What does it mean to lead when your path doesn’t follow a straight line—and your vision unfolds in seasons rather than deadlines? In this episode of the Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Lori A Andrus, creator of the Stone Speak Oracle and Journey Jewels Sacred Adornments, the founder of the Sanctuary Circle Community, and host of the Luminary Life Podcast. Lori shares her personal visionary journey. Rather than choosing a traditional healer’s path, Lori followed a quieter inner calling, allowing her gifts to emerge organically through art, jewelry, and eventually sacred tools that now serve people around the world.

This episode is an invitation to trust your timing, honor your body’s wisdom, and lead in harmony with the earth rather than in opposition to it.

What You Will Learn:

What it looks like to follow a nontraditional leadership path without forcing clarity too soon.

Why saying yes to your gifts can create tension in relationships and how to navigate that with compassion.

How self-leadership becomes the foundation for leading others authentically.

Why honoring personal rhythm and cycles leads to more sustainable impact and less burnout.

Why healing often happens before we recognize ourselves as healers.

How entrepreneurship can unfold organically rather than through rigid business models.

What it means to trust divine timing when bringing a vision into the world.

Why pauses and delays are often preparation, not failure.

The internal shifts required before a soul-led offering is ready to be shared publicly.

How to discern when to push forward and when to allow space for integration.

Why investing in aligned support can be essential when personal networks cannot meet you there.

How group containers and mentorship accelerate growth without bypassing the messy middle.

What it means to lead in harmony with the earth rather than in opposition to it.

How to listen to the body as a guide for decision-making and leadership.

Why visionary leadership often requires redefining success on your own terms.

How to remain committed to your vision even when outcomes are uncertain.

Why trusting yourself is an act of leadership that opens possibility for others.

How honoring your inner wisdom strengthens confidence, clarity, and direction.

What it truly means to live and lead a soul-aligned life.

Resource:

Lori A Andrus

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LVP 114 Lori

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Now, here's your host Anjel. Be Hardwell.

Anjel: Welcome to another episode of the Leading Visionaries Podcast, where we celebrate the ingenious, insightful, innovative, and inspired leading visionaries of our time, and provide our listeners with world class examples of the kind of courage, clarity, and confidence it takes to bring visions into reality.

For over 20 years, Lori has helped individuals bridge the scene and unseen through ceremony, art and sacred tools. Inspire, clarity, connection, and expansion. She is the host of the Luminary Life podcast and founder of the Sanctuary Circle Community, and also an incredibly dear medicine sister friend of mine.

Welcome to the show, Lori a Andres.

Anjel: community. Thank you. And we are delighted to have you. So I would love to start our conversation talking to you about your visionary journey. Were you as a child, deeply visionary, or did you have some kind of.

Experience like I did, I had an experience that was, I would consider a spiritual awakening where all of a sudden you woke up to your visionary capacities.

Lori: Yeah, I think it's a both answer for that. I think as a child, actually, I know as a child I was incredibly visionary and I grew up in a family that I regard as Catholic mystics.

And then in my twenties, I had. Awakening and it was through the process of a bit of a health like healing kind of journey. And what I found was energy healing and the energy healing awakened within me a deep, deep remembering of self, of the divine feminine of my relationship with the crystals and stones and.

Really brought forward something incredibly wonderful and new in my world. So, yeah.

Anjel: Yeah. Beautiful. When when I had my spiritual awakening, there was definitely and the experience of having latent gifts be activated and it was almost like all those seeds were already there. I just was not aware of them.

Right? And it's very easy to just push it back down and suppress it. So I'm curious when you had that happen in your twenties. What did you either say yes to or do to support yourself to continue to allow those latent gifts to flower?

Lori: Yeah. Gosh, that's such a great question. And I think, you know, at that time I said yes to my gifts in certain pathways and in other pathways.

I was like, Nope, I am doing this because I know that when I dive deeper into my own healing and I dive deeper into my process of self discovery. My art evolves and shifts and I had a really strong interest in becoming an artist. I wanted to oil paint. I wanted to like express in that way. But along the way, something really interesting happened and it was, it started out as me painting a lot, like I just dove into painting and then.

And with that, the stones really wanted more, like they, it was, it wasn't a like. Forceful thing. It was just this really gentle, like, well, you're, you're developing your intuition. Just listen to us. Mm-hmm. Listen to what we wanna share. And they would share things. They would share insights and messages, and they would share what a piece of jewelry was about.

That. It wasn't just about a piece of jewelry, it was about the journey that it was opening for the wearer and the possibility, the way it was aligning them to. Their own path, their own journey. So it was really an interesting thing. I think initially I had really no interest in the idea of how I would apply the healing work that I was learning.

I mean, this healer heal thyself, right? Yeah. And. I think that story of the reluctant healer that so resonated with me. I was such the reluctant healer. I can remember like just being so like stake in the ground. I am not going to be a healer. I am not going to do healing mark. But yet it just kept creeping in like, Hey, this is kind of who you are.

Anjel: Oh, Uhhuh. And, and who you are is not gonna be denied. Well, it's fascinating. Yeah. Because you and I have a similar path in terms of my awakening didn't happen until I was like in my late thirties. And it happened through jewelry, it happened literally through stones. Yeah. That was my, that they were my first allies.

I could see that that the stones were supporting me. And same thing with the art for me I never really felt like drawn to be an artist, but for me it was about I got turned on to paint and color and canvases and watercolor and through a friend who was just like, yo, oh yeah, she had.

Part of leadership is saying yes to your gifts, even when people around you are not really happy about that. So I'd love to have you speak to your own leadership journey you know, of self-leadership, but also as you stepped into healer, you began to lead others. And I don't know if it was true for you, but it was true for me.

