Beauty in pauses: Jaclyn Chan changes her relationship with the storms in her life

Hi Jack, welcome. Hi Linda, morning. We are host Linda. We're here to normalize poses, one story at a time, and today I'm speaking to Jack. Just a little introduction. She has worked with Nike, Lululemon, TechnoJim, Great Brands. Now she's also the founder of RadicalPost. Transponderive wellness and leadership company. Let her tell you more about that. She's also a general manager of moral health, a fairly new startup, I imagine. I really respect her and I see her as an ultimate champion of pauses. So no better person to speak to today than her. But yeah, maybe we start with something lighter. Since you woke up, have you taken a pause? Was it intentional? Every morning is hard to wake up. What I do is I like to take a pause with my bed. I always wake up with a little bit of body ache, so I need to let you check it out. I just really close my eyes and sometimes fall asleep again. This morning I woke up a little bit nervous speaking to you to be honest. I think I'm just kind of selling in and recognizing how I'm feeling. And just being grateful that I have breath, that I can breathe, I can feel and take on the rest of the day. I have a good feeling about today's session already. Look at that. So moving into, I guess, the tough part. What has been the hardest pause you have made? My life has been decorated with a lot of storms, a lot of opportunities to lean into pauses. From health to loss to not only lost of my second, our second son Nathan. I also like loss of identity when I step to reform work. These pauses, these opportunities for growth, I'm not always something that you welcome. But it's what life gives to you. And I think it's really around the approach, like how do you want to allow it to affect you? Whether it's something that I'm seeing for you. And so being the typical complain mode is the default where I'm always like, why is this happening to me? And we're just trying to shift that perspective to seeing the storm as a gift. And yeah, seeing how it's happening for me. Are you comfortable to share a little bit more about, I guess, I hear two aspects. One is health and one is your loss. Yeah, feel free. I'll start off with the hardest pause, which was your question. Yeah, we were, we started off 2025 with so much anticipation, joy. And I think my theme for that year was to be alive. And in me that year, we, the life of our second son Nathan was taken away. And I think we have learned to thought freshly grief is never linear. It can never be compared and that everyone's journey is different. Even though I have fully allowed myself to feel, I recognize that even though I know more, read multiple books, listen to many podcasts to heal. That even though I might have a little bit more empathy and understanding of what this is that I can never understand whatever someone else is going through. I think for us, it was to be honest, very dark. I'm generally a very optimistic and happy person. But I think the fact that we don't, recognizing that you don't have control. And that control over the situation, but you have control over how you want to approach it. And that's the only control you have. And trying to figure out the difference of knowing when to which type of control to let go of, and which control for you to allow yourself to feel. Why you stop to see things in a different way. Yeah. So sorry to hear. I mean, I think loss is the hardest thing to deal with. And I know in high set, you can share all of this wonderful words. But it must be really, really tough doing that. How are you doing, Jack? Now it's been, it's been over here and looking back. It's amazing to see it as truly as a gift, even though the pain was very raw, very real. And times I, to be honest, I couldn't even feel. And I think right now I recognize the importance of pausing and the importance and the privilege to feel. Because when you actually cannot feel, it's way worse. During that time, my best friend brought me through a meditation. And all I could see was empty, dark, cold case. And she kept on asking me to feel and all I could do, despite really trying as high as I could, is. I couldn't feel. And at the end of the meditation, I was very curious. And to be honest, quite frustrated on why I couldn't feel. But I felt like I needed to actually go through that as someone that sometimes is called too emotional. I needed to know what not being able to feel is. And it's not a good place to be. I feel like our feelings are of superpower. And so right now in my present moment when I feel angry, which I don't usually do, but when I feel frustrated and irritated with just more so, or happy joyful, both extremes of the different spectrums of spectrum of emotions, whether I like it or don't like the feeling, I recognize that. Yeah, I'm human. I'm still alive. I, and that what can this feeling? What can this emotion teach me? Yeah, absolutely. I think our, our superpower as human is to feel. Yeah, coming back to how grief is not linear, it really hits you like in waves. The least expected even in the happy moments. I remember there was a time I was playing tennis and my husband was like, what's wrong with you? And I was like, I'm fine, but actually I was frozen on the court because just a wave of grief hit me. And I think it wasn't, I needed to remind myself it wasn't just to try to snap out of it. It's like, okay, feel the moment, how am I feeling? And then decide like how I want to pivot. Yeah, but it can hit you even when you're not in solitude and when you're doing things that you love. That's really around like recognizing that this is this part of the healing process. And yeah, it comes with ups and it comes down and tell me more about the health piece. You were talking about it. So six years ago, I was 15, 3D like to. Didn't know that I was battling with an autoimmune disease type 1 diabetes. Leaving up to my discovery, I was