Tapping to Freedom with Jeanne Demers
““Money matters make me nauseous. I am living open to whatever I get given.” Which (is) an upbeat version of the underlying truth: “I don’t value myself enough to charge my worth.” ”
When Jeanne Demers describes “Realize What Matters Mentoring,” she shares the three definitions of the word, “Realize.”
The first meaning is “to understand clearly,” the second is “to bring into existence” or cause something to happen, and the third is “to convert into actual money” or to make money from a transaction.
When Jeanne refers to “What Matters,” she is referring to one’s gifts, passions and unique way of offering them to the world.
But how did Jeanne become a mentor for uncovering such potential in others?
She grew up in Springvale, Maine as the eldest girl in a big, happy Catholic family. Or, at least, that was the perfection she was encouraged to project as a child. She learned that hard work and good behavior were important, but what mattered most was how things looked.
Jeanne became adept at projecting the image of perfection that her parents so cared about. The summer before she entered high school, she decided that being “popular” was akin to being perfect, so becoming popular became the goal of her high school career.
Being elected president of her class and starring in school plays won her the popularity she sought and Jeanne graduated with awards, scholarships and her classmates’ vote as “Most Popular” and “Most Likely to Succeed.”
After graduation, Jeanne moved to New York City to attend NYU’s Drama Undergraduate program and pursue her dream of becoming the best actress in the world.
As she got ready to leave Maine for New York City, Jeanne felt full of hope, possibility… and disbelief.
“Do I really, really, REALLY get to leave here?” she wondered as she helped pack her belongings into the family car. It seemed unreal that she could finally be other than one of Pat and Adele’s ten perfect Catholic kids, and get to be ‘just Jeanne.’
She longed to be like Sandy Duncan as Peter Pan in the “I Love NY” commercials she saw on TV and fly free.
Realization followed intention when—right out of her acting conservatory training, while still in her teens—Jeanne became the youngest-ever company member of Jean Cocteau Repertory. A coveted position that, once secured, she saw no reason to ever give up.
Over the five years that Jeanne performed with the Cocteau, the company and its members became family who nurtured and supported her growth as an actress and as a person. Support was necessary because the demands of ‘rotating repertory’—meaning multiple plays were running at any given time—were high. To deliver as an actor for a company that was performing up to four plays at one time during the height of the season was strenuous work, and that level of expectation and dedication kept Jeanne tethered and grounded.
But in time, Jeanne longed for something more. Her spirit once again wanted to feel free.
This time, freedom came about in an unexpected way.
One Friday evening as the company returned from a Christmas break, erred by her date book and the distraction of her destiny, Jeanne missed a performance. She was released from the company the next morning. Horrifying and humiliating as this was (missing a performance is practically unheard of in the theatre), Jeanne was reminded of how she felt escaping Maine.
“Freedom had to occur somehow,” she reflected in her journal at the time. “It occurred this way. It probably couldn’t have happened any other way.” But, “it is an odd thing to go from favored child to outcast.” Especially for someone who was raised to seek favor.
Jeanne practiced reflexology to supplement her income as an actress, and as she relayed the story of how she’d gotten kicked out of the theatre to one of her clients, a psychiatrist, he dubbed Jeanne, “Tabula Rasa.” To think that the canvas ahead was, indeed, blank for her thrilled Jeanne. In so many ways, she had prepared and waited for this moment all her life.
No longer an actress in a theatre company, Jeanne set out to be the best tabula rasa she could be. And in so doing, Jeanne began to manifest her most authentic story.
What better place to create on the blank canvas of life than the beautiful and nefarious world of New York City in the 1990’s? Jeanne befriended characters in the streets of the Big Apple and filled endless notebooks with the tales they shared with her. They loved being the object of her attention and the focus of her writing, and she took care to write what they said verbatim, no matter how incredulous.
Gator was one such subject: a skinny, homeless black man who claimed to own the corner of 2nd Ave. and 10th St. where he would tap dance until the police would tell him, “Go home, dancer!” at four in the morning.
