Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 69: Jewel, Grammy-Nominated Singer-Songwriter, Actress (Bonus!)

Episode Date: March 31, 2017

Jewel, whose poetic songs about relationships and heartache dominated the airwaves in the '90s, used writing as an outlet to deal with anxiety through a tough childhood and later, homelessness. She began looking for ways to "re-wire" her brain, change her life for the better, and came to Mindfulness. The Grammy-nominated recording artist wrote a memoir, "Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story," and stars in the upcoming Hallmark movie, "Framed for Murder: A Fixer-Upper Mystery," airing Sunday, April 2. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It kind of blows my mind to consider the fact that we're up to nearly 600 episodes of this podcast, the 10% happier podcast. That's a lot of conversations. I like to think of it as a great compendium of, and I know this is a bit of a grandiose term, but wisdom. The only downside of having this vast library of audio is that it can be hard to know where to start. So we're launching a new feature here, playlists, just like you put together a playlist of your favorite songs.

Back in the day, we used to call those mix tapes. Just like you do that with music, you can do it with podcasts. So if you're looking for episodes about anxiety, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes. Or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist of all of our anxiety episodes, or if you're looking for how to sleep better, we've got a playlist for that. We've even put together a playlist of some of my personal favorite episodes. That was a hard list to make. Check out our playlists at 10%.com slash playlist. That's 10% all one word spelled out..com slash playlist singular.

Let us know what you think. We're always open to tweaking how we do things and maybe there's a playlist we haven't thought of. Hit me up on Twitter or submit a comment through the website. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, baby, this is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad, where the memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, it's Dan. Welcome to another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast.

My guest is Jewel. We may have heard of on the radio as several tens of millions of people have and her full name Jewel Kirchner, am I getting that right? Kilture. Kilture. Why, how did I get that so wrong? It's quite alright. Well you forgive me? It's an unusual last name. It's never really said out last.

Yeah, nobody ever thinks. It's not like nobody ever says your last name. What's it like to be one of the few people in the world who can go by one name? Hey if I can make one name slightly credible, you know, from Barbie to hopefully, you know, whatever, singer, songwriter, I'm good with it. I mean, you're in the same category with Oprah, Cher. I don't know who else goes in that category. Barbie?

Yeah, Barbie. I wasn't going to put you in the category with Barbie. Thank you. Anyway, so there are thousands of things to discuss with you, but this is a podcast ostensibly about meditation. And a lot of people don't know that this has been a big part of and a moving part of your life. So I wanna get into that with you.

I'm excited. Although I was, I have to say that I was, listening to some of your music getting ready for this and it was just, I hadn't heard, what's the correct title of the name? I want to save your soul. Who will save your soul? Who will save your soul?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I try not to be dogmatic, yes. My portion of your last name, which I'm basically, I'm gonna get everything wrong. Throughout the podcast, I promise you that. It just transported me back to when I was in my 20s, I probably sitting in a cafe in Portland, Maine, with a bad flannel on because Matt, Dylan, wore one in singles.

But like, it's so powerful, it takes you right back. Must be such a great feeling to know just bad flannel on because Matt Dillon wore one in singles. But like, it is so powerful, it takes you right back. It must be such a great feeling to know that your music has such resonance for so many people. It was an amazing thing that record was able to do what it did. I was raised in Alaska, my family were pioneers, so they helped settle the state before it was a state. They were on the last ship that left Germany before the Second World War, hiked over glaciers to end up this beautiful 300 acre

piece of property that the government gave them if they promised not to die for a whole winter. And so I was raised on this homestead. My mom left when I was eight. She just decided not to be a mom and my dad took over raising us. My dad had really bad PTSD. He had had an abuse of childhood

and then he went to Vietnam. And so when my mom left, he was incredibly trauma-triggered, but those words didn't exist then. And so he turned to drinking to try and nom and medicate his feelings. And I took over my mom's place in the act. So I started singing at five with my parents in hotels. Wait, what?

