The Magic of Reincarnation with Jen Butler

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Hello and welcome to the Jane Arden podcast and show. I am here with Caitlin green and Sarah Burke. They are in their Toronto homes respectively. I'm in Victoria, British Columbia. I got here very late last night. I had a show in Duncan last night, and it was fantastic. We are doing Christmas music, and it's going over gangbusters. It's a little early in the season, but here I am. That's why I'm on my phone. If this doesn't sound like it normally sounds, or very professional technical prowess, it's because I'm on my iPhone because I'm an idiot. I didn't bring my stuff. I'm trying to center myself, for those of you watching on YouTube, listen, I put on a little mascara and, of course, my ever so famous Jurassic Park hat, as seen on Tiktok. I forgot my hat. Chris went out bought me this freaking hat, and he said, That's all they had that and Fortnite. So here I am. Girls, how are you? What's happening? We have so much to talk about today. I

0:56  
feel like Toronto is still recovering from the Taylor Swift tour.

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It's okay, everything. I'm gonna shut up now. And Taylor Swift, there's celebrities coming from all over the world to see these.

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I know. I didn't realize there were so many celebrities here to see her. I saw it like, I mean, I'm gonna miss some but I saw that it was like, Keegan, Michael Key was here. Zoe de Chanel, Elizabeth Moss. Elizabeth Moss was there with Mariska hardigay Hargitay. However, I always get that wrong.

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I always say hard to gay. That's how I remember her name.

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So I didn't realize that this was like a hotbed of celeb activity that they were coming here. But it was really, really sweet to see so many young girls dressed up all sparkly. They're one of my favorite people in our condo building. Is this little girl, and she's not that little. She's probably 12 or 13, and she likes to announce whenever I'm with will that she has finished her babysitting course. Like, she's just like, I'm just putting it out there. I've done my babysitting course. And I'm like, oh my god, okay. Well, we will, we will reach out to you when we're looking for you in four in four years, but she has a really sweet dog. And so I saw her, I was with will again, and she said, Oh, you know, I babysit. And I said, yeah, yeah, we've talked about this. That's so great. And you know, like, we'll hit you up one day. And I looked at her again, and I was like, Are you going to the Taylor Swift concert tonight? And she was like, yes, because she had, like, a sparkly little vest on lip, yes, bold lip friendship bracelets. And I just thought this is really, really sweet to see everyone leaning into their fandom and kind of like, you know, it can feel dark and it's like, it's just, it's also kind of a blah time of year. I feel like a lot of people are like, blah right now. The clocks changing have helped no one. So it was sweet to see downtown Toronto taking over with sparkles. And I really, really liked it every podcast

2:40  
I listen to. And, you know, I listen to so many podcasts, whether they were American or Canadian. Everyone was talking Taylor Swift in Toronto. Like, I know, like a Boston podcast was like, Oh yeah, Taylor's in Toronto this weekend. Like, why is this on everyone's radar? Well,

2:53  
I think we really went all out. Like, I think that people here got very excited about this. It's kind of like, Canada loses its cool a little bit when we, like, get stuff where, like, we get really excited. So I think that's what happened. And I saw there were the Toronto Police have, like, a horse unit, and they had big friendship necklaces around the horses. And, like, it was just, is it was like, we went for it. So, and I think she really likes Toronto,

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I wanted to ask you guys, do you guys follow Josie Balka? She's like, kind of poetry on Instagram, and she she basically, like talks into a microphone and records these poems that are quite beautiful. And there was one. She's a radio announcer too. In Alberta, she's a great So Jan, maybe you know her from I think she's in Calgary now, yes, yeah, absolutely, yeah. So she recorded this piece. I'll put it in the show notes, but it's basically like the beauty of participating as a fan. And it was just so well written. It brought tears to my eyes. Oh, my God. Oh yeah. Oh,

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the joy is powerful. You know what? I'll

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play a little clip. I'll play a little clip.

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Being a fan of something is such a blessing, because being a fan of anything gives your life a lot more purpose than you'll ever know in a world of so much disagreeing, being a fan lets you be a part of something like minded. You get to feel together. What a rare thing to feel these days, to be a fan of something is so special. Because even if it's silly, it's not because it means something to you. You love something so much that you learn things about it because you want to, not because you have to. To feel that way about anything. Is to strike gold if you can be anything in this life, be a fan of something unapologetically. Write the lyrics on your arms, decorate the walls of your home, wear their name on your jersey, standing crowds and scream at the top of your lungs like a little kid, and let it keep you that way forever. Let it keep you young. You don't have to understand why. There doesn't need to be any rhyme or reason outside of joy, just be a fan and let others be fans and find something that you lose yourself in, because there's no point to life other than to immerse yourself in all the parts of it that make it worth living. So if you can be anything, be a fan of something,

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an interesting thing that Chris brought up to me, and Chris is a super fan. He's seen six. Shows. He's seen them all over the world. He's been to Europe. He's been to the states. Um, he was even trying to figure out how to fly on our one day off from the other end of Canada to Toronto, see the show, get on a red eye and come back to back. But he it just didn't work out. And the tickets were $6,500 $7,200 but anyway, he he saw this little off Ed piece about this, this couple that obviously got tickets for their 12 year old. They got two tickets, and they said it's much more important for our daughter to go with her friend instead of her mom or her dad to the show. They're 12. She said, I don't think there's any other artist on the planet that her dad and I would have taken them, drop them off at the door. Watch them go in together, stick together. They had their phones. They had them tracking. They had the apple, little things. They had Find My Phone, all the shit that they could have. But they knew that the community and Caitlin, you kind of alluded to this fandom, this this sense of this massive amount of people that have a common kindness and that they're just taking in this positivity. Well, they sent their two little, their daughter and their friend, into the concert, and she said, I've actually felt really good that if they got lost, they could go to someone and say, I'm here with my friend. I need this. And I lost my money, or I don't know how to and those Swifties would have swept in, kept those kids safe, lifted them up over their heads if something weird happened, she knew. And those girls came out exactly at the door they were supposed to come out. They had people helping them to come out. And I thought, you fucking couldn't do that in a KISS concert or, you know, Motley through and it's all ages, it's grandmas, it's people, it's, I'm so glad you guys got to experience that are either of you did. Did you guys go? Or what? Anything? No,

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no, she's a bit out of my budget for concert tickets. I also think because I'm, like, an elder millennial, and I don't know Sarah, if you relate to this, but I feel like I'm, like, when I was a girl, we didn't have to pay this for tickets. And so it's like, more than $500 for a ticket, which I still think is a lot of money.

