My guest in this episode is Jennifer Garman. Ten years ago, Jennifer thought she had it all – 3 kids, a dream job, a great life. Then, the rug was pulled out from under her. That great life unraveled in health crisis after health crisis. For seven years, Jennifer went from doctor to doctor looking for help. Each one prescribed a different drug, but none of them helped solve the underlying issues. Eventually she was led down the path to exploring the role our thoughts and the feeling of gratitude plays in health.
Once she finally found all the pieces to the solution, her health was completely restored in less than 30 days. Yes, you heard correctly. She was healed from years of overwhelm, fear, anxiety, stress, insomnia, and isolation in a month’s time.
In our conversation here, we talk about how she came to discover those pieces to the solution, taking inspired action, the mind-body connection, quantum physics – don’t worry not too much depth on that – and of course, more on the gratitude.
Jennifer’s hype songs are On Top of the World by Imagine Dragons: https://youtu.be/w5tWYmIOWGk. And Best Day Of My Life by American Authors: https://youtu.be/Y66j_BUCBMY
Find Jennifer on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-garman-mindset-coach-6551588/
On her website at http://jennifergarman.xyz/
Or TheGratitudeMission@gmail.com
Quick reminder, for community and camaraderie, Come join us in the Fine is a 4-Letter Word Facebook group.
Transcript
Lori Saitz 0:01
Hello, and welcome to Fine is a 4-Letter Word. My guest today is Jennifer Garman, Jennifer and I met actually when I heard her on our mutual friend Lisa, Lisa David Olson's podcast. And then I realized Jennifer was kind of local to my area and reached out and we started this conversation. And here we are on my podcast now. Welcome, Jennifer.
Jennifer Garman 0:31
Thanks, Lori. So happy to be here.
Lori Saitz 0:34
Well, let's dive into the first question that I'm always so curious about, which is, what are the beliefs or values that were instilled in you, as you were growing up that have played a part in who you've become
Jennifer Garman 0:51
So many fun things. First and foremost, you know, that you are not as important as everybody else, I think that was the one that was just pushed on me, or that, at least I picked up on is that everybody before you, and you should sacrifice yourself, your happiness, you know, everything that you want to, you know, better somebody else's life or be you know, service or, you know, whatever you want to insert there, I think that was probably the most detrimental one that I can think of. And then also that just the perfectionist tendencies that came through of, you know, you can control all these things, and you have to do all these things the right way. And the illusion of control, I should say that I so blatantly hit me in the face later in life. But there there are, go ahead,
Lori Saitz 1:45
go ahead. I was just gonna
Jennifer Garman 1:46
say those are the two that most strikingly I remember and recall from my early childhood that has played a part later in life,
Lori Saitz 2:00
where they openly, like express to you that this is how you have to be or is this something that you took on in yourself? And the reason I'm asking that is because that perfectionist thing wasn't something that was put on me, but it was something that I somehow picked up on or, or pulled, like, I made myself be the perfectionist?
Jennifer Garman 2:29
Yeah, you know, I think that's a little of both. To be honest, I think that it was modeled. And I think that we tend to mirror our models early in life. And I don't know that it was, you know, forced down my throat, but it was definitely spoken about in a roundabout way, if that makes sense. That, you know, this is how we should be and this is, you know, what we should do and this is, you know, the right way to act. And, you know, this is what the way things are. And I didn't know any different and so it all kind of just I soaked it all in as a sponge wood growing up, and you know, that it just became part of my personality and who I was and what I did, and it had some repercussions later on, but I had no idea how much damage it could do.
Lori Saitz 3:16
So how Yeah, how did that play out? Oh, yeah,
Jennifer Garman 3:20
so there's lots of different ways but the probably the most significant way was that you know, the this illusion of control is the way I lived for so many years to the point where I thought I was doing great, and I had this plate full of crap. And I just, I was juggling so much, that instead of having the thought of like, wait, I should kind of you know, purge my plate a little bit and get rid of stuff. I kind of precariously added to it, and had more and more balancing on this like little teeter tottering plate. Is that illusional image that comes to mind? That was just a ticking time bomb. And it sure enough it caught up to me at one point
Lori Saitz 4:04
well, you know, that's so common, so many women and people, men and women are feel like, Okay, I got this, I can do this like that. There's something wrong with you if you can't balance 500 plates at one time. And then when you have 500 to go 501 sure, bring it on.
Jennifer Garman 4:28
And almost congratulate yourself like look at all I'm doing I'm awesome. I can multitask the crap out of you.
