Why Are You Not Doing This? with Jenny Cheifetz

Lauren Best (00:00:08) – Welcome to Provoking Possibilities, where we reflect on pivotal life moments, ask thought provoking questions, and dream up new possibilities for living a life you love that may be a little out of your current reality. I’m Lauren Best, a certified hypnotherapist and provoker of possibility, and I’ve created this podcast for people who are curious about exploring new ways of living, who are looking to connect deeper with their bodies, their intuition, their hearts, and then known and who are really ready to just embrace their most authentic selves, to move into flow and into alignment. There is just so much that is possible for us when we open ourselves up to exploring new possibilities beyond our wildest imagination. So if you’re ready and curious to begin exploring new possibilities, join me every week for a new episode of Provoking Possibilities on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let’s dive in. Hi everyone! I am so excited to continue this beautiful little mini series that is not really all that little, because it is very important because I’ve been having a lot of conversations with individuals who have dared to follow their hearts and their intuition amongst all of the unknown and uncertainty, and have given themselves permission slips that may seem small at the time to others.

Lauren Best (00:01:39) – But in your own world, when you give yourself that first permission slip to really show up as yourself like or say yes to something or no to something else like it can really, really change your life. So I am super excited to have, you know, Jenny Shay Fitz, to join us today to talk about what it was like within her journey of saying yes to herself and no to other things, and going on this journey of, you know, becoming a life coach and breathwork breathwork facilitator. And she has her own business as well, gentle coaching. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband, two teenage children and two dogs, and she works with women and athletes who really desire to feel more calm and confident, aligned and compassionate towards themselves. And it is so. We were talking before this. So interesting because. It’s very cool that we get to as adults, and maybe we don’t realize this for a lot of our lives. Like we get to do something that we love, we get to combine, you know, the tools that we really find a lot of comfort or power in with the things that we love, like sport for Jenny.

Lauren Best (00:02:49) – So I’m super excited to have you, Jenny. Welcome and can’t wait. I know we were talking a little bit before and I was like, okay, this is where it stops. We need to record this because what you’re saying, what you were saying was just really so beautiful in this, this moment that you had where you realize, oh, do I get to do this? Do I get to combine the things I love? So thank you for joining me to share about that. And I’d love for you to, like, come back to that place a little bit and what that was like for you of realizing like, okay, whatever I decide now and what I get to do next is going to change my life and it’s going to make me really happy.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:03:31) – Oh, well, thank you, Lauren, for having me. It’s it’s an honor to be here and to share this, this story with you and your listeners. And it really was this awakening moment that I had with my coach, because it was it was a turning point, and I was exploring the next step for me in my business and as a midlife woman, it and as a mom.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:04:03) – It’s a responsibility to to demonstrate for my family and to, you know, to show. What it’s what it’s like to be mature and to make good decisions. And so here I am trying to figure out do I do the right and I’m using air quotes. Do I do the right thing with, you know, I have a life coaching certificate and I have a breathwork certification. And I’ve done all this in very recent years. I just went on this path of self-discovery and personal growth during the pandemic because I was doing my own personal development and, and I got these certifications and I kind of carved out a path for myself, but also in, in recent months and, and working with my coach kind of realized. But I have this passion for for fun. What do I do in my spare time? I love watching sports and I love going to sporting events, and I love talking to my best friends about sports, about athletes that we love. And I’m not an athlete. That’s that’s a disclaimer here.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:05:32) – I am not an athlete. I was not any kind of college D-1 athlete. It’s just a pastime. It’s just what I like to do. And I’ve also recognized it’s not necessarily something that women really do. There’s not a whole lot of. Forums for women, unless you maybe were a college athlete. There’s there’s not really a place for just regular middle aged mom people to hang out and talk about. You know, football players we kind of crush on or.

