The Truth of Who You Are with Fiona Jacob

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On this episode of Unbroken, Fiona Jacob and I talk about my favorite subject: the field of possibility that is within all of us. That connection we all have to infinite universal intelligence, peace and well-being.

Fiona shares about her journey to coming to understand and trust this intelligence, and also what she does when she happens to fall out of the awareness of it.

[Programming note: There will be no episodes of Unbroken next week (July 24 and 27) while I take a quick summer break. Back to twice-weekly episodes again starting on Monday, July 31, 2023.]

 You can find Fiona Jacob at FionaJacob.com and on LinkedIn.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Show Notes

• Being held hostage in Iraq in 1990
• Experiencing profound peace during that harrowing experience
• Waking people up to their own innate greatness
• The value of ‘soul listening’
• On the ‘magic’ of connecting to the alive, creative essence in all of us
• Finding our way back to what we already are

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Michael Neill
• Interview between Bill Cumming and Michael Neill

Transcript of Interview with Fiona Jacob

Alexandra: Fiona Jacob, welcome to Unbroken.

Fiona: Thank you. It is an honor to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Alexandra: Oh, you’re so welcome. I’m so excited to be speaking to you today. So why don’t you give us a little background?

Tell us tell us about yourself and how you came across the Three Principles.

Fiona: Sure. Well, I’m a 50, something on my mind. I am from Ireland, as you can probably hear in the accent. I have lived all around the world, including the Middle East for 25 years. My background is nursing. But what I have done and what I’d love to do is lead transformational change in organizations, which I’ve probably done for about 15 years of my 25 years as a director. 

I’m also a very quiet academic. I’ve done a couple of masters in the background just to kind of keep things ticking over. But don’t tell anyone. It’s our secret. 

And how did I find the principles? Great question. So I did not find the principles, the principles found me. And I’ll explain because I think it’s important, I think many listeners will have maybe not the same experience, but they’ll have had experiences in their life where they’ve experienced something that comes from nothing in the moment that has really, really helped.

When I was 25 years of age, I was a very young nurse, I worked in the operating room, and myself and my best friend went to Iraq, as you do. There was a beautiful Irish hospital there that was really helping the local population with complex disease management. And so we went there on a contract for a year. It was in EU 1990. I loved Iraq; it was a beautiful, and I’m sure it still remains a beautiful country today. But halfway into our term, it was about August, when we woke up one morning to find out that we were not able to leave the country. It took maybe seven to 10 days, but after a short period of intervening time, we suddenly woke up to find that we were hostages. Interesting. 

Now, I panicked. Everybody around me panicked. We were initially 20,000 people in the whole of Baghdad that were hostages. There were some Irish, some English, some Americans and Canadians and Swiss, but also a lot of Indians, a lot of Filipinos and so forth. And so we were a large group for a very short period of time, maybe three to four weeks. 

I was just so crazy in my head. I was like, I’m going to die. My life is over. I’m never going to see my parents again. I’m never going to see my boyfriend again. All of these thoughts came to my mind and it was like, wow, I’m only 25 and my life is over. And over this period of time, as the number of hostages shrunk, became I think 150 in month two, a lot of people had gotten out. So there’s a little bit of hope there that we might get out but not a lot. Saddam Hussein had taken over Kuwait, if you remember the times, and the world was coming out war, we were coming after him. 

It was an unusually warm November, I remember that. And I remember having access to a swimming pool that was in my complex, let’s call it my complex because I’m really strange. You’re a hostage and you have access to a swimming pool. But we were working and one of our physician staff had a had a swimming pool. And I remember just doing backstroke, Alexandra, and looking up at the sky was dark, and it was like the stars were hanging like fairy lights on the Christmas tree. I mean it was stunning. It’s beautiful. This navy, black sky and these beautiful twinkly stars. I was doing backstroke and I had this experience of profound peace just from nowhere, not invited even it just showed up inside of me this quiet. 

