Your Happy Hour - Repurposing Purpose

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

New Season, New Theme, here we go! Welcome to Season 3 and this month we unpack the topic of Repurposing Purpose. First up we chat with Jo Kelly who is a non-acting (being) coach, facilitating the remembering of being human - to truly show up authentically in everything you do. We explore the themes of dehumanization, the impact of societal conditioning, the result of feeling your feels and how that leads to a more purpose-ful-filled life.The Feels is all about having those honest conversations, the power of community for personal growth and taking those actionable steps towards being our authentic selves.Thanks for tuning in! Keep it raw and real out there xYHH is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

It's the Friday Feels, and we're back with your first sip of the weekend. You're now tuned in to this week's episode of your happy hour. I'm your host Nicole Carmine, and it's amazing to have you here. joining me this week as we uncover the truths about being a human and a working professional. What are you up to this Friday? Well, whatever it is, this moment is just for you. Welcome to Season 3 of your Happy Hour, the Fields podcast. And if you've tuned in for the very first time, a quick reminder that the Fields is a feeling, a space, a place we've created to empower the authentic global. working experience. And as this suggests, we're on a mission to empower, connect, and inspire

authentic living and working all around the world. And the Fields podcast was our very, very first online space in which we get to come together to do exactly that while we were traveling and through authentic conversations and sharing of our stories. But not enough space is made for this, for having these moments. And I feel extremely privileged that I get to share there were so many wonderful guests that we call our humans of heart and before i introduced today's guest and human of heart i just want to introduce our first theme of the season so each season we take a time to unpack a theme every month and for december 2025 we decided that we want to take a little pause and think about repurposing purpose well we've realized that at a lot of chats we have with people

that the biggest struggle often is that humanity faces is what is the purpose of our lives? What is the product of your life look and feel like? And perhaps I'm speaking for myself, but this question has really haunted me in my dreams, and I suspect somewhere along anyone's human journey, we all stop and ask ourselves, what on earth are we doing here? So to help us unpack this a little bit, I thought it would be wonderful to bring on a guest, to, I get to introduce to you now and a really, really big welcome to you, Joe Kelly, to your happy hour and to the field space. Thank you. Thank you, Nicole. I'm happy to be here and discuss

purpose. Thank you. Yeah. And, you know, it's so interesting for me because what you do is really helping people to be. I think that's such a big purpose in that. And I know that when, you know, when we We think about being human. We talk about being and we talk about achieving and so many things. But one thing that struck me from what I read about you when I first came across you, which was on like a pop-up on YouTube about a year ago now, and I was kind of looking for acting material. And I've always wondered when people are learning how to act, how does that work?

when I watch TV, I'm just watching humans being themselves, you know, that's kind of what we look for as an experience. And I know that you say that, you know, I won't teach you how to act, I'll remind you how to be. And then it's really more about undoing all of the acting but being. So do you want to just maybe tell us a little bit about how you got to be where you are today, your journey, and yeah, just about what you do? I can give it a try. So, you know, you're said everything about the way we see acting, which is really about not acting and just being human. And the reason we're not human is because we've been dehumanized in the process of our conditioning and our formatting and our wiring. And so we are really in a society

where the children are free and purposeful. They come out of the womb and they're perfect. They're finished products. They can feel, they can be, they can behave, think, move like only they can, totally aligned with their instinct. And then this little hiccup that happens still nowadays is that we live in a culture that's been conditioned and they go to school and their parents went to school. And so when that happens, when they start being conditioned at home and at school,

they're being told not to feel what they feel, not to think what they think, not to want what they want, not to learn what they want, not to move their bodies like they want, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so, you know, and I keep using my hand when I explain this, because if you imagine, if you take an analogy and you imagine a tree that does all of the things it does for our oxygen, and it takes from the sun and the soil, and it uses its branches and its leaves, and every single bit of it is its capacity to do its job for us, because we can't breathe without the tree. We're one with the tree, right? And so if you cut its branches and its leaves and its root, it has no more capacity to do its job. And it's the same for a human being.

