From Homeless to Healed: How Jewel Broke Free From Pain to Pursue A Life of Happiness & Purpose

Lemonada. You can get $50 towards any style when you order five samples for only $10. The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome to RealPod. It's your host, Victoria Garrick-Brown, and this is the podcast where we hold nothing back. Oh, so we're getting deep, huh? I really cried for 12 days straight. Why do I want to be perfect? There's nothing in my life that is perfect. Every week, I'll bring you honest, unfiltered, and eye-opening conversations to help uncover the real in all of us. I crave the type of content that you're talking about. I actually felt insecure. Oh my God, am I going to cry? Let me just unload everything. New episodes every Wednesday. Leave those filters at the door because it's time to get real. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to RealPod. This episode today will really ground you and inspire you to feel more connected with yourself and with the universe. I was blown away. By our guest today, Jewel's wisdom, insight, and how much she's learned from what's such a traumatic upbringing. You may know Jewel as a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, but what you might not know about her is what she endured to get there. Jewel grew up on a homestead in Alaska. She moved out at 15 due to an abusive household, became homeless at 18, and soon after was discovered singing in bars. And after her rise to fame in the 90s, she committed herself to helping others access the mental health tools she never had. And that's through her foundation, the Inspiring Children's Foundation. There are so many good quotes and takeaways on today's episode, so get your notepad ready if you're one of those people. But I can guarantee that in this episode, you are going to learn how to stop feeling like a victim of your circumstances and take radical accountability for your life. Jewel's also going to share what it means to never waste a good disaster, aka her advice for turning pain into purpose. And what you need to know about her is that she's a woman. You need to know about yourself and the universe so you can learn to trust your gut and leave room for magic. That's something I've been working on, and Jewel has inspired me to continue going deep into that journey. So without further ado, please help me welcome Jewel on today's episode of RealPod. Jewel, welcome to RealPod. Thank you. I'm so happy to have you. Likewise, happy to be had. I love your calming energy. You were just telling me that you talk very softly. Which I should do more of. I feel like I'm always screaming, and my husband's like, okay. No, I think whatever's authentic to people. Yeah. You know what I mean? I always wish I had like a louder projection, but I don't. It is so true. We have to understand our superpowers. Yeah. I once had someone tell me, because it was Justin Anderson. He wakes up at like 5 a.m., and I was like, I wish I could be a morning person. And he was like, but if you're a nighttime person, be about it. Own the night. And I was like, I love that. Comparison is the thief of joy. So true. I feel like you have so many. Knowledge bombs. I've been listening to you on different podcasts. You're so wise and insightful. And would you say spiritual? Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I wanted to kick this off by asking you, how is your spirit? Oh, my spirit is well. Thank you. I think the trick of life for me was, how do you become more loving and more resilient and more kind and even more trusting with time? Because I feel like life kind of encourages us to be the opposite. And so if you don't want to be the opposite, if you don't want to be that way, it takes like genuine healing and genuine growth so that we become more capable with time instead of more mistrustful. It's beautiful because what you experienced in your life could have easily sent someone down a path of cynicism and resentment and I don't know, feeling victimized and yeah, kind of like fuck the world. But it feels like you grabbed it by the reins and made something beautiful out of a circumstance that many kids don't go through. Yeah. I feel like, you know, the best revenge is a life well lived. The best revenge is learning to be happy, but there's no shortcut. You can't fake it, sadly. And so again, it just takes like real work. But I kind of look at it like I didn't want to be abused twice. Being hit takes a second. The decisions you make the rest of your life based on that is a lifetime. And that's on you. It's on me. And so for me, like learning to take ownership and not, just be sort of a victim of my circumstances and knowing the bad things happen. But it's, you know, the choices we make based on them that really define who we are. And that gives you your power back. That's one of the beautiful things about healing is I can honor where I started and even really learn to honor the bad things that happened and not see them as terrible curses, but things that really made me who I am again, because you begin to get the narrative of your life back as you heal and grow. So you're from Alaska. You're from Alaska originally. And what was that experience like? You rarely meet someone who is from Alaska. I loved it. My experience in Alaska, my family were homesteaders. And so I grew up without running water. I grew up with an outhouse. We only lived off the land. We didn't really go to grocery stores except for like a few basic supplies. I loved it. Nature was my church. My whole, that side of my family, the cultures we had, you know, there's like a lot of trauma in the family, but I really think it was that everybody was around. Big nature that, you know, everybody turned out like shockingly okay. And I think nature has a big part to do with that. Because you guys were so connected, you think, to just the world and our surroundings. Because it's funny that nowadays people will say, oh, if we lived in a simpler time, we wouldn't have anxiety. We wouldn't have anger. Yet here you were essentially living in that simpler time with an abusive father and a mom who couldn't handle everything happening. Yeah. I think that nature is medicine for me. You know, nature for me actually taught me how to be human. It parented