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What’s Left When You Lose Everything? · Harder Than Life

• 0:01
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• 0:30
  I think I just always wanted my parents to be proud of me. I always felt inadequate growing up. I felt like I wasn't enough. I was told I was stupid often. I think as a result of the physical violence, that was the narrative. In starting Embrace, people would ask me for years, why are you doing this work? Why'd you move to India? Why'd you give everything up? You got an MBA from Stanford. You could have gone off and made a lot of money.
• 0:53
  And it took me many years to unpack that it was feeling so powerless through my childhood. That's what made me want to help the most powerless people in the world. Can a person truly heal without confronting their childhood trauma? Any painful experience that has shaped you, if you're not willing to go there, then no, I don't think you can heal.
• 1:14
  Losing everything ended up being the biggest blessing of my life. Because when you lose everything, you are forced to discover who am I without all of this. You cannot receive love until you love yourself because you'll never believe that you're worthy of love. Not only self-love, but having compassion for the parts of us that are so scared. And just recognizing that and being able to admit...
• 1:41
  I'm scared. And I'm the issue. That's the hardest damn thing in the world, looking in the mirror and saying, I'm the common denominator. Yeah, resilience isn't about pushing harder. It's about loving yourself. Because when you love yourself, you can take risks. You can fail and you're still going to be okay.
• 2:01
  I'm Kelly Siegel and this is harder than life a podcast about self-love self-awareness business and health We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple practical advice. You can start using today Let's get living. Welcome back to the harder life podcast if you're new here today's episode is going to be deep if you're a veteran or
• 2:26
  If you're a loyal listener, this one's going to hit home because it hit me like a ton of bricks. You're not alone is all I can say. There are others like us. After reading today's guest book, I...
• 2:43
  Literally found my human twin in a female and I'm going to share it with you and we're going to dig into it. So most people think success will save them. Degrees, titles, awards. The higher you climb, the safer you'll feel. But what happens when all that achievement becomes a cage? When the very life you built to prove you're enough becomes the evidence that you're not?
• 3:07
  Today's guest, Jane Chen, has lived that story. Harvard, Stanford, meeting with President Obama, a check from Beyonce, she co-founded Embrace Global, a company that saved nearly a million babies. On paper, she was untouchable, but behind closed doors, trauma was catching up, self-doubt was eating her alive, and when her company collapsed, so did she. Her new book,
• 3:36
  Like a Wave We Break is a raw, no BS memoir about what happens when your life wipes out and what it really takes to rebuild. From psychedelic ceremonies to silent retreats, Jane went everywhere looking for healing, only to realize the only place left to look was within.
• 3:57
  This isn't just a story about breaking. It's about breaking open. So buckle up because today we're going to talk about the dark side of success, the lies we inherit from our families, and the brutal but beautiful work of learning to love yourself for real. This is Harder Than Life with Jane Jen. Welcome, my friend. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I wanted to say this in the opening, but I couldn't find the words. I read this book.
• 4:25
  And the whole time I was rooting for you. And then I'd cry. This story, guys, this book will be out a week after this airs. And it is powerful. Because we're not alone. And Jane, I've been here. My father used to say the same. I was...
• 4:46
  I was nothing. And yeah, I'm picking my words because I'm holding back some things. And I just kept rooting for you and rooting for you. And I know that the story is going to end well. We're going to bounce all over this book, but I want to start right here. Your book starts with, I'd like to thank my father for teaching me how to take an ass beating like a soldier. And thank you to my mother for teaching me how to hide all the challenges to pretend everything was fine.
• 5:17
  What does that bring up for you?
• 5:18
  Mm, brings up growing up in a home with physical violence. And that that that was just something that became so normalized. We were both told it was normal and to not say anything about it. Right. And so I learned to hide my tears behind a smile, to hide my bruises behind a smile. And the way I survived my childhood was to repress everything, was to not feel.
• 5:47
  It was very difficult, but I didn't know that. I just swept it under the rug, moved on with my life, and used achievement as armor.
• 5:59
  That armor word, man, I kept hitting me because that's why I'm a big guy. Because I armored up with muscles to fight off my stepfather. I remember so many of the words you said triggered me. And I've been through every healing that you've done and then some. Healing is hard, but so worth it. I remember, you know, we talked about, you know, getting hit with the belt. And I remember the only time my mother ever said anything to my stepfather was, don't hit him with the belt buckle.
• 6:30
  He'd grabbed, he switched to a board. So I'm right there with you, girl. Today, we're going to make it safe for everybody that's had a tough childhood. So let's switch it to something very, very positive. Tell us about Nathan. Nathan.
• 6:52
  Oh, well, to tell the story of Nathan, I'm going to tell the story of Embrace. So Embrace is a nonprofit that I started. The idea came out of a project that I did in graduate school. So I was doing my MBA at Stanford, took a class at the design school that was all about creating low cost technologies for people living on less than a dollar a day. And the challenge posed to us in the class was to build a baby incubator that
• 7:18
  That costs less than 1% the cost of a traditional incubator, which in the U.S. is $20,000. So we did research in places like Nepal and India. And what we discovered was that not only were incubators expensive, but they required constant electricity. And so they weren't really usable in remote places where most of these babies were dying.
• 7:40
  And as a result of that, we ended up coming up with a portable incubator called Embrace, which looks like a little sleeping bag for a baby. It looks nothing like an incubator. The core technology is a type of wax that when you melt it, it maintains the exact same temperature of 98 degrees for four to six hours at a time.
