Hello, my name is Leslie Bennett, and I am the creator of SOULJYM, a gym focused on our nonphyscial aspects. I created it because there are few places where to go to work on our spirit, consciousness, thoughts, emotions, and essence.
I was called to become a spiritual entrepreneur because I had a personal yearning for such a place when I was in pain. It all began when I lost my husband in 2014. It was unexpected: one minute we were making dinner plans for his birthday, instead his birthday was spent making the life-support decision. Life tells you that it can change in a moment, yet we are unprepared for when it happens. We tell ourselves, “this happens to other people.” When he took his last breath, my heart was like Humpty Dumpty: it broke into a million pieces. Could my heart be put back together again?
In my grief, I went to therapy. I supplemented my sessions with different mediums, spiritual workshops, consciousness research, retreats, and getaways. I was looking for experiences to make me not feel sad. I would always tell people that I was trying to outrun sadness or that I was looking for a vacation from sorrow. Did you notice that I viewed it as “not wanting to feel sad” rather than wanting to feel joy and happiness? Since addiction afflicted my family, I was cognizant that drugs and alcohol only delayed the work (and in fact complicated the recovery), so numbing was not really an option for me. I had to do the inner work to heal, so I chased for answers to my pain.
My husband’s passing resulted in both my destruction and the beginning of my reconstruction. I searched for answers to make sense of his death, what happens after death, for reasons for me to stay on the planet and on forgiveness. I prayed that these teachers, workshops, and retreats could do what all the king’s horsemen couldn’t do for Humpty Dumpty.
As I started to heal, the workshops, retreats, and teachers became my addiction. I would attend a conference and come home feeling great. That honeymoon feeling would fade or I would be triggered and then the craving for the next workshop, teacher, or spiritual healer would start again. With each experience came more insight, better clarity, a desire to learn more, and less and less sadness. With these cravings came an inspiration: Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a place you could go when you need to feel good—like a gym, but for the soul?
A seed was planted. The timing of my inspiration came as I was losing my job in the pharmaceutical industry. Yes, more loss, but that is for another blog post. After taking some time, I began creating this concept, and I spoke to friends and colleagues who expressed interest in the idea. Now we are at the beginning: my soul gym, named SOULJYM.
In future posts we will talk about the name and what makes a soul gym, including its design elements. Lots to share and lots to learn. I hope you will come along on this journey with me. All the pieces of my heart are just about back together. Interestingly, it is bigger now than when it shattered. I am in love with this business, and I am in love with all who are open to experiencing it with me.