The Live Lightly Podcast

Jessica (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to the Live Lightly podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Franklin. My guest today is Jackie Simek a woman whose fertility journey opened her eyes to the toxins hidden in everyday life. from the food we eat to the products we use in our homes and beyond. What she thought would be a straightforward medical process led her down an unexpected path of discovery, learning the chemicals.

hormone disruptors and environmental toxins that affect not only fertility but overall wellbeing. The experience for her became a catalyst of change, inspiring her to adopt and advocate for a non-toxic lifestyle, one rooted in clean living, mindful choices and a deeper connection to what truly supports our health. Today, she's here to share her story, what she learned.

the changes she made, and how we can all become more conscious consumers for the sake of our health and future generations.

Welcome to the show, Jackie. Thank you so much for joining me

Jackie Simek (00:58)
Thank you so much for inviting me on and that was a beautiful introduction.

Jessica (01:03)
Yes, thank you so much. had to actually write it out because it's a topic that I think we need to bring light to it, but it's a little bit off course for what I'm generally sharing with my audience. I stumbled through it, but here we are. before we dive in, I'd actually love for you to share your fertility journey

Jackie Simek (01:22)
gosh. You I always thought I was healthy. I always got the feedback that I look so much younger than I am. And so I thought when it came to fertility that I would have above average markers. And I never even thought about maybe across my mind about freezing my eggs, but

Ultimately, I had a lot of bias towards it because I thought this is a young field. We don't know what the long-term repercussions are of this, quote unquote, pumping your body full of hormones. And I was very committed to the idea that I'm going to get pregnant naturally. And then the other, the Tudotango, the other side, the male in my life didn't work out. And I found myself in a hot tub.

Jessica (02:10)
Thank you.

Jackie Simek (02:19)
On a random night with two close friends, one was near 50, had three children. The other one had done two rounds of egg freezing, was my age. And they both, I don't want to say cornered me, but it felt like it, right? A small hot tub and they're like, you need to freeze your eggs. And I'm like, my goodness. Like, I can't believe it's come to this, if you will, right? And I was 40, which is really past the window of

Jessica (02:35)
you

Jackie Simek (02:49)
When people say like, you should think about freezing your eggs or it's going to result in outcomes that you're going to be able to work with and bring to the next steps. And so I'm like, okay, so I go home. start doing the research. find, a great clinic, great doctor in town. was living in Santa Barbara, California at the time. And I go in for the routine, you know, initial exam. And first off, like.

I get the news that my markers are, as the doctor said, exactly where he thought they should be for someone that's 40. And that was very low off the charts. Not good. I'm crying in the office. I'm crying in the park outside the office because I just, you think like everyone gives you this feedback. You feel good. You know, I'm, I have a six pack. I've had my whole life.

You know, everything else, like I have no health stuff. I sleep really well at night. I thought I was eating pretty decently. And organic, right? So, I'm already like frazzled. And what happens then is like, he shows you this chart of like how our hormones and things change given different age ranges. And I'm literally on the edge of a cliff. Like 40, 41, things just start to go south.

Jessica (03:57)
and

Jackie Simek (04:14)
And I'm like, all right, let's go. Like we got no time. We got to jump in and get this thing done. And a couple of days later, I get a call from him and he's like, one of your markers that we test, they only test like a couple. I remember him saying, your thyroid is good, which is the good news. But this other hormone that we tested, came out, you came back off the charts and being off the charts indicates that you're

your body thinks it's pregnant or it's breastfeeding. There's something not right here. so, know, good news is there's some medication you can take that's like therapeutic. We're going to try that, but we also have to know the source. So he's like, this can be a tumor or something growing next to the gland in your brain, your pituitary gland that controls this hormone. So you need to go in for an MRI. I mean, it just went from like...

Jacuzzis to hot tubs to, okay, I'm gonna think about freezing my eggs to bad news to worse news, all within a week. And as soon as I got the first feedback that the hormones weren't where he wanted them to be or they were where he thought they would be for my age, I actually had a friend already that I knew I was in a mastermind with, her business mastermind, and she was a fertility nutritionist. And I followed her on social media and she would just

post all these pregnancy tests from clients that she was helping to get pregnant. And so I called her. So even before I got like the real bad news, I called her and I was like, I wanna work with you. I wanna optimize what's going on here. And she made me do a three-day food journal and by day two, Jessica, I was so embarrassed to hand it in to her that I had to go to the store to like buy some new food and make something different on day three because.

I was like, this isn't good. Like I'm such a big like sweet treat, like once or twice a day, like with my morning drink and then my afternoon sweet treat pick me up because I deserve it. Like all those little things. And I remember her feedback was like when we ended up meeting, she's like, yeah, you're eating organic, but it's all organic crap. It's like all organic sugar, like simple mills and stuff like that. I was already on,

I had been on a protocol like for a couple months before that because I had long COVID. So I was working with another naturopathic doctor on that stuff and she cut out dairy eggs, seed oils. Was there something else? And dairy eggs, seed oils and gluten. And so I was already like, you know, so that like wiped out half the store and I was at Whole Foods everyday reading labels. So of course, like you think you're eating healthy.

Jessica (06:55)
Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (07:05)
but I wasn't eating like in an optimized way for fertility. Then I get the news that yes, I have a little brain aneurysm next to the pituitary gland and the doctor's like, we're not doing any anger retrievals. We're not putting any hormones into your body. Like we need to fix this first. So got on the therapeutic medication and had to wait a little while, had to retest my blood, like all of those things. Ultimately the whole journey.

from the day I walked into his office was like the beginning of July, the day the eggs were out of my body was the beginning of February. So seven months, and I believe that like I utilized that time to my advantage. And the doctor's office from what they observed of my ovarian follicles and my levels and things like that, from when I came into that office in July, and then what...

I was able to retrieve and I'm not going to, I feel like I have publicly talked about the number, but I'm not going to mention the number because I think it's so sensitive for a lot of women because a lot, some women will get 35 eggs and not create a viable embryo. And some women will retrieve three eggs and create a viable embryo. So it's not really about the number, the quantity, it's about the quality of the eggs. And I know that like a hundred percent of my eggs that were retrieved froze and that is an indication of high quality. So.

The doctor's office called me their miracle patient. They had no idea how I did it. And I'm like, OK, I did it because I did all these things that you guys don't want to talk about. And I get it. You're in your lane. You're an expert at what you do. Like, you're the endocrinologist. You've got the degrees and all that. But they're not talking about all these other ways that optimize fertility, work with your hormones, support your body, and don't

negatively impact all of your hormones in your endocrine system. So yeah, I'd love to get into that.

Jessica (09:09)
Yeah,

we'll go right ahead. get into that. Because it's fascinating that, you yeah, like you said, they're in their lane. They're doing what they're there to do. But were they interested to know what you had done?

