Episode 46 - Permission To Give with Jacqueline Way
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Permission to be Human, the podcast. I'm your host Mel Findlater, mother, coach, and curator of Permission to be Human, the company and community. If you're a mom, know a mom, or want to be a mom, and you crave getting out in the world to make a difference, then you're in the right place. This is a space for moms like you to connect with yourself, your purpose, and your big audacious dreams.
Because when you feel your best, you can better you, your family, and the wider world. Let's do this.
/ I know I say this a lot, but I am so stinking excited about today's guest. Like.
If any of you do podcasts out there, or if you can just imagine in your real life, someone that you've seen in a Ted talk and you think, oh my goodness, I am so. [00:01:00] Excited about their message. And I wish I could just speak to them one day and hear more about their story. Well, Jacqueline way is one of those people for me.
So I'm so excited to bring her to you to spread her. Message even further in the world and to get us out there doing good and creating happiness for ourselves. So Jacqueline way is dedicated to serving humanity with love and compassion every day. Her sole purpose is to teach, inspire and empower the hearts and minds of people globally to create a happier, more compassionate, peaceful world together. She expresses her purpose through her writing, teaching and charitable organization.
365. Give. She's an author global keynote speaker, philanthropist, mother, and so much more Jacqueline is committed to living the highest expression of who she is through her work. Family. And by touching the lives of others 365 days a year. Her big dream [00:02:00] is to change the world. Wow. Right. Just, wow. And. Do stay tuned because Jacqueline not only thinks really big about changing the world, but we talk about doing the small things. And what that does. She has an incredible Ted talk.
Like I said, that really inspired me. Called, how to be happy every day, it will change the world. So really bringing in that. Outside of us stuff, this big desire to make a difference in the world. With our inner side and how we feel when we're out there doing good as well. So stick around.
Mel: Hi Jacqueline, thank you so, so much for coming and chatting with us on Permission to Be Human, the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. It was a lovely surprise for you to say yes to me. Just for the audience listening, I listened to Jacqueline's TEDx talk, which is called How to Be Happy Every Day It Will Change the [00:03:00] World.
And it was a total random find for me. And I am so excited that I did find it because it's That was probably, what, a month or two ago, and it's really still in the background in my mind since. It's one of those ones that just percolates. So I'm excited to share it and you and all about you with the world.
So thanks for
Jacqueline: coming. Well, thank you so much. I'm excited to be with you and the fact that we're literally neighbors. We just live a little bit across the water from each other. And in Vancouver, that literally is kind of a street for us is exciting. I'm so close that we're, we're so happy. We're so close by.
So thank you so much for reaching out to me and taking the time to, to watch the talk. It always still amazes me every day, the amount of people that have watched the talk and who I get to meet from all over the world. And whether that's my backyard, my neighbors, or from the other side of the world, I feel humbled and blessed every day.
Mel: Amazing. I love that. And I think one of the things that really appeals to me about your talk and about you [00:04:00] and what I know about you so far is you're just so real and human. And the story that you, you will share is, you know, it started from the everyday, small, little mom moments, you know, and then you figured out what that big audacious dream is, as we put it here.
So I'm really excited to, you know, To share that because often we just look at like, Oh, this person's doing this big thing and we forget the little bit that started the whole thing off.
Jacqueline: Right? Absolutely. Right. We're all, it was, it's really fun. You and I were just talking about the fact that I also have, you know, my own live show that I do.
For humanities team and we just, we had an author, world renowned author, Marcy Shimoff on our show today. And I said the exact same thing to her as well, which was, you know, everybody thinks, you know, you're this big, huge, you know, rockstar author from all over the world. And, you know, all the work that she's done globally.
And at the end of the day, you know, we're all. We're all [00:05:00] just human beings that you quite never know, never quite know where your path is going to lead. And if you had told me that people would one day be asking me to do interviews, and I would have done a TED talk like I did, and this project that my son and I started together, I I would have never been able to imagine what life has brought me.
Mel: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so tell us a little bit about, about you. Who's, who's
Jacqueline: Jacqueline? Sure, absolutely. So my name is Jacqueline Way. I am the founder of a charitable organization called 365Give, which I started with my son when he was just three years old. I am first and foremost a mom it's my main job and everything else to me as secondary at the stage of my life, other than the fact that, you know, my care for myself is my first and most important thing and then everybody around me as well.
So but I would say really my, my role in this life first priority [00:06:00] is, is being a mom and making sure I'm serving the world with love. And that is the work that I do, my purpose and my passion through 365 Give. That's so
Mel: beautiful. And what I, I really love what you tapped into there is that mothering, as a verb we often talk about on here, is about mothering your kids, but also mothering yourself.
And you know, we need that part of it in order to be able to give and grow our children alongside us.
Jacqueline: Yeah, I didn't always get that right, just so everybody knows, it's taken me a long time to get there. Yeah, you know, but when you realize that you, the most important person to take care of is ourselves first, you know, people call it self care or self love.
