Be Still ft. Monica Park

We don’t admire chicken’s running around with their heads cut off, so why do we act like that sometimes?

People we typically admire are strong, calm, and productive, like lions taking their careful time to make a move, or a tree absorbing energy to grow bigger and stronger.

Monica Park struggled with saying yes and doing everything she could to be financially safe and sought after. Once she realized that it wasn’t fulfilling her, she hit the brakes and asked for help.

It turns out once she slowed down, she was able to find strength she could not imagine.

Key Takeaways

• Do nothing. When you pause and allow yourself the space to think and be with your thoughts, a clearer sense of purpose breaks through.
• Recognize the signs of what’s not working for you anymore. If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Use your space to listen to what your body is telling you.
• Asking for help isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength.

Key Moments

{10:03} “But the fact that I chose myself, my sanity, my peace, asking for help, I think that was the important decision because everything changed after that.”

{18:02} “Pace of life is not frenetic. It is powerful and it's forward, but it's not like rushing that feels very human made busy to be busy, always distracted doing more and not really hitting it…I love sharks like great whites and lions. They're not rushing around. They're taking their time and they dictate the piece and nature too is going forward. And it may look boring, you know, but it is very powerful. It's very fertile. It's very alive. And that's what I wanted to tap into because I felt like I was draining a well every day because I wasn't going deep enough into what I'm sucking into and like what's feeding me.”

{20:55} “I'm like, I need your help. I can't do this anymore. I feel like a failure. And I was emotional. I was crying to him. I was like,’ I feel like a failure. And I've worked 20 years and nothing's working out. It's not, but I need to do something else. And I need, I need your help.’”



More about Monica

After a 20-year, fast-paced career in fashion marketing, manufacturing, resale, and circularity start-ups, I returned home to Minneapolis, determined to put down roots and connect with people in a more meaningful way. Now, as a Certified Death Doula, I’ve taken a sacred oath to help my clients prepare for the inevitable. I manage the process, they take comfort in knowing their families won't be left scrambling or feeling burdened and overwhelmed.



Get in touch with Monica

monica.e.park@gmail.com


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Send it to us at podcast@jennylynnerickson.com


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Transcript

Jenny Lynne: Hello, everyone. I would like to welcome Monica. Monica Park. I am so glad to have you here. 

Monica Park: I'm so happy to be with you, Jenny. Thank you for asking me. 

Jenny Lynne: It's an honor. Monica and I had a fantastic conversation about her journey which I am so excited for her to unfold and unpack for us today. It's very different than other maps and other journeys, and that's what makes it so special.

And I'm really excited to dive in with you. 

Monica Park: I am too. Let's get to it. Thank you. 

Jenny Lynne: So let's start where we always start with season two. You're middle. When, when you were in that moment where the muck was up to your waist and you were like in the quicksand and you were there and you're like, Oh, this isn't working.

Monica Park: Yeah. When was that [00:01:00] moment? It was, I wouldn't have remembered if it wasn't for you. I marked it now in my mind. It was March of 2022. And it felt just like what you said. I said, it just, I felt this, it sounds very dramatic, but this is really how it was, is Everything in my body was like, stop doing this.

Don't do this again. I had taken a job that was good money, good thing. I could do it in my sleep, it was going to be fine. But it was just going to be not the right thing. It was going to take me off again, or keep me on the path I was on, which was not right for me. And I knew it on a very deep level. But finally, I don't know if it's just culmination too many times.

But I did, I did feel that physically for the first time, just like, stop doing this, stop going forward and pushing something forward, you know? So 

Jenny Lynne: yours, it sounds like it was just this realization that you are using [00:02:00] all the muscle in your body to push something that didn't feel right. 

Monica Park: Yes, exactly. And I want to say to anybody listening, I have to say this context because it was also the first time that I had asked for help.

I never asked for help. I was always, you know, it's, it's financial survival, which you have to do when it comes to work, but I'd also chosen a complicated relationship that was cross countries and cultures. And I had to really engage in the job part was so critical to me kind of having the life. I wanted the partner I wanted.