Lauren Best (00:06:17) – Yeah.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:06:18) – Or just, you know, oh, I like to have the US open on in the background while I’m making dinner or helping my kids with their homework. So I was talking to my coach about this and I said, you know, I don’t I yes, I love let me say I do love working with other midlife women. And, you know, I do love. I do love the clients that I already have, and I would not turn away anyone who seeks guidance from me. But I also have this sports thing, like, you know, like needling at me.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:07:02) – Yeah. And and so, you know, when I’m thinking about this podcast that I want to launch, my coach was was just kind of like, really? You know, just really nudging me, saying, okay, if you’ve got this passion. In your in your belly for sports. Why are you not pursuing that? And I just kept sitting there saying, but. I don’t really understand how I could make a business like it’s just kind of my pastime. It’s just this thing that I love. Like, you know, I’m 48 years old. Like, I can’t really I can’t really make a business out of talking about Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. Like, that’s not that’s not real. And she just kept pushing saying why not? Why not.

Lauren Best (00:07:53) – Yeah. Why not.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:07:55) – Right. And so to to go with your theme here she said why are you not giving yourself permission to pursue this. What is the what is the problem. What is the barrier. And I sat with that, and I just I just sat with that.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:08:13) – And I just I was like, I don’t know. Is it is it something I’m afraid of? Is it something that I’m thinking people on the street will look at me funny? Am I wondering what my peers will say? Am I wondering what my family will say? If that’s if that’s what it is. Then I need to let that stuff go. Because that that’s that shouldn’t hold me back. And if there’s a way that I can meld my love of sports and coaching and breathwork, then let’s go. Yeah.

Lauren Best (00:08:55) – And so what has that been like since giving yourself, letting yourself sit in it first? Because I think that’s another thing that, you know, can be so commonly, especially in this world. Think of coaching. Being a coach is like I see this so much of like, how are you going to take action? You know, you need to create your reality. You can’t just sit around and do this and that. And like I know for myself, I need time to sit in it.

Lauren Best (00:09:23) – I need like sometimes when I take that action too quickly, it’s either out of fear of missing out or it becomes like, you know, out of whatever. And so giving I think, or recognizing, I think as individuals what that looks like for us to, you know, make that decision to say yes or no or to sit with the why not or sit with the why shouldn’t I or, you know, just really give ourself that space to process what that could possibly look like or feel like for us that we do get to give ourselves that space. Some people, you know, can really trust, like have that instinctive yes right away. And other times it doesn’t look like that, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t get, you know, give ourselves that space to get to that place. So after you like, sat in it, what did that look like for you next of like being able to recognize like okay, really this is something that there’s no good reason why like what was that process like to to.

Lauren Best (00:10:27) – Get to that next space.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:10:29) – Yeah, well, you talk a lot on your show about somatic work and intuition, and that’s something that, that I’ve, I’ve worked with over the last couple of years a lot with because I’m sure people can relate to the feeling of I don’t have an intuition. You know, if you’ve if you’ve ignored your body for a lot of years, if you’ve numbed out and haven’t really been in your body for a long time, then you can relate to that feeling of, I don’t know, I don’t connect with my intuition. So I did that for decades. And so when I started working with coaches, as I mentioned, during the pandemic, um, I started connecting with my body and started doing the somatic work. I did meditation, I did breathwork, um, all the visualization exercises, all the things that you talk about and, and all the work and, you know, tapping and just so many different modalities and, and plenty that I haven’t done. So, you know, haven’t done all that yet, but maybe.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:11:39) – Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but the things that I did do I’ve gone deep with. And so when my coach mentioned. This concept. It immediately resonated. I had an I did have immediate, visceral reactions that, you know, my my, you know, my gut, my, you know, my sacral chakra, you know, like I immediately lit up. So I now that I have more embodiment exercises, more of a connection to my body. I talk to my body. You know, I have a better connection to my body. So there was more of a response of. Right. You know, I don’t know if anyone’s ever done like the what’s it called, you know, when the body is a, um. Oh, my God, I’m blanking.

Lauren Best (00:12:45) – That’s okay.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:12:46) – You know, like, when a body does a yes no. Oh, yes.

Lauren Best (00:12:51) – Response. Yeah.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:12:53) – Um, I’m blanking on what I’m talking a pendulum. Thank you, thank you. You know, I’m.

