By Janice Taylor, CEO and Founder, Ah-ha Healing, Tech Pioneer, Social Tech Entrepreneur, Inspirational Speaker, Author, Healing Mentor
Globally, 1 in every 4 adults are in emotional pain.
As we surf through social media on any given day we bear witness to an epidemic of pain. Through the last 2 years of a global pandemic our society has emerged more divided, more exhausted and most of all emotionally wounded across the world. Placing all political divides aside and viewpoints on what was real and what was not, let’s examine where we are the same. Trauma and pain does not discriminate between age, race, religion, gender, political affiliation, geography and/or socio-economic status. Emotional pain is our great equalizer and knows no bounds to the depth it can impact all of us. If you have breath, you may have experienced emotional pain. If we begin at the roots of our painful stories, it is there we can find common ground.
Over the last 2 years we have witnessed a deeply divided, cynical, mentally and spiritually exhausted global population leading to a rise in “deaths of despair.” According to the latest Gallup, “over 42% of the US population is suffering from at least one symptom of anxiety and depression, where over 7 in 10 people are suffering” (Clifton, The Next Global Pandemic: Mental Health, 2021). Deaths of despair can be defined as a slow numbing of our pain using all forms of avoidance, numbing and stuffing down what has bubbled up inside all of us. With all of this global pain, it will not be a surprise when we have reached a tipping point, a point where we collectively just cannot take anymore.
Could we be at rock bottom?
Over the course of the last 25 years I have examined emotional pain, looking at our earliest trauma points and wanting to decode the message. During my own painful moments, I longed for other explanations for emotional pain. Psychological diagnosis felt like only one potential reason for the plethora of other choices that could exist. As I dove into the pharmaceutical industry for a decade, I uncovered an industry dedicated to humans staying in this emotional trauma. From there I lived in Silicon Valley as a tech Founder, examining how technology is our new drug of choice. From the streets to the board rooms, the business of profiting on emotional pain is alive and well.
Most social media is built on the old adage of Pavlovian Behaviour Psychology, ring the bell and predict behaviors (studies have linked Instagram to depression, self esteem issues, social anxiety, and a plethora of other issues). Empathy is the ultimate loser in this social media vortex system. Codependent triangulation is the insidious monster that is now in control of much of our “socialization;” entire generations will not know a world without this vortex, tragically. As a society we have become addicted to human friction, division and triangulation all enforced by our technology, news and information/misinformation. Technology has become our greatest predator of emotional pain avoidance, providing false feelings of belonging that have devastating impacts. All of this leads us to seek false idols that reinforce our false selves. Almost no one is free from the grips of this monster with over 4.8 billion logging on daily to social media (https://backlinko.com/social-media-users).
That is 4.8 billion taking a hit of a codependent drug daily…some of whom are decision makers for global policies that impact everyone…now that is a scary thought. By contrast the global world only has 270 million people addicted to drugs. Every minute on social media is equivalent to a hit of a drug that keeps you, little by little, out of your present reality, turns you upside down and spits you out. We end up in a perpetual state of reactionary moments with very little truth…this impacts democracies, rights and freedoms of populations of people, food insecurity and a plethora of other issues. Sadly, almost all of this happens without conscious awareness, which is what makes this drug so deadly; we don’t even know we are high. Yet, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, Amazon are the real pain profiteers. Just look at the math. Over 60% of the global population is addicted to social media, whereas only 3.3% are addicted to drugs! Yet which do we discuss more? The average person spends 2.5 hours/day on social media, imagine what you could build/create and discover if you took those hours and applied them to your purpose?
Are you ready to transform your pain into purpose?
Pain equals purpose. This is the simple equation. When I studied pain I could not help but notice that all forces that exist for pain also contain the opposite. If we examine a battery we see that both positive and negative forces must exist in order for the greatest exchange of energy. Our entire world is built from two opposing forces. The sun has the moon, dark and light, love and fear. Almost nothing in the world can exist without its direct counterpoint. So what if we examine our pain from a different point of view? What if we gave ourselves two weeks of detox from our codependent vices and attempt to see the world differently?
What if we look at all the data from your very first ten years of life and attempt to read that data…from the purpose point of view? What would your purpose say about your pain and vice versa, what does your pain say about your purpose? Are they forever intrinsically linked? Could our most painful points before our tenth birthday be the ultimate data we require to solve our own emotional pain, but moreover, what is the recipe of that data?
Over the last ten years, I have set out to read the data of as many humans as I could meet in order to directly link their pain to purpose. Thousands of datasets later, I discovered with about 98% accuracy, that almost every human has a purpose recipe waiting to be birthed. With astonishing results the data collected by your tenth birthday contains all the answers you will ever need to know exactly who you are meant to be and what you are meant to do….every time. Some people choose to act on the data and others are still in the grips of their codependent vortex, which is not surprising. Our global society has built an industry on humans staying in that pain vortex. A divided unconscious world lost in deaths of despair is where many, many people profit from other’s pain.
All the answers you seek are buried in your body, in your spirit, since before your tenth birthday. The greatest adventure treasure map is the one you buried in your body with your pain. Parked beside pain waiting for you to come and uncover the clues is your purpose. Your freedom to love, live and discover your true self is waiting for you.
Isn’t it time to discover your true self?
Oprah Winfrey top 150, tech pioneer, social tech entrepreneur, inspirational speaker, author, online safety advocate, healing mentor, investor, mother, and advisor. From her teen years into adulthood, Janice’s specialty has constantly been uncovering the root cause of emotional pain to create an innovative and disruptive healing process. After more than two decades of research and practice, uniquely qualified in the fields of psychology, tech start-up, business, motivational speaking, and entrepreneurism; Janice Taylor created Ah-ha Healing.
For the past 12 years in the tech industry, Janice was an early pioneer in early technologies to protect children online, to build software that supported social and emotional learning. At the heart of most of Janice’s experiences is the desire for financial inclusion to be the norm for women and diverse communities. As a 3X founder, Janice is bringing her expertise in human behavior, building tech inclusive products to Web3 leading EQ, a marketplace for creators to access capital fairly, transparently and equitably.
She has a Bachelor of Psychology, Honours Thesis Option and spent many years studying the impacts of addiction on the human spirit. Early in Janice’s life she spent time with the most vulnerable populations, learning about their journey with addiction. Most recently, Janice has been appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada as an Honorary Captain of the Royal Canadian Navy to bridge the gap between communities and the Canadian Armed Forces.
Janice has brought this message of emotional and financial wellness to such esteemed conferences as TEDx, Marianne Williamson Events, Tech TO, London Digital Wellness Festival, among others. She was named one of twelve extraordinary Women in Tech by the Consulate General of Canada, chosen as one of Oprah’s Ultimate Viewers, and selected as a finalist for the 2013 Woman of Worth Awards. Additionally, in 2018, Mazu was recognized as one of the five Most Innovative Companies in British Columbia, Canada.
