By Jess Caire
Conversations with Jaime Aplin
Jaime Aplin is one of those positive, love your life kind of gals (which is fine by us coz we are those kind of gals, too!). She is an empowerment speaker and mentor, recently holding her inaugural “Free to be Me” Reconnect Weekend Retreat. She is all about inspiring people to discover their purpose, as well as learning to LOVE all that they are.
You are pretty open about your own personal journey to self-acceptance – when did you realise this could be helpful to others?
Once I was got to the place where truly accepted all of myself and everything that had happened in my life – the good, the bad and the ugly, I felt the most exhilarated feeling of freedom – FREE TO BE ME. Once I felt that freedom, I had this burning desire to help others to experience the same level of freedom for themselves. I believe that the true purpose of our lives is to be ourselves, and when we can accept all that we are and uncover our true sense of self, amazing opportunities open unlike anything you could have even dreamed possible.
You are qualified NLP practitioner – what is this, and what can people expect in a treatment?
NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and in simple terms it’s learning the language of your own mind. We are creating everything in our lives every day whether you know it or not. When you empower your life through self-awareness of your thinking, you can start to re-program your unconscious mind that holds all the beliefs that you have. All of the thoughts, habits, behaviours and therefore results we have stem from our beliefs. And for most of us, they are not even our beliefs, but something we have learnt from others. You see our unconscious mind stores all of the information we see, hear, touch or feel every single day. As an NLP practitioner I use a collection of practical techniques, skills and strategies that help people to clear emotional blocks & beliefs that no longer serve them, and that are holding them back from the life they truly want to live.
In your experience, what is the biggest challenge women face in being able to accept themselves?
From my personal experience the biggest challenge for people accepting themselves is having to give up their ‘identity’, or who they think they have to be. You see, before I had my girls, my identity was my career, that was ‘who’ I thought I was. And then when I had my girls, I lost that identity because I decided to be a stay at home Mum. So then I believed my identity was that of just a Mum, but it wasn’t fulfilling me. What I have since learnt about myself is that I am none of those things. The ‘labels’ or ‘roles’ we give ourselves are not the core of who we are. And it wasn’t until I hit my rock bottom, and knew things had to change that I went about discovering WHO I truly was. So in learning to accept myself I had to let go of so many of the negative emotions that I was holding onto. And the biggest one for me was ‘mothers guilt’. I felt like I was failing at being a Mum because of all the expectations I had put on myself about fitting into that identity, and I was ashamed because I didn’t feel like I was supposed to.
What can we expect from a Free to be Me weekend?
The Free to be Me Retreat is an incredible opportunity to leave the outside world for a few days to reconnect with yourself, and empower your body, mind and soul. All of the answers we ever need are inside us all, sometimes we just need to be quiet enough to be able to listen. So often we are caught up in our day to day existence that we don’t take the time we need to connect with ourselves. We are all the most beautiful and amazing human beings, and when we take the time to connect with who we truly are, life will never be the same again. The most transformational part of the weekend comes from the beautiful connection that is shared within the group that can only be harvested in a retreat environment. One of the girls that attended our last retreat said it would have taken her 12 months to breakthrough what she did in just a couple of days. We facilitate a safe, loving, supportive and nurturing space for people to explore more about themselves. It allows people to openly let go of what no longer serves them, and empower them to live a life they truly want.
You have recently co-authored a book called “Positive Minded People”, can you give us a little teaser?
I am so jumping up and down with excitement about this!!! I have co-authored with 8 other incredible human beings from the US, and the energy that this book has is out of this world. There wouldn’t be anyone out there that wouldn’t be touched by something shared in this book. All the authors have shared a part of themselves in this book and their inspiring stories of overcoming adversity and how they are now living a more positive life because of it. The book is due to be released in October 2017, so would love for you to follow on Facebook at ‘Positive Minded People Book’.
In regards to a little teaser, here is a little bit from the chapter of the book…
“Learning to love myself has been one of the most confronting, yet liberating experiences of my life. It wasn’t like I just woke up one day and decided to start loving myself, it was beautifully born from me hitting rock bottom in my life, and realising that I wasn’t feeling anything in my life, I was numb. I was just going through life on autopilot, feeling nothing and just existing. I might as well been a robot. And then, for the first time in a long time, I felt a little light shining within me, it was showing me that I was enough, and that my life was destined for so much more than the pain that was holding me prisoner. The more I made time for myself, to find out what lit me up, the more I discovered who I truly was. And now feeling so truly aligned with who I am, I really do know what it’s like to love me, because I do accept myself – the good, the bad and ugly. I have taken responsibility for all aspects of my life, and that has given me a beautiful power, knowing that I’m the creator and the director of the story that is my life”.
You are also a Mumma, how are you managing your mum life and work life?
This is something that is so incredibly important to me as I suffered from burnout within the first couple of years of starting my business. A time where I had no balance at all because I was so focused on building a successful business, that everything else started to fall apart. Having greater balance is something we now achieve as a family. I have amazing support from my husband who left his full time sales job ago to become a disability support worker. He has greater flexibility with his hours and so that’s helps us to maintain a much better balance as a family. We share the responsibilities with the girls as well as the commitments with our work, but a big part is also in honouring ourselves and what we both need too. One of the biggest things I learnt in order to manage life as a mumma and as a business owner is to fill up my own cup first. The more I give to myself, the more I have to give to others including my family and my clients. It’s one of the greatest lessons I’ve learnt to live the life I truly want.
Where is your favourite SA destination to take time out and recharge your batteries?
I am very blessed to only live 5 minutes from the amazingly beautiful Morialta Conservation Park at Woodforde, which is my sanctuary. It is my sacred place where I feel most connected to myself and the world around me. I go walking there regularly because it helps me to clear my mind, as well as grounding me to live in the present moment. Every time I go there I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the beauty that mother nature provides us every day.
Join the conversation by commenting below.
Love, Jess xx
