Everything’s A Gift: Steering Our Lives Through Light & Through Darkness with Amy Grant

hey everybody jen hat maker here your host of the for the love podcast welcome to the show so right now we are in a series called the love of flipping the script if you've been following along the team and i really wanted to explore the idea of change and we wanted to talk to people who had wisdom to offer us here so some of our guests in this series have flipped a script on purpose they've chosen something they've made a they've made a hard right or a hard left they've decided to go a different direction and then some of our guests have had the script flipped for them change came to them it wasn't necessarily something that they chose or expected or were prepared for and yet they still had to figure out what to do with change both of these paradigms are important because they're going to happen to every one of us um we are going to choose change and have to figure that out and change is going to choose us and we're going to have to figure that out and so i just we just felt like there's a wisdom right now to harness as we are emerging from the pandemic as so many of us have undergone changes this year and we're still facing more and so i don't i don't exactly know where you are on that if um if you are undergoing as an evolution maybe right now maybe it's something about a dream that you are finally prepared to start realizing that you're going to begin to put your hands to it start to give it a little life i know for people around my age this really starts to happen to us about right now i think it's that sense like you know what i'm about halfway through here like this is it this is what we get this is our life and and um we're examining this idea i think that a lot of us get stuck in which is um i don't have any choices right like this is just what i have this this part of my life that's out of alignment it's just what it is i can't fix it i can't change it or this part of my life it's dependent on somebody else and i can't change them or get them to change their mind so i'm just stuck here i'm stuck with this thing that i have and more and more and more i am learning that's not true even when things do happen to us even when we are on the receiving end of somebody else's choices or decisions or words or actions we're still not just stuck with some inevitable result we still get to decide what we are going to do with that and so i think this idea of being empowered inside change is really what i'm interested in right now this is what i'm i'm feeling curious about like how can we overcome the obstacles that are basically bedfellows with change which is you know fear or insecurity or um just a general disorientation um and i'm thinking particularly today in today's episode about some of you who are having a little bit of a script flipped in your life um because of health a diagnosis um some sort of like body or wellness journey that you are now on probably unchosen um that's unexpected what that means in our lives i mean none of us are unfamiliar with this if it hasn't been our own physical health it's been somebody that we love um somebody who got a diagnosis we weren't ready for that felt too soon too scary um this is uh this is a conversation that affects really all of us i can tell you personally and i told my incredible guests this during the course of our conversation but um you know after this year for me which has been so full of loss and upheaval and just the end the end of something that i thought was forever which was my marriage um talk about a script that i had written a certain way all the way to the end and it got cut off in midstream and so um as a result one of the one of the changes that i have experienced has been health i've talked pretty openly about this but um it became pretty clear over the course of this last calendar year that my body was in trouble and it had just done all it could do and i know i had triaged my own health as long as i could attending to every putting out all these other fires and attending to everybody else's needs and my body just hit a brick wall in terms of blood pressure in terms of um anxiety which i've really never experienced in in earnest um and then it looked a little bit like panic and some panic attacks which are just you know just my body trying to keep me safe that's all it is is my body over responding to trauma um and so i i think that our bodies our health can be a real teacher um even when it's an unwelcome diagnosis or an unwelcome um health scare or situation but in that it forces us actually to reimagine what our script is and how we want to write it and what we want to add or subtract from our life so having said all that our guest this week oh big hearts big hearts she knows all about facing uncomfortable moments and ultimately pursuing her path hers the one that is hers to walk um so i'm absolutely thrilled to welcome back to the show and our community amy grant best truly the best i mean if you grew up like me you were singing amy grant songs into a hairbrush um with songs like love will find a way and every heartbeat amy was the first really cool female christian artist who then had went on to have nationally known songs and videos and of course we all wanted her hair i literally still want it now in fact uh those of you who are logging in here you can of course just listen to this episode today through your uh airpods into your ears but you know we also video all of our interviews they're over on my youtube channel and so just go over and have a look at how incredible amy looks she still has that hair that just i don't know what her tricks are but sometimes it's really fun to watch our interviews so you may want to throw that up on your phone or on your laptop to watch our conversation instead of just hear it but anyway amy shot into stardom as a teenager in contemporary christian music and then she became the first