Acknowledged for her innovative mindset, Pat Jacques, a coach at ADVWoman, an author and a compelling, articulate, authentic and courageous speaker, skillfully blends her proficiency in athletics and life coaching to create a well-rounded educational environment uniquely customized for women.
In this edition of the Network for Empowering Women’s “NEW You” podcast, Christy Belz engages in an insightful conversation with the extraordinary Pat Jacques. Pat shares her inspiring journey of self-acceptance and empowerment, from growing up feeling defective and facing abuse to embracing her authenticity and stepping into her power. Pat discusses the importance of self-love and owning who you are unapologetically. She also highlights the transformative power of motorcycles and adventure, and how they can serve as vehicles for personal growth and empowerment.
Tune in to hear Pat’s incredible story and be inspired to embrace your own uniqueness and shine your light.
In this episode, you will learn the following:
- Discover how self-esteem opens the pathway to self-exploration and individual growth.
- Acquire knowledge about methods to recover from challenges and emerge even stronger.
- Explore the significance of robust support networks in fostering substantial personal growth.
- Discover how pursuing what truly inspires you leads to a satisfying existence.
- Observe the inspiring occurrence of women supporting one another to achieve collective success.
Visit Pat Jacques’s social media pages
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pat-jacques-877642123/
Email: [email protected]
Website: advwoman.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/advwoman/?hl=en
Toyota Makeup2Mud: youtube.com/watch?v=PHPx8gcBBQQ
TEDxCherryCreekWomen: youtube.com/watch?v=qtH8HNADMEg
Learn more about Christy Belz Social Communications:
Website: https://christybelz.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristyBelzCoach/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christybelzcoach/
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/christybelz
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00 Christy: Welcome to New You, Network for Empowering Women Podcast. I’m your host, Christy Belz. Enjoy our array of talented, open-hearted guests and their willingness and courage to share their stories of second chances, life-changing choices, and new perspectives. We’re here to uplift and empower you and your journey.
00:00:39 Christy: Today. I am so excited about my guest, Pat Jacques. This woman is just, and I’m just going to say it, badass. Cannot wait to share my time with this amazing, remarkable woman. We will be inspired and we will become more aspired to become our most authentic self and step into our power and our purpose. But before we start, let’s give ourselves permission to pause. Take a breath. Find that still, quiet space inside and be here now. How beautiful it is just to take that moment. Give ourselves that permission just to be still, get into the present moment. And let’s start this show.
00:01:37 Christy: The intention for today is just to share how much I love this woman. I have been touched by so many fabulous women in my life, but I can tell you, this woman, wow. I can’t even begin to describe. I’m just going to let you introduce her and we’re going to start to talk about Pat Jacques. So, Pat, welcome, of course. I’m just so delighted that you are here. And I thank you so much for the gift of you being in my life, for your contribution to my book, Oh God of Second Chances, and for all the lessons and the time that we’ve walked together and the things that we’ve learned together. So, I want you to share a little bit about your story, what got you here to this point in time. And, yeah, please share some of your story with us.
00:02:23 Pat: Wow. It’s a big story. So the condensed version of it is, I came to this planet thinking that everything about me was wrong. I was born into a family that had some challenges, and I was a chubby kid, and I took a lot of flak and abuse at home from my father around that. And then if that wasn’t bad enough, when I was a teenager, I awakened to my sexuality. So not only was I a fat kid, but I was also a lesbian. And so, growing up in South Carolina, I heard every negative thing I could possibly hear. I really thought that I was defective. I thought that I referred to myself as I used the term leftovers, that whatever was left was what was available to me. And then when I was 18 years old and I was struggling with my sexuality, I was sexually assaulted by six men and that was a rock bottom, pivotal experience for me. I just left home. I was by myself.
00:03:42 Christy: I’m so sorry.
00:03:43 Pat: Yeah. But I’ve come to learn that there is a hidden blessing in every challenge of my life and the blessing for me was that I had to face up to who I was. And the beautiful part is I’ve come to understand and know that everything about me is inherently right, that there is nothing defectively about me.
00:04:07 Christy: Nothing.
00:04:08 Pat: No, not at all. And not only is everything inherently right about me, but I’m a flipping badass.
00:04:14 Christy: You are. Yes, you are. You are badass. Yes.
