Jenny Bridgman on Body Image and Healing Through Embodiment
[00:00:00] Heather Lowe: Hi, Jenny. Thank you for coming on my show. My first draft friend. Now I'm going to call you my first cast friend, my first podcast friend. I'm so happy to have you here. Will you take a moment to introduce yourself to the listeners and share how we know each other? Yes, absolutely. It
[00:00:30] Jenny Bridgman: is such an honor to be here.
[00:00:31] Jenny Bridgman: I'm so excited. This feels really big, um, for both of us. So. My name is Jenny Bridgman and I am a wife and a mother of three boys. I am a writer. I am a woman in recovery. Um, that is how Heather and I have met. Uh, almost three years ago, we met in a writing for your recovery class and instantly connected.
[00:01:00] Jenny Bridgman: And, um, have just stayed in touch and have grown alongside each other and experience life. And we always have so many things to talk about as I'm sure we will today, but you are just such a bright light in my life. And I'm, I'm so happy to be here to talk about
[00:01:16] Heather Lowe: all the things. Awesome. Thanks for being here.
[00:01:19] Heather Lowe: So you immediately impressed me because yeah, we were in a, like a writing per recovery course, and, um, if you're listening to this and not watching it, you don't see that Jenny is absolutely beautiful blonde. I call you behind your back. I call you Sandra, Sandra D from Greece. And I think you're both versions.
[00:01:37] Heather Lowe: Of Sandra Dee, the nice and the naughty both, but you then took the initiative to gather some of us writers and I was like, that is so brave because we were all shaking in our boots to be in this class, to share our writing, to be vulnerable. We're women in recovery. We all have anxiety, right? And you were so brave to do that.
[00:02:00] Heather Lowe: So I was like, immediately drawn to your Braveness. Also, I could see you like sitting up straight trying to do the right thing. And I was like, Oh, she's a perfectionist like me too. I was like, I see myself in her. And then we just, I think because we buried our soul with our writing, which is so vulnerable for, for you, for me, for probably everyone.
[00:02:23] Heather Lowe: That the connection was authentic from the beginning. And then, yeah, our individual, we started emailing and texting and connecting, and then we've actually spent time together. We've traveled together. Uh, we've had these deep, heavy conversations. We've had real life time together and you've become one of the most important people and best friends that I could have in recovery.
[00:02:45] Heather Lowe: Friendships change. So it's been, you've been a beautiful blessing and light in my life. So thank
[00:02:50] Jenny Bridgman: you. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. I think it's important. We do add that our, the writing for your recovery class that we met in was led by the incredible Ann Dowsett Johnston. And we have her to thank so much for, for putting this group together.
[00:03:06] Jenny Bridgman: And I will say, too, that part of our immediate and quick bonding was because I do find that writing is double vulnerable. You're not just sharing parts of your story, many of which, um, are quite dark and quite heavy and perhaps unprocessed. And also, you're sharing your craft. And so for people that are perfectionist or have this fear of, uh, judgment, um, or, you know, It's especially vulnerable.
[00:03:38] Jenny Bridgman: And the fact that we kept shaking and showing up and letting each other know, just how vulnerable we were and cheering each other on was really a beautiful thing. So, so grateful for that. That really was a life changing decision that we both said yes to that class.
[00:03:54] Heather Lowe: Yeah, I'm still, we're still connected with the others and that, that was in our little cohort too.
[00:03:58] Heather Lowe: And I'm all just begging for Ann's approval in the right of our writing. Always. Yeah, the queen for sure. The other thing is we call each other, which is pretty cute, first draft friend. And what that means, what that has come to mean for us is we're going to show up as we are. And we're going to strip down some of our perfection.
[00:04:16] Heather Lowe: And we're going to let ourselves be. And that's been a really nice thing. Exhale for us to, um, in sharing our writing are unprocessed, unfinished, imperfect writing. We've been able to help each other. In fact, you recently. edited an article of mine that was published in after magazine and it wouldn't have been the same article without you.
[00:04:36] Heather Lowe: So I thank you. And it's hard to share our warts. It's hard to share our ugliness, right? Like, especially as drinkers, we wore a mask of alcohol and achievement and perfection and being good. So to share things that are in process are still fragile or vulnerable with somebody as a, as a gift and you've been that for me.
[00:04:58] Jenny Bridgman: Thank you. Yes. Same for me.
[00:05:01] Heather Lowe: Let's talk about it. Let's talk about the thing beneath the thing. Because in. Deciding to do this podcast together and, um, me asking if you would be a first guest and you not having done this before saying, okay, yes, you know, let's, let's hold hands and jump together off the dock into the water.
[00:05:23] Heather Lowe: There was many things that we could discuss, right? Like being writers, being in recovery, there being wives, being mothers, being everything you said, there's plenty of things that we could talk about. But the thing that we settled on, which was really led by you, Jenny, something that you've been exploring that you've wanted to talk about, like brought me to my knees with gratitude that you were immediately ready to go deep and get into it.
[00:05:50] Heather Lowe: And And I guess that's body image would be like the topic, but I would say coming home to yourself would really be what we're going to talk about. And that's been the thing beneath the thing, especially for you and your recovery journey. So when did you start living outside of yourself?
[00:06:14] Jenny Bridgman: Yeah. Yeah. Body stuff.
[00:06:16] Jenny Bridgman: The more we've been kind of brainstorming, you and I am talking about it. I realized just how big this topic is and how important it is not just to me, but I think so many women, um, as we've mentioned, we met in a writing for your recovery class. So I think it goes without saying that I'm in recovery, um, not to spend too much time on that.
[00:06:38] Jenny Bridgman: That's a whole. Conversation itself, but, um, you know, I was 1 of those drinkers that it was a, um, it was a problem for many decades and I had my 1st drink at 14 and. Just fell in love with drinking. It became it was as for many people. It was a party and then a priority and then a problem. Um, and for so for a couple years, I'm approaching 4 years of sobriety now.
[00:07:08] Jenny Bridgman: And for a couple years when I told my story, I said. That I I'm 1 of those lucky ones that's had to get sober twice. And what I see now is the 1st time I quit drinking way back in 2007. I. It was mainly just quitting drinking. I never fully got the awareness or the acceptance. There was very little healing that happened.
[00:07:33] Jenny Bridgman: Um, I did manage to quit drinking and all these wonderful things happened in my life. I got married. I had children. I was a rock for my husband as he became paralyzed in, in a motorbike accident less than a year after we were married and, and these things happen, but I attributed it all to love and marriage and motherhood never quite.