feeling extreme fatigue. I woke up, my bed will be completely soaked all the way down to my mattress. I could hold my pee, couldn't conceptualize my thoughts. And I thought it was because I was traveling a lot for work. I thought it was just my work taking a total of my body. To be honest, like, I don't know how it feels like to be in anyone else's body. It's not an excuse, but fatigue bone, bone aches or body aches or whatever. You may call it has been quite a norm for me. It just started to intensify and I thought it was my challenge to deal with. But yeah, I found out through saying God, found out through a random health test. And I'm not sure if you want to know more about that part of how I found out. Yeah, when I found out the doctor was freaking out and I was like, it's just diabetes like chill. I even held her hand and said like, it's okay. It wasn't that I wasn't there. I didn't know what diabetes was. I didn't know a difference between type 1 and type 2. I didn't recognize that I needed to be on insulin for the rest of my life. I would need to. Yeah, inject in insulin for five times a day. Yeah, I didn't know that I was like threatening. But now I do. And I think it's really on this proceed to how people recognize that you need to listen to your body. Your body takes score. And yeah, the excuse might be, I don't know how it feels like to be in anyone else's body. If you don't feel good, please proceed with doctor. Please get a check dot. And when I learned there is, so I was 15 kg lighter. And when I got on insulin, I found 20 kg in the first month. I think my body was in full starvation mode. So it was just storing everything that I was eating. I couldn't feel full. Everything that went down my throat, the feeling probably stopped here. And then I couldn't feel food in my stomach for like entire month. So I just kept on eating and eating. And so yeah, I realized how important vanity was to me. All of us checked. I thought it wasn't that important because maybe I took it for granted that from looking like an emiatic, catwalk model. So you're looking like a fish ball within one month. Yeah, I realized like, wow, a lot of my identity was actually picked about. But I think it wasn't just vanity. I think what really hit me was before I found out that I had type one diabetes when things manifested a lot more when my brain fogs, even being on insulin, think my body couldn't cope. And I think what really hit my confidence was the inability to be sharp, which was a large part of my identity is even paked on that. Ability to do things quick. Ability to be sharp, to be creative. And I thought that was stripped from me when I got on insulin, like the most immediate lens. Yeah, I couldn't think constan brain fogs. Things that would be super easy for me. I love numbers, as I showed it before, I couldn't crunch my numbers. Something was wrong. And that was it really made me pause to think about who am I outside of the things that I do outside of how I look. Could I love myself? And what were the things that truly made me who I am? Yeah. Wow. I mean, when you say, "Storm," you don't say it like these are real storms. You're still struggling with the disease. Grief is not over. I guess what changed within you? Yeah, whenever I face a challenge, be a small challenge at work or with my family or in life to like a big storm. How do I change my relationship with it? How do I mean anything more? And choose to be curious even when I don't want to be curious. Or choose how to see and step into a possibility. What can I see if there's a wall instead of going, oh shit, there's a wall and turning back to seeing how can I find it? Well, what are the ways? What's the new vantage point I can see? And that's there. I use this analogy a lot of the storm. And I'm gonna see the storm as a gift. And but I think what's really changed in me is recognizing that I have the choice of where I am in the storm. I think it's not about pretending that the storm does not exist because, yeah, it's not about being ignorant. It's facing the storm and recognizing our use swept up in the chaos. The vortex spinning around. Or are you choosing to let go of what's keeping you in the vortex and that storm and like shifting into the center because I truly believe that every storm has an eye, place of calmness, groundedness, peace. And when you're in the eye of the storm, even no matter how dark, torrential, crazy, that stormy feel, and you realize you're not, firstly, you're not the storm and that's around you, but you're able to see the storm in a different perspective. So that's how I tried to live my life now. It's not the easiest, but the constant practice I hate to use the word let go. But did you have to let go anything before you kind of move on? So many things. Yeah, definitely needed to let go of my pride. I like being controlled. Maybe of us. I like achieving. I like being recognized and grew up as a insecure middle child, always trying to prove. And I think like to just continue on with the different storms, the other storm was choosing to leave work when we lost Nathan. And leaving your titles, your accolades aside. And letting go of your pride, letting go of what you thought success was, letting go of what you wanted people to know you as in terms of your titles or your achievements. And shifting to be okay. And realizing that it's way better for people to love you for who you are. And not trying to just fit in, but to really truly belong to who you are. Yeah, but I think we live in a world where we're constantly pulled in multiple directions. People are defining us, defining success. And I won't say we, but like I'll speak from I, that I am highly easily influenced by the walls, the minds, so being able to put all that aside and let go of my pride, let go of proving and choosing to not only have people look at, you know, people always say, look at the fruits because they'll tell, like look at how many fruits this person