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I don't feel bad about

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my 130 No,

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no. And, like, even, you know, Caitlin and I, we our plans changed, but we were gonna go to Casey Musgraves. And I even thought those tickets were insane, yeah. And that was they were each of us paid 193 Yeah, so that's like too much I say, unless I am seeing, you know, a reunion concert for a band that's made a big comeback or something I don't

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know, you will never pay for me. I will always get you in free. I mean, they say $500 million is injected into the Toronto economy, which is completely foreseeable. They say that she's going to be donating, like, a million bucks to some kind of charity or food bank or something in Toronto, as yet to be announced. But she usually does that. And there's a big rumor as we come to the end of the arrows tour, as you all know, she finishes in Vancouver, which is pretty exciting, that she's ending her tour in Canada. But there is a rumor. And this is Chris, my Chris, and he know he's got things that every person on the crew, and it's there's something like 200 of them will be getting a giant chunk of money, like, something very substantial, something a life changing amount of money. Tell me about the merch lines. I know that they were selling merch prior to the concert. Like, what did that look like? It's

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new. I don't ever seen that happen before, have you? Caitlin,

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I haven't, but I just had assumed that it was only when you got into the concert. So I didn't realize that there was like these merch pre sales happening. And so one of my friends who had floor seats to the concert, and she's like a social media influencer, huge Taylor Swift Fan, and so she went and waited at 8:30am in line. Okay? Documented. She documented her whole like journey. And to your point, Jan, about the Swift East community, everyone's like, in line. If one person goes out to get Starbucks and they get it for everyone around them, like it was really sweet. But she left with as much merch as you were allowed to buy for one person. And it is crazy how much money she's making. And because now you're on your Christmas tour, she just announced that she's doing Christmas merch. So this is like this, it's a whole thing, and she's got all these special album releases. And like her, fans are very, very loyal. They make her a lot of money. They pay a lot of money to see her, like, perform, and they pay a lot of money to buy the merch while they're there. So if she's given everyone, like, a 200k per person bonus. I feel like that would still, like, barely make a dent in how much money this tour has made. And she's on stage for like, four hours too. That's the crazy thing.

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It's, you know, the time is right. She's a young woman, you know, she's got all the attributes. So there's so many things that have to line up in order for something like this type of phenomenon to take place. So esthetically, she's very beautiful. No one can fault her for that. She's tall, she's slim, you know, she's got boy troubles. So it resonates from kids from eight years old to 78 years old. Of you know boy problems and the pining and the yearning and the unrequitedness. Love Songs and that she's actually lived them. You know, she she loves cats, she's very intelligent. She's a wonderful songwriter. Her songs are catchy, and without trying to sound trite, when you write these anthemic, catchy songs that have choruses that 80,000 people can sing all at one time. I don't think the stadiums ever shut up? I think from the moment she hits the stage, you see 10 year old young boys. It's striking a chord the

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dads, even it's been a joy to watch. To Sarah's

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point about the dads now they say that that in and of itself, is its own community. So the Swifty dads drop their they drop their kids off at the concert, and then they go and find the nearest sports bar or place they can just go sit and have a beer for a few hours. So they're like, not only is this a huge deal, obviously, for the venues and the businesses and the hotels and whatever, but the surrounding places where you would never expect to see impacted by Taylor Swift Fans, they are because it's just the dads who are sitting there waiting to pick up their kids. If you

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look at how in her audience, she's had a lot of haters over the years as well. And to look at how she carried on, regardless of the haters, that's, I think, what really sticks out about this story, because what would happen if a person like this listened to those those voices? Right? She's just full confidence and looks

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like our friend Jen Butler, who's going to be on today. We've I've stumbled across a really interesting artist, woman, creator, writer, comedian, she's going to be joining us on the show today, and she really touches on that exactly about our inner voices, convincing us without a shadow of a doubt that we shouldn't be doing things and shouldn't be trying things. So there's lots of lessons in that today. Okay, moving on. And I know, I mean, I'd love to sit here and talk about the wonders of the Taylor Swift. She's got enough fact on the world. Oh, but

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wait her. We do have a connection. So we are going to have our own merch coming out very, very soon. I will say, to say nothing of merch, and

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I love now. Line up now for this merch.

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Yeah, line up at the Rogers Center now for the only Jan's merch. But it looks really cute. I like I really like it. I'm really jazz

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so basically, we have, as promised, an online place you can now buy only Jan's merch. Now, only Jans is a term coined by Caitlin for our Patreon. Like Die Hard, loyal podcast fans, you are welcome to be a part of the only Jans crew, and we are doing a pre sale for a limited amount of time. Okay, you're only going to be able to get these two items that we have we hope to expand in the future, but two right now, t shirt and we got a tote, and we got a tote. Monday next week, the price goes up to regular price. So just to say five bucks or a couple bucks on the table, buy mine today. Yeah. So we'll have the link in the show notes, and we'll post it

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on socials too. Now you guys are gonna laugh at this a little bit, but as an as a on top of this wonder, wonderful announcement at the end of this tour on Patreon, I'm giving away this hat. I'm not keeping this fucking hat. Do it. I'm going to sign it, okay. And so if you are a Patreon listener, yeah, we will. The girls will figure out who we're gonna select, but somebody is going to have a previously loved Jurassic Park hat from Kmart in Campbell River, British COVID Kmart. What am I saying? Am I making shit up? I don't know,

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Walmart, a mart of some kind, a mart. So

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Patreon, this, this little sweetheart could be yours, which is why I'm wearing it today. But these are legitimately exciting prizes. The resale in this, this could go up to 12 or $13 Sarah Burke, since you

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announced your album, maybe we'll also give the track list. What do you think? Absolutely,

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and as you know, the record is called mix tape. My friend Leah gaucier, I said to her one day, I said, I don't know what to name this record. And I was fooling around with playlist, and then I had exactly and then I had a really long title that was very esoteric and really stupid. It was like, I bet you thought you knew the words and Bruce sounds like, Don't be an idiot. It's too long.