Lori Saitz 4:36
I don’t know about other parts of the country, but yeah. Well and so you and I live in the DC metro area where I think it's amplified even more than in other parts. It's certainly in other parts of the country. But I think here, I mean, I remember overhearing conversations when I used to take the metro, you know, people are like almost bragging about how many hours they work. how busy they are.
Jennifer Garman 5:03
Yeah, we hear it all the time. Yes, the pride factor going along with it.
Lori Saitz 5:09
Right? Like, like, this is great. This is something I should be proud of that I have 502 plates spinning, and none of them have hit the ground yet. Yeah, so what happened? Then I saw you're spinning all these plates. Like a circus.
Jennifer Garman 5:30
Yeah, I've got all this stuff on my plate on my tippy toes, you know, my little nose above water as best I can do. And then one day, my health just was pulled out from under me like a rug like I like almost like a light switch flipping off. And it was the beginning of a downward spiral for the next seven years of health crisis after health crisis after you know, mystery diagnosis to the next two. And it was it was an awfully dark time in my life, where I just my body just shut down and said that, you know, you're not doing anything, so I'm just going to shut down on you. Because you We can't go on like this.
Lori Saitz 6:11
Did you have any warning signals up to that point? Or do you think you had any and you just didn't pay attention to them?
Jennifer Garman 6:18
You know, that's a good question. And I look back, and I think that maybe there may have been a straw or two here I had, I had a vaccine that was like a three in one vaccine booster, when I cut myself on something that could have been rusty. And then I had a root canal. And then I had some questionable mold in my house. But it wasn't like that, you know, that happened. And then the following week, my health fell off a cliff. It was like in conjunction, but it wasn't to the point where it was like, Oh, yeah, obviously, that was the catalyst. That's what did it. So I don't really know, because I wasn't it wasn't a particularly stressful time. There wasn't anything I was going through. I was sleeping great. I was handling life great. And just one night, I just had absolute complete and absolute insomnia. And then that went on from night to night tonight to the point where I dragged myself into my doctor's office going, I have to sleep I'm going insane. And that turned into taking this prescription and then that prescription and then another symptom popped up. And then lo and behold, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease shortly after that, and it just kept snowballing on itself. And instead of getting better, and getting symptom resolution, I was adding symptoms. To my my so my so called plates, I was carrying more and more symptoms with me, and baffling doctors going like, you know, I don't know, but let's try this and throwing spaghetti at the wall here and there for different things that didn't take our work.
Lori Saitz 7:49
Wow, how long ago with was this?
Jennifer Garman 7:52
This was back in 2010-11. ish. That everything just unraveled for me.
Lori Saitz 8:01
And how long did you were you on the journey to figure out how to solve this?
Jennifer Garman 8:05
It was a seven year journey.
Lori Saitz 8:07
Okay. And yes, so So you were to come back, you know, we're on Fine is a 4-Letter Word, everything was fine up to that
Jennifer Garman 8:18
everything was fine.
Lori Saitz 8:20
And then everything was not fine. And then what was so you're going to all these doctors, none of them could figure out what we they were just adding more medications. Yeah, that's what doctors love to do.
Jennifer Garman 8:39
Bandaids. I call them bandaids and the prescription of prescription drugs Yeah, it's it's and they it's not to their fault or discredit because they have just a very small amount of time to spend with you. So I don't fault them whatsoever. They were trying their very best, but the best they can do was offer like a band aid solution for a symptom or two, and just wait and see if it helped. And unfortunately, I feel like I took on way too many prescription meds and kind of ended up in a worse place so to speak, then had I not gone that route. But I didn't know any different i thought you know, our our medical system was there to help us and figure out what was wrong and I thought I was doing everything to my best knowledge to help myself the best way.
Lori Saitz 9:28
What happened? What did you reach a point where you just said, Alright, medical traditional medicine is not helping me. I need to find something else. What was what was your, again your final straw in that part of the journey.
Jennifer Garman 9:45
It wasn't really a final straw is is as more I kind of ran out of options. You know, I'd seen all the specialists I'd seen all the recommendations the doctors had for me to try and it kind of got to the point where like, well there's acupuncture you try That yet and I'm like, No, let's go give it a shot. And so I tried acupuncture, I tried chiropractic, I tried all of the alternative modalities, which, you know, it did help slightly. And they did have slight benefits to them, I would say more so than Western medicine in my case, but it didn't really pinpoint and help with the crux, which are the root cause of my problem. So I felt like that was still underlying there.
Lori Saitz:What was your next, like, keep going on this journey?