So they had an act. They had an act. They sang in hotels for tourists, a dinner show. So my mom left. My dad and I became an act So it's probably the only fourth grader that went from elementary school right to the bar And I had an uproar seat and I watched how people handled pain You know as an eight-year-old I watched people use relationships drugs and alcohol to try and num and medicate feelings and as a girl who wasn't looked after very well because my dad began drinking

and being abusive once the divorce happened as he was trying to self-medicate his own pain and anxiety and trauma, I started watching how the people handle pain and I was like, I'm in trouble. And I was able to see a very specific example day after day after day that you can't outrun pain. It doesn't work. So you have original amount of pain and you start covering up that pain with avoidance tactics. And all it does is add more pain to your life. And it numbs your ability to experience your full range of emotions.

And for a young girl who was trying to look up for her safety in bar rooms and precarious situations, I needed my feelings. I needed my wits about me. Because if we're like a car, your alarm system is your feelings. They tell you when you're doing okay, you're intuition, you're gut, tell you when something's out of the line. And if you can stay in touch with your feelings, if you can stay sensitive,

you can stay in tune with it. You can actually stay safe. What people often think is I'm safer if I have armor. What it actually does is it kills your ability to have joy and experience joy in your life. So at age eight, I decided never to drink, never to do drugs, and to try and face pain as it came. And I came up with this idea of you can't outrun pain,

so try and face it. And I turned to writing, which was my first mindfulness practice. And I noticed every time I sat down to write, I felt calmer, I felt less anxiety. And it took the edge off just enough for a girl who just went through the divorce. Mom just left, and dad just became abusive and alcoholic.

I had plenty of anxiety. But things I had to listen to every time I wrote. And later as I developed this practice of writing, it was like having breadcrumbs back to my real self. Because as you grow up and things get more complex, as you get older and your relationship of the dynamic with my dad got worse, I always was able to see the truth when I wrote. And that's what I call the observer. And so, I ended up having a great philosophy teacher.

I was very attentive. We moved around a lot. But I read Descartes and he said, I think, therefore I am. And if I could alter that just slightly, I would say, perceive what I think, therefore I am. And I realized that if I could perceive, I'm sad. I'm something other than sad. I'm the observer of sad. If I could perceive, I'm anxious. I'm something other than anxious. I'm the perceiver of anxious. I could perceive them anxious, I'm something other than anxious,

I'm the perceiver of anxious. And so I got to be very curious about who is the observer? What is observing my thoughts? So if we go back to the idea of your body as a car as an analogy, your brain isn't the driver, it's the steering wheel. So your observer, your observing your brain, that's the driver.

And so I moved out at 15. I knew statistically kids like me end up repeating the cycle that they're raised by. So I knew statistically I was going to end up in a ditch or on a pole or on drugs or in an abusive relationship in short order because that's the emotional language that I was taught, I call it emotional English. I wanted to learn a new emotional English, but there's no school to go to for that. And so I began very consciously at 15 with this task of what I called my Happiness Project of can I rewire my programming?

And something that made me think about it was a bunny that we had growing up. Its name was Caramel. It was raised with chickens, and it never knew it was a bunny. So since it was a tiny baby bunny, we put it with the chicken coop because it's the safest place for the baby rabbit in Alaska. And it would pack it food like a chicken and it would waddle, it didn't hop normal. And as it grew up, it would lay on the nests for the hands and actually hatch eggs.

And when I moved out at 15, it kind of horrified me because I was like, what if I'm a bunny that thinks it's a chicken? Like, how will I ever know my real bunny nature if my nurture was so bad? So if you look at nature versus nurture and you didn't receive good nurture, how can you get to know your real nature? And so those are the things that are trying to figure out and began to read a law and experiment a law and look around for mentors and develop exercises for myself. And it's pretty good. I got myself a paid rent from age 15.

