Intention and Courage in the Middle with Jenna Hermans

Lacey: 00:00:05

Welcome to sharing the middle where. Recovering perfectionist overachievers. And anyone in the middle of a struggle come together to learn, to embrace the messy middles of life. I'm Lacey, your friend in the middle and guide whose claim to fame this week is just making it through the Scandovol all of it. All. I mean, I know that I have literally no tie to it, but I watched all the reunions and everything. And who it was, it was a lot. This week, I am talking to Jenna, Hermans, who I have such an awesome conversation with where we talk about so many different things Jenna is living proof that you can create a life of calm within chaos and overwhelm. She uses her bachelor's degree in psychology master's degree in organizational management, and over 15 years of human resources experience. To build strong teams, both at work and at home. Jenna is the co-founder of be courageous. A busy mom of four. Coach and author. Jenna takes an intentional and inclusive approach to developing life facts and help others go from chaos to calm, which doubles as the title of her newest book that launched on May 2nd, 2023. Jenna's got a lot of awesome insight and I loved talking to her. So I hope you love it as much as I do. Let's jump in. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to meet you, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself in your own words.

Jenna: 00:01:33

Hi everyone. I'm Jenna Hermans. I'm the co-founder and. COO of Be Courageous. We're a transformation agency. We work on culture transformation and future readiness, as well as doing executive coaching and training. and I'm also the author of Chaos to Calm, a book that came out just, last week, and it's for busy parents, or it's tailored towards busy parents using the five pillars of calm, which include efficiency, habits, community communication, and self-care. I'm also a mom of four, and a high performance coach.

Lacey: 00:02:09

Yeah. So how, first of all, how old are you kids? I usually like to get an idea of where someone is in their motherhood journey when they say that they have kids.

Jenna: 00:02:17

Oh yeah. We're, I am in all the mothering right now. my eldest is about to turn 16, and then I have 14, 12, and six.

Lacey: 00:02:27

Wow, that is a big wide range there. At least you're not, see, I'm still very much in toddler years, so I have a two and a four year old, so I'm like, oh, they all white throw butt. What's that like?

Jenna: 00:02:39

Yeah, that's not even true still for me.

Lacey: 00:02:41

Yeah, it's the, it's so funny to hear people talk about oh, this is where I am, and I'm in the thick of it, and I just wanna be like, tell me about the thick of it. I'll be in soon because really done with.

Jenna: 00:02:51

Yeah, I can tell you your future, Lacey, and it is complex and it doesn't get easier. It just gets different.

Lacey: 00:03:00

Yeah, that's, that's fair. Congratulations on publishing a book that is really freaking cool and a huge accomplishment. I was looking at some of the stuff inside. It's also beautiful, like the r or, design in it. It's just, it's really beautiful too. So congrats on that as well.

Jenna: 00:03:18

Thank you.

Lacey: 00:03:19

Yeah. I usually like to start our conversations to get a sense of where you are with the middle, so what the middle means to you when you heard it, but also how do you feel about it?

Jenna: 00:03:33

it's interesting when I first saw your question about what does the middle mean to me, cuz I had. Varying things that showed up. one was in the middle of a hard decision, right? I need to make a decision. I'm in the middle of, I can either go route A or route B in their drastically different routes. I also see the middle as being a part of a journey. And that, there was a beginning and that there is going to be end, a natural end, but that carving that path in the middle between start and end. And it could be literally at any point, like a quarter through three quarters through, or seven eighths through whatever it is, So I, I found that to be such an interesting question around how we define the middle. And in that, in knowing, I would love to know how you define the middle so that then we can Yeah. Keep talking about our

