just easier to retreat rather than feel the pain. I also have lived most of my life feeling afraid and stepping back rather than leaping when I was called to take a chance.

Also, I had spent several years in survival mode – struggling to get by financially, and I if I did realize that I was numb and needed to wake up and start living, I would’ve seen this as frivolous and not a great way to make sure all the bills were paid.

So all of these pains and fears and struggles piled up on top of each other – creating a dark cloud over my heart. It was just easier to go to sleep and not think about it or feel any of it.

Two years ago, all of the struggles in my life came to a head – we had to move under very stressful and surprising circumstances, we were having a hard time staying passionate about our struggling gift business, we were drowning in bills with no light that we could see at the end of the tunnel, and we had just lost two people who meant a lot to us.  So we were grieving and trying to put our life back together at the same time. All I wanted to do was crawl into my bed, pull the covers up, and wake up when everything was better again. I didn’t know how I was going to keep going.

That’s when the helping hand came.

My loved one who had just died began communicating with me from the other side. He was my childhood sweetheart, and we hadn’t spoken in almost 20 years. I was definitely not open to this sort of thing at all, so it took an entire year of him sending me signs and me asking for more signs and on and on before we finally could get to work. And once we did, my entire world opened up. He helped me see that being here on Earth is such a beautiful gift – a gift that we have chosen to be a part of. He helped me see that I wasn’t really living. And he helped me wake up and step back into my life again.

Our journey together has been life-changing for me. Everything changed – all because I now saw things through a different lens. I now know that my time here is precious, and I can choose to come back to life. We all can.
That’s why I created this course. I was given this beautiful gift, and I didn’t want to keep it all to myself. I want to be the helping hand for others.

Who is your course for?

This course is for those of us who have ever felt disconnected from life – from our soul. It’s for those of us who have felt our light dimming. It’s for those of us who know that there is more to life than simply getting through the day.

This course is for those of us who are ready to plug back into this magical universe, reconnect with our soul, and open our hearts again. It’s for those of us who are no longer willing to just “get by” and sleepwalk through our days. It’s for those of us who are ready – truly ready – to start living fully.

 What are the benefits for people who enroll in your course?

 I would say that the biggest benefit for anyone who enrolls is to know that they have taken the first step toward embracing their life. They have walked toward the light and are sending a clear message to their soul that they are no longer okay with sleepwalking through life. Through awareness comes healing, and recognizing that your life isn’t how you would like it to be is the first step toward creating the life you want to be living.

Also, I would say that knowing you aren’t alone in feeling this way is a huge relief and a benefit that will last a lifetime. I went through much of my life completely closed off to outside help, and it was a very lonely way to live. Once I opened up and allowed others in, everything changed. I now feel love constantly pouring in, and I am constantly letting it flow out as well. It’s a much more free and loving way to live, and you’ll definitely experience that within the course.

What do you hope that people will take away after completing the course?

I want them to see that there is another way to live. I want them to really know that we have a choice – we truly don’t have to go through life simply going through the motions and just getting through the day. There is an entire universe out there that we are only just beginning to tap into. Our soul is connected to such a beautiful world – and waking up is the key to experiencing this way of life.

What else would you like to share?

We have all felt disconnected from our soul and the universe throughout our lives. This is completely normal. And when we feel this way, it can be hard to know how to plug back in. When I was feeling numb, I had a friend help guide me back. That’s why I created this course – to be that helping hand for you. To offer concrete tools and a loving community to support you in your journey back home. I would be thrilled if you joined us. Isn’t it time you woke up and embraced your life again? Isn’t it time we all did?

I hope you’ll choose to come back to life!

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Please click here for more information about Jodi and the Coming Back to Life ecourse.