When Jacqui Barrett was a little girl and started to notice people were staring, her mother would always tell her, “You are beautiful.”
“It got me off to a good start,” says the Hamilton woman, who was born with the genetic condition pseudoachondroplasia, a type of dwarfism. “My mum engrained in me that I was going to be stared at, but I would get to decide what they were going to see – and that is how I conduct myself. It was very helpful.”
Now 45, Jacqui is one of nine people living with disabilities who features in the new series of Unbreakable, which starts on TVNZ 1 on 2 August.
The show reveals Jacqui’s remarkable positivity and her drive to empower others through her online counselling service – using crystals, cards and a deep psychic intuition under the name “Jacqui Be”.
At home connecting to clients and spirits.
Jacqui, who is of Ngāti Maniapoto descent, is a solo mother of three. Son Justus, 19, and daughter Nashyn-Ella, three, are both her biological children, while son Te Katea, also 19, was adopted in the informal process of whāngai.
Justus and Te Katea both recently moved out of home, but Jacqui is still a busy mum to Nashyn, who was also born “little”. Jacqui laughs, “She’s got a mind of her own. I’m in a lot of trouble!”
Jacqui says little cutie Nashyn has the sass to stick up for herself.
Unbreakable follows Jacqui’s ambition to expand her business, fighting through fatigue and pain to stage a two-day wellness retreat, called BeTreat, in Hamilton last year. It worked so well, she’s planning another one for this Labour Weekend.
“I was over the moon,” she tells Woman’s Day. “I needed eight people for it to be viable and I got 20. This year, I even have a follower coming here from Canada.”
Jacqui’s condition means she has small arms and legs, and no ball or socket in her shoulders, hence they are permanently dislocated, causing constant inflammation. She had her hips replaced when she was in her thirties.
“Everthing else is very much in proportion, but our limbs take on a different formation,” she says. “Pain is always in the background. I take medication, but the doctors can’t do surgery – it could be risky and I could lose what use I do have. I have good days and I have really rough days.”
Those rough days have directed Jacqui towards alternative forms of pain relief, including an energy-frequency treatment developed in the US.
“It is helping incredibly with the inflammation,” she tells. “It’s not what I was expecting. I started practising it and my life changed. It is very out-of-the-ordinary, but I’m not knocking it.”
Jacqui has also changed her diet, recently losing 15kg by fasting and reducing animal proteins. “I only have one meal a day,” she explains. “I’m more focused and I have so much more energy.”
Despite the constant pain, the mum enjoys outings with her girl.
Jacqui admits she took a long time to accept her psychic abilities.
“When my daughter was born, I stopped resisting it,” she recalls. “I had felt it for a long time. People didn’t like some of that about me. Being sensitive, you get a lot of negative things, but my sensitivity is my superpower.
“I was a party girl. My ‘shadow years’, as I call them, from my twenties to my early thirties, were a very volatile time. I didn’t start to assert myself until I was 35. When I stopped being co-dependant and a people pleaser, I lost a lot of friends.”
Now, Jacqui says, she finds fulfilment in her links with the spirit world.
“They are my constant companions. There are about five or six energies that I can tell the difference between and I am familiar with because I work with them a lot.
“I can tell the difference in their energy. Some have a sense of humour, some are pretty straight-up, some are loving and gentle… I can get ones who are complete strangers, especially when I’m reading for people.
“I can’t see them, but I can visualise them. It’s not something that is natural for me and I have asked them to be gentle. I find it very comforting as this journey is a very lonely journey.”
Jacqui feels good about being part of the Unbreakable story.
“I did it to bring awareness, not just for little people, but for uniqueness – and to pave the way for my little girl. I let them know I don’t want to be exploited or a freak show. I have more value than that, and I’m blown away by the support and integrity.”
