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The Bad Mom Podcast is where raw parenting stories meet real solutions for raising resilient kids in today’s anxious, digital world. Hosted by humanitarian and Just Like My Child Foundation founder, Vivian Glyck, each episode blends unfiltered conversations, expert insights, and lived experiences to help parents swap guilt for grit—and discover how imperfect parenting can still support and encourage strong, thriving humans.
BMP_14_Jennifer Jimenez
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Vivian Glyck: [00:00:00] They say it's your fault, but the system is what's broken. Real talk for parents, fighting for their kids in a world built to break them. Where we are left trying to parent the anxious generation with our hands tied behind our backs. Your kid isn't broken. They're under attack. Welcome to The Bad Mom Podcast.
Parenting The Anxious Generation with Vivian Glick. This is the resistance. Oh. Jennifer Joy Jimenez. I am so excited to have you here.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: I am thrilled, Vivian, thank you so much for having me.
Vivian Glyck: We have just known each other for a long time. We've known each other professionally and we've known each other as moms.
And I've been so inspired by your continued commitment to stay embodied and to be in your body as a woman and as a mother. And I know that you're the visionary, [00:01:00] founder and director of the Health and Wellbeing Institute of the Brave Of of the Brave Thinking Institute, the health and Wellness Division of the Brave Thinking Institute.
And I know that that was like your baby and your mom is so incredible and well known and has this wide, wide body of work, Mary Morrissey, but you really brought the embodiment into the work. So, and I know that you were inspired by your own issues and as we talk about being a bad mom and. Learning how to parent the anxious generation.
There's so much that we need to look at for ourselves. Yes. And I was wondering if you could just tell me a little bit of your journey, your story of how you came to create Transcend Dance. Such a great name.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yes. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Thank you for that question. I think as moms one of our hidden fears. Is that we're gonna pass on our body dysmorphia and our high [00:02:00] levels of self-criticism and our dysfunction around our own eating.
And, you know, 90, the, the, the statistics are a really horrifying Vivian. 90% of women don't just dislike their bodies, but statistically they hate their bodies. Oh yeah. I mean, it's horrible, right? So that we can try to hide that all day long. Right behind makeup and clothes and pretend like that's not happening.
But we pass all of this onto our kids whether we wanna admit it or not. And so how I came into this. Was inheriting, you know, not so much from my mom per se, but from culturally, from women in general, from the professional dance community. Unfortunately that's, that was my first dream was to be a dancer.
So, you know, dance in general, that [00:03:00] whole area in the world, ha is, is just completely riddled with body dysmorphia. So from, you know, growing up in the eighties and nineties when stick thinness was the, the ultimate goal. Right. And anybody, maybe not everyone is as old as I am. I'm giving away my age a little bit.
I'm older than you are so well, but, so like Jane Fauna, anybody, like, she just had that perfect body and so I spent hours looking at those, you know, aerobics, doing her videos. Yeah. Doing her videos like everybody else in our age range and it, it has not led up. You know, it is, and I would say it's even worse now with our young women getting injections at 20 years old to freeze their face so they don't age.
And I'm not saying we shouldn't all strive to look our best and use all the tools available, but no amount of losing weight or injecting our face or applying creams or all the things we do on the outside is going to fix if we feel [00:04:00] broken on the inside. And so one of my greatest missions is to help, particularly women, because whatever's going on on the inside of us is ultimately what we're teaching our kids.
We can't not because they're learning from what we're doing, not from what we're saying, they're learning from when we look in the mirror. The vibration, the emotions, and the energy that we're feeling. Forget what we're saying, which could be even worse. Right. But they're, they're learning. From our energy, from our beingness.
So my greatest mission is to help women shed the lies and the dysmorphia and the, the self criticism and the comparison, and then all of the behaviors. That are associated with that and it, and it actually doesn't take a lot to do that. It's just a different message and having some tools to [00:05:00] release that so that then they can feel really good about themselves, love themselves from the inside out.
Feel genuinely. Authentically confident, regardless of the number on the scale, the size on their clothing. Mm-hmm. The way they're aging. Like really be these embodied, badass, confident, unshakeable women that are leading the future of our world because they're the mothers. And I can speak from personal experience, so I know you.
