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Jay Shetty Podcast

Alexis Ren ON: Breaking Negative Cycles and Letting Go of the Lies We Tell Ourselves

Alexis sits down with Jay Shetty to talk about how her late mother influenced her to be her own person, to always treat failures and heartbreaks as stepping stones to where she is headed, to validate pain and the lessons they teach, and to…

Alexis RenguestJay Shettyhost

Aug 16, 20211h 37mWatch on YouTube

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CHAPTERS

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Chapter summaries

Mother’s Day collapse and the shock of a terminal diagnosis
Alexis Ren recounts the moment her mother collapsed on Mother’s Day 2014 and the family’s sudden discovery that her mother had terminal cancer. She describes the disbelief of being told her mother might only have days to live.
- •Her mother collapses at home on Mother’s Day 2014
- •At the hospital, doctors say her mother has terminal cancer
- •Alexis describes the immediate shock and confusion of the news
Reconnecting with Jay Shetty and the tension of wanting many different lives
Jay introduces Alexis and frames the conversation around community, purpose, and mental health advocacy. Alexis shares how she spreads herself thin due to many passions and feels driven to address mental health cycles, relationships, and broader societal issues.
- •Jay introduces Alexis and highlights her mental health advocacy and women’s empowerment work
- •Alexis explains feeling pulled toward many passions and learning to focus one thing at a time
- •She describes wanting to break unhealthy cycles around parenting, relationships, and beliefs
- •She talks about pushing back against being boxed in as “just” a model
Homeschooling, creativity, and ballet as her first passion
Alexis shares that she was homeschooled her entire life, which let her immerse deeply in creativity and learning. She describes ballet as her first major passion and how her mother built education around Alexis’s interests.
- •She was homeschooled and never attended a classroom
- •Her mother tailored learning to Alexis’s interests (e.g., history through ballet)
- •Alexis describes a love of learning that contrasted with friends’ school experiences
- •Ballet becomes her earliest, deepest passion and a long-term discipline
Ballet’s work ethic—and the beginning of people-pleasing
Alexis describes how ballet forged intense discipline but also embedded trauma and people-pleasing habits. She shares a breaking-point moment in class and how her identity started to blur when she focused on approval over self-connection.
- •Ballet instilled extreme work ethic alongside emotional strain
- •A strict teacher dynamic fueled a strong desire to please
- •She links people-pleasing to losing her sense of identity
- •A painful class incident becomes a turning point away from pursuing ballet professionally
Scouted at 14: early independence, fast maturity, and a life that ‘worked’—until it didn’t
Alexis explains being scouted for modeling at 14 and facing adult-level opportunities early, including being asked to live abroad. She describes feeling financially independent and capable of supporting her mother, and how quickly she felt she grew up.
- •She is scouted and signed as a model at 14
- •She’s asked if she wants to live in Tokyo alone for months
- •She describes her mother’s trust as a key foundation for her independence
- •By 16, she feels like an adult and believes life is finally ‘working’
Her mother’s illness, refusal of treatment, and Alexis losing her own identity
Alexis returns to the moment of her mother’s terminal diagnosis and explains her mother’s holistic approach and refusal of chemotherapy. She reflects on learning to live without her mother while her mother was still alive, and how grief dismantled Alexis’s sense of self.
- •Her mother refuses cancer treatment and lives longer than predicted
- •Alexis describes her mother as her “first reflection” and central anchor
- •She describes not fully understanding death at a young age
- •After her mother’s passing, Alexis experiences a profound identity collapse
Viral attention, a ‘role’ online, and a relationship shaped by shared trauma
Alexis describes early social media virality and sudden public attention while she was still very young. She discusses traveling with a boyfriend, later recognizing a “trauma bond,” and feeling pressure to present a perfect image online despite feeling internally unstable.
- •Her photos go viral as social media rapidly grows
- •She experiences fame and grief publicly after her mother’s passing
- •She travels intensely with a boyfriend and later reframes it as a trauma bond
- •She describes dissociation during parts of that period and feeling she was “playing a role” online
Her mother’s tools: reclaiming identity, ‘magic,’ and body-based intuition
Alexis shares specific practices her mother taught her to stay connected to her identity and intuition. She describes repeating her name until her voice ‘drops back’ into herself, body testing, and a childhood manifestation story she still treasures.
- •She describes her mother asking her to say her name until she felt like herself again
- •She explains body testing as a way to check alignment (including with supplements)
- •She recounts her mother playing The Secret and framing it as “magic”
- •She shares a childhood story of manifesting a specific red ball and finding it later
Breaking down after the relationship: self-made retreat, journaling, and leaving Hollywood
