Jessica is a fun-loving free spirit on a mission to empower people to heal themselves. She embodies a child-like joy and curiosity. She is a big-picture, visionary thinker and serial entrepreneur. Jessica spent most of her life living on islands and on boats. Her friends say she is more mermaid than human. Her deep love and appreciation for the ocean have inspired her to devote much of her future influence and wealth to ocean conservation, cleanup, and research.  

Jessica grew up on Block Island, a tiny island off the coast of Rhode Island and spent most winters homeschooled on a boat in the Bahamas. She loves surfing, spearfishing and taking underwater photos. In 2008 she left the ocean state to attend Colorado College. Between snowboarding, camping, and partying with friends, she somehow made time to study anthropology, psychology, and philosophy, minor in studio art and create her own major called Concepts of Human Nature from a Multicultural Perspective. Jessica had a deep interest in shamanism and was fascinated by the way different cultures perceived health and dealt with disease.

Jessica grew up atheist, sure that all the questions of the universe would be answered by science. She sought to explain the meaning of life since as far as she can remember. She learned most of her life lessons from nature, observing the biodiversity of tide pools, watching caterpillars metamorphosize into butterflies, and harboring tadpoles in a terrarium as they transformed into frogs. She believed, as many young people do, that she was the thinker of her thoughts and that this constant stream of thoughts was her reality. It wasn’t until learning about Buddhism and meditation in college that she realized she could observe her thoughts and even find space between them. Many experiences with psychedelics opened the door to the idea the world was much more interconnected and magical then she could have ever imagined.

Jessica has had a desire to help people on their healing journeys ever since her own 5-year health crisis that began in 2010. She suffered from chronic sinus infections which got really bad in the spring of her junior year of college. The doctors kept giving her more and more antibiotics. By the end of the summer, she had taken 6 courses of antibiotics, one course of prednisone, plenty of painkillers, and had sinus surgery. As her sinus infections slowly subsided, her digestion got worse and worse. She experienced severe stomach pain and headaches to the point where she could longer work or function as a normal 21-year-old woman. She went to several gastroenterologists who did colonoscopies and endoscopies and told her there was nothing wrong with her. Jessica felt like she was rotting from the inside out so she started researching her symptoms online and discovered that she had candida, leaky gut, and bacterial dysbiosis. At the time this diagnosis was considered woo-woo. Now, as most doctors and even the average person know, antibiotics are largely ineffective for sinus infections and they can cause candida overgrowth, bacterial imbalances, autoimmune disease, and other health problems.

It took Jessica 5 years to totally rebuild and rebalance her digestive system. The healing process was slow, frustrating, and seemed hopeless at times. But, looking back, she believes that this was the best thing that could have ever happened to her because it required her to completely change her lifestyle and stop drinking alcohol. She learned about nutrition, the gut microbiome, the placebo effect, energy medicine, and bizarre healing modalities that she would never have come across if she wasn’t trying so hard to save her own life.

All of the supplements, restrictive diets, and ancient healing practices helped her condition but 4 years into her healing journey she still could not eat food like a normal person without experiencing severe pain and bloating. Jessica developed a deep understanding of how her memories, thoughts, and beliefs affected her digestive system and immune system but she was still suffering. One evening, after smoking a joint, she realized that, deep down, she didn’t believe it was possible to truly heal. She realized she had become attached to her identity as a sick person and that she had a subconscious fear that being well would also mean going back to the same unhealthy lifestyle she lived before she got sick. Once she recognized this, she opened to the possibility of one day being able to eat food without experiencing pain and bloating. She let go of the attachments to the benefits that were inhibiting her healing process and became the healthiest and happiest version of herself.

