Jewel On Liam Payne Passing, Mentoring Artists, Parenting, & More
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00:00Jewel, thank you so much for coming down to Us Weekly.
00:02It's such a pleasure to get the chance to sit down
00:04and talk to you about something that I know
00:06is so important to you and so important to so many people,
00:09this Not Alone Challenge.
00:10Three years celebrating this, so tell me all about it.
00:13Yeah, gosh, the Not Alone Challenge
00:15is built not just to raise awareness,
00:17but to actually put tools in the hands
00:18of the people that need it the most.
00:21We're really finding that there's a lot
00:22of mental health deserts where there just aren't
00:25enough therapists, or not everybody has money
00:28if they do have access to therapists.
00:31So we wanted to create something that allowed people
00:33to actually get the tools that they needed.
00:36How did you find, because I know that you've been
00:38doing this for 20 years, helping kids
00:40that need those mental health tools.
00:43How did you kind of curate these tools for them?
00:45Yeah, a lot of the tools are ones
00:47that I invented for myself.
00:49I moved out at 15, I left an abusive house,
00:52and I wanted to see if happiness was a learnable skill
00:55or a teachable skill.
00:56And I stumbled on my own homespun behavioral health tools,
01:00CBT or DBT skills.
01:03And so that was actually the impetus
01:04for the Inspiring Children Foundation
01:06about 25 years ago, before mental health was even a thing.
01:10And then we just continued to grow those toolkits,
01:12and now CBT and DBT are so well-studied
01:15that there's a lot of great research around them.
01:17So did you find that you can find your own,
01:20that happiness is a teachable lesson?
01:22Yeah, I think happiness is a side effect of choices.
01:25I think that's the hard thing, is when we're,
01:27first of all, mental health is the appropriate response
01:30to a situation.
01:31It's appropriate to be sad sometimes.
01:33It's appropriate to have grief.
01:35That's not a mental health problem.
01:37It's if we're having reactions to something
01:39that doesn't match, where we start to wanna have help
01:42and support around those.
01:44And for me, I found that my happiness
01:48was a side effect of choices, or a lack of, you know,
01:52thereof.
01:52And so as I learned to change my behavior,
01:55it was, I had a better environment for happiness to thrive.
01:58Yeah, definitely.
01:59No, it's so true.
02:00We are a product of our choices,
02:02and how we respond to them makes sense.
02:05So this is all about the spheres, right?
02:07There's different spheres that go into this program, right?
02:11Yeah, so the spheres actually happened
02:13to be part of my visual art project.
02:15I've been trying to figure out how do I,
02:16I've been doing behavioral health now for 25 years.
02:20I've done visual art, which nobody's known about,
02:22and then music.
02:23And so the three spheres was about
02:24how do I bring these three things together?
02:27Yeah, and then you've created this portal, which I love.
02:30I was telling you before we started
02:31that I've listened to it, and I love it,
02:33and you're combining, you know, meditation, music, poetry,
02:36all of this into one, and it works.
02:40Yeah, the idea is that we each travel
02:42through three realms of reality every day,
02:44often without realizing it.
02:45We have our inner life, which are thoughts and feelings.
02:48There's the physical scene life,
02:49which is our jobs and family and finances.
02:52Then there's the unseen, whatever that means to you.
02:55And mental health is a side effect
02:57of being able to navigate these,
02:58like if I can articulate to you what I'm feeling,
03:00or if my partner responds and changes behaviors
03:03based on what I'm saying.
03:05If I have a sense of purpose, and that's also my job,
03:07all of our happiness scores go up.
03:09And so the portal was designed to help people
03:12look at these three spheres and see what they mean to them.
03:15Is this what you practice when you're kind of
03:17having a bad day and things like that?
03:19Yeah, it's something that's really helped me
03:21over the years, is thinking like,
03:22which sphere am I struggling in?
03:25Where do I need more focus?
03:27And it's really helped the kids too.
03:29And then the music, like you said,
03:31it goes from meditation to spoken word,
03:33in and out of songs, it ends on a dance song.
03:35It doesn't sound like it should work, but it does.
03:37It does, it really does.
03:39Like you said, you've been doing this for over 25 years,
03:42and specifically with kids.
03:44How have you noticed that the mental health sphere
03:47has changed in those 25 years?
03:48Because obviously, with social media and things like that,
03:51how have you noticed the biggest changes?
03:53Yeah, before COVID, we were really seeing numbers rise.
03:56And then when COVID hit, we really saw them skyrocket.
03:59And so now one in four kids are struggling
04:01with mental health issues.