me. It raised me. A lot of the mental health skills that I developed actually came by studying nature. Like, you know, hardwood trees grow slowly and softwood trees grow quickly and seem impressive, but they fall over. And how do I become a hardwood tree? Those are the kinds of things I was thinking about. Like, what is my root system? What nourishes me? What are my values? Those types of things really inspired me. And with anxiety, like I remember having, you know, a really long depression and sitting on this bluff looking at the ocean. There's huge tides in Alaska. And I sat there for eight hours. I was just like numb and kind of just comatose. And it suddenly dawned on me that in that six or eight hours, the tide had gone out huge. And then I'll come back in. These imperceptible changes of it going out, you didn't notice, but over eight hours. And for some reason, it just hit me that the culmination of nature is change. That is physics. You know, everything changes. And I'm actually part of that. And so how oddly arrogant that to think I alone in all of physics and all of nature wouldn't change, that my depression wouldn't change. It was actually just kind of silly. And it helped me relax and be like, OK, like this is going to change. I don't know when. But now, instead of worrying, it'll never change. Maybe I can redirect that energy into like, how can I help it? Like, can I help it go faster? And redirecting, I think, worry. Is a misuse of creativity. And so constantly learning to redirect that worry into something more useful has always really helped me. A misuse of creativity. I love that because we are making up stories and scenarios and we're playing out the worst case. And what would be possible if we put all of that energy and power and thinking to something positive? Yeah. And not even just positive, but maybe just something effective. Like, what actually makes a difference? Like, what if I start experimenting with my sleep? What if I start experimenting with? What if I start experimenting with what I'm eating? What if I get curious and engaged instead of because blind optimism isn't good either. You know, I've tried a lot, a lot in my life where it's like, but I'm good. I'm happy if I could tell you make it that without being backed up by things that you do see help you aren't as effective, if that makes sense. With the dynamic between your parents, how do you feel like that shaped you in your early years? And do you think it was? The catalyst for your depression? Let's see. But so my mom left when I was eight. That definitely was wounding. I really wanted my mom. And so it makes you lovesick. My dad had a lot of trauma. You know, now we know the word trauma. Back then, I don't even think those words existed. They weren't in the culture zeitgeist like they are now. He had a really abusive childhood to the point where when he went to Vietnam, it was the first time he relaxed. Like, that's crazy. And so then he got married. He had a high school sweetheart. When she left, he began what we now would call trauma triggering. He was trying to medicate it through drinking. That went rather predictably. So I think my depression was an accumulative thing of just feeling unloved, feeling neglected. Obviously, abuse is horrible, walking on eggshells, the whole thing. So I think that those things ultimately, though, like for me was like, but I want to learn how to be happy. It's why I moved out at 15. Like, there has to be a chance for someone like me just because I wasn't taught happiness in my house didn't mean It was impossible, right? It just seemed absurd to me. And so I really dedicated myself to being, that's my number one job. I'm going to learn about this. How did you have this curiosity or ultimately this deeper hope to realize that there could be something out there for you or that there was more to feel and experience? Because I do think a lot of people in similar broken homes, if we call them, are going through significant struggles as a kid, you're so young that you could be convinced this is all that I'm worth. For sure. You know, and especially at young ages, we are naturally egocentric. You know, if your parent doesn't love you, you say it's because they must be unlovable. That's a really understandable conclusion, but it isn't actually the truth. And so learning to examine your misconceptions, you know, the truth was actually I was lovable. My parent wasn't capable of loving. It was actually a them problem and something I could begin to build empathy for or compassion for, which is different than condoning. And I think a lot of people get a little afraid to start looking at this stuff because, you know, if you have compassion for somebody, you think that's a cosign and it isn't. I still moved out. I still moved out at 15. You know, I wasn't going to let myself be subjected to it. But at the same time, there's an axiom I love called the wicked teacher. And it's you become that which you resent. And now there's a lot. There's a lot of neuroplasticity research behind it. But what you become fixated on becomes you. And so if you're like, I hate my parent, I hate my parent, I hate my parent, I hate my parent, that becomes your life and your identity. When it's like riding a bicycle, if you stare at the rock in the road, you hit the rock. It's like I wanted to look somewhere else. I wanted to see what else was available to me. And that, again, freed up my emotional or intellectual energy to find another way. To anyone listening who is really struggling with their relationships with their parents, what would your advice be to them? It's deeply personal to everybody. I'd say a couple things. You know, I had one parent who was really abusive and present. And he's a good person. He was just hurt people hurt people, you know. And so learning to, again, take myself out of the situation and then learning to say, now it's up to me. I don't get to blame my dad the rest of my life. That's a bad look. Like, at some point, I had to take on the mantle of nobody's coming for me and nobody owes me. I owe myself. Like, what am I going to do for myself? And when I stopped being on that victim mentality and saying, no excuses, you know, it's my responsibility now. What am I going to do about it? Again, you take