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That's her manager, by the way, in a kitchen. Yeah, Bruce

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is my manager, and and so I just was talking to Leah, first thing out of her mouth mixtape, I literally had angels. Oh, and that's it. That's what this is. It is a love letter. It is making a cassette of my favorite songs from the 90s and giving them to my boyfriend or my girlfriend or someone that I really do only Jans, my only Jans. So thank you, Leah. Thank you mix tape.

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We'll also have the link to pre save her record in the show notes, because, yeah, it's

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a big week in.

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A jan Arden camp we gotta support. God, it's so great. I

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love it. Caitlin green P Diddy. It just keeps getting fucking stranger. Here's the other end of the entertainment spectrum, folks, 100% Yeah,

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we've got we went real, real high with Taylor Swift, and then real, real low with Diddy. So this is a an ongoing situation, obviously, because he's in jail, but he's in jail, but he's constantly trying to get out on bail, and he's constantly trying to have his legal team prove that He can be trusted by setting up these terms. So they're saying, Oh, well, you guys agree to let him out on bail for $50 million and he's going to agree to no phone, no internet, no passport, random drug tests, all this stuff. So then the Feds shoot back and say, No because he's in jail, and we have evidence that he has been trying from his jail cell to taint the jury pool and blackmail witnesses he had paid inmates at this jail center that he's at for their private phone code, to dial calls outside, to send dozens of texts, hundreds of texts, actually, to dozens of accusers and witnesses who are not on his approved contact list, and he's doing this illegally from jail, like, if this is what this guy can do from inside of a jail, he can't leave. And that's what they're saying. One

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of the people, there was 128 calls from him. Oh, I don't know the exact name, but one of the people, Oh, my God, 128 calls. That's not someone innocent, just

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No, no. That's not how someone that's not just like, really want to talk to you about how your life is going. It's like this guy family

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miss my promise.

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Has someone sent him a cake with a file in it? Yet? Probably

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they're just like, you can't this guy can't be trusted, and again, like he is behaving you're right, like a very guilty party. He's not behaving like someone who's done nothing wrong and has nothing wrong and has nothing to hide. I'm

16:43  
kind of giddy about seeing a bad guy get it. And I think because we are living in a world when we are seeing a lot of bad guys rise to the top of the barrel and control a lot of power, it's a very frightening time. So when you actually see someone who is not escaping a just ending, and I think that's why I'm kind of reveling in this. How do you guys feel about that? He's not being pardoned, he's not having someone pay him off. It was a misunderstanding. The truck full of lube and eating sushi off of nude girls at parties. It was, it was all in good fun. This isn't happening. This is really serious shit, and he'll probably go to jail for the rest of his life.

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Yeah, I think he'll stay in jail probably. I don't think they're gonna be letting him out after this little snafu with calling one person 128 times, that's crazy behavior,

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also ballsy to even request a bail hearing for the third time. Like, dude, I know not gonna happen. They really

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that. I think they really think he's gonna get gonna get it. He's not going to so sorry to that, man.

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I know our guest today is like someone you found with your your Instagram algorithm, yes. So on the Diddy topic, there's this guy called Flow daddy, who now has a podcast. I don't know if either of you have heard of him, but he's been doing like updates, like every day or two on the Diddy case. Like, if you really want to get lost in that shit, flow, daddy, yeah, TMZ gave him a podcast because they were like, This guy's the guy? Oh,

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yeah, he's become their, like, reporter. They're like, they're like, did he correspondent? Yeah, okay, yeah. Well, anyways,

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flow, Daddy, I really like the guy's voice. He's a former, like, he used to be a musician, and so he understands, like the entertainment industry,

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I think the ratings are going to be outrageously high for people watching this trial, whether P Diddy is making an appearance via a video screen, or if he's going to be sitting in there. This is going to be a very arduous, very long process to untangle the hundreds of people that are involved, who's complicit, who's it's gonna be a fucking mess. So obviously they've got a lot of people working on that. We'll see. Jenny,

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you watched the Martha Stewart documentary, yet

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I loved it. You know, oh

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my God, I've been dying to talk. Okay,

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thoughts you got you guys go. I want to hear everything.

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If you thought that Martha Stewart was anything before this documentary, you just didn't know who she was. I feel like this opened all the doors to help you understand how fearless in her career she actually has been. You know, a lot of things got caught up when she went to prison without us knowing a lot about that story and how she powered through that phase of her life, and how she reinvented herself. Fuck yeah.

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I found her iconic before, but now to know really much more about her backstory, I had no idea that she worked in finance in, you know, the 70s when it must have been a complete, like nightmare to be the only woman doing that, being

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slapped on the butt as you go by carrying somebody's coffee.

19:39  
Oh yeah, and that she really seems to thrive in almost any setting that she kind of finds herself. She is just very, very tenacious, and she's clearly not worried. I don't think about how she's like coming across. She's not, you know, sort of like faking nice all the time. No fucks, none at all. That can be something that a lot of, like, famous women are maligned for, and people say, you know, oh, she's a bitch, and it can be a reason why people don't like them, but it's not the same way for a guy who was doing that. And you really did see that showcased with the documentary. Also, I had no idea that James Comey, like, took her down. I was like, yes, if I couldn't have hated this guy and found him more annoying after the Hillary emails, he hates women he does. He hates a powerful woman. He really does. This guy is like, I just, he just came across as really prideful and self righteous and like, out to lunch on a lot of what was going on.

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Yeah? Like, Oh, here's an opportunity for me to jump in and ruin someone's James Coleman wrote a book, correct?

