Rebel HR Podcast: Life and Work on Your Terms

RHR 145: Mindful HR with Jennifer Ciarimboli

Kyle Roed, The HR Guy Season 3 Episode 145

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After working in corporate sales for nearly a decade, Jennifer walked away from her career and successes to abandon burnout, transform her life through mindfulness, and start her own global well-tech company to help corporate employees all over the world.

After studying and training with world-renowned experts in yoga and mindfulness meditation, Jennifer realized that if she had access to these practices years ago, she might have been better able to manage chronic stress and debilitating burnout — and from this insight, studio BE was born.

studio BE is a global well-tech company that specializes in transforming the 21st-century workplace through mindfulness-based practices. With the help of expert facilitators from around the world, studio BE allows companies to give their employees tools to be more resilient, more connected, and more mindful — one breath at a time.

Jennifer’s story, which she shares with funny, relatable, and insightful anecdotes from her experience as the founder of a start-up, a corporate employee, a mindfulness teacher, and a mother of four as well as supportive scientific data and even a brief practice, might save your listeners from the same struggle with stress and burnout in the workplace and at home. 

Website: www.studiobemindfulness.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meetyourcenter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studiobemindfulness/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/studiobemindful
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/studio-be-meet-your-center/
Jennifer's Linked In page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-ciarimboli-58064528/

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Jennifer Ciarimboli:

And that's what in my private practice the executives that were coming to see me and the reason I was able to grow that practice is because they were all trying to figure out how to relax. They had no idea. There were no tools out there. This is

Kyle Roed:

the rebel HR Podcast, the podcast, where we talk to HR innovators about all things people leadership. If you're looking for places to find about new ways to think about the world of work, this is the podcast for you. Please subscribe to my favorite podcast listening platform today. And leave us a review revelon HR rebels. Well, welcome back revolutes. Our listeners extremely excited with us today we have Jennifer serum bully, she is the founder of Studio B as well as CEO. She began her career in the telecommunications industry after a decade of success. She suffered from burnout and transformed her life. So really excited to talk about Jennifer and her journey as well as how we can think about some of her work as it relates to human resources in the workforce. Welcome to the show, Jen.

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Hi. Hi, Kyle, it's so nice to be here with you. How are you doing

Kyle Roed:

really well, really excited to finally have the chance to talk with you we've had to reschedule this this a couple of times, but I really appreciate your flexibility and and spending some time I think this topic is going to be really powerful for for our listeners. So I want to start off just by understanding a little bit more about about your background, and what prompted you to found Studio B.

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Um, I get off, I get asked that question often. And I apologize. I've been in meetings, like, six, you know, Zoom meetings back to back before our call today. So I might feel a person.

Kyle Roed:

We've got plenty of grace here. Every single one of these listeners can relate to what you just said,

