Can learning to love yourself change how you feel?
In July 2018, I spoke with Jennifer Elizabeth Masters, a self-love coach and author, originally from Toronto, who now lives in a cottage on a horse ranch outside Santa Clarita, California. Her work centers on one idea: that how we speak to ourselves shapes how we feel and how we live.
We talked about horses, nature walks, gratitude, journaling, affirmations, and what to do with painful emotions. This is an archive episode, recorded when the show covered addiction and recovery broadly.
What can a horse teach a person about fear?
At 2:24, I mentioned equine therapy, where horses become part of a person’s care. From 2:39, Jennifer explained why horses are so useful for that. In her experience, they are extremely intuitive. If you walk into a stall afraid, the horses become afraid too, and when you are calm and grounded, they settle.
At 3:36, I compared the horse to a natural biofeedback device. Jennifer agreed. She said working with the horses on the ranch taught her a great deal about trusting and respecting herself.
Why does time outdoors lift a person’s mood?
At 5:34, Jennifer described a client in New York City who struggles with anxiety and rarely leaves his apartment. She keeps encouraging him to get outside. I pointed out that even in Manhattan there is Central Park, and that almost anywhere a person lives, there is some piece of nature nearby.
At 7:14, she called gratitude one of the fastest ways to shift the way you feel. Interestingly, in her view, simply thanking a plant for its beauty begins to move a person from fear toward feeling loved.
Why do gratitude lists and journals keep coming up in recovery?
At 7:57, I noted that one of the first assignments people are often given in recovery groups is a gratitude list. Journaling and writing assignments are a big part of recovery too. Jennifer agreed, with one condition.
From 8:30, she said the writing should be done with a pen in a book, not typed. She suggested asking simple questions, such as what is better today than yesterday.
She also offered her own definition. To Jennifer, every form of compulsive behavior, whether it involves alcohol, drugs, work, shopping, sugar, or coffee, is at bottom a rejection of the self. So, the work she does starts with learning to love yourself.
When is the best time to repeat an affirmation?
At 10:23, I asked her that question directly. Jennifer compared the mind to a car with a stick shift. When the mind is in neutral, she explained, a conscious thought slips past the gatekeeper into the unconscious mind, which in her view governs our lives.
Her best times are the first moments after waking, right before bed, and during routine tasks such as showering, washing dishes, or driving. In fact, she sees driving as one of the best, because most of us drive on autopilot.
At 11:58, she gave a few that work for anyone: I am loved, I am enough, I love me. An affirmation should be stated positively and feel good in the body. Saying “I can’t give this up” works against you, she said, because the unconscious mind has no sense of humor and believes everything we tell it.
Can the words you tell yourself affect your weight and health?
At 13:24, I asked whether the same approach could help with weight loss. From 13:50, Jennifer shared some of her own history, including trauma when she was young, years of shame and low self-esteem, and a long run of illnesses in her thirties. She described realizing that her own thoughts were working against her.
After a divorce, she gained weight and found it very hard to lose. Things changed, in her account, when she stopped telling herself how fat she was and began thanking her body for its health instead. Choosing a salad over a slice of pie then started to feel natural.
What if the people closest to you keep tearing you down?
At 19:37, I asked about a person who tells themselves something positive every day while someone close to them repeats the opposite. Does that negative voice reach the subconscious too?
From 20:22, she suggested speaking up and telling the other person what you need to hear from them. Yet, in her view, the deeper fix is internal. The people closest to us hold up a mirror to what we believe about ourselves, and as a person learns to approve of themselves, the outside criticism tends to fade.
What helped her when therapy did not?
At 24:45, I asked what first woke her up to the idea that she could get better. At 25:10, Jennifer said individual therapy early on did not work for her, because retelling the same story kept her stuck in the past. Instead, she read self-help books, and Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life stayed with her for years.
At 27:14, she explained that what really helped was a group in Atlanta for women who had survived childhood trauma. Hearing their stories gave her a new perspective on her own. Of course, as she put it, choosing a therapist means finding someone you know is going to help you.
Can listening to motivational recordings help with willpower?
At 32:09, I asked whether affirmations work as well from a recording. Jennifer said listening helps, but saying them out loud and silently to yourself matters more.
At 32:57, I admitted something personal. A few years earlier, I had lost a lot of weight and kept it off for a while. The one thing that was different then was that I played motivational recordings in the car, including Les Brown, over and over. Unfortunately, by the time of this conversation, my willpower had faded.
From 33:54, Jennifer compared those recordings to her own rereading of Louise Hay. In her view, shame and guilt are two of the heaviest emotions a person can carry, and we make them heavier by focusing on the worst parts of ourselves.
Why move toward a painful emotion instead of away from it?
In the same answer, Jennifer described reaching for ice cream, a drink, or a drug to cover a feeling we do not want. The cover does not make the emotion go away. Her advice was to feel it fully, breathe, and let it move through, because on the other side, in her experience, is joy.
At 41:42, I said that people in their first weeks without drugs or alcohol often talk about feelings coming back that they are not used to. Jennifer had noted that anger is often one of the first. In her view, those emotions have to be processed for a person to be free.