artist in christian music to have a platinum record and then like i mentioned went on to become this crossover just sensation like a darling of the industry amy has earned six grammys a countless gospel music um dove awards all life while having 10 top 40 pop singles which is an incredible career i mean so she of course has this very beautiful sweet blended family with her husband vince gill no big deal and if you've ever seen her or talked to her or been in her presence she just oozes this like quiet gentle charisma and humility all at once again i i urge you just to go pop on the youtube channel just so you can watch her face and body language and you'll see what i'm saying and amy is a very committed philanthropist who continuously works to make and build community and through out all her life she's flipped the script in all sorts of ways iteration after iteration after iteration um in ways that are so guiding for the rest of us watching and then recently she faced a very major health journey which is why i was talking about our health that turned some things upside down for her in some surprising ways just this last calendar year so um she's going to talk about that and more with us today you guys stay all the way to the end she saved some of her very best material for last because when you talk to amy grant she just keeps dropping little wisdom bombs on you she keeps just saying you know this one time and then all of a sudden it's the most incredible thing you've ever heard and so stay all the way till the very end and you'll be really really glad you did so oh i love her oh i love her so much i can't believe i really can't believe that i get to know amy grant i want to go back and tell jen in like 1988 you are gonna be friends with amy grant one day i would have never believed myself lucky me um lucky all of us to have her in the world so i'm so pleased to share my conversation with the just endearing wonderful beautiful amy grant absolutely delighted to welcome you back to the show amy i am just always always always the happiest girl in the world when i get to see you look at you that's the kindest welcome oh i just mean every word of it um you are even more wonderful in the person than the way we even imagined all the years in which we like loved you from afar and so i love when i get to report to people that once i have met our person in person that they're they didn't like devastate us they are just as good as we thought that's you uh how are you doing over there as we begin to emerge from this year um i'm back in rehearsals yeah and i'm one of those people that like i know 2020 sort of the year that never happened in the year that changed everything yeah but 2020 had a lot of hidden gifts for me can you talk about that a little um yes i think um as much as i love work i'm so grateful that i get to go to work you know i think for those of us that don't live out of a suitcase there's always this kind of fantasy what if i were home all the time what would it be like to actually be there sure and you know really though it would you would feel like you would have to retire to ever have that experience and um but coven was i don't know i mean it was it was a gift of being in one place it was a gift of um not all of it felt like a gift you know because a lot of it was just like stewing in our own juices that's right um but it was i loved it you know i had heart surgery it was a great time to recuperate yeah because i never had that feeling like oh the world is just flying past me i'm going oh my gosh like a lot of people are recuperating from a lot of things worse than this and we're all just sort of slowly getting our strength back um i love getting to spend extra time with our youngest child and you know i've spaced out mothering as about as far as you can two birds in my twenties one in my thirties one in my forties and i was just like where am i eating one nanny for 33 years totally job security for her yeah and uh anyway but then for karina to come back and we just um you know vince i love him so much he is so quiet and so i'm grateful for girlfriends and all that conversation but um yeah kovid i don't know it just uh it was such a gift of being with family amy this particular series on the show is um called flipping the script and i'm talking to amazing people and it's this idea that in some way every one of my guests in this series is is having to flip a script in some way so whether it is some of my guests have chosen to do that they've decided this is a moment for a new story in my life and i'm gonna i'm gonna chase it i'm gonna choose it and then some of the guests the script was flipped for them it wasn't necessarily their choice wasn't necessarily what they expected or anticipated and yet they still found themselves having to navigate a new normal and i it's funny because you can you easily fit in both categories you've done a lot of script flipping in your life i mean um many many iterations of that evolution but this last year if you're um if you would be willing to talk about it i'd like to talk about your health journey because you mentioned it earlier you live through open heart surgery which is a big new thing a big news story it's scary at any time of year but definitely drink covered my goodness um i wonder if you could share a little bit about your diagnosis and what your mindset was like maybe like prior to going into surgery and then in the weeks following um and what what have you and are you continuing to learn here okay um can i only because when you said flip the script the most life-altering experience of flip the script that i ever had actually happened about 10 years ago okay i'd love to hear it okay and maybe maybe it was maybe it was more than that maybe it was like 11 years ago and it was late one night my um sherry kitchell who i loved dearly i was married to her brother for 17 years she had come to our house everybody kind of wanted to spend