Day 80: Jennifer Hicks

December 19, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“Essentially, my message is — no matter what I’m doing — is that we as individuals are all experts on either our bodies, our minds, emotions, or spirits, and that we do have the wisdom within to make choices.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Jennifer, for agreeing to do the Project interview today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Jennifer Hicks: Sure thing.  Thank you very much, Toni, for having me.  My name is Jennifer Hicks, and I live in Toronto, in Canada.  I spend my time practicing as a Speech Language Pathologist as well as a Nia fitness instructor.

A lot of people don’t know what Nia is.  Nia is a 25-year-old cardiovascular fitness practice that brings in movements from dance arts, martial arts, and healing arts.  It combines elements of things like jazz and modern dance and Tai Chi and Taekwondo, yoga, along with other movement forms.  The best way for me to describe it is a joyful, really energizing and fun type of fitness experience.  It’s not like a class.  It’s more of an experience.

In my work as a Speech Language Pathologist, I work with adults who have suffered traumatic brain injuries, usually as a result of a motor vehicle accident.

I also spend a lot of my time volunteering and writing for a local newspaper called Good News Toronto.

I really enjoy participating in projects like these, so again, thank you.

Toni: Oh, you’re quite welcome.  Thank you.  When you think about the word inspiration, Jennifer, and what it means to you, let’s start with who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Jennifer: Well, you know, it’s really important to me to do my best to inspire everyone that I meet so whether — as you know, I do a lot of different things — and whether it’s this Nia student that I’m teaching, my clients with brain injuries, or anyone whose reading or writing that I’m doing, I really hope to motivate others and specifically to motivate them to take responsibility for their wellness.

What I mean in that is that I guess I’m a very open person, and I’m quite up front about the fact that I have bipolar disorder.  And because of that, I kind of found myself in a position where I need to live in a creative way to live a healthy life in spite of that.  So in fact, it’s really Nia that has been the best medicine for me in response to dealing with bipolar disorder over the past four years.

I’m pretty honest with my students — with my clients where it’s appropriate — in that Nia is really what helps me keep my moods stable, and it really nourishes my soul.  And I also feel when my students see me moving and I’m also open about the fact that I don’t have a dance background, per se, and that they can give themselves some permission to move a little more freely than they might be accustomed to.

Toni: When you are working within any of the professions that you do talk about — whether it’s the exercise, working with the brain injury patients, students — where do you see that how you inspire them by being honest with them and helping them be responsible for their own wellness, how does that then work to help them explore their own potential?

Jennifer: Well, you know, as I say, I’m very open and honest about Nia and it being part of my wellness plan.  And one thing that I really emphasize and, in fact, this is just a guiding principle for Nia, is that we encourage people to follow the pleasure principle.

So it’s not the “no pain no gain” kind of mantra of the past; it’s more we want people to feel good.  And if it does feel good, then continue along that path, and if it doesn’t feel good, then the responsibility is each individual’s to kind of modify or tweak the movement or what’s happening to make it work for them.

And that really … I mean, I’m talking from a movement perspective, but that really applies to other facets of the way I work with people.  So you know, with my clients with brain injury, I’m also encouraging them to really be mindful and engaged and active in terms of their treatment process; involved in the decisions that need to be made so that they’re directing their own treatment.

Essentially, my message is — no matter what I’m doing — is that we as individuals are all experts on either our bodies, our minds, emotions, or spirits, and that we do have the wisdom within to make choices.  It’s just all about sort of respecting ourselves and following our intuition, if you want to put it that way.

Toni: That’s really powerful stuff.  When you look at inspiration for yourself, what do you need to be inspired?  What inspires you?

Jennifer: I look to everything around me for inspiration, but particularly I think because of the fact that I chose to become involved with Nia, I’m surrounded by a lot of positive people; a lot of people who might have explored other realms of fitness and experienced injury or discomfort or so on and so forth and then are really open to coming to a new experience and looking at it from a different perspective.

So being with people who are like-minded, people who are positive, people who, you know, have done a lot of reading about spirituality.  I’m looking for teachers.  I’m a learner, and I’m constantly looking for teachers.  So I also — from a professional point of view — I want to be inspired by my Nia teachers.  I want my professional colleagues to challenge me.

