Broche Banter #25 -- Jana from Ballerinas by Night
Today on the show, Julie chats with Jana, who is one of the two fabulous Ballerinas by Night, a staple of the YouTube and social media world of adult ballet.
We talk about the challenges we have faced through the COVID time, the mixed relationship with ballet that we and our fellow dancers have felt, and just take a minute to commiserate.
We hope that if you’re in the same boat, you’ll find some solace in the conversation, and we hope to leave you with some food for thought.
Enjoy!
Before we get to the show, let’s take our Broche Bite!
On this segment, we’ll talk about bite-size ballet tidbits to give you something to chew on while you listen.
Today, let’s start off with some inspiration. If you’re thinking about getting back to ballet after several months off due to COVID, or really after any long break, I want to take a moment to encourage you to go for it, but with a few words of advice.
Over the years of owning Broche Ballet, I’ve helped countless dancers return to the barre after long breaks, and have helped each one through the mental struggles of coming back to ballet.
Anytime we return to our past love, we must be gentle and kind to ourselves. Placing expectations on what was or what we once had will set us up for disappointment and an inability to enjoy the process. We have memories of flying across the studio, or moving our bodies with ease, and we are hard on ourselves when our current body does not live up to that standard.
Every time we return to ballet after a break, it’s a new journey and there will be so many new and different things to learn about ourselves and our bodies. Instead, of comparing your current self to your past self, try to meet yourself with kindness, know that wherever you’re starting from, you’ll keep getting stronger the more you stick with it.
Easier said than done, I know. If you need somewhere to start, check out my gentle and inspirational back to the barre video on YouTube. It’s just that — a gentle and inspirational barre to help you re-enter your body with positive energy and soft movements.
Now, onto the show!
Julie: Welcome to the show, Jana. I'm so excited to chat with you today.
Jana: You too. Thank you.
Julie: So Jana is one of two of the wonderful Ballerinas By Night who is just an amazing YouTube channel and resource for adult dancers. You've been a staple in our community since, I mean, the beginning of I feel like when I was dancing, I don't even know how long you guys have been around, but feels like I can't remember a time before you do.
Jana: Oh, ha! Yeah, I think it's been seven years. Yeah, I think 2013 February 2013 was the first time we posted a video so…. just gone by like that *snaps*
Julie: Wow. It's I mean, it's amazing if you if anyone listening the show hasn't checked out Ballerinas By Night, you totally should, because Jana and Abby post so many awesome resources. They did classes for everyone during lockdown. They post videos on topics that apply to all of us like, leotards for curvy ladies, right? You post about how to get motivated after work, you post about all kinds of topics, not just ballet-related, but about our whole journey and our process. So super super useful stuff, and I'm always happy to have a chance to chat with you or with Abby or with both of you.
Jana: Yeah, thank you so much.
Julie: So this, this particular conversation was spurred on by a post that you made on Instagram about being a little bummed right? Being a little bummed about ballet and COVID and about quarantine, and I posted about how I was a little bummed about all of it. And then we got to talking and we decided to come on here and talk about it together for all of our listeners to hear how how bummed we are and what we're doing.
So for better for worse, we might be a little real in this conversation. Because I think a lot of a lot of people out there feeling real. A lot of people out there are feeling really intense feelings about the world and…. what not about? What not about? What are we not feeling intense things about right now?
Jana: I know.
Julie: I know, only our pets, but then like immense gratitude.
Jana: What would I do if I couldn't pick her up and just like hold her like literally helps. It's… Yeah, it's, it's a lot to process like, it's just like a spiral of like being disappointed about every single aspect of your life. And, you know, as like, adult ballet dancers like ballet is is, you know, our outlet to sort of push all that aside and when that is even a part of like, the crap, then you just feel like, “Is there anything to be happy about or to look forward to?” and it's just … it's hard. It's a mental toll that's just not fun and not… you know, I've dealt with depression multiple times in my life. I, you know, I struggle with anxiety, like, it's, you know, pretty good, but like, I've always dealt with it. And so, you know, I've been really good for like four or five years, and I've just been, you know, just so proud and happy to be like, fine and like feeling it all kind of like, bubbling under me, I'm like, “No, no, no, I could don't want that to happen again.” And so, yeah, just trying to figure out how to process and get through it.