time with aunt sherry because she's just lovely and it was the very end of the night and i really i needed to spend time with her because i had a big cry that needed to come out and but anyway she's getting ready to leave and so surprising she said i have wanted so much to see your garden at night could we just go peek at your garden and so you know i was like i get down along with sherry and we came out to the garden and she said how are you doing and my parents at that time both had advanced dementia which did not run in our family i had hired a couple of caregivers found out they were drugging my mom and dad i mean there was just such a anyway all kinds of things happened my mom had gotten picked up by the police one night and she was not clothed properly and like my sister and her husband had moved in with them it was just like one disaster after another my father was picked up on another night by a bartender going home and he was like once and you just go yeah anyway so um but i got you know i was like feeling like i had made bad choices for them and and not anyway all i just remember was cry cry cry cry cry and then uh sherry said can i just tell you one thing and i said yes and she said you just need to look at this as the last great lesson your parents are teaching you gosh and she said it's going to be lessons in creativity lessons and quick recovery fail quickly fail frequently get up and keep walking laugh at everything and i just had was looking at it like all the things that were changed all the things that was different all the loss because i was just looking at that they were not who they used to be and in that one phrase of hers when she said it's like suddenly it had purpose this is the last great lesson your parents will teach you and i mean my tears dried up and i was like oh dang i'm not gonna what am i doing right now i think i'm just wallowing in i'm failing i'm failing them they're failing and i mean and that is a conversation that needs to be had sometime but it's an energy suck and when she said that it was like oh my gosh and flipping that script was you know and it continued to be a long script my father lived for years after that but every time it was like there are hidden gifts in this and one of them you know for my dad he lost all communication skills by the end and really no eye contact and i just remember because i'm married to a man who's quiet there are times i used to be like come on ask me more questions what's up with you you know aren't you curious about what i'm doing we should be delving into each other's souls anyway but my dad i would sit at a little table across from him and he would like take my hand like almost as though i was not connected and he would just rub it and look at my fingers and then sometimes he would just like move my hand with his and you know what i wasn't looking at him going why aren't you asking me more questions what's up like i learned the gift of just being there that is so precious and that continues now it does it's like everybody brings different things to the table and you can't look at somebody that you know rapid fire conversation or investigative or deep conversation might not be their comfort zone but there are other things that are and i learned that lesson from my dad after he couldn't talk anymore and so um anyway and so that whole long journey has just made me realize there are there are hidden gifts in everything and don't don't look way down the road because you really only have enough to get through today whatever it is but the surprise of today is the off-chance conversation that you have with the person bagging your groceries and suddenly they're making you laugh about something and then the person in traffic that let you in and like kind of i don't know it's just like you sort of go hey we are actually all in this together like you know yeah i'm so happy that you told that story and that was of course unique to your and also yay aunt sherry golly what a little bit of wisdom she just dropped thanks for sharing it um because that and that's unique to you but as you're talking my brain is just churning thinking about how true that has been in my life this last year you and i were talking before we started recording but you know had a lot of loss this year that i didn't see coming and i definitely didn't expect i did not write it into my script but now a year later undeniably i can see how it's been a teacher and i didn't even know the little hidden gifts that would be in there i couldn't fathom them i couldn't even envision them um everything just felt so like dark and sad and that was all i was choosing to see as well so having to sort of practice this mindfulness that you just beautifully described about just what ordinary beautiful thing is happening in any given day and what remains what i've learned what i've discovered what rose up in me that i didn't know i had gifts yeah gifts yeah it's that's a beautiful perspective change and i love that for the whole conversation of of flipping a script whether we choose it or just us either way we get to really decide how we're going to perceive it and welcome it even or embrace it metabolize it into something wonderful so as always he's just said something so lovely i love that thanks for that i'll not forget aunt sherry's um bit of wisdom there do you ever have those times where you need a break from a work project or chores or social media scrolling but you want to do something that keeps your mind busy or maybe you just have pen up energy but you're having to wait in place like at an appointment at a kid's practice in lines at the grocery store this is what i recommend best fans yes it's a phone game and yes i was skeptical before i downloaded it myself but i've been playing it for a while now and it seriously never gets old there are times where i've wanted to wait for an appointment a little longer so i can finish a level what in the world it's