What If Self Trust Is Your Real Success Metric with Jenna Smith

When Pushing Harder Stops Working

Carol Clegg 0:00

Today we're exploring what happens when pushing harder, thinking more, and trying to fix ourselves stops working. My guest shares how reconnecting with the intelligence of the mind, body, heart, and spirit can help us move through emotional pain, rebuild self-trust, and create a life that feels both successful and deeply alive. So joining me today is Jenna Smith, creator of the Resourcing Method, a framework designed to help people reconnect with their inner resources that they may have just lost touch with along the way. So Jenna's work brings together spiritual psychotherapy on to and this word I cannot pronounce, Jenna.

Jenna Smith 0:46

Ontological.

Carol Clegg 0:48

There we go. Coaching. She works particularly with high-achieving, sensitive people who may look capable and successful on the outside, yet find themselves exhausted, disconnected, or stuck in patterns that they cannot think their way out of. And at the heart of Jenna's work is the belief that confidence, worthiness, creativity, and self-trust aren't things we need to manufacture. They're qualities we can learn to reconnect with. So welcome to Connect Inspire Create, a podcast exploring meaningful conversations about life, work, creativity, and the ways we can explore fresh ideas. Let's slow down just enough to notice what inspires or intrigues us and how these insights can help shape what we create in our lives. So, Jenna, welcome.

Jenna Smith 1:49

Thank you so much. You have such a lovely voice and tone.

unknown 1:54

Thank you.

Speaker 1 1:55

You're in the right place.

Carol Clegg 1:57

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, it's lovely to have you here.

Singing As Nervous System Medicine

Carol Clegg 2:01

Before we get into exploring resourcing and all the I just love what I've learned about you with doing a little bit of my research. Let's ask if you and I were sitting together having a cup of coffee, what would people be most surprised to know about you? What would you tell me?

Jenna Smith 2:20

Oh goodness. Well, I'm a professional singer.

Carol Clegg 2:25

So then you're talking voices here.

Jenna Smith 2:29

Yes. So I work with Celine Dion's vocal coach, Dr. William Riley. So that usually also interests people.

Carol Clegg 2:39

That's I that's fascinating. I have a dear friend who was a voice coach, and I always thought, one day maybe somebody can teach me how to sing. I think it's just such a beautiful creative outfit.

Jenna Smith 2:51

It really, really is. Because even like to get all technical and psychotherapisty, the vagal nerve that people are trying to nervous system, humming, singing, our own vocal tone helps in this brings me into the like the energy stuff real fast. Helps bring our spirit back in our body, so to speak. So our own voice actually really can invigorate our liveness. So it's it's not a small thing, and it it it really is so powerful for people, and it should just be fun and easy and not a concert. It doesn't have to be, you know, you don't have to sound like a singer. It's it's the sounding and the joy and the the yeah, it's so I totally go for it.

Speaker 2 3:34

I can share this information with you.

Carol Clegg 3:37

No, and I agree with you on the humming that that is such a beautiful release, you know, if one's just yeah, so simple the breathing and the breathing in and then letting it

Why Thinking Cannot Heal Pain

Carol Clegg 3:47

out on a hum. And oh, so Jenna, you say you cannot outthink emotional pain. Why do intelligent, capable people often think trying to solve emotional discomfort, we need more thinking. Where do we go with you cannot outthink emotional pain?

Jenna Smith 4:08

Yeah, so it's one part of our intelligence system is the left brain mind dominance. So the left brain is where you would want to buy a dishwasher with that part of your brain. But it isn't the part where all of you is accessible. So we've been taught societally to be left brain dominant. So that's all you know. So if I just try harder and do more and understand more, it's just really all people know. Right. And then in all actuality, people have seen experiences of their whole intelligence working, their intuition coming in, but they don't trust it as a full intelligence system yet. So when I work with the really smart high achiever types, they've worked that intelligence system to the bone. And now they're getting tired and now they're feeling an emotional backlash. What used to work stops working. So the reason it doesn't work is because it's the we're not meant to live from there. So it's good that it doesn't work because it's not where we're supposed to live from.

Carol Clegg 5:09

Right. I know because that whole discipline, that control, that persistence, let's keep on the road, let's keep this left right side driving the bus.

Speaker 1 5:18

Yeah.

Carol Clegg 5:19

And yet, at the meantime, no. So yeah, we can't. It's I sort of like I think of outthinking emotional plan, it's like you think you can run away. Well, logically outthink it.

