Sense of Soul - Don’t Just Sit There, DO NOTHING

Episode Date: August 19, 2022

Today on Sense of Soul we have, Jessie Asya Kanzer, she is a speaker, writer, former reporter and actress. Jessie was born in the Soviet Union and at the age of eight, she emigrated with her family to NY where she lives today with her two daughters and husband.  Jessie joined us to tell us all about her new book “Don’t Just Sit There, DO NOTHING, Healing, Chilling and Living with the Tao Te Ching.” For years, Jessie felt like a failure, unable to hustle hard enough to “make it,” either as an actress or in the rat race. Her childhood as a Russian immigrant in post-Cold War America heightened her insecurity and threatened her identity, desperate as she was to fit into a culture that was alien at best and hostile at worst. This loss and eventual reclamation of her sense of self sent her on a spiritual journey during which she discovered the Tao Te Ching, which changed everything for her.  Jessie continues to write and is currently working on her next book on Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who she had the honor of being in a film with years ago.  Follow her on Instagram at @jessiekanzer https://jessiekanzer.com https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv6tqyjT0w8 Visit Sense of Soul at www.mysenseofsoul.com Do you want Ad Free episodes? Join our Sense of Soul Patreon, our community of seekers and lightworkers! https://www.patreon.com/senseofsoul Try KACHAVA! Your Daily Superblend. For your gut, your brain, your muscles, your skin, your hair, your heart. Your whole health. Use this link below!  https://www.kachava.com/senseofsoul

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us Jessie Asya Kanzer. Jessie joins us to tell us all about her new book, Don't Just Sit There, Do Nothing, Healing, Ch chilling, and living with the Tao to Ching. Jessie, thank you so much for being with us. It is so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well. I'm Mandy and I'm here in Parker, Colorado.

So just got back from camping all weekend. How are you? I'm good. I love camping. We were not camping this weekend, but we do love Colorado. Are you in New York right now? I am. I'm in New York.

How about you? I'm in Colorado as well. You're in Colorado. Got it. Yeah. I'm in New York, just outside of the city. We're in Westchester. You know, obviously seeing your website and.

Yeah. Stalked you. So. That's what I love to do. I mean, that's what we all love to do in this day and age. Yeah. I loved your little clip that you did. And I love what you said at the beginning that our children serve as mirrors of our forgotten selves, which

I thought really, I got, it almost like made me emotional thinking about my own children and then thinking about myself. And then I kept going and then I was thinking about my mom and I was not her mom and how very true that is. But we are evolving as women, too. And so society, even though still has a lot of work, but I see a lot of hope for our girls. Yeah, I do as well. I mean, there's, it's definitely sometimes two steps forward, one steps back as we see on the national scale, but I agree with you. I have a lot of hope as well. We're evolving as human beings. It's just not a linear process for the collective sometimes. That's what I was going to say. Like we are evolving humanity, but yet society has to catch up. But you know what? Sometimes that makes sense to me from the spiritual perspective,

because when you evolve and you grow, there's always pushback for those that fear change, right? That fear the evolution. So it's part of it. It's part of the uncomfortable, the video, you putting it in like cartoon characters, there was something to be said about that I didn't do that that was a collaboration I wish right I was this but but yes they did a really nice job I think they did yeah it made it relatable it made it soft it made it like Shanna said emotional like it was just of course you could use the word cute but it was way much more than that yeah it's also something you could show to like a younger teen

and grasp their attention longer. And you know, there was a word that you used at the beginning that I don't, I don't hear very often. And it is displease. You didn't know how to displease. You know, most people use the word, like, I just, I didn't know how to say no. Yeah. I sat with that word for a minute because I feel like that was me too. My whole life. I didn't want to dis please people. Like what does that word mean to you? It just means listening to yourself because when you listen to yourself, you're going to displease someone. It's almost a fact of life. You can't please everyone. Right. So when you start going within, which is what I use the do nothing for,

like when I, in the book, don't just sit there, do nothing, it's kind of a play on words because we're never doing nothing. And I believe that the most important work that we do is during the doing nothing, because that's the eternal work of connecting to our voice, our own knowing.

And so when we listen to that voice, someone's going to be displeased. But when we put our focus externally on keeping everyone pleased and keeping no one displeased, we really lose sight of ourselves. That video was even called Why I'll Raise My Daughters to be Strong. And I just, I keep going back to like the strong connection I'm feeling with your ancestors and mine and Mandy's and all of ours yeah they didn't have the space to use their voice this wasn't something that was created for the generations before us especially like the silent generation and prior to that I mean i always laugh and i think it's not funny actually whatsoever but mandy actually literally had an ancestor like in the 16 1700s

that they cut her tongue out which explains mandy in many ways i would have no time they would have they would have sewn my mouth shut. Well, you have a podcast now. Right. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Powerful seizure voice after knowing that you came from generations and generations of women who were not to speak, who just were pleasing and to speak would be to displease. Right.

Right. To speak outside of one spoken to especially, right? Yeah. What it made me reflect on was my grandmother and my mother were never afraid to speak their minds when they needed to. And that's how I am. And so then we were called bitches. So when you did use your voice and stand up for yourself, then you were considered being harsher or more masculine and bitchy. You know, what's interesting, we definitely get painted. I was always painted as crazy.

