JENNIE GARTH: EPISODE LINK

BOOK: LINK

TRANSCRIPT:

Colleen: Welcome back, everyone. We have on Jenny Garth this week. We’re so excited you’re here.

Welcome.

Jennie Garth: Hi, I’m happy to be here.

Colleen: We just want to start off by saying congratulations on the

launch of I Choose Me, your book. Can you believe that you actually have it?

The book is out and you just kind of poured your heart into it.

Jennie: Yes, I mean,

no, I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I’m finally done with it. It took so long. And I am just

relieved that it’s out there and people are really, you know, responding well to it. And I just

hope to, even if it’s one person that like one line of the book resonates with or helps,

then I feel good. Like that’s, you know, I’m not asking for a lot.

Bridgett: Well, I thought there were

several lines.

We’ve got them written down.

Colleen: And, you know, I. thought, and Bridgett and I haven’t really discussed

this, but I thought it was like part memoir and part kind of midlife metamorphosis. Like you were

coming out of these times in your life and really questioning what you want this next stage of life

to be. And I think that is so relatable for women. How important was it for you to include that

portion of your discovery in this time of life?

Jennie Garth:  It’s so important because you said that’s what we’re

all going through. I mean, when we hit a certain age, you know, every decade brings us something

new and interesting and curious. So I think that, you know,

we all reach this point where we’re like, what am I doing? Who am I? Who do I want to be?

You know. So we’re all asking those same questions. So I think that that’s what really kind of made

me want to write it in that style. Also, I just love like being able to relate with an author when

I read something that’s like something I’m going through in my own life. It really connects

differently. And we’re all going through this human life, having these experiences that are often.

even though they may look circumstantially very different they’re all the same we’re all this we’re

all dealing with the same, especially as women of a certain age and um and I also wanted to include

 the lessons that I’ve learned. When I grew up, my mom had rows and rows shelves and shelves of self-help books and I grew up looking at them, reading them, thinking what’s wrong with my mom why does

she have so many self-help books  and just kind of also being like a little embarrassed when people come over but now I’m like that was really the groundwork for me to just start  a meaningful kind of connection with life and wanting more and wanting to be the best me i could be and  that’s carried over. I have a ton of self-help books now, too.

My kids love them. They’re not embarrassed by them. They actually love them. They’re very open thinkers. And I think that that’s sort of how the cool thing about generations, you know, things passing down and paying forward, it kind of ends up so differently for the next generation.

Bridgett: Right. And it’s so nice, too, because they’re not embarrassed by them anymore. It’s just this freedom. Like, yeah, this is OK to talk about now. Or, yeah, I hear that.

 And you address so many things in there that I was I was reading the book. I thought,

yeah, you really addressed limiting beliefs. And I believe that all of us women have gone

through that whole thing of having limiting beliefs. What made you

realize, why do I have these limiting beliefs and what am I going to do to get past that?

Jennie Garth: I mean, women and men, we all have limiting beliefs. We all have, you know, I say in the book, the only two people I’ve ever met that didn’t have limiting beliefs.

Bridgett: Yeah, I wrote them down

because finding those two people was so significant.

Jennie Garth:  Like I was like, wow, you’re the only two

people on earth that I know. But we all have them and they really can get so loud and they can really stop us in our tracks, keep us living at a fear-based experience.

 There was a point in my life where I thought “no thank you” to those limiting thoughts

anymore and that is not how I want to live the rest of my life, whether it’s you know,

the realization that with people that I love passing away and you know really um

through my studies with Buddhism, really understanding death and getting comfortable with it although I’m not there yet!

I just really realized like that you get this moment and if you get another one, yay, great, wonderful. But no, we’re not guaranteed anything. So I really just wanted to focus on what was really important to me and what I think will help other people when they are like trying to assess their lives at a certain point and say, what is it that’s important to me? What are the things in the… past that have served me well? What are the things in the past that haven’t served me well? And let’s decipher those things and move forward

with intention to focus on the things that we want to focus on, not the things that just bring us down.

Colleen: You know, Another thing I found really interesting in the book is you kind of start

from the conversation of your divorce going into a journey of your self-reflection and what is

working in your life and what’s not, while trying to raise three daughters. So I like the fact that you were like, I’m going to go on this retreat. I’m going to read these books. I’m going to look into Buddhism. You were open to all that stuff. Was it just because your mom was or were you really feeling like I need something to hold on to?

Jennie Garth: Both. I’m a generally very open,

accepting person and I love, I’m curious, very curious. I love to grow. And I kind of have,

like I say, like if I’m not growing, I’m slowing.

