What happens when you step out of rock’s golden spotlight to find your true self? Jenny Boyd’s remarkable journey takes us behind the velvet rope of music history into a world few have experienced firsthand.
Jenny opens up about traveling with The Beatles to India in 1967 to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, providing an intimate glimpse into a pivotal moment in music history. She recalls witnessing John, Paul and George composing songs on the roof of their ashram bungalow—creating musical history in real-time. “Everything that was going on in that ashram was all they needed to create songs,” she reflects, describing how she watched John Lennon write “Dear Prudence” after visiting a meditation student who had fallen into a trance-like state.
As sister to Pattie Boyd (George Harrison’s wife) and twice-married to Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac, Jenny’s life intersected with rock royalty at every turn. She shares the story behind Donovan writing “Jennifer Juniper” for her, describing their first meeting and the innocent charm of hearing the song played just for her. The conversation turns deeper as Jenny discusses her experiences during Fleetwood Mac’s meteoric rise, revealing the profound challenges of navigating fame, addiction, and maintaining stability as a young mother amid chaos.
The most powerful aspect of Jenny’s story emerges when she describes her transformation from model and muse to addiction counselor and author. Following a near-death experience while on psychedelics, she had an epiphany: “I decided it’s time I gave back.” This realization led her to education in psychology, eventually earning a PhD and dedicating twenty years to helping others overcome addiction. Her journey reveals that finding purpose often means breaking free from projected identities—even glamorous ones—to discover your authentic voice.
Listen and discover how someone at the epicenter of rock’s golden age found meaning beyond the music, transforming from muse to mentor while helping others slay their own dragons with compassion.
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Presenter
Malcolm Stern has worked as a group and individual psychotherapist for more than 30 years. He was a co-founder of Alternatives at St James’s Church in London and runs groups internationally.
He is the author of Falling in Love / Staying in Love (Piatkus 2004) and Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020). He co-presented Channel 4’s relationship series, ‘Made for Each Other’ in 2003 and 2004 and sailed on the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ with Greenpeace in the 1980s. The book he is currently writing is an exploration of the shadow and its necessity in our evolutionary development.
To become equal to the dream sewn within us, our heart must break open and usually must break more than once. That’s why they say that the only heart worth having is a broken heart. For only in breaking can it open fully and reveal what is hidden within.” – Michael Meade
This is a series of podcasts based on the premise explored in Malcolm Stern’s acclaimed book of the same name, that adversity provides us with the capacity to develop previously unexplored depths and is , in effect , a crucible for self reflection and awareness. Malcolm lost his daughter Melissa to suicide in 2014. It slowly dawned on him over the following few years that he was being educated and an opportunity was being presented where new insights helped him forge a path through his grief and despair. As part of that cathartic journey, he wrote “ Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020 ) where he was able to describe some of the practices that had helped him shed light on a way through the darkness.
