Transforming Relationships: Insights from Jay Moon Fields

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:00:59

Well, hello everybody and welcome to another amazing episode of the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast where we hear from amazing leaders and their game changing insights. And today I have the absolute pleasure of introducing to you Jay Moon Fields. Let me tell you a little bit about her.

She is a somatic coach, an experiential educator, author, and a podcast host with 20 years of experience helping high achieving individuals develop emotional regulation, set boundaries and communicate authentically in their purpose, personal and professional relationships. She has a lot of experience and I can't wait to have this conversation. So welcome to the podcast, Jay.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:01:38

Thank you so much, Jacqueline. Good to be here.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:01:41

All right, so I am so curious about this because we were talking beforehand, you know, about relationships and you know, the intelligence, you know, men, women, but specifically a lot of women, and how, how we feel about relationships really can dictate, you know, our behaviors and how we interact with other people. And so I'm really curious as to what got you, first of all, started down this path.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:02:14

Good question. I felt we were going in this way, like, what about the work? And then it was like, switch. How did you get here? That is, that is, I do want.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:02:23

To know how it relates to work, but usually Tyler comes back to like, how'd you get here?

Jay Moon Fields: 00:02:27

For sure. So I, you know, we were talking about growing up on the east coast, going, going to the good schools, all of that. So I'm a, I'm an east coast girl.

I was a good student, I was a good girl, I was a competitive gymnast. I went to the good school, all that, right. And then I got, I got married when I was 21, which was not what I was expecting for myself at all.

I, I was a tomboy, I was an independent person. I thought for sure I'm going to, if I ever get married, I'm going to get married when in my 30s.

But here I was, I got married when I was 21, didn't know how to actually be true to myself while being close to another person. And the marriage ended in two years. It was a disaster.

And I stepped away from that, asking myself the question, how is it that I could have just royally effed that up as big as I did because I thought, I'm smart. I was a yoga teacher at the time. I was four years into my practice of meditation and yoga.

I was like, I know myself, I'm self aware, I'm emotionally intelligent, and I don't know how to be in a relationship.

So that's really what started all of this in the sense of I then spent the next 15 years or so really screwing up still in my romantic relationships, I mean, for sure, but also studying. Like, how does, how does this happen that I. That I don't know how to do this?

Because I was really professionally successful, but within my professional, professional success, a lot of my relationships felt really exhausting or lopsided or hard to manage. You know, like, the only parts of my life that didn't feel successful were anything that had to do with me being around other people.

And I'm like, I'm good with, I can talk to anybody. But the problem was I didn't know how to be, like, solid inside myself around other people. I could perform, I could. People, please.

I could be whoever you needed me to be, but that didn't necessarily mean I was having a good experience of myself.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:04:45

So you didn't know how to be you?

Jay Moon Fields: 00:04:47

Exactly. Yeah.

Or I felt like I could be me, but I was going to be alone the rest of my life because I did most of my, most of my 20s, and even in my early 30s, I lived off the grid. I live by myself. I like, I was very much. If I'm gonna have a good experience of me, it's because I'm alone.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:05:09

Ah, so that being alone. Do you feel like part of that just helped you create a, you know, create that boundary because you didn't want to get hurt too?

Jay Moon Fields: 00:05:23

Yes. Yeah. I mean, it was like, I'm in a bubble. And in this bubble, not only can I not get hurt, I also won't hurt anybody.

Because that was the story of my marriage and subsequent divorce is I hurt him very, very much. And it was, it was, it was devastating, you know, and I just kind of felt like I can't be trusted.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:05:53

So, so what helped you? You know, what helped you? You know, you said learning.

So what was the thing that brought you to become now the, the person that you can trust yourself?

Jay Moon Fields: 00:06:09

A lot of different pieces.

The first piece was having a better relationship with myself, which is why I had to kind of go be alone in all these different ways is I had to go figure out who I was. And I didn't have a way to do that when I was around other people.

You know, like, as a grown up person to figure out what are my preferences, what do I like, what, you know, to really have a sense of what my insides were. The other pieces that really helped were understanding. Excuse me, we're going, going to therapy for one kind of understanding.

What, what were the developmental. What was, what did I get trained to do?

Relationally because of my development and within that also understanding the role of trauma and how the nervous system organizes itself around safety, belonging and mattering. So that was that piece where that understanding the nervous system was what allowed me to see why I know better. I'm smart, I am self aware.

I, I have, I've read the books, I've done the therapy and I'm still behaving in these ways in my relationships because my nervous system has this default to. This is what you do to stay safe.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:07:32

So, so there's like a trigger that happens, right. That helps you stay safe, Right?