Julie: And as you mentioned, we're all very alone in this time, right? Obviously, we're not alone, we're all here with like, obviously, we hopped on the phone the next day after we were both going through this, right? But it doesn't feel like it feels like you're very alone because you're used to seeing your friends and everyone's got so much going on. And in a way you know that so many people have it worse than you that you don't feel like you should feel…. like that word should is always dangerous… but there's so many you get so much worse that you don't want to put your burdens on someone else because they're going through so much and you know that there's people out there who lost family members who can't see them. There's people out there who are going through so much worse, who have no work who have no whatever. And that makes you super sad through you're sad for other people, you're sad for them, you’re sad for the world, and for the arts community, and you're sad for everything, all of it at once.
Jana: I know it's so heavy, I do that a lot to like, I try to like put it in perspective. And I'm like, “Okay, I should be grateful. Like, we're healthy. We're fine, you know, now” and like, so but it's, you know, it's still it's still feeling and it's still, I follow like a lot of like therapists on Instagram now and so like, that stuff really helps to be like, okay, okay, like, I can feel my feelings and it's okay.
Julie: And you know, one of my favorite questions to ask people who are of a next generation past us, right, so people who are older, like our parents age or our grandparents age. Every time I have a chance to talk to someone of that age group, I asked them this question: “Is this the weirdest thing that ever happened in your life? Or was there a time that something is weird happened to you?” And I've gotten fascinating answers. 9/11 comes up a lot, but for different people and for different reasons, right? People who are from California have a different sense of it than people who are my friends who were in Manhattan when it happened, right? There's a different sense. But that seemed to have resolved pretty quickly in terms of people's day to day lives. It was weird because it changed your your sense of physical safety in the world. But it wasn't weird in that lasted for many, many, many months. Right? It changed the world, but it did not change your entire life, basically.
That comes up. Like some some wars earlier, come up, you know, like, some of those words that were happening in the 80s or 70s, stuff like that sometimes come up. But, it's so long ago, I don't think people remember it as much. It's a fascinating question. I love to ask people that question because in our lifetime, this is hands-down the weirdest thing ever.
Jana: Yes. Yes. That's such a good question. I want to I want to ask my parents that now,
Julie: I asked my parents like, everyone I can think of who's older than me who's been through more. I'm like, “Okay, is this weird? What else? Is this weird?”
Jana: No, I should ask my grandma. She turns 97 in July, so she's lived through all kinds of crap. I should ask her.
Julie: She like almost lived to the Spanish flu.
Jana: Yeah, no for real, like she's so chill and like, maybe it's because she's just lived through a lot of stuff.
Julie: Totally, you know, it's so funny. I was, I always joked during this period of time that in my, in my youth in my life, I've always admired people who are older and wiser and calmer. And I always wanted to be old and wise. If I have to go gray and get wrinkles, I really just want it to come with wisdom. I want to be wise. I want to be one of those people who can just sit there and philosophize and help young people or whatever. And then this happens. I'm like, “If this is how you get it, I'm no… I'm good. I'm cool with just the plain wrinkles.”
Jana: Fine. Fine
Julie: I'm all set on the wisdom. I don't need any more of that. We’re good.
Julie: So this is this has had a serious impact on the ballet world in terms of adults, in terms of kids, in terms of arts, in terms of performers, in terms of everything. But let's like narrow in to adults, right? Because that's what we have the most impact on and and experience with and obviously, we're sad for all of the other stuff too, but with adults, I think we can probably speak the most to it. I don't even know where to start with the topic because I have so many feelings about it. I know you have so many feelings about it. It's so intense and so big. But there's a… it just breaks my heart when dancers desperately want to dance and can't dance. Why can't we dance?
