Conscious Dance: The Science of Movement Medicine with Jennifer Joy Jimenez

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What if there was something you could do for a couple minutes a day? It would bring you a boost of happy hormones, give you some joy, like hit you up with some dopamine, some oxytocin, some serotonin and endorphins and increase your mental acuity, make you more creative and even decrease your Alzheimer's risk by as much as 76%, which was a recent New England Journal of Medicine 21 year study. What am I talking about? I'm talking about dance. And specifically, I'm talking about a form of dance called Transcendance. You can hear more about this with our amazing guest, Jennifer Joy Jimenez. Yes, I've got the Triple J with me today. She's a transformational leader and the founder of the Brave Thinking Institute's Health and well Being division, which is a fabulous group. I'm in their leadership program. I've been on a couple different pilgrimages with them, both to Bali and to Israel, and I've been to their Dream Builder Live programs. The founder of it, Mary Morrissey, is one of my very close friends, and Jennifer is her daughter. She is renowned for the innovation of Transcendance, which is the blend of movement, mindfulness, and energy healing. And it is amazing. It can help you release trauma, get rid of shame, embrace self love. And you're gonna hear some incredible stories, but also how you can put this into your own life in just a little bit very easily and reap big rewards. So I'm gonna be right back with Jennifer. She's a visionary coach, an amazing speaker, and you are going to be hooked on her passion, which is to help others unlock their full potential and thrive in every aspect of life. All right, let's do it. Hey, it's J.J. here.

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I'm super excited about this topic because we've actually never really talked about movement and dance and really getting into your body. And it strikes me that, like, for so many years, especially coming from a dance background, I did exercise and dance to finally feel good in my body instead of feeling good in my body because I was doing dance and exercise. So, Jennifer Joy Jimenez, I would love. I'm so happy you're here, and I'd love you to unpack that because I know you have your own story around that.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. My favorite topic probably in the world.

I'm the triple Chat.

You're the triple.

Exactly. Well, as a, you know, former professional dancer in the traditional dance world, I was a modern dancer. The culture, and this feeds into diet culture, fitness culture. Sort of the main messaging I received growing up and in that professional world was I didn't measure up. I was never thin enough, flexible enough. So there was this constant using food, starvation over exercising to try to measure up to what felt like this impossible standard. And then there came a time where that just didn't work for me anymore. It was, you know, probably the worst I've ever felt in my body was when I probably, to the outside world, looked my best. And I realized that I wanted to feel good in my body. I just wanted to feel at home in my body. I wanted my body to feel safe and loved. I wanted to feel nurtured and nourished. I wanted to stop feeling starving, starving, starved. You know, I am hungry. I need to eat something, you know, and I. And I knew that my body was sending signals that I was constantly ignoring, you know, signals. Now in the professional world, we're moving and exercising as you have lived 812 hours a day. So it was usually signals to rest. But what I find now is there's this sweet spot, right, where we're not overly sedentary and not moving. There are moments when we can get up and move, and we're we that it's energizing to move. That in my movement practices throughout my week and month and year, it's designed for me to feel strong and alive and radiant, but that now what matters to me. And I know you so appreciate this and I appreciate that, that you appreciate this. I want to feel connected to my soul and my authentic self and what ignites joy, like, I want joy and fresh energy in my exercise, AKA movement practices. And not just like, I have to drag myself to the gym because I know I should or have to do this thing. And that's what so many I know of your clientele and the, and the beautiful souls that I have the privilege of serving is they're bored and they're tired of it. Feeling like I have to or should. But they wanna have fun.

You know, it's gotta be a get to, not a have to. Well, what was the. Was there a turning point? Like what? I know the turning point for me, one of them. There's been multiples. But was there a turning point for you that made you kind of the light bulbs went on?

Yeah, there were two.

Two.

One was my 50 hour labor with my daughter. So that's a five.

Wow.