the human being feels, thinks, moves, behaves, wants. And if you prevent that, if you oppress that system, if you oppress that technology, that human being cannot be human. And so we observe children that are utterly free and purposeful, running around being who they are, completely unique. and then I sit on the other side as a I call myself a deconditioning companion so on the other side of school when people are done and they come in mostly artists athletes therapists a lot you know and CEOs leaders who want to really have a pure vessel and come land in our community and go who am I how do I be me and and and And so that's not a problem. It's just a consequence of the system that we're born in,

where we're told, you know, you have to achieve in order to be someone. You have to, have to, have to, have to, achieve, achieve, achieve, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And therefore, people wake up at one point and go, what? Well, I've done that, but now I'm feeling the emptiness, the purposelessness, the lack of freedom, the lack of soul, who am I? And so it kind of, you know, it pushes that questioning to adult ages, but it's just a problem that's a consequence of conditioning. It's not something that's innate to human behavior because we're born finished. We don't have to evolve or grow or improve or get better, we're done. If only we were honored as finished products

in childhood, we wouldn't then have to go, oh, what the hell? Who am I? I need something to fix this. So the reason I came to this is, well, I've been a product of conditioning myself and I I did get lucky because I had a granddad who was part of my upbringing. About two and a half days a week, I was alone with him. And for some reason, he managed to see through the system and cared for me unconditionally without conditioning. And so there was no me having to achieve, no punishment, no humiliation, no, if you do this, you'll get that. There was just an honoring of who I was. So I tasted both worlds.

And then, you know, I did my version of what a young person does in the world where you're conditioned to behave and be good and do everything. So I went to, you know, university, did my MBA and mastered in systemics and worked for the corporate environment and then kind of was like, oh, this is, what is this? This is terrible. I can't breathe. I'm choking. So drop that, move to Paris. And it was like, okay, I feel I need to express who I am, not work for a system. So I started singing painting. and acting and then it kind of I woke up to myself by going oh okay like acting in the way that I like it which is not acting to just be present and be freely feeling what you're feeling and not trying to do things right is really my thing but I was realizing that myself and most of the people that I was coming across in the acting world were all completely locked up. And so because of my education and systemics, I got very curious and was like, what's happening? Why is everyone so locked up and they're artists, including

me, why can't we just be ourselves? And I started digging, digging, digging until I got to the truth that has been mine ever since, which is, I mean, mine and everyone's, it doesn't belong to me, but that the truth that I landed on became my truth, which is that, yeah, we were born perfect. All kids are free and purposeful. And then it's taken away from us, school system specifically and with parenting. And so the work to be done is not to add more tricks and achieve more things and learn from more people, but more to actually undo that programming in order to restore your innate self, your innate being. And once that is done, you're able to actually live your life, not the one you were brainwashed

to live in order to serve a system, but more your life. and therefore you can make your own free decisions and inevitably because your cup is full of you, you are fulfilled, inevitably the only thing that can happen is that you are purposeful because you are you. You are in your design, in your DNA,

experiencing your truth, your freedom, your instinct, and then inevitably expressing your truth, your freedom, your instinct and therefore inevitably impacting with the gift that you are but if you're not you know allowed enabled to remain in your design and if you're being taught to be think behave feel in a certain way in order to conform to a system then of course your purpose less you're just again feeding the system playing the game of the system um so so yeah that's um that's that's what i've been doing through yeah holding journeys with like i said mostly actors but also

other artists leaders therapists and doing film work around that topic yeah so in any way that I can to contribute in that. And the way that I do it, which I think is also interesting and aligns with what we just shared, is also out of the system. So we function inside of the gift economy. So that means that we don't do transactions with people, which is like, oh, you can do a journey and this is the price.

No, you can work with us, and you can understand the work we're, providing and the space we're providing for you. And we understand that you're coming at the level that you're coming and that you are therefore able to choose your level of contribution. Gosh, you've said so many things and I have so many thoughts have come into my mind. But firstly, I want to say, I think what you're doing is amazing. And I don't know, it makes me emotional. Maybe as a creative soul myself, who used to be in corporate, and is also kind of pushed against the achieving.

You have to get to the end goal, and nobody really takes the time to understand the human journey in between. That's actually so much more important and more fun to be in. And I just think it's wonderful that you embrace that first in yourself. And I think it kind of, to me, I'm learning a lot about surrendering and remembering, you know, really just being able to be like, like, oh, this is your true, my true self, and this is who I want to be in the world.

Not because anyone else says so, but because that's just who I am, you know, and that's great. And it can express in so many different ways. And I'm okay if nobody else understands it. I'm okay if nobody else resonates with it. I enjoy who I am as a being, you know. But it takes a lot of kind of shadow work and hard work to go in there and forgive yourself for things that you probably felt guilt and shame around, you know, because of other people's perceptions and things that you made your own.

So I'm curious for you that working with people, what do you see is like the biggest challenge or fear that people feel, you know? Yeah, well, I think that the, well, the biggest challenge is the result, again, the consequences of having been raised in a patriarchal system that tells you that your value is tied to. to your achievements, that your worth is tied to something that is, you know, that you have to produce because of course your worth is undiscussable. You exist, so you are worth. So the word worth and unworthy shouldn't even exist. There's no such thing as an unworthy human. You are.

