EP015: We Are Not Our Skin Suits

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Jessica: Hello friends! I'm excited to introduce you to my friend Jaelyn. Hi, Jaelyn! Jaelyn is a wellness coach entrepreneur powerhouse who came here today to talk to us about bravery, authenticity, and really what it means to be yourself so fearlessly that it makes others want to do the same. We have been friends, family friends really for over a decade now. Our dads both work together at the same church and then we've gone off in different directions but we're both very much doing the same - just lifting people up and so I guess to start, why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?

Meet Jaelyn

Jaelyn: Oh gosh, yeah. It's been a while we're PK Littles together-

Jessica: Yes

Jaelyn: There's like a light that happens in people and I love seeing that go off and I love seeing the ripple effect that that has in the lives of so many people like their family and their friends and to see them living and doing things that they never dreamed that they could do before. It's like the best job. I love it to pieces and five years later, it just gets better and better and it never gets old so it's a fun life we get to live and even more we're talking about fear today, I wear the Kick Fear in the Face sweatshirt

Jessica: Perfect!

Jaelyn: - clothing that speaks and all the things and I have my nose ring in.

Jessica: Yes!

Jaelyn: So I don't know if you even got to see it. I don't even notice it anymore, because it's just part of me. I was like, Oh, here we go, nose ring. I'm wearing it proud.

Jessica: Yeah, is that the one that you got at Avanti?

Jaelyn: Yeah, it is the one that I got at Avanti so when Jessica messaged me about this Zoom call, this podcast. I was like, you are the head of Avanti now? That's where I got my nose ring, we're just so connected.

Jessica: It's true.

Jaelyn: We're never not gonna be connected. It's gonna be great.

Jessica: It's such a small world. When you're like Oh, I know Avanti. It was way before I started, I was like, Oh, I manage the shop now. It's so cool.

Jaelyn: So awesome.

Jaelyn and Jessica discuss looking past their flaws to see their own unique abilities

Jessica: But I love what you said about it's the light that you see and the process of creating that kind of self-discovery, and really the light that it brings because it's what I like about being a part of piercing is some people come in and they just want to learn it's not a spiritual experience for them, at least not in that moment but majority of people who come in, it's a coming of age journey, it's daughters getting their ears pierced for the first time, it's women reclaiming their bodies back, many just amazing stories of people just like, this is me, this is my body and I love it as it is now and that's something that I think you can relate too because they're coming into my body is actually pretty cool. It's pretty. It can do all these amazing things and everyone's body has differences that we might see as flaws but really, they're just unique - unique abilities to your own body.

Jaelyn: Yeah, definitely. I love that concept because I think so many of us, we try and get healthy because we're trying to fix a problem and there's no problem in any body. I always used to say I was a healthy person living in a fat suit because I really didn't feel unhealthy. I felt I could still do things but I knew I was restricted in other ways like I hated going shopping. There were things that I knew that I wanted to like that weren't quite matching up and then I have this tattoo. I don't know if you guys can see it, it says Ahava, and it means everlasting love, and I actually I was gonna get this tattoo before I got married to my husband. We were 20, we were babies when got married, but I was gonna get this tattoo, but I was probably at least 200 pounds if not 215 like in that range and I never really wanted to get a tattoo because I was always worried, what if I actually lose my weight this time and it gets ruined or I just didn't have that love of myself from the inside out yet and instead, I was almost beating up on my body like nothing was ever good enough or I needed to lose weight or I knew that there was something else inside of me, I just wasn't quite sure how to unlock it and how to let it come out and so that was a lot of what my, starting on my health journey was about, I stopped beating myself up for being unhealthy and overweight and I started like, I need to treat food as fuel instead of my emotions, and I need to deal with my crap and I need to you know, like I just kind of had, I mean, it came to a point where I had my son and I think everybody has this moment where it turns spiritual for them or that coming of age or we just all have those defining moments in our life that we need to go through in order to transform and we're made to transform. God designed us to transform he didn't design us to be in these bodies. He didn't design us to be overweight and I knew that my whole life. I was told "Your body is the temple" and I was like "Wow! Mind the crappy temple."