I'm not one of those people that stands in front of you. A mirror and tries to convince myself that my body is perfect. And I love myself in every moment of every day. And I don't do affirmations. My affirmation is how I show up for myself every day, how I [00:07:00] give myself time, how I give myself care, how I give myself space.
And I can promise everyone that in the. Probably first decade of my parenthood. I wasn't so good at that, you know, I put everyone first, but I've realized now the importance of putting my own happiness first so that everyone around me gets some of that because when, when we're not putting our own care and our own happiness as a priority, everyone around us suffers.
Yeah, yeah,
Mel: that's so beautiful. And, and I'm, I'm keen to come back to this after we've shared a little bit more about your story, because, you know, doing good is such a, such a big part of, of who you are, I can tell, and what you do, that it's very easy for us to fall into the martyr type role within doing good.
We want to change the world. We want to go out and do all these things. And to same as when our kids are, [00:08:00] Any age to be to be honest, it's easy to forget about ourself there. It's also easy to forget about ourself when we're out there doing so much good in the world. And your story and the work you're doing is a really unique twist on that.
So tell us a little bit about Your story and your son and how did this
Jacqueline: all come about? Absolutely. Well, first of all, part of the story people don't hear in the Ted talk that I didn't share one day, I'll do a whole other Ted talk on this one, is I am the, I'm the blessed mom of three adoptive boys all adopted here locally in Vancouver through what we call our ministry of children and family services.
So these are beautiful children that We're in foster care that my husband and I were very blessed to bring home when they were infants. And my very first son, Nick, you know, that experience changed my world. When I, when I brought him home, he was 11 weeks old when we got to meet him for the first time.[00:09:00]
And I think the most, one of the most important parts of the story that I didn't share in the Ted talk was Nick taught me about unconditional love. And it was something that as much as I love my husband and as much as I love many people in my life, there's a different unconditional love that happens with a child than it does with at least any other experience I had had in my life.
And Nick taught me that I could unconditionally love another human being and he didn't have to come out of me to do that. He taught me that I could love A child, I could love another human being that I didn't know if they had all their fingers and toes. I didn't know what color their skin was going to be.
I didn't know if it was going to be a girl or a boy. All of these things I didn't know and I learned through the adoption process that allowed me to really understand that connection to love. And so that's where the story really starts for me is because when you get [00:10:00] that experience to love another human being, we do it with our cats.
We do it with our dogs. We'll do it with our garden. Like we do it with lots of things, but there's this barrier with a human being that happens. And and that's where that barrier came down for me. And I think when I, and I wasn't aware of it at the time. But that open heartedness that he allowed to come through me allowed me to look out at the world differently and not just to go, Oh, our world's a mess.
I have to fix it. But how can I be part of the solution? How can I make a contribution? How could I realize that part of all of our purpose here in this world is to actually give. And so I started this journey with my son. I really part of. what I became really clear on as an adoptive parent, because you have to go through, I mean, you've never been asked so many questions before in your life about parenting and what you think and how you want it to be and your expectations.
And it's like going [00:11:00] through a marriage counseling course before you get marriage, married, but it's a parenting course. And I actually recommend, I wish everybody would go through it because you get so clear on how parenting is going to look for you and, and how you really feel about it and with your partner.
And one of the things that had come up for me and they asked you literally, what are your expectations for a child? And I said, I want my child to be a kind, compassionate, loving human being. And that's what I wanted for my son or my child, who I didn't know at the time was going to be. And so I thought when he did come home and, you know, obviously as he started to grow and we were starting to look at, you know, the younger years.
Of going to school, going to preschool, they start that at the age of three, that I realized my time with him was already starting to my full time time with him was starting to come to an end. And so I thought, you know, this is my chance to teach him the lessons that I wanted. If I wanted to be a kind, compassionate, loving human [00:12:00] being, school was not going to be the place that's going to teach them that that's just the reality and for anybody who Thanks differently.
You know, look at our school systems. They're doing their best, but we're not set up for that. And so I knew I had to start those lessons with him. And I thought, well, you know, my parents when I was younger. One of the great lessons my father gave me growing up was not only volunteering with him at the hospital he was a doctor and so we used to go sing Christmas carols to his patients or we would just go in for visits with him when he had to work on the weekends.
One of the other things that we did with him is everywhere he went, my father picked up garbage. He had this belief that it was our job to take care of our planet. And so that's what he did. We went out for walks. We went to the park. We went on family holidays. We all picked up garbage. And so there was this innate nature that came.
It was fostered in me from my own family, that, that I realized I could do with my son as well. I thought, well, you know, I can't go volunteer at a homeless [00:13:00] shelter. And I had done that. I couldn't raise millions of dollars where I was, But I had done that as well through my career, but what I could do with my son is we can make it intentional.
And every day we could do something that was so small and so simple, a three year old could do it. So we started this project where we were going to do one thing to give back to the world every day. I made a commitment to myself. to do it for 365 days and to do it with my son. Because I thought that if we could do that, and if even one person along the way, a friend or family, was inspired to give because of the work we were doing, that creates change.