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I

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think so, yeah, and look it up while you guys chat for Okay,

20:44  
oh, this is a very weird connection. This is very strange. So James Comey, tell me what the book was. This one.

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Okay, so higher loyalty, former FBI director, James Comey, what year ever before? 2018 Yeah, 2018

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so James Comey used one of my quotes at the very beginning of his book. No,

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he did not.

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My Adrian Arsenal was texting me. She goes, Did you know that James Comey used one of your quotes? And then I hear him talking on CNN, they're talking about this quote. What is it? It's if you're not, if you're not prepared to think about dying, then you're you're not going to actually be living. It was something like that. And I remember me speaking in terms of my mom and dad, because I think about dying a lot. And he used that on a fucking first page. So Adrian arsenal is like, did you know that James Comey used one of your quotes? And then I hear him talking on CNN, they're talking about this quote. Well,

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the quote says to not think of dying is to not think of living. That's what

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he put in there. So my phone was ringing off the hook anyway, not to blow my own horn. But when I saw him interviewed on different things, people talked about this quote. And Jan argens, a Canadian singer, and he goes, Yeah, my one of my kids really loved her and was reading. I don't know what it came about, but it was one of those very weird moments in my life. Well, it is

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cool, but also I don't like if I was a powerful woman like Jan, I wouldn't want to be on James comey's radar. People said,

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did they have permission? I have no recollection of anyone coming to me from my publishing company or from anything, and it might have just been pulled from an article that they didn't have to clear. It was, it was probably an article anyway. Fuck that. It's not about that. Martha Stewart the quintessential moment for me in the documentary, yes, she goes to prison, but she taught the women things in there. They loved

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her. They helped them find purpose in prison, essentially, right? A

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gardening lady, yeah, when she wore that Afghan that one of the inmates, her fellow inmates had made for her, she goes on her way perfect Afghan to wear getting out of prison. And then her dog had a matching one. But she even her attitude

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against men, it was like, No, I didn't really care to talk about my feelings with him.

23:00  
I also thought that it was, it was a good move to have her not get final say the way many celebrities do over the edit of your documentary, because they included moments that have gone really viral. And I think that if she was the type of person who was particularly concerned with her public image or being well liked or always the most relatable, they would have pulled that out. And instead, it was like her talking about making out with some hot Italian guy in her honeymoon. It

23:26  
was a moment in museum. And you know what? I loved that I wasn't being unfaithful, because every moment can't be defined by something so exciting about being human and being in a moment, and if that breaks up a marriage where that's all it was. You kiss in front of a fucking statue of Michelangelo and then you move on. I think that's okay. I

23:48  
felt like it really built up her character, and it created a lot of interest in this documentary. So it was really important that they included these things that, again, other people might have said, cut that I look like such a bitch, but she it's just it got left in you do have to watch it. If you have Netflix, it's, it's very worth checking out. And my god, she is so good at that roast. I mean, the roast of justin bieber, who would have ever imagined that would be her big comeback, or the moment that she connected with Snoop, which was then this other very tongue in cheek chapter of her career. But I just yeah, like, truly, why not? And I love that. He said I saw Martha when we talked, I said, I feel like being close to you could really elevate me, like he paid her quite a bit of respect. He's very, very respectful to her and her talent. Yeah,

24:29  
yeah. No, I am. I applaud what she's done for women, what she's done to elevate the ordinary housewife, what she has done to make things looking beautiful, something important, something that changes human life, not only for women and for men and for you know, the kids you know, even with my own mom having a gray cup party. I know this sounds really mundane, but my mom would put her little pineapple apron. And around her. I don't know where the apron went to. I'm bringing back the apron. I've got about 40 of my mom's aprons in a drawer. I'm gonna start fucking putting those on. And my mom would spend all day making little pinwheel sandwiches and laying out a football style tablecloth. And I don't even like football, but your dad does, and rich and Cheryl are coming over, so it'll be nice to have I just thought I'd try a new recipe, but it all stemmed from Martha Stewart. Yeah, I'm not kidding you, because that was the 70s and the 80s kind of going into those 90s. And mom was doing stuff like that, and she would have the Living Magazine opened up in the kitchen and making stuff,

25:44  
you know, starting her own magazine like that at

25:47  
a time like that, like, not only that, weddings, babies, oh, a series that came out of there, and she was the first female billionaire when she hit that hammer at the stock exchange. I remember that moment of her standing there, and they stripped her down for a $48,000 stock trade that there was hundreds, if not 1000s, of men in trading. They made a fucking spectacle of her and shame on them, Shame on the people that were involved in this. Nothing happened to the guy that

26:20  
told her it's James Comey man. Honestly, he just, he wanted

26:24  
her take my quote out of your book demo.

26:27  
He wanted her and her friend who was sort of the guy who she was doing these trades with, and everything. He said that it was, it was made fairly clear to him that if he provided them with any sort of evidence that would lead to the takedown of Martha Stewart, that he himself would experience some level of leniency, and he didn't give it to them. But it didn't matter, because they were willing to throw her away over 48 grand. You're like, this is nothing to her. This is why would she ever like give me a break. And also, every single politician in the US is guilty of some level of insider trading. I had bet my house on it, like, I mean, it's just, it's this well documented thing. And I, I was, I was kind of like, I was happy to hear that story, because I remember being really young when that was going on, and it was this big, you know, joke in late night television. But I didn't realize how much money it cost her and and how that really set her back everything. Yes, it's, oh

27:16  
no, she lost stewardship of her empire. Essentially, she had to step aside and to see her now, yeah, she was a little bit crusty. I mean, some of those uncomfortable ground pauses. And when you watch the documentary, she's sitting in a chair, the interviewer obviously has been given carte blanche on what he wants to speak to her about. I found it fascinating to see how they did that beautiful job of her handwritten cursive that unfolded on the screen. This beautiful AI treatment. They did a bit of love letters and of being absolutely devastated and heartbroken at 45 years old, even after

27:52  
the interviewer, don't ask me, it like that. Do it like this?