I mean, yeah, of course my mom had, was instrumental in, you know,

developing this curious person inside of me and my dad.

But I also was searching for who I was because it had been pulled out from under me.

I know, I knew all along that I was a mom. That was my first priority.

It always has been. It’s instinctual in me and just like I’m a caregiver.

I love to take care of things, dogs, people, plants, all the things. So I knew who I was at the

core, but I didn’t know my purpose anymore. I had lost sight of my value.

I’d lost sight of my voice. So I really had to get back in touch, I had to figure out who

the f— I was, honestly, because I wasn’t those things. If I wasn’t the actress on that show,

if I wasn’t the wife with the picket fence family on the cover of the magazine, like what,

who was I? I never really had the opportunity to think about that because I was so busy as a young mom balancing work and you know, the kids’ lives and you know trying but clearly failing at a relationship so I was kind of  like you know in that place where you go and you’re like this is where it has to be. I must start putting all the pieces back together from this like destruction.

Bridgett: Yeah. And you know, another thing that resonated with me so much is how you said “I made myself small.”  And oh my goodness,

did I identify with that, that you try to make yourself small, not to make waves in situations.

Oh, I don’t want to make waves. I don’t want to do something about that. But you, you also have come to the point where you thought, “I’m not doing that anymore.” And that goes along with your title,

the whole title of the book “I Choose Me.” Can you talk about how that happens too?

Jennie Garth: Yeah.

I mean, it’s not like I wrote it and it’s done forever. Like just this last week, I’ve had to like

look at something and I found myself saying, I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to blow everybody’s life up. You know, all those messages or those options seem to be there for a human.

And then that’s what causes us to like sort of lose our voice, shrivel back,

try to not outshine anyone. And, you know, I lived a lot of my life as the baby of the family,

just in that birth order. Being spoiled rotten and trying to prove to my sisters that I wasn’t and that you know I always felt really kind of guilty about that and I wasn’t even something that I was doing it was just done to the family unit you know and then becoming famous and thinking oh but I’m not any more special than my siblings and I got real scared of the idea of outshining someone and then just the midwestern in me wanting to be like everybody else and I am like everybody else.

 I’m wanting to prove that that like just because my job is what it is, it doesn’t

mean that

I think I’m any better than anyone else you know, and really working through that and all

the shades of that  I was challenged.  Growing in those times but and then in a

relationship, really just being in situations where

It was a theme like, you know, it was a fear of mine. I think it was something I felt in

the air that it was important for my name to go second. It was important for me to put someone else in front of me, to keep lifting them up all the time. And that was really hard.

And I just reached the point where I’m like, why am I doing that? Why? Why? You know what? It’s OK if I shine. I’m actually here to shine. We’re all here to shine.

 I was just like, “why have I been putting myself in that box of like darkness?”

I should be opening, like I should be opening up to the concept that that’s what we’re here to do.

And if we’re not doing it, then we’re not shining on other people. Then they’re not learning to

shine on themselves. And it’s just also reciprocal. But it was really, I was really stuck in that

for many, many years.

Bridgett: Yeah, I think I think that’s so relatable to so many of us.

Colleen:  Definitely, especially in this time of life. And did you find that, you know, as your daughters got older, they became your mentors because Bridgett and I both have adult children. And a lot of times I will look at my two daughters and be like, OK, I’m so glad I’m learning that from you because I did not learn it in my 20s.

Jennie Garth: Right. I mean, for whatever your circumstances are,

 for me, I was in this weird bubble of the show that I became so famous and like

that stardom and then that fear that all of that instilled in me and there was so much

development that didn’t happen for me, like that would happen normally for somebody who graduates high school and goes to college and lives you know in their starter home and like builds their life.

I didn’t have that. It went from like zero to a hundred overnight and I was not equipped. I

think that the luxury is now, as I’ve gotten older, to be able to be like. oh yeah these are the

things that I didn’t learn, and I need to learn those now. I cannot live the rest of my life

accepting those sort of behaviors from myself, so I think it was about really becoming self-aware

and really looking within the things that were working and weren’t working for me to kind of go, where I wanted to go with my life. Because I was just holding myself back and limiting myself.

And my daughters have taught me from the time that they were born. Like, I’ve learned. We’ve grown up together. As being a young mom, having my first kid at 23, I had no idea what I was doing.

It was all instinct, which is amazing. And, you know, yes, I had strong instincts as a mom.

