“I Always Valued My Happiness and Health Over Fame and Fortune.” — Jewel [Interview]

Jewel is a multi-platinum, four-time Grammy Award nominated singer and songwriter. Her love of health has become a mission and has propelled her to create beneficial tools to help others in the sphere of health and wellness, nutrition, and more.

How important is health and wellness to you?

“I grew up on a homestead in Alaska, with no electricity or running water.
The closest hospital was hours away, by plane or boat. We had to hunt and
grow our own food, and in a short time in the summer before very harsh
winters. Making sure I was healthy and well was something we did to
survive.”

Jewel also states, “I became curious and extremely passionate about wellness. I wanted to learn how I could make different choices that would help me feel even better. Increasing levels of contentment, joy, and well-being in myself and others has been my lifelong passion. This is when I fell in love with learning how nutrition, food, sleep, and life choices can make a huge difference, and even serve as medicine to both avoid getting sick and to get better.”

What is a newer health habit you have acquired?

“Self-care! I always valued my happiness and health over fame and fortune.
That’s why I took years off between records and put music out without
touring to make them hits. I saw how the industry was burning out artists
and executives and it wasn’t worth it, but it took me a long time to get to
the point where I put self-care at the top of my list.”

“I was that artist who was doing 500 shows a year and who was grinding day after day with no rest.”

“I was given a gift, in that my voice could handle it day after day, unlike some artist(s) who can’t do that many shows in a row… it was a blessing and a curse because I wasn’t putting myself and my health first. In the last two years I’ve really made the effort to make time to meditate more, work-out, go to float tanks, take vacations, and put self-care first.”

How do you balance a busy schedule and healthy habits?

“I had to get real curious about how sleep and exercise and nutrition could
help me overcome energy and mood swings, increase energy levels so I could
keep up, all while trying to have the clarity to be an entrepreneur, single
mom and running a multi-million dollar business. What’s amazing is how
simple things made such a huge difference. It doesn’t take tons of money to
find health, wellness, and happiness.”

“A lot of health and happiness know how is about becoming aware of what is
out there and what is within our own selves and communities that can help.
This also isn’t about surviving, it’s about taking our lives and energy levels back so we can learn to love striving to be better so we can thrive and share this wisdom and know how with our families and communities.”

“One of the reasons why I started my nonprofit foundation was to help young
children learn these skills at a young age and to make them available to
adults for free on my website.”

Three tips from Jewel are:

1. “I look to nature for patterns and inspiration — pain is like ocean waves.
It can start strong, but it gets less intense over time. Growing up in
Alaska nature is a great source of inspiration and calm for me. I love
being able to share that with my son.

2. “Meditation — I learned meditation at 14, and it saved my life. Now I do
30-minutes every morning before I start my day and it brings me such joy
and clarity. I share a box breathing I do on my website,
www.jewelneverbroken.com, in the Paying Attention module.”

3. “Remember that nothing is forever — a healthy tree is well grounded
because it has great roots — your job as the tree isn’t to grab the
weather, it’s to experience the weather & let it pass. I share more on my website and I’ll be sharing more at my new wellness festival, Wellness Your Way, in Cincinnati this October with Kroger.”

“I’ve been extremely passionate about health, wellness, and mindfulness
since I was a child. Coming from a traumatic background, ending up homeless
and having childhood health problems, it was my passion for wellness and mindfulness that got me through it. I had to retrain my brain to learn to
make a habit out of happiness and overcome anxiety and panic attacks. I
learned to eat well and to take care of my body. Now I’m passionate about
helping others go from surviving to thriving. That’s why I wrote my book,
that is what my music has always been about, healing and finding ways to
move forward with thoughtfulness and heart. This festival fits perfectly
with my lifelong passion and focuses on helping people to become whole
humans.”

“I shared the mindfulness tools that I created over a lifetime on my
website and created my non-profit foundation and program with the Inspiring Children Foundation to offer those proven tools to help inspire and educate the masses, so they can solve for their anxiety and find a meaningful connection. I truly believe if I was able to do it, anyone can. It started
with taking ownership of my own mental and physical health and that’s why
I’m so invested in this festival and the movement, and why I have been so
for a very long time. I cannot emphasize enough how inspired I am to see
very large influential corporation’s like Kroger take on a meaningful role
to solve some of societies most important challenges.”

“I’m also very grateful to my co-founder Trevor Drinkwater, whose company [is] Inclusion Companies, on making the world a better place. I’m extremely grateful and look forward to focusing on the most important aspect of life with everyone at the festival; being happy, healthy and well!”