EP3: A Nudge to the Edge ~ Daring to Live

Hello Gorgeous Soul.

Welcome to Episode 3 of the SoulFull Way Podcast, drawn from my book Just One Soulful Thing ~ A Simple Adventure in Reclaiming Your Wild Wisdom.

In today’s soulful session, we lean into the tender, terrifying, and transformative experience of wandering, living and leaping from the edge - privy to those of us madly desirous of embracing the life we long for, at all costs.

💬 “The edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” — Hunter S. Thompson

What does it mean to walk the edge in your own life? To dare to live wildly awake, aware, and attuned?

Today we find ourselves literally on the brink …

Seeking and grasping, the difference between walking dead and soaring skyward.

“In a world inclined to overwhelm (for good and not), we are called not to go round, but through the chaos, 
To shrug off the shroud of self-doubt and
face head-on our inclination 
to hide, 
to delay, 
to deal with it all another elusive day. 
to realize avoidance only allows the monsters to gather and mount.

To survive - and vibrantly thrive - we must embrace, conscious, simple, soulful steps. 

Lift those covers. 

Compel that stubborn, sorrowful self. 

Reignite our innate wisdom and knowing.

Rekindling hope doesn’t begin with grand gestures. 

It starts with the little things, 

engaged day by day, 

until they can become big things.”

Today’s pondering: “A Nudge to the Edge”

Grab a cuppa, find a soulful spot, curl up, and let’s wander within and in the world a while, together.

Each Video Podcast POST Invites You To:

• Engage - Video and Podcast - Watch or listen along.

• Expand - A written reflection on how this all applies to practical, soulful living.

• Experience - Make it all your own and allow it to stir your own Wisdom and Way.

This publication is free, but we invite you to dive in further, when you feel a resonance for more, require a boost on your SoulFull Way and want to find solace and connection to kindreds on the adventure. Let me list the ways:

• Read and follow along: Get the Book Canada Link / US Link

• Click to Join The SoulFull Way Chat (Psst … your people live here).

• Adventure with us on a SoulFull Retreat in Guatemala. Tap details below.

A NUDGE TO THE EDGE

✨ENGAGE ~ Come along The SoulFull Way via podcast or video

✨EXPAND ~ A Reflection on what The Edge Means for We.

For me, this edge isn’t abstract. It’s visceral. Real.
Honestly, there was never really any other option for me than to traipse it, test it, no matter the worried, sidelong glances I received from those I loved most.

Between ages of 16 and 26, I lost several close friends for various reasons, and in a heartbeat, what rolls off the tongue in a cliche became poignantly clear - tomorrow is not a guarantee. And I lived my life as if a ticking time clock counted the seconds just beyond every thought.
I have had to transform the fear of loss to a tenacious focus on living life to the full, loving to the full … while I can.

I decided that those things that others dream of doing,
I would just … well … do them.

🌴 Move to a tropical island - Go for 6 months, stay 3 years and learn all I could about running a business, hiring people from around the world, initiating promos from an Elvis BDay breakie on a yacht to choreographing Michael J dance numbers for our staff to perform atop the bar on Halloween. ✅Check

🏔️ Live in a tiny village in Austria, skiing the 95 miles of ski trails and meeting amazing people from across Europe. ✅Check

🌊 Live and work in San Diego, setting my sights on running a department of a PR agency in 6 months and achieving that 5 months and 364 days later. ✅Check

🫶 Become a Hospice volunteer - Take the experience of loss I had from when I was young and apply it to supporting patients and families dealing with end of life. ✅Check

🏃‍♀️Run the La Jolla Half and Full San Diego Rock n’ Roll Marathon - Training with our amazing Formula PR (Havas) staff team, raising $ for Alzheimer’s. ✅Check

⛺Run a Respite Program and a Camp for Children with Disabilities - Supporting the amazing families looking for a rest and children wanting to simply engage in fun, in community, to belong and be wildly appreciated and loved. This would lead to running the Comm Dept for Easter Seals’ head office. ✅Check

🏐Play Beach Volleyball and Make Time for Balance/Joy in Life/Work - Took to the courts (without a pina colada - as one was apt to do in Grand Cayman), met the most exceptional, kind and brilliant man I’d ever known ✅Check and …

💍Marry My BFF - Engaged in 6 months, tied the know no fuss no muss, among friends, in a cathedral of trees and topped it off with …

🚣White Water Rafting Trip with Fab Fam and Kindreds - This was how we celebrated our wedding, with all those we loved who came to Kananaskis from across the world. ✅Check

🤝😁Launch First Biz - Began as Center of Yes!, started BEE You (Believe, Envision, Evolve) workshops for Easter Seals and beyond, rebranded to Project Yes! Life, opened Maolog Communications. Workshops, talks, retreats, executive coaching with healthcare, non-profits, educators … talking about values/action alignment, work/life balance - communicating better with self, to better connect as a team, to better support those you serve. ✅Check

👩‍👦‍👦LifeSchool Boys - We start a family and right out of the gate feel its our calling to turn attention to giving them the tools I was giving others - but from birth and on. Mama has lots of cool n’ brilliant parents show her the ropes on home/life Schooling and they’re off to the races. The most magical, challenging, exciting, free flowing, wild years of togetherness. ✅Check

🚑😊Stroke to Heart Surgery to New Life - Had a mild stroke (right on the edge with that one … full story in Just One Soulful Thing), but the gift was the calm I embraced, and in recognizing the stroke, doctors discovered a hole in my heart I’d had since birth and … voila … a 🦋 butterfly patch was placed on the hole and I was whole again. Yippee

😔😊Loss of Loved Ones - Birth of Others - And in it all, seeing many we cherished through end of this life, the grace of precious, miraculous moments - appreciated all.