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Oh, my goodness, yeah, I'm sure they can. And it's too much, by the way. So, um, and I know better. But I digress. So, you know, I started thinking about this work. After really having some personal experiences. You know, you mentioned that I experienced burnout. And you know, at the time like that the word burnout was in our vocabulary, this is back in 2005 2007. You know, in that period of time, like I knew what I was experiencing was burnout. But we didn't, we didn't really have a definition for it, at least not a clinical definition. Right. That didn't come out until many, many years later. And, and so, but what I experienced personally, is, you know, I, I was in a job that I once really enjoyed, I was working in the telecom industry, I had worked my way up from general business sales, like slinging long distance services to selling wide area network infrastructure, hardware and software to you know, national and international companies and landed in, in the national accounts space. So I had kind of, you know, reach, I had reached all my goals in my, in that job. And I had learned a lot I learned how to manage and be with, you know, manage my own team and articulate, you know, our needs throughout the organization, kind of navigating that corporate infrastructure. I really understood, you know, how to navigate my way around client accounts, and, and, you know, communicate and engage with decision makers and move contracts through, you know, the funnel. And then also, you know, it goes through the implementation process, and so on and so forth. So, you know, I was, I was in a space where I was still young, still learning, still really engaged. And yet, you know, I, I was burning the candle at both ends. I had three kids at the time, you know, I have four in total now. But at the time, my kids were young, we were a young family, I was traveling all the time. I just didn't have the boundaries. I didn't know how to set those good healthy boundaries, and really manage my personal life and my work life in a way that was healthy. Right. And that you could only do that alone. Right? So So of course, you know, I, you know, I hit a wall, my relationship. My marriage specifically was kind of falling apart. I was, you know, worried about my kids. I was, you know, jumping on final calls every day with with my teams and, you know, I was just sick, I lost probably 25 pounds, you know, I wasn't taking care of myself, my mental health, you know, starting to have anxiety, overwhelm my relationships are falling apart the whole thing, right? So I mean that experience and and you get to a point where you just can't do it anymore, right? So and the first thing to go is is your engagement or for me at least I can only speak from my personal experience, you know, the first thing to really crash and burn was was my my work I just hate ended up hating my job hating the people I worked with, you know, it certainly wasn't their fault that I was showing up differently. And I just couldn't, I just had no, I had no sense of knowing how to support myself, I had no tools to inner resource. And I just let it all fall down. And I think that's what happens to people like they turn around and they're like, what just happened. Um, so I left my job, I really needed to, I needed to get some support, I needed to work through, you know, a divorce, work through kind of figuring out how what direction my life was gonna go in. So I don't think it typically that gets that terrible for people, I hope. I mean, I do know that it I know a lot of people that have similar stories, but for me, it got pretty bad. And I did leave the job. And I did kind of fine, like crawl out of that hole. But it took a couple of years, and it took a lot of intervention, it took a while leaning into a lot of resources externally, so that I could build those internal resources and, and kind of, you know, get healthy. And I did that. And, you know, I didn't go back. I didn't go back into business marketing, you know, where I was educated. I actually became a yoga teacher. I started that process in 2007, with my first 200 hour teacher training program, and I did that not only to because at the time, I don't think I My intention was to teach full time, I think my intention was to support inner growth. And you know, I had been doing yoga for about 10 years at the time. And I think it was probably the only thing that kept me off of medication, when I hit like that really bad space. And I'm not, I'm not advocating for not medicating just so everybody's clear. I'm absolutely an advocate for all of the resources that you need to stay and get healthy. But for me, you know, I'm a pretty physical person, I like to run, hike, you know, I love to you know, I was a dancer as a kid. And so yoga for me was something that I could be in my body, I could just be in the brass, I could just land on my mat, and, and maintain. And at the time, I just, I just felt that I was being called to just deepen my experience. And that was the only intention. And that led me down a road of really, you know, I'm one of those kinds of people that when I'm in I'm all in right. So I wanted to know everything I get really nerdy with, like the science and the history and the philosophy and the details. And, you know, I love to learn I think I'm a lifelong learner. I hope that never changes. So I really did, I ended up having over 2000 hours of training in yoga and mindfulness. I went through a to two year training in mindfulness practices specifically, I've studied Buddhism, extensively, I did a year in London, studying with my primary teachers there. I own a yoga studio for six and a half years. I taught yoga and mindfulness practices full time for 12 years. And you know, I got to a point where I was really really healthy and steady and well for you know, and I still am that's the good news. But, but at that point, like when I got through like that crisis period and like stabilized and and really started Um, supporting other people and seeing especially, you know, with my, with my private practice, you know, I worked mainly with executives because they related, you know, to me, they related to the experiences that I was coming into the practice with being in the corporate world, you know, struggling with with burnout, overwhelming anxiety, stress. And so I worked primarily with men, many executives, lawyers, doctors, also women too, but I was just getting all these like, men who, you know, were in these really powerful positions and, and then they go and you know, run a triathlon or participate in triathlon or run a half marathon on the weekends. And, you know, that's such a classic type a response, I'm stressed out, so I'm gonna go stress my body out more. And, you know, and it's so fun. Laughing.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah. laughing because I just did a half Ironman last year. So yeah, I can I know what you're talking about.