one of those games that makes 30 minutes for like 30 seconds it's colorful and creative and 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never go to the post office again can you um we are so i'm so happy to see you so healthy and well and beautiful after such a major surgery were you scared were you surprised um how did you begin to put the pieces into place to sort of weather this particular storm um well i would say for the last year i had noticed some things about my heart that were you know i kind of i'll take care of that later i'll take care of that later um anyway but like yeah i don't know you know just um we're all you know we're all used to how we function and yeah anyway but when i went to the doctor with vince to get the results of his test because he was approaching the age his father died and um anyway you know vince loves food he's not a gym rat you know and we kind of both showed up like what's the doctor going to say and he was great yeah yeah i mean vince is one of those people that you know he's defying the odds his arteries are clear and the doctor just gave him a great report anyway fantastic yeah and so and then he turned and said hey we should check you out and we were right in the middle of christmas shows and i was like sure i don't have time i don't think it's a treadmill test and that sounds awful to me anyway so but then i did the test and he came back you know as they came in that looks good that looks good that looks good and then a text call me as soon as you wake up oh gosh and i called in here oh i felt that in my stomach yeah and he said you we uncovered a birth defect that is incompatible with longevity and so oh my gosh that's how he said it i mean i can't remember exactly that's pretty scary but he um and so yeah he he told vince it's fine find fine catastrophic and the window we need to get this fixed like this year and so but the way my mind works is i just didn't i enjoy being in the day i'm in you know and so i didn't really let myself think about it you know i had a few tests but it wasn't until i was using that blue scrub the night before you know and um and i was nervous the day of but then they came in with that um you know uh float away drug and i i just chose to trust the good hands that i was in and the bigger hands and you know at some point i did go if i don't wake up from this if this is the end yeah i am so grateful for this life i've had wow and um and i have law i've lost several good friends to different things but in my mind all premature deaths and i remember one of my good friends she was a musician ruth mcginnis and she got a bad cancer diagnosis and anyway but i remember her taking a walk with me one time and she said oh my gosh if i could take everything i have learned from this gift of cancer if i could put it into a capsule and make you swallow it right here in front of me and she said i'm not i mean the illness she said this is awful you know and she would describe in gory detail all the things that she would have to navigate with her body but um but she just said it you know it's changed the way i look at everything everything is a gift everything's a gift and you know the morning she died i i was on my way to sing part of a disney project from which i was fired because i don't have a disney princess voice but i went to her house that morning and she was just real thin and i remember she just opened up the blanket on her bed just her little bare naked self and i just crawled over her and beside her and you know i just she was such a great friend you know we just hung out it was like well this is this is how your story goes yeah and but she is just so present with me and uh she was the first person i ever whispered to months before i pursued a divorce in my first marriage she was the first person that i said i don't feel at home within myself within my life i don't um i would be making up the script right now that was a long time ago but i remember that she would say i mean she taught me such basic lessons in respect she was a musician but i met her because she was a personal trainer and so like the first day we worked out she showed up you know i had on sweats i'd had my third child in five years and i was like okay and you know we talked about life and she said the most important thing is for you to experience a growing a growing respect toward yourself i love that and she said being healthy is all about balance like she worked with me in how to stand i think we did most workouts with like a three pound weight and she said this is not about slinging around the big weights it's about balance in every area balance balance and then you know so we're talking you know hours every week and so by the time i said i i i feel unbalanced in parts of my life you know and and she was just there to be a witness and you know so it i think about when she was diagnosed and what her husband said was this is her journey to walk and we can come alongside of her and support her every way that we know how but it it's her journey and that last day when i was with her and she said i am so tired yeah i'm just ready to be done with this and it was like you know but those messages like like every day i wake up and if what hits me in the in a conversation or an interaction or is you know frustration or helplessness all of the awareness of our faulty frail interactions in our in our country all the ways that we have failed each other across racial lines across socioeconomic lines all those things and you know we just came to terms with that in ourselves i mean to me that i was just like well i have my hands on my own wheel i can't steer anybody else's opinion i can't steer anybody else's choices but i got to own mine i've got to own mine and and steer my life differently steer my thoughts differently and um you know so um that's harder than it sounds it's taken me the majority of my adult life to come to terms with the fact that my