The Power of Vulnerability: How to Lead Without Losing Yourself

Welcome to the Connection Podcast

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[00:00:37] On the podcast today, we're going to dive deep together on all things, relationships, business identity and leadership. Clarity and ease is at the heart of it all and we are so happy to be with you so that you can have what you need in connection, mind, body, and soul too.

Meet Jenni Rae Oates

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[00:01:29] Jenni Rae is a division one athlete. She knows what it is to push herself. She's a seven figure entrepreneur, but it was her personal journey that really stood out to me. It was her love for her family and also the experience and the journey that she has walked through, not only through love, but through loss and the hardest journey a parent could go through, the heartbreaking loss of her beautiful boy Jose. So we are so privileged to meet with Jenni Rae today to cover everything from the depths and the challenges and the victories that come with achieving in life, but also the most important things that we also know are so important for our own selves at home.

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[00:02:37] As a former division one athlete and recovered performer holic, she's coached over 20,000 entrepreneurs to rewire their internal operating systems for success through her feminine hustle method, the Rise Leader Experience, Jenni Rae equips leaders to break toxic performance patterns, create sustainable success, and lead from wholeness instead of fear. Now our conversation did start off a little bit more high level and my curiosity was peaked not only by her personal and professional journeys, but the synchronicities also really stood out to me. Jenni Rae's program also is called Rise, and I just know that Jenni Rae's a perfect person to uncover and explore what vulnerability is, not only in business, but behind the scenes as well.

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Why Vulnerability Feels Risky (But Matters Most)

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[00:04:12] So you know what immediately sticks out to me? When you say that word, I just think about the, the, almost the fight that I had to go through to understand it, to learn it, to get it, because it's not how I was raised, it's not how many of us were raised. We weren't raised with this understanding of, or this allowance, I should say, of being vulnerable and finding safety in that vulnerability.

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[00:05:26] It was a surprise. Like two months after getting married.

The Struggle and Strength in Vulnerability

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[00:05:46] But just as you were saying it, what comes up for me is just thinking high performers. Just, we've trained ourselves out of it. we don't know how, because we haven't had the permission. So we have to give that to ourself.

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[00:06:18] Jenni Rae Oates: Mm-hmm.

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[00:06:43] I was so attached to this idea that success and, performance was so enmeshed. The better I was able to create this identity, create this performance, the more successful I would be. What I didn't realise though, at the time, was that was keeping me absolutely stuck in that place, whether it was in business, whether it was my relationships.

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[00:07:32] that seems to be the interlinking, connection there between those words. What do you believe is the difference between that versus sustainable nervous system co-regulation with others, or even just on a authentic ownership of who you are and your own journey? how would you separate the two for people who are just exploring what vulnerability is, and even just being able to almost look at the word without flinching.

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[00:08:28] And I know that sounds maybe like a funny question to ask, but I have trained myself to ask myself consistently, for instance, if I'm in a conversation and I name drop or I drop something, I ask, there's something that rises up in me and I'm like, Ooh, what was my aim? What was my aim there?

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[00:09:05] And so there's nothing wrong with needing that connection with another. And also it is a razor thin line between, I'm doing this to get, I'm doing this to manipulate a situation. I'm doing this as a performer, even to manipulate your perspective of me. And so this is where vulnerability can go really sideways.

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[00:09:45] And when I conceive vulnerability as a gift, that doesn't mean the other person can receive my gift. There's a lot of people that you can give gifts to that can't unpack them, can't open 'em because of their own lack of vulnerability, their own knowing and understanding of how to be with vulnerability. So this is where we have to like, get in the gym of vulnerability and learn how to flex our muscles and, and do the reps because it's never gonna be perfect because you're dealing with another human on the other side of you who also has their own journey with vulnerability.

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[00:10:38] I am the same on the inside as I am on the outside. Because see, as high performers, we have mastered the art of the mask and performing, proving ourselves, you know, pleasing everyone, doing all these antics that again, are just patterns that we don't even most of the time realise we're operating in until life lifes or, and it doesn't work anymore until something comes back our way.