• 8:00
  And you can reheat that thousands of times. And so it's a really low cost, effective way to keep babies warm without the need for constant electricity. So after Stanford, we turned this into an organization. I moved to India for four years. India is home to 40% of all the world's premature babies. And we kind of thought, you know, we were naive and idealistic. And we thought, gosh, we have this great idea. And if we don't do it, no one else is going to.
• 8:26
  And so that's what made us kind of pack our bags and go do this. We wanted to save lives. Now, we had no idea how difficult it would be. You kind of have to be naive to do something like this. And it took us years to...
• 8:41
  build the product, figure out manufacturing, the clinical studies, you know, all of that. And then we finally got it out there. This is back in 2011. And as soon as we launched our product, we donated a few incubators to an orphanage in Beijing. A day or two after they received them, they called us saying that they had found a two pound baby who was abandoned on a street. He had gone for days already without food or water. They weren't sure if he was going to survive. Yeah.
• 9:09
  They kept him in our incubator for weeks, and he did survive. Seven months later, I visited the orphanage, and I had the chance to hold this little boy in my arms. And a few months after that, I received an email from a family in Chicago saying that they had adopted a baby.
• 9:25
  this little boy, and that they were coming to Beijing that summer to bring him home. And so Nathan just means so much to me because he lives in the U.S. You know, it's often hard to keep track of these babies. And now Embrace has saved over a million babies with our incubators. Took 16 years, but we we got there. But Nathan's story is very special to me because he lives right here in the U.S. So I get to watch him grow up. And this isn't in the book, but last year he turned 12.
• 9:55
  And I live in Honolulu, so his family and him came out to visit me and actually took him surfing. And it was just the most surreal experience because I'm sitting there in the water on my surfer watching him and thinking back to holding him as a seven-month-old baby, not knowing what tomorrow was going to look like for him. You know, all the way to 12 years later, we're surfing waves in Hawaii. Yeah.
• 10:21
  remarkable you really do matter once you taste significance uh success will never taste the same again especially coming from our upbringing listen this book is i read it in uh five days 340 pages i read it in five days i i laughed i cried i screamed at it um
• 10:42
  It's a good book guys, but we're gonna cover some of it, but not even, we're gonna cover 10% of it. But I'm gonna ask some of the things that if you look into this book that I pinned back the pages cause they were very personal to me. You received a letter from Santa, which was your mother saying she was proud of you. I never received anything from my mother like that. So describe your emotions.
• 11:12
  Now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in-store or on lowes.com right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's.
• 11:41
  Yeah, I think so much of my life, and I didn't untangle this until much later when Embrace shut down and I went on a healing journey, but I think I just always wanted my parents to be proud of me. You know, I just, I think we all want that.
• 11:57
  I always felt inadequate growing up. I felt like I wasn't enough. I was told I was stupid often. I think as a result of the physical violence, I just felt like, you know, that's on. That's there's something wrong with me. That was the narrative in my head. There's something wrong with me. And so I.
• 12:16
  went out and tried to do more and achieve more and be successful because I felt like that would fulfill the gap. And it's a little more nuanced than that because, and I didn't figure this out until much later, but in starting Embrace, people would ask me for years, why are you doing this work? Why'd you move to India? Why'd you give everything up? You got an MBA from Stanford, you could have gone off and made a lot of money. And I didn't make that choice. And it took me
• 12:46
  That's what made me want to help the most powerless people in the world. But it also drove me to extreme burnout, to almost becoming a martyr for the cause, to just working in such unhealthy ways to the point of a mental breakdown. And again, much later in the journey, I started to understand that part of that was not only purpose, but trying to prove that I was worthy. And so getting a letter like that from my mother, it really did mean so much for me.
• 13:15
  for my parents eventually to acknowledge how much that work meant to me and to say, I'm proud of you. I finished the book. I'm doing 500 workouts because I'm insane. And I pushed myself to the part of me is still armored up, you know, to protect myself against what I don't know. But I just
• 13:37
  become addicted. So you know why you were supposed to, you went through all that and you didn't, is to write this book and make it safe for other people like me. And we're going to make it safe for other people to go, you know, me too. And, uh, I don't understand. And guys, our cases were extreme.
• 13:57
  But it doesn't have to always be extreme. It just had to be extreme to you. Is that what the wave in your book symbolized? Just the ups and the downs of everything? Yeah. Well, the book starts with a wipeout. And it was both a physical wipeout. I'm a surfer, so I'm obsessed.
• 14:14
  was surfing, but it was a physical wipeout in the ocean. And it was also an emotional wipeout, because that was the point that I lost everything. You know, my company was my whole identity. It was everything. It was my purpose, my title, my work. You know, I didn't know who I was without any of that.
• 14:34
  losing everything ended up being the biggest blessing of my life because when you lose everything you are forced to discover who am i without all of this right and i think this is especially relevant today in the age of ai and everything right like machines are doing our work better than than we are and so we're kind of asking well
• 14:56
  Who are we beyond our work and our productivity? And you just you have to go deeper. And to what you're saying about armoring up, it's those of us who have been through any kind of abuse or neglect. We have these kind of very heightened flight or fight responses. Right. And so we're feeling like we constantly need to protect ourselves, even when there is no danger.
• 15:23
  And so that's a result of what happens to our brains when we go through traumatic experiences. And shockingly, you know, and you're touching on something very important because trauma is not something people want to talk about.
