Latest / Calm the Chaos with Rich Christiansen / Healing Your Inner Child After Divorce and Burnout | Jennifer Hill

Transcript

Healing Your Inner Child After Divorce and Burnout | Jennifer Hill · Calm the Chaos with Rich Christiansen

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: I hated myself.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to take my own life three times.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I helped people to clean the glass to see themselves in the world more clearly.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do we allow ourselves, Rich, to collapse or can we quiet that amygdala and regain access to a prefrontal cortex?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: But when I opened mine, Rich, the pages were blank inside.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that really sent me, quite frankly, spiraling into about a decade of darkness.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, within a period of three months, Rich, I sold my first company.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I got diagnosed as being on the spectrum and went through a divorce.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank God I had somebody who introduced me to self-awareness and doing reflective work.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Calm the Chaos, where we uh face our spiritual reality and have the courage to go towards the things that scare us the most.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Rich Christianson, and thank you so much for joining us today.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really thrilled to have a special guest, Jennifer Hill.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is a really unique individual with a really storied background and a lot of context.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: So really delighted to have you with me today, Jennifer.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you so much, Rich.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: The pleasure is all mine.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: The first time we met, I I just felt like you were a kindred spirit, and I'm so grateful that we get to continue our conversation and share it with your audience.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I love the Oliver Wendell's uh home quote of for this side of simplicity, I would not give a fig.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: But for simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I give my life.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think uh we quickly identify individuals who have been able to navigate through some significant complexities and then find the peace.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, Jennifer, I think that that's what I noted with you of you been able to navigate complexities and find some some harmony and peace in life.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: That is my dream, Rich.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I get out of bed every day, is my dream is to gift every human being in the world access to deep connection to self, deep connection to others, and connection to purpose, or what I call the golden triangle of connection.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really my dream.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's what wakes me up every day.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's what I think about before I go to bed.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the question then, of course, becomes that I'm sure your audience and listeners are wondering is how do we do that, right?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because chaos does happen.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: Things go sideways.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was doing a podcast yesterday or the day before, and like half my throat was swollen.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, this is perfect.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's good.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, do we allow ourselves, Rich, to collapse in those moments when we're pressurized or going through chaos, or can we quiet that amygdala and regain access to our prefrontal cortex and come from a place of responsiveness rather than reactiveness?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the choice is ours.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love that context, and I definitely want to go deeper into that when we get in.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I think, you know, before we jump in, I'm very uh careful of who I invite on the program to make sure that they indeed uh, you know, have lived kind of through this.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Jennifer, I think it would be really valuable to just uh have the audience get to know you for a minute and share a little bit of your background and history, and then I'd like to dive right off the diving board into that very discussion because that's what we talk about in Calming the Chaos.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful, my friend.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when I was a little girl, to me, Rich, it was like everybody else got a book on how to be a human.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: You got a book on how to be a human, and he and she and everybody else got a book on how to be human.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: But when I opened mine, Rich, the pages were blank inside.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that led to decades of misunderstandings, breakdowns, and broken relationships for myself and those in my life.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: As I went through my early adult years, I didn't understand why I was so different.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: My favorite pastime was either reading books like my life depended on it in the school library or helping children with special needs.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very interesting, I only actually got this the other night over a dinner party that I was hosting.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: That it makes sense is about eight years ago, I got diagnosed as being high functioning on the spectrum.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, within a period of three months, Rich, I sold my first company.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: I got diagnosed as being on the spectrum and went through a divorce.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And looking back now, as I was sharing the story over a dinner party, I love to host dinner parties and Jeffersonian sort of questions that we all get to engage in.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we were talking about something that most people don't know about you.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And as I reflected that my favorite pastimes were helping the special needs kids during my lunch hours, I realized it's because I felt more safe with them than I did with the normal kids.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because I I was I was very literal and I was deeply, deeply eager and curious and just wanted to understand myself and others.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And when I couldn't reconcile with what people said and how they responded and reacted differently than what they said they were committed to, I would study the Bible, I would study a variety of things, and it would say, be kind to your neighbor, don't gossip.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: But then people would do that, and my autistic mind, which I didn't realize I was autistic at the time, went, does not compute, does not compute.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Why are people doing dude?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're saying one thing and doing something else.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: So that really sent me, quite frankly, spiraling into about a decade of darkness.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: As far away as you can go from connection, intimacy, understanding of self.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was as far away as you could get from that point, quite frankly, Rich.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I hated myself.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to take my own life three times, and I was steeped in drugs and alcohol and all the things that were just trying to self-soothe for something, a shame I didn't even yet have words to name, and was bulimic during that whole time.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Would often find myself throwing up 20 times a day, just giving myself more excuses to be ensconced in shame and guilt and self-doubt.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what eventually led me to this 20-year journey I've been on, is thank God I had somebody who introduced me to self-awareness and doing reflective work.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you and I both, of course, share a passion for breath work and meditation and many of the things.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So now I have a very robust two-hour practice every day that that's what helps to ground me is every day I start every day with two hours of reflection, prayer, meditation, and connecting to my self-source and others.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's what allows me, Rich, to show up clean and clear for you, for your audience, for my husband, for my family, my mom I just hung up with.