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[00:11:24] Maybe it was an overreach, maybe it was a victim thing, maybe it was a little bit sideways. And that was part of the journey of learning how to not just be vulnerable, but to also be congruent at the same time. And I just don't think you can separate those.

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[00:12:10] have you ever experienced, when it came to early on in your journey and trying to find that balance and find that congruency, as you said, between what's happening internally to you versus what you feel safe enough to express? it's such a cornerstone to relationships. Not only our intimate relationships at home, but our work relationships, our friendships, our family dynamics.

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[00:12:41] Lauren Dry: How did you navigate in the absolute depths of the human experience, when it comes to holding yourself with tenderness and being brave enough to ask yourself the tough questions and care for yourself so that you can find that congruence.

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[00:13:28] Congruency sounds nice, but I've been through too much, and the people around me don't support me. And if we take that one step further and go into business, well, my experience in business is completely opposite. If I share and anytime I have in the past, I have evidence that me being vulnerable is a huge risk, not only personally, but professionally. How did you find and explore that line between bravery and, oh no am I too much?

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[00:14:24] My wrestle, my husband actually, at the time, he was a pastor at a large church. It was 13,000 people and I thought that people might want to hear what I was wrestling with, might want to meet me in that. And so I was sending my journal entries and my wrestling with God, with myself, with life, with all these deep questions, right.

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[00:15:25] And this is a huge part of the work that I do with women now with high performers, is unwinding and uncovering what that story is. What is the meaning they have drawn into the moments of their life that wounded them in those vulnerable places the most? That was the most bare I'd ever been. Here it is here, I'm wrestling.

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[00:16:03] But like truly dissociated, disconnected from my true self and who I really was because my true self at that time was really wrestling. I really did have a lot of questions. I really was angry. I was super angry, but again, I grew up where anger wasn't allowed and so we just masked it and I was able to make it through that because I could take it out on a soccer field or a basketball court.

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[00:16:44] They won't, I'll be abandoned. I won't belong. I'll lose connection. So I think at the heart, most of us are afraid that if we really show who we are, connection will be broken instead of, restored or instead of somebody moving towards me and what our brains do um, I do a lot of neuroscience work as well.

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[00:17:22] And so for me, it really did start out with this feeling of I'm too much. But then that actually became a gift that in a sense, that rejection, that abandonment, I felt led me on the journey that I'm now, I've been on for 20 years of reclaiming who I really am, rediscovering who I am, and allowing that vulnerability to come out now in healthy ways.

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[00:18:23] Jenni Rae Oates: Was there a moment in time where you felt torn between Okay, I can hang on to the old version of me. the version of me that says, okay, in order to survive, I'm going to have to perform. I'm going to have to put on a show even. To someone who's close to you, who maybe has their own struggles and it can be challenging to hold someone in the depth of a really challenging time where you felt that decision happen, where you moved from that, like you said, that old corporate mentality, this is what I learned.

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[00:19:35] is there a moment that really stands out to you where you chose to take that risk and it started to pay off and you, started to get that feedback around, okay, it might be risky, it might hurt, but the payoff is going to be so much more important to me in the long run. And why, what happened for you and what was a turning point around that being something where the benefits started to outweigh the risk?

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[00:20:25] To, be my most vulnerable self because I didn't know what I'd be met with because my husband was having his own journey with vulnerability, his own journey with grief and I know that those protective mechanisms for me, what I tended to reach for was anger, was, um, disappointment, staying in a space of being disappointed.

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The Duality of Joy and Grief

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[00:21:16] It was simply letting somebody see me have fun, letting somebody just see me enjoying life because I didn't feel like I deserved to ever enjoy life again.

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[00:21:26] Jenni Rae Oates: And so that was extremely vulnerable. That was a turning point. Another turning point for me was in business when I wasn't a business woman.