Jennifer Garman:Okay, so I did find all the alternative stuff towards the end. So maybe I didn't give it a enough time to work, I will throw that out there that maybe that you know, I just didn't give it enough time. But I got to this point at that I'm was just like, exasperated, and I'm like, you know, I have tried absolutely everything. And I'm not any better, or I didn't feel any better at the time. And I just didn't know what to do next. And it kind of got to this overwhelming feeling and me that like, you know, Oh, my gosh, is like, what if what if you know, in all these scenarios, pop in your head, but I got this overwhelming calm and peace. And I just can't describe it as anything but that going. And I just got this clarity saying like, this is not terminal, you're going to recover from this. I don't know, you know why that came in when it did. But shortly after that, the the opportunity to study to be a life coach was presented. And I decided that you know what, I need a passion, I need something other than my health to focus on because that had been my absolute focus. For my primary, I should say, focus for a good part of those seven years. And I needed something to take my mind off that. So I decided to study for my life coaching certification. And that led me down the path of, you know, the power of our thoughts, and gratitude, and neuroplasticity. And I really just started soaking all that up. And to the point of, you know, I went beyond my studies as a life coach and read authors like Joe Dispenza, and Bruce Lipton and Norman Doidge and Pete, you know, pioneers and neuroplasticity, and, you know, mindset. And I was very, very intrigued of all of these, like, crazy things that people had done, like, you know, stage four cancer and, you know, literally breaking your back and healing yourself with the power of your thoughts and mindset that I was just blown away. So that's at the point where I decided that hey, all this kind of fell into place at the right time, because maybe because I was supposed to try it. So I asked what I did, I did I, I sat down with all the stuff that I had learned. And I used gratitude as my root emotion. That was my pillar. And I brought neuroplasticity techniques in and I practice that four hours a day. And it was within three days, I kid you not that my energy shot through the roof, I felt this amazing surge of powerful energy, healing powerful energy. And I knew there was something profound about this. So I kept going. And within 30 days time, and not even not even a month's time, all my symptoms had resolved.
Lori Saitz:That's unbelievable. It's totally Yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Garman:Yeah, but I look at myself going like, Oh, I only had you know, this, like mystery illness, I could still get out of bed, walk around and kind of drive a car and stuff. I wasn't like, you know, paralyzed from the neck down or, you know, stage four cancer or something like that. So I kind of looked at it like, you know, that this was incredible. Yes. But there's been people have done way more incredible than what I did. I still didn't believe that I did anything. Honestly, I thought that this was just, you know, happenstance. Still I'm, I'm trained as an engineer. So I'm trained to look at everything as a skeptic.
Lori Saitz:Right, right. Just a fluke. I don't know. Back up a minute, though, because were you working when in those seven years when you were trying to find a solution and you were still suffering? were you working outside your house? Or if you had young children that you were trying to take care of right?
Jennifer Garman:I did. I had to leave my job that I absolutely loved my full time job. I was doing part time work, which didn't really account to even more than five hours a week and I could barely do that job. But that was my whole duration of the seven years. It's just very, very part time. Five ish to 10 max hours a week. Can you hear me?
Lori Saitz:Yes.
Jennifer Garman:Okay. Can Okay Do we? glitch okay.
Lori Saitz:There's a little something there. And you were taking care of young children
Jennifer Garman:yes three young kids
Lori Saitz:Yeah, so it's interesting so you didn't know anything about the power of the mind before you came before you started life coaching or training as a life coach
Jennifer Garman:nothing I've always heard of me yeah power positivity all that like yeah yeah i was just kind of like yeah yeah there's a glass half full people there's glass half empty people I didn't really see a difference between the two
Lori Saitz:it's so interesting to me because I you know, I've been an entrepreneur for so long 20 more than 20 years so to me being an entrepreneur is a lesson in personal development every single day. But people who are in corporate don't necessarily have those same I don't want to say same resources but they're not they're not delving into personal development in the same way so these concepts that seems so common to me I have to realize are not common to everyone like you You discovered it I don't know I don't I'm not gonna say out of coincidence because we both know that's not a thing but write it when the time was right but that you didn't know about them when you were still in corporate
Jennifer Garman:Yeah, I didn't and I think that that a lot of that's changing I think it's becoming much more mainstream but back then I don't think that a lot of this was really talked about to the extent that it is now Yeah, and I don't think that a lot of research was there yet either. I think there's a lot more research backing up all this that you know, you can't just chalk it up to like you know, whoo good vibes anymore. There's like science backed research showing that this stuff is real.
Lori Saitz:Yes, and so right that was the commonality because I was talking about gratitude back in 2003 with the gratitude cookies and then gratitude has become your your favorite topic. And so that's where we originally connected with over that yes, yes. Yeah. And the the research and studies that have been done on the power of gratitude and how it affects your your biochemistry your every aspect of your physical and emotional and mental state,
Jennifer Garman:every cell, every cell of your body. Yeah,
Lori Saitz:yeah.
