Jewel’s lifelong mission to help scale happiness in Hollywood

“I retired for two years after my second album Spirit because I wasn’t psychologically coping to the degree of popularity I had gained.” In my music career, I’ve made some fairly bold moves that may or may not have been good for my music career, but were really beneficial to my happiness.”

While Jewel’s career hasn’t followed the typical pop star path, it has enabled her to not just rehabilitate but also to spread the wellness riches, striving to improve mental health for others through a growing number of platforms. She claims that outlets are now more necessary than ever before.

“I refuse to call where we are as a society ‘progress’ if we’re murdering one other at unprecedented rates,” she adds. “As a community, a culture, a country, and a planet, we need to figure out how to include emotional intelligence and mental health hygiene into the institutions we already have.”

There’s the Inspiring Children Foundation, which Jewel started in 2002 to give at-risk youngsters with a development model focusing on mentorship, project-driven education, and a tennis academy to help them deal with issues like anxiety, despair, and suicide thoughts. Jewel Inc., a non-profit “emotional health destination” website, was founded in 2017 as an umbrella for her projects, including JewelNeverBroken.com.

There were the “Whole Human” mindfulness-focused courses she’s working on for both school-aged children and the corporate sector, which she’ll soon unveil in collaboration with Saks Fifth Avenue’s SaksWorks branded co-working hubs.

“It truly dawned on me then that there were two sorts of inheritances,” Jewel recalls, reflecting on her life-changing decision. “I was aware that the emotional language I inherited would result in negative consequences. It was terrifying to believe that my life was predetermined due of generations of torture.”