And so that's what we did on his third birthday, or sorry, on his third birthday. We did one thing to give back to the world every day. It had to be so simple. A three year old could do it. And we started a little blog around it because in those days, this is now going back a few years blogging was the thing that we did.
And and so we started a blog [00:14:00] around it. I shared our little stories, those that blog still exists. You can go back and see our very first stories that we shared. And. Over the course of a year, we shared it on the blog. We shared it on Facebook and Twitter, because that's all that was around at that time.
And people started reading our stories and started sharing them and started giving because they were inspired by what my son was doing and by what we were doing together. And at that time, and for those people that are listening, going, I couldn't do that. Well, you could, because if you walk to a park with your kid, you can pick out garbage on the way.
So you could do it. If you go to the grocery store, you can bring your own bags so you can do it. If you do laundry as a parent at home, you could use laundry detergent that's good for the planet versus crappy for the planet. So you can do it. So for everybody that says to me, I can't do that. I can't make that commitment.
Well, you don't have to do a [00:15:00] blog. You don't have to post about it every day, but you can incorporate this as a, as a daily intention, a daily habit in your own lives as well. And you can do it with your kids. And all it is, is you call it out. Right? So Nick and I would literally say, okay, what's going to be our 365 gift today?
Well, today's laundry day. Guess what? We are either going to go to the grocery store with our own bags, buy laundry detergent that's better for the planet, then we go do our laundry together. Right there, you know, we've made a commitment of two or three small acts of giving that we could do in the course of our day that incorporated into what we were already doing.
I could go to the Sally Ann and drop off the things we no longer need it. I could go buy clothes for my kid at the Sally Ann because that supports a charitable organization. And at the same time, I'm upscaling clothes. And all of a sudden, this is just things we were doing every day in our life. We just incorporated giving into it because we made the intention every day that we were going to open our eyes and we were going to open our heart.
And we would find that way to give somehow. In our day, and it could be even out in the garden, planting [00:16:00] seeds, growing our own vegetables, like all the things we want to teach our kids. Anyways, we're doing it and we just shouted it out and we celebrated those moments. And then I wrote about it. And today, 365 give us turned into a global giving movement that has.
Thank the stars inspired, touched millions of people all over the world. And it amazes me every day because people like you reach out to me and say, Hey, let's talk about this. And I'm like, really? I still say that. I'm like, really? You want to talk to me?
Mel: That is such a beautiful story. And so many things come to my mind at the same time, you know, just this, this ability to, the intention that you had. And I'm sure have with your child to be able to say, this is This is what I want to do. I want them to be this kind, compassionate soul, right? So I need to put some intention into how, how that happens.
And then to, [00:17:00] to make it small, cause that can be overwhelming to say that and think like, how on earth am I supposed to do that? You know, that's what most of us parents do because we all want that at the end of the day, and it can be like, how do I do that? And I think something else you really touched on there is we can, You know, if, if I hear this idea of like every day, I'll do something good.
Immediately. My mind is flooded with over overwhelm. Like, how do I have the capacity to do that? And what you've done is you've said. It's small, and it's about noticing what you're already doing, probably, and noticing being that key part, right? Just notice what's happening in the day. Notice that you're trying to do this.
Point it out to your child so that they notice as well, right? And, and that in and of itself is simple. Building the habit of noticing may be not as simple, but You know, the concept is there and simple and I absolutely love
Jacqueline: that. Well, I mean, [00:18:00] and we all have this beautiful tool in our hands and so do our children, which is fascinating, right?
Is that, you know, for me to, even if it's at the end of a day, I can send somebody a little note in my life to say, Hey, you're on my heart today. I'm thinking of you. I'm grateful for you. How long does that take? How many text messages DMs, do we send a day? How long are we on social media every day? Could you even just do a little post, share a post, go rate a business, go put a thumbs up to a podcast that you like, right?
All those little things. These are just the ways that we can recognize and for people that don't say, I don't have enough time. I just want to say how much time you spend on social media. Then tell me you don't have enough time. Right? So we all have one or two minutes in our day that we can do this.
Mel: So yeah, I completely agree.
And I feel like it's probably not the time. It's more the capacity in our brains to think of the things. So I know one of the things you say in your TEDx talk is, is you started [00:19:00] by writing a list. Yeah. You know, write a list of some ideas just to get yourself started. And backing off of what you just said, perhaps for me, because I've been thinking about doing this, I'm like, I need a list of the things I can do if I forgot to do it in the day.
Completely. Right? Right. Well, this is one of them, right? It's in your hands. Or whatever, right? Send them
Jacqueline: a virtual hug. Go do a quick post on whatever social handles that you're on. Just something positive. Something, you know, good. Also you know, sharing or rating a business, right? Like that's another really simple one.
You know, you went to a local shop and you bought something today. The customer service was great. Go do that like 30 seconds it takes. Right. So have your backup list, have your list of, okay, we're going to do this with intentionality. We're going to go to the local. Farmer's market and shop this week.
That's going to be my intentional. We're going out. We're doing something. I'm going to the Sally Ann today to make a donation intentional. I'm going to go out and do something. And then have your backup list of 10 things that, you know, people always say to me, well, how [00:20:00] did you do something different every day?