Jennifer Garman:So as negative
Lori Saitz:Right, exactly. Well, you know, I always say I talk about visualization and using visualization, gratitude and visualization and meditation to reach your goals faster to manifest the things that you want into your life. And then I talked about it works for bringing positive and negative and what's the what what do you call visualizing negative things? That's what you just said. Worry? Yeah.
Jennifer Garman:Yeah, definitely.
Lori Saitz:Alright, so your 30 days are up, you're completely healed.
Jennifer Garman:every symptom was gone. I would not say that. At that point. I thought it was healed. I just thought that this was a strange coincidence that was going to come back to me at some point or another.
Lori Saitz:Did you go back to doctors and they tested you and said boy, I don't see any evidence anymore?
Jennifer Garman:No, because there wasn't really anything concrete to test I never had a actual diagnosis of 100% this was what was wrong with me. There were stabs that like you know Lyme disease mold toxicity you know those probably are the two most likely but you know everybody has mold you know everybody's probably been exposed to bacteria or lime like spear sites you know and their life and some people get sick and many people don't so I truly believe that the power that we have over ourselves is way above and beyond any environmental factor that we can get hit with so I you know, and I did not understand this at the time so I really after those 30 days did a deep dive into all the research and that's when I kind of looked at the books more not so much as like you know, wow look at these miracle stories but like what's behind why this worked you know, and that's where a lot of Joe Dispenza his work came in because he's really put those two connections together the like, the how why and the science and the research and I was just my mind was blown when it came to you know, finding out all that's been looked into and done in this area. And that's when I started to believe that like, okay, I very well maybe fully healed and sure enough, I was
Lori Saitz:Why do you think so many people don't want to believe that mind body connection exists or that it is as powerful It is it is.
Jennifer Garman:I think it just comes down to Newtonian physics people don't understand. And scientists even say that they do not understand quantum physics. But the reality is, we are all energy, everything in our life, everything in this universe is energetic, but we see it as a table, we don't see it as energy because it has solid form that we can touch and feel. So our mind will want to go to that Newtonian physics, like I need to touch it, I need to see it, there needs to be a cause and effect that I can understand. And it's such a jump to say like, Okay, I'm going to be open to all of this is energy. And this table is not really real. It's just energy. And that's a huge leap of faith that some people just can't wrap their head around. And I think that's kind of the the underlying reason why a lot of people can't go there.
Lori Saitz:I am fascinated by this whole topic, because why would you? I don't know. If there is something that could heal you, that is as simple as thinking good thoughts. I mean, there's a little bit more to it than that. But it's more Yeah, essentially, that is essentially what it is, if you want to boil it down to its simplest form. Why would we not want to employ this, this tool, if you will?
Jennifer Garman:Yeah, I think a lot of people get there out of desperation going I've tried everything else that I understand. I'm just going to give this a try, too. But I think that, you know, maybe it's stubbornness, too, that, you know, we don't want to dive into something that we don't get or doesn't make sense. Yeah, who knows? Who knows? I think that people just, you know, they need to be open minded. And I think that we can all see how close minded we're getting with all of this political and COVID and all the stuff that's going on, we're going in the wrong direction with open mindedness, that's for sure. Yeah, we need to be going in the opposite way. We need to be open minded, we need to see other people's views and opinions and be open to the fact that, you know, we don't understand and know everything, and there's, you know, boundless potential out there that could benefit us.
Lori Saitz:Yes, yes. So now, are you on a quest to help other people understand how to use their mind to heal themselves? Where Where have you taken all of this information?
Jennifer Garman:Yeah, so I am now a mindset coach, I help overstressed overwhelmed women, particularly moms that are working, those have tended to be my clients that come to me and just say, like, I don't know what else to do, I'm at my wit's end. And something's got to change, but I just don't know what, and we kind of dive in. And we just go through, you know, finding that root cause and finding, you know, techniques and modalities that can help them quickly overcome the challenges that they're dealing with. And gratitude is a huge part of that. That's, it's something that's part of every day of my life, it's part of everything I share, it's what I believe was the center point of what he told me was that focus on gratitude. And it just gets you completely out of the negative. When you go to gratitude. You can't be angry, depressed, or anxious and grateful at the same time. It's just it's impossible to be any of those negative states while you're grateful. And I think that's one of the reasons it's so powerful.
Lori Saitz:What exactly did you do in terms of seeing more seeing or feeling more gratitude when you were in the process of healing yourself one? And two, what is what are the things that you do on a daily basis now? To be in gratitude?