But just they saw me go through the highs and the lows,

you know. And I’m not the kind of person that can be like, zip it all up and be, oh,

I’m fine. Everything’s great. You know, let’s go to the zoo. I feel my feelings. And for so long,

that was something that I thought was something bad, like something that made me look emotional or weak or. whatever. But learning to embrace that side of me and really see it as one of my superpowers. Like, yeah, I feel things. I feel things deeply. And I want you to feel things deeply too. If you have a feeling, let’s talk about it. So my girls arer being

communicative about their feelings. In our house was something that nurtured that within my own self. And also they just, you know, they saw the bad times and they were forgiving.

And they, unlike me, who was punishing myself for those bad times,

those moments of weakness, those failures as a mom, they were always able to look past it and love me anyway. That’s that unconditional love that you not only aspire to give as a mom, but that you receive from your kids. And now as adult women, I mean, a day doesn’t go by where I don’t talk to each of them or… know, when in checking in with them about their lives,

it kind of relates to something that I’m dealing with or something’s going on with me and they want to hear about it and they’re there for me. And it’s like I have three best friends. I

have four,  my husband, but like my three girls are where it’s at.

Bridgett: I mean, that is that’s

wonderful. That’s like a dream. That’s the dream right there. It is. But.

I’d love it too, when you were talking about emotional, because you said in the book, people say, “you’re so emotional. You’re too emotional.” I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that myself, but you said “emotion full.” And I love that you said, “I’m emotion full.”

 You explain, you know, that that’s okay. Let’s, let’s talk about this. I think that’s so

healing. I mean, you found that so healing for you.

Jennie Garth: For sure. I, I’ve always been emotion full.

I was born just a kind of like a deep well of emotions. I was born blue.

I don’t know if like some people are born pink and rainbows and sparkles. And I was born blue and I feel things deeply and I think about things and I process things. And I didn’t really know that those were all great qualities until I started to really investigate them and

I started to like drop the narrative, drop the title of being emotional or nothing’s ever good enough for you or you know, why do you have to question everything. Like let’s just question things.  I want information and give me the information; I will process it and then something will come from it. But when your emotions, when your feelings, when your instincts are ignored or not respected or not listened to or not valued by the a person in your life that’s such a prominent figure you really start to just agree that oh yeah that I need to shut those away because they’re causing problems. They’re not being received the way I mean for them to be received, so let’s just back up and not have any feelings anymore, and I just I reached a point where I was like that is not going to work for me. I can’t hold stuff in and I need to be in a situation, whether I’m partnered with someone or not, where I can express my feelings, work through them, have somebody on the other side that’s compassionate. Even if there’s no one there, even if that

person is me, which has been a huge lesson for me in my life,

just learning to depend solely on myself as my biggest support,

 my biggest fan. my best friend, my life partner, it’s here, instead of like trying

to get that from somebody else all the time whether it’s my daughters or whether it’s, you know a romantic partner or a friend.  It wasn’t serving me so I just had to really kind of like pivot, change gears, redirect and I think that’s the beauty of getting older, is that we get that opportunity not just once, but as many times as we need it as long as we live.

Colleen:  It’s true. And there’s so many similar aha moments in the book. One thing I found interesting was when you had Dr. Amen, the test on your brain,

can you talk a little bit about that? Because I had not heard of, I think it’s called SPECT

imaging.

Jennie Garth: Yes, yes. Well, I’ve struggled with depression,

anxiety, my whole life. I’ve been on medication since I was 18, of one kind or another,

always. You know, leveling off on something and not working anymore, me thinking, oh, I don’t need to be on anything anymore. And then, you know, just jumping off the ship and then realizing, oh, wait, it’s coming back. Like, you know, so I have chronic depression that I’ve accepted and it comes and goes. And I know that it’s going to go like it’s not forever. I’ve learned that this is temporary.

I will come out of this. The people around me know that love me through it. Let me have my time to like, do what I have to do with it and then I’m fine, but I think the craziest part about being on medication, brain stabilizers, chemical imbalance medications is that nobody’s looking at your brain. Like, you wouldn’t go get open heart surgery without somebody first like doing a you know some investigation, some imagery of what the heart is doing what’s working what’s blocking all the things they’re not just going to go in there and you know just say oh take this medicine it’ll help but that makes no sense. So when I learned of Dr. Amen and SPEC scanning,

I really was like, oh, that I need to know what my brain looks like. Where is it lit up?

Where is it quiet? What’s the balance that needs to happen within the organ of the brain in order for it to all work as a whole? Because if one area is cut off from the blood flow or like,

you know, the lighting up of the brain imagery, then that means it’s pulling stuff from another area. And, you know, the whole brain being at optimum health is about addressing and kind of trying to fix the places that aren’t firing, you know. So through the SPEC scan and imagery like that,

you’re able to really kind of look at the brain as a vital organ and fix it internally.