is blossoming. But truly not about the number of fruits, but about the quality of the fruit. And what that, what fruit that actually is and it really stands from the root. Like if your roots are not strong, um, um, you're not getting the right nutrients, you're not feeding your soul, what filling your cup. Yeah, you might have a few fruits coming out, but it might not be, it might not be representative of who you are. I mean, the next season you won't blossom because your roots are in there. So it's, um, it's chart lift, right? So I think it's really around like what's sustainable. You speak about success then what is your definition now? Yeah. Um, I think I'm a yoga teacher. Um, also, yeah, I love this word, equanimity. Um, do you know this word equanimity? You don't know? Explain to us. So I learned this yoga teacher training and like when you teach yoga for those who know yoga and for those who don't, um, when you're getting into a pose and when you're not stepped in the right direction, when your foundation is not strong, everything feels off center. Everything feels hard. Your body might be shaking because you're breath is not connected and you're just trying to navigate. But once you find that sweet spot where your feet grounded, your core is engaged, your practice and is in the right slow state, you find the balance of string and ease. So we're not in Savasna. We're not lying down here in an active pose. But there is a balance of string and ease and it makes things feel so much easier. And sometimes it's just about finding a little bit of a degree of change and you find that step. Um, the challenging thing is that you're in a one hour class. You're not in that one position for one hour. Firstly, that's really hard. Maybe the last. I think actually that's really hard. But the instructor will make you go to a balancing off to a different side, change your pose. And then you have to start all over again to find that equanimity spot. Oh, um, I think true success is really finding the balance of strength and ease, both personnel, both work when you're in the state of enjoyment, when you're in state of challenge. Even in enjoyment, there's when I'm when I'm when I'm dancing, I only truly enjoy it. when I'm like slipping my hand, looking crazy, and just feeling really at ease and letting go of what other people think. First, there's just like small little bobs, but because people, 'cause you're so concerned about being on the beat or what people think, they're just like go, like kind of strange. - So core strength. - It's kind of strange, but find that ease. And then it's just so much more enjoyable. - Such. - So success is really trying to, yeah, not care so much and just being the moment and enjoy finding that equanimity spot. - But I don't know new word, for sure. - And what do you fight for now? - I think it's similar to what I shared before about finding the eye in the storm. I'm sure you know the word gratitude. But Linda, do you know the word radical gratitude or the words radical gratitude when they put together? So gratitude is always on hindsight. When looking back, like for example, when we do the different storms in your life, you look back and you think about what's still the line. The good thing. But what I'm fighting for right now is being in the pursuit to be in the practice of radical gratitude. On radical gratitude is deciding to find meaning to be grateful when you're in the storm, when the storm is raging now. The word radical comes from a lot of the word radicals. It needs to root. So like how are you rooting down into things that makes you who you are? And then how are you using that to rise, to lean in, to change your relationship with the storm? Yeah, to really shift from why is this happening to me, to how is this happening for me? And it's hard, especially now I'm back to photon work. You know, in the board meetings, things are going on, challenges are happening to my pursue and trying to grow radical gratitude and multiple challenges. But then it's, yeah, seeing those challenges has a way for us to grow instead. Think differently because if there was no challenges, you can't grow, you can't be sharpened, you can't do better. It's tough. (laughs) Wow. Yeah, it's tough. They speak about storms. So what anchors you know? Like what helped you, you know? Think in addition to everything I've mentioned before is, so I believe in God, faith is really important to me. And recognizing that no matter how present I am, no matter how much I lean into radical gratitude, my, I can only look in any one direction at any one time. I can move really quick and like increase my vision. But there's only so much that I can see. And to release surrender to trust the process, to know that someone after a has a plan and that not only do I love him, but he loves me. And I think it's easier to surrender and to anchor when you, when you know someone has a bad. So yeah, I am not very good with my quiet time. I try to do it more. But whenever I anchor into my faith, it definitely retries us, me, gives me new perspectives. I am definitely a lot more historic. A man's sister. You're doing all this exciting, great things, with radical pause in your new role. Tell me more about how that I guess to into the life now, 'cause you sound like someone who is so intentional now and I think you know what you want, you know? - Thank you. So with radical pause, firstly, yeah, there's no point like I learn all these things from my starm's and like you can alter myself. 