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[00:21:57] Say like, we've signed on the dotted line. This is where our income comes from. And so we, my husband and I started a business together and the, business journey for me really became a vulnerable lifeline because I discovered myself, it's like I went to personal development school on steroids, having to learn all of these parts of me where I'm this high performer, and up until now I could do everything.

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[00:22:36] So here I am selling things every day and getting asked to speak constantly and I was not a speaker, my husband was the stage guy, he was the big charismatic presence. I'm like, I'll do all the behind the scenes stuff. And so speaking for me, I realised came from a deep place. I'd always been able to put my head down, hustle hard, and and speak through my actions and my performance.

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[00:23:25] And so that was why I was like, just. I never wanna speak, I'm not gonna do it. And I'll never forget, my husband and I got to, six figures within our first 12 months on this track that this company had. We were the youngest in the company to do it. We were the fastest to do it. And so they asked us to speak at their global convention and there's 5,000 people in this room.

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[00:24:08] And I realised it's in me. Am I even listening to me? Am I even hearing me? And I believe that's where vulnerability begins because we are waiting on other people's responses to us to give us permission to be vulnerable, to take that next step, when really it is our responsibility to first and foremost be vulnerable with ourself.

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[00:24:51] Because I stepped into that. So those were two major turning points for me was just the allowing myself to experience joy after such deep heartache and still to this day, like joy still feels like the most vulnerable reach for me and then also stepping into something that I did not feel skilled in.

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[00:25:17] Lauren Dry: I love that so much and again, I think we, we are gonna have to keep talking about synchronicities, but I just had a call, call just finished just before, before we connected. Uh, one of the questions was. How can I learn to play again? How can I learn to play again? Because I feel like I've got this skillset and I am getting my confidence back and, things are going really well in my relationship, but I feel like I'm hiding behind this mask.

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[00:26:13] Expressing our disappointment, things like that, that's vulnerability. But the risk that comes with, okay, how about I regulate and I invite you in, I invite you into my experience and into my reality, and I show you, you know, it's like rolling over and showing you my belly, it feels dangerous.

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[00:27:42] what does that represent? If I, if I have joy and how can I honor the complexity of who I am and everything that I've been through? While also, embracing the lightness of this journey as well, that we're all on. I don't think that that's talked about enough how scary joy can be, you know, joy that begins in our own selves and what a catalyst that can be for the people around us.

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[00:28:29] Jenni Rae Oates: Yeah, and I think you hit something really important, Lauren, because if you hadn't said it, I was gonna say it, that we don't all have these massive losses and these marker moments where we're having to figure out how to have joy on the other side of it.

Embracing Duality in Life and Business

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[00:29:15] I don't want them to need 20 years, 30 years of coaching and therapy and all, all the stuff. I, I want them to have those voices and mentors in their life. But man, if we can fast track through some of this stuff. So I was literally just talking to my kids the other day about it, is don't, don't give the ability for you to feel and experience joy to anybody else.

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[00:29:55] And also I want to play, I wanna be silly because I can't afford today to be in such a disconnected, energetic space, angry space. And so when we don't let ourselves feel joy and celebration, it impacts our work. We do have to switch gears into the performative work Jenni Rae, I have to show up that way if I don't let myself feel the full spectrum of emotion, which on one side is deep, deep, deep grief.

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[00:30:42] So like I, I just said goodbye to one of my daughters for college this week. it was so hard because I have been blessed with the gift of, I have two daughters and, and a son, and then my son who passed away and my oldest is gone doing her thing. But my middle daughter. She spent two extra years at home doing college here for free in Tennessee and working her business.

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[00:31:27] And like we were just in the nitty gritties and it wasn't about this external, like we're creating her offer, this was pulling out of her vulnerability. This was like, what's in you? What are the gifts and the gold inside of her name's Eden. What is the gift inside of Eden that the world needs? And that's a very vulnerable place.

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[00:32:05] And she's able to take a, a branding course to keep her on track in school. So all that to say, it was a decision that's like, okay, I don't even, we both were like, why are we doing this? Why are you going to school? Like, we're holding hands, clutching hands as she's driving to college and leaving her, we're sobbing, we're crying.