You get painted as something negative for sure. We all have different energies, right? Some of us are quote unquote aggressive sometimes, right? Then you get called bitchy. Some of us like me, like I was never, you know, maybe I was scared, but I never was able to keep my emotions within myself. So they always came out and they were a lot and I was a lot. And so I got labeled crazy a lot. And I used to believe that label. And honestly, if I'm being truthful, sometimes within

my own family, my family of origin. And they're wonderful people. But the thing is, we're all conditioned by the societies we come from. And we buy into that conditioning, women included. And so that's why actually women also often label each other as crazy, bitchy or whatever. Women can be a part of that labeling as well, because we were conditioned. And then when we see somebody being free, in essence, what I hope is we're freed by that. But some people are also frightened by that. And so then you get called bitchy, or you get called crazy, or, you know, because it scares people. Freedom can be scary. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think one thing that was very helpful in my journey was

Shanna had kind of taught me about the pause, just kind of pausing and then detaching with love is what I call it. But what I found was the piece for me that I was forgetting to do was those normal emotions that would just fly out of me. Cause I'm like you, like I can't hold a man. Yeah. It literally would like just weigh on my lungs. And that's how I've always been since I was a little girl. So when I started to shift and trying to find that freedom, the important piece for me was finding a way to still be able to let that out because keeping it in would just be suffocating myself. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. And I spend a lot of time on antidepressants, not that I'm

anti-antidepressants or medication, but I do think I read recently a New York Times article about how many of us are medicated and how easily we get medicated. And it made me look at my own journey with medications. I'm off of everything now because I also use a lot of tools. I use meditation and I use the pause that you spoke of. And I use a lot of tools for my wellbeing nature, which we talked about. I use nature a lot, but again, I'm not telling everyone to get off antidepressants or anti-anxiety meds, but I thought it's interesting that in the last several decades, so many of us did end up getting medicated. And when I got off of my medication, which is actually very difficult to do the longer you've been on, I found the need to process all of that stuff that, as you said, suffocates us if we don't express it. And so I really needed to

kind of review how I deal with the discomfort so that it doesn't pulverize me into a state of depression where I'm not functional, but how can I use all those emotions? A lot of us, honestly, a lot of us on the spiritual path, a lot of us are empaths and we can define ourselves however we want but a lot of us just feel very deeply and we feel our own emotions and those of other people so finding a healthy way to process those to let those out for me a lot of it is in my writing but we all need to find ways to let it out because we can't just you know we could we could sit with We can medicate ourselves. We could end up on drugs. We can do lots of things that are not really for our highest good, or we can go the route of trying to figure it out. And it's a, it's an ongoing process. Yeah. And it's work. I mean, you have to use the tools. Yeah. Writing

for me was definitely one as well and a good way to get things out. Yeah. And I would just write and write and write and couldn't stop, you know, sometimes for sure, just mindfulness, you know, just being mindful and just being present and grounding yourself. Yeah. And don't just sit there, do nothing. I think at one point I said, I can't, I can't remember which chapter now, but I said that I, at this point, I feel like my entire life is a spiritual practice. Yeah. I think that's probably something you ladies share with me because we've been on this journey for a long time. And so there's not any one thing that I do anymore. It's like everything. It's like all of it, right? It's the way, because in essence, everything is spiritual and everything is an

opportunity. So as they say, you know, the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. That's another spiritual perspective. So the way you deal with the point in the day when your kids make you really anxious is the way you deal with all anxiety. The way you deal with work when it's overwhelming is the same way you deal with overwhelming your family. So everything in life becomes an opportunity to maybe shift something to make it a little more freeing, flowing, whatever word you want to use a little better of an experience. I like that. There was another part of the video that really just stuck out to me and it was you talking about inclusivity. I loved how you said, how can we be kind to those who need it the most? And that hit me so hard because I think, especially if you look at our high schools

and the teen suicide rates have gone up so much, those are the people that need it the most, but it's almost like the teens that are doing well, that are popular, that are fitting in, don't even know how to approach the ones that are quiet, that need the kindness the most. Like in Alcoholics Anonymous, they call it bridging the gap. How do we bridge that gap? I think it's almost uncomfortable, but that's what came to my mind when you were talking about that. How can we be kind to those who need it the most? And how do we know that they need it if they're quiet? So, and I know we live in different states. In my little suburb of New York, in my kid's elementary school, they have what they call a buddy bench, where it is known that if you sit

there, you would like a buddy to play with, and you don't have to say anything. Oh, I like cry just thinking about it. I just think it's such a beautiful idea to have something as easy as a bench put in where a person and of course, that starts at a younger age. This is we're not talking about high school where everyone's too proud to show that they might need extra love. But I do believe that starting as early as possible is key. Starting as early as possible, the understanding that it is on us to make that extra step to someone who might be sitting in a place where they're literally with their body asking for a friend. Oh God, you're going to kill me. Yeah. It's lovely. I know. I know. I think what's so beautiful about the buddy bench

is that like you said, they don't have to say it because that's the hard part, right? So it's just this simple act of just going over and sitting there oh my god I love that what I thought of is that someone like Ethan who is autistic he's 18 now but he would have not had any shame and sitting there so he would have sat there all day every day I know he would have and you know? Not everybody would have come up to him, but somebody would have. Oh, I know. He would have really benefited from that. Yeah. And the other thing is, and this is what I've learned and we all learn with our kids, we all get hurt and we all get left out at some point, no matter who we are. Even those quote unquote popular kids. I mean, my daughter, the younger one is super social and very kind of puts herself out there and into situations. She kind of doesn't,