Yes. And nobody really understood that turns out it wasn't a great fit in general. We're not together anymore, but all this energy was in that one container and work became survival of not only money and livelihood, but this reality and this relationship I wanted. And I, I just did it on my own, you know, and this was the first time I had help around me.

I moved back home. I lived abroad for 20 years away for 20 years. I had support. I had a community. I had my family. Again, I had access to [00:03:00] financial resources that generously my family has is, you know, able to do, but I hadn't taken a dime in decades, you know, and it was just this pride of like, Nope, I'm doing it myself.

It's my life. And I think that's. That's admirable in some ways, but it can get really toxic. And that was my experience. And I finally asked for help. I said, I don't think this is working. I need some help. And that was really hard for me to say. It was pride, my pride. And that I had viable help for the first time.

So I had an alternative. To not grind it out. So that's really important to say, I think, don't you think? 

Jenny Lynne: It is so important and we're probably going to spend most of our time diving into the asking for help part because that is, it's one of the biggest steps that people don't like realize, like all the stuff and the stories that we've got wrapped up and asking for help.

Yes. Before we talk about the stories, I want to talk about the boulder you were pushing uphill. What boulder were you pushing uphill? 

Monica Park: I, you know, I'll start from the positive. Like, I knew since I was in my young 20s, you know, I was [00:04:00] a good student, followed all the rules, had a path. But once I got into my own life as an adult, when I was 25, I had to hustle and push the, like I alluded to, I had, I was choosing a life that was mine and it was pathless, you know, and I had to kind of just Grind it out.

, I didn't know how to read signals of like, is it a bad, it wasn't about fit. I'm like, I need to get this job and I need to do it and I need to get it and I need to push and then I need to execute and I need to make as much money.

I was just so singularly focused like that. I, I talking about it, I can't even recognize that person, but I remember what it was like. It was just survival. And it was using all my energy. I'll keep using that energy. And I don't mean it in the woo woo soft way. I mean, like all my effort, focus, energy, that's their work, you know, you're putting it out there.

And I just put it all in there aggressively into work, just like not evaluating, just going, I'd find a target and I'd go. And I was working in industry that I was like, yeah, I had experience in. And I just needed to, I had some experience, so I had to make it work. So I was hustling, cobbling together. I wouldn't even [00:05:00] call it a career.

I was just getting jobs. I was trying to earn money and live in a different country. And I just didn't have, I felt like it was a luxury to have to be strategic or have choice or what I asked myself what I wanted. I was like, there's no way I just have to do what I have to do. And the boulder I was pushing up was just trying to make like things fit and fit on my timeline and my thing.

And it's just, you know, it's just when you don't know that you can't dance with that a little bit, it is a grind and you just work yourself to the bone. And that's what I did. So. 

Jenny Lynne: It sounds like you were in the situation many of us have found ourselves in, which is working on the next thing in your list instead of the best thing in your life.

Oh, well 

Monica Park: said. Well said, yes. Yes. 

Jenny Lynne: So you were doing that, you said it was a grind, but you didn't realize it was a grind. Some part of you is disconnected from the fact it was a grind. Yeah. Well, I 

Monica Park: also, to be honest, I got a lot of positive things out of it. You know, I made money. I got promoted fast. I had to live my life in a way that other people weren't.

I mean, I lived in a rented apartment with rented [00:06:00] furniture cause I was always taking on these innovative business ideas that may or may not go anywhere. Cause I just thought, well. I have to take the opportunity. I didn't have a typical profile. You know I just had to, I just had to get in there and kind of wow people with my ability to just make terrible situations work or change situations work.

 It was always I had to be ahead of things. I don't think I was completely delusional either. I think that was my reality. But Yeah. I got a lot of positive from it though. I got a lot of self esteem from it at first, you know, I, I became a little hardened and I thought like, ah, you know, you just got to do it and you'd get this kind of bravado from it.

And I definitely did. Yeah. Oh 

Jenny Lynne: yeah. Oh yeah. Me too. It's, it's the voices that we layer on our experiences. It starts with external, but then over time it shapes us and we put an internal talk track over that and it quiets all of the little voices in our head. So what voice was that bravado quieting? Yeah.