Ask for my story, but that, that's my story, right? Yeah. So inheriting this really bad body dysmorphia, having that ingrained in me in the dance world, and then it was actually my pregnancy with my daughter, where I get pregnant with her quite young at 25. So I'm professionally dancing at the time, and I'm terrified of gaining an ounce, which regardless of.
Pregnancy. Most of women, you know, we stand on the scale and it's a good day if we're down a pound and a [00:06:00] really shitty day. I don't know if I can swear. Sorry, A bad day if we've gained, you hear what other
Vivian Glyck: people have said?
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yeah, right. I mean, we can like that. Can make or break our day and week. Yeah, it's horrible.
We're obsessed with it. Right? And I, I'm being really transparent here, total obsession. So I get pregnant and I'm really worried that this is gonna ruin my dance career and, and wreck my body. And, and I've got all that fear. But then something really amazing happens. Because as a professional dancer, we're taught no pain, no gain.
That the harder you work, the better you're gonna look to ignore the body's signals for rest and recovery, right? Override all of that to completely science, silence, hunger. So complete. Most of the time I'm starving myself and over training. So now as a mom, I can't ignore. These signals 'cause it means I'd be killing my baby.
So something really innate and [00:07:00] organic and primal wakes up in my body. Which I'm sure all women that are listening are like, yep, like, you're starving. You can't not eat. Like your baby's like, I'm hungry. Gimme something to eat. You know? And, and it, all these things start waking up and happening. And if I overtrain I start spotting and my doctor's like, you can't train this hard anymore.
You have to rest and, and listen to your body. And so all, everything I had turned off ignored. Learn to silence and shut down. I now just out of pure survival, need to turn back on and start listening to. So an an immediate 180 shift occurs. And ultimately I really wanted an all natural birth. I don't know if anybody else, some pe we've got like the two camps, like the no, give me.
Many drugs as you can. I don't wanna feel a thing camp and then the other camp of like, no, you know, I wanna try to do this thing. I wanna know women's [00:08:00] empowerment. So I have, I have zero judgment around whichever camp you find yourself in. I at 25 back in the day, so like, you know, my daughter was born in 1999, right?
I'm really like wanting to feel the power of giving birth naturally. Well, I end up with a 55 0, a 50 hour labor. And an epidural, which I really d really didn't want, but that was better than a C-section, right? So it enabled me to be able to birth her. What it taught me, Vivian, was that, you know, 'cause I, you know, as you mentioned, my mother is a transformational leader and we teach, you know, mind over.
That you can just visualize and that thoughts become things and that you can create this image in your mind and then manifest those results. And all of that is very true. And, and there's this little thing called the body. And this body holds energy and [00:09:00] vibration and emo energy in motion. So even though every night I'm visualizing this dream birth.
My body is still recovering from abuse, personal, like my abuse of me, not anybody else in anybody else abusing me, but me. Abusing me. That's the worst kind. Right. And it's in fight or flight. And when we're in fight or flight, when we're in stress mode, which most women are in low levels of fight or flight constantly.
Yeah. Mom hood, basically, like it never ends. Once the baby comes out. Now we're like constantly in stress because it's, we're constantly caring for this baby. But I, I quickly realized, oh, to really birth naturally, you need to be connected. You need to be in trust, you need to be in surrender, and you need to be in flow.
You need to be in parasympathetic rest and digest and deep connection. Now, I didn't come out of that [00:10:00] birth. Knowing that consciously, but I intuit, I could feel even at 25 with a brand new baby in my arms, okay, something was off. I have no idea what, but that I don't wanna do that again. And I knew I had missed the mark somewhere.
And it actually launched me into real hunger and insatiable thirst to learn everything I could about the mind body connection. And because of my mom, I have access to a lot of really amazing thought leaders. Yeah. And mentors and teachers. So very quickly I found books and tools and mentors and I, I found conscious dance.
Now, the difference between traditional dance and fitness. And conscious movement or mind body movement in dance is most traditional dance in fitness. You're just simply looking at molding the body, fixing a broken body like we're [00:11:00] sold, you're broken, you're fat. You have cellulite, you've got a belly that's wrong, that's bad.
