Rites of PassageDesign & PreservationFounder
How a Twenty-Year Design Career Became a Thriving Practice in Year One — and Still Closes for a Summer Reset
Jenna Reed Walker · Founder and CEO, Reed Walker Design Collective
“It was holistic and spiritual alongside strategy, which is what I was craving desperately.”
Jenna Reed Walker · Founder and CEO, Reed Walker Design Collective
The Challenge
“I wasn’t showing up as myself.”
Jenna met Emefa the week after she quit her job — two weeks before Reed Walker Design Collective officially existed. She was standing, in her words, “at a crossroads: after over 20 years working full time for others in the architecture and design field, I was finally taking the leap into entrepreneurship.”
What she was leaping out of was a perfect storm. A shift from design practice into full-time academia, which she thought was the source of the disconnection — until it collided with hormonal shifts, perimenopause, and the chaos of the pandemic. She left teaching, was recruited to a design firm at the last minute, and found work that was beautiful and people who were kind, and still: “It felt performative and unaligned with who I am. Showing up every day was difficult.”
Underneath the career questions ran older ones. Money stories from growing up without much. A partner’s understandable hesitation about losing steady income. And a nervous system that had been running the show for a while: “I was in survival mode, in fight or flight, saying yes to work I wasn’t passionate about out of scarcity.”
Beneath all the practical challenges of starting a business, she writes, “lurked deeper questions about purpose and identity. Who was I beyond my professional titles? And how could I build something truly aligned with my core values? What are MY core values?”
The Turning Point
“Her presence mirrors back what calm feels like.”
The first room Jenna sat in with Emefa was a Q4 goal-setting session for business owners — and something in it was built differently. “What immediately resonated with me was that even though it was for business owners, it was rooted in seasonality and spirituality in a way that connected with who I am and my personal values.”
She stayed after the session to keep talking. Within weeks she was in the fall mastermind. By spring she wanted to go deeper, and moved into Rites of Passage.
The timing turned out to matter more than either of them planned. Rites of Passage began exactly as the business launched — which meant Jenna never had to undo anything. “I didn’t have to unlearn old patterns as a founder. I got to evolve into who I wanted to be from the beginning… I stand firmly in my values now.”
The Process
“Her gift lies in providing the accountability, structure, and spaciousness to explore while helping bring to light what exists within you that you’ve been struggling to access.”
Rites of Passage is held across three phases drawn from the Heroine’s Journey — Separation, Liminality, Re-Integration — each session weaving strategy with breathwork and somatic work. Jenna’s container ran three months, biweekly. It has since grown into six months across seven ninety-minute sessions.
From my notes — Emefa
What I Saw
You came to me with what you were calling a money problem. It wasn’t one. What I saw was a woman about to start a business on borrowed willpower — the belief that every moment had to be productive output, running in a nervous system that had been in fight or flight long enough to feel normal. Your own intake named the symptom before either of us said it out loud: back, shoulders, neck, headaches, right hip. A body keeps the record of a rhythm that isn’t yours. So we did not begin with your revenue model. We began with the pattern underneath it.
Why the Phases Run in That Order
Separation comes first because you cannot build something aligned on top of conditioning you haven’t named yet. Those early sessions were uncomfortable on purpose. Liminality comes second — that is where the strategy enters, once there is a self to build the business around rather than a set of borrowed expectations to satisfy. Re-Integration comes third, and the second-to-last session is designed to walk you back to the very first work we did. That is not sentiment. It is evidence. You needed to see the distance in your own words in order to trust it.
Why the Breathwork Sits Inside the Strategy Hour
Your mind is strong enough to justify almost anything. That is a gift, and it is also how you talked yourself into work you didn’t want. A gut answer is faster than a thought and it arrives before language. You cannot reason your way to it. The breathwork is not the soft half of the session — it is the part that gets underneath the argument so your body can answer before your mind edits the answer. Then we build the strategy on what it said. That is why the two live in one hour and not in two.
Why It Holds After the Container Closes
The Five Facets get read twice — once in you, once in the business. Same five. The physical facet in you is rest, pace, and capacity; in the business it is your systems, your branding, your client touchpoints. Once you could read your own, you could read your firm’s. That is what let you hire for outcomes instead of hours in a seat, and it is why the work kept compounding after our three months ended. You did not leave with my answers. You left able to run the read yourself.
Separation — the Excavation
“These early sessions required deep, often uncomfortable excavation of the outdated roles, beliefs, and patterns I had accumulated over decades. Emefa created a safe container where I could honestly confront how these were still impacting me. Though painful at times, this foundational work was essential for everything that followed.”
The Scarcity Story That Wasn’t About Money
The single largest shift came when the money story turned out not to be one. “The biggest shift was understanding my scarcity story wasn’t actually about money, it was about time and the belief that every moment had to be productive output.” Then the reframe that reorganized her whole calendar: “When I realized I’m cyclical… that gave me permission to stop fighting my natural rhythm.”