, because that bravado is, is building something on top of something that we're trying [00:07:00] to usually that we're trying to mask or that we haven't found peace with. So what, what was the internal voice that this external voice was? Great 

Monica Park: question. It's a great question. You know, I grew up in privilege and I had a great world class education.

 Like my life was really settled and all I had to do was study and get good grades, you know?

And I think when I came out of it and also allude to who I was with, I think there was this question of like, Are you spoiled? Like, can you take care of yourself? Like, are you going to do you have what it takes and I wanted to know. I also knew I wanted to live a different kind of life.

That was really clear when I hit adulthood, my young adulthood, not scared shitless. . I'm like, I don't know if I have what it takes. And I was living in Hong Kong, you know, international city. I'm from Minnesota. 

And I just wanted to see if I had what it takes to make it. And I think that was always the competitive part of me and also the proving to myself, to my partner and kind of like to my family community, they weren't ever hard on me, but I was choosing something else and I had to make it work. A lot of my pride fueled this.

You know, it also was my downfall [00:08:00] later, maybe why I stayed too long in some things, but it was like, I had to prove, I wanted to prove people that I could do it my way. 

Jenny Lynne: Mm hmm. So you were saying that you were always trying to stay ahead of things. Was what were you trying to stay ahead of? 

Monica Park: You know, the other, the shoe dropping, you know, like things just you know, I worked in business.

If the business was going poorly, we changed business models a lot. It was just a lot of chaos. A lot of opportunity is how I took it. And I gained a lot of exposure and experience. So I kind of loved it, but the cost of that was a lot of security.

And I just knew that it was fine. And when I made money, I banked it. I wasn't buying a lot of stuff cause I needed cash to be able to have freedom and to cover me. If something happened and not the business I was working, like didn't go through and that happened quite a bit or change teams, change regimes.

And if I was part of that call, which it happens, even if I'm good, like it happens, I just needed to have some safety security of money to be able to either bridge that [00:09:00] gap or give me some time to like reinvent myself. I was always doing that just to. So I guess it's just, I just said to have a path. So staying ahead of it was just necessary.

Cause I didn't know what was going to happen. 

Jenny Lynne: So money was then the safety net that protected you when you didn't have others. And so how did that then play in when you hit this moment? Because it seems like money kind of came back in and its own different way later and paid a visit into your life. 

Monica Park: It did.

And I'm, I'm going to say like, even the job I took, it was a good job. It was a six figure job. It was money that I should have taken, you know, it was not nothing, you know, but. I just couldn't. Looking back, I'm always like, oh, I wish in hindsight, I just would have taken it for a while, but you never at the moment, it felt really do or die.

It felt like a break. I was making personally to a way of being when it came to work. I also have to say, like, this way of being in work made me feel really insecure. I felt really insecure. I always felt really like I'm not going to measure up. And since I made that decision to be like, no, even when it's a great, great money, something I could [00:10:00] have done, it actually kind of makes sense that I would have done it anyway.

But the fact that I chose myself, my sanity, my peace, help gasping for help, I think that was the important decision because everything changed after that. I'm not, I can't even like talk. I mean, I, I, this is what we're talking about, Jenny, but like everything changed, everything. When I was just like, no, I'm not, this is not my level anymore.

And it wasn't about the money, because the money was good. And if I was just my old self thinking about money, like, of course I would have taken that and done it. But it was not about that. And I think that was the first time. It wasn't about money. It wasn't about survival. I was choosing myself. I was going to bet on myself and say, like, we have nothing lined up.

We never do that. But I'm going to bet on myself. And I'm going to bet that I can figure it out. So it goes back to that young person saying, like, do I have what it takes? And I'm like, This was the next level of that. Like, do I have what it takes when there's no other plan, when it actually looks like not a very practical decision, you know, when I'm asking for help, when I had pride about that, when people look down on that too, we could talk about that too, [00:11:00] but I was like, I don't care.