That's a five. Zero. Yeah, I know. So isn't that always the case? Right. I like to say our mess, you know, becomes our message. Or often what our perceived failures are can be these doorways and openings to this next level expression. So I really wanted a natural birth and like a true athlete, professional dancer at the time. I had her when I was 25, right at the peak of my professional dance career. So I mean, and my mother is a thought leader. So all the people at church, like I came home with bags of natural birth books and I did all the classes and prenatal yoga was like this. This is 25 years ago, right? So this big thing. And I mean I trained for that jj. Like I was gonna climb frickin Kilimanjaro. Like I was ready. I had my birth plan. I listened to my perfect birth every night to ocean waves and did a bazillion Kegels, you know, like I couldn't have been more ready for this birth. And yet how we do anything is how we do everything. I had way more hours training myself not to listen to my body wisdom, to be in push really striving work, hard energy, which was how I had gotten to the peak of my dance career. And that's not what birth is about and at all. Birth couldn't be more opposite of that experience in my body. It's about surrender, it's about flow, it's about relaxing around the contraction, not resisting or constricting against. I could go on and on for anybody who's ever been there. So that was a real rude awakening for me that, oh, I can't just think my way or no pain, no gain my way into natural birth. Okay, so clearly there's a disconnect between my mental health and this understanding of mind sciences. Because I was raised in mind sciences and transformational curriculum and success principles by my mom. I Thought, okay, so clearly I missed the mark. I don't.

Yeah. Where was the hidden chapter?

Yeah. So that just, it catapulted me. It made me even more hungry to understand everything I could about the mind, body, spirit connection, about energy healing. Mostly for my own healing, I experienced quite a bit of birth trauma. And I knew, I could feel it in me. And I knew I wasn't gonna think it away, you know, or even be in talk therapy. There are certain things you just can't talk enough about. It's still in the being, it's in our. Our issues live in our tissues, right? Our experiences. Our body is like a recording device. So I was led to conscious dance. I was led to mind, body, spirit practices, a number of beautiful mentors that helped introduce me to this world. I healed very quickly. The birth trauma was released and then it started to go further back and other life experiences and trauma that got released. And more than anything, it rewired my extreme body shame and body dysmorphia. Like very quickly I could tap into my true self love and that innate inborn inner desire for that body wisdom to just take really good care of ourselves, you know what I mean? And to listen to the body wisdom and my second child, who's almost four years younger than my daughter, I had a two hour, all natural labor and birth, no drugs. I just remember, I remember saying to my husband, it's over.

That's it.

I mean, it was. I'm not gonna say it was easy.

Put it back in, let's do it again.

And then I did.

I had a third and he was born in 90 minutes. So I don't say that at all to brag or at all to. I wasn't even actually going for fast, I was going for flow. And I was able to tap into a flow state. And the distance between my daughter's birth and then my third child was this journey of listening to my body wisdom, understanding my body spirit connection, shifting from push energy in every area of my life, not just in birth right or in dance, but in my relationships, in my career, in my relationship with money, in my fitness and relationship with how I was feeding my body and moving my body and in my marriage and in everything into one of flow state. And this tool, you know, which are transformational spiritual principles and conscious dance just expedited it for me. It was like this center point where I could find my soul self and I could connect with that authentic part of me. And that doesn't mean that I didn't still go to the Gym and do cardiovascular work or lift weights, or do life coaching and reading about success principles and learn about money and all the things that I. I still did all of those things. It was just this place where I could come back to me, like, just my authentic me.

Well, so when you were learning this, like, so you had your daughter, you had all this trauma talk therapy wasn't getting you there. How did you find out about this conscious dance thing?