I got my throught to school. I graduated school and went to a pretty good finance I got myself a paid rent from age 15. I got my through-school. I graduated school and it went to a pretty good fine arts, an amazing fine arts high school on scholarship. Incredibly anxious periods. Now the school was in Michigan. I was there on a vocal scholarship. I started writing songs because you weren't allowed to go to stay on campus for spring break. And I couldn't afford to get back to Alaska because I didn't have any money. And so I decided I would hitchhike across the country in street sing and see the United States, and I learned to play guitar for that.

And so I started writing lyrics about what I was seeing around me. And Hoola Saviorsoul was the first song I actually ever wrote. I wrote that when I was 16 as I was hopping trains and hoboing in street singing. And I was just making up lyrics about pop culture and American culture and hero worship. Cause in Alaska, it's just very different from normal pop culture. I was very separated.

I didn't have television growing up but didn't have radio growing up. And I noticed this idea of people wanting to be a victim and say somebody else saved me. And I started asking this question, like how do I save myself? I started having panic attacks when I was 16, which if anybody out there has ever had a panic attack,

your brain literally goes offline. So if you can watch a brain scan of somebody having a trauma, you know, a triggering episode, the brain drains out of your processing center and goes all to your fighter flight. So you literally go offline. And so I started creating tools to help myself get my brain back online. And so I started creating tools to help myself

get my brain back online. And then when I was homeless at 18, and I had turned down the advances of a boss when I wouldn't sleep with him, he didn't give me my paycheck. I couldn't pay my rent, started living in my car. Didn't think it would last that long, but then my car got stolen. And I had bad kidneys.

I was sick all the time. I almost died in the emergency parking lot of emergency room because they wouldn't see me sitting in him insurance, probably not illegal, but I'm probably not legal, but that's what went down. A doctor ended up seeing me get turned away and he saved my life by giving me antibiotics and his business card and he treated me for free and saved my life. But that's how I ended up homeless and I was homeless for a year and I started stoplifting a lot. My panic attacks came back with incredible force. I was started to be a Gora phobic where I couldn't leave the street corner.

I was on the car that I was living in without thinking I was going to be stricken by illness completely irrationally. I was in the mirror one day in a dressing room trying to steal a dress and I looked at myself and I went, oh, I failed. I'm a statistic. I didn't beat the odds. 15, I set out to not be a statistic, and three short years later, my life came to a grinding halt, then I was a statistic.

I was guin' it up in jail or dead in short order. I went back to the word mindfulness wasn't even around back then, but I went back to this idea of how can I look at nature versus nurture and rewire my brain. I noticed that the brain was addictive. I noticed as I looked through my journals and my writing that I was very addicted to negative thought. And I remembered this quote by Buddha that happiness doesn't depend on who you are

or what you have, it depends on what you think. And I had the distinct pleasure of having only what I thought left. I had no family, no house, no food, nothing to distract me, if you will. I was alone with my thoughts. And so I decided to figure out what was I thinking. And that's where I went back to my journals and I was shocked at how negative I was.

And I learned about fear that year and how fear is the thief that takes the past and it projects it into the future. And it robs you the only opportunity you have to actually change your life, which is right now. And that's the most powerful moment that you have as a human being. That's what separates us from the animals. And being homeless, I felt reduced me to being animal because every moment was, how do I be safe? How do I get food? How do I get water? How do I get shelter period? You have no time to actually physically manifest thought, be creative.

And to be able to create change in thought, be creative, and to be able to create change in your life, you actually have to be present enough, not in a fear cycle, so you can do something different today than you did yesterday. And so I started observing my thoughts, and I didn't know how to at first, because I didn't have the skill set. So I started watching my hands, because your hands are the servants of your thought. And if you want to see what you're thinking, just watch what your hands are doing, because it's your action, your thoughts slow of your thought. And if you want to see what you're thinking, just watch what your hands are doing because it's your action, your thoughts slow down into action.