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[00:32:52] And she's like, gosh, I'm feeling sad. And also I'm gonna play basketball with all the guys. I'm having so much fun. And I'm like, oh, I can hold both. You know? I think that's the reality of just being able to be vulnerable with people. is just that duality holding both joy and sadness at the same time.

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[00:33:33] Jenni Rae Oates: Mm-hmm.

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[00:33:58] Jenni Rae Oates: and also,

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[00:34:25] I can hold place for that duality and forgive myself for not having things perfect. And then in that place of vulnerability. Suddenly that's where possibility happens around. Oh, okay well, if this is something that's important to me, if my business is important to me, if college is important to me, if these things, we start to finally get curious about what actually matters, what our priorities are, and how to support them instead of Oh, okay when you use the word, but it's all these things are going, going great, so I should be grateful. everything should be fine. I shouldn't tell my daughter that I'm missing her today. I want her to be happy. the but word is singularity. It's like she's at college.

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[00:35:31] I can make this a rich experience that only brings us closer as opposed to, this one or the other. I have to be happy with her, or I have to keep her by my side forever. You know,

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[00:35:43] Lauren Dry: possibilities happen in that space.

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[00:36:06] It's really to connect with her and let her know how much I love her and that she's a valuable, important piece of my life and this family, and that her felt presence in our home, that we're missing it. And so if my aim is, I wanna tell her this so that she fixes this feeling I have inside of me so that she responds in some certain way that lessens my grief and my sorrow, I'm setting myself up for disaster in the relationship.

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[00:36:51] It's to draw a bridge that'll invites possibly them to walk across that bridge. So every time I'm vulnerable, I see it as me like laying down the drawbridge, and it's an opportunity for that person to walk across. And they might just come up to the bridge and I can be okay with that. I don't know where they're at, even in that moment.

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[00:37:30] That is my responsibility. That's where we have counselors, therapists, coaches, mentors, journals. For me, I go for a run.

Finding Joy and Play as Adults

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[00:37:51] I mean, what are we doing as adults? Am I going to play with blocks? Like am I going back to like childhood? What am I doing? I think we have to find the things right now at this moment of our life that just light us up. And for me it's running. There was this huge season of my life where I was having to squeeze in runs or whatever.

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[00:38:28] But what I didn't realise is that I was at the core, a runner.

Returning to the Body Through Movement

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[00:38:48] He just made the U 20 USA team. He will be right representing team USA in Spain this next month, on a trail run. one of four boys in the entire United States. And through his journey of choosing to run and not, not running his whole life, he started in ninth grade really. This love came back for me of like, oh my gosh, I actually love running.

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[00:39:32] I take my phone and I'll run, like speak to it at the same time. That's not everybody's jam. It might be Pilates, yoga or something very, very calm or a walk through the woods or something else.

Running as a Path to Regulation

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From Grief to Healing: A Personal Journey

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[00:40:10] Like it was, I trained them like, oh, don't hug mummy because she hurts when you hug her. It was awful. I was 28 years old and literally thought I was gonna die before I hit 30. I was so, so sick, and so I had to stop running. But I remember in that season, coming out of that hearing, clearly it's because you've been running from something.

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The Importance of Running Towards Goals

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[00:40:49] So every time I go for runs, I'm just like, oh, I'm so excited to create today, to be with myself today, to enjoy just the celebration of fresh air and breathing and the fact that I can move my legs. And I think it's so important that all of us who know how to push through and power through and do really, really hard things that we find, whatever it is that opens up our heart in that way.

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What Avoidance is Really Costing You

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[00:41:36] And I think that what you just expressed there is the perfect picture around. No, we are not moving away from discomfort. We're not moving away from pain. We are moving towards sustained, uh, damage towards our own, not only our mental self, but our physical self. it might not look like a run for everyone, but the data around what happens to our own bodies physiologically, when there's contempt in a relationship.