Jessica: Right. Are you sure?

Jaelyn: Hey are you sure this is the temple? But when I chose to get healthy, and I made that decision, I was deciding to finally treat my body the way it was designed to be treated, and that was a difference in mindset, it wasn't that I was bad or that my extra weight was bad, it was just a reflection of where I was actually going for my hope and my health and I think that's my goal as a coach is to help people see that there's no judgment on you. The body positivity motion is a really big deal to me because people see me now, y'all, you see me, you see my face and my head, but you probably are thinking I cannot believe she lost 95 pounds. Most people don't even know now that it's been five years that I lost that much weight.

Photo by @coachjaelynharrel

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: But I have the battle scars to prove it and I'm so thankful for my story because I remember thinking, I am happy with where I am at and it was kind of a lie that I would tell myself because I wasn't. I wasn't living my best life there and I wasn't feeling good in my skin. I felt like a foreigner, I felt like I was wearing a fat suit and there was a healthy person underneath and so, slowly I started digging out, and just getting real with myself like, Okay, what does it mean to transform the way I look at food? What does it mean to transform my mindset towards food or other people even like, I was so worried. Everybody was gonna judge me and now I'm healthier, unhealthy wherever you're at, like you're a human being, you have value and I think so many people don't necessarily see that and it takes those defining moments to spark a change that takes you on on a journey to really end up becoming who you are at the end of the day.

Jessica: Yeah, I know entirely. When I started getting pierced like my first major one was I got my septum pierced and I was in a relationship at the time that was not healthy at all, it was absolutely terrible and any relationship that had really been in up until that point was also just absolutely terrible and unhealthy. I had been told over and over again, that's an ugly piercing, that you look like a cow actually, word for word. And I would hear myself regurgitating those words but internally, I was like, I am self-conscious about my nose, I am self conscious about this part of my body and by piercing a part of myself that---first off, it was a piercing that was scary and second off, it was a part of my body that I was afraid to draw attention to. It made me kind of face my fear and I was like, Okay, I actually have to accept this part of my body. Now, I'm drawing literally a big arrow like, look at my nose. It's any sort of form like, if you lose all that weight, you're still the same person, you're just drawing more attention to yourself.

Jaelyn speaks about transforming from the inside out to feel a lasting change

Jaelyn: Right? And that was exactly what I saw. I lost, I thought, I mean, and blink at me at screen if you are with me here.

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: Holy moly! I lost 95 pounds, and I thought that would fix it. I thought that would make magic happen and like, I will be good once I lose 95 pounds. Well, turns out, I just didn't have anything hiding me anymore. It was just me and that's kind of been the cool part about the last four years is that I've learned so much more about who I am and what I...I'm blonde right now. I'm not a natural obviously, I am not an actual blonde and kind of thankful that my hairstylist put a little bit more brown in my roots before this quarantine happen because it's growing out nice but I am getting a lot of Facebook group notifications, going gray gracefully, I'm like 28 not going gray at all, leave me alone but what was really cool is over the last four years, I've really seen me come into my own self and I realized I was made fun of like, blonde. [inaudible 12:34] blonde, it's fun. It's so fun. I realized I am fun. I realized I have a sense of humor that I love. I realized I love being active and there's a lot of things that were revealed through me shedding that weight off of myself like you said, I love how you said that because we do, we're free to draw attention to ourselves but we also want the attention on ourselves at the same time. It's like, it's a need that we have, but we don't quite know what to do with it and we kind of feel selfish almost doing that and I was always so...I mean, especially after I lost my weight, people criticize me for being healthy or being unhealthy and then people started saying, you're not gonna get too skinny, are you? You're not gonna blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Are you sure you're okay? I love y'all so much. I'm great. I'm so healthy and I had to really wrestle with that like, what has helped to me and this is my journey, this is my lane, I get to be in it and I get to this side. Obviously, we want people in our lives to let us know when things are getting to an unhealthy place or, and there are good moments where my parents tried to say "Do you want to get healthier?" The doctor was saying "You need to get healthy," but until it was something that came from inside of me, it wasn't something that stuck and it wasn't something that happened, but once it was a purpose inside of me that I saw, I'm not going to be able to be the mom that I want to be to my kids if I don't get my body healthy, and have some different habits. That internal awakening in me, that intrinsic motivation, it shifted my perspective to where I wasn't struggling to make decisions that were healthy ones. I wanted it because I was so focused on what I was creating over here instead of what I was trying to run away from over here. It was like the desire hold me and I saw just this, this person becoming and I found joy in the journey and it was incredible and I'm sure that's probably high...so you never finished the story of your septum piercing but how did you feel afterward?