Well, I didn't do something different every day. I didn't. Lots of days we picked up garbage as we were walking to the park or down to the beach or whatever it was. Lots of days I texted messages of gratitude and just touching base with people. Lots of days you know, one of my son's favorite things, we went down, we have a local shelter.
Down close to me. That was his favorite thing to do was just go sit and volunteer and play with the cats for me as a parent. That was like, excellent. I got that just fills an hour of my day with my kid, right? We get to go volunteer and play with the cats. He's happy. It gives me, you know, a little space filler in the day.
We're all looking for those things. Look at it that way. What can I do as a space filler today? An activity. That I can do with my child. That might be a little different. Could you bake cookies and go and deliver them to the firehouse or to the police station? We did that lots of days. So, you know, these are the things where it can become, you know, we did lots of art projects that we ended up, we'd go out [00:21:00] in nature and instead of, you know, using or going down to Michael's or whatever store to buy more stuff, we would just go out into nature and find the things, whether it was in our garden.
In the neighborhood and then we would come and do an art project with that and then we'd give it to grandma. Right. So all of a sudden, I've helped the planet right we've given back to the planet because it's not always giving to people. It's not always just being kind to another person. And it's not random.
Right. It's these are things where it's. It's if you want to create a habit, it has to be intentional and it has to be planned. It has to be a daily practice. So if you meditate, you do mindfulness, you exercise. These are all of the things that we know to change the way you look at your life, at your world, to create happy little moments that matter and make a difference to create wellbeing and purpose in your own life.
This is a practice. This isn't just something that it's a one off. I'm going to go donate something at the Sally Ann. Yippee, I just did my 365 give this is something we have to carry through for our [00:22:00] whole lives if we actually want to create change within ourselves. And the world around us it's a daily habit that we do have to practice, but you know, I want to talk about why that's important to why is giving back to the world important, not only at the broader scale, but what is it the change that it creates in us?
Because that's the biggest part that's so important is the effect that giving has on us.
Mel: Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Let's talk. What's the science of giving?
Jacqueline: Yes. Yes. This is my favorite part that you know what? I never knew this when I started this I Never knew it and the name of my my TED talk is how to be happy every day It'll change the world But really is how to be happy every day and this is usually why it shows up randomly for people in your feed somewhere is Because somewhere along the lines you've either had a conversation on your phone about happiness You're looking for happiness.
You're finding ways to incorporate or increase your happiness or your set point in your life of happiness. And what we know about giving [00:23:00] is it's actually magical. And I want people to really think about this in the bigger picture, because first of all, When it comes to giving and the effect that it has on our bodies is it's the common thread through every single human being on this planet.
We were actually born to give for how it makes us feel. So we have this little acronym that I use and I say that, that giving is your daily dose of happiness. And dose stands and is an acronym for dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin. And your endorphins. So dopamine is your reward system. That's when you go over a finish line, you finish a project at work, you cross something off your to do list.
You have a piece of cake, you have sex, like all of those things. That's the little reward system that goes off in our bodies. That's dopamine. The next one is oxytocin. Well, oxytocin is our love hormone. That's what makes us fall in love, feel love, fall in love with that baby when it's in your arms and you feel all, ah.
[00:24:00] That's oxytocin that fires off in our body. That's our, our love hormone or, or, or, or hug hormone. Some people call it as well as a serotonin. That's how you feel happiness. Serotonin is firing in your body. And then your last one is your endorphins. If anybody's a runner out there, that's what kicks in.
That's the runner's high. Well, we call it, you know, the giving high as well. Is that when you, when you give your endorphins kick in actually wanting you to give more as well. So that's what you get from giving and it happens for every single human being. You want to feel happier. You want to feel love.
You want to feel like you can keep going and run another mile. Go out and do something. It doesn't matter how small it is. But if you start adding that to your day, all of a sudden, you're getting this daily dose of happiness and love into your life every single day. And it's easier than going out and running, you know, five kilometers on the seawall here in Vancouver in the morning.
Let me tell you, cause I do that as [00:25:00] well, but it's one of these things that we can incorporate in when we're talking about our mental health and wellbeing, this is how we can start actually increasing this for ourselves in our life. We've heard about all of the other things, being out in nature. Meditation, mindful practices.
Well, giving is actually one of those things that can be on the top of your list because it also adds as the pillars of wellbeing go and adds purpose and meaning to your life as well. And it will for you and it will for your family and for everyone you touch to top it off. It ripples. Five degrees of separation.
Okay. So every time you give, not only the person that you've touched, the planet that you've touched, maybe an animal that you've touched, that's going to spread to everybody around you and not just because somebody has watched you give, but because now you're a little bit happier. Now your mental health is a little bit better.
Your wellbeing is better. Everyone that's around you gets affected by that. So that means your kids are going to be happier because you're happier. Your husband or partner is going to be happier. [00:26:00] Cause you're happier. People at work are going to be happier because you're happier. It keeps rippling that way.