she doesn't yet have that wall up, which protects her. And sometimes she gets rejected. You know, there's definitely been tears about that. That's, I think that's always the hardest part, isn't it? Of mothering, of parenting, watching your child be hurt. But then the reality of hurt is part of life. Suffering is part of life and learning how to use our suffering is the key. So because that happens to all of us, when I talk to my kids, I bring that up, even though they don't have knock on wood right now, any social issues and they're good and blah, blah. But I bring that up because they've all had those moments and multiple moments. And so I say, remember, you don't want somebody else to be feeling the way you felt when so-and-so said this to you, or so-and-so didn't sit with

you on the bus and you were by yourself. So if you have a chance, and then I also use, and you know, this is, I cheat in this way. I use my personal story. So as you mentioned in that New York times video, I told my personal story. I came to America as a refugee. I turned eight on route. We lived in other countries. I came from the Soviet union. My father's actually Ukrainian. I was born in Latvia and coming as a refugee to America on the heels of the Cold War. And I spoke Russian was not easy. And so there's a lot of being left out, but harsher than being left out. Let's just say there was a lot of being made fun of, et cetera. And so I use my story all the time with

my kids because I want them to understand that if they end up with a child in their class that doesn't speak English as well as they do, that's a reason to be an extra level kinder. And so that helps because I have that story and that helps me cheat. And I, you know, I've spread it because I we have a pretty tight knit community. A lot of other people I've told it to other kids and the neighborhood kids, because I want to be able to use my own former suffering to teach others to just be an inch kinder, just an inch. If everyone was just an inch kinder, we would move mountains. Wow. Yeah. You know, I was thinking when you said that. My oldest daughter, she just recently, she really, really wanted this job.

It was a lot of money. But I was kind of thinking to myself, I think she's going to be bored in this position. But anyways, she does the interview and they love her so much and they call her and I'm thinking, well, she for sure got the job. She's outside talking to the person forever. She comes back in, she didn't get the job and she was like upset for like 2.4 seconds. I mean, literally. And she was like, okay, well, I guess that wasn't really meant to be, but that's okay. You know, something better is going to come and I can see why, but like her thought process was like, there's a reason why I didn't get this job. And it's not because of me. And I was like, holy crap. And I knew that I had shared that with her, that she got that for me. I mean,

yes, as well from her experiences, I'm sure, but it's my belief and part of my practice. It was amazing to see that because I mean, some people would have been devastated for that disappointment. You know, it felt like a failure, but like, why am I not good? We would have, right? Like we would have in our time. I not good but we would have right like we would have in our time yes yes I would have as well but I think that I mean that's got to feel so strong because my kids are still little and they do sometimes repeat the things I've said and that's always gratifying but it must be so gratifying to see as an adult doing that in the world because of those things would don't just sit there, do nothing.

My hope was always people ask me like, I'm not a very good business person per se. So when they were asking me like, who did you write it for? And I realized it took me a while to realize I wrote it for my younger self, but I just want like, that is exactly what I want younger people to know because it's what I wish I understood

that every failure is a detour in the right direction, that there's no such thing as failure. Recently, I did not set a very good example for my daughter. I had to go in full code red mama bear mode on another mom because her child has literally been causing issues in my daughter's life for four years of high school. And she showed up at my house at like one 30 in the morning, the mom like drunk and wanted to take her daughter home. And so I got in an altercation with her in my driveway and told her to get the F off my property. And like, I've never gone like full code red mama bear, but it was because her daughter had said some very

hurtful things to my daughter that night. And then on top of it, it was late and I was exhausted and there was no reason for her to come to my house that late and wake up my dogs and wake up my family. And I really had to find some grace for myself the next day because it had been building up for years, but I was like, you know what? It's okay. It's okay. Mandy, give yourself some grace. Actually. I thought I didn't handle it very well, but other people were like, you handled it very well. It was interesting because my daughter was so quick to just forgive her for all of these things that she had said. And for the situation that she had put her in that night. And somehow it was always my daughter's fault. And I was like, well, if, if Turner wasn't that upset about it, then why did

upset me so much, you know? And so I had to really take a step back and be like, maybe was it time for me to voice for her or should I have not stepped in and let her voice for herself. So it was one of those, those, those mom moments where I was very confused and it was very interesting when I watched your video, it automatically went to a next video. Um, you know how it does that. Yeah. And it went to this mom and she's talking about how the baby came out while she was giving birth and she placed the baby on her chest and instantly she felt the weight of her baby on her chest and she loved her baby so much. But in that moment, she felt the heaviness of what it was going to be like to be a parent. And I kind of liked that like visual

for me because it's true in that moment, you love them so much, but then your responsibilities as a parent and the heaviness of making sure you're a good mom, just, it's a lot. And we make mistakes along the way. And how do we as parents find that grace, you know, for ourselves? Oh, I love mistakes. I mean, yes. We're allowed to feel bad for a second, but I would also argue, you know, obviously, I don't know the details of your mama bear moment. But I would argue it's a beautiful thing for your daughter to remember that she's got someone who has her back. That is powerful. That is a beautiful reminder, even if it came out in quote, unquote, crazy, which, which you remember, I get that title too sometimes, but I definitely did.