I knew I just knew in that moment that I was going to be okay. I didn’t know if I’d be physically harmed or but just this sense of peace of quiet and okayness was so profound. So when I say that the principles found me, I think this is the first experience where I really woke up to my human life. There is something other than my crazy thinking. There’s something that can show up any human being, even in the most complex, most dangerous, most horrendous of situations. And we can have that experience of peace of quiet of calm of ease, and okayness. 

In the intervening three, four months that we had left as hostages weren’t easy. So it wasn’t like being the whole world was put to rights. I was sexually assaulted in Iraq. I was held at gunpoint for 16 hours. So many things kind of happened. People shot in front of me. It was a lot to take for 25 year old nurse who was doing a missionary mission, if you know what I mean, in that sense, going out to help others. But that sense of okayness never left, even in the midst of all of that. 

And my abiding memory of leaving Iraq was heartbreak, because I knew I would never see some of the people that I have met who had been so supportive, so loving and kind. And these were the Iraqi people, I did not know if I would just leave and never see these people again. So I had a great love and affection for the country. I still do.

The principles came to me and woke me up.

Alexandra: Wow, what a great story. Thank you so much for sharing that. I have some follow up questions then.

Sometimes when people have an experience like that, they then go searching for what it means or the source of it. Did you experience that?

Fiona: I’m going to have to be very honest here and say that I had this wonderful experience, I got in touch with something deep inside of me. And then very arrogantly made that about me. 

When I got home, after the four and a half months, five months, almost being a hostage, I was oh, look at me, aren’t I great? I went into an ego ride for a while. So I will be honest. And I’d be honest, because the universe never lets go of wanting us to see the truth. I got another two very, very loud knocks from the universe to the back of my head at two different times that went no, Fiona, you might pretend that you’re courageous. And you might pretend that you know this peace of mind and grace and ease was all you but hey, it’s not. So I had a couple of other opportunities to practice. 

The last one of which really woke me up to ah, there is no way that this little ego person that I am, could have in any way either created the scenario or allowed me escape from the scenario and keep my mental health and well being through the scenario. It was just not possible. And I really woke up to oh my god, there is something beyond me there is an intelligence bigger than me. 

All I knew at that point was that I wanted to coach and I had two three different programs on my horizon. One of them was a master’s in coaching, which is actually what I have done. I’ve done a master’s in coaching. But sitting at the bar in a University in England, fellow student came to me and said, Hey, have you heard this guy called Michael Neill? I went, nope. And he said, I would give up my master’s program today to join his academy if I could, but I can’t. I went, Oh, okay. That’s interesting. 

So I went back to my room, I Googled Michael. I listened to a couple of his podcasts. At that time, he was actually doing radio shows if I remember, and I signed up the following day for the academy, and that’s how I find my way. 

Now, you could say again, how is it that you’re sitting in a bar with a person who is informing you that they want to do this and suddenly you’re the one in the room with Michael. I love that the universe is so serendipitous that it kind of brings us little nudges to help us find, because say the truth of who we are or the intelligence that flows or the energy that flows through us in the moment.

Alexandra: Serendipity. I love that you use that word.

Fiona: I’ve had so much of it in my life, but I put it down to good luck, or, yeah, we can put it down to religion or good luck. You know what I mean, we kind of we make excuses, we come up with a logical reason that I met this person on this day, or I was there when that happened. So I was able to prevent it from getting worse. So a whole have that we have logical explanations for. 

I love the fact that there is a bigger grace that we lean into, that we can trust that we can play with, that we can rely on moment-to-moment that’s got us in its sights and is on our side. And can help us navigate our life with so much more ease and grace and allow us to thrive.

Alexandra: When you began investigating Michael, it must have connected with the experiences you’d had of your own.

Fiona: Well, it’s actually going to sound a weird story. I did the first SuperCoach Academy that Michael ever held back in 2010. In those days, he had a beautiful lineup of speakers, there was less of Michael and more of these internationally renowned speakers and influencers, cultures. I walked into the room, there were 50 was beautiful souls. And the first guy who was starting that day is a guy called Bill Cumming. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Bill, but Bill is a beautiful, beautiful soul. 

He was wearing denim overalls, a kind of a wrinkly jacket. He had a scraggly beard. And he looked like the farmer had just hopped off the tractor. So no judgment going on him. I thought, “What am I going to learn from this guy.” And by the first break I had found my way back to my okayness. 