that power back. My mom was sort of a different story. She was a different type of thing. She was absent. So it was really easy to idolize her and work her into this sort of amazing figure, which she played into. And so the dam. The damage of what my mom was didn't really come clear to me until my 30s. And that was a much different type of trauma to recover from. I have a relationship with my dad, not because I started out trying to have one. It's just when I left, I was like, peace be with you. I'm going to try and figure me out. And at some point he got sober and he wanted to figure him out. And we were able to meet as adults that had really healed. And so we didn't trigger each other and get back into old narratives. Whereas my mom, I have no relationship with. And I probably never will. Like that's not something that is probably going to be available to me in my life. And that's okay. That's a loving thing I did for myself. And I don't recommend that for everybody, but it was definitely what was right for that situation. Okay. One of my favorite snacks right now is the sour cream and cheddar flavored Crunch Master snacks. They are so good. It is literally insane. When I gave them to my mom, to Max to try this flavor, he literally had the first one and said, oh, wow, that's bomb. And I was like, I know not only is the flavor so good, but Crunch Master is a trusted gluten-free brand for over 20 years. They're non-GMO made with olive oil and always gluten-free. Crunch Master is known for their legendary multi-seed original crackers, which come in so many different flavors. I also love the rosemary ones. You just can't go wrong with any flavor. And Crunch Master is a pioneering brand in premium gluten-free snacks. They're committed to delivering high quality and delicious snacking options. And Crunch Master is passionate about creating snacks that fit a variety of lifestyles so that you can say you've satisfied your crunch without compromising on taste or texture. All Crunch Master snacks are made with wholesome non-GMO ingredients like rice, sesame seeds, quinoa, and flax for that naturally gluten-free crunchy bite. They're baked, not fried, plant-based, and free from artificial flavors. Please check out the sour cream and cheddar flavor. Like, trust me. I don't know how someone. Someone could not like them. They're so delicious. You can find Crunch Master at a store near you. So keep your eyes peeled. Look for Crunch Master when you are out and about and you are shopping. You can also order Crunch Master crackers online. But find Crunch Master at a store near you. Enjoy. And if you ever do try the cheddar and sour cream, shoot me a DM. It would make my day. This episode of RealPod is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp has therapists that have helped over 5 million people worldwide on their mental health journeys, which makes my heart so happy. Because mental health is so important to me. You know, it's a huge passion of mine. We talk about it on every single RealPod episode. And therapy has been the number one thing in my life that has helped me on my positive mental health journey. And I have to thank my therapist for that and all the amazing therapists that I have had. October 10th was World Mental Health Day. And BetterHelp this year is shining the spotlight on therapists, people who truly make the world a better place. And it's so true. The right therapist can change everything. And BetterHelp. BetterHelp has over 12 years of experience in matching people to the right therapist. And BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you, so you can focus on your therapy goals. 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But also the only way forward was for you to take accountability for things that, a position you shouldn't have been in. You know, it's interesting. Like I realized after a while that a lot of my efforts in healing or even spirituality was just a very elegant form of trying to control life. And that was an interesting thing to realize about myself that I was feeling like if I could be spiritual perfectly or if I could heal perfectly, I would be able to do that. Nothing bad would ever happen to me because then I would foresee every bad thing happening and listen to every red flag. I think the real truth is living with the vulnerability that you don't get to choose how life changes. You only get to choose how it changes you. And I can make better choices. I can make more discerning choices. But we live in a world of relationship. And especially when we're young, you know, we are subjected to that relationship no matter what. I'm sure I'll be betrayed in my life. But you get better at saying, I'm willing. I know that I have this, skills, that when things happen to me, I can choose how it changes me. And so we shouldn't kid ourselves that we're, we are vulnerable. We live in a world of dynamic, crazy energies. You know, I could get mugged. I could, all kinds of things could happen, but knowing I have the resilience to say, but I, I can choose how that changes me and I will heal. I know I'm capable of that. I have that muscle now. You have a quote that you've said before. It's something like, don't waste a disaster. What was it? Yeah. Don't waste a good disaster. Don't waste a good heartbreak. When I heard you say that, Jewel, I was like, wow, that's, it's so deep. It's like, there's a lesson in this disaster. Don't waste a disaster. Yeah. What comes to mind is a disaster you didn't waste as an example. I hope all of them. I hope I got every little bit of, you know, marrow that there was to get out of it because the depth of you introspecting height of your healing, you have to go deeply into the low to be able to get the ceiling of the high, you know, to lift that ceiling up. And so just really teaching people not to be afraid to look at it, check it out, get curious. Yeah. I think that's really important because otherwise you can get subjected to the same lesson over and over because you didn't learn your lesson because you tried to put a rosy bandaid over it because you tried to move on too quickly. You know, don't waste that heartbreak and that disaster, honor it by really getting everything you can out of learning it, taking all your side of the street that