In an educated way,  you know I have no interest in going and telling a psychiatrist oh I’m feeling this and I’m dealing with that and then they just write you a prescription and you’re like well I hope this works and you wait for three weeks and you know it maybe it worked. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe it works for a while, maybe it is short-lived but I think just more of an understanding of the brain and how it works was really eye opening for me and made me feel less broken.

Honestly, made me feel like I’m not struggling with, you know, my reactions are more intense or something because there’s just more happening in that

part of my brain and the part of my brain that processes things and, you know,

comes to decisions based on weighing all the pros and the cons out,

that ability, that part of the brain wasn’t really firing. So getting that balance, I thought it

was really helpful in my life and it just kind of makes sense. If you’re going to prescribe a life

altering medication to someone, you probably should know more about the brain. So I’m happy when I learned and met Dr. Amen.

Bridgett: Yeah. Like Colleen said, I’ve never heard of that before either.

And I have that written down as well.

Colleen:  I just found it so interesting because I think

we now have one of the gifts of getting a little bit older is that we have time to do this stuff

now. Like we didn’t even think about that stuff when we had preschoolers and changing diapers.

And if there was no, let me inspect myself. Let me go internal myself. And it’s such a gift as we

get older. Bridgett and I talk a lot about the gifts we’ve earned, the privileges we have earned through life. Sometimes midlife and beyond gets a bad rap. You know,

it does, because I think it’s such an empowering time in life. And from reading the book,

you’ve really discovered the empowerment that comes with it and the confidence. Can you talk a little bit about the confidence that you feel kind of gained over the last decade of your life?

Jennie Garth: I just think it’s about really getting in touch in a really deep way with the core of who you

are. I kind of look back at what worked and what didn’t work,

what behaviors I was ashamed of or I knew I could do differently or handle better.

Really self-examining, the past in order to figure out what I wanted to take forward

you know because it I don’t have to take all that stuff with me. I don’t have to continue that those

cycles of unhealthy thinking and behavior I can change it, I can learn something. I can learn ways to

manage it, cope with it differently and being so curious as I am, that was what I became more and more interested in in the last decade for sure and also just like I don’t have time to keep f—–

1. Like I have this, I really need to get my sh– together, not for my kids anymore,

because I spent a good amount of my time feeling like a bad mom whenever I would not do something

the way other people did it. You know, as moms,

we have those moments where we get angry or we, you know, lose our patience or whatever. Every time

that happened for me, I would just annihilate myself internally and punish myself and just feel terrible. And I started to have more grace for myself. I started to really look inside,

get really honest about what was working, what wasn’t working and I started also the just the art of loving myself. And I started that by looking in the mirror, not.

It took a long time to see past the physical, the past, what has supported me in my career,

the hair, the face, the skin, the makeup, the body, all the things. Being able to look past all of that into the soul and the center. core of who I am and who I want to be and then nurture that part the deep inner part and learn to really love that part and that was all because I decided to choose myself. I would have never ever gotten to those sorts of deep meaningful

acknowledgements and respects and areas that I didn’t want to continue forward.

I would have never gotten to that if I hadn’t taken the time, like you say, that we don’t often

give ourselves to choose myself, to choose to love myself. And I really came to the realization

that I write about in the book, that Taylor Swift song, You’re on Your Own Kid. You always have

been like, yeah, yeah. There’s something really unpleasant about that.

But there’s also something really comforting in that when you realize like, oh, I’ve got me like

this. All I’ve got is me all, you know, in the good times and the bad, the person that’s always

going to be with me, whether I’m beating myself up or supporting myself, that’s a choice that I can

make inside. And in deciding to love yourself instead of beating yourself up constantly is such a

better feeling.

Bridgett: It is. You talk a lot too about the “should haves.”

This is what my life “should have” looked like. And we all do that so much.

And I remember we’ve had guests calling that say, “stop shoulding all over yourself.”

I love that too, because, oh my goodness, I do that so much about this is what it should have.

And I think that people are taught that. this is what you should be doing by this time and you even kind of referenced that because you were so young when 90210 came out were you only like 18 years

old or something?

Jennie Garth: yes

Bridgett: and so young and we all see these paths and it’s different for wherever you

grew up or whatever your family life is like and I know for mine it was:  you go to college and then you get married and then you have babies and then and that’s what I thought I should be doing and I

know for you,  you felt This is what I should be doing. You say that in the book, but you did so many

really cool things. I think the Buddhist part, the part about studying the Buddhist way of life,

and you talk about radical acceptance. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Jennie Garth: Yeah, I’ve been raised Christian.