• 15:35
  It's embarrassing. Vulnerable. It's embarrassing. No one wants to talk about it. And yet when you look at the statistics, the CDC did this huge study with Kaiser, 17,000 people. Most were college educated, middle income and white. And two thirds reported having experienced at least one form of major childhood adversity. Is it adversity or trauma?
• 15:59
  Well, in the study, they refer to it as an ACE, so adverse childhood event. So you could call it either, but it is pervasive. Yeah. And I think it's time for us to start talking about this more openly. Well, here's where it manifests. Relationships, romantic relationships. And boy, did you... I've been there. That's what the whole...
• 16:24
  That's what the whole harder than life brand is all about is I took all that trauma and just, you know, wherever you go, you take you with you. And all that that that baggage came with me in every relationship. So let's talk about Patrick. And he said, I failed you.
• 16:45
  And the more I do for you, the more you push me away. That's classic avoidant behavior. Can you provide guidance to someone doing something similar in relationships today?
• 16:57
  Hmm. Such a good question. Yeah, I think in that particular relationship, I was terrified. I was terrified. It felt too good to be loved in that way. I was rooting for you. Yeah. And I think, again, this comes back to a trauma response because I was convinced I had linked love with pain.
• 17:18
  And so if anyone came too close or tried to love me too much, my brain would immediately go to, well, how are they going to hurt me? And this is not conscious, right? And so I think back to the me of that time, and I have so much compassion for that version of me back then who just so wanted love and was terrified.
• 17:40
  The listeners are all identified with that. So I want you to keep going. But somebody's in their car going, oh, my God, I'm doing this. Because I assure you, you are. I did it. I had to do love, intimacy, and sex were all the same to me. I had to unpack those in a psychedelic journey, by the way. Jane, I'm not going to spill at all. But we're going to go through some of the healing modalities and what you got.
• 18:07
  And I did them all. And it's just, you could tell that you wanted to heal badly. And here it is, the deeper the trauma, the harder it is to get rid of. Now, remember, she sabotaged. So did I. But you may be doing it in ways of Netflix, porn, avoidance, work. It can be anything. So just please notice that if you're not...
• 18:34
  in a relationship, if you keep self-sabotage in relationship, this thing, this episode is going to be for you. So keep going down. Patrick literally seemed perfect in the book. He was wonderful. Yeah. And I think, you know, my advice is, and as I mentioned in this book, someone can't truly love you until you love yourself. Wait a minute. I'm going to steal it. You put it in here. Return to the book and return to love.
• 19:02
  Our defenses reflect our wounds, but no person can heal those wounds. If you don't already love yourself, no one can love you.
• 19:14
  At what point did you decide to love yourself was the question, but that was the quote. And I loved it. Guys, there's other people. If you're listening to Heart of Life show, you know that this is my story. This is my jam. Jane is my girl. We could go down this path a long time. So keep going about the self-love because that's how this started. It is. Yeah. It's like you cannot receive love until you love yourself because you'll never believe that you're worthy of love.
• 19:40
  Right. And all your fears and defense mechanisms will come up and you'll do everything to sabotage. As you said, whether that's actively turning someone away or shutting down, turning to Netflix, getting distracted, going to social media. There's a million ways that we do this.
• 19:56
  In my case, it was absolute self-sabotage. And it took me a while to really, really understand this. But I think it's not only self-love, but having compassion for the parts of us that are so scared. And just recognizing that and being able to admit, I'm scared. And I'm the issue. That's the hardest damn thing in the world. Looking in the mirror and saying, I'm the common denominator. And it wasn't until I was 43 that I figured it out.
• 20:27
  And I'm like, oh, but man, is it freeing. So I talk about self-love and it's easier said than done. Obviously, you've done several different modalities of healing. So have I. It's been well documented. When was the point in your life? It wasn't clear in the book. When did you start to really love yourself?
• 20:47
  You know, it wasn't one of those things that was just like a switch that you flip on and you suddenly start to love yourself. So for me, it was a slow process. And each healing modality I did introduced me to something new. It allowed me to confront my past and my pain. And I think that is a really important part of this, right? We live in a society that's all about escaping pain, whether that's through substances or sex.
• 21:16
  or social media or whatever. We live in an escapist society. And so my leadership coach, Diana Chapman, used to always say to me, feel your heartbreak. Just allow yourself to feel your heartbreak. And now that's what I would say to anyone who wants to go on a healing journey. You have to be willing to sit with your heartbreak.
• 21:35
  Feeling is healing. And I tell you one more. The answers are in the three S's. Stillness, silence, and solitude. All too often, we get around other people, we commiserate, and we feel better in the short term, but it does not fix the long term. A couple more questions specifically about the book, then we're going to switch over to...
• 21:58
  to more of the self-love and healing. I'm in Michigan today with one of my houses here. Ryan was from Michigan. Where was he from? By the way, did Patrick ever, the book isn't released yet, but has anybody reached out to you about the book? Did you send this to Patrick ahead of time?
• 22:14
  I did not, you know, I did not send it to Patrick. I did share some of it with Ryan. That was interesting. Where is he from in Michigan? You don't have to say exactly. Well, I had to change some of the details. So I'm going to get that out.
• 22:35
  So who are they? Are the names real or no? Those two names I did change to protect their privacy. Yeah. It was Patrick, the character that Patrick is, is that the one that got away?