'Cause I think I recognize that everyone has starm's. Some biggest starm's, then others some darker starm's, some have more starm's than others, but everyone has a starm. And I feel very, yeah, privileged despite the pain that had to go through and to have learned through radical pause, I really want to be able to hold space for more people. To allow themselves to feel, to allow themselves to take the intentional pause. To see that life has ebbs and flows. Maybe I'll introduce you to one more new word. It's really hard to spell too. - It's what CZURA? - Yep, I can spell that. - When I was thinking this was the original company name before radical pause, but I felt firstly, no one would know how to spell it. No one will find the URL of people with virtue, the name. But why I love the word CZURA is, it's the universal term for our pause. So the double lines that you see in your music scrolls are the double lines that you see in your page breaks. It's the double line that you see on your remote control when you press pause. It's a collection. It's of all the puzzles, your comments, your semicolons, your four stops, even the corona, which is the grand pause in music. And like a dancer, you need to pause so you can pivot so you can lift. You can't just be like moving around. You need to pause so you can pivot. And whether it's music, if you just keep on, I play, I do sound therapy. And if I was just like hitting all the sound bowls, bringing all the chimes and doing all the tongue drums, all at one go, it's just noise. There is beauty in letting the vibrations. Yeah, just speak to the people receiving. There was beauty in the silence of pauses. And like every beautiful music that ever been created, beats are created because there are pauses in between. And yeah, so with radical pause, it's really around like helping people find that beat. But recognizing the beat meets pauses, otherwise it's just noise. And we're running around like here with chickens. And then at work, it's time to privilege to be part of moral, which is like our vision, our mission is to empower people to take ownership over their choices today, to help them with their health spend in their tomorrow. And our vision is to close the health spend and your life's been dead. So it also requires pauses. And our company logo is also the seizura to line. I noticed. Hey. We talk about the journey and how like us and the care team, like journeys with people, but I'm especially excited about really like not me leading the commercial and operations, but really the programming. So like every yoga class won't just be a normal yoga class. We'll open up with the sound, everything from your gongs, the art to your, to your samples, just really to remind people to be present in the moment. We travel on the mat and to really own their choices on every movement that they make. This will flow into our personal training, our strength and conditioning classes, which usually people don't think that there needs to be a pause, but yeah, the programming I really wanted to be an experience to remind people that it's not only in this one hour, but how are you using this one hour to better your rest of the day and get tomorrow's? - Yeah, so I feel really excited to be a part of this journey. (laughs) So I spend a lot of time addressing people's fears, helping people think about their fears, their limiting beliefs, and sometimes even your hidden commitments because sometimes your hidden commitment might be good, like responsibility, but sometimes their responsibilities actually are greatest weight and that's holding you back from letting go. So we spend a lot of time in reflecting what that is. Then we do a conscious release. So I bring up my gongs, really do a lot of breath work because sometimes you have, you hold it in your body, sometimes in your mind, but it's really about like that conscious release. And the fourth hour is practical gratitude, which is now when you're released, and you've released things that's not solving. you, then you can see more clearly. Then you can see, how is this storm? If you're holding on to all your baggage, you're not going to be able to see it all. And then you reach under. You're going to the center. How are you, rice? Right? Yeah. That would be another one hour or so. I'll save the list next. Your story is extraordinary. I want to speak about Nathan, the name that you gave him. And so I guess I want to take time for us to celebrate Nathan, you know, and not leave it as a conversation, you know. So Jack, if you want to. Yeah. Now things end up for giving you this opportunity. So our first son, Tyler, firstly, he really doesn't usually have much of an opinion on things. But we're choosing amongst a bunch of names. Tyler was like, it's Nathan. And I said, why? And he's all the, how about this so bad? And he said, no, Nathan. And he was very sure. Later we went to actually find out the name of the name Nathan. And the meaning is different God. So when we lost Nathan, to be honest, I was normally confused, but pretty, a little bit angry at God. And I was like, this is a gift. Why would you take it away? And then again, it's coming back to surrender. Oh, sorry. So yeah, I'm truly seeing him as a gift and really being curious to see how I could leave him. And he's taught me so much. Yeah, he's taught me how to see storms in a different way. And to be honest, I would not have birth radical paths. I would not have left my job. I would not have taken that year off to kind of really fall in love with myself to accept my flaws to embrace it. And to really not only do feeling work with the grief that I had with Nathan, but all the things that I had not addressed before. Yeah, so he definitely made me stronger. And the loss is also part of my story. And I believe everyone here, we're an aggregate of everything that has happened to us. How you say there's not things that happened to us. If I didn't experience that, I wouldn't be able to connect us deeply as I believe I can now. So yeah, I'm not sure if that answers your question. Thank you, Jack, for sharing your vulnerability for being so generous with how you deal with your storms. So for people who are listening in, is this resonate with you? Please share your love with Jack. Follow our podcasts and also social channels to really connect with Jack and other postmakers. Thank you so much, Linda. Thank you, Jack.