After becoming physically ill and ending a relationship, Alexis describes a deep healing period guided by her support system. She details a self-directed routine of journaling and pattern recognition, then a major shift where she leaves Hollywood for Hawaii to do difficult inner work.
- •Her support system steps in when she is finally ready to listen
- •She describes creating her own daily ‘retreat’ with journaling and reflection
- •She goes deeper into modeling success while her mental health worsens
- •A move to Hawaii becomes a turning point for intensive healing and creative expression
Storytelling becomes the bridge to acting—then everything stops
Alexis describes how storytelling after sharing on Dancing with the Stars pulled her toward acting. She books a first film, then describes the disruption and emotional impact when production shuts down and life changes suddenly.
- •She connects storytelling to acting as a natural next step
- •She describes booking her first film and feeling momentum
- •She recounts production shutting down and the wider sense of life ‘stopping’
- •A breakup alongside the broader disruption removes her usual distractions from pain
We Are Warriors begins: from workouts to live calls, trauma conversations, and real depth
Alexis explains how We Are Warriors started as a workout program paired with weekly live calls and quickly evolved into deeper conversations about beliefs, pain, and healing. She contrasts “impact by numbers” with the power of direct, intimate discussions that change fundamental beliefs.
- •The community begins with fitness plus weekly live calls for connection
- •Live calls evolve into deeper discussions about trauma, beliefs, and healing
- •She emphasizes depth and direct connection over views and scale
- •She describes separating “pain” from the story told about pain as part of the work
How the community works: monthly challenges, practical education, and avoiding overwhelm
Alexis describes We Are Warriors as an educational and personal wellness community built around monthly challenges and a broad approach to wellness. She explains bringing in guests for topics like finance and beauty, and shares how environmental research overwhelmed her—shaping how she wants to introduce heavy topics more gently.
- •She frames communities with shared goals as a future direction for social media
- •We Are Warriors uses monthly challenges to create motivation and structure
- •She describes blending physical action with mindset and self-worth work
- •She shares being ‘paralyzed’ by learning about plastic and wanting a less overwhelming approach
- •Members also host their own live calls to build leadership and peer learning
Not getting lost in roles: partnership, public relationships, and heartbreak as growth
Alexis and Jay discuss how people can lose themselves in roles—whether in acting, parenting, or relationships. Alexis describes the added complexity of public relationships and reframes heartbreak as “growing pains,” validating grief and emphasizing what people learn and integrate from relationships.
- •They discuss how identity can get swallowed by roles in life and relationships
- •Alexis describes how the public creates additional ‘characters’ in public relationships
- •She reframes heartbreak as growth and describes turning pain into creative output
- •She validates breakup grief as similar to grieving a ‘death’ of a role someone played
- •She emphasizes accepting endings without needing a villain narrative
Curiosity and intention over outcomes: trusting the path and staying playful
Alexis shares beliefs about how past experiences serve future purpose and how curiosity reduces pressure. She explains why intention matters more than rigid goals, tells a story about emailing a director after not getting a role, and explores the importance of play, fun, and learning from her dog’s simple joy.
- •She argues that what feels like ‘not the thing’ can still serve the thing it leads to
- •She emphasizes being “passionately curious” and staying teachable
- •She describes setting intentions (like making someone feel good) rather than chasing outcomes
- •She shares an example of following intuition to send a thank-you email after losing a role
- •She discusses play, boredom, attention overload, and getting a dog to reconnect with presence
Why acting matters now: flow state, connection, and finding new parts of herself
Jay asks what draws Alexis to acting, and she describes it as a way to access flow state and prove to herself how many identities she can embody. She shares a formative on-set moment with an experienced actor that affirmed she “gets it,” and connects acting to presence and deep connection with others.
- •She describes acting as forcing her to show up even when she feels afraid
- •She links acting to flow state and losing self-consciousness and time
- •She shares an early on-set moment where an older actor tells her she ‘gets it’
- •She frames acting as discovering new parts of herself while keeping the same core intention
Final Five: curiosity, multidimensional identity, self-sharing, and a nature-based ‘law’
In the rapid-fire closing questions, Alexis names her best and worst advice, her current intention, and lessons from building We Are Warriors. She ends by proposing a nature-focused rule for everyone and shares a personal story about talking to a tree as a way to connect.
- •Best advice: be curious and stay teachable
- •Worst advice: you can only be one thing in life
- •Current intention: share more of herself without fear of rejection
- •Lessons from We Are Warriors: you teach best by being the example in real time
- •Her ‘law’: spend at least an hour outside in nature; she shares talking to a tree for an hour

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