About Maxine

Maxine Jones is an author and an international personal and professional coach who specializes in uncovering the power of the soul to develop a person’s achievement, fulfillment and heart-centered success. Her life’s work is about helping people connect with the deepest part of themselves so they can transcend the ordinary struggles of life and participate in creating a greater world for all of us.

Maxine started her career as a marketing/advertising executive at one of the largest firms in Chicago, and since 1982 has worked with individuals as well as large corporations, unlocking the hidden dialogue that changes a person’s life forever. In the late 1990s she worked with Fortune 100 companies to research the impact of gender-based physiological differences on organizations, leadership, performance and achievement. Through her seminars and retreats for executive clients, she enabled organizations to improve the contribution of women in the workplace.

She left the corporate world to pursue a career that would better match her dedication to higher education and spirituality. Since then, Maxine has trained people in yoga, massage, health and wellness as program director at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts. She was appointed to study and teach Native American culture. She was selected as a Fulbright Scholarship candidate to work in secondary education in Tanzania. She participated in Kenya on an ecological initiative with the Smithsonian Institution and also initiated and developed a humanitarian project in Botswana.

Maxine realized her special intuitive powers when she was a young child and communicated with an imaginary friend she later came to know was her soul. She was raised by two highly educated parents who inspired her to pursue her dreams. Her mother was a theologian, metaphysician and dietitian, and her father was an international transportation engineer. When she was very young, Maxine met an African bushman who became her mentor. Meanwhile, she trained for the Junior Olympics in gymnastics. She also earned state championship titles in swimming and diving and became an avid tennis player. Today she is a certified scuba diver.

Maxine trained in nursing and holds a bachelor of science in psychology and her master’s in human resource development and education from DePaul University. She has delivered keynotes and led seminars and retreats on health and psychology to audiences as small as 30 and as large as 1,500. Today she delivers customized presentations, seminars and retreats on the power of the soul.

“How I Came to Know My Soul”
My “Imaginary” Friend and Me:
A Charmed Life Through the Guidance of My Soul

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m stepping out of the shadows about how my soul perceives my life and how it guides me. My soul has shown that life works very differently from, and often contrary to, what we’re taught or how we’re trained. For 40 years, I’ve guarded the secret of what I see and hear. As a child, I had difficulty determining whether there was something wrong with me or something wrong with the world.

This book – and others in the Stretch Your Wings Collection – includes fabulous stories that show how we actually live in two worlds, and it offers a guide on how to interpret both worlds so we become empowered, happy and creative.

I was born with many gifts. Some might agree with me while other would label these gifts as disabilities. Either way, they have served me well on my quest for my soul and the life I have lived.

My mother said 50 years ago that she’d have four children who would be leaders in the “New Age.” I am child number two, and I was born with the ability to hear and see energy. I was also born with the inability to learn reading skills or complex concepts. I got confused easily and felt overwhelmed when I had to make a choice between more than two things.

My parents anticipated some unusual abilities, so they weren’t all that surprised when I came home one day at age 4 knowing the details of the neighbors’ upcoming vacation plans and their arguments about them. My mother asked whether I’d been in the neighbors’ house while they were talking. I said I had been on the sidewalk and had overheard them while they were sitting in their kitchen. Something about what I said alerted my mother to ask a few more questions. She asked what were they wearing and what was in the kitchen and whether the neighbors had been able to see me. I answered all the questions with great confidence and pride. My mother then called the neighbors to confirm my story.

As she had suspected, my abilities where developing and I was, in fact, correct about what I had seen and heard from the sidewalk across the street through the living room around the corner into the kitchen. Thus… my lesson on how to be psychic in a non-psychic world began.

My psychic abilities were enhanced by my friendship with my imaginary friend Freddie.

Freddie appeared to me as a person in a bright purple cape-like costume that was full of color, layers and textures. I was 3 years old. I could see him with my eyes and hear him with my ears. He came to me when I was struggling to put on my socks. I hated wearing clothes, especially socks and shoes. He simply put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Let me show you how to do that,” and in an instant the frustration and struggle were gone and I had on the most magnificent socks and shoes I had ever seen. I never struggled with socks or shoes again. I know they’re a necessary part of life and there is a way to make them fun.

From that day on, Freddie has been with me to show me how life can work when what I’m experiencing is not working.

He helped me to enhance my natural ability to hear, see and know beyond the ordinary senses, but those abilities were not enough to overcome my everyday learning disabilities, so Freddie became my coach. He showed me ways to get through my confusion and my feelings of being overwhelmed. He was, and still is, able to help me read and to understand concepts most people find simple, but where I get totally frustrated.

My parents were prepared for a psychic child with special abilities, and they helped me use those gifts responsibly. However, they were not equipped for a child with learning disabilities. With Freddie’s help, I was spared the labels of dyslexic, dysfunctional, ADD or even the common term back then, retarded.

Freddie and I became soul partners when I was very young, and to this day we are inseparable. He continues to guide me. Though my mission initially was to survive and achieve in the “normal” world, he led me to my greater mission, to teach others how to live in the world of the soul.

At times that journey has been dark, heavy and painful. But what I learn, I do not learn alone. What I live with, I do not live with alone. I depend on the compassion and love of my soul. Freddie helped me find my way to my soul and make my soul my best friend, guide and teacher.

Freddie was with me while I stumbled, coping in a human world. He let me explore the “real world” on my own when I thought I didn’t need his help anymore. He picked me up when I fell deep into the darkness and helped me fill up with light. Most importantly, he pushed me toward my soul when I got lost in that light.

Often, I take time to remember and reflect on what it was like to live life without recognition of my soul. Quickly I remember that it was filled with confusion. My life felt uncertain and empty. Immediately, I switch my thoughts to the present, where I live every day with truth, courage, strength and commitment – thanks to my soul and my imaginary friend and buddy Freddie.

I’ve helped many people connect with their souls no matter where they were in their lives. I can say with absolute certainty, it’s never too late to start a partnership with your soul.

Love and Joy,

Maxine Jones