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Yeah, and so you know, what they were coming to see me because it really my yoga practice. And, you know, my, when my, when I started my yoga practice, and I was, you know, in the workplace, in corporate sales, I did Ashtanga Yoga, which is a really intense disciplines, you know, muscle, you know, strength based young practice. But when I, when I went through that whole period, and I was really figuring out how to heal my nervous system, because that's really what it was about is how do I stabilize and heal my nervous system in this body. Um, that's when I really leaned into restorative practices, yin yoga, and mindfulness and pranayama practices, breathing practices. And that's what in my private practice, the executives that were coming to see me, and the reason I was able to grow that practice, is because they were all trying to figure out how to relax, right, they had no idea, there were no tools out there. Right. And, you know, it's funny, because doctors or visit, you know, pas, nurses, whatever, they often will recommend yoga as a way to, you know, cope with stress and, you know, help people with anxiety and overwhelm depression, whatever. And it's, it's always a wonderful thing. But they should be really specific. And, hey, seek out somebody that can teach you restorative practices, in perhaps the yoga modality, right somatic practices, it find a teacher who is skilled, to teach you method and technique to calm your system, right? Because, because there's tons that you know, and this is a big problem in the yoga world, is that these 200 hour programs, you know, they're just not well monitored, you kind of don't know what you're gonna get, you know, so people don't know that when they go out to, you know, drop into a yoga class, hey, they may, they may be dropping into class, that's super intense, that's gonna max out your nervous system with loud music and hot, you know, key not. And all of those fun, right? Those things are fun. I mean, I'm not saying that I don't enjoy them. But if you're already kind of burning the candle at both ends, you know, have this young disposition is type A personality, really, what you don't need is more physical young practices, right? You need to learn how to be in the body, in stillness, with care and compassion. Right? And it be an inner friend to yourself. And, and the reason why I'm bringing all this in, is because as I went further and further, further down my career and in the well being a lot realm, you know, running and owning a studio and teaching full time and working with these people and, and kind of noticing who was showing up, you know, I kind of naturally started thinking about, Okay, I have I had this experience, I understand where these people are coming from, and I know how to help them. So how do I bring this together? And then, you know, I mentioned I was I was doing study in London in 2017 2018. And I was with a group of 25 women from around the world who were also studying Buddhism and mindfulness practices specifically, from a Uh, you know, Tera Vaada in kind of teachings Vipassana cheat teaching, so on and so forth. And these women were expert teachers, they were lifelong practitioners, they had, you know, a consistent, dedicated practice for decades. And I would say 80% of the women in that circle of women had also experienced the exact same thing that I experienced, they were in corporate, you know, in the corporate world, some of them were lawyers, or physicians or professors are, you know, that they had, they had a career prior to this, where they, they they burned out, they left their career, it was too much, you know, and then they committed their lives to these practices, and being a teacher being a healer in the world. And what I found most fascinating is that they were also the teachers that were really struggling to kind of build a sustainable income as a teacher, right, they didn't have, they didn't really have skills to kind of promote themselves, and so on and so forth. And that's really when, during that period of time, when the entire business plan, like the original business plan of Studio B kind of fell in my lap, I was like, oh, wait a second, there's a dramatic need to bring highly skilled, expert resources. And and in this, you know, specific case, I'm talking about mindfulness and yoga teachers. And we've expanded there, obviously, but expert resources to people as interventions in the workplace, because people need it. And remember, this is pre pandemic, so 2017. So the problem was always the problem has been around for a long time, the pandemic just blew it up, right? I mean, it just escalates. It brought the light of awareness to like, Hey, pay attention here, because people are crashing, we are in a crisis, you know, a massive global crisis right now. And if you peel up the layers here, a lot of these problems have been here for a long time, of course, not the pandemic, not the virus. But mental health has been a crisis, not only in the United States, but but throughout the world for decades. Right. And nobody's been attending to it. So it's been very, very interesting. You know, we launched Studio B, I launched Studio B in January of 2019. And I was so I mean, I would say, the, the main focus that I've had that's been consistent, right? Since since 2017, when I started thinking about, you know, the company to launch to now and obviously, there's, it's been four years, there's been a lot of growth and development and reef be, you know, just expansion and all of that, learning with our customers, and so on and so forth. But the one continuum, throughout from then till now, is, I'm most concerned about accessibility for people. Because, you know, remember, I own the studio for for a significant amount of years, guess who's coming in the door, privileged white people, right. And not many people in the world can afford or has access to expert teachers or resources on their own dime, right? It's just true, right? And for the people that that can afford it. Many of them don't feel comfortable walking into studios, especially, you know, we're not in a major city here in Northeast Pennsylvania, where, you know, in between cities, we're two hours from New York City, we're two hours from Philadelphia. So our population or demographic is different. So, you know, a single mom or Hispanic man or a black woman might not feel comfortable going to the local yoga studio, where the majority of the people there are going to be white upper class women, right? They just aren't going to feel comfortable. Yet. They they're interested in curious about the practices, but how do we provide accessibility to everybody so that there's no barriers to accessing resources that can be very helpful. And now we have 20 years of science proving that mindful and I'm just Gonna use mindfulness as an example. You know, there's over 10, I think there's over 12,000 studies now on the efficacy of mindfulness practices for, for our health and well being, not just our mental health, right, our physical health, our relational health, the health of a society even. So it ripples out. And, and we need to make sure that people have access. So that's always been the mission, you know, how do we bring these practices? How do we bring these resources and people these experts forward in a way that people can learn how to take better care of themselves and each other?