Is it ever too late to change the direction of your life?
At 46:24, I asked about someone in their fifties who wakes up to decades spent in the wrong job or in years of drug or alcohol use, and now feels regret. How does a person deal with that?
At 47:12, Jennifer used herself as the example. She ran a landscape business into her late forties and did not begin coaching until 2011. Still, she said, it is never too late.
Who is Jennifer Elizabeth Masters?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters is a self-love coach and the author of several books. She coaches people on self-love, affirmations, and clearing old patterns, and at the time of this conversation she was finishing a new book, Happy Anywhere. Her work is at jenniferelizabethmasters.com.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
The way a person speaks to themselves is not a small thing. Gratitude, writing by hand, and kinder words can change how a day feels, and painful emotions are easier to carry when they are felt rather than covered up.
How do I approach this today?
Today my practice focuses on helping people come off benzodiazepines and other medications gradually, and on medication for alcohol and opioid dependence. Physical dependence is not addiction, and the safest way off is usually slow.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (51 minutes)
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:09] Welcome to The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I am Dr. Mark Leeds and I will be your host. Join me in exploring the world of addiction treatment. How can we improve the ways that we help individuals to overcome addiction? The goal of treatment is to save lives and help people to get back on track to a path towards success and happiness in life. Jennifer Elizabeth Masters, thank you for joining me on the Rehab Podcast. And how are you today?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [00:55] I’m great, Mark. Thank you. How are you?
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:58] Great. So I’m curious, you’re originally from Toronto, Canada. Is that where you are right now?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [01:04] No, I actually live in California. From the time I was 16, I knew I would live in California and that’s where I am now.
Dr. Mark Leeds [01:12] Okay. And do you live by the ocean?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [01:15] I’m about an hour and a half away from the ocean and I visit often, but no, I’m in a canyon. I live on a horse ranch in a beautiful area just outside of Santa Clarita. So I’m about 45 minutes to an hour away from Los Angeles.
Dr. Mark Leeds [01:32] Oh, wow. And how many horses do you have?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [01:35] Oh, there’s five horses and a miniature Arabian and a few cats and dogs as well. You know, lots and lots of animals. Now, I will say this is not my horse ranch. I live in a cottage on the ranch, and I have all these wonderful animals and beauty around me. Mountains and lots of trees. It’s considered desert, for sure, and it is the location where the sand fires were last year. It’s pretty hot in the summer, and it doesn’t get too cold in the wintertime. So the sun shines, as they say, most of the time in California.
Dr. Mark Leeds [02:15] Yeah, and it’s probably not too humid there.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [02:17] No, very dry, as a matter of fact. Very, very rare. It’s a very rare thing to have humidity here.
Dr. Mark Leeds [02:24] Now, the topic generally of this podcast is addiction treatment. And one thing that comes to mind right away when you mention horses is that some addiction treatment programs use horses as part of their program. I think they call it equine therapy.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [02:39] Well, the interesting thing about horses, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, They’re extremely intuitive. So if you walk into a horse stall and you’re afraid, the horses are on high alert and then they get afraid. And so they react to what we’re feeling and experiencing. So the more grounded that we are in our bodies, the more fearless that we are, the more calm the horses are. And then the other thing that I’ve learned working with horses is when we command them, when we stand in our power, we’re totally grounded in our body and we command the horses. They, who are 1,200 pounds or more, respect us. But if we’re in fear, then the horse will trample us. The horse could knock us down. The horse could hurt us. But when we are standing there strong in our power and fearless, then the horses will respect us. Really interesting.
Dr. Mark Leeds [03:36] So in the beginning, when a person first comes in contact with a horse, it sounds like it’s almost like a natural biofeedback device. The horse can give you feedback as to how you’re feeling and that a person can maybe change the way they’re feeling based on how the horse responds?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [03:53] Absolutely. And, you know, I work with my clients on self-love and trusting themselves, respecting themselves. So what I’ve found for myself is that having, you know, horses to be that feedback avenue, it has taught me a lot about myself and how. So now when I walk outside, all of the horses lift their heads and they perk up. And it’s like, oh, Jennifer’s here. So I have their attention from the moment I walk out the door. And they watch me. They’re watching me. Where is she going? What is she doing? So it’s really interesting. Once you have a horse’s respect, you have their respect.
Dr. Mark Leeds [04:41] Do you go on nature walks every day?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [04:44] I do. I live actually just outside the walker, the old farmstead, which has been used for many movies. It’s been donated, actually. So this walker open space is mountainous, so I could climb a mountain or I could walk through a meadow. There’s mountains on either side of the road, as a matter of fact. And I could, in 20 minutes, be standing up at the top of a mountain overlooking this beautiful valley. And so, you know, it is wonderful. It’s therapeutic. It’s healing. And not to mention that, of course, you get exercise walking up a mountain.