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[00:42:30] how much money you have, comes down to the quality, and the depth of our, relationships. so I think it's just such a, it's such a beautiful picture around, that loving accountability moment. Are we trying to avoid, are we trying to run away? Are we trying to dissociate, are we trying to perform our way out of the scariness of vulnerability under the illusion that that's moving us towards comfort?

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[00:42:59] Lauren Dry: it's not the case. And I think that what you just shared there is just the perfect example of you can run as hard and as fast as you want. but thank God our body will catch up to us and I think we punish our body so often. You know, I can't believe my skin looks like this. I can't believe, my back hurts. I can't believe we don't have these health conditions. what a beautiful opportunity to say, Hey, where am I not showing loving care and tenderness? And, sometimes the answer is, is not that simple. It's not as simple as, okay, I need to take more vitamins. there's some really challenging things.

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Why Deep Connection Requires Safety

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[00:44:38] Because we have been told, especially as women, that our reactions and our triggers, like, you know, you're just PMSing. We have so much shame around the vulnerability of our reactions, and then we gaslight ourself and we shame ourself for how we just reacted to our children, how we reacted to our spouse.

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[00:45:23] We can't see them. We don't know they're there until they get stepped on, until they explode. So rather than shaming ourself and feeling guilty and spiraling in mum guilt, it has been a journey for me of learning how to be with what that reaction is mirroring back to me. What that trigger is telling me once and needs to be healed in me, not the circumstance and not the other person.

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[00:46:12] And you had a horrible week in work and business. You didn't get anything done and you see this person just crushing it. You don't even realise that you stepped on an emotional IED because all of a sudden you feel drained, you're tired, you don't feel like working. You're taken out for the whole day. And so there was a reaction that actually happened in you from simply what you saw.

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[00:46:51] It might be an invitation to go, what's the story I'm making up about how she is versus how I am? What am I telling myself about who I am as a business owner and I'm spiraling into now I'm not capable. I can't do it. I'm behind. I'll never get it. I'll never figure it out right? Or if, if that situation with my kids, I have learned the power of those reactions are just showing them humanity and that there is a very real aspect of, yeah, there's things that need to be healed in me and I might be tired.

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[00:47:39] So in that moment, if I look man, I can, I can get so much healing and it's amazing 'cause then we can get healed as we're hustling. I have a program called Heal in the Hustle because the hustle and our work is in how we are with our spouse and kids while we're working. It's all showing us places that wanna be healed and if we can do it one little micro reaction at a time, we can heal ourself to wholeness.

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Balancing Hustle and Self-Care

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[00:49:02] So, my word for the year is gonna be balance. Holy duly. What a, what. You know what an opportunity to sit in my own humanity, because that was the year where everything fell apart. Everything fell apart. I mean, like, parenting, marriage work, like my own identity with my own self. Everything fell apart. So, yeah. be careful with your power words, guys,

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[00:49:34] Lauren Dry: Do, you know what though? After that year, that was the most humbling year. I, I discovered that for me, balance is not what I thought. It is not ticking the box and saying, do I have this portion of my life allocated for this, this portion of my life, allocated for that, this portion of my life allocated for that.

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[00:50:21] Not only as someone who's curious about the word balance, but someone who's a business owner and I've been through so many seasons. My husband is a business owner, he's been through so many seasons. We are, right in the middle of, he's got some big business goals. and so we are really trying to honor the season that we're in.

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[00:50:59] So to have mentors, to have a plan and to understand, the S-M-A-R-T goals. So T being timed, if you are working a little bit past your capacity. now I wanna know and hear from you if I was to ask. Let's say you have people who are business owners, who are entrepreneurs, who are, in really high level positions, and it's taking a lot of their time, a lot of their energy, and they may or may not be doing well in terms of juggling their relationships at home.

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[00:51:52] I'm curious about what comes up for you around that word and how you would explain balance for women in business, for people, for entrepreneurs, for people who are trying to find that harmony themselves, what that looks like personally and professionally.