Jana: I know. When Oklahoma City Ballet, which is where I take class primarily, after they shut down, you know, I was like, “I don't know when I'm going to step back in this building again” because you just don't know what's going to happen. And so when they were talking about opening for classes, like mid July, I was so thankful to see that they were starting with the adult classes, because I was like, surely they're gonna, like, let the kids in because the kids always get priority, you know, for the teenagers like those, those kind of kids, but I was thinking like, adults would be the greatest force people to have come in, because we are like, we can be really responsible for ourselves. We can follow rules, like we can space out, like we can do all the things. And so I was really grateful that they let adults in first to come take class. And then I was just talking with Joanna, @balletlibrarian on Instagram, we were texting last night, she’s in Kansas City, and she said, “Yeah, Kansas City Ballet, like they've opened back up their school, but they don't have any adult classes. It's only kids.” And she's just like, I'm so bummed out because I just want to go dance in the studio, and I don't know It's It's weird.
Julie: Yeah. There's there's a huge challenge to even for the people who get back where then there's an extreme sadness for what you used to have, right? So if you were used to taking class four times a week, your body feels so free and so powerful and so amazing. And then you took six to seven months off, basically, and even two weeks off is a lot in ballet land. And so then you're coming back to a new body. And that's very overwhelming as well.
Jana: Mm hmm. Yeah, it definitely is. Those like first classes back. One of my teachers like we were doing… it was just like a simple jump combo, some Sissones, and I like doing those, you know, but it was just like, it was a struggle. It was not easy. And, you know, I think he could tell like the mental battle we were all going through and it was like, “You know what, it's okay. Like, it's not going to be what it was six months ago” or whatever, I you know, I appreciated that. That comment it makes, you know, makes you feel better and but still yeah, it's hard to put in all that time that you've put in and just it all goes away.
Julie: Right. And I you know, I suspect that it's goes deeper than just the Sissones right it's all the time you put into your mental health and it's all the time you put into your career and it's all the time you put into your life that you are building that then went away in a second and it all comes out in your Sissones right so like ….
Jana: Exactly, you’re like “I just want to feel this.”
Julie: “I just want to Sissone okay, how much is that to ask right now?” I know and it's it's bizarre the ways that these things come out.
I’ve found you know, people coming back have in many times had better luck coming back to something totally other than ballet, right? So coming back to yoga, coming back to something that they've never done before, because there isn't also this intense feeling of loss. So if you've never done CrossFit before, maybe you'll enjoy it now because it's movement, but it's not what you lost, right? Because right now, I think too many… So many of us, not too many, just the right amount… so many of us all of us feel an incredible loss of what we had in the past. And then ballet is a symbol of that loss because it is something that we cared about. And so then I think it becomes really hard to find the joy in ballet because it just is a reminder of the things in your life that you've lost and not just about the ballet, but I think it's just like all the things about how life was in February that are not the same.
Jana: Yeah, that's so spot on. That's really good. I like I like that. Yeah, I've seen some people saying, you know, “try to do something outside of ballet” and I think maybe I hang on to it really tight. And I'm like, “No, I can't. I can't do that.” But yeah, I see, I get what you saying how it represents all the things that we knew and loved, And, yeah, that's really great.
Julie: Yeah, I mean, I spend a lot of time thinking about it, because obviously my whole business has depended on helping people get back to the studio. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, and trying to figure out how to help our community through it because our community wants to have all of the places to dance, but without being able to dance, they're not gonna be able to afford to stay open. So I think it's really important that we figure out together how we come back to it and how we get back to it. Because if we want all the things that we have been working towards as the adult ballet community, we have to figure out how to come back to it. And if that's not this month, it should be soon right? We want to figure out how to get everyone back to it soon so that we can keep the momentum going from all the opportunities that we had built up for ourselves and for each other.
Jana: Yes, you know that that makes me like, get those feelings bubbling up that I get about, like everything that we've done with Ballerinas By Night and like, I feel this responsibility to be the avenue for people to find ballet and find the motivation. I want to provide opportunities for people to go do that, and I feel such guilt sometimes because I don't have it in me right now to be that leader. And I hate it because I'm like, “Here we are with this ability to help people” and I can't get there. I don't know. I'm just too lost. I can't figure it out. And then that bums me out. It's like another layer of feeling like a failure and it's not a failure, but it's, you know, it's there. It's, it feels like it a little bit and so I just, you know, I don't know, I don't know when…. I don't want to like for something that feels like I'm trying to do something just for the sake of feeling like I should be doing something… “should: again, you know?
Julie: Terrible word. Worst word in the book.