27:55  
Yeah, but the moments of stillness where he sat and they left the camera running. They didn't do these long edits. There was like a one, 1002 1000 where she would look down, she would just refuse to answer it. She goes, I'm not talking about that anyway. One last thing before we head over to Jen Butler, I think you'll find the story really, really beautiful. It's, it's a reincarnation story. It involves a horse that she lost. I'm not going to say anything more about it, but Jen Butler is up next right after this break, so don't go away. It's a very uplifting, very positive story. We'll be right back.

28:38  
Welcome back to the Jan Arden podcast and show. I'm here with Caitlin and Sarah, and we have a wonderful guest, Jen Butler. And I'm gonna have Jen Butler tell us all about what do you do? Jen Butler, who are you? I found you on the internet. Okay, so

28:50  
a bit about me. I am a comedian. I'm a storyteller, a screenwriter. I'm a multi passionate person, right? So I don't want to just do the one thing I want to do all the things. And I, I would say, about a year ago, started what's called the avoidance journey. And this is where a lot of my following has come from, where I realized that complaining about my dreams not coming true, apparently, doesn't make dreams come true, which is, frankly, oh shit, yeah, I know, I know, I know. I'm sorry listeners, I apologize. I hope it works out differently for you. So I got tired of hearing myself complain because I kept going, I'm doing everything I can, I'm doing everything I can, and I wasn't when I got honest with myself, I'm like, there's a lot that I'm avoiding, and most of it was about putting myself out there. So I wrote down a list of 30 tasks that I had been avoiding as it related to bringing my dreams to reality, plopped them on a whiteboard, covered them with numbers one through 30 at random, and then I beckon my lovely significant other, make them pick a number. And then I do that task. I have 22 completed now, and it's been a truly life changing experience. And guess what? My dreams are coming true. Yay. The end podcast them isn't.

29:59  
That super interesting. Now, would you call it procrastination? Would you call it fear? I mean, obviously there was some kind of avoidance that kept you from starting that list. Let's say four years ago. Five years ago. What do you think was the difference this time in actually tackling some of these things? And if you wouldn't mind naming one or two of them if it's not too uncomfortable of what a couple of those tasks were that you undertook, sure,

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and it's not uncomfortable at all. My whole thing online is I share my messy behind the scenes as I'm pursuing my dreams, so that other people feel less alone in their messy behind the scenes. Because I think a lot of times we see the highlight reel of like I made it, and you're like, oh my god, overnight sensation, and that just doesn't really exist. I don't think I have always wanted to be a screenwriter. I would watch movies and complain that I could make a better movie. And then finally, during a Tuesday night existential Jan Butler, right during a typical Tuesday night existential crisis face first on the living room floor, as I'm telling my partner, like I just I could write a better movie. He stopped playing Call of Duty, so sweet, and said, you either need to do something about it or or stop complaining about it, because you've been saying this for years and you've yet to write a movie. So that started me on what's called the rejection journey, which is something I did a few years ago because I was so afraid of someone that someone would not like what I had created. Gasp, like anything that was less than, Jen, you have changed my fucking life just by existing, and what you made is the best thing I've ever seen. Anything less than that was like an attack on my soul. I felt it so intensely. So in 2022 I did a rejection journey where I sought out 22 rejections. I actively was like, I'm going to seek out these rejections. Because what was wild is by the end of the year, it took me the full year to get the 22 rejections, because I had 50 or more successes. Apparently you have to put yourself out there for people to say yes to you, an example of a task. So one of them was to share an unpopular opinion, and that was a scary one for me, because I have grown a following online, really,

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even with the comedic sort of aspect to your life, worrying. Well, there's

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a difference, okay, there's a difference in being like, haha funny, like, let me say things for shock value, versus let me remove this comedic mask, this persona of the entertainer, and let me be real and share something I feel strongly about that you might get mad at me for, gasp. And that's when I shared the video about my horse, which I think is one of the ones that you saw, Jan, yeah, the most uncomfortable one was publishing my book, Oh,

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it's scary. It's really, really scary. It's daunting.

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But there were some small ones, like recording a meditation for insight timer and posting it on Insight Timer, which is a free meditation app. Another one was to set up a Patreon because, oh my God, how scary to ask people to give me money. I still do it every day.

33:02  
That's amazing. It was one of our goals gem this year to when the girls and I got together and just talked about, what do we want to do this year? We wanted to do a live event. Really successful. Patreon was another thing that we wanted to go and it is. It's like you guys have been listening to this show for three and a half years, but today we're asking you to pay $5 but we try and really keep up with bonus material and things like that. But I get the guilt, the shame, that kind of beggar mentality of like that. We're asking for money, and we're creating things week after week after week that we believe is quality. I mean, it costs money to do these podcasts. Do you know what I mean? So, yeah, that's interesting that the Patreon thing would have been on your list too, because it was definitely on our list. Yeah.

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I mean, as a content creator, and I imagine you experience similar stuff with the podcast, there are so many roles that we're filling like, I'm not just the talent that's filming. I'm also the one filming, and I'm the one editing, doing the social media. And so I'm not paying people to do all that. I am. And so at some point it's like, Can I make a living doing this? You deserve to be paid. It's easy for you to say that to me, and it's easy for me to say that to you. Of like Jan, you deserve to be paid. You are working so hard that three of you, here's my money. But when it comes to me, I don't know what to do with my hands, so that's why Patreon was on the list, and it was scary. And then the scariest one was my book. So it's called volume control, a guidebook for highly sensitive people in a loud and spiky world. Because I've always had the volume turned up on life ever since I was a kid. Existence is a lot. It's just a lot. It's hard to be the person, man, it really is. Yeah, it's

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it's hard putting words onto a page and sending them out into the world, because, like any art, you're opening up yourself to criticism and vitriol and naysayers and people like, what gives you a right to say that you're not an expert at this or, I mean. Yeah, it's difficult. But then the same people that are making those kinds of comments, Jen, are the ones that have secretly been working on a book for five years, and they'll just never get it done. So it's much easier to be a critic than it is an actual author. Yeah, I don't know Caitlin questions. I'm dying to know what your thoughts on making

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these lists are. Well, sort of to your point about like, being the critic, and so you said you had the the rejection journey. But you also pointed out that you would watch movies and feel critical of them, like, Oh, I could do a better movie. Do you feel sometimes like having a critical inner voice can hold you back in life? Because if you're like, the kind of person who watches stuff and you're like, you see the ways that it could be improved, that can then be something you apply to yourself and your own journey as well.

