Midlife Butterfly | Identity, Reinvention, Transformation, Grief, Self-Worth, Empowerment & Spiritual Awakening

#46 - Reclaiming the New You To Live a Fun & Creative Life with Jen Chambers

• Kena Siu • Episode 46

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When life strips away everything you thought you were… who do you become next?

In this raw and breathtaking conversation, Jen Chambers shares the story of waking up at 15 with her entire memory erased — no past, no identity, no sense of who she was supposed to be. What followed wasn’t just recovery; it was a full-blown rebirth. 

 Together, we explore the messy beauty of midlife reinvention, the deep wisdom stored in the body, and how choosing yourself — even in the face of fear, illness, or uncertainty — becomes the most sacred act of freedom.

Jen opens up about rebuilding her identity from the ground up, the power of storytelling as self-trust, and why midlife is not a winding down…but a revving up.

If you’re navigating a transition, craving a deeper sense of purpose, or feeling the pull toward your next chapter, this episode will remind you of your resilience, your joy, and the woman you are here to rise into.


✨ In This Episode, You’ll Learn

  • How storytelling becomes a pathway back to your power.
  • Why your body remembers what your mind forgets — and how to honor that truth.
  • What happens when you release old identities and choose who you want to be now.
  • The truth about midlife reinvention and why it’s never too late to start again.
  • How to rebuild trust in yourself after trauma, loss, or major life shifts.


🦋 Reflection Questions

  1. Where in your life are you still mirroring who others expect you to be instead of who you truly are?
  2. What identity — old, heavy, outdated — are you ready to release so you can rise?
  3. What would shift if you trusted your inner “yes” and “no” the way Jen learned to trust hers?


✨ Connect & Follow Jen Chambers


First You: Boundaries for Joyful Holidays

As the holiday season begins, join this sacred space to prepare, ground, and protect your peace.

You’ll learn how to set loving, guilt-free boundaries that help you enjoy the holidays — with presence, joy, and ease.

🗓 Thursday, November 20
🕒 3 PM ET / 12 PM PT
💻 Free Online Event

Sign Up Now! http://midlifebutterfly.ca/firstyoumasterclass

👉🏼 And Invite your besties!


Song: Reborn by Alexander Nakarada

Kena Siu:

What happens when every memory of who you were disappears? My guest today experienced a traumatic brain injury in just 15 that erased her entire past. Every friendship moment, every piece of her story, it was gone. And yet, what followed was a journey of recreation, resilience, and rediscovering joy through storytelling. Midlife butterfly, a woman in the sacred in-between. She's not who she once was, and not quite who she's becoming yet. She's unraveling, awakening, remembering. She's navigating life transitions, divorce, loss, remained moods, with a burning desire for freedom, joy, and soul and living. She feels the pull to rise, to fly. She's no longer afraid of her own wings. Welcome back to the Midlife Butterfly podcast. This is your host Kena Siu, and it's my honor to have one more time with me one of my pod sisters, Jen Chambers. She's gonna share her story. And well, Jennifer Chambers is a writer, a publisher, and the host of two podcasts, Beyond the Margins with Jen Chambers and Same Crime, Different Time. She's a TEDx organizer, a graduate of the Iowa Summer Writing Program, and is dedicated to helping others share their stories. Welcome back, Jen.

Jen Chambers:

Thank you so much for having me. It's always such a joy to talk with you. Likewise.

Kena Siu:

It's such a pleasure having you here. So I would like you to start by telling us, telling me our our audience, if you want to take us back to that moment when your memory actually was erased, that what was it? Like what happened?

Jen Chambers:

Okay, so I was 15 and I'm from a very small town in Oregon. And so on Friday nights, what everyone does is go to the football games. So I was 15, and there were two cars of us that were coming home from a football game. And we didn't know, but the two drivers of the cars decided to race. So I was sitting in the middle of the back seat of the car that I was in. There were five people in the car, and I was in the middle. And I mean, I've been told this is all stuff that people told me afterwards, of course, but I've been told that they think that we went anywhere between 70 and 90 miles an hour on this gravel road. And then we spun out and rolled over six times and landed on a fence post and upside down. And I was the person that landed on the fence post. So thankfully, I was the worst hurt. Nobody died, thank goodness. But it's really interesting because I was from such a small town. Everybody, literally, the boy who was in the front seat, his dad was the volunteer fire chief. So we knew everyone who came, they they knew us who all every who came to help us. So every person had their own ambulance, and it must have been so traumatic for them. I always feel so badly for them because here we are teenagers, and oh my gosh, so scary. But thankfully, the so the boy in the front seat uh was able to get out and his arm was cut, and he walked about a mile across a big field and down highway to try and get us help. And I mean, it's just like a movie. He was like dripping blood and no one would stop. And finally he had a knock on doors for people to believe him. So he was able to get us help, and that's why I'm alive. So I'm very grateful that that he was able to do that. But then my parents got that three o'clock in the morning phone call that nobody wants to get, and got to the hospital. And I had died in the ambulance a couple of times because my brain injury, they had to cut me out with the jaws of life of the car. So it's like a big can opener that like opens the car like a can.