04:03One in four kids will have thoughts of suicidal ideation.
04:06And so it's really more important than ever.
04:08And that's why with the Not Alone Challenge,
04:10which has really been, it's been kind of a runaway success.
04:14I think over 3 billion people now have had access
04:17to this information in the last three or four years,
04:21thanks to outlets like you're supporting us.
04:23And it's just more needed than ever.
04:25Yeah, do you feel like when you were kind of
04:28getting started, especially in music,
04:30I know you've obviously had struggles in your own childhood
04:34that you've been open about,
04:34but do you feel like if you had this,
04:35even in music and dealing with fame and things like that,
04:38that it would have really helped?
04:39You know, I don't know why it was this way,
04:41but when I moved out at 15,
04:42I knew I had to learn about happiness.
04:44And I pursued it.
04:46And when I was homeless, the same thing.
04:48I was having panic attacks, agoraphobic.
04:50I had to pursue, how do I get a grip on these things?
04:54And when I was discovered,
04:55my number one goal wasn't to be a musician.
04:57It was to make sure that I could learn how to be,
04:59I called it a happy whole human
05:01instead of a human full of holes.
05:02Sure, yeah.
05:03And so I always put my career second.
05:04And at the time, there weren't words like mental health,
05:06but after Spirit and my hit Hands, my second album,
05:09I quit for two years because I just couldn't handle it.
05:12I never wanted my mental health
05:13to be the price I paid for my career.
05:15And as we're seeing with so many celebrities and artists,
05:19we're losing too many people.
05:21This job is a difficult job, but so many jobs are.
05:24We have a lot of pressure that we're dealing with.
05:25No, definitely.
05:26I know the name that comes to mind,
05:29obviously the tragic news about Liam Payne
05:31from One Direction.
05:32I mean, like you said, it's so hard
05:34to kind of probably sustain,
05:38dealing with so many different emotions,
05:40with the fame, with the celebrity, with the music,
05:42and trying to keep on that high level,
05:45I would imagine it's extremely difficult.
05:47Yeah, at Xact, it's a really high price.
05:49And the industry isn't there making sure you're doing okay.
05:53The industry makes money when you make money.
05:55That's how it works.
05:56And so everybody's dependent on you to work,
05:58to get their permission.
05:59And it just isn't set up in a great way
06:02to encourage artists to pace themselves,
06:05to see how they're doing.
06:06I mentor probably 15 or 20 musicians.
06:09And a lot of it's about how do you pace yourself?
06:12How do you not believe the lie
06:13that if you drop out of the spotlight,
06:15you're gonna be irrelevant?
06:17That haunts people, and you shouldn't.
06:19We have to pace ourselves.
06:20Yeah, no, it's so true.
06:21I know that you were on stage with Olivia Rodrigo
06:24not too long ago.
06:25Is she one of those people that you mentor?
06:28You know, not really.
06:29She's so great, so fabulous.
06:32But yeah, lots of young artists, like Rachel Platten.
06:35And a lot of young moms, too,
06:36like musicians that are females,
06:39and learning to be parents in this industry
06:42has been really fun to help.
06:43We actually spoke to Rachel Platten not too long ago,
06:45and she said that I think one of her pre-show rituals
06:47is a prayer that you taught her
06:49that she says every time before she goes on stage.
06:51So I'm sure your words definitely mean a lot
06:53to a lot of people.
06:54But what is that piece of advice
06:57that you give those young artists right now
06:59that are kind of coming up and navigating this music world?
07:03I think that you have to know who and what you are
07:06irrelevant of external things.
07:10If you don't have a hit, are you still a good person?
07:11Do you still like yourself?
07:14What price are you willing to pay,
07:15and what price aren't you willing to pay?
07:17It shouldn't be at any cost.
07:18It shouldn't be at any price.
07:20And then just learning how to say no.
07:22You know, we fight so hard to get going,
07:24all of our jobs, all of our careers.
07:26Like, how do you actually start to say,
07:28I can't do this right now, and I'm okay saying no.
07:32And then for women, you know,
07:34there were no, like, moms when I was young.
07:36You didn't see it, and women just kind of disappeared.
07:38Or they had kids, but you never heard about them.
07:41And so, for me, like, learning to become a mom
07:44and help women that way, and be like,
07:45no, you still get to have a job.
07:46You still get to do this.
07:48You're gonna work differently.
07:49It's gonna work.
07:50Sure, yeah, was that ever something
07:51that was in the back of your mind?
07:53Like, how do I become a mom and also be successful
07:56in this music industry?
