The Surprising Connection Between Dance, Brain Health, and Longevity

“When I was a professional dancer, I felt the worst in my body when I probably looked my best to the outside world. That’s when I knew something had to change.” – Jennifer Joy Jimenez

In this energizing episode, I sat down with Jennifer Joy Jimenez, transformational leader and founder of the Brave Thinking Institute’s health and wellbeing division, to explore how conscious movement can revolutionize both physical and emotional wellbeing after 40. Jennifer shares her powerful journey from professional dancer battling body shame to pioneering Transcendance, an innovative blend of movement, mindfulness, and energy healing. The science is clear – social dance can decrease Alzheimer’s risk by up to 76% while flooding our bodies with mood-boosting hormones. We dive deep into how incorporating just minutes of mindful movement daily can transform stress, unlock creativity, and reignite joy at any age. Jennifer reveals practical strategies for breaking free from rigid exercise mindsets and embracing movement as medicine for both body and soul.

What you’ll learn:

  • How conscious dance can activate happy hormones and reduce stress in just minutes a day
  • The profound mind-body connection and its role in healing trauma
  • Why movement is essential for maintaining cognitive function and reducing dementia risk
  • Simple ways to incorporate playful movement into your daily routine
  • The science behind using dance for emotional and physical wellbeing
  • How to break free from perfectionist exercise patterns
  • Practical strategies for connecting with your body’s innate wisdom

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Freebies From Today’s Episode

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Resources Mentioned in this episode

Oxiline bioimpedance scale

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Reignite Wellness™ Plant-Based & Paleo-Inspired All-In-One Shakes

Transcendance.com 

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Click Here To Read Transcript


731_Jennifer Jimenez
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[00:00:00] JJ: I’m J. J. Virgin, Ph. D. dropout, sorry mom, turned four time New York Times best selling author. I’m a certified nutrition specialist, fitness hall of famer, and I speak at health conferences and trainings around the globe, but I’m driven, most of all, by my insatiable curiosity and love of science to keep asking questions, digging for answers, and sharing the information that I uncover.

[00:00:31] JJ: With as many people as I can. And that’s where you come in. That’s why I created the Well Beyond 40 podcast to synthesize and simplify the science of health into actionable strategies to help you thrive. In each episode, we’ll talk about what’s working in the world of wellness from personalized nutrition and healing your metabolism to powerful aging and prescriptions.

[00:00:56] JJ: Join me on the journey to better health so you can love how you look and feel right now and have the energy to play full out at 100. Don’t miss an episode, subscribe now at subscribetojj. com to start unlocking your healthiest energy. Most energetic self. What if there was something you could do for a couple minutes a day, it would bring you a boost of happy hormones, give you some joy, like hitch up with some dopamine, some oxytocin, some serotonin and endorphins, and increase your mental acuity, make you more creative, and even decrease your Alzheimer’s risk by as much as 76 percent.

[00:01:38] JJ: Percent, which was a recent New England Journal of Medicine, 21 year study. What am I talking about? I’m talking about dance, and specifically I’m talking about a form of dance called transcendence. You can hear more about this with our amazing guest, Jennifer Joy, Jim. Yes, I’ve got the triple J with me today.

[00:02:00] JJ: She’s a transformational leader and the founder of the Brave Thinking Institute’s health and well being division, which is a fabulous group. I’m in their leadership program. I’ve been on a couple different pilgrimages with them, both to Bali and to Israel, and I’ve been to their Dream Builder Live programs, and The founder of it, Mary Morsey, is one of my very close friends and Jennifer is her daughter.

[00:02:25] JJ: She is renowned for the innovation of Transcend Dance, which is the blend of movement, mindfulness, and energy healing. And it is amazing. It can help you Release trauma, get rid of shame, embrace self love, and you’re going to hear some incredible stories, but also how you can put this into your own life in just a little bit, uh, very easily and reap big rewards.

[00:02:52] JJ: So I’m going to be right back with Jennifer. She’s a visionary coach, an amazing speaker, and you are going to be hooked on her passion, which is to help others unlock their full potential and thrive in every aspect of life. All right, let’s do it. Let’s get dancing.

[00:03:19] JJ: I’m super excited about this topic because we’ve actually never really talked about movement and dance and really getting into your body and it strikes me. That like for so many years, especially coming from a dance background, I did exercise and dance to finally feel good in my body instead of feeling good in my body because I was doing dance and exercise.

[00:03:47] JJ: So Jennifer Joy Jimenez, I would love, I’m so happy you’re here and I’d love you to unpack that because I know you have your own story around that.

[00:03:55] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah. Oh my gosh. My favorite topic And you’re the triple chair.

[00:04:00] JJ: I’m the double, you’re the triple.

[00:04:04] Jennifer Jimenez: Exactly. Well, as a, you know, former professional dancer in the traditional dance world, I was a modern dancer.

[00:04:14] Jennifer Jimenez: The, the culture, and this, this feeds into diet culture, fitness culture, sort of the, the, the main messaging I received. Growing up and in that professional world was I didn’t measure up. I was never thin enough, flexible enough, you know, so there was this constant using food, starvation, over exercising to try to measure up to what felt like this impossible standard.