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I think that character attributes can go rogue if they don't have a healthy expression. So an example of that with that hyper critical part of my personality for my big kid job. I'm a technical writer at a software development company. It's literally my job to nitpick people and correct them. It's a fucking joy, not as great in my personal life, but by finding a healthy expression for that outward, it helps me not be as critical internally. But that is certainly something that I struggle with, which is likely why sharing so consistently, allowing myself to take up space has been so scary, because I do have that inner voice, like my book made it on the Barnes and Noble Best Seller list, and I was pumped, and then my brain went, it's not going to be on there for very long now. And I'm like, but it is now. Can we enjoy this now, and it's like, let's just go ahead and grieve the moment that it will inevitably see. Yeah.

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So like, that's hard, because that can be a D motivator, but at the same time, like you said, if you point it in the right direction and it doesn't get too loud, it can ensure that the work you're doing is good and it's very intentional, but it's just like that balancing act of, I don't need to criticize myself into not doing anything. I don't need to be paralyzed by it. But at the same time, it's still there.

37:06  
Yeah, what's helped me is sharing about it too, because I share about it in videos, and especially when I was working on this book, because I had so much resistance around this book, there were so many times where I'm like, it's garbage, and I should just, I should trash it, and I should never share anything, ever actually, I should quit everything, and then I would share about it. And people are like, Oh, my God, I feel that same way. So I think there's a point in connecting those aspects of ourselves so we feel less alone. And that helps that part of my voice get quieter too, because I think it comes from fear and just wanting to protect me, yeah. And it

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helps a lot of people those shared experiences when you think you're so alone that listen. I want you to walk us through the story that I saw. Thank God for the algorithm. Jen Butler, I don't know how you landed on me, but it was something that I needed to hear that day. So it's a beautiful story, and I just want your take on it. It has to do with losing a beloved animal and opening yourself up to the magic of the possibility of reincarnation, that's all I'm going to say. I want your take on it, because this was a wild story, and I think a lot of people hope for a story like this. So take it away. A

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little bit of background. When I was two years old, I saw a horse for the first time. His name was coke. He's just raggedy old bay horse in California. And I immediately fell in love with horses, and I entered that little kid phase of, I want a pony, but I did it very differently. I was like, I want a pony, and mommy and daddy said ponies are expensive, so I decided I'm gonna save up every penny. I'm talking at two, I started this, and by the time I was 11, I saved it $4,000 which I have a 12 and a 10 year old bonus daughter now. And I'm like, wow, I look back, I'm like, good job, Bastion, because it's just a very different vibe. So I got my dream horse at 11. His name was chance, and it was one of those synchronistic things to find him and for him to find me. When looking for a horse, I swore the only thing, my one thing was, I do not want a white horse or a gray horse. They're a pain in the ass to clean. The morning of horse shows at 4am inevitably, they're gonna roll in their horse shit like they're gonna roll in their poop. They're gonna find something. They're gonna get dirty. So while all those people are out there with their chestnuts and their bays, like rolling out of bed at 7am I'm out there at 430 in the morning, freezing cold, like hosing him down and wiping the shit off his hind end. So I was like, no, no. White Horse. Naturally, I fell in love with a white horse named chance. He helped me through some of the hardest years of my life. I mean, teenage years, suck, 20s suck. Horses

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are very therapeutic. They're known for that. They're very intuitive, and they're very, very locked into what you feel and how you feel.

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Through some of the hardest years of my life, I got malignant melanoma and survived that. I started to deal with alcoholism, and when I was 25 we noticed that. Chance had a bump in his mouth, and it ended up being cancer that had infiltrated his jaw bone, and this was at a not great time in my life, but there's never a good time to lose a pet, and we had to say goodbye to him. It was the kindest thing to do. I donated his body to the education program at Auburn University, because I figured maybe he can help save a little girl's pony one day. So obviously, that was one of the most intense feelings of grief I've ever experienced. Because this is my, my best friend, from when I was 11 all the way through all these hard, hard years, you know. And I ended up falling deeper into alcoholism, but found my way to sobriety. And when I first got sober, it was probably, gosh, six months into sobriety, I had a dream, and in my dream, chance came to me and he said, essentially, I'm back. He was like, I've reincarnated. And at this point, keep in mind, like, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in magic or anything, right? I'm newly sober. Life sucks. I was dealing with breast implant illness without knowing it, so I was in pain and I was just cranky, so it was very

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alert. You got some shit going on, girl, did I? Did?

41:07  
I just knocked it all out. You know? I was just like, let me be miserable and sick for a handful of years. Now, what he says, I've reincarnated as an eight week old puppy, a male puppy, and I'm orange, and I'm at PetSmart, and I wake up and I tell my my boyfriend at that time, I was like, Oh, listen to this crazy shit, like my brain's just slowly coming back online from all the alcohol and drug abuse

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I met PetSmart. I mean, nothing like being specific. This is where I started laughing out loud in my house, because you're like, what fucking Pet Smart like, pet smarts are there in the world? Yeah,

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which one can you narrow it down? Give me GPS location. So I tell you know my then boyfriend. He's like, Well, we gotta go. Like, we