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we can't do that though if there's something on the glass between us, Rich.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you imagine that every human has a glass between them and another person, and for some of us, we have our judgments, we have our fears, we have our resentments.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And if that's on the glass, Rich between you and I, or you and your children, or me and my mom, or my husband, we literally cannot see each other clearly.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what's happened in the world today is we can't see ourselves clearly, and we cannot see one another clearly.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So my goal and what I do, the work I do with a lot of uh clients that I work with and with the community I run around the world is I help people to clean the glass to see themselves in the world more clearly.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful, Jennifer.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for sharing that and having the courage to go there.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the reality, several comments, is is we also can't see ourselves clearly most of the time.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is, is all of us have an issue.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some people, uh as you did, maybe it's bulimia, maybe it's drugs, maybe it's alcohol, and maybe it's running 16 miles every morning at 3 a.m.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Nonetheless, it's all coping mechanisms.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not until we take a breath and realize, you know, we we all have coping mechanism, we're all dealing with some level of pain, and it's not until we get really clean and clear with ourselves that we actually are able to calm the limbic system and then get back to clarity.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it sounds like you have found this beautiful practice.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like two hours a day, how can you do that?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's so excessive.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I also have two hours sacred time every day.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I just finished my time.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine now coping without that.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like you to go just a little bit more, and I'm not saying jump right into two hours, but talk a little bit more now about your setup routine.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd say that you meditate and do this.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you wouldn't mind just sharing a little bit more with the context that everyone has to find their own path, everyone has to find their own modality.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: What works for you does not work for me, and what works for me may not be the cup of tea for someone else.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: But Jennifer, if you would go a little bit more into that, I think it would be helpful and instructive.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was giving a talk at a family office earlier this year in Palm Beach, and I've literally told people for years, Rich, I actually have cultivated 180 tools, and they're all listed on my LinkedIn for anybody who wants them.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And to Rich's point, it's not about using all of them.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's about just really dropping into your awareness and saying, what do I need today?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Some people like Rich and I need a more rigorous two-hour practice.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Some of you, it might be a walking meditation or something even more simple, just allowing a few slow deep breaths when you awake.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: For me, my practice begins when I sit down and I love to reverse non-dominant hand journal.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever tried that, Rich?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have not.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that would be very legible.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: What's embarrassing?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is funny.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing this, Rich, now, for a year and a half.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: My left hand, my non-dominant hand, is more legible than my dominant hand that I wrote with my whole life.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: But what it does is it's I'm all about the brain science side too, is I can go into the deeply spiritual, though I can also go into the deeply scientific neuroscience side of things.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And by journaling with our non-dominant hand, we can actually access parts of our brain that don't normally have a voice.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I normally begin with non-dominant hand journaling, then I follow with any dominant hand journaling, that's the doctor scribble that you can't read.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there I go into meditation.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: My favorite is transcendental meditation, though I do a variety of meditations throughout the day.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And as I go from transcendental meditation, I then transition into one of my favorite techniques I've learned in the last six years.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it is so easy for any of you out there feeling like, oh my god, what is this woman talking about?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: A hundred natals.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: This one I'm about to tell you, every one of us can do it.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: You can do it throughout the day.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's been scientifically tested for 40 years.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Heart Focused Breathing by Heart Math.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to be very fortunate to have collaborated with them for about six years, and they've literally taught it to first responders, Navy SEALs, scientists, doctors, business people, astronauts.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens, just as you so eloquently explained at the beginning here, Rich, is that we need to quiet that part of our brain that is in that fight freeze or flight mode and regain access to our ability to be responsive rather than reactive.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I immediately go from meditation into about five or six minutes of heart-focused breathing.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's as simple as this, Rich, like the breath work that we started before the show.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: All you do that's a little bit different is you visualize the breath going in through the center of the heart and out through the center of the heart, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual, into the count of five, and out to the count of five.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do a few rounds of that, what becomes really incredible, Rich, is that you can prevent conflict in the moment and calm yourself down.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: They've done this work with police officers who have shown up on the scene and somebody's armed and they can literally calm and re-regulate their nervous system in a matter of minutes or moments.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, here I was, and why I love this technique, Rich, is you don't have to do it with your eyes closed.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: The goal with this technique is that you will eventually get to the point, Rich, where you can do it.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like right now, I'm talking to you, and I can drop in a heart focused breath in this moment and regulate my nervous system.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now, why is that important for all of us business leaders out there?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's imagine that your chairman or your partner comes in and there is something totally unexpected.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's a fire to put out.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Normally, what we do is we respond from that amygdala, that reptilian part of our brain.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: If we can pause in that moment, allow a few slow deep, heart-focused breaths, then we're gonna regulate our nervous system and regain access to our higher brain function that instead of burning everything to the ground, we can be more effective.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: This literally happened to me, Rich, about a year or so ago, maybe a year and a half.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was on a call with my co-founder, COO, and one of our attorneys, and we were talking about the intellectual property of one of the tech companies I run.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: And as we were talking about it, our my co-founder at the time was a mathematical genius and science, just genius, genius guy, right?