[00:04:41] Jennifer Jimenez: And then there came a time where that just didn’t work for any, for me anymore. It was, you know, the, the, probably the worst. I’ve ever felt in my body was when I probably to the outside world looked my best. And I realized that I wanted to feel good in my body. I just wanted to feel at home in my body. I wanted my body to feel safe and loved.

[00:05:06] Jennifer Jimenez: I wanted to feel nurtured and nourished. I wanted to stop feeling starving, starved, you know, I am hungry. I need to eat something, you know? And I, and I knew that My body was sending signals that I was constantly ignoring, you know, signals. Now in the professional world, we’re moving and exercising as you have lived eight, 12 hours a day.

[00:05:29] Jennifer Jimenez: So it was usually signals to rest. But what I find now is there’s this sweet spot, right? Where we’re not overly sedentary and not moving. There are moments when we can get up and move and we’re, we, it’s energizing to move. That in my movement practices throughout my week and month and year, it’s designed for me to feel strong and alive and radiant.

[00:05:56] Jennifer Jimenez: But that now what matters to me, and I know you so appreciate this and I appreciate that you appreciate this. I want to feel connected to my soul and my authentic self and what feels right. Ignites joy. Like I want joy and, and fresh energy in my exercise, AKA movement practices. And not just like I have to drag myself to the gym because I know I should or have to do this thing.

[00:06:23] Jennifer Jimenez: And that’s what so many I know of your clientele and the And the beautiful souls that I have the privilege of serving is they’re bored and they, they’re tired of it feeling like a have to or should, but they want it. They want to have fun.

[00:06:37] JJ: You know, it’s gotta be a get to not a have to, well, what, what was the, was there a turning point?

[00:06:42] JJ: Like what? I know, I know the turning point for me, one of them, there’s been multiples, but was there a turning point for you that made you kind of, the light bulbs went on?

[00:06:52] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah, there were two, two. One was my. 50 hour labor with my daughter. So that’s a five, five zero. Yeah, I know. So. Isn’t that always the case, right?

[00:07:05] Jennifer Jimenez: I, we, I like to say our mess, you know, becomes our message or often what our perceived failures are can be these doorways and openings to this next level expression. So I really wanted a natural birth and like a true athlete, professional dancer at the time I had her when I was 25, right at the peak of my professional dance career.

[00:07:24] Jennifer Jimenez: So, I mean, and my mother is a thought leader. So, So all the people at church, like I, I got, I came home with bags of natural birth books and I did all the classes and prenatal yoga was like this, this is 25 years ago, right? So this big thing. And, um, I mean, I trained for that JJ, like I was going to climb frickin Like I was ready.

[00:07:45] Jennifer Jimenez: I had my birth plan. I listened to my perfect birth every night to ocean waves and did a bazillion kegels, you know, like I, I couldn’t have been more ready for this birth. And yet how we do anything is how we do everything. I had way more hours training. Myself, not to listen to my body wisdom, to be in push, really striving, work hard energy, which was how I had gotten to the peak of my dance career.

[00:08:17] Jennifer Jimenez: And that’s not what birth is about at all. Uh, birth couldn’t be more opposite of that experience in my body. It’s about surrender. It’s about flow. It’s about relaxing around the contraction, not resisting or constricting against. I could go on and on for anybody who’s ever been there. So that was a real rude awakening for me that, Oh, I can’t just think my way or no, no pain, no gain my way into natural birth.

[00:08:46] Jennifer Jimenez: Hmm. Okay. So clearly there’s a disconnect between my. Mental health and, and this understanding of mind sciences, cause I was raised in mind sciences and transformational curriculum and, and success principles by my mom. I thought, okay, so clearly I missed the mark. I don’t have it. Where was the

[00:09:06] JJ: hidden chapter?

[00:09:07] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah. So I, that just, it catapulted me. I, it made me even more hungry to understand everything I could about the mind, body, spirit connection, about energy healing. What mostly for my own healing, I experienced quite a bit of birth trauma and I knew I could feel it in me and I knew I wasn’t going to think it away, you know, or even be in talk therapy.

[00:09:28] Jennifer Jimenez: There are certain things you just can’t talk enough about. It’s still in the Being, it’s in our, our issues live in our tissues, right? Our experiences, our body is like a recording device. So I was led to conscious dance. I was led to mind, body, spirit practices, uh, a number of beautiful mentors that helped introduce me to this world.

[00:09:48] Jennifer Jimenez: I healed very quickly. The birth trauma was released and then it started to go further back and other life experiences and trauma that got released and more than anything, the It rewired my extreme body shame and body dysmorphia. Like very quickly I could tap into my true self love and that innate inborn Inner desire for that body wisdom to just take really good care of ourselves.

[00:10:15] Jennifer Jimenez: You know what I mean? And to listen to the body wisdom. And my second child, who’s almost four years, um, younger than my daughter, I had a two hour all natural labor and birth, no drugs, not like, I just remember, I remember saying to my husband, it’s over. That’s it. I mean, it was, I’m not going to say it was easy.

[00:10:33] JJ: Put it back in. Let’s do it again.

[00:10:36] Jennifer Jimenez: And then I did, I had a third and 90 minutes. So yeah. I don’t say that at all to brag or at all to, I wasn’t even actually going for, um, fast. I was going for flow and I was able to tap into a flow state. And the distance between my daughter’s birth and then my third child was this journey of listening to my body wisdom.