Jenna Smith 5:31

Well, I use this example with clients. So, because the resourcing that we're gonna talk about is like you have a mind and it's wonderful. We're not making it wrong or bad, it's wonderful. We have a body, we have all these cells that are connected to our subconscious mind. They it's a super processor, is our subconscious mind. So the emotions are meant to be an intelligence that we're supposed to use, not shove down.

Speaker 2 5:55

Right.

Jenna Smith 5:56

So I'll say to people, it's like you're trying to digest your lunch in your physical brain. When we know it's in the stomach, right? So then they go, Oh, well, that that makes sense. I need to digest my emotions in the body where it can metabolize and move through and alchemize. And just like your lunch, that's what emotions are meant to do. But we weren't taught that. The mind comes in, it squishes it down, interrupts that natural process of digestion and assimilation.

Carol Clegg 6:30

I love that visual and the fact that it takes time. You don't just digest your meal in five minutes, and so the time when we get told to, you know, calm down, feel your feelings,

The Resourcing Method Explained

Carol Clegg 6:40

allow them. What does it feel like in your so I'm having to jump right into what does it mean to become resourced? You describe your approach as resourcing, and you talk about mind, body, heart, and spirit as these different intelligence systems, but tell us more.

Jenna Smith 6:57

Yeah. So we were just talking about the intelligent system we know is like the intellect, the IQ. And it we know this one well. And it's really meant to be the left brain is sort of like a puppy. It's like we're training the puppy. It's meant to serve us. It needs to, it needs to, it needs us to lead. But who's leading?

unknown 7:16

Right.

Jenna Smith 7:17

If it's not the mind, if it's not the thoughts, if it's not your roles, if it's not your personality, and that's the tricky part. Right. But you're not your thoughts. So I would call that your being. The purpose of re-sourcing to resource to your sources is to return to your whole self, where you have a body, you have these emotions, you have a wonderful mind. But the you that's you is this essence. It's a being, it's when you see a plant, when you see a sunset, this essence that makes something something. It's why there's music. It's why we'll we can't quite left brain describe it. That's the place I that the resourcing method is designed to retrain us back to our original wholeness or back to our original nature of these intelligence systems to resource to source, back to ourselves. It doesn't mean selfish, it means resource. And we need our resource to match the challenge. That's where people will get hiccups.

A Barking Dog And A New Response

Carol Clegg 8:22

So, do you have perhaps a real life example? Because I certainly understand very much where you're coming from. I was trained in a method called positive intelligence, and we talk about left brain and right brain and pausing and doing something sensational, like for instance, just touching your fingers and rubbing your fingers together to stop that left brain who is jumping up and down and shouting at you to allow you to pause and to move into the right brain. But could you give us an example of someone who might respond differently when they have resourced instead of just pushing through with their left brain?

Jenna Smith 9:01

Oh my goodness, so many. I'll give you a fun one that I uh my recent client, who's been with me for six months now. So she's, you know, when she first started, she was like, Well, there's gotta be another way. Like most of my clients, she was referred by somebody. So this is a very controlling woman. Like she she'll watch this and she won't feel bad about me saying this. It needs everything to be just so perfectionism, and but then when that runs you, it makes life suck and it makes you kind of hard to deal with with other people. Like it's not fun for your 11-year-old son. Okay. So let's see, that's how she was dealing with life because that's how she felt safe.

Carol Clegg 9:39

Right.

Jenna Smith 9:40

So eventually I'm saying like life is an orchestration, life is alive, life is talking to you with your body. And if you're not here, you can't hear, is a saying. If you're not here, you can't hear life, actually, the intelligence of life talking to you. So instead of thinking about everything and computing everything that's exhausting, and you can't even possibly be as intelligent as ultimate intelligence, right? So she's about to leave her driveway. I this doesn't even make sense as like a pragmatic thing, but it is just kind of funny. And the thought enters her mind this dog keeps barking every time she leaves the driveway. Barking, barking, barking. And she'd be annoyed. This dog shouldn't be barking, and she'd she'd get all into it. This shouldn't be happening. And then this day, after doing some of this work of just slowly bringing her attention to here, like and she wasn't into it. She's like, but what's the what do I do? What do I do? And I'm like, just trust the process and just do this and watch this and pay attention. So the thought arises into her mind maybe it's just saying hi. Maybe the dog's just saying hi. A thought she would never have normally had access to. So it wasn't her thought, it was a thought that arose. And as soon as she had the thought, the dog walked away and stopped barking.

Carol Clegg 10:54

The energy, the energies in the universe. Oh, wow.

Jenna Smith 10:58

Right. Like you can't make that up. It's not like I gave her a script to say, well, when a dog's barking, when you're going into the backyard driveway, is the intelligence of her accessing her own intelligence in that moment that we can all access.