Jay Moon Fields: 00:07:43

Yeah, it's like that in everyday normal dynamics. As a person who I would consider myself a highly sensitive person, I'm an empath.

I'm reading other people to get who are they, what do they need for me to feel comfortable. Right. So the, the triggers aren't necessarily like negative things. They are the, the what I'm reading in the environment.

And then how does that then turn on in me some sort of default strategy to make it all better? If, if that makes sense. Like make it copacetic, make it so that you're gonna like me, make it so that I don't get hurt.

All of those pieces that it's, it's these default, I call them strategic selves.

Where early on when we're growing up, we learn how to behave in order to be accepted and you know, to go back to the joke we were making around being from Boston and being from the east coast, I'm from outside of D.C. you know, like one of the, one of the strategic selves I have, I call her tough girl and she's sarcastic as hell. Right.

Like my family trafficked in sarcasm. Like that's how we, that's how we shared emotion. Right. So I have a part of me that's incredibly sarcastic.

It's going to be quick, it's going to have all the right answers.

And that part of me might help me be great at my, in a professional setting, but it's not going to help me in dating because I, nobody can get close to that. You know, that's hard. That's got a wall up. But it is one of my default strategies to try and feel like I can relate to someone.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:09:38

Right.

So this is like, this is fascinating to me because I'm, I'm thinking about all of this and I'm also thinking there's so much about what you are talking about and how it does relate back into the workforce and how people relate and the triggers or the things that they do to relate better. And maybe they're not actually being their authentic self.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:10:01

Yes. And. And as you said that, the thing that I would say is most people take on jobs that allow them to be their strategic self at its best.

Like, I was just joking with you beforehand about how my. My assistant calls herself on demand Jen. Right. Like her. One of her strategic selves is, I'm gonna be there for you no matter what.

I'm gonna work six times harder than anyone else. I'm gonna be up till midnight. That sort of. That's a strategic. She developed in her family of origin to get love and to get acceptance.

And it works for her at work. Right. The people therapists who are empaths and people pleasers as their strategic self. That works for you as a therapist. The problem is two things.

One, that strategy will often learn to lead to burnout in your job because it's. It's imbalanced to begin with. It's not a whole part. It's not a whole you. It's a part of you.

And then the second thing that is the challenge about being great at being your strategic self at work is that it doesn't translate to personal relationships. You can say to yourself, but I'm, you know, I'm so accomplished, I'm so successful. I often talk about the. The jokingly.

The clients I work with are professionally success and relationally a mess because the. The strategies that they use to be really good at their work don't translate to intimacy, to friendship, to connection.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:11:40

And so. So how do you help somebody who is in that role at work and is that successful? Like, what are. And I'll.

I'll use, you know, what are the two steps that you have them to go through?

Jay Moon Fields: 00:11:55

Two stuff.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:11:55

I know.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:11:56

I'm like, how many. The.

One of the first major things is for someone to recognize that that is a part of them, because much of the time, if you identify as being that overachiever, that that's just who I am, you then can't dis connect yourself from the behavior until you can see, oh, that's a part of me. And to be able to then feel what it feels like when you feel like you're being Jacqueline, when you feel like you're being Jay, you know, when you.

When you just.

You're comfortable, you're around friends or you're by yourself, and when you can get the sense that, like, oh, I know that who I am when I'm at my most home in myself is not the achiever, is not the tough girl is not the people pleaser. Whatever it is, that's the first step. And then, gosh, the second step.

I'm trying to see how I would simplify it because there's so many different pieces to this. The second step revolves around changing your mentality to believe that you will actually get related to.

And the reason I say it that way is because any of the strategies we have aren't relationships. They're not relating. They're strategizing. There's something about it that's. And it doesn't mean that it's inherently bad. It's just.

It's maybe manipulative. It's. It's, you know, it's mental. You're trying to figure out how you get something. But if a person really believes that they get to be related to.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:13:54

Like.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:13:55

A lot of the strategies, a lot of the defenses drop. Now unpacking, what does that mean that you get to be related to. That's a. There's complexity to that, but that's.

The step is like, this strategy isn't who you are, and you actually do get to be related to you, not whoever your strategic part is. You get to have someone relate to you.

And I find that when I bring that up with a new client, there's this sense of like, really, you know, kind of leaning in hopefulness. But then I can also see the part of them that doesn't believe it yet because they've never felt it.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:14:43

Right. It's so fun. You know, as you're talking, some of the things that are. That are.

