Wonder Woman Wednesday - Jo Westwood

louisehewison
Jul 1, 2015
5 min read

Meet our Wednesday Wonder Woman - Spirit DJ and co-founder of the incredible #HigherSelfie, creating big waves in the UK self-development and spirituality scene, the gorgeous Jo Westwood.

When you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A few things… The first ambition I can remember is wanting to be a milkman! LOLZ! Sad but true… I was a, shall we say, high energy kid, hated going to bed and couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning! I used to see the milkman driving around in the dark at 4am and think what a cool job that would be. I still do love to rise early and get to work before anyone else wakes but I’m meditating, not delivering milk!

I also wanted to be a soldier. For my stick like frame and angelic white blonde locks I was a pretty tough little cookie! I loved the idea that a girl could be as strong and fast and tough and brave as a boy. Plus I really wanted a shaved head like Demi Moore in G.I. Jane. I was about 7 at the time!

My last big childhood ambition was to be a English teacher. So all those things combined I guess I wanted to be a early rising, feminist, shaven headed teacher, who reads and writes a lot and did her best work at dawn. So it all worked out in the end…

What do you do now? For work? For fun?

In my work I’m known as the Spirit DJ and I’m a life coach and spiritual mentor. I help women to reconnect with their own sense of spirituality in really grounded and practical ways so that they can be totally on fire in their lives… I do spiritual solutions for real life shiz! Plus… #HigherSelfie which is my joint baby with my work wife and BFF Lucy Sheridan. We created the only spirituality un-conference together and now we’re running Salons across the UK, have big plans for more un-conferences and festivals (you heard it here first!) and are launching our first group coaching program #HigherSelfie Tribe right about now.

For fun I love hotpod yoga – my fave new discovery! I also love to cycle and walk with my two retired racing greyhounds, and snuggle with their boninesses too! I love to cook, because with all that exercise girl’s gotta eat – and I’m Cancerian so I’m a homemaker at heart, plus a couple of shandies on a Friday, a good box set when I’m alone – Transparent is my current obsession – and reading, though the lines get blurred there. I can’t put my spiritual books down in my “off” time. I love to learn! #geek

How did you get into your area of expertise?

I’d been working in the realms of self development for some time – being coached myself and working for other coaches, mainly based in the US, doing their social media marketing. To cut a long story short in 2013 I had really tough year and I experienced a spiritual revelation that told me what it was I needed to do with my life. So I became a student of A Course in Miracles and within a couple of months I turned on a dime wrapped up my social media business and became the Spirit Deej.

What obstacles have you faced in following your dreams and how have you overcome them?

My parents thinking I had joined a religious cult – not even joking! And my own self doubt about people taking me seriously as a spiritual coach and mentor, as I’d never been known as anything like this before. The first one took a difficult, open and honest conversation and me just carrying on regardless, and the second one took trust, faith and me carrying on regardless. The more I did my work and got awesome unexpected results and opportunities, the easier it became to believe I did the right thing.

What’s the best part of what you do?

Cliché alert! Helping people. And getting to be totally myself in my work.

What advice do you have for other women who might want to follow suit?

What I’ve learned is that if you stay true to what feels right and good to you everythjng works out in the end, even if it looks like a total crazy fest to everyone else. So take the risk. You’re not here long enough to play safe and small and not follow your heart.

What’s your morning routine?

On a good day, wake around 6am, walk the pooches while listening to some Marianne or Eckhart on my iPod, have breakfast, send the family off on their way for the day with smooches, meditate, pray and get to work on my business.

3 things that are on your ‘to do’ list today?

Meditate. Again.

Get my head shaved. Really, I’m still on that tip 20 years later!

Finish tidying my desktop. I’m good at making stuff, less so at filing it!

What are you working on at the moment? Next project?

Lots lots more #HigherSelfie stuff… Un-conferences, festivals, coaching, workshops, cool online stuff and more top secret stuff. Lucy and I feel so blessed to be the vessel for #HigherSelfie. The energy surrounding it is incredible and it continues to give us awesome ideas out the wazoo!

One woman you admire and why?

Sophia Amaruso. She’s the totally kickass, totally expressed, totally unique CEO of Nasty Gal and author of #GirlBoss. She followed her passion and despite a weird and winding path that might have looked like it was only going one way to the outside world, she has risen to the top of her game and beyond.

Three wishes?

Abundant income.

A great personal and professional team.

Both of the above in service of more time spent with my family and working on the stuff I love doing.

Who do you turn to for advice?

My hubs or my business partner Lucy.

Who do you turn to for a shoulder to cry on?

My hubs or… You guessed it! My business partner Lucy.

Favourite book?

A Return To Love

Favourite movie?

Sister Act 2