00:04:22 Pat: I live a life of joy and vitality and…
00:04:37 Christy: And I would say authenticity. I think you have fully stepped into who you are in your–
00:04:32 Pat: Absolutely.
00:04:34 Christy: Right? And what a journey coming from that. Chubby kid, being gay, that sexual assault. How horrific. And all the work that you’ve done, Pat, to redefine your identity of who you truly are versus what you were taught you were when you were young. Just beautiful. Share a little bit about that part of the journey, some of the work that you’ve done to bring yourself. I know.
00:05:01 Pat: Well, I’ve just got to start with absolutely, positively, 100% I would not be who I am today without your support, Christy. I had done a ton of work with conventional therapists that had really gotten me to a point in my life where I knew what my triggers were. But damn, I was tired of my triggers. I wanted to release my triggers. And the work that I did with you, I will never, ever forget the first session I had with you at an hour and a half. One and a half hours, I completely released a trigger that had been dogging me for over 40 years. And the fact of the matter is that we all have experiences in life that are less than, and we all show up in life in a way that maybe, we don’t want to. And oftentimes, those knee-jerk reflexive responses are not who we want to be, but, man, we just can’t get past them. And it wasn’t until I worked with you, Christy, that I was actually able to get past them. So Christy and I, oh, my gosh, we did so much energetic work. My mode of operation was forcing out things. You know, it wasn’t safe. The way I grew up was not safe. And so I was hyper-vigilant. My alter ego, who I used to hate and now I absolutely, positively love and embrace my alter ego’s name is Sergeant Jacques. Yeah.
00:06:35 Christy: Sorry. I’m having memories flooding back into my awareness about all the time that we spent together. Yeah, Sergeant Jacques.
00:06:44 Pat: Sergeant Jacques is my great protector.
00:06:47 Christy: Yes, she is.
00:06:49 Pat: And I’ve come to realize that I’m safe, that I’m always supported, that I’m always loved. I absolutely, 1000% know that everything is always working out for me. And I thoroughly love and embrace Sergeant Jacques for taking care of me when I needed that care, and for still showing up in my life. There are things about Sergeant Jacques kicks ass and takes names, and there is a time and place for that and I love Sergeant Jacques. So, you know, I will also never forget the first time that Christy you had me do mirror work and it was so difficult I could not remember the simple phrase, “I love you right now, Pat. I no longer wait for you to be perfect. I love you right here, right now”. That’s a simple phrase. I couldn’t remember it. I was so disconnected from it that I had to print it out and put it on my mirror in the bathroom and read it. It took months of every day, you know, reading this to myself before I could even remember it. And I didn’t believe it, right? I did not. But slowly I began to think to myself, “You know Pat, I kind of like your eyes, yeah”. And, “Oh, Pat, I like your smile”. And to come to a place of absolute love and appreciation and knowing who I am and that’s…
00:08:07 Christy: Powerful.
00:08:08 Pat: Quite the journey.
00:08:09 Christy: When we get into those reactive ways of being. You know, the place in which we come from reactivity, we come from early childhood conditioning. And we all build those neural pathways in our brains that keep us safe. And part of the work in so many in growing and developing into our more authentic self is really creating new patterns and belief systems. And that’s what you were able to do by just putting that sticky note on your mirror and my friends used to laugh at me when I was first, I don’t know, that I sticky noted the hell out of my mirror. They were everywhere. They were in my car, they were on my mirror.
00:08:49 Pat: Yeah, but you’re also so incredibly tapped and intuitive. One of the first things that you taught me and I remember doing the muscle testing with my arms sticking out and you pushing down on it to find resonated.
00:09:02 Christy: Yeah.
00:09:03 Pat: The kinesiology testing was that it’s safe for me to feel my feelings and that I can feel anything and everything because I was so afraid of my feelings because up until that point in time, I would feel things and then I would explode. And that was exactly not how I wanted to show up. You have to process, but you have to feel and then you don’t get stuck in it. You move through it. And it’s easy for me to say these things now. This has been a many years long.
00:09:40 Pat: You, Chrissy, you gave me permission to be who I am. You not only, you didn’t just accept who I was, but you celebrated who I was. You gave me permission, not only did you give me permission to feel what I feel, but you were the first person who validated and said, “Oh, hell yeah, you’ve got every right to feel this way. You had some messy, messy stuff happen when you were younger”, and instead of, “Sucking it up, yeah, I’d be pissed off too, or whatever”.