And so every time I started to steal something, at first I couldn't even stop the behavior, I just watched myself do it. And then I was able to start to go, oh yeah, I'm doing it, oh, but I can't stop it. And then I was able to go, oh, I want to, but still can't stop it. And then I was able to go, oh, I want to, and I can intervene. And it was my mindfulness practice. And that's actually why I wrote my hands, ended up being a hit years later.

But it was about my hands and watching my hands and one of my first mindfulness exercises. So you were, you were ad-libbing this. Like, nobody had taught you mindfulness. You just kind of came to it on your own. Yeah, I was just trying to, you know, necessities the mother of all invention. And so I tried to come up with exercises that helped me overcome very strategically the problems that I was experiencing.

So for panic attacks, for instance, I used to have a meditation I made up where I was on a very turbulent ocean. Nobody told me about panic attacks where I had no idea it was happening to me at 16 at boarding school. I could feel them coming on. If you've ever had a panic attack, it feels like you're dying. I have had. They're awful. But I could feel them coming on, and I'd go to my room,

and I would get up in a ball, and you might be physically paralyzed, and be crying. And I learned to do this meditation, where I imagined I was on a very stormy ocean. I'd imagined myself seeking through the ocean, allowing myself to relax, and the water would get calmer.

I'd notice the color of the ocean change. I'd notice the taste of salt on my lips. I'd notice the rays of sunlight coming in. The further I got down to the sandy floor, it got calm and tranquil by then. And I would look up at the storm and it was in the distance by then. I noticed I was much calmer. This is a classic visualization meditation that you just made up, which you touched on. I mean, you came to something that people have been doing from Alenia on your own, which is very impressive. Well, what was interesting is later I learned about trauma triggering. I didn't even know about until my late 30s. No, I never even heard the words trauma trigger and like trauma and PTSD and those

types of things. And one of the methods they use to treat trauma is to get your brain back online. It's forcing your brain to use different parts to process. So, sight, smell, color, touch, forces blood back, knows other parts of your brain. So, what I was instinctively doing, and my meditations was imagining the salt, the smell of the air, the colors,

and I was forcing blood back into those parts of my brain to get my brain back online, which is why I'll then intuitively, I was able to do that. But I wrote my book, Never Broken, because I think we all have these internal resources. If we're willing to look inside of ourselves for answers, instead of constantly outside of ourselves for answers, we come up with ingenious stuff, and we're all capable of it. It's nothing special about me.

It's just that I started writing at such a young age. I had developed a practice of going inward and looking inward for solutions. At some point did you take formal meditation lessons or have you been just running on this stuff that you kind of generated for yourself? A lot of it was what I generated for myself. My aunt Stella Vera was a Transcendental Meditation teacher and she taught me Transcendental Meditation. I did it often on over the years. Which is just to me to explain at the first Transcendental Meditation is what's called the Monfer which is a word you repeat yourself silently often a Sanskrit word. And just repeating that to yourself silently in your head can stop the kind of obsessive

nattering, chattering mind and can be very common. Anyway, just jumping into define the term. Yeah, yeah. And she taught jumping into define the term. Yeah. She taught you this. She taught me that. And the type of meditation I do now, I like to call it paying attention because meditation isn't a word a lot of people understand or they have connotations with it. Absolutely.

And it doesn't have to have a theological connotation. Absolutely. I literally just call it taking a brain break. Sure. And again, if you want to be the architect of your life, if you want to be the driver that's behind the wheel of your life and you're deciding where you go, you have to develop that relationship with your observer. So you have to get rid of the static.