Jana: Yeah. Yeah. But I hate just kind of waiting it out too. I'm like, “I just really, really want to do something” but like if I don't know what that is.
Julie: I think it's really hard to feel so powerless in that situation and to feel all of those things. I think specifically for you and me needing to be a positive voice makes it very hard to express our negative voice even to ourselves because we say, “I can't stop this because other people need it.” Or “I can't stop this because I'm the voice or the face of this,” or “I can't stop this because of whatever reason,” and again, that's all that “should” stuff coming out. Right? Again, all of that, right. So there is there's so many aspects to it that come into play. There's just too many, I think, but really, maybe it's just the right amount, as I said earlier. I don't know it's complicated. It's very, very complicated. And what I think ultimately is going to come from it is in a while, in whatever that while is for each individual person. In a while I think immense gratitude is going to come from it. And so when we previously couldn't find motivation after a hard day of work, we will appreciate that class so much more, that we want to go to. And we will say, “Yeah, I'm tired, but this isn't forever.” And so I might find the motivation in that little nudge to come. I might find the recommitment to ballet in the future. Because I know what it's like to lose something that means so much to me. So I think ultimately, right now we're just like basically seeing the end of ballet which ultimately for everyone, the end of everything happens. Right? I think we're seeing it now and we're having to face it and then later I think when we do come out of it, which I know we will in our own time, however long that is for each of us, we’ll just love it that much more.
Jana: Yeah, I agree. The gratitude and appreciation to get to do it. I mean, I feel like we always as adults, there's always like a level that’s a little bit higher I think than students that are training or even professionals where it's their job, we have that level of appreciation that a lot of them don't have.
Julie: We have to work for it!
Jana: Yeah, we do.
Julie: We have to work to get to it. We have to we have to work, we have to literally work to pay for it. And then we have to literally work to get to it.
Jana: Yeah, I don't know how many times like I've been in a class and the, the teacher’s like, “You know, I just taught this intensive and I gave this combo and nobody worked as hard as all of you guys did in this adult class.” And like yeah, because we're giving up a lot to be here. And it means a lot to us.
“I don’t know how many times like I’ve been in a class and the, the teacher’s like, “You know, I just taught this intensive and I gave this combo and nobody worked as hard as all of you guys did in this adult class.” And like yeah, because we’re giving up a lot to be here. And it means a lot to us.”
Julie: I think one challenge we all have as ballet dancers, specifically is the fact that ballet attracts so many of us who want to be better and perfect and like so many of that things. We like everything to be in our life to be just the way it is and planned out. And you know, all of this like really, really rigid structure. And so I think when everything in our life gets flipped up, side down, as ballet dancers, we are not the type of people who like things to be flipped upside down. It is not our favorite activity, right? We're not like generally go with the flow people. We're not like into that whole idea, right? No, that's not really our bag. I think this is forcing us to learn a little bit about how little control we have over our lives and the world where we really like to feel a sense of that. We like to feel a sense of being in control over things. And so I think, for me, the biggest thing that's been helpful has been to think about the things that I do that I can impact in my life. And for me, that's waking up every morning and doing 20 minutes of something. What is it? I don't know, but I wake up and ask myself, “what do I want to do?” and I do it every day doesn't I feel it doesn't matter about anything, because that's one thing I can impact every single day. And I know it always impacts my mood and my positivity. And it's just like, even if I have to lay on the ground for 20 minutes, that's fine. It's just not scrolling through social media. It's not whenever, it's just being deliberate about taking that time for myself. And I think that that helps me feel a little bit of agency in the whole thing, because I can't do much about much, right. I can't do much about any of the things happening in the world, and that is overwhelming, but I can make this time and I can do that every single day. And I can make that happen for myself because I need it and because it's important to find something that you can have a little bit of say in right now.
Jana: Yeah, totally. That's great that you take 20 minutes. That's really that's a really good idea. I'm gonna try to do that.
Julie: Ok I started with 5 minutes, let's be real.
Jana: Okay, so that's great! Because I didn't have to like bite off more than I can chew. Because I'm like, “Oh, it has to look like this.” And like, you know, I can't get anywhere.