Kena Siu:

Uh-huh. Wow. And you were in a movie, literally. Oh my god.

Jen Chambers:

Yeah, right? Totally.

Kena Siu:

Oh wow. Yeah.

Jen Chambers:

And so when my parents got to the hospital, they brought them pretty much right to the chapel because they thought that I was, you know, dying. And because I kept going in and out. And this is the crazy part of my story. Uh well, one of the crazy parts it was a lot of them. But so my parents are in the chapel, and a nurse comes in and she's like, Hey, we want you to know that she's, you know, we're doing the best we can, but we can't get a swelling down in her brain because when you accident like that, it's kind of like you're shaking up a soda bottle, and your brain is like bouncing around the inside of your skull. Okay. And that's what happens with my kind of brain injury. And because, and because, yeah, which is crazy, but and the other funny thing is like you don't know, I didn't know the inside of the brain isn't smooth, it has like little bony parts. So different parts of my brain were like sheared off, like cut off, you know, inside. It has a lot of bones with the brain, swellings. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I I really didn't know until I had to. Well, meas and please. Right? Yeah. So my parents were in the chapel there, and the nurse said, so we have two things we can do. Our last option is to drill into her skull and put in a shunt, which is basically like a big pressure release valve that would have been in the back of my skull. Um, and that might bring down the swelling, but it might not. And we'd have to basically do after that, they'd have to do like open brain surgery, but they really didn't want to do that. And she said, So this is a funny thing. There is a guy, one of the our surgeons just got into the ER and he is a brain surgeon. He was at a brain surgery conference, and he has this experimental drug that he could give your daughter and bring down the swelling. And we just need your permission to try that before we drill into your daughter's skull. So my parents were like, okay, great. They they said yes. And the doctor gave they gave me the drug. And the craziest part is after I recovered, and it took quite a while, but there's no record of who the man was or what drug they gave me. I went back to the hospital the first time I was trying to write my story, and nobody knows who he was or what it was, or yeah, really? Yes. Wow.

Kena Siu:

That's amazing. How come you don't have a name? I mean, you have a surgeon at the hospital, and you don't have a name. But that's literally your angel from somewhere.

Jen Chambers:

Yes, absolutely. And part of it was, I mean, the they had transferred the records over from the hospital to the new hospital, and I'm sure it was just lost in translation. So it's I'm sure it's out there, but I haven't been able to find it in like 30 years, and I've looked a lot.

Kena Siu:

So I'm sure you have done your research because I mean you're a stranger. I mean, you're right. You're an author.

Jen Chambers:

I'm sure you have. But I, you know, so it's it's kind of an amazing mystery, and I'm okay leaving it that way because it it just makes me feel more like it was meant to be, I guess.

Kena Siu:

It definitely was, you know.

Jen Chambers:

So so after that, I I really it it erased everything. So I woke up in the hospital. And when you wake up from a brain injury, you don't really, you know, like pop your eyes open like they do in the movies. You wake up and then go to sleep, and then wake up. I was in a coma, so I went back and forth, and I I don't, it's funny, I've talked about it more with podcasts uh hosts than I have ever talked about it, but I had an experience where and I know it sounds super woo-woo and super crazy, but I had a white light experience in that time when I was I was in a coma, so I they tell me it was one of the times probably that I had died, but I had this vision of a long black hallway, and then I could see up ahead there was like a circle in the roof of this hallway, and there was a long ladder coming down and light coming out of the hole down into the hallway, and this voice comes out, and it says, You can choose, you can stay here, or you can go back to your life, and if you go back, there will be pain, but you can choose to go back to your life, or you can stay here, it's up to you, and I I didn't have one of those like your whole life flashes in front of your eyes, and you're like, I have so much to live for, or anything like that. I just knew that I wasn't done, and it like it blink of an eye, like I came back and I woke up, and for the final time I came back, and it just took me so long to talk about that because it sounds so crazy, and but it was real for me. That's it really what happened, and I'm not a religious person, so that's why I I also didn't want to talk about it a lot because I I didn't know what to attribute it to, or you know, whatever's out there decided I wasn't done. But it also made me feel really good that I I had some ownership over it, right?

Kena Siu:

Well you chose, yeah, uh-huh.

Jen Chambers:

Okay, and I feel like that has helped me in my entire life afterwards. That gives me the ability, yeah. The ability to choose things helps me reframe almost every decision and every feeling, you know. If I'm having a bad day, obviously everyone's allowed to do that, or if I don't like the way that something's going, you know, I try and give myself a minute to feel that, and then remember that I can choose another way. And it's really helped me a lot.

Kena Siu:

Well, it gives you freedom, right? I mean, in a way, sometimes I don't know, sometimes probably the two options we have are might not be the best, but at least you get to choose something.