07:58Because I know you stepped away from music
07:59for about seven years at one point, too,
08:01to kind of focus on your family.
08:03Yeah, yeah, after my divorce,
08:05I just needed new tools to figure out how to navigate.
08:09And for me, I felt like it was the right thing
08:11to just stop touring.
08:13I wanted to build a business outside of music
08:15so that I could create an income
08:17that wasn't just dependent on touring.
08:19And I knew to do that, I actually had to spend time
08:21and really focus on it.
08:22But I thought it would be a good investment.
08:24It was a risk.
08:26And so, you just keep making decisions
08:27that you think are gonna be best for the long run,
08:30and being willing to let go of,
08:32and it's funny, because the world is very shaming
08:34of like, oh, she dropped out of the limelight.
08:37Can't hack it.
08:38You know, you're like, okay, I mean, all right.
08:41I'll be fine.
08:42Because it's all about, like you said,
08:43finding your happiness and doing what's best for you.
08:47I think that's wonderful.
08:48How do you deal with mental health
08:49when it comes to your own child?
08:51Because I know your son, is he 13?
08:53Yeah, so he's 13.
08:55And during those teenage years,
08:57is it the same tools that you apply for everybody else
08:59that applies to your own son?
09:01Yeah, you know, it's been really neat
09:03learning how to parent.
09:04I think the best parenting advice is just heal.
09:07Heal as much as you can.
09:08All of us have trauma.
09:09The more I focus on my healing,
09:11the better parent I'm able to be.
09:13And then just helping self-regulation.
09:16You know, helping teach him
09:17that he can't be distracted all the time.
09:19Because everything's vying for our kid's attention.
09:21And if we can't learn how to sit still
09:23and be in our bodies and have quiet time,
09:26then it's really difficult for our nervous systems
09:28to regulate.
09:29And so a lot of it's just supplying time
09:31for him to be bored.
09:32Yeah, right.
09:33And it's hard.
09:33You wouldn't think that's so hard as a parent,
09:35but it actually kind of is.
09:35It is.
09:36You just have to like, let them be bored.
09:38Yes, no, but you're so right,
09:39because there's so many distractions out there.
09:41I mean, my daughter's five, my son is three,
09:44and even trying to get them to be bored,
09:46it's hard.
09:47Because they're like, what are we doing next?
09:47Where are we going?
09:48What's going on?
09:49There's just so much access, I guess, now.
09:51Yeah, I don't think parents in other generations
09:53are like, I have to schedule time for him to be bored.
09:55I'm like, wow, this is what it's come to.
09:57This is what it's come to.
09:58It's so true.
09:59Is it challenging being a mom to a teenager?
10:02He's so sweet.
10:03Yeah.
10:04It hasn't been.
10:05I mean, he's in the beginning phases.
10:06Okay, right.
10:07Yeah, we just started.
10:08He's a very sensitive, thoughtful, observant,
10:11kind of philosophical kid.
10:13The other day, he was like,
10:14mom, am I doing an okay job as a teenager?
10:16I was like, yes.
10:17So I was like, you need to act up.
10:18Yeah, right.
10:20Give me something to worry about.
10:23Are you the type of mom that you thought
10:25that you would be,
10:26like going back to day one of parenting,
10:28are you the same type of mom
10:29that you thought that you were gonna be?
10:31Parenting really taught me to
10:33get a grip on my perfectionism.
10:35I find that being a very type A perfectionist,
10:39that's how I navigated the world,
10:40was like trying to be more and more perfect.
10:41That's a brutal way to go,
10:43because it puts you at odds with the world,
10:44because nothing's perfect.
10:45So it meant I was always setting myself up for failure
10:48and being frustrated for myself, by myself.
10:51And as a parent, I realized it was actually
10:52gonna be really detrimental,
10:53because I didn't know how to be a parent.
10:55And I wasn't raised well.
10:56And so I really had to learn a level of compassion
11:00and kindness for myself.
11:02And if I told my son it's okay to learn and make mistakes,
11:05I actually had to be okay learning and making mistakes.
11:09And so it's such a vulnerable thing, being a parent.
11:12But I think that's been an important part of it.
11:14Were you nervous becoming a parent?
11:15Because I know that you had a hard childhood.
11:19Were you nervous about making the same mistakes,
11:22things like that?
11:23Did that ever cross your mind?
11:26Let's see.
11:27Becoming a parent was a really intentional journey for me.
11:31And it was really difficult in the beginning,
11:33because I had a belief that it was just
11:36everything was gonna feel like natural instinct.
11:39Oh, it isn't like that.
