Jewel had a conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais on the Finding Mastery podcast. Listen to the full podcast here: https://findingmastery.net/jewel/

1. LETTING GO OF PERFECTIONISM
BY JEWEL
Perfectionism makes you careful. It doesn't make you great.
I realized from my career, from my music and from my writing that if I
wanted to try to become a master in my life, I had to let go of perfectionism.
I had to let go of any kind of safety net and I had to be willing to take risks.
What does it take to take a big risk? It takes self-love.

2. Every time I sat down to write about my pain, it was like an active meditation
because I wasn't in my brain. I was observing my thoughts. I was observing my
pain. The anxiety and the tension always lessened every time I wrote, so it
became a positive coping mechanism. I call it “brilliant resilience.” We all have
these internal resources.
YOUR BRAIN CAN GET AS ADDICTED TO
GOOD HABITS AS MUCH AS IT DOES TO
BAD HABITS.

3. I moved out at 15, which was very frightening. I started having awful panic attacks, but then I got curious and asked myself questions to get answers.
What’s causing the storm? And then I was able to find a way of coping and healing through the visual meditations of sinking into the water.
I'd imagine the colors changing as they went down into calmer water, I’d imagine the taste of the salt water.
When I moved out at 15, I looked at this idea of nature versus nurture. I thought if I didn't receive the good nurture, can I get to know my real nature and nurture myself?
How do I not repeat the cycle of abuse? All you can do is abstain for so long because there's a vacuum unless you learn a new behavior. So I taught myself a new emotional
language than the one I was raised with in my house to see if it’d have a different outcome for me.
I developed a new set of tools for myself to feel present. One was following my hands around. And that put me in the observer role, which puts you in the driver's seat of your
life and helps you then learn how to intervene in the moment and change behavior. You can’t do that if you’re in the passenger seat of your life.
IT'S BEEN MY LIFE'S JOURNEY TO ASK MYSELF, “WHAT IS MY HUMANITY? WHAT IS MY WORTH?
WHAT IS MY VALUE AND WHAT CAN I CONTRIBUTE?”
IF YOU’RE STUCK IN CONSTANT FEAR CYCLES IN YOUR MIND, YOU HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO
GET OUT OF YOUR MIND.

4. People often ask me how I overcame my childhood. My experience is everybody's
experience, just dressed up a little different. Yours may not have taken place in
Alaska. You might not have had the same things happen to you that did to me. But we
all have the same story.
How can I share what I'm learning to make me less lonely? How can I empower myself
and lift the people around me? My fans have allowed me to grow and change and be
fallible.
If you're willing to let go of the idea of perfectionism. Anybody that's had any type of
gift, singing, sports, business, you know you can only get to be so good. We try and use
perfectionism as a rocket fuel but it actually puts a ceiling on your ability for genius.
That takes health and love. It brought me back to myself and to learning how to be
kind to myself. It made me push away that internal critic and forced me to reprint
myself basically with the kindness I was never shown in my own life. But I was able to
show it to myself and that was a whole other journey.
DURING MY CAREER, I’VE ASKED MYSELF HOW CAN I
CONNECT WITH PEOPLE?
THE WILLINGNESS TO LIVE IN THE UNKNOWN IS WHERE
THE GOOD STUFF HAPPENS.
I HAD TO LET GO OF ANY KIND OF SAFETY NET AND I
HAD TO BE WILLING TO TAKE RISKS.

5. We process emotional pain in the same part of our brains that we process physical pain. But pain has a rhythm, just like every single thing in nature has a rhythm. And I had to learn how
to trust the rhythm. So if I was sad, it just meant the tide was out that day. I knew the tide was going to come back in. You can sit in sadness, you can sit and grieve with your darker
emotions, because you know nothing's constant or forever. The hardwood trees that last a long time and weather every storm, take a long time to grow. They have a beautiful shade.
They’re resilient. They know that bending is actually resiliency because anything rigid in nature dies. And so I began to look at myself as if I were a hardwood tree. I’m someone with a
deep root systems to help me weather the storms.
My values are who I am and what I stand for. Every single day, I make sure I’m acting in line with those values. I do a self-audit before I go to sleep.
Did I say that today according to my values? But it has to be done with love, not with self-shaming. And the times when I didn't act on my values, I would make amends and I would go
back out to the next day. As long as you’re living your values, you can look back on your life and say, “I’m the person I wanted to be. I didn't get distracted by fame. I didn't get distracted
by power. I didn't get struck by depression and fear because I lived my values.” That's your guarantee. That's your blueprint.
When you're an insecure person and you push yourself hard using perfectionism, it's still stemming from insecurity. You're using an external resource to combust performance out of
yourself.
You're constantly looking inside yourself, listening, awake and paying attention. I always like the risk. I got comfortable with the unknown and with the vulnerability of saying, “I don't know
what I'm going to do and how I get up there.” That's where the greatness happens, if you're willing to step into that atmosphere.
DID I DO THINGS TODAY ACCORDING TO MY VALUES?
BUT WHEN YOUR FUEL COMES FROM WITHIN YOURSELF, YOU'RE UNSTOPPABLE BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT
SPENDING A SINGLE OUNCE OF ENERGY LOOKING AT WHO'S DOING WHAT AROUND YOU.

6. When I was homeless I realized my brain was addicted to bad habits. But knowing my brain
was inherently built to be addictive, I began to attack these habits one at a time and that
changed my life. If I had anxiety, instead of letting it escalate or instead of overeating or
getting angry, I substituted the good habit of mindfulness.
I played the “light switch game” where I’d feel anxiety, then imagine flipping a light switch in
my head. I’d tell myself I was feeling anticipation because something good was about to
happen. That put me back in the driver's seat.
I didn't have money for therapists. I had no resources and I was going to end up in jail or dead.
So I started asking myself, “What makes me feel less anxiety? What makes me feel more
anxiety? What makes me feel whole, calm and confident?” I began to develop mindfulness
tools based around that this idea that we're not broken, we just have to do a very loving
archeological dig back to our actual full real selves.
YOU CAN FIX ANY HABIT IN YOUR LIFE BY SUBSTITUTING
NEGATIVE BEHAVIORS WITH POSITIVE BEHAVIOR.
TO ME, MASTERY IS THE WILLINGNESS TO SHOW UP
EVERY DAY AND REFINE AND REFINE AND REFINE.

7. We are not in the business of fighting darkness.
We are farmers of light.
WE'RE ALL TRYING TO GROW ALL OUR OWN LIGHT WITHIN OURSELVES
AND LET THAT BE WHAT INSPIRES OTHER PEOPLE AROUND US.
I don't want anybody to feel like happiness is for privileged people. Everybody should demand their lives rise to the level
that they hope it does. And that is in your hands. It takes nothing other than what's in your heart.