Jessica Kubalak

My life has been stranger than or perhaps as strange as fiction at times. The experiences that have most shaped me perhaps began in childhood, but I also experienced impactful events in the last decade that totally transformed the way that I view and experience reality..

As a child, I was highly creative and began writing poems and songs at the age of five. I was always an avid reader and loved creating art. My happy place was spending time in nature and drawing inspiration from the natural world. I was also always very intuitive, and to this day I like to utilize my intuitive abilities to dissect critical issues around me and to solve problems. I was quite different from my family growing up and this created a tension that needed resolution in my adult life, in finding my voice through mediums such as writing.

A positive experience I had as a child was a cabin that I spent many days out of the summer visiting in the San Luis Valley from my home in Denver. My grandfather and his father purchased this when my grandfather was just twenty years old. This immersion in nature provided me with an unusual time for reflection which furthered my passion for activism and creating a better world. Here, I also was able to connect with my own self and voice. I believe it is here that I also began writing songs and poems at a very young age.

As a teenager and adult I became interested in holistic health and trained in modalities like Massage Therapy, herbalism, and yoga instruction. This further fueled my passion for seeking out knowledge around environmental issues and matters of public health. These are the primary topics I like to focus on: environmental problems and their solutions. In my opinion, all problems are environmental problems, even as they relate to human health. I am especially passionate about women and children’s health and have self-educated as well as have additional education related to this such as Doula training . I suppose you can say that this passion for understanding what actually affects health and mental health, and returning to a more natural, connected world, was on some level passionately fueled by some of the positive-and negative experiences I had as a child, growing up in an increasingly complex world in urgent need. Even negative experiences cultivated a kind of function in my overall life purpose, being able to help others and to raise children in a different way.

I became a mother at the age of seventeen years old. I kind of started life backwards, at first stumbling through life searching for an unseen but felt light. Because of this experience I developed a sense of unusual resiliency and people smarts at a young age that helped me to survive. I believe that I have continued with the strength and commitment I learned from this experience throughout my lifetime, and am now a mother to many children. I have always felt a presence in my life or a higher self, leading me positively to places I could not have imagined, and also protecting me in some pretty challenging circumstances.

Throughout my life I experienced many healing and spiritual experiences which sparked the process of and set the stage for me living life more intentionally and with prayer and manifesting a more connected and fulfilling reality. It also opened me up more to receiving guidance from forces that had previously been out of my range of awareness, and walking through the world in a different way, perhaps more akin to some of the native cultures.

A huge part of this journey became me seeking out greater connection to my world. I had a desire to know where the water in my faucet was coming from. In this process of once again fumbling my way through the dark, trying to make sense of my life. I ended up unintentionally at an almost year long occupation protest, into the frigid winter, gathering at Standing Rock Lakota reservation in North Dakota and realized that my dreams and premonitions had been calling me to this place. It was as though the collective consciousness or spirit of the earth were organizing me in some way that I could not fully understand.

It made sense to me that I ended up at the Lakota Reservation at Standing Rock because this journey started with me feeling detached as I turned on a facet not knowing where the water was coming from and feeling a sincere need for change. With this I became the fool in the Tarot Arcana, stumbling my way to some kind of answer. Ultimately In my life, I somehow fumbled my way across the fiery dragon and to the castle, but not unscathed. I suppose the scars are what motivate me to write.

The reason that Native American tribes from all over the U.S. and countless other human beings were gathering at this reservation was to protest an oil pipeline that was illegally being run through their water source and what they considered sacred land. The connection I experienced with others there was unlike anything I had felt before. Perhaps this was because of the realness of what we were connecting on: human beings' most fundamental need for existence, which is clean water. I also again was able to connect to a different culture that had unfortunately been badly tainted by modern civilization and greed. However the underlying spirit was the desire to revive old ways of relating to life and remembering the meaning of sacredness and what is considered sacred.

I first wrote my memoir about this experience, as a personal narrative in a college English course. This lit a fire in me to use my written word for activism and to transmute the suffering I have experienced in life and the suffering of others. Also I want to shed light on the unbeaten paths that I have walked in this life, and the stories and lessons I have gathered along the way.

I changed my major from Art (which I still must pursue in other ways, especially to reach some of my goals, including children stories and sharing experiences with visual art!) to Communications because of this passion towards activism and feeling once again a purpose or a higher hand that is leading me to use one of my earliest childhood proclivities towards writing and storytelling for the benefit of my family and others. This is not just for income, but to promote change in this world. Writing is a way for me to find parts of myself I forgot about and is part of my continued healing.

Written communication is also something I can use to help others in a variety of ways as well, whether it is bringing new life-changing information to their attention, or writing a grant proposal for their non-profit vision. What I really want to do is employ communication as a tool to bring more of my creative visions into reality, such as books I would like to compose, and songs I would like to sing, but also to empower others do the same and to be able to use strengths such as this for survival in this world so that we do not have to “stifle” ourselves. This desire paved the way for where much of my life is now directed and the written works I have set out to produce. Having a degree and credentials in Communications will open more doors for me to do this, and will provide me with unforeseen tools to navigate the world with.

