Comments on: Desire, Mood and Shoulds

By: Shar

Shar — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 02:36:59 +0000

Jen,
I am new to your community, but I feel that I found it by providence tonight. I’m not up to speed on the backstory, only that you are on retreat right now. I can say that I met your through your wonderful book a few years ago (Women’s Comfort Book) and it came across my path when I needed it the most.
What sustains me through darkness…turning on the light! Be it inwardly or the glow of a candle that immediately allow me to feel the presence of God and know that I am not alone on my journey. And that this journey is a necessary one because whether by choice or by chance, I find myself on the “road less travelled”.
Last year I turned 51 and my mind and body refused to work 14 hour days and be on the phone from sun up to midnight. It was almost as though I became someone else. My joy for my work dried up. I only wanted to go back to the “womb”. I had just moved into my new home in the country where things were quiet and peaceful and my home felt so nurturing and tranquil and serene. I made a decision to first take 2 weeks off, but it turned into 6 months. I couldn’t really afford to be off that long, but I felt I couldn’t afford NOT to be off. My soul was requiring this of me; my heart was requiring this of me and my body was requiring this of me. I didn’t want to be bothered and I took to the comfort of my bed with my lime green journal, colored markers and pencils. I journaled, stayed in flannel pajamas alot, listened to classical music, slept, wrote and I could “hear myself” for the first time in a long time. On the road to success sometimes the inner drummer gets drowned out from the demands of clients and serving others. I realized that although I had helped hundreds of other people be empowered and inspired, I myself was empty on zero and had swept my own stuff under the rug.
I experienced a Metamorphosis during this time off. I drafted a new blueprint for my life. I made a list of all the things I needed to make amends on. I started facing the things I swept under the rug. I paid back the people I filed in bankruptcy almost 20 years ago. I wrote letters of gratitude and asking for and giving forgiveness. This was liberating because I got the “other side of the story” or what happened to the other person, which is the part you never get unless you go back to make things right. My heart opened, my spirit opened, and I felt the shift take place in my life. I “squared my life” and put it back in balance and harmony. It started off with me feeling very uncomfortable and perhaps I had some depression. I had four visits with a counselor and I got two powerful revelations…I already was the person I was “trying” to be and that depression is anger turned inward.
Underneath all of my success and empowerment was an underlying belief that I could not face my life or move forward any further. It was as though their were no more mountains to climb or that I had climbed as high as I was able to and would never be able to go any farther. This is long, but I only include all of this (which may not even apply to you) to say this.
I came out of my “Metamorphosis” with a mission. I was fully “awake”. I started a movement to touch 100,000 other women and help them fast forward through the tough spots in life and to encourage and inspire them to become the woman they were born to be. I know for sure, that I found my authentic self. I know for sure that my own life lessons can help others and I know for sure that had I not stopped to take stock of myself and my life, I would be continuing to live “with the mask on” and the world would have missed out on the best and true parts of me and what I bring to humankind.
Be encouraged and know that this retreat is preparing you for the ‘advance’ and that you are being equipped for a higher calling and to make a deeper impact.
Blessings and Peace and enjoy the moment.
Keep letting your light shine and it will dispel all the darkness around you.
Shar

By: Brandie

Brandie — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:01:27 +0000

I love the image of the burning. It’s like when the forest burns and then the charred trees and lives fertilize the earth and produce even more life than was there before. Makes me want to have a bonfire and yell at it everything that I want to burn away!

By: chris

chris — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:33:37 +0000

Hi Jen,

First off, I just want to say how much I love you! I attended your Writer’s Spa in Taos in 2006, and have been reading more and more of your stuff since then and have been wanting to post with you for awhile. I also feel, as obviously many women have, how you speak to our collective women’s soul and are so tuned in to what we are all hungering for. Thank You for being a beacon and a lightning rod and of course we all know what happens to lightning rods! So, yes, burn baby burn. Burn up all those shoulds and those expectations about how it’s supposed to be, how YOU’RE supposed to be.

Yes, I think you are right. The should’s are just one more way that we are kept in our place as “good girls” and not encouraged and welcomed as the wild, passionate, desirefull, powerful women that we are. As women who know what we want and give free rein to those desires to lead us.

Earlier this year I was on kind of an enforced retreat. I have my own business, like you, as a coach, counselor, teacher, and workshop leader and for about 5 months during the spring and summer everything just about dried up. And I was left with all this time on my hands and I wandered around in circles, and I was scared and I laid upon the earth and cried and “wasted” goddess knows how much time in that amorphous place of not knowing, thinking that I should be doing something more, and was singularly “unproductive’. But I was also, slowly, so agonizingly slowly, finding my way back to my own wishes and impulses and yearnings. In the middle of the muddle I did eventually start to find that smoking center of my own desire.

I have come out of that “retreat” place ( although i was not so wise as you as to consciously choose it), and I am so much more on fire and so much more only doing what I WANT to do and boy oh boy, is it ever scary and weirdly, weirdly unfamiliar… I keep looking in the mirror and asking is this really me?? And i don’t know where it’s going to take me, and that’s scary too. What is this really going to mean in the long run, to actually live my life from what I want? But, I gotta say, it is a heckuva lot more fun. I’m even getting my sex drive back! I don’t know, maybe it’s just the long awaited post menopausal zest. But hang in there. It sounds like you are doing just great!

By: Beth

Beth — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 11:53:34 +0000

When I started a new job in June, I negotiated for August off. I thought this is when I would really get myself organized for losing weight, take the time for long, long walks, start a real mediation practice, finally do some Yoga at home, clear out all the clutter, or at least some of it, write, read many books and sleep.

I did none of that (except the sleeping part). I was relaxed, hung out with my kids and…well I am not sure what else. What I realized was even when I am not working I don’t have time in my life for those things right now. Instead of being angry and frustrated, as I had been, after the retreat, I began to let go of the expectations that I should to do all those things (even though I want and desire those things as well).

I didn’t dwell on the “failure” of my mini-retreat. I just kind of looked at it and decided the lesson was to release myself from a lot of expectations that I had been using to beat myself up with.

My wish for you is that let go of the shoulds (which you are in the process of doing) and let this time evolve as it does. The greatest part of retreat for me is being able to say no to the shoulds – even of the alternative isn’t what we originally envisioned.

By: Jennifer Louden

Jennifer Louden — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:50:20 +0000

Mona – I adore your take on shoulds! Very very helpful and reminds me of Molly Gordon’s work with The Work. I shouldn’t have gone any deeper or different into this retreat because I haven’t.” Very comforting.

Madeline – What a great story and what luscious permission to let this time be what it is – although of course, the worrier in me says “If i/ emerge wanting and needing to work less, how will i afford my life?” i know, thoughts take us into the future.

Julie – I’m with you in grieving. I’ve complained about loss this summer and fall, how tired i am of it… how aware i am that if we aren’t careful as we age and our hearts are broken by those we love leaving us, in death and divorce and other d-words, we can become so bitter and closed. i trust that we are both letting grief tenderize us like my mom tenderized meat with a wooden mallet.

Rebecca – Yes, yes, yes. Wait watch stay present don’t judge what is.

Ann – Thanks my dearest for choosing me!