About

 Jenn Hallowes | Jenneral Thoughts

"Cause I wonder sometimes about the outcome of a still, verdictless life. Am I living it right?"  - John Mayer, "Why Georgia"

It's a restlessness I've had my entire life. Keep expanding. Learn more. Grow, grow, grow. Bump into the corners of your comfort zone and push them further. It's exhilirating, and exhausting. It's all in the and, not the or.

The hardest part about writing an 'About Me' page is that it requires solidity of mind, ideology, and values.

A person has to know oneself in a way that is categorical and based in at least moderate permanence.  One has to be identified enough to fill in the blank after "I am ____."

These are principles with which I have a truly dissonant relationship.

On the one hand, I crave freedom to expand in my thinking, grow in my relationship to self, and see life through an ever-cultivated lens of uncondition. I want to look at everything and see the "ok-ness" of it all. I want to be a vessel for observation, appreciation, and the truest expression of love. I resist being defined in any way which may limit me. 

In this way, I share resonance with birch trees which spread their roots widely across the landscape.

But often a being's greatest strength is also their greatest weakness, and while the birch has the advantage of spanning more land with the breadth of their touch, they lack access to vital nutrients that only depth via solidity of placement can provide.

But never fear, for nature accommodates every single expression and desire.

Where there is a birch tree that is thriving, nature has a pine tree within close proximity. Through the brilliant mycelium network - the communication railway system within the soil of the Earth - the pine tree generously sends birch trees the nutrients they need to survive in their chosen state of widespread albeit shallow root system structure.

On the other hand, there are times I take myself to places in thought, relationships, and physical life that are way too far outside of my comfort zone.

The brain is a record-keeper of the past and a prediction machine based on known outcomes, and in my radical choices to go far away (both in thought and physical locale), the brain cannot make sense of these new paths.

In those times my physiology produces chemicals to make me feel lost, scared, depressed, and despondent - anything to get me back on course with the known.

Knowing this about the brain, I ride those times out, sometimes less gracefully than others. Always, thankfully, with a knowing that the brain will eventually submit, and that I can, in fact, expand my neural network to include all of the new ideas and concepts I encounter. That then, informs a new "I am." And new actions and behaviors then ensue.

I'm like a birch tree. Desirous of experiencing life from within every vantage point on the pendulum, and spreading my roots wide to accomplish that.

I choose that path knowing that the consequence of such is a lack of safety found in the familiar. I have periods where I ache for a specific type of connection, and where I long for the mundane.

My antidote for these more challenging times is in finding the highest truth possible wherein safety is inherent in the connectedness of everything. Highest truth is my pine tree.

"Everybody is just a stranger, but that's the danger in going my own way. I guess it's the price I have to pay." - John Mayer, Why Georgia

It's my intention to share this process to the extent possible because I can personally think of no greater source of suffering than a human being desiring change but being terrified (for very valid reasons, no doubt) to create it.

Thus turning my life into a big experiment, and leaving the pillars of identity that kept me concretized.

So if I must characterize myself in a way that puts the expression that is Jenn inside of a box, I think it's safe to say that I'm comfortable defining myself by the following tenants:

  1. In making life an experiment, it's easier to accept failure if things don't work out. We are more willing to take action that a needed outcome would completely prohibit. 
  2. In being curious like children inherently are, we can avoid cementing ourselves in frameworks of rigid thinking that prevent the very movement necessary to change.
  3. In desiring a state of neutrality for how we relate to others and ourselves, all outcomes can exist and manifest. There then, is value found in every single moment of life.

 

CAVEAT:  I one hundred and fifty percent will have no problem being in the box that is called John Mayer's wife. Just so we're all clear for when that happens. ;-)

    We're all doing this human being thing together, and nothing I experience is different than what others experience. I'm simply choosing to share the inner journey so that we can objectify the unseen that keeps us trapped. We can learn from each other, heal alongside each other, and change thanks to others.

    There is no journey more exquisite than the one experienced inwardly, and regardless of how many times we move locations, we will always and inevitably experience only what our mind limits us to experience.

    This fact is what compels me. And it's what inspired Jenneral Thoughts. Welcome in. I'm so glad you're here.