The obsession with self-care that has swept the Internet, dominated covers of magazines and ideologies of every other millennial pop star, propelled the beauty industry, and is the subject of over a billion articles on the Internet (just google it) is real. But it can also be overwhelming and unachievable.

That’s where Jasmine Danielle, founder of www.shapeshiftersbyjd.com, comes in. She is a personal trainer, group fitness instructor, dancer, writer, and clothing designer. She radiates confidence of someone who is healthy and happy (a combination that is increasingly harder to find) and someone who understand and practices self-care in its purest form.  

“Self-care looks like a rich people thing, and it’s not.”  

She’s referring to the over-commercialization of self-care. The beauty industry and therapists are reaping in huge profits because of self-care. Instagram has given us access to users with hundreds of thousands of followers who are showing us how to exercise, what to eat, how to think – all in the name of self-care. Jasmine is different because she knows that self-care comes from within. That Instagram doesn’t have to be a place to be “perfect,” but one where we can be ourselves. Consequently, through her social media, she offers an insight into her life and values that we can all learn from. 

The path to get here, however, wasn’t always easy. Jasmine holds a degree in Dance Performance and Education from the University of Illinois. After graduating she was working at a school for a non-profit, teaching performing arts and doing administrative work. Then she had a dance audition for the show Empire, and got a call back. Ultimately she didn’t get the part, but the experience encouraged her to pursue dance and she moved to Los Angeles.

“Not that I was looking for a way out, but LA really seemed like it would allow me to figure out what it is that I actually wanted to do.  I went to LA to pursue dance and immediately got discouraged by the culture, by not just the LA culture, but by the dance community culture there, cause it’s not the same. It’s more cut throat, more competitive. You walk in and try to smile at people and they don’t even smile back. Because I felt that way, I was like, alright, I don’t know if this is for me.”

Living at South Central (for those not familiar with LA: “the hood, baby”), she started exploring ways of working for her community. She got hired as a dance teacher, which led to her getting certified in indoor cycling and other group fitness classes, and becoming a trainer. She hopped around from gym to gym, and eventually making her way to Equinox and Everybody Los Angeles, a facility that serves the LGBQT community and people of color, as well as a local gym that was black owned.

“I was in the black community, working with black women, young and old, and it kind of just woke something up in me.”

Today, Jasmine is back in Chicago, teaching classes at Equinox, Spenga Oak Park, and Healthy Hood Chicago, a physical fitness center ran by women, where every class is only $5.

“Somehow the universe brought me here. The journey was long, but everything I went through was worth it.”

You can follow Jasmine on Instagram, @theejasminedanielle.

Author

Gosia Labno is a photographer and writer based in Chicago. She holds a B.S. in Media and Cinema Studies and an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies. She is working on a collection of short stories chronicling the lives of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Follow.