You know, it's so funny. I was recently remembering, I like to think of my first child as my younger brother. He's five years younger than me. And when we came here, I had to take a lot of care of him because, you know, my parents were so busy building a life and whatnot. And I felt the responsibility. He was a really sweet and innocent child. He got picked on and he recently came out and I think he's had his own tumultuous path, but I always felt a lot of responsibility for him before I had my kids. And a lot of it was because, you know, my parents couldn't be as present as I am actually these days with my kids. And, and I remember a moment when I was a child, when another adult was being really mean to him. And

I'm a very, at least used to be a very non-confrontational person, but sometimes something takes over. And so I was maybe 10, nine or 10, and I got into a major confrontation and sometimes things take over. And if, when something takes over, that's bigger than you, you're not always, you know, sometimes I like to think we're all channels in some form or another, and sometimes forces take over that are bigger than us and stuff needs to come out. And then, you know, even if it was a mistake, I talk to my kids and yes, they're younger all the time. Like mommy made a mistake. Mommy made a mistake if it was a mistake, I talk to my kids and yes, they're younger all the time. Like mommy made a mistake. Mommy made a mistake. It's a constant, like mistakes are okay. We're

not perfect. And I think that's a really important teaching that I actually, they have given back to me a lot of times, like, well, you don't need to be perfect. You can't be perfect. No one's perfect. Cause that's what I tell them a lot. Yeah. Even if it is a mistake or even if it's not a perfect way of being. And I've even seriously, I think maybe I've retrained my, my brain to actually see mistakes. You know, any of that pushback that we were talking about earlier of society, all of it as, okay, this is an opportunity to learn. You know, this is an opportunity to grow from this. This is an opportunity maybe to expand ourselves and go a little bit deeper or further out,

you know, seeking something more. Our listeners are going to get sick when we talk about this, but as I'm going into menopause, having that pause is more natural for me. It's not like a conscious thing anymore so much. And I don't know if that, I think it did come with menopause because of my hormones, but you know, I'm not so flying off the seat with my emotions in that pause, you know, you can analyze everything, you know, is this moment really going to destroy me? Is it going to kill me? You know, where's my fight or flight doesn't need to be there. You know, it's interesting. Negative is just the opposite of positive.

Such a good point because, you know, I've been working with the Dowdy Ching for a long time. That's what my first book is about. And the Dowdy Ching, which translates as the book of the way, it's really all about the paradoxes of with everything good, there is a bad. With everything bad, there is a good. And if you don't mind, I want to share like one line from my epilogue in there that I think you will like because it speaks to just that. It says, the thing I'd like to tell you here, one last note, if you will, is that even if you follow none of my suggestions, not a single one, you're doing the Tao, which again means the way. Even if you don't like much of what I've written, you're doing it and doing it well, because there is no other way. The good and bad classifications we give ourselves are simply impositions on is-ness. So it's just a

reminder. We just are. Yes. Just impositions on isness, our judgments on ourselves and in fact, even on other people are just in positions on isness. Okay. So how would you describe that word? Is this just what is the beingness of everything? Right. So I think that as humans, we've been conditioned, we've been born into a world that distinguishes certain things as good, certain things as bad, good, evil. And when we can just take a step back, everything is as it is. Another phrase I like is God is, and it's not a religious phrase. It's just literally everything is god is the divine is the dao exactly as it is and that is really hard for the human mind to really wrap itself around there's so much pain that is in the world as well yeah so that's something I practice as well. I try to. Acceptance. Yeah. Knowing that's exactly how it's supposed to be. Yeah. That fullness is the emptiness. Yeah. It is hard

for humans to get there though, because we're just so conditioned from generations. You're from the descendants of Holocaust. Yeah. I, you know, that was something in my tree when I was looking for, my last name is Bavra, B-A-V-R-A. And when I was looking for some of my ancestors, I found like five pages of Bavras in the Holocaust. And I was like, wait, what? Why don't I even know? I didn't even know this. Like, this is something I was never even told, which is so sad. Yeah. But you know, it still lives in you, even if it hasn't been spoken. Oh, epigenetics is a real, it's been proven it's in our body. It's like these unawarenesses that are subconsciously living within you that keep you from evolving in many ways, unless you bring the

awareness to it. I mean, I, for myself, those were my major breakthroughs, you know, just having the awareness of my ancestors was so well, man, you could tell you this, that's a huge part of my story. Yeah. And you're absolutely right. Because once you see something, it stops holding its power over you. This is why I think that we suffer so much as humans, because a lot of our lives are kind of manned by our subconscious and unconscious selves, which includes our generational trauma that we carry. And so we're not aware of it. And so we're working very consciously towards this way. But all of those unconscious factors really rule the way our life unfolds. And so just shining the light of awareness is in and of itself a huge healing. Absolutely. And I think making sure not to hold on to emotions while you're going through it.