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we were supposed to be building an AI internally in the company, and it comes up on the call, and this is the first I've heard of it, Rich, that they're building it externally with our developers, not with our company outside of us.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Rich, I was like a cartoon that you could have fried an egg on my head.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was about ready to burn the whole company to the ground.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, I used this exact technique, I regulated my nervous system, and instead of being reactive or saying something I would have regretted, we actually were able to resolve it within a matter of minutes.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I proactively start every day, non-dominant hand journaling, meditation, followed by heart-focused breathing.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there, Rich, one of my other favorite things to do is.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and just hold you one second.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go, I want to go back to this concept.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh my audience determined to talk a lot about eat it, kill it, made it with it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the limbic brain.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then what she's deliberately doing is then forcing the breath, the heart, and then pushing to a frontal cortex, and that actually fric uh shifts frequency.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: She's actually Jennifer's actually shifting the frequency and and increasing the level of frequency that's taking place.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's not until we actually calm it down.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of the challenges that we're having in society right now because everyone's breath is so accelerated that it's actually like throwing gas on the fire.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not accidental that we got five-second breath, the perfect breath sequence.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, rhythmic and frequency again is is like 5.5 seconds.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of science behind what she's saying.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: She's riffing this off, but there's a ton of wisdom that's taking place there.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would like one clarification from when you say transgendal meditation.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some members of the audience may not know what that is.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Please go into that just a little bit more before you jump to the next thing.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll paint a picture, Rich.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Here I was building my first company, and I am the most stressed anal retentive CEO you've ever met.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm constantly snapping at everybody.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was a bit of a jerk if we're being honest.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was not kind to myself or my team.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And one of our team at the time says, Jen, my parents taught me transcendental meditation since I was a little girl.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: Think it might help you.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's like kind of that gentle little nudge.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, what transcendental meditation is, it's been around probably 50, 60 years now.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's mantra-based meditation.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So some of you may have heard of the most famous mantras, like oh is a famous mantra that people chant.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you go in to work with the TM facilitator, what I love is depending on somebody's financial level, there's different levels that you pay.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not exclusive just for people who have lots of money.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's that if you don't have as much money, you can pay less money to learn how to do it.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it just takes five days.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And over five days, they teach you how to properly meditate and they give you a specific mantra, and I'm gonna tie it back to what you just said, Rich, frequency.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: They give you a mantra that is specifically designed for Rich or specifically designed for Jennifer.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: So in my case, they gave me my mantra, which is specific to you, which you chant internally over and over.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hilarious, Rich.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: When I do this mantra in the morning, I literally like my head goes slack and I just go completely out of space and time.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, before that, I had tried, Rich, to meditate for years.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you had said, hey Jen, one day you're gonna spend two hours plus a day meditating, and when you do TM, it's really only about 20-25 minutes, once or twice a day.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Twice is what they recommend.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: I do it every morning, and then I do a different meditation normally in the afternoon.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a really quick way to regulate your nervous system.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, it helps you to be calm, peaceful, grounded, present, responsive.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why it's one of my favorite techniques that I've done for about 13 or 14 years straight now.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you're enjoying this episode of Calm the Chaos.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to receive more tools, frameworks, support, and resources, go to richchristiansen.com and they're all there available for your free use.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you so much for clarifying that.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I just would like to point out you don't necessarily have to pay someone to come up with your own mantra.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Internally, when you get calm and quiet, you know what you need to hear.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I found it incredibly powerful, uh particularly as we're going to bed, to have some kind of mantra that you say over and over.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And typically, if you calm down your five-year-old, we're all five-year-olds running around down here acting like fancy pants.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is it's five and six-year-olds where a lot of our trauma and injuries occur, and it's not until we actually get clear with that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So whatever's making your five-year-old uncomfortable, and not to get overpersonal, but sometimes I'll say you're loved, you're safe, you're loved, you're safe.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whatever it is, you can come up with a mantra, and it's just literally that simple, and that calms the limbic system, it makes everything regulate, and down you go.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I would invite you to take accountability for your own future.