Carol Clegg 11:13

Wow, powerful.

Speaker 1 11:15

But yeah, that's there's more practical examples, but I think that's a fun one.

Self Trust As A Relationship

Carol Clegg 11:20

Absolutely. Yeah. So I would love to know. We talk about self-trust, and it's interesting because that's kind of been so prevalent at the moment on my radar of encouraging people, self-trust that we have the powers, we have the powers within. But what is trusting oneself actually look like in practice?

Jenna Smith 11:41

Such a great question. It takes time and consistent self-acceptance and forgiveness to relate to ourselves with more love and compassion and care. And also discipline and consistency without the harshness.

unknown 12:00

Right.

Jenna Smith 12:01

With some focus, that ref left, right, masculine, feminine, not even to get into the sexes, just the dynamics of certain energies. So self-trust is to have a relationship with yourself. So many people don't.

unknown 12:16

Yeah.

Jenna Smith 12:16

Even when I say self-relationship, they kind of blink at me and don't. What do you mean? I mean, how's your relationship with yourself? Do you tend to yourself? Do you listen to yourself? No, they get up and the to-do list begins and off they are, and the roles begin and the needs if you're a parent, the needs if you're a leader, whatever. But the world takes you away from yourself. And so, how often are you even here to trust yourself? Of course, you don't trust yourself if you're not relating to who you are.

Carol Clegg 12:47

You don't know what you're trusting. I mean, and it's those moments of stillness and spending them with yourself and just slowing down. And then on the flip side of that, yeah, we talk about compassion and empathy. And I want to sort of sometimes the other people, you're an amazing human being. Slow down enough. You're amazing inside this all, and all these layers and all this complication and all these stories. You know, put in the work to learn how to trust yourself because wow, and it's the attention attend to tend to, right?

Jenna Smith 13:24

Right. Yeah. Attention is to tend to something and to not tend to yourself as a priority. You know, we use these words that can sound so stiff and rigid, but as a genuinely valued relationship, right?

Carol Clegg 13:39

And we come back to the fact it's not selfish. No, and that is what you know. No, the kids can wait, the this can wait, work can wait, dinner can wait. We do have to take care of ourselves and trust ourselves.

Jenna Smith 13:54

It's the most intelligent, productive thing because you're operating on all of your cylinders now. So you can have the super exhausted, frazzled version that loses it and is operating from reaction and survival, or you could be in a creator mode and be responsive and relate. You can't really relate when you're in survival.

unknown 14:20

Yeah.

How To Tell Intuition Apart

Carol Clegg 14:22

Another thing that comes up for me is intuition, because yeah, when we can trust ourselves more, we in practicing that, we can trust our intuition more. If we're frazzled and about to explode, and then we go, that's intuition, that's a story, that's left. What is it? Yeah. What would you how do you help people sort of go? This is intuition, or your intuition needs time to build.

Jenna Smith 14:50

Yeah, or to me, our intuition is natural and happening all the time. And people people you don't have to be into you don't have to claim yourself as intuitive. It's the being here to hear element that I had said before, to be here in order to hear, but also to hear with our senses, with the song that comes on the radio, to pay attention to the data of life. I call it the data of life. It sounds like such a like scientific word, but okay. So our intuition is gonna work with us for us, by the way. So our intuition uses our own self as the template. So it'll play the song that you will associate with the message. So people think it's something out there and over there. It's like, no, it's gonna talk, it's your own subconscious mind talking to extract. Yeah. So if you're thinking and this and that. So the biggest thing about discerning intuition from thought is one, it's not noisy. Say that again, it's not noisy.

unknown 15:53

Okay.

Jenna Smith 15:54

So ping pong, I saw I call thinking is like ping pongs back and forth, back and forth. There's a thought, there's another thought, there's a thought, there's another intuition. Typically will just sort of emerge as a hmm.

Carol Clegg 16:07

Like a statement.

Jenna Smith 16:11

There might be a statement. There might be a uh for some people, there might be a visual, just a knowing. I work highly intuitively, and so it's just a normal level of thinking for me, where but it's not linear. Yes, it's definitely not linear, it's more like a spider web, right? So it's intricate, it's it's on purpose, it's still got structure, yes, a design. So it's and and to feel so if someone's intuiting something from anxiety, uh well, it's not uh the I said two different things. So if it's coming from fear, they'll feel all freaked out, but intuition will typically be like, oh, this might be uncomfy, but there isn't that frenetic fear.

Unconditional Confidence And Worth

Carol Clegg 17:01

Right, yeah, that's one you use another phrase, non-conditional confidence. What does that mean?