I am choosing myself. I am in my forties now. Like this is the only time I'm like, when am I going to learn this? You know, like I know now, you know, and it's not the same situation. And I just chose not this. And it leveled up everything for me. And my confidence went through the roof because I had to just stand on my own with nothing else.

I had no other plan. I had no like succinct things to say to people socially or like my family when they were like, what's your plan? I'm like, I don't have one. I'm not doing anything right now. And that gave me incredible confidence about my life and also making work. Not the only thing that I was talking about when I talked about my life.

And I was just like, I don't know. And that work quadrant is empty right now. Like I have no idea. And it needed to be, it needed to be. 

Jenny Lynne: And so, You said that you didn't have a plan, what was that like to not have a plan and not know when you're going to have a plan and not know how to get to a plan and to sit in that space of [00:12:00] ambiguity for someone who had been striving for so long to get to the next thing or the next goal.

That contrast. What was that like? Did you find yourself trying to run every once in a while and having to back up and say, slow down, slow down, girl. 

Monica Park: A hundred percent. I mean, you know, this more than anybody it was, I had to reprogram, I could feel it as a default and it was almost like. It was hard. It's like holding back a horse, you know, I was like my energy is so revving up, you know, always and I would be freaking out like it wasn't easy.

It's not easy to make those choices, even when you know you're going to eat and you're not putting anybody out like I was going to survive. I wasn't gonna be on the street. And that's a big deal. But psychologically, I was also going to reprogram this. You know, reprogram it, which means you've got to break it down.

So it's not just holding yourself back when you have the instinct, you have to be like, why am I doing this? And I did the work on that, you know, like I have therapists, it's not like I just sat and did this, you know, I gave myself the time, but I'm like, I need to know why I do these things, what I'm [00:13:00] getting out of it positively or negatively, and like what I want to go towards and why.

Cause that's the reprogramming of like my brain and where it comes from, you know and it's a lot of work. I needed the space to do that. I was lucky to have a lot of time to just look at this. And I know not everybody gets that, but if you do, do not feel guilty about it. Just like kick the shit out of that time of like doing nothing, you know, of just like laying around and being like, do not feel guilty.

And it wasn't that conscious, like I didn't drive myself crazy, but it's like, I had to have time to do that and it would, and it happened, but wow, it's takes a lot and it takes a lot of like, I pulled back. I wasn't that social. I was just with my core people, my good friends, my family, and my life became very, very simple.

It's actually a beautiful time. I remember it, but I didn't do much and I did not feel bad about it. I did not give a shit, you know, like about that. Cause I'm like, this is what I'm doing. Like this is bad ass to do it. It didn't. 

Jenny Lynne: I love that. The not doing is the [00:14:00] doing. That's amazing. One of the things that I will frequently tell people is that life is about the nothings that string together to some things.

And if you can't find that satisfaction and the nothings that connect those dots, it's really hard to, to, to really, truly enjoy the somethings. 

Monica Park: Yes. And to really know. What you want. What you need, what are musts, you know, how can you answer that if you're not quiet with yourself? And I actually see it now.

I think people are stronger when they're able to do nothing or when they're still, you know, it's not this I do not, I'm not impressed with all this movement all the time. I think the people that I admire, they're very still in their bodies. They're calm. They're productive. They do stuff. They're not hanging around doing nothing.

And they're very motivated, but their energy is so grounded. It feels so cool. You know, strong. It's actually what I always wanted while I was trying to work and get accomplishments, these external things. But if you're, if you're running around like a crazy [00:15:00] person, it doesn't matter what your CV is like, cause you look like a crazy person.

And that's how I was. I'm like, there was nothing. solid or like impressive about how I was running around working till 11, have nothing. I was like, I look insane. And I'm looking at people now, I'm like, just the ability to just slow down and hold their energy. I was like, I didn't know how to do that. And that is, that's a process of your physical body regulating and not going to anxiety and drama to fuel and get you to go and do something 

Because your energy is so welcoming and it feels strong for people. Like if you're just like a frazzled mess, like no one wants to throw anything your way. Cause they're like, she's overloaded. She can't really handle anything. And so now in my new work and I'll even say my new relationship, cause that's so the relationship part is really parallel to my work life.