You're never gonna be beautiful, you're never gonna be successful. And if you really wanna be that woman who's got it all, you've gotta have six pack cabs, no fat on your body whatsoever. You know? And it's changed over the years. Right? So then, then it was like the Jennifer Lopez curves, but you gotta have the perfect ones, so, right.
Using fitness and or dance to carve the body and create a certain mold and then to. Fit that mold was what I had learned. Conscious movement is the opposite. It's how do we feel confident from the inside out using movement to release tension and stress from the body to have emotional and mental health, versus looking at my body in the mirror and judging it and actually at the end of a dance or fitness class.
Quite honestly, not feeling all that much better about [00:12:00] myself because I'm staring at myself and judging at myself, judging myself the whole time and not feeling good, versus I come out of a conscious dance class and I feel connected to my soul. Mm-hmm. I feel that I've dropped a 10 pound bag of stress. I feel less tension in my body versus more tighten tension because of the overworking of it.
Do you know what I mean? Like I just feel like a million dollars and all of a sudden I realize, oh my gosh, I've never really danced for just me. Danced for my soul danced freely until I found conscious dance. And it became not only a mental health practice and a physical health practice, but it became a spiritual practice for me.
It's one of the ways I feel most connected to God, most connected to my higher self, most connected to my heart, and the best part is it's one of the best things to do with kids and with your babies.
Vivian Glyck: Yeah, [00:13:00] so let's, let's kind of, uh, go, go back to that and, you know, lock in where this becomes so valuable when you are dealing with the anxious generation or, you know, what I'm so impassioned about is the impact that technology.
Is having on kids, and I've experienced it personally to watch a very happy child go from engaged with friends, with community to sulking and hiding and. God knows what they are up to in that world. You, you know, uh, as Jonathan Haight says, we're heights, says we're over parenting in the 3D world and under parenting in the digital world.
Yeah. So you have, now you have how many beautiful kids?
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: I [00:14:00] have three. So after my daughter, I had a. Son and using the tools I learned I had a two hour labor and birth, a second baby who came out 90 minutes. So I learned some things about how to connect with my body and how to be in relationship and a loving harmony with my body that has created a lot of flow, not just in birth, but in all areas of my life.
'cause how we do anything is how we do everything. Yeah,
Vivian Glyck: that is so true. That is so true. And, and so your, your, so
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: I, my, my daughter's 20, she'll be 26 in just, uh, like 15 days, a couple weeks. And then my son's 22 and my youngest is 19. But I mean, I've been a hands-on mom from day one and saw the boom and rise.
They all wanted, you know, devices, they all own phones and have had. Phones for quite some time. Mm-hmm. With access to, you know, TikTok and all the things, you know, all the [00:15:00] social media channels. And I am right there with you, Vivian. It is. And video games, like my boys, it's video games, so it's the dance between the poll and that's also how they connect socially.
So the new generation, at least with the boys that I'm noticing, and maybe there's girls too that get into video games. My daughter wasn't really one that got so much into video games, but the whole social connection, it's how they connect. And actually, we didn't let her have a phone for a couple of years in her teens and it was like a death sentence for her.
She couldn't. Connect socially in the ways that everybody else was connecting. So it was this really challenging, double-edged edged sword. Finally, when she, I bet you
Vivian Glyck: felt like a bad mom.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Oh, I felt like a, my, I won't name names, but I got major slack from people very close to me that we weren't giving her a phone.
[00:16:00] Full on guilt trip. And I'm like, you guys, she has an iPad and we have a phone, a home phone. If you, I can't call her. I can't talk to her. We have a home phone. You can call her at any time she gets home from school at this time. If you wanna call her, you get like, I'm like, what is going on now? You know what I mean?
People think they can't connect with her. And I did. Oh, I got total, total mom shamed for that. Um, well,
Vivian Glyck: we just, I think that we just fell so into the, this is what's happening and it completely leapt the, the, the, the boundary of what is good and healthy, complete disruption. Right? Like you wouldn't have. We were monitoring how much television time they were having.
Like, okay, you can watch 30 minutes. The next thing they're on, everybody's getting this and you're a bad mom, or you're not allowing your kid the socialization that they need if you don't give them the [00:17:00] phone. So I am wondering what you saw even personally in your own family with the social media and then you know.
Kind of bring it back to what do you, you know, what has your solution been? Because, um, I, I just believe so strongly in your vision, having had this experience with my own kid about, you gotta get back into your body. I mean, we're all living in our heads and having there a culture in general,
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: I mean, right aside.
Yeah. Oh, a
Vivian Glyck: hundred percent.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yeah. And they say sitting is the new smoking because Yeah. When we are stagnant and sitting, the circulation isn't moving through our bodies. Just like when you smoke, it constricts your, your vessels, your blood vessels. Right? So sitting does. Same thing. It's really, really an over amount of it is, is really detrimental to our health and [00:18:00] it also is detrimental to our nervous system.
So what happens is, is when we're constantly on our devices, whether it be a computer and then our phone, and then the kids get home and they just wanna be. On their device even more, or even playing video games is then the nervous system is in constant overdrive. Our brains are constantly overstimulated.
And then when the body is still, because to be engaged in most of these activities, now there are some 3D um, games where the body's moving, which is helpful, but when, if we're not. Engaging in those kinds of games, and it creates a real imbalance. It creates a lot of anxiety, it creates restlessness, and also a loss of self-awareness and a loss of body awareness.
The other thing that happens is that it puts us in this comparison loop and it shuts down this body connection. So we're fixated on how we look or how we're presenting to the [00:19:00] outside world versus how we're feeling. Even just being able to feel our own body's stimulation and sense hunger. Like I notice my kids will forget to eat.
Right bathroom. Like we, yeah. Right. We aren't actually going to the, I know it seems crazy, but we, and we forget to breathe. We aren't actually breathing or we're breathe like my, and watch my kids play some of these. Game these games where when they were younger, I would've not allowed them another adult.
So there's a little more autonomy on which, which games they. Can play with guns and things like that. But when they were younger, I was very, very adamant about, at least not in my home, that does, does that mean they didn't go to their friend's house and play all those kinds of things? They probably did.
You know what I mean? But in my home, I had very strict rules around the kinds of games we bought or allowed on the devices that we owned. So the first rule is no TV in their bedroom. Yeah, I don't put [00:20:00] tv. I never allowed it. I know a lot of people and families that do. We don't have a television in our own bedroom.
We don't watch TV right before we go to bed. That's a hard, fast, strict rule. Um, if they are gonna play, they need to be in a a, a place where I can see them and. A certain amount of timeframe where they have access. I also use their devices as a, um, a reward. So if they have to have a certain amount of, like they have to get a certain grade, you know, like I'm paying for their device, their device is a privilege.
It is not an expected,
Vivian Glyck: oh, let's double click on that.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: It's a privilege. It costs money and they're, and you're shelling
Vivian Glyck: it out Yes. For them to become addicted and unhappy.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: I know, I know. So primarily, I, I remind them this is a communication tool for you and I, number one. Number two, I know it, [00:21:00] it feels.
Necessary to connect with friends and social, but it's not, and it's a, it's a benefit. It's a tool, it's a gift, right? So you have to earn it, and you earn it with certain behaviors. So grades, and we always required some sort of physical activity in our household, so. You know, I think that could be controversial depending on your child and what they like or what they don't.
They didn't have to be good at it. They didn't have to be competitive at it, but they needed to have something outside of school and home. So it could be swimming, it could, it could be any sort of activity. Ideally, in our opinion, since both my husband and I did group activities, like I did cheer and dance, my husband did all sorts of sports that the sport and community building together.
Was is a helpful social tool. Sure. So like my kids did all kinds of sports, soccer, football. My son played basketball, my daughter did cheer and dance, and she just kind of wrote in soccer [00:22:00] and different things, but they were required to have a physical activity that they were involved in as a non-negotiable.
That wasn't always easy to enforce my son in high school, you know, decided to stop doing football. So then it was, okay, well if you're not gonna do a group, you know, sport, then it's gym time, it's time. And we provided payments so that he could have a membership to a gym, and then he would go and they, because we, and the other thing was.
Again, kids model you. So both my husband and I live a very active lifestyle and exercise and move as a lifestyle. So they're, we're not just saying, you must do this, but we're not doing it. We're living by example. The other thing I did with them from a very young age, when they. Still wanted to throw the football with mom.
Like I grew up with three brothers who taught me how to throw a pretty mean spiral. So I would literally, Vivian, as a non-negotiable part of, I work from [00:23:00] home, um, as a transformational coach and all of that, right? So when they would come home from school, if they didn't just have to immediately go off to like a sports practice, or even on the weekend, I would go out, even if it was just.
Five, 10 minutes, 15 minutes and throw the football with them, do something actively with them. We'd go for a bike ride, we'd throw the football, we got a little mini trampoline and we'd go outside and jump on the trampoline or jump rope or play hoops. I would get a, a basketball hoop and I'd go out there and play with them.
So doing something physically together. And of course my favorite is the dance party. Yeah. Especially at night. When it's hard at times for kids to wind down, I would hang the mom dance party over them as when you get your homework done. And if you get it done within a certain amount of time, then we'll have a dance party.
My brother does this as well with his little kids, and you turn all the lights off and you can really literally get one of these like disco, [00:24:00] uh, little ball. I just go wall. That you plug into the wall that shines disco lights on the ceiling for 10 bucks on Amazon. It's super affordable. And you find their favorite songs and you just freeze it.
Free dance. You can even play freeze dance, you know, and things like that. Dance games, but dance with them and it's, this is about being silly. It's what's not performative. It's not technique, it's just jumping around, rolling around. Being physical with your kids and when they see you move and be silly and install that.
Or I would sometimes do yoga at night. Vivian and I got my kids little yoga mats and they would come running in and wanna just. Do the yoga with me. So it's demonstrating the movement and the, the fitness, especially the little ones, they're so malleable. They're just watching you and they wanna be you most of the time, you know?
Yeah. So if you're doing things at home and physically active, they're gonna wanna model that and then it's instilled, especially when they're [00:25:00] younger.
Vivian Glyck: Yeah. And, and so tell me about how, you know, we get so stressed out. As, as moms, as professionals, as entrepreneurs, as whatever. And then, you know, comes hating our body and all of that stuff.
And the self-criticism, which I think is the biggest thing that hold, holds women back. You know, I've worked in Africa for years and years and years with young, young girls and adolescent girls and that, um. They, they know how to dance. That is for sure. But it is that confidence that that lack of confidence, they're so much smarter than the boys and it's the lack of confidence.
So let's just say we're having, 'cause I would love to try this, you know, I'm having a really bad day or I come back, or, a lot of what's happening for me now is like, I'm achy, I'm pain. I'm like, ah, I just, I need to move. [00:26:00] What's your. What's your transcendence, uh, RX for that moment? Yeah. And I know that you're going to, you're gonna allow our listeners to actually, uh, download, uh.
A, uh,
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: well, there's a free gift. Yeah, a free gift. So how, explain the Rx the prescription for it, and then I can describe the, the larger transcendence opportunity. The modality itself, and then the free, the free gift where they can have an opportunity to come and actually experience live virtually with me is the free gift.
So the, the prescription is simple. Studies now show that just. Five minutes of freeform movement in dance. Social dancing activates our happy hormones, dopamine. Oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins. I, it's a, it's actually an acronym that stands for a daily [00:27:00] dose, DOSE, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins dose of dance.
This is now scientific. Scientifically proven to be more effective Vivian than antidepressants and more effective than even antidepressants. And just your actual casual, um, exercise. There's something about the combination of inspiring, uplifting music that activates the brain and then the body moving playfully in a free form, joyful way.
And then culturally, we're wired to want to do this in community. So ideally if you have somebody around you, and this would be what you would do, Vivian, you, you know, it could be a morning practice. I usually think of three times a day. You know, I think of kind of the wake up, get 'em going, kind of three doses a day.
Three doses even once a day, you know, is usually where I start most of my clients. 'cause you know, through [00:28:00] anything that's new is a, is a lot to implement. The afternoon slump is my favorite, especially Oh, that's a great
Vivian Glyck: idea. Rather than a nap and a coffee. Yes.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yeah. And you can have a little nap and whatever as well.
But I think if you begin to just say three minutes. Most songs are three to four minutes anyways, and you think about that song that you put on that you just, it just makes you feel happy. Like the song, happy from Pharrell Williams, right? Or one of my faves is like Aiko Aiko or anything for me from the nineties.