Because, I mean, when I was looking at my ancestry, I at one point got so angry at men, I had to put it aside, because I saw these patterns in there. And I'm sure obviously for you. So it's like it is work as well, because you get angry, and then you get sad, you then you have to find a place for forgiveness. And then you have to find that place of acceptance. It is what it is, like you said. And so epigenetics is a whole nother level of awareness that I think has become very like mainstream and is being talked about a lot lately. So I mean, now we're talking about a whole nother way of being able to look at our DNA and realize that some of the emotions and patterns we're actually carrying in our blood. Right. But you know what,

it does help me with, and I think that probably a lot of people is that self-forgiveness. Yes. You kind of understand some of these things I didn't even control. I was just, I just came in this way. And so I forgive myself for all of the past pain I continue to inflict on myself and I can do better from this moment forward. And not a hundred percent of the time because we're human. Yeah. I think that the greatest burden, the greatest anger and non-forgiveness we carry is towards ourselves. Yeah. It gave me a lot of self-forgiveness, but it also gave me a lot of empathy also towards close family members when I saw that they'd been through. Yeah. That's a good point. That's a good point that you bring up because I find the hardest to be my enlightened self sometimes is with like your parents, for example, you know, the people that

are responsible for your early childhood, it's hard to sometimes not be the child and to rise above. And you're right that it gives you a lot of understanding and forgiveness for your mother and your mother's mother and your mother's mother's mother and so on. And when you have that kind of forgiveness, you stop carrying all of that resentment that keeps you in that her child mode forever. Yeah. And you know, I feel like the more that I connected with those things and the more I was able to forgive, I honestly began to see a shift in even my mother, even though she wasn't going through what I was going through. Yeah. So I really do believe in that whole theory of, you know, you heal, they say seven lineages back and presently, and then seven in the future. Yeah. I love that because it's true

that our like current modern society is so focused on the now and next that we forget how much we carry with us. The piece of me that our listeners get sick of me talking about is that I love stories. And sometimes I find that when I get off a podcast, I'm like, oh, I wish I would have asked more of them to dig into not just the tools they're using now, but to the pain piece of it. Of course, it's hard to ask people to dig into that pain because tools they're using now, but to the pain piece of it. Of course, it's hard to ask people to dig into that pain because it's uncomfortable, right? But you shared it very rawly in the video too. You talked about how you wanted to fit in. You changed your name. You would steal your mom's makeup. You searched for attention from boys, which I totally did as well. I always found myself trying to validate myself through boys.

I also found myself acting very sexually, wanting their attention, but then the second they wanted it to go any farther, I'd panic and freak out and want to run away. You didn't speak very good English. Well, there, there's a lot of Hispanic people that are in our community that are in our schools, but the thing is they can find other Hispanic people within those rooms and in those schools. But for you, there's probably like no one else that was from the Soviet Union. So it's like, it was probably so isolating and terrifying for you, all of it. So I could see and feel why you were trying so hard to fit in. Sure. I wanted to be the standard American girl and I still do in many ways, you know, and I actually, it's funny because this is what I manifested. I live in a very

idyllic American town. I'm, I have an American husband, my kids are American and I love all of that, but you're right that sometimes we don't want to look at our pain because it's painful. But I think a lot of my book, Don't Just Sit There, Do Nothing was about like remembering, paying some homage to that little girl that existed before she became an American. Because sometimes I forget. And in fact, you know, currently watching the war in Ukraine, that's where my father's from. It brought up a lot of my past identity. And I'm appreciative of that because I think that a lot of America is based on forgetting your old identity. It's not just me. It's bigger than me. There's a lot of us. We have a lot of different lineages.

And I think that we did all want to become normal and you lose your original self in that. And so I spent a lot of time in the writing. That's what writing helps me with in my book. I spent a lot of time on my original identity. Who was I? Who was this person before she came and wanted to fit in and become all that before all of that painful stuff started? I was a girl in a different society. And I realized that my suffering of trying to belong, in fact, was a really big gift. And so, you know, I was sensitive before I left the Soviet Union. I had hurt feelings before all that. I was always, like I said, we're probably empaths. You two, both of you are probably empaths. I think that most of us

spiritual searchers are. And so I felt very deeply before all that. And I felt very deeply the tumultuous change of being this child refugee and acclimating. But the gift that it gave me is the ability to empathize with others, whoever and wherever they come from, because I did have to walk in different societies. I did have to become different people. And what that ultimately reminded me of is that we're actually all one, that wherever you come from, your differences and my differences are actually not as big as our unity, as our oneness, as our similarities. We all want the same thing. We all want love and acceptance, basically. Well, you really wanted the American dream too, right?

Did you think you were going to find that as an actress? You know, I had a lot of different pursuits in my time on this earth. I'm only 40, but I think that you can always fit in a lot of things if you really try. Yeah. And I tried. So I was right out of college. I became a news writer than a news reporter. I wanted so badly to be a news reporter that I was like, at that time it was analog and I was just putting together these VHS tapes and I would shadow reporters where I was writing, at that time it was analog and I was just putting together these VHS tapes and I would shadow reporters where I was writing and do my own standups. And so I got the news reporter job and I was reporting live and I hated it because I didn't like sticking my mic in people's

faces and like asking. And it just was like, there was just a lot of things I didn't like about it. So then I was like, what do I want to do? I want to be a talk show host. I want to be an actress. And I started pursuing that. But I think looking back, to be honest with you, a lot of my time was spent on the pursuing. My identity was so entrenched in the hustle that I don't think I was picturing myself as a successful actress, which is probably why I didn't become one. Like I did have parts. I did have things that I did, but I was really addicted to the chase. And I still find myself in those moments sometimes. And I pull myself back, but remember what we said, the awareness is part of the healing. So I know that. So I think that I lived in the chase versus contentment of getting what you wanted. Oh my gosh. That's so me. And I was, I've always been that way. And then moving

to Vegas didn't help. Oh my God. Yeah. Moving to LA for me didn't help either. Yeah. I just got caught up in the chase or, you know, and then also keeping up with the Joneses, you know, trying to, you know, have the same style home, the nicer cars, like, and then sitting there and looking at like all these certificates and degrees and things that I had done, but, but I would just get them and then do nothing with them because I was just chasing. That was me too. That was me too. It was the chase.

And then you get there and you're like, well, this sucks. Let me go on to the next thing. That's actually very true. Yeah. That's how I've always been. And you're right. Like it was also an adrenaline rush. It programmed my brain to being into that fight. And it was like, and sometimes I miss it, you know, and, and sometimes the contentment seems boring. For sure. You're absolutely right. It really does. Sometimes I agree with you.

Yeah. And then I realized, you know, I forgive myself for my desires to keep, you know, to, to be on that chase because it's also part of our human structure. So we're always wanting. So I think that for me, all of these Eastern philosophies, like the Tao that I studied, it helped me understand because the Tao always says like, just be content, rest in your own fullness. When you realize nothing's lacking, the whole world belongs to you. And I would be like, okay, okay, I'm going to rest in my fullness. And then there's the part of you that's like, but I want, but I want, but I want. And so for me understanding, and the Buddhism also teaches to let go of desire. And I was like, but that's not possible. And so then I understood that there's a differentiation between the human self and the higher self and the higher self is

content and the human self is not content. And so again, finding that balance, like, I think that it's okay. I think it's healthy to have desires. That's being human. That's being alive. Not attaching yourself to those desires is where I found the peace. Right. Right. Oh, that's a very, very good point. Not that attachment. Yeah.

You know, what's interesting is that I did an ancestry mini series and when it was done, it was done. Like I needed to do that and when it was done it was done like i needed to do that yeah and put it out there maybe that was part of the purpose of doing it to voice all of it and get it out there and then it was done it really was done it was very interesting all the researching all the connecting even to have this shaman ancestor really coming in strong it was only during that time it was very interesting then i started going through this other thing and where I was, I've been studying the Gnostic and all this thing and I'm making another series because I mean, I felt like it was a chase for a while, especially my ancestry. Cause I mean, it was like, I have to

figure out why this happened, where are these people are, you know, it was an investigation and you know what, you know, what's happened is that now there's intertwining with each other. I can feel like I did at the end of the ancestry. And I can tell that it's like the last chapters, but I think that there's sometimes just a purpose and my soul was being tugged at these things for me to learn in this lifetime. Right. And then, of course, and so, of course, you're filled with desire to do that. And I also am finding like the longer you live, the older you get, the more you start to see even your old pursuits, how they fit into the bigger puzzle of your life. True.

But it also allows you, I think, to practice that non-attachment because you realize there's no timeline when this needs to be achieved and that needs to be achieved because there's such a bigger picture we can't see in our small existence. Because as you get older and you start to see things in hindsight and they start to make sense, you kind of get like, I'm on a journey. I don't really see the bigger journey. So I'm just going to keep doing like one little step at a time and not get, I'm going to try not to get crazy with it. Yeah. Well, and I shared this lately that like I was chasing, chasing, chasing for two years, answers to so many different things, going down so many rabbit holes, I mean, all over the place. And I was really in my like higher

self most of the time, but I found that I was lacking the balance that it was like, I had to be in one or the other. Does that make sense? So it's like lately I've been really trying to force myself back into this earthly realm so I could be more like present with my children, my family, my home, my dogs, my, you know, like people around me that just want to go camping and not talk about like the spiritual shit that I normally like want to, because before like they didn't even interest me as humans. So I had to like come down for a moment and just, just be again and learn to be more earthly and accept that it's okay if they want to talk about the Kardashians or, you know, and not just brush

them off as being asleep, you know, and learning how to live within both of them. It was this balance that I've been fighting. I'm still fighting it. Oh, Mandy, you bring up, I think, such a good point that all of us spiritual empaths can relate to because it's the same, you know, for me, I find always the spiritual realm and the guides and all of that stuff is so fascinating and attractive to me that I too, like I could spend my entire life in that realm. But I too am a mom with normal, like mom responsibility. And like, and also it's just like a community of normal people who live there. And I say normal like mom responsibility. Yeah, I've been saying that all the time. And like, and also it's just like a community of normal people who live there.

And I say normal, not that we're not abnormal, but like, you know, the average person doesn't want to talk about the things we want to talk about. And you have to find ways to communicate with people lest you just end up being, you know, cause we're not monks living in an ashram, which is a really cool experience, I'm sure, but that's not the lives we lead. So finding that balance, that's probably

going to be our challenge always. I think. I think originally for myself, that's why we started Sense of Soul. Cause it was like, we're going through all of these things, but yet we're just like your average suburban mothers. So you do attract where your vibration is, you know what I mean? In your life period. I'm very thankful that I have the tribe that I have, because it is nice to have someone to have these conversations with. You bring up something for me is that vibration. So I was just putting out one vibration, and it was that higher self spiritual vibration. My goal was to be able to both vibrations of that balance so I could attract both. And if I were to look at it realistically and be honest with myself, there was some judgment around the, you know, not wanting to be around people that are asleep about

them wanting to talk about such surface conversations, the ones that are still just talking about politics and the news. And the reality of it was, it was, it's hard for me to find that balance because I desire to be able to have that oneness. I mean, that's what oneness is, right? Is being able to have that oneness with everyone, not just the ones that are in one realm versus the other. And so that it's been a real big challenge for me. Right. To understand that those people too are part of the magic that we're seeking. It's just that maybe they're just newer souls and welcome, welcome. Right. But seeing their magic is definitely harder than sitting here and talking with you ladies

who get everything I get. That's a really beautiful thing to have. And that's why it is important that you have sense of soul. I've also been able to find my tribe of people and they're not in my everyday, like the school moms are or whatever, but it's important to have the people and the podcasts that you can turn to, to remember that there are a lot of us who are understanding things in a different level, but it's not all of us yet. And that's okay. Absolutely. So what was your breaking point where you're like, you know what,