Photo by @coachjaelynharrel

Jessica: I felt 100% me, I like nodding with you like yes, that's totally...it's everything. It's what sparked this kind of like, okay. First off, I am my own woman, I can come up with my---I have my own minds, I have my own choices, and that unlocks the freedom like nothing else. I didn't get my nose pierced for a guy, I didn't get my nose pierced for a relationship, I didn't get my nose pierced for a job. I got it for me. It wasn't for my friends, it wasn't for anyone else but me and actually, I went in by myself. I was going to buy a work shirt at Washington Square and could not find the work shirt anywhere and I was like, oh, I've always been thinking of doing this, do you guys pierce? And they're like, yes.

Jaelyn and Jessica talk about living the questions and feeling freedom in discovering truth

Jaelyn: Of course, we do.

Jessica: Of course, we do. But I had just graduated from George Fox, and the class I took before I graduated was a Philosophy of Art Class and one of the things that really stuck out to me was living the questions and what we were talking about was growing up in the church and growing up in a place that is there's black and there's white. Well, as you grow up, you start to notice some gray areas and when you're raised that there's just black and white and there's just yes and no, what do you do with all those in between areas and all those questions? And what do you do when you grow up in a culture where piercings are considered a little bit taboo and piercings and tattoos are considered definite No, No but you have this deep desire and deep need to continue to see this goodness that comes from them? Well, how do you wrestle with that? And it definitely was like, right at the beginning of my looking in the question journey, in order to make my fate my own, to make my body my own and to make my life my own. I think that's what I'm hearing from you when you made the steps to clean your body as your own and be like, Okay, this is the temple which I worship, this is the body that has brought life to two boys, this is me, and this is who I am you reliving the questions, because I think that's a lot. At the start of the journey, you sit there and you're like, Okay, but what if? What does that mean? What does that look like? Will that affect you, like, I grew up in the church, will that affect where I die? So many big questions that you're not given the tools to handle and you sometimes just have to be brave about it and be like, Okay, I have these questions, they're not going away, and they're just gonna re-pop-up in different aspects of my life, regardless of what outlet I go with so you really have to wrestle with them to make those choices.

Jaelyn: Yeah, definitely. Well, I think we're just so concerned about what other people are gonna think that we forget that we serve one God and that he loves us, regardless of what we do, regardless of the things, and it's not like that gives us a license to do whatever the heck we want. It's just that He's accept like, we've already done it. We've already done the things, we've already---I hate when people judge other people for the sins that they do, because it's just, we're all sinners like plain and simple. We're all the same and we all have different lives and God sees us equally but He also sees us uniquely and I think that that's really important too is finding...this last five years has been a journey of me finding myself and finding my uniqueness and finding I wasn't just another person that was created, I thought I was when I was growing up. Again, I was like, I used to, like everybody else is so much better than me and I would always live in comparison and it was a thief of my joy, like, I am the only Jaelyn that there is that exists in the world. Yes, there's other people named Jaelyn, but no one the same eyes as me and the nose, and the mouth, and the mannerisms, and there's only one Jessica too and I love that because the world needs you and me. The world needs you, who's listening right now. The world needs your unique combination of gifts and I realized that my unique combination of gifts, it's funny that you say like, you're kind of chasing that question because I really did wonder, well God, why did you have me get healthy at 22 because here's what happened. Nobody else was getting everyone's out like drinking and living their best life, no one's having kids who's my age. Iwas 22 and I mean, none of my friends were having kids, no one was married. I was very much a unicorn in that sense having two kids at you know? I have two kids under the age of five at 28. I don't have a lot of fears that are in the same boat and I have a lot of 30 something friends, because those are the people that are having babies and on top of that, I'd gotten healthy, and truly healthy in my mind. It wasn't just I lost 20 pounds, it was okay, I'm never going back to that old way of living and I've transformed my mind and I've learned a lot of things that some 50-year-olds have not learned ,so to be in your 20s and have this wisdom and knowledge and fire for personal growth that I never thought I would have. It felt a little lonely, to be honest with you. I was like okay, what's the purpose for this God? Who do you want me...I have this and both of my parents are both pastors at a church and so they're both really strong leaders.