Yeah, I think that, I mean, I can tell you the exact moment, but here's what I find. When we ask a higher power, I'll call it God, for guidance and support, I believe it opens up this attraction factor where the thing that we most need that's gonna lead us to the breakthrough we're seeking can become welcome. And that's really what it was. It was like I got to this place where I was like, crap. Everything I knew that I thought I was doing it all right, just went out the window. So, okay, God, I surrender. Like, I don't know how to fix this. I know. It's like I can feel that I clearly missed the mark. And I can also feel my potential. Like, I can feel, feel that it's possible within me. I just have no idea what just went wrong. So I'm gonna ask for guidance and allow myself to be guided and led. I could tell you the longer story, but ultimately I feel like it was that question. So for anyone seeking answers, this very podcast could be the answer to a quote unquote prayer or asking of the divine or just a yikes, I need an answer. Like, I need a solution here. What might that be? I'd like to do it in a slightly different way. I was, you know, jj, you know, you're very close with my mother. For those of you that don't know. She's a well known thought leader. Her name is Mary Morrissey. And I was blessed in that because I had moved home actually to raise my daughter and build a health and wellbeing division of her spiritual center back in the day. And at the center, she was a hub for, for all these kinds of outside of the box teachers and modalities and ways of helping people transform. So within that center, there were a number of different people that as I was growing this well being portion of her work, they just came out of the woodworks and I was literally not only leading things, but I was taking the very classes that the rest of the, you know, the participants were taking. And it was just literally in those classes that I had the breakthroughs. I had Spontaneous healings. I literally felt the trauma drain from my body. I mean, it was amazing things that I was like, wow, okay, this. There's some. There's some secret medicine in this that I'm feeling really, really guided to. Slowly I started to feel guided to bring it to the world in my own way.

It makes so much sense. I'm. A couple things. I'm like, I don't know if you ever met Dr. Amy Apigian in our group. She really got into the biology of trauma. Now is a big thought leader in that. And I feel like trauma's finally getting out into this space where we realize, hey, talk therapy is a piece, but it's probably not gonna get you where you need to go. And these other things that you can move it through. You are a great idea and probably the most powerful thing you can do. Back when I was a trainer, what I noticed at one point, I thought, gosh, I should go get my therapy license, because I would get people moving. And then it was like, blah, blah, blah. I was like, whoa. You know, whoa. I don't know that I can help you with what you just dropped on me, but. But I found that movement was such a. Just opened people up. And what you've really done here by bringing movement and putting it together, this idea of conscious movement, which it makes sense now. Having a background in modern dance, right, with personal development, with transformational coaching. Is there anything else out there like this?

No. I mean, there's ecstatic dance. There's literally.

What is ecstatic dance for everybody?

Ecstatic dance is a form of dance for healing and awakening and celebration that's basically more DJ guided. So it's music led, and it's basically freeform dance. You just let your soul dance you. And it's a group of people that, you know, feel that dance is medicine and it's a pathway to awakened consciousness. It's a clean. You know, there's no drugs and alcohol in most of these ecstatic dance circles. The difference with that and say, what if modality, like what I've created, which is called transcendance. But there's.

I love the name. It's so cool.

Thank you. It really is about transcending stress, fear, doubt, pain, trauma, these lower life experiences, and utilizing the power of music and conscious movement or mindful movement, which is basically that I believe we're all innately born to move and to AKA dance, Not following someone else's steps or some sort of like, you know, technique. This is totally just you allowing and trusting your own Body wisdom to move you for the purpose of aligning with your highest self, your authentic self. You could call it your soul self. For me, it's helped unlock my purpose in life. Not just to lead this to others, but all. I mean, I do lots of things right. So some of my most powerful awarenesses and ahas and, and answers to life's greatest questions have come when I'm not just so focused on left brain activities. Right. We live in a very logical left brain, two dimensional space. And if you look at kids, why they have so much, one of the reasons science shows that they have so much access, right, to the fullness of their brain capacity. Think about recess, going out running, playing, climbing, hopping, skipping. All the things we used to do when we're younger or when we're in kindergarten. We're singing, we're moving to learn math. Like there's this activation of the fullness of our brain, left brain and right brain. Two of the ways that activates our right brain, which by the way, innovation, collaboration, Einstein, ideas, infinite intelligent lives. When we've activated the right brain. And we live in a very left brain dominant experience in life. So unless we just happen to be a musician and play the piano or you know, but just the simple act of turning on some music and just moving freely to it is in essence a form of transcendence. We're releasing tension, we're releasing stress, we're activating our happy hormones, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. Dose of dance is what I like to call it. One of my favorite studies, JJ and I know you love this study too is the New England Journal of Medicine did a study around what really reduces Alzheimer's and dementia and increases mental acuity. And they found that social dance increases in mental acuity, decreases Alzheimer's by 76%. I mean they studied everything, bike riding, chess, all these mental activities. And so the, the health and wellness benefits of just movement in general. And then you add music and then something like transcendence just sprinkles in personal development setting an intention moving in alignment with your vision. If you're activating a life vision and recognizing that we get to choose our mood at will, life isn't happening to us. Life is happening for us and with us. So for me, when I add in some of my favorite music and then I bring to my mind whatever it is that I'm seeking to bring forth, magnify or manifest in my life, right? And I add movement to that, that amplifies the Emotional. Now we're kind of getting esoteric here. But amplifies the emotional frequency that is in alignment with me being my best self, right? So I have clarity of mind. I am in a happy, joyful, grateful, loving mood. And my actions are in alignment with the future version of me that I want to experience three years from now where things are going well, I'm successful, I have loving relationships, I'm living on purpose, and my body is moving. Connected to that kind of energy. It's like putting miracle grow on a garden or just. It's just a magnification of whether it's journaling practices, affirmations, looking at my vision board, you know, reading my vision in a two dimensional on a piece of paper. But adding this in now could be also. I'm a kinesthetic learner, right? I'm a visionary at heart. So it's super aligned, obviously it's super helpful, but it's just, it's another power tool.