Dr. Mark Leeds [05:24] It sounds incredible. It sounds beautiful. And that’s, as you’ve said, I think in your writing, that going for walks, especially nature walks, can be therapeutic.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [05:34] Absolutely. You know, today, so many people are dealing with depression and anxiety. And I have a client, actually, in New York, who’s been dealing with a lot of anxiety. And I keep telling him, he lives in an apartment, and his apartment, of course, is in the middle of New York and he doesn’t get outside.
Dr. Mark Leeds [05:54] Oh, in Manhattan?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [05:56] Yeah, downtown New York City, yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [05:58] Yeah, so, and even there, I mean, they have Central Park. I mean, so almost anywhere that you live, there must be a park or, you know, somewhere in nature. I know where I live, there’s some incredible birds that just fly over and, you know, if you stand in one place long enough or lay down, you just see these incredible flocks of birds or just sometimes individual ones. We get hummingbirds and blue jays and just all kinds of different birds. And I mean, the only thing here is it’s very humid. So, you know, it’s just sometimes too hot and humid to stay outside for long. But yeah, I love walking outside in nature and, you know, just taking a walk through the park.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [06:38] One of the things that I like to do is to point out to people, like you were just saying, so notice the birds, watch the birds fly. Noticed a butterfly and you know we live in an interactive universe most people are not aware
Dr. Mark Leeds [06:56] And clouds also I love watching clouds and you know just seeing the patterns and lately I’ve just started taking pictures of clouds just because I just sometimes I just see something I really like and yeah it’s just incredible just to stop and you know take things in like that to look around and be aware of what’s going on
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [07:14] Well and also there’s you know And being grateful for the natural beauty, one of the things that will lift our spirits from being in fear to feeling loved is gratitude. It is one of the fastest ways to shift the way you feel. And so you could look at your situation, but if you connect with a plant and you say how beautiful, wow, you are so beautiful. Thank you. Thank you, Mother Nature. Thank you to the universe. Thank you, God, for this beauty. When we start doing that, being grateful for what we have around us, it’s amazing how much more positive we start to feel about everything.
Dr. Mark Leeds [07:57] And as far as gratitude and addiction treatment, when people go to groups like Narcotics Anonymous and they start working the steps of the sponsor, often the first assignment they’re given is to keep a gratitude list and write down things they’re grateful for. So it’s generally good to help a person dealing with addiction to stay clean, to think of what they’re grateful for, and also to write. I mean, that’s another big part of recovering is keeping a journal and writing and doing writing assignments.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [08:30] Journaling is a very quick way, and I’m talking about writing with a pen in your hand in a book, not typing. When we write with a pen in our hand into a journal, we are connecting to our high self. We’re connecting with our heart. We’re connecting with the power, you know, of the universe. And I’m big on this because we can have tremendous insights when we journal. And the way I like to address it is ask yourself a question. How am I feeling in this moment? What is it that I am happy with today? What is better today than yesterday? If we can find a way to pick ourselves up from what we experienced yesterday, it’s a way to ever increase the way you feel, increase the happiness quotient. And absolutely addiction is, I love to talk about this, it is a rejection of the self. And so it doesn’t matter whether it’s a sex addiction, an alcohol addiction, a work addiction, a shopping addiction, a sugar addiction, a coffee addiction, or addiction to narcotics. It’s a rejection of the self. And so if you start to find yourself on the path of loving you and even saying, this is what I love, is change the way we feel about ourselves, change our thought, and we change our world. So I’m big on positive mantras and affirmations and doing them at the perfect time. And I’m just wondering, you know, I know that in the 12-step program they talk about affirmations, but they don’t stress the best and optimum times to do these affirmations.
Dr. Mark Leeds [10:23] So what would be, like how does someone know, like what would be the optimum time to do an affirmation?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [10:29] Well, there are a few times you want to do affirmations when your mind is in neutral. What does that mean? It’s just like a stick shift on a car. You disengage, you know, put in the clutch, disengage the transmission, you’re putting it in neutral, and then your conscious thoughts will slip easily past the gatekeeper into the unconscious mind. And it is the unconscious mind that governs our lives. And so oftentimes we have beliefs from childhood, and they were implanted by our parents, you know, we don’t have money for that. No, you can’t do that. No, you can’t. We have these no-you-can’t attitudes and beliefs. I can’t do that. I’m not smart enough. That’s what governs us. Here’s the best time. When you first awaken and right before bed, when you’re showering, when you’re washing your car, when you’re washing dishes, when you’re shaving, when you’re putting on makeup, when you’re doing mundane tasks such as driving. Most people don’t realize we are driving in an automatic state. So driving is a really good time to do affirmations and mantras because we are in a state of autopilot.
Dr. Mark Leeds [11:47] What would be, just in general, what would be a good affirmation just for anyone? Or would it be specific to what a person needs to work on or improve?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [11:58] Well, I can give you several, and these are good for anybody. I am loved. I am loved. I am enough. I am enough. I love me. Regarding affirmations. Affirmations need to be positive. They need to be stated, like I said, in a positive manner. Feel good in the body when you say them. And be focused on your desire or your goal. So the problem is that so many people are creating unconsciously. And when I say creating, basically what we say to ourselves inside our head and even out loud, that is what dictates our life. So if you are challenged with an addiction, you don’t want to state, I can’t give this up. I can’t do this. Because when you say I can’t, the unconscious mind goes, oh, he or she is saying he can’t do this. She says she can’t do this. And the unconscious mind has no sense of humor and believes everything that we tell it.