Jen Chambers:

Yes, yeah, and you can always pick something else afterwards, but but like there's always some some part of ownership that I can take of any thing that is happening to me. And uh it's really easy when you have a chronic illness like brain injury, or I have another chronic illness to to feel like to feel like you know it's not fair. And it's not fair, but it's not fair for anyone. And so instead of believing that part and just being like that, you know, the poor me feeling, yes, that's not that's not useful, right? Yeah, the victim it's not helpful because you can't that doesn't get you anywhere. So it took a really long time, it took a couple of a couple of years really to start, you know. I had to relearn how to walk and how to speak and how to read and how to eat, and and I'm still not perfect. Right, right, right. You're right. But but I still have some complications. Half of my body was paralyzed, so when I get tired, my face is droopy. It was actually it was like the the whole right half, which is interesting. Yeah, so that means that then it was this side that was impaired at that time. Yeah, the left side. The left side. Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Um so it's it's you know, it's very visible sometimes sometimes, and I have to use a cane sometimes because my leg doesn't work quite as well. My hip was broken and my shoulder was separated on that side. So, you know, I have some physical complications, but but nothing extreme. I mean, the fact that I was able to come back this well, it was really a lot of luck too. I I was I was born at the very first, or born, I guess. I was I was injured at the very kind of like the the beginning of when people used to survive. Before that, when people got brain injuries, they would often be institutionalized because they didn't have the medicine up to date to help them, always. You know, as a whole, yeah, the time when I was injured in the early 90s, you know, so many things were happening in in medicine and so many, so many different kinds of uh treatments and all different kinds of stuff made things easier for me. So I mean, I can't take ownership of it all. But and I had incredible help. I had speech therapists and occupational therapists and therapist therapists and physical therapists. Every, you know, I had so much help. And learning to take the help was really hard. I really didn't like I did not like that. I still don't like it.

Kena Siu:

Yeah, but I guess more as a teenager, when it's you know, I guess it's one of the seasons or chapters in life that we want to be more independent and then now have to start. So basically, you were like a baby, yeah, kind of, yeah.

Jen Chambers:

Wow, yeah. I didn't I didn't recognize my family, like I didn't know anyone in my life, I didn't know my own name. I didn't, and that was really weird because I had to believe everyone else because I didn't have anything to, you know, for a long time. You know, all these people are and it's not that they weren't being kind to me. I was, you know, I woke up at a hospital, and when I woke up for the final time, I was restrained and tied to the bed because I was thrashing around a lot. That happens with you know, I know that now, you know. So I I was like, I woke up and I'm tied to the bed and I don't know who these people are or where I am, and it was just so terrifying. Like like a baby, like you're saying, it was just I didn't know anything, or I thought I was being taken prisoner. I didn't know what was what was going on. What was going on, right? And now, of course, I I recognize nobody go to that kind of trouble, really. But it it lasted for a long time. Like I would go, they let me go home for visitations. I lived in the hospital for about six weeks, and then I went back daily for about six or eight months after that. And I would go back to my family home and I'd see all these pictures on the wall, and I didn't recognize any of them, I didn't recognize my bedroom or the farm that I grew up on or anything. So I would just nod and okay, uh-huh. You say that's those are my relatives, all right. Because I didn't believe anyone, and I don't think I hit it very well, but I thought I was being so stealthy, yeah.

Kena Siu:

But it must be very, very hard because it's like it's an identity that is just gone, and then you have everyone who wants to put attention, who wants to welcome you, who wants to cheer you up and helping you to remember at the same time. I think it should be very overwhelming.

Jen Chambers:

It was, it was, and and I mean, my injury was kind of blessing in that way because you literally can't function for very long periods of time. I would I had to sleep a lot right afterwards, so I could I could only handle, you know, it'd stretch it out, but at the very beginning, you know, it would be an hour and then I'd have to go take a nap. Or even when I was able to go back to school, they to high school, they were able to structure my day so I could take a nap in the middle because my brain just got overloaded. I just couldn't handle it. Yeah. Just not nothing, nothing would go past a certain point. And I didn't have seizures. I had a few seizures afterwards, but not tons, nothing that was terrible. But but it's interesting you say that about other people because the thing that I felt the most was that every person had their image and idea of who I was, and I was trying to mirror that to them because I didn't recognize it. So, like I'm one person to my mom, and I'm one person to my dad, and I'm one person to my best friend, and one person to the boy I used to like in school, and they all come and visit me. And I just kind of learned to really put on a good mask because I I had no clue.

Kena Siu:

Wow, this is very impressive because I mean, with time, we do it unconsciously, right? We don't know that we are wearing those masks, right? And at that time you were very like conscious, like, okay, my father treats me this way, so I'm gonna wear this mask. My mom treats me and talks to me this way, so I'm gonna be this person. Wow, and how is it that or I don't know what did it took, or how how long did it take you to start then recognizing the real you by whoever I mean after removing those masks, but then also not having any background because your memory didn't kept anything.

