Daily Inspiration: Meet Jane Garnett

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jane Garnett.

Hi Jane, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I grew up in an intellectual, artistic family in England, shaped by books, debate, and the shadow of my grandfather, Tay Garnett — a Hollywood director I never met but read about obsessively. I studied English literature at Oxford and began my career as a researcher at the BBC. Eventually, I felt a pull toward America — toward storytelling, freedom, and the possibility of healing what my family never had language for.

I started in New York at Longfellow Pictures, then moved to Los Angeles to become VP of Production at Leonardo DiCaprio’s new company, Appian Way. In Hollywood, I produced Crazy Little Thing and The Illusionist starring Edward Norton. I married a successful producer, had two daughters, and built a life that, on paper, looked luminous and enviable.

But inside, something was deeply misaligned. I had reached every milestone I was programmed to want, yet felt like I was performing a life rather than living my own. That quiet inner fracture became the beginning of my reverse Cinderella story: I started in the castle and slowly dismantled the illusion from within.

Drawn toward authenticity and emotional truth, I returned to graduate school, earned my Master’s in Clinical Psychology, and became a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Over nearly two decades, I’ve trained in Attachment-Focused EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, Mindfulness, and EFT. As I went deeper into the psyche, my relationship to storytelling evolved.

It was at this intersection that my two worlds merged. I co-produced Of Night and Light: The Story of Ibogaine, a film exploring trauma, addiction, and spiritual crisis, and advised on the development of Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind. Both lived at the edge of healing, altered states, and reclamation — the very terrain I was navigating personally.

A dark night of the soul then carried me further into plant medicine, erotic anthropology, ego dissolution, and the wild frontier of consciousness. What began as personal inquiry became the architecture of my life’s work.

Today, I practice in Venice and Ojai, supporting clients who seek presence, freedom, and emotional liberation. I host the podcast Sex, Psychics & Psychedelics, and I’m directing the documentary Natasha’s Happy Ending — following a sex worker through a psychedelic healing journey as she steps out of other people’s movies and into authorship of her own life.

My writing on creativity and psychedelics has appeared in Elemental and Forge, and my memoir This Time With Feeling is coming out in 2026.

I once lived inside a movie that wasn’t fully mine. Letting it unravel has opened the doorway to authenticity, embodiment, true authorship — and to helping other people reclaim their truth.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I had ovarian cancer while I was at Oxford — a malignant teratoma that was successfully removed along with one ovary. It derailed my studies and forced me to defer my finals. In the unexpected space that opened, I went to New York to take a 16mm filmmaking course. That course changed everything. It ignited my love of America and filmmaking, and it gave me the sense of creative direction and determination that would ultimately shape the next decade of my life.

Later, moving from show business into mental health was its own kind of rupture. It didn’t fit the image I had of who I was supposed to be. At the same time, I struggled with the limitations and rigidity of traditional therapy as it was being taught and practiced. Those two tensions — the identity shift and the structural frustrations — pushed me into deeper research, both into the psyche and into myself. They became the driving force behind my desire to bridge gaps: between mind and body, story and self, trauma and transformation, and ultimately between the life I had performed and the life I was meant to live.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a therapist, guide, and creative human devoted to rewriting the story of healing. After two decades of supporting individuals and couples through profound transformation, I’m leading a movement that brings joy, embodiment, and creative awakening back into modern psychotherapy.

I was educated at Oxford University and received my clinical training at Pacifica Graduate Institute. My work blends Attachment-Focused EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, Mindfulness, and 15 years of experience in psychedelic and non-ordinary states of consciousness. I believe healing becomes possible the moment you get on your own side. You’re the best thing that ever happened to you. There’s only one you.

Before becoming a therapist, I worked as a filmmaker and producer on Crazy Little Thing, The Illusionist, and Of Night and Light: The Story of Ibogaine, and advised on the development of Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind. I’m now directing Natasha’s Happy Ending, a documentary following a sex worker through a psychedelic healing journey as she steps out of other people’s movies and into authorship of her own life.

My journey — what I call my reverse Cinderella story — began in Hollywood. Despite the outward success, I realized I was performing a life I wasn’t truly living. Dismantling that “perfect life” cracked me open and became the foundation of my work today: authentic healing, embodiment, sovereignty, and true authorship.

I now offer private sessions in Venice and Ojai, California, host the podcast Sex, Psychics & Psychedelics, and run The BananaJane, my creative platform devoted to awakening people from autopilot so they can unlearn limiting beliefs and reclaim their joy, creativity, and personal truth.

Topics I Speak On

Unlearning arrival and entering your own movie

Getting unstuck — and what actually comes after

Where psychedelics meet therapy

The erotic wake-up: redefining sensuality and aging

Rethinking relationships and the feminine psyche

The feminist edge of psychedelics and therapy

What happens when you stop fixing and start feeling

My recent talks at The Kinn LA, Unplug Meditation, NeueHouse NY, The Portal Marin, The Shulgin Farm and PsyCon Vegas have positioned me as a leading voice in modern spirituality and mental health — championing spirit, embodiement and joy.

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Happiness for me begins with connection — with dance, disco, seeing and sharing (or receiving) the joke, art, my children, speaking truth, and music in all its forms. It lives in lighting candles, crafting atmosphere, bringing out the best in others, connecting with strangers, helping people rewrite their stories toward joy, and recognizing, again and again, that everything is art and we are its creators.

Pricing:

• 350 a session

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jane-garnett.com
• Instagram: @thebananajane
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/@thebananajane
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/18t9PEq5wtOUb8C5F47oJD?si=7MCJb0iNS4WVaCO0Uf2I_A