[00:11:04] Jennifer Jimenez: Understanding my body spirit connection, shifting from push energy in every area of my life, not just in birth, right? Or in dance, but in my relationships, in my career, in my relationship with money, in my fitness and relationship with how I was feeling. Feeding my body and moving my body and in my marriage and in everything into one of flow state.

[00:11:28] Jennifer Jimenez: And this, this tool, you know, which are transformational spiritual principles and conscious dance just expedited it for me. It was like this center point where I could find my soul self and I could connect with that authentic part of me. And that doesn’t mean that I didn’t see it. That’s DEXA, bio impedance, subscribetojj.

[00:11:54] Jennifer Jimenez: com, DEXA, bio impedance, subscribetojj.

[00:12:02] JJ: com. So you, you had your daughter, you had all this trauma, talk therapy wasn’t getting you there. How did you find out about this conscious dance thing?

[00:12:16] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah, I think that, I mean, I can tell you the exact moment, but here’s what I find. And when we ask. A higher power, I’ll call it God, for guidance and support.

[00:12:27] Jennifer Jimenez: I believe it opens up this attraction factor where the thing that we most need, that’s going to lead us to the breakthrough we’re seeking can become welcome. And that’s really what it was. It was like I got to this place where I was like, crap, you know, everything I knew that I thought I was doing it all right, just went out the window.

[00:12:49] Jennifer Jimenez: So, okay, God, I surrender. Like, I don’t know how to fix this. I know it’s like, I can feel that I clearly missed the mark and I can also feel the, my potential, like I could feel that it’s possible within me. I just have no idea what just went wrong. So I’m going to, Ask for guidance and allow myself to be guided and led.

[00:13:12] Jennifer Jimenez: I could tell you the longer story, but ultimately I feel like it was that question, so for anyone seeking answers, this very podcast could be the answer to. Prayer or asking of the divine or just a, yikes, I need an answer. Like I need a solution here. What might that be? I’d like to do it in a different, a slightly different way.

[00:13:36] Jennifer Jimenez: Um, I was, I’m, you know, JJ, you know, you’re very close with my mother. Um, for those of you that don’t know, she’s a well known thought leader. Her name is Mary Morrissey. And I was blessed in that, Because I had moved home actually to raise my daughter and build a, a health and wellbeing division of her spiritual center back in the day.

[00:13:57] Jennifer Jimenez: And at the center, she was a hub for all these kinds of outside of the box, teachers and modalities and, and ways of helping people transform. So within that center, there were a number of different people that, um, as I was growing this. Um, well being portion of her work, they just came out of the woodworks.

[00:14:20] Jennifer Jimenez: And I was literally not only leading things, but I was taking the very classes that the rest of the, you know, the participants were taking. And it was just literally in those classes that I had the breakthroughs. I had spontaneous healings. I literally felt the trauma drain from my body. I mean, it was amazing things that I Was like, wow, okay, this, there’s some, there’s some secret medicine in this that I’m feeling really, really, um, guided to slowly, I started to feel guided to bring it to the world in my own way.

[00:14:52] JJ: It makes so much sense. I’m a couple of things. I’m like, I don’t know if you ever met Dr. Amy Apigian. In our group, she really got into the biology of trauma and now is a big thought leader in that. And I feel like trauma is finally getting out into the space where we realize, Hey, talk therapy is a piece, but it’s probably not going to get you where you need to go.

[00:15:14] JJ: And, and these other things that you can move it through, you are a great idea and probably the most powerful thing you can do. Back when I was a trainer, What I noticed at one point, I thought, gosh, I should go get my therapy license because I would get people moving and then it was like, blah, blah, blah.

[00:15:33] JJ: I was like, whoa, you know, whoa. I don’t know that I can help you with what you just dropped on me, but, but I found that movement was such a, just, just, Opened people up and what you’ve really done here by bringing movement and putting it together This this idea of conscious movement, which it makes sense now having a background in modern dance, right?

[00:15:58] JJ: With personal involvement with transformational coaching is is there anything else out there like this?

[00:16:04] Jennifer Jimenez: No, I mean there are there there’s ecstatic dance. There’s What is

[00:16:09] JJ: ecstatic dance for everybody? Ecstatic dance

[00:16:12] Jennifer Jimenez: is a form of dance for healing and awakening and celebration. That’s basically more DJ guided.

[00:16:22] Jennifer Jimenez: So it’s music led and it’s basically free form dance. You just let your soul dance you. And it’s a group of people that, you know, feel that dances is medicine and it’s a pathway to awakened consciousness. It’s a clean. You know, there’s no drugs and alcohol in most of these ecstatic dance circles. The difference with that and say, what if modality, like what I’ve created, which is called transcendance, but there’s, I love the name.

[00:16:51] JJ: It’s so cool. Thank

[00:16:51] Jennifer Jimenez: you. It really is about transcending stress, fear, doubt, pain, trauma, these lower life experiences and utilizing the power of music and conscious movement or mindful movement, which is basically that. I believe we’re all innately born to move and to, aka, dance, not following someone else’s steps or some sort of like, you know, technique.

