Jean Marshall The Artful Woman

 I didn’t set out to question everything I believed—I set out to understand why I felt so heavy. Why I felt stuck, why I carried the weight of the world in my body, and why rest never seemed to touch an exhaustion that went deeper than physical fatigue. I’m a deep thinker and a deep feeler, an empath who absorbs people, environments, energy, and emotion—often without realizing it. For most of my life, I didn’t have language for that experience. I only had rules. Those rules were shaped early by Catholicism: guilt, shame, sin, hellfire—the idea that something was fundamentally wrong with me, even as a child. At home, a different but familiar system reinforced it: blame. Everything was my fault. Sometimes it was, but more often it wasn’t. Still, I learned that it was safer to take responsibility than to question the chaos around me. If I owned the blame, maybe I could prevent escalation. Maybe I could stay safe. And so a pattern formed: if something is wrong, it must be me. That beli...

  Today marks exactly nine months since my tragic accident. The first part of it, I don’t remember because I was in an induced coma. I only know what happened through a friend who was there for every surgery. I barely remember ICU, when I was transferred to acute care. And when I was moved to the main floor, all I remember is having one life-saving machine after another slowly removed from my body—starting with dialysis, then the trach and breathing tubes, the Foley urinary catheter bag, and then my feeding tube. From there, I slowly began to eat again. Little by little, but the hospital food was terrible. I had to be on puréed food after the tubes were removed from my throat; it was so disgusting that I couldn’t eat it. They told me I had to eat at least 70% of it, but there was nowhere to hide or throw it away, so my sister would eat it for me. I stayed on puréed food for about a week, pretending I was eating it. From there, I graduated to tiny chopped food, then slightly larger ...

  Jean Marshall Runway Show Reel I didn't live my life the way most people do—I lived it in reverse. While most people are grinding their way through life, waiting for retirement so they can finally travel, I was already doing it. Modeling took me all over the world—living in Milan, working across Europe, spending months in Tokyo, and getting to experience places like the Maldives, Seychelles, Morocco, Acapulco, Cabo San Lucas, and Key West. I even lived in Miami for six months back in the 80s, during the city's wild, electric glory days. I didn't wait for life to start. I was in it. I got paid to travel. Paid to step into beauty. Luxury hotels, incredible restaurants, first-class flights, Michelin-star dining—yeah, I lived that life. And I did it when I was young, strong, and fully in my body. And let's be real—I had a lot of fucking fun. Then life decided to throw some shit my way. At 54, I had a stroke. A few years later, I faced basal cell cancer. And now at 60, I...

  T here are moments in healing when the body knows what it needs before the mind understands why. For me, it was the spirit drum. For days, I felt it — a quiet, persistent pull: Play the drum. When I finally did, something shifted almost immediately. The pressure in my body softened. The constant ache, the swelling, the tension I had been carrying — it didn’t disappear completely, but it eased. That experience isn’t random. There are real, grounded reasons why rhythm and drumming can have such a powerful effect on the body. Rhythm Regulates the Nervous System The body operates between two primary states: Stress and survival (fight or flight) Rest and repair A steady drumbeat creates a consistent, predictable rhythm that the nervous system can synchronize with. This process, known as entrainment , helps shift the body out of stress mode and into a more regulated, restorative state. As the body settles, tension begins to release. Muscles soften. Breathing deepens. Th...

  I fiercely protect my energy — and let me tell you why. For most of my life, I’ve been the type of person people could count on. A good person. Someone who would show up, give, listen, and hold space. But when you’re wired like that, people often mistake it for weakness. Instead of honoring it, they take advantage. They lean on it. They drain it. I call them time bandits, energy thieves, and soul snatchers — people who see your kindness as an open door to take, take, and take some more. And when you don’t have boundaries, they will absolutely drain you. And for me, being an empath only intensified that experience. I feel things deeply. I absorb the emotions, chaos, and energy of the people around me. At first, I didn’t even realize it wasn’t mine. I carried other people’s burdens like they were my own. And when it got too heavy, when the overload became unbearable, I didn’t have tools to release it. So I numbed. I distracted myself. I tried to bury it. But here’s the truth: a lo...

  Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about energy, consciousness, and the power of being together in alignment. As someone who has worked with sound healing, tuning forks, energy clearing, EFT tapping, and meditation practices, I’ve realized something profound: The real magic doesn’t live in the tools themselves. It lives in our consciousness. Over the last several years, life has forced me to understand this on a much deeper level than I ever expected. After surviving a stroke years ago, I thought I already understood trauma, healing, and resilience. Then came my recent catastrophic accident — the kind of experience that changes your nervous system, your perspective, and your entire relationship with life. Trauma changes you. Not just emotionally, but physically, mentally, energetically, and neurologically. When you’ve lived through something terrifying, your nervous system becomes hyper-alert. You start scanning for danger everywhere. And in today’s world, that’s almost impossible ...

  I came across a quote recently that stopped me in my tracks: “Quantum physics is where they hide the scientific proof of spirituality.” And honestly? After everything I’ve survived, that line hit differently. A few years ago, I probably would have read that quote and simply thought it sounded interesting. But trauma has a way of stripping life down to its rawest truths. After my stroke… after my accident… after losing a limb and watching my entire identity collapse in front of me… I started questioning everything I thought I knew about healing, reality, energy, and what it truly means to survive. Because when your body experiences extreme trauma, you realize very quickly that healing is not just physical. It’s emotional. Mental. Energetic. Spiritual. Science is finally catching up to what ancient spiritual traditions have taught for centuries: everything is energy. Our thoughts affect our bodies. Stress changes the nervous system. Fear impacts healing. Intention matters. Human b...

One week post-ankle surgery. I really thought I was going to tough this one out. I told myself I’d be brave, stay strong, keep pushing, maybe even get back to the gym right away. But somewhere between determination and common sense, reality kicked in. Why would I push myself for two weeks and risk aggravating the stitches on my ankle when healing is finally within reach? Going to the gym would mean constant transferring, constant friction, constant irritation to an area that desperately needs rest. And after everything I’ve already been through with my amputated leg — the open wounds, the spitting stitches, the endless setbacks — I just couldn’t justify sabotaging my own healing again. I had finally reached a point where I could start wearing my prosthetic again at the beginning of May, only for everything to come to a complete stop because of this ankle surgery. Yesterday, I decided to try anyway. I put the prosthetic on just to see if I could do it. But because my ankle currently has...

  My Journey From Rock Bottom to Guiding Others Out of the Darkness I’ve been in the depths of despair more times than I can count. And every time, somehow, I’ve found my way back to the light—not because someone handed me a roadmap, but because I learned how to crawl, scrape, and claw my way out. That’s the only path I know: out of the darkness and toward the light. After my stroke, I hit rock bottom in more ways than one—physically, emotionally, spiritually. Life wasn’t just hard. It was suffocating and we were in the middle of a pandemic. I was exhausted from surviving. Tired of struggling. Tired of feeling trapped in circumstances that didn’t reflect who I truly was inside. And so I did the work. Not the kind of work where you journal for three days and suddenly manifest a Ferrari. I’m talking about the deep, gritty, ugly work. The kind where you face your anger, your fear, your trauma, your toxic patterns, your self-sabotage, your resentment, your victimhood, your grie...