Jackie Simek (09:12)
Yeah.

No, No, yeah. I mean, I think like some of the mindset stuff was they were interested in along the way because they were like, what did you do these last few days that like things turned around? Like, cause I had a, I had to also a long retrieval process. So some women will go in, you have to inject yourself with hormones and maybe it's 10 days or 14 days. I went for 21 days because of probably my age.

Jessica (09:24)
You

Jackie Simek (09:50)
I also had like three times the amount of medicine that I had to put in my body to stimulate things, then probably somebody who's younger. The reason I talk so publicly about all of this is obviously because I believe like our bodies are walking miracles. They have an innate ability to heal. They have an innate ability to be optimized when we give it the right conditions. But also because I feel like no one talked about this 10 years ago, 15 years ago.

Jessica (09:58)
you

Jackie Simek (10:18)
when I really should have been looking into the idea of like, I had the means, I had the time, whatever, like, let's go freeze my eggs, because egg quality and the quantity that come out is correlated to age. So the earlier you can do this, the better if you want to set yourself up to have those options in later years in your life. I'm also a big believer that you can still continue to get pregnant naturally later into life. If you have a period, there is a possibility you can get pregnant.

That's just science, right?

Jessica (10:49)
Mm-hmm,

right. Otherwise you wouldn't be still having your period exactly So yeah I love that you're able to share this story because I think there are a lot of pieces of the story that haven't been talked about a whole lot publicly and your journey is is unique because you had another person on the other side of the fence to work with and Who was guiding you through a holistic journey?

simultaneously parallel to what you needed to do on the medical end of the spectrum. I would love to hear more about all of that.

Jackie Simek (11:26)
Yeah.

So the first thing that we looked at was what I was eating. So I was already eating organic, which was great. cause that really greatly reduces like all of the pesticide exposure or the GMOs, like all, all of the bad for you stuff. Like, you know, you're getting something cleaner. I also lived in Santa Barbara, so I was really lucky to be able to get so much food locally, like at the farmer's markets.

but I think it's interesting because for increasing your fertility markers, the diet isn't what you think. Like you think salads healthy, but they actually want you to cook a lot of your vegetables. And, you know, I think that to simplify it the best is like, if you looked at a plate, you know, I, I remember being like, Ooh, sending like my friend, the fertility nutritionist that I'm working with, like,

here's a snapshot of my plate this morning and look at me and I'm doing so well. And she's like, yeah, NO like you got like, so like the original plate would be like two eggs and then a bunch of like fruit and maybe like one piece of toast and an avocado. And, you know, she's like, okay, we need three eggs. We need like berries instead of just, you know, general fruit.

and we probably need some meat source, right? So I started making my own sausages. I started making my own bread out of flax seeds and eggs. Learning that like eggs need to be pastured, that really actually impacts the nutritional makeup of the egg. And same thing for me, when meat is pastured, the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio is different.

We in our process society, our ratios are actually flipped. Most people have too much omega-6, which then causes inflammation versus omega-3, which is like protective. I'm noticing how I'm speaking about this. I just want to kind of just give a caveat for the audience. This whole journey is now, it's two years since the February retrieval. I have been in nutrition school for seven months already.

Jessica (13:30)
Thank

Jackie Simek (13:44)
because this journey brought me to that. So I'm hearing myself speak about it a little more clinically, but I'm not an expert. So just want to disclaimer that this is really supposed to be a personal story. But yes, I'm on my road to hopefully building another business that is just going to be optimizing fertility for older mamas, getting older mamas metabolically fit.

Jessica (13:48)
Thank

I love that.

Jackie Simek (14:10)
Yeah, I'm excited about it. As you can tell, get very passionate about it. Yeah. Yeah. So breakfast is like really, I think also for like anyone, breakfast is such a great place to start. This isn't something that my fertility nutritionist explicitly said. It's something that I'm learning to understand now about the impact of blood sugar and

Jessica (14:13)
totally. This is your your wheelhouse for sure. Yeah.

Jackie Simek (14:34)
the spikes in the blood sugar, it just impacts everything, impacts your stress hormones, your endocrine hormones. And if we could just start our day with higher protein, I love using collagen powder, but I'm also someone who makes bone broth now, at a chicken feet, who have I become? Yeah. So I love to obviously make it at home. All this stuff plays into sustainability because so much of the animal

is not utilized when it can give so much, right? Like most people are going to the store and buying chicken breasts and what happens to rest of the animal? Well, you know, one is if it's pastured and if it's regenerative, I don't know if you've talked about this on this podcast, but like, yeah, if a farm is regenerative, it's actually giving off less CO2 into the atmosphere. It is like working with the earth in a full cycle.

replenishing the soil, the soils are so different, the quality is different. I love if, if you're listening and you are intrigued by this, I would watch the movie common ground, such a movie about the power of regenerative farming. But yeah, so great for the planet. Great for your plate. Great for your gut. yeah. So, I would start with breakfast, trying to get like a higher protein breakfast.

Jessica (15:42)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (15:59)
And then lunch, you know, there's again, keeping it like protein fat, keeping those numbers up. Like if you're looking at like the macronutrients and keeping your carb numbers down, I now can give like a thousand other tips for like how to keep your blood sugar down because I'm studying that stuff, but I'll, I'll keep it to that generality. so that would, I would say that would be like the eating part of things.

just nutrient density was a big thing. Like I'm trying to keep it high level so someone can just be like, wait, hear my voice in their head and be like, Jackie said this, I can easily make this swap. So for instance, like looking at an apple, like that, is it healthy? Yes. Does it have fiber? Especially if you eat it in a whole form. Yes. Like, is it good for your micro-prime? All the things, all the answers are going to be yes. But is it as nutrient dense as a beet?

Jessica (16:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (16:55)
No, because right, we can just tell that right off the bat. Like it doesn't have the same color intensity, know, beets are full of sugar too, but yeah. but yeah, just like looking at things like that, like looking at like when you're eating being like, could I swap this out for something that's more nutritionally dense? And when we buy pastures, when we buy organic, when we, buy things in season, buy things more locally, like we're always going to get more nutritional density. Yeah.

Jessica (17:03)
Yeah

Yeah. And so was this all guided by your practitioner or was it self guided at some point?

Jackie Simek (17:35)
we started with one session and I don't know if she just knew this intuitively or knew this cause she knew me already and that I love to cook. So I like will live in the kitchen. It's like my happy place and the grocery store, those two places, not normal grocery stores though. Like, you know, the good ones. So, she actually said to me, you don't need more than this call and

Jessica (17:42)
Mm-hmm.

Right, yes.