Religion has never really mattered that much to me. Like I’m open. I’m like, whatever works for you. Great. I love it. Let me learn from that. I’ve looked into all the religions. And my most recent inquiry has been the Buddhist, the teachings of Buddha. And that came from a friend of mine that I met that he had a way about him that was so calming and so centered.

And I thought, oh, I want some of that. Like what are you doing? Give me some of that. How do I get that? And he led me to a temple where I would just go and listen and make notes every week, sometimes two times a week at nights. And like when my girls would go to their dad’s house, I could either sit there and just, you know, spiral down the toilet bowl of despair, being so upset about things or i could go learn how to handle things differently and learn a different perspective. So learning like the modern teachings of Buddhism really helped me to understand radical acceptance which is really is like I cannot change the past. I cannot predict the future, like it’s all this moment and just savoring the moment that we’re in.

 It’s a practice you know, it’s something that we have to learn we have to continually

keep up. Stop worrying about the future, stop beating yourself up about the

past or being sad or attached to the past and letting that dictate your story moving forward. It was just about that release and that radical acceptance of this is where what is happening right now and there’s something so freeing about it. And I think like,

oh, what it’s not like, oh, the past is the past. And it’s not like you’re forgetting things in

your past. Not like, you know, go to communion and you’re forgiven and all is good.

 I struggle with that because I feel like we got to learn things and nobody can just say,

oh, you’re forgiven, but I just realized like carrying all that stuff around was really not

helping me move forward.  So I decided that that’s how I wanted to sort of live.

Colleen: Well, you know, we’ve spoken to Gabrielle Carteris and she had mentioned that the reboot kind of was closure for her because it kind of level. Everybody was on a level playing field at that point.

And by that, I mean, they were everybody was a certain age now, as opposed to being 18 and 30 or 28. And she really felt like it mended everything, some things that just needed closure.

 What was your experience like with the reboot?

Jennie Garth: I had a little bit of a different

experience just coming into it as the co-creator and the executive producer initially.

And then, and everybody joined in to be an executive producer. So I had, I was a little more

attached to the vision, initial vision and, you know, the show as a whole and so I

was less able to have like my individual experience within that because I was clouded with a lot of different thoughts and responsibilities and all of that um but I’m so glad that she felt that way, like that she felt that sort of release and that freedom um of letting those past things like you know all the bad parts of being famous or being on that show all the stuff that was traumatic for her. I’m glad that she was able to like kind of get and I’ve gotten there too for sure. I don’t think that show was the experience for me I think that my own personal work has been more where I found my calm, my strength my assuredness that you know I I’m here today because of all those experiences and I’ve learned so much. But yeah, I mean, it’s always great being with the cast.

We all love each other. You know, the people that we have lost have had significant impact on each of us. And as a cast, you know, the OG cast members,

those relationships that we formed and bonded,

whether we wanted to or not. We were forced into this ensemble.

We were together 14 to 18 hours a day sometimes in very confined spaces.

And we formed something that was, whether it was good or bad all the time,

it was something really unique that we all, nobody else could really understand because they weren’t. We were so lucky to have other people that were in it on the same

level with us or else it would have felt really lonely. So having that sort of like

friendship, that bond is something that none of us I don’t think take for granted and that that will carry on beyond.

Bridgett:  you know well I certainly loved it at the time I certainly loved watching it and um

another thing I’m that you and Colleen and I were discussing that we use that you put in the. book that has just in the past few days.

Colleen: I used it today. You used it today with my daughter.

Bridgett The “We’ll See Method.” Oh my gosh. Love it.

Yes. I mean, I thought what a great way to look at something is “The We’ll See.”

Can you share a little bit about what “The We’ll See Method” is?

Jennie Garth: I mean, The We’ll See Method is

something that I learned in therapy. And it just created space for me to stop worrying so much about everything, the outcome. Like you don’t get to predict. You’d have no control over what’s going to happen. You only have control of this moment and how you react and what you bring to the table. And letting go of like all those attachments and having that kind of acceptance of, I don’t really know anything and I have no control, but I have high hopes and we’ll see.

If what happens, how things come to fruition, it kind of just gives you space to take a

breath and to give yourself grace to not have it all figured out. None of us do and when we

try to try to figure everything out before it even happens. This cycle of exhaustion and just like mind battle that I’m just so not interested in anymore and I’ve really used it all. I use it all the time. I used it when I was dating, you know and trying to like be like “oh is this gonna turn out” or

“is he gonna like me” or “is this gonna be great”, I don’t know we’ll see. Let’s just see how it plays out let’s see how it rolls out. I use it as a parent all the time to sort of release and relieve my daughters of that angst you know and that nail biting and the just the worry because that is not serving any of us. That’s just taking up our sacred space, like our mind our thought processes, our self-love. It’s just eroding all of that. And so I just started using We’ll See just as a way of life. And it really, like you can tell it’s like, it’s not dissimilar in theory to the, “Let Them.”