Kyle Roed:

Absolutely, I think, you know, really, just so much, you know, powerful content and things to consider, you know, especially, especially from, you know, an HR standpoint where, you know, sometimes not necessarily always, but sometimes the cause of some of this challenge for people is the workplace. Right? And you know, that or it can certainly at least the catalyst. So, yeah, we were talking before I hit record about a term that AI is new for me. And so I'd like to explore this a little bit that the term that you use was regenerative workplace. So as you think about that, you know, kind of the context of what you just shared and regenerative workplaces what what does that mean? What does that look like, you know, in your mind, and how can we facilitate that as HR professionals?

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Yeah, that's such a good question. And, you know, I've seen definitions kind of floating in and out, there's, you know, white papers that are naming this aspiration, I think the Surgeon General just released supportive material for wellbeing in workplaces, and flourishing and workplaces human flourishing. So either, you know, without the structure of a culture and leadership's commitment to that culture, to transform, pretty progressive progressively transform into a culture where everyone is cared for, and resourced appropriately to thrive. That's kind of that. What does that mean to you know, what is the question is, we could turn that all around and say the question is, how, right? What does it mean to me? And I think that the, the answer the definition to regenerative workplaces is very specific to each organization that is thinking in those terms, because of course, every organization it is thinking about it differently based on their organizational readiness for something like this, right? So if the organization has never thought ever, about well being or wellness, even, right, as an imperative to their company culture, as a benefit that is absolutely needed, just as a baseline, then are they going to be considering what a regenerative workplace means for them? The you know, the answer is no. So I think it depends, and I think it needs it's a question that needs to be asked to every leader involved in any organization, in 2022, going into 2023, coming out of the, the pandemic, trying to figure out how to deploy resources across the organization that are going to be transformative. So I think there's more questions than answers or definitions and what that means, because it's so specific to the culture that you're in.

Kyle Roed:

Absolutely, you know, I think it's just a really it's really an interesting aspect of a human resources professionals job at this point, you know, this and like you said, I just think about the, you know, my experience of you know, this was not on our radar 15 years ago, you know, this this Oh, really has been thrust into the spotlight, but I think but it's been there. Right. It's, it's continually been there and we've we've dealt with these challenges, but typically, they've taken the symptom of you know, somebody who's acting out at work or you no conflict at work with coworkers or people who are taking leave of absences for you know, undisclosed reasons. We just we haven't had the vocabulary or the focus on it now. So I think I think we're in a really important and, and potentially transformative spot Sure, sure, for companies to take some ownership of this and really support support their employees and as well as themselves, you know?

