Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to I Choose Me, the podcast where we talk
Speaker 1: about making choices, choices towards a new kind of freedom.
Speaker 1: One we have to be very intentional about, the freedom
Speaker 1: from people pleasing, from making ourselves small, the freedom to
Speaker 1: choose me. This week, America is celebrating it's two hundred
Speaker 1: and fiftieth birthday, two hundred and fifty years of freedom,
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty years of life, liberty, and the
Speaker 1: pursuit of happiness. I don't know about you, but when
Speaker 1: I hear of those words life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness,
Speaker 1: I can't help but think about what freedom actually looks
Speaker 1: like in our daily lives. Not the kind of freedom
Speaker 1: you find in a history book or the conversations about
Speaker 1: politics on the outside. This isn't that, this is the
Speaker 1: kind you find in your own mirror. Because here's what
Speaker 1: I've learned and what I wrote about in my book
Speaker 1: I Choose Me. It's possible to live in a free
Speaker 1: country and still feel completely trapped, trapped by expectations, trapped
Speaker 1: by people pleasing, trapped by a version of yourself that
Speaker 1: you built just to make everyone else comfortable, and that's
Speaker 1: not freedom. That's a cage with a really nice view.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about how to find real freedom on
Speaker 1: the inside. In my book, I wrote this, I stopped
Speaker 1: saying yes just to keep the peace. I am choosing
Speaker 1: what I want for the first time, without guilt, without
Speaker 1: worrying if it made someone else uncomfortable. Hear that again.
Speaker 1: The freedom to say no without explaining yourself, The freedom
Speaker 1: to stop saying yes just to keep the peace. The
Speaker 1: freedom to love yourself, maybe for the very first time,
Speaker 1: without guilt and without worrying if it makes someone else
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable. This is what I want for you. Radical acceptance.
Speaker 1: It's realizing you don't have control over anything that's happening.
Speaker 1: But you can accept that you don't have control, and
Speaker 1: that's freedom. I used to think freedom was external. If
Speaker 1: I could just book the right job, if I could
Speaker 1: just be in the right relationship, if I could just
Speaker 1: make everyone happy, my kids, my partner, my mother, my fans,
Speaker 1: then I would feel happy and I would feel free.
Speaker 1: But here's the trap. You're trying to make everyone else happy,
Speaker 1: you lose every single time. I spent years performing a
Speaker 1: version of myself that was palatable, agreeable, and easy. And
Speaker 1: the person who disappeared in that process was me, Jenny. So,
Speaker 1: on this two hundred and fiftieth birthday of our country,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you something. When was the last
Speaker 1: time you fought for your own freedom. It's not something
Speaker 1: that's given to you or that you're born with. It's
Speaker 1: something you have to choose over and over again in small, unglamorous,
Speaker 1: daily decisions. Freedom is telling your family, hey, guys, I'm
Speaker 1: shutting my door for twenty minutes. Do not come in
Speaker 1: unless there is a true emergency. Freedom is leaving the
Speaker 1: relationship where your voice has been dismissed. Freedom is speaking
Speaker 1: your truth even when your throat feels like it's about
Speaker 1: to close up. Freedom is choosing yourself not because you're selfish,
Speaker 1: but because you finally understand that you cannot pour from
Speaker 1: an empty cup any longer. That's not selfish, you guys,
Speaker 1: that's survival. America is two hundred and fifty years old.
Speaker 1: That is a long time to be figuring out what
Speaker 1: freedom means, and yet there's still a long way to go.
Speaker 1: Freedom isn't just about what we're free from. It's about
Speaker 1: what we're free to do. Free to rest, free to
Speaker 1: say no, free to change our minds, free to start
Speaker 1: over at forty, at fifty, at sixty, maybe even eighty.
Speaker 1: Free to be a work in progress, Free to accept
Speaker 1: others no matter what they think. You don't arrive at freedom,
Speaker 1: you practice it every morning when you get up, you
Speaker 1: get to choose. Am I going to live for someone
Speaker 1: else today? Or am I going to choose myself? Hello?
Speaker 1: This is Jenny Garth from I Choose Me with Jenny Garth.
Speaker 1: One thing we talk about all the time on my
Speaker 1: podcast is that we all deserve to choose ourselves, and
Speaker 1: sometimes that can start with something as simple as getting
Speaker 1: dressed in the morning. That is exactly why I created
Speaker 1: Me by Jenny Garth with QVC. It is a collection
Speaker 1: designed to help women feel confident, comfortable, and effortlessly stylish
Speaker 1: at every stage of life. So if you're ready to
Speaker 1: make getting dressed easier and ready to refresh your wardrobe,
Speaker 1: head over to qvc dot com and explore Me by
Speaker 1: Jenny Garth. Check out our newest collection and styling tips
Speaker 1: by following us on Instagram at Me by Jenny Garth.
