Episode 93: Pursuing Prayer Cards with Jenna Brocious

🎶 Podcast Intro: Welcome to the pursuing uncomfortable podcast, where we give you the encouragement you need to lean into the uncomfortable stuff life puts in front of you, so you can love your life. If you are ready to overcome all the yuck that keeps you up at night, you're in the right place. I am your host, Melissa Ebken let's get going. 🎶

🎶 Episode Intro:  On this episode of Pursuing Uncomfortable, I talk with guest Jenna Brocious, who takes us on a deeply personal healing journey from childhood trauma to spiritual awakening. She believes that uncomfortable situations and emotions are gateways to transformation and encourage listeners to embrace discomfort. Drawing from her own experiences, Jenna emphasizes the beauty that can be found on the other side of pain. 🎶

Episode:  
Melissa Ebken 
Jenna, welcome to the podcast. How are you today?

Jenna Brocious  0:01  
I'm good. How are you? Thank you for having me. 

Melissa Ebken  0:08  
I'm doing great. It's a beautiful day here in central Illinois. Where are you joining us from?

Jenna Brocious  0:14  
I'm in Phoenix and it's about 115. So we're hiding inside right now.

Um, yeah, that's a solid plan. Yeah, too much heat. So can you tell us a little bit about what you do.

So I am a spiritual guide. I sell positive intention prayer cards on Etsy. I am also a wife and a mother. So between all of those categories, I am a busy lady.

It sounds like it plus with all the hiding out inside.

Yes, well, it's shovel the snow or shovel the sunshine. So I'll take the sunshine.

Absolutely. All day, every day. Yes. So have to get started being a spiritual guide?

You know, I was on a healing journey from my childhood, and I got pregnant with my first child. And it really just spiraled me back into my childhood and the pain I really hadn't worked through yet. So once I started my healing journey, the spiritual side just kind of showed itself because I was tapping into who I actually was and who those feelings and the feelings I have now and the memories, and I don't know how it all kind of just came into this one big explosion. But between my healing process I found in this beautiful spiritual journey of now I can hear God, listen to God and have all of these downloads come that help me or help other people.

That's beautiful. Do you mind telling us a little bit about your healing journey?

She what? Where should where should I start?

Melissa Ebken  1:44  
Wherever it's comfortable for you. Or maybe uncomfortable for you since that's what we do here.

Jenna Brocious  1:49  
Yes, totally. Yeah. So I became pregnant. And I was hoping that my mom would show up in a different way than she had ever done before which she was young. She was 22, when she had me, unmarried. And so she didn't really sign up for what had happened to her. And when I became pregnant, I was hoping for her to be more involved for maybe the first time, and I got really disappointed when she wasn't following up with good phone calls and questions, and how am I doing and how was the baby. And I got really disappointed and hurt all over again. And it brought up those feelings of my childhood. And my husband said to me, you can't hold somebody to an expectation they did not agree to. And I, the light bulb in my head went off. And the greater understanding of it all was shown to me. And then I really just had to get on that journey of like, finding forgiveness and peace for my mother, because I wanted that for myself. And the only way for me to find that for myself was to give it to her. And then I started to realize that her childhood wasn't great. And she had it very rough and difficult. So how could I have expected more out of her when she really had no opportunity there either. So you know, it all then just beautifully unfolds more and more. I've been on this journey for about eight years now. And I don't think it ever ends. But it does have ebbs and flows. So.

So on your website, which the link is in the show notes, and I encourage everyone to click on it. It says that you are an a spiritual intuitive, what does that mean?

So spirituality spirituality, to me means to know oneself on a deeper level. And then to have the intuitive part comes in is I really can feel other people's emotions, my stomach will start to turn if I know I'm getting myself into a bad situation. I also will receive downloads from God or source or whatever you want to call it. From friend's parents who passed away, maybe there's a little message they want to get across to them. So it comes in many different forms of being an empath to also just receiving messages that somebody needs that I am, I'm like a speaker in a way for whatever. And most of the time, I don't remember what comes out of my mouth, because it's not for me to remember, but for the person I'm telling it's for them. So it's a it's a really interesting place to live these days.

It sounds like it. Do you often receive messages for strangers, or is it mostly people that you already have a relationship with?

It's mainly people I have a relationship with. And I think it's because whoever is above knows that I have that connection to them. And so then I will, I'll either receive it in a dream, or I'll be in meditation and receive it and I'll, I'll kind of sit with it for a while before I ever tell the person and I also always ask for permission before I share something with somebody because that is also a very important factor to this. 