• 22:48
  No, no. I mean, when I reflect back on it, he was my teacher. You know, I think our intimate relationships become our greatest teachers. So I don't see any of them as like the one they got away, you know, whether I wasn't ready or he wasn't ready at the time. But I do believe he came into my life to teach me something really specific, you know, and he...
• 23:08
  Really, after that relationship, I did my first psychedelic journey. And he said to me something that just really opened me up. When he and I broke up, he said to me, Jane, I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. I've said that to people before. Oh, how'd that feel?
• 23:30
  I just, you know, I didn't get it in that moment. I didn't understand. But those words must have stayed in my consciousness, my subconsciousness. Because when I did this psychedelic journey, it was an MDMA journey, guided. And at the end of the journey, I heard his words. They came back to me. I heard, I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. And I saw this beautiful light, this beautiful glowing light.
• 23:59
  It took me a minute to realize, oh, that's me. I am a being of love, just as all of us are beings of love. And I really just saw that for the first time and I felt it. I felt the truth of that. And so that was a huge opening for me.
• 24:23
  Now, healing is not linear, and that's something I really wanted to show in the book. It's not like, oh, that happened, and everything's great. I had many ups and downs after that. I had other failed relationships. But as I said, each of these things let in a sliver of light that helped me see myself differently. I just want to say that I think that you're beautiful inside and out. I can feel your energy. We're going to end it later with...
• 24:49
  you know, where you're at today, but I still, I want the listeners to hear this from another person because I've been right there with you and there's been times you just want to tap out and,
• 24:57
  but it's so worth keep going. Guys, the first half of the book is the ups and downs and adversity of embrace. And the entire time you're thinking, great, this is the time it works. And it didn't. And then the next time you're like, great, this is the time it works. And it didn't. And I'm going to tell you right now, I feel like I'm in that season right now. Like we're trying to grow the brand. I own an AI cybersecurity company. And it's like,
• 25:27
  we're all over the board because of AI. And it's like, it feels like nothing's working. But down below, you got to believe in visible progress. And when you love yourself, you just keep going. And as bad as that trauma was growing up, it also does fuel you. And when you heal,
• 25:46
  you realize that there were some gifts in everything that our parents gave us. My mom used to say something so dumb, and I used it literally. She'd say, money talks and bullshit walks.
• 26:00
  And I changed it to actions speak louder than words because it's not as rough. But, you know, when you heal, you start realizing what they were trying to do, but their methods were all, you know, it's what they knew. And when you went down the paths of, you know, their lives and how hard it must have been growing up. And I never thought about.
• 26:21
  you know, how the culture was different too, and your birthday and whatnot. So I just want you to know that I love the book. Highly recommend it, guys. Like a wave we break. It'll be out a week after this releases. This is a page turner. I'm so grateful you did it. But one last question about that, we'll get into the healing modalities is tell us about Genghis Khan.
• 26:47
  Yes. So Genghis Khan was a nickname that my ex-boyfriend Ryan had come up with for me. And it started when I would I would just start getting so angry. Now, something happened in the relationship that really hurt trust between us. I felt, you know, betrayed and I just couldn't get over that. And so my anger was just like fully unleashed and.
• 27:10
  And we would get into these fights and I would just snap, you know, like I threw all of his stuff outside of my house. I didn't just place it out. I ended like throw it on the street. Okay. Like that level of anger and reactivity. And so he started calling me Genghis Khan, which became my new nickname. Wait a minute. Just so I could set, like how tall are you? I'm 5'4".
• 27:38
  I just can't even see you getting mad. I would laugh so hard. And I laugh it with you. I've been there and done that. And I say this a lot. Thoughts are magical lives. But man, in the moment, they feel so real. Like you really feel like you're being attacked. Like there was a point where you were talking about him where he just, he didn't, what did he not do? He didn't do something. Oh, he was going to pick you up a,
• 28:07
  plant or a boar or surfboard. It was something that I'm like, no, Jane, no, Jane, no, don't. And you went, boof, Jengis Khan. Yep. Been there, done that. Yeah. Yeah. Overactivated fight or flight response. When you really started, because the timeline wasn't clear. When did you say enough is enough, I'm going to start doing this? How old were you? Did I see it
• 28:38
  Like in my late 30s, I started going on this journey. I think the relationship with Patrick really showed me, gosh, I have a lot more to do here. And that was probably when I was like 40, 41. And the book goes up through 43 or so. So this is a multi-year process. How old are you now? I'm 46. Oh, beautiful. Beautiful. Well, what I was getting at with that is that...
• 29:03
  People, it's never too late. I started at 43. So, and it's been a six and a half year. Let's just call it a nice little roller coaster ride. Ups and downs, ups and downs. But that's how you know you're alive. It's, it reminisces of a heartbeat versus just going round and around and around and being in the familiar misery. So it's, that's terrible. What was the most surprising method that actually helped in your healing?
• 29:32
  I would say two things really helped. I don't know if they were like surprising necessarily, but one form of therapy that I recommend to everyone is called internal family systems.
• 29:42
  So in this practice or this modality, it views us as being made up of many different parts. So you have parts that are protectors. For me, that was like the overachiever, the control freak, even the angry one. These parts keep you safe. And then you have parts that are exiles. So these are parts, often very young parts of ourselves that...
