You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garl. Welcome back to I Choose Me. I've been talking to Jen hat Maker about her new book Awake, and she's got some pretty amazing nuggets to share, some wisdoms for us.
Congratulations.
Jen. First of all, you have broken a generational cycle for not just yourself, but for your kids, for your grandson. They are awake because of you, and they are no longer locked in to someone else's rules of how they should live their lives. Those are the same rules that you grew up with. The purity culture, the gender norms a shame. So you're just an inspiration. You're a modern day role model to not only women in your community but your children.
And I know you're probably exhausted.
That is such a nice thing to say.
I acknowledge you're exhausted because it's hard.
It's a lot.
Yeah, but I'm going to ask more of you. I thought, since you've had this awakening, it would be really great for us to provide a sort of little toolkit, some ways that our listeners can get started, because, as you've shown, it's now too late.
I love this.
Okay, so how did you get past the anger. How can we get past the anger?
Oh? I wish there was a fast forward button. If I knew one, I would tell you. If I knew that there was a way to make that part quicker,
I would give it to you. But what I learned in many, many, many hours of therapy is that your anger will last longer if you resist it, if you do not give it permission to live in your body, to live in your bones, to live in your thoughts for a while, if you do not give yourself permission to feel angry, if you are hustling yourself through the emotions, like if you are gaslighting yourself out of your actual feelings,
then you will stay angry longer. That's just it. Like, ironically and weirdly, the quickest way through anger is feeling angry. And so I learned to stop berating myself for feeling that way. I learned how when those feelings rise, which is normal, anger has its place, Like we have a physiological reason to have anger. That's for our protection. It's important. So when I feel anger rising up, I learned, oh that's it. First of all, phone down, Oh Jesus, that's
not a good time to see the text. That's not it, that's not it. Close your laptop, close your phone, say give technology away from you. I go outside if I can. I sit in the grass if I can, or on my porch. Either way, I don't care. Just some some air, some sun. And this is so like low brow of a tactic. But I learned how to get my body really really soft. I would notice when I was angry, I was so tense. It's like my shoulders were up
into the ceiling. My forehead was like so tight, my hands like this, yeah, just I didn't even know that I was. I didn't just walking around. I'm just right tight well. And so I learned like how to like release my eyes and my jaw. I didn't even know about my jaw and my shoulders and my hands. And I meditation taught me how to do this, get it all as soft as I possibly could. Soft soft soft, soft soft, like a pillow. And then I learned the breathing. So for me, I like the big breaths. So I'm
eight seconds in, four seconds, hold eight seconds out. It's cold, and I'm not trying to fight my anger. I'm letting all this time, I'm letting my feelings be what they are but I'm just doing it with a soft body. I'm doing it with a regulated nervous system, which is what that breathing would do for me. I'm doing it without resistance. And it's so crazy. It moved it through quicker, It moved it through quicker, and then the next time it spiked it wasn't quite so intense, And so I
wish that that was fast, but it is not. But it will work.
It takes how much time it takes? Yeah, okay, finances bare bones. What does every human need to know about being responsible for themselves and how can we help ourselves and our children be ready for life?
And finances?
Great question because this doesn't just apply to recently divorced women who now have financial autonomy. This is everybody. The happ best married girl in the whole world should know all the same things. And so it's so simple, It sounds so simple to my ears. Now every account you need passwords to every account, all your banking, all your bills. You know, every credit card, every loan, whatever it's for.
You need to have a real working knowledge of your taxes, however it is that you pay them, and how much you owe and what those look like future planning your retirement, your investments, and that also includes your like will so oh I know that, yeah, but we've got to have that stuff. And what I would do now if I had a partner is number one, share that labor. Financial division of labor is not that uncommon. A lot of a lot of marriages. One partner sort of takes the
lead on that. That's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. But the other partners should not be absolutely ignorant. They should not abdicate all investment into those decisions, into those numbers. And so if I were partnered now, although I would never hand the reins over to somebody else again, ever, I would have a monthly business meeting where I went, let's just sit down, let's have a look at it. How where's our budget at? Like, what's coming in? What's
coming up? It's not even that. Isn't that boring? That's just the most boring adult stuff, it really is. It's the most boring adult stuff. But it's a knowledge is power because.
A partnership, a partnership, whether it's romantic or business, is you have to have meetings, you have chap check ins, you have to have like updates, how are we doing, whether it's money of the relationship.