Lacey: 00:04:28

So I, when I started this, it was with this discontent of this middle and middle, almost meaning stuck. I've always been an overachiever, but I've never been the first, like I've always been like number two or number three, or I, live in the middle of the country. I live in the Midwest. I'm in the middle of motherhood of my kids aren't babies anymore, but they're certainly. Toddlers. I'm in the middle of my marriage. I've been with my husband like seven years, and I just kept looking around of just felt so stuck in this middle and there was a lot of discontentment in it for me, and I was realizing like, okay, it's this idea of where my perfectionism overachieving, but also struggles meet into this place where I'm just here. And I can't get out of it, so I need to figure it out. My middle is a lot of middles and it's one of those things that once you see it, you can't unsee it. I learned it, but I love hearing other people's, because some people, I wanna go back to yours in a second, cuz I had a really interesting visual. Of some people are like, oh my gosh, I love it. It's the present, it's the now and all these beautiful things. And I'm like, you magical being, how do you feel this way? But I really like yours. I had a very strong visual with your initial of two choices. And I literally saw someone standing on a path looking at the two choices, I can feel that anxiety it would give me of like, Which one's? Right. You know, and just being stuck in that, that place between the two.

Jenna: 00:06:03

I found that the, first time I thought about those two different, Paths in that decision and what the middle meant to me, I reflected back on my choice to be a stepmother. And cuz I, my three older kids are not my biological children. And when I was in my middle point in deciding, okay, do we continue on this relationship or do we not? They were very young. They were teeny tiny. And the youngest when I met him, wasn't even one yet. And then the other two were about to turn, I think it was. Three and two, like they were tiny little people. anyone can imagine, that is a a fascinating time to enter somebody's life. And I was 26 at the time, so I was very much in an my own space of independence and feeling like I finally had my feet on the ground. I'm in this place in life. I don't have, any big responsibilities other than myself and what I'm trying to do in in that space where I feel like I've got my stuff together, I've got my career in a good place, I have my education in a great place, and I'm now just building upon that. It was super interesting to then make the intentional choice. To say, Hey, am I going to become now a mother of three children and a wife all at once? I keep on this trajectory? And so finding myself in that spot, that was a very fascinating middle, that was very tumultuous for a while cuz I, I actually ended our relationship. I terminated our romantic relationship, be out of fear mostly. I had a big fear, and then upon deeper reflection, the relationship was concluded, I realized that it was a fear-based decision. And not how I, how I do things. That's not my mo and my values are around courage and around being able to do what's possible and do things differently than the way that they've always been done. I, and I was also just devastated. My heart was completely broken, so I reproached my husband and my now husband and asked him if he would take me back, if he would be open to seeing that I am not gonna, you know, run away again. Be like, I'm scared, I'm outta here. and it ended up being great, but that was a really fascinating middle of making that decision.

Lacey: 00:08:34

know, it's really interesting that you say that cuz literally today I published on my blog about my journey of deciding to become a mom. Other, and it's very similar to what one of the things I point out is very similar to what you're saying of I liked my life, like I worked hard to like myself, to like where I was in my marriage, where I was in all of these places. And to say yes, I wanna have kids is basically let's just change it all, And so it's so hard to look at. That accomplishment of becoming the person that you are, and then have to really decide, do I want to just take this completely different? I mean, not necessarily different, but take this path that's gonna change all of those different things. And so I really love that. Even though, I was thinking about it through pregnancy and whatnot, you had a similar experience in a different way of deciding on motherhood and that kind of stuff. So that's just, I'm like, oh my gosh. She's saying literally almost some of the things I wrote down. This is great.

Jenna: 00:09:37

Yeah, same. Same.

Lacey: 00:09:39

now I did. I wanna go back to, you said something about you didn't, that doesn't align with your values, that you value courage, and I was just curious about how you define courage.

Jenna: 00:09:53

Oof.

Lacey: 00:09:54

I know, sorry, That's that's a deep question, but I'm just, I'm listening and I'll give you my own stuff so you can think about it. Is, when I think of courage, I don't often think of it. In terms of everyday decisions, I think of it as like running into a fiery building. I love this idea. I know a superhero, physical, it's a very physical thing. So I like to this, I. Idea of courage being a value that you live day to day in your life. And not that you don't run in and save people in a fire, a building. I don't know. We're just meeting, but

Jenna: 00:10:26

I mean, not by not by day, you know, sometimes by night, you know.

Lacey: 00:10:31

I'm just curious about what that looks like in your day to day.