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I think we we we've got to be really careful to make sure that we take personal accountability and invite you to actually listen to what your inner child might need and and just come up with a mantra and try that.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's profoundly effective.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh thank you for sharing that uh with us, Jennifer.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I interrupted you.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh please go forward with You literally, Rich, you literally hit.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I love this is how in sync you and I are, Rich.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's the final two steps of my morning meditative practice, is I then go into inner child work.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: That is my favorite thing.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: It has radically changed my life.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I do this, Rich, where if anybody's watching us, you can see I'm wrapping both arms around myself.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And again, there's science to show this.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: My mom loves to read the New York Times, and a couple months ago she said, Honey, did you know that if you hold yourself and you give yourself a hug for 30 seconds a day, it actually develops oxytocin in the brain.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: So when I do my inner child work, I will hold her and I tell her every day, you are loved, you are cherished, you are accepted, you are beautiful.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's actually what I attribute, Rich, to being able to find my now husband who I love and adore, and we treat each other with such deep mutual respect and love, is that I went from being in very unhealthy relationships, which I was an equal co-creator in that, to one of my best friends saying to me when I went through the divorce, Jen, you deserve to find someone who will cherish you.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Though first you need to cherish yourself.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why every day, Rich, I hold her.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: You can put a hand on your heart or your abdomen area, especially for men I work with.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I've worked with a lot of men and women who have built multi-hundred million dollar companies, billion-dollar companies, and we're so used to being successful in the boardroom, but we don't know how to take care of that little version of ourselves.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote an article about this a year or two ago called The Inner Child in the Boardroom.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: How most of the time it's not 40-year-olds or 60-year-olds or 70-year-olds in the boardroom.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's upset four-year-olds and five-year-olds to your point.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's it's really true.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I like to say that us entrepreneurs, and I'm the king, I'm the leader.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone that's created 51 businesses, that sounds like a pretty bad addiction to me.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the the the reality is entrepreneurs are the most functional, unfunctional people in the world.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we're driving really hard and driving to cover up an insecurity.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the irony is, is at what point we face that, uh, that's why I always start by saying having the courage to face our fears, fears with reality, and to break embrace our brokenness as an integral part of who and what we are.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds really who, but when we do that, it's remarkable how much more, not only more effective we are, but the internal peace and uh and stability is just so much more what we end up creating doesn't have all this chaotic component.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's what you're hearing from Jennifer and the the navigating path that she's been through in her life.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I love it.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's funny, Rich?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: To take it back to the inner child for a moment.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I ask my little girl every day, I'll say, What do you need?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: What are you feeling today?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: And what cracks me up, Rich, is we're so driven as entrepreneurs that I have 3,000 things I need to accomplish, right?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll ask her, What are you feeling?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes she'll say, I'm sad.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: And 45-year-old Jen is like, We're sad?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: What are we sad about?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but we don't take the time to pause.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Or I'll ask her, What do you need?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what's hilarious, Rich, is like once a year, I might forget to do it.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I might compress my morning exercise.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: I travel around the world a lot.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so once or twice a year, I might forget to check in with her.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: I kid you not, Rich, like clockwork.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: By two o'clock, I'm having a tantrum like a two-year-old.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm annoyed or frustrated or upset.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'll put my hand on my heart, I'll say, sweetheart, is that you?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And she'll be like, I'm never talking to you again.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: You forgot about me.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't matter.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: But this is us in life.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I laugh because I can see this, but this is the roles that we're playing out within our family systems, within our business systems, within our marriages, which is why I love doing this work with individuals and families.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: I helped one of my clients repair her relationships with her daughters, and it was just magic to get to watch that happen.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Magic being the operative word, and it sounds so silly, but been there done that.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just saying we're not gonna use any names, but there's a few of our leaders that could probably use a little bit of little five-year-old work.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Quite frankly, if we don't get this figured out, it's gonna tear the fabric of society right apart.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And those of you now that are saying, yeah, this is a little foo-rich.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is, this is this is where the peace and the confidence and the stability really occurs.