Jackie Simek (18:00)
I didn't in the end. Like she gave me two nice big like recipe books that she had created recipes around. So I utilized those as guides. made things out of those. Yeah, like some of my, my go-to, like the flax, the flax bread was like a go-to that I would make over and over again. And this Moroccan chicken dish, like, like a big batch of stew with chickpeas. I changed to do like chickpea pasta instead of regular pasta.

some other things are like my go-to's like that I already had some recipes in my back pocket. Yeah. I make these paleo chocolate zucchini muffins. I have to bring them to you, Jessica. Like they're so good. And I make a batch and I freeze them and they last about like 10 days. So they are so yummy.

Jessica (18:37)
Mm-hmm.

It sounds...

It sounds

like you and I need to get together to recipe swap because, I get burned out on my recipes and those all sound delicious and I hope you do something with that someday. I'm sure it will come into fruition.

Jackie Simek (18:52)
Yeah.

I have thought about doing like

a gluten-free experience. also have these, these are not low glycemic, but I have these Japanese sweet potato, like a white sweet potato, and you boil it, you mash it like into mashed potatoes, and you add a little cassava flour to it, and so it becomes like this mendible dough, this malleable dough, and you roll it out like as if it was a Cinnabon, and you put some coconut sugar and.

Jessica (19:18)
Hmm.

Jackie Simek (19:26)
What else? Coconut oil and some cinnamon and you roll them. my God. That's a top requested one from like my friends that are just not in this world and into this stuff.

Jessica (19:36)
Yeah,

that sounds like something you need to teach me for sure. I've literally never heard about that. it sounds like a book soon to be on the bookshelves of every mom and soon to be mom I think that when we start talking and having these conversations about the food that we're eating, we're really coming back.

to what it is that, know, intuitively, I think we all know like what food really is. However, I think that, it's gotten lost with all of the processed food and convenience. you know, like convenience is very appealing. It saves us time, it saves us energy, and, it's just become the norm. And it sounds like that was the food that you really needed to step away from.

Jackie Simek (20:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica (20:22)
And good thing you like being in the kitchen. You know.

Jackie Simek (20:24)
Yeah. Yeah,

I'm lucky. get that. have the time. I can shout out a few things like meat sticks, as long as they don't have sugar, like that's a good snack. Boiled egg is a great snack. Half avocado is a great snack. Nuts, seeds. Liver is so nutrient dense. It's one of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet. I know everyone's face is probably going, ill, right? I actually like have grown.

Jessica (20:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Including mine. If you're

not on YouTube, you can't see it, but including me.

Jackie Simek (20:54)
I'm like,

you really start to appreciate the taste. Like, look, I don't like it when it's seared in a pan. No. My mom will make it that way. Not for me. But I love this company, Force of Nature. Depending on where you're located, most supermarkets in California, Whole Foods, Lazy Acres Sprouts, they'll have it in the freezer section. So they'll have ground.

It's called Ancestral Blend. It's ground beef with the heart and the liver ground up in with it. And you will have the most delicious burgers or bolognese or whatever you make meatloaf out of it. That's such an easy way and more affordable way to pasture raised filet mignons are probably a lot more money than you can grab a pack of ground beef with all that mixed in. I think it's like 12 bucks or something. Yeah.

Jessica (21:29)
Okay.

Yeah,

I've definitely had the mixes before, not maybe from them, but from the farmers market. There's a local farm that is regenerative and goes to the Encinitas. It is. Not about to them, me too. They're a future interview actually. We're in the midst of setting a date. Yeah, to talk about.

Jackie Simek (21:58)
perennial pastures. Yeah, shout out to them. I love them over there too.

Fantastic. I've talked to them about that.

I've had a call with them about business advising. Yeah. Yeah. They were doing really amazing stuff over there.

Jessica (22:13)
nice. That's awesome.

They are regenerative farming is the future for sure. And I have to second the movie that you recommended as well as putting out there. It's I think it's called the biggest or the littlest big farm or the littlest big farm. Have you seen that one?

Jackie Simek (22:31)
That, I watched that one when I still living in New York City, absolutely fell in love with them. I went to Wellness Summit up in LA like two weeks ago and they were a table there. Yeah, so a couple of us, yes, well, they themselves weren't at the table. I they have a lot of workers now, they've quite grown, but amazing movie, yes, really talking about the whole ecosystem of farming and going back to the way it used to be done.

Jessica (22:42)
cool, you got to meet them.

yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (22:57)
And

at the end of the day, like the most crazy thing, you know, I have a background and I was a CPA, was in private equity for years. You know, everything's focused on the bottom line. Regenerative farming brings you more profits. Like at the end of the day, like, you know, we're so capitalistic in this society and we're so profit driven when actually it's the thing that makes you more money for the farmers. Yeah.

Jessica (23:21)
Yes, however, the farmers unfortunately are not told that. They have been told a different story and a different scenario by the people who are selling them the seeds. And we all know who that is. The people making the, you know, the reason why food is.

Jackie Simek (23:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. Yes. Yes.

Jessica (23:41)
has to be labeled organic really is the bottom line. And so yeah, we've just gotten off track as a culture and a society to try to make things, I think the intention was maybe originally to make it better for people and to provide more food and more quickly. And it just unfortunately got out of hand and a lot of, I'm sure interests for profit.

Jackie Simek (23:45)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (24:11)
got in the way and now we just need to relearn all of the things that our ancestors knew and were doing to cultivate the land and to provide food and again, just having these conversations together and then listeners out there, this may be the first time that you're hearing about a lot of these terms but perhaps it's something that's now on your radar because you've been hearing it a little bit out there in the news here and there.

talking more and more about food quality and a lot of these buzzwords like processed food and seed oils and things like that. They're out there, they're floating around, but I feel like having these meaningful conversations and putting it into context with the health of our own bodies in addition to the health of our environment and the planet and just kind of pulling that understanding together so that we can start to understand where we can.

Jackie Simek (24:47)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (25:08)
make changes in our day-to-day lives. And it sounds like you were already on kind of that path of like, okay, I'm shopping at Whole Foods. I'm buying, everything's organic, right? Like I've been in the same exact boat where it's like everything's organic, but, you know.

Jackie Simek (25:19)
Yeah.

I was always

led by one of my values is high standards. And so I've always been led to how something is made more artisanal or how they process this thing creates more flavor or richer color or texture, whatever it is. Like some, I'm always big on like, how do we elevate the standards for things? And so then,

that naturally just drove me into stores that have, you know, organic hazelnut spread inside a Nutella, right? So in like a little glass jar. Yeah. And I think it's probably like my parents from Europe, I've done tons of travel. And so I think having been in cultures, even cultures that have so little economically compared to what we have in the US, the

Jessica (26:01)
Yeah.