It's like. I have a partner now. It's like we create together. He's so grounded and strong. I've never met with somebody so strong and smart before and our energy is just very, it's like we're totally towards building. [00:16:00] And creating and understanding where some defaults are coming in and when they don't work.

And it's the same thing I'm doing in my work life. Like, it's just all intentional. It's very deliberate, thoughtful. Maybe it's slower. It takes more time. I'm not on that, like, linear, like, grind, grind, grind. And sometimes that bothers me. I do feel like, ugh, am I, like, lazy? You know? But the outcomes are so much better.

You know? Because I take the time. Or I think about something. Or I wait. You know? 

Jenny Lynne: You get your best results when you stop outworking your problems. Yeah. 

Monica Park: God, you have all of them, Jenny. Exactly. 

Jenny Lynne: Exactly. What was coming to mind when you were talking in this grounded was like a tree with these roots. And it's about kind of getting those roots into the ground so that they're really fueling and feeding you.

That doesn't mean that you're not growing amazing fruit or leaves and creating shelter and shade for other people. But it's just that you really are absorbing. Yes. Absorbing that [00:17:00] versus trying to massively generate it. 

Monica Park: I love this segue because it actually is true. Like the nature metaphor. I, you know, I don't have any kids.

It was just me. And like, so I took a lot of liberties and I spent a lot of time, like just off, you know, traveling. And I lived in, I lived in Hawaii for a couple of months in the same location. And I just remember thinking. Nature is always moving forward, you know, it's not fast, but it's always moving forward.

I saw like the palm fronds, like sprout, row, fall, you know, the bees come and the flowers bloom. It happened to be when I was there. So I could see all this nature, like happening. And I was like, I'm looking at the same backyard, doesn't look like anything's happening. And I could look at as very boring, right?

But I started to look at like the, the sky changes every night, the sunset is different. The trees are growing, the birds are coming in, the flowers are, I'm like, there's just actually a lot of activity and a lot of powerful forward motion, you know, and what's more powerful than nature, you know? And I [00:18:00] realized, I'm like, I can't feel the pace of life.

Pace of life is not frenetic. It is powerful and it's forward, but it's not like. Rushing that feels very human made busy to be busy, always distracted doing more and not really hitting it. But just being like, I was like, that's not what alpha and that's not what you know, I love sharks like great whites and lions.

They're not rushing around. They're making their time and they dictate the piece and nature too is going forward. And it may look boring, you know, but it is very powerful. It's very fertile. It's very alive. And that's what I wanted to tap into because I felt like I was draining a well every day because I wasn't going deep enough into what I'm sucking into and like what's feeding me.

I was just looking at this, like, this is so alive. I want to be like this. You know, more natural, more in my natural element. I don't want to be, I was the bolder. I was always pushing up is making myself into whatever anybody needed me to be. And I prided myself on that. 

Jenny Lynne: [00:19:00] how long did you have to have this space to be able to find this? This slowness, this change. 

Monica Park: It actually happened from March to May of last year because May is when I kind of came across this new thing that I wanted to do. That's when I realized my relationship was ending and I need to end this actively.

So the decisions, the clarity of decisions came within that period and it was very clear. So it's not like I needed years and years to sit with that nothingness. You know but I really nothing did. I nothing did it. And I think that's important because I didn't like kind of do stuff over here. I was unwinding everything.

And that intention, I think, gave me that kind of. I think it's a short period of time to totally unravel a long relationship and to start thinking about what you want. 

Jenny Lynne: That's beautiful. That is absolutely beautiful. And so many things to get into in that I'm going to [00:20:00] do a bit of a, like a rapid fire here.

Cause I want to cover so many things with you. I want to talk about the asking for help and not like you, I love that you honored that not everybody has access to the same resources, but I also know that many of us do not tap into the resources. We do have whatever they look like because we have these stories we've put on top of asking for help.