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[00:52:27] And that's really what it's about. We are wanting our power back. We're choosing words like balance, hoping that it somehow orders our schedule, orders our time, orders our life. That feels like chaos, we feel outta control, right? And what we really need is the power inside to decide and choose and know what's right and best for us, what produces life and what doesn't in that moment.

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[00:53:18] Hustle's wrong if you're hustling, like this whole mentality that we have seen, which we've seen, what happens in our culture is there's always an answer to an overcorrection. So female business owners, we entered into the business realm, you know, in the eighties was the first time women could even get loans from banks and really, start businesses.

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[00:54:02] And yes, even as women, we have to honor even physically down to like how our bodies are made and wired and work in such a way. So there is so much we could unpack on this. I'm actually writing a book right now called Feminine Hustle because there is a way as women that we have learned to work based off culture and the model we stepped into.

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[00:54:42] You know, let's just kick our feet up on the beach and like post on Instagram our stripe accounts and show that we can make millions of dollars doing absolutely nothing. And look at me, peace out like I've built my business and it's so easy. And that's just not reality. It's truly just not reality. Yes, there are ways now with automations and AI and all this tech changing where things can grow faster.

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[00:55:15] Lauren Dry: Hmm.

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[00:55:24] It's actually what's driving our hustle, especially as female business owners and oftentimes what is driving our hustle and the way that we're working and the way that we are getting so imbalanced is we don't realise and recognise we are driving and hustling and working out of proving, out of trying to earn a seat at the table out of saying, I'm worthy.

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[00:56:07] It will always ruin our relationships and it will create disconnect there. But when we learn how to work and hustle out of more of how we are uniquely, intuitively wired, um, birthing, creating things, nurturing things, loving things to life, that's how women do things. I didn't hustle and grind my children to college.

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[00:56:49] Take the best and pull from it what you can. But if it's sending you into like crazy town, it's not for you. That way of hustling and working is not for you. So I don't ascribe all that to say I don't ascribe to hustle is bad and we shouldn't hustle. We do have hustle, but I think we have to know why we're doing it.

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[00:57:52] It doesn't mean toss it all and just, just be like into rest era. It means, whoa, just hold up. Am I clear on my vision? Do I have my non-negotiable values driving me? Or have I let something else sneak in here? And am I letting somebody else decide for me what's important? Am I letting some unknown person that I'm, I'm modeling myself after?

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[00:58:32] it's not even just like, Hey, let's take a day off and everything's gonna be fine. It's doing those things within intention and owning our voice and what we need in the moment. So those three things really guide me and keep me grounded. Keep me on track of producing things that are life producing, not just balanced.

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[00:59:14] Lauren Dry: Yeah. I love that. I think that that's such a beautiful invitation into, making sure that we are having that internal check, that internal relationship, not only personally but professionally. I have a couple of last questions for you. the first thing that I would like to ask is a question that a previous guest left, for the next guest on the Connection podcast. And the question that she asked was, what do you do to ground yourself in times of stress?

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From Stress to Safety

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[01:00:22] There's nothing even specific. It's just honor the fact that I can breathe. And so I breathe and then I ask myself every time, what am I feeling? What am I feeling right now? So in times of stress, the feelings are actually going to drive me. there's a statement I always say is, if you don't have it, it will have you.

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[01:01:01] When we're stressed, let me try to think my way through this, but we can't because we're feeling something. So I take a deep breath and I ask myself, what am I feeling? And I will just let myself say it. I feel afraid. I feel terrified

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[01:01:18] Jenni Rae Oates: I feel scared. I feel lonely. I feel angry and just even voicing it, I go, okay, what do I need? That's the next thing I ask myself, and it happens. Train myself to do it. It happens literally in a split second

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[01:01:46] We're actually not really trying to manage it. I don't wanna manage stress. I wanna move through it to where I'm no longer stressed, I'm feeling a sense of peace. I know what peace feels like, and you cannot put a price tag on your peace. And so what I'm always moving towards is how do I shift the state of stress to a felt experience of peace?