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Jennifer, I really appreciate you going deep into that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to add just a little more context because the same way, and I wish that I only forgot once or twice a year because I I did it a couple of weeks ago.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had a crazy intense where everything that there was activated my limbic system.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up not only injuring myself, getting a terrible cold sore, but man, I've been in fallout kind of uh rebellion the last week, and it was because I did not monitor and care for two individuals.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: The first was the child, as you pointed out, but I think we also have a teenager running around in there.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I like to break it down into four personas the child, the five-year-old, the rowdy 14-year-old, which is the coolest of all, by the way, but most of them were slapping the 14-year-old around, saying, You're a little crazy, a little purry, what are you doing?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have the young adult that's the hard driving, hard charging that gets all the attention.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then we got an adult attempting to monitor them all.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think not only do we forget the child, but we've also got to give voice to the teenager.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Any thoughts on that, Jennifer?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: 100%, Rich.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we are literally two peas from the same pod, my friend.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: In the years I've been doing, probably well over a decade now, I've been doing inner child work.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: When I say inner child work, I actually mean all versions of ourselves.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: I've done work with my 13-year-old self, and she has some opinions, let me tell you.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've done work with my 19 and my 21 and my 25-year-old self.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was around 23 or 24, I think, when I gave up bulimia.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so there are all of these parts of us.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Some in some methodologies they call it parts reconciliation.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, on the one hand, you have all the different ages that you were.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Then you have the parts reconciliation.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: This was a fun one, Rich.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Years ago, I remember my My late business coach and partner Julian Adler taught me this one.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: I had a part of myself named Juicy.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know she existed.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And Julian did this workshop with me where we were on a call and we had Jen, like adult Jen, whatever age I was, 30-something at the time.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he invited the different parts of me to come out to have a discussion, like around a board table, kind of like a meeting of the minds.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And one part of me got created when I was five.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't even know this rich named Juicy.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Juicy had to punish everyone.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I apologized to everybody I worked with before I found out about this part of myself.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I used to be very punitive rich to myself and to everybody around me.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I had this one part of me, Juicy.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: I had another part of me, Angel.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Angel just wanted to please everybody and just be accommodating and not ruffle any feathers.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they were constantly at odds with one another.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: So Julian did some amazing reconciliation work.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, we have all of the ages of ourselves, and then we even have aspects or parts of ourselves, almost from like a younggian standpoint, that we also get a chance to reconcile and to not make them wrong.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can you allow, in my case, that I have a part of myself that's punitive, and I respect that she served a purpose.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: She helped keep me safe in a family of alcoholism when I was growing up, in order to be like, ooh, get in line, otherwise someone's gonna get hurt here, right?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: But when we choose instead to accept and love all parts of ourselves and rich all parts of those around us, that's freedom, that's love, that's life, that's what we're all hoping for.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: You yes, I think summed up as well as it can be said, getting to love and embrace all parts of ourself.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is we always look at oh good or bad, but maybe this life experience, maybe this growing, spinning around on this little marble out in the middle of space, maybe it's not good or bad.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe even the bad, it's just learning.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just learning and exposure and growth.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think also recognizing that there's a component that's epigenetic.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's what comes into us, uh, not only through the DNA, but from the prior learn learning.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that is reconciling.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: The question then becomes of what do I want to pass on?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do I choose to to take forward and what do I don't?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not until we embrace all of this as a broken, I love the the Parker Palmer call, embracing it, uh our brokenness is an integral part of who who and what we are.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what you're saying is is accepting, uh understanding, tempering, but choosing it from a knowing place rather than a free reactive place.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: Can I offer one I agree wholeheartedly, Rich, and can I offer one final thought for you and for your listeners that was profound and helped me to reconcile the goodness and badness of the universe?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Please.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: So a couple years ago, there was a lovely gentleman, it was just post the last US election, and there was a lot of divisiveness in the world, and I'm very grateful because I connect thousands of people every year.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: People call me the fairy godmother of connection because of the connections and resources I have.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: This gentleman, Keith, said, Jen, may I please gift you a session?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now I had no idea what to expect.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I thought he did some sort of breathworky thing, and I'm like, okay, cool, I've done many of those before.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it's Thursday at 10 30 a.m.