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean, every HR executive, and by the way, it's not fair that any of this is being pushed into the lap of HR executives. Right. I mean, it's just outrageous. And, and what we're seeing, especially in the enterprise space, is that, but you know, executive boards, been at the Board of Directors, that leadership of the company is, is really also in agreement, right. So they're, they're now pulling some of this, some companies, not all, of course, but some, you know, some companies really high up on that organizational readiness realm, you know, they've, they get it, they're deploying resources, they're looking at interventions there. But what they're most importantly doing is they are hiring chief wellbeing officers or chief medical officers, you know, Chief dei officers, and they're assembling a team of people that bring clinical experience into mental health support, specifically, right. They're also looking at other domains of well being, of course, but, you know, we're working with a company that, you know, recently, you know, within the last two years, hired a Chief Medical Officer, you know, from a major research institution. So we're seeing these investments being made by executive teams to really say, No, wellbeing is an imperative. And they need to have their own budget, right, and resources and teams, so that we can shift the culture of our company dramatically into a culture of care. And, of course, you know, it takes time because, you know, some of these resources came on board board during the pandemic, out of necessity, right out of pure, like terror, basically. And now, you know, we've got any, you know, arguably, to the other side of this thing, um, you know, post pandemic, I don't know, my husband just had COVID, two weeks ago.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah. I don't know, when we're post pandemic, but I'm gonna go is close enough. I don't

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

know, I don't know. So I hate I hate even talking about it. But, but we've learned a lot. We've built a lot of tools have been have been designed and built. And I think a lot of processes have been built with, you know, internally, within our clients, company, within companies, so that they're, you know, trying to figure out how do I operationalize this? Right, because well being, I mean, we're talking about well being, right. So how do you operationalize well being these are the questions that are being asked, and, and these are the questions we're asking ourselves is because, you know, quite frankly, these decision makers are leaning into, you know, people like me in our in my team, and our partners, to kind of give them some advice here. And so, you know, their systems are being developed and assessments are being developed. And in the end, these tools, I think, are we're going to see dramatic transformation in tools like ours over the next, you know, three to five years over the next five to 10 years. So, we're learning so much, and, and the NSA think, you know, that those are the conversations that are happening. But what I'm always reminding myself, is, everything we're talking about right now, is going to be different six months from now, a year from now 24 Because we are learning so much every day. We have more research, more peer reviewed research, more data coming out every day. There's people all over the world working on solutions for flourishing in the workplace. And it's an exciting time to be doing this work.

Kyle Roed:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you know, I mean, from my standpoint, I do appreciate the you giving us HR people and out because yeah, we're not, you know, chief medical officers or, or, or psychologist, some of us are, you know, Industrial Organizational psych majors, which is the closest that we but that doesn't mean that we understand, you know, that evil deeds for people, right, this means we have, you know, an understanding of some of the psychological principles as it relates to the workplace. But I do think, you know, leveraging that expertise, you know, being, being that sense of conscious, or your conscience for your organization is so, so important, and even asking those tough questions like, How are we opening our employees through this to your leadership team? You know, I think that, you know, that's the role that that we play, as well, as, you know, yeah. And if people are struggling to write, we're here to help you,