Lauren Best (00:12:59) – Like, should know I’m a hypnotherapist but don’t use a pendulum. So that’s maybe why. But I knew like.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:13:05) – Yeah, I’m like, what am I doing with my hands? Um, yeah. And and it’s not like I did that, but like, you know, I got that response in my body of right. Does does this sound like a yes is my body. I have a lot of people like their heart chakra will give them a yes, no or their throat. I’m a gut person. So, um, so, like, I’ll, you know, certain people will call on the telephone and my gut responds right away. I get my answers in my gut. So, so when she when she said that to me, like, what do you think about that as, as an idea of bringing those two ideas together? It was like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Now it’s not like I went out right away and immediately changed my website and immediately like, didn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t knee jerk responses.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:13:59) – I did sit with it and think, how will this look? What, because I didn’t shut off the other aspects of my business. I’m not turning away, um, midlife women who want to come for breathwork. It’s not. It’s not like I’m shutting down, um, you know, those those things. But this. Definitely. I sat with it. I asked myself the questions. I listen to my body, I breathe, I, I do journaling, um, you know, I lie in bed and I ask myself the questions, and I let my body respond. Yeah, that’s what that that’s what that looks like for me.

Lauren Best (00:14:44) – Wow. And it’s so beautiful to hear you say as well. Like, and and I know I touched upon this before, ask you that question of like, you know, how we can all sit and things differently and where we all get these different responses from. And it’s really been interesting, I think, for myself as well, to notice that more and more that now that I am continuously working to strengthen that mind, body, heart, soul, spirit, connection, whatever, that there are just so many there actually like a few different ways that I’m able to feel that response in my body.

Lauren Best (00:15:21) – And sometimes that looks like someone saying something really real to me. And me like having this emotional, like I can feel my my eyes to your up and well up and just like in my throat, in my head. And it’s very much like, okay, like something is moving me in some way. Maybe I don’t know why yet. Maybe I don’t know, you know, if it’s because I have that FOMO Fear of Missing out or why didn’t I think of this sooner? Or, you know, I realized perhaps, maybe how I’ve been sabotaging myself because it’s been here all along, and it’s like those things perhaps don’t matter. Trying to analyze the why or all of that, but just really listening to that body and really noticing, like, yeah, what gets to feel like a yes for you? And maybe it may not feel that clear all the time, but we get to keep strengthening that connection, like you said, through, you know, the different ways that you do it through breathwork, through visualization, through talking to the body.

Lauren Best (00:16:20) – And there are just there are so many ways that we can continue to strengthen and at different times, you know, where we’re, you know, maybe faced with different questions or answers or roads or directions like that gets to look different as well for us. And we don’t have to, like, stay with perhaps one modality, um, that we have tapped into. But just to add a little bit of of those thoughts that I had when you were sharing that, because I really loved how you did share. You know that that does look different sometimes in terms of like how you’re checking in with yourself. And I know breathwork obviously is your forte. And, you know, how did you get into breathwork and what has that meant for you as like an individual in your own life? Um, you know, beyond the facilitator of this, like really internally for yourself?

Jenny Cheifetz (00:17:15) – Well, it’s funny that you mentioned FOMO because that is actually how breathwork came into my life, I will admit. Oh, I love it.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:17:22) – Um, so when I was in my life coaching certification program, my trainer. Also certifies in breathwork. And so a lot of people in the program, we’re talking about breathwork, they already were certified in breathwork, and she was getting ready to launch a breathwork certification class. And, you know, there were already people enrolled in that. There were people who had done the previous cohort and she had integrated. Breathwork into our coaching course. So I had a taste of it. And as people were enrolling in the in the breathwork course, it was, oh God, do I. Do I do it, do I not? And of course, she kept speaking to the benefits of incorporating. This additional modality into your coaching practice. And you know how it will it will just add, add just volumes to your clients healing. And you know, it’s just something else to to bring into your practice. So I, I will I will definitely stand on, on, on that leg of FOMO that, that is that I won’t I won’t be shy there that I got into the course.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:18:59) – Partly because I felt like, oh shoot, I better, I better add this to the resume. Um, I certainly found value when she, when she, you know, brought it into the, into our course. And, you know, it’s not like I if I had felt like this is stupid, I wouldn’t have done it. Um, but yeah. So I got into the course, went through the whole certification, did all the, did all all that was involved and. Yeah. And, and then I just started doing it and I had mentioned to you previously it, it dramatically impacted my personal life. Um, I am not ashamed to say I have challenges in in my family, my son and my son’s 18 now, and we’ve traveled a rough road and he is getting ready to leave the nest, which is, you know, a proud thing for me to say because there were many times that I didn’t know if that would happen. Um, and we have totally gone a 180 and that’s not that’s not because of mean.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:20:26) – I’ll take a little bit of credit for that because I’ve done so much work on myself, um, which I know has greatly impacted our interactions. He’s done so much on so much work on himself, but I know that. How breathwork has. Has allowed me to calm down and regulate my nervous system. Helps. One of the things, you know, there’s there’s a huge list of benefits of breathwork that people can Google. But one of the ones that I always highlight to people is how it allows you to slow down your reaction time. So if you’re one of those people that just jumps like a rabid dog into an argument, like if that’s if that’s your if that’s your thing in an argument, like you are just just a barking dog. That was me. Like, let me just go. It does let me slow down, even if it’s just a few extra seconds. Yeah. And when you know, when I’m fighting with a kid who is impulsive and has the same kind of temperament, right? He might be going, yeah, but I’m slowing.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:21:52) – Yeah. And so now it’s it just changes how that argument is going to go because now he, he might be thinking, wait, what she she’s not arguing with me. Yeah.

