About Me

Janeen’s Story

Hi, I’m Janeen Sonsie, founder of Club MojoCircle. I am an expat woman who moved from Australia to France at the very end of 2018 to start a new chapter in my life, at 59 years old, and I’m loving it. It certainly has its challenges for sure, like times of feeling lonely and isolated and wanting to see my old long-term friends, but I am happier here now than I have been for many years. I have my ups and downs and my moments, especially with French administration, but hey, don’t we all?

As I never had children of my own, the decision to move to France was much easier for me, although I did leave unwell, elderly parents and an elderly cat behind, which was not easy. I do have cat obsession and they have always been my babies, so I need to get myself a couple of kittens now I am here. My partner of 10 years came to France with me, which was fabulous support because he is fluent in French. Big bonus!

For fun, you might have found me tripping the boards fantastic in Melbourne, as an actor or a dancer as I love doing both. Salsa is my dance thing. I am always on the lookout for ways to express my creative self in theatre and dancing again here. Apart from that, I’ll be out and about exploring my new country and Europe and finding fabulous places to eat as well as organising new ways to support you all by delivering online value and awesome events. 

This is how my transition came to be…

In a nutshell, I want to help women live the life they want to live – to be more fulfilled and happy, feeling supported and finding the joy we all want to feel.

It is a big move to become an expat and immigrant in a country with a different culture and language. It means building up a new group of women friends around you that you: like, relate to and connect with, so you can feel that sense of belonging that we all need. Sometimes that takes years and many people say it is very difficult in France especially. 

So where did I come from and how did I make the life changing decision to face all that in France?

I do have a corporate background with a Masters in Marketing and 30 years business experience and all that stuff, but it left me feeling constrained and unsatisfied. You know what I mean? Sure, I had some roles I really enjoyed, like lecturing Masters students in marketing and travelling around Asia-Pacific facilitating communication and relationship management workshops for companies such as HP, Cisco and Oracle. I am a certified coach and facilitator too. Helping people communicate to build better relationships is something I love doing but I always felt there was something missing from my life in the corporate world. 

When nothing seems to work

Several years ago my life seemed to fall into a hole and I went from having all I wanted, to not being able to make anything work. I just seemed to hit brick walls and dead-ends with everything I tried and that went on for quite a few years. All the time, I’d had this dream of living in France for, like, 30 years. It had been my 5 year plan for over 10 years! But I felt I couldn’t just leave until I had it all working in my home country.

Feeling desperate for answers, I had a channeled reading in May 2017 and asked what my block was. He asked what did I want to do and I said “help people live a more fulfilling life” and he responded “and how well are you doing that yourself?” I had to say “Pretty crappily”. Then he gave me a life changing insight. Our purpose in life is not to help others, but to live the happiest life we can for ourselves. Then we will have the right energy to attract others who want what we have and we can help them get it.

Making the dream of moving to France reality

Right there and then I thought “Well I may as well sell my house and all and move to France to live.” So that is what I did! I had felt a calling to live there for half my life. Every time I had visited over the previous 30+ years I had simply felt at home, even without speaking the language.
If you want to read more about my transformational journey of Living the Vision to create my fulfilling life, take a look at my blog janeensonsie.com and my Facebook group Living the Vision.

The Big Move

I created my plan for the move and came to Nice for 3 months to learn French in February 2018. In that time I experienced loneliness and isolation, the challenges of trying to get things done on your own and not speaking French and the desire and challenge to make new friends. I was discussing this with a friend and we came up with the idea of creating a support group for expat women in France in the same situation.