• 30:04
  In our childhoods, we're too painful to deal with. So we exile them. We push them away. And those might be the parts of us that feel rejected, abandoned, like we're not worthy. And then there's the self with a capital S. And that's the calm, compassionate core of who we are. And so this practice is about getting to know each of these parts of yourselves and extending compassion towards each part, right? Rather than feeling shame, rather than feeling shame for this angry part of myself, right?
• 30:34
  Feeling compassion for, you know, this part's trying to protect me. This part's trying to protect the child who's really scared. And so it's this beautiful practice of getting to know ourselves intimately and extending this kindness to ourselves and almost learning to reparent ourselves. Right. When we can sit in the seat of this capital S self.
• 30:55
  We can be that parent to each of these young parts. And then they stop sitting in the driver's seat and we can lead from, you know, lead our lives from a place of more wholeness and groundedness. It's funny you use the word wholeness because, and I also use oneness, wholeness and oneness because when you're healing or when you've healed, you've integrated that inner child into your adult being and it's, you became, you become one and whole and that's, it's magical.
• 31:22
  Were there moments when healing felt like another performance or that you would do these healing things just to avoid the work?
• 31:32
  It did become kind of this relentless pursuit of healing. And I treated it like I treated my startup. You know, I had like a whole spreadsheet in like, if one thing didn't work, I'd pivot to the next. I was willing to try anything and everything. So I became obsessed with healing. And I think a turning point for me was reading The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk and understanding what is trauma, right? And so for my whole life, I thought trauma is this thing that happened.
• 32:01
  In the past. So why talk about just leave it in the past? And I'd worked with therapists before, but I always wanted to keep kind of those very painful things kind of, you know, swept under the rug. And through this book, I came to understand trauma is not just something that happens in the past. It's the way that event rewires your brain and your nervous system such that you bring the past into the present. Preach girl, preach.
• 32:26
  So it literally is altering our brain circuitry and wiring. And trauma is also stored in our limbic brain, our emotional brain. It's stored in our body, not in our thinking brain, the intellect. And so that's why talk therapy had never been effective for me. And that's why kind of doing work that is more somatic based or getting into deeper levels of consciousness, those are the modalities that have been the most effective.
• 32:51
  you know, after I read the book, I was so obsessed with Vessel van der Kolk, the author, that I basically stalked him until he agreed to become my therapist. I read that. That was beautiful. There's other lessons hidden in here that you rather did or didn't intend to do, but it's still relentless pursuit of progress, whether it be in embrace, whether it be in any different modality of your healing. You didn't half-ass anything.
• 33:20
  No.
• 33:22
  I didn't have to ask anything. You know, and you talked about the modalities that might have been surprising. One of the modalities that I learned about from Bessel and attending one of his retreats was something called psychodrama. So this is a modality where it's done in a group context and you basically choose people from the group to play the role of your real parents and kind of reenact whatever happened with them. And then you pick different people to play the role of your ideal parents.
• 33:51
  And have them enact just a more loving and nurturing alternative to what could have happened. And the whole idea is to give your body an imprint of what could have been a healing experience. So I did this and it wasn't working for me, but I became obsessed with finding the ideal father.
• 34:13
  And I was convinced that this was going to be like the magic bullet, right? Like the thing, if I could feel an ideal father's love, I would be cured once and for all. And that was kind of like brought me to, and this is the, you know, the last scene of the book, I orchestrated this like, you know, psychedelic psychodrama. I handpicked someone to be my ideal father. I handwrote every line I wanted him to say to me.
• 34:42
  And as we were going through this, it wasn't working. And I'm thinking, what the hell? I picked this person. I wrote the lines. I'm high on MDMA. Like, why isn't this working? You know, and then something clicked for me. And I took the lines I had written and I picked up a picture of me as a five-year-old. And I said everything to that little girl that I wish someone had said to me. I said, I love you. Wow.
• 35:12
  There's nothing you could do that would make me not love you. You are whole. You are perfect just as you are. And for the first time, I believed it. And that's when I understood everything I was looking for out there had to come from within.
• 35:35
  Everything you need in this world, you can supply yourself. It's beautiful. And I know people are listening to this and like, these two are crazy. I want you to know that we're not. And when you have as much trauma as we did, and a lot of us do, and we're ashamed or afraid to talk about it. Guys, you look at the smiles on our face. It's peaceful. It's freeing.
• 35:59
  And it's just life is good. One of the things that I was able to do is I had a daughter and I could heal through her and for her. I was able to reparent. And by the way, it won't surprise you to know that I did that same kind of modality while doing psychedelics at a journey. And it is, even if it does nothing, all of this is a piece of the puzzle. There's not one thing. I think you start chipping at it and chipping at it and chipping at it.
• 36:28
  Until you get to a place where you're like, all right, let's try this again. You jump back in a relationship and you realize, oh, whoa, there's still more work to do. And then you jump out. But what I learned during my seeding with reparenting role playing was that I deeply wanted that. I deeply wanted to be seen and heard.
• 36:54
  And told all I wanted, Gene, was to be told I was a good boy because I was a good boy. I aced everything. I did. I was a good kid. And yet was beat, backhanded, slapped, abused. I started my book off. I had to empty a jar of piss.
• 37:13
  because my stepfather was a drunk and was afraid of my mother. So I've been through it all. The reason why I'm saying this, is this is not gender specific. Here we are with beautiful Jane, handsome Kelly. We both have very similar upbringings and processed it the same. And we could have let it beat us. I could have, she could have kept going on that circle and said it was everybody else's fault, like I see a lot of y'all doing.