You came through whatever process out of nothing and you emerged into light. So you are. So by definition, the only thing you could possibly be is worth. So there's the consequence of not having been raised and held in that paradigm that you have nothing to do. You are extraordinary and perfect, not imperfect. You're human and perfect. You're perfect and human. Not knowing that is damaging. and then that's what's been, you know, happening in our past and how we grew.

And then what's the other biggest problem, I think, is the culture trying to catch up on that, but in a very, still in a very capitalistic environment and commodifying every tool out there to make money out of you. and still trying to fix you, to heal you, which are words that we never use in our work. It has nothing to do with healing and it has nothing to do with fixing. It has everything to do with actually experiencing what is moving through you, not to get rid of it. It's not about overcoming shadow.

It's not about fixing shadow. It's not about wishing it wasn't there. it's actually, actually being with it in your body until you can love it. Again, not to get rid of it. But so in a way, the internalized patriarchy inside the nervous system because, you know, if you're a little seed when you're born and then the water that's poured on you

is you have to achieve in order to be and you're unworthy until you make this or that or until you have. have this or that if that's what your plant has been watered with, well, it grew with that belief that you were no good, not worthy, and you have to do something. And then you are now in this culture and everything you see in the culture is the, you know, everyone trying to sell your healing, sell you your healing or the fixing of you. So those two things are messing with people. And so the main work we do as companions in the journey of people really coming back to the truth, to their own self, is really being on the side and never telling you what to do

and just holding your hand as you stay with all of the things, no matter what they are, all of the energies moving through you. And what I see in the current culture is still people trying to come in and fix you or coming in to tell you what's the way to be better what's the way to get your bigger car or your fancy business or whatever it's still not about rehumanizing and so that takes i want to say monastic space holding it's a very precise thing to restore your authority to yourself rather than to say hey look at me i'm this shiny coach i don't even call myself a coach anymore, I can, I can help you. You know, I can heal you. I can fix you. It's none of that. If it's that, then then you still have a problem is your divine self hasn't

been restored. And you are the only one who can do that. No one else can do it for you. No one has the tricks. You were born perfect. You still are perfect. It's really just about undoing the BS that was sprayed on top of it, and then waking up that instinct so it can remember itself. Yeah, I resonate with that a lot, and I think most people who are going to be listening to the audience out there, I feel like I could listen to you speak forever. But what I think is really interesting is, you know, when I think of, and I know that you work with people who are not just actors, but I just want to pause there for a second, because I find it interesting that when we watch people act, you know, on TV and film and

theatre, we are watching other humans being and it's a lot about being of emotions and human experience and all of that. So how do you work with actors to kind of step into roles where they are not, they haven't had that experience and they have to feel themselves in that experience as an actor and as a character? Yeah, I think that's quite fascinating. So if you would go to any traditional, let's say, acting school, you know, they would function inside of the paradigm end of which we've been conditioned, which is, oh, there's a certain, you know, things you have to do, you have to relax, and then you have to break down the script, and then you have to do some sense memory. And so there's like a method

that, and people all have their own methods. And so the way we do it is to say, no, none of that. You don't need any of that. It's about being. about being you in those specific circumstances. So the first thing we need to do is to reset you being you because you've been so conditioned for decades that you don't have the capacity to be you. You don't know how to feel what you feel because you repress it all.

You've been taught to repress it. And so it's like a car with no wheels kind of thing, right? It's like, yeah, you can sit in it, but it's not fulfilling its purpose. So, first of all, we have to rehumanize you so that when an energy of sensations comes through, just like a child, you can be with it without thinking if it's right, if it's wrong,

without thinking, should I do it differently? Is anyone going to be mad at me if I feel this way? You just, like, it goes. You get on the floor, you hit the floor. Think of, you know, children in your family. imagine kids at the playground, they're mad, they're mad, they're not thinking, should I be mad or is it okay to be mad or should I be mad this way or that way? It just moves. And the second after, they're climbing or loving you or kissing you. So it moves really fast when you can be with

the emotion. So that's the first thing we do and we have a journey called the reset journey from resistance to freedom. And so we help actors and again, other artists and all walks of life reset their instrument no matter what their discipline is because again we have athletes you know whatever tv hosts and people like you um so once you've reset your capacity to be human then we start looking at okay now if you can feel what you feel what do you feel about being here why are you on this earth and now you can hear your system again you can hear your GPS again. If you can't hear it and if everything's been repressed and there's a mask of having to conform on top and be confident or whatever, you have no idea. You're just

in coping all the time. You're not in being. So we melt that, we revive and then we can start the real work, which is okay. So now you're kind of reborn to your humanity. What are you here for what is it that your soul is craving for what is your purpose in this lifetime and when you put those two things together for an actor for example but again same for an athlete a singer a writer a shrink whatever or CEO there's no more efforting at doing things you just show up because you're alive your energy is moving and you're grounded into your being into your DNA. And so you're not constantly looking for, is that right?