That I'm thinking about is, you know, the successful people, the successful woman or the person who's, you know, and I, I'll say women more than men too. Is that because you hear. I think a lot more that you'll. You'll hear someone say, oh, my God, she's super successful.

And successful women have a hard time finding being in a relationship because men don't want to relate to somebody because they're so successful they feel threatened by that. In actuality, there's a lot of stuff that's. I think we can unpack a lot of that.

And I think a lot of that mentality is also what you then could help people fix. Like if somebody's come, you know, is thinking, oh, I can't have a relationship because I'm.

I'm not really, you know, men don't want somebody like me because I am super successful, or I'm. I'm a strong. You hear that a lot. I'm A strong woman. I have a hard time relating to certain men. That's a, I mean, it's total.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:15:48

But to what you're saying, it's a continuation of the thing that might actually be more unconscious, which is they just don't expect to be related to. So this is the red herring. They get to say I'm not being related to because I'm a strong woman. I'm not being related to because I'm successful.

But really, if you go all the way back, there's this inherent shame around, like I want more connection and there must be something wrong with me for wanting it because I'm not getting it.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:16:24

And that's a whole. I mean, to me, that right there is a huge issue. And I think that's something in the workforce that is, that has weirdly changed in the wrong way.

And I'll, and I'll say, and I'll give the example, you know, it used to be okay in some ways that we, we thrive and, and need all of us humans, we're humans, human connection.

And so in the workforce in particular, so many times more recently, I don't, you know, statistically speaking, it cannot give you the exact like year, month, whatever that we really saw this change. But there's a deeper connection that stopped happening.

And you know, yes, we, you know, people, you know, maybe it's because people are taking out their phones and they're texting or they're not having the deeper conversations and they're not using, they're not articulating or they've lost the power of using voice or they don't know how to have those conversations. But there's a, there has been an overarching shift in, in the, in a reduction of human connection which then causes a myriad of, you know.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:17:37

Right. And we, and there's a sense of being siloed.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:17:40

Yeah. And it was interesting.

And I'll share this as an example, not exactly the same thing, but I was on an airplane recently and I was, I'll see the woman on the other aisle seat. We were chit chatting and came like, you know, airplane friends.

And the flight attendant walked by and I happened to notice when she was giving out snacks that there was, she gave out a certain, oh, you've got these pretzels. Can I have those pretzels instead of the graham crackers or whatever the hell it was.

And my new friend for the plane was like, oh, I didn't know those. And so she turned around and just gently tapped the flight attendant. What ensued after was just Craziness.

Flight attendant turned around, yells at this woman for touching her.

And my part of saying this is because we've gotten to a point where just a tap, like, that's a human connection and a nice gesture to say to somebody. Right. It's not out of. Not done mean malice or anything, but, you know, that human connection needs to happen, and we need it in the workforce.

We need it with people.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:19:03

Yeah. I mean, that story that you just shared to me highlights the role of the nervous system. Right.

Like, I'm thinking about airplane travel right now and how tense it is and how much since the pandemic, flight attendants have been attacked and have had really, really scary, inappropriate exchanges with someone. And I can understand how that flight attendant would have had that reaction to being tapped, because in that world now, that is.

Who knows how safe that is. Right? Or even if it is a gentle, friendly, hey, I want some pretzels.

The flight attendant's nervous system doesn't necessarily know that, and it immediately goes into fight. And so, yes. I mean, yes to that. The. Not just in the airline industry, but in all industries. I think the. What you're speaking to is that there is.

There is a heightenedness to our sense of being unsafe or being disconnected, and then that only perpetuates it more.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:20:15

Right, right. Yeah. And it's. And so, you know, when we were sitting here talking about this, and it's like. And it's like all of a sudden what.

What I'm thinking about is that person who, in whatever field they're in, and they're acting in that strategic self because they're that Persona in. At work. But maybe they don't want that be that Persona at home. And how do we bring those two together so that the values that they have as a.

As a human, as a person can be in both places.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:20:48

It's what your. Your fingers, as you interlace them, what you're. What you're alluding to, there is integration. Right. That.

That Persona you have at work isn't something that you need to get rid of when you come home. It's something that needs to be integrated. And this is a part of what I do with people who I work with. And if you've.

You're familiar with parts work or internal family systems, that whole idea is that we all of us have different parts within ourselves. We have these strategic parts. We have the little.

The little kids or the wounded child in us, and that the goal is never to try and get rid of that, because you can't. The goal is to be able to have them be integrated.

So that what that means is that, you know, what it feels like to show up as your true self, your essential self. Jacqueline. Right. Jay.