Jaelyn: So I was like the pastor child for leadership growing up, I was always the leader of small groups, or I was the first one to speak. I've just always had that leadership bone in my body and so coaching other people came pretty naturally to me. I was guiding people leading people. I had a life to learn, obviously, but I'm seeing the pieces fall together as I continue to grow and learn and continue to just let those questions be there as I go along in the process, because I you know, and those of you who watch me on social media, I am not afraid to hit live, Facebook live. I talk about everything on Facebook Live and I'm not afraid to share the real things in my life and I didn't realize that was a superpower of mine. We all have super Jedi level things that we are good at, that I think sometimes we tossed to the side because we're like, well, that's easy, give me something hard and the truth is my superpower was communication and getting, doing things like this were like being on a podcast to some people [inaudible 22:26-22:27] like different things, but what's cool is seeing how many...I see God setting me up for so much more as I continue to learn and grow and I think that's really important to not forget, is that when you have a posture of growth, instead of a posture of failure or success. Success doesn't come to anybody, without failures first, we have to grow and learn as we go along in the journey to go anywhere or achieve anything or have progress in any area like you didn't just all of a sudden wake up with piercings on face.

Jessica: No.

Jaelyn: No and they didn't all happen at once because pain and all of this like that would be a lot of piercings at once. Same with tattoos you know people get a little tattoo and then they get more, and then they get more.

Jessica: And more.

Jaelyn: You know, and they have a whole sleeve and they're like, how can you...no, and my health didn't like the me you see today in my health, I don't eat dairy anymore, I don't which---I love cheese y'all.

Jessica: Ah, me too.

Jaelyn: I still love cheese. Cheese is my jam and I'm really sad that I'm very intolerant because I love cheese, and I still like the fat girl in me still lives in this brain. I walked by pizza shops and I am like, "Oh God! I could eat a whole pizza right now"

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: Just because it's nostalgia. It reminds me of my childhood. It's been that constant discovery of hearing those questions be asked like, will I ever get to eat it as much as I want again? Well, that's the wrong question. Will I want to continue treating my body well? Because that habit that I had that I remember, that was comfortable, it didn't served me well and I think sometimes we forget that, we forget that those old comforts that old person that we were, it's not that you don't still love that person or that wasn't a part of you but take that and press it on your heart and allow it to move you forward into better honestly. Those questions that I've wrestled with and like, Is this right? Is this wrong? I'm gonna make this decision and do me whether it was a success or a failure, it's always been helpful.

Jessica: I agree so much with all that you're saying because we have like two very diverse audiences that are listening to this podcast today and-

Jaelyn: Yes.

Jessica: - that's why I was so excited to do it. I was talking to some piercer friends and I'm like growing up, I was taught what a Christian looks like, and I was taught what a non-Christian looks like and I'm a Christian who looks like what I was taught in non-Christian looks like and I -

Jaelyn: Like your looks can determine what's in your heart.

Jessica: Anything about you and -

Jaelyn: Yeah.