• Graduated from Trinidad State Jr. Colleges’ Massage Therapy/Holistic health program with 4.0 GPA: August 2012 to June 2013.
• Over 750 hours training in Massage Therapy
• Trained in ethical procedures and standards
• 3 years of operating and providing therapeutic massage in a clinical setting. (Including, but not limited to: providing massage, assessing clients, greeting clients, booking appointments, and handling cash transactions.)
• Skilled in the applications of deep tissue, Swedish, Myofacial, and Trigger Point massage
• Mastered relevant knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology and Kinesiology
• Competently trained in the modality of Reflexology
• Trained in the use of Aromatherapy
• Familiar with spa treatments, including Hydrotherapy, Acupressure and Raindrop Therapy
• Experience assisting teachers in the area of applied anatomy and other related topics
• Extensive knowledge of nutrition, herbal applications, and holistic health practices
• Experienced in ethical and regulatory practices in respective fields
• Office environment management and application
• Experience in Microsoft programs
• Structure, scheduling, and organization
• Team building and cooperation
• Leadership and supervision experience within groups
• Dedicated to excellent customer service

My life has been stranger than or perhaps as strange as fiction at times. The experiences that have most shaped me perhaps began in childhood, but I also experienced impactful events in the last decade that totally transformed the way that I view and experience reality..

As a child, I was highly creative and began writing poems and songs at the age of five. I was always an avid reader and loved creating art. My happy place was spending time in nature and drawing inspiration from the natural world. I was also always very intuitive, and to this day I like to utilize my intuitive abilities to dissect critical issues around me and to solve problems. I was quite different from my family growing up and this created a tension that needed resolution in my adult life, in finding my voice through mediums such as writing.

A positive experience I had as a child was a cabin that I spent many days out of the summer visiting in the San Luis Valley from my home in Denver. My grandfather and his father purchased this when my grandfather was just twenty years old. This immersion in nature provided me with an unusual time for reflection which furthered my passion for activism and creating a better world. Here, I also was able to connect with my own self and voice. I believe it is here that I also began writing songs and poems at a very young age.

As a teenager and adult I became interested in holistic health and trained in modalities like Massage Therapy, herbalism, and yoga instruction. This further fueled my passion for seeking out knowledge around environmental issues and matters of public health. These are the primary topics I like to focus on: environmental problems and their solutions. In my opinion, all problems are environmental problems, even as they relate to human health. I am especially passionate about women and children’s health and have self-educated as well as have additional education related to this such as Doula training . I suppose you can say that this passion for understanding what actually affects health and mental health, and returning to a more natural, connected world, was on some level passionately fueled by some of the positive-and negative experiences I had as a child, growing up in an increasingly complex world in urgent need. Even negative experiences cultivated a kind of function in my overall life purpose, being able to help others and to raise children in a different way.

I became a mother at the age of seventeen years old. I kind of started life backwards, at first stumbling through life searching for an unseen but felt light. Because of this experience I developed a sense of unusual resiliency and people smarts at a young age that helped me to survive. I believe that I have continued with the strength and commitment I learned from this experience throughout my lifetime, and am now a mother to many children. I have always felt a presence in my life or a higher self, leading me positively to places I could not have imagined, and also protecting me in some pretty challenging circumstances.

Throughout my life I experienced many healing and spiritual experiences which sparked the process of and set the stage for me living life more intentionally and with prayer and manifesting a more connected and fulfilling reality. It also opened me up more to receiving guidance from forces that had previously been out of my range of awareness, and walking through the world in a different way, perhaps more akin to some of the native cultures.

A huge part of this journey became me seeking out greater connection to my world. I had a desire to know where the water in my faucet was coming from. In this process of once again fumbling my way through the dark, trying to make sense of my life. I ended up unintentionally at an almost year long occupation protest, into the frigid winter, gathering at Standing Rock Lakota reservation in North Dakota and realized that my dreams and premonitions had been calling me to this place. It was as though the collective consciousness or spirit of the earth were organizing me in some way that I could not fully understand.

It made sense to me that I ended up at the Lakota Reservation at Standing Rock because this journey started with me feeling detached as I turned on a facet not knowing where the water was coming from and feeling a sincere need for change. With this I became the fool in the Tarot Arcana, stumbling my way to some kind of answer. Ultimately In my life, I somehow fumbled my way across the fiery dragon and to the castle,  but not unscathed. I suppose the scars are what motivate me to write.

The reason that Native American tribes from all over the U.S. and countless other human beings were gathering at this reservation was to protest an oil pipeline that was illegally being run through their water source and what they considered sacred land. The connection I experienced with others there was unlike anything I had felt before. Perhaps this was because of the realness of what we were connecting on: human beings' most fundamental need for existence, which is clean water. I also again was able to connect to a different culture that had unfortunately been badly tainted by modern civilization and greed. However the underlying spirit was the desire to revive old ways of relating to life and remembering the meaning of sacredness and what is considered sacred.

I first wrote my memoir about this experience, as a personal narrative in a college English course. This lit a fire in me to use my written word for activism and to transmute the suffering I have experienced in life and the suffering of others. Also I want to shed light on the unbeaten paths that I have walked in this life, and the stories and lessons I have gathered along the way.

I changed my major from Art (which I still must pursue in other ways, especially to reach some of my goals, including children stories and sharing experiences with visual art!)  to Communications because of this passion towards activism and feeling once again a purpose or a higher hand that is leading me to use one of my earliest childhood proclivities towards writing and storytelling for the benefit of my family and others. This is not just for income, but to promote change in this world. Writing is a way for me to find parts of myself I forgot about and is part of my continued healing.

Written communication is also something I can use to help others in a variety of ways as well, whether it is bringing new life-changing information to their attention, or writing a grant proposal for their non-profit vision. What I really want to do is employ communication as a tool to bring more of my creative visions into reality, such as books I would like to compose, and songs I would like to sing, but also to empower others do the same and to be able to use strengths such as this for survival in this world so that we do not have to “stifle” ourselves. This desire paved the way for where much of my life is now directed and the written works I have set out to produce. Having a degree and credentials in Communications will open more doors for me to do this, and will provide me with unforeseen tools to navigate the world with.