I don't know. I think we're all born to move. I know I have never, and I can say never. I have never come up with an amazing idea sitting at my desk. It's never happened. And yet, you know, like, we were out yesterday, walking out in beautiful, where we live, we have the longest walking street on the water. And of course, idea, idea, idea. I used to go rollerblading in Fort Lauderdale around the water. Ideas. I had to always carry things with me at the gym anytime I moved. Moving, I get these ideas now. We've brought transcendance into the mindshare, health, business growth, community. I always bring dance in, as you've noticed. I always bring dancing because I feel like as adults we don't get to do it. It's like, first of all, I'm not 20, I'm not going to a club in a miniskirt. Like, I'm not doing it. So there's just not that many opportunities, right? So I make sure at my events we always have dancing. And then we brought in transcendence as a way to get people kind of prepped when they were gonna do some really big thinking.

Thinking stuff.

Now you watch people. Because I remember at first kind of watching people going, all right, how. How are these things gonna land? Because people are so self conscious now you get to be an adult and all of a sudden you're like, oh, oh, I don't know, I can't. What if someone sees me doing something stupid? So, you know, and it just, it strikes me that we build up a lot of just shyness. Or shame or what? Around moving in our bodies. So how do you get someone to break through that and be able to do this? Cause even just standing dancing people, you watch people, they have to either have a couple drinks in them, right?

Well, jj, it's cultural, so. So what I love about having. And I know you've been around the world too, so I know you can speak to this as well, but wouldn't you agree that it's very much our U.S. maybe Canadian culture?

Yeah, I'd say U.S. canada and the UK.

Exactly. Exactly right. But the rest of the world, they got it going on. Like, you go down to my husband's from Mexico City. You go down to Mexico, you are extreme as a male. Nobody cares if your moves look at all good. Like it is a cultural expectancy that you are anywhere there's music. Everybody's just moving and nobody's looking at anybody. So part of it is and same thing in Africa and all these different other cultures all over the world.

And I love that no one was looking. I remember I lived in Japan for a while and everyone would go dance at these nightclubs and they dance to the mirror. This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen. No one's dancing with each other. They're all dancing.