Melissa Ebken  4:42  
I couldn't agree more. I've had a few experiences they don't have happened regularly or even predictably and you have the same experience. Yes. But there have been a handful of times or so when I have received a message that I knew was for someone else. In that same sense of do you want this message? 

Jenna Brocious  5:04  
Yeah, cuz sometimes they don't. 

Melissa Ebken  5:07  
Yeah. And that's okay. And it's okay to release it. 

Jenna Brocious  5:12  
Well, sometimes they'll bug me a little longer than I would prefer. And I've gotten better about asking the message to go away or the person to go away. Because sometimes they can be very like irritant on this side. I don't know how to describe it. But I will be bothered for days if I don't ask them to finally leave. So yeah, it's an it's an interesting little bubble to live in, in a weird way.

And many are skeptical. And I get that if you're listening to this, and you're skeptical, we understand that. I have had some deep seeded gut feelings. Of you need to call this person now. Why? And when I've listened to those, I have been so thankful, so grateful that I did. And there have been a couple of times and I ignored those and I was really remorseful that I did. Have you had experiences like that? 

I think I've had more experiences of just people not wanting the message more than anything else. I feel like my gut feelings used to be, I used to get a lot more gut feelings when I was little. So I would like know something bad was going to happen that night, and my gut would just be turning and then something would happen. I'd be like, oh, that's why I felt like that. But I haven't had them like you, but I feel like everybody's story is totally different. And nobody's is the same, which is very interesting, as well.

And we're so connected. I keep learning that lesson over and over. Has that been present to you? Does that manifest in the work that you do? 

Oh, yes, it's, I mean, I feel very connected to my angels. Personally, I am a big angel girl. And I will see feathers wherever I go on the side of my car door to like, stepping off the sidewalk, and there's a feather right in front of me. So it is such a beautiful reminder of how much more we are interconnected than sometimes we allow ourselves to see.

So Jenna, show us about the prayer cards that you have. 

I love this topic, it makes me so happy. It's a little bit of a story. But I have to tell it because I think it's so important to be part of the journey. But in 2019, I had been doing real estate and I had a three year old and I just wasn't really feeling fulfilled yet and what I thought I was supposed to be doing. So my husband said, okay, take six months off, do whatever you need to do. Let's really figure out what your next move is. And we'll move forward. So I would take my son to preschool every morning, I would go to the gym, I'd come home, I'd make myself a healthy breakfast. And this was all in silence. And I would go sit in my office for at least two hours a day on the floor just praying and meditating God, whatever. What am I supposed to do journaling, bawling, crying, I know, there's such a greater purpose for me and I feel it within. And the prayer cards came to me. Positive intention prayer cards came to me. And then COVID hit. And so we all got thrown into a little bit of a loop there for a while where that was could not be my focus or even real, a real thought. But during COVID I kept googling like positive prayers, because I was struggling mentally to keep my head above water with what was going on. And I just couldn't find it. So when we finally got a chance to catch a breath in September 2020, I sat down and I just started writing out these prayers. And then I found a Bible verse that correlated with them. And they're super cute. I love them. They're the size of a credit card. So they fit in your wallet, they fit in the back of your phone. There's eight different topics. Peace, love, positivity, grief, worthiness, strength, change, and I had some moms just asked me to add a travel prayer card in there for their kids for the summer. But it's been such a beautiful thing that it's really resonated, the worthiness prayer card I wrote for some girlfriends who I thought were amazing, strong, capable women, and they just didn't feel their worthiness. So I wrote, you know, I had these examples in my life where I want you to know you're better than what you see yourself as and so I wrote the worthiness prayer card. The grief prayer card I wrote for a friend who lost a son in 2020. And I wanted her to have the words without having to think about it, but just have that release. And so they're all I could cry talking about it. They all have a special place in my heart.

I'll go with you do.

They all just have a special place in my heart and it really was I feel like God talking through me about like, that is my purpose is to be out here and to talk about my pain to purpose and these beautiful cards that I feel like we can always pray the negative about what we don't have but maybe sometimes when we can pray with what we could have or the lack, not praying with the lack but lack but praying with the possibilities of anything, I think we can get more out of life, it's a little bit of a law of attraction there too. So my prayer cards are just a part of my little heart. So thank you for asking about them. 