00:10:14 Christy: We rolled, didn’t we girl? Yeah.
00:10:16 Pat: Yeah, yeah.
00:10:18 Christy: Well, I’ll tell you you showed up, Pat, so you can give me all the accolades, but I’ll tell you to do the work and do the work at the level that you did it. And to be able to trust me to take you through those processes, right? It took a ton of courage, lady. Ton of courage, right? And you showed up and you did it, and you continue. I mean, you model and I think that’s what I love so much about you is that you changed your life in so many ways. And you stepped fully into your authenticity, right? Which is just incredible. I’m looking at some of the nuggets that you shared with me, and one of them, you said something to the effect of you can do everything, right? And still, stuff happens, right? So talk to me about that little nugget, like, thinking through what did you mean by that? You can do everything right and stuff happens.
00:11:11 Pat: Well, on August 6 of 2021, while I was riding my motorcycle, a car turned in front of me and I had a catastrophic accident. My leg was crushed. I had a head injury, and I spent five months in a wheelchair and I did everything right. The motorcycle, I specifically purchased this motorcycle because it had very powerful brakes. I was fully geared up. I was wearing a brand new $900 helmet. That morning, when I got ready to go for a ride, I thought, “Well, do I just wear jeans or do I wear riding gear?” I chose to wear riding gear, and I’m highly, highly skilled. The police officer I don’t remember the accident. The police officer pulled video surveillance footage from a local business, and he was a motorcycle cop. And he said, “Pat…”, he said he could not believe how fast and how hard I got on the brakes but he said, “Pat, you didn’t stand a chance”. So I did everything right, and I was almost killed and spent five months in a wheelchair. And it took at least a year and a half to get as physically recovered as I’m going to be. I am not able to do things that I used to be able to do. And what that?
00:12:31 Pat: I used to hate my body and yet I look now and I see how strong I am and I see how resilient and how the miracle of the healing of my body. A year and a half after that accident, I did a motorcycle tour in Copper Canyon, Mexico, and I was at the back of the pack, and I never crashed. So nobody thought anything about it because when I didn’t show up for a while, they thought I was stopping and taking pictures. But the reality is the front end of the motorcycle hit a wet spot and I wound up in a ditch. And it’s a 500-pound motorcycle and here I am with a very compromised leg that had just been crushed and had to be rebuilt. Three plates and 16 screws. And I had to actually get on my hands and knees and dig a path and build a path to get not only to pick my motorcycle up. And then, of course, I picked it up, and then I dropped it the other direction.
00:13:30 Christ: Oh, my God.
00:13:32 Pat: But I got that 500-pound motorcycle out of that ditch and back on the road by myself and was riding to catch up with the group when the tour leader came back to me. So you know, this body of mine that I spent so much time hating is so incredibly powerful and strong.
00:13:49 Christy: That’s true. Yes.
00:13:52 Pat: Yeah, it’s amazing what we can do when we allow ourselves to feel, to heal, to embrace where we are. I mean, I could have been stuck in resistance and I could have been angry about the whole thing, but I focused not on what I couldn’t do, but what I could do, and what I can still do is pretty freaking amazing.
00:14:16 Christy: Yes, it is. Oh, my gosh. Now you can see why I love this woman and why we call her badass. We’re going to take a break. We’ll be right back to talk more with Pat Jacques.
00:14:32 Christy: Hey, it’s Christy Belz. Many of the people you meet on my podcast have participated in my course called Uproot. This 15 week course takes you through my transformational process of understanding your roots. What’s down there in the dirt you’re not looking at? Reviewing your path and collecting the tools for life success. I would love to help you on your journey. Learn more about the Uproot course, take my quiz and see where you might be stuck down there in the dirt and explore my transformational retreat opportunities christybelz.com/uproot.
00:15:15 Christy: Welcome back! Oh my gosh, Pat. Okay, I’m just going to stop gushing and start asking the questions as the host here. So tell me, what would you say was the most critical choice that you made that has brought you here to this time, to this moment?