It's so good. Yeah. So, you know, and if we go back, like literally tribal times, like we would circle around the fire and we would sing and drum and dance in tribes, they would actually welcome the warriors from war, right? From their battles to drumming and music and dancing and shaking as a way to integrate. Imagine that. I mean, like, I could go on and on. So really it is a cultural thing and I have learned to be just highly compassionate and sensitive that particularly in this western culture, not only have we been programmed to sit down, be quiet, stop dreaming, stop, stop wiggling in your chair. Like just like bottle it up, right? And don't make a peep. So I mean, when I come into these conferences, people are very well trained in our educational system. They're sitting, they're very still. When there's a part of all of us inside that just wants to go. I just want to make a sound, you know. But we're very well programmed. So to give people this, like, space where, okay, for five to ten minutes, all the rules get to be broken. Like we get to hoot and holler a little bit. We get to kind of shake our bodies. And it's all about just creating safety. So a making sure people realize this is a non judgment zone. So there is no Right or wrong way. This isn't about moving any specific way. This is really just letting off some steam, shaking off the tension that we're holding on in our bodies and just having a little fun letting that inner child out to play. Just with those three agree. I call them our agreements. You know what I mean? We're all gonna look around and agree that a. We're gonna play full out. That's the first one. Cause if I forget that one, oh, man. There's always those three people right in the front row with their arms crossed, and they're like, oh, yeah. No, I don't think so. So before I tell them what we're gonna do, I've learned the hard way over many, many decades of leading large groups of adults into this, that you gotta get agreement that everyone's gonna play full out, then that this is a safe zone. Non judgment. We're gonna play. And then once everybody goes, oh, I could play by those rules, and I'm not gonna get judged. Cause we've all agreed that we're not judging where this is a love zone. I can do this. And then it's like, oh, my gosh. People come up to me and they're like, I haven't felt that free and that amazing and that, like, unlocked and unleashed in a really, really long time. I want more of that. What can I do to have more of that?

Yeah. And you did this with a group of mainly doctors. So as I'm getting ready to do this, I'm like, this is gonna be interesting. Let's see what happens here. And they loved it. Loved it. And I looked around, I go, everybody is completely in this one. To win it. They are in it. Cuando entras a Burlington. Encuentras precios increibles irregalos geniales Jesus energia del protagonista. Por que in Burlington, los ahoros festivos nos un la unico que llama la. How do you have someone like. Because in the moment, I mean, we were just being guided and you felt completely connected, but someone at home who goes, okay, I would love to do this. How are they able to get into that deeper connection?

Yeah, I think the music, honestly, jj, is such an important. It's like a dance partner, if you think about. If you've ever had any kind of experience on the dance floor with somebody that's kind of in flow versus you, Just somebody that's leading a really good song. So for a moment, if possible. Now, I know some people really need a lot of help with music. And they're like, I have no idea what song, what song would you play? You know, and so we've got lots of playlists. I'm sure you have music that you could share.

I think you're also gonna give everyone a little. You're gonna give everyone a taste. So if you're listening, go, I got nothing. Is it Bruno Mars? You know, we'll get you a thing.

Well, if you think about high school, so one way you could do this was is you can look up either Google or ChatGPT or whatever you use as a search, you know, Google your year you graduated high school or whatever you call it. Because I know not everybody calls it high school, depending on where you are in the world, right? But that year you graduated from your primary years of study. What were the top 10 songs that decade? And chances are, one of those songs would be. And you could say, top 10 dance songs could be super helpful. And one of those songs will ignite some sort of joy in you. That could just be one way to go about it. Then you play that song and you listen. If you need to close the blinds, close your door, or close the bathroom and lock the door and just close your eyes and let yourself loose. Then you start there and just tell yourself, I'm just gonna move even for two or three minutes, and I'm just gonna let whatever comes out come out and just experiment with it. Is part of how you begin easy way is drumming. I know that sounds like, wait a minute drumming. So if you just. You can go to Spotify or Apple Music or whatever and just Google African drumming and note just even a few minutes of that. And what I love is to pair drumming with one of the ten stages of transcendence is called the dance of release. Now, this isn't new. I've just given it a fun name. If you watch a dog after it gets a bath, what does it do? It shakes all the water off, right? Or if you watch a zebra being chased by a lion, if it doesn't get eaten, it will play dead. And then as soon as it doesn't think it's in danger, it'll stand up and it'll shake its entire body to shake off the trauma. So it's literally like you imagine shaking your body like an old dusty rug or a dog shaking water. And you shake your body. It is so, so rejuvenating. It releases so much tension, it activates those happy hormones. Even just a few minutes can be really. It's like that. One of those Exercise, snacks, jj. But it activates mind, body and spirit in such a powerful way.