You have to get rid of believing every single thought that comes into your head. You have to create that little bit of gap by being the observer of your thoughts. And so, Am a mantra, or what I do often is when I meditate, I just count. I'll do one is an inhale, two is an exhale. So you're counting with the breath as it comes in. Again, this is, I mean, and it's like giving a dog a bone. So you tell your brain, go chase this bone. You're going to count to 20. And I'm going to observe myself counting to 20. And when you lose and get lost in your thoughts, you come back to what number you think you're at,

make it up, or you can start again. Or start over. The whole point is just to be observed and be curious because that is a state of mindfulness and of being present. And for me, I started with my hands and then I was like, oh, what else can I play with? Every time I walk upstairs, I'm going to be really present.

I'm going to feel that the stairs under my feet. I'm pretty sure on you, you learned to be mindful throughout your entire day. And then you start being able to cut those puppet strings of your conditioning. So at 18, when I was like, oh, I'm addicted to negative thought patterns. I'm addicted to negative behaviors. If my brain is naturally addictive, can I get it addicted to positive behaviors? And I thought that it was. And so I just started habitually forcing myself to do what I called my antidote thought. This is one of the modules I have up on my website

where I would notice anxiety, I would force myself to go, what was I just thinking? Like, what was my brain just telling me? It was telling me some lie. Like, let's say it's, I don't know what I'm doing and I would start to get panicky and how I anxiety. I'd go, what's the truth? It's not that I know what I'm doing, because I actually don't. But the truth is I can figure it out. I'm tenacious and I can figure it out. So when I would have an anxious feeling, I would track the thought, I would see what the lie was, my brain was telling me, and then I'd tell myself the truth.

It has to be the whole body truth. It can't just be like something you wish was true. That doesn't work. And for me, the truth was like, I'm capable of learning and I will learn more today. And that calmed my anxiety down and helped me rewire. And then I got addicted to that thought. And that started creating resilience. That started creating a tenacious attitude, which is a very, a much better thing to get

addicted to. And if you've read Dr. Judson Brewer's work, which I just came across recently and he signed on as my scientific expert for my little humble website, which I'm blown away by. He explains these little exercises I developed when I was homeless on from his standpoint of why they work scientifically, which was amazing. Let me just say, Judd is a friend and Judd is one of the premier neuroscientists in the world looking at what meditation does to the brain. He's also an expert in addiction, not for nothing.

He's got a great book out recently called The Grave in Mind and There's a previous guest on this podcast and he that that he's signed on to what you're doing actually gives it I couldn't believe it. It gives it a lot of heft Yeah, and I just can't say strongly enough that you came up with stuff out of great suffering and necessity at age 18 as a homeless kid that is now actually like legit and can be used by regular people with some confidence that Dr. Judd Brewer says it's a, it's a, you know, not like some sham doctor,

he's a real guy. He's a real guy. Yale trained now at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness ahead of research there. Also a great guy. So that's just amazing to me. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life.

But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares of our freshly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert-experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong.

What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. So tell us a little bit about where we can find these meditations you're

talking about and what they are. So I believe that to be happy is a side effect. People always want to figure out how to be happy but it's the side effect of a lifestyle. And I believe it's the side effect of having harmony. So I like to use analogies. I'll use the body as an analogy. So if your life is a body, you have to have tone in every limb. If you only have tone in your career limb, you're in your atrophied in your intimacy limb, or your atrophied in your parenting limb, or your atrophied in your physical wellness, your emotional fitness, you're going to have unbalanced and you're going to be uncomfortable. You're going to be anxious when you're facing every other aspect of your life. And so

what are you going to do? You're going to go focus on the limb that you're gonna be uncomfortable. You're gonna be anxious when you're facing every other aspect of your life. And so what are you gonna do? You're gonna go focus on the limb that you're strong at. I'm just gonna be a workaholic. So for me, I knew I had to be a balanced human. And that meant I had to get an education in every other category of my life. And so I took years between records, much to my labels, Shagrin,

because I was like, I don't wanna look back on my life and go, my art is my best art. I want my life to be my best work of art. I'm serious about that. I was willing to walk the talk and take as many years as it took to learn how to get a grip on other topics and to get tone on other limbs. So my concept is eventually going to be something called whole human, where I help give people inspiration, education, and then equip them for being able to get tone in the limbs that they feel they're more atrophied in their lives. But what I did was start with a very specific limb.