[00:17:19] Jennifer Jimenez: This is totally just you allowing and trusting your own body wisdom to move you for the purpose of aligning with. Your highest self, your authentic self, you could call it your soul self. For me, it’s helped unlock my purpose in life. Not just to lead this to others, but all, I mean, I do lots of things, right?

[00:17:39] Jennifer Jimenez: So some of my most powerful awarenesses and ahas and, and answers. Two life’s greatest questions have come when I’m not just so focused on left brain activities, right? We live in a very logical left brain, two dimensional space. And if you look at kids, why they have so much, one of the reasons science shows that they have so much access, right?

[00:18:04] Jennifer Jimenez: To the fullness of their brain capacity. Think about recess, going out. Running, playing, climbing, hopping, skipping, all the things we used to do when we’re younger or when we’re in kindergarten, we’re singing, we’re moving to learn math, like there’s this activation of the fullness of our brain, left brain and right brain.

[00:18:25] Jennifer Jimenez: Two of the ways that activates our right brain, which by the way, innovation, collaboration, Einstein ideas, infinite intelligent lives when we’re, we’ve activated the right brain and we live in a very Left brain dominant experience in life. So unless we just happen to be a musician and play the piano or, you know, but just the simple act of turning on some music and just moving freely to it is in essence, a form of empathy.

[00:18:55] Jennifer Jimenez: Transcendance. We’re releasing tension. We’re releasing stress. We’re activating our happy hormones, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. A dose of dance is what I like to, to call it. Um, one of my favorite studies, JJ, and I know you love this study too, is the New England Journal of Medicine did a study around what really reduces Alzheimer’s and dementia and increases mental acuity.

[00:19:21] Jennifer Jimenez: And they found that social dance. Increases in mental acuity, decreases Alzheimer’s by 76%. I mean, they studied everything, bike riding, you know, like chess, like all these mental activities. And so the, the health and wellness benefits of just, Movement in general, and then you add music and then something like transcendance just sprinkles in personal development, setting an intention, moving in alignment with your vision if you’re activating a life vision and, and recognizing that we get to choose our mood at will.

[00:20:01] Jennifer Jimenez: Life isn’t happening to us. Life is happening for us and with us. So for me, when I. Add in some of my favorite music and then I bring to my mind, whatever it is that I’m seeking to bring forth, magnify or manifest in my life, right? And I add movement to that, that Amplifies the emotional, now we’re kind of getting esoteric here, but amplifies the emotional frequency that is in alignment with me being my best self.

[00:20:34] Jennifer Jimenez: Right? So I’m, I have clarity of mind. I am in a happy, joyful, grateful, loving mood and my actions. are in alignment with the future version of me that I want to experience three years from now, where things are going well, I’m successful, I have loving relationships, I’m living on purpose, and my body is moving, connected to that kind of energy.

[00:21:01] Jennifer Jimenez: It’s like putting Miracle Gro on a garden or Just, it’s just a magnification of whether it’s journaling practices, affirmations, looking at my vision board, you know, reading my vision in a two dimensional, on a piece of paper, but adding this in, that could be also, I’m a kinesthetic learner, right? I’m a visionary at heart.

[00:21:25] Jennifer Jimenez: So it’s super aligned. That’s all the

[00:21:29] JJ: time we have for today. I’m Lisa Lerner. I’ll see you next time. Out in beautiful, where we live, we have the longest walking street on the water, and of course, idea, idea, idea. I used to go rollerblading in Fort Lauderdale around the water, ideas, I had to always carry things with me at the gym, any time I’m moving.

[00:21:59] JJ: I get these ideas. Now we’ve brought Transcend Dance into the MindShare Health Business growth community. I always bring dance in, as you’ve noticed. I always bring dancing because I feel like as adults, we don’t get to do it. It’s like, first of all, I’m not 20. I’m not going to a club in a miniskirt. Like, I’m not doing it.

[00:22:18] JJ: So, there’s just not that many opportunities, right? So I make sure of my events, we always have dancing. And then we brought in Transcend Dance As a way to get people kind of prepped when they were going to do some really big thinking, thinking stuff. Now you watch people because I remember at first kind of watching people going, all right, how, how are these things going to land?

[00:22:40] JJ: Because people are so self conscious. Now you get to be an adult and all of a sudden you’re like, oh, oh, I don’t know. I can’t, what if someone sees me doing something stupid? So, you know, and it just, it strikes me that we build up a lot of just shyness or. And this is where we call it momentary, we call it summary, because it uses information to inform hearing.

[00:23:05] JJ: Of course it’s, this is a form of science, but we’re seeing it as a form of learning. I’m sorry, I’m in school. but I don’t have to even have a

[00:23:15] Jennifer Jimenez: math, and I don’t have to be good at math. I can just And I know you’ve been around the world too, so I know you can speak to this as well, but wouldn’t you agree that it’s very much our US, maybe Canadian, Culture.

[00:23:30] JJ: Yeah. I’d say us, Canada and the UK. UK. Exactly.

[00:23:35] Jennifer Jimenez: Exactly. Right. So, but the rest of the world, they got it going on. Like you go down to, my husband’s from Mexico city. You go down to Mexico. You are expected as a male. It, they, nobody cares if your moves look at all good. Like it is a cultural expectancy that you are, Anywhere there’s music, everybody’s just moving and nobody’s looking at anybody.