We’re all out here amplifying very similar messages. When you learn things in life,

you want to share them. And especially when you learn things that really help you through. Bad times um but like with “Let Them” it’s like kind of like yeah the same, like let people do what they’re going to do, let it happen and it’s the same with “We’ll See”. Like just let’s see how it rolls out. I have high hopes. I think that that would be amazing, but I’m not going to attach to the outcome because why.

Bridgett: Yeah. And we really don’t have control over it anyway.

Colleen: So as a control freak, I don’t like that at all. But I’m not having control. Well, we’ll see.

 You know, I thought also we have a lot of listeners that are back into the

dating world after perhaps a divorce or their widows or for whatever reason. And I thought,

you know, your honesty in talking about your current marriage, which is wonderful. But you did go through a period where you were trying to have a baby with IVF. Even with dating,

you kind of had a list of non-negotiables. So what advice would you give women?

And some of it is in the books. Definitely read the book. But what kind of advice would you give to women who are in that period where they’re just starting to dip their toe into the dating world

again?

Jennie Garth: Give yourself some time to really reflect. Reflect about maybe it’s the relationship that you’ve just come out of.

Reflect about all the things about it that you loved. What made you feel safe and seen and valued?

And then also reflect on the things that didn’t seem to benefit you. You know,

things that sucked. Things that you don’t want in your life again. And, you know,

you reach an age where you’re like, yeah, I am crystal clear on what I don’t want. But I like to

flip that with the list of non, it sounds like a negative thing, like non-negotiables, but there

are things that you realize that. That doesn’t work for me anymore. Like I’m willing to declare that I don’t have time in my life for those things anymore. I don’t want that. I don’t want that energy.

I don’t want that feeling. And so in writing a list of your non-negotiables, you can kind of make it a positive thing that what you’re looking for.

Instead of saying, “I don’t want somebody who doesn’t like a family,” you say, “I’m really interested in finding someone who puts family first, who loves family time, and that’s really important to

them because it’s important to me’ and I want to match up there. I don’t want somebody that says they’re going to do something and doesn’t do it. I need a person that’s accountable for their actions and a person of their word. You know, I put on there, I need a person that lets me shine, that is not interested at holding me back whatsoever. Even if they think I’m a little wild or out there or silly or, I mean, I just, I’m not willing to be with somebody who holds me back.

I want to move forward and I want my spouse to want to move forward in life and grow and learn.

You know, you just get really specific about what you want for your next chapter. Write it down.

Think about it often and watch it unfold. There’s something really magical about the power of thought, you know, where the energy goes, the know where the mind goes, the energy flows. So really just living by that. And it’s hard.

Colleen: I thought, too, because, you know, you do talk about trying to have a baby in there.

But what I thought was powerful in that story is that you had to trust your husband that what he said was true. You were like, no, he really does want a child. He just, you know,

he’s just telling me no. But you do have to trust what they’re saying.

Jennie Garth:  Yeah, and that was hard

after coming, you know, out of a divorce and feeling disappointed and lost.

It’s hard to trust again. It really, really is.

Your mind wants to cling on to those things that are familiar, those places where we didn’t trust and look what happened. So I got to keep, I got to make sure I’m protecting myself moving forward.

But yeah, sometimes you just have to take people for face value and

remember you don’t have any control over them. So you are not controlling them one way or another,

whether they’re lying or being truthful. You just have to sort of, like, say, we’ll see. You know,

they say one thing. Let’s see how it turns out. But, yeah, I was really holding on to, like, my

role. Like, I should be able to.

 Am I  shoulding all over myself?

Bridgett: You’re shoulding all over

yourself.

Jennie Garth: I should be able to, you know, give this man what all his friends are getting,

like, families. Because he’s nine years younger than me. And I was just.

certain that he needed a child and I was certain that my three daughters weren’t enough for him

that he needed to like plant his seed or whatever uh and he kept saying it’s not important to me. I love the girls. This is my family and I just kept second guessing it and fighting it you know to the

point of like self-destruction and putting myself through all that IVF and all that mental anguish.

And as all the feelings of failure, I just was like, God, I’m so tired of this.

I’m so tired of this feeling. I don’t want that anymore. So what if I believe him?

What, what if I just give it up and believe what he’s saying? And then guess what?