Dr. Mark Leeds [13:24] Now, as far as dealing with addiction and talking to the self-conscious mind and being positive, that would also apply to things like weight loss, someone who’s overweight, which could also be an addiction, a food addiction maybe. But as far as maybe improving in any area, so you’re saying you can program the subconscious mind to work in your favor or do something to help you get better?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [13:50] Absolutely. So I would like to share a little bit about my personal history. So when I was young, I had sexual trauma like so many people have had. And, you know, I felt really bad about myself. I had guilt. I had shame. My self-esteem was, you know, in the crapper. I didn’t feel good about myself. And of course, I made a lot of excuses and complain. And in my 30s, I started having sicknesses, bladder infections, sinus infections. I had fibromyalgia, Epstein-Barr, an autoimmune disease. I developed tumors, breast cancer, you name it, I had it. And what I recognized when I started on this self-love journey, because I realized my thoughts were killing me, and I really want you to hear me, because we can create and affirm health and vitality and a perfect body, whatever that means for you, by what we say and think. If you have a weight problem and every time you look at yourself, you say, I’m so fat. I can’t lose this weight. Your unconscious mind is going, oh, he wants to be fat. Oh, he can’t lose this weight. And so that is how a belief is formed. And that’s what you call a limiting belief. So the way you turn that around is the minute your eyes are open, thank you for my life. Thank you for my vibrant health. Thank you that my weight is at its optimum level for me. Thank you for my healthy, vibrant body. So what you’re doing is you’re affirming what it is you want, even if you look around and you go, well, my body’s not perfect, But what you’re stating to yourself in the universe is what you want, what you desire for your life. And so the way to lose weight is not by focusing on how fat you are, but by focusing on how healthy you want to be, how slender you want to be. And changing the thoughts that you think will change the beliefs in the unconscious mind, which governs our lives. And, you know, I went after my last divorce, I put on, I think it was 35 pounds. And for me, that was a lot. And I had the hardest time losing the weight until I stopped telling myself how fat I was. And when I recognized that I could shift my beliefs around weight and say my body is perfect for me, my body is at its perfect weight for me, I have vibrant health, and I started giving gratitude for my vibrant health. And then what happens is the next thing is instead of reaching for that piece of pie or cake, you go, oh, well, that’s not good for me. That’s not for my perfect body. I don’t think I’ll have that. I’ll have a salad instead. Maybe I’ll have an avocado instead. And I’ll get the fat that I need from that avocado, something healthy.
Dr. Mark Leeds [17:04] That reminds me that another guest in the podcast, David, who he works with recovering addicts, speaking about a gratitude list, he recommends that all of his sponsors make the very first item on their list every time. Is it I’m grateful for being clean. I’m grateful for being clean today. And they should be grateful for their higher power or for God, but he said that should even be second on the list. The very first thing should always be, I’m grateful that I’m clean today.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [17:33] Well, absolutely, being clean, being addiction-free. And I will say, now this one may be earth-shattering for a lot of people. I firmly believe that addictions are something that every person on this planet has had at some point. Whether it was addiction to the mother’s breast, whether it was an addiction to being held and cuddled, whether it was an addiction to coffee, tea, sugar, whatever, a person, a relationship. So addiction is just a dependence on something else outside of you. And why do we do that? We’re dependent on something else because we don’t recognize how powerful we are. We don’t recognize that our natural state is happiness. Our natural state is bliss and abundance and joy. And all these things happen in our lives and we focus on the negative piece and the trauma as opposed to, oh, that happened to teach me something about myself. And we have a reaction and a response that is huge, an emotional reaction. And then, you know, sometimes we get into this downward spiral of thought. And the next thing you know, we go, oh, a drink would make me feel better. Maybe I should have a glass of wine. Maybe I should smoke some pot. Maybe I should do some cocaine. And those things take us away from what we’re feeling. And it’s actually the reaction to the event. It doesn’t have to be as grand and grandiose as we make it. But we make it even bigger with the way we respond. It isn’t the event. The event itself is the small piece. It’s the reaction that we have to the event that causes the trauma and the pain and the suffering.