While she is grateful for this experience overall, it frustrated her that, what could have taken a year to get well, took 5 years because the healthcare professionals she trusted led her in the wrong direction and it took a ton of research and unbelievable synchronicities to find the healers, products, teachings, and resources that actually helped her get well. When she was really sick, she was unable to work and barely graduated from college. As she got better she was able to work again and even travel around the world. During this period she still spent the majority of her time, energy, and money on her health. When she was consumed by her own suffering and obsessed with her strict diets and practices, she felt like a drain on family and friends. She was constantly complaining and was not as much fun to be around. This experience left her with a strong desire to help other people who suffer from all kinds of chronic diseases find a shorter, more graceful path to health. She dreamed of creating a symptom-based search engine so that other people who are suffering from illness can find the right holistic, integrated healthcare.

While living in Indonesia in 2013, Jessica started drinking jamu, a traditional Indonesiansn elixir made from turmeric, ginger, and other spices and herbs. This chalky, bitter, orange beverage seemed to reduce her inflammation and ease her digestive discomfort. When she returned to the United States she enrolled in the Institute of Integrative Nutrition to become a certified Health Coach so she could help other people heal their digestive systems. Jessica learned that turmeric, the main ingredient in the jamu, was a powerful anti-inflammatory. She also learned that the underlying causes of 7 of the 10 most common causes of death in America were related to inflammation. She continued making jamu for herself and developed a blend that had the same benefits but actually tasted delicious, like a creamy chai latte. She started sharing this yummy yellow drink with her coworkers at the little health food store she was working at in Rhode Island. Her boss encouraged her to make it there and sell it to their customers. It was a huge hit! That summer she sold her version of jamu at the farmers’ markets. In 2014, she added an ‘h” to the world and launched Jahmu as a public benefit corporation with the intention of getting this healthy spice blend to everyone who could benefit from it. Her brother, Walter, became her business partner and together they got Jahmu into hundreds of stores and sold it at farmers’ markets, festivals, and online.

Jessica learned a ton about business and the food industry. She enjoyed sharing her unique product with the world, but her dream of creating an integrative network of wellness providers to help people simplify their path to health kept nagging at her soul. After years of brainstorming and discussing her vision with friends and family, she finally asked the universe: “If I am meant to create this company what should it be called?” The answer came through loud and clear: “Humans Heal”. In the Fall of 2018 she followed her heart west again, where, through a series of magical synchronicities, she met a man who had the exact same vision, the connections, and the resources to make it happen. She joined Tim Hobbs and the Emergent Wellness team and they set out to build a united wellness ecosystem.

    As an extrovert and lover of all people, Jessica found her niche in podcasting. She realized that Emergent Wellness needed a way to discover what providers, products, and resources to include in their network so she decides to interview people who have successfully healed and find out what providers, products, and resources they used. Jessica believes that even though everyone’s healing path is different, one can learn a lot from those who have already navigated these waters and have achieved lasting health. Humans Heal now provides a foundation and audience for Emergent Wellness while igniting the human healing potential through a collection of authentic healing stories organized by the ailment each person healed from. For example, if you are suffering from chronic pain, you can go to HumansHeal.com and listen to stories of real people who no longer suffer from chronic pain and learn how they healed themselves. Jessica, and her team interview both famous people and non-famous people who have suffered and healed from all sorts of ailments. Jessica loves interviewing people on the Humans Heal podcast. She asks questions that evoke the deep wisdom these empowered heroes have to offer. She learns so much from each interview and enjoys sharing their stories with the people who can benefit from them. Each story is uniquely inspiring and compelling.

Jessica feels blessed to be able to work from anywhere, do what she loves for a living, and help people improve their lives. She hosts the Humans Heal podcast, facilitates powerful healing sessions with her coaching clients, and leads retreats all over the world. She is the Chief Creative Visionary for Emergent Wellness and cofounder of Budder Mylk, a coconut butter-based functional snack and healing beverage company. Jessica continues to explore the earth by land and sea. Soon she will be co-creating an intentional, sustainable, community and retreat center on an epic piece of land with ocean views, rich soil, and pure spring water. Amazing teachers and leaders from all over the world will come to host retreats there. Jessica looks forward to raising a family in this luscious, awakened, heart-centered community