Jen Chambers:

Right. So yeah, I couldn't match it up, right? At all. I couldn't, it not none of it made sense to me. Like, you know, my parents, and it's I still feel badly for my parents because you know, they'll talk about some trip we went on all together as a family, and it was a wonderful time, but I have no clue. Um they understand, but I still feel badly. It took it took a really long time. I still have a hard time trusting myself because I don't have that memory to go back on. So I have to really, really listen to the deep yeses and the deep no's to kind of wiggle my way to to the right answer and the right me. It took a long time. It took a long time, but I think I just have to really sometimes take time, just take a second, process things so that I can see, see if it if it matches up or doesn't match up. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kena Siu:

But kind of thinking more with your body and to see what your body's telling you because your mind doesn't remember most of the not most, but I mean at that time, those things.

Jen Chambers:

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and um it's interesting too because the body, there's so many feelings stored in the body for me. When I get overwhelmed, I tend to get sick because like my I already have I have a lowered immune system because of not just my brain injury, because of my autoimmune disease. And so I think that so often, like once a once a year, around the month around the anniversary of my accident, I get sick because like my body just even though I try not to remember the exact date, every so often, like every every couple of years, I'll make a big deal and I'll be like, oh, it's my anniversary day and do something nice. I used to be really angry at that day. Like that's the day my life was ruined, not the day my life was saved.

Kena Siu:

You know, you know, it's it's a grieving process, right? Yeah, totally.

Jen Chambers:

So it's funny because no matter how I try and feel about it, my body tells me that it's okay, you're gonna feel those feelings at that time that during that month, during those few weeks around. Yeah, it was it's September 26th is the day. So I just I'm learning, you know, I can I can learn, but I I really have to listen to my body then too in that way.

Kena Siu:

Well, it is it is well said that the body keeps the record. That's right. So in that case, yeah, the mind there has nothing to do with it, but the body is just as you said, it's reminding you that it happened, right?

Jen Chambers:

Which means it remembers, even if I don't remember.

Kena Siu:

Exactly. Which kind of freaks me out a little bit, but well, they said the body, well, besides that it keeps a score, we call it that it's actually the subconscious mind, right? So right, it's just it's just right there.

Jen Chambers:

Yeah, exactly.

Kena Siu:

How do you feel that your identity has evolved? Because I mean, that's back when you were 15, but then now you're in midlife. Uh do you think that it's easier for you when you're shifting identities? I mean, because through life, we go through a lot of deaths and rebirths back and forth all the time, more in midlife. But yeah, but do you think it's kind of easier for you to go through that flow, or how do you manage it?

Jen Chambers:

I do. I think that a lot of people give a lot of lip service to the idea of like, oh, we should be grateful for every day. And I really feel like I was saved for a reason. I don't know what it was. I, you know, some of it is who I am to other people, some of it is the fact that I uh I was able to have children and I have a husband, and and you know, but I wasn't only saved for them, I was saved for a greater purpose, and I don't know what it is, but I feel like I like that demands that I give it my best every day. The the fact that I I have that. And my best isn't gonna look the same every day because some days you feel crappy, and or some days you know you're PMSing or something, you know, some days you just don't feel like it, and that's okay too. But but you really should try. And and I feel a big responsibility because of the the gift that I was given of this second life. So the midlife thing I'm really trying to look at as another adventure. I'm lucky to be here. I'm I'm lucky to be here every day, and I know that. So even the you know, I'm not grateful for the night sweats or anything like that, but but I'm grateful for the opportunity to grow and do things and keep learning. And that that keeps me going. And I and I really do think that that having had the experience that I had gives me a unique perspective that you know that you can live those things, you can live you can live the chances and keep doing it and keep choosing something else.

Kena Siu:

Yes. Oh, this is beautiful. I love all this because it, you know, it resonates with me in the fact that in the past six years when I've that I've been doing more of the deeper inner work and all that, that now I can see all these pieces together, like what you are saying now. But it I think it's it's such a gift. I mean, for you that you've been able to experience for all these many years, like having that ownership, you know, and taking responsibility for your life, not playing the victim since you were a teenager, and you know, and then giving the best every time, and at the same time, you know that not every day is the best, and sometimes you you have to live with that pain, but you still keep going, and and finding that beauty and that gratitude, and you know, in life, I think it's just it's beautiful. It thinks, oh I don't know, it just give me shields.

Jen Chambers:

It's funny, it's it's not just because I like to learn things, it's a little bit out of I don't want to say spite, but one of the things one of the things, one of the things that happened after I had mostly recovered. So I was I had gone back to school and I was doing half days of school, and then I came back one day, and then my parents were in our living room, and all of my various therapists and lawyers and our I think attorneys, you know, there's a bunch of people in this room. And my mom told me that I needed to go and do my homework and or whatever, go back to my room because they were having this meeting, but I didn't need to be a part of. Not that I was like banned from it, but but I was 15, so I wanted to hear what was happening. So I kind of crept out of my room and was listening, and I couldn't believe my ears because what they were doing, they had a big white board up, and they were writing on the board a list of all of the things that because of my brain injury, I would never be able to do in my life. Like everything that I'd never be able to do. Things that normal people do, like drive a car or graduate from high school or go to college or have a family or navigate the grocery store or anything, any like normal thing, yeah, you know, and so I was absolutely devastated, and they didn't do it to hurt me, it was all part of the insurance thing. They were trying to figure stuff out, and they were trying to have me not hear it, but like the bottom absolutely dropped out of my throat, and I was just so I was, you know, of course, absolutely just stunned.