Jackie Simek (26:18)
way that they, the reverence for their processes, the way they take such good care of the earth, the crops, the animals, making sauces from scratch, like all these things, I think I just got exposed to a lot of stuff or, or that just like further fueled what was already within me that I just like have this standard for food and this love of food and, and on all things, honestly, in life, fashion and other, other areas too. I just like when things are done well. Yeah.

Jessica (26:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah,

I agree. And I feel like that's what Whole Foods used to be. Like when it was originally, you know, opened, you could walk into Whole Foods and find those. That's what always excited me about going to Whole Foods was like, it was like Disneyland, you know? And now it's just, it's changed because there is so much.

Jackie Simek (26:49)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I agree.

Jessica (27:05)
processed food out there that's gotten itself on the shelves. That's like just kind of disguised and masked as being healthy because it's organic or it's non-GMO. It doesn't even have to be organic anymore to be on the shelves of Whole Foods. And that's what's like hard because you go there and you're still expecting the same like kind of standard, but it's just not being met because their standards and their quality has been changed since the Amazon, you know.

Jackie Simek (27:14)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you for listening.

Jessica (27:36)
acquisition. yeah, that's another conversation in and of itself. It's all seed oils. So yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

Jackie Simek (27:39)
Yeah. I'll just tell people, I'll just tell people stay away from the hop bar. It's all seed oils. Yeah. Yeah. And most things in Trader Joe's too. Read the labels. Cause when I

had to cut out seed oils, was like, my God, this, I don't know if you can swear on this podcast. So this blank is in everything. And you know, things that you think it shouldn't be in, like I used to love these, what were they called? Domas.

you know, the Greek like little, they're filled with rice and they've got grape leaves wrapped around them. And you think like, okay, Greece, like this should be Greek olive oil. Nope, it's sitting in. And I remember like making a Greek salad, putting those on top and then taking the oil from the can and pouring it as like the salad dressing onto my salad. And I thought I was being healthy. And like that to me is like the biggest piece of this that's so sucky is that like you think you're doing it right, but it's so confusing.

Jessica (28:21)
I'm

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (28:34)
and

there's so much hidden stuff, like grass fed doesn't mean anything. It has to be grass finished. And, you know, like same thing with the eggs. Like there's all this like, they're free range because they have a little door, but they're all cooped up next to each other and it doesn't matter. Or the yolk color is really bright orange because they decided to feed it, you know, not a good diet, but not a bad diet necessarily, but like.

Jessica (28:40)
Right.

you

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (29:00)
red pepper because they know that that's just going to change the color of the yolk and then people are going to have this perception this egg is higher quality, right? And it's like, my God, I can't believe that like the food industry, like that sector of the food industry that is making products that are geared towards people like you and I that want that standard, they're still trying to trick us. So I can't imagine what it's like for anyone who, and people who like

don't like cooking as much, don't like prepping food, don't have as much time, you're busy, all the things. So yeah, and I just want to caveat this that I still go through the Chick-fil-A drive through every three weeks or so. So like I'm not perfect. I was perfect during my like seven months, but I would like take my little cooler bag every single place I went. But yeah, I'm still a normal human being.

Jessica (29:41)
You can.

Yeah,

you have to have the 80-20 % rule in life, I think, because you can't stress about it either because the stress will deplete energy and life force and lower your frequency, and that's not gonna do any good for your health and your eggs. Yeah. Exactly, yeah. And so the stress about it...

Jackie Simek (29:55)
Yeah.

Yes, yes.

Yeah. Yeah. That creates the internal inflammation, which, you know, creates aging. Yeah.

Jessica (30:16)
cannot be part of it. And so if you have to change your perspective a little bit to do it for something else, like I changed my perspective instead of you know, avoiding disease because all these things that our foods are sprayed with, or, you know, all the chemicals that you'll find, you know, we can't eat that because you'll get cancer or this or that. I had to change that narrative and that perspective. And the reason behind what I was doing,

to like, it's better for the planet. It's better for the environment. It's better for the farmers. It's better for the soil, the land, the air, the water, right? All of those things became my new focus so that I could take the stress out of the process. So I guess I'll just kind of put that out there for people who are starting this journey for whatever reason it is, whether it's for fertility or just health in general, preventative or reversing. Yeah, I think that.

Jackie Simek (30:49)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (31:13)
the stress aspect of it can deter anything that you're trying to achieve. So I like to throw that out there and say, you know, it's not your fault. we're well-meaning consumers. Like your story about the olive oil and then you find out later somewhere down the road, like, it's not. you know, we just have to give ourselves some grace.

Jackie Simek (31:31)
Mm-hmm.

Jessica (31:34)
and just take what we learn and move forward and do the best that we can. So, with that being said, we do talk a lot about toxins on this podcast. And I want to know about some aha moments that maybe you had along the way about the impact of everyday toxins and how that affects fertility and overall health in general.

Jackie Simek (31:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, I went from like unknowing to I'm literally like a psycho. Like I walked into Pilates last week and it just stunk of a air freshener, which you'd think was like a little more natural because it was one of those like bamboo sticks in like a jar type thing. And I literally was like, oh my God, like how am I supposed to work out here? And like I said something to the woman at the front desk and I was like.

Jessica (32:08)
Hmm.

Jackie Simek (32:22)
you should really create safe spaces for women. And I'm like, ha, I'm like not joking around either though. Like I can't, I don't go into Sephora anymore. you know, the, so the biggest aha for me was the perfumes. And you know, I was a person who loved perfume before and

Jessica (32:26)
Good for you.

Yeah.

Mm-mm.

Jackie Simek (32:43)
I used to live in New York City. lived a couple blocks from La Labo. And if you know anything about La Labo, it's like this whole, again, my whole high standards are like, it's a perfumery, it's like French and all this, right? And I had this scent that I like absolutely fell in love with. And the funny thing, I lost my sense of smell with COVID and I had ended up having like a long battle with that. I'm still not where I was before. And so the funny thing is I can't smell perfumes anymore. I actually only smell the chemical.

that's underneath the fragrance. So yes, yeah. But it's like next level now because I'm not like, even my friend the other day was like, I wanna buy this 409 cleaner. Is that okay? I really like the lemon scent of it. Just smells so clean. And I'm like, it's chemical. It's not clean. It's bad for you. And so that is like, smell.

Jessica (33:14)
wow, well that will help you get off a perfume right away.

Jackie Simek (33:40)
like it's like a warning sign that flashes and is like bad for you because it stinks versus like, Ooh, I love this. Let me spray some more of this because it's so delightful to my senses. So I kind of lucked out a little bit there. And the funny thing is, is that I can smell essential oils. So if it's a fragrance, that's not synthetic. My, can actually smell it now. So, you know, it's, it's a good telltale sign. I eliminated anything with fragrance.