Julie: In the beginning, what I started with was I needed to set myself up to knock it out of the park, like set yourself up to win every single day. I don’t care what it is, set it up and win at it every single day. If that means you open up and check a box you win, right? Whatever you set up as the rules of your game, you get to win at it every single day. And I think that that has given me, I mean, it's enabled me to turn it into something longer and something bigger and something that's now turned back into ballet and putting my pointe shoes on and all that stuff, but it started with… just just open a book, if you open the book, you're good if you put your phone down, open a book and look at it, you’ve won the day.
Jana: That is that's really fantastic. That's a great, a great way to look at it. I had a similar experience the other day. I started running during like, the initial like break from ballet and I was like “I'm gonna sit on this couch and gain like 50 pounds if I don’t do something.” So I started doing running and like, I hate it. I'm not good at it. But it was just something. And then I haven't done it in a few months, cuz it's just been so hot. But yeah, it's cooled down a little bit here. And so I went the other day. And I was like, well, it's been two months since I’ve run. And I'm going to set the bar really low about what it is that I do. And I like so I just did some like short runs and walks in between and like, you know, like, nailed it. And I was just like, I was like, Okay, see, I wanted to win out of that. I was like, I didn't want to be like, set myself up to try to accomplish something. And I haven't done it in two months.
“I started running during the initial like break from ballet and I was like “I’m gonna sit on this couch and gain like 50 pounds if I don’t do something.” So I started doing running and I hate it. I’m not good at it. But it was just something. And then I haven’t done it in a few months, because it’s just been so hot. But it’s cooled down a little bit here. And so I went the other day. And I was like, “Well, it’s been two months since I’ve run. And I’m going to set the bar really low about what it is that I do.”
And I like so I just did some like short runs and walks in between and like, you know, like, nailed it.”
Julie: Yeah, I think right now what we all need is just like a win, right? Nothing feels like it's winning anywhere, anywhere in any aspect of your life. Right. Nothing feels like it's winning right now for most people. And so I just need to I there's nothing to win at right now. Right? There's nothing to win at so make something without and then win at it and then you feel good about that.
Jana: Yes. I love to do the like make the to do list. And then if I've done something I forgot to put it on the to do list I add to the to do list just so I can mark it off.
Julie: Right. And I think I think that sometimes some of these tendencies you want to, like get away from and try to have distance from but I think right now it's just for me it's helped build a lot of confidence in my own ability to do things. To just know that I will do something every day and that I will have the discipline to do something even when I don't have to do it. I think that that is actually really hard to find. And for me, it started with expectations because expectations are the worst. That word “should” we talked about… It's a horrible word… It should be like this. I should be in better shape. I shouldn't have done that. I should be doing this. I should be more positive. I should be whatever I shouldn't be feeling that way. I hate all that stuff. But I've said all that stuff to myself during this period of time. And it just started with like the expectation of like, no, why should you? Why should you be in better shape? Why should you be? Why shouldn't you be feeling that way? Why shouldn't you be sad? Are you kidding me? You just lost your whole life, why shouldn't you be sad? Like, there's no reason why you shouldn't be sad about that. So let's just like be okay with the fact that we're, that we're, that we're doing this and that we're in this boat and figure out how we move forward from here. I think for me just accepting the boat that I was in helped me move forward.
Jana: Yeah, what were you were talking about the other day? Was it your comment or somebody else’s comment on the Instagram post that day talking about like, sitting in the discomfort.
Julie: Yeah, that was me".
Jana: Yeah. Um, yeah, and I feel like that's such a thing that like, my base personality type is to avoid conflict and uncomfort at all costs, like if you know anything about enneagram, I'm a type nine. And so like, we just want to keep the peace. So like, that's how I'm wired to be at my base and I, through working through self-discovery and all that stuff, I'm fine sitting in the discomfort. I realize it's a growth thing and I enjoy that I can handle that now. But it's funny that like this time is bringing up all these like old feelings, and I just want to like, make it all go away. And it's interesting how we.. none of us are really I think, mentally at the, like the best versions of ourselves right now. So none of us are kind of handling this in a healthy way at all because like we can't. And so like, everybody's going through that at the same time. It's just it's like a lot of my brain sometimes to process.