you can so that you might actually have a chance of meeting somebody else. Cause how many divorced people do we see marry the same person basically over and over? I did that. I went from my mom to an ex-husband that seemed really different, but kind of at the end of the day, they dressed different. No, he wasn't on the same scale as my mom, but there were a lot of similarities that I could have learned from. It makes me think of a time where, I had the universe presenting a lesson in so many different ways. And it wasn't until this one where like it's divine timing. And it finally clicks for me that, you know, I can't make someone else do something they don't want to do. I can't save someone who doesn't want to be saved. But then when you finally break free and you're like, oh my gosh, I've learned this. And I'm feeling the peace that comes from not engaging with the chaos. You then want to help everyone else. And I'll see someone doing something and want to be like, hey, here's the whole master plan. Like I did it. This is the answer. But you also can't do that because they similarly need to learn the lesson on their own at their own timing. And some people never do. And that's also really hard when you love someone and you want the best for them or you want the relationship with them, but it's never going to work. Yeah. For me, like learning to take accountability that like, a lot of good intentions kind of at the end of the day are a little manipulative, masked as intentions. And it is good intentions, but who do I think I am to control everybody else's narrative and everybody else's healing journey and insert myself? Like learning to really honor people is also really learning to honor their pacing and their timing and trust that in them, they'll figure that out when it's right. And you're there and you're supportive. But it's a hard line. No, it's a very natural helper, you know, like a natural educator. It's a very good clock and good point because, I have thought often, you know, who am I to know what someone literally needs for their healing or for their journey? You know, it might have worked for you and you have the passion of wanting them to have the same breakthrough, but you can't ultimately know what is the recipe for someone else. Yeah, because the road to trauma is so unique that the road to their healing is going to be equally unique. It's like a recipe, you know, it might be three shakes of salt and a half a cup of, you know, flour for one person. And it might be a cup of oregano and some lemon for someone else. I don't know. I love that metaphor. When you did leave home, you went through a lot. It was the start of you leaning into music and writing songs, but also you were homeless for a while. And then you had to find a way to put yourself through performing arts school, correct? What was the experience like of being homeless? So the order was I moved out at 15. I started paying rent. And, you know, hitchhiking to work that year. I wanted, I set a goal to try and go to a really prestigious arts school. They gave me a partial scholarship. And then my town helped me with a fundraiser and sent me off to school. It was definitely just on my own in a way that kids at school weren't, you know, and didn't think I had prospects after school. Nobody ever talked to me about college. I don't know why. It's so funny. I probably would have got a scholarship. But, you know, my life was meant to work out this way. Went to San Diego to take care of my mom, who was sick. And then I always suffered through a lot of, sexual harassment, as a lot of women do. I grew up in bars at a really young age, starting at eight. I sang in bars with my dad. And so I had just dealt with a lot of predatory behavior to the point where I was very good at dealing with it by 18. And when I was living in San Diego, taking care of my mom at 18, a boss propositioned me and when I wouldn't have sex with him, he wouldn't give me my paycheck. And luckily, I just had enough practice to be able to say, and no, I can live on nothing. You can't leverage a person that can live on nothing. You can't. You're unleverageable. And knowing that I can live on less and I can actually take pain, that's a gift of trauma. You might as well get the gift out of it. I could endure living in my car more than I could endure, you know, having an apartment, sleeping with a boss. And so being able to make those decisions was actually really empowering, but you suffer for it. You really do suffer in the short term. But I really believe it's like a stock market where you're investing in your character and it pays dividends and magic. You just never know how the magic works out. But I've learned it never fails. I thought, you know, just live in my car a little bit, but my car got stolen. And then you start looking homeless and you don't have an address to put on job applications. And it's kind of just this very vicious cycle. It was very hard to get out of, very scary, very serious. Like I definitely need to take it seriously. I never drank. I never did drugs. It's like living in quicksand, you know? And so for me, it was like a really serious thing, but it also gave me a lot of free time to work on things I needed to work on. Like I was having bad panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. I was shoplifting a lot. I knew each of those things would get me in serious trouble, especially the shoplifting. And so I began using my free time to start to develop skills to tackle those things one at a time. Writing actually was really born out of learning to replace a behavior. Instead of stealing, I would make myself write. I was a prolific thief. I became a very prolific writer and I got discovered. I never would have had the free time to write, frankly, if I was, you know, working those intense jobs. Wow. It's such an incredible story, all to be topped off with getting discovered, which you like never hear about anymore. You know, like how cool that you and what I'm gauging of your personality now also probably had no intention of getting discovered. Like I could see you performing, being really present, just like, this is where I am tonight at seven o'clock and someone discovers you and you're like, oh, like, am I, or am I wrong? Like, were you