Jessica (33:41)
you

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (34:09)
synthetic fragrances across the board. So no more perfumes, lotions, detergent, dish detergent, any place that you can find something. And then I started to change some of my other products. Like I changed shampoo, conditioner, soap, nail polish was a big thing. I'm obsessed with doing my nails and I got to do these today. They got a little chip here.

Jessica (34:36)
You

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (34:39)
But I do them myself. Shout out to Collagen

too, because these are my real nails with just regular nail polish. Yeah, I've never had these in my life, but it's literally the diet. Yes. Right? Like we give the body the building blocks to create what it needs to create. Remember, our bodies are always like switching over every, I don't know what it is, depending on what organ and what thing, but it's always coming over. And what we feed it is the building blocks of what it uses to rebuild itself.

Jessica (34:45)
Gorgeous. College.

Mm-hmm.

Exactly.

Jackie Simek (35:08)
Yeah. So non-toxic nail polish. I'm really passionate about that. Cause I like to the point where I like want to open a non-toxic nail salon. And when I lived in Santa Barbara, they had one. I was like really lucky cause then I could still go get pampered. But otherwise like, you know, I don't really go to them anymore and I enjoy doing it myself anyway. But yeah, there's some really great brands out there that have like really beautiful colors. My parents are still on favorite colors. brand.

Jessica (35:12)
But...

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's your favorite?

know your favorite brand. Yeah.

Jackie Simek (35:38)
Gosh, what are they called? It's like, well, cause I'll say my like top favorite is London town. So they've got beautiful colors. That's what the salon in Santa Barbara would use. And you can find them, you know, just go online. They're about like $18 a bottle. So like a little bit more on the pricier side of things. If you're looking for something that's like more accessible, Target has two different lines and I'm going to mess up. It's like Ella and June, I want to say. And another one might have like an elephant on it.

Jessica (35:48)
Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (36:07)
And then I think one of those brands is also being carried at CVS right now as well. So you can get them and those bottles I think are about like $10 a bottle. So a little bit more affordable. And sometimes they have those little kits where like you get a couple like mini sizes. You can try them out.

Jessica (36:13)
Wow, that's amazing.

you

and so can you talk about like, just for listeners who maybe are like, what nail polish? Why does that matter? It's on my nail. You know, why we would be concerned.

Jackie Simek (36:31)
Well, your nail is porous. Yeah, your nails porous. And so the

chemicals like do go into your body. I am not at the point where I'm like, it's a Phallate versus a, you know, BPA And like, and I'll, I'll be completely honest with you. Like this is again, one of those 80, 20 things with the nail polish because like,

Jessica (36:53)
Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (36:53)
it's still not great for you to put them on. And ideally like not wearing nail polish is probably the best optimal choice, but it's better. Exactly. And you know, the one thing that is super interesting to me is like the body, I think that the whole idea of detoxing, detoxing is not something that I did intentionally while I was doing the whole fertility journey.

Jessica (37:01)
But it's better.

Yeah.

Okay.

Jackie Simek (37:21)
but it's

something that kind of happens naturally because what I've learned is like our misconception, I think in marketing or in society or social media or whatever, is that detox is drinking lemon water for five days or juice cleanse or whatever those things are. But the body actually has seven pathways to detox and many of those pathways require amino acids, which is protein and enzymes to break things down, to collect

the garbage and then to excrete it. And so honestly, like the best detox is a good diet. It's a nutritionally dense diet that's balanced with protein and, you know, good vegetables and, you know, conciferous vegetables because of sulfur, like there's different pathways for sure that we can support. So, where am I going with this thought? sorry. This is, yeah, this is the, is a very important thought.

Jessica (37:52)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jackie Simek (38:20)
And so our bodies, like our GI system is literally designed that when we put stuff in our mouth, it's already expecting to come into contact with stuff that we're not supposed to have in our body, right? Molds, fungus, toxins, whatever, all that stuff. And so our stomachs have a super high acid. If you like poured it out, you would burn your finger. So a lot of that stuff gets killed in the stomach and then our intestines.

Jessica (38:33)
Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (38:48)
The lining like it has little, let's say doorways that decide like, you're good for the bloodstream, but you're not, we'll keep you in here. So the body is designed for that, for stuff to come into the mouth and for you to be able to detox through your skin, through your urine, through your PCs, and, through breath. And it is not designed to be slathered with chemicals. The skin or the hair or our nails.

the body's just not designed to detox those things. And yet, the skin is one of the biggest organs, and it's pulling those chemicals into your body, into the bloodstream, bypassing the whole protective GI system that would keep more of that stuff within the system and then excrete it. And so, yeah, we're just not designed for this modern society with all of these different chemicals.

Jessica (39:44)
Yeah, exactly. Well said. Very well said. And I, again, another conversation to start up with your girlfriends and with people who you love or even coworkers. It's something that I think, we have been sold all these products without.

warning labels as to what's in them and also without an instruction manual for our own bodies to say anything you put on is going into you and if your body is trying to detox but you're putting on all the stuff it's putting a burden on your system

your system can only take so much. And so it gets backed up and, and is trying to deal with all of these things. And so then it says like, okay. Well, I'm busy trying to get rid of all these toxins every day. And, I don't have enough energy to give you good hair anymore or good skin or good nails.

Jackie Simek (40:33)
organs are getting damaged and then working less optimally. And so yes, that does impact like the energy levels and eventually like leads to disease. I mean, we see people that have been exposed to chemicals and harsh agents and stuff and they end up with cancer.

Jessica (40:37)
Mm-hmm. And so.

Jackie Simek (40:53)
thyroid problems and all the other things. Yeah. It's so interesting to me to reflect on my life and be like, okay, when I was 25 and I was living in a city and I worse skin, I guess I would say, like I could think from the exposure to just the environment of dirtiness, car exhausts, like lack of good air filtration inside all day long in office buildings with windows that didn't open.

Jessica (40:56)
Yeah.

Jackie Simek (41:21)
these types of things, right? I noticed like more clogged pores and things like that on my face. And I was using like the craziest stuff because I was 25 and needed anti-aging apparently. you know, I was using prescription grade type of products. They were probably all like each bottle was probably $150. Fast forward, I'm 43 and I'm using two products on my face. I guess I wash my face too, so I had to include that one.

Jessica (41:36)
you

Jackie Simek (41:51)
I use a rose oil in the day that I get from, we have a what's that local shop, the refill shop.

Jessica (41:52)
you

it is... I go there too. She just changed the name. It used to be called a nada shop, but now it's called Sunshine Market.

Jackie Simek (42:07)
Okay. Yeah. I think it's that one, the one in Encinitas that's in the lumber yard area.

Jessica (42:09)
Yeah.

Yeah.

this has been quite a lot of shifts that we've talked about that you've made What have you noticed the most? both in your health

and just overall well-being along the

Jackie Simek (42:22)
I joke around, like it's a full-time job to keep you from.

keep yourself from being poisoned in this country. You gotta read the labels, you gotta cook everything at home, right? So, yeah.