So this is the way that we can make that change is not only bringing your bags to the grocery store where you're going, well, that doesn't really make a big impact. It's actually how it impacts you yourself. And this is how we started our conversation. This is actually a method of self care. Giving is actually a way that we can care for ourselves and the world around us, which is absolutely, that was the part that blew me away when I started this.
I didn't know all that when I started this. And now it's like, well, this is the way that I care for myself is when I care for the world around me as well. And that's it for every single person in this world. It doesn't matter your race, your religion, your sex, your culture, the color of your skin, nothing.
This is how it affects. All of us. And this is how collectively we can actually change the world. Yes. Right. Wow. And then you go, wow. Right. And I even forgot about the stress part, [00:27:00] right? Who hears, you know, put your hand, are you stressed at all? Do you have any stress in your life? Well, giving reduces cortisol.
That's our stress hormone. It'll actually reduce that, which makes us healthier. Cortisol is the number one killer in society because it is. Sets off the cancer in our bodies. It creates so many other health issues when you can consistently and regularly with a daily habit, reduce your stress. All of a sudden you're healthier.
Yeah. Just amazing how it all ties in. Right. And we go, how does like, and that's for everybody. And that's like, yeah, that's for everybody. Yeah,
Mel: I love every single part of what you just said. And a couple things that come to mind. One is how accessible it is, right? Our life can be completely going to shit, right?
Like, you know, I, some of the things that I, we talk about on here, I think, well, you know, if my basic needs aren't met, [00:28:00] Which in some cases, in some listeners, they might not be. Absolutely. You know, how likely am I gonna be to have the capacity to, you know, run on the seawall for five kilometers in the morning, right.
Or two mm-Hmm. even just do some mindfulness because, you know, maybe I haven't, like just my brain's too full of the stress hormone to be able to do that. Right, absolutely. And I love that this is an option no matter who you are. And what your life is throwing at you right now to take 30 seconds and do one tiny thing and just start to have some intention in doing that.
Jacqueline: But, but isn't it a mindful practice then, right? Yes. People say I can't meditate. Yeah, I can't have a mindful practice. Right. My mind is too busy. Well, all of a sudden when your attention goes somewhere else, other than stuck in our head, which we all, right, we all have the monkey mind. We all have that inner voice that never stops chattering away.[00:29:00]
But the moment you take your attention away from here and it's outside of yourself to something else in the world, right? Now your heart is opened up. Right? That's mindful practice. That's meditation. You're opening your heart. You're putting it in your hands. You're giving it out to the world. All of a sudden, this is your mindful practice, which is getting you out of your head with intentionality, opening your heart, right?
And connecting to the world around you. That's a mindful practice. Funny how that works, isn't it? Right? Yeah. It's just connecting. It's like, what? Giving is a mindful practice? Well, all of a sudden you have a mindful practice, you have a health, health practice, you have a well being practice, you have a happiness habit.
And most of all, you're putting love into action, right? So you've incorporated one little intentional action in your day that can literally change everything.
Mel: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Right. And so the words that are [00:30:00] coming to my mind, given the name of the podcast and maybe even the name of this episode, might have to be just permission to give, because
Jacqueline: It's literally giving yourself permission, right? Yeah.
Mel: Yeah, exactly. Because I think, you know, I am naturally want to give all the time. I want to do things for others. I have that nurturing instinct and I think a lot of humans, but especially women do have that in us. And I hold it back sometimes because I feel like that's self care.
You know, because you can't give too much of yourself unless you give it back to yourself. But what you're saying is that it, it is permission to give because that is self care and it all ties in together. Giving to others is giving to yourself. And that is like, like, mind blown, makes complete sense.
And it's okay to give because it feels good.
Jacqueline: Right. What if we looked at our children and I went, [00:31:00] Oh, if I gave my child my full attention, Full attention for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever that was, right? Listen, I'm a mom, crap, I would so, there's lots of days I'd rather be on my phone than sitting with my child playing cars again, right?
But if I could just be present in that moment with my kid and give them my time, give them my time in full mindfulness for 15 minutes without any distractions, allowing me to get pulled in another way. If we did just that, That's giving, right? And that's giving ourselves permission to be present. Mindful practice, right?
That's giving ourselves permission to be there for our kids when they need it, without any expectation of anything else in return. And that's the, that's the big key with this giving part, is that you need to be present and intentional, and do it with no expectation of anything in return, because you already know the gift giving is, [00:32:00] right?
And we, we release that because sometimes we give to people and going, well, they're going to owe me, right? If I do this for them, they're going to owe me. Right? Nah, there's none of that. There's no owing. There's, there's, there's none of it because the true nature of who we are. And, and I think that's the big part that we miss a lot of the times is the fact that this runs through literally every cell of our body.
We were born with this, not only ability, but the gift of how good it feels when we give is Is our true nature. Right? When we come out into this world, and we're little babies, we all know this, especially if you're a mom, right? You are born pure, pure love. Like, there, like, there's not anything about you that isn't just pure love.