[00:23:58] Jennifer Jimenez: So part of it is, and same thing in Africa and all these different other cultures all over the world. And I love that

[00:24:03] JJ: no one was looking. I remember when I lived in Japan for a while and everyone would go dance at these nightclubs. And they dance to the mirror. Yo, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

[00:24:14] JJ: No one’s dancing with each other. They’re all dancing. It’s

[00:24:19] Jennifer Jimenez: so good. Yeah. So, you know, and if we go back, like literally tribal times, like we would We would circle around the fire and we would sing and drum and dance. In tribes, they would actually welcome the warriors from war, right? From their battles to drumming and music and dancing and shaking as a way to integrate.

[00:24:46] Jennifer Jimenez: Imagine that. I mean, like I could go on and on. So really it is a cultural thing. And I have learned to be just highly. Compassionate and sensitive that particularly in this Western culture, not only have we been programmed to sit down, be quiet, stop dreaming, stop, stop wiggling in your chair, like just bottle it up, right.

[00:25:11] Jennifer Jimenez: And don’t make a peep. So, I mean, when I come into these conferences, people are very well trained in our educational system. That’s DEXA, bio impedance, subscribetojj. com, DEXA, bio impedance, subscribetojj. com. It’s all the rules get to be broken. Like we get to hoot and holler a little bit. We get to kind of shake our bodies and it’s all about just creating safety.

[00:25:42] Jennifer Jimenez: So a, making sure people realize this is a non judgment zone. So there is no right or wrong way. This isn’t about moving any specific way. This is really just letting off some steam, shaking off the tension that. It, we’re holding on in our bodies and just having a little fun, letting that inner child out to play just with those three, uh, agree.

[00:26:03] Jennifer Jimenez: I call them our, our, our agreements. You know what I mean? We’re all going to look around and agree that a, we’re going to play full out. That’s the first one. Cause if I forget that one, oh man, there’s always those three people right in the front row with their arms crossed and are like, oh yeah, no, I don’t think so.

[00:26:18] Jennifer Jimenez: So. So before I tell them what we’re going to do, I’ve learned the hard way over many, many decades of leading large groups of adults into this, that you got to get agreement. Then that everyone’s going to play full out. Then that this is a safe zone, non judgment. We’re going to play. And then once everybody goes, Oh, I could play by those rules and I’m not going to get judged because we’ve all agreed that we’re not.

[00:26:40] Jennifer Jimenez: I’m not judging where this is a love zone, I can do this. And then it’s like, oh my gosh, people come up to me and they’re like, I haven’t felt that free and that amazing and that like unlocked and unleashed in a really, really long time. I want more of that. What can I do to have more of that?

[00:26:58] JJ: Yeah. And you did this with a group of mainly doctors.

[00:27:03] JJ: So as I’m getting ready to do this, I’m like, this is going to be interesting. Let’s see what happens here. And they loved it. And I looked around, I go, everybody is completely in this one to win it. They are in it. How do you have someone like, because in the moment, I mean, we were just being guided and you felt completely connected, but someone at home who goes, okay, I would love to do this.

[00:27:29] JJ: How do they, how are they able to get into that deeper connection?

[00:27:34] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah, I think the music, honestly, JJ is such an important, it’s like a, it’s like a dance partner. You know, if you think about if you’ve ever, like had any kind of experience on the dance floor with somebody that’s, Kind of in flow versus like you just somebody that’s leading like a really good song.

[00:27:52] Jennifer Jimenez: So for a moment, if possible, now I know some people really need a lot of help with music and they’re like, I have no idea what song, what song would you play? You know, and so we’ve got lots of playlists. I’m sure you have music. I think you’re also going to

[00:28:04] JJ: give everyone a little, you’re going to give everyone a taste.

[00:28:07] JJ: So if you’re listening, go, I got nothing. Is it Bruno Mars? You know, we’ll get you a thing.

[00:28:12] Jennifer Jimenez: Well, if you think about high school, so one way you could do this was, was, is you can look up either Google or chat GPT or whatever you use as a search, you know, Google your year, you graduated high school or whatever you.

[00:28:24] Jennifer Jimenez: And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll be happy to answer in one of those songs. Will ignite some sort of joy in you that could just be one, one way to go about it. Then you play that song and you listen, if you need to close the blinds, close your door or like close the bathroom and like lock the door and just close your eyes and let yourself loose, you know, then you start there and just tell yourself, I’m just going to move even for two or three minutes and I’m just going to let whatever Come out, come out and just, just experiment with it as part of what you, how you begin.

[00:29:18] Jennifer Jimenez: Another really easy way is drumming. I know that sounds like, wait a minute, drumming. So if you just, you can go to Spotify or Apple music or whatever, and just Google African drumming and note just even a few minutes of that. And what I love is to pair drumming with one of the 10 stages of transcendence is called the dance of release.

[00:29:40] Jennifer Jimenez: Now, this isn’t new. I’ve just given it a fun name. If you watch a dog after it gets a bath, what does it do? It shakes all the water off, right? Or if you watch a zebra being chased by a lion, if it doesn’t get a bath. Eaten, it will play dead. And then as soon as it doesn’t think it’s in danger, it’ll stand up and it’ll shake its entire body to shake off the trauma.