First where he spoke from how he shared was from a place that I knew of. But I spent so little time there. I spent so little time there. But my body felt the truth of how he shared and all he shared was filling your perfect whole and complete. Not needing fixing. You always have and you always will be. And I remember dissolving into tears and probably crying for an hour and a half. Because I never knew that was true. And even though I had the experience of I’m okay, that had felt at the time.

It had felt at the time that there was a safety net that caught me. But the feeling whole had never occurred to me that I could be or I was or anybody could be. Maybe those good-looking people over there were. There were certainly maybe classes of people or categories of people that look whole. But I didn’t think that apply to me, that I could stop fixing. I could stop judging. 

And then Michael took it to of course new levels by just sharing what we share about how human beings work and really what we’ve got going for us as human beings, this deep connection to life, the real time responsive intelligence that infuses our aliveness moment-to-moment, our creative potential moment-to-moment. Our joy our experience of unconditional love, deep impact others and of life. It’s built in. But I took the glass elevator 160 floors very fast. I kind of landed on a soft cushion or something.

Alexandra: That’s amazing.

Connected to that, on your website, I noticed you say one of your favorite things to do is stand up for people’s greatness. What does that mean to you?

Fiona: I think it ties back into the whole, perfect and complete and we are just so amazing when we get out of our own heads. You just don’t do it very often. Me too, by the way, and I can attest to that. 

And greatness is not our kind of personal ego greatness. Our greatness is this impersonal nature that we have to live in purpose, to live on purpose. To live from this creative potential that we are that’s infinite, and boundless and filled with everything that will allow us to thrive and grow. So when I see person playing small, when I see myself playing well, when I see my clients playing small, I want them to experience the greatness of being human being alive, being joy, being content, being a thriving person, filled with love, life, energy, delight, compassion. 

All of it all of its available, I was going to say at our fingertips, but it’s even more than that. It’s infusing us every single moment of every single day. And I want to wake people up to that. So they see that for themselves. And they go out and do whatever it is they want to do, knowing that to be true for them. I don’t have a great plan for them, but in the sense of them waking up and touching that space. That possibility that infinite potential, it’s just so exciting to see what wakes up any human being and what they do with that when they feel more alive.

Alexandra: Spekaing of that, one, the place that I crossed your path was in Michael Neill’s SuperCoach, cafe. You do supervisory calls there. And the thing that struck me about the calls, where someone submits a coaching call that they’ve – just for our listeners – that they’ve done with a client, and then you listen to it, and then on the supervisory call, give them feedback about what they’ve done. 

The thing that struck me was that I could feel as you did that, that energy of possibility, that space that you stepped into, and you invite the person you’re supervising to come into that space with you as well. I want to ask about that. Because it’s been such a unique experience for me.

When you step into that space, I feel everybody else on the call go there too. And it feels like magic.

Fiona: Sure. It can feel like magic but actually what we’re feeling is the truth of our being. When we’re living from the truth of our being anything’s possible and it’s our greatest way of being impactful. Because we can feel heart we can feel truth. We can feel clarity, we can feel wisdom, either in ourselves or other people. 

The way that I describe it is, most of the time the people are in conversation, we’re listening. We’re listening to be right. We’re listening to judge, or we’re listening to see if we agree. Or we’re listening. So we’re kind of in a debate mode, like, Oh, I agree with this. So therefore, I will listen, or I disagree with this. So therefore, I won’t listen. And then you get your head full of thoughts about what you’re going to say when the person they were listening to shut up. 

There is a listening, Alexandra, that’s I’m going to call it soul listening, because I don’t think I have any or the other words for today, might change tomorrow through different words. So when you’re listening to human being, whether they’re a coach, or whether you’re listening to be coached and you’re listening from that quiet, so space you get wisdom and insight about how to take something forward. Because that is our nature. So whether it’s a coaching client who’s stuck, or frustrated or suicidal or judgmental about themselves or others or whatever is going on, when we’re listening quietly from our soul we know where to go with that. Such that we can help the client see because we’re not in Fiona’s ego, as a coach. 