like, I hope I get a record deal and someone here is scouting me. No, you were absolutely right. I was just trying to get off the street. So that was just like such a big, difficult thing to earn up enough rent money to get that first and last month's deposit. That was my mission. Like I was on a mission to do that. I was definitely not on a mission to get discovered, but I did try to take advantage of, you know, the opportunity of singing in this coffee shop. And again, just learning to stick up for yourself. There was coffee shops that would want to charge me to sing at them. And I was like, no, no, no, you don't get it. Like, I'm not trying to get discovered. I need you to pay me. And so learning to stay know to places that would try to leverage you that way. And I found a place going out of business and she would let me keep the door money. And I was like, give me a month. Like if you can keep your lights on for a month, give me a month. She kept the coffee sales. I kept the door. And then I started to build up a following that way. But again, just by constantly trying to stick up to, I have worth, I have value. I have to insist on it. My life will rise to the level I insist on and not because I'm some fancy, like next God's gift to singing, but because I'm a human and I matter because I'm alive. And if we take your story and we put it side by side with the quintessential 22 year old now, right? Stereotypical who thinks I need to have my whole life figured out. I need to know that this is going to equal this. And this is where I'm stressing when they don't know, what do you even make of that as someone who had so much uncertainty in your young life? And what would you say to someone who is having so much anxiety about not knowing their plan? Yeah, it's a great question. You know, trying to plan your future to the nth degree can really just be, it's control. You're trying to control the universe and it's not in our ability. We're just giving ourselves the illusion of control to, to medicate our anxiety. And so for me, it was like learning to let go of the fact that like, there's life, death, birth, decay, and creation swirling around all of us. I don't actually get to control any of those. I only get to control my response every day. And am I being the most authentic? Am I living my values? Those things were really within my control. Do I have a dream? Am I pursuing it? Am I giving it my everything? Because those are actually a return on your investment, if you will, that will pay dividends. And also, you know, when you stranglehold your life plan, it. doesn't allow the magic to happen. And I personally believe we're in a co-creative relationship with the universe and you have to leave room for magic to happen. You know, you have to have a soft enough approach of letting go of the outcome, but planning, showing up is really important. And then you also have to say, it's also the outcomes a little outside of my control. And so I think just focusing on the things that are in your control, which for me is hard work, you know, living my values, those things were in my control. Something that I did recently that has been so life-changing for me was I got my blood drawn and then tested for a variety of deficiencies or to see where I fell on a variety of different biomarkers to know what my body needs. And that's why I'm excited to tell you about Function. 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Have they, it feels a little less personal than one of you bringing it up to the other. So paired, just really creates a safe space for hard conversations and then makes time for you to connect daily, even when life gets busy. So practice making your relationship a priority every day with paired head to paired.com slash real pod to get a seven day free trial and 25% off. If you sign up for a subscription that's paired P A I R E D.com slash real pod to sign up today. You've mentioned a few times now, the values and knowing who you are. And it makes me think about this very famous or infamous story of yours where you turned down a million dollar contract. Can you tell us that tale? Yeah. So, you know, homeless, then a label showed up, then another, then another, then another, it was like the biggest bidding war of the year. They'd whisk me off to dinners, not knowing I was homeless. You know, it was just really surreal, but I almost didn't sign the record deal because I've always tried to be really practical. And like, looking at fame, most of them killed themselves or OD'd with my type of background. It's not a huge success rate in this industry, frankly, for people with my kind of emotional baggage. And my number one job was I wanted to be happy. I didn't need to be famous. And so I really thought long and hard about like, am I the type of person that could handle it? I had to be really realistic about it. And when I was, you know, given this offer of a million dollar signing bonus, nobody gives you something for free. So I went to a library and looked up a book called The Music Business and realized it was an advance. And basically what I was advancing was my future earnings of a project I didn't even record yet. That just seemed really unhealthy to me. You know, you can't rob the soil from a future tree that hasn't grown yet. That just, how would that tree grow? It's just doesn't make sense. And so just teaching myself about the business gives you the power and realizing I don't need money. And what I actually need is knowing I have a system in place that leads to a long-term result I want. I wanted a career. I didn't want to be a millionaire, frankly. I wanted something that if you look agriculturally, something that would grow me crops in 60 years, not like something that could grow and die quickly. And so it's just, again, commitment to those values. And I decided to make the decision to sign, but because I had this hierarchical decision-making of like, my number one job is to learn to be a happy whole human, not a human full of holes. And I had to have that to be accountable and auditable. And I had to have a plan around it that I tasked myself to keep up on. And then number two, I wanted to be a musician more than famous. And so that allowed me to keep making decisions that would be really radical, but