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have to go. I love him. He

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was a poet with a man bun, beautiful, beautiful. Cried a lot, though, cried a lot. I'm glad he had that big, open heart and push me to go. As I'm driving though, I check in with chance. I'm like, to whom it may concern, like, if life really is this magical, I'm gonna need you to knock some money off of this adoption fee for this puppy, because I was living in a 575 square foot apartment. I had no business. I'm newly sober. I don't need to get a puppy. What the hell am I doing here? And I hear or feel back that he's gonna be the last one. He tells me he's gonna be the last puppy. And I'm like, Okay, whenever. So we go to PetSmart, the closest one. I'm still totally skeptical at this point. I'm like, this is I'm a crazy person. So we show up to PetSmart, all these crates and everything are set up, and all of them are empty, except for one. In that one, there's an eight week old male orange puppy and a black puppy. So I was like, oh, not the last one. He's not the last one. So it's not true. And this couple comes up, picks up the black puppy, looks at me and says, that one's yours, pointing at the orange one. I still would not pick up the puppy, though, because I'm like, I know, once I smell that puppy breath, it's over. So this little boy and his dad come up and pet the orange puppy. I'm already feeling a little jealous. I'm like, Don't touch him. You know, I haven't even touched the puppy, but I'm like, that's about puppy. And then dad says over his shoulder, chance, chance, let's go. Little kid's name is Chance. Oh my god. At that point I'm like, looking at this cute, little wrinkly face, everything from the dream came true.

43:27  
Like, how many prompts did you need? Like, how many, clearly, a

43:31  
lot universe is like,

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oh my god, this is the dumbest person we've ever dealt with. Cosmically,

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she's so fucking stubborn. So I'm holding this precious puppy, and the woman that runs the adoption agency came up to me and she was like, listen, we had 23 dogs here. He's the last one. I'm packing up. You know, here's my card. I gotta pack him up too. I look at her card. Her name's Jennifer. My name's Jennifer. So again, the universe is like, tapping me, like, come up, come on. And she's like, I really got to pack everything up if you want to take him now, I'll knock $50 off. And I said, Here's my credit card. Like, at that point, I'm like, okay, every everything came true, here's my credit card. And I took a puppy home. His name is Floyd. Like Pink Floyd. He actually just turned 10. Also, when I first got Floyd and brought him home, he had Kittle cough and he had worms. And I had later learned that with reincarnation, that a lot of times what we died of, or whatever in a past life will bring into the next life and process through it, so it will kind of be a whisper or an echo or a ripple of what it was this shit doesn't surprise me. Yeah, I knew it was him by that point. You could look in his eyes and I could feel him, the void that I felt from not having chance was filled, and I don't think it would ever be 100% filled, because chance was 50. 100 pounds, and Floyd is 60 pounds, right? So it just, he's, he's, he took up a big part of of my life and a big part of my heart. But, I mean, there are times that even my mom will call Floyd chance, which is the weirdest thing. It just, it's just like our soul knows in some on some level, and I can look inside his eyes

45:19  
and some markings on the dog's face and the apple carrot thing was interesting to me as well, with a dog, yeah, he

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loves apples and he loves carrots. And another thing is chance had this really cool squiggly scar on his back right Hawk as his back right leg. And we never knew where it came from, but on his papers, it says, squiggly scar back right hook. And when Floyd was two, he had to have surgery on his back right leg, and he got he now has a squiggly scar on his back right leg. So, I mean, at this point, I'm like, All right, life's magical.

45:55  
I mean, obviously you've had the dog many, many years, and when you told the story, when you posted this on Instagram. What was the some of the reactions that you got from this? Were there disbelievers? Were there people like, you're crazy as a shit house door? Or were there people like, yes, that's happened to me, and I've had this experience. I find it really whimsical and magical, and I'm glad that you shared it, because I'm always looking for things like that, like, I don't think I want my mother to come back as a a deer in my yard, although that would be kind of really freaking cool. Um, but when my mom did pass away, the thing I said to her on her deathbed, I said, Mom, please bring lots of animals to the yard. I was distraught and bereft, and I'm having this conversation with my pretty much unconscious mother, riddled with Alzheimer's. Jen Butler, within days of her passing, I had deer coming through my yard. They have not stopped, bears, deers, moose, porcupines. I have three skunks living under my deck. It is a non stop. It's a zoo coming to my place. So I want to attribute it to that. But I also know that when my parents passed away, their two dogs had also passed away, their big farm dogs that ran the perimeter all the time. And my friends are like, well, you don't have the big dogs anymore, so obviously the animals can come. And I'm like, Don't fucking take my joy. That's what I want to believe. But people will find it's exactly what you said about your book being on The Best Seller list, human beings are geared and we're much, much better at and I'm sure you'll agree with me, accepting shitty news. We accept it gladly. Oh, of course, of course, it that didn't happen. Good news, the skepticism runs high like we just cannot. Our humanness, our humanness doesn't allow us to really accept that joy. But I really felt that sense of elation coming through in your story. And sorry. Back to the comment. I completely went off on my own tangent, but the comments you got were they mostly positive. I read some of them because I was curious to know what people said. Most

48:17  
people were in tears and we're like, I needed to hear this. Everyone has a soulmate animal, and everyone mentioned it, you know, they're like, oh my, my sweet Romeo. I hope he comes back. And, oh, I just lost my cat. And I really needed to hear this. And I hope this is true. Some people shared their own stories that were similar experiences. I did not see any naysayers. But I also, when a video goes viral, I stopped reading the comments at some point, because it's like the video will make it to my following. They share it with their people, they share it with their people, and eventually it's going to make it outside of the bubble of safe space, because eventually the video is gonna gonna topple over into haters, but I have yet to see any on that. Yeah, I