[00:07:57] Jenny Bridgman: putting it together that part of these things were happening because I had been sober. I didn't want to be sober. And there's a huge difference between not drinking and owning your story and fully accepting. So the drinking came back as it does, and it was far worse and very scary. And I was blessed with the gift of desperation.
[00:08:16] Jenny Bridgman: And, um, my last drink was August 26, 2020. And, um, I will say in The near four years since then, it's just been a constant self discovery and excavation of sorts and uncovering the thing beneath the thing and what I have come to see about my story is that there was this body, this body stuff going on that predated even the drinking and that it was big and that it would take some time to start looking at it and being able to work through it.
[00:08:50] Jenny Bridgman: So. This is a big conversation. It's really, um, I think beautiful with the direction it's heading. And I do want to say candidly that I'm in it. Like I'm coming to you live from the trench of this is where I'm at right now in my recovery. And it's not easy work, but I have come to the realization that I have been at war with my body for most of my life.
[00:09:12] Jenny Bridgman: And I feel like each day now is a chance to for healing and embodiment and just kind of a living immense with myself,
[00:09:21] Heather Lowe: and
[00:09:22] Jenny Bridgman: I love being 46 years old. I'm in middle age. I'm, I'm, I'm in it in so many ways and just so grateful that I've had this chance to live life differently, look at life differently, and just be kinder to myself.
[00:09:36] Jenny Bridgman: And, um, So that's kind of where our conversations have been going lately, and I can't think of anyone else I'd rather chat about all this stuff with.
[00:09:47] Heather Lowe: Wow. I love it. So thank you for your openness and thank you for talking to us in process. And let me assure you, you are not alone. I mean, that is why we're having this conversation because there's other women out there that are feeling very alone in their war within with their body too.
[00:10:03] Heather Lowe: And there is another way there's growth, there's recovery, there's healing and. You're learning how to do that. So, um, you're a wise leader for that. Now, the first time you quit drinking, what was the impetus for that? If, you know, and I love how you said a party, a priority, and then a problem. And I'm like, if that's yours, trademark it.
[00:10:26] Jenny Bridgman: Um, so, you know, I can honestly say That starting way back in hindsight, I can say this.
[00:10:36] Heather Lowe: Yeah.
[00:10:36] Jenny Bridgman: I lost my freedom almost immediately. And I was a goner. I, it, alcohol provided for me the unbridled kind of personality that I want. I was an introvert and I was shy and I was all these things that I saw in society weren't the ideal, not at least in my mind.
[00:10:57] Jenny Bridgman: And it gave me freedom to express love, receive love, be. You know, free spirited and, and these things that made it, it had this sense of ease and for someone who didn't feel comfortable in her skin for so long, it just was so welcome. And I very quickly became dependent. I forgot how to live in my skin without it.
[00:11:16] Jenny Bridgman: And, um, by the time I got sober the first time at 29, there's a long history there, it's rather juicy and, um, I'm living with my now husband and he basically said, Uh, it's the boozer or, you know, we're done and, um, I was so in love and so terrified and I couldn't imagine living without booze, but I couldn't imagine living without him.
[00:11:41] Jenny Bridgman: And somehow I did it and I quit drinking. Um, I went to treatment and, but it still was this. invisible scarlet letter of shame. I wore secretly pinned to my chest. I didn't talk about it. I still tried to fit into my same friends group and I didn't understand myself, let alone try to explain to them how to treat me.
[00:12:03] Jenny Bridgman: There was a lot of heartbreak and a lot of pain in addition to a lot of love and marriage and having children and all these things. Um, it was a very complicated time. And That was the impetus though. It was, you know, my family had been worried for years. I was, I was a liability. I'd like to think that it was fun at times, but it was I'll quit
[00:12:26] Heather Lowe: drinking because they're making me quit drinking, basically.
[00:12:30] Jenny Bridgman: Right. And I did not go down without a fight. There's, um, you know, I was, I went, but, um, yeah, it was not linear. Let's just say.
[00:12:39] Heather Lowe: Yeah. And then alcohol immediately for you was self abandonment. I mean, it literally was the thing that took you outside yourself. You were introverted. You were nervous to be in the social situations.
[00:12:52] Heather Lowe: You didn't feel that outgoing. I'm not sure if you wanted to be with these men in this way or that way. And if you took alcohol, you could ignore yourself. You could shush your inner intuition and you could silence your inner knowing to be who you thought you were supposed to be. Yes.
[00:13:13] Jenny Bridgman: Yes. I have this, this metaphor that always comes into my mind of me longing to be this person.
[00:13:22] Jenny Bridgman: Free spirit, a person who just lives in her body and goes in the moment and is open to the joy. And there's, there's this image of us, like a group of people just at a dance and people take their turn getting in the middle of this, of the dance circle. And then it's someone else's turn and we all take turns and everyone lets their own light shine.
[00:13:43] Jenny Bridgman: And I've always longed to be that person who just didn't hold back and, and, you know, enjoyed and let their, let their own freak flag fly, you know, and, and just, but I've just been so self conscious my whole life that I would sit there and watch someone else go into the circle and say, okay, I'll go next.
[00:14:03] Jenny Bridgman: Okay. I'll go next. And then I'd start watching how they dance. And I say, oh, wait, well, I don't dance like that. Maybe I'll just wait a little longer. Oh wait, maybe I'm a terrible dancer. Maybe I should just leave altogether. And then the song's over, and there's your life. Going before your head. So I very much am someone who lives in my head.
[00:14:21] Jenny Bridgman: And our brains are wonderful. Our brains keep making sense of things. They keep us functioning. They protect us. They do all these wonderful things. But in my case, they also prevented me from living because I got so caught up in, in, in so many things. So that that's the metaphor that always comes to mind for me is, um, just being on the sidelines and not wanting to be now when I drank.
[00:14:43] Jenny Bridgman: I got in the center of that circle, but it still was disembodied because that wasn't me. That wasn't me who got in the center there. And so any connections that I made were not based off to people showing up authentically as themselves.
[00:14:58] Heather Lowe: And then
[00:14:58] Jenny Bridgman: later in life, I looked around and said, why am I so lonely?
[00:15:01] Jenny Bridgman: Why am I, why do I have so much pain? And it's because I hadn't let anyone in. Um, in a way I didn't know better. Um, and I, I do believe that disembodiment is also a brilliant strategy in many ways. I mean, we, there's, there's, there's many things that we can get into, but I didn't understand that for a long time.
[00:15:19] Jenny Bridgman: And I just really thought alcohol was the answer for me. And it was very hard to let go of.
