Lena JO: Leading Life Through Prayer and Science

Lena JO started as a physiotherapist for traumatic brain-injured people, but after a sudden car crash her life took another direction and she became an educated pastor that turned into faith-based coaching. She is an artist, family counsellor, pastor, speaker, author and more. She credits God and her country Sweden for the values she has followed throughout her life, and now is educating and helping others through her companies The LifePower Institute and Daughter to the King.

Lena had a panel session at the Global Woman Summit 2022 ‘Female Founders: The Role of Women in Leadership’ and since then she gained more thoughts about women in leadership.

“I have never not strived for a position. Every year I ask God: ‘What do you want me to be and what do you want me to do this year?’ He always responds.”

As a physiotherapist, family counsellor, pastor, teacher, business, coach, speaker and artist, how do you juggle multiple roles?

I have been lucky enough to have all my invested knowledge and my expertise under one umbrella.
I occasionally take a blood test and analyse the fatty acid balance between Omega 3 and Omega 6. Science shows that if this balance is in order, we will get healthy cells. This is important to prevent different health issues such as stress.

But I am only one human being. Although it is good to juggle multiple rules and have a supernatural healing power. Nothing helps me like prayer. No human, no wisdom can top prayer. I mix all my expertise when I holistically help people. Body, mind, spirit and relations.

How do you balance the workload and what advice would you give to people who are also managing multiple roles?

My first priority has always been my family. I decided that family comes first. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mum when the kids were small, just as my mum had been. My dilemma was that I was not my mum and I didn´t live in the same time era as she did with a lot of stay-at-home mums. No one was at home. Both I and my children wanted to be more social after some years.

For me to be happy, I also had to do something outside of the home. I started my first company as a consultant and a rehabilitation coordinator for severe traumatic brain injured people. I just took as many patients that fit into my family life and I have always had a very supportive husband, so together we made the family life work. Now my children are grown adults that can create their own dream life. I felt as if my mission was complete and I now could invest in myself, my company, and public speaking. There is a time for everything and there comes a time after parenting. I never stopped working at my company, but I didn’t let it take over my life and my time. I didn´t sacrifice my core values.

Learn to know the signals of your body. Try to find activities that give you peace. In the summer, I get restoration by swimming all alone in the lake in the morning, or I take my watercolours and paint some inspirational pictures that turn up from my imagination.

Take time for the things that bring you peace and joy, especially if you feel stressed.

I also believe in having a weekly sabbath day, a resting day where you put away all your” must do’s”. We do not honour having a weekly sabbath day for rest as we did so many years ago.

What is the influence behind your work ethic and career journey?

I believe in the golden rule: do to others as you would have wanted them to do to you.

I have never not strived for a position. Sometimes I have even changed jobs to a less paid position, just because I thought it was more interesting, or that I could be more useful there. Every year I ask God: ‘What do you want me to be and what do you want me to do this year?’ He always responds.

How did growing up in Sweden shape you?

Growing up in Sweden made me a free spirit. Sweden was a very secure place whilst I was growing up, children could walk freely everywhere, and in most places, they still can. This safe environment made me trust people. I had parents that let me be me, I always felt loved and that gave me the courage to say NO if people tried to violate my borders. I knew I was valuable and should be respected.

Sweden has also been a place where women and men have the same worth. Although, it is still much harder for a lady in leadership to get a position than men. However, my father never let me feel that I was less worthy than a boy.

“The western society has in many ways lost their relation to God and that has created an emptiness inside, that nothing else can fill.”

What was the effect of being involved in a car crash? How did you get through it?

My whole world turned upside down after my car crash and I was not the same Lena I had been before. I, who had been able to juggle 20 things at the same time without a problem, now had to concentrate on just one thing per day. I got stress symptoms such as tinnitus, sound sensitivity, dizziness, and balance disorder and I gained a problem with my memory. I was in an existential crisis.

Until this day, I really do not know what caused it all. Was it the violence on my spine? Was it post-traumatic stress disorder? Was it the knowledge that I could have died and I would never have come home to my little son again? It was as if he knew when I left him at the day care centre that something would happen to his mum and he just clanged on to me and cried.

