Janet Caliri is a certified life coach, bestselling author, and well-regarded speaker who brings her innovative process and playful energy to audiences and private clients alike. Known as the “Curiosity Coach,” Janet’s mission is igniting human potential. She is the founder of Visible Transitions, a proprietary photographic technique that helps clients approach difficult and challenging life transitions with curiosity, ease, and acceptance.
Janet has combined her passions and experience in life coaching, professional photography, cardiovascular radiology, writing, and art, to develop a community of leaders with high emotional intelligence.
Her journey and her proven photographic methodology were inspired by personal health challenges, which required her to utilize curiosity and a smartphone camera to accelerate her healing and feel joyous during a life transition ever since Janet has shared Visible Transitions with thousands of people worldwide as a gateway to ignite their potential.
Life Transitions Coach, Janet Caliri
As an established life transitions coach, what is your purpose, and what drives you in working with clients?
My goal in life is to help others feel safe in their realness and experience ease, joy, and confidence in the midst of chaos and life changes. I want to show people that they can live in the space of sincere curiosity. The combination of living practically while simultaneously in a state of playful, childlike wonder is one of the greatest gifts we can provide to ourselves: it brings that experience of ease and joy despite the stress of our daily lives.
I created Visible Transitions, a proprietary photographic methodology, to help my clients feel more at ease despite stressful circumstances and develop more resilience.
What is the Visible Transitions methodology?
The mission of Visible Transitions is to help people ignite their human potential using curiosity and a smartphone camera. It starts with a series of questions to assess where the blockage is in someone’s life and what is limiting them from living to their full potential. Often these are internal – limiting beliefs and subconscious resistance. Resistance is like armor: when we’re in a state of resistance, we reject and block solutions from the get-go. Before I even start taking action with clients, we start to reduce and dissolve their forms of resistance.
Once we identify areas of resistance, I bring in the proprietary Visible Transitions photographic process. This is photography with intention and has three practices:
Create imagery of your feelings and emotions (to manage emotional reactions)
Track subtle evidence of your progress (for motivation, confidence, and self-compassion; showing evidence that you care about something)
Capture what triggers your emotions and significantly neutralize the emotional charge
Visible Transitions is unique in its use of photography for life transformation. What is it about a photograph that is so transformative?
First and foremost, this is intentional photography. It’s not snapping a photo of a sunset, though I do appreciate those as well. It’s mindfully celebrating your brain being at ease, being present with what is happening at the moment, and how you manage the present moment’s events. It’s about moving into acceptance, a state of zero resistance, through photography.
Our brains hate change. They like repetition, consistency, and staying safe in the same patterns and habits they’re used to. So, as we go through a change, whether global or personal, small or large, the brain starts to resist.
One way to combat that resistance is to snap a photo. Each time we take a picture with intention, we become more present, and new neurons are developed, which support new patterns and habits. Taking a picture in a mindful, intentional way allows the brain to become more confident in the present moment, letting your brain be more at ease and less resistant to the changes occurring. In addition, that moment of looking through a different context, a curious lens, activates a hit of dopamine and serotonin. We use photos to acknowledge that beauty exists everywhere.
My methodology is multi-fold, but one important part is taking photos of things and situations you are frustrated with. Frustration is a normal and expected part of life, but it’s our reaction to the frustration that shapes how it impacts us. By taking pictures associated with that frustration, it brings you into a state of acceptance. It gives you the time to pause in curiosity to uncover what is truly frustrating you (your narrative) and how to ease that feeling. This is how I came to name this the Neutrality Practice.
All of these photographic methodologies are a form of self-care. You snap a picture and embrace the moment as sacred and give your future self a gift of the picture. It’s a nice way to capture how influential you are in every experience. Taking photos is the evidence: you matter.
Most importantly, the moment when we click, we are celebrating! We don’t celebrate the small stuff enough. Without the subtle steps, there is no long-term success or happy outcome. And why suffer from resistance along the way? Let’s enjoy each moment and help the brain be confident!