Jenna: 00:10:34

You know, the way that I see courage is, and based on our company, be courageous with my husband, that we co-founded this together. That it's micro moments, you know? Yes, there's big courage like running into a burning building to save, a being. but really courage is in the micro moments, in the moments in between of what can I do right now that would be the most courageous? The thing that. Would push me outta my comfort zone, the thing that I know will better myself, better my community, better my family, my business, and not letting fear dictate the experience. That's where courage shows up. So it's different for every person. You know, going on a podcast and being a guest for someone that can be incredibly scary and saying yes, and accepting that invitation for them could be a courageous act while for others it's like, yeah, sure. Not even giving it a second thought. But I believe that courage is facing those fears and saying, it's gonna be okay. I can do this and doing it anywhere. Maybe I can't do it, but I'm gonna do it anywhere. I'm gonna at least try. it's putting yourself out there in a way that really flexes your boundaries. On and not boundaries of what you know, around and and that kind of stuff, right? But boundaries of comfort and boundaries of what you believe is possible for you. Because I truly believe that we are so much more capable than we know as individuals and as a collective, but as individuals, we are so capable. And it's only our own self-talk that talks us out of being able to do whatever it is that we want to try or that we believe that maybe we could get to or that we see someone else doing. But then we're like, no, no, I couldn't do that.

Lacey: 00:12:18

I, what I really appreciate is that I, one of the values I've, I have told my son I would like to see in him. He's four. I tried to do affirmations and I told him I wanted him to be hardworking and, interesting cuz your courage is actually really close to my meaning and the hardworking. And so I'm like, Ooh, maybe this is a different route I could take of like, It's about not giving up. It's about continuing to show up and making the choice to do that. So thank you for giving me another angle cuz when He's already told me, when I told him what hardworking was, he just, he's I don't wanna work. And I'm like, that's fair. I don't wanna make you work. How can I rephrase this?

Jenna: 00:12:58

He's like, this is child labor, mom, child labor.

Lacey: 00:13:01

Actually funny story, when he was like two, he looked at me and he asked what hardworking was. Cuz we would do affirmations. And then the next night at dinner, it was like he prepared a statement to be like, mom, I don't wanna be hardworking. That makes me sad. I'm just like,

Jenna: 00:13:18

Oh my

Lacey: 00:13:19

and then of course, like with most parenting, I realized it was more about me than it was about him and all this different stuff. But I might take this courage rock cuz he is really into strength and being strong. So if I can pull that in to instill that value, and I think that's, It's also something interesting. I haven't even asked you about your middle moment. We're going down different paths, I told you. and also it's just really important to show you that, to show us that while we use words for our values, we live them in so many different ways. And I think that's really powerful to hear you give those different examples of how you live that value. That's really cool.

Jenna: 00:13:58

Thank you. what's interesting is that when I started telling people, oh, I'm gonna write a book, the concept of courage showed up a lot in that. Cause I also wasn't sure, should I write a book? Who am I to write a book? What, how does this process work? I don't know any authors, I don't know any publications, or publishers. Just doing and just going, you know, you can, you again, you forge that path and the courage to continue, right? To say, I'm gonna see this thing through, I'm gonna, and that's where the hardworking comes in of perseverance, you know? And I think that's another element to courage that isn't common in the definition.

Lacey: 00:14:43

So I usually do like to ground our conversation in a specific moment, that you feel like really exemplifies a middle for you. We already touched on one, but was there another one that you had in mind for us to talk through?

Jenna: 00:14:56

There are so many middles, I feel like there's middles of the past, there's middles of the present. You know, one of the middles I see is that all the kids are under my roof right now. I guess this is big in my mind as I have these teenagers who are going through high school and talking about college and the next steps, that feels like a natural closure all the children are not gonna be under my roof for that much longer. And so I feel like I'm in the middle of my, of that parenthood journey knowing of this phase of parenthood, right? Because parenthood doesn't end once the kids leave the nest. It's just different. being in the middle right now of. The mothering journey is a fascinating one as we've been maneuvering through these different ages and developmental milestones would love to, to jump into that

Lacey: 00:15:49

I'm really curious. What is the most. Challenging part of that middle for you. I know that there's probably a lot of things that are challenging, like I could come up with a list off top of my head, but I'm very curious about what for you is like, oh, it's this, what's the most challenging?

Jenna: 00:16:07

I think the most challenging is pivoting. I'm pivoting between what the different kids need.

