Sacred Yes: Reclaiming Joy in Midlife | Jen Hatmaker Solo Episode  🔗 **Source:** [Sacred Yes: Reclaiming Joy in Midlife | Jen Hatmaker Solo Episode](https://share.snipd.com/episode/28fe72c4-d33e-49eb-ab41-37eeed079429) ## Highlights - **Crisis Summer That Sparked MeCamp** - In 2021 Jen and one child both collapsed emotionally and physically after a traumatic year; she requested mercy from teachers and took her family into summer me time. - Those interventions led to all passing grades and the decision to create MeCamp as a healing practice. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker So I remember that year, this is the very, this is like, honestly, May. And I emailed my kids' teachers, every one of them. There was probably three weeks left of school, maybe even four. And I said, we're not coming back to school. No, we're not, We're done with school. None of these missing assignments are getting done, of which there were. I'm going to think, let me do the math. 40 million. I'm like, zero. We're not, nothing's getting done. We were cooked. Like, and I asked every teacher, would you please, I'm begging for mercy, would you just pass us? Just pass us. Let us get to the summer. Let us heal. Let us regulate. Let us recover and start next year kind of fresh from a different place. And every one of those teachers, by the way, I got that report card. And from top to bottom, all 70s in our district that's passing, all 70s. I'm like, oh, weird, you got the same grade in every class. I'll be so grateful to those teachers for the rest of my life. Having said that, we were in a free fall. We were in a tailspin. And so I was like, what am I going to do? We got to get out of this house. We have to get off these screens. TikTok had been this like dark suck sinkhole of just toxicity. They know how to grab a teen by the ankle and pull them underwater. I'm like, we need some wholesome. Like we need some pure. I don't know. And I was just like, God, you know what? We need camp. My kid needs camp, like a month of camp. I mean, like wholesome, pure kind, like cabin skits and canoeing and you know what I'm saying? The cafeteria and hikes. And so, I mean, it's already May. Anyway, so I signed my kid up at the last possible second for a month of camp in Maine. I'd never been to Maine in my life. And we were talking, and it was just sort of a spontaneous blaze of glory. I just said, hey, what if I came to Maine and I'm there the whole time you're there? I was worried. I felt like I needed to provide an emotional safety net because we were still both really fragile. I said, what if I'm like two hours away? So if you need me, I can be there in a phone call. I'll be there in two hours. I don't even know what I was talking about. I just said that on the spot. I had not thought that thought until those words came out of my mouth. And that is how, throwing it out to the internet, like internet, what's Maine? What's a city? What's a town? Where do I stay? I ended up in Bar Harbor, Maine for the month of July, 2021. And not only did my kid completely recover, I did too. And so I was walking down the street in Bar Harbor and just talking to the internet on my phone. And I was like, you know what? I think I'm at camp. I'm like, my kid's at camp. I'm at me camp. I'm at a camp. And it is awesome. ([Time 0:11:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a65c4f2a-fac9-403c-97c3-aeacc2e5108e)) - **How MeCamp Was Born In Bar Harbor** - Jen Hatmaker invented MeCamp by spontaneously traveling to Bar Harbor, Maine in July 2021 while her child attended a month-long camp. - That solo month healed both of them and became an annual ritual that changed her life and opened her to new relationships and experiences. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker I just said, hey, what if I came to Maine and I'm there the whole time you're there? I was worried. I felt like I needed to provide an emotional safety net because we were still both really fragile. I said, what if I'm like two hours away? So if you need me, I can be there in a phone call. I'll be there in two hours. I don't even know what I was talking about. I just said that on the spot. I had not thought that thought until those words came out of my mouth. And that is how, throwing it out to the internet, like internet, what's Maine? What's a city? What's a town? Where do I stay? I ended up in Bar Harbor, Maine for the month of July, 2021. And not only did my kid completely recover, I did too. And so I was walking down the street in Bar Harbor and just talking to the internet on my phone. And I was like, you know what? I think I'm at camp. I'm like, my kid's at camp. I'm at me camp. I'm at a camp. And it is awesome. And I love camp. And that's how MeCamp was born. And I'd never traveled by myself in my life. I mean, I'd been married for 26 years and I got married when I was 19. So I'm like, what am I going to do? How am I going to be? Who travels by themselves? And I had some friends come up for just a few days, but for the most part, I was by myself the whole month. And when I tell you, it changed my life. I'm not just being demonstrative or like, I'm not exaggerating. That month of solo travel changed my life. ([Time 0:14:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/be2f3413-121f-4914-86a2-ef2152f4ef9a)) - **Yes As A Deliberate Posture For Connection** - Saying yes intentionally at MeCamp became a posture Jen used to invite connection, adventure, and healing. - She adopted a rule to be a 'yes girl' which led her to strangers' boats, neighborhood brunches, book clubs, and lasting friendships from each MeCamp. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker While I am here. There's going to be a version of me at Me Camp that I'm going to choose. And that girl is going to be a yes girl. That girl's going to say yes. She's going to say yes to whatever. She's going to say yes to whatever little random, cute little small town opportunity pops right in front of her. So that meant over the course of my meet camps, I've been on several strangers' boats, okay, because I got invited. I've been to neighborhood brunches. I have been to dinners at people's houses. Up in Michigan, when I was there for one year, I went up to Sagatuck to a whole book club, because they invited me. And my rule was, I'm going to say yes. I'm just going to say yes. They're like, do you want to come to our book club? And I was like, well, I do now. And we had the most wonderful night. You just could not believe it. I have said, I have friends now in my phone that we text and we have seen each other again from every single meet camp because I keep my heart very, very open to whatever's possible. Who could I meet? What could I experience? What might that look? Where could I go? What could I see? And when people are like, hey, do you want to? The answer is yes. And so that sacred yes got sort of imprinted on my heart. ([Time 0:16:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d803b23c-0467-4759-9440-695afda91a77)) - **Choosing Orillia For A Cozy Lakeside MeCamp** - Jen describes renting a lakeside cottage in Orillia, Ontario with a wall of windows over Lake Simcoe and a dock with chairs. - The environment—cool summer, walkable small lake town—fits her MeCamp metric and primes her for wholehearted yeses. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker I have a little cottage I rented, an Airbnb, and the whole wall of it is lake. Like the whole, it's all windows and it's completely on the lake. And I have a dock that goes all the way out into the water with chairs at the end. I have an Adirondack circle with a fire pit. And then I have a porch with big cushy chairs where I am going to probably read 10 books. I cannot explain to you what it feels like to pull into the town. I've never, all my meet camps have been to a little town. By the way, if you don't know this, I have a metric for where I'm going to go. That's how I find these little places. The metric is a really small town. I'm not going to a city. I like to be able to mostly walk or ride my bicycle almost everywhere. So really, really small town on water. And I don't care what that water is. And I've been on everything. I've been on both oceans. I have been on Lake Michigan. I have been on the Hudson River. I have been on Lake Superior. And this year, I'm on the smallest lake I've been on Lake Simcoe. ([Time 0:19:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9d1571f8-07bb-4b01-8e4a-19eef622ed01)) - **Recognizing The Obligated Yes** - Jen distinguishes obligated yeses (mouth says yes, body says no) from wholehearted yeses and explains reasons we give obligated yeses. - Common drivers include fear of disappointing others, wanting to avoid negative judgment, and keeping someone else's peace at your expense. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker I think I want to make sure we can talk about the distinction between the obligated yes, right? You know that one. We all know the obligated yes. That's the yes where our mouth is saying yes, but our whole body is saying absolutely not. Oh my, I've given so many of those, you guys. I'll never get to the bottom of how many of those I have handed out. And there's a lot of reasons why. I mean, I can speak for myself. I say yes when I want to say no for a handful of reasons. One, I usually don't want to disappoint someone. And if I'm being more honest, if I'm being the most honest, I don't want them to think badly of me. So it's not just that I don't want them to be disappointed, but it is what are they going to think about me if I say no? So that's just a real fun Enneagram 3 crucible that I will probably just have to work through my entire life. Sometimes we say yes just to keep the peace, but I have said this before and this is the truth. Don't get it twisted. When we say yes, to keep the peace, what that really means is yes, to keep someone else's peace. ([Time 0:26:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bea491de-39b2-4e43-91f1-e9aa763397cf)) - **Pull Your Yes To See Who Steps Up** - Do remove your habitual yes from situations where others default to you so they must step up; Jen quietly stepped back and others filled the gap. - She recommends pulling your seat back gently rather than dramatic exits to test if responsibility redistributes. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker Do you know what I mean? For those of you who are in an environment where you're like, I mean, I would love to say no, but who else is going to say yes? Oh, boy. You guys, I am in a situation exactly like that right now. Exactly. There is something heavy and important and hard and complicated to manage. I have been the person who has almost singularly been the lead adult in this space. I'm the yes person. I'm the yes parent. I'm the one to hold this particular burden. And two weeks ago, because I was at the end, I was genuinely at the end of my rope and I just pulled out quietly. Never done that. Never pulled back quietly. And what do you know? Let me just do the math. About seven additional people, adults mostly, filled in the vacuum to help stabilize this situation. So I am just suggesting that it could be that other people don't say yes because we always do. And they just default to us. So there is a possibility, I am just telling you, of pulling your yes off the table, not in a blaze of fury or take my ball and go home. I just very quietly pushed my seat back from the table and went, I am not going to manage this. And so other people did. ([Time 0:29:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/852d4af1-db25-46e7-91e9-29b650cb02e6)) - **Midlife Makes Irresponsible Yeses Costly** - Midlife intensifies the cost of irresponsible yeses because resilience and capacity decline with age. - Jen frames diminished tolerance not as weakness but as growth and a cue to protect energy and boundaries. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker Should have been noes. I feel that weight differently now. I don't bounce back from those as easy. I feel more exhausted by them. I notice I'm resentful quicker. I don't have the same capacity, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm not saying that as if I am diminishing. I am saying that as if my tolerance is diminishing. And that to me actually feels like growth. ([Time 0:32:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f7472ed1-0605-418a-aee4-76101358221f)) - **Leverage Travel Rewards To Afford MeCamp** - Use credit card travel rewards and route everyday expenses through a points card then pay it off frequently to fund experiences like MeCamp. - Jen runs all expenses through a travel rewards card and redeems points to offset travel costs responsibly. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker And so those contribute to me, Camp. And then this is just a little financial literacy tip I learned in the last six years, but I run all my expenses, including bills, groceries, everything, absolutely everything, through My travel rewards points credit card. And I pay it off a couple times a month, so I don't keep a balance on it, but I just use it for everything. So I have so many points that I get to also put toward MeCamp. And so I scaffold it financially, you know, with tricks, and you can too. There's a lot of ways to do that. So I don't want to get in the weeds on that. We do have a really cool resource that we've put together over the years to go, here's some things to consider, ways to pull this off. Because it doesn't just have to look one way. ([Time 0:35:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e2a8a0be-5124-468f-b900-5a316ae13802)) - **Work Less Intentionally To Reset Creativity** - MeCamp isn't full disengagement; Jen still works but intentionally reduces hours to create space for joy and restoration. - The deliberate scaling back, not total vacation, is part of why MeCamp rebuilds her creative and emotional reserves. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker And it is, I'm still working while I'm there. I don't take a month off. I mean, if you can do that, I'm thrilled for you. Do it. I don't, that's not my capacity, but I work less. I definitely work less. And that's for sure on purpose. That's a choice. That's part of the yes. ([Time 0:42:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9cf4d000-5bab-42bb-b50f-0776f4db92e8)) - **Give Yourself Permission For Unproductive Joy** - Do give yourself permission to pursue unproductive joy without guilt; Jen calls it joy that doesn't earn anything and practices it deliberately. - She urges swapping guilt for permission and treating rest as an inside job you authorize for yourself. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker And I just want to call it your permission to say yes to unproductive joy. Listen, look, Linda, if I say the word unproductive and I attach it to the word joy, you know that I have had some therapy because productivity for me is its own drug. And it's how I feel worthy of anything. It is how I feel like I keep people happy with me. Why people, not why people like me, but one of the reasons why they do. Because it's just the output. And thus, for me to say unproductive joy, I will tell you, I'm at maybe the 60% mark on that. Like my brain knows that this is important and so much so that I want to talk to you about it. My feelings have to really work on unproductive joy, really work on it. Because I have a gremlin that lives inside my brain that says, you are so lazy. Everyone is disappointed in you. You don't deserve this. Why do you deserve this? This is a real bummer because somebody else is going to have to work for you or in your place or in your stead. The gremlin has a lot of messages. And it leaves me feeling really the two feelings that it leaves me with is guilt and shame. And so I have to really, really battle that. Industrious, bootstrappy American mentality that says rest is at best optional, at worst, a character flaw, right? And so when I say unproductive joy, what I want to suggest to you is that that is a wonderful aspiration. ([Time 0:43:05](https://share.snipd.com/snip/797ce997-d6f5-4969-b09f-203148e654ee)) - **Design Your Restorative Day Blueprint** - Do design what restorative days feel like for you by detailing environment, sounds, smells, and activities that renew you. - Jen asks listeners to imagine building perfect restorative days and collecting several to recharge regularly. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker What does that environment look like? What does it sound like? What does it smell like? What would I see when I looked around? If you could build a day, a perfect day, where you thought this day would be so restorative, and then imagine that you got three or four or seven or eight of them, what it be? Like if you just closed your eyes and teleported yourself somewhere in which you thought at the end of that deal, I would feel renewed. That would do something for my psyche, for my spirit, for my sense of hope and capacity. That is really, that's where unproductive joy lives. ([Time 0:50:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a2ac504d-717b-48ac-bd7c-cefd7c3b3abd)) - **Initiate Rest Without Waiting For Approval** - Act without waiting for external permission; Jen warns that people often expect you to continue carrying responsibilities and won't offer rest. - She calls this an inside job and encourages initiating small or grand sacred yeses yourself. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker I just want to tell you, no one's going to give you permission. Most of the people in your life are very interested in you continuing to do everything that you already do, because that means they don't have to, right? Whatever it is that you do. I know women are generally the most important spoke in the wheel. We just are. I'm not being weird. It's just when our spoke is on a break, the other spokes are like, wow, why are you so selfish? Come back. We need you. We're poor. We're helpless. And so I'm just saying, if you're waiting for all the people in your life to go, you could use some unproductive joy. It's not coming. Okay. So this is an inside job. This is you giving you permission. And so of course this could be as like outrageous and demonstrative as like a me camp of your choosing and of whatever scope or scale you want. ([Time 0:51:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aab79644-1b8f-43a0-9b44-6ea9805a3d22)) - **Choose Weekly Mini Sacred Yeses** - Try small, repeatable sacred yeses like ending work early on Fridays; Jen stops working at noon to create weekly unproductive joy time. - She uses that block for long lunches with family and to build sustainable rest habits year-round. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker And I'm a soul. Let me be fair. I don't get this right all the time, and I don't always do it. But I have attempted to, and to some degree of success, instituted a rule where I am done working on Fridays at noon. I mean, I work from home. I work for myself. So I don't have an office or a boss. This should be possible for somebody who works at home. But something about that little yes attached to unproductive joy, because to me that just signals unproductivity. I could have another half a day of work and I always have enough. I have more than a half a day of work all times to do. My job is never over. It's never done and I'm never caught up. So it's not as if I couldn't be productive that afternoon, but I attach it to unproductive joy because what it tells me is that if I'm honoring my own boundaries, I get to have lunch with People on that day. I normally have lunch with my sisters and my mom because they just know we can count on you Friday after 12 o'clock. And so we usually go have like a long two hour today, this very day, this is a Friday. This is my last thing. I'm doing this in the morning. I'm having lunch with a friend at noon. ([Time 0:52:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0807f384-d233-4bfb-a902-10a229e2b531)) - **Prioritize Joy Over A Productivity Legacy** - Jen reframes a lifetime of relentless productivity as a poor legacy and prefers a life defined by sacred yeses and joy. - She imagines older self remembering trips and relationships, not hours billed, shifting priorities to long-term wellbeing. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker Burning the candle at both ends, month after month, year after year, I swear to God, decade after decade is not sustainable. And I don't want it to be. I don't want it to be. I don't want that to be my legacy. I don't want that to be the story I tell about my life when I'm 95 on my deathbed. I don't want that. I don't want to say I worked really hard and I didn't take vacations. I don't want to say I never traveled with my friends or family. I don't want to say I was working at 10'clock on a Saturday night most weekends. Gross. No, thank you. That's not it. That's not the legacy I want. It's not the life I want. I don't want that life. That life feels sad and hard, and it feels like a law of diminishing returns. What do we get for it? What do we get for that? So I just don't think that's our North Star, is how productive we can be on this lifetime. That's not it. That's not the thing that I remember. It's not the thing my kids are going to remember about me. That's not going to be the stories that we tell. ([Time 0:55:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/37d48ec1-799f-4515-a5a8-7ecbae85ddf9)) - **Make Reading A Structured Sacred Yes** - If books recharge you, join a community or create structured reading rituals to make reading a sustained sacred yes. - Jen points to her book club and Substack Awake Collective as places that force regular reading and shared engagement. Transcript: Jen Hatmaker It has no equal. There is nothing like books in my life. Nothing else can compare. Nothing can give me what they do. Nothing enriches my mind and my soul, my spirit and my imagination like reading. And so you will find that being one of the top two categories of my sacred yeses and me camp for sure. So if that's you, if you're like, oh, yes, yes, give me the books and reading, which feels really like sacred, really joyful. If you're like, give me a book in a chair. Join us over in a gin hat maker book club. Like we'll essentially force you to read at least one book a month in this really special community. So we've got a space for you. If you're like, how could I move myself into an environment that gets to say yes to more reading and more books? That's one way. Anyway, we'd love to have you. I'll put that link in show notes if you're interested, or you can just Google it. Just a few thousand incredible women who are like reading is one of our sacred yeses. And I'm like, it sure is mine. ([Time 0:57:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e15007a1-e8b3-4deb-aa0a-d5823a3b224b))