Jeanne observed the joy that Gator, and his dancing, inspired in passers by. She hosted him for Christmas dinner at her apartment and, when she accepted Gator’s invitation to visit him in the boiler room of a building in the East Village where he lived, Jeanne was introduced to a village of other homeless people who lived there with him.
Jeanne also befriended Poet-O, a 72-year old street poet who was “by far, the most captivating performer [she] had ever met.” Poet-O lived on the streets for 20+ years and made his money by teaching people “how to ring the bell and make a wish!” and by reciting his own poetry – some of it about John Lennon, who enjoyed Poet-O’s schtick so much, he put one hundred dollars in his basket and found him a place to live.
Jeanne invited Poet-O to share the stage with her in her one-person show, "Unanswered Letters: Excerpts from The Jeanne Books," which premiered at the Conservatory Theater. Once Poet-O was in the show, it was picked up for an extended run at One Dream Theatre. It went on to be adapted into a musical titled, “A Sage of A Future Age: Excerpts from The Jeanne Books” and accompanied by a live band. This production was included in the University Settlement’s 'Take Back the Park' multi-stage summer festival.
Embracing aspects of NYC that others might judge unfavorably opened the door to worlds that would have otherwise been inaccessible to Jeanne. Nothing unseemly fazed her; every experience, no matter how close to the fringe, all added up to a life that felt like its own work of art.
Meanwhile, Jeanne continued to create her own art. Her desire to share the adventures she was amassing in her notebooks and leverage the contents of the Jeanne Books inspired her to create The Ruby Books, starring an illustrated cartoon version of herself.
She then used the Ruby character and the non-profit she founded while creating theatre with Poet-O, Realize Arts & Education, Inc., to develop an arts education program that brought her into schools and the arts to children.
Jeanne’s arts education work led to mentoring girls, helping them to find, shape and share their “Great Girl Voices.” One of the girls that Jeanne mentored, 15 year-old Emily-Anne Rigal, used her Great Girl Voice to create an anti-bullying YouTube channel, WeStopHate. Their work together led to writing and illustrating FLAWD - How To Stop Hating On Yourself, Others, and the Things that Make You Who You Are, published in 2015 by Penguin Random House and named by Oprah’s Book Club as “one of six self-help books that really helps.”
Jeanne has lived more lives than the boldest of cats.
But there was still one bit of freedom that always eluded her: financial freedom. “Money matters make me nauseous,” Jeanne wrote in her 20’s, “I am living open to whatever I get given.” Which was an upbeat version of the underlying truth: “I don’t value myself enough to charge my worth.”
It wasn’t until Jeanne was in her 40’s that she discovered something that could help her with her money blocks. She was plugged into the online world of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) when a webinar promoting Tapping Into Wealth Coach Training came across her screen. It got her attention. She wasn’t at all interested in becoming a coach, but was very interested in “finding a magic bullet to make [her] debilitating scarcity consciousness go away.” Jeanne found this in Tapping.
Training to be a Tapping Into Wealth Coach did more than help Jeanne to get to the core of the limiting beliefs and behaviors around money that ailed her.
It gave her the tools to clear those blocks and turned her from someone indifferent to coaching into someone passionate and confident about helping others to clear what is in the way of earning on the highest level their gifts will allow.
Now, drawing on her toolbox of life experiences, Jeanne helps others in their journey toward fully realizing what matters to them.
And her toolbox is available to you.
Join Jeanne on Tuesday, February 25 from 6-8 PM at 100 Emerald Street (Suite E-1) in Keene for “Money Mapping: How to Clear the Biggest Money Blocks Stopping YOU from Earning and Creating Wealth,” a workshop designed to help you unearth and clear your money blocks. This workshop is a complimentary gift offered by Jeanne and Isis Latham.
While tickets are free, space is limited, so reserve your seat here. Learn more about Jeanne at JeanneDemers.com.