• 37:41
  I could have done the same thing. And then I looked in the mirror and said, enough is enough. Did you do any kind of like EMDR or, so I tried, I did EMDR. I did hypnotherapy. I did talk therapy. I mean, you name it. The only thing I didn't do is the frogs venom. But I was at a ceremony and somebody did. And I'm like, what am I witnessing? Yes, I did all of it. I'm proud of you, girl.
• 38:13
  I will tell you when you were telling me that last little bit and, and you were, you were looking at that girl, I keep looking away because it's just so, this is triggering in a really good way for me. I'm just like, there's another one of me and I'm happy for you because I know how hard it was and how hard it still is. I get, I wake up and I'm like, what is that feeling? Wait, wait, wait, wait, I did all this work. Wait, I'm supposed to be healed.
• 38:41
  Unfortunately, it can rear its ugly head at any given time. So I was crying. I was in public riding the bike on a stationary bike at the gym last night, finishing up the book. And I wanted to finish it because I loved it. It was such a good book. And I was bawling because I was so happy for you. Can we fast forward a little more and just do a little spoiler alert? What are you doing now? And are you in a relationship?
• 39:06
  Yeah, I moved. So I moved to Honolulu last year. This is my happy place. I love it. I surf every morning. I just have a different sense of balance and wholeness in my life. That's not all about end outcomes. You know, and it's hard with a book coming out, right? Because everyone's like, oh, you want to make a bestseller list, this and that. And so it's an active process for me to let go of that. And remember, like, I wrote this book because I wanted to help other people.
• 39:33
  And every life it can touch, that's success for me, you know? And so it's been a beautiful kind of experience to really remind myself of that. I'm not in a relationship. I would love to be in. I finally feel like open and ready and, you know, but also I don't need it. Like, I feel like for a while I needed a relationship to complete me, right? Just like I needed all these other things. And I feel like when you're just in a good place and you don't need that, hopefully that's when it comes to you.
• 40:02
  Like attracts like. I used to say all the time I was a drunken whore and that's what I attracted, literally. I will tell you that the dating pool gets very, very small because you see the red flags right away because you've been there. You see the bullshit right away. And your boundaries and standards. I read something this week. Standards without consequences are mere suggestions. The second I see somebody for who they really are and they're not in alignment –
• 40:30
  I'd walk away. What I did too, and I'm sure you've done this, is I made a list in my journal of exactly who I wanted. And I made no – and it was – if any of them wasn't, it just – it was a no.
• 40:44
  And I ended up, I will tell you positively, I'm a year and a half into a happy relationship. I was giving a speaking engagement at an event in Utah. And I met somebody who was on their healing journey. And some of the coolest things is just as far as along you think. When you meet someone, you find some of the things that still need to heal. Then you heal together. And it's challenging, but it's awesome.
• 41:10
  Besides the book, are you still working in philanthropy or what are you working on? So I stepped down from my role at Embrace earlier this year. We have a new CEO in place and it felt really nice to pass the torch after 16 years. And what I'm doing next is leadership coaching. I've been doing that on the side the last couple of years. I love it so much because it's not just leadership coaching. It's just having, you know.
• 41:34
  Helping people through all the experiences that I've had to tap into their most authentic selves and to find that self-compassion and that self-love. And so that post book, I'm hoping this can segue into doing a lot more of that work. Did you give me an author copy or something? Because you should put in here a link to a web page. Yes, we have that in the final page.
• 41:58
  Okay. Just wanted to make sure because I'm like, Hey girl, come on. Because I will tell you, um, speaking from exact experience is you really can't be the, your best authentic leader without doing some inner work. It's just, I found that when I started doing massive self development, I became a better leader immediately because I realized my ego was in the problem. I was the problem. I was finding myself.
• 42:29
  making excuses for myself. Yeah. And it, it requires every time I coach somebody, it becomes mindset coach before we even talk leadership. Tell me about your childhood. Tell me. So, which actually has been another question. If you, in all your experience and all of your research, can a person truly heal without confronting their childhood trauma?
• 42:51
  Any painful experience that has shaped you, right? If you're not willing to go there, then no, I don't think you can heal. Say it again. I don't think you can heal unless you confront any painful experience that has shaped you. Jane and Kelly giving you guys permission to go there. Please go there. It's beautiful on the other side. I am dying to ask this question and thank goodness I just remembered it.
• 43:20
  The silence retreat. Something has been talking to me to go do one of these. And one just got invited to me. I don't know. Part of me says, do it.
• 43:32
  And then part of me is like, oh, hell no. Didn't sound like a great experience. Talk me through it. Talk to listeners through it. Yes, I will. And I've done a few of them. And so the one I talked about in the book was challenging. But the one I had done prior to that, I do believe in it. So this particular form of silent meditation, it's a 10-day silent meditation retreat. There's many types of these that are available. This one's called the Vipassana.
• 43:56
  And so there are these free centers all over the world and you go for 10 days and you meditate from about 4 a.m. until 10 p.m. every day. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's very regimented. And so no reading, writing, eye contact, exercise, like you are there to just be in stillness. Well, you can't even gesture, right?
• 44:18
  No gesture, you can't even make eye contact with someone. So you're really in your own world. And this comes back to what you're saying about the silence, stillness, and solitude, right? And the whole idea of it is to learn impermanence. Mm-hmm.