hands are on my steering wheel and it's mine to do it's mine to drive it's easier it's lazier it requires less tension to sort of look externally and just say well this is because you did this or this is because you chose that or i don't like how any of you are driving i wish everybody else would drive better everybody behave you know and yeah you know or this happened to me um and sometimes in the in a lot of ways you know that is true things do happen to us and we are on the receiving end of other people's choices to be sure but then still at the end of the day it's still my steering wheel to figure out what to do next and what to do with it and where to go and um you know when you said earlier to your friend i feel out of balance in this one area in my life i've used the term just out of alignment and so it's still mine to come into alignment um regardless of the reason i was disaligned and a lot of times it's my own and i appreciate you saying between your story and your friend's story that sometimes sometimes this like the catalyst for that kind of work and growth and um evolution is is around our health that's just true i mean i can't count how many stories i hold in my little hands from my own personal people and my big community at large where something in the health in a a health scare or even something terminal like cancer is the thing that is the thing when all of a sudden you see everything differently you see all of life differently this last year i've talked to my community about this amy but this last year was so catastrophically hard and sad and so i found myself also having health issues for the first time in my life um you know my doctor's like you're you're this blood pressure it's not sustainable like you're in trouble this is a dangerous and i'm like no i don't have high blood pressure he's like you do you do have high blood pressure like i take it again i've never had it before and and all this anxiety and and fear and panic that has come with it which is all new to me i hate every bit of it but it has taught me something that you just said which is it is time to respect myself um i just thought i'll just power through because i do that and i can do that i've always been able to do that and my body has finally like held up a stop sign like the buck stops here girl like you've reached the outer limits of your threshold of what power through means and i'm grateful sometimes to our bodies for telling us that you know for throwing up a roadblock for saying that your attention has to be redirected right here right here for a while and i'm sure you found that to be true i mean of course your recovery happened during covid which automatically kind of forced you into a quieter more still place but i'd love to hear what else you discovered about essentially being forced into stillness and you probably had to shut down oh several avenues and channels and all the things that you juggle and put your hand to what did that look like to you did those decisions come easy did you know right away all this gets triaged these are the things i'll delegate and these are the things i hold or did you kind of have to pick your way through that discernment process um [Music] um that's all good just pick whichever one you want i put about 40 in there so yeah i'm just well first off a a gift of being in the hospital was meeting the head icu nurse who came to my room the night after surgery and said um you are not assigned to me but i just wanted to tell you we've got a great team here and we're here to take care of everyone and i hope just let us know and he was so kind he just was like he's probably my age but such a big presence yeah he just like sunshine walked in the room they love that and i was kind of curious about the rising covet cases sure of course and um he said we're starting to see that here it's not the wave that we anticipate but it's showing up a little bit so this was june of 2020. and you know by christmas he had passed away he contracted kovid serving the people in the hospital yep gosh and so um anyway i had i don't know why that came to me except for this you know life is you don't somebody that seems like they're in a compromised position physically emotionally whatever uh that script can flip very quickly yeah right but um mostly what i i i just felt like the whole world shut down i didn't feel like i was having to decide what shut down you know in the touring world it was the first thing to go the last thing to come back that's right um and we have um we just we have a like a small community that operates out of our home that's been a part of life my entire adult life and um and the all of the weeks that nobody was here except for vince and me and our daughter karina what i really felt was you have a lot of people who help keep everything going i'm the beneficiary of a loving um helpful um the community that helps me get everything accomplished and um i just have never i've never worked that hard doing all of the details it must be like you know the traveling father that comes home on the weekends and plays with the kids and leaves again and then the mother leaves for a week and he's like oh my god totally yeah i think i just never realized how many people helped me do what i do and so yeah that awareness another way of saying that is i came face to face with all of my true limitations and so my so my way of being easy on myself is to say don't try to do so much yeah yeah are you good at that or bad at that but doing too much bit i think i do too much but i i have good energy and i'm interested in a lot of things you know um and i just having a purpose makes me feel good about the day and i like i actually i don't know how this sounds but i i like doing things that i can see have a palpable impact on other people in a helpful way so sounds amazing and i know that's a lot of my motivation too and that's i think sometimes for at least for me at least one of the