How Music Icon Jewel Turned Her Anxiety Into An Ally
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Grammy-nominated artist Jewel has always been interested in mental health—her own, and that of others. After leaving her childhood home, she struggled with agoraphobia, vicious panic attacks, and more, and eventually set out to discover whether she could learn to be happy. It was an “ambitious mission,” the 48-year-old singer tells Women’s Health. But it worked.
Throughout her career, Jewel has spoken candidly about her experiences with abuse, anxiety, and the addiction in her family. "My mom left when I was eight years old, and my dad took over raising me and my brothers at that age. My dad had really bad PTSD [from the Vietnam war], but those words weren't really known at the time," Jewel previously told People in 2020. "He tried to drink to handle the anxiety, and he became abusive."
At 15 years old, Jewel left her Alaskan home and moved into her own cabin. "I knew, statistically, kids like me repeat the cycle," she tells Women's Health. "And I knew that as much as I had a genetic inheritance that could give me a predisposition to diabetes or heart disease, I also had an emotional inheritance that would predispose me to cycles of abuse or addiction." She became determined not only to stop the cycle, but help other people, especially at-risk youth, who might be suffering, too.
Ahead, Jewel opens up about her own mental health journey, the importance of working with your anxiety instead of fighting it, and the coping mechanisms in her mental healthcare toolkit today.
As a teenager, Jewel learned the importance of seeking out happiness.
After moving out, "I identified—at kind of a crazy young age—that I actually needed to learn a new emotional language," Jewel says. "But there was no school for that."
From there, she became “obsessed” with discovering whether happiness could be learned. “Everything I did in my life was trying to figure that out. It’s why I wrote the types of songs I wrote, too,” she says. “That’s why I was writing ‘Who Will Save Your Soul’ and ‘Hands,’ because I just stubbornly believed it was my birthright to be happy. And I believed that if I didn’t give up, I could learn the skills necessary that would lead to happiness.”
She decided that anxiety wasn’t her enemy.
So, what were those skills? A lot of them had to do with interrogating her thought patterns and emotions. “One of the best tools that I discovered for myself was what I call making anxiety into an ally,” Jewel says.
She started to rethink her anxiety. “Much like your body’s reaction to food poisoning, I was willing to presume [anxiety] was my body’s reaction to the fact that I just consumed a thought, feeling, or action that didn’t agree with me,” she explains. “Becoming very devoted and curious about my anxiety, instead of trying to suppress it or disassociate from it, was wildly transformative.”
It’s a strategy she still uses—and teaches—today. “Step one is, stop. Two is, get curious about what's going on. Three is, ask: Did you just consume something that made you anxious? Was it a thought, feeling, or action?” she says. “And then, look at the basics. Did you sleep? Are you hungover? Are you hanging out with someone toxic? Have you eaten? A lot of times, [it helps] going back to those basics.”
Watch Jewel open up about her relationship with her body to Women's Health:
She’s a huge proponent of CBT.
Jewel jokes that, out of necessity, she “accidentally developed” what many people today think of as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) skills—even though she’d never heard of CBT at the time.
Developed in the late 1960s by Aaron Beck, MD, and popularized over the past several decades, CBT is a kind of treatment that can be done with a therapist or alone. In brief, the process is all about recognizing distressing, anxious thought patterns for what they are, examining their root causes, and understanding that they may not be based in reality. It often also involves learning other problem-solving skills.
“It’s incredibly effective,” Jewel says.
During low moments, Jewel relaxes with meditation.
Along with maintaining that sense of curiosity about anxiety and negative thought patterns, Jewel always recommends practicing meditation and developing a game plan for bad mental health days and episodes.
“Meditation builds the muscle of being present,” she explains. “Being present is really important, because if you want to change your [thoughts], you actually have to be present to do it—you have to be aware, and then work on it. Presence alone doesn’t change your life, in my opinion, [but] it puts you in a position to change your life.”
Her own self-care toolkit also includes connection with trusted friends and peppermint tea. “If you are triggered, it’s great to develop a little protocol for yourself. I will always stop, I will always breathe,” Jewel says. “Peppermint really helps me if I’m having an actual panic attack, and reaching out to a friend as soon as the acute phase is over, and talking through it. Usually, that connection to another person helps.”
Now, Jewel is sharing her expertise with the world.
Knowing firsthand how much a person-to-person connection can help her manage the symptoms of her depression and anxiety, Jewel has devoted much of her life to helping others without access to traditional therapy and mental healthcare resources. Over the past two decades, she’s helped at-risk individuals through her nonprofit, the Inspiring Children Foundation, and delivered mental health resources to over 1.6 million users (and counting!) via her free digital community, Jewel Never Broken.
And now, she’s entering a whole new universe—the metaverse, specifically. In March, the multi-hyphenate announced that she was joining the online platform Innerworld as a co-founder.
Created by Noah Robinson, a clinical psychology PhD candidate, the virtual community lets users join weekly live events, attend classes on grief, anxiety, and more, and connect with other anonymous users as they develop the cognitive and behavioral tools to take care of themselves. (In fact, it uses CBT as a core technique.) As a mostly-free platform with affordable paid features, Innerworld isn’t meant to replace therapy—but rather, supplement it, or help out individuals who can’t afford or access treatment.
Jewel came across Robinson and Innerworld while doing her own research into virtual reality (VR) as a healthcare tool. “I was doing my due diligence, thinking I was going to be the first person bringing peer-to-peer tools based on cognitive and dialectical behavioral tools into VR,” Jewel says. “I was very surprised to find a gentleman who had been developing and actually conducting four years of clinical research and beta testing.” She reached out to Robinson, and when she realized how aligned their missions were, they decided to join forces.
Ultimately, Jewel hopes that Innerworld will encourage people to understand their anxiety—and stay kind to themselves as they work through it. “The quickest way [out] is through,” she says. “And so, if we can learn to train ourselves to move toward the discomfort, to get curious about it, we’ll actually soon see that there’s a reward of getting through it—and it’s much less scary.”
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