Meet Jenny Hecht of Karuna Healing in Louisville

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Hecht.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Sometimes, I really don’t know how I got to where I am today. I have these moments where I look around at my life and think, with tremendous gratitude, “How did I manage to manifest all of this?” At a significant moment in my career, I sought the counsel of one of my most profound mentors, Beverly Title. She graciously held space for me to share my tangled thoughts and feelings and when I invited her wisdom, she simply said “Just trust.” We talked about the times in our lives when we followed an inner sense that was oftentimes incongruent with that which those around us were advising and reflected on how valuable that choice had been each and every time.

My life has been a series of serendipitous decisions – some small, others much larger. Much of it has felt like and often looked like luck. But the reality is, every time I followed my inner knowing, I could tell I made the right choice because it felt easy. Every time I went against my inner knowing, falling prey to external influence, it almost always felt like I was swimming against the current.

I was on television as a child (Google “Jenny Rebecca Dweir” if you really find that interesting enough to pursue further) and at the age of nine, I decided that I wanted to be a “regular” kid. So, I quit, returned to public school, and thoroughly enjoyed my middle school and high school years (“thoroughly” might be a slight exaggeration…), never regretting that choice. The summer before my senior year of college, I secured an internship at a high-profile advertising agency, the career I thought I wanted to pursue. By the end of the summer, I knew this was not the right path for me and I walked away from the security of a job offer, into my senior year of college having no idea what I was going to do. After graduation, I accepted a position in the Development office at my university and spent two years traveling and fundraising. During that time, a trusted colleague asked if I had ever considered social work as a career. I hadn’t. But upon reflection, I realized that helping others had been an inherent part of who I was throughout my life and something I deeply valued. So, I applied to graduate programs and got my Masters in Social Work at the University of Michigan, with a focus on working with children and adolescents.

I moved to Colorado immediately and over the course of the next two years, I worked for social services, a residential treatment center, and an outpatient treatment facility for adult males. I left each upon recognizing that familiar feeling that I was still not on the right path. That is when I was offered a position on the Prevention and Intervention Team at Mental Health Partners – a program that was, at the time, a collaboration between the Cities of Boulder and Longmont, Boulder County Public Health, Mental Health Partners, Boulder Valley School District, and St. Vrain Valley School District. The program provided mental health professionals to middle schools and high schools in each district to focus on meeting the emotional needs of individual students, as well as developing and/or facilitating prevention programming. I loved working with this program. I finally felt like I was on the right path.

Five years later, I was invited to apply for the position of Program Director/Principal of a therapeutic private school for youth who had been expelled from public school. I had zero experience in education other than working within a school building, but the Executive Director was looking for someone who could lead with a therapeutic lens. So, I applied and was as transparent as possible during my interview regarding my lack of experience in education, but somehow, they believed I was the best person for the job. And so I trusted again and discovered that they were right. I loved this job and three years later, when the program lost funding and the non-profit agency we were a part of was forced to close the program down, I found my way back to the Prevention and Intervention Team and joined the staff at Fairview High School in Boulder.

Over the course of the next three years, I discovered that I love working with gifted individuals and learn that giftedness is much more a psychological phenomenon than an educational label, opening my eyes and my passion to advocate for and offer support to this community; I was introduced to Sources of Strength, a national prevention program which seeks to destigmatize conversation about mental health, encourage help-seeking behaviors, and build resiliency and became certified as a trainer; and I decided to open a small, part-time private practice. But during the fall of 2014, the confluence of several events, including the passing of my mentor, Beverly, I decided it was time for me to take another step. I resigned from the team and stepped into my private practice full-time. I continued facilitating Sources of Strength in various schools throughout the district through a contract position and began to submit speaking proposals more frequently to various conferences. I also decided to become certified to teach yoga as I had incorporated yoga into groups I had run and wanted to be able to do so on a deeper level.