Dr. Mark Leeds [19:37] As far as affirmations, is it possible that a person might give themselves positive affirmations but then people around them could possibly be programming them with negative affirmations. Like, for example, with the weight loss example, I tell myself, I’m happy with my body, I’m healthy, I’m living a healthy lifestyle today, and that should be working for me. But then, say someone in my life that I can’t really easily get away from is telling me, you know, you’re fat, you can’t stop eating, there’s something wrong with you. I mean, does that have an effect on the subconscious as well when somebody else is feeding negative information repeatedly? And, you know, what would be the solution for that?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [20:22] You know, that’s a really good question. I’m very glad you asked it. So here’s the thing, is that typically if we’ve got an issue with an addiction, then there’s low self-esteem in there underneath something. And so standing up and speaking our truth and saying to that other person, what you’re saying isn’t helpful. Could you please affirm I love you the way you are? That’s what I need from you. I need you to say I love and accept you the way you are. And that’s the problem is that rejection of the self means we don’t love and approve of ourselves. And so we have this internal programming going on and the people in our life that are closest to us hold up the mirror for what is going on internally within us. And so they’re constantly reminding us of what’s going on internally. So when we heal the internal issue, when we love and approve of ourselves, then those negative responses and reactions will diminish. And as we love and approve of ourselves, we get stronger in the ability to speak our truth, our ability to have healthy boundaries and limits. Because so when we don’t love ourselves, we want other people to love and accept us. So what do we do? Will we try and please everybody else? We try and make everyone else happy. We try and get them to love us. And what is that? It’s actually a form of manipulation. So when we’re wanting others to love us, who needs to love us first? It’s us. So when I began my healing, and that was an issue for me, I kept looking for love outside of myself. I kept looking for love and approval out in my workplace or with my partner or with my parents. And until I loved and approved of myself, I didn’t get it because people were just mirroring back to me how crappy I felt about myself. Now, when somebody, so this happened recently where I’m very authentic. I am the same with you, Dr. Mark, as I am with my clients, as I am with my kids and my mom. I am the same. I’m authentic through and through. So I wasn’t always that way. I used to be a chameleon. I used to act like I thought other people wanted me to be. And when we do that, we’re giving away our power. We’re trying so desperately to be loved. But the first person to give us love has to be us. And so when we start filling our heart up, when we start filling our love tank up, I love me. I love and approve of myself. I am enough. I am deserving. I do have value. I am a beautiful person. So when we keep affirming those things, then what happens is the outside world steps up beautifully as well. And I just go back to the thing on Facebook. I had someone who has a metaphysical bookshop in Los Angeles. She criticized me for claiming to be perfect. And I know I’m not perfect, but I lovingly accept myself the way I am. So it isn’t a matter of us trying to be perfect and then we love ourselves. No, we have to love ourselves now with the extra 40 pounds, without the perfect life. Love yourself now. And when you do that, everything else just takes care of itself. My depression fell away. My addictions fell away. My depression and anxiety fell away. My fibromyalgia and Epstein-Barr healed itself. Doctors told me, you will have that the rest of your life.
Dr. Mark Leeds [24:45] So when you were sick initially and you weren’t feeling well what happened to wake you up to there was something that could be done that you could love yourself and get better did you go to therapy or did you read something or talk to someone what sparked that awakening that you knew you could do something
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [25:10] That’s a really great question I went to therapy early on and I found it did not work for me because what it did was it kept me in my story. It kept me in self-pity. I kept telling the same story of woe over and over again, which dragged the past into the present. So actually, I read many self-help books. I just knew I wanted something different. I knew I was in pain. I knew I was suffering, and I wanted something different. And so when the pain becomes too great, that’s when we go, I need help. We reach out for help. And your help could come in addiction counseling. It could come with a self-love coach. It could come in a lot of different ways. So one of the books that I read, and I still use it today, is Louise Hay’s book, You Can Heal Your Life. And I used that book. I read it probably four or five times. And then I got another book called You Can Heal Your Body, also by Louise Hay. And everything from A to Z is in that book. And when you read, okay, addictions, what do addictions come from? Rejection of the self, a lack of self-love. So when I read that, I went, oh, I need to love myself. Oh, sinus infections, where do they come from? Oh, a need to, what is it, anger that you feel you don’t have a right to have, and it’s stuffed emotions. So when I started expressing myself, then the sinus infections went away. So we have this tendency, we’re afraid to speak our truth, we’re afraid to stand up for ourselves with our loved ones, and so we’re also not expressing the emotions. And when we stuff emotions, they cause problems in our body.
Dr. Mark Leeds [27:08] The therapist you went to, was that like a traditional psychotherapist or a psychologist?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [27:14] I went to a psychiatrist in Toronto way back when. I think I was 21. And the interesting thing was I kept wanting to talk about my parents because I knew that was the source of my issues. And she refused to talk about my parents. So I stopped going. So it’s really interesting when we choose a therapist. It has to be someone that you know is going to help you. The thing that really supercharged my healing powers, I would say, is I went to group therapy. And this was in Atlanta, Georgia. And this was a bunch of women who had been traumatized, sexually traumatized in childhood. And then, of course, like me, they went on to be abused by their partners and husbands. And when I heard other people, you know, beaten up by their husbands, shot, kicked out of a car, left in a gutter to die, I went, oh, my God, there are people out there with way worse stories than mine. What’s my problem? I need to fix this. I need to heal me. You know, those people have way worse issues than me. And so when we start looking around and go, well, he’s got no arms and legs and he’s smiling. This person has lost a child and she’s smiling.
