Jennifer Louden is known as “The Comfort Queen” and featured on many globally recognised TV shows, including Oprah, with over 800,000 copies of her first book sold internationally. She is the world's leading authority on carving out the time and desire to look after your own well being and hence achieve more with less stress despite having a very busy life.
My friend Ann Cheng quipped recently, when I told her how horrible and unlovable I had been feeling, "You must be ready for a big breakthrough." What a lovely way to think of it, I thought, and then the next day the big breakthrough came I noticed the feeling of being connected, of being loved, at being at peace, came back.She was right.
Then I heard Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, physicist and theologian on the radio show Speaking of Faith (very highly recommended -- I get it as free podcast) "There is a very interesting scientific insight which says that regions where real novelty occurs, where really new things happen that you haven't seen before, are always regions which are at the edge of chaos. They are regions where cloudiness and clearness, order and disorder, interlace each other.
If you are too much on the orderly side of that borderline, everything is so rigid, that nothing really new happens, you just get rearrangements. If you are too far on the haphazard side, nothing persists, everything just falls apart. It's these ambiguous areas, where order and disorder interlace, where really new things happen, where the action is."
Breakdowns are not failures; they are a tilling of the earth so a gorgeous flower can emerge, a melting of the ice so waters can flow, a mixing of chemicals so life can grow.
Why do we get so, so, so attached to negative drama? Why do we always fall for the "the familiar pain is better than the unknown?" It's the way our brains are wired and we can work to rewire them (more about that as I start to talk about my book The Life Organizer: A Woman's Guide to a Mindful Year. One way is to stop, soften your belly, and focus on your heart. Bring up a memory of how you want to feel. Stay there for 15 seconds, feeling and focusing on "wholesome" states as the yoga sage Patanjali counseled. Fears make more fears, they do not make your life more important, they do not help your create more love. So, gently, intently dissolve the fears.
I love learning! I love this moment with you. We break down barriers through this article, through blogs, through our journals. Break down, break up, break free. The faster we break, the quicker we transform to what is next for us.