I spent the next two years trying to figure out how to balance all of these roles, none of which I wished to give up, but which made me feel like I was changing roles throughout the week and feeling a lack of consistency and grounding. I was a yoga teacher, a therapist, a trainer, a speaker… and then one day, I realized that I show up the same way in each of these roles. I realized that I am effectively providing the same core message and support through each of these roles, it just offered me a variety of ways to do so. And now, again, I look around and I think “How did I get so lucky as to create a career for myself in which I get to do all of these things that I love?” But I realize that it is not luck. It is my path.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. One of my biggest struggles throughout my life has always been imposter syndrome… feeling like a fraud, whether it be as a therapist, an adult, a mother, I always questioned my right to think I could do these things. Beverly Title was one of several prominent mentors in my life, all of whom are powerful women, and all of whom have challenged and continue to challenge this in me… not just by being encouraging and supportive, but by asking me to consider how such thinking serves me and reminding me that I was not alone in this experience. My husband, Ethan, who I met in college, has been by my side throughout this entire journey and his unwavering belief in me, as well as that of my 13-year-old daughter, Emma, has been profoundly impactful to me as I have navigated these internal challenges as well. In fact, my husband recently cleared space in his professional life in order to begin working with and supporting me in my business. He and my daughter are both significant reasons why I do what I do and why I am able to do what I do.

I also had to learn how to authentically fulfill the various roles I played and not just perform them as though they are characters. With a background in performing, that had become a successful compensatory strategy for my imposter syndrome – just pretend you are playing a character who is a therapist/yoga teacher/speaker/trainer who is confident and deserves that role. When I taught my final yoga practicum to receive my certification, my teachers offered me glowing praise for the technical aspects of my teaching and then asked: “But where were you?” This was a profound awakening for me… and while I continue to work hard to mitigate this tendency, I find great power in regularly asking myself that very same question.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Karuna Healing – what should we know?
Karuna is a Sanskrit word translated to mean any action that is taken to diminish the suffering of others and could also be translated as “compassionate action.” My practice is grounded in compassion… towards ourselves, as well as towards others. It has always been clear to me, through the experiences of my work, that we do not extend this grace towards ourselves nearly as freely as we do for others. This is a primary foundation of my work, whether it be with individual clients, groups of middle and/or high school students, or my yoga students, my core message is always grounded in self-compassion. Our default setting as human beings is to judge and criticize ourselves in ways that we would never do to others. We would never do that to others because we know the pain we would cause and we do not wish to cause others pain. When we speak to ourselves in unkind and self-deprecating ways, we are causing ourselves pain and breeding shame, both of which are paralyzing and toxic.

I am a mindfulness-based therapist because I believe that there are two ways to live your life – mindfully and mindlessly. There are many reasons why we may live mindlessly, many of which relate to the pain and shame I referenced above. We often seek relief from that pain and shame by numbing and distracting ourselves, regardless of whether or not we are aware of the dangers/risks of our choices. Addiction is not to be judged as it is born out of a desire to self-soothe. We are doing a very poor job of teaching young people how to tolerate difficult feelings and how to feel better without numbing and distracting. So, we continue to perpetuate addiction. Mindfulness is about being willing to feel anything and everything that comes with the experience of being human, even when you know it will be painful… because you trust that you have tools to help you to feel better.

There is nothing more disempowering than feeling as though our emotions are running the show. I have yet to meet someone who has not had at least one experience of saying or doing something they later regretted when consumed by a big and difficult feeling. It does not feel good to lose control. Karuna Healing is about self-compassion, mindfulness, and empowerment. I don’t know that this sets me apart from others, but it is what defines me and what defines my business.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Gratitude. I cannot adequately speak to its power. It is of great importance to me to live a life that goes beyond means to an end thinking. I want to have a relationship with my life and with my work that allows me to enjoy every experience, every step, every misstep, every success, every failure, every fear, every excitement… all of it… without it just being about a destination. I have found that the more I focus on my deep gratitude for what I have at this moment, the more abundance seems to flow into my life.

And of course, trust. Because the path I have taken was not only lined with oppositional voices, but with obstacles that at the time, felt devastating to me. In hindsight, I recognize each as a gift from the universe – sometimes a whisper, others a shove. But all served to gently correct my path and to lead me to this present moment for which I am exceedingly grateful.

Contact Info:

• Address: 864 West S. Boulder Road
  Louisville, CO 80027
• Website: www.jennyhecht.com
• Phone: (303) 817-9220
• Email: hecht.jenny@gmail.com

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