There was a lot of backlash from, you know, the people that you love the most usually. Yeah. So talk to us about your leadership journey.

Lori: Absolutely. You know, I think that phrase of there was a lot of backlash that there's, there's truth there. And I think people can't always see our journey the way we see our journey.

And I think along the way I feel really blessed because my husband has always been. 100% a supporter and a cheerleader and just like really championing what I'm doing. But that's not been true for everyone. And I think, when I look at family while they're supportive, there's challenging challenges with understanding and the frustration and disappointment at shifting away from things that have been family ways of living life and feeling.

Know the emotions that come with that. They feel, you know, lots of, lots of different things. I'm like, I wanna name it, but I don't really have words to name it exactly. I think those are their feelings, but they feelings come out, you know, and mm-hmm. And responses come out and, you know, friendships have shifted and changed and evolved.

Path to leadership was also a part of growing up in my adult life, right? You know, from one, one way to the next, or one thing to the next. But it's also a part of the life cycle. We go through lots of different cycles in how we connect to and relate with people. I think a big piece for me was shift in profession.

It brings in another layer of complexity and that layer is that we have to really listen within and trust our own inner voice. There is. A way that our body asks us to live in harmony with the earth, with spirit, with our own rhythm. And part of that journey is, you know, leaning into how do we get to know our own rhythm?

Anjel: Yeah. Or find somebody that you can hire to support you with that. Yes. You know what I mean? Yes. Well, we're gonna take a quick break. Yes. When we come back, we're gonna talk a little bit more about investing in support and. Opening the space for those new connections that may not show up as friends, family, or you know, relatives, but instead people that you invest and hire to support you with that, yes.

By clicking the Connect with Anjel Button on the website and finding out more about the Creative Age Leader Lab. Be sure to share this show in your own spirals of influence with the people who you think might benefit from our content. I wanna say a huge thank you to all of our listeners who are downloading, rating and reviewing, and to celebrate that we are now seven time award-winning show.

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Anjel: And we are back with Lori. You can find out more about her@loriaandres.com and on that website you can find out about her stone speak Oracle. Her journey. Jules Sacred Adornments. Her Sanctuary Circle Community and Her Luminary Life podcast. So before we went to the break, we were talking about, you know, what about those times in your life where your leadership and your vision is such that you know you really actually need support and you're not getting it from your, the people that you would expect would give it to you as family members or friends and so forth.

There are varying stages where we, you know, make offers and structure our businesses in ways to be able to serve. So talk about how did sanctuary circle emerge?

And I think as I look back on my own journey, there was the combination of. Working one-on-one with mentors and there was group programs and membership circles kind of things that I was involved in that supported me at different stages. They were pivotal in being able to lean into community, understand like where other people are at on their journey, and feel comfortable with where I am in my own pathway.

To others and that piece of being a sacred witness and having your own journey witness, allowing yourself to bring voice to what is unfolding, what's amazing, what's challenging, where things are coming together and where they're falling apart. That is where the magic happens. That's where the growth happens, where we like really expand and step into our light, that place of being vulnerable.

Right. Okay. Well, letting ourselves dig deeper and, and in a safe space and within a community that holds the space to rise. Yeah. And yeah, I think that's really like to me. A juicy place to work with people. Like there's beautiful magic there.

Anjel: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. As you were talking about digging down deeper, the immediate visual that came in for me was when I was little, I would go out in the yard and I'd have my pie pan, and I'd put the little tiny apples that had fallen off the tree, and then I'd put a bunch of mud on the top of the apples and if you're, if you're in a mess.

I wanna talk now about the stones because Yeah. I have your Oracle deck. I have the stone speak Oracle deck, and I have now a practice since the Stones speak came out of drawing cards at the solstice and the Equinox to see what the journey ahead is for the next 90 days or so. What I loved about watching you and witnessing you since we're gonna talk about the sacred witness is that the, don't speak for me.

So. For those who are listening who have a big vision and have something that they're being called to do, can you share a little bit about the journey of bringing something from nothing into reality and what are the things that you needed to do internally to allow that to happen? Yeah. Wow.

Lori: I feel like we could have a whole episode just on this.

And that didn't happen. I wrote a very shitty, rough draft for the guy book. I just, I couldn't even bear to let my husband read it to like, it was, it was like, Ooh, it's really pathetic. And then I just let it sit. I like, my energy wasn't in it. I couldn't even pull it out and I think this happens with creations.

Yeah, it was immense and I feel like there was a combination of I need to stabilize in it and the world together, like it was holding an energy for the collective. Mm-hmm. Holding an energy vision for the earth. And so there was kind of this shared timing, right? The people already to receive it and I'm ready to share it.

It has to come together and it definitely was not in my timing. Yeah. Beautiful.

Now what are you're scrambling, right? Yeah. So having some diversification is always a good idea and understanding that the yellow light is not necessarily, or the red light is not necessarily the end of something. Yeah, that just like life itself, there are seasons where there's energy for a phase of the work, right?

And when that energy is complete, that phase is complete. That doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be sequentially and you know, exactly following that, the next phase of the work. And so I really love how you're bringing forward this idea of being. In rhythm with the Earth, which is again a beautiful weaving together of all that you offer.

Lori: Mm. I wanna invite you to really listen to your vision and the way that runs through your body, and trust your timing in bringing that to life.

Anjel: Mm. Beautiful. All right, well, listeners, we do love feedback. Please list, let us know what you thought of today's show by joining our community, sharing your takeaways, asking questions, or submitting guest suggestions.

Remember. You are here to create conscious change.

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