Jennifer Garman:What did I do specifically, when I healed? Is that what you asked?
Lori Saitz:Yeah, those first 30 days, what were you doing, to specifically,
Jennifer Garman:specifically I was saying that you know, what, I choose not to be sick. And I choose not to have these symptoms. And what I choose to have is this life that you know, was vibrant, passionate, energetic, full of life. And I focused on that state that I wanted to be, and I was grateful for the state without being in that state. I was grateful for the state that I knew was coming. I had to have trust and faith and I did that it was coming. And I just focused on that with all of my senses. And I did that meditation four hours a day where I just focused on that state, how it felt how it smelled. It for some reason, it smelled like sunscreen. And I don't know where that came from, but that's what it smelled like just a really good like, you know, banana boat sunscreen. Uh huh. All right, and I got To the point where I just got goose bumps of how good it felt, and I just relished in that, with gratitude for that future feeling as long as I could possibly hold on to it and I had to play around with it because, you know, certain states that I would pull from in the past where I had that feeling would fade and I have to go to different memories to pull that full feeling. And so it wasn't always sunscreen, but that was the one that I remembered first. And day after day I would do this focus you know, meditation and bring gratitude in and just just with all my senses completely feel it. And I would do I would do neuroplasticity techniques too. I would brush my teeth with my left hand. I would try and get dressed backwards. I would take showers in the dark. I would do things to just, you know, change things up. As well as I took on juggling. So after I would do this, you know, meditation that you know where I felt so myself in the future, I would juggle And I would drop a lot of things at first, but I got kind of good at juggling. Because you want to ingrain those pathways quicker that's part of neuroplasticity is the more you just change things up. You want to then ingrain this in your brain like hey, this is something we're going to come back to a lot so get that in there quick.
Lori Saitz:So you went to the juggling, the actual literally juggling juggling beanbag instead of right, instead of juggling the 500 different tasks and things that you have been doing seven years prior I gotcha.
Jennifer Garman:I did I went to I went to from juggling back to juggling. Yeah, I didn't I never thought of it like that.
Lori Saitz:Okay. All right. And I thought Greg's gonna have so much editing to do with this one.
Lori Saitz:I thought of a question as you were talking about, Oh, I know what I was gonna say, which is the when I create the customized gratitude meditations for clients, but what you were doing instinctively, is exactly what I'm doing with them as I take them through the meditations, which is the visualizing and the feeling as if it's already happening. Because, as you know, the brain doesn't know the difference.
Jennifer Garman:Exactly.
Lori Saitz:It feels and it feels and sees whatever you're visualizing as if it's happening right that right now.
Jennifer Garman:Right? And that's, that's very powerful.
Lori Saitz:What what's your practice now?
Jennifer Garman:Ah, my practice is different day to day. It's always got gratitude in it, but it's now more towards you know, what I see with my career and with the ways I'm going to help people, and I'm getting into speaking. So you know, my speaking events that are coming up, and I always put, you know, positioned at that I'm so grateful and people that I'm helping and keep it very service oriented, because that's what drives me. It's what gets me up in the morning, the the passion that I have to help people so that they don't spend seven years, hopefully they don't even spend, you know, seven weeks feeling like I did, and they can understand that there's so many modalities and things out there that they may never have heard of that can help incredibly in their lives.
Lori Saitz:Fantastic. All right, before we go, I have two two more questions for you. One is so we've been speaking about how to get yourself into that state of feeling good. And feeling better. What's the song that you go to? When you want to get
Jennifer Garman:I actually have a playlist on my Amazon Echo Alexa, whatever you call it, and it's called happy songs. So I just say Alexa, play happy songs. Love it. And I've got like 20 songs on there. But my two favorite ones. And this is a it's a dead tie because I it they both just energize me on top of the world by Imagine Dragons. And best day of my life by American authors. I love those two songs. They instantly put me in like a feel good. Like, I got it mode.
Lori Saitz:Yes. Oh, I love both of those, too. All right, well, we will put links to those songs in the show notes. And then if people want to get in touch with you learn more about how you overcame the challenges that you had if they're interested in working with you. How does someone reach you?
Jennifer Garman:Well, I'm on LinkedIn. So Jennifer Garman of mindset coach on LinkedIn, they can reach me at my email which is TheGratitudeMission@gmail.com or through my website, which is Jennifer Garman, spelled with AN dot XYZ.
Lori Saitz:Okay. And we will put that in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for joining me today, Jennifer on Fine is a 4-Letter Word.
Jennifer Garman:Thanks so much for having me, Lori. It's been great.