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think when it comes to animals, people seem to have more of a an open hearted spirit to that. I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing this with us, and sharing your book and all your accomplishments, and we're going to make sure that they're show notes so that everyone can find you. Jen Butler, in the United States of America, and congratulations on your sobriety. I'm 10 years me too and telling you yes. And just as a sidebar from me personally to you this whole chance thing i About three years ago, just just after COVID, I had a phone call from a guy. He still had my phone number from working on my home. I built a house out in the country, and this tax chart coming in like at midnight, it was. Winter night, cold winter night. And he said, Hey, Jan, I got your still have your phone number. I did some of the brick work on the blah, blah, blah, your house. I don't I'm at the end of my road. I've been living in my car with my dog. His dog's name is Chance. And he goes, I'm at the end of your road. I'm just gonna tie chance onto, like, your mailbox here, because this is the end of the road for me, buddy. And you've been a real nice lady. You've been real nice lady to me. You're always nice when I was there, like, I thought you'd be snobby, you know, being all famous and everything. And you're really nice lady. And I just, I, I'm looking at my phone. I'm like, Who is what is happening? Like, do I need to drive down my road and untied is get this dog? Um, he says, like, you can't have a dog. I don't care about my life, but I care about chance. And so I phoned immediately, and he picked up hello. I said, it's me, um, listen, I'm gonna wire you money right now, go get a hotel room, get dog, get your dog a big bag of dog fruit. Anyway, fast forward, he surrendered the dog to me. He's doing really great. He lives in a house. He got his daughter back. He stayed the night in the hotel room. And I just, I'm like, I phoned the police, and I said, this is what I'm doing. Because I said, You need to have someone check on you. And I said, I will figure out a place to put your dog chance. I just so what I read this whole thing about chance. I'm like, Oh my God, there's just so many chance lives in British Columbia. Chance has the life of the most amazing dog life ever, and my my pal, we still keep in touch, and he's doing great. But it's those moments where you don't know somebody, but you do it anyway. And that's what I like in those video stories, those stories of being vulnerable, you putting yourself out there about alcoholism, about, you know, the the cancer that you endure, the grief, you know, the stuff that you've gone through. And I appreciate you being vulnerable. And I we love stories like that. On our show, we have a lot of listeners that they just derive a lot of pleasure and security and calmness from real stories, from real people that go through this stuff, and, yeah, you come out and you don't always believe in the good things, but they're, they're, they're as tangible as the bad things.

52:29  
It's funny, too, when something bad happens and people tend to go, oh, here I am again. You know, with not a lot of money in my bank account, what I like to say is, when you have a lot of money in your bank account, do you go, well, here I am again. Here I am again, good again. No, it's like we hyper focus on on those negative times. And I'm really grateful that you all invited me on this podcast as well. And I have learned through my content creation, through sobriety, that there are synchronicities all over the place. There's something going on, and I, I've tried to understand it. I've tried to analyze it. I've, like, written it down and kept track of, like, trying to apply linear reasoning to it. And it's just, man, no, there's something, whether we say bigger or more magical, that's happening. And even the even the hard, challenging things, even the cancer, the breast implant, illness, even losing chance my my best friend, has all later in life, it's like that, that pain became something really beautiful later, and is how I connect with people now. So I think that even when we're in a really hard time, it's like, just stay put. Don't fucking give up just for today. Stay put or just for today. Don't drink or just for today. Don't kill yourself just for today, whatever it is that you need to get through that day, because you have no idea who you might connect with that next day exactly. You have no idea what tomorrow might bring.

53:57  
My dad used to say, don't just do something. Sit there. You're like, Isn't it the other way around? Oh, okay,

54:06  
that's a really wild part of the avoidance journey. So I'm a doer now, right? I'm like, I'm gonna make my dreams happen, and there are times that I get so just like, wound up. And I'm like, Why isn't anything happening? And my partner's like, why don't you just sit down and, like, play a video game. Sit down, relax a little bit, yeah, and I'll go and I'll watch a TV show. I'm like, This is stupid. Nothing's gonna happen. And then, of course, as I'm relaxed, all sorts of cool stuff starts happening. Yeah, yeah. Don't just do something. I'll

54:31  
sit there. Let's get T shirts made. Do it immediately. We're gonna have show notes. We're gonna direct people towards your book, towards your social media handles, but you've been really generous, and I'm so glad that you responded to me, because I just thought if you don't ask, you're not going to find out. But I was very touched by your story, and I just I've shared it with so many people. Have you seen that video about the woman that lost her horse and they fucking he took her to PetSmart fuck? I laughed out loud at that. Yeah, I just, I mean, but it's so many things. And when the dad called out his little boy's name, and it was chance, like, the universe tries so hard to to connect with us. And if you're not listening, it's I, every day, I wonder, Oh my god, what am I letting go? By me,

55:18  
what are we missing?

55:19  
Like, what are we missing anyway? Thanks so much for being here. Let's touch base in a few months and just see how things are going with you. And if you've written that fucking screenplay so or the final

55:31  
I read three, and I'm writing one about the story of chance. It's called Second Chance, so, oh

55:37  
yes,

55:39  
yeah, love that. Okay,

55:39  
well, congratulations on everything, and thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks for having me. What a blast. Stick around all you Patreon folks, because we're going to talk about a zany AI story. You're hearing all kinds of stuff going on. This is quite chilling, and Caden is going to tell us all about that, so you don't want to miss it. And we're also going to talk about the Oxford Dictionaries, word of the year. It's something they do all the time this time of year. I hate most of these words, but there's a few good zingers in there. I have I have my favorites. We're going to talk about that as well. Don't forget to pre order your T shirt, because we've got some only Jan's T shirts and tote bags, and you can find those on the Jan Arden pod.com you can find links in our show notes to go find those T shirts. We love them. We think they're fabulous, and don't get

56:33  
them before Jan buys them all. Yeah. Don't

56:36  
forget Patreon. You can win this Jurassic Park hat.

56:39  
So join us on Patreon. So

56:41  
join us on Patreon. Don't forget to come and say hi to us. There. We got lots more to talk about. Go hear us on your favorite streaming platforms. Give us a review. Five stars helps other people find us and talk your friends into signing up. Tell them you don't need tampons this month you need and that's only gonna get you one tampon anyway to come see us, or fellas, if it's you, you don't need those condoms. You don't need a box of condoms just pull out for the love of God. Okay,

57:15  
that's our medical disclaimer. Now, oh

57:18  
my gosh. I didn't even mean that. Don't go buy your freaking condoms. We'll see you next time. Jan Arden, podcaster show Caitlin and Sarah, do

57:32  
what we do. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai