Happiness and Joy During Turbulent Times: Resilience Coach Jessica Renfeldt On How To Live With Joie De Vivre, Even When It Feels Like The Whole World Is Pulling You Down

An Interview With Jake Frankel

You should feel happy all the time. False. Life ebbs and flows. If you weren’t sad sometimes, how could you possibly know what happiness truly felt? For me, learning to embrace my life’s ups and downs helped me create a much more resilient approach to joy.

It sometimes feels like it is so hard to avoid feeling down or depressed these days. Between the sad news coming from world headlines, the impact of the ongoing raging pandemic, and the constant negative messages popping up on social and traditional media, it sometimes feels like the entire world is pulling you down. What do you do to feel happiness and joy during these troubled and turbulent times? In this interview series called “Finding Happiness and Joy During Turbulent Times” we are talking to experts, authors, and mental health professionals who share lessons from their research or experience about “How To Find Happiness and Joy During Troubled & Turbulent Times”.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Renfeldt.

Jessica Renfeldt is a heart-centered Resilience Coach, Motivational Speaker and Published Author who uses her own strengths, strategies, and skills uncovered during her fight with cancer, surviving a massive stroke, and ultimately, a heart transplant and in the most recent year the death of her daughter’s father and her mother — to help others cope with loss and grief — however that might show up in their life.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?

What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.

My healthcare crisis really inspired me to pursue my career. I am a cancer, stroke, and heart transplant recipient survivor who left her 29-year career in Pharmacy Benefit Management to follow my dream career in Resilience Coaching, motivational speaking, and published author. During my fight, I felt like I was meant for so much more, something that could help other people who may find themselves fighting for their lives or simply struggling to find hope. I was scared to leave a career that had treated me very well, but ultimately knew I was no longer supposed to be there.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Was there a particular person who you feel gave you the most help or encouragement to be who you are today? Can you share a story about that?

I have two women who inspired me to be the authentic leader I am today. Can you share a story about that? Elaine Manieri helped me see that it was okay be a strong female leader and how to support women in leadership roles. Ann Bennet, of Ann Bennett Marketing, ultimately showed me that I can show up as myself and not have to put on a different coat to fit around a table of male executives. She ultimately helped me see that nurturing is a good thing to be and throw in a little geek and it truly shows the quirky, authentic and loving person I am.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?

When I first left my corporate career and didn’t quite know what I wanted to do around resilience, I thought I needed to learn every skill around website building, social media creation, and side hustles, and I bought so many different courses. When all I really needed was a good business coach to help me define my own personal branding and help me to focus on what I was passionate about — helping people. A lot of what I thought I needed, I simply didn’t. Anything that takes a skill I don’t have, but will take me away from helping people, I’ve gotten much better with hiring out like landing pages, etc.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?

The project I’m most excited about right now is my book “Dancing in the Shower; Cultivating Radical Resilience to Live the Life You Love”. My book will tell a very vulnerable story of many adversities I’ve faced and the strategies and skills I learned, along the way, to live a life full of joy.

You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Geek. I’m not the best at creating a spreadsheet full of lovely information, but my goodness I sure do love and appreciate one. I also geek out at things that others may find odd or unimportant, but these are things that help drive my passion.
2. Relatable: I try really hard to take the time to get to know others on a personal level. I take the time to learn about what they love, and dislike, brings them energy and excitement, and oftentimes, I can find something in those conversations that I also have had an interest in, read about, etc. at one time or another. I’m really the girl next door in that way — easy to get along with. There is literally nothing intimidating about me — just say hello. ☺
3. Nurturing. While nurturing could be considered a weakness in a masculine-driven leadership corporation, I lead my people with kindness and empathy. Leadership is about influencing human behavior and I definitely got more people to follow me when I was true to this skill than when being militant with my teams. Now, I have the opportunity to lead, as a heart-centered nurturing coaching, more than ever, and I’m so stinking excited about it! For the benefit of our readers, can you briefly let us know why you are an authority about the topic of finding joy? For the past 8 years I’ve lived in a personal world of turmoil, loss, and heartache and yet despite all of it, I was able to find gratitude and joy that fueled incredible resilience in my journey. I’ve had countless medical providers, friends and loved ones share how my story influenced finding more gratitude and joy in their own lives.

Ok, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview about finding joy. Even before the pandemic hit, the United States was ranked at #19 in the World Happiness Report. Can you share a few reasons why you think the ranking is so low, despite all of the privileges and opportunities that we have in the US?

Absolutely. I’d like to share three reasons today. 1). Access to healthcare. Even though we have some of the best medical facilities and technology in the world, the US healthcare system is broken. It is too expensive and not universally available. Many Americans experience financial strain due to medical bills, which leads to a lot of stress. 2). The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. The US has one of the highest rates of income inequality compared to other developed countries. This disparity can lead to a lot of stress and frustration amongst those who are on the lower end of the income levels. 3). Work-life balance. I do think this got better for a little while after the pandemic, but we are a culture that is so focused on work. We work longer hours, take fewer vacation days, have shorter parental leave than other countries. Leaving us overworked, stressed, unfulfilled and ultimately unhappy.

As you can see, with all three of these instances, money is a commonality, which really supports the old adage of “money doesn’t buy happiness”.