• 44:34
  Everything is impermanent. Everything rises and passes like a wave. Including us. Yeah, including us. And so if you sit there and you notice almost as a witness, you witness your emotions arise and pass, you can learn the power of non-reactivity because you observe without reacting right away. And having that just like two seconds before you react.
• 44:58
  It makes all the difference, right? And so it's kind of really tuning into our emotions and our physical sensations. The premise is every emotion is correlated to a physical sensation, which arises and passes. So if you just notice, oh, that little tension in my shoulders, the contraction in my stomach, I'm just going to watch it. I'm going to let it arise and pass. And you can come, you can approach the world a little differently, right? Like not through that super reactive Genghis Khan.
• 45:26
  So it is a beautiful practice. I highly recommend it. You know, for me these days, I've done a few more since then. The one in the book was very hard because I'd come out of a tough, tough period. And I decided to do it in the jungles of Indonesia.
• 45:42
  You know, it was like not the best place for stress relief. And yeah, so I had a very tough time with that particular experience. But I've done a few more since, more gentle ones. There's a center called Spirit Rock in Marin in California. Did you find those to be a little shorter? Because I think the one that I was doing was like four days. Yeah. I was like, that might be. Yeah.
• 46:01
  These are like four or five days. They even have three days. One, they alternate sitting meditation with walking meditation. They even have people on call 24-7. So if you have a nervous breakdown, like you can reach out to somebody. I really prefer those types. Like they're just a little more nurturing. I feel held. I feel safe. But I highly recommend it. We do things in streams.
• 46:22
  We do things to the extreme. Yeah, exactly. I wanted everything like so extreme. And I would say that's like two things have really changed in the way I approach things. One, I don't do the I'm not seeking the extreme anymore. You know, I want to do things that are a little more nurturing and slow and calming to my nervous system.
• 46:42
  And two, we talked about this. How do you know you're making progress? You do all these things and you're like, oh, am I, you know, what's, what's, how do I measure my progress? And what I would say is the inner voice in my head has changed significantly.
• 46:57
  Now, I used to be so mean to myself, just beating myself up and telling myself how stupid I was. Oh, girl. Yeah. And it's not that that voice completely goes away. But now there's another voice. You know, there's a kinder voice and the voice that tells me I am enough.
• 47:17
  and it's okay, and that I am worthy. And so it's so much easier to allow that voice to kind of come up and calm, you know, the other voice down. And so that's, that is my mark of progress, that the inner dialogue in my head has changed so much. That's very true. I had something when I was listening to what you were saying so good. I was going to say that it's things that used to bother you don't bother me anymore.
• 47:42
  And things that used to get a rise out of this, it's just, I don't even bother. Just, I don't get the reactions, even positive or negative. And it's, I always say marry the process, divorce the outcome. That's, we've got all this long. And really what we forgot to say, I was talking about just surrendering and just let go and let God, because we're not in control, even though we try to be the reason why it's called harder than life, because I was convinced that,
• 48:08
  That life's supposed to be hard. It's only hard if you make it. And that's what I did because my upbringing was so hard. So I have to remind myself that other voice, that soft voice says, this doesn't need to be hard and it's not hard. You're just making it hard. So just chill for a second.
• 48:25
  Oh, I love what you're saying. So good. Yes. And the art of surrender. It's why every day in the ocean after I surf, I just float in the water and I look up at the clouds and I just surrender. And it's so beautiful that like physical act of surrender, you know, just you let go, you let go. And you're right. A control is an illusion.
• 48:47
  And what you said earlier really resonated with me because it's not like, oh, you're just fixed. Your life's perfect. You're not going to have troubles. At the end of the book, I say this. I say, with the wave analogy, there are always going to be moments that threaten to swallow me whole. But now I know my way back to the surface. That's love yourself. Yeah, exactly. Remember, too, guys, if you're not being challenged, you're probably dead.
• 49:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. But yeah, resilience isn't about pushing harder. It's about loving yourself, right? Because when you love yourself, you can take risks. You can fail and you're still going to be okay. I want to ask a very personal question and you don't know me yet. And I'm going to come to Hawaii and learn to surf with you. I'm a big goofy looking dude. Tell me about confronting your parents with,
• 49:40
  And I wouldn't even call it confronting, just having that conversation. Because I've gone back and forth. I tried to have a conversation with my stepfather. He denied it. Yeah. Said that I kept a roof over your head. You imagine all that. And what he forgets is I have a sister who was nine years older than me who remembered everything because she was much older. So she's like – and as a matter of fact, when I wrote my book, I went back and she read it and she's like, that's all you remember?
• 50:09
  And I'm like, it's all I blocked out the rest. So I've gone back and forth. My mother and my stepfather on their last leg. My stepfather's in hospice about to end his life. And my mom is just, my mom, I'm good. I don't want nothing to do with her. I've made it. I don't need to talk to her. But my stepfather, I've thought of going and talking to him now and just saying,
• 50:36
  What are your thoughts? How did it feel for you? And, you know, you didn't talk to your dad for a couple more years after. And is it, you know, some therapists have said yes. Some therapists said no. My longstanding therapist said, you're so healed. Don't even bother. You're just going to go and open. And then I asked my sister and she said, let sleeping dogs lie, Kelly. You've won. Go.