Julie: I think it's part of it. I think being in your less healthy state and trying to handle it is how you learn, right? Like you think about how you learn to be a first responder and play it cool under pressure. You bet they're not learning how to play cool under pressure sitting there reading a book, right? They don't come in water and they make them handle it right. It's not like you don't learn how to handle stuff by handling it at your best. That's not how you learn how to handle anything, right? When you're doing a ballet intensive, you don't learn how to handle the Teague until the end of your seventh day and then you're like, “Oh, that's how you push through fatigue” because you were you were not in your best state, that's when you learn the most about yourself is when you're not in your healthiest state. So this is in fact, when we should be processing all this stuff.
Jana: That's a great way to look at it. I like that a lot.
Julie: Yeah, avoiding discomfort is ideal, but unfortunately, it is part of this.
Jana: I know. It's no, it's no fun. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's like, I'm aware that we will get through it, and it will be better and we'll have this perspective. But some days, I'm just like, when is that day? like I'm so ready for that day!
Julie: Well, that's not helpful information to help you get through now to get to know. Like, I think, you know, that, obviously, trying to run studios during this period of time has been incredibly stressful, just unbelievably stressful and actually closing them in some ways was a huge relief, because at least didn't have to stress about all that stuff. But I would just, I would just be like, okay, I can't get through this day. I don't think I can get through this day. But I think I can get through these five minutes. I think I can do five minutes. And then I got through those five minutes. I think I can do five more minutes. Like go five more minutes. Okay, I think I can do another hour. Okay, let's do it. And it was like the only way that I could get through it was like, only just thinking about literally what is the next thing? Okay, I think I can write this one email. I think I can do this one thing, and then doing that one thing and that helped me through it so much. Telling me it was gonna end in the future was not helpful.
Jana: Yeah. Oh, like accomplishments, like every single day. It's I think it's just so easy to right now to not feel like you're accomplishing anything at all ever. And so yeah, I think finding something every single day that you can accomplish no matter what it is. I think helps you feel like you can still function.
Julie: And that you still control your life. Right? You know, people say you don't control what happens to you, but you can control your reactions and you're like, “Well, this sucks, so I'm not sure what you mean by that.” But I think in this case, I think I think what I've tried to learn at least, I mean, obviously, we're all still working progress. But what I've tried to learn is by that it means that even though life sucks, I can still take care of myself, I can still get up and you know, put earrings on and have a good day, you know, I can still… The parts of it that I can control, I can make them awesome. And the rest of it is going to be a crapshoot, but the parts of it that I can control, I'll try to make them as good as possible.
Jana: Yeah, that's good. This is helpful, Julie, thank you.
Julie: Good. Well, I feel like I have seen the depth of despair and come out the other side. So I ..
Jana: Yeah, I just, I feel for you having to close the studio and it broke my heart.
Julie: It's all a lot. It's all a lot but it's it's I mean, I think so much of the the things that we've experienced in the last few months, I wouldn't have experienced without that happening, I wouldn't be here sitting talking with you, that's for sure. I wouldn't have started the podcast, I wouldn't have done so many things, you know, so many ways that my team and I connected in different new ways throughout that period of time. We never had team meetings regularly because we were too busy, then we got to have team meetings every other week. You know, there's so many ways in which we connected deeper during this period of time. So I think having obviously all of that was terrible one day, I don't know, maybe I'll write a book about it or something. Who knows, but it was. It was a crazy experience. But I think now, six months later, I'm able to kind of see the things that weren't working about that life, that I wasn't taking care of myself, and I wasn't being… I wasn't taking care of myself the way that I was telling other people to take care of themselves. And I think I've had to do a lot of personal growth to see how I can recommit to myself and to my community and how I can be a stronger person to make it through the next COVID, right because I wasn't strong enough to make it through this last one. And I learned and I learned how to keep myself healthy enough to make it through the next big thing that happens and kind of develop a way to take care of myself that I wasn't even bothering to try. I was just running myself empty expecting it to keep working and you can't run yourself empty, because when you know the world falls to pieces, and you're already on empty, you have nothing left to give. So I think that was a huge learning for me was to… you really have to make sure you're not on empty because you never know what the world's gonna throw at you and that you need to make it through you have to always be keeping something in the tank for yourself.