[00:30:06] Jennifer Jimenez: So it’s literally like you imagine shaking your body like an old dusty rug or a dog shaking water and you shake your body. It is so. It’s so rejuvenating. It releases so much tension. It activates those happy hormones. Even just a few minutes can be really, it’s like that, one of those exercise snacks, JJ.

[00:30:24] Jennifer Jimenez: But it activates mind, body, and spirit in such a powerful way.

[00:30:29] JJ: So you brought up joy, like 10 times now. Like what’s, uh, what’s, how does joy fit in here?

[00:30:37] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah.

[00:30:40] JJ: It’s your middle name, right?

[00:30:41] Jennifer Jimenez: It is my middle name. Is that really your middle name? It is really. Do you want to know, like, You’re asking. So my mother was going to call me Star and, um, which is an interesting middle name too, which I think is lovely.

[00:30:56] Jennifer Jimenez: And she had had two boys, my older brothers, John and Rich, who also work in our Institute, which is super cool. It’s a whole family business. Um, but she, she just had this. Emotional and spiritual connection with me long before she got pregnant with me. She says, John would have been Jennifer. Rich would have been Jennifer.

[00:31:15] Jennifer Jimenez: I was supposed to be

[00:31:16] JJ: Jennifer, by the way.

[00:31:17] Jennifer Jimenez: Were you? Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah. Um, so anyhow, when she, when I was finally born, she says she was filled with so much joy that she changed, like when she went to write, That’s how I got my middle name down on the birth certificate from what it was originally going to be to Joy.

[00:31:35] JJ: Wow. And it’s followed you all these years. It has. It has. Like it was a premonition of what was to come. So someone starting out, like what sort of transformation could someone kind of expect? Like is this something that you incorporate into your day every day? Like how would someone use this?

[00:31:55] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah, so can I tell two quick little stories that I think are really powerful?

[00:32:02] Jennifer Jimenez: So remember how I shared, I had that, my 50 hour labor, and I just started to get to know what all of this was. There was one day when I woke up, so I’m in my mid twenties, I’ve got a baby. My husband’s an actor, by the way. So he was coming and we were in Oregon. So he was flying back and forth from LA to Oregon.

[00:32:22] Jennifer Jimenez: He was gone all the time. And one of the women who was first exposing me to Conscious Dance, who was part of our, part of the center, I became friends with. I woke up one day and I had this horrific pain in my right hip and I didn’t recall Doing anything, hurting myself, injuring, like I could not figure out what was going, I could barely put any weight on it.

[00:32:44] Jennifer Jimenez: And I’m like crying and I, I don’t know what caused me to call her, my intuition probably. So I call her up and I’m like, so can I tell you what’s, I don’t know what to do. Like I, I’ve got a baby to take care of here. And she said, Oh, I know what this is. And this is, again, the beginning of recognizing there’s so much more than meets the eye.

[00:33:07] Jennifer Jimenez: You know, like there’s so much more going on. Everything that’s going on in our lives is impacting our body and how we’re feeling. And she said, you’re standing on one leg. Jorge, my husband, is gone all the time. And you’re basically raising this baby all by yourself. And I was like, Huh. I wouldn’t have thought of that, but that’s an interesting perspective.

[00:33:26] Jennifer Jimenez: Okay. You know, and I said, well, that doesn’t help me with this pain in a second. So what am I supposed to do? And she was like, well, certainly, you know, you can make an appointment. I’m happy to come pick you up. We’ll take you to the doctor. But before we go there, just do, if you’d be willing, do this experiment.

[00:33:46] Jennifer Jimenez: She was like, go within, breathe into the pain versus resisting against it. And then. Your body will actually tell you how to go into it to begin to feel. And it ultimately, she gave me these, these, these tips, which was breathe into the pain instead of pulling away from it, actually surround it with love.

[00:34:11] Jennifer Jimenez: And then instead of it locking, because oftentimes when you’re experiencing severe pain, you go into freeze mode. Right. Everybody’s like, Oh, I can’t move. I don’t want to move. It’s going to hurt it. Instead of that, soften around it and actually breathe love into this and just let your body move you, which was the, like, as a dancer, you don’t do that.

[00:34:31] Jennifer Jimenez: You follow a choreography and you got to get it perfect. You know, so this is super new to me. So I ended up getting on the floor within long story short, within 45 minutes, the pain was completely gone. It was like, wow. Like that was one of my very first experiences of what is now called somatic release, right?

[00:34:54] Jennifer Jimenez: The soma being the body. And to your point, JJ, as you’re training people, right? People enter, like emotions are being released, energies being unlocked. Right? So one tool for anybody listening is the next time you feel pain, What if, what if you leave a corner of your mind open to what if there’s some sort of mind body connection?

[00:35:16] Jennifer Jimenez: What if you’re, you can breathe into it, actually surround it with love? Now what I like to ask for is what’s the, what’s the wisdom? What’s the guidance? Is there a message for me in this versus just, let me just try to get it to go away immediately. You know, like for me in that moment, it was support. I realized I wasn’t, I wasn’t asking for, and I wasn’t leaning into the support that was actually around me, available to me.