I also am part of a creative women’s business group, and we get together and share our struggles as being in creative professions and also, you know, issues surrounding money and finances and products and so on and so forth.  I think I just need people who are sort of walking the same paths to feed me.

Toni: Are there tools or methodologies or things that you reach for when you know that you’re looking for a little inspiration here, you need to fill yourself up, or to be inspired?  Are there things you reach for?

Jennifer: Yeah.  I kind of go to music.  I go to books.  I look towards my friends.  I look towards my husband who is very supportive.  And I’m very sort of open about wanting to continue to develop and learn, so I’m always asking for feedback, asking for mentorship, and just ways to continue to improve.

Toni: And has it been — using the like-minded people and being positive and that’s what you’re saying inspires you and, you know, being around all these like-minded people — was that something that you always knew you needed to be inspired?

Jennifer: No, absolutely not.  I think I struggled in my growing up years, in my university years.  I was very, I guess you could say, type A, very much a perfectionist.  And I ended up being around those types of people which created a lot of stress because it just fueled the fire.

For a long time, I didn’t realize that achieving and accomplishing and getting the best grades really is not what life is all about, and it’s not important.  So it took me a long time to learn that.

Toni: I can imagine, then, having to be able to have that that frame of reference and to know what types of people weren’t doing the best for you, to be around like-minded people that inspired you to be able to do the work you do, that must have been an amazing journey then.

Jennifer: Yes.  Really, it’s a blessing that I became ill and that I now have bipolar disorder, because had I not, I wouldn’t be in the position that I’m in doing work that I love, having flexibility in my schedule and just being exposed to all these different, you know, lifestyles and creative businesses and so on that I had no clue even existed.

Toni: So how does that then help you to continuously explore your own potential?  What do you do with all of that to move in that direction of potential?

Jennifer: Well, you know, I think it feeds my curiosity.  As I had mentioned, I do like to learn, and I like to find out what other people are doing so that it kind of validates.  Not that I need validation, but it does just make my journey a little bit easier when there are difficult times related to the business that I’m in, when I’m not receiving a steady income, when I’m not getting as much work as I’d like to get.  Just knowing that others are going through the same thing really helps me to stay on my path and stay focused and stay positive.  I just feel like I have some camaraderie around that.

Toni: And the learning that you do in order to continuously explore the potential to help others, are there certain things that you reach for for that?  Certain books or studies that you do in order to stay focused and explore the different potential that you have?

Jennifer: Yeah.  A lot of my studies right now are related to the Nia technique.  So whether that involves reading, or communicating with the Nia community of teachers online, or learning new routines, watching DVDs, learning new choreography, getting exposed to new music, that’s where a lot of my learning comes from.

That creates in me a sense of accomplishment when I feel like I have something new to share with people and that I can just deepen my own understanding of the practice and what it’s all about.

Toni: Before I let you go, is there a way that you can help draw the parallel between what you do to stay inspired yourself, what you do to explore your own potential, and how that drives what you do in your day-to-day life with others — with the brain injury patients, with the people that you work with in the exercise — how does that all relate to that?

Jennifer: Well, I feel like what I need for inspiration creates a certain balance of energy and then that energy I can use to give to my clients and to my Nia students.  The inspiration is like food for my creativity and, as I said, it comes in the form of music, of books, of reading, of connecting with people online.  And then I think that that kind of fuels me so that I can give some of that, recycle it back out to my students and my clients.

Toni: So it really is a give and take, isn’t it?

Jennifer: Yes, it is.  Absolutely.

Toni: That’s what I’ve heard throughout this whole interview, that everything — even though there are so many different facets to what you’re doing that you have shared so eloquently with us in this interview — there’s all of these different paths really are intertwined with what you do, what you need in order to do and serve others.  That’s what I heard in this interview, and that’s awesome.

Jennifer: Yes.  And I promised myself that as soon as I wasn’t experiencing joy from any of the things that I’m doing, that I need to look to other things.  I don’t want to continue doing things just because someone says I should do them, because I’ve learned that that’s not what’s important in life.

Toni: What a fantastic message to leave the interview with.  Thank you so much for everything that you taught us in this interview, and we will put a link on how to get a hold of you at the end of the blog post.  We thank you so very much,  Jennifer, for being part of the project.

Jennifer: Thank you so much for including me, Toni.

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For more information about Jennifer Hicks:  www.jennhicks.ca

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