Dr. Mark Leeds [28:40] I went to sit on an N.A. Meeting once and I think the first story I heard, he was midway through the story because I walked into the middle of the meeting. And a guy was telling a story about he was driving an oil tanker, drinking beer and snorting cocaine and hallucinating people on the road that weren’t there. I mean, just terrifying stories. It’s hard to even believe that’s happening out there.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [29:05] Well, cocaine is a very alluring drug. It’s very alluring. I had my own experience with it in my early 20s. And after, I think, the second time, I said, that’s enough. I know this is way too seductive for me. I have got to stop doing this. So I stopped doing it. I did the same thing with alcohol. When I realized that I couldn’t stop, I said, okay, something’s wrong here. I’m not going to do this. And now I can have the occasional beer. But that’s because I love myself. I have self-control. I have self-discipline. And all of those things are part and parcel of being happy with ourselves. We can’t be happy if we don’t have self-control. We can’t be happy if we don’t have self-discipline. And I know that sounds foreign. How could you be happy if you’re self-disciplined? But here’s the thing. If you stay up all night and then you have to get up and go to work, you’re going to be miserable and probably depressed the next day. So we have to be able to take care of ourselves. That self-nurturing is such an important piece of self-love. We need to go to bed at a reasonable hour, get up at the same time. We need to have spiritual practices. We can set up limits and boundaries in a loving way and say, you know, Mom, when you say that to me, I feel hurt. I would appreciate it if you would not criticize me. Or how could you say that in a way that doesn’t leave me feeling bad? Because what you just said makes me feel bad. Rather than saying, you did this to me, you could say, when you say such and such, I feel bad. I would prefer it if you could congratulate me, support me, be there for me in a positive way. Because criticism, although lots of people criticize us, I don’t find it loving and I don’t find it helpful. Now, there are ways that people could say, you know, have you ever tried affirmations? It might be helpful for you. Now, that’s not criticism. That is supportive. But when someone criticizes us, basically what they’re doing is it’s like a punch. Each time someone criticizes us, it’s like knocking a little more self-esteem away from our foundation. So criticizing our children isn’t beneficial. Criticizing our spouses isn’t beneficial. We have to be supportive and, of course, appreciative. So that gratitude and appreciation goes a long way to making the people around us feel loved and happy.
Dr. Mark Leeds [32:09] I was wondering if affirmations are good and driving, would it be helpful to record them and play them back on a recording? Or is it much more useful or maybe only useful to actually say them to yourself?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [32:22] Well, listening to them, I have all kinds of audios that I’ve created that I send to my clients. And I have one for manifesting wealth and it’s positive affirmations for manifesting. I have another one. It’s called I Am Loved. It’s a three-minute audio that people can play and repeat at the same time. It’s very helpful to repeat these things out loud and silently to ourselves, not to just listen to them. Listening to them is good, but we have to say them to ourselves and speak them out loud as well.
Dr. Mark Leeds [32:57] It reminds me of there was a time maybe three to four years ago when I did lose a lot of weight and I kept it off for a while. And just yesterday I was trying to remember what was different between now and then and I remembered that the one thing that was going on then was that in the car I would listen to these motivational recordings. You know, I had different people. One of them was a guy, Les Brown, because he’s really motivational and some other people like that. And I would just play these recordings in the car over and over again and I just seemed to have more willpower then as far as my eating. I could like stick to a diet and just keep losing weight. And lately I just feel like I have no willpower at all. And I just can’t go more than a day or two. And, you know, so maybe that’s one of the things. I mean, maybe that’s sort of like, you know, playing affirmations, you know, playing, you know, people who are motivational, you know, telling me, you know, you need to take charge of your life and do something.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [33:54] Well, that would be similar to me reading the Louise Hay book. You know, every time I went to Louise Hay book, she wasn’t telling me what a piece of crap I was. You know, the book was supportive and loving. We can’t keep loving people around us for whatever time frame that we need. Then absolutely, motivational recordings are very beneficial. Absolutely. Reading books that will empower you. And that’s why I’m writing and I’m completing this book. It’s already written. And I just need to, I’m actually chopping almost 100 pages out of it, the Happy Anywhere book. This book will be motivational and inspirational for people that have been dealing with addictions, depression, anxiety. And this book has all kinds of positive statements in it so that almost every sentence that you read is going to raise you up. So the way thoughts work, we are either taking our vibration down, we’re thinking something negative, which takes us to another negative thought. So we’re going in this downward spiral or an upward spiral. So which do you prefer? You want to spiral upward. So you want to surround yourself with thoughts and beliefs and people that raise your vibration. And shame and guilt are two of the lowest vibrations that we can have. And gosh, I’m sure that most people that have addictions have a lot of shame. I know I used to too. So the shame comes from feeling not good enough and then doing something that shows that you’re not good enough and then beating yourself up for what you just did. And I call it the, I’ve got this sitting right in front of me, this magnifying glass. We take a magnifying glass and we shine it over the very thing that is the worst part of us. And we go, oh, I hate that about me. Why am I so terrible? Why don’t I have self-control? And then we take a baseball bat, figuratively speaking, and we beat ourselves