Speaker 1: I'll see you there. I've had to learn something else
Speaker 1: on this journey and it's been one of the hardest lessons,
Speaker 1: but I love it and I'd like to share it
Speaker 1: with you. It's called the we'll see method. So in
Speaker 1: my book I share a Japanese fable about an old
Speaker 1: farmer who one day his only horse runs away. His
Speaker 1: neighbors rush over and say, how terrible, what bad luck.
Speaker 1: The farmer simply shrugs and replies, we'll see. A few
Speaker 1: days later, the horse returns, this time with a group
Speaker 1: of wild horses following behind. The neighborhood rejoices. What wonderful fortune,
Speaker 1: they exclaim. Again, the farmer responds, we'll see. Soon after,
Speaker 1: While trying to tame one of the new wild horses,
Speaker 1: the farmer's son falls and breaks his leg. How awful,
Speaker 1: the neighbors say, Now he won't be able to work.
Speaker 1: The farmer repeats, we'll see. Not long after war breaks out.
Speaker 1: All the able bodied young men in the village are drafted,
Speaker 1: but the farmer's son is spared because of his injury.
Speaker 1: The moral of the story, and each of our stories, really,
Speaker 1: is that you don't know how the story is going
Speaker 1: to turn out. So often we label things as good
Speaker 1: or as bad before we even have the full picture.
Speaker 1: But if we keep in mind the will see method,
Speaker 1: disappointments that feel like the end of the world today
Speaker 1: may lead to opportunities we never saw coming. And the
Speaker 1: victories we celebrate now may have unexpected consequences down the road.
Speaker 1: Who knows. So when I catch myself spiraling, overthinking, worrying,
Speaker 1: trying to control the outcome, I just say, we'll see.
Speaker 1: And that pause, that breath, that surrender right there, that
Speaker 1: brings freedom. This brings me to something else that I
Speaker 1: write about, and I choose me something that changed how
Speaker 1: I understand relationships. It's called the circle square circle concept.
Speaker 1: For most of my life, I believed that real love
Speaker 1: meant merging. We've all heard it, you know, when you
Speaker 1: get married to become one that closeness sometimes feels like
Speaker 1: losing yourself. But I reject that concept Now. In a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship, I've learned that there are three distinct parts you,
Speaker 1: your partner, and the relationship you create together. You are
Speaker 1: a circle, your partner is a circle, and the shared
Speaker 1: space between you the square, is where the relationship lives.
Speaker 1: I wrote this too in my book. You can both
Speaker 1: have your own lives, dreams and routines, your friendships and
Speaker 1: passions and still be deeply connected. One doesn't threaten the other.
Speaker 1: It actually strengthens the partnership when you each bring your
Speaker 1: full self to the table. That's what freedom and relationships
Speaker 1: look like. You don't have to lose yourself to love someone.
Speaker 1: You get to be whole, and so do they. So
Speaker 1: this Fourth of July, as the fireworks go off and
Speaker 1: the dogs hide, and the barbecues burn and the flags
Speaker 1: do what they do, I want you to ask yourself
Speaker 1: one question. What would it look like for me to
Speaker 1: be truly free? Not the Instagram version, not the version
Speaker 1: you're posting for other people, the real, messy, honest version.
Speaker 1: Maybe it looks like finally setting that boundary with your
Speaker 1: mother in law. Maybe it looks like quitting the job
Speaker 1: that's sucking your soul. Maybe it looks like staying single
Speaker 1: for a year just to remember who you are. Maybe
Speaker 1: it looks like going to bed at eight thirty and
Speaker 1: not feeling like that makes you lame. Freedom doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be dramatic. It just has to be yours. Our
Speaker 1: country is two hundred and fifty years old. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of history, a lot of human searching for what
Speaker 1: freedom really looks like. How to live, how to love,
Speaker 1: how to believe, who to choose. So this week, as
Speaker 1: we celebrate independence, let's not forget the most important independence
Speaker 1: of all, the freedom to be exactly who you are,
Speaker 1: without apology, without permission, without the weight of trying to
Speaker 1: be what everyone else wants you to be. I stop
Speaker 1: saying yes, just to keep the peace. I am choosing
Speaker 1: what I want for the first time without guilt, and
Speaker 1: you can too. If you've liked what you heard today,
Speaker 1: there's more in my book. It's called I Choose Me,
Speaker 1: Chasing Joy, finding purpose, and embracing reinvention. You can find
Speaker 1: it everywhere books are found, and I read the audio
Speaker 1: version too, So that's a fun listen. Happy two hundred
Speaker 1: and fiftieth to the United States of America and Happy
Speaker 1: Choosing You. Thanks for listening. I love you.