[00:15:24] Heather Lowe: Yeah, that's so interesting. So when you say that, this is what comes to mind for me. I, I don't have to be the best answer and I don't have to be like this person or that person. I want the loudest applause. That's the only thing that matters to me.
[00:15:39] Heather Lowe: Achievement. Affirmation approval, right? Like, I want everyone to clap the loudest for me. So that's, um, that's an Enneagram three, but anyways, um, so this is really interesting that. Alcohol was the mask for you, but it also, it kept you from yourself and it kept you from others. It kept you from having true connection with somebody else because you weren't yourself after alcohol.
[00:16:11] Heather Lowe: You were, you were some diluted version. When you're talking about disembodiment, can you tell me what that means to you?
[00:16:20] Jenny Bridgman: Yeah. So I, I know there's a lot of technical definitions or what experts may say. Um, When I think of being disembodied, I think of myself, there's a sense of detachment. There's a sense of detachment from what's happening in the world and my experience of it.
[00:16:37] Jenny Bridgman: It's like, I'm not fully allowing or acknowledging my senses and my experience. My body was not always a safe place to be. And so there was, you know, whether I'm thinking about something that happened in the past, something that happened in the future. There's just this lack of integration in my whole experience and the reason I, the reason I can figure out when I am embodied is because I'm having glimpses of it now, it's such a part of I know how to get there and I can feel the difference.
[00:17:18] Jenny Bridgman: It's something that's been hard for me to describe it. I honestly was walking around so unaware that I was disembodied and the more that I'm thinking about it. The question is not so much how did I become so disembodied over my life and there are three key areas that I've kind of that I've pinpointed three buckets that really say why I was so susceptible to this, but it became the question for me is how do we not.
[00:17:44] Jenny Bridgman: How do we not become disembodied in, especially in our society as women nowadays, um, where so much of the messaging that we're told is the answer for relief or happiness or something is outside of us.
[00:17:59] Heather Lowe: Look
[00:18:00] Jenny Bridgman: this way, eat this, wear this. Drink this, you'll get the happiness, freedom, and joy and connection and things that, um, that you long for.
[00:18:11] Jenny Bridgman: And it's actually, you know, an inherent need. And then there's this messaging of if something's not right, go talk to someone about it. You know, as if we can, it's a mental thing that we need to work out in our brains again once. And what I have found Slowly and by being surrounded by very wise teachers, such as yourself in recovery is that my healing needs both the top down and also the bottom up.
[00:18:38] Jenny Bridgman: I need to integrate the body with my spirituality, with my mind, all of it together. To live inside of myself to come home to me, and it's a, there's no feeling like it. And I'm so glad I woke up to that. This is where my work is at this point in life, because there was a big chance that this never would have happened.
[00:19:04] Heather Lowe: Yeah, I mean, it feels like it could be a fuck the patriarchy conversation, because we aren't taught to pay attention to ourselves. I'm thinking from a young age, go sit on Santa's lap, even if you don't want to, right? Go hug Uncle Joe, even if you don't want to. Give Grandma a kiss. Give Grandma a kiss goodbye.
[00:19:22] Heather Lowe: It doesn't matter if your body is saying, no, I don't want to do that. You need, don't be rude. Grandma gave you cookies. Go give her a kiss. You know, we're, we're not taught to listen to ourselves and the world doesn't want. women listening to themselves and feeling themselves and being at one with themselves and speaking up because that will really disrupt the apple cart, right?
[00:19:47] Heather Lowe: And so that is a big, huge conversation. We are taught to ignore ourselves and we are taught to reach outside ourselves. And I love that. Um, I love that even as a coach where I say like, get support, get help. It is, I always trust my client. Knows themselves best would know themselves better than me. I would never give advice for them.
[00:20:08] Heather Lowe: How would I know what's best for them? I wouldn't, but I would know how to ask them the questions. to enlighten themselves about themselves, right? We all have the answers inside of us. The answers are not from your coach or your therapist. The questions are the questions are hopefully the wise questions come from someone outside of you, but the answers are sitting with it, being one with yourself, feeling it.
[00:20:34] Heather Lowe: And I told you, I just had an experience where I was looking back on some Facebook pictures and remembering a time when I was in that situation and my whole body felt like throwing up. I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn't believe it. I was just, um, wrought with nerves. Something was absolutely boiling inside of me.
[00:20:52] Heather Lowe: And I thought, that's how I felt when I was in that situation, but I was a drinker, so I never listened to it. Over and over and over again, I put myself in these situations and I didn't even pay attention to how I felt inside. I absolutely ignored it and drank more to deny it. To not feel what I was feeling because I thought I was supposed to fit in there.
[00:21:14] Heather Lowe: I thought that was supposed to be fun for me, right? And sobriety, thank God, has taught me to listen to myself. And so there is not that anymore. Now I do listen to myself and it is confusing and I don't have all the answers all the time. And I'm a woman in process also, but I can, I have awareness and I can feel recognized.
[00:21:35] Jenny Bridgman: Oh, I feel that so much. Yeah, there was. I believe it's a Liz Gilbert quote, that our bodies are God's best messenger system. Mm-Hmm. . And I wasn't paying attention either, but if I think back, I tune in now.
[00:21:53] Heather Lowe: Mm-Hmm. . And
[00:21:54] Jenny Bridgman: I can really tell before I'm going to go to an event if it's the right thing for me to do.
[00:22:00] Jenny Bridgman: And there's a big difference between the fear of. of something because it's something so important to you and you want it to go well and you've got the appropriate kind of fear and that you can bring along with you and accept and then there's the noisy the noisy your head is spinning in so many directions you're not in the present moment you're banging all over the place and it's just this warning sign
[00:22:31] Heather Lowe: Just blaring,
[00:22:32] Jenny Bridgman: not right, not right, not right, and how many times I mistook the two and drank through it, or what I would also do is shrink and not show up at all, even if it was something that was important to me or whatnot.
[00:22:47] Jenny Bridgman: Um, so I either, I, either way, that wasn't authentic living. That wasn't something that. I would, with awareness and compassion for myself, I could, I could make the other choice. And I, and I, I didn't have the, I didn't have the tools. I didn't, I wasn't ready, you know, for so long. Like, so we aren't taught these things.
[00:23:13] Jenny Bridgman: And there becomes a certain age as I think naturally, as most kids, I don't even know if it's just I have three sons and I think it's just something that we do naturally as humans, but you get to a certain point where you start looking outside yourself for the answers naturally. And it becomes, especially, you know, in for females, how does this look versus how does this feel?