I started with emotional fitness because I think learning to discipline our minds and curate our thoughts is the gateway to being able to be mindful in every other vertical from parenting to, you know, every other thing that we're going to be doing. Where is this stuff available? Right now it's on jewelneverbroken.com. And right now there's four modules up, a gratitude practice. Paying attention was the first one, showing people how easy it is to meditate or pay attention

or take a brain break. And then I have to think three other modules up. And then Judson has an article, sort of on each one in the science of them. And then I go in depth. So you can see a very short video. And then if you want to get a little bit more of Training or some stats or some science behind it you can. So do you see I mean you've got a lot going on your your musician you've got a movie coming out on the Hallmark channel very soon which we will talk about in a second and now you're doing this stuff around

mindfulness and and and being a whole human do you see in part of your future and and and and forgive me if you don't like this term, but as moving into kind of like being a self-help guru, a personal mental fitness trainer in some way. I believe in wisdom and I believe in advocating for wisdom. That's what I've always tried to do in my music. When I look at where culture is headed and what technology is doing to cause disconnection and as I watch anxiety rise as an epidemic and I look at where I am as a human which is a mom with a five-year-old that wants to be at home more that wants to travel and tour less but my message hasn't changed but how I wanted to deliver my message has changed. I want to be touring less I'm

not as interested in touring. I'll always do music. It's a passion for me and I'll keep doing it. But I want to be able to build this mindfulness platform not so I can go on the road and be a speaker and some self-help guru. I have no honestly desire to do that. But there's people out there like Judson Brewer, an amazing people, Dr. Kim John Payne, as a parent. I can't recommend him highly enough. His platform called Simplicity Parenting, that I highly recommend. So I'm going to be building out, I'm working with companies to build up corporate culture. I'm about to partner with Sappos, building out culture because I believe as entrepreneurs, companies can help solve social issues and add value to their entire network of employees.

Because every employee needs to understand how to be whole human, even to show up to work better. And if we can also offer that as tools to people's consumer base, to the consumer base of any large company, and then we can create networks like my fans have, where they start to look at each other as a resource,

we can start making some impact and some change. So that's happening to your fans or talking to one another about that? They're amazing. Yeah. They call themselves the everyday angels. I've always encouraged them. I'm like, don't idolize me. It makes me uncomfortable.

And I'll be knocked off a pedestal at some point, which I have no interest in. But you can be inspired. But you have to live the life with me. I'm on a journey, and I'm exploring, and I'm going to make mistakes, and I'll talk to you about it. I'm flawed. So I always lead with my flaws.

And I ask them to start answering each other's problems. I was like, you guys have a whole community here. Ask each other for help to speak up about it, like take the shame away from it and start talking. And so what they do now is a friend of a fan, Michelle just lost her lifelong partner and my fan set up a calendar and they grieved with her. And so they go out in two day watches and they go sit with her you know where she lived and cook for her and keep her company for that really intense grieving phase and another fan of mine her dad who wasn't even a dual fan went into surgery but all my fans sent him flowers and balloons and filled his whole room up and you know people are very willing to find family groups they're based around values. And I have hippies, gays, red necks.

You know, every kind of fan you can imagine under one roof because they have single interest, which is living an authentic life, whatever that means to them. And it's a tolerant but highly diverse group. That's really interesting. I'm just curious getting back because you led off this interview with this really harrowing personal story.

What is your relationship with your parents today? My dad and I have a great relationship. I forgave him the day that I left when I was 15. Forgiveness isn't something I think a lot of people understand fully. I think they think forgiveness means condoning behavior. It isn't. It's not a gift you give somebody that hurt you. It's a gift to give yourself. It sets you free. And caring hatred around your heart is like burning your own house down to get rid of rats. Why would you do that?

