The brilliant, talented and also beautiful Jen Louden is a best selling author, speaker, coach and master of comfort. My gosh, she’s even appeared on Oprah! I fell in love with her honesty and wit. I felt an immediateconnection when I heard her great belly laugh that reminds me of my sweet friend Cora, who died 2 years ago.
Jen Louden and I recorded a half convo/ half rant about why we get stuck, why we burn out, and what it might have to do with our energy patterns. Here’s the transcribed, annotated version, part 2.
(Continuing…)
Dr. Jennifer:That’s so right. That’s absolutely what I would say. I always say: Do the concrete, external things that you can do. Buy the new calendar system, put time in hiring the right person and then if you’re still struggling, time to look at the underlying feelings and pattern.
Also, what I find for myself is that it has helped me for many years to have a spiritual practice and a meditation practice. I also exercise which helps me a lot – even when I’m in pain.
Going back to your first question, one thing I teach people is to learn to take a moment whenever you have it - when you’re driving, for example. Learn to let go of the clinging mind, the excessive worrying, thinking, planning and in this moment, for this moment, let go and not think about it. Just for a moment. Let your mind relax, and let your body let go.
Can you feel it in your body when I say it?
Jen L makes purring noises that sound really odd and thus were, thankfully, not transcribed.
Jen:Absolutely! I was writing about this just before we got to talking today, how crucial it is for us to develop witness consciousness. What we know from thousands of years of spiritual tradition, and now from neuro-psychology, is how vital it is to observe our experience. To develop the ability to step back and say, ‘Oh, look – I’ve spent an hour on Twitter when I said I was going to be writing my book.To learn to become someone who can intervene in our experience is the single best thing we can do.
Dr. Jennifer:Yes, non-judgmental and curious about our lives. That’s how we can look back at the historical threads, see into and heal all of this out of our open inquiry.
Jen:So that’s the long term way to get out of this burnout cycle that I’m finding after years of working with this stuff.It’s the big key.Awareness.
Dr. Jennifer:Absolutely.Without it, nothing else can happen.
Jen:The second key, for me, is retreats. Because they stop the cycle for me of being a dog with a bone or a hungry ghost or whatever metaphor you want to use. Because sometimes we need to rest in someone else’s container to stop the noise and get the rest that you need.
Dr. Jennifer knows what Jen means about a container – the idea of safe delineated space -- but also wonders briefly if Jen has a secret Tupperware fetish.
Dr. Jennifer:I love to go somewhere where I can be absolutely silent. A silent retreat
Both Jen and Jennifer fall silent. Sound of deep breathing. Simultaneous sighs.
Dr. Jennifer:To just bathe in the silence.
More silence and breathing. Everybody’s getting very mellow.
Dr. Jennifer:So that eventually even the witness relaxes… and that is of course where unified consciousness is – where the witness is actually integrated.
Jen:Relaxed.
Dr. Jennifer:Exactly. Then we drop even further into wholeness and into our being-ness. I know that there are people who say that they are in unified consciousness all the time…I don’t know, maybe they are.But I don’t think that I’ve met them.
A shared belly laugh.
I’m sure Jesus and Buddha were. Through the years, there have been many enlightened beings that have lived their life in being-ness but most of us are just trying to have a good day.
Jen:Exactly! One of the things that you just said about the silent retreat moments, reminds me of what a retreat can give us when we’re burned out. When you’re burned out and stressed, you begin to doubt yourself. Your self-trust starts to erode and sometimes you need someone else to take you and say, ‘This is okay, you can relax. I can help you listen. Maybe we’ll do it under the guise of learning some productivity tools or creative writing or something that makes you feel like you’re getting something, but the real goal is to help you let go so you can fill up again.
Dr. Jennifer:Retreats are like booster shots to the nervous system and our consciousness.
The retreat setting allows people to shift their nervous system and consciousness into a new deeper more integrated place – to have an experience of what it is like in their bodies and minds. They can then go to their healers, therapists and coaches and anchor that. That’s like when you’ve had enlightenment experience and now you know where that is inside of yourself.
Jen:In developmental psychology there’s the idea that you create an experience – you have an experience and then that allows you to go: ‘Oh, now I can anchor that in daily practices and eventually make that state change where I live more and more in that place.
It was really important for me to learn that because early in my career, I was saying, ‘Well, great that I do these great retreats for people and they leave all high and happy and in love with themselves but then it’s just gone in a month.” I had to learn to help people bring the experience home. To build on it. You need to anchor the experience so you can remember it because if you can experience it on retreat – you can experience it in daily life.
Dr. Jennifer nods her head and decides to schedule a retreat for herself and soon!
Jen:Dr. Jennifer, if there was one thing you could tell somebody reading this who is thinking, ‘Oh, it all sounds good but how can I do something different right now that might help me feel some hope and peace?’ what could you offer.
Dr. Jennifer briefly wonders why Jen keeps putting her on the spot with these “one thing” questions and then rallies because she is full of wisdom
Dr. Jennifer:I would give them this piece from my upcoming ‘Unstuck’ Program. I say, write this down and look at it when you need support.
I will develop a practice of kindness toward myself and value all that this life brings.
Jen takes a deep breath and feels a lovely sense of real comfort.
Jen:Thank you, I needed to hear that. I’m really struck by how kindness and befriending ourselves is the ground for all happiness. It’s the thing that I keep coming back to -- nothing can shift if I’m denying or hating or opposing part of myself.
I certainly cannot develop the witness consciousness that will allow me to choose to get off Twitter and write my novel. I may need to be firm with myself but it’s always in the spirit of friendship.
That’s really the underlying idea under the virtual retreat, to have experiences that change you and renew you, to create that deeply saturated environment of kindness and befriending yourself. That’s what stops this stuck burnout place.
Dr. Jennifer:It’s really what allows us to be useful in the world.
Jen:Absolutely! We can’t be useful in the world if we go around beating ourselves up, hating ourselves, comparing ourselves –
Jennifer:That comparative consciousness will kill you. I used to do it a lot more when I was younger. I guess all those years of personal work paid off because I used to feel not good enough and now I think I’ve come to the place where I really feel connected to what I’m supposed to do and who I am.
Sometimes I still get jealous of people who type fast …
Jen giggles. Dr. Jennifer giggles. The conversation circles back to girl stuff and Dr. Jennifer remembers to turn off the recorder at some point.
I hope this was insightful, fun and that you will take time for yourself, either with Jen’s retreat or in some other nourishing way