We’ll see. Maybe he is lying. I don’t know. Maybe in two months,

I’ll be like, you know what? I really kind of do want a baby. And then I would say then go live your life. Like get what you want in your life. I’m not going to stop. I’m not here to stop you. I’m not here to change you. I’m here to like experience stuff with you and move forward. And if you want something different, go for it. I’ll adjust. And I think that’s the strength you get when you live through the hard times, like loss or divorce or failures in your career.

Like you realized, guess what? There’s nothing I can’t survive. I’m still here. I’m still standing.

I’m still breathing. I still love myself. And then you’re like, I have this confidence that nothing

can take away. Not, not a divorce, not a failure. You know, you just,

you have that place at home inside yourself.

Bridgett: And you know, you’ve moved on and done some

really great things, you know, like, well, you had the podcast with Tori Spelling and,

and creating things and the QVC you’re doing that. And then The I Choose Me Events,

the Summits and Colleen and I’ve put on events. And when I was reading in your book, the imposter syndrome and everything, I thought, oh yeah, I know what you mean. that’s really incredible that just taking those leaps. Can you, any advice for anyone that

wants to just really embrace something that maybe they’ve never done before?

Jennie Garth: I mean, fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. We live in fear of everything,

aging, failing, succeeding. We fear that,

you know, we fear everything that we don’t haven’t already experienced because we know how to handle all of that, but we don’t know how to handle what it could be like, how great it could be, or, you know, the vulnerability that it takes to put yourself out there. And I just,you know, I… I encourage people to let go of fear-based thinking and say,

what if? And say, why not me? Like for so long,

I saw my peers or women that I admired in business and in acting or whatever it was.

I would look at them and say, wow, that’s amazing. That’s incredible. I’m really happy for them.

But yeah, they’re already doing that. They’re having success in that. There’s not really room for more. And I’ll just stay here and have my dreams. And, you know, it’ll be whatever it is.

But I just was like, no, no, guess what? There’s room for everybody. If I have success,

I’m going to bring somebody up with me and I’m going to help them find their success and their joy and their truth, you know, because that’s what we do as women and we embrace that.

I spent many, many years being competitive with other women, being fearful of my place in the structure of things and blaming it on other women. It was never the other woman’s fault.

It was always my fault. It was always Me doing that to myself and then subsequently putting that out there for other women and making them feel a certain way. And I just wasn’t interested in doing that anymore. And I think that once we as women realize that our journeys are very similar,

are the things that we want are usually similar. I mean you can definitely find a group of women that has you know your core beliefs and has what your same aspirations and go with them and be in the presence of women that are in your eyes, more successful or doing things that look challenging or things that kind of speak to you but you say oh that’s for them that’s not for me. Like just stop putting yourself in that position and start you know,

saying, if they can do it, I can do it. Let’s see what happens.

Colleen: Right. And you do that. You know, you talk about pivoting into more of an entrepreneurship and starting the home decor with BFF and doing the podcast for 90210. And then all of a sudden you started

saying, wait, I have my own voice here. And there are things that I want to say. Did you find that as you began to pivot into that confidence, into saying I have a voice, that doors started to open for you?

Jennie Garth: It was crazy because I was limiting myself. I was saying I’m only as good as this partnership or I cannot succeed on my own. I have to latch my wagon onto someone else.

And that just proved to not be fulfilling to me in the end.

To realize, you know, I have certain strengths and I’m going to work towards those.

I’m going to work into those and trust myself that I can do this on my own.

Like, and it’s, it’s not brain surgery. Other women have done it, you know, why can’t I do

it? And to sort of like allow myself to trust myself,

to shine, to be intelligent, to feel smart, to feel confident.

That all takes that inner relationship with yourself. And once you really start building that

and trust that person in there and also supporting her, like I do a lot of, you know,

imagining younger me and seeing how scared she is and how

she doesn’t know what’s about to happen. And I just really embrace her. I feel motherly towards her now. Like I have that ability to sort of step outside of the experience and look at

what it’s like to support yourself and love yourself. And then that’s the confidence that comes.

And as soon as you do that, as soon as you embrace that part of you, life starts to happen in the most magical ways. As soon as you are open, things come to you. I know people say it and it sounds like bullsh– and I’ve called bullsh– so many times on it ,thinking oh okay I’ll just you know have a positive mindset and everything will be great. That’s not always the case. It’s just about choosing to really focus on what is benefiting you in this moment and what you like. What you want to be.

How you want to show up, like focusing on those things and then things just come as you start to live that you know it naturally flows.

Bridgett:  Yeah. I love that in the, you were talking about Naomi Watts

and how you’re like, “who am I to ask her to be part of my summit” and then you just did it, and she was thrilled to take part.

