At 18, the singer found herself homeless and plagued by panic attacks. Mindfulness helped her regain control of her life.
By Haley Goldberg, Self
Singer-songwriter Jewel is best known for
ballads such as “You Were Meant for Me” and “Who Will Save Your Soul,”
but lately she’s been focused on promoting mindfulness and sharing her mental health story. Late last year she launched Never Broken,
a site dedicated to “emotional fitness” through online tools. And last
week, on a new episode of Dan Harris’ podcast “10% Happier,” the
42-year-old Alaska native explained how she used the practice to take
control after ending up homeless and plagued by panic attacks at age 18.
[post_ads]"The word mindfulness
wasn't even around back then, but I went back to this idea of how can I
rewire my brain," she says on the podcast. “I remembered this quote by
Buddha: 'Happiness doesn't depend on who you are or what you have, it
depends on what you think.' I had the distinct pleasure of only having
what I thought left. I had no family, no house, no food—nothing to
distract me, if you will.”
Looking
through her journals, Jewel realized she’d been addicted to negative
thinking and knew she needed to make a change. To do so, she created her
own series of meditations to help her be more mindful every day and
also to aid her in specific difficult moments. Her quick visualization
to cope with panic attacks—which started plaguing her at age 16—is one
such example:
"I learned to do this meditation where I imagined I was on a very stormy ocean. I’d imagine myself sinking through the ocean, allowing myself to relax, I would get calmer. I would notice the color of the ocean change. I’d notice the taste of salt on my lips. I’d notice the rays of sunlight coming in and the further I got down to the sandy floor, it got calm, it got tranquil by then, and I would look up at the stormy surface and it was in the distance."
Jewel's
panic attack visualization both distracts her and calms her down—two
key ways to ease up the discomfort of a panic attack. And it's a perfect
visualization to bookmark for the next time you're feeling a panic attack set in.
It makes sense that meditation would help Jewel cope with her anxiety. Meditation can actually change the way your brain works. Studies
have shown meditation amps up activity in the parts of the brain
dedicated to focus, calmness, and processing stress—and this makes it an
effective treatment for mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Experts have previously told SELF that to see the results of meditation, it's important to be consistent and ideally practice every day.
Jewel says meditating helped her learn to
observe her thoughts rather than let them run amok. "I would notice my
anxiety, and I would force myself to...track the thought to see what the
lie was my brain was telling me, and I'd tell myself the truth," she
said. "For me, the truth was: I am capable of learning and I will learn
more today. That calmed my anxiety down and helped me rewire, and that
started creating resilience and that started creating a tenacious
attitude, which is a much better thing to get addicted to [than negative
thinking]."
[post_ads_2]
Jewel credits this
practice with helping her find happiness after a tough childhood. The
singer grew up in Alaska, surrounded by people who used "relationships,
drugs, [and] alcohol to try to numb and medicate feelings." Her voice
was her way out. At age 15, she got a vocal scholarship to a performing
arts school in Michigan. But by age 18, she found herself homeless,
shoplifting, and plagued by panic attacks. Determined not to become a
"statistic"—"I was going to end up in jail or dead, in short
order"—Jewel used mindfulness to take control of her mental health and
life.