Kena Siu:

Yeah, because probably you wonder why did I say I wanted to come back, or why did I say I wanted to stay if I'm not able to do any of those things?

Jen Chambers:

All these people think that I can't do anything. This is it, this is all I get, you know, and I was I wasn't, you know, I wasn't moving well then. I, you know, I I had to have reconstructive surgery of my face three times. And so, you know, I felt awful. And of course I was a teenager, so everything was huge, you know, like everything felt enormous. Yeah, so I was like, you're this is it. This is you're telling me I don't get any better than this. I can't have anything in my life. And so by that time I had learned to write again, and I carried around this little notebook that I, this little spiral notebook that I wrote down all of the names of people that I was supposed to remember. So, like my teacher's names, my friends' names, and stuff like that. And and I carried it with me all the time. So I went back to my room and I wrote down the list, and I decided that I was gonna do everything on the list because nobody was gonna tell me what I was gonna do.

Kena Siu:

Yes, of course not, yay! So it really gave you the strength. I mean, I I understand that you will felt devastated. I mean, having all these adults that some of them you know, some other ones you don't know, and they're just telling you what defining in that case between quotes your life. Holy shit.

Jen Chambers:

Wow, it's kind of mad for a while.

Kena Siu:

We have a super gen here. I mean, just here you're your list, it is like, let's go.

Jen Chambers:

Well, I mean, we none of us have a lot of time anyway, and and I have I've done all the things on my list, all the things I I've put new things on the list and I did them too. But you know, I was one of the last ones was learning to drive because I get panic attacks, and I had to take driving lessons like three times before I over the years before I could figure it out and not have panic attacks every time I got it, even though I wasn't driving in the car. I don't know, it doesn't make you know, it doesn't have to make sense. But I well makes sense.

Kena Siu:

I mean that's your recovering that car. I mean, we're talking with these lilens now, but I mean it's that's fucking traumatic. It's just totally, totally, your body remembers, right?

Jen Chambers:

Yeah, yeah. So my goal was to get it before my oldest kid, and I made it by a week, a week before he turned 16. Yay! So I don't drive a lot, but I do when I need to, and and it I just wanted to prove that I could.

Kena Siu:

Yes. I wonder if that little like notebook or diary that you say you were carrying with you was which was it the one kind of like calling you to start writing to become an author?

Jen Chambers:

Yes, because once I could. start like writing down the way that I felt. I wanted the other thing is it was writing and also reading. So when I was able to learn to write and read again, I wanted to have I wanted to read and I I wanted to know about other people who had experiences that like I'd had because I was like I can't be the only one. And I felt so alone. I mean you do anyway when you're like a teenager anyway sometimes but so I I read all of these books and I understood life a lot better when I read things because it was slower. You know, when it's out on a page I can and they tell me how people feel rather than me having to guess it by looking at other people because I didn't know what I was supposed to how I was supposed to act or you know all sorts of those weird interpersonal things like when you're having a conversation you know the the spaces between your words and things like that. I could do it a lot better after I'd read about it because it was slower so I could like process it all. And then I started writing because I wanted to make people understand and understand me. So it was kind of selfish. But also I understood things better when I had read them through stories. You know so I always liked fairy tales. You know there's very definite beginning middle and end and and the people are generally good and if they're bad they're really bad. So it's easy for it was easy for me to understand you know at the time so I don't know I just I just felt like that was part of what my my work was to to be able to learn to understand myself through writing and then as I did it more help other people learn to understand themselves and share what they wrote. So after many many years after that when I first started writing professionally I answered an ad actually for there was a literary magazine and I answered an ad and it was in my town and they they were looking for people's personal stories and I was like okay I can do that. So I sent it in and then I came to the meetings there and I got more and more involved and then I decided to be a columnist there and then I decided to buy part of it and so that I I helped run this publishing company in literary magazine for I don't know 10 or 12 years. But we the the reason why I loved it so much was that we were able to help other people. So part of having this literary magazine was helping other people get published who had never been published or who who wanted to but didn't know how. And so we were able to help about 1400 people get published that way. And that was amazing. Of course that was just amazing and it helped me believe in myself because I helped these other people believe in themselves.

Kena Siu:

Yeah just but letting know others like this is my story. Right?

Jen Chambers:

Yeah I have that permission yes and and knowing your own story can add so much to your business to your personal life you know you learn your own value when you write your own story and you also learn maybe I don't want to say flaws weaker spots you know things where you could use a little support that's that's a good thing to know that's not a bad thing. And then and then you're able to look at your own life with compassion when you write your own story. You're able to you know kind of shepherd yourself into the version of the you that you want to be rather than only look at your flaws so that's been a that's been a real joy to be able to help other people too that's been fun.

Kena Siu:

So for that to be able to know yourself like do you use in that case like specific like I don't know questions that are gonna bring those things out or how do you or at least how do you start it with you or how will you then helping others to get to know their themselves by writing well I have people journal.

Jen Chambers:

I think that journaling is just it's kind of a pain because it feels like another thing you just have to do you know on your list of things you have to do. But it's actually really nice when you treat it like something fun. So I really want I think that if if you don't make it fun it won't get done. And so I agree honestly that's the only way. So I like to I like to kind of ease people into writing about themselves by writing about the things that that were fun for them as a child maybe and what were the things that you enjoyed doing or in my case you know as far back as you can remember you know think about the things that that made you that lit you up and were fun for you. And then maybe you can incorporate more of that into your life and then maybe you can use those memories to kind of unlock other memories about yourself that maybe aren't as fun things that you really feel like need to be said. So it's kind of like a good gateway. Yeah the fun stuff because you can always go back to those parts and remember that helps you remember those parts of yourself too yeah that's true.

Kena Siu:

Yeah I I love I love journaling I almost kind of do it kind of like every day or at least a few times during during the week.

Jen Chambers:

Good for you.

Kena Siu:

But as you said it's cool like well first of all the usually just to express myself like to okay there's something like ruminating in my head I just want it out or sometimes it's like I don't know what I'm here and then the pen starts just flowing right or if I have a question and I don't know what the answer is then at one point the answer oh I love when that happened the bad thing is when I go back and I cannot understand what I wrote because sometimes that happens yeah but I love it because yeah it's it yeah it's it's a beautiful way to get to know ourselves definitely and also like which are our patterns which are our our beliefs right because that that's one of the of the tools that I use with my clients because it's it's how I yeah going deeper to what is in there so we can understand ourselves and accept ourselves and then they're saying yeah this is part of me and yes and when we get to accept it is when we can love ourselves at a at a leap deeper level yes excuse me sorry I think the other thing that I like to have people do that people are surprised because I think the more creative you can be in your journal and writing life the more creative you can be in the rest of your life.

Jen Chambers:

So I have people draw in their journals I have people collage all you know whatever kind of art speaks to them you know carve your own stamps and put them in there. I've been writing a lot of songs you know stuff like that.

Kena Siu:

I I think that the more juicy and creative you can be on the page that'll translate to the rest of your life and and then it translates to your writing your writing when you're a writer you know you can put that energy into your characters or into whatever you're writing I think it's really really important to to acknowledge those parts too the fun parts yes oh I love I love that yeah I I probably I do sometimes like doodles you know yeah but I have I had never thought about actually putting a collage or something in the middle that that will happen eventually why not well I mean like what if you're you know you're writing about you know your next dream house or your next dream vacation or you know your next dream career you making a collage of that oh my gosh that can open up so many things for you and sometimes it's just really good to have visuals right yeah of course yeah it helps the imagination of course so yeah it's it's cool I love that yes fun I know that in the last I don't know if it's been this year I mean we have met for over a year already but I remember you started reconnecting with your playfulness you know and curiosity and then you're part now of a band so I would like to know how yeah like with what brought you to do that in then in midlife now that you're you know your children are are more of a grown ups and you know and then besides you know what you do with your podcasts and writing and stuff like finding this way of play for you I would like to know more.

Jen Chambers:

Well that's a fantastic question because here is something that I just figured out the other day and I think one of the wonderful things of being about being a midlife woman particularly is that you can be and do all of the things that you wanted to do when you were in high school and early 20s and you didn't get to do. So I always always wanted to be in a band. And I mean I I was trained I was trained as my family is very musical and theatrical my parents have a theater and stuff and I was actually trained to because the the only musical kind of teachers in my area um I was trained to sing opera. So I was trained by a woman for the San Francisco opera from when I was 12 to like 18 and it was a really good basis because it gave me a lot of you know musical knowledge but that's not what I want to do. And so I as a as a midlife woman I I was kind of like I play a lot of instruments nothing super well I sing really well so I've been taking lessons because one of the things that I do in my journals is you know the things that I still have on my list that I want to do. And one of them was being a band. So I thought okay where's the bottom where how do I start and in my journal I like I wrote a list of okay so I play the ukulele I also played the guitar and the piano a little bit and the bass a little bit and drums but I and a banjo lots anyway lots of things a little bit but I wanted to get good at something so I sought out a teacher in my area and she happens to be a friend of mine and I took lessons from her for a a little bit but she was she came to me actually after I I mean it took a lot of guts for me to to take lessons because I felt I was like who am I? I'm 48 years old what I'm taking music lessons what is this for I'm not like trying to impress anyone I know yeah right I mean I I eventually got to that but um but my teacher was her name is Jen also and she was like I was trying to take her beginning class and she's like you aren't you know all that that stuff I can't put you in that class and I was like oh really and she goes yeah and I can't put you in the moderate class either I don't really have a class for you and I was like oh we're graduating before starting the class I guess I guess basically and and so we just played together for a little bit and then after a couple weeks she came to me and she was like do you want to be in a band with me? I really want to play music with you. And there's this other woman who is a friend of ours but it's it's neat too because my teacher Jen and the other woman her name's Becca like we were all friends but we weren't really close friends. And that's another thing as a midlife woman that's hard to find is friends who you know it's hard to meet people because everybody's doing their own thing and you're all so busy. But music brought us together and our band is so much fun.