Jessica (42:27)
It is.

You have to understand the labels, like which

takes, it's like you need to have, I have a, like I have a checkpoint where I go in and check what is this? I don't even know what this one is, like, cause there's thousands and thousands. So yeah.

Jackie Simek (42:40)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think like, you know, we're not going to Benjamin Button here. Like we're not going to reverse aging. Like I'm still on the brink of perimenopause right now. Like it's just, this is the reality of life, but you have so much in your control and you know, how I go into that hormonal change is up to me. And there's so many different things I can do to help myself through that transition.

but I would say ultimately like the biggest thing was the blood sugar regulation and not what happens when you, your blood sugar spikes is that then your body's pumping a whole bunch of insulin out and eventually it pumps too much insulin out so that your blood sugar actually goes too low. And that's when you're getting all like jittery. so the, the funny ironic thing is like,

We thought this was a great thing about me because I'm on the thinner side. So it was like, my God, your metabolism is just going, working so fast that you're hungry every two hours. No, I was hungry every two hours because I was eating sugar and my, it's a, it's a short-term fuel source that spikes very quickly and then comes down very quickly. And then I would get hangry and I'd be like, I need something to eat. And then you're ravenous and you just shove in the next like meal. So

I feel so satiated, so grounded. It's like my mental health is so much clearer. It just feels like I'm just loving and nourishing my body way more. I can go, I mean, that's a sign of metabolic flexibility is that I can go longer periods without.

feeling like, my God, need to have some sugar, I need to have a cookie, need to, whatever the thing is, because your body can switch over to getting the energy from fat, from protein, right? So it has other options, not just this short-term burst. So that, I think, is the biggest thing for me, is that I'm off the roller coaster.

I feel like a normal person. I don't have afternoon crashes because also what happens with a lot of that is like what goes up must come down and eventually like, you know, comes down further in the afternoon. Um, I don't do any, I don't say any, I love matcha. like, but I don't do any coffee that's caffeinated anymore. Watch the caffeine cause that's another crash thing. Um, yeah, I'm like that. I'm like that meme where it's like my childhood punishments are my adult.

goals where like I'm going to bed, you know, usually before 10 o'clock getting a really good, deep uninterrupted night of sleep. wake up before the alarm and, the day just like starts from there. And it just, yeah, I think. So many of the clients that I work with because they're, they're in holistic wellness had something happen in their life. That was a challenge that brought them into a modality or brought them to an alternative doctor and

Jessica (45:26)
Hahaha.

Jackie Simek (45:53)
That was finally the thing that helped them. And then they themselves were like, wait, I want to bring this to more people. And I think the same is sort of happened for me. think the doorway for me was these low numbers, the brain aneurysm, like all of that stuff that was brought to my attention. And by the way, if I didn't go to the fertility doctor, the brain aneurysms pressure that was being put on the gland.

would have kept me in that high state of that hormone and my body would have went into infertility. So it was like, that was the thing that I need. Like I needed to go to catch this. I would have never caught it. There were no other signs. So yeah, I think like to me, the challenge was like the invitation and I am 100 % or a hundred times or whatever you want to say healthier now.

than I was before all of this happening. And I think that's like such a blessing because, you know, haven't become a mom yet, like pregnancy is a stressful event on the body. You want to make sure that the body is optimized and supported to be able to go through that. And you want to be a mom that can actually show up for her family and for her kids. And so I think like, yeah, it's...

Jessica (46:52)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (47:15)
People in this society, think we want everything like instantaneously. I have nothing against IVF, but I do think like it's not an end all be all. You have to remember, like you're putting a lot of hormones into your body. The body still needs building blocks because your, the hormones are like, yeah, make the lining. What are you making the lining out of? It's what you're putting in your mouth, right? It's, it's what toxic stuff is in your body. Like that impacts like the quality of the egg, the quality of the sperm. Like that's what leads to.

Jessica (47:29)
you

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (47:45)
miscarriages because the body's wise and knows, hey, this isn't a viable thing here. We have to get rid of this and like, we start over, right? And it's sad because it's the emotional pieces of it, but when we break it down to just how the body's like works, it's always usually working in your favor, trying to protect you for things. So yeah, I'm very grateful for everything that happened and the life that it's given me on the other side of that.

Jessica (47:50)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (48:13)
And yeah, I just feel so much more in my power. And I think when you're constantly like, I need to eat and I'm shaking and I'm anxious, I'm jittery and like, yeah, my whole life looked really successful, but I was battling with all those types of things and now I'm not. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica (48:33)
Now you understand why.

Yeah, you kind of needed this journey to prepare you for everything that's coming and also maybe even for a new career, it sounds like, down the road. Some evolution there. But yeah, I just.

Jackie Simek (48:45)
Yeah.

I'd like to do both.

I'd like to be like a wellness entrepreneur and then I'll add the nail salon too.

Jessica (48:55)
Yes, So many things to juggle, yeah, thank you so much for sharing your story. we could go on and on, I'm sure, to talk about this for a long time. But if you have any, like for someone who's just starting this journey, whether it's with fertility initially.

Jackie Simek (49:03)
I know.

Jessica (49:13)
or maybe somebody who's had a couple of miscarriages and they're just like, why, I don't even know. And they're thinking okay, what's going on? And maybe they are visiting their fertility doctor. there's a lot of different scenarios out there, but for people who are out there in that space, I had a few miscarriages after my son and nobody ever said anything to do with toxins or the way that you're eating.

You know, I thought I was healthy too and leading a healthy lifestyle and had I ever heard any of these conversations going on back then 10 years ago, it would be a different story probably for me. So what advice would you give to people who are in that space? where's the best place for them to start, would you say?

Jackie Simek (49:58)
Hmm.

I think like.

How do I talk about this? So, you I had a friend that had a couple of miscarriages too and had nothing to do with, we were young, right? So we had a lot more on our side at that time and it had something to do with her blood type and her husband's blood type and the blood type of the baby, right? So there's always could be something truly medical. She had to end up injecting herself for the length of her pregnancy with some sort of drug, right? Yeah, I don't know the exact like,

Jessica (50:27)
I think that's like rogam or something, isn't it? Yeah.

Jackie Simek (50:33)
medical term of it. But my point is there could be actual things wrong, right? There could be

Jessica (50:33)
And I could be wrong, but that's what comes to mind. Sure.