Jennie Garth: Yeah. Just even, it never hurts to ask. It never hurts.

Of course it can happen. They can say no. Okay, great. Okay. Yeah.

Bridgett: You’re not going to die if they

say no.

Jennie Garth: And then next who else am I going to think about or call upon to help me grow.

So I just find women that are really open to sharing their wisdom and wanting other people to have that too and then also just being able to listen to my own instincts and trust myself and know that I’m enough and that you know things are going to happen one way or the other.

Colleen: You have so much to share in the book, and I really love some of the little “ah-has”

like I was saying before. We talk a lot about invisibility being a superpower, and you talk about in the book visibility means showing up for yourself, which is such a powerful statement because women are so afraid of becoming invisible, yet that can be such a superpower because you become who you want to be, and you’re able to show up the way you want to show up. Showing up also means doing

these summits, which you’ve been doing I Choose Me Summits, which you have one coming up in April,

which is exciting. Can you talk a little bit about that one?

Jennie: Very excited to be doing our Second

Annual I Choose Me Event. The first one proved to be so just like energizing and

inspiring for not just myself, but for the people that came. A lot of connections being made within.

The women that came, finding those women that are interested in the same things that you’re interested is always so great. So we have whole new panels this year,

New topics that we’re going to really connect with. And, you know, I just as a daughter of two educators, I love to teach people or to share with them what I’ve learned,

whether it’s teaching them or not. That’s up to them. But I like to share things. And I think

that this is a great forum to be able to do that and just have the faith that when women

come together, there’s something so powerful. There’s an energy that comes from that. And it’s really refreshing and it’s motivating. And that’s all I’m interested in doing is,

you know, giving that more breath, giving that more airtime in the world.

But yeah, it’s like this learning that to, to find your people and it’s never too late to find your

people.  Just ask to find your people and you will find them.

Bridgett: Right. And community is so important at this stage of life.

Colleen: Your girlfriends, you may not have as many, but the ones that you have, you really value.

Jennie Garth: And also I was not open to making new friends at a certain point because I thought, oh, relationships are hard and it takes a lot of energy. And I’m so busy with my girls and my husband and trying to make

that work. You know, a lot of my friendships fell to the wayside. The important most meaningful ones were there the whole time and even though it wasn’t like a constant connection those are the friends that you can call back and say look I’m sorry I haven’t talked to you in two years but

I love you so much and what’s going on?  You know those are those are friendships that are very valuable to me. People that kind of understand that life’s flows and ebbs and all the things and stick with you but also just being open to new friendships.

 I was really nervous walking into that first QVC summit that they had invited me to. A room full of successful, beautiful, intelligent women. And I was like, what am I doing here?

Like, I feel like such an imposter. And I just said, shut up.

Let’s go into this room. Be open and be kind and be yourself. And from that,

I forged some really amazing friendships. Friendships that are what I want to be as a friend moving forward for other women.

And that didn’t happen until I was 50 years old.

Colleen: And oftentimes we’ve noticed in doing this for many years now, that women of our demographic, we really just want to lift

each other up. The competition that you felt back in your 20s or 30s, it’s just gone.

It’s gone. Everyone has a platform.

Jennie Garth: And yeah, things that might have happened in the past might

come back.

You have to love yourself enough to be like, that’s okay. If I acted a certain way back then

because I didn’t know or because I was surviving or because I didn’t have the tools yet. I tend to look back on certain behaviors and my tendency is to beat myself up for it and be ashamed of it.

And now I’ve learned to be like, you know what? That was me then. This is me now. You know, you can like it or not, like, you know, we all grow and learn so much.

And it’s important that we love ourselves enough to have grace to be like, yeah,

I didn’t know what I didn’t know. And now I know and things are so different.

Bridgett: Right.

Who was it that said, “when you know better, you do better?” Yeah. Was it Maya Angelou? I can’t remember.

Colleen: I think it was. I think it was Maya Angelou.

Jennie Garth:  Yeah. I wish I could remember every positive

quote from everyone.

Colleen: Yeah, I wish I could remember what I did an hour ago.

But well, congratulations on the book launch, I Choose Me: Choosing Joy, Finding Purpose and Embracing Reinvention. It was such a pleasure to talk to you. We will make sure to have a link to

the book and also to the I Choose Me Summit in April in our show notes.

Jennie Garth: Thank you.

Colleen: It’s just, we love talking to other women who are on the same wavelength and trying to accomplish the same things. So best of luck with all of it.

Jennie Garth: Thank you so much. Thank you for what

you do for women. It’s a really wonderful platform. that you’ve created.