Lacey: 00:16:15

Ooh.

Jenna: 00:16:16

I'm showing up right as a different parent to each individual child because they all need different parts of me. They all need to be nurtured differently. They all need to be engaged differently. And so pivoting and becoming almost a different parent per child is the most energy consuming part of the phase that we're in right now.

Lacey: 00:16:43

This is kind of an un. Underlying thing that often comes up when we talk about the middle. It's this idea of gray area. Think it's really one awesome that you don't see parenting as black and white of like, this is how you do it, or this is not how you do it. How do you navigate that though?

Jenna: 00:16:57

it's an interesting question and it's a great one Because their needs are also different that I, I don't compare, or, I mean, it might be natural that I do, but I don't consciously, I'm not consciously aware of it, but rather I let them lead. So noticing what they're desiring of me and what's showing up for them, trying to follow in alignment with what they're showing up as if that makes sense.

Lacey: 00:17:26

It sounds really freaking hard

Jenna: 00:17:29

Yeah.

Lacey: 00:17:30

because yes, there's the listing part of it, but there's also this letting go that you have to do that sounds very scary.

Jenna: 00:17:38

I read a lot of books and having an early childhood background, I've ran a preschool for over five years and I used to work in schools before that. with early childhood development and developmental psychology and all of this learning that I have, it's, bringing that into the home and. Seeing one, understanding at different phases. The kids need different things, right? As a teenager, you know, my girls need different parts of me than my six-year-old does. I practice what I like to call intentional parenting,

Lacey: 00:18:11

Mm-hmm.

Jenna: 00:18:11

which is that I, I approach my parenting in a way that I use. True intentionality of how am I showing up right now? What am I saying? How am I responding and trying to be a role model, trying to think about in the moment, how is this going to potentially affect them long term? And so in my interactions with thinking about, okay, you're right here, right now. You're not the same person you were yesterday. You were not the same person as the kid next door or the kid in the chair next to you. What is it that's going on for you right now in this moment? And I also ask them like, do you just want me to listen? Do you want me to give advice? Do you want me to do something about it? Like, how can I support you in this moment when we're having our time together? And we facilitate a lot of open dialogue as well in our home. So I'll ask them, how are you feeling right now? And how are we doing right now? How can I be doing better as a parent for you? And how can I be supporting you best in, in this context of where you are right now? And that tends to open up, space for them to share, or they're just like, I'm good. We're good. All right. I'm like, Cool.

Lacey: 00:19:29

I'm curious at how you can take that intentionality. That's a lot. And still, make everything work as far as owning a business, writing a book, so I imagine you cover a lot of that in your book. I'm just curious. how do all of these different moving pieces come together to calm? Because I'm stressed out thinking about it. I.

Jenna: 00:19:51

You know, a lot of the book has to do with the concept of being able to own your time and your energy. And so being aware and reflecting on when are the right times of day for me to do things, and also how do I manage my time during the day, and then how do I manage my energy and reconciling the energy aspects with the timing of the day aspects. I am super energetic and gung-ho and ready to. Build my shit up and knock it down and run the, and do backend for the business and respond to clienting emails and. Do what I need to do at, at certain points of the day that I find that I have really high energy. And so my productive times a day, I hold that time and I do that work during that time. And generally it's when the kids are at school, they'll be a nice big chunk there. And then also when it's nighttime and I get the six, six-year-old to bed and the others you know, making their way into bed or I, I have an another bout of energy that'll get back into stuff, but it's. Naturally, it's understanding our natural flows and capitalizing on those flows that really help to be able to navigate all those different elements of what we need to be doing, and also what we want to be doing with our time.

Lacey: 00:21:09

this is something I've been trying to do in my life. I have recently been going through a big health struggle, which Ha, which has caused it, caused this podcast to happen, so I'm grateful for it for that. But, I've learned a lot about pacing, which I have to do with my chronic illness, and that has been purely energy management. That has been something that I've been way more conscious of and it is amazing that how if you actually listen to your body and listen to what you need, if you honor it, it'll give you more like you wouldn't.

Jenna: 00:21:40

Yeah.