If I’m coaching from my ego, I am the worst coach in the world. I ask the worst questions, you would never want to hire me. But if you touch into that space of you can call it divine guidance, wisdom, clarity, problem solving, creative solution, it’s not unique to me, every single human being has this, we all do. My job is to wake people up to it. But we all do. When we’re there share my wisdom and your wisdom we see new things together, we have insights together, you wake up to a way to solve the problem. Not because I’ve said anything, maybe but even just by hanging out in this space. 

That’s one of the cool things about coaching this way. It’s like there’s not a lot of effort required. But you can’t fake this space either. It is either in you in that moment. And you’re either coming from clarity or we’re coming from our minds our own thought created experience. But you know the difference because one has impact and the other is just going bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. 

My intention is to create impact in the world and wake the coach up to their greatness and help the coach find the greatness within their clients. And the best way I know how to do that is for me to be quiet, to listen, and let whatever wisdom speaks speak. 

And back to the thing does that feel like magic? Yes, but it is who we are always in every moment. So you’re feeling it means that it’s alive, so alive in you that you recognize the experience and the impact that’s possible when we had in that space.

Alexandra: When you were in Michael’s Academy and learning to about the Three Principles and coaching in that way, was this something you stumbled upon? What did your learning curve look like for that?

Fiona: Well, I have to say I’m probably having the same insight every day of every year for the last 14 years would you believe me? 

So first of all, I had the insight being held hostage in Iraq that I was okay. I talked myself out of that, of course. But I have that today. I have that insight again. So what comes to mind is what we need to see in the moment to help us navigate peacefully, insightfully through life. And then I have lots of other insights. So for me, I’m surprised and delighted. Because the learning curve is not so much I need to learn anything. I’m finding my way back to what is truth about who I am, how I work, what I’ve got going for me, what intelligence is available to me. 

And my experience of that or my access to that or my moment-to-moment experience of that changes. And it changes and gets deeper and the fun is it like an accordion, sometimes I change it gets really deep, and then I guess Oh, a little bit. And then it gets even deeper. So it’s not what I experienced, I suppose is that I never lose what I have seen. Like really. 

But it’s a cloudy day here today in Gothenburg. As sometimes it gets like a cloudy day in my mind that I miss that I’ve had the insight. And then I fall back into that space once more is like, ah I’m home. I’m home. And then I like any human being goes gets caught up in my head with whatever else is going on. And all that’s shifted for me is I just don’t trust crazy mind that I have that tells me my husband is this or my dog is that or my mother or whatever. Because we all have it. 

We all have the supermarket lane is this and that person’s an idiot. And they’re driving like crazy or whatever. We all have the running commentary. I no longer trust it because I just know it’s not giving me any valid information. And that’s really cool when you don’t get caught up in that but let it Yeah, yeah. Yes. All right. Oh, here you are back again to tell me. I love to ignore my inner chatter.

Alexandra: At the beginning of learning about that space did you ever feel any resistance to it?

Sometimes when you’re coaching on the supervisory calls I almost feel a little frisson of fear about stepping into that space. 

Fiona: Ah, interesting. There’s a brilliant question. The answer is yes. There’s a couple of things because I think for me at least, so I can’t speak for you, but for me, I can speak it puts me firmly in the unknown like two feet, all planted, going over the edge, what’s going to happen next? That’s kind of my thing right? 

Now, if you were to follow my track, my life this is how bad things got. I used to go to an astrologer every six months and go what’s going to happen next? And when am I going to meet my husband and am I going to write books? So I could control my life. So is it going to be ABCDEFG? Yeah. I want to control I’m a control freak. Or I was. And the idea of not being in control terrified me. 

But I heard somebody say this and I cannot remember who to quote on this. ‘This space unknown is simply everything that is known, but not by us.’ It is an infinite energy of life that supports stars and planets and trees growing and acorns and oak trees, all of that is an energy of life that infuses it’s an intelligence, bigger than film as purely a little ego intelligence. And I call myself and classify myself as decently intelligent, but oh my god, we are relying on the source that manages everything. And it has our back. 