Liminality — Aligning the Business with the Woman
“We combined strategic planning with breathwork and intuitive practices that allowed me to access deeper states of connectedness… Emefa helped me discover possibilities and make connections I hadn’t imagined on my own.” Both modes moved in one hour: “One moment crafting concrete business strategies, the next transitioning into profound breathwork that unlocked creative insights I couldn’t access through thinking alone.”
Human Design as a Business Instrument
“I trust myself a lot more now. I used to look for external validation, external knowledge, constantly learning from the outside. I’ve realized a lot of that is already in me. Understanding my Human Design — that I’m a generator with a sacral center — gave me language for that instinctual gut feeling of yes or no.”
Learning to Read Her Own Body
In alignment: “My body feels calm and confident. I sleep well. I don’t have racing thoughts and anxiety. My chest doesn’t tighten. I just feel at peace.” In fear: “Shortness of breath. My body tenses up… I get flooded by adrenaline.” The point was never to eliminate one state — it was to tell them apart in time to choose, and to have a way back: breathwork, Reiki, a vagus nerve stimulator, walks, a vibration plate.
Re-Integration — and the Full-Circle Session
“During our second-to-last session, Emefa guided me back to the foundational work we had done in our earliest sessions. Suddenly, I could clearly see how dramatically my approach had shifted. I was now making choices from a place of authentic alignment rather than old conditioning.” And: “I emerged feeling not just ready and capable, but calm and centered in a way I’d never experienced in my professional life.”
What Continued After the Container Closed
Rites of Passage ended; the practice didn’t. Jenna began attending Sacred Sundays Breathwork monthly — “a grounding ritual I rarely miss” — and continues in monthly sessions holding strategy, somatics, and “whatever needs to surface for me to evolve as a human, woman, wife, mother, friend, daughter, and business owner.”
The Results
“The inner alignment work translated directly into my ability to attract and close projects that resonated with my authentic vision.”
A Schedule Full Through Year One
“During our work together, I secured two substantial design projects along with various smaller ones that have completely filled my schedule through most of the year, surpassing my anticipated year one revenue projections.” The brand guide and marketing collateral were finalized, and the website launched.
A Business Sized for a Life, on Purpose
“I’ve also been realistic about what revenue we actually need. I’m not chasing seven figures with a two-person intentional team. I know what we need to provide fair pay, support life, maintain flexibility, and avoid burnout. You can build a business that does all of that and still has healthy revenue.” The firm closes for a summer reset — rest written into the operating model, not borrowed from it.
Leadership That Reads the Whole Person
“I think about not only my own Somaxis layers but theirs too… I don’t need someone sitting in a seat forty hours a week. I need outcomes, buy-in, and people who feel like they’re part of something they’re proud of. I’m giving consideration to their entire life in a holistic view.”
A Calendar That Matches Her Biology
“I frame my months by moon cycles, my year by seasons… This ability to understand that I’m not always going to be rushing, doing, doing — it’s opened everything up for me, knowing permission to rest and slow down is coming.”
Positioning She Can Stand in
“The biggest shift was not having to mask… If I’m not for you, then I’m not for you. I’m not going to pretend to be someone I’m not.” The practice screens for alignment before contracts and delivers through a named process built so clients take ownership: “I’m not a sage on the stage, I’m a guide on the side.”
From Contractor to Co-Owner
“I’ve also started exploring equity investment in projects I believe in… I’m willing to buy in for the long term and become a true partner, sitting at the table as a co-owner.”
On the Question Every High-Functioning Founder Asks
“Wouldn’t better systems fix this?”
“I actually think it’s both. Systems are really important: standardizations, templates, SOPs — they take the mental load off. So systems are part and parcel to this work. But here’s the thing: the ability to build those systems happened after I did the somatic work. I had to get myself into a place where I could really understand what systems I needed.”
“The risk of skipping the body work and just optimizing processes is you stay in scarcity, fight or flight, constant stress, because you’re not actually doing the work underneath. You become a very efficient, well-organized burnout case.”
This case study was built from Jenna Reed Walker’s own written reflections and testimony, shared with her full written permission. Anything in quotation marks is a word-for-word statement written or spoken by her.
What She’d Tell a Woman Standing Where She Stood
“For women leaders and entrepreneurs finding themselves at a crossroads, especially those moving beyond burnout and seeking deeper connection, Emefa offers something precious: a guide who helps you find sacred connection between career, body, home, and heart. My nervous system can finally settle into regulation and, with that, my entire being can thrive.”
If You’re Building Something Real and Your Body Is Paying for It
Like Jenna — a schedule filled through year one while she was still inside the container, running a firm that closes for a summer reset. The work moves both directions at once: strategy for the business, soma for the woman, spirit for the why.
$222 · credited in full toward your container when we continue
Body-led · Strategy-backed · Spirit-guided
Brand photography by Dele Nguyen · Nguyen Creative
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