What are the main myths or misconceptions you’d like to dispel about finding joy and happiness? Can you please share some stories or examples?

1. You should feel happy all the time. False. Life ebbs and flows. If you weren’t sad sometimes, how could you possibly know what happiness truly felt? For me, learning to embrace my life’s ups and downs helped me create a much more resilient approach to joy.
2. Wealth equals happiness. False. Yes, I do agree that money can reduce stress, provide food and shelter, etc., but after my basic needs were met, more money didn’t not equal more happiness for me. Instead, I found that non-materialistic things brought me the most joy like hiking, fishing, camping, backpacking, coffee with friends, and time with my family.
3. External factors (people, places, things) control my happiness. False. For example, I could be in Hawaii and still have an attitude that prevents happiness and joy. For me, practicing gratitude and mindfulness has created so much room for joy in my life, regardless of external influences. I have found myself the most grateful when sitting in an ICU room, by myself, waiting for my donor heart to become available.

In a related, but slightly different question, what are the main mistakes you have seen people make when they try to find happiness? Can you please share some stories or examples?

Living in the “I’ll be happy when” mindset is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make. For example, I’ll be happy when I lose 5 pounds, I’ll be happy when I get my raise, I’ll be happy when I have my new Tacoma Truck. While all of these things are great things to celebrate and one may, indeed, feel happiness once they achieve these things, they are giving up happiness today. Happiness can be achieved without big milestones being met, by simply practicing gratitude in their life.

Can you please share with our readers your “5 things you need to live with more Joie De Vivre, more joy and happiness in life, particularly during turbulent times?”

1. Cultivate Gratitude. Gratitude requires practice and I encourage my clients to start with a gratitude journal and simply begin writing 5 things they are grateful for. Reflecting on these simple things shifts the focus away from stress to appreciation. The cool thing about gratitude practice is that before you know it, 5 things turn into 10 things, 10 things turn into 20, and so on. It’s really magic how it happens.
2. Nurture your community. By this I mean, spend quality time with those you love. If it’s not possible in person then do it over the phone or facetime. Having these kinds of relationships helps you strengthen bonds and helps you feel less alone during difficult times.
3. Physical Activity. This is a big one. Find a form of exercise or activity that you like. Some things that I really enjoy are fishing, hiking, Qigong, and Yoga. For me, nothing is more powerful than a brisk hike in the forest to help relieve stress and replace it with a feeling of well-being.
4. Acts of kindness. Do things that give you a sense of purpose like volunteering to talk to others going through things you have gone through, volunteering at an animal or homeless shelter, or even learning a new skill. After I had my heart transplant, I was able to go and visit with others waiting in the ICU for their hearts. It helped me to feel needed and brought me so much joy to think that I helped give them hope in a time of their lives that can feel pretty hopeless. I also had the opportunity to address the pre-med students at Colorado State about my rare disease, AL Amyloidosis, which will help them identify the disease much sooner in their own medical practice.
5. Mindfulness. Incorporating mindfulness meditations into your routine can help center your thoughts and reduce anxiety. During my 79-day stay, waiting for my new heart that would save my life, I started to struggle a bit and had to refocus to get my mind back to a place of gratitude. So, each night before bed, I started by taking 10 deep cleansing breaths and then saying out loud the things that I was grateful for that day — the nurses knew to give me my space to do this each night. This was so beneficial in elevating my mood when it was falling. In my daily life, I employ strategies like getting into nature as much as possible, Yoga, Qigong, Sauna, Earthing, and acupuncture as mindfulness practices.

What can concerned friends, colleagues, and life partners do to effectively help support someone they care about who is feeling down or depressed? When I’m struggling, I tend to crawl into a hole and stop reaching out to people, posting updates on Facebook, etc. Essentially, I try to fall out of the world as much as I can, which is an abnormal behavior if my mind is happy and healthy. My recommendation would look for changes in behavior of those you love and then make concerted efforts to connect with them. The New York Times posted an article about the benefits of an 8-minute call with a friend. 8-minutes is hardly any time at all to call and make someone’s day that you may know to be struggling. So simple, yet so impactful.

Ok, we are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

It is quite simple, really. I believe that if everyone practiced gratitude in their daily lives, they would shift their mindset and become more empathetic, joyful, and resilient human beings, which would spread to those around them. I imagine this world, and it brings both chills to my spine and tears to my eyes.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them

I know that this is the ultimate wish when it comes to getting a private audience and I feel undeserving even putting this out in the universe, but I would have to say Oprah. I was brought up in the Oprah generation. My mom would watch quite a bit when I still lived at home, but when I went out on my own, she continued to be turned on in my living room if I wasn’t at work. Oprah brought to the world a more heart-centered view, in my opinion, than anyone before her. It is her spirit of kindness and sharing that brought so many stories of hope, subject matter experts, and miracles to her stage that has made me, like many others, believe there is so much more beauty in this world that we can come together to unlock. It is because of this heart-centered leadership that Oprah has that I am now able to pursue my dream of helping people live a life they love.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

https://www.instagram.com/jrenfeldt/

https://mailchi.mp/c13ab7758193/unlimited-resilience

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-renfeldt-23476125/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557383218279

Thank you for these really excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!