Kena Siu:

We don't have we don't have an actual well we have a we have a name we aren't 100% settled but I I think our name is the hot flashes one of uh Jen's daughters suggested it and I was like you know that's kind of great um I love it and I can see that it's I mean that it's fun because I can as soon as I ask the question you lean forward to the camera and your face just shining now.

Jen Chambers:

Oh I love it. I love it so much. Well I mean playing music is just like it's like another language it's it activates something else in your brain and and it's so weird to even explain but like when you're playing with someone else it's like the two of you create something on a different level like a different cellular level it's out there. And one of the things I it's basically we we sing a lot of so it's three women and three strings at any one time. So I play the ukulele and I also play the banjo lele which is it's a ukulele with a banjo head and you play it like a ukulele but it sounds like a banjo. So ukulele banjo lele and Jen plays the guitar and the band no guitar and ukulele and then Becca plays the guitar and the mandolin and then we have box drums and other instruments and things but so you know we're kind of like the music that you hear at the winery on a Sunday afternoon or you know we're like the background of the wedding that sort of thing but it's just like the most fun ever. We do a lot of tight harmonies and that sounds wonderful and it's so much God it's just the most magical thing to to create music with another human being I just I'm so grateful that I allowed that into my life it has added so much so much. It's I recommend it to anyone if you're looking to find friends go join a band even if you don't know how you can learn it's not that hard love it yes and now I play more instruments so I my goal is to fill my house with more instruments I have so many instruments in my house so many giant piano and drum set all sorts of things wow it's so exciting it's fun have you been in in a few gigs or or have you played two other people around coming up at the end of the month where is our first one we're gonna play at one of our at Becca's house she has like a big backyard with sort of like an amphitheater sort of thing and and and then we're gonna play at a couple of open mics around town and and then we'll see where where we go my my friend Jen who's the music teacher she actually is a professional musician so she's in several bands and she plays around town a lot so so we'll be able to do more gigs and and just see where it takes us I'm open to it all oh yes oh it's this is so exciting I'm so happy for you oh my goodness yeah it's it's so much fun yeah and but do you also play kind of like thing better said kind of opera or not at all? No no no no I don't do that at all. No I mean just in case you'll do it like sometimes just to have fun because you said like you know I could yeah you could oh wow I totally I could I could drop that into something but I haven't yet but we have been writing our own music and that's been really really fun and different. I've never written music until recently and we have one song that is really funny and it's talking about I mean we're kind of leaning into the midlife part of it something about how my hair's all frizzy and my house is a mess and I just wish I could find where I parked that sort of thing. It's great. I can't wait till it's done I bet you're gonna come with many more ideas. We got lots of them but it's I mean I just what a gift I never ever thought that I'd be able to do this. So it makes me feel so happy to be with these women in this kind of communion and groups of women are powerful. It's I don't have as many female friends as I would like so I'm really on a mission to get more female community because it it is so enriching and joyful and supportive you know I don't meet bitchy women that are just there to pick on each other you know almost every woman that you actually take the time to talk to is wants to be supportive and communicate and and I love that.

Kena Siu:

Yes I I agree with you yeah female communities yeah they're powerful I mean we meet every every Thursday morning and it's just so fun and sometimes it's fun and sometimes we're crying all together and sometimes we just focus on one because that person needs more support or more nourishment and it's just it's just so beautiful because and that's the thing that we already come with this energy of collaboration of support and it's not competition or anything. On the contrary we're there then to have fun to support each other and to see what can we what can we create together which is the fun part oh my gosh and I feel like we make each other so much better.

Jen Chambers:

I feel like we do my I mean honestly it's like the highlight of my week I feel so much energy just from being with you guys and just hearing what everyone else is doing and then like you say the the collaboration part everyone's there to help everyone else and to love everyone else and that's wonderful. It just feels so incredible.

Kena Siu:

Yeah it is and I think also it's it's incredible because sometimes what we isolate ourselves well you're I mean you're married you have kids but then sometimes you're in your business era I work from home you know I'm single so I also like isolate myself here right and then how important it is when we come to these communities of women and each person you know they get to share something about their lives and how many things like we are connected or we have in similar similarities not that's exactly the same but like I last Wednesday in my women's circle there was this lady who had an open heart surgery and she's not even 40 my gosh and this other lady who's yeah I think she was closer to her 50s and then she said oh I she also had a surgery not to that level but you know so it's those little things and then somebody is grieving you know the loss of someone or you know like I hear like I I meet a lot of immigrants here because I'm immigrant right and so there was another lady from India who just came here like two years ago so until now she's getting to make friendships you know so it's all these things that you are like we don't know what people are going through. So just having that willingness and that openness to tell like yeah come on share and you're in a safe place you know you're not being judged just share your story and let's see what comes out from there. But you don't need to be fixed because you're not broken but you know but it's all those things that is like just come and share and that's what it gives that as you said is it's power. It's that beautiful power that comes from within just by knowing that we have women that can support us next to us.