Right? And then we, as children, we go out into the world, and the program, programming begins, and we learn something different. Right? We're not born hateful. We're not born angry. We're not born [00:33:00] resentful. Right? None of those things, right? We're born just as little beautiful bundles of love, and then we go out into the world and the world teaches us lots of other things.
So what we have to remember is that our true nature is actually exactly what I'm talking about. Our true nature is happy. Our true nature is love. Our true nature is just being in a state of presence. That's what babies are. They're just present right where they are. Right? There's no worrying about tomorrow.
There's no worrying about what happened yesterday. They don't have that capability as of yet. So when we get back to the true nature of who we are, that's when we feel at our best. Right. We're literally standing in the most powerful place that we can be in ourselves when we're standing in that true nature of just happiness and joy and contentment and bliss.
Yes. And one of the
Mel: things we often talk about on here is how, you know, we're talking about big audacious dreams, right? But in order to get into the dreaming mode, we need to Get into the mode where we feel a little happier, where we feel a little more, you know, ourselves, [00:34:00] essentially. Because, let's face it, most of us don't feel ourselves for a while at the beginning of motherhood.
And once we're back to ourselves, we can start to dream. And you know, this is perhaps a little thing that we can do to get ourselves feeling that again. To get back to ourselves in order to then dream. Mmhmm. Yeah. And it's okay if you don't know the big dream. Like, you probably, I'm assuming, didn't know you were going to start this big charity or, or movement in the world when you thought, I'm gonna teach my son to give something every day.
Jacqueline: Right? I think the, the big, I think the big challenge with big dreams, and listen, I'm not, I'm the biggest dreamer ever going on. I think the, the big challenge with our big dreams too, is that when we dream so far in front of us. And there's a big dream where we see ourselves potentially in the future, which I think is an amazing thing to do.
I'm always, I'm the Matthew McConaughey speech, right? [00:35:00] I'm almost always chasing myself 10 years from now, right? I am my greatest hero 10 years from now and, and keep moving towards that. That in some ways also says, well, I'm not enough right now. That what I'm doing and where I am right now is not enough.
And I think the beautiful thing about giving and having a purpose right where you are right now and creating that meaning in our life is that the dream is just, it's just the fun of the experience. It's the fun of getting there. It's experiencing life at its best. When I dream, that's like me being fully alive somewhere doing what I love.
Right. But what I know is that I'm really happy where I am too. I love my life now after working on this, after practicing it, after all of the things that I do to make sure that I'm really good where I am right now, because what I know is that dream down the road, you can get there. Listen, when I was working on that Ted talk, [00:36:00] that was the dream.
Oh my God, just to get through the damn talk. And all I wanted to do, if I could touch, my goal was if I could touch one person. That was my dream with that talk. If I could just inspire one person in, on that stage, I presented in front of 3000 people that day. It's the scariest thing I ever did in my life.
But if I can inspire one person, that was enough. Right. So 10 years later, has it inspired 8 million? Holy crap. Right. That's the fun I could never have imagined, you know, is that, but if we can just be where we are, and if our dream is, is how can I purposefully positively affect one thing today, right?
Because I think all of our dreams are, how can I touch more? How can I be more? How could I? affect more. Our dreams always lead to that in one way. It's like, probably with your podcast, if I can touch one, if I could touch 10, 000, if I could touch a billion, right, whatever that number [00:37:00] is, that's part of that bigger dream that it's more.
And what if we're always just, what if it's just one? What if today it's just one step I take towards my dream? What if today it's just I touch one person? What if today I can make a positive impact on something around me or fulfill that dream a little bit more? But sometimes I think that dream is so far in front of us that we forget that just being here is.
When we're enough right here, the more is just great.
Mel: Yes, I look, I think that that is the conversation to have, right? That is the conversation because I am the dreamer. Obviously that's the like theme of the podcast. And if you went into the like StrengthsFinder stuff, futuristic is my skill. So I love being in that space of, thinking big.
I literally feel like I'm there if I'm in that space, right? Or someone else's space. I can dream for them too. I'll just dream all day long. And. This paradox, like you say, of going back to being present, [00:38:00] is You know, that's just as important. And actually that we'll never get to those dreams. Those dreams are amazing and they will help us manifest and notice things that we need to notice to get there.
Even if we didn't do anything purposely. Dreaming big helps us, like, notice different things. And alongside that, then just let yourself be. Right? With some intention as you say, start to notice, be present. And, and give, and give to the world.
Jacqueline: Yeah. And take your children along for the ride because it will be so fun for them.
And they're,
Mel: they're getting all of those happy hormones, right? Like,
Jacqueline: everything that they need as well. If our kids are happy and, and listen, this month, you know, I love we're talking about this as well because this happens to be International World Happiness Day is at the end of this month. And so for me this month, and especially with our charitable organization, that's all we do is we, we talk about happiness.
And what we know for our [00:39:00] children and what the world happiness report tells us about our children is if your kids have a happy childhood, their chances of being successful and happy in their adulthood. are exponentially 85 percent higher. Forget university, forget them being a doctor and a lawyer and all those other things we think it's so important for our children to do.