Jackie Simek (50:40)
actual things wrong with black fallopian tube or whatever, something that you want to go see your medical doctor about. And so I don't look at this as like some replacement for that, but you're never going to be hurt by doing these things. It's going to benefit you on so many levels. And I know like,

Jessica (50:53)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jackie Simek (51:02)
fertility is super sensitive for many women. It feels very time sensitive. You know, if you long for a baby and then you start trying and it's taking years and all that and like, it's a roller coaster of emotions and, and I get all of that stuff. Like this is going to help you as well with all of that, because you're going to feel, like I said, I feel more in my power. You're going to feel like you're more resourced. Like,

Jessica (51:23)
Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (51:31)
just calmer if you're, if the blood sugar is all over the place, if you're not getting enough nutrients, if you are messing up your hormones because of endocrine disruptors and scents and chemicals and all of these things, like it's just going to make everything worse. So to start, I would say.

I would just say start with breakfast. Start with breakfast. Yeah. Don't drink coffee on an empty stomach. Switch to decaf. Eat high protein, high fat breakfast. Um, yeah. I mean, there's so many things, but if, if I had to say like, I would just start with that. If you are in a rush in the morning, wake up 10 minutes earlier. Don't rush cause of the stress. Your body needs to like be in a restful state to eat. Don't eat on the way to work in your car.

Jessica (51:53)
Yeah.

Jackie Simek (52:17)
Make some protein egg muffin bites, you know, on Sunday night and have those ready for yourself. Like I, I don't, yeah. I know people are time strapped, like reprioritize what's important to you. Cause I know you probably have an hour to take care of yourself.

Jessica (52:36)
Sure, yeah, it's in there somewhere. It's somewhere within the week. There's an hour to prep a few things. yeah, there's just, and sometimes there's some resistance to doing new things. I get it. Every time I have even just a new recipe, it's like.

It's over there. I'm looking at it and I'm like, maybe next week. Because there is a learning curve and there is that moment of I have to put a little extra time and effort into this. And so it just kind of has to be the focus, the eye on the prize, right? Focus on the goal and then just do it. And once you do that thing, then it's like, OK, I can do the next thing, right? So just start with one thing. And so that's a great.

Jackie Simek (52:58)
Yeah, there is. It takes more time.

Jessica (53:18)
advice and I know also too that you are into tapping and so, I know you integrate it into your work and use it with clients, but is this something that you use on a daily and have you used it to help you in supporting some of these lifestyle changes or just, you know, in general for those of you who are listening who maybe don't know what EFT is.

This might be a great introduction because I think it's a great energetic support for, you know, just handling the emotions that come with anything like this.

Jackie Simek (53:52)
Yeah. So EFT stands for emotional freedom technique. It's also referred to as tapping. It's a cousin to acupuncture is how I like to describe it. So with acupuncture, you, which is based on traditional Chinese medicine, every organ system has a purpose and emotion that relates to it. And so if you see an acupuncturist, they'll stick needles into you to help, you know, move the energy around, reset things with

this, you're using your fingertips to tap on your body on certain points and those points are correlated to the different organ systems. So for instance, like the liver point, liver is associated with anger, you know, so we have spleen, stomach, they're associated with different emotions. And when we apply the little tapping points, and we actually talk about and give verbiage to the thing that's bothering us, whether that's if we can name the emotion,

If we can name the sensation in our body. So if we have pain or we have a flutter or something like that, your stomach feels like it tightens, your chest feels like it's tightens or a belief system. So it can be like, I think this is so hard or I'm so stressed or I'm never going to get this or whatever the things are. So we can use it on any of those things. So we say those things out loud. Tapping's, I want to say confronting, but it's one of those things like Louise Hay used to say, like, you can't clean the house if you don't see the dirt.

So, and also I feel like a lot of people try to turn away and pretend that some of those sensations or feelings or thoughts aren't there, but what happens is they just grow in power over you. Whereas like when we face them, especially while we're tapping, because the tapping is calming the nervous system. It's working directly with the amygdala, which is fight, flight, freeze, fawn, response that we have that keeps us alive. And we start to tap, it starts to send a signal to that.

part of our brain that says you're actually safe. And what happens is it changes the body's interpretation of that thought or that sensation and allows like natural healing. think, you just like if you cut your finger and it heals, I think you emotionally heal and it gives you more perspective because what's happening is that instead of being in that fight or flight freeze fawn that, like the blood is rushing in your brain to that part of your brain.

The blood gets to come back to the prefrontal cortex, which is our problem solver. It's our empathy. It's our creative thinker. So all of a sudden what we thought was like this massive problem, we get some perspective on and we can solve a lot of our own problems. And I, you know, I truly believe in every client's ability to access their own innate wisdom. I have some other tools that I use too, but yeah, tapping is the longest tool I've used. I've been in the tapping world probably 13, 12, 13 years.

So I'm like a, I'm an OG when people used to say like tap dancing, what's that? Yeah. And so I use it with entrepreneurs because obviously a lot of belief stuff and stress come up with my clients and I like to use it every day. call it emotional hygiene. So when I go out for my walks, I tap or I tap in the car or if I was living in New York or traveling, I tap on planes, I tap on subways. I don't care. Like it probably looks silly cause you're like literally.

Jessica (56:45)
Mm-hmm.

Heheheheh...

Jackie Simek (57:13)
tapping on your face. If you guys are watching on YouTube, then you can see me doing it. I will tell you the truth. I did not use it in this journey. Yeah. And I think one is because I love cooking. So that to me, like brings me joy already. And I think the other piece, which is, feel like could end up being like a whole nother, you know, 40 minute conversation. So I don't want to say too much, but

Jessica (57:23)
Okay, interesting.

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (57:41)
I was simultaneously just about evenly working, just entering a 12 step program. not for subsidences, not that there's anything wrong with, you know, please go get help if you need help with anything, but there's a lot of different types of addictions patterns in people's lives. And so I was just entering that and a big piece of the first, after first step one, which you're like, okay, I got a problem, but step two and three are about building a relationship with a higher power. And so.

When the report came back from the doctor's office, that was like, there's some measurement on the report. I'm like, okay, I don't have to be a doctor to know that they found something. Right. in that moment, I had this flash of like a big Mohawk and like shaved side of my head, you know, like an incision. Cause I was like, okay, I'm going to have to get brain surgery and all this. And, and I just thought in that moment, like, all right, God, if that's what you want, if that's what you want for my life, there's a reason and a purpose.

Jessica (58:20)
Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (58:39)
and I trust you. And so for me, so much of the journey was actually leaning into what I finally understood to be the definition of surrender, which is whatever outcome happens here, I am okay. I'm not picking or attached to one outcome over the other. And, you know, we didn't even get into like, I was supposed to retrieve before Thanksgiving. I had a cyst. I couldn't retrieve.

Jessica (59:04)
you

Jackie Simek (59:06)
I was like, my God, F this. Like my whole Thanksgiving got ruined, right? Cause I like, wasn't, I didn't go home cause I was supposed to have this procedure. And then I fight like, came back in January and they're like, do you want to try now? And I was like, okay. They're like, all right, we're going to reorder the drugs for you. there, and I was like, can I, they're like, we're going to order. There's a certain drug that there was a national shortage on. So.