Jessica: That alone has taught me so much about people and by accepting me for who I am in my entirety, I can accept everyone else for who they are in their entirety and everyone's differences in their entirety.

Jaelyn: Right now, especially. Holy moly!

Jessica: Yes! I know out in the world, everything is different right now, but you said it's a unique ability is a superpower and it's what leads to brave conversations like this where we can talk about faith and we can talk about modification and we can talk about the journey of self-discovery because we've gone through that journey and we are in the middle of that journey and this is the truth that we have found, and everyone is at their own truth discovery, they're asking their own questions and I want to challenge anyone to ask whatever questions they want, because the answers are out there but you're gonna have to find them for yourself.

Jaelyn: Yeah.

Jessica: And I think that's what leads to true transformation is it what leads to that kind of glowing like, I am who I am, is because I've wrestled with all of those issues.

Jaelyn talks about celebrating diversity instead of polarizing ourselves to it

Jaelyn: Yeah, totally. I just think about like, there's so much diversity right now, when there could be unity.

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: And I think like, I've wrestled with this a lot because I've experienced the diversity too. I mean, everyone watch the Super Bowl, right? Let's use a Non-Corona example for the this, right? 'Cause we have all the examples right now but Super Bowl when JLO got up and did her thing, man. There was two very opposite camps, especially in the Christian Rome, right? Like, no, that was bad and yes, that was great, celebrate that and I think it's just really breaks my heart that we cannot have conversations without taking them personally.,Everyone has to think the same way that I do and if they don't, I hate them and it's so polarizing and we can't change how other people think that's not in our control, but we can change how we react and I even did a Facebook Live about this and I was like, why can't we see like, honestly, I felt uncomfortable about the whole thing because my little five-year-old-boy side and not just in my mom heart, and then my husband struggles with pornography, that's part of our marriage story and we actually now we help couples work through. We've just been very restored in our marriage journey and our stories so you need to come out with that, but our experiences have shifted how we view life, just like everybody else, everybody else's experiences have it shifted how they view life. And that's not wrong---I just believe nobody's wrong. People just feel really convicted about the way that they feel and they want to be right and there's some of you guys really feel like it's black or white, that's okay. That's just how you see the world.

Jessica: That's your unique abilities.

Jaelyn: Yeah.

Jessica: You uniquely beautifully you.

Jaelyn and Jessica discuss what it means to be fearless of other's opinions of you

Jaelyn: Right, exactly! I think instead of tearing each other down for that, we should be felt like why can't I just listen to you, like Jessica I don't want to have a septum piercing, I like my nose piercing, it's right but I don't desire to get a ten more pierce but I can listen to you talk about piercing and think that is so me. I've never noticed how much of a spiritualist but that does make sense because when I got my nose piercing, it was very much like, this is changing the way my face looks and I liked that way that it looks and some people might not agree with it. A mom having a nose piercing, I've gotten some of those comments before they're like, "You're a mom, don't your baby's pulling it out?" I am like they literally never touched it. I mean they do, but it's not a big deal.

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: I think if we focus less on diversity and more on unity, and just allowing people to be them, and know that they don't have to have the same beliefs as me, but we all deserve love. We all deserve kindness. We all deserve to be treated well, and that's the point and loving someone doesn't mean we have to like them, be their friend or anything like that. There's such freedom in that, there's huge freedom in being able to let go of the thoughts of other people and focus in on ourselves and be okay if someone doesn't like it, because people aren't gonna love you sometimes, that's just the life that it is.

Jessica: Yeah. In customer service, one of the things that I trained my staff on and I was trained on is hearing the question behind the complaint.

Jaelyn: Yeah.