• 51:00
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• 51:29
  Yeah, it's such a good question. I would say this. If you're doing it, it's for you. Meaning when we go into these conversations and we expect our parents to change, I think we will inevitably disappoint, be disappointed. And if they do, great. Right. But that's what I had to clarify for myself and what my parents.
• 51:50
  coach said to me, this isn't about changing your parents. Because at first I thought, what's the point? And she said, this is about taking the hand of that little girl and speaking your truth to your parents. And that I did find very profound to be able to really speak my truth and to show that little part of me that I was willing to stand for her, not in a way that was about blame, but just about acknowledging the truth. Yeah.
• 52:18
  Yeah. Even if my parents acknowledge it. And it took my mom years to really acknowledge and confront what happened. It's even admit that that she had been so wounded in her own childhood. Right. So it took many years for that to happen. And with my dad, I would say, I'm glad I had the conversation. I don't think anything changed. And parts of that still were disappointing to me. But I learned to both have compassion for him and the hardships he came from. Right. And really feel that and feel love for him.
• 52:46
  And to set my boundaries at the same time to know I can love you and it's not healthy for me to be around certain behaviors. So I'm not going to expose myself to those things. Speaking right to my soul, girl. Speaking right to my soul. That's how I said to myself about my mom. I just, it's, I love you. Thank you for not aborting me, but I got to stay away from you. And I did that reparenting or that conversation with me.
• 53:15
  my imaginary stepfather myself in a hypnotherapy treatment. Holy smokes. Did it work like literally? And then it allowed me to forgive them. And once I forgave them, the whole walls come crashing down. So if somebody is listening to this and their parents have passed on, you can still do the work, but you're going to have to confront it head on. And, and, but it, it works and it's,
• 53:43
  It's for you, not for them, guys. So how do you stay grounded in your truth now?
• 53:49
  Yeah, it's great. It's a great question. I have certain practices. I meditate every morning. I'm in the ocean. That is my temple. I continue to do my therapy and work with people who I love and trust and just surround myself with people who are also dedicated to a path of growth. I think that's really important. You asked earlier about partners. That is my number one requirement for a partner, just someone be on a path of personal growth.
• 54:18
  And someone who's willing to look inward, you know, so surrounding myself with amazing people like that. And then just really feeling into my truth, right? And feeling into my body. I told you at the beginning I'd learned to disconnect from my body for so long. Now I really tune in to my body. And if I'm making a decision, if I'm thinking about should I do this or that, I tune in. I think, like, what does that feel like in my heart? What does that feel like in my gut? You know, and I let my body lead me.
• 54:44
  in making the right decisions for me. So that is very, very new. And I love that. What message would you give your younger self back in that math competition? You know, I would say the dedication of my book is to the little one in each of us who ever believed we weren't enough. You are enough exactly as you are.
• 55:13
  I want to end it right there, but I got one last question. Oh, it's beautiful. Thank you. Thank you for that. You're beautiful. And I'm so grateful I got to meet you. For someone just beginning their healing journey, where should they start?
• 55:30
  Hmm, that's a really great question. I'm actually putting up a resource page on my website with a whole list of resources from books to different types of practices and practitioners. But I think it really starts, you know, you could start with something as simple as journaling. So powerful, just kind of sit there in silence and solitude.
• 55:53
  and write down how you're feeling, write down your thoughts, start to reflect, right? That introspection is something you could do on your own. And I would really start there. And I would love to, as my new site goes up very soon, hopefully before this comes out, point people to just a whole list of resources that they can access for free. Please get them to us so we can add to the show notes. This won't air for a month. So please get it to us. It will be up by then. And then-
• 56:22
  So I did this crazy thing and it worked where I looked into the mirror and I said, I love myself for five minutes straight every day. You've talked about the Hope Open No No prayer. I did that 10 times a day. It's eerily similar how our journeys went.
• 56:43
  Well, just, you know, coming, answering that question that a simple practice, I still have that picture of five-year-old me that just sits on my desk. And I often look at her and tell her I love her and she's enough.
• 56:55
  I have the same picture of myself and my dad who's passed away on my nightstand. And I touch him and kiss him and tell him I love him all the time. And I do that reparenting where big Kelly goes into little Kelly and puts his hammer on him and goes, you're going to be okay.
• 57:18
  You're going to be okay. Yeah. It's true. All right. Jane didn't just break. She broke open. And that's the difference. That's the heart of the life way. We don't numb. We don't hide. We don't keep performing. We do the hard, brutal work of sitting in the fire until we come out changed. If you're listening right now and you're in your own wipeout moment.
• 57:41
  Remember this, your breakdown is not the end. It can be a breakthrough if you're willing to stop running and start healing and face yourself. Jane's book, I'm gonna leave it, like a wave, we break. What I love about Jane's story is that it destroys the myth we've all been sold. That success will fix the broken parts of us because it won't. You can pile on degrees, money, accolades, and even save lives.
• 58:10
  But if you don't face your pain, it will eventually face you. This beautiful book is out October 14th. This is actually the day that this is going to air. So this is available today. It's not just a memoir. It's a mirror. Go get it. Thank you, Kel. You were such a great interviewer. Oh my God, I'd love doing that with you. Thank you. And thank you for being a strong male who's willing to talk about this stuff. Thank you so much for who you are and what you do.
• 58:39
  this conversation hits you share it with someone who's tired of pretending they're fine that's how we grow this movement i'm kelly siegel and this has been harder than life until next time stop chasing easy choose hard because on the other side it's freedom
• 58:58
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.