[00:35:41] Jennifer Jimenez: I was trying to do it all on my own. So that was the message that I got. And as I asked for more support, my body didn’t have to scream for it, you know, in this, in this symptom. So that’s just one tool, right? Breathe into it. Surround it with love, ask for any sort of wisdom within that. That doesn’t mean don’t go to the doctor.

[00:36:01] Jennifer Jimenez: Don’t ever take a Tylenol or, you know, I’m not saying that because I believe there’s space for all of it. But when you open our, we open ourselves up to these other messages that might be available, there’s, it just really, Everything starts to make so much sense and we’re able to support ourselves into more greater mind, body, spirit alignment.

[00:36:22] Jennifer Jimenez: The other really is JJ to, to, to find a song, you know, that really does lift you up and light you up. For me, I walk around with Shazam almost like always on. So if I’m literally in the grocery store or Christmas shopping, for example, or just out in the world, and I hear a piece of music, If I feel lifted up and I don’t know what it already is, or sometimes I do know the song and I’m like, Ooh, that’s a good one.

[00:36:46] Jennifer Jimenez: I’ve totally forgotten about that song. That song sparks joy. Notice things in life, songs, people that lift you up and spark joy and seek to surround yourself with more of those people, more of that music, more of those environments. You know, I love your mind, share, love. community, jj. Like it, for me, it’s like a family.

[00:37:11] Jennifer Jimenez: It’s like, it’s so amazing to be around people who believe in the mind, body, spirit connection, who understand it’s all interconnected, who are passionate about healing and transformation in the world. And you, as it’s, you know, I want to say like, Mother, mentor, goddess, like, you know, like, I don’t even know the, of the, the word, but creator and holding of that space.

[00:37:37] Jennifer Jimenez: You hold such a, there’s such a, there’s such, and I just really want to say this, like you’re so authentic and raw and real. That it unlocks this level of authenticity and vulnerability in this group of people that have like accolades up the fricking wazoo next to their name, but yet they’re still real people who are just as vulnerable and raw and have just as many fears as, as anyone who doesn’t have a list of, MDs behind their name.

[00:38:11] Jennifer Jimenez: You know what I mean? And that’s what I love so much about what

[00:38:14] JJ: you do. I’ll tell you a funny story. Uh, we, I had a group of our legacy members over at the house and we were sitting yakking about something. And one of them said, except for you, because you have It all figured out. Are you have it all together?

[00:38:27] JJ: And I’m like, what are you talking about? I go, yeah, no one has it all together. They’re like, huh? You know, I go, uh, just when you think you have it all together, it’s a bleeping, it’s like just this little moment in time. And then you go to the next, you want to do something more aspirational and everything starts all over again.

[00:38:49] JJ: And it’s just like, It’s the way it is. So it’s, uh, but I, I have really loved being able to pull this in. Like I loved first bringing dance in instinctively. I remember I was on a rooftop at one of our events dancing because I always dance first because I know that if I dance, they’ll all dance. But if I don’t dance, no one will dance.

[00:39:09] JJ: So I figure I better go out there and dance. So they’ll all dance. And one of them was like, thank you so much. Thank you so much for doing this. We so, and I was like, and then bringing you in as just another. level of it. And I just feel like it’s, it’s just a way to get back to this permission of play and joy and creativity.

[00:39:30] JJ: Like I brought into one of my groups, I had everyone finger painting and you’re like, Oh my gosh. It was like, and, and people built new, built new business ideas because they were finger painting. I go, yes. So it’s just a reminder, like we just get so serious and do all these things. Things to check them off our list.

[00:39:52] JJ: And if we just actually backed it up a bit and, and did some fun stuff that by the way, has so much research behind it. You mentioned exercise snacks. And I think if you just took a couple times a day and just shut the door and blasted the music in a couple minutes, not only would you be more productive and happier, but you’d be healthier too.

[00:40:16] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it really does boost productivity. I think, you know, one of the things that I love hearing when I, you know, so going back to really your question, how can somebody engage in this? If you think about if you’re feeling tired, what you, what the average person is going to go to is sort of a synthetic energy, right?

[00:40:39] Jennifer Jimenez: So they might go to caffeine. They might naturally go to some form of sugar, you know what I mean? But they’re not necessarily going, Oh, wait. If I just stand up and move rhythmically to this song for three minutes, I’m actually going to get a way bigger boost of happy hormones, actual energy that is an effervescent flow of energy that is So my colleagues, we’re going to start our show with a question and answer for you.

[00:41:07] Jennifer Jimenez: And we’re going to be asking you some questions and answers. So I want to ask you a couple of questions about, um, how do you identify what the best way to organize your day is?

[00:41:16] JJ: I mean, it, I, it, I have two

[00:41:18] Jennifer Jimenez: things. One is I have two things to offer you guys. One is I have a very simple one, but I’m going to give you guys a

[00:41:24] JJ: really easy one.

[00:41:25] JJ: And that is I have two things that

[00:41:27] Jennifer Jimenez: I would give

[00:41:28] JJ: you as advice. I just think of this and I think of the latest study, I think I told you about it, the study on VILPA, Vigorous Intermittent Lifestyle Physical Activity, where they looked at people who incorporated ten minutes total, four and a half to ten minutes total, of vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity into their day every day, in one to two minute bursts.

