Episode 21

What Is Meditation and How Do I Start? A Beginner's Guide for People Pleasers.

Published on: 26th October, 2024

"Meditation brings stillness and peace into your life. It literally rewires your brain so that you see the world in a different way."- Jenny Leckey

In this episode, Jenny explores the power of meditation and how it can help you stop from being a people pleaser.

She addresses common misconceptions about meditation, highlights various styles such as EFT tapping, guided meditations, and mantra meditation, and explains how meditation helps in becoming an observer of thoughts and emotions. 

As a certified Chopra Center meditation teacher, Jenny shares her personal experience and offers practical advice for starting a meditation practice to bring peace and stillness into daily life. Discover how meditation can help you respond rather than react, set boundaries, and find calm amidst chaos!

After listening, you’ll have an easy way to start meditating right away. 

Interested in personalized help? Jenny offers 1:1 meditation guidance sessions. Send her an email to get started: info@meditatewithjenny.com

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  • Work with Jenny - Book 1:1 Reiki or psychic channeled reading sessions. Offered virtually or in person in Buffalo, NY. Jenny also offers Reiki certification classes!

Copyright 2024 Jenny Leckey LLC

Transcript
Speaker:

If you've been listening to my podcast for a while, I'm sure you've heard

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me and others mention meditation as a

great opportunity to start your healing

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journey as a recovering people pleaser.

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I wanted to clear up some misconceptions

and maybe talk a little bit about what

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meditation is and is not for those

of you who are not familiar with it

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or those who could use a refresher.

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there are a ton of styles of

meditation out there that serve

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all different types of purposes.

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There's EFT tapping, guided meditations,

visualization, yoga nidra, all

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different types of mantra meditation.

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The list goes on and on.

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With that said, I am a

certified meditation teacher

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through the Chopra Center.

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If you've heard of Deepak Chopra,

he has a whole training program.

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It was really magical.

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I was trained through mantra meditation.

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I also have experience

with guided meditations,

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visualization, that sort of thing.

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Let's talk about what in

the world meditation is.

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Meditation's purpose is quieting

your mind, while also learning to

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be the observer of your thoughts.

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Our natural state of being is

stillness, is peace, is calm.

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Then our brain comes into play,

thinking all these thoughts.

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We think 60 to 80 thousand thoughts a day.

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And that takes up a lot of

our energy and our focus.

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The beautiful thing about meditation

is it teaches you to become

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the observer of your thoughts.

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So not being consumed and led and

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powered by our thoughts.

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Meditation brings stillness

and peace into your life.

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Day by day, the elements that you

experience within meditation are

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carried with you into your life.

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And over time, it literally

rewires your brain so that you

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see the world in a different way.

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You operate from a different perspective.

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Instead of reacting to life,

you are now responding.

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There's that pause, that stillness between

receiving information and responding.

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When you are dysregulated and stressed

out, you're reacting, you're in that

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animalistic fight or flight survival mode.

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Meditation is helping you pull out of

that state, come back home to yourself.

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One big misconception with meditation

is, so many people have said to me over

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the years, I can't meditate, I don't

know how to meditate, I can't do it

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right because my brain won't shut up.

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And I always counter with saying,

if you weren't thinking thoughts,

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then you wouldn't be alive.

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Your brain's going to brain.

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It's completely normal to have incessant

thoughts while you're meditating.

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The act of meditating is Technically

really not to shut those thoughts up.

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It is to become the observer and detach.

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Can you sit in stillness and observe your

chatty brain and not be of the thoughts?

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Can you treat it like clouds passing by?

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Your thoughts are just floating

in and out of your experience.

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That is what meditation does.

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It teaches you to be the observer of

your thoughts, the observer of your

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emotions, the observer of your body.

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When you can have that detachment,

then you're going to transfer

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that to your daily life.

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Can you be the observer of your

thoughts and emotions when tension

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arises after setting a boundary?

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Can you be the observer of your

thoughts and emotions that are

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making you want to people please?

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And instead, make a different decision

to start helping yourself heal.

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That's where meditation

plays such a major part.

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This is what helped heal me.

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I'm still recovering, of course, but

I can tell when I haven't meditated in

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a while, how my brain starts to slip

back into those old habits and I start

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to believe everything that I think.

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When you meditate, it's

almost like a snow globe.

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This is how I picture it in

my mind and how it feels.

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Within the snow globe is my reality.

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And that's also my thoughts

and feelings that are running

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through my brain every day.

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But, I have become the observer.

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I, my true self is the observer

outside looking into the snow globe.

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When I talk about connecting between

you and you, I mean connecting your

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human self that's in the snow globe

to your highest self, that part of

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you that's able to be the observer.

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I know This can be a little,

uh, Metaphysical and esoteric.

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I don't even need for you to

grasp all these concepts to

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begin to start meditating.