[00:23:37] Jenny Bridgman: And that becomes our guide instead of our inner North Star, which says, no, this doesn't feel right. I have options here. We forget that we have options.
[00:23:48] Heather Lowe: For sure. And our need to belong and fit in overrides. Any other need. So I found it overrides our intuition, our inner knowing, um, I did plenty of things.
[00:24:00] Heather Lowe: Let's say in middle school, I was bullied and I also was a mean girl to other people. I've had both sides of that knowing full well, I didn't want to be mean, but my survival was to fit in and be funny and be mean to that person today because and everyone's going to be mean to me tomorrow, you know, so, yeah.
[00:24:19] Heather Lowe: Yeah, definitely. That means how did we
[00:24:20] Jenny Bridgman: survive that? I think that and it's so common. Our experience is just so common, but it's, it's not. It's, um, wow. Yeah.
[00:24:31] Heather Lowe: And as women, we're doing it to each other and we're ripping each other down and we're doing it still because we're fighting for the limited seats at the table.
[00:24:37] Heather Lowe: So we're elbowing. Everywhere. We're still doing that because, and that's where the comparison comes for you. Let's say of like, that person's a better dancer or I shouldn't do it if I'm not going to be the best, right? That person's better than me is because there's so few spots. We think there's only room for one and we're pit against each other.
[00:24:59] Heather Lowe: Then as women competing for that one spot where it doesn't have to be that way. It's
[00:25:05] Jenny Bridgman: interesting because I see, I see this. situation is so complex. There are, we're having the dialogue more and more about what is anxiety and normalizing therapy and depression and all of these things. And yet we still live in the society where we're very visual.
[00:25:27] Jenny Bridgman: And it's almost impossible to not compare yourself to the images we see left and right, and then we rank them. Here's a funny story. Pat or not, first of all. Smash or pass. So I was going through a box of my old things as we do, and oh boy, isn't that a rollercoaster. Um, but I found some journals, and one of mine is, um, is a journal, and it wasn't, It wasn't just a journal of my, you know, daily actions and thoughts and whatnot.
[00:26:01] Jenny Bridgman: It was an actual journal of what I wore, how I did my hair and my ranking. And it was not based on how I felt wearing it. Did I feel confident? Did I feel good? Was it comfortable? No, it was what kind of attention I got. Did I get compliments, things like this. And I looked at this and it was just so sad and telling to me, I was like the original.
[00:26:26] Jenny Bridgman: Facebook for myself, you know, going off this and then I'd Refer back to it two weeks later. I could wear that one because it's scored so high. It's my sister and I joke about this in a sense, but it's funny, not funny. It's, it's, um, it's very telling about how I was. So when I talk about people like me who come down with, um, Disordered eating and severe addiction and just a hole in your bucket when it comes to self worth that you're just trying to fill with all these other things, which never works.
[00:26:59] Jenny Bridgman: Um, it was all right there. I just, I, I just, and I don't blame myself for it. I don't consider myself shallow. I consider myself not having the sense of security and looking for it in certain ways. And. Anyway, it was a very interesting to see that and in my, my little handwriting and just be met with compassion actually
[00:27:23] Heather Lowe: is, oh, you want to repair it that.
[00:27:25] Heather Lowe: Little Gail, right? Tell her she's an 11 out of 10 every fucking day. So it doesn't matter who noticed her or not. I want to talk about the three things. I want to get into those three things because I think they're really important. But first I want to ask you about your husband because you slipped this in.
[00:27:44] Heather Lowe: And I feel like it's a big thing. You said he was in a motorcycle accident and he's paralyzed. Yes. In your early marriage. Can you touch on that a little bit? Because I think that has a lot to do with. Oh my
[00:27:59] Jenny Bridgman: goodness. Thank you for
[00:28:00] Heather Lowe: bringing that up. I feel like we need to rewind a little bit and
[00:28:04] Jenny Bridgman: it's
[00:28:05] Heather Lowe: thank you.
[00:28:05] Jenny Bridgman: Yeah. That's a, that's a big part of our conversation today and just my life and all of this. So when my husband and I were newly married, uh, he's a motocross guy. So he's got dirt bikes and, um, it was a big part of his life. He was a great rider riding since he was eight years old. Um, I was eight months pregnant and he went out for a spin and on, um, on one of, usually I would accompany him to the track, but it was the day before my baby shower.
[00:28:37] Jenny Bridgman: And I was out with my mom doing our things and he hit a jump wrong and fell and became a T10, which is a thoracic level of your spine paraplegic. And, um, it's been, uh, it's been 14 years now that he's been in a wheelchair and we. Are incredibly blessed that We had our first beautiful son one week after he came home from the hospital.
[00:29:09] Jenny Bridgman: Um, it was the most brutal and the most glorious time of my life. Oh, talk about bodies. You new mom,
[00:29:19] Heather Lowe: new baby.
[00:29:20] Jenny Bridgman: Yes. Oh yes.
[00:29:22] Heather Lowe: We could talk about that wheelchair. You know?
[00:29:28] Jenny Bridgman: Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. A lot of people say to me, Oh my gosh, that must have been Brutal. That must've been brutal to be pregnant at the exact same time this accident happened and your husband's paralyzed.
[00:29:41] Jenny Bridgman: And what people don't know is that this, this little boy saved my life. This little miracle on the way I had every night I'd go home after visiting my husband all day at the hospital and had this baby, this life kicking inside of me, telling me, hang on. The miracles are on the corner. The best is yet to come.
[00:30:00] Jenny Bridgman: He was a motivator for us day in and day out. And that's even before this beautiful child. You were in your body with him.
[00:30:06] Heather Lowe: 100%.
[00:30:10] Jenny Bridgman: And what people also don't know is that had I not been pregnant at that time, who knows what my drinking would have, there is no way I would have stayed sober. You know, I was sober for those years when we got married and had, and had our first few children, but it was, um, being pregnant at that time was so, he saved me.
[00:30:34] Jenny Bridgman: Every bit is that much as I gave him life. He did this for me. And that is such an important part of our story. Um, but so what I wanted, what I, what I also want to talk about is with regard to seeing someone loving someone, my soulmate, my life partner that I live with day in and day out, literally doesn't have use or feel of half his, of his body.
[00:30:54] Jenny Bridgman: He's riddled with horrific nerve pain, you know, throughout the day. And here he's got. Atrophied legs. I mean, after so many years in a chair and, and despite all his, um, he's a rock star of a, of a human. And, but all of the things that he does to stay fit and stay shape, and he's so independent and he's so hands on with our kids and all the things, his body, you know, Has changed dramatically.
