One of my coaching clients – I’ll call her Bonnie – is really good at what she does. REALLY good. She had some idea of her skills – but it came fully equipped with all the usual doubts and concerns.

Many of us can relate. We’re so steeped in our world and all of its assumptions that we think everyone knows what we know. That we’re not all that special.

Well, Bonnie has been putting herself “out there” bit by bit. She’s been facing her fears and stepping into the spotlight. Suddenly, opportunities are pouring in. They’re good opportunities. She has taken lots of them just to get some experience.

And now, they keep coming. Every single week.

The price of these opportunities is Bonnie’s time and energy. Her vision for herself is greater than these good opportunities, but she feels torn. She’s at a critical point.

It’s called: Saying NO to the GOOD so you can say YES to the GREAT!

Saying NO to the good means getting clear and committed to your dream and standing by that clarity with your own strong decision. (Yikes!)

Can you relate? It’s easy to continue saying Yes to the good stuff that costs only your time and energy. (Even if it’s the very time and energy you need in order to create the GREAT thing you’ve been talking about forever.) After all, an opportunity is an opportunity, isn’t it? I mean, in these “hard economic times” aren’t you supposed to be grateful for anything you can get?

Well, it depends.

Do you want to live in the “at least I have something” mindset? Or do you want to create the thing that could potentially bring in your most authentic success?

Do you want to Live Reactive? (“This is a good opportunity, even if it’s not exactly where I want to go.”) Or do you want to Live Creative? (“Time to site down and write my outline for this book and put in the time to make it come alive.”)

Either choice is fine, of course.

But only one requires creating your YES by saying a NO.

After a private coaching call with one of my Platinum Level clients last year, she said:

“Oh man, will you please record EXACTLY what you just said to me so I can listen to it every single day as a reminder?”

This week, I’ve received many personal emails and notes about my last two blog posts.  And I’m betting there’s a few people out there who’d really benefit from having a “coaching reminder”  here and there throughout the week – as they stage their comeback!

So, this is a gift to you.

It’s an audio recording of “How to Turn a Set-back Into a Comeback.”

(And yes, throughout the recording, I add a few extra BONUS coaching thoughts and tidbits – including one crazy embarrassing part of my own little break-up story! )

Click here to download for free!

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Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series. To read Part 1, click here.

Paula worked in a hospital emergency room. By the time she enrolled in my Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program, she was burnt out and addicted to the stress of an intense career that consumed her life.

She was ready to make changes, but it seemed impossible for her to take proactive measures on a consistent basis. After all, she had gotten used to being told what to do. Emergencies forced Paula to react in the moment with efficiency – but they never required her to come face to face with her own proactive choices.  She had gotten out of the practice of asking herself, “What’s next? What do I want? How will I create that?”

Learning to respond in our lives is a necessary part of being human. However, when we perpetually live in the energy of reaction, we can become addicted to it. It becomes a daily habit.

The same is true when you’ve gone through a set-back in your life – whether a divorce, an illness, extensive travel or a financial hit.  Like Paula, you might feel unfamiliar with yourself as a creative woman. After all, for so long, it has been all about survival.

When you’re ready to turn a set-back into a comeback – it’s good to remember that a certain amount of your comeback is about “training” yourself to move away from reacting. You must re-introduce the energy of Creativity and Proactivity to your daily rounds. This might be unfamiliar territory at first and can almost feel impossible.

So, here are nine steps for turning a set-back into a comeback. Recognize that these steps combine the four energies of our human power: The mind, the body, the heart and the spirit. All are important elements of your comeback!

1. Decide.

Your decision is crucial and powerful. You can share the decision with a friend or a coach or your journal, but you have to make the decision to begin your comeback. Be deliberate. Only you can know that you are ready.

2. Become a Guardian of your Mind.

After a long set-back, your mind is often frazzled – from obsession, from the drama of the situation, from the stories of well-meaning friends. The mind then searches for more of this same energy – and can easily find it in our culture and in the media.

No mas!

After you take step one – it’s time to commit to becoming what the late Jim Rohn called “a guardian of your mind.”
This means you stand at the gates of your mind and monitor what goes into it as if you were protecting a valuable treasure. It means you walk away from conversations that are negative and gossipy. It means you don’t engage other people in the drama.

It means you stay away from media and fear-based headlines.

3. Set a monthly intention.

It’s tempting to announce: “I intend to never feel pain about this again!”

However, I encourage you to start slowly. Chunk it down month by month. Set do-able goals. “During March, I intend to get back into a work-out routine.” Go slow and be gentle with yourself!

4. Create an MHR.

MHR stands for “Minimum Habit Requirement.”

Instead of trying to change everything at once, pick one small new habit and make that your Minimum Habit Requirement each day. A 30-minute work out, for example.

Your MHR is the starting point of your newfound proactivity. The goal is to simply experience the creative energy of choosing a habit and sticking with it.

5. Carry with you at all times: One Gentle affirmation, and one Power affirmation.

Arm yourself with two affirmations at the start of