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

God struggling so much. I mean, I want to say one thing, though, I don't want I don't want any HR executive that might be listening to this today that they're not capable or not qualified, or Yeah, none of that is true. I mean, it HR is, is is dramatically important in the in the process, right. But what I'm saying is that we can bring in additional resources that in and companies are, and I think it's great, because HR has has had enough, right, they've had enough on their plate, especially over the last three years. So they need support, and it doesn't eliminate that them from the process of rolling this out of, you know, understanding how it relates to the other the other benefit benefits that have been deployed, of really understanding what people need. And I think that's where we see HR playing such a critical role. Like, there's been a lot of tools that have been, like, just deployed, because people don't know what the heck to do. So they're like, Okay, I'm gonna subscribe to this app, or this service, or, you know, you know, bring in a yoga teacher, you know, for a yoga class on site, or virtually, you know, once a week, you know, I think there's a, I forget, who said it, that there was a famous quote, recently, and it was like, you can't yoga your way out of this, right? That's true. I mean, yoga is one of the things we bring forward as a tool. But it certainly not all we do. And so I think people get confused a little when they start looking at Studio B as a solution, because they think, Oh, well, it's just yoga and mindfulness. Well, not really, right. Those are just some of the tools that we lean into. We believe that the foundation of of all wellbeing in any domain is a development of awareness. Right? So how do we develop awareness so that we understand how we're feeling when we're feeling it? Or how we're reacting or responding, when it's actually happening? How are we, you know, how is our individual ability to ground in present moment awareness so that our attention is fully in this space right now? Right? And I do wholeheartedly believe, and maybe, obviously, it could be from my 25 years of practicing yoga and mindfulness. But I wholeheartedly believe that without tools to develop awareness to to be present, and in the moment wholeheartedly with compassion and curiosity, and kindness to ourselves and others, that, you know, it's not we're not sustainable without it. So yeah, we lean a lot into the development of awareness, awareness through mindfulness practices, through compassion, practices, metta, kindness, gratitude, generosity, all of these qualities, these natural human capacities that we all have, right? So how do we harness these capacities, and develop tools that can not only feel better, but then apply those tools to relational challenges that come up? Every single day? Right? Whether it's with the with our kids, or our family, or you know, whatever. So, yeah, I feel like I'm beginning

Kyle Roed:

though it's, and I'm just I'm just listening and soaking it all in Jennifer. So you know, I haven't asked many questions, but I have, I just feel like it's such an important topic. And I want to make sure you have an opportunity to, to, you know, give us as much content as possible. I do think you know it. So, you know, this is something on a personal level that I've certainly been on a personal journey of mindfulness and meditation, and, you know, I'm trying to relax. But still, you know, still struggle to stay present and focused with, with everything that's going on I, maybe I have one more question that I think is maybe important to, to align our listeners around. And that's, that's the, the, the topic of metta. And I think it's one of those things that, you know, in the western society might be a little, maybe sound a little woowoo. But I think it's such a powerful, powerful topic. So can you just kind of walk our listeners through it? You know, what do you mean by that? What is what is this? What is this approach to the world? And? And how can we reflect that, you know, in our day to day lives?