Jessica: And that is very much with complaints or a gut reaction out of fear and you want to identify what that fear is, you can come at a middle ground where you guys can both communicate, and I think that can be applied to differences in life is we're all different. We all have all different perspectives, and there'd be no way for me to have the same perspective as you because I haven't lived the same life as you. I'm not wired the same way as you, I have different skills and different sets and the same goes for you for me, the same for me and really anybody out in the world, but being able to communicate, we're all people and people all do peoplely things and we are all unique in the fact that we have insecurities, they might not be about the same thing but we are all insecure and we are all worried about what other people are going to think on some level, and I think that's part of this transformation journey, whatever methods that you go through in order to achieve this transformation side is just being able to see each other as each other like, when I look at you, I don't see the weight loss. I don't see that you had weight before, I don't see your nose ring. I don't see your blonde hair. I see you, and when I see my friends who are heavily modified, and they have cheek piercings and face tattoos, and I don't see any of that. I don't see their colorful hair. I just see them, and I think that comes from no longer seeing yourself when you look in the mirror, I don't see myself when I look in the mirror anymore. I see my heart. I think that comes from the transformation, my outward appearances and expression of my inward transformation but that's what other people see on surface level, but on people to people level, I don't see any of that.

Jessica: -and how food tastes, what food they can have and when people come to me and they're like, I can give up my wine. [inaudible 33:06 - 33:08] No, we don't, you don't, but you can't have both. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want health, truthfully, something's got to change because the things that you've done to this point have gotten you here and I think that's where that when we identify what we're putting our identity in, and instead start getting comfortable with who's inside of us, there's some amazing breakthrough that can happen from that. I've never felt more fulfilled and contented and there's---don't get me wrong, still work in progress but you do start to see more of the real you behind the facade of what you put out there or and you start to love that person more following your heart. And when you're following who God created you uniquely to be and you start being unashamedly okay with that.

Jaelyn: I'm unapologetically a follower of Christ, people know that about---I used to tiptoe around talking about God, because they didn't want to make people feel uncomfortable and the truth of the matter is like, God rocked my flippin world in so many ways and I don't say it because I want to make feel uncomfortable. I say it because I've been transformed by God's love like He's loved me every step of the way when I fell [inaudible 34:39] and so it says, to feel that and to have that change in my life, it just comes out in when they do and when your identity is wrapped up in your worthiness, you're just who you were created to be. I think it's in that positive light, you're living in the life that you were always I mean, we weren't created to be bad humans or anything like that. We were created to live lives on purpose and when we're connected to that purpose that God's already put in our hearts, it moves forward in such a beautiful way where you're changing and adjusting yourself, but you're taking steps forward so that person God originally designed you to do. I have a feeling I'm so far from that person right now but like, that's not a bad thing.

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: I am excited about the journey that it's gonna take to get there and I love helping other people do that same thing where they get to, they get to realize this is your purpose, you have a purpose you were not just put on this earth to have babies and die. You were put on this earth for a purpose, to impact lives to, and I think about even your journey, Jessica and seeing you here today and seeing where you were even 10 years ago, there's a big difference in the person that you're becoming, but you're so unashamedly walking into that and that's such a beautiful thing to see, I love watching people unashamedly like, there's so much abuse in the world right now from other people on how you should look and what you should do and bla bla bla real dark. It's dark in Oregon right now. Let me tell you.

Jessica: I know. Goodbye, sunshine.

Jaelyn: There's no sunshine today. I feel like I'm in a dark cave here my lighting keeps changing.

Jessica: I've got this shadow on my face, like, oh.

Jaelyn: I do think it comes down to do you know yourself well? Like do you know who you really are? and if you don't, get curious about that person and start figuring that out and there's no wrong answer to that.

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: Because you are who you are and I knew I was always meant to be a healthy person. I knew and there are some people who really don't feel that way and that's fine, but healthy you gonna look different than help to someone else and be okay with what the answer is for you because it's you. It's not anybody else, it's you. Yeah, it's just a beautiful process.

Jaelyn and Jessica talk about facing emotional and mental challenges during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Jessica: Yeah, it really is, and I just appreciate just how artists and straightforward and just authentically you that you are. That's why I was so excited to interview you because I was like, this is gonna be a great conversation because there's so many different perspectives out in the world and I think that you have a very unique one just on bravery because it's hard. It's hard to go online, especially in the community that I'm in and be like, yeah, I'm a Christian so God like, you know, but I think you say it so beautifully is we're all on a journey and I've gone through a journey and you've gone through a journey where I can go on media and say that, you know?