I certainly did it myself and I remember the moment I hit rock bottom. So what did that look like for you? How did you realize you needed to ask for help? How did you do it? And then what did you learn through the process of asking for help? 

Monica Park: I realized is this whole thing of just like I'm, I'm, I'm drawing from something too shallow.

 I asked my father, I said, I, I asked him like a business deal. I said, can you come over, you know, my Korean father, we're together all the time.

I'm like on a Saturday when I had to make this decision about not taking this job that I took, I asked him to come over and I said, I need to talk to you. And he knew it was important. I'm like, I need your help. I can't do this anymore. I feel like a failure. [00:21:00] But I, I need, and I was emotional. I was crying him.

I was like, I feel like a failure. And I've worked 20 years and nothing's working out. It's not, but I need to do something else. And I need, I need your help. I need money to help me do that because I can't take this job. I just can't, I know it's not going to lead to something bigger. And I want to do something bigger and better.

And he had, he looked at me, he's like, I've been waiting for you to waiting for you to ask me for this. You know, he's seen what I was doing and he's like, I know you have it in you. I'm not worried about that. We can do it. It's. It's, it's, it's what I worked so hard for, you know, he's like, what do you think I was doing that for?

It's to give you this freedom, this cushion. And I want to say about asking out, so I approached it very deliberately. I was very clear about my intention about like, and it wasn't about making a deal about how I was going to pay things back or whatever. He's like, it's not what this is. Go get what you want, go do what you want, go take, go make your life.

And that's incredible, you know, but I want to tell people what, what that did, the generosity of that give to. made me think and tell myself, I'm not going to feel guilty about this.

 And I think [00:22:00] when you ask for help, the generosity of people, I have been blown away and not just this financial thing, but like when my relationship unraveled, I went to my friends.

I'm like, I need you. I need you to help me because I don't have any strength here. And everybody just gave and gave and gave. And they never made me feel like a burden. Almost people were waiting for me to be like, we love you. Of course we want to help you. And it's easy to help you because we love you.

And just the, the swell of support and just that anxiety just went kind of away, you know, in my head of just always looking over my shoulder, trying to get ahead of it, just like what's going to get me next. It went away. Cause I felt strong. With this community, who wants nothing but the best for me. 

Jenny Lynne: So when you ask for help, , we have to be able to those four steps of village building.

I always say the first is naming, knowing who you would call. You've talked about that. The next one is feeding. So it's caring for your universe and not out of sight, out of mind. The third is what you're talking about is channeling. How did you [00:23:00] channel the support? Cause people often want to help, but don't know how.

So how did you channel it so that it could be this mutually rewarding community? 

Monica Park: That's a really good question. And. I'm going to have a practical and an abstract answer on the practical level. I just spent time. I just spent time and I made sure even people virtually, I was like, when are they on my calendar?

When am I going to see these people? Some people I'm like, can I be my friend phase? I was like, she's on my weekly. We're not even doing anything together. We started to just feed each other's projects. You know, but I was like, her energy makes me really feel something. I feel great. I feel like me. I feel like a hundred percent me.

And I just put those people on my calendar and I made sure to show up to be with them. I also showed up with no agenda and I was just like, I'm going to be totally present in this. I'm not trying to get anything. That was the other thing of just like giving first and getting not worrying about getting stuff.

I was worried about getting, I was always trying to get something that I wanted. And this was just like, just give first. And my friend Faith was instrumental because she was such a giver. I'm like, I just want to be around this [00:24:00] person who's so generous because I'm hoping it'll just run off on me. And it did also, but it was fun.

I learned it was fun. And like to give more and just to make yourself available. I kind of made a little rule with myself. Anybody reached out to me on LinkedIn or anybody in their twenties. In my previous work life, if they wanted help, I'd be like, sure. Yeah. How can I help? And I do it. And it just, it just felt great.

I was just really getting myself off that old way of being and, and making some putting effort towards being a different, like showing up in a different way in life. And turns out that's kind of naturally how I always was. Cause it felt like coming home and it was just something I didn't feed. When I came out in the work world, I was just so scared, you know, and I just kind of heard, I just was like, I got to toughen up, you know, I got to toughen up.