[00:41:49] JJ: So that could be like a, Two minute dance off, you know, three times a day. You can decide after every meal, I’m gonna do a little dance off or I’m going to make sure that if I’ve been sitting for 90 minutes, I’m gonna do a little dance off. Yeah. It’s not only is it going to help your creativity and your mood, but there was a 40, it was either 45 or 40 to 50 to 55 percent decrease in death from cancer, heart disease, and all cause mortality.

[00:42:16] JJ: I mean, compared to people who weren’t doing that, 50 percent reduction in death, cause you got up and moved a bit. Are you kidding me? Come on. Doesn’t cost anything, like, you know, you can do it at any level. Everyone can do it. Yeah.

[00:42:34] Jennifer Jimenez: Well, and what I love about including dance in it, JJ, is not everyone is a superhero like you, you know, like, and is wanting to do like the things that are what most people feel are more challenging, you know what I mean?

[00:42:49] Jennifer Jimenez: Like the weights or the, the pushups or like kind of the, the, the superhero kinds of exercise movements, right? Some people just need a bridge and. All of us, I think, need a little more fun. So for example, one of the things I love to do is just bring music into everyday things. So instead of brushing my teeth to silence or just the sound of my electric toothbrush, you know, I’ll put on some music or when I’m cooking, I’m literally dancing around my kitchen.

[00:43:20] Jennifer Jimenez: Or if I’m going from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting, in between I’m going to turn on a song and literally dance around my kitchen.

[00:43:30] Jennifer Jimenez: That’s really what you’re talking about. Like it really is just that easy what we’re already doing, but in just a more playful fun way, even, Well, what’s great about that is you

[00:43:39] JJ: just have it stacked. So, and that’s what I look at with a lot of these things as you get through the day and go, oh, I forgot to do that.

[00:43:46] JJ: But if you go, you know what I’m going to put this, if I do a zoom meeting, uh I’ll throw this in after, so you just have to figure out how to incorporate even one little binary One little burst of it throughout the day. Now I know you have a, is it a, like a challenge? What do you have? You have some kind of program that we’re going to gift everybody.

[00:44:03] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, the first thing is just the ability to come and be guided, to experience some of this, I think is really one of the best ways to get exposed. That’s really how I got exposed. I wouldn’t have known kind of how to do this on my own at first. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

[00:44:28] Jennifer Jimenez: And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. So we definitely have a gift of free access to Transcend Dance. So people can come on a, you know, weekend. We record it. It’s live virtual people from all over the world. We record it. So even if you can’t come live, we’ll send you the recording.

[00:44:50] JJ: Say someone’s Transcend Dancing at 4am.

[00:44:55] Jennifer Jimenez: You’d be surprised, you’d be surprised actually.

[00:45:00] JJ: I’m sure. Okay, that’s awesome. We’re going to put that at jjvirgin. com forward slash transcendance. Okay, so how does one spell transcendence? Here, here it is. It is T R A N S C E N, transcend, and then dance, D A N C E.

[00:45:17] JJ: Okay? So everyone knows how to spell that. Transcend with dance. So jjvirgin. com forward slash transcendance so that you can take a class, get the gist of it, so that you can incorporate this into your life. And if you want to go deeper, I’m sure that you can also go and read it. And do even more. You’ve got retreats, you’ve got certifications, all sorts of fun stuff.

[00:45:40] JJ: In fact, what’s been cool over in our health biz growth mindshare community is we’ve got now some of our practitioners who become certified transcendence instructors, so they’re pulling it into their practices, which I think is amazing.

[00:45:54] Jennifer Jimenez: Yeah. The goal is so that it’s just available, you know, to more and more people.

[00:46:00] Jennifer Jimenez: A, more people are just dancing in life in general. That really is my vision is. Spreading the power of music and, and really the medicine, the healing, mental, the physiological and the spiritual connection we can achieve just through dancing more. And you’ve all, you’ve just, you’re such a cheerleader for it.

[00:46:17] Jennifer Jimenez: Not just verbally, but you live what you teach. You literally walk your talk or in better words, you dance your dance. And it’s one of the things that really drew me to you, JJ, is just your vulnerable, authentic, true, Beingness, but then, uh, obviously we share the joy of dance and the passion for it.

[00:46:38] JJ: It’s fun.

[00:46:38] JJ: It’s fun to be dancing again and not on toe shoes. Exactly.

[00:46:46] Jennifer Jimenez: Thank you, Jennifer. Oh, it’s such a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[00:46:54] JJ: Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques. You can incorporate into everyday life to ensure you look and feel great and are built to last. Check me out on Instagram, Facebook, and my website, jjvirgin. com, and make sure to follow my podcast at subscribetojj. com so you don’t miss a single episode.

[00:47:17] JJ: And hey, if you’re loving what you hear, don’t forget to leave a review. Your reviews make a big difference in helping me reach more incredible women just like you to spread the word about aging powerfully after 40. Thanks for tuning in. And I’ll catch you on the next episode.

[00:47:43] JJ: Hey, JJ here. And just a reminder that the Well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness, and nutritional information that’s designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

[00:48:00] JJ: If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid, or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on this show or read in our show notes.

[00:48:16] JJ: The use of any information provided on this show is solely at your own risk.

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