00:15:35 Pat: The most critical choice that I’ve made has been to love myself and to truly own who I am unapologetically. And to show up in a way that only I can show up. I mean, we are each an individual expression, and every single person out there in podcast land knows something or has a skill that I do not have. So we each have brilliance within us, and sometimes it’s our brilliance that scares us. The biggest thing that I’ve learned is to really, truly embrace who I am and show up as only I can. And my invitation to everyone would be to recognize that you shine a light that no one else can shine and shine that baby, shine.
00:16:23 Christy: Shine that baby, shine yes. Yeah, and gosh I think about looking back when I first met you. You were doing technology. I don’t know. But we talked a lot about your passion, and I’m a big believer that you aspire to your desire, and if you do that, that you really get in alignment with who you truly are. And as you said, nobody else can be you and the uniqueness of who you are and how you show up on the planet. That’s your job, to be here and be authentically you and you just modeled that so beautifully. And I love that you stepped fully back into your motorcycling passion and you actually transitioned your work life into a business. Can you talk a little bit about ADVWoman, please?
00:17:11 Pat: Yeah, ADVWoman, everybody thinks I’m a motorcycle coach, and yes, I am to a certain degree. But the trajectory to really stepping into that was I spent some time being a life coach, and I found that I really didn’t enjoy the face-to-face coaching or virtual coaching. And, I mean, I was good at it. I know that I help people, but it didn’t really bring me joy. And what always brought me joy was the motorcycling. So what I have learned is that, yes, I am absolutely a motorcycle coach, but first and foremost, I’m an empowerment coach. It’s just that my vehicle for empowerment is the motorcycle.
00:17:55 Pat: And what happens is that when we have experiences in life that feel like too much or scary or whatever, and that’s oftentimes the case with motorcycles. It’s a foreign area. It requires incredible physical skill and coordination, and it absolutely requires presence. You must be present riding the motorcycle, or interesting things happen. So when we learn these skills while we’re out, quote unquote ‘playing’ I’m coaching when people don’t even know that, realize that I’m life coaching because we’re playing, we’re having fun. But when you learn to be present, when you learn to overcome your fears and how to deal with fears. And we actually talk about how to deal with fear and real fear versus head fear and monkey mind and things like that.
00:18:47 Christy: I remember being on the back of your motorcycle. To tell you I had to face my fear that day going over, up and over the mountain.
00:18:54 Pat: And you had to choose to trust.
00:18:56 Christy: I did, I did.
00:18:58 Pat: That was the first step, is choosing to trust right? And I just came back from doing a tour up in Wyoming, in the backcountry of Wyoming, and I had plans for how the tour was going to unfold. And it’s called adventure riding because it’s an adventure. And we had some things happen that were not really in my plans, and you kind of roll with it, and you wind up doing whatever you can. I had a gal that went down the first day and fractured her thumb, and the motorcycle was disabled, so we had to tow her motorcycle. Motorcycle to motorcycle towing is not an easy feat.
00:19:40 Christy: We can’t imagine that would be easy.
00:19:43 Pat: Yeah, we towed that bike for 25 miles and then got her some medical help and medical care and yeah. I mean, it went on. There were other things that happened, and it turned into quite the adventure.
00:19:58 Christy: Gosh, yeah. So we’ll come back to ADVWoman because I want people to know where to find you. But I want to talk first about if you were to share three nuggets, like give us your best sense, and you’ve talked about self love, self acceptance, authenticity. I mean, really great things. But talk about the nuggets that help you step more fully into this really authentic, powerful life that you’re living. What do you want our listeners to think about or know?
00:20:28 Pat: First and foremost, my invitation is to go out and do whatever it is that is calling to you and to be whoever you are being called to be. We get stuck. We wait for the perfect moment. We wait for all our ducks to be in a row. And the reality is that almost never happens. I think one of the big differences my specialty is working with women and women have a tendency to need to know they won’t try something unless they have 90% of the information or feel like they have 90% of the skill, whereas men will oftentimes try things when they feel like they have about 60%.
00:21:12 Pat: And sometimes we get frozen. And what I know is when we release this whole idea of success and failure and good and bad. When we release that and step into what works and what doesn’t work because we learn when things work and we learn when things don’t work, then we have the ability to move forward when we do not have complete information. And what I mean by that is that I’m not saying that you recklessly go out. We have a term in motorcycling called grip it and rip it, which means you have no idea what you’re doing, and you just grip the throttle and you rip it wide open and go for it. And that typically does not end well. So I teach, plan, execute, and follow through.