for my overall best health. So that's why I turned down the money, but I did take the biggest back end anybody had ever been rewarded so that I rewarded myself if I did good and ended up doing, you know, really good. But I turned down, you know, the real world, which was crazy at the time. Like I could have brought in a lot of people, but I didn't. And so I turned down the career on the first reality show, but that would have been too quick of a growth for me. And I knew I couldn't psychologically handle it. And so that looked like a risk, but it ended up being the right decision. And how amazing, truly, that you were able to know this is not the opportunity for me, but I'm not scared that it's the only opportunity because there are people who would think, oh, this real world offer is my big break. And if I don't take it, it'll never come again. But you had this trust that if it's meant to be, will come again in the way that is best for me. Oh my gosh. And everybody scares you into, believe me, the whole label, not because they're bad people, but it's how this industry operates. It's like, you'll never get an opportunity like this again. And that is scary. It is scary stuff. Turning in a million dollars when I had nothing is very scary. Like, I mean, I had nothing. I had no safety net. I really had to bet on myself, but I've always liked that. I want to invest in my talent. That's why I never slept with people on the way up. Like, I believe I have the talent to be taken seriously and I can live with nothing and you can fire me, whatever you need to do. I'll find another way because I'm spending my time investing and getting to know my talent rather than the fear that you alone are going to be the roadblock to my career. What a bunch of baloney. As someone who has been in almost every side of the money conversation from being homeless to having millions of dollars, I've been in almost every side of the money conversation. To being in debt to, you know, all the in-between. Do you think money buys happiness? And what is your relationship with money? That's a great question. Anybody that says money doesn't make you happy was never poor enough. You know, when you're making decisions on like, do I get my kid medicine or do I pay my car insurance bill? It's so stressful. So if you can get enough money to get past that survival switch, oh my gosh, huge help in the mental health conversation. Everything above that, you know, where people get obsessed with money, addicted to money, addicted to fame, anything extrinsic, you're in trouble. You know, that does not make you happy. And we know plenty of rich people, you know, that aren't happy. You have to be tending to your internal game 24-7. Now, I think you can be very, like for me, I learned how to be happy homeless. I learned how to be happy in a very scary situation. I think there's no excuse not to, but being able to pay your bills helps. Yeah. So, the Inspiring Children Foundation is a huge passion of yours and has saved so many lives. Your past experiences have probably pulled you into the mental health space, into helping others who are in similar situations. But what do you think has been the most rewarding part of giving back in this way? I think anybody that has suffered greatly wants to ease suffering. It's just how it is. There's nothing more valuable. There's no currency that's more meaningful. When you know what it's like to suffer that much, you know, like for me being agoraphobic and I couldn't get out of my car because I thought I'd be stricken by illness, like that level of suffering is so intense that if you did find something that works for you, you want to create an environment to help other people. And it's, you know, misery is an equal opportunist. It doesn't care if you're rich, poor, black, white, but learning to be happy is an education. And education in our country costs money, you know, so therapy at its best should be a re-education. And they're expensive and they're not readily available. And so, you know, I think that's something that I think is available and there's not enough of them. And what if one style doesn't work for You need to go find someone else. It's difficult and it's exhausting, especially when you don't feel well. So for me, it was really about democratizing access, democratizing skills. And for me, the skills I learned cost nothing. I mean, I had to kind of invent them for myself. And if I could give those types of curriculums to other people that cost nothing for people, then why wouldn't I want to try and figure out systems that did that? What do you know about the mind now that you wish more people understood? It's listening to us all the time. You know, our bodies are listening to us. Our lives are listening to us. You know, what we say, what we think, what we do literally sculpts us. There's a lot of happiness on the other side of suicidal ideation or disordered eating, or we don't often hear those stories as much as we hear, you know, what it's like to struggle with those. And I think also how adaptable we are. You know, it's amazing. You can find things that help. Your life can radically change. If you just stay very loyal to the process and don't give up, that's it. Just don't give up. I'm so inspired by how connected you are. And you're so smart and well-spoken and wise. What are the books or meditations or journaling exercises that you recommend for someone who wants to know themselves more deeply and connect to the magic around them as well? I think don't underestimate your own abilities. To know what you need. You know, for me, it was really reflecting, going deeply, being very honest about what was wrong, not sugarcoating it or running for it like my shoplifting, like that was a problem. I didn't know how to help it, but it was me experimenting and thinking about it and trying something and tweaking it that I was finally able to get results that I honestly don't think, you know, anybody, I didn't have access to therapy, so maybe it would have helped, but you can get those types of results anyway. Yeah. You, you know, can start to trust like your own nature to know what you need. Support is always great. Having therapists is always great. All of the support, use all the support. But also like you need to be