Jen Chambers:

And also like I really have to admire women that ask other women right like women that are vulnerable enough to say hey I would like to hear your story and I would love to be a place a safe place for you like with your show like you want to and you with your communities you want to be that for other women and there's that's so amazing and we need more of that I think we definitely need more of that yeah wow beautiful well jen I would like us to tell us where people can find you well mostly I'm on Substack it's substack it's at J B Chambers C-H A M B E R S on Substack. I'm also on Instagram at J B Chambers and then my two podcasts are available anywhere that you get podcasts they are beyond the margins with Jen Chambers and same time no same same crime different time different there we go it's my own podcast I don't know that one's a that one's a historical true crime podcast and my other one is writing and inspiration and empowerment kinds of things and I do once a year I do a writer's an artist way workshop on that one. I also do a bunch of different writing workshops and stuff and all sorts of interviews with interesting writers and other people on that one.

Kena Siu:

And I'm always um available if anybody wants to drop me a line on my Instagram or on my subsector we're gonna put all that information in the show notes so people can reach out to you oh yeah this has been such an amazing conversation I love it so much and I love you so much as well and two questions before before we close this conversation the first one we'll like will be how would you call this stage of or season of your midlife I think that it's I'm revving up I'm not winding down I'm revving up yes that's my season my season is kicking it into high gear that's where I'm at love it go hot flashes see I mean it sounds you know like a joke but it's also true.

Jen Chambers:

Yeah of course yeah and what what's a pleasure that you enjoy the most I love reading reading is my favorite I also really really like I love to create stuff I I like to create things with my hands. Fiber arts is really fun for me I do knitting and crocheting and other different kinds of fiber arts. I do a lot of different kinds of art actually tomorrow I'm doing a a workshop at my local library where we're we're making art cards that we're gonna trade they're like each I supply these pieces of they're like baseball card size pieces of paper like like that. And and then you can they are in all different colors and then you can like you draw on them with chalk or you paint them or you collage them or you put stickers on or emboss them whatever you want. And then the idea is you make during this afternoon you make five or 10 different little art cards and then you trade so everybody comes comes out with if you make 10 you come back with 10 different cool pieces of art from other people that's so fun. Yeah I think it'll be a great time I've done it by mail before but I just thought it would be where you just sent them in and then the organizer mixed them up and sent you and and I that's definitely fun. But I thought it would be great to do it in person. Yeah because I think I don't know is everyone bringing their own material so you can no we can oh you supply okay they can bring anything they want too if they if they want but we're gonna have all sorts of like you know stickers and paints and chalk and anything and then I supply the papers and like if you if you really have something so like I'm gonna bring I'm gonna make 20 or so when I come in just to show as examples. So the ones I like to do I take pieces from old books and I you know decoupage them on there and glue them on with like pieces of lace and things. It's I mean I'm not an artist and and I think that's why it's accessible because you don't have to be an artist.

Kena Siu:

You know it's still a cruel art I think that everyone is an artist. I think so too.

Jen Chambers:

I mean we have we have this imagination we have these hands I think everyone it's just our limiting you know mind or according to the whatever definition of someone but we are all creators I think so I think so so I'm I'm really it's new to me to embrace that to embrace that you know I'm not a trained artist but I can make stuff just like anybody else and it's and it's fun and it's okay for it to just be fun. Nobody is thinking that we're gonna go home and put it on the loo or in the louvely cool up in front of my desk to have these 10 different cool pieces of art that people I know made. That's wonderful. I'm excited.

Kena Siu:

Yeah it sounds very exciting I'm gonna make a last very last question because I'm still curious which other stuff you have in your bucket list that you still have kind of like building or you know something that you're looking forward to yeah to achieve soon or you know well okay that's a that's funny because it's something that I used to have on my list.

Jen Chambers:

So my first book was selected for the Iowa summer writing program and it was workshopped there. And that was so exciting for me at the time and after that I went to writing conference my first big writing conference in Hawaii actually and I thought this is it was my first book and it was my you know I just started but I was like this is it I'm gonna be a New York Times bestseller. So I and I right and so well now and so I got an agent there and I was so scared because I didn't believe enough in myself I didn't follow through and the agent dropped me and I don't blame her because I didn't do what I said I would do. I didn't send her this stuff I was terrified but I think now I'm I'm ready I'm ready to bring that dream back and I'm gonna you know pursue writing on a larger scale I think I'm ready for that and I think that's that's where I'm going next actually one of my other books was selected to be a Hallmark movie once but then it never got made and so I'm like okay those are two things that I'm I'm working on those next we'll see exciting for you oh yeah thanks so exciting well again Jen thank you so much a pleasure having you here and I'm sure whatever it is in that list you're gonna keep it keep checking and checking and checking that's my plan that's my plan thank you so much for having me thank you you're very welcome thank you for tuning in to Midlife Butterfly I hope this episode empowers you in some way share the love by hitting follow whatever you're listening and leave a review if you feel inspired.

Kena Siu:

I also love to connect with you come say hi on Instagram at Midlife Butterfly I love to know you. Until next time keep spreading those wings and leave enjoy growth and pleasure

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