EP 23: Embracing Water to Know Ourselves, Featuring Water Healer Jobi Manson
Episode Length: 1:39:40
There’s no better way to celebrate Earth Day’s 50th Anniversary than by sharing an episode that focuses on the life giving element of water. Jobi Manson is a water healer, a creative director, photographer, entrepreneur and designer. She believes that “nature is the key to a creative life” and helps guide people into their creative expression through water immersion. Jobi calls these experiences “Sefari’s” or rebirth water experiences. Think of them as adventures into one’s creativity by inviting in water’s inherent wisdom. For Jobi, water is the most powerful and essential element within all forms of life, one that helps us feel and move our emotions with ease. She’s led Sefari experiences for people such as the Founder of Toms Shoes to the founder of Conscious City Guide, among many others. In this episode we discuss: what makes water so unique and healing, how water can be the key to unlocking our creativity, what happens during a Sefari experience, Jobi’s path from surfer to Sefari guide, the serious accident that changed everything for Jobi (wait until you hear more about this profound experience), how we can better understand our emotions and feelings in order to be with them differently, and how we can more easily flow with the waves of our lives.
“Mother nature is nothing short of the most creative force there is.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“Water is the only environment on the planet that relaxes and stimulates our senses at the same time.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“The ocean is the manifestation of the thing that drives us mad as human beings–it’s completely beyond our control. It is overwhelming. it is unpredictable and it is the most powerful force on the planet. And in so many ways, it mirrors our potential.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“At the end of the day, we only have control over our behavior–that’s it...we have control over how we choose to act towards ourselves, towards each other–and most importantly in my opinion–towards the planet.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“We live at a pivotal moment, and in order to shift behavior of the collective, people really have to be able to understand how to feel their heart, understand how to live in a state of trust, so that we can engage with one another.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“We need to understand our emotions, our feelings and learn how to be with them differently.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“I want to understand how to live within nature and within my own nature, and that is the full spectrum of my behavior and my experiences. I wish someone had told me that sooner–that there is a massive disparity between understanding how to talk about your feelings and then understanding how to allow your feelings. How to give your physical body permission to reconnect and release things that are stuck, and blocked and heavy and dense and old. They’re really old.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“Water has three main states that it can exist in–sold, liquid, gas. And it’s no different in our bodies. Our emotions can be solid, and blocked, and calcified within our physical system. And this is where we tend to hold stress, or tension in our body. And there’s ways to work with that. There's ways to to move that, to feel that, to embrace that.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“If I can help somebody understand how to embrace the nature of themselves, there is no greater gift.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“Every single person I meet, I get to meet myself in them.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“Water has the ability to transmute or transform anything because that’s its nature.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“We go through layer after layer of removal. And each layer we carve throughout our life and throughout our path is this stroke of magnificence. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a soft experience, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a comfortable experience in any way...but it is beautiful.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
“My intention is to help everyone become their purest nature, which at its source, at its core, at its chemical composition–is water.” - Jobi Manson x Our Nature
Resources
Show Notes
What Sefari is
How water can teach us to flow with greater ease
The most unique thing about water
What happens on a Sefari experience
The surprising tweak to Sefari experiences that changed everything
What water can do for our creativity
Why Jobi created Sefari
Water’s relationship to our bodies and emotions
What people are looking for when they embark on a Sefari experience with Jobi
Jobi’s first memories of connecting with water
The purpose and symbolism behind Jobi’s prayer stones
Jobi’s journey from the surfing industry to founding Sefari
The pivotal moment when the bottom fell out for Jobi and the experience that became a life-practice
The accident that forever changed Jobi
How Tara Brach’s RAIN is a practice for all of us
The last five questions
Connect with Jobi:
Connect with Our Nature Podcast:
Sign up for the Our Nature Newsletter: www.ournaturepodcast.com
Gratitude List: This podcast would not be possible without the group of talented individuals below. I offer them my sincerest thanks and love.
Graphics by: Tim LaSalle
Music by: Nick Ceglia and Andrea Cortez of Mind Body Music Center
The Last Five Questions
What is your favorite place in nature?
A hot spring I went to on my birthday–this place was hidden in the forest and it was so unexpected. The water was this ice colored blue.
What is the animal, mineral or plant that resonates with you the most?
Elephant. I love them. I’ve loved them my whole life. They’re these immensely powerful creatures that are so gentle.
What is one thing we can do right now to connect with the natural world and bring more harmony into our lives?
Stop what you’re doing. Go outside. Take your shoes off. Find some grass and sit down. There are few things more stabilizing than just feeling the grass.
What’s the greatest lesson nature has taught you?
Be brave. You need it.
Complete this sentence: Nature brings me…
Peace. Home. Love. Joy. Everything. Nature brings me everything. It’s the best.