Should I do that? Should I do the scene this way or that way? No, there's only one way, which is your way. When you're reattuned to that, that's how you walk your life. Again, just like we're not teaching anything. We're not adding to anyone who's working with us. We're just going back to who you were born to be. children put a child actor next to a professional actor on a stage,

no one will watch the professional actor. The child is way more alive. Children are the best actors in the world, and they haven't been to a workshop because their instrument is alive and they're not questioning who they are. They just are who they are. Like a tiger is not trying to be a lion, you know, and a giraffe is not trying to be a mouse.

They just are who they are. So there's no thinking to be done. There's no figuring out anything. It's really the removing of things and the unearthing of what was already there that then makes you unstoppable and alive and fulfilled. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does, it does. And yeah, I feel like there's so much of, like you say, our conditioning is around thinking.

We're so much in our minds and mental space and we get attached to the emotions that sit in our energy bubble, you know, and we kind of live in there, but we forget to feel. And I think it's pretty apt that this podcast is the Fields Podcast and that we're having this conversation. We also have our theme next month called Relieving Achieving, so this is all very on point. And I really appreciate you sharing your gift with the world. And through the gift economy, which I also wanted to say is something I really believe in

is energy exchange and being able to create an economy that is not as capitalistic and as the financial system is at the moment, I feel like we're seeing kind of the breakdown of that because it's not community driven and it's not heart-centered. And so I feel like what you're doing is a lot of that, and I really, really appreciate that you sharing that with the world and opening up that space.

So on that, what does the space look like for you? And 10 years is a long time to talk about, but in the next year and the next two years, what's on your agenda that we can celebrate for you? You mean inside the community or in the other projects that I have. I have for you as a person, as a working professional. Okay, I thought you said for years as a person.

For me as a person, well, a couple things on the personal level and then one that bridges personal and I don't know if it's professional or devotional. Personal, I have raised my children like this, which means I was lucky enough to stumble upon a school that does not condition. So it's a radically humanistic school. so it honors humans and teachers are not allowed to teach unless children specifically to demand to be taught there's no authority no grades no classroom no homework etc and my son today is turning 18 and so on a very personal level I'm really in awe of seeing my children who haven't been conditioned I mean they live

in this culture so they're somewhat conditioned but at least not at home and not at school And to see the fruit of that is breathtaking. It's breathtaking to know humans who have not been indoctrinated and to see what a pure human being looks like and feels like is pretty incredible. So I'm very eager to continue to enable that for my children and to continue to just enjoy it and be like, oh, my, God, this is incredible. It completely over exceeds any expectation about having children. So that's wonderful. And then last year, I worked with breast cancer. And during my cancer journey,

I started a documentary during which I was dancing in hospital during the treatments and in public places. And that led me on a whole, well, a whole feature documentary that has to also do with conditioning. And the title of the documentary is called Why Isn't Everyone Dancing? And if like if I'm dancing during my cancer treatments and I'm having a ball, really a ball, and I was dancing in the streets and people were looking at me like I was crazy and some people were dancing with me. But so the, yeah, the question, why isn't everyone dancing occurred to me? And of course it goes back to conditioning because it's to sit down and shut up and don't move and be quiet and all of that. And so, yeah, it's the documentary's journey through talking to childhood

development specialists and, you know, movement specialists and understanding really what's being done to us and what is our education really for if it's not to honor our humanity. It's, in my opinion, or in my conclusion, it's to prepare us to defend attack. I think we're all raised for war, not just factories, but also for war, competition control, dominance. You know, if you look at what's cultivated in the school system, it's pretty much, it's scary. And so I'm really passionate about that project and I'm, I would say, halfway through. So I can't wait to continue to work on that and then share this work. That is amazing. Well, first of all, super brave to go through what you went through and I love that you were dancing I'm such a I dance

everywhere as well at home with my dog and I sing in the street sometimes and I people look at me like what is this girl doing you know that you get to a point where you're just like I'm living my life and I think that's wonderful at you that you could do that and I agree why aren't more of us dancing so I'm really looking forward to to watching that and good luck with completing it and and on that I want to give a quick shout out to the people who are listening. I want to know how you're feeling about your purpose of being a human being in the world. Have you decided who dictates what that looks like for you?