reasons why sometimes i struggle to decide what stays and what goes because i virtually don't have any opportunities on my plate or any ideas purchasing percolating my brain that like too many good things um to choose from which makes it harder because they're not so obviously on their face like well this is a terrible opportunity um right and so i my default valve is a yes and so i'm learning i'm learning to toggle that down i think when i was younger i thought if i don't say yes to everything it'll all stop it'll just all dry up it won't keep coming you know it's my yeses that kind of keep the energy moving forward but i found that that's not true at all um that was just a fake story that i um i it was just a scarcity mindset and so i'm i'm i'm learning that for sure but yeah so this is i i love to kind of hear that you're you're back in the studio do you feel how do you feel how's your recovery i've never had heart surgery i don't know how it feels in your body yeah well i had to i had to sort of be still for a long time like from january until the surgery in june he was like don't go run just kind of lay low so i didn't i mean i didn't just sit there yeah but i didn't do things that would i would normally do hey let's go on a bike ride hey let's go do this hey let's go and so and then after they say 12 to 14 weeks of recovery i've truly felt like i was in the worst shape i've ever been in my whole life i was like i have no muscle like none so um and it takes a while sure get that back again so i'm right now just enjoying feeling my stamina come back you know and um and that you know singing is a pretty physical job totally and so you don't think about it but um so i'm watching that come back and just trying to be patient with myself and um yeah that's true i didn't think about that has this affected kind of like your breath capacity and in addition to your stamina just being able to power through a two-hour set or whatever it is yeah i'm getting there yeah yeah i'm getting there but um yeah but just in general i feel better yeah i feel like you know i was like a machine that had a an engine that had a lot of stops and starts and clunks and all that kind of stuff that's gone that's great the engine's purring but you know the rest of the car needs a tune-up so you're in the studio right now what are you working on what are you are you writing new things what are you doing um uh not really no um at this point i've am asked you know hey will you be a part of this tribute record will you sing a song on this project and um you know so i'm just i'm kind of ticking off not a long list but people who've asked me to participate on their projects and um and then next week i'm back in full-time band rehearsals and then it'll just be the road after that until until january 1. i mean you know the rhythm you know the road rhythm it'll probably be nice to be back we've missed each other like i'm so hungry to be in a room full of people um having a shared experience like listening to music together being in a conference setting together it's um i think that's one lovely gift that the pandemic has given most of us i absolutely appreciation for what it means to be together and um i'm so excited for you sisters i want to talk about the f word today finances yes i said it finances the first time i ever sat down in my accountant's office was last year in the midst of my divorce and the work of just crawling through everything account by account bill by bill is something i never want to face again so i streamlined and switched and set up new things and saved and i got it all worked out and as it turns out i'm pretty good at this i knew i could figure it out and i know you can too but i also had a lot of help from my friends in every category and one of those friends in this financial world told me about chime their tagline is banking that has your back and i was told i will not deny that i can be swayed by good marketing but chime actually really does have your back they were founded on the premise that basic banking services should be helpful easy and free they partner with regional banks to design member first financial products that means you get better lower cost options and who doesn't want that right i'm going to tell you about just a few of the chime features i love they have fee free overdraft on up to two hundred dollars in debit purchases with spot me it's like overdraft protection but better there are no hidden fees or monthly minimums plus they have more than sixty thousand fee free atms at locations like walgreens and 7-eleven and cvs and more you can turn on security alerts to let you know when your card is used and instantly block your card if something seems off and when you sign up for a chime spending account you can enroll in an optional savings account and grow your savings automatically with a 0.50 annual percentage yield you guys that is 10 times the national average if you're taking a fine-tooth comb to your finances get in on this and join the millions on chime sign up takes two minutes and doesn't affect your credit score apply now at chime dot com slash for the love that's chime dot com slash for the love chime is a financial technology company banking services provided by the bancorp bank or stride bank n a members fdic eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply overdraft only applies to debit card purchases limits start at twenty dollars and may be increased up to two hundred dollars by chime early direct deposit depends on the payer out of network cash withdrawal fees apply third party and cash deposit fees may apply go to chime.com for the love for details okay amy i'm going to ask you the last couple of questions and i'm i'm kind of asking all my guests in the flip the script series and so just pop your head um for you what is maybe one of the most important things that you get out of switching things up every once in a while when you do it on purpose