For many years I could not work full-time because of pain and stress symptoms, and I didn’t get any help, so I started to rehabilitate myself. I had worked for over 15 years at that time in rehabilitation as a physiotherapist so I started to treat myself as my patient. I didn’t always do what the doctor said. They said: Go to the gym – I went home and started to paint. I had lost myself and found myself again with art, it helped.

A friend showed me the Zinzino health concept with a fatty acid test. After a couple of months on the Balance oil, my brain felt it needed to work properly again. I re-educated myself to become a pastor and with that competence, I started to coach and counsel mentally burned-out people (mostly teachers), helping them the way I had helped myself, I got good results.

Do you miss being a full-time physiotherapist?

I could no longer work as I did before, so I founded “The LifePower Institute” with holistic coaching for body, mind, spirit, relationships and art.

I still plan on writing a book on my philosophy on how to rehabilitate brain-injured people. I have invested so much time and money to become an excellent physiotherapist, this will be my legacy.

You turned your life into faith after the car crash and became the founder of The LifePower Institute and Daughter to the King, what is your goal with these organisations and what impact do you want it to have on women?

I have always had a faith in God since childhood, and after the car crash, I became more dependent on him. I realised that my life could end earlier than I had planned, and thought what would I leave as a legacy for my children and the world?

I have a burning passion for helping others to be able not just to survive, but to thrive in all areas of life, especially family life. The family is the smallest but most important institution in the world that prevents a destructive society. Healthy and strong loving parents will raise strong, healthy loving children and build a strong healthy loving society. With “The LifePower Institute”, I want to help people gain health physically, psychologically, and have healthy relationships. You should have good relationships with other people but also with your creator. Western society has in many ways lost its relation to God and that has created an emptiness inside, that nothing else can fill.

I believe in a God who believes in me, and that makes all the difference.

I founded the network, Daughter to the King, to strengthen women to come out to their calling. I believe that every person has a calling that God made for a reason, we have to find that purpose and start acting on it. What a change we would bring into the world if we just acted on it.

“The world has suffered enough by not letting women into leadership together with men.”

How has your personal family life impacted your role as a family counsellor?

My mother and father really loved each other and us children and showed it constantly. It led to a very happy, secure and safe childhood. My husband and I had the same goal for our family. We are not perfect but we decided to work on our marriage and honour our covenant. It is not always easy, but it is worth it and that is what I want to encourage other couples to do. Have a vision for your family and fight for it. As a parent or a spouse, you sometimes have to go out in the middle of the fight and stand your ground until you have won the victory. With my family background, I have got faith in families.

After speaking at the Global Woman Summit 2022, what are your thoughts on your panel session ‘Female Founders: The Role of Women in Leadership’?

If there were no difference between men and women, then it wouldn’t matter that all leaders were men. But if there is a difference, which science proves, then it is REALLY important to have both men and women in leadership.

Our different brain anatomy and hormones make us different leaders. No one is better than the other, we need both for optimal leadership.

Mars Venus coaching and the science behind it really was liberating for me. If we are not allowed to live out our femininity or masculinity, we will become frustrated and we will not be able to contribute to the world as we are supposed to. Women’s leadership is needed. Just look at evangelism for example. At the beginning of the 1900s, if women wanted to fulfil their calling, they had to go to the mission field far away, not in the western world. It was in Africa, China and South America where the women were sent. Could there be a correlation?

My panel was a success and because of this, I signed up as a single speaker for the summit 2023.

What changes would you like to be done in women and leadership?

As a female leader and entrepreneur, I really would love it if we acknowledged the gender differences as something good and productive.
That we have a leadership that sees the need for both genders, and how they can complement each other to be able to get the best results.

As a pastor, I can even see it in the Bible. God created man in the image of God. When he created women, he took out most of the feminine image of God from the man. Now we have a man that mirrors the masculine side of God and a woman who mirrors the feminine side. If we only have one of them, we will never see the whole picture of who God is. The world has suffered enough by not letting women into leadership together with men.

In my upcoming book: Women with LifePower-Achieve – the life of your dreams without sacrificing your values, I have interviewed some of the most successful women in Sweden from different direct selling companies about their way to success. I think it is very important that our young girls get some role models to follow. Let us create change in leadership and let men and women lead together.