My grown out 45 year old self, who also includes my 7 year old self, my 21 year old self, and the good girl and the tough girl girl and all of that. But that integration means that I am not led by any of those parts of me, that I am led by my wholeness.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:22:10

Yeah.

So, so tell me, Jay, like, so, you know, we were talking a little bit about, you know, your, you know, describe a little bit about your framework, the hayweight framework, and, and how it relates and how you bring that into your practice of, of coaching people.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:22:31

So I was trying to think of what is the two word. You know, we're talking about the magic of two, two steps, two words that really gets at the heart of what I'm teaching.

And the heart of what I'm teaching is to step back and kind of go back to what we were just talking about.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:22:48

You're.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:22:48

There's nothing wrong with you for wanting to be related to. There's nothing wrong with you for feeling unfulfilled in your relationships and wanting more from them.

And part of what needs to happen is you need to start acting as if that's true.

And so, hey, wait, are the two words that you use to shift the dynamic in any relationship where you feel like you're not being considered, where you feel like you're not being related to.

So, you know, it might be you're having a conversation with a friend and you were trying to share something and then they just steamrolled you and took it over and now they're talking about them and you say, hey, wait. I actually would love to be able to go back and finish that story and have your input. Right. Hey, wait, what?

It's, it's the, it's the healthier version of what about me?

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:23:42

Right, right, right.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:23:44

You're in a work meeting and hey, wait. I actually have a question about that. Can we pause for me to ask that? Yeah, you know, hey, wait, I don't see that the same way that you do.

Can we talk about this? Because when you don't expect to be related to, you let yourself get steamrolled a lot. You let relationships get lopsided.

And I, I've just found for myself and for the clients I work with, having those two words is like a little bit of a magic bean, you know, where it's like, you don't have to even Know what you need to say after hey, wait to say it? Because giving your hey wait is like, as soon as you say it, you buy yourself a beat, right?

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:24:33

Yeah. Right. It gives you. It gives you a.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:24:37

All you need. Exactly. All you need to know is that you don't like how you're feeling in that moment. You're not having a good experience of yourself.

Because the thing that is true for the people I work with is they've gotten way too comfortable not having a good experience of themselves around other people.

And so it's like anytime you start to notice you're sped up inside, you are feeling small around somebody, you feel shut down, you feel like you want to fight, you feel like you want to, you know, say something mean. Any of those things where you're like, I don't like how this feels. That's a hey wait moment.

And then you get to ask for or make the statement that's going to make you have a better experience in that moment.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:25:23

Yeah, I love that. It actually gives people. It, it brings back.

It gives people back the power to actually address what they're feeling and almost like get comfortable with themselves. And I. It's. It's a great, It's a great thing.

It reminds me also of really of, you know, putting something in there so that we can acknowledge ourselves. Right. And not Absolutely. And not put ourselves down as, as women. Particularly as women.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:26:01

Absolutely. The way that I would say, what I've. I hear you saying is like, you put yourself in the room.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:26:08

Yeah, right. Yes. You put your. Exactly. You're putting yourself in your room. You're not letting things happen.

You're making a presence and you're actually getting the courage to speak. You know, it's. And, and that's so important. It's so powerful and it's so important. It's so important in so many ways. I love it. I absolutely love it.

So. So, Jake, how can people connect with you and learn more about what you are offering? Get, you know, take advantage of. Of. Of your greatness.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:26:37

Thank you. Thank you. My website is jmoonfields.com and you can.

And through that get all the information about the online courses I have and offerings and I have a podcast that's called hey Wait. So it's easy to remember and I would highly recommend to the. To your listener, go and listen to the first episode of hey Wait.

Because I talk about the orig of how this came to be and what kind of training you might have gotten in terms of relational training growing up and what does it mean to be a good person in relationship?

Because that training is where this tool came from because a lot of us got this weird, unhealthy message about what it means to be a good person in relationship. So, yeah, podcast is. Hey, wait.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:27:33

Fantastic. All right, so I only include that in the show notes and make sure everybody has that as well. So listeners, please do me a favor.

We've got some great nuggets here, and it is so important for us both. And I'm going to say, men and women, this relates to everybody. So please do me a favor. Go and reach out to Jay.

Connect with her on her website, connect with her on LinkedIn.

And then once you do that, please make sure you also hit subscribe to this podcast so that you can share this with other people because it is such an important message. This is the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast. I'm your host. And Jay, thank you so much for being an amazing guest.

Jay Moon Fields: 00:28:14

Thank you for the great interview, Jaclyn.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:28:16

You're welcome.