Jaelyn: Yup.

Jessica: - and there's questions that you got to ask, and only you can find the answer to those questions. I can't tell you what the answer is, you can't tell them what the answer is. That to our listeners is you can't pierce yourself. You're surrounded by temptations right now, you can't. A lot of people don't recommend dyeing your hair right now. No time for chemistry experience. I experiment, but -

Jaelyn: The last people are and I'm getting a kick out of it so -

Jessica: I mean, I did so but I guess that actually wraps it up right there with me dyeing my own hair is this is my body, it was my choice and I had to leave that question for myself, and maybe it would go absolutely terrible and I would be bald right now and maybe it would go pretty good, and there'd be pretty stoked about it, but unless I did it, I wouldn't really know the answer to that.

Jaelyn: Yeah.

Jessica: But we're in quarantine right now, that is the circumstances today and a lot of our vices are taken away, and a lot of new ones are presented in front of us and it's really a time to wrestle with that sense of self and I guess I just want to encourage everyone who is feeling a little bit down right now and a little bit depressed and because I've been reading all the forums that I'm a part of, and a lot of people, they're having a hard time getting out of bed, they're having a really hard time going for a walk. Some of the interviews I'll have for like, this was like the highlight of my day, was talking to somebody, even a stranger, and I think I just encourage all of them and I'm encouraging our---you our listener, to start being okay with you, and just do it one step at a time, and that comes from, accepting the mistakes that you made that day.

Jaelyn: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. If you are trying to do healthy living and you ate something that you were like, I was doing so good and I'm not supposed to do that, don't punish yourself for it. It's not bad, you made that choice, own it. I think that should be with any choice-you make the choice and own it, stand behind it. That was something that I decided a long time ago is that anything I did, I would be okay if it came out about me because I stand by that choice and to be ashamed by that choice is to give the power, even the wrong ones. I think that we can learn from each other because we all have questions and I can learn from you and you can learn from me and I can learn from you listener if I interview you next, and by seeing each other's experiences and seeing each other's questions, it'll lead to new questions for us, much like this interview that didn't go according to my questions at all.

Jaelyn: You should call me back, so [inaudible 41:12].

Jessica: I will. We'll do it again.

Jaelyn: Part two.

Jessica: Yeah, I don't know. Before I let you go for the day, I just wanted to leave our listeners with that piece of information that feel free to be yourself right now, especially when you don't have to worry about your insecurities of having a crowd watching. This is your time with you and it's a gift. Even if it looks a little scary and it doesn't feel like a gift all the time and it feels really hard, it is a gift. You are stuck with yourself so that you can learn to love yourself, however that looks like.

Jaelyn: Yeah. Oh, that's so true, Jess. I would say, this process of quarantine is going to do something to you. It's going to wreck you or it can help you become who you were meant to be and I even seen--- guys this quarantine is not easy for anybody. It's hard for everybody and it's been hard for me too, like I'm right there with you, but because I've chosen to become during this process instead of the alternative to that. I've experienced joy and I've experienced pain, but like you said Jess, it's taking that and like putting end with it and being like, this is what makes it bittersweet, you can't have the sweet without the bitter and vice versa, we need both and this season, we're learning to become us. Become you. Take the challenge if you are feeling down. I know so many people are having a hard time getting out of bed. I see you. My husband struggle with depression for a lot of years, there's something beneath that. Get curious about it, there was for my husband and there is for you too. There is freedom and breakthrough on the other side of pain and it just takes us getting curious in becoming the person that works through adversity, the person that isn't knocked down, the person who wants to live a better life, who is making the choice to get out of bed one day and maybe not the next. It's a bunch of little choices that you don't think matter at the end of the day and that clearly is you and who you are in your experiences and there's no right or wrong to that.