Like, yeah. You know what I mean? Any of those old fashion songs, if you just throw that on and just close your eyes, take a few deep breaths. Just release your mind. Don't think about it, and just let your body respond. First of all, your body knows how to reset itself. You're activating happy hormones, you're getting circulation moving through your body.
It immediately stimulates your brain. [00:29:00] So you get a brain break from, you wanna look away from your devices. So ideally depend whether dependent. If you can go outside, get some fresh air. Look at the sky, get some fresh sunlight into your eyeballs. Even better, that's also gonna reset your whole nervous system, but you are going to be extremely surprised at how you feel at the end.
What will happen is if you just start doing this yourself, and especially if you have, you know, people around you, it's contagious. It's contagious. They're gonna notice how you're feeling. They're gonna notice something has shifted in you and they will want to join with you. I've seen this happen with so many of my clients.
They'll do it in their office. They'll get up and just start stretching and moving a little bit, and they, they'll. Start to play a song, and then they're just kind of quietly dancing. And then they're, they're, they're, you know, their coworkers, like, what are you doing? And they're like, well, I'm doing [00:30:00] this challenge my health coach has invited me to do, and it's a whole health thing.
And they're like, I wanna do that. Can I do that? And then all of a sudden it like spreads like wildfire. The entire floor is doing this daily dance thing, you know, and I've. Seen a lot of my clients and moms where the kids wanna do it with them, the spouse comes around, then all of a sudden the spouse is doing it and we are the leaders.
We set the emotional tone for our families. So if we're running around on f, you know, on our, the shortest fuse and prickly and crunchy because we're stressed and we're burned out and were, were mentally. Frazzled and fried, and we're not feeling good then whether we like it or not, that's the emotional tone for the entire family.
And what I find is if I give myself this gift every day, at least five minutes, it's a, it's, it's a complete mental, emotional and spiritual reset. I know it sounds like a, a big promise for such a small tool, but try [00:31:00] it. I'm not lying. I promise you. You're gonna, you're gonna feel that reset.
Vivian Glyck: So you're your RX for the, I I really could have used this when I was going through it, but it it is just.
Turn off the noise. Turn off because
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: turn off your computer and your phone for, you can use your phone as your device. Have a little blue through blue, like your tool, your phone's a tool. The question is, are we, are we using it in an empowered way or in a disempowered way? So I use, I have little. A playlist of my favorite dance songs on Spotify, and then I have my Bluetooth speaker and I just hook up that speaker in my office.
I turn my computer around and I just dance, or I'll step out. And I live in Southern California, so obviously the weather's nice here. So I'll step outside and get the little fresh air and just do my five minutes of dancing. Or you can dance while you're making dinner. Or you can dance around your bathroom while you're brushing your teeth in the morning when you get out of the shower.
But yes, my [00:32:00] prescription is at least five minutes every day, daily dose of dance.
Vivian Glyck: And, and do it with your kids also?
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yes. Yes. And I, you know, the best time for them is before bed. 'cause they're gonna, you know, or if they're doing homework. And you can just see on their face, they're just like the last thing they wanna do.
And now that's another tool. I will say I never forced my kids to do their homework as soon as they got home. I didn't wanna treat them the way I wouldn't wanna be treated if I've just spent an entire day forced to sit. Now I'm a kinesthetic learner. My youngest also is a kinesthetic learner. It's like a jail sentence.
Yeah.
Vivian Glyck: For,
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: yeah, it is no fricking joke. It is so painful. The last thing I would wanna do when I got home from school was sit and do my homework. I wanna move and run around and dance and be physical. Yeah. So I always let my kids go do something physical as soon as they got [00:33:00] home. Um, or if they needed a nap, let them take, like give them a brain rest.
Now that's just my. Philosophy, parenting, philosophy, but it's also, I wanna treat them the way I would wanna be treated. Well, yeah.
Vivian Glyck: I, I, I just wanna add here also is, um, even when you, I, I can, I can think of when we would do something like that with, uh, with my son Zach. Even when he was like crabby and a teen and an adolescent, I was just kinda looking at us like we were crazy, like.