Stuff or money to us, that's right, like good financial like practices don't just happen to us. They're not accident. And so it's the boring staff of going, Okay, we've got a kid starting college next fall, let's talk about getting there and what it's just, this is how it is. And so this keeps resentment out of a marriage too, where one people feels or one partner feels unfairly burdened, because that is a lot for one person to have
to do. Money is a huge lift. And the thing is some people might go, well, my husband would never leave me, divorce is not in our cards. Well, first of all, I said that too. Second of all, death and disease is indiscriminate, and so we never know when it might be that we are in the driver's seat by ourselves on money. So don't let us sneak up on you. You do not want to learn that shit when you are in crisis.
Right, get ready, be ready, prepare yourself.
Be ready, be ready in the good share of day, so that when nightfall happens to you in one way or another, which it does to all of this, if it hasn't just lived longer. You're ready.
You're ready. Great advice.
Okay, choosing you moms women, people often get lost in the family system. And in your book You Do, you talk about you single yourself out as a separate person now like they are your kids, there's your partner, and then there is just jin How can we be more intentional about choosing to love ourselves and care for ourselves?
M I think that looks different for every person, which I love. I love that each one of us can calibrate. What does it? What does love feel like to me? What does love look like to me? If I were loving me, what would that look like? I love the question because we're all geared differently. So for me, what love looks like for myself? What it means to be a person and not just a mom and not just a sister. It is time, extended time, meaningful time, and
consistent time with my friends. That's what it is for me. We spend three days a week together at least we travel. We've traveled the whole world together, the whole world together. And then when we're not together, we're on it's a daily long, ongoing group chat and which is half nonsense, And so for me, that makes I'm a person inside my friends, inside my friend group. That is, those are my chosen people, and we love each other because we want to and we have so much fun. And those
were my friends who loved me back to life. Every single one of their names is in this book, and so that is what it looks like to me.
It feels so good to be seen outside of all of your roles, right.
I didn't know that our moms were like real people, you know. I didn't know about that they were so mommish. They were just there to, like, you know, make sure our lives were going smoothly. So I did not realize that like our moms had friends and inside jokes. I did not know that they talked about us behind our backs, like you know what I mean. It's so fun to know that, like, oh my gosh.
Yeah, it's I don't go back and think, yeah, think in retrospect, like, h what was I missing?
Totally totally And so that for me is what it means to choose me, which is that I am choosing my adult friendships and which is so fun and weren't such a good season for it. Like two of my friends are complete empty nesters totally, and I almost am. I got one hanger on her back here.
Me too, But I love it.
Oh that's so good. I feel like I need to really. That's something that I have taken away from this episode for sure, is I know that because I'm so busy right now, because I have this like notion in my head that it is go time. I want to do as much as a much building as I can right now, and all the things that I ever really wanted to do, I have this like I want to get it done by the time I'm sixty, so when I'm sixty, I can just do whatever f I want, like, not worry
so much and not be so scheduled. I don't know if that's going to happen at sixty, but I do find that, Yeah, I do find that my my female friendships are in last place. Yeah, I mean, because there's some of the things that got to go before my husband, my kids, the my health, you know, the upkeep of me.
There's there's a lot, one.
Hundred percent, right, There's always a lot. There's always a lot. And I mean I remember kind of saying that to when my kids were little. Well, but there's this and there just always is. And I don't know that we ever stop having those things. I'm not sure, but I don't want to wait until my life has so emptied out that I do have time for my friends. But I'm eighty one, you know, I wit it will still.
Be great when you're eighty one with your girlfriends.
It will be let's do got to help everybody around us. But I want to have a good time getting there too.
Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to work on that.
Thank you very good.
The very first step, your first inclination was to lay the whole implosion of your marriage at the feet of your partner and walk away clean. You realize that you talk about that in your book, but you realize that it's more complicated than that. What do you think is the first step that someone can take to get into their next relationship healthier than they left their last.
Well, I think think there may be a truth worth admitting or facing for every single human person, which is, there is a one hundred percent chance that you have some shit. Yeah, one hundred percent chance. And that is not taking away from the harm someone else caused you. That is not that is not a free pass. That does not say that does not suggest that somebody else's behavior was not traumatic, irresponsible, like exponentially painful. That is,
that is not absolving anybody else of anything. But there is a one hundred percent chance you've got some of your own shit. So when I finally figured that out, I was like, Okay, well, I can hang on to that forever. If I want to just out of spy, I can do that and just be resentful and bitter. That's a choice. Or I can go ahead and go with or without him wherever I go. There. I am, So, who do I want to be in this next iteration of my life? Do I want to perpetuate some of
these toxic like communication patterns. Do I want to stay as an avoidant attached person. Do I want to keep honing these codependent skills with everybody in the whole world? Or might I'd like to take a better look at that. So I think the first thing is admitting that you've got something worth looking at.
