Libsyn Directory

Healing Your Inner Child: How the Boy Who Couldn't Read Became a Bestselling Author | John R. Spender

Release Date: 09/27/2026

Past Lives & Soul Purpose: Why I Chose My Hardest Lifetime | Martha Wright

Awaken Your Authentic Self

What if your soul chose this lifetime for a reason? What if your hardest experiences were preparation, not punishment? An Akashic Records reading revealed a past life of bondage, survival and a sacred assignment that changed how Jessica Rooks understands her life, her healing journey and the work she is here to do. In this deeply personal flip-the-script episode of Awaken Your Authentic Self, host Jessica Rooks takes the interviewee seat as returning guest Martha Wright leads her through her own personal Akashic Records reading and what it revealed about past lives, soul contracts and soul...

Why You Can't Think Your Way Out of It: Somatic Healing & Nervous System Regulation | Melanie Smithson

Awaken Your Authentic Self

Why can you understand your patterns and still feel stuck in them? In this episode, somatic psychotherapist Melanie Smithson explains how somatic healing and nervous system regulation help your body release what your mind already knows - and why talk therapy alone isn't enough. This week host Jessica Rooks sits down with Melanie Smithson a Licensed Somatic Psychotherapist, Dance Movement Therapist, and author of the award-winning Stress Free in 30 Seconds and Shake Yourself Free: 81 Somatic Practices to Let Go of Limitation. Trained in somatic psychology, dance movement therapy, EDMR, and...

Stuck in Life as a Woman? Why It's Not Your Past, It's Your Untruths | Lynda Leonce

Awaken Your Authentic Self

Why do women feel stuck in life, even when they're ready for a change? In this episode of Awaken Your Authentic Self, host Jessica Rooks sits down with Lynda Leonce, authenticity coach, mentor, and author of Inside Out Creation: Your Path to Inner Alignment, to explore limiting beliefs, subconscious conditioning, people pleasing, and the untruths that keep women disconnected from their authentic selves. Lynda explores the untruths we carry about worth, safety, love and identity - and how these internalized stories can contribute to misalignment and keep us from living from the outside in. The...

Shadow Work: Why You Can't See Your Own Blind Spots | Indra Rinzler

Awaken Your Authentic Self

Shadow work and why you can't see your own blind spots may reveal why the same emotional patterns keep repeating, even after years of inner work. In this episode of Awaken Your Authentic Self, host Jessica Rooks sits down with spiritual teacher, Vedic astrologer, Enneagram practitioner, and author Indra Rinzler to explore the hidden aspects of ourselves we struggle to see - and how recognizing them opens the door to deeper self-awareness and spiritual awakening. What if the very thing you cannot see about yourself is the key to understanding who you truly are? With more than 50 years on the...

She Sang on the World's Biggest Stages—But Her Real Journey Was Learning to Belong | Machan Taylor

Awaken Your Authentic Self

What if a lifetime on the world's biggest stages still leaves you asking: Who am I? Childhood trauma healing, inner child healing, and belonging with singer and author Machan Taylor (Pink Floyd, Sting, Pat Benatar) on Awaken Your Authentic Self with Jessica Rooks. In this deeply personal conversation, Machan Taylor joins host Jessica Rooks to explore identity, belonging, childhood trauma healing, self-worth, relationships, spirituality, meditation, self-awareness, and becoming your authentic self. Machan Taylor is a renowned singer and author of the memoir Naked Out Loud. Her extraordinary...

Why Don't I Feel Like Myself Anymore? The Hidden Side of Spiritual Awakening | Helen Ye Plehn

Awaken Your Authentic Self

Why don't I feel like myself anymore? If you're in the in-between space of spiritual awakening, identity transformation, and anxiety - where who you were no longer fits but who you're becoming isn't clear yet - this conversation is for you. In this episode of Awaken Your Authentic Self, Jessica Rooks sits down with Helen Ye Plehn, founder of Helen Creates Beauty, creator of The Aura Color Wheel, and Hay House award-winning author of The Aura Color Wheel: What Your Soul's Aura Reveals About Your Inner Gifts, Wounds, and Lessons. We unpack spiritual awakening symptoms, the dark night of the...

Healing Your Inner Child: How the Boy Who Couldn't Read Became a Bestselling Author | John R. Spender

Awaken Your Authentic Self

If you experienced childhood trauma and are still carrying the wound beneath your story, healing your inner child may be less about fixing what's broken and more about remembering who you really are. In this episode Jessica Rooks, host of Awaken Your Authentic Self a show for empaths and old souls navigating awakening and trauma healing, sits down with John R. Spender, a 45-time international bestselling author, filmmaker, transformational coach, and founder of A Journey of Riches, a global storytelling movement featuring more than 400 co-authors from over 50 countries. John couldn't read...