If you're nuts enough, they're gonna join in with you. All of a sudden they're gonna start moving. 'cause music's really important to them. Remember you're a teenager, music is everything. And um, so I think that's part of the RX that I would add on. Even if you think. That, you know, dark Seine is gonna be like, you're crazy.
Eventually they're gonna come out [00:34:00] and start moving also, because it's, it's who we are. You know, again, going back to being in Africa so many times, I mean, dance and music is central to being part of the community.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Oh, it's been used. So music and dance has been used as powerful medicine for thousands of years.
Yeah. From the most ancient of times. Yeah. What would we do at the end of a long workday? We'd sit around the fire, we'd play music and we would dance. And it was how we connected. It was how we distressed, it was how we processed emotion. I mean, it's been, it is. It is wired into our DNA and our bone marrow, you know?
And as a culture, we've just turned it into. Something that's only done, you know, at a wedding or, you know, if we go out drinking, then there's music and there's dancing, but there's no reason why it can't be one of our most helpful tools. So, and
Vivian Glyck: it's so, it's, I'm sorry. It's so good for your brain to your point, even [00:35:00] like as your.
You know, for longevity, just being able to remember dance moves and to learn something new, and it's like learning language. It just keeps you really, uh, really malleable. Keeps your brain really moving.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yeah. Well, so for kids in research around movement, when they do freeform creative movement, like we're talking about free dance or, or whatnot, right?
Um, in the middle of their day or Right. Homework time's. Great. So let's say you give them a little free time to do whatever and then they're. Doing their homework and they just hit a wall, have them stand up, shake it off, play some music and move with them, dance with them, and you will see an immediate boost in their mental acuity.
The New England Journal of Medicine did this incredible 21 year study where they studied, actually. Now this goes, this is both, both for mental acuity in all ages, but particularly for Alzheimer's patients, right? [00:36:00] Patients, and they found only one thing to increase mental acuity and decrease Alzheimer's by 76%.
And it was social dancing, 21 year study. I mean, there's very few studies like that in general, not to mention regarding health. Wow. So it's, it's in a, I mean, just think logically for a minute, Vivian. If we're always doing the same rote movements, we get up, we brush our teeth, we go down, we have our coffee, we drive our car, we sit behind our devices, our movement's usually very linear and very robotic and repetitive walking, running, weightlifting.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. All movement, let me just say, is better than no movement. It's all fantastic. But what does dance provide? It provides creative stimulation of the brain where new neuronal pathways are getting wired and fired because your, your brain is having to keep up with your body in the creative [00:37:00] ways you're moving your body.
It is one of the most powerful longevity tools known to man and one of the most underutilized, in my opinion. Culturally. Yeah.
Vivian Glyck: All we have to do, all we have to do is dance. Get, do your, the only dress of dance. Well, I think that is so, it's so powerful and it's so easy. So with the stress that you're dealing with as a.
A mom of maybe a kid who's struggling or going through it as the mom who is trying to have some sort of interception in their kids' anxiety and depression. It's really just getting them to move and it's a, it's a way to connect and just in terms of longevity. So I know that. Let's talk a little bit about your, um, your free gift that you're offering.
We're gonna be putting those in the, in the show notes, the [00:38:00] link to that. But maybe you can talk a little bit about the free gift and then I'll talk a little bit about the resources we'll have available at Bad Mom Podcast.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yeah. Amazing. Well, one of the things that I love to do, of course, is bring transcendence to the world.
The full modality is 10 tools that you experience in about a 60 minute session. Wow. So imagine replacing this with a yoga class you might take, and it's kind of like combining. Empowerment life coaching with yoga, but your best fun dance party you've ever had all together, you don't need to be a good dancer.
You can actually do this sitting in a chair if there's mobility issues. All ages are welcome. So I'll have families come in with the grandma, the mom and the kids from teens to little ones all doing this together. It's a great bonding experience. So we teach transcendence through Zoom twice a month. All for clients from all over the [00:39:00] world.
Those live sessions are also recorded. So when I give this gift, when I'm on, you know, as a guest on a podcast, what will happen is you can go in either find a date that works for you, or even if the date to come live doesn't work if you just register. We'll send you the replay, which you can download, and now you have a tool that you can use over and over again as a free session streaming anytime you want, that you can use for yourself in your own life or your kids.