But it doesn't mean you get a relationship back. So I didn't think I'd ever have a relationship with my dad again. But he got sober and he said sorry. Sorry, it's nice. It's a great and amazing healing thing to hear. But it doesn't mean you get a relationship back. Changing behavior and earning a relationship back is what my dad did.

And it's extraordinary to be a man in your fifties who was abused as a child to be awake and sober and say, I didn't want to be abuse of parent, but I ended up repeating the cycle I was raised by and I need to learn how to forgive myself. and I need to ask my children for forgiveness. That's an incredible thing my dad did. I'm very proud of him. And is it reality started now?

Accidentally, my family got discovered. He's on a show called Alaska, the last frontier and it's a show about home setting and the way I was raised by pioneers. And what about your mom? I don't know my mom since 2003. She came back into my life when I got a record deal. I'll leave you to do the math on that one. It didn't work out great.

And I didn't know the truth about her until about 2003. And I haven't seen her since then. The truth, meaning that you were... You kind of have to read the book to like... It took me about 350 pages to kind of describe the dynamic of that relationship. But it was a difficult relationship. And I didn't believe her love in the end to be sincere or real.

And that was a really heartbreaking thing, because you grieve the loss of the fantasy you had about the person, and then you have to grieve the loss of accepting who the person actually is and losing that person. That sounds incredibly hard. That sounds incredibly hard. It was incredibly hard. And that's where one day I just thought my mind had been shattered. I was probably 33 years old.

I realized I was the only broke, but I think pretty much in debt. And I had to rebuild. And then after all the music? Yeah, so 33. 33. Yeah, before my pop album came out, which one of the biggest musical risks I've taken was going, Paul, but I was like, hey, plenty of money in the bank.

I can take any risk. I weren't. Not the case, I'm going to find out. What happened all the money? Yeah, I have to read the book. Okay, all right. It's gone. So...

Hope it was fun. I didn't spend it. But I realized when I ended up canceling a tour because I was really broken, Like it really, really hurt. Everything I'd been told in my life was pretty much a lie. And I had to start figuring out truth from fact, from fiction, what were my thoughts, what were things that I was told that weren't true. And again, I turned to mindfulness because I didn't trust therapists.

I wasn't talking to anybody about anything that happened in my life. And I looked in the mirror and I was like, oh, I remember this Joseph Campbell allegory. I don't know if remember the Golden Statue allegory. Joseph Campbell's very shortly. It's a golden statue. Warring Village comes in. They covered the statue in mud so they don't know the value of the statue. They don't steal the statue. But it stays encased in mud and everybody in the village for generations forgets its valuable statue until it rains one day and it's revealed as gold. So I'm going to this really difficult period in my life, which nobody knew I went through

when I was about 33. I'm broke. My mom isn't who I thought she was. I had to reprogram my brain. It was a really dire situation I was in. And I looked in the mirror and I remember that allegory and I was like, oh, I'm not broken. A soul isn't a teacup. It isn't a chair.

It can't be shattered. I remain whole at all times. I exist perfectly at all times. I just have to do a very loving archeological dig back to my whole self. And so that's what I started doing. I started writing down adjectives that described me at times in my life when I could remember not being hurt. When I could remember what it felt like in my body and I described that girl and I was like,

that's my map, that's who I actually am. And anything that isn't that, it doesn't belong to me and I'm willing to get rid of it. And that meant getting rid of a lot of thoughts, a lot of habits, a lot of behaviors, and acting in accordance to my values. And so writing down my values, once again, which was something I did when I was younger, actually,

going every day, I'm gonna do a self audit and go, did I live these values, these seven things. Did I live these values today? And if I didn't, I made an amends. And the next day, I strove. And it's something, still a practice I do. And with my five-year-old, the other day, he did some behavior, five-year-olds do a camera what it was.