[00:31:21] Jenny Bridgman: I mean, there's no question. And yet, when I look at him, I don't see that. I see the man I love. I know that our vessel, our outside of us, doesn't define who we are. He's this beautiful man, and he's, and, the outside is him. Is not what I see. And yet I cannot have that same soft lens with myself for some reason.
[00:31:43] Jenny Bridgman: It's that that's where the interesting thing with the body issue comes in is we are so hard on ourselves. I would never have the amount of destruction and punishment and this, just the constant berating of my own body that goes on inside my head that I'm only now beginning to tell people about is it's pretty astonishing.
[00:32:08] Jenny Bridgman: It's just so interesting how I only, it's only self directed. I would never look at anyone else and have this type of thing. But I feel that by, by finally. accepting it and owning it and getting more comfortable and saying what's behind there, I can begin to release it. But it's just, it's, it is a really interesting thing that I, I live with.
[00:32:28] Jenny Bridgman: I have the very unique perspective. Um, and I can tell you that there's actually been, there's, there's so many wonderful gifts of loving someone and, and living with someone and, and raising children with someone, um, who has limited mobility and things because they see, they have the opportunity to see someone rise before their eyes every single day.
[00:32:49] Jenny Bridgman: You know, from his chair, it's, it's just the, it's, it's a gift that I can't even explain. And why are we not able to have that same soft lens when we look at ourselves and we're just still constantly at war with our own bodies?
[00:33:03] Heather Lowe: It really puts it in perspective. Yeah. You think you have a little lump or a bump and your husband is sitting in a wheelchair, right?
[00:33:12] Heather Lowe: So tell me about that. There are three things, and I know the first one is internal. So. Share with me a little bit more.
[00:33:20] Jenny Bridgman: Well, we kind of went about it in a roundabout way. I, um, so there's the internal and all the fears, um, the ways that the fear of abandonment, the fear of not belonging. If you don't look right,
[00:33:33] Heather Lowe: if you don't look right, you'll be kicked out of the tribe for sure.
[00:33:38] Heather Lowe: If you don't look right, somebody's not going to like you, love you, accept you
[00:33:42] Jenny Bridgman: as much as possible. So that I will be accepted and, um, fear of judgment, uh, really diluting ourselves in a certain way. There's, there's a lot of the lot of internal things and it's all it's all for me. It was fear based. I think some people most most of us have these to some degree.
[00:34:07] Jenny Bridgman: I was. I'm an extremely sensitive, I'm a highly sensitive person, also introverted and I have these things and it's so interesting as I, I call myself like the unlikely addict because I had this upbringing that is really quite remarkably loving and The kind of upbringing I wish everyone had. I had a mother who was never focused on how things looked or anything superficial, and she was, you know, a schoolteacher who just saw the best in everyone and she was never worried about how she looked or her weight.
[00:34:45] Jenny Bridgman: She was the type of person who would always Get in the pool with us and not worry about getting her hair wet. And just, she, she, she lived a life that was all about how things felt and it just radiated within her. Despite all that, I have an example in front of me. I was someone who very, very readily took in all the messaging around me that I also need to look this certain way.
[00:35:06] Jenny Bridgman: And I think part of my, part of my, a big part of my issues, honestly, is when I
[00:35:16] Jenny Bridgman: As I started developing, I started getting a lot of attention from my body. And suddenly it was thrilling and scary and what's going on, but I got a lot of attention wherever I went. And, um, it kind of became the only source of power that I'd ever known, you know, became this, this strange thing. And. My, it became, it started to define my worth, and that you get into very dangerous territory.
[00:35:45] Jenny Bridgman: Then I get older and our bodies start changing and my weight will fluctuate.
[00:35:49] Heather Lowe: Then
[00:35:49] Jenny Bridgman: all of a sudden, this body that had been my ally becomes my enemy. And I go through breakups or something, you know, our friends, our friends start shifting. My heart is broken, whatever it is, I immediately say it must be the body.
[00:36:03] Jenny Bridgman: And then the body is to blame and I turn on it and that's when the punishing punishment starts and and you know from my story that and I am not only suffer from, you know, years of alcohol abuse, but I also have disordered eating issues that were also very undercover. And. When I was 18, 19, I was introduced to these diet pills.
[00:36:29] Jenny Bridgman: They were called mini thins back in the day in the late nineties. They were a fed dream, incredibly dangerous, bad things. And of course I'm, I'm, I, I am in the disease of more, so drinking, whatever it was, so I started taking these things daily and what happened to us, I started to lose weight. I had unlimited energy.
[00:36:56] Jenny Bridgman: I got a 4. 0 one semester in college. I was focused. I was getting all these compliments. I had collarbones. I had cheekbones. I had all these things. And I was killing myself. I was smoking. I was restricting my calories to like 500 calories a day. You just, you have no appetite. And then I would go exercise for hours and hours at the gym.
[00:37:16] Jenny Bridgman: And this is part of where the eating and the drinking come into play together. As it does, it turns out for quite a few women. But I couldn't, I couldn't go to bed at night without having a couple beers because my heart, my little heart was beating like a hummingbird in my chest. And I needed that to come down.
[00:37:33] Jenny Bridgman: And so we've got two things that are at play here, completely detaching me from my body. There is. drinking, which, you know, it's, it's just a numbing agent. You're completely poisoning yourself and removing yourself from your body. And then you have an eating disorder where you are literally overriding any, any cues that you're the soft animal of you is giving you, you're restricting your food.
[00:38:03] Jenny Bridgman: You're pushing yourself to the limit. When your body says, no, stop, I need to rest. You keep going. You're doing all these things. And yet in my head, I thought I'm finally getting there, whatever there was, I was getting to this point where I was going to get, I was going to get that gold star and that happiness and, and, um, you know, all these other people.
[00:38:26] Jenny Bridgman: And again, maybe on the
[00:38:27] Heather Lowe: outside you looked like you were. Yeah, your collarbones were popping and your GPA was rocking and you were slowly killing yourself. So what
[00:38:37] Jenny Bridgman: I will say is that started around 18, 19 and by age 20, I had a stroke. I had a mini stroke. It's called a TIA. Thankfully, um, it was reversible damage and, um, I did end up, they did discover through a series of tests, I had to take six months off college and move back home with my parents to have open heart surgery.
[00:39:02] Jenny Bridgman: They discovered that as a result of the stroke and trying to figure out how this possibly happened to a very fit young woman that I had a pretty common congenital heart defect that they thought they better fix. Um, It's called a PFO. It means that, uh, there was a hole between my left and right atria.