11:40Like I had to learn how to breastfeed.
11:41I had to learn how to be a mom.
11:44And once I kind of was able to engage with like,
11:46oh no, this is learning and I know how to learn.
11:48And so I'll just do what I always do.
11:49And I do research and I learn and I'll develop with time.
11:52And as you know, your child changes every three months.
11:55So you have to be a different parent every three months.
11:57So true.
11:58So you get kind of comfortable with that.
12:00But it's funny, I was just telling my best friend
12:01and my son the other day,
12:02I'm like, I'm actually really proud of myself as a mom.
12:04Like I was not raised well.
12:07And I'm nothing like my parents.
12:08And I'm sure they were nothing like their parents.
12:10Like our job is to get better each time.
12:12That's so true.
12:13Yeah, don't repeat the same mistakes.
12:15That's our job.
12:16And not to be on the pendulum.
12:17Because I feel like, you know,
12:18let's say our parents didn't listen to our feelings at all.
12:21So we want to bring this pendulum way over here.
12:24But we can over empower our kids' feelings.
12:26You know, we can help our kids
12:29kind of weaponize their emotions.
12:31And so for me, like learning like,
12:32oh, I actually have to help my son
12:34be responsible for his feelings.
12:36That was a big like step too.
12:38Oh wow, we can't just swing to the opposite side
12:41because it's oddly the same.
12:42No, that's so true.
12:43It's so true.
12:44I know you've talked about how divorce
12:46was really difficult for you.
12:48Knowing what you know now and the tools that you have now,
12:51what would you tell yourself
12:52when that first started happening?
12:54I'm glad I got a divorce.
12:56I needed to get a divorce.
12:58It's definitely not what I wanted.
12:59I hoped to have a family.
13:01And I think the grief of mourning the loss of that dream
13:05was really hard.
13:07But I love being a parent.
13:09I'm really liking being a single parent.
13:13And it's working really good.
13:15So, so far so good.
13:16So far so good.
13:17You kind of found like the rhythm
13:18to co-parenting that works for you.
13:20Yeah, absolutely.
13:21That's so wonderful.
13:22That really is.
13:23You know, so many people are so fascinated about you
13:27and your life and your personal life.
13:28And I know that there were all these rumors going around
13:32about Kevin Costner.
13:33Does that ever bother you when people kind of want to pry
13:36and know so much about who you're dating
13:38and things like that?
13:39You know, my whole career
13:40has actually been very little of that.
13:42Sure, yeah.
13:43I always stayed out of the paparazzi.
13:44The paparazzi are always super nice to me.
13:46Okay.
13:46You know, I'm very respectful.
13:48So I haven't had to deal with it as much as other people have
13:52and I've always lived in places
13:53that were really out of the way too.
13:55So I think I've had it pretty easy compared to a lot of people.
13:58You've had it pretty easy.
13:58Yeah, definitely.
13:59But just, just friends.
14:02That's good.
14:03Or is that something that you want in your life?
14:05Is that something that you feel like you need anymore
14:07or are you just so happy with who you are
14:09and found your own happiness?
14:11I'm open to it.
14:12It hasn't been a huge priority.
14:14For me, it was really about healing
14:16and how do I heal in a deeper way
14:18so I don't repeat the same thing over and over.
14:20Cause I think a lot of the times you see,
14:22like it's pretty common to get married to somebody
14:25who's just like your parents
14:27and then get divorced and marry somebody
14:28who's basically just like your ex.
14:31And so how do we change it on a deep enough level
14:32that we can really rewrite those patterns?
14:35And then I think as a lot of moms feel,
14:37like my job is to be a parent, you know?
14:40And between my job and that,
14:42that's really felt like where I've wanted to put my focus.
14:46And it's nice to date yourself.
14:47It's nice to be alone.
14:48It's nice to learn how to fall in love with yourself
14:51and put that energy into myself
14:53that I used to put into being in relationships.
14:55It's been really good for me.
14:57Yeah, well, I think I read that you feel
14:58like you are the most inspired that you've been
15:01since like your early twenties.
15:03What do you credit that to?
15:05Yeah, man, there was times in my life
15:07where it was just so hard and so painful.
15:09I didn't know if like the best was behind me.
15:12And my magic was sort of gone, you know?
15:14Where you're just so depleted and so tired.
15:16You look inside, you're like, I don't know.
15:18So to be able to have worked really hard on it
15:21and have fought for that, you know,
15:23when I was debuting the portal at Crystal Bridges,
15:25my museum installation,
15:27it was neat to stand there and say I'm 50 years old
15:29and I'm more inspired than I've ever been.