I'm putting this down on paper. I need to get this out of me. And let me also tell you that you're not cheating through your story. That's what your purpose is. Earlier you were saying, I feel like I'm cheating because I'm always using your story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, our stories are there to use for our purpose. So, you know. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Cheating is not the right word.

Using is more like it because that's what makes people remember our lessons. If I just sat here and spouted the truth, they're hard to hold onto, but the stories and also we're storytelling machines as humans. I mean, before we wrote, before we had that, we sat around campfires and told stories. And honestly, even the fiction that we tell, even the movies we make, they're really all telling our soul stories in a different way. So thank you for reminding me of that. So I was a writer for a bit. I,

like I said, I was doing all these other things. I was a news reporter, then I was an actress. And I started writing regularly when my younger daughter was about one or so. I think the moment, if I remember correctly, the moment was I was watching TV with my husband and we were watching this show we liked at the time called Future Man on Hulu. And all of a sudden I realized that the main character was this dude that I used to do a lot of acting with, that I used to do this web series with and other things. And I'm like, oh, my God, he's so good. He's the lead in the show. And this was not the first time. This was maybe the second or third time that somebody I'd acted with once was like killing it. And I'm like,

what have I done? Obviously that was just self-judgment. I had, you know, two babies and in a short period of time and other journeys that I had to go through, but I realized, Hey, I have a lot to do and to tell that I haven't been doing, and I'm going to go back to my writing, which I had done at different points. And so I started writing in the form of personal essays and I started writing pretty regularly. And eventually it was getting published in the New York Times, in Washington Post, in Wall Street Journal, whatnot. And then I realized that I had more because there's pretty formulaic ways that you write an essay to get published in a place like the New York Times. And I had more that I wanted to say, and I wanted to say it in

a more free form way. And I wanted to share the spiritual stuff that is so important to me in my life. And so that's when I started writing, don't just sit there, do nothing, which wasn't selling. And it was my first book. And then COVID-19 started and everyone was in fact doing nothing in some form or another. And then the book sold, right? You were telling me how your journey connected to the next journey and so forth, or these various journeys connected. When I was writing my essays, speaking of people who I acted with one of those people was Vladimir Zelensky I was in a movie speaking Russian in a Russian production where he was one of the stars I was just some little character like on set in New York and I ended up writing a chapter about him so I wrote this

chapter 16 was called use it and I had this chapter called my Zelensky. And it was about watching this person who I'd been in a movie with once and then he became president. And so I'd been watching him for a while because I was in a movie with him. Yeah. And so this book was released four days after the war began. Wow. And now I'm writing my second book, which is focused on him. I sold that book. so that's hopefully out within a year I don't know I don't know how these timelines work these are but like a lot of things don't make sense until later oh my gosh and I wrote about like I wrote about a dozen articles on Zelensky and they were all like I was in a movie with the Ukrainian president I was in it but honestly it's not like I was trying to tell the same story.

It's just that I found this person, what he's been able to do, because he was just your regular actor, comedian. And when I he was in his first big film when I was in that movie with him. So like just to see a person accomplish so much in a short, relatively short period of time, it did a lot for me. And so I kept telling that story. And so the stories were pulled to, we don't always know why until later. Those synchronicities, nothing's coincidence. That was placed in your book, that chapter for a reason, right? Yeah. You know, something so amazing happened to me last week and I shared a little bit about it on my Facebook, but lately I've been feeling like I really need to tap into like a community of gold star families

because my brother was killed in Iraq in 2007 and such a big part of who I am, but, you know, I would like to meet some other families or I'd like to, you know, more about it, especially as a sibling, because there's not a lot out there about grieving siblings. And I don't shop at a freaking cowboy store. I don't shop at a Murdoch's or Murdoch's out here is like where you buy horse food and like freaking cowboy hats and cowboy boots. And so last week I went to Murdoch's to look for a tent because it's closer to where I live now. And I live on five acres now. So it's like, it seemed appropriate. I am not a cowgirl, but I've been there with my

son and I see this lady and I said, Hey, excuse me, could you please tell me and my son where the tents and their air mattresses are? So we start talking and she's like, yeah, we only have a three person tent. And then, and then I don't know how she said something about her brother liked to camp. And I said, my brother liked to camp too. And we realized we were both talking in past tense about our brothers. Like they weren't here. And I said, is your brother still alive? And she said, no. And I said, neither is mine. She ends up sharing with me that her brother was killed on May 18th, 2007, and that they're from Colorado. And my brother was killed on May 18th, 2007. So we realized that we both lost our brothers on the exact same day. We start hugging, we're crying. We have chills. My son is joining us. We're standing in this aisle for over two