Melissa Ebken  10:12  
Absolutely. And you know what I like and what I appreciate. And this is the differentiator for me of whether something is useful or not, or if it helps to build up or not, and this is true for me, whether I'm watching, you know, a movie that is spiritually uplifting, hi, I speak for a living. If I'm watching something that is supposed to be spiritually uplifting, or if I'm listening to something that's supposed to be spiritually uplifting, or engaging with it in any way, shape, or form, the differentiator for me is whether it's embodied piety or some disembodied piety. And what I mean by that is, we can sit together and talk about platitudes, all day long. But when they are connected to something real or connected to someone real, or connected to something that I am hands on experiencing in my life that makes it an embodied object and embodied thought and embodied need. And in my churches, when I preach, or when I talk to folks, I preach on embodied needs in my community. And that's such a difference maker for me. So when you speak about writing these cards with real people in mind and real situations, that resonates with me.

Jenna Brocious  11:44  
Yeah, and I just like I was struggling with finding, like, I sat with a dictionary and was just thesaurusing like the right words and the right definitions. And I wanted it to be like, very intentional how I was writing these prayers, because I only want them to be with a positive intention. Because I just think we all need a little bit more of a positive boost in our lives, because we really have been trained or only saw a lot of negativity for a really long time. That was how my household was. And so I'm just here to just switch it a little bit and add a little sparkle and give it some fun and give it some joy, we need more joy,

We do. And looking for the negative is probably how we are hardwired to protect ourselves to make it through this life. But when we look for the positive, and when we really seek to reach out for it, we create such a space that has so much opportunity in it. When we're willing, and I like to talk about this a lot, when we're willing to step out of our comfort zone a little bit, pursue something that scares us a little, it creates space for us to move our lives expansion that a little broader. So I love that there are positive prayer cards that would be encouraging when we have to do that. Because sometimes life forces out of those comfort zones, and what a beautiful tool that you've created for folks. 

Thank you. I love them personally. But I also, I tried to balance the spiritual with also being a Christian because I love God. And I think he's part of everything that I do. So I put Dear God, but if you wanted to change it to Dear universe, or spirit or whatever you want to pray to, you totally have that opportunity. And then you still have that positive little chunk of a prayer to say to yourself, so you can use them in many ways to whatever you're comfortable with.

Melissa Ebken  13:37  
Thank you. And I know I will be clicking on this link as soon as we're done here. And I hope everyone else does too. And check these out. They can only bring good things to our lives, right? 

Jenna Brocious  13:47  
Absolutely. Yes.

Now, earlier on, you mentioned a topic that I get so fired up and passionate about. And if you wouldn't mind a couple of minutes, you mentioned that you had to forgive your mother, so you could forgive yourself. So you could release all of that. Forgiveness I think is the one skill, the one spiritual skill, that if we learned more about that, if we leaned into that, that changes our lives so so profoundly. Can you talk a little bit about forgiveness and what it meant for you?

Yeah, so to start with my words for my company are help, heal and spread more love. And when I'm able to help you heal yourself, you actually then find more space within to love. And so that's what I really learned from forgiving my mother and really realizing that she did the best with what she could do. And then I had to just appreciate her for who she was. Really, I had to just learn to not have high expectations. I had to rlease she's gonna call me every week. Once I was able to really release those things that I wanted to do for my own son, it just gave me the space and the place to have compassion for her because she really did do her best with what she was given. And with that compassion, also gave forgiveness. And so having forgiveness for her has been such a weight off of my shoulders, that I, I would do it 10 fold over again, because we still don't have a great relationship. And we don't speak that often. But my energy towards her is forever going to be compassion and forgiveness, because I think she probably needs that more than she even realizes.

Yeah, and forgiveness isn't always about the other person, but it's about your own, your own life and your own spiritual growth and health. 

Yeah. Yeah, she probably doesn't even know I've forgiven her or have compassion for her. But for me, that is the projection that I send to her. When I had these conversations with anybody. It's always gonna be that.

Yeah. And because you were able to forgive her. It changed you and your life. Yeah. It allowed you space to grow and expand. 

Yep. Yeah.

Melissa Ebken  16:12  
Love it. There are also so many studies coming out from russ, well beautiful people, you know, like the Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins and all of these really reputable credible medical sources and researchers that outlines specific health benefits of being able to give me consequences of holding on to those things, I think, I wouldn't be surprised next time I go in for a physical to have a doctor ask me what I'm holding on to. You know, I think that would be a great part of overall care, because there are physical consequences of holding on to grudges. 

