Reclaiming Light: Jessica Anne Renfeldt’s Journey from Survival to Soulful Leadership
- Jun 10
- 4 min read
In a world that prizes hustle and endurance, Jessica Anne Renfeldt stands as a rare and radiant example of what it means to soften into resilience, surrender into healing, and rise into purpose. A heart transplant survivor, former healthcare executive, and now a transformational coach for women navigating reinvention, Jessica’s journey is one marked not by polished perfection, but by profound rebirth.
Her path to coaching didn’t begin in a classroom or a conference room—it began in a hospital bed. After surviving a terminal diagnosis and enduring a harrowing wait for a heart donor, Jessica found herself one night questioning everything. Exhausted and cracked open, she surrendered—emotionally, spiritually, and physically. “Why is this happening to me?” she cried. And in the stillness, she heard a truth that would redirect the course of her life: Your struggles are going to help others live. You’re meant to share your message.
That moment, Jessica says, was when survival became service.
Having spent decades in leadership roles within the healthcare industry, Jessica was no stranger to high stakes and deep responsibility. She had built a successful career and raised three daughters, often holding the world together for everyone else. But it was in the unraveling—through loss, illness, widowhood, and the ache of holding it all inside—that she began to understand a new definition of resilience.
“For so long, I thought resilience meant being tough,” she reflects. “But I learned it’s actually about softness. It’s about the courage to feel, to bend without breaking, to rest without guilt.” This wisdom wasn’t theoretical—it was lived. After months in a hospital and years of caregiving and grieving, Jessica began to find healing in unexpected places: in mountain streams, in silence, in gratitude, and eventually, in fly fishing.
It was the water that taught her to breathe again. “Fly fishing saved me,” she says with gentle reverence. “It wasn’t about catching anything. It was about presence. About finding my nervous system again after so much trauma. In the river, I wasn’t a patient. I wasn’t a widow. I was just a woman, remembering her own soul.”
This reconnection to self would become the cornerstone of her coaching philosophy. Jessica now guides women—especially in midlife—through transitions that feel daunting, disorienting, or overwhelming. Through her signature four-pillar framework—Mindset, Self-Care, Vision & Creation, and Passion & Purpose—she helps women gently return to themselves.
“It always starts with curiosity,” she says. “Not fixing. Not forcing. Just the question: What if there’s more for me?”
That soft question becomes the seed for transformation.
Through mindset work, clients begin to untangle old beliefs and invite in daily gratitude—not as a checkbox, but as a nervous system reset. In self-care, they learn to meet their inner child, to grieve unmet needs, and to reclaim joy as their birthright. As vision and purpose unfold, many find themselves creating new lives—aligned with who they truly are, not just who they’ve been expected to be.
Jessica’s coaching isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. “When you’ve faced death, you don’t wait for permission to live,” she shares. “You learn to love louder. To slow down. To celebrate the ordinary.”
Indeed, presence became her truest teacher. During the long months of waiting for a donor heart, she learned to find meaning in even the smallest things—the sound of a monitor, the flicker of sunlight on the hospital wall, the kindness of a nurse. “That’s where purpose is born,” she says. “Not in grand gestures, but in choosing to live fully in moments you never thought you’d see.”
Today, Jessica’s work is soul work. She blends her background in healthcare and leadership with profound spiritual insight and embodied wisdom. Nature and creativity are central to her practice—not as hobbies, but as sacred lifelines. Whether through watercoloring, quilting, or simply walking barefoot through grass, Jessica helps women reconnect with their forgotten parts. “Healing doesn’t have to be loud,” she says. “It can be soft. Playful. Quiet. But always powerful.”
Her decision to leave a successful corporate career wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. “I wasn’t broken—I was reborn,” she says. “But I couldn’t stay in environments that didn’t honor the depth I had found.” So, she stepped into the unknown. She traded boardrooms for soul sessions. She chose authenticity over approval. And in doing so, she’s created ripples of healing that stretch far beyond her own circle.
As a mother to three daughters, Jessica’s journey has always been about legacy. Her girls have seen her at her weakest—and watched her rise. “I hope they remember that their mother walked through fire but never lost her light,” she says. “That joy is something you create. That you can begin again, no matter how broken you feel.”
This same message will echo even louder in her forthcoming solo book—a deeply personal exploration of transformation, healing, and the quiet courage to live a new story. “I want it to feel like a hand on the shoulder,” she says. “For the woman crying in her car, for the one who’s forgotten herself—I want her to know: it’s not too late. You’re not too far gone. There is still so much life ahead.”
Jessica Anne Renfeldt isn’t just helping women rebuild after transition—she’s reminding them that their wholeness was never lost. Only waiting to be reclaimed.
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