We want to know all your feels. So do DM us on the socials. And a very quick shout out also just to our partners and a little audience tweet from them. So rsas.com is our partner in distributing this podcast. So thank you so much to them for making this possible. And they have given our audience and community great discounts along with our new latest partner, which is bomb company, also known as Blender Bombs, something I came across when I was traveling in the U.S., and it's a really nutritious, healthy way of living.

And they've given our audience an amazing 20% off on any goodies that you order with the code that feels. So DMS if you want more details on that. Joe, we wanted to do one more quick section. We choose a person, place or space each week, which we feel have the feels. My shout-out this week goes to creators, which is a creative community in Paris and also co-working. And we were really lucky enough to join them now in their co-working space. And they really are all about bringing people together in creative community to celebrate culture and to make it very possible for artists to be able to connect and work together.

So thank you to them. honor that the fields cannot be in the space. And then a very quick last question to you is two things. One, we do a thing called the gems. I feel like you already shared some gems there, but this is kind of a little section that we just think about the gems of the week. So something that stood out for you that you might have learned or want to celebrate. For me, it was, I had some situations this week where I really had to remember to be kind and that sometimes we are standing in the way of enabling others around us but when we choose to like have people around us as part of our tribe and our community and our teams we have to enable them to succeed as well and you know you have

to be honest with yourself when you are holding on too tight and need to surrender so that was really a big dream for me to see that and kind of let that go so yeah what was something for you. Well, it's funny that you mentioned that because I'll have to piggy back on you because I had this moment of clarity today as my son turned 18 and we did a series of very ceremonial little, you know, events during the day and it keeps going in the whole day to have that passage be really felt from young boy to adult. And a couple months ago, you know, we we were having discussions about maybe he needs to leave to another country to study and it was devastating. I was just crying and feeling, oh my God, it's impossible. It's too soon.

I'm not ready. And really honoring those feelings in the moment alone and with him and now really starting to walk into, yeah, I'm not ready, but I so want to honor him and like enable him to just open his wings whenever he's ready, whether that's tomorrow in 10 years. It doesn't matter. I think it's soon. But yes, to really, it's not that I think as a mother, especially in the humanistic mother, it's not that I'm controlling, but I still have a protective instinct and to suddenly, you know, feel that oh yeah that let that the letting go of the person you most love in your life and being

like they'll be fine to trust it and or they won't but to trust it anyway that that's their path and and i've done my job and i can surrender for now for him to be his own adult yeah Oh, that's not easy, as my mom reminds me a lot too. Nobody is beautiful. It feels, you know, it's beautiful to start to feel the trust and go, I can't wait to see what he does with his energy, yeah. Yeah, I love that. I know there's a book I really love called The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.

Yeah, beautiful. And he talks about that on children, and he says, children come through you but they belong not to you and I'm sure that's exactly the feeling you know having to kind of see that separation but it's it's a beautiful journey and congratulations to your son for his 18th it's such a big milestone and it's such a wonderful time of life so much ahead so excited for him and then one last question and then I'll let you be back into being in the world and helping others do that is what is in your stack So this is kind of our reading list.

It could be a book that you might haven't read yet. It's kind of still waiting or something that you'd like to recommend that you enjoyed for the audience. Always go back to Eckhart Tolle. It never gets old. But if that's too broad, I also really love Adia Shanti, who's also an enlightened being. And he, especially on Audible, he has such a soothing voice and he doesn't write his books, he just transmits them. So he does his own audios.

You can read them, but the audios are wonderful because the, you know, the cadence and the energy or the frequency in his voice. So it's like medicine. So, yes, he's a wonderful, wonderful being an author. Amazing. Is there a specific book that you could recommend that you feel like touched you? I think you can start with the end of your world. Okay. Okay.

I would really love to read or listen to that because that sounds right up my alley. Yeah, yeah. Oh, let me know how you like it. I will. I will. Absolutely. Thanks for recommending that. And thank you for coming on today and just sharing so much of your heart so openly.

It was really, really great to chat to you. And we'll make sure that everyone knows how to find you. And hear about all the beautiful reset programs that I know you have coming up. Yeah, just a big, big thank you from the Fields. Thank you, Nicole. It was a pleasure to talk to you. If you haven't just yet, follow Friday Fields on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn. You can share with us all your fields this week by tagging us at Fridayfeels.com.

And you can also find the website at that handle. and now as you ease into this weekend take a moment celebrate who you've become what you've overcome and what is yet to come as you do the crazy and cool things that you do as the authentic you you know the truth about life and work is that it's hard but the beauty is this global working experience that you're in while we earn it together so keep connecting empowering and inspiring this week and of course keep it raw and real until next time