Photograph by Ali Kaukus
Today we’d like to introduce you to Janne Robinson.
Janne, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Six years ago, I was living in Edmonton, Alberta serving at bars and selling condos for a developer. I was miserable. I would save up large chunks of cash and travel the world–feel happy, and alive when I was on the road. But when I returned home, I would be hit with how out of alignment the life I was living was. It wasn’t sustainable to live a life that was only authentic half the time. One day, I found the courage to leave.
I was sitting in the show suite of my developers office in Edmonton wearing a black suit with pinstriped white sleeves drinking a cold Starbucks Americano with cream and sugar (to this day, I hate Americanos from Starbucks as they remind me of a life that I hate) and I decided I had too much to say and brilliance inside of me to fill one more redneck’s coffee refill.
I moved from the prairies to a woman cave (isolated cabin) on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia shortly after where I didn’t know a soul to intern under an award-winning filmmaker and author—Dianne Whelan. She was my piece of paper.
I learned to cut kindling, make friends with the black bears in the woods and be alone with myself. I would drive North a few times a week to Dee’s cabin and we would work together.
This is when I arrived in who I was and the work I wanted to do as an artist.
We would eat oats and drink coffee across from one another and she would say, “Contact National Geographic and see if they will interview me”.
I would reply, “I don’t know how to”. To which she would reply, “I trust you. You’ll do great.”
A large portion of my internship was winging it. She also told me to figure out social media and then run hers. I read “Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook” by Gary Vaynerchuk and began her and my work in the online world during that internship.
Shortly after, I found the courage to start submitting my writing online—which snowballed into having poems with 1-2+ million views, poetry films with 400,000 + views—one nominated by Cannes Corporate Media and TV awards.
A collection of poetry “This is for the women who don’t give a fuck” that has sold over 7000 copies since it’s release in December of 2017.
Aside from being a writer, I am also a coach, director, speaker, and CEO of a media and apparel brand “This is for the women” that aims to empower women to walk tall like an old cypress tree and take up space.
The first few years I was writing freelance online, I would spend 2-6 hours a day at times responding to comments, emails and messages giving people advice on how to live a more honest life.
I realized eventually that although this was important, it was not sustainable and it evolved into a coaching and consulting practice.
My work as a coach and facilitator is to encourage people to become accessible to their truths. I believe our world is sick and truth is our medicine.
I have worked with 100’s of people in the last five years–artists, writers, entrepreneurs, CEOs, publishers, corporations, publications, hotel chains, families, couples, teenagers. I speak and teach workshops internationally and largely work with women.
My niche is creating space during 1-1 sessions (virtually and in-person), workshops, and retreats internationally for people to open, be vulnerable and create cultures, missions, careers, relationships and lives that are honest to who they are.
I do not have a degree in anything–but I do have a decade of personal development and the experience of building and living an aligned life which has created more qualification and trust for many of my clients than a piece of paper ever will.
Many of the people I work with have watched my growth and evolution in the last six years into deeper authenticity and success and are desiring the same path.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The moment I decided to quit a life that no longer contained my spirit and had committed to my dream internship in BC, I got pregnant.
I moved to British Columbia to live in an isolated tiny town where I didn’t know anyone and had an abortion out there. Not having a local support system and making a big leap of career and city at the same time was a lot.
There will always be a reason to put off living a life that is true to us or to prolong it. I am so glad, I leaped anyway.
There’s a quote that says things are happening “for us” and not “to us” and in retrospect, this actually leads to me discovering my “why”, my writing voice, what I wanted to say.
The day after my abortion laying in bed—words began to pour out of me. The story of my emotional process within abortion raw and unfiltered filled pages and pages.
The story “Aborting shame: one woman’s experience within abortion” covered the friends and family and council that was neutral to the doctor I went to see in Edmonton who told me “Not to get an abortion and that I would regret it”. It covered me looking him straight in the face and telling him I wasn’t there for his personal opinion, I was there in his medical opinion on what my choices were at this stage of my pregnancy. How I told him that he should watch his tongue—for if I was a 14-year-old girl who had yet to have found the spine of who I was, his words could have influenced my choice, her choice and the choice I wish every woman in the world was in power of. The story covered the conversation I had—the morning before my appointment. Hands-on my belly in front of the fireplace. There is a great discrepancy about when the soul enters the body. I decided to have a little conversation with that soul—in case it had showed up. The story shared the words I spoke, “Hi—little soul, I don’t know if you’re in there. But if you are—right now isn’t the time. I feel so honoured you chose me, and if you want to come back later in this life I would love to walk with you. And if you want to choose another mother to raise you, I love and support you in that too.”
It poured out and terrified me at how raw it was. I kept it for a few months. I decided, in the end, to share it—because there is so much shame around abortion. It’s something many women experience and it’s swept under the rug.
At first, I thought I would only share it with the 17 million readers at Elephant Journal (wellness publication), and not my social media. Those 17 million readers were safe—it didn’t feel safe to share it with the guy I went to high school with, that I might run into at a coffee shop on Whyte Avenue and have to have an awkward conversation with years later.
But when I received the email it had been published, I remember watching the rain drip off the prayer flags hanging above my woodshed and knowing I was so at peace with my process that nothing could alter the light within me.
I shared it on my Facebook and Instagram handle and I was called everything from “woman of the year” to “murderer” by my first (incredibly Christian) boyfriend.
I also received 300 emails and messages and comments from women all over the world. One of them read, “I was 16. My father dropped me off at the clinic and told me not to tell anyone—including my mother. You’re the first person I am telling.”
That is when I met my why—and I’ve been sharing slabs of my heart with this world and empowering women to take back their narrative ever since.
That curve in the road ended up being the exact divinity of me meeting my why.
The advice I have for other young women who are just starting their journey is to not think about what this world wants to needs. Don’t create a service or a business or write a book because you think it will do well or something is trending–get still and listen to what is in resonance inside of you and then birth that into this world.
Sitting with what you believe–and not what the world wants is the key.
That and starting a business is like building a fire–you have to cut the kindling, crinkle newspaper, play with the damper and the stove door–babysit it when it tries to go out.
Your business will not respond well to you belly-flopping on it before it has even begun to take fire for full financial support and scarcity creates anxiety that isn’t conducive to making good art.
Having a support job that pays well and is part-time while you build up your business is a really loving thing to do.
Eventually, your fire and business will burn so bright and loud that it will need you full time but don’t have shame around working a second job to take care of yourself in the meantime.
It took me two years to fully support myself in my company.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jannerobinson.com
- Email: hello@jannerobinson.com
- Instagram: @jannerobinson
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jannerobinsonauthor/
- Twitter: @JanneRobinson_
- Other: @thisisforthewomen (media and apparel brand)
Photograph by Ali Kaukus
Photograph by Alaina Michelle
Photograph by Ali Kaukus
Photograph by Stefie Reads
Photograph by Soda l Lime
Photograph by Reka Borcz
Suggest a story: SDVoyager is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