The Signs You're Missing From Your Loved Ones in Spirit - And What Spirit Keeps Trying to Tell You | Chris Lippincott

Awaken Your Authentic Self

What if the people you've lost - your mother, your father, the person you never got to say goodbye to - what if they never actually left? In this episode of of Awaken Your Authentic Self, host Jessica Rooks sits down with Chris Lippincott, international evidential psychic medium, trance medium, bestselling author, spiritual teacher, and host of Spirits Beside Us, to explore mediumship, afterlife communication, signs from spirit, grief healing, spiritual awakening, intuition, consciousness, and connecting with loved ones beyond physical death. Before becoming a professional medium, Chris spent...

What If Your Wounds Aren’t Yours? Ancestral Healing, Reiki & After-Death Communication |Cindy Bain

Awaken Your Authentic Self

What if the pain you're carrying isn't yours? What if some of the patterns, emotional wounds, grief, or energetic imprints you've spent years trying to heal began before you ever had a chance to choose them. In this conversation Cindy Bain joins host Jessica Rooks on Awaken Your Authentic Self to explore ancestral healing, Reiki healing, spiritual awakening, grief, Spiritually Transformative Experiences )STEs), near death experiences, and after-death communication - and what can happen when we begin to look at healing through both a grounded and spiritual lens. Cindy's has spent more...

Why You’re Still Stuck After Loss - And the One Shift That Can Turn Grief Into Joy | Chanoa Inez

Awaken Your Authentic Self

Why are you still stuck after loss - even when you know you're ready to move forward? And what if the shift from grief to joy begins with reconnecting to who you truly are? In this episode of Awaken Your Authentic Self, host Jessica Rooks sits down with Chanoa Inez - personal branding advisor, copywriter, messaging strategist , and author of Dream On: How to Create the New Life of Your Dreams After Upheaval or Loss - for a deeply honest conversation about grief recovery, emotional healing, rebuilding your life after loss, personal transformation, authentic identity, and reclaiming joy. Chanoa...

More Episodes

If you experienced childhood trauma and are still carrying the wound beneath your story, healing your inner child may be less about fixing what's broken and more about remembering who you really are.

In this episode Jessica Rooks, host of Awaken Your Authentic Self a show for empaths and old souls navigating awakening and trauma healing, sits down with John R. Spender, a 45-time international bestselling author, filmmaker, transformational coach, and founder of A Journey of Riches, a global storytelling movement featuring more than 400 co-authors from over 50 countries.

John couldn't read or write until age ten and experienced emotional, physical, and sexual abuse during childhood. Yet a teacher recognized his creativity when he wrote "Sausage Man from Outer Space". That moment became part of a remarkable journey that eventually led him to become a bestselling author, filmmaker, mentor, and advocate for sharing the wisdom found in our stories.

This conversation goes beyond overcoming adversity. Jessica and John explore childhood trauma, identity, healing, belonging, resilience, and authentic self-discovery, and what happens when we begin separating who we are from what happened to us.

In This Conversation, You'll Discover:

✨How childhood trauma can shape identity, beliefs, and the stories we tell ourselves

✨Why rewriting your story isn't the same as healing the wound underneath it

✨What John's travels through more than 75 countries revealed about identity, purpose and belonging

✨What hundreds of personal stories taught him about the blind spots we often cannot see in our own lives

💜Join Our Community

Follow Awaken Your Authentic Self for conversations about spiritual awakening, emotional healing, nervous system regulation, inner child healing, identity transformation, and conscious living.

Perhaps healing isn't about becoming someone new. Perhaps it's about remembering who you've always been.

About John R. Spender

John R. Spender is an internationally bestselling author, filmmaker, transformational coach, speaker, and writing coach. He founded A Journey of Riches, a global book series and storytelling platform featuring more than 400 co-authors from over 50 countries. Profits support Jewels Children's Home in Bali.

His documentary, The Gift in Adversity, explores how difficult experiences can become catalysts for self-discovery, purpose, and meaningful change.

Continue Your Healing Journey

If you're learning to understand how your past shapes your present...

▶️Still Anxious After Years of Healing? Why Your Nervous System May Be Keeping You Stuck | Martha Wright

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/42192115

If you're ready to bring healing into your body, not just your mind...

▶️Nervous System Regulation | The 60-Second Reset That Ends Survival Mode | Camilla Calberg

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/41374965

Connect with John R. Spender

Website: https://ajourneyofriches.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ajourneyofriches3672

Book Series: A Journey of Riches

Documentary: The Gift in Adversity