That's self awareness.
That's it. Plenty of people will help you figure out what that is. So don't worry. If you're like, well, I don't even know what my stuff is, don't worry about it. Just as always a therapists ask somebody, they'll help you. But admitting that you've got some stuff is really useful. Where you go in as a willing partner to your own evolution, anything can happen from that.
Point, Yes, and even admitting it and knowing that the work to rewire those patterns in our brain, whatever it is, whether it's like for me, I'm not a great communicator. I suck at it in my relationship. I don't update the person that I should about what's changed for my day or how that's going to affect their schedule or you know.
I'm just, I'm I just.
I know I can get better at that, and I know that about myself.
But it doesn't mean it's easy.
It takes work, that's right. None of this is easy, none of it. This is why most adults walk around unexamined and unevolved because it's hard.
It's hard. You don't want to do it.
Yeah, I get it. I mean it's easier just to blame other people for the way your life is going. And just imagine if that they would all behave you would be happier. So I get the aversion to the hard work, But I do think it is the path to a really vibrant second half of life.
Very true, Very true.
Okay, how do you let go of those rigid or outdated beliefs that you grew up with that no longer serve you?
Boy, that's a big question and a hard one because that comes with some loss. And most people know that, Like when you are going to release a belief that you were handed as a kid, that maybe your origin story still holds to right, or some of the people that you came from or came up with are still in that ethos and you are migrat grading out of it. It is you are correct in thinking this might hurt, This might involve some loss, This might be challenging, This
might threaten my belonging, which it can. Yeah, And that is one of those consider the cost places, because I had to consider the cost with a lot of beliefs that I have released, and I was going to pay one way or another. And I had to decide which way I was going to pay. I was either going to get to protect my belonging, which meant I was going to have to pay with my own integrity because I didn't still believe this thing anymore, or I had changed my mind, or I had an involved idea about it,
or I didn't think that way anymore. So I was going I would pay the cost, and the cost was internal. The cost was misalignment. The cost was living in a way that felt duplicitous. But I could protect my belonging or I could put my belonging at risk and live with my integrity. Either way, it's gonna cost me something.
Yep.
And eventually I have mostly decided that the cost to live out of integrity for me is too high. It's too high. It ruins everything. I cannot. I am not a functional person when I have an outward facing gin that is different from inside gin, I just can't. I cannot function that way. I can do it for a short amount of time, but that starts coming out sideways. So figure out what cost you want to pay. And none of it's free, unfortunately. So what I find, yes,
very very helpful. Codependency you explained so well in your book with your own story. Thank you so much for being vulnerable around that topic, because it's a big one.
Do you think codependency is contagious? Do we pass it down to our kids? And how do we personally break free? From being codependent like this is uh, that's big work.
Oh, this is such my heavy lift. I'm not good at.
It yet, I'm not about interdependence.
How have you heard that?
Tell me more?
Well, I've been labeled codependent by other people. I've labeled myself codependent. And you know what I've said, bucket, I'm codependent. I'm okay with that.
I like it.
I like that about me, try to justify it. But then I stumbled upon this new awareness called interdependence, which really gave me permission to still care deeply and want for other people, but also protect my own space, my own you know, my own process.
That's good. I love that as a goal. That's my goal. I just adopted it, just now on the spot.
Take it.
Yeah, that's I'm just gonna learn everything I can about that, and that's exactly what I'm working toward as well.
Do you think it's contagious? Do you think we pass it down to our kids?
I do, don't you? Yeah? I see learn that from us. I think they learn that attempt at control because number one, they probably have felt controlled by us.
Or out of control or out of control.
That's really how it feels.
Yep.
Yeah, I do think it's contagious and you kind of see that past generally, generationally, if no one ever interrupts the cycle. And so it's a big one. It's a big one. And i'd like to say, on our best days, it comes from an altruistic place. What we we don't want the people that we love to experience pain and discomfort. I know that we mean well. I know that we do mean well. But the thing is is that human beings experience pain and discomfort full stop. So any attempt
to disrupt the way life works is highly dysfunctional. And so I don't know. I feel like I'm getting about a sixty two percent on this right now. Maybe like a fifty nine is probably more fair.
That's better.
It's an improvement that's better than thirteen percent.
Okay, thank you, thanks, I'm almost passing. I'll take that.
