Today we’d like to introduce you to Gwendolyn Jones.
Gwendolyn, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m Gwendolyn Jones, Emotional Wellness Coach, Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist, advocate, mentor, facilitator, and friend. I want to share a story with you about a young girl whose story begins with a beautiful perfectly, imperfect family filled with support, love, and acceptance. This young lady was academically gifted and developed into an ambitious, independent adult. Now a college graduate, she soon finds herself attending a ministry that she loves, working her dream career, married to a talented, handsome king, and mommy to two beautiful babies. This dream life that everyone admired, quickly turned into her worst nightmare.
As a young mom, trying to build a career with two children seemed impossible, having a social life was simply out of the question. Isolated and trapped, she began to feel like an outsider, she struggled to balance career and family and finally convinced herself that she was a shadow, meant to hide in the background while supporting her husband and children who were born for the stage, forfeiting any dreams of her own. She was unhappy and although people surrounded her, she was the loneliest she’d ever been. Now in her thirties, she lost the one person that understood her and made her feel safe, her Mommy Dearest, to colon cancer. Unable to process this grief, she further isolated and begin to bury herself in her work. For the next few years, she simply existed. She loved her God but questioned her faith. She knew better existed, but she couldn’t find the bridge to reach it. She was voiceless with so much to say, and she was so desperate to belong that she removed all boundaries and lost all control of her time and, ultimately her life. One day her beloved Pastor introduced her to a program that changed her life, The Grief Recovery Method. She did her work, faced her past, and was finally able to grieve the loss of her precious Mommy Dearest. For the first time in years, when she looked into the mirror, she saw beauty, confidence, purpose, and freedom.
This is my story and the story of countless women facing similar situations. I am 37 years old and just now confident enough to say boldly that, “I MATTER!” For most of my life, I was bound by the chains of fear, approval seeking, low self-esteem, and comparison, but now I am FREE and UNAPOLOGETICALLY ME! I exist to empower women to recover from past pains and regain control of their life!
Formal Biography: Gwendolyn Jones, M.A. is an advanced Grief Recovery specialist with a passion for empowering women to face and recover from past pains to embrace their future and regain control of their life fully. Her Wellness Coaching program focuses on Grief Recovery, boundary setting, and advancement from negative to positive self-perception. She believes that love conquers all and has successfully led countless women to recovery through her unique ability to create safety by conveying unconditional love and the application of various supportive counseling strategies. She along with her husband, partnered with The Grief Recovery Institute and founded A Safe Place, Emotional Wellness Institute, LLC in October 2017.
The Wellness Institute has three focuses: Grief Recovery, Marriage Mentoring, and Wellness Coaching. Gwendolyn coined the term Emotional Wellness Specialist and together, she and her husband are pioneers in bringing awareness to the field of emotional health. You may enter the Wellness Institute nervous and afraid, but we guarantee that you will leave feeling loved, accepted, enlightened, and empowered!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No, it hasn’t. I’d found emotional freedom. However, I still found myself trapped mentally and crippled by fear. I struggled with thoughts like, “who am I?” or “why would anyone listen to me?” This journey has been like a video game. I’d pass one level only to face another challenge at the next level. Once I finally became confident in my voice and my abilities, I then had to face the reality that I struggled with the “savior complex.” Why I thought I had the strength to carry ANYONE, I’ll never understand. This was a path that school doesn’t prepare you for, this was real life, these were real people with real pain, BUT everyone doesn’t want to be free!! That was my next struggle, ACCEPTANCE! It took me a while to realize that I am counselor, coach, and advocate but I can’t want emotional freedom more than my client did! I did my work, and I’m here to walk with you but there is no way that I can do it for you! Some came ready with open hearts and minds eager to see what lied on the other side of their pain. Others just wanted a comfortable conversation or momentary support; they weren’t yet ready to pay the cost that freedom required. Learning to accept and love people just as they are, right where they are, was a strong truth that I had to embrace.