hours talking. We find that there was an article written about both of them and they were both in the same article and it's titled two soldiers from Colorado die on the same day. I mean, it was just one of those moments. So yeah, yesterday, she sends me the gold star information. She's part of the gold star family. So now I'm going to go with them to the mountains this summer. And so it's just so funny that like, when you have these stories, like you said, and you don't know how they're going to connect. And after 15 years, her story and my story are like joining together and her and I've been texting and I want to like do a little side on our Patreon with her. I mean, what a beautiful thing, right? I mean, you have to think that both your brothers sent you there at the same time. That's the only explanation. I mean, it's not. That's what we said. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It's like you never see the bigger picture of things. But it's interesting to me that you put that intention out there before that happened,

which I think also shows us the power of our intentions because we don't, sometimes we don't allow ourselves to want what we want, right. To put what we need out there. It's constant. If you align with it, it is insane to me. And then you think it's like premonition. I just think it's the law. No, it is. It is. I think you're absolutely right. It's the law. And maybe we don't all believe in it yet, but people didn't believe in gravity one time. Yeah, exactly. It's truly crazy. It's been happening to me so much lately, but that is truly like divine what happened to you, Mandy. That's awesome. Oh, I'm so happy for you. It was so amazing person now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She was such a joy. I love

that my son was there to be part of it. Cause he just moved back into our home like a week ago from college. And he got to be part of the conversation because he was the one that kind of united me back with my sister-in-law and my niece. So it was just this big circle of like emotions. She couldn't breathe. Her neck was getting red. She said, after I left, she had to go sit down in her office for like an hour. Like it was so powerful, but it's just moments like that, that bring me back to, Oh my God, thank you, God. Thank you. You know, there's divine timing always. And now that's a bigger part of the story of my brother. I loved it. If I wouldn't have asked that hard question to her, then it wouldn't have opened up the conversation. But some of those uncomfortable questions, I'm not uncomfortable

asking. That's probably just the me trying to pull people's souls out all the time. I'm known like that too, in my circles, like don't stand next to me if you don't want to share at a party, you know yourself. But I think that because there are so many interesting stories, once you get into people, like there's no person that doesn't have a story to tell. You just have to know what to ask the questions. And that's true. If you didn't have the guts to go there, there's this man who's a fan of the book that's come to a couple of my events. I've had a couple of book related events. And he said to me, did you ever think your greatest fan would be a man? And he happens to be a vet of Afghanistan of, I believe, four or five tours,

like, you know, working through a lot of his PTSD from war. And no, I had never thought that my biggest fan would be an Afghani vet, you know, who's working through his many years in the military, which obviously has scarred him in many ways. And he's trying to rebuild his life anew. But you just never know. You just never know these things and does his name happen to be thomas no but it's it's just you know just your it just reminded me that you just don't know where ever yeah we are going to inspire where inspiration will come from for you you just don't know vulnerability it's connection. That's what I've learned over the past few years,

especially through Mandy's stories because she has lots of them like that too. One thing that I always love doing, if you could just take your book and flip it in whatever page it lands on, just read to us. I do this all the time and it's always so fun. Okay, I got do your Dow, which is, that's the little exercise section at the end of each chapter. This is the do your Dow at the end of chapter 14. Do you know how great you are? A child of the earth, of heaven,

of greatness itself, born of the great mother, the divine feminine, you carry all of her qualities, creation, strength, forgiveness. Your entire life is your artwork. Remind yourself of this if you feel stuck in a rut or in a ditch. Every moment is another chance to keep painting. Forgive yourself for getting in your own way and forgive whoever else you need to. By carrying anger and resentment, you're only punishing yourself continually. In letting it go, you unburden your spirit to flow on. It is a process of returning to your original completeness. Sometimes it's one step forward, two steps back.

For now, think of a single brick of resentment that you are ready to unload. Just one is enough for today. Conjure the situation or a person in your mind or on paper, feel the anger, the hurt, the loss, and then imagine releasing it. Poof. Back into the ether to disintegrate and to come back as a completely different energy. That was good. Thanks. I love that. And I need to do that today for a certain someone in my life, big time. Same. I had a picture too come in.

I was like, oh, got to do that. Yeah. I really need to do it. So thank you for that reminder. Well, you've been such a joy. Tell our listeners where they can find your book, what your website is. Sure. My website is jessiekanzer.com, J-E-S-S-I-E-K-A-N-Z-E-R.com. All of the information, the video you guys talked about is on there as well. And all of the links

for my book, which is available everywhere. It's called Don't Just Sit There, Do Nothing, Healing, Chilling, and Living with the Dao De Ching. It's on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, et cetera, et cetera, local bookstores, of course. And then most often I'm at jessicancer on Instagram. I try to be there pretty regularly. And now it's time for break that shit down. I think that it's a good time to remember that wherever you are in your life right now, whatever's going on, could be an up, it could be a down, somewhere in between, you're doing great. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. And if it doesn't make sense right now, it will at some future point. So just hold on to that

hope and that belief and let yourself off the hook. That is so true. Thank you so much. You've been awesome. Thank you for taking time and allowing us to sit here and do nothing with you and just, and thank you for the same. Thank you so much because I don't take as many breaks as I used to myself. And this has just been, I know it was awesome. Thank you so much. You're a beautiful soul. Thank you for being you. And thank you guys so much for having this platform for us. Absolutely. If you need help on your ancestral journey, I'd like to help you go to our website, my sense of soul.com. I've created an ancestral healing workshop called clear. I'd love to help you. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week.

If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.