But I was like, life is like this forest. And how do you not get lost? Your compass is your values. And so we've started listing his values. And, you know, every day, he goes, Mom, we should add that to my values list. It's really sweet, you know, and it helps me parent. Because I can say that isn't one of our values. One of our values is honesty.

Did you feel that that was honest? You know, it's a good tool, good. Yeah, with a two yearold, I'm not sure. Her values include eating my french fries and chasing the cats. In our remaining moments here, mindful of the fact that you have a busy schedule today, let's talk a little bit about you've got this movie that's airing Sunday night, right? Yeah. Tell me what it's called.

You told me earlier, and then of course my brain's like a siv, and I've been unable to pronounce the name of your songs your last name, so I'm not going to try the movie. Don't try. It's okay. It's for the Hallmark mystery and movies channel. So it's a separate channel from the Hallmark channel. And it's called the Fixer Upper Series. And then airing Sunday, the second, I believe April 2nd. Yeah, coming up Sunday. Sunday the second I believe April 2nd yeah coming up Sunday and it's called Concrete Evidence it's a series of nine movies this is the second movie you don't have to have seen the first one to enjoy the second one and her super power is her intuition which is why I took the role for somebody who's building a mindfulness platform this character once didn't follow her gut and she paid for it and she's willing to say I'm never doing that again I will follow mainstinks come hell or high water and so that's what her gut and she paid for it. And she's willing to say, I'm never doing that again.

I will follow my instincts, come hell or high water. And so that's what she does. And she's up solving crimes. And have you done a lot of acting prior to this? Not a lot. I was in an angly film in my early 20s. I got a lot of high praise for that. And thought I wanted to pursue two careers simultaneously

until I looked at people that had done it. And realized they went through a series of about five divorces. So I decided not to pursue both at the same time and to give myself time to again try and be a whole human. I don't want to be more famous or more rich as fun as acting was. I was like I need to learn how to be a good person more than that. But these TV movies were really easy for me because they let me meet my goals as a parent because it's three weeks. I get to be creative, learn something new, challenge myself, but still keep my son with me and still be home in three weeks, so.

That's great. But they're long days, 18 and 9. I didn't realize how long the days were when I signed on, but yeah, you can do anything for three weeks. Where do they shoot it? In Victoria, Canada, beyond Vancouver, Ireland. Oh, I've been there. It's beautiful.

It's very pretty. For people who want to learn more about you and check out your book, just give us the full download of all the stuff you've got out there that we should go look for if we're intrigued after having listened to you. Sure, I have a book out. It's called Never Broken.

When did it come out? In 2015, so it's on paper back right now. And it tells you my life story and then tells you how I overcame them. I just, and then in the back it sort of has my 20 axioms that I developed and lived by. And then people said, do you actually have real specific exercises behind those 20 principles? And I do. They are all based on exercises I did. And so that's what started me to create the jewelneverbroken.com website. Jewelneverbroken.com. And that's the one

Jutson was kind enough to sign on to me with. And you can find your music on Apple Music or Spotify or. I have a full record out right now called Picking Up the Pieces. When, oh, is that new? It came out with my book. Okay. So, it's a pleasure to sit and talk with you. Yeah, I'm a big fan of what you're doing.

I've seen your pieces. You're really great at articulating and making these sort of difficult, you know, large topics very palpable and very understandable and that's a tremendous skill and I'm actually sure them with friends to kind of help them get a grip on sort of an introduction to this. So well done. Okay, there's another edition of the 10% Happier Podcast. If you liked it, please make sure to subscribe, rate us and if you want to suggest topics we should cover or guess subscribe, rate us, and if you want to suggest topics we should cover or guess we should bring in, hit me up on Twitter at Dan B. Harris. I also want to thank Hardly the people who produced this podcast and really do pretty much all the

work Lauren, Efron Josh Cohan, Sarah Amos, Andrew Calp, Steve Jones, and the head of ABC News Digital Dan Silver. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. I'll talk to you next Wednesday. Hey, hey prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.