Yeah, that's like a D right, yeah D minus.
You're going to pass.
Thank you.
You can get to go on to the next What are your tips for finding your people and fostering authentic friendships? Give me some because I need it.
That's hard, isn't it. It's hard to make friends at our age. Well, one thing I learned I had somebody on my show that was kind of a relationship expert, and she was saying that at our age that the number one factor for keeping friends, making friends, nurturing friendships around this time is And I expected her to say, you know, vulnerability or I expected some of those like emotional squishy thoughts about friendship, and she's like, proximity. She
was like, you will be friends with whoever you're around. Like, true, it can't be too hard. If your friend lives forty five minutes away, you're not going to see her that much, like she's like, it is proximity. And that is also why some friendships loosen because somebody has moved, even just across town.
Oh my best friend moved to Palm Springs, and well, well I'm so mad at her.
Why will we are?
It will always be what we were and are There is that, like evolving with one another in real time that makes such a thing.
I know, it is. Proximity is something. And so it's not that everybody can just pack up and move so they can live on the same street as their best friends. I understand that, but it is worth going who's around me, who's near me? Who for whom it would friendship kind of be an easy lift because it's like, hey, walk down for one hour's so of the porch. That's easy. That's not that disruptive delight. That doesn't take a ton
of planning. That doesn't you know, when we have to make our plans with our people who for whom we are not proximate, it takes an act of God.
Oh my gosh, it's an act of God. Find the time.
It's so hard. So don't underestimate proximity, what it can mean, what it can do, and then be willing to be opened and maybe some of the people that are near you that may turn into such a beautyati ful connection because it's easy.
Yeah, I find though on that topic, I do gravitate towards being friends with my coworkers, people that I work with on the daily. But then I realize, are we just friends because of our closeness on a day to day thing or is there something deeper there? Do they really know me? Is this serving them more than it's serving me?
Yeah?
Because I'm usually the older one. Oh yeah, in my work relationships, m.
Yeah, real friendships bear out. Those are good questions to ask, just to gauge the health of any given relationship, but the good ones bear out. They do. And the reciprocity, which I think is what you're getting at there, is one of the biggest indicators. Is this person a good friend to you? Or are you just a good friend
to them? And that will run out of fuel. Yeah, but the reciprocity, even if your friend is twenty five, you're younger than you, that can still be the most beautiful sound friendship in the world when it is give and take.
For sure, I feel like sometimes my middle daughter, who is my what you called hanger on her, she's I love that she's back home with me. We work together full time. Oh yeah, I feel like she's my best friend.
Is that bad?
No, I don't think so. We have an evolving relationship with our young adult kids. It's marvelous. I'm always telling moms of young don't worry. First of all, they're hilarious as teens. They will drive you crazy, but they're funny. Don't listen to what everybody says, how teens are the worst ever in your life is over, it's not. The young adults is where it's at. Young adults is where it's at.
It's so much fresh, the exciting new. Yeah, their perspective. I love it, Yes, the best, Okay, so so good? Me Camp? How me Camp? We talked about me Camp in the episode. If you guys didn't listen to the first episode, go listen to it, and you write about it in your book. You make everybody around you want to go to meet Camp.
Yeah.
How can someone who is overwhelmed that thought or afraid of that thought, how can they do that for themselves?
That's almost everybody. Like the idea of solo travel, even for a shorthandful of days, is very overwhelming to almost every woman I know. Don't We have never built or oriented our lives like that. And so what I always tell people who want to have their own met Camp. Let's just say it's three days long. Awesome, yep. Do not expect one thing about it to be easy or seamless, nothing like anything good. You will need to plan it. You will have to block it off and protect it.
Nobody else will. Nobody wants you to be gone for three days. Nobody. You'll have to maybe say for it that is a positive. If it's save your money, save your points, save your miles, whatever it is, your thing is you save for it, have a plan like also, know what you want? What does me camp look like to you? To me, it has a real specific metric. Somebody else might want me camp in the middle of New York City, whatever it is, like what makes you happy,
what fuels you like, what makes you feel alive? Like? Where would you love to be your own? Good company? So build it around you.
I love it.
Build it around what you need. That's perfect advice these revelations. This work is very, very hard. I feel like somehow you and I and anyone who has gone through something like this has basically we've saved our own lives and kind of feels like we're saving the world sometimes. So thank you for sharing your story. I know it is going to help so many women out there. And the book is called Awake a memoir. Get it people, you won't regret it.
Thank you, Jenny,