[00:39:20] Jenny Bridgman: It's there for every child before they're born because oxygen bypasses the lungs. And then as soon as we're born, that little flap shuts closed and we start using our lungs. Well, my little flap never completely closed. It's very common. One out of eight people are walking around with it and don't know, but this knee required open heart surgery at Stanford.
[00:39:42] Jenny Bridgman: And I just remember you're, you know, you're. 20 years old and you think you're invincible and I was more embarrassed with people finding out than I was about maybe I might not wake up from this thing. It was just this really, really big thing that just said I knew I was flawed. I knew something was secretly wrong with me, and this just is one more thing that proves it.
[00:40:05] Jenny Bridgman: And the sad thing about that is, um, you know, I have just been so deeply loved my whole life. I've been deeply loved my, my parents. I have two siblings that are amazing. I had a boyfriend I was living with at the time. I was just all these things. And yet I didn't feel worthy of love. And I was so afraid of losing that control, losing that power, losing my body that I went back to the pills and the drinking and the smoking and the over exercise I would say within, I don't know, six weeks, eight weeks.
[00:40:38] Jenny Bridgman: Something like that. And that is a part of my story that I have very rarely talked about because it's it's it's so big It's so there's so much Apologizing. I feel like I need to do when you look at the totality of destruction that we do to our bodies and still be right. And these, um, that's a big one for me,
[00:40:58] Heather Lowe: but
[00:40:58] Jenny Bridgman: I feel that I'm there now and that I get it.
[00:41:03] Jenny Bridgman: I get I get the why and I just have so much compassion and my body has been through amazing things. And it's never stopped working for me. And, um, you know, if not, now when?
[00:41:16] Heather Lowe: When
[00:41:17] Jenny Bridgman: am I going to accept it and honor it even for allowing me to live and feel so many things? The difficult, the beautiful, all of it.
[00:41:28] Jenny Bridgman: If not now, when?
[00:41:30] Heather Lowe: I love that. What a perfect time right now. And we can heal. We do heal and we do recover. So that's beautiful. Even, even from that, right? Even from the shame. That's so interesting that at what am I going to live? Is everyone going to think about the story, right? Still outward focus, but you're turning, you're tuning in now.
[00:41:51] Heather Lowe: You're tuning into your, yourself and your body. So there's the internal thing. And then there's the society thing. Tell me about that. The like, what will everybody think? Because what will everybody think? And where does this come from? Who's the ideal? As you're talking, I'm like, what, what's the, is there an ideal?
[00:42:07] Heather Lowe: Is there a person? Or when you said you almost got that gold star, like right before your stroke, you were probably almost at the mark, right? Almost there. What is that? Oh, it's so funny. Not funny. Super skinny. That's it. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:42:24] Jenny Bridgman: Now, um, well, this is very revealing, but it's, I'm just going to be very honest is that the way I drank, I just pushed the limits every time.
[00:42:38] Jenny Bridgman: I was always one of the last people standing or, or not a girl. That's
[00:42:43] Heather Lowe: why we
[00:42:43] Jenny Bridgman: met. So, you know, when you look around and you say, where's everyone I came with, um, Or I'm the one that needed to go home first, you know, because I started the party too early, whatever. I just so many, uh, but the same thing with the food issues and I act, I mean, I, I, I never could quite, I was never able to make myself sick.
[00:43:09] Jenny Bridgman: I was never able to be bulimic, um, because I tried, that just didn't happen for me. I was never able to just restrict. restrict my, without the pills. I wasn't able to have the willpower. I thought this was another flaw of mine that I just couldn't, I just wanted food. I was hungry. And then I would, I would deny myself, deny myself, deny myself, and then binge and then go over exercise.
[00:43:36] Jenny Bridgman: I mean, it was just, it was a whole slew of things. The interesting thing about the eating was that anytime the drinking ramped up, the eating issues would kind of fade into the background. And so, um, when I was pregnant, I, you know, had. three healthy, beautiful boys. But I will say that even when I was pregnant, uh, I did not drink.
[00:44:01] Jenny Bridgman: And, um, I was very, I became very focused on being staying small though. When I was, when I was pregnant and all three pregnancies, I kept a detailed spreadsheet. of how many pounds I gained per week. And I have these, these spreadsheets saved on my hard drive and I kept them very secretly. I forget what I even named them, but I, it was to the point where if I knew I had a weekly check in with my prenatal doctor, I would even withhold having some water before going in because I was so focused on that number on the scale.
[00:44:38] Jenny Bridgman: And at the same time, I cared so much what I ate. I ate beautifully. I was cooking for myself, these nutritious things that I otherwise normally wouldn't. It was the first time that I felt like my body was a temple. I was growing this beautiful life. I, I had a purpose and um, I enjoyed food in a way that I didn't allow myself normally.
[00:44:58] Jenny Bridgman: And yet there was still this, this thing going on of I can't let myself get big. I'm pregnant and I can't, I still can't let myself get big. And I gained 19 pounds. to the ounce with all three of my Children to the ounce following this formula that I'd had and I had three healthy, beautiful Children. Um, I was the one who suffered.
[00:45:23] Jenny Bridgman: I was the one who was malnourished and exhausted when it was time to, you know, have, you know, the fourth trimester is the hardest, right? And you're breastfeeding and doing all these things. But it was just interesting. I never correlated that when the drinking stopped, the eating went back up. And, and this is a very common thing.
[00:45:39] Jenny Bridgman: And, and as I said, I'm just, this is, I'm at the beginning of this exploration here. I know there's a lot to it. I know a lot of women have um, uncovered so much, and there's so much beautiful wisdom for me to learn. And yeah. and go there. But, um, it was very much the case for me.
[00:45:56] Heather Lowe: This cycle is so familiar though, whether it's eating or drinking, the cycle of restriction and then binge and then berate yourself and hate yourself and beat yourself up and then do it again.
[00:46:08] Heather Lowe: But you know what? The cycle of hating yourself, the berating, the shame on you, That gets familiar. That starts to feel like home. That's what I feel like. That's even what we see unconsciously. Do the bad thing because we, we know we're bad and we hate ourselves anyways. So do the thing and then beat ourself up because there we are home again, where we should be.
[00:46:33] Heather Lowe: Shame on you. You know, like that becomes very familiar. So that is food and that is alcohol. And that is just about anything. I, I truly believe addiction is a human condition and it's not saved for just alcohol use disorder or specific, like, alcoholics or certain people, but for us, the cycle of hatred is the, even that is the addiction, the, that pattern of self hatred is, you know, We're addicted to that.