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[01:02:12] Lauren Dry: I love that. I love how that's such a perfect picture around the fact that our stress, the stress part of our brain, our amygdala, the one that's responsible for the fight, flight, fawn freeze, the one that's responsible from a, you know, not knowing what to do next, or overreacting, that operates at twice the speed of our logic brain.

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[01:02:33] Lauren Dry: our higher cortex, the part that's responsible to sit for decision making. And when we can regulate that, even if it's just by saying what we feel or what we need, we're actually another way of describing is reasoning with that the monkey part of the brain that's trained to overtake and, and trying

[: 01:02:51

[01:03:05] so whether it works for you, great. Something simple, great. Something a little bit more, you might need a, a stronger framework the first few times that you're trying to find that piece. Great. But that's such a perfect picture of the fact that when you can switch out of it, that's where the answers are.

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Final Reflections and Resources

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[01:03:39] Jenni Rae Oates: the question I would love to leave for the next guest would be around what are the last one or two triggers, things that have triggered you that you could turn into invitations for deeper healing, deeper connection with yourself, and then in turn, hopefully a deeper connection with somebody else because your reaction, your trigger is just an invitation.

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[01:04:20] Jenni Rae Oates: so the last trigger was taking my daughter to college and realising my husband had a very different connection with her and was not responding the same way to her leaving as I was, and so I couldn't meet me. And maybe some of that grief and some of that feeling, couldn't understand it fully.

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[01:05:06] And he may not understand this or get this right now, but who else can? And so that reaction has led me to connection with him by being able to release him to be where he is. And also connection with so many women. I cannot even tell you how many women have flooded my feed, my dms, my, my Instagram, my Facebook, just saying, oh my word.

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[01:05:52] It's not where he was at in this moment and he make it there, but being able to release him and free him for that and still go, he's not my only person in life that can do that. There were actually girlfriends who got it on such a deep level and truly like I, I feel like I got so many new friends out of it.

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[01:06:35] And really important with, core values that absolutely can be true. And also we're gonna keep saying that and, and, and,

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[01:06:44] Lauren Dry: and also. Where this, this person that we married to was never meant to be our, everything they were meant to be our strongest support. All of those things, share all of our same values, be on the same team.

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[01:07:16] We can experience support from others in a new way, and we can create room for our partner to go through the seasons of life that they're going to go through as well without immediately giving them an F grade every time they don't say and do the exact thing. That same thing that we want 'em to do on the moment.

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[01:08:03] How can we recover from this? And important conversations can come out of that, which absolutely bring you closer. But what you just expressed there was that internal relationship that starts with our own selves first, which is, okay, is there room for curiosity? How much of this is, my own, the word that you used before was how much is my own trigger?

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[01:08:43] and it really matters in the small moments and the big moments as well. So I wanna thank you so much Jenni Rae for coming on the podcast and sharing your, sharing your journey with me, sharing your story, sharing your learnings, sharing all of your vulnerability. We have been so lucky to have you with us, and I'd love to hear where anyone in the audience can come find you.

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[01:09:12] Jenni Rae Oates: Yeah, absolutely. The best place to connect with me is on Instagram, and it's just my handle is at Jenni Rae Oates. We'll spell it for you because every one of those is spelled differently, so.

[: 01:09:24

[01:09:26] And then, I definitely have a free, uh, resource. I would love to leave your audience to really help them navigate these reactions and triggers and really look at the different ways that they get attached to the meaning, go into control, and then create a rescue pattern, a behavior pattern.

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[01:09:59] Lauren Dry: Yes. Okay, beautiful. Well, I'm so glad to be able to share Jenni Rae's journey, her connection, how to reach her, with everyone who listens to the Connection podcast. And if you have any other questions, if anything's come up for you and you wanna dive a little bit deeper, come and hang out with me anytime.

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[01:10:31] Jenni Rae Oates: Thank you for having me.