So you brought up joy like 10 times now. How does Joy fit in here?

Yeah.

It'S your middle name, right?

It is my middle name.

Is that really your middle name?

It is. Really? Do you want to know? Like you're asking. So my mother was going to call me Star, which is an interesting middle name too, which I think is lovely. And she had had two boys, my older brothers, John and Rich, who also work in our institute, which is super cool. It's a whole family business. But she just had this emotional and spiritual connection with me long before she got pregnant with me. She says John would have been Jennifer, Rich would have been Jennifer.

I was supposed to be Jennifer, by the way.

Were you? Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah. So anyhow, when I was finally born, she says she was filled with so much joy that she changed. Like when she went to write my middle name down on the birth certificate for from what it was originally gonna be to Joy.

Wow. And it's followed you all these years?

It has.

It was a premonition of what was to come. So someone starting out, like, what sort of transformation could someone kind of expect? Like, is this something that you incorporate into your day every day? Like, how would someone use this?

Yeah. So can I tell two quick little stories that I think are really. So remember how I shared. I had that my 50 hour labor and I just started to get to know what all of this was. There was one day when I woke up. So I'm in my mid-20s, I've got a baby. My husband's an actor, by the way, so he was coming and we were in Oregon. So he was flying back and forth from LA to Oregon. He was gone all the time. And one of the women who was first exposing me to conscious dance, who was part of our, part of the center I became friends with. I woke up one day and I had this horrific pain in my right hip. And I didn't recall doing anything, hurting myself, injuring. Like, I could not figure out what was going. I could barely put any weight on it. And I'm like crying. And I don't know what caused me to call her. My intuition probably. So I call her up and I'm like, so can I tell you what's going. I don't know what to do. Like, I've got a baby to take care of here. And she said, oh, I know what this is. And this is again, the beginning of recognizing there's so much more than Meets the eye, you know, like, there's so much more going on. Everything that's going on in our lives is impacting our body and how we're feeling. And she said, you're standing on one leg. Jorge, my husband, is gone all the time, and you're basically raising this baby all by yourself. And I was like, huh? I wouldn't have thought of that. But that's an interesting perspective. Okay, you know, And I said, well, that doesn't help me with this pain in the second, so what am I supposed to do? And she was like, well, certainly, you know, you can make an appointment. I'm happy to come pick you up. We'll take you to the doctor. But before we go there, just do. If you'd be willing, do this experiment. She was like, go within, breathe into the pain versus resisting against it. And then your body will actually tell you how to go into it to begin to feel. And it ultimately, she gave me these tips, which was breathe into the pain instead of pulling away from it, actually surround it with love, and then instead of it locking, because oftentimes when you're experiencing severe pain, you go into freeze mode, right? Everybody's like, I can't move. I don't want to move. It's going to hurt it. Instead of that, soften around it and actually breathe love into this and just let your body move you, which was like, as a dancer, you don't do that. You follow a choreography, and you got to get it perfect. So this is super new to me. So I ended up getting on the floor within. Long story short, within 45 minutes, the pain was completely, completely gone. It was like, wow. Like, that was one of my very first experiences of what is now called somatic release, right? The soma being the body. And to your point, jj, is you're training people, right? Emotions are being released, energy's being unlocked, right? So one tool for anybody listening is the next time you feel pain, what if. What if you leave a corner of your mind open to. What if there's some sort of mind body connection? What if you can breathe into it, actually surround it with love? Now, what I like to ask for is what's the wisdom? What's the guidance? Is there a message for me in this versus Just let me just try to get it to go away immediately. For me, in that moment, it was support. I realized I wasn't. I wasn't asking for, and I wasn't leaning into the support that was actually around me, available to me. I was trying to do it all on my own. So that was the message that I got. And as I asked for more support, my body didn't have to scream for it, you know, in this symptom. So that's just one tool, right? Breathe into it, surround it with love. Ask for any sort of wisdom within that. That doesn't mean don't go to the doctor, don't ever take a Tylenol or. You know, I'm not saying that because I believe there's space for all of it, but when you ask, we open ourselves up to these other messages that might be available. It just really. Everything starts to make so much sense, and we're able to support ourselves into more. Greater mind, body, spirit alignment. The other really is jj, to find a song that really does lift you up and light you up. For me, I walk around with Shazam almost always on. So if I'm literally in the grocery store or Christmas shopping, for example, or just out in the world and I hear a piece of music, if I feel lifted up and I don't know what it already is, or sometimes I do know the song, and I'm like, ooh, that's a good one. I've totally forgotten about that song. That song sparks joy, notice things in life songs, people that lift you up and spark joy, and seek to surround yourself with more of those people, more of that music, more of those environments, you know? I love your mindshare community, jj. Like it. For me, it's like a family. It's like. It's so amazing to be around people who believe in the mind, body, spirit, connection, who understand it's all interconnected, who are passionate about healing and transformation in the world. And you as it's. You know, I want to say, like, mother, mentor, goddess, like, you know, like, I don't even know of the word, but creator and holding of that space, you hold such a. There's such a. There's such. And I just really want to say this, like, you're so authentic and raw and real that it unlocks this level of authenticity and vulnerability in this group of people that have, like, accolades up the fricking wazoo next to their name, but yet they're still real people, people who are just as vulnerable and raw and have just as many fears as anyone who doesn't have a list of MDs behind their name. You know what I mean? And that's what I love so much about what you.