[00:47:02] Heather Lowe: We don't know how to jump off that cycle either.
[00:47:04] Jenny Bridgman: 100%. I think that was the first piece of writing that you shared in our, in our writing group back in 2021. And it was you waking up in the morning and talking about this berating and this self hate and this disappointment in yourself and you did it in such a raw beautiful way as you I love I love your writing and it just got me and I said wow she went there and I think that's a big basis for our friendship right off the bat and you
[00:47:35] Heather Lowe: don't have to use so many swear words you're
[00:47:36] Jenny Bridgman: speaking you're speaking my language and oh okay You took the restrictor plate off the Red Dragon.
[00:47:43] Jenny Bridgman: You went there when I was still too afraid to. I was, you know, you've got, you've got a number of sobriety, years of sobriety beyond me. And I've always, um, looked at you as such a, a source for me of, of where I want to go. And I really appreciate that about you. But I think it's saying it was what finally freed me.
[00:48:00] Jenny Bridgman: And it's interesting even waking up today, for example, as nervous, I run nervous. My therapist says I idle high, which I appreciate, um, but I also felt so grateful and happy that I have a voice that I can use now.
[00:48:22] Heather Lowe: And
[00:48:24] Jenny Bridgman: um, And I said to myself, okay, you've got a lot, you've got some fear going on. How neat, how neat that you care so much about this today.
[00:48:35] Jenny Bridgman: I love, I love where your intention is and you know what, even if it, even if it goes poorly and I've shared a few times where I don't think it went well as you're figuring out how to share, it's a really big deal to talk vulnerably about yourself. But I said, even if that happens, I have myself and I never would have said that I never ever had my own back, you know, and so it's not only do I have just total trust in you and every time that we're together it just feels like coming home but I've I've I literally do know what it's like to to catch glimpses of what it's like to come home to myself and and I've had these moments where it's almost like I apologize to myself for the abandonment for all the years that I've And I swore I would never try to talk about this because because it just it does it you can't possibly put into words The feeling that I've had, but I'm going to try, but it's just this sense of this automatic.
[00:49:35] Jenny Bridgman: There's nothing to forgive. You've always been forgiven. I got you. I'll never abandon you again. I mean, it's just this beautiful understanding. And I, I, the shame thing for me, I lived with shame. I took on shame. That wasn't even mine. You know, I mean, I just lived with shame for, for so long. And a lot of it came out in the body.
[00:49:59] Jenny Bridgman: you know, and so by by, I think the missing piece for me was feeling safe. And when you start trusting yourself again and knowing that you, you can trust your actions, you can trust your gut,
[00:50:13] Heather Lowe: then
[00:50:13] Jenny Bridgman: you can trust yourself to start digging into the, the, the bigger pieces and, and reclaim them and reunite and make those amends.
[00:50:27] Jenny Bridgman: And, you know, so it happens for me so much more on top of a mountain, just me and my red laced hiking boots, than it does. Say in talk therapy with someone that's just the way that I am or on my yoga mat, which one of my favorite yoga teachers refers to our mats as our magic carpets and, oh, the places we fly.
[00:50:48] Jenny Bridgman: And, and it's just, um, it's just really beautiful to,
[00:50:54] Heather Lowe: to,
[00:50:55] Jenny Bridgman: to finally get that sense of embodiment and this it's the spiritual and the mental and the physical coming together and, um, a piece that I don't think I've. Maybe ever known.
[00:51:11] Heather Lowe: How beautiful. So first of all, nerves about this totally appropriate, right?
[00:51:16] Heather Lowe: And also the outcome doesn't matter so much. It was the act of doing, it was the act of putting yourself out there. You couldn't go wrong. You couldn't go wrong. This is practice. of you talking about something that really matters. So it's already beautiful no matter the outcome. Although obviously we've had a wonderful conversation and the outcome is wonderful and you're going to have um, a whole slew of people following you now who are just going to fall in love with you the way I have.
[00:51:43] Heather Lowe: So the outcome doesn't matter so much as the process of doing and you're teaching your body how to, you know, Talk out loud, right? How to share stories and how to stay with yourself through it, no matter what, no matter the outcome, no matter the performance, right? Or the score or the ranking of your outfit and your hair today or whatever, however that looks for you or, you know, and so that's beautiful and creating safety within yourself that you've got you, you've got you no matter what, and you've said you were at war with yourself.
[00:52:16] Heather Lowe: You started as your own enemy. But you've got you and when you know that, then you can start to explore these things. Then you can start to dig deeper and excavate, as you've said, where some of this comes from, how you can heal it, go back in time and reprocess some of those things with new eyes. It's a very brave thing to do.
[00:52:38] Heather Lowe: And I'm so beautiful.
[00:52:40] Jenny Bridgman: Yeah. You know, I would also say, as you were As you were so beautifully talking, I, it also, when you have trust in yourself, it also allows you the security to be open to giving or receiving love to other people. And when those people start coming into your life, it's, I've met so many people.
[00:53:03] Jenny Bridgman: In the past few years that it was said, I had no idea how much I needed you. And it's, it's only by having that relationship with yourself first bloom and, and just be so sturdy that you can say, Oh, wow. And it's interesting. I've always been drawn to very magnetic, wise, beautiful souls. And yet shied away from them because I said, Oh no, I can't have them looking too closely at me.
[00:53:31] Jenny Bridgman: They will see right through all my shit. They will see that I am an imposter or that I don't have much substance or whatever it is. And now I just feel like there's this magnetic pull all throughout and it's. It's a global thing. I mean, I'm part of these groups that we have, you know, when I first tried to get sober in 27, 2007, it was 29 tough time to get sober for anyone.
[00:53:57] Jenny Bridgman: But there wasn't this landscape. There wasn't a ditch to the drink. There wasn't, um, the luckiest club with Laura McCowan. There wasn't Ola sober with Susan Christina. There wasn't, there wasn't. Any of these things, it would even be a few more years till and book drink came out and there is such that the modern recovery landscape, um, is.
[00:54:24] Jenny Bridgman: It's just so beautiful that it opens up to all these different modalities,
[00:54:27] Heather Lowe: and we
[00:54:28] Jenny Bridgman: can find one that really works for us and speaks. I mean, I have a very custom made recovery package going on. It's all mine, just as our journeys are the same. It's, it's all mine. But in that, there are women all over the globe that maybe on paper, I, you know, what do I have in common with this person?
[00:54:45] Jenny Bridgman: And yet it's almost like a soul sister. You find someone that you just relate with and, and it's the most beautiful thing. It's such a gift of, of sobriety. It really truly is.