up after we shine that light on it. So what we want to do is focus on the good and state the good, state what we want. And now the negative, we’ll just call it the negative, you know, whether it’s debt or whether it’s an addiction, you want to put it behind you and focus on I love me. I am enough. Okay, the addiction is there, but it’s not in front of my face. So let’s just talk about weight, for example. So rather than, and I don’t want you to think that I don’t have my own issues because, you know, I love to eat. I love to eat. And I’ve always had a healthy appetite. And when I was really physically active, it didn’t matter what I ate. You know, my body stayed in reasonably good shape. But, you know, as we get older and if we’re sitting a lot, it’s a little bit more challenging. So I have to focus on and believe my body is at its perfect weight. I love my body. I love my belly. I love my stomach. Rather than, I’m so darn fat. Even when you say that, how does it feel? It feels awful. Yeah. So do you want to feel good or do you want to feel terrific? Yeah, terrific. Absolutely. So I would say I love my body. My body is perfect for me. And have the vision in your mind of where you were when you were watching those motivational tapes. Or listening to them, rather, because you were driving. So remember what your body looked like. We have cellular memory. And focus on that vision and just say over and over again, my body is at its perfect weight and you have that vision in mind. And just watch how you find yourself reaching for the thing that you know is good for you, the spinach salad with avocado instead of the bowl of ice cream. So I wanted this ice cream thing I just want to touch on. When we have strong emotions, whether it’s anger, hatred, or, you know, we feel terrible, Whatever the feeling is, when we don’t like that feeling, oftentimes, and believe me, I experienced this for many years too, what we tend to do is we don’t want to feel bad. So we reach for ice cream, we reach for a drink, we reach for cocaine or whatever the substance is of choice that makes us feel not bad. It covers up that emotion. But does it make the emotion go away? No, it doesn’t. So instead, we need to not be afraid of feeling. Rather than trying to make ourselves numb, we have to move to the emotion. So if it’s sadness, for example, one of my kids has been missing since Friday. And I haven’t given up hope. And I pray every day he’s brought back home and safely. But you know he may not come back I live in a land where there’s coyotes hawks and owls so you know he’s been gone for five days the chances of him surviving you know are probably 50 percent or less so I keep stating you know no matter where he is he’s safe and I am safe and so did I cry yes So moving towards that emotion, you want to move into it rather than run away from it. Feel it fully. You can even say, you know, I really want to feel this emotion fully. Let me feel that sadness. Let me feel that shame. I want to feel it fully and breathe. And what is on the other side of feeling the emotion is joy. Most of us, and I did this for well over 30 years, I sat in the place of suffering because I didn’t want to feel. And until we move into the emotion and allow it, basically, it feels like it’s consuming you, but it isn’t. It’s not going to kill you if you cry. It’s not going to kill you if you feel sadness or sorrow or whatever that feeling is. Feel it fully and breathe it in and allow it to move right through you. So next thing you know, the joy is going to start spilling over and it’s going to come from nowhere. So rather than stuffing those emotions, rather than covering them up with a substance of any kind, we need to feel. That’s what emotions are. Emotion. It’s supposed to be energy in motion. It’s not supposed to stay stagnant and we’re not supposed to stuff them. And most people that have addictions are afraid to feel their emotions. And I’m sure you’ve talked about this, that in addiction treatment, one of the first things that comes up is anger. Why? Because the alcohol, the narcotics, whatever you’ve been taking have suppressed that anger, tried to cover it up. And the emotions have to be processed to get to the other side to be free.
Dr. Mark Leeds [41:42] Yeah, a lot of people when they’re first getting clean, in their first few weeks they talk about that, about how they’re feeling their feelings. And their feelings and emotions are coming back and they’re not used to how that feels. And I notice a lot of the words, I’m actually looking at something from your first book, The Chart of Consciousness. And in your book it goes from shame being 20, I think that’s a vibration number, all the way to the top enlightenment, which is 700 plus. And then all in between you have shame, grief, fear, desire, anger, pride, courage, neutrality, willingness, acceptance, reason, and then you’re getting up to the higher level of love, joy, peace, enlightenment. What does that mean? What are the vibration numbers?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [42:28] Well, you know, we’re all energy. Thoughts are energy. Emotions are energy. Every human is made up of energy. Our cells are made up of energy. So each emotion has a vibration like for example on a scale from and it’s something that you dowse so dowsing is you know what people who are looking for water do you know they use a stick and they go searching for water and what dowsers do is that you know they use this stick and Maybe it could be a V, like a fork from a tree, and it turns down when there’s water. So they’re dowsing and they find water that way. Well, using a pendulum is a form of dowsing. And on a scale from 1 to 100, or using that scale could be 1 to 1,000, you can say, so disappointment, for example, is a very low vibration. And think about how many disappointments you had as a child. That is a big thing that nobody talks about. But releasing our disappointments, I can feel the energy of it’s a low vibration. And when we let go of disappointments, it’s amazing how freeing it is. And our energy, it’s like being in a hot air balloon and cutting the cords or the ropes that keep that hot air balloon tethered to the ground. When we release these heavy emotions, our energy soars. We start to feel happy. We feel uplifted. We feel positive. But when we have these heavy emotions and we’re not feeling them, we’re stuffing them, the anger, guilt, shame, disappointment, we are tethered to the ground. And that’s where that depression comes in.