oh um always seeing things from a different perspective you know flipping this flipping it could mean just asking somebody else how do you see this what would you do um yeah especially somebody yeah i just yeah what does this look like from your vantage point i mean the other day i was leaving the farm i met a young woman years ago and we've we've only been in the same space five times but she was visiting from new york and um and i said hey well hey let's meet out at our farm she wanted to do that we have a short amount of time and i just find her beautiful and i wanted to hear about her life and then we're leaving the farm and there are four steer you know cows in the driveway and she's in the car in front of me so i'm like stop don't push those out onto the road would you mind yeah would you mind just stopping right where you are and i'm going to call somebody to come in from the other way so we can kind of corral these animals okay and she said can i come sit in your car and i said yes and she did and anyway her name is chelsea she's a beautiful young black woman we had had our visit and uh and we had unexpected time because there were animals in the road and um and i said what was like for you being in school when you were a kid and she said you know i was just one of very few uh black kids in my school mostly white she said i've wondered if i ever have children would i do that to them i don't know and what i appreciated about that when i left that conversation i thought i'm grateful for the big script switch that we've all experienced of saying ask different questions ask different questions and anyway um so yeah um i think you know the next step the next opportunity the next enlightenment the next everything for all of us is within reach it always has been yeah and so you know positive yeah i yeah i love that you know i'm right there with you i'm right in line with that i love that answer how about this so what um familiar or comfortable or comforting thing or thought whatever do you hang on to when you are in the upside down part of a flip when it's kind of like the the free fall and you're not to the other side of it yet you're not to the solution you're not to what comes after kind of in the upheaval what do you hang on to that keeps you centered that keeps you calm that carries you through to the other side i guess the mantra in my head is all will be well all manner of things will be well and um and but what i do um is i usually go outside and i usually like lie down near a tree and look up i do that all the time um i've got one of those round swings and it's big enough it can like cradle the back of my head and get to the top of my legs you know so i can actually relax totally and that's more i do that more than anything you know i just go and look up in a tree and go everyone is different there's no there's no pattern and and and clearly there's a pattern everywhere when i feel like i can't see the pattern in my life i can't see you know it's just like it's all will be well and then i just get out in nature really my therapist taught me to do that and she said if you can take your shoes off let's get your feet like in the grass in the ground literally get grounded literally and don't force it just let it be it's let it do what it does i said holy okay and now i'm a person who lays under the tree with my bare feet and it's like a miracle it changes you it does what it does yeah it really does what it does and all of a sudden it's been 45 minutes and i'm just looking at leaves and i'm looking at the clouds and i'm my i've got somehow back into my body and i can hear things again and i can feel it all and by golly if that is not an actual really good practice and here's something else like with bird song you hear birdsong and always what i come away from those moments is going if you're going i don't know my purpose i failed in this i haha to go i don't know if there's any i mean we are designed to be appreciators and to notice and to yeah and i i don't know why that felt so like such an enlightened thing to say but to um awareness of the beauty around us absolutely because we're designed to be appreciators which is i love that you just said that word i won't forget that appreciating things does bring us back into alignment it does it does if there's something whole and intentional about living like that that we were probably always meant to um okay and here's the last one i asked you this the last time you were in the show and i should have front back i don't remember what you said last time i think what you said the last time you were on the show was you were enjoying the last little bit before your youngest was flying the coop but the question is and it can be whatever it is right now it can be earnest or it can be silly it doesn't matter okay what is saving your life right now oh um this is not today i've kind of taken a little break from this but a game changer for me from my birthday last november until the beginning of the summer was this little book that my sister gave me called the five-minute journal okay it's put out by a company called intellichange and um anyway so it's all about brain priming and pro that when when our brains brains are primed for something and you know i'm all into brain work i have a whole other career where i'm invested in the brain company for non-invasive healing we'll talk about that some other time and so what i continue to say is how am i how am i priming my brain to experience this day and this journal i mean it's so quick it really takes about two minutes i could be keep it in the bathroom and it's just little short lines that you fill in in the morning and you feel out at night but it's an exercise in priming your brain to see the good and and the thing the real shocker for me is um and they kind of explain how to do it but at the end of the of every day it's just three lines um excuse me four lines what what made three amazing