Jenna Smith 17:12

I distinguish between so confidence, a lot of people say, Oh, Jenna, you're so confident. And I had debilitating shame when I was younger, like family with trauma, all the things. And so I didn't feel good enough. And I thought if I was the good girl and if I was smart and if I was pretty and the singing and everything like that, then then I would be I would be good enough. But people would think I was confident, right? But I wasn't. Oh, you think you're so good. No, I don't. I'd be pulled until I discovered worth that I am enough that, and this was through my path with shamanic energy healers that I didn't seek out. They came to me. It's a whole kind of cool story, but I worked with mentors for free, just teach just being taught these medicines, and was able to access through experience. And that's the thing, it's experience. Experience is here and now, it isn't something computed in the mind. Like you said, with the senses. I'm either feeling this, I'm not thinking about it. I'm feeling it to bring into the feeling. So unconditional confidence is I am worthy no matter what I do or do not do, whatever role I'm in, whatever mood I'm in. I like that, whatever mood you're in. Whatever mood I'm in, because sometimes I'm moody, and you know, it doesn't mean it's bad. And that's another confusing thing about intuition. You can you can still have synchronicity and intuition and be having a bad day, right? Or have the grumps. So unconditional confidence is non-conditional, it's not it's not based on the conditions, yeah.

Carol Clegg 18:57

Yeah, I mean that's the the confidence that's on achievement, and as you say, approval and things going right. That with that confidence, how can we feel uncertain about what's gonna happen next? Yet still trust ourselves.

Jenna Smith 19:16

The only way is to be in the present moment, and it's in every moment reclamation, and our resources, like our body and our mind, are going to let us know kind of like indicators on your car, like oh, gas, you need gas. Like, oh, I'm not really in my body right now. Well, the more present we are, it's like compound interest, the more, the more we're gonna build those vibrational muscles, we're gonna build that skill because it's here.

unknown 19:49

Right.

Jenna Smith 19:50

I you know right now, right here, yeah now.

Carol Clegg 19:54

Yeah, we don't know the half an hour from here. That's uh and I have another thing that I try to pull on is there's a gift in the situation. So if you are uncertain, you don't yet know what the gift might be of something that you might need to learn, and it doesn't have to be just because you're uncertain that it's disastrous.

Jenna Smith 20:15

I I'm gonna add more to the uncertainty thing because as a singer, it you're I don't know how that note's gonna go. I've prepared, I've done the work, but we're always uncertain. The most certain thing is that it's all uncertain, right? And so the illusion of control and the illusion of I have this all figured out was going to create more problems, really.

Carol Clegg 20:43

Yeah.

Jenna Smith 20:44

Because most people like to allow things to emerge and to know, I'll know what to do, when to do it, and how. And that's the self-trust. And I'm gonna say the self-trust allows you to create trust in life. Yeah, because life is lifing and people are peopling, and people are acting from survival and selfishness. And so if you don't have a sense of self-relationship and self-trust because you're bringing your attention back to yourself regularly and you're living from here, it is gonna feel scary, uncertain. So I will add this there's uncertainty, it just is, but when it's from fear, it's scary. Ooh, anxiety. When it's from possibility and presence, it's options. It's oh I wonder. I love curating a sense of curiosity.

Carol Clegg 21:33

Curiosity, I was gonna say, yeah, get curious.

Jenna Smith 21:35

It's still unknown, right? But what if it you know, and this isn't being silly, you're still gonna do responsibilities, you're still, you know, but it's it might as well be fun.

Escaping The Self Improvement Trap

Carol Clegg 21:47

So I one of the things, I mean, you being a coach, myself being a coach, and this world of you know, we're we're learning to to explore things and become better versions of ourselves, but there's an enormous industry. Built around becoming these better versions of ourselves. And this constant self-improvement can sometimes just reinforce, like, hang on a minute, you know, you're not enough. So, what changes when we stop approaching ourselves as a problem that needs fixing?

Jenna Smith 22:19

Wonderful things. I think safety. I love that people are talking about it more. Feeling safe to be yourself in the world is the first thing. Because the the racing to be enough, you can be safe enough to go, okay. Well, what if I'm enough now? And then what? And from that enoughness, what do I want to do? So when we're in the mind dominance, when we're in the ego, when we're in the racing to achieve the thing so that then I'll be enough, even if we don't know we're thinking that. That's what most people. If we're done performing, if we can let the and I'm a performer, right? So if I can be done the performance of the Jenna who needs to be accepted, if I can let that go, we're free. We're free. And then what? People worry. I had I did a talk and they said, I read the power of now, and I I have a lot to do. I don't want to just sit on a park bench and be happy. And it's such a cute question, like and not in a diminishing way, right? But you know, a puppy is gonna want to run because it's a puppy. It's not gonna wonder if it's motivated to run. And so we don't trust the emergence from within us to succeed and give energy to the things that give us energy, right? It's like do something, work hard, all that's you know, from fear and force. It's it has a place. I weightlift, I I make myself do the things, but when people try to only create from that performance facade, they'll never get there.

unknown 24:05

Yeah.