Jessica: There isn't and when you reach that self-acceptance stage, because it is a stage and with every stage you might be like, yeah, I accept myself today, but tomorrow I could wake up and be like, this is it that I have bugs me. Who knows? But when you reach that stage is just every [inaudible 44:04] for no longer is like it doesn't have meaning anymore, you know? And that is something that I think a lot of people don't quite get because it's really easy to see happy people online and hear that they used to be depressed or they used to struggle. When you're sitting there crying like okay, but what about me, you know?

Jaelyn: Right.

Jessica: But like, it is. It is so incredibly worth it just to get up and do even just one small thing that makes you feel better. The ramifications from just that one small choice is unbelievable.

Jaelyn: Like making your bed or some of you it might be making your bed in the morning, takes a minute, but it's that one small little win or it's putting your phone in the bathroom so that you have to get up and turn it off. Those little things matter.

Jaelyn shares some last bits of advice

Jaelyn: The one thought that I have that just popped into my head, so apparently someone needs to hear it is stay in your own lane.

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: Your own lane in this process, it's very easy to compare right now.

Jessica: Yeah.

Jaelyn: Very easy to say, Oh, so and so is doing so well and I'm doing so terrible and they're not you.

Jessica: No.

Jaelyn: Be you. If you're having a hard day, you're having a hard day. Honestly, today was hard for me. Most of you guys wouldn't know that like hearing what I've said on here but I didn't want to really show-up today. I didn't want to get up out of my bed. It was just one of those days for us feeling the heaviness of it all and then it started raining and that's like an entrepreneur's favorite thing in the world because I love gray skies and I love [inaudible 45:47].

Jessica: Me too.

Jaelyn: But, it's a decision. Every day, I don't always make the right ones but most of the time, I am making steps towards the best thing and that only comes from knowing yourself, that only comes from staying in your lane, and the best me isn't the best Jess, you know?

Jessica: Yes.

Jaelyn: It's the best me for a reason so find your best you. Stay in your own lane and remember that there's no competition except for with who you were yesterday.

Jessica: Yeah, I actually I had an interview with a gal, Hannah, a couple weeks ago and she was going through this. She was talking to a counselor and she was talking about her biggest fear used to be what other people would think and would she live up to their expectations and now, our biggest fear is will I live up to my own expectations? And that mental shift for her, like watching it from an outside perspective, I've seen just a half year Hannah. I've seen a more ambitious Hannah and that one change in myself, like stop worrying about what will they think? Will they hate me? Will they care? Will they stop listening to me to be like, Oh, if I don't say it, will I hate me? Will I be okay with who I am? Will I listen to it?

Jaelyn: Yeah. Why are we the last person that we consult, right?

Jessica: Right I was like, we really should be one of the first.

Jaelyn: At the start where everyone has to go and I feel like you do figure it out, though. I do feel like now I'm asking myself more of those questions and there's more freedom there. I'm able to say, well, what do I need today? Like, oh, I need to rock out to some rap music or what y'all know I'm a G right here. You wouldn't know it by my blonde hair and white skin, but I get a damn. I have to censor my music for my children but it's me. It's what I mean. It's not everybody else thinks but it's what I mean. Because sometimes pull me out of that punk to maybe it's a funny cat video or TikTok's got some good stuff right now.

Jessica: I love TikTok!

Jaelyn: I have to like set a timer so that I don't get locked on TikTok 'cause I can easily get lost on TikTok.

Jessica: I'll do a bit before bed and sometimes, it's three in the morning and I'm like, how did I get here?

Jaelyn: It is not the truth.

Jessica: Okay, well, I think I'll wrap up our call here, but thank you so much, Jaelyn for sharing your heart and sharing those little bits of wisdom and a little bit of truth and also for being transparent with our audience today and just being your authentic self.

Jaelyn: Well, thanks for having me. It was so fun and I can't wait. I can't wait to do it again. We're gonna do this again.

Jessica: Yes, we are!

Jaelyn: Okay, love you!

Jessica: Love you, too.