Lauren Best (00:22:05) – Well, maybe this is your permission slip to give yourself more credit. Credit for this ripple effect that you really are creating within your family with, like for your son’s life, for the people around you. Because I think that’s that’s one permission slip that I think even as women, we seem to not give ourselves. That’s true enough credit, right? Yeah.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:22:26) – So permission permission to pat myself on the back okay.

Lauren Best (00:22:29) – Yes, exactly. Oh, well, thank you so much. This is just so fun, Jenny, to get to know you more and share about, you know, those permission slips that have really changed your life and are continuing to change your life, and in turn, you’re changing other’s lives and having such a deep ripple effect in all of that. So thank you for sharing and being vulnerable and open.

Lauren Best (00:22:51) – And we’ll put all the links as well for any notes that I post online. But how can people find you as well?

Jenny Cheifetz (00:23:00) – Well thank you so much. Appreciate that. This has been this has been such a great conversation. Yeah. The best way to find me is on Instagram at Gentle Coaching. And that’s gentle with a like Jenny. So gentle coaching just with AJ.

Lauren Best (00:23:15) – I love it. Thank you Jenny. Thank you everyone for listening and have a great day.

Jenny Cheifetz (00:23:20) – Thank you.

Lauren Best (00:23:25) – Because you’ve been listening to the show, I want to leave you with a little treat, which is one of my favorite hypnosis audios that will help you let go of the noise and worry from your everyday life by bringing you to a place where you can connect with your subconscious mind and imagine and dream about your life. Because as we continue to move through ebbs and flows and seasons of our lives, there will likely be times where envisioning new possibilities becomes difficult, or where we struggle to move out of that autopilot mode and into self-awareness to really live the lives that we want.

Lauren Best (00:23:58) – So do listen to this audio. It will encourage you to keep dreaming about your life, even during uncertain times where new possibilities may feel cloudy. Hypnosis has been such an amazing tool that I myself have used to move from a state of overwhelm and stuckness to really being able to keep dreaming about my life. And I know you can too. So visit the link below to download the Visualize Life You Love Hypnosis Audio for free or visit my website. Lauren. best.com. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey of exploring new possibilities and embracing your most authentic self. I appreciate you and your willingness to open your mind and your heart to new ideas and ways of being that are beyond your current reality. So if you found value in this episode, please take a moment to leave a reading and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this podcast. Your support helps us to spread the message of compassion, self-discovery, and personal growth to more people who may benefit from it. And if you’re looking for additional support on your journey of self-discovery and transformation, I invite you to visit my website at Lauren Bascombe, where you’ll find resources, courses, and coaching services to help you navigate life’s challenges with more ease and joy and confidence and support.

Lauren Best (00:25:30) – So please check that out. And more than anything, I hope you’ll remember that you’re not alone on this journey. We are all in this together, and by embracing our most authentic selves, we can create more compassion and connection to the world. So please keep dreaming, keep exploring, and keep provoking possibilities with love and intuition. I’ll be back soon with more thought provoking questions, inspiring stories, and powerful insights and conversations to support you on your journey. But until then, take care of yourself and others and remember that you are worthy of love and possibility.