And this was the softening, which would make me stronger, you know, but it was a softening. And I just had to be really present and just have my presence be enough, you know, and [00:25:00] and I have incredible people around me. I have to say, like, I just, I have a incredible family and friends and they're just very generous.

And endlessly loving towards me. But now every success is so much greater because I have all these people in it with me and it's, it's just, yeah, it's great. 

Jenny Lynne: Yeah. So now that you have all these people, you've created something new with your work life. You found that internal connection. So how did you stumble into that new line of work?

And where did you land? Yeah, 

Monica Park: so I ended up, I'm starting a new business as a end of life planner and estate concierge and I'm a certified death doula. So I am really going towards this. And, and I think that's what we of kind of in a societal level of, we don't do death very well here. And I just heard a lot of experiences of people just being blindsided by sudden death, tragic death, or the long deaths of aging parents and just not being a great experience or some having a great experience.

Credible experiences. And I was like, that sounds great. I [00:26:00] kind of want the good one. And the bad one sounds like it sucks. And there's no system or business kind of flow that makes sense to me. There are obviously, but it seems just really strange. I love a business model change. That's kind of like my, it gets me really excited.

Also, when there's an opportunity for like something to be better, it really bothers me when things are kind of shitty and business is always the tool. I think that's very powerful and I like to use it. In terms of organization, clarity, making that money move around and people being satisfied with a service and a delivery and helping them get on with their lives.

 I just had a lot of conversations, really organic. And I told me about my friend, Faith weekly, we were working on a project for her about like end of first mile. It's called taking things from people's houses and giving them a second life. They're things. But I was like, what about, we kept coming up when people die or they did downsize or there's like this illness and it seems really like a traumatic life event, I'll call it and the system of way of like cleaning it up and doing it well, just like it always kind of broke down into this question mark of like, why isn't that better?

So I just kept getting tugged by that. [00:27:00] This seems like a lot of project management stuff. I love and organization getting rid of stuff. I just love that kind of stuff. It makes me energized when people get tired, I get energized. And I was like, what? I think there's a service here that people could pay money for.

There's no, you know, to get rid of their things, downsize, get ahead of the planning, get ahead of the paperwork. And so this, this, these events that happen are not so traumatic. And my mentor Bob said something to me. 

And he's like, death is the one thing we're all going to do and none of us are planning for it. Like it's the one thing we're all going to do. And we don't talk about it. We don't plan about it. We don't optimize for it. We don't say what it could be. We don't share. It's just this really weird thing. And that just, the truth of that just like stunned me.

And I was like. I kind of want to look at this end of life. And it was funny. I use end of life in my circularity business right before, but I'm like, no, this is like end of our lives. So, so it's kind of funny that it was, I segued into that. 

I love that. So here is the part of the show where I recap your map. So the first thing that I heard is when you were [00:28:00] in the muck, you knew it because you had been pushing and pushing a boulder for so long and you suddenly realized you couldn't keep pushing the boulder.

Jenny Lynne: So really recognizing that, that moment, that all this stuff that worked really well and did serve a purpose for me. Is no longer serving. So I'm, I'm in the muck. Right. Second thing I heard is that then you learned to do nothing brilliantly well. So you spent a couple of months doing absolutely nothing.

No plan. You asked for help and learn to build community around you that now sustains and carries you to this day. You learn to change the frenetic pace Of yourself so that your whole world could slow down and become more powerful in its forward movement and to set down roots that could feed you and the work that you were doing.

And even though it seems like it slowed down, it actually sped 

Monica Park: Thank you so much, [00:29:00] Monica, for sharing what happens when you allow things to come to you versus forcing them into existence. There you go. Jenny. Thank you. What a beautiful chat today, guys.

Jenny Lynne: If you want to connect to Monica, you can find all of her information in the show notes. I love what you're doing in this world because the more that we spend time thinking about the end and getting comfortable with it, the more we can enjoy what we have right now. So thank you, my friend, my friend, my darling 

Monica Park: friend.

Thank you. This is beautiful.