And what I'm constantly told Vivian is kind of like they've had, you know, a chiropractic adjustment, a full body massage, a mental health reset, you know, an emotional boost where you just walk away. Feeling really free, feeling alive, feeling energized, feeling like the whole stress of the week and the month is just like drained out of your body and you just feel really renewed.
And that filling up our tank lasts, like it'll [00:40:00] sustain. I find when I do these kinds of practices. As much as I feel like, oh, I'm busy and I don't have time for this, and I've got a thousand things I need to do on this day. If I just remember. But wait a minute, this is you taking the car in and getting the oil changed or filling up your tank of gas that you're gonna now drive around town for an entire week.
Jennifer, this is your mental and emotional refill station when I remember to get that refill, just I have, I just have. Uh, so much more happiness and patience. So much more patience as a mom where I can respond instead of react, respond with love, breathe with my kids. And the other really beautiful tool is in these 10 tools you learn inside of transcend.
You use those tools in a thousand different ways. You use the tool when you're stressed, sitting in traffic, there's a breathing tool. You learn, you use the tool when you're sitting with your kid and they're [00:41:00] totally having a meltdown 'cause they're all stressed out about their test and you teach them this tool because you've learned it yourself.
You know, there's a ton of tools, MINDBODY tools that are installed in the the modality itself that just. Are useful in everyday life, especially as a woman and especially as a, as a mom, and not to mention going back to the body dysmorphia. What I find is the tools that women learn in this practice, within just a few sessions, they release that over the, that overactive inner critic and it's replaced with a loving self image and that.
Is priceless. Yeah. That stays with them for the rest of their life. And then when they're loving on themselves, they immediately install that in their kids. One of the best compliments I ever got from my daughter and it just made, I couldn't help but I like burst into tears, was at a birthday party. My sister-in-law actually asked everybody to go around and say something positive about [00:42:00] me.
It was really sweet of her and what they had learned from me. So it was like my mom and, and my husband and my kids, and you know, my family. And it gets to my daughter. And she says, you know, of course it's my mom. I've learned a lot of things from her, but she taught me how to look in the mirror. And I just like, oh my God.
I just burst into tears because my biggest fear, going back to how I opened this whole interview was that somehow I would pass on to her my body dysmorphia that I had when I, when I, quite honestly, when I got pregnant with her. And one of my greatest goals was to not do that and to heal that from myself so that she didn't suffer from that in the same way.
And I can't tell you how many times she would come home and talk about her friends. Just hating their bodies. And she didn't have that because from an early age, I learned how to love me and she inherited a different energy from me than probably her friends [00:43:00] inherited from culture, but also from their own mothers.
And so,
Vivian Glyck: yeah.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yeah,
Vivian Glyck: that is just so, so important. And um, you know, we keep learning that as women, right? Just that. To, to really release some of that dysmorphia, but it is, it's difficult. Yeah. So I, that is just a huge, huge, mm-hmm. Um, gift that you've been able to give your daughter?
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: Yeah, and that's probably the, one of the number one things I hear from moms that come and do transcendence is they learn that their body is so much more than just something to mold.
It's their portal to their power, and there is a way to move and to live and to feel free and to feel alive, really, quite honestly, regardless of size and shape. But the side benefit of dance is you get in great shape and your body responds and everything aligns. And so not only do you [00:44:00] love yourself, but you look pretty good too.
So yeah, that's the gift. Yeah, I love
Vivian Glyck: that. So that's the gift, and we're gonna have the link to that in the show notes. And then we're also going to have. Resources from this conversation at Bad Mom Podcast slash Jennifer. So I'm super excited about that in our, uh, bad Mom Survival kit, which we're creating out of, out of this podcast and the amazing people that we're speaking to.
And so I am so excited that you were able to. Join us, Jennifer. I think that what you're doing and your work and embodiment, it's just such a great reminder when we get so in our heads that we have to get back into our bodies and move and as and as moms to really be so, um, so silly and selfless and unselfconscious that.
Once we [00:45:00] start moving, our kids can't help but join us as well. So thank you so much for joining me here today on The Bad Mom Podcast, and we learned a little bit about Parenting the Anxious Generation today, so thank you.
Jennifer Joy Jimenez: You're welcome. My pleasure.