Jana: Yeah, that's really wise, that's a huge a huge takeaway. And I feel like it had a similar experience at the beginning to when everything shut down and I all of a sudden realized like, my schedule was insane. Like I was never at home, never really saw my husband, or if we did, it was just like You know, we were just like on opposite schedules and like, you know, I was at the studio all the time and doing photography and like all of this stuff and I felt like I never had a second to just sit with my thoughts and like, figure out like, what I, what I have to say about anything because is it was just like, go go, go, go, go and I was you know, appreciative of it. I loved everything I was doing so it wasn't like I was like, This isn't making me happy to go It was just like, how do I how do I eliminate like when I'm so happy to have all these things and but yes, at the very beginning I was like thinking I would have never given myself a break had that not happened and it was only then that I realized was like, Oh my god, well No wonder I haven't had a creative thought and so long because like, I don't have time to even sit and let my brain like wander or to be bored or like anything. It's just like, constant. But now it's trickled down to like, too far on the other end, where I'm like, I need stuff to do, I need to schedule and you know what I mean? So I think, but my take away, like get it get a better life balance. Once things go back to normal, whatever that looks like.
Julie: And now you can add back as opposed to having to subtract like you said things that you love. Like I love everything I was doing too. I could never have cut any of it back. And I tried really hard to cut things back because I knew I was tired. But I couldn't pick anything to cut. It was too I'm like, but I like I like this class. And I like this class. And I like this. And I like doing that. And I can't stop doing this. And but now as I add things back, I can say okay, well I like this enough to replace what I already have with it. Right? So if I have my morning meditation, okay, well, I'm more interested in doing this than I am in that so I will replace it. But now it's a matter of replacing the life I’ve built with other things. And it has to be better than whatever I'm doing now in order to be willing to add it back into my life, which is a very different place than just like a feeling of loss. Like I can't lose that. I can't lose that thing. I love that thing. It's so great. But in reality, it's all gone and we're all fine.
Julie: Before we hop, do you have any last words you want to make sure to sneak in here for for people in our boat?
Jana: I feel like it's really easy to give like, like toxic positivity kind of words. So I just let you know I don't want to blanket you know, something like that. And just, I don't know, I think maybe just, if you're having a hard time find somebody to talk to about it like a friend, a parent, like your Instagram account. Like literally I feel so much better after making that post as I'm just enjoying journalizing all of this junk, and I was like, I felt so alone. And just being able to like, share that and just lay it out. And everybody was just like, so nice. Like, I literally have felt like a weight off of my shoulders been like, okay, I can handle this I can, I can work through it. Like it's not the end of the world. Um, I'm not alone. So I just I think it helps to just just to talk to somebody.
“If you’re having a hard time find somebody to talk to about it like a friend, a parent, like your Instagram account. I feel so much better after making that post as I was just internalizing all of this junk, and I felt so alone. And just being able to share that and just lay it out. And everybody was just like, so nice. I literally have felt like a weight off of my shoulders been like, okay, I can handle this I can, I can work through it. It’s not the end of the world. Um, I’m not alone. So I think it helps to just just to talk to somebody.”
Julie: Yeah, and when you do talk to somebody, it's sometimes a little embarrassing to even admit the feelings that you're having, especially in a period of time when it seems so silly to be so sad about something as inconsequential as ballet or whatever you tell yourself that is not okay about what you're feeling. And you want to be strong enough that you wouldn't have to talk to someone and you want to be able to handle it on your own because you're a go getter, whatever, you know, no, you know, reaching out to people isn't as easy as it sounds. It's not as easy as it sounds to reach out to someone and say like, Hey, I'm not cool today. Like I'm not I'm not having I'm having a day you know, I need a hug today. It's not that it's not as easy as it sounds to do that, but it's worth it because the more hugs even if they're virtual, honestly, the more it helps you just know that you're not alone in the boat.
Jana: Yeah, for sure.
Julie: Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Jana for making the time. I'm really glad that we're able to have this chat and I hope it helps someone out there even just to know that you're you're not alone. And we're both over here trying to figure it all out too. And we don't have the answers. But we're, we're struggling too.
Jana: Yeah, for sure. Thank you, Julie, this was great.