deeply engaged, you know, and you need to be honest about whether it's working or not. And then I think it's just little tweaks of like, you know, I used to think something was wrong with me because I had so much anxiety. But learning to tweak my thinking that something wasn't wrong with me, what if something was right with me? What if I was anxious because something was going right in my body? Like that helped me think in a really different way. And it helped me look at anxiety as an ally. You know, just like food poisoning. If you eat bad chicken and you throw up, you don't get mad at throwing up. You get mad at like, why did I eat bad chicken? Where is that? How do I not eat bad chicken again? And so anxiety is just your body's way of telling you you're consuming something that doesn't agree with you. And it's a thought, a feeling or an action. One of those three things. And if I disassociate from my anxiety or I go at war with my anxiety or I try to like disassociate from my anxiety or I get anxiety because I'm getting anxiety again, that's distancing yourself from the one thing that's really trying to help you, which kind of is my anxiety. And so I learned to get excited when I got anxious. I learned to get curious and be like, OK, this means something's right. This is like a little neon sign going off in my body. And I would stop and I would say, what was I just thinking, feeling or doing? And I'd keep a journal of it. And then at the end of the month, I'd look at those. And you know what? It was three things. And if I was willing to get serious about tackling those three things, my life changed. So to go a bit more granular on this, because I love it. Let's say it's a thought, right? Which I think happens to a lot of people. They were thinking, what if this person I love dies in a car accident today? Yeah. So what's next? Once you identify the thought, how do we move forward? That's what I said earlier of like worry is a misuse of creativity. You're using all your creativity to imagine this scenario that you fear and you obsess on it. And it creates all those biochemical reactions in your body. So it's learning to redirect it. I don't personally believe in affirmative thought because you have to find a replacement thought that your whole body agrees with. I'll give you like a really concrete example. I was filmed my first movie. It was very anxiety inducing and I was having panic attacks. And I sat down and I was like, oh, I'm telling myself this sentence over and over. I don't know what I'm doing. And I would think that over and over and I would work myself into a panic and I would have a panic attack. And like, how do you go forward? It was also kind of a truth. I really didn't know what I was doing. So if I just had like the opposite thought, I know what I'm doing. And I looked in the mirror and I tried it out. Like, I know what I'm doing. It was a total lie. My body was like, not the truth. But if I would have invested in that thought, it wouldn't have ever really worked because it didn't get my body to calm down. And so I experimented around until I found a really authentic, good replacement. And it said, I won't quit till I figure it out. And to this day, saying that sentence right now to you makes my whole body calm down. It's really true about me. I won't quit. And that's an action. It means then I can get busy acting on like, I'm not going to quit. What do I need to do? What do I have to do today to be better? And then it's the discipline of saying, now that I know this thought that really does work for me, I have to A, build enough awareness to notice when I'm doing the other one, stop and replace it with this one and then get action oriented about it. Beautiful example. I love that so much. I can't wait to use that. I used to do something similar when I was playing college volleyball, and I even liked to back it up with some facts. So like, yours was, I won't quit till I figure it out. A, I did it in this situation in my life. B, I felt this way at this situation in my life. And C, and then it's like, oh my gosh, I've actually also done this before. Yeah. You know, so that silly, anxious thought has no ground, but it happens because we're human and we're going to be scanning for what's the worst case scenario. But that doesn't mean that it's true or that we need to believe it. Lastly, I just wanted to ask about this because I think it's unique. We talked about all the different positions you've been in with money. And I also think you've been in that with traditional fame and with external validation. And your first album. Wasn't it record-breaking, this amount of sales? Yes. She's nodding yes. So how do you think about fame now and external validation, especially in an industry where it's fleeting and reliant on the next thing? For me, you know, it was always being loyal to that first, you know, thing I said when I got discovered, which is I want to be happy more than I want to be famous. And making decisions that, you know, you can't just get happy. You have to make decisions. You have to make decisions where the outcome leads to, you know, satisfaction. And you can only make better decisions and more nourishing choices by examining yourself. And it takes time to make better choices. You know, I had an eating disorder. I had all, you know, all the things, the shoplifting. Learning to make better choices took a lot of time and effort. But for me, knowing that I cared about that more than my career. I made happiness my number one job. That was my profession. I happened to also sing, and that was my second career. And so if anything threatened that, you know, and back in the day, there was no words like mental health or things like that. But, you know, after my second album, I quit. I walked away for two years because I actually had to admit that level of fame didn't agree with me. I found it very, very anxiety inducing. Having stalkers all the time and people stare at you everywhere you go. Turns out it wasn't for me. I didn't actually like it. It didn't agree with me. I didn't like my nervous system. And even though I worked so hard to get there and I got like this holy grail moment, didn't mean it worked for me. And so I had to give myself permission to say, not for me. What else would I