How do Visible Transitions differ from other forms of therapy, coaching, and meditation?
I strongly believe meditation, movement, therapy, art and coaching are tools to help us live our best lives, and no one tool should be the sole solution to life’s problems. In my career, I’ve worked with many different clients who range from corporate businesspeople to life coaches and wellness practitioners. Yes, even life coaches and therapists need support in the midst of life transitions!
Visible Transitions work to make long-term changes within the brain. The methodology acts as an acceleration pedal that activates new neurons and produces dopamine and serotonin, making those other self-care practices easier (i.e., meditation, exercise, creative outlets, coaching, therapy, etc.) There’s nothing else that gets you to the state of zero resistance faster than Visible Transitions.
Once you get to that state, then you can take quality action in your life. You can rely more on your intuition and gut instinct instead of the limiting beliefs and stories circulating throughout your head. Your brain works more in your favor, and those other self-care practices have more of a pronounced impact. You can look inward and have more insights and ease in your relationships: with yourself, partners, family, and friends. In the end, that’s all we can ask for more ease, flow, and connection in our relationships, rather than tension.
Visible Transitions sounds like a very powerful and intentional program for effective life transitions. How did you create it?
I received the first idea for Visible Transitions at the most trying moment of my life, when I wanted to quit. I was down and out with adrenal exhaustion and swine flu. My relationship with my emotions was a blockage to be truly happy and experience growth in my life. I found the miracle response to the crucial need I had: the power of photographing emotions.
When I first started this journey, I immediately noticed a reduction in depression and stress, with a surge of vitality, personal power, and resilience.
The more I practiced, the more this intentional photography released my emotional blockages and unleashed newfound creativity and curiosity. Ever since I’ve devoted my life to deriving more specific practices to find the curious lens through which to live life. I’ve practiced with myself and with graceful clients, who helped me find the most effective way to apply this methodology for positive change. Ultimately, this 3-part process was my saving grace! More recently, when I experienced a Traumatic Brain Injury, I used my Visible Transitions methodology in conjunction with holistic healing practices and Western Medicine to lift myself back to an effective, curious, and creative state of mind.
In short: I had a need, I found the solution, and I made sacrifices to bring it to others!
Why is this work so important right now?
That’s a great question. The past year and a half have been a time of global transition, and my Visible Transitions methodology is effective for those of us going through any transition, so it’s been more relevant than ever recently. Coronapocolypse has had tremendous impacts on every part of our world, but I break it down into two aspects.
Firstly, the last year and a half have shown us that we can slow down, enjoy simple, everyday moments, and celebrate small victories. We’ve realized – being constantly busy isn’t healthy for us, and busyness doesn’t mean productivity. Visible Transitions is based on the simple concept of pausing in curiosity. Being more present at the moment, dissolving internal resistance, and pausing in curiosity can actually help to increase productivity. So, the slowing down of the world over the last year has shown us we can be productive if we aren’t blocking our internal emotions. It’ll be interesting to see how that develops as the world starts moving at a faster pace again. Can we take some of these lessons we’ve learned to embrace slowing things down in the “after”?
Secondly, Coronapocolypse has revealed the immaturity of systems that haven’t been working for a long time: education, medicine, politics, etc. While we realize how broken these systems are, our society is becoming more polarizing – the mindset that there are two options, and only one can be right. This has caused fighting and even the loss of relationships and friendships when we attach to the duality and pick sides. It’s impossible to move forward and solve our problems in this mindset. We’ve been trying to prove we’re right rather than trying to accept each other’s differences.
That’s why this work is important: it reminds us there’s a third option in that polarizing duality – the neutral, curious state. You do you. I do me, together we live in harmony through sacred curiosity. We need radical acceptance of the reality that we have our differences, and we can even enjoy each other’s differences! When we allow each other to be who we are, we raise our emotional intelligence, awareness, and curiosity. Those are three extremely important factors in negotiating and creating solutions to our most pressing problems. We can’t solve our systemic issues without first accepting each other’s differences through curiosity.