15:31I'm more excited and turned on by life than I've ever been.
15:35And that wasn't handed to me.
15:36I fought for that.
15:38And yeah, it's a great feeling.
15:40That is a great feeling.
15:41Do you feel like at 50,
15:42like perspective changed for you at all?
15:44Like, or did perspective on career, motherhood,
15:49things like that, did that shift at all for you?
15:51I'd say this last decade was really powerful for me.
15:54You know, I really took the time
15:56to put myself and my healing first.
15:59And it's paying dividends.
16:02You know, it creates a very nurturing,
16:04like fertile environment in my life
16:06where everything is benefiting from that work that I did.
16:10I think if we're willing to go down and in,
16:12our outer life gets better.
16:14Yeah, no, it's so true.
16:16And the willingness to go down in
16:18and instead of chasing things outside myself
16:20has been really good.
16:21And I know art has become a very big passion
16:22of yours as well.
16:23And I know you're debuting some new art
16:24in Miami soon too, right?
16:26Yeah, it's a Faina art.
16:28I'm so excited.
16:30December 2nd, I'm creating an eight foot tall sculpture
16:34that will be clear resin.
16:35And it's laced with fiber optics
16:37that go into a computer in its base.
16:39And it live streams data from the ocean.
16:42So it's basically a giant instrument
16:44the ocean can play with sound and light.
16:47So it will sing and it will change its lights
16:50based on the data.
16:52I really wanted to create a piece
16:53that put us in relationship to nature
16:56that incorporates sound and visual art.
16:58So it's been really fun.
16:59That's so cool.
17:00That's so good, that really is.
17:03Do you find your passion now is combining?
17:06I mean, you always combined art and music
17:08but with the installations and things like that
17:10is that where your main focus is now?
17:12Or are you planning on,
17:13I know you have the EP coming out.
17:15Do you plan on doing more traditional album in the future?
17:18Yeah, the EP is all the music
17:21and spoken word of meditations
17:22I created for Crystal Bridges with the portal.
17:24And the music that I've created for the sculpture
17:28that the data plays,
17:29was actually studied by a physicist
17:31and it's proven to help get you
17:33into a theta brainwave state.
17:35So when you meditate, you're an alpha
17:37and then if you go deeper than that, that's theta.
17:39So the fact that I'm able to create music
17:41that helps people get in these very deep meditative states
17:43for me is really fun.
17:46I am also working on a more traditional album
17:48that'll probably, I don't know, next year maybe.
17:51I love that so much.
17:52What song do people come up to you still
17:54and say like, this is the song
17:55that's helped me through these really difficult times
17:58and things like that?
17:59It really varies.
18:00It's been kind of a fun thing about my career.
18:02Some people feel like intuition.
18:03It's like, oh my God,
18:04it gave me permission to follow my heart.
18:07I have an album called Lullaby
18:09and it's songs that I wrote for myself
18:11for my anxiety since I was 16.
18:14And it's kind of this little sleeper album
18:16that has done really well, I think,
18:21just because it's helping people calm down.
18:24The reason I wrote it for myself
18:25is also helping other people with their anxiety.
18:27Is that the album that you're most proud of?
18:29Gosh, I don't know.
18:30I think you put everything you have into all of them.
18:34That one was fun for me because business-wise,
18:36it was the first time I decided to go off of labels
18:40and go direct to consumers
18:42and see if I could connect to people one-on-one
18:43and take out a middleman.
18:46And to be able to do it with such a,
18:49it was a record people told me not to make.
18:51They're like, why are you gonna make lullabies?
18:52That sounds dumb.
18:54And then it was just wildly successful.
18:55So that's nice.
18:56Yeah, no, definitely.
18:57So many wildly successful moments in your career.
19:01So thank you so much for,
19:02oh, and then please tell me all about these
19:04because I think these are so great to spark a conversation.
19:08Yeah, so for the Not Alone Challenge,
19:09you can go to notalonechallenge.org
19:11and you can get free mental health tools
19:13where Dr. George Rappier and the Foundation Reserve
19:16is matching donations up to $1.2 million
19:20to help put tools in people's hands.
19:21And this is one of the tools.
19:22So this deck of cards has really great,
19:25some are fun, some are really deep,
19:27and it helps you start conversations that are meaningful.
19:30And it helps you check in with your friends
19:31in a way that's really unintrusive, but powerful.
19:35I love it.
19:35Joel, thank you so much for taking the time.
19:37I really appreciate it.
19:38Thanks.