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: in December of 2024, and here I am rich, and I have no idea what to expect.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy, Keith, says to me, Jen, what do you want to work on?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know, I have had a recurring nightmare, Keith, since I was a little girl that I had to save the world.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was five years old and I was working with a group of superheroes to try and save a school bus full of kids.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Then I'm 13 years old and I'm having nightmares that I'm floating on a piece of earth on this marble floating in space, and I failed to save humanity.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Keith's like, whew, okay, let's work on that.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he begins intoning and chanting and taking me through some breath work.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And next thing you know, here I am, Rich.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: I am dead sober aside from a cup of coffee that morning.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: And space and time began to fall away.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like there was just kind of this softness that happens when you're in meditation where everything fades away.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I begin to hear laughter, Rich, and it is the sweetest, gentlest laughter you've ever heard.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Some might call it God or the universe or your higher self or source, whatever you choose to call it, you can call it that.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it was laughing and it said, You are so cute.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: There is nothing and no one to save, and there never has been.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: But your only purpose and the purpose of every human being is to re-remember the spark of light in yourself.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And once you've done that, once you've re-remembered that you are a spark of light, your only goal is to look for and listen for that spark in everyone you meet.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: And God forgid somebody's forgotten their divine spark.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Our only job, Rich, is to reflect it back to them so they can remember their own divine light.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jennifer.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think that sums up about as well as it can be said, is our purpose is to find joy, to find out who and what we really are, and and then quite frankly, to just do kindness and goodnesses to others.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of individuals uh down here uh suffering and uh not identifying their value and worth, and it's not our stewardship to necessarily force them to do that or even prove it, but we can certainly show kindness as I went to a my wife invited me to a fun little yoga session.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was called Gentle Yoga last night, and it was so fun as this uh this individual facilitating it did a wonderful job, and it was gentle and kind and soft, just like the name.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: But we got to the end and she took and we had blankets over, and she just did this small act to go around everyone and tuck everyone in the necks and then pat our shoulders, and I felt like a five-year-old.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: It just sounds so crazy, but here's you know the bootstrap entrepreneur, all these fancy titles, and I just it was so exhilarating to have this woman pat me on the shoulders and tuck me in like a little five-year-old.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was the highlight of the day.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess the reason I bring up that story, and and I think it uh ties directly to Jennifer's uh last comment who are we tucking in, who are we patting on the head, who are we showing kindness to?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, we're all five-year-olds, we're all struggling, we may act like we have fancy pants, but the reality is that we all need to be patted on the head, tucked in, and treated like a five-year-old.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's the final charge that I would leave everyone today from my perspective.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jennifer, you are the human connector.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you are the human connector, and uh would would love to have you just share any final pieces of information of how individuals can get hold of you and connect with you as appropriate, and uh just so appreciate your words of wisdom today.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, thank you so much, Rich.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's been an honor and a joy to be here with you and your audience.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, if anybody would like to connect with me, I have a global community of entrepreneurs around the world, 393 of us, called the Jen Hill Tribe.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: So J-E-N-H-I-L-L Tribe, and our nickname for it is the Love Club, where a secret group of entrepreneurs here to help one another and humanity.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that's part of where a lot of my love goes.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, uh, if you Google Jennifer Kayas and Kite Hill, you'll find me on LinkedIn, and on there you'll find that list of 180 tools and would love to stay in touch with any of you and uh see how I can be of service.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: And my lot final thoughts, I think, Rich, for the audience and for you today is how can we be a little bit gentler, just like you said, Rich, a little kinder to ourselves, to one another.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the next time we feel tempted to jump out at somebody or react or even be tough on ourselves, say we make a mistake.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: What if we could remind ourselves that we're all doing the very best we can in each and every moment?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that includes you right now, whatever you're going through.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jennifer.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was a beautiful interview.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you joining.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just incredible words of wisdom.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like it was a female version of uh and maybe a different articulation of much of the advice that I give, but just such respect to you.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so thank you for joining me today, Jennifer.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Rich.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Look forward to our next version of uh Calm The Chaos, where we uh have the courage to face our fears first with reality.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: We live a life of flow, a life of meaning, a life of purpose, and get out of the chaotic noise that uh seems to be populating the world now and maybe offer some stability, offering leadership as sovereign kings, sovereign queens.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let's have the courage to go forward and do some good.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so thank you so much, and we'll look forward to seeing you on the next episode of Calm the Chaos.