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I just want you to have the takeaway

that it is okay and normal to have

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thoughts when you are meditating,

especially if you're meditating at

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the end of the day, you've had, like

I said, 60 to 80, 000 thoughts happen.

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Of course, your brain is in overdrive.

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Starting with three minutes a day, getting

yourself up to 15 to 20 minutes max,

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giving yourself that space to practice

quieting your mind, going inward.

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Being able to observe what's coming

up without reacting to it and allowing

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them to float out of your experience

is what's going to help you heal.

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It's going to help you tolerate

the tension when you're trying

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to set new boundaries and

create new habits in your life.

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So start small.

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I suggest mantra meditation.

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Do teach this one on one.

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If there's a big interest, I

can maybe do another workshop.

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We'll see.

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I suggest starting with mantra

meditation because it gives your

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brain something to focus on.

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The process with mantra meditation

is focusing on a phrase, such as om.

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Eventually, it creates

a gap between thoughts.

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So you might have been originally

going into this thinking,

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Oh, I have so much to do.

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I need to do the laundry.

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Did I do the dishes?

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I can't remember.

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Did I run the dishwasher?

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Oh, I forgot to pay the electric bill.

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That's how you enter meditation.

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The goal is to lengthen

the gap between thoughts.

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Every sentence has a period.

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You want to lengthen the time

between the period and the next

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sentence starting in your brain.

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So it'll go from da da

da da da da da da to

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did I pay the electric bill?

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Ohm.

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Ohm.

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Oh, I forgot to give the

dogs their flea meds.

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Wait.

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Brain, we're focusing on om, om.

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That's what it would

feel like in your brain.

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You want to slow things down.

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Bonus tip for doing mantra meditation.

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Do this in a quiet space

and do not play music.

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Why, you ask?

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When we listen to guided meditations or

music, we're actually keeping our brain in

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the alpha waves, which is the alert state.

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Using mantra meditation actually

lowers us to theta waves.

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Theta brainwaves are the state right

as you're about to fall asleep.

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You're not quite asleep, but you're

in that floaty kind of space.

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That's where we want to be.

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So do not play music for

this type of meditation.

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Like I said, there's all different

styles out there with different purposes.

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The purpose of mantra meditation is

to find that stillness, and we do

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that through the theta brainwaves.

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I've given you a lot to process.

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Don't worry.

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You just have to sit somewhere

comfortably, repeat a mantra to yourself,

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in your mind, and whenever you notice

your thoughts have drifted away, just

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gently go back to repeating the mantra.

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Set a timer on your phone.

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I use the Insight Timer app.

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It's free.

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I'll log it in the show notes.

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It's great.

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I also love that app because it lets

you track your progress, so if you're

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a person who likes to get badges and

have, ooh, alerts of celebrations of

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hitting milestones, that's an awesome

feature on Insight Timer as well.

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I highly encourage to give this a try.

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Three minutes to start.

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Work your way over the course of weeks or

even months up to 15 to 20 minutes a day.

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It's no big deal.

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There's nothing serious going on here.

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You're just giving yourself some

time, come back into your body and

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reconnect with who you really are.

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If you're interested in learning

more, feel free to reach out to me.

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My info's in the show notes.

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I do one on one coaching for

this, but you can simply sit

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in a quiet space and meditate.

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Let me know how this goes for you.

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I'd love to hear your experience.

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May you find peace within yourself.

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Om shanti, shanti, shanti.

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Peace, peace, peace.

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Blessings to you.

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Show artwork for Diary of a Recovering People Pleaser

About the Podcast

Diary of a Recovering People Pleaser
Real life stories of people pleasers healing in the wild
Humans learn through stories. Heal through stories. Feel SEEN through stories. That's why I created this podcast diary-style, for people to feel seen and know that you're not alone in your people pleaser ways. And to give you the courage to take steps towards healing.

The show is a mix of individual “diary entry” style episodes and interviews where we share relatable people pleasing stories, experiences and advice for your recovering people pleaser journey. All are welcome.

🛋 Listening vibes:
Think 1 am, sitting on the sofa cuddled with fluffy pillows and blankets, enjoying an evening with your bestie & having deep heart to heart conversations.

💜A Note from Your Host:
I am a former English teacher turned Reiki Master Healer & meditation teacher who brings you healing stories and ideas through a spiritual lens. This podcast is where spirituality meets psychology.

Some topics and tools we’ll dive into along the way:
ˑ Reiki
ˑ Meditation
ˑ Breath Work
ˑ Journaling
ˑ Energy work
ˑ Channeling
ˑ Psychic abilities
ˑ Philosophy
ˑ Grounding, clearing & shielding energy
ˑ Chanting
ˑ Sound healing
ˑ Divine feminine/masculine
ˑ and of course psychology- it is the child of philosophy after all!

Sending you lots of love on your people pleasing healing journey,
~Jenny Leckey

About your host

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Jenny Leckey