They're like, we're going to order that for you. And I was like, I don't want that. I want the cheaper one because I'm paying out of pocket. Right. So the cheaper one, have to stick in the fridge and it's only good for 10 days. So when I was ready around Thanksgiving, that one went to the garbage, bye bye $3,000. Right. So I'm thinking like, or maybe it was less, but anyways, I'm like, give me the cheaper one. Nurse goes to me, everybody in November that took the other drug that was like the generic, whatever it was, the older one didn't do well.

Right. So it's like, was I being protected? Yeah. So things like that, that I'm just like, trust the process. I think when I was doing the injections, had, I was sharing on social media. So I had a big, I invited my community in, I did it on like close friends on Instagram. So I, every day that I had to do the shot, would FaceTime a friend and they would do it with me.

Jessica (1:00:11)
Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (1:00:31)
And then the night, I get emotional, the night before the retrieval and I did that, or when I did the trigger shot, which is the last shot you do before you go and retrieve, I had like 15 friends on zoom and they like were there and did it like with me. And a lot of my friends are very spiritual. I had them like praying over me and stuff. So my best friend from college came up to take me for my procedure, you know, so like all of.

All these things, feel like that's the stuff I lean into. I lean into the spiritual relationship with God and then my community is really what I think helped me the most.

Jessica (1:01:12)
Hmm, that's a beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing all of that. I feel like every time somebody hears a story, they get something out of it. They get, nuggets from your experience. And you're so right, like the power of your belief system, the power of your community, the support that you had from loved ones.

All of the, the people praying over you, that energy supported you and definitely had an impact. I am a huge believer in the frequency. You know, our frequency is what creates our health and our wellbeing. And so all that prayer and all that support that you had from people and your own spiritual practices is certainly part of your whole, the woven tapestry of your.

Jackie Simek (1:01:59)
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Jessica (1:02:01)
Yeah, of your outcome. So yeah, I am so grateful that we had this conversation. And is there anything else that you would like to share before we talk a little bit about what it is that you do and if anybody wants to connect with you?

Jackie Simek (1:02:15)
Yeah. If anyone wants to connect me and, you know, get my recipes, they're not mine. They're like screenshots of other people's stuff. But, yeah, feel free to send me a DM. probably follow me and then send me a DM because otherwise they get like hidden from me. But, it's just my name, Jackie Simec S I M as in mom E K on Instagram is the best place. I love voice notes. Feel free to leave me one. yeah.

Jessica (1:02:20)
You're a share.

Yeah.

Yeah, and then also I do want to give you a shout out for the work that you do as well because I feel like if anybody was inspired by what you had to say and they are in a space or a realm where they might be a good fit and an alignment to work with you, they should completely know what you do and where you're at to find, to check you out a little bit more. Your website is gorgeous.

Jackie Simek (1:03:07)
Yeah.

Thank you. It's definitely the European city girl in me, the high standards. That's the vibe over there. yeah, I work with holistic wellness practitioners. My mission, like I've mentioned already, is I believe the body can innately heal. And I think when we do that, it opens up a door for more love, more prosperity, more connection.

Jessica (1:03:14)
I see it.

Jackie Simek (1:03:36)
like life just gets infinitely better, right? Like when you're sick or you have a symptom or you're distracted by something like, yeah, like you can't be as present in your life and really reach that full like human potential. I can't do this with every person myself. I started my business as 100 % as a tapping practitioner and I did grow that business to over six figures.

Jessica (1:03:44)
Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (1:03:58)
just tapping and I have this, you know, I was a CPA for a number of years, private equity background, all the things. I started to fold in the business side of things and my client's results were just like going through the roof. I was making like thousands of dollars like a week later. So then I, that's when I really became like a business and mindset coach. So I still do all the tapping because I think it's so important for entrepreneurs and bring that together.

But yeah, I particularly love working with people that are aligned with my values, which is more of the holistic side of medicine. I think we don't have a healthcare system. I think we have a sick care system. And I think that's created like that for profit. And there's so many amazing people that are gifted, that are so well educated, that have done all the certifications, all the modalities, they get their clients.

amazing results, but they just don't have enough clients. They don't have enough flow of clients. Maybe they're spending a lot of time marketing and it's not yielding the results that they want. It becomes frustrating. And at the end of the day, like you deserve to be well paid. You deserve to feel steady and secure in your business and that it has predictable income. You should not be anywhere near teetering burnout because like I said, many people come to this work via some big life event.

and you can't afford to risk your health again. So that's who I work with. I call it leveraged and loaded. You have to build a business that allows leverage, right? So that things are done consistently, that eventually you're not the one doing all of the things in it. Systems, team, ads, like anything that allows

Jessica (1:05:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (1:05:48)
the business, the business is like a separate entity from you. It needs to be structured. You you might not want to structure your own life like that way, but the business itself needs to be structured and run in a certain way. And what that does is it allows you to be loaded. And of course people think that's financially and it is, but loaded in every sense of the word, right? Loaded in time, loaded in flexibility, loaded in the ability to do your own 12 step routine in the morning or whatever it is, right? So spiritually, emotionally,

Jessica (1:05:56)
Thank

Mm-hmm.

Jackie Simek (1:06:17)
Yeah, living to your potential.

Jessica (1:06:20)
I love that, that's beautiful. And I guess we'll end on that note, otherwise we'll keep going and going but I've enjoyed every minute of it. Jackie, thank you again so much for being so honest and authentic and sharing from a place in your heart you clearly want this to help people who are listening.

I want to offer a, did you even say what your website is? I think first off, let's, okay. And I want to say that if this is something that resonates with you or if you know someone who this episode could help, please share it. we talked a lot about

Jackie Simek (1:06:47)
It's JackieSemick.com. So the same as Instagram. Yeah.

Jessica (1:07:01)
a lot. Just we covered a lot of topics. I know that this is something that can feel overwhelming. And this whole process of sifting through trying to find the right products to use that are clean and legitimately good. And so I do have a guide that can help make that process less stressful

Jackie Simek (1:07:04)
I like that. A lot about a lot.

Jessica (1:07:23)
and you spend less money because you will not make mistakes when you are purchasing things that maybe have misleading labels. I call it green, it's green washing basically. And you can find that guide if you haven't downloaded it already, it's on livelightly.eco. So livelightly.eco. And it's under the free guide tab. That's also the home of all of my episodes.

as well, that's where they all live. And thank you for listening. If you are new to the show, thank you so much. I appreciate your time and your energy. And again, thank you so much, Jackie, for sharing your story.

Jackie Simek (1:08:00)
Thank you and the guide is beautiful, so go grab the guide.

Jessica (1:08:03)
Thank you.