Jenna Brocious  16:52  
Oh, I mean, there are so many I was just reading a book about it were ALS. And there was another disease that they say the people that get those are people pleasers, and all they do is help other people, but they never help themselves. And so their body starts to actually shut down. Because they're unable to give their body the attention that it needs because they're only ever willing to help others, which I love helping others don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day, I also my body is my temple, and I have to take care of myself first. And I'll always say this, but if it's not a hell yes to help somebody or do something for someone, or whatever it might be. If it's not a hell yes, then it's a hell no for me. And that's just me taking care of my own self, because I can't over commit to anything at this point in time in my life. Those six months I sat in the office on the floor, were the most silent, beautiful months I've ever had. And it taught me that slowing down is more important than speeding up.

Tell us again, the statement that your husband told you about expectations.

That we cannot hold people to an expectation they did not agree to.

I love that. Oh, yeah. If we could only all have that tattooed backwards across our forehead that every time we looked in the mirror, we saw that, including ourselves. We can't hold ourselves to expectations we didn't sign up for as well.

Right? Yeah. No, I mean, I live with that across the board for every person I interact with at this point in time in life. And I think it, if we could, again, like what you just said, and we could all just think about that a little bit more, life would be a lot easier. And we would get a lot less frustrated about situations.

Absolutely. So if someone's listening to this podcast and thinking, Okay, I'm curious, I want to learn a little bit more, and maybe they've clicked on your link, maybe they've already ordered the prayer cards. What would you like to say to that person? 

I mean, I think at the end of the day, when I chose to change my perspective to the world is for me, and not against me, like we've said, in the past, my eyes were opened and my world changed, like people will come get my grocery cart from me in the parking lot. Didn't ask them to do that but they're coming up and asking to take it away for me. It has just really changed my whole world and how I see things. I'm a big hostess and I love to have parties. And I recently had some people over and I had a couple call and say, Oh, we're gonna be late, just start the party without us. Normally, I'd get off the phone and get really angry and like spew bad energy all over my husband, because how could they be late to my party? And this one time, I was like, you know, I'm just gonna, like, let it go. And I'm not gonna let it bother me. And they showed up on time because they decided to cancel their other plans. And so it's just like those realizations to me that like, when I just take a step back and I take a breath and I don't get frustrated or angry or allow that energy to mess me up. I actually it all works out in the end for me anyway. So that's been like the biggest realization for me that I don't need to spew negative energy because it doesn't work for me anyways.

Maybe works against you? 

Yes, totally 100%. 

Melissa Ebken  20:16  
Now, do you see any of these tendencies in your children? The sensitivity to the spiritual world, do they get nudges? Or do they get those gut feelings that you had when you were a child?

Jenna Brocious  20:28  
So my son has, there was like a little boy in the closet at my mother in law's house, and he saw a little boy, and he actually wouldn't even tell me, he only told my husband, which I thought was interesting. And so I sat down, and I told him, I go tell that little boy to go to the light, and that everything will be okay. And so he finally did when he stayed the night at Grandma's house, and he hasn't seen the little boy since. But I also still think he's seven. And he's at that age where like, the adult wall hasn't gone up and blocked him. So I think he is a little open to it. But it will be interesting to see how it unfolds over time for sure.

Absolutely. I think that the closer we are to that, that eternal veil, if you will, that young young children and people near the end of their days that they do have access to wisdom and sight that we don't. 

Yeah, it's yeah, it's a pretty cool thing. I hope. I hope he does get some of it, because I do think it is such a superpower and a tool that we all have within us. We're just not all aware or willing to go there. But I hope that he allows it to happen for himself. 

Melissa Ebken  21:44  
Yeah, in a way that serves him. 100% Yes. All right. Well, Jenna, this has been so much fun, and I can't believe how fast time is flying. So tell us how do we get in touch with you? How do we start this journey? What do we do if we're also stuck, and just want a light to go off in our lives?

Jenna Brocious  22:06  
You know, I think like, like the podcast is it's uncomfortable. So you have to be willing to put yourself in very uncomfortable situations and then uncomfortable feelings that maybe we don't want to recognize that we should recognize because I always say the other side and pain is so beautiful. It's totally worth the agony for whatever moment that happens. But you can find me on Instagram, I am Jennab_spiritual. I'm always putting up tips tips and tricks and fun little stories to keep you moving and grooving in a happy way. And my prayer cards are on Etsy under Jennab_spiritual as well. If you love them, and they resonate with you, I hope they do. You can buy them there.

Melissa Ebken  22:46  
Excellent. Thank you Jenna. 

Jenna Brocious  22:48  
Thank you

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