like to do, even though I was 22 years old? And for me, I realized I loved music still. I actually just didn't like the level of fame. And so I engineered my life to be less famous. So I, again, just looked at it really logically. Like, I love music. I actually really like experimenting and growing. I love growth. Like, that's my jam. And so that meant I wanted to go into different genres and try different things. That meant that would be a huge risk. People don't like it when you switch genres. You're going to be willing to be hated. But I knew I liked growing way more than I cared about somebody understanding it or not. And so I realized that, like, on a scale of 1 to 10, the level of 10 fame didn't work. For me, about a 6 works. And so that was just pacing. You know, when I quit for two years, in that two years, I got so much less famous. I was able to grocery shop without a bodyguard. And I was like, okay. This level works. Like, at this level, I can still promote things and get, like, booked on shows. But I'm not so famous that it undoes me, you know, psychologically. And so that meant I would take big breaks between records. I would kill my own momentum, which, as you know, everybody in the industry is like, don't do that. That's a big no-no. But for me, it was a big yes-yes. It also meant I had to work harder. Like, if I changed genres and took two years off, you're going to have to work a lot harder to try and promote that album. But that's just work. I can work. That's no problem. And so I think it's just insisting your life works for you. And being famous and recognized everywhere is actually highly traumatic. I don't recommend it personally to people. If you're doing it to give yourself a sense of validation and worth, you're in for a rocky ride because you won't get it. I have to ask now because I'm thinking about it. But where do you net out with, you know, worrying about people's opinions of you? I have a feeling it's that you don't. But how did we get there, Jewel? How do you not give in to that voice that wants to be? liked and thought highly of from others. I mean, we're a tribal community. We need a sense of belonging. It's just that you can't get it from strangers. You can only get that sense of belonging from yourself and the people closest to you that know you and your intent. Oh, my gosh. When I quit that first two years, I was told I was a washed up, has been. And it's not kind, especially as a woman. It's not like even now, like now you have people saying I'm taking them into health break and it's still hard on them. Back then, it wasn't even a conversation. It was just like, she's a hack. She couldn't handle it. But I knew I made a powerful choice. I knew I made a choice that was empowering to me. And I trusted that in 30 years that would come out in the wash or not. But in the meantime, I still benefit because my life is working better for me. So I think it's having your circle, having your people that you do belong to, knowing you're making choices from a deeply authentic place because you can weather storms if you make deeply authentic choices. You can be hated. You can have poor sales because it was authentic. That's all you got. Doesn't mean it's going to work out. It's just that really is all you have where you can also make a decision where you sell out and people still hate you for it. And then you have to sleep with yourself at night. And that's 50% of people are going to hate what you do anyway. So you might as well like what you do in the process. Bringing me back to your metaphor about being a hard tree. Thank you so much. This was so lovely. And you have an award show coming up with the Inspiring Children Foundation. Are you excited about? Yeah, we were able to run the largest mental health social media campaign with the Not Alone Challenge, and it was so successful. We're going to create an awards show out of it to honor the pioneers and the people in the space being really vocal. It'll be live streamed by iHeart. So I really hope people tune in. Thank you. I was just so inspired getting to speak with you and how deep you are and connected. And I want to be that way more. I'm trying to tap into my instincts and my intuition. It's hard to know when I'm in here or I'm up here, but we're learning. Discernment comes with time. You learn to be more and more discerning and that quiet voice. The more you invest in that relationship with yourself, the louder that voice gets with time. It's like building anything. It's building relationship with yourself. And yeah, I'm really proud of you for wanting to undertake that because it's not really that we can't trust people around us. It's that we honestly can't trust ourselves. Learning to show up for yourself consistently. Like you said, it starts to give you a track record of like, I show up, I'm listening, I'm here. And you start to trust yourself more. And then as a side effect, you learn actually when and who to trust outside of you. Jewel, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of RealPod. If this hit home or helped you in some way, send it to a friend, a teammate, roomie, share the love, share the realness. New episodes of RealPod come out every single Wednesday. So make sure you are subscribed. Do this podcast so you never miss an episode to leave a rating or review of the show. Head to iTunes and let me know what you think. I love hearing from you. Not to mention you can stay connected with RealPod throughout the week, seeing behind the scenes info and sneak previews of upcoming guests by following the at RealPod account on Instagram. All information about today's show and guests will be linked in the description of this episode. Thanks again for listening. I love you guys so, so much. Let's go dominate the day. As always, keep it real. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. Hi, I'm Natasha Leggero. And I'm Sabrina Jalise. And this is Good Enough. It's a different kind of parenting podcast. Where we share tips. We talk to our coolest parent friends. Only the coolest. And we roast trends. What do we do? In general, we. Talk shit. We talk major shit. Yeah. Watch out, Dr. Becky. Yeah, watch out. Wait, but we want her as a guest. Oh. So watch out for our invite, girl. And don't forget to. Subscribe! you