things that happened today and inevitably the amazing thing is not something big it's not i reached that goal the scale number said sure lower than yesterday you know what it is it'd be like um i thought about my daughter right at the minute that she was on her way to some and i joined her this song came on the radio the person in the checkout line was so kind to me like when you really have to stop and go three things that made today amazing and guess what the stuff that makes the day amazing is like small it's small and then when you think about them at the end of the day and the last thing says what would you have done differently and you have to say in present tense as though you had done it the right way and so like if and i can't explain it but it makes you rather than beating yourself up why didn't i ask my friend about her children i just went on and on and on about something and then and then the time was gone instead to write i i so appreciate being part of my friend's life and her children matter to me i ask her about them frequently and i'm telling you you prime your brain like that because beating yourself up us just goes nowhere you're right but my sister gave me that book and she said my son is carrying this around like a bible and she said i'm giving my one copy to you and if you'll give me your address there at your main hideaway i will put it in the mail today okay are you serious because i am all the way intrigued i'm hanging on your every word right now thinking about this tiny little exercise that can make monumental change it's tiny it is so tiny and to me anything that's like a tiny tiny change that makes a monumental change that's hope has entered the room you're right with flying colors so that's been the uh yeah the five minute journal and one's gonna be on its way to the night oh we saved that for the end that's so great ah i like that because that type of practice and possibility is available to anybody that's not expensive it's not it doesn't take too much time you don't have to be in an elite space to have access to that kind of healing or leadership so that's fantastic thank you for that well you know i am just so happy to see you amy i'm so happy that you're recovered and that you're about to hit the road again um i am number one in line for loving you for all of our days um so so you know when i got to meet you at wild goose a few years ago i just about died you know i just about died i i just thought i need to be resuscitated that i don't know if i can recover and then just to have known you ever since it's like so special so thanks for coming on the show and just being who you are you're gentle like calming way makes me want to lay my head in your lap and just take a nap i love it so much i love you thank you i love you too you my little sister are a force of nature thank you yeah it takes all kinds it does and it does for good for bad it sure does oh that's great okay well until next time until i see i hope the next time's in person um i hope you enjoy the maine i love everything here and so if your tour bus heads toward texas i'll see you there awesome thank you bye see my friend so i took away several pretty big takeaways from that conversation um i find myself so drawn to the way that amy is in the world you know what i mean kind of the way she moves through the world i mean i was digging and pulling trying to get her to tell me how terrifying open-heart surgery was and how scared she was and she just doesn't lean into histrionics like that at all she's just steady and calm and her integrity just rises up in the good and in the bad and in the heart and the scary and it's really a marvel to watch i mean i was sitting here talking to her the whole time thinking how can i be more like how can i just dial all this down some notches and be more grounded and centered and present and grateful um she's such a good role model um as always we will have all this over at jinhatmaker.com under the podcast tab you'll find the episode you'll find a link to the youtube channel if you'd like to watch our conversation we'll have show notes and then of course links to all things amy grant if you'd like to follow her and see her work and see what she's up to and um so you can get that all in one place uh thank you for being here thanks for being really invested in this series we are too we are too when i just tell you that it is just phenomenal guest after phenomenal guest in this one you're gonna be really excited do not miss any of them um so by the way thanks for subscribing to the podcast if you haven't already done it go click it wherever you listen to podcast and um that way we'll show up in your inbox every single week you won't even have to try for us we'll just be there for you won't miss any um and if you have missed some in the series go back and listen to them because they're worth your time uh thanks for being an incredible podcast community we really and sincerely love you so much so on behalf of laura my producer and her whole entire amazing team and amanda and i we're just thrilled to serve you every single week it's our joy to bring this this podcast to you these conversations constantly wanting to energize this community and inspire and lead and entertain and so thanks for being here we can week out all right you guys see you next week [Music] you

Channel: Jen Hatmaker

Views: 7,337

Rating: 4.8734179 out of 5

Keywords: jen hatmaker, jen hatmaker podcast, jen hatmaker channel, jen hatmaker christian, jen hatmaker for the love, jen hatmaker interview, jen hatmaker latest, jen hatmaker now, jen hatmaker videos, jen hatmaker youtube, amy grant, amy grant interview, amy grant and vince gill, amy grant christian, amy grant divorce, amy grant faith walking, amy grant jesus, amy grant open heart surgery, amy grant reaction, amy grant update

Id: HwpSP0Tka-M

Length: 63min 39sec (3819 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 17 2021