I'll tell you a funny story. I had a group of our legacy members over at the house, and we were sitting Yakking about something. And one of them said, except for you, because you have it all figured out or you have it all together. And I'm like, what? What are you talking about? I go, yeah, no one has it all together. They're like, huh? You know? I go, just when you think you have it all together, it's a bleeping. It's like just this little moment in time, and then you go to the next. You want to do something more aspirational, and everything starts all over again. And it's just the way it is. So it's. But I have really loved being able to pull this in. Like, I loved first bringing dance. And instinctively I remember I was on a rooftop at one of our events dancing, because I always dance first because I know that if I dance, they'll all dance. But if I don't dance, no one will dance. So I figure I better go out there and dance so they'll all dance. And one of them was like, thank you so much. Thank you so much for doing this. And I was like, and then bringing you in as just another level of it. And I just feel like it's. It's just a way to get back to this permission of play and joy and creativity. Like, I brought into one of my groups, I had everyone finger painting. And yeah. And you're like, oh, my gosh. It was like. And. And people built new. Built new business ideas because they were finger painting. I go, yes. So it's just a reminder. Like, we just get so serious and do all these things to check them off our list. And if we just actually backed it up a bit and did some fun stuff, that, by the way, has so much research behind it. You mentioned exercise, snacks, and I think if you just took a couple times a day and just shut the door and blasted the music in couple minutes, not only would you be more productive and. And happier, but you'd be healthier too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It really does boost productivity, I think. You know, one of the things that I love hearing when I, you know. So going back to really your question, how can somebody engage in this? If you think about, if you're feeling tired, what you. What the average person is going to go to is sort of a synthetic energy, right? So they might go to caffeine, they might naturally go to some form of sugar, you know what I mean? But they're not necessarily going, oh, wait, if I just stand up and move rhythmically to this song for three minutes, I'm actually going to get a way Bigger boost of happy hormones and actual energy. That is an effervescent flow of energy that is sustainable and not this fast increase and then this crash afterwards. Right. So you can think about it as, you know, instead of your morning cup of coffee or in addition to it or whatever you drink.

Okay. You had me till you said that.

Well, I love my morning java, but I also include some jive with that java.

I was like going, you're Mary's daughter, don't tell me you don't drink coffee.

Oh, I do.

So I just think of this and I think of the latest, I think I told you about it, this study on vilpa, vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity, where they looked at people who incorporated 10 minutes total, four and a half to 10 minutes total of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity into their day every day in one to two minute bursts. So that could be like a two minute dance off, you know, three times a day. You could decide after every meal, I'm gonna do a little dance off or I'm gonna make sure that if I've been sitting for 90 minutes, I'm gonna do a little dance off.