Just when I felt like I was leveling up, I found myself completely overwhelmed and beginning to isolate from all that I knew I was called to do. Why, because I’d trained my clients to depend on me, not themselves. I was so passionate about the support and strength that I knew so many needed, that I became a crutch, on and off the clock, clients would call and text and the stress of that struggle to balance motherhood, wifedom, and entrepreneur was unreal! I lacked boundaries. I had to learn to be close enough to provide safety yet far enough away to prevent total dependency. Everything my clients need is already in them; all I do is help them sift through all of the noise, organize their pain so that they can properly process it, and help them find and embrace their true selves. They already have what they need to succeed. I simply have the privilege of being their tour guide as they navigate through their pain. Finally, the financial piece, wanting to help so many but not being able to help them all, paying for an office physically, I couldn’t afford because my prices weren’t properly set. Being ok with others walking away when a proper pricing structure is introduced is painful. Learning the business side of entrepreneurship is a journey I’m still embracing daily.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
A Safe Place: EWI has three focuses, Grief Recovery, Emotional Wellness Coaching, and Marital/Pre-Marital counseling. I am a firm believer that there is healing power in feeling safe and being heard. My mantra, “Safety, Freedom, Healing!” I work hard to make my clients feel safe. Once they feel safe, they are free to share their unfiltered truth. Once their truth is spoken, honored, and received without judgement, we become an unstoppable team with one mission, their freedom via healing!
My purpose on this earth is to empower others to recover from past pains and regain control of their life. My message is simple: YOU MATTER! What you say matters, what you think matters, what you feel, think, and what you want matters! I am your Emotional Wellness and advanced Grief Recovery Specialist. Uniquely trained to help you fully recover from ANY loss. My wellness coaching program has one goal, to identify and correct false belief systems birthed from past pains and to help you regain control of your life. I’ve got the necessary tools to release you from the pains of bondage and move you to a place of mental, physical, and emotional FREEDOM.
What makes ASP different? The Grief Recovery, my Husband and I are Co-founders of ASP, and we are both certified Grief Recovery Specialists. Together we have a master’s degree and a host of certifications. We offer a very different approach to emotional wellness. Our work involves moving our clients from their heads to their hearts. We help our clients peel back layers and layers of pain and help them find their healthy beating heart again. We bust Myths that society has taught us our entire lives concerning dealing with loss. Society teaches us just to replace the loss and never allows us to process it. Society teaches us to grieve alone because sad feelings are not ok. There is an entire spectrum of emotions. However, society only teaches us to embrace half of it. We are committed to our client’s journey and promise never to judge, criticize, or try to fix our clients. We’ve adopted a supportive counseling strategy and love our clients genuinely and unconditionally, right where they are!
I’m most proud of the hundreds of people that we’ve helped thus far, we’ve seen miracles and it’s an honor to serve our community and the world at large. I’m also proud to offer virtual counseling. I mentioned that we needed to increase our reach and we couldn’t do that by only offering our services locally. The virtual options not only increases our reach but is also a point of convenience for our clients. Our home office is in Greenville, NC but our clients are from all over, Atlanta, Chicago, Raleigh, South Carolina, etc.
A final challenge was getting our married couples to continue to invest in their marriage long term. Our sessions are unique. Our clients get both male and female vantage points as both my husband and I are present for couples counseling. We found that clients would attend one or two sessions but we knew they needed more. This weighed heavily on our hearts so we recently launched our Podcast entitled: “The Married People Podcast.” The podcast has truly been a blessing to our clients as my husband and I freely share our story in hopes of helping and inspiring others. Our motto, “Your marriage is worth the work!”
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
For me, the word success is a synonym for the word purpose! You can’t have true success if you’re not fulfilling purpose. It took me a while to become clear on what it was that God had divinely gifted me with to gift to others. The day I gained that clarity and began to walk in my God given talent, is the day I truly became a success story.
Success looks like this:
*Knowing your truth and walking in it
*Freedom to be unapologetically YOU
*Freedom from the thoughts, control and manipulation of others
*Peace: Physically, Mentally, and Emotionally
*Clear Boundaries, you control your life not others
*The ability to duplicate yourself. To take your experiences and provide training and opportunity for another
*Knowing when to speak, when to move, and when to be silent and sit still
*When you finally reach a point where you realize that you are not an island and reach a place where you value divine connections, wisdom, and authentic relationship most
*Building and then offering it to your children aka legacy
Contact Info:
- Address: 2192 Evans Street, Greenville, NC 27834
- Website: www.gwendolynjjones.com
- Phone: 9196736460
- Email: info@asafeplacenc.org
- Instagram: gwendolyn_j_jones
- Facebook: Gwendolyn J. Jones, Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist
- Twitter: Married People Podcast @MPPPodcast
- Blog: https://gwendolynjjones.wordpress.com
Image Credit:
Alfonzo D. Jones II, Co-Founder A Safe Place: Emotional Wellness Institute
Suggest a story: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