If you have a happy childhood, that's going to determine your success in the future. Right? Because then we're regulated. We're emotionally regulated. Our brains are regulated. Our bodies are regulated. We're not getting sick. We're not suffering. I mean, you want a generation of kids suffering in anxiety and stress.
That's it. Right now. Right? That's where our kids are living. We don't want that for our kids. Right, we want them ultimately to have a happy life. We think that if they get their degrees and their university and their careers and all that, look at your own life. Has that given you the ultimate happiness?
I'm not saying it [00:40:00] doesn't bring you happiness, but is that the ultimate happiness? Not really. Our happiness is when we're on holiday, sitting on a beach on a lawn chair. Being or whatever your happy places when you're being, and very few people, it's actually when they're at work, right? So you might have moments at work that you're happy, but when you're actually in that state of being in the presence of just being, right, you're not actually doing a lot.
You're actually relaxing. You're calm. You're might be doing something you love. I know for me, being out on my garden, you know, Right? That's my state of happiness is just when I'm out there, you know, or honestly, sitting up on my deck in the sun, just doing nothing. I'm sometimes at my happiest. So that's what we need to look at our own lives.
And then when we look at our children, what do we really want for them? And if you want your child to be happy, look at their happiness. Don't look at anything else. Look [00:41:00] at how you're cultivating happiness and your families and you're cultivating, creating, and giving them the opportunity to understand happiness for themselves and how to create it in their lives.
Cause you know, when we say happiness is a choice. It is. I'm not saying things from the outside world don't come in, they come. I'm not saying you're not going to be sad if somebody dies. I'm not saying that there's not going to be stressors in your own life, but we can create and cultivate happiness for ourselves.
And that is our choice. Every single day, every single moment, we get to choose how we're going to feel. And if we're not feeling so good, we get that opportunity to choose habits, techniques, tricks, strategies. They're all out there that we can choose something else for ourselves. Yeah. Permission
Mel: to, to choose happiness, right?
And, and to feel all those other feelings, hard things happen in life are meant and designed to have ever the whole spectrum of all the [00:42:00] things, right? And once that's moved through our body, through these practices, which will help it move through as well. We can feel happy. Happiness feels so good. Right?
Exactly. Exactly. My son actually asked me the other day, like, why do bad things happen? And he's, he's like five, right? And he was talking about like, He skinned his knee or something, right? Like, why do bad things happen? And I was like, well, like, they kind of need to happen. He's like, what? I was like, well, they're really important.
Why? Like, he couldn't get his head around this. Like, why would you want me to skin my knee, right? I'm like, well, because Then the times when you're not having bad things, quote unquote, happen, they feel really good,
Jacqueline: good feelings, really good, right? If we didn't know, it's like black and white, right? We wouldn't know what white was if there wasn't black, right?
We wouldn't know what love was if we didn't feel fear, right? We wouldn't know what happiness was if we didn't know what sadness was. Right? Then we'd all [00:43:00] just be these kind of monochromatic people walking around doing the same thing in this, you know, perfect X. It's not why we came, right? We were given the gift of all of it to experience all of it, but always know how to come back to our true nature.
Right? The gift of being in our true nature and how to get back to it and it comes faster and faster. And these are the conversations we keep saying when you practice happiness and you know, and you have, we have at home we created over COVID with my kids. I created a happiness toolbox so that they had all the tools in their box that they knew that when they weren't feeling so good and they felt a little locked in or a little trapped or we couldn't do all the things we could go into that happiness toolbox and we knew all the things.
Yeah. That we could try to start making us feel happier could be music. It could be playing in the art. It could be sitting, drawing. It could be whatever those things were dancing in the kitchen, making cookies. We knew what those tools were for ourselves. Cause they were different for each of us. Nobody has the same happiness [00:44:00] toolbox.
They're all a little bit different. And one day. Dancing in the kitchen is going to work. One day it's not, right? One day it's going to feel great when you get on the phone with a friend and you talk about old times or new times or times coming. That's going to feel really good. Some days it's not. Yeah.
So when you have a toolbox full of your little moments that you know turn on happiness, happiness is like a switch. We can turn on on our bodies, right? This is this chemical reaction I was talking about. We can turn this on for ourselves. That's the tool we've been given this body, this human form. It has all these cool little switches in it.
You just got to learn how to turn your switches on and then you get to change the way you view life. You know, when I'm teaching happiness classes in school to children, I give them all each a pair of, I should have had them down here. They each get a pair of sunglasses that are blue and they're in the shape of a heart.
And so when we're talking about, you know, what lens do you want to look out at the world through? Well, wouldn't you rather look out through the lens of [00:45:00] happiness and love than the world that It shows us through media, a lot of the times, which is hopelessness and war and crisis and so many other negative things I'm not even going to get into, but we can choose to look at life through a different lens because again, I'm going to go back to it.
When we're happier, the world around us is happier as well. And that's how we're going to create change in our world is when it starts individually with each of us. And then it spreads out from there. That's brilliant.
Mel: Okay, I'm gonna start to pull us through a close, even though I could probably talk to you for two more hours about all of this stuff, to be honest.