I can’t say tangibly, but it infuses us with life with energy with wisdom, with clarity, with creativity, with problem solving. It is a field of possibility. It is a field of love. It is a field of creation. It has the answers to the asked questions and the as yet to be asked questions. It’s the field of which every form of art has come from, every piece of music has been created from, every relationship that’s been created. It is all in everything. It’s just that we think we’re tipping over a cliff, and there’s nothing there. But the space is full. It is filled with intelligence. So yes, I was afraid until I wasn’t.

Alexandra: I can see that that would be frightening to our egos, to let go of that kind of control that they think they have. 

Fiona: Well, the ego in my mind is a blade of grass in a football patch of grass, it’s one small piece, but it’s not everything. And it’s like it cannot see this expansiveness it has no possibility to see what’s possible, what is out there, this intelligence that we are in a way and looking in the wrong direction, just going, I’ve got to keep my job. It is working on that level I’ve got to keep my job. So you know, let’s play. Let’s play it as we’ve always played it, let’s do like we’ve always done.

But the deeper invitation is that the unknown has all the goodies. We get moment-to-moment insight that enables us to thrive to step out to make decisions to love to stop loving to create, to stop creating to build a business to stop all of it. We have this moment-to-moment insightful intelligence informing us moment-to-moment.

There is nothing unknown about that. I don’t think there’s something we can rely on in the moment. And that’s beautiful to wake up to.

Alexandra: When you find that you’ve maybe fallen out of that space, or that your mind is really busy, is there anything that you do to get back there? Or to touch in with it again?

Fiona: I think it’s a great question. I think the first thing for me is recognizing that I’m not in that space.

I tend to know that with a couple of things. One is the feeling. So for me, if I have an intense or urgent feeling then all my thinking is on the first place. And all that awareness simply is coming back to the present moment. 

Somebody described as think might even be Michael, but it’s like, if you know you’re drunk, you’re not that drunk. If you know you’re lost and why you’re not that last one. Right? If you don’t know then you’re off to the races with your crazy thinking. Right? Me too. So the first thing is an awareness. 

And the second thing is just once you recognize where you are what naturally happens is we fall back into that space of quiet. Because we’re back in the present moment. And when we’re not in the present moment, we’re in our thinking. 

There’s only two places where ever are in life really. One is in our thinking last, usually. And living in the feeling of that and then the roller coaster of all of that emotion. They act with a judgment that are the frustration that whatever it is, or confusion, because they feel very different. So if you’re not home last, okay, good to know. 

As we come back to the present we meet ourselves and present. And we tap into and access all of those beautiful intelligences, that and capacities that we are. So I won’t say that I don’t or do meditate, or I don’t take walks the dog or I do all the stuff that people do. I listen to music and dance around the kitchen, like a crazy person and all that. And I know where I am. And even if I’m lost in thought, I know that I am not concerned. This too shall pass.

Alexandra: Oh lovely. That’s so beautiful.

Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share before we wrap up?

Fiona: Hmm, great question. Let’s see what shows up.

Two words come to mind, which is really interesting, which is just ‘know thyself’. Sounds very good. But it’s know the truth of who you are because it’s awesome. It’s beautiful. It’s moving. It’s joyful. It’s filled with possibility. We all are it. It is an all of us. So the invitation is to anybody listening. Wake up to it. You’re already great.

Alexandra: Nice. Oh, thank you so much.

Where can we find out more about you and your work?

Fiona: I do have a website. Yes, I just don’t do a lot with a very often so you probably find me best on LinkedIn. It’s very interesting. I happen to get referrals all of the time. I very rarely use things like marketing or my website. So yes, let’s go to LinkedIn, you will find me there. Reach out say hi, send an InMail or a message and I’d be delighted to respond, explore. Have a conversation with anybody who gets in touch.

Alexandra: Great, awesome. Well, thank you so much again for being here with me today. Fiona. It’s been a delight.

Fiona: I have had that thrilling and beautiful climb being in your company. Thank you so very much.

Alexandra: Take care. Bye bye.

Featured image photo by Kent Pilcher on Unsplash