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Yeah. Yes, you're right. And I should have defined that when I said it. So I'm glad you asked the question. Metta really translates as loving kindness, loving kindness, and really what it translates to, are the capacities of the heart. Right. So if we think about loving kindness as a natural human capacity, first and foremost, it philosophically that means that you know, we are, we come into this body into this life, with this pure heart, with this open, pure heart. And we could trust it, we could trust the capacity of the heart to be boundless, great, and we could keep adding to that capacity. And we could keep kind of flexing it through practices that remind us of how powerful that heart connection is, right? So that's really what the meta practices do. They're a reminder that we, we have this we could trust, this capacity to love and be kind to ourselves and each other. And of course, all these other beautiful human qualities are related to metta. And I mentioned some of them, you know, specifically compassion and empathy. We talk a lot about compassion practices, and self compassion practices, and the development of empathy and how important that is, when we're in a leadership role, that we could lead people with empathy. So metta practices are essentially, and there's a lot of ways to do them. There's very traditional practices, that you can go through traditional, essentially, you know, traditional sayings or kind of similar to mantra, but a little different. Where you go through a metta practice and you're led to a be competitive, you know, extend loving kindness, like energetically and kind of imagining leaning into this kind of unknown space, right? of imagining someone that's really easy to extend love to that could be your pet, or a child in your life or grandparent, as an example. And if you could kind of imagine this person or being and extend loving kindness with some simple phrases like, may you be, well, you know, may you be healthy, May you be safe, may you be filled with loving kindness. So those are just some simple phrases that we could use. And we could kind of imagine this being being you know, envelopes and in this beautiful wish or aspiration for them. And when you go through the practice of loving kindness, you actually feel warmth in your heart, and you feel more connected to the person that you're imagining. And you kind of go through this exercise where you know, you then imagine extending loving kindness to someone you know, neutral that you might not know well, that you see often that you don't have any strong feelings for maybe, you know, I always think of this guy that works at the UPS office that I drop packages off ad because he's got this big personality and he always makes me smile and I think about you know, sending him metta and and how, you know, he's just always kind All right, so somebody like that, that you don't really have any charged, you know, relationships with. And then you go down like this road of, okay? Can I send my data now to somebody that's difficult to love, right, maybe that person at work that you are challenged with currently or you know, a family member, or spouse or friend. And we build this capacity over time, to be with discomfort in a way that really transforms our relationship with discomfort, right, because that's, it's in that in that I'm getting into a lot now. You can tell I'm a teacher, but but the the meta practices have a physical experience, when they're done in the right way, in a quiet space with the support of a teacher, and it does build this inner trust that I could sit with something, or I could turn towards something that's really uncomfortable. And I could just land in my body in a different way, and not shut down, not become reactive, immediately, not turn away from the discomfort that I'm experiencing, but rather stay open. So you know, these practices are, are very powerful, and very transformative. And you have to kind of get introduced to them, you know, in the right way, slowly with the guidance of a teacher, because as you said, the practices are simple, but simple, doesn't mean easy, right? Even the, you know, mindfulness practices, Metta practices, breathing practices, embodied movement practices, the bar, I mean, we could get into trauma, we should, we'd have to have a whole other conversation about trauma to working with. But, you know, these practices are really potent, very powerful, very transformative, and people need the support of a teacher. Or, or sometimes it's just too hard.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah. But I think, you know, there's, there's so much there, I think, you know, if I could maybe leave our audience with something to consider is, you know, if you're not thinking about these sorts of things, as it relates to the workforce, there's a huge opportunity here to really step up and help people and maybe ask those questions of, of both your organization and of yourself. Because if you're not coming to work, you know, with with full mindfulness and presence and, and you know, and an open heart and mind, you know, you, you may not be, you know, doing your employees, the, the service that they need you to do and your role as a human resources professional. So, with that being said, We're gonna shift gears, we're gonna go through the rebel HR flash round really quick here, because we're, we're quickly running out of time. So question number one, where does HR need to rebel?

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Toxic work culture? Absolutely. We need to be in a culture where it's okay to take a break where it's okay to rest, where it's okay to be honest, where it's okay to check out and set clean and clear and healthy boundaries.

Kyle Roed:

Absolutely. And, you know, every time I get ready to send an email on a Saturday, I have to remind myself that's, that's a good call out. Thank you for that. All right, question number two, who should we be listening to?

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Hmm. Artists? Let's, let's listen more to the artists to the creatives, to the songwriters, to the poets. stay inspired in in your life, and that will translate to inspiration in your work.

Kyle Roed:

I love it. All right, last question here. How can our listeners connect with you learn more about some of your work and and some of the important topics we discussed today?

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Oh, absolutely. Well, you could always email me, and I'm sure you'll share that information. But it's Jennifer at meet your center.com you can go to our website. It's a Studio B mindfulness.com. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm not super active. Unfortunately, I'm not a super active social media person. But I am on there. I'm on LinkedIn. I don't know what my hands I'm gonna, I'm gonna hope that you'll share that as well. And I'm also on Instagram. And I do share their more with some good tips. Studio B, mindfulness, mindfulness. says on Instagram. And my handle on Instagram is Jenny in Zen. So I'd love to get some follows and I would, you know, definitely welcome any opportunity to connect.

Kyle Roed:

Absolutely. Really, really appreciate it. And just an absolutely wonderful, wonderful discussion. Really important and critical topic and I have just I've gained so much value from from this conversation that I'm sure our listeners have as well. Thank you for the time, Jennifer.

Jennifer Ciarimboli:

Awesome. Thank you so much for inviting me. Have a good afternoon. You too. Thanks. Bye.

Kyle Roed:

All right, that does it for the rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at rebel HR podcast, Twitter at rebel HR guy, or see our website at rebel human resources.com. The views and opinions expressed by rebel HR podcast are those the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast. Maybe

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