Yeah.

It's not only is it gonna help your creativity and your mood, but there was a 40. It was either 45 or 40 to 50 to 55% decrease in death from cancer, heart disease and all cause mortality. I mean, compared to people who weren't doing that 50% reduction in death. Cause you got up and moved a bit. Are you kidding? Come on. Doesn't cost anything. Like, you know, you can do it at any level. Everyone can do it.

Amazing.

Well, and what I love about including dance in it, jj, is not everyone is a superhero like you, you know, like, and is wanting to do like the things that are what most people feel are more challenging, you know what I mean? Like the weights or the push ups or like kind of the, the superhero kinds of exercise movements. Right. Some people just need a bridge. And all of us, I think, need a little more fun. So for example, one of the things I love to do is just bring music into everyday things. So instead of brushing my teeth to silence or just the sound of my electric toothbrush, I'll put on some music. Or when I'm cooking, I'm literally dancing around my kitchen. Or if I'm going from zoom meeting to zoom meeting to zoom meeting in between, I'm going to turn on a song and literally dance myself to the bathroom. Dance myself to get my water. Like that's really what you're talking about. Like it really is just doing what we're already doing, but in just a more playful, fun way even.

Well, what's great about that is you just have it stacked. So. And that's what I look at with a lot of these things as you get through the day and go, oh, I forgot to do that. But if you go, you know what? I'm gonna put this. If I do a zoom meeting, I'll throw this in after. So you just have to figure out how to incorporate even one little burst of it throughout the day. Now, I know you have a. Is it like a challenge? What do you have? You have some kind of program that we're gonna gift everybody?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Well, the first thing is just the ability to come and be guided, to experience.

Experience.

Some of this, I think, is really one of the best ways to get exposed. That's really how I got exposed. I wouldn't have known kind of how to do this on my own at first. Now, it isn't that I didn't innately know, like, this is in our DNA, like, we're wired for this. But sometimes you just need to be reminded. Oh, that's right. That's what it feels like. Okay, now I have a sense memory, like, literally a muscle memory, and I can do more of this on my own. So we definitely have a gift of free access to transcendance so people can come on a, you know, weekend. We record it. It's live, virtual people from all over the world, we record it. So even if you can't come live, you will send you the recording.

Say someone's transcendancing at 4:00am.

You'D be surprised. You'd be surprised, actually.

I'm sure. Okay, that's awesome. We're going to put that at jjvirgin.com/transcendance. Okay, so how does one spell transcendence? Here? Here it is. It is T R A N S C E N. Transcend. And then dance. D A N C E. Okay, so everyone knows how to spell that. Transcend with dance. So jjvirgin.com transcendance so that you can take a class, get the gist of it, so that you can incorporate this into your life. And if you want to go deeper, I'm sure that you can also go and do even more. You've got retreats, you've got certifications, all sorts of fun stuff. In fact, what's been cool over in our health biz growth, mindshare community is we've got now some of our practitioners who become certified transcendence instructors. So they're pulling it into their practices, which I think is amazing.

Yeah.

The goal is to so that it's just available to more and more people. A more people are just dancing in life in general. That really is my vision is spreading the power of music and really the medicine, the healing, mental, the physiological and the spiritual connection we can achieve just through dancing more. And you're such a cheerleader for it. Not just verbally, but you live what you teach. You literally walk your talk or in better words, you dance your dance. And it's one of the things that really drew me to you, jj is just your vulnerable, authentic, true just beingness. But then obviously we share the joy of dance and the passion for it.

Yes, it's fun to be dancing again and not on toe shoes.

Exactly.

Exactly. Thank you Jennifer.

It's such a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Foreign.

Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques you can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and are built to last. Check me out on Instagram, Facebook and my website, jjvirgin.com and make sure to follow my podcast@subscribetoj.com so you don't miss a single episode. And hey, if you're loving what you hear, don't forget to leave a review. Your reviews make a big difference in helping me reach more incredible women just like you to spread the word about aging powerfully after 40. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch.

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