Jenna Smith 24:06

And then the saddest part is when they don't get there, they think something's wrong with them. Yeah, it's a problem, it's a predatory industry in a way, because it's like, oh, if you have this, I can help you, or it, you know, but we all need to have that discernment to go wait. How does this actually make me feel?

Carol Clegg 24:27

Yeah. That's what we are. We're coming back to allowing feelings and not suppressing them.

A Gentle Practice To Start Now

Carol Clegg 24:37

If somebody is listening to our conversation here now, and they just need to have that one gentle, meaningful step that they can take this week. What would you invite them to focus on?

Jenna Smith 24:53

I had a ready-to-go answer, and now I'm practicing what I preach, and I'm actually feeling into that because you know, paying attention and tending to, that's that's the biggest thing. The exercise I teach clients right away is to feel to put their hand on the heart space. So when we're really inspired, we'll just go, you know, it's it's a really natural experience. And to just feel the space under your hand. And I have a lot of people start there. Sometimes that's a bit confronting for really mind-dominant people because they're like, and then what? And then I'll also add, I love journaling as a technology, not an activity, is a technology to meet yourself. How's it going? Like you were gonna meet a friend. How how like, hey Jenna, how are you doing today? And then not know the answer. Because if I was to say, Hey Carol, how are you doing today? I have to wait for you to answer.

Carol Clegg 25:58

I can't decide to tell me how you think I'm doing.

Speaker 1 26:03

Yeah, or you shouldn't. That's not a great way to relate.

unknown 26:06

Right.

Jenna Smith 26:06

But just begin that self-relationship. So it actually says I would begin with the pen and paper, and it's it you can rip it up and throw it out. The the point is the experience, the point is the intersection of you, your witness, your body, the sensation, the pause. And now most people will say, but I can't write fast enough. Which makes me laugh also, and you say, What if you slowed down? And what if the invitation is to slow down? The time it takes to write it out. Yeah, yeah. So writing as a technology versus an like an exercise to do or journal or your diary is very good for this self-relationship and self-trust development that we've been discussing.

Carol Clegg 26:52

That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. I just I love the idea that perhaps we don't always just need another way to fix ourselves. That sometimes the invitation is just sitting there and saying, let's reconnect with what's already inside us and learn to trust it. Trust it again. So I think that's beautiful.

Where To Find Jenna And Next Steps

Carol Clegg 27:13

Jenna, for people that are listening to us today, where can they find you and tell me about yeah, what's what's up on your website and where to find you?

Jenna Smith 27:23

Yeah. So Jenna SmithCoaching.com is the place where you'll find everything. Uh, I will have the resourcing course up in two weeks, and that will be free. So when you go to the website, you'll see and you can just click and and learn how does your mind work, how does your body work, how do your emotions work as as intelligence systems that are very easy to access. Um, and then I am available for a few more one-on-one clients. So if you are really interested, then you can of course look to talk to me.

Carol Clegg 27:54

Lovely. All right, and then I'll have your LinkedIn and your Instagram, your website out there. So for anybody who's been listening to this and you have just sparked the little hmm, I'd like to explore this more, make sure you reach out to Jenna and just find out more. Get curious, trust yourself. So, Jenna, thank you. This has been wonderful.

Speaker 1 28:14

Thank you.

Carol Clegg 28:16

So, to those that are listening, thank you for listening to Connect, Inspire, Create. And life doesn't always unfold the way we imagined. We all find ourselves navigating change, uncertainty, loss, or simply wondering what comes next. And as a life coach, I believe in gentle accountability, learning to trust ourselves, take the next step, and continue creating a meaningful life in a way that feels right for us. So if today's conversation made you pause, I have recently created a free reflection guide called Pause, Notice, Choose. And it offers five thoughtful prompts to help you reconnect with yourself, notice what matters, and choose one next gentle step. So you can find my guide, learn more about my coaching, or connect with me at Carolcleg.com, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. So thank you for spending time with Jenna and myself today. And until the next time, stay curious, trust yourself, and keep creating what comes next.