Dr. Mark Leeds [44:29] I would love to do like a second part of this soon if you have time. Yeah, I mean, there’s so much stuff to cover.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [44:36] It is. It’s a big subject. And of course, I’ve got over 30 years of research, more actually, because I’m 63. So I could say I’ve had 63 years of personal research. So yes, it’s a vast subject. And it is one near and dear to my heart. I’d love to do another program with you.
Dr. Mark Leeds [44:55] Yeah, that’d be great. Because I really had wanted to talk about, and I told you initially, I was really interested in the idea of past lives and that there’s a higher-up perspective on that people think they have one life, you only live once, but maybe there’s more to that maybe people don’t only live once, maybe they live many times, and there’s much more beyond that you don’t just start young and get old and you’re finished, that maybe there’s another life beyond that, and we’ve had lives before this.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [45:25] Well, with the experiences I’ve had, I absolutely believe in past lives. And I work with people who have been suicidal, and I clear suicidal programs so that they don’t ever feel that way again. And in every case, when I’m clearing suicidal programs, they’ve had 20 or 30 or more past lives where they committed suicide.
Dr. Mark Leeds [45:46] Is that something where they’re trying to learn that lesson by getting through a life without committing suicide? I mean, is there like a meaning to that?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [45:55] It’s part of it, absolutely, because they have been dealing with helplessness. Helplessness and hopelessness, you know, lifetime after lifetime. And when you feel hopeless, you know, there’s no sense of hope. And so, therefore, you feel like, I must end it because there’s no hope. And yet, you know, anybody looking in would say, of course there’s hope. There’s always hope. But for those that have had lifetimes of suicide, that is their go-to thing. There’s no hope.
Dr. Mark Leeds [46:24] How do you handle it? Say someone comes to you for therapy and they’re getting older, they’re in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, and they’re not at the place in their life where they want to be. They’ve had a lot of issues with maybe dealing with addictions or just wasting years of maybe doing a job that they never really wanted to do. And they finally wake up, say, in their 50s, and they’re like, this isn’t the life I was supposed to have. I, you know, there’s other things I want to do. And I was supposed to be, you know, maybe rich and famous or have a certain kind of life or not have to go drive to a job every day and come home in traffic. I mean, you know, and now they have, you know, this regret of all these decades of wasted time and they’re older and, you know, maybe not as healthy as they should be. You know, how does someone deal with that?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [47:12] Well, I can use myself as a perfect example because, you know, although I started doing this work, you know, in 1998, I had a landscape business at the same time in 2007. So if I’m 63 now, in 2007, how old was I then? I think I was in my late 40s, I think. So I didn’t start doing coaching until 2011. So that’s not even been 10 years. So I would say it’s never too late. There are people that at 80 years old, they decide I’m going to be a painter. And they do. And they’ve got artwork in museums. It’s never too late. And what I do is help to clear the patterns and programs that stop you from being all that you’re meant to be and help you to move into your greatest and infinite being that you really are.
Dr. Mark Leeds [48:13] I wanted to ask you quickly, when you talk about helping people, the recording you were talking about, you say that you sometimes give people that you work with in therapy affirmation recordings. Is that something that people can get, like general recordings? Do you have those for sale, like affirmation recordings?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [48:32] Well, I have them on my website, but also if you send me an email and you’re looking for resources and free help, I have podcasts that I give away that have energy clearings and affirmations in them. So those podcasts I give away to help people. […] I have plenty of them.
Dr. Mark Leeds [48:59] Oh, that’s great. And also you’ve authored many books. I mean, people can look you up on Amazon and you’re working on the new book. How soon do you think that new book will be out?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [49:08] Well, my editor and I are talking about it’s going to be launching in August of this year, 2018.
Dr. Mark Leeds [49:16] When you come out with that book, are you going to have an audio book with it? Okay. Are you going to read it, or do you have somebody picked out to read it?
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [49:23] I’m probably going to do it. I think it’s a book. I remember reading Eckhart Tolle’s book. Hearing it in his voice, I think, was phenomenal. And so I will be most likely reading it myself.
Dr. Mark Leeds [49:37] Yeah, that sounds great. That’s what I was imagining. I’d love to get the book and listen to you reading it in the car.
Jennifer Elizabeth Masters [49:44] Well, thank you. I appreciate that, Dr. Mark. I’ll be sure to get you a coffee. Thank you. Well, thank you, Mark. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I look forward to being on your show again.
Dr. Mark Leeds [49:55] Thank you. Thank you for joining us today on The Rehab on the Mental Health News Radio Network. I hope that you have found this show to be interesting and useful. If so, please subscribe to the Rehab Podcast and share on social media. I appreciate your taking the time to listen to the Rehab.