[00:54:56] Heather Lowe: Yeah. I love where moderate sobriety is going. Also to your point, I mean, for some people view AA, let's say, which felt like the only option, a support group for a very long time.
[00:55:09] Heather Lowe: And a lot of women don't want to sit in a circle of men and call themselves powerless. Yeah. Yeah. They feel like they've done that their whole life, right? And so no knock on AA, but it's really beautiful that we get to create our own customized, curated healing and recovery toolkit for ourselves. And for you, I've heard your magic carpet yoga.
[00:55:34] Heather Lowe: I've heard the red string hiking boots as inspired by Cheryl. Uh, straight on wild twinsies with our matching ones. A top of mountain therapy. I've heard sober support groups, recovery support groups. I've heard friendships and community, other surrounding yourself with other people in healing, writing. I wanted to say here's a name for your book.
[00:55:58] Heather Lowe: Um, a rider and a writer. I like it. So if you want to trademark that, it's yours. It's fine. Um, what else, what else would you, let's end with any resources or books. Like I'm thinking the Body Keeps Score was like a huge book for me. And I want to say the Body Keeps Score with trauma, addiction and things, but I've also recognized the Body Keeps Score in a really beautiful way.
[00:56:23] Heather Lowe: If you have felt safe with somebody, if somebody reminds you or an environment, environment reminds you of safety and love and belonging. Your body might also remember that, um, in a new position. So your embodiment practices now, what have I missed? What would you add?
[00:56:40] Jenny Bridgman: Yeah. So I would just say that when we become more embodied as people, we have more access, not just to the unprocessed trauma and the things that we had to disassociate from whatever our brilliant strategies were for whatever reasons, but it's also, it lives right alongside all the joy and all, you know.
[00:57:01] Jenny Bridgman: all of the emotions that are stored in there. I have found that I am so much more open to things that are new and otherwise would have been scary for me. Some of my biggest pleasures these days are horse riding, which I just started in my mid forties, which Um, has become a big source of joy and, and huge, huge part of my life.
[00:57:24] Jenny Bridgman: It's, it's, you know, every time I get on a horse and, and I am just in the moment, which is so hard for me with such a busy, busy brain type of person. It's, it's beautiful. Um, I've started ballet. I just bought my first pink ballet slippers for the first time since I was a young child. Um, I'm spending a lot of time with, uh, my aging parents.
[00:57:46] Jenny Bridgman: And my mother is suffering from a very progressive form of dementia. And so, as our roles are really switching, um, right before my eyes, it's also such a beautiful gift to see I'm taking her to do things like aqua aerobics and you get to see, you know, the demographics a little different than the usual fitness classes I go to.
[00:58:09] Jenny Bridgman: And I'm surrounded by these people who are just living life in this full way at, uh, I just feel like I've been exposed so much lately to things that otherwise would have been far too fearful for me to experience. Um, I will say that I am I lead every two weeks. I love a caregiver lead a caregiver support group call for people with paralysis.
[00:58:31] Jenny Bridgman: I don't consider myself a caregiver. Um, my husband is very independent, but I do consider just like addiction, uh, spinal cord injury is very much a family injury and so I'm very involved with that community and keeping my finger on the pulse and staying staying in that community is very rewarding to be of service.
[00:58:48] Jenny Bridgman: Um, It really feels something inside of me to give back something that I've learned over the past, you know, so many years with my husband being in a wheelchair. Um, and my husband and I are in couples counseling and we love our therapy. I was someone who never, ever liked therapy. Um, I think that's because I never actually told the truth in therapy.
[00:59:10] Heather Lowe: I have
[00:59:22] Jenny Bridgman: a wonderfully supportive husband who, who did quit drinking along with me. Um, he didn't have the same problem I did, but you know, he, um, he definitely drank. You know, your marriage change every relationship changes when you quit drinking and it includes marriage. And so we have a wonderful therapist that we meet with.
[00:59:40] Jenny Bridgman: And, um, I don't know what else am I missing, I'd say, I'd say we pretty much covered it.
[00:59:46] Heather Lowe: Any books or any books that you're reading, or I
[00:59:49] Jenny Bridgman: would say the body keeps the score. The reason I say that is. I resisted reading that for a number of years, knowing that there would be a lot there. I kept, it's one of those you keep hearing about.
[01:00:00] Jenny Bridgman: Yeah,
[01:00:00] Heather Lowe: me too. I just read it probably in the last year or so after knowing about it for a decade, right?
[01:00:05] Jenny Bridgman: Yes, yes, avoiding it
[01:00:07] Heather Lowe: specifically because even the title is a little that's a little much
[01:00:10] Jenny Bridgman: the title and then the font
[01:00:12] Heather Lowe: when you open it up. It's a maybe it's a media blackout.
[01:00:17] Jenny Bridgman: But so I actually did a book study of the body for through TLC, which is the luckiest club and so you go through the chunk of the chapters.
[01:00:27] Jenny Bridgman: Go through and then have a chance to share your reflections on it. And I would hear other people share what they got from it and it would spark something in me. And it was kind of like, don't go there alone. You know, not just because the content is very dense and it's scientific and it's whatever, but I think it's a, I think it's actually a must read.
[01:00:45] Jenny Bridgman: It's, it's, um, very powerful and illuminating and empowering. You know, there we do heal. And I don't know if I ever fully believed that as a human, until I became one of them.
[01:00:59] Heather Lowe: Here you are healing. Thank you, friend. I love you so much. My first draft friend, thank you for sharing your heart and soul with us today for getting vulnerable, for being honest, it's huge.
[01:01:08] Heather Lowe: It's sort of the opposite of what you've done in the past, trying to be somebody you're not, you just showed up. Thank you
[01:01:16] Jenny Bridgman: for saying that. Thank you. Now,
[01:01:17] Heather Lowe: where can everybody find you? Because they're going to want to follow you now. They're going to want to read your writing and be your best friend. And.
[01:01:25] Heather Lowe: Um, I'm gonna be jealous, but okay, where can they find you?
[01:01:29] Jenny Bridgman: I would love to be connected to people. Um, I have a website and you can find me at jenniferbridgman. com. It's Jennifer Bridgman is B R I D G M A N. There's no E. I feel the need to always say that. It was part of our wedding vows because everyone wants to put the E in there in Bridgman, but jenniferbridgman.
[01:01:51] Jenny Bridgman: com and I would love to be in touch.
[01:01:53] Heather Lowe: Thanks, Jenny. Thanks, friend.