🚀📚Launch of Books n’ Mad Hero Publishing Biz - After years of ghost and support writing for clients, articles for mags, coaching clients to achieve their dreams, my hubby Todd and I teamed up and launch our own pub biz … helping authors Soulfully craft their authentic, poignant, empowering stories.

🚀🌴Back to the Travel n’ Taking My People with Me - Walked 233 miles of El Camino de Santiago and now taking SoulFull Retreats to Central America (Guatemala), the Islands of Canada and Europe (El Camino).

There were few people less likely than I to achieve these things. I did not come from privilege, in fact there were challenges aplenty that my family faced.

What I had was burning, focused desire and a conviction that no matter how close I danced to that edge I would find a way to soar. Oh there were times when I teetered dangerously close to the plumet. 

But I learned fairly early on that pace and peace were as essential as passion and productivity.    

I seemed downright mad to many, but I also learned to smile within rather than wonder at my own sanity. 

As a child I learned to survive the world around me, by going within. I felt a kinship with a Voice I knew not by name but understood fully as my best friend. It was simple really …

I stilled and listened, It whispered,I followed where it led. 

If I veered off course I learned lessons. When I came back to center and back on track,My life flourished, Evolved, as if by Magic. 

That’s what Just One Soulful Thing is, where it was born from … in simple form … so that anyone can, begin and deepen their practice, their patience, their peace and find a SoulFull Way to Be, Create, Serve and Soar. 

We may not have tomorrow, but we sure as sugar have this second we’re in … and don’t we want to do all we can to live out those visions that dance to the beat of our heart’s desire??

✨EXPERIENCE ~ Your Turn to Take it All Out For a Spin.

😌 Breathe, still, linger in the silence and let thoughts float away like clouds across a blue sky. Breathe.

💜 Take Your Question into the Stillness. Use these or (I encourage you) to create your own.

• What edge(s) are you wandering in your life?

• What edge do you long to finally face, embrace, skip along?

• What exhilarates you? What scares the bejesus out of you?

• If you could soar, create, BE anything what would it be - simple or grand - at this time in your life?

• What are you willing to do to step back from the edge and gather your wits and peace about you and plan so that when you leap you rise?
  Need help?

Look within to your wild, innate wisdom, that whisper and Friend that knows all … listen and follow wherever it leads. The best of your life, IS happening in this very moment.

And if you need tools, a cheerleader, a mentor on The Way, I might know a little somethin’ somethin’ about that. If you feel the tingle from within to learn more … you know where to find me. I answer every message and offer a free 33 min calls to suss out where the soulful wander way may take us, together.

To your extraordinary adventure along the ever-soul-expanding way.

💜 ~ jenni

More SoulFull Connection? We’ve Got You Covered!

✨EVENTS:

SoulFull Retreat Guatemala ~ October 2025

After 20+ years of offering retreats and workshops in Canada and online, I’m taking them to the world. Rio Dulce (Sweet River) in Guatemala, to be precise.

A week spent:

✨flowing in stillness, meditative flow, wandering and in awe of our surroundings,
✨diving deeper into life Just One Soulful Thing at a time,
✨immersing in the wonder, culture and beauty of the Guatemalan people and mystical place - from Mayan Ruins and stories to stir the spirit to boat rides through the rainforest canyon
✨tapping your innate inner wisdom and flow to make 2025-26 your most glorious and soulful year yet.

☀️✨We will emerge rejuvenated and enriched.
🦋Spots are limited to ensure an intimate gathering between kindreds.

If this tingles you through, reach out and I’ll put you on the contact list for details.

✨A Glimpse into Jennifer M. Maki

Jennifer has a background in psychology and communications and spent the last 20+ years canvasing the human spirit, across business and non-profit sectors in Canada, the US, Europe and British West Indies, working with and gleaning from dynamic people, seekers, leaders and community members.

An author, soulpreneur coach, renowned speaker and workshop facilitator, she has been privileged to design workshops, coaching programs and keynotes, addressing:

• values/action alignment,

• soulful communications, service and living, and

• cultivating and celebrating heroism in the workplace, for myriad clients.

She is also a sought-after public relations, marketing and crisis communications specialist, empowering organizations to align brand integrity with powerful, purposeful messaging.

On the home front, Jennifer had the privilege of LifeSchooling her two boys, with a keen desire to instill and apply the values she shared in the world with her precious family.

Together they launched The Mad Hero Project, engaging in Missions of the Me and We kind - practices in:

• mindfulness,

• soulful communication,

• social responsibility, and

• community building.

Jennifer is president of Maolog Communications Inc., owner of Project Yes! Life, founder of The Mad Hero Project and author of The Mad Hero’s Manifesto and Just One Soulful Thing: A Simple Adventure in Reclaiming Your Wild Wisdom.