Jacqueline: We're on the same page, so we we definitely
Mel: could. Yeah, for sure. So maybe, we always finish with a, a one tip you would like to give to the people listening, that they could go away and do, or, you know, just something you would like to tell them, in terms of making their lives easier. Be what they want it to
Jacqueline: be.[00:46:00]
Start noticing. Start really recognizing how you feel. Become aware of where you're at. If you're not feeling so happy, just be aware of that and start asking yourself why. And then the next question I want you to ask, ask yourself is what would love do right now? If love was a person, what would love do right now?
What would love think? What would love say? And how would love take action? You know, love is a verb. It's not just an emotion. It's a verb and it can change everything for you. So start noticing how you're feeling. And if you don't like how you feel, what would love to. What would it start thinking? What would it say to you?
Right? How can you start soothing yourself with love? How would you start talking to yourself? How do you start talking to the people around you and then go take [00:47:00] action? What would love do right now? Oh, keep asking yourself. I love it Just keep asking because I promise you love would not sit down on the couch curled up in a ball Not being able to move stuck in stress and anxiety Love would get up and move.
Love would go out and connect with a tree in your backyard. Love would go out and care and nurture for someone else. or something else. Love would pick up your cat or your dog and hug it till you just started feeling better, right? Love would go out and take care of the garden and start pulling out the weeds that get stuck in our lives and get stuck in our mind and clear them all out so there was more space for joy and happiness in our lives.
Mel: Amazing. Okay. So I'm sure there'll be plenty of people that are so keen to hear more from you, what you're up to, where can they find you?
Jacqueline: Where can they find you? Absolutely. Well, you know what are their best place? I don't have a personal website. 365give is, is me. [00:48:00] So that's where they can find us at 365give.
ca. We are Canadian and proudly. You can also find us on Twitter. You can find us on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook. And if you want to find me personally, you can find me personally on LinkedIn. And that's Jacqueline way. Amazing.
Mel: And I challenge, I'm giving myself this challenge to start this.
Tomorrow, like tomorrow, I'm talking to my kids, my whole family. We're going to make a list. We're going to get this going. And I want to challenge everybody listening to figure out how to do that for yourself. Listen,
Jacqueline: go to our website. If you go into our programs, there's a list you can download. It's right there.
You just download it, print it off. You can start it right away. Do that and listen, reach out to me. I'm the person, even though I have a team of volunteers that post on Instagram for me, if you want to talk to me, I'm the one that answers messages on Instagram. So I just had somebody literally yesterday from the other side of the world, go, Hey, I want to bring this into my community.
What do I do? Right. And so we've already started that plan. We're doing the same thing with her you [00:49:00] know, and reach out to your friends, because if you're doing it with, especially with moms, like how cool would it be if a group of moms were doing this together and start to find some sanity in motherhood, right?
Yes. So, so go do that. Go find that sanity with a group of moms. We have mom groups and mom friends and all of that. Do this as an activity with your kids every day. And so it's not just sitting at the library, going to the library programs or the community center to go for a swim. Now you've got an activity you can all do together.
That's going to bring so much purpose and happiness and joy to, to your own, all of your own worlds. I wish I had done it. You know, I didn't, I didn't, but I should have when I was doing this with Nick, I should have started my own mom group. That's what I would do now. Amazing. And
Mel: you may well find that that's exactly what happens over on these parts.
So
Jacqueline: I'm in, I'm coming for a visit. You start your mom group. I'm coming over to the island. Perfect.
Mel: Sounds great. Okay. Thank you so much for joining us. for having
Jacqueline: a Namaste [00:50:00] everyone.
She's pretty fabulous. Right? I hope you enjoy that episode with Jacqueline way and do go and check out. Her Ted talk again. It's called how to be happy every day. It will change the world. Just Google that and it will come up. It is. Amazing. And go over to 365, give and check it out because I'm super inspired to go and do things.
And coming up on April 25th, they have a do one give day, which is a great way for. You as a family or if you have a business or a school or whoever is a great way to. Make the promise to give for that day to launch giving for more. So go and check that out at 365. Give. Dot CA.
That is it, folks. This has been Mel Findlater on Permission to Be Human, [00:51:00] the podcast, and I am so glad that you have joined us here today and hope that you have taken away some tidbits that will help you go away, connect with your big audacious dream, and make that massive impact in the world that you are dying to make.
If you liked today's episode, please, please, please Like it, share it. Think of one person. Think of one person that you think would also like it and send it on over to them. Let's get this out there and more moms feeling like themselves. Inspired, Dreaming big and out there. Please do head on over to find me on Facebook with permission to be human or Instagram or you can even Off me an email and say hello.
Have permission to be human always at gmail. com say hello and let me know that you listened. What did you like about it? I would love to hear if you [00:52:00] didn't like it. I don't really want to know. Just kidding. You can share that if you want. I would love to know, however, who you are. Let's connect. Let's find out what you want more of.
I want to hear from you and I want to make it what would be useful to you. As always, remember that you have permission to dream big, permission to feel big, and permission to be you. You have complete and full permission to be human. For real, you do.