Lacey: 00:21:41

sounds so dumb to say it out loud, but we're so often trying to be on someone else's schedule or do something that we feel like we're supposed to instead of actually listening to ourselves.

Jenna: 00:21:52

Absolutely. And with that reflection and intentionality of knowing, okay, I'm gonna notice what gives me energy also, because there, there's our natural rhythms of course, but then there are things that we can do environmentally that help, Raise our energy or give us more, and versus things that we do that also deplete our energy. And so being aware and conscientious of, okay, I notice that when I eat this kind of food, I feel good afterwards versus lethargic. Or when I do this kind of activity, how does that make me feel it's even as simple as like, I did this for myself before engaging with certain human beings in my world, I would rate myself before zero to five, zero, I feel awful beforehand. And five, I feel gungho. I can take on the world. I'm superwoman. And then after that time with them, gauging myself again. How am I am? Is my energy level the same? Is it lower? Is it higher? And that was really helpful when I was working through building my community and kind of like dating friends almost. Of thinking about, okay, who, who gives me energy and who doesn't? And same with the activities with the food. Zero to five, how am I feeling? Does this help me? Does it not okay? If it doesn't? If this doesn't benefit my life and my energy, I'm not gonna keep doing it. It doesn't make me feel better. I'm gonna choose better.

Lacey: 00:23:20

I did not think about doing that in relationship to relationships. That was a great sentence, but that's really, I think I have done that unconsciously over time of whew, those people exhaust me, maybe a little less of that, or maybe I need to plan for that differently, or something like that. I like that it takes away judgment on them. It's about just. Purely your energy. It has nothing to do with you judging them or not liking them or anything like that. It's just noticing and then using that piece of information to live your life going forward. I think that's really profound in a lot of ways,

Jenna: 00:24:02

Because none of this, it's not judgment saying like, this is a bad food, this is a good food, this is a good activity, this is a bad activity. Cuz again, it's different for everyone. And it's not a judgment, it's truly I'm listening to myself, like you said, listening to your body and letting your body and your intuition dictate how you can do and be and show up in your best form.

Lacey: 00:24:26

We usually end with a piece of tangible advice of this helped me or we've already, you've already given like 12, but if there's any other piece of advice that you would like to share with our listeners, what would that be?

Jenna: 00:24:39

It would be to just begin. If you have a goal, something that you wanna do, you're afraid to do that you're intimidated by, but you have this interest, you have this flame inside, this little spark that you're like, I really wanna try this. There's no one stopping you except for You You own your life, you own your time. Yes, you have responsibilities. Sure. But you can actually do it., there's always a way it's always able to be figured out. And so my offer is to just. Begin and release the rest Serenity for what the process will look like, the path, and what it will look like going forward and just begin.

Lacey: 00:25:21

I'm gonna rephrase that a little bit of don't let the middle stop you from starting. That's kind of what, right.

Jenna: 00:25:30

juicy,

Lacey: 00:25:31

I told you whenever you see it, you can't unsee it. But as you were talking about like process and all this stuff, I'm like, oh, the middle. Don't not start cuz you're afraid of the middle. That makes so much sense. how can people find you work with you? What does that look like?

Jenna: 00:25:46

Thank you. So my website is jenna hermanns.com and I'm on Instagram, Jenna z Hermanns and all my other like shenanigans, Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter all. Jenna Hermanns. Um, my book is Chaos to Calm, five Ways Busy Parents Can Break Free From Overwhelm Found Anywhere Books are sold online. Barnes Noble, Amazon, target, and de bound all the things. As well as on my website, jenna hermanns.com/book. And I'm gonna be starting an own your Calm eight week program in the fall. So if you're interested in learning more or just letting, getting yourself on the list to know when it's gonna be coming, you can go on my website and sign up for the newsletter and I'll be letting, everyone know more about the program as it starts to get time to be. Enrolled for it.

Lacey: 00:26:35

Awesome. thanks so much for joining me today. It was really great chatting with you. Like I said, we went down many different paths, but I really enjoyed them.

Jenna: 00:26:44

Oh, thank you, Lacey. This was so much fun. Thank you for all of your meaningful, thoughtful questions, and I hope we get to talk again soon.

Lacey: 00:26:51

me too.