Ask Jenn Castillo Staats what she does and the answer depends on who's asking. Strip away the credentials, though, and she'll tell you plainly: she cultivates safe spaces and loves people for a living. Jenn is the founder of Of The Essence, a wellness studio in Cincinnati. She's a professional practitioner of the intuitive arts, a crystal healer, an intuitive coach and educator, a Reiki master. She also spent almost twenty years as a social worker and therapist before any of that, and she retired at the height of that career because something in her knew it was time. Jenn grew up mixed indigenous in a place that was mostly white and mostly comfortable, while her own family was neither. Her gifts showed up young, and at first they frightened her. She'd wake in the night in an old house full of activity, not yet understanding what was happening. She spent whole days alone in the woods, which she'll tell you was never really alone. She had her first reading from an elder at eleven or twelve. What she wanted, for a long time, was to be normal. So she found a way to help people that looked acceptable from the outside, and she was good at it for two decades. All the while the other work carried on quietly in her personal life, referrals passing hand to hand the way they always have. Ninety-nine percent of her business still arrives that way. The conversation goes into what it actually took to make the leap. Not the clean version. The years of her own healing that had to happen first, the people who told her long before she was ready, the fear she had to move through anyway. She also speaks about her cancer diagnosis, and the thing it exposed in her that years of practice hadn't: how bad she was at receiving. A whole community showed up to care for her and she resisted it. Out of the middle of that came her course, Alchemizing Pain into Power. What we talk about Growing up with gifts nobody around her had language forAssimilation, and wanting to be normal more than wanting to be seenTwenty years in social work, and why she left at the topWhy she believes we should have many teachers, including plants, animals and the moonPractitioners doing their own work, and what happens when they don'tEmpowerment as the primary healing toolWhat an actual session looks like, start to finishHer clients: CEOs, priests, doctors, stay-at-home parents, people who are unhousedStarting where your hands are, and why the ripple counts as doing somethingCancer, receiving, and where Alchemizing Pain into Power came from On feeling helpless People come to her overwhelmed by everything happening in the world, convinced that nothing they do matters. Her answer is to start where your hands can reach. Clean up your own side of the street. Look someone in the eye at the petrol station and mean it when you wish them a good day. The ripple is real, and it counts. The Wayfinders question Every guest finishes the same sentence: I know I'm finding my way when… Jenn's answer comes back to authenticity. She knows she's on the right path when she can show up completely as herself, to herself first and then to everyone else. When she doesn't have to hide or make herself small. She says if she could go back to the pivotal moments, she'd tell her younger self one thing. Just be who you are. That's enough. Of The Essence, Cincinnati. Jenn works with clients around the world, travels to teach, and runs classes and in-person sessions. If this one resonated, share it with someone who's looking for their way. And if you have a moment, a review genuinely helps others find this corner of the forest 🤍