00:21:58 Pat: So I always have a plan, and then I execute it. And then if you get in the middle of a plan and then you chop it halfway through, then you haven’t finished. I’ll give you an example. I worked with a woman in Utah this spring, and we were riding up this hill, and she got halfway up the hill and got scared, and she stopped. And she had this tape playing in her head of these previous failures and previous challenges so she stopped. And the reality is then she made things really hard on herself because getting going on a steep technical uphill is harder than just continuing to move through it. And that’s how it is in life. We get into something great, and we stop instead of continuing to move through it. And I went down to her, and what was interesting to me is that she had never experienced support before. She was dumbfounded that two women came down to help her. She’d never had people come back to help her before.
00:23:03 Pat: So that was a new experience for her. And I told her, I said, yeah, I don’t know. She said “What’s up ahead? Is it harder?” I said, “I don’t know. I haven’t ridden this in three years it’s changed.” And I said, “But you know what’s behind you.” I said, “But what I can tell you is that we will work through everything together when we get up there as a team.” And so she chose to move forward. And then later on in the day she told me that it was life changing. And she sent me this beautiful email when she was stuck on the hillside. I just said to her, I said, “You can turn back or you can move forward. The choice is yours. I’ll support you either way.” And I said, “But I wonder how. Many other times in life you’ve just stopped and then turned back.” And she said to me in her email that that was pivotal for her and it was life changing.
00:23:54 Christy: There’s so much in there. Oh my gosh, really so much in there. We women need each other. That’s how we grow and develop. We grow with each other, and it’s different. Women are unique in that regard. So I love that. And to ask or get and receive help, oh my gosh. So many of us think that we have to do it by ourselves, right? And I love the metaphor stopping on a hill because how often in life do we hit that really tough spot. Where we get scared or we don’t know what’s next or what’s around the corner and stop and sometimes go back, right. And don’t allow ourselves to proceed? So what a beautiful story, Pat.
00:24:31 Christy: And I love your work. I love the fact that you take women on journeys on motorcycles. It’s just so flipping cool. So I want people to know how to find you and how to know more about your work. Can you tell our guests how they can find you?
00:24:46 Pat: Yeah, you bet. My website is advwoman.com and that’s Alpha-Delta-Victor woman.com, and the ADV stands for Adventure Woman because life is an adventure, and for me, it’s a two wheeled adventure. Right?
00:25:06 Christy: It’s a big adventure, isn’t it?
00:25:07 Pat: Yes.
00:25:10 Christy: I am just so grateful. My heart is cute. I can’t even tell you my chest is just so full at my heart level of love and just deep gratitude for you. I think you are a remarkable woman. I know you know how I feel about you, but I hope my listeners will find you. I just hope my guests will reach out if they’re interested in finding you and doing adventures with you. What a life changing event that would be.
00:25:39 Christy: I love you. Thank you so much for being here with me today.
00:25:43 Pat: I love you, Christy. I appreciate everything about you. Again, I would not be who I am without you. You are brilliant, you’re a light, you changed me. And I am ever grateful and always love you.
00:25:57 Christy: Yeah, well, I’m going to say you changed you, right? I just get to facilitate the journey. So kudos to you, Pat. Big love. Big, big love.
00:26:07 Christy: I call my company Empowerment Coaching and I always remember that Kenneth Blanchard says empowerment is not about giving power to people, but releasing the power people already have. I end our time together and I always share Cree’s blessing each and every day. As you walk on this earth and dance in this world, you get to function from approval because upon your creation, you were already approved.
00:26:32 Christy: When you were made, you were made amazing. You are amazing. The power in me honors and adores the power in you. The power in me honors, loves and respects the power in you. Blessings to all.
00:26:48 Christy: It is my joy to showcase the voices, choices and stories of women and the messy details of life’s journey. As you’ve experienced, my guests are thriving with purpose and authenticity, but that does not mean that their life is easy and without challenges. I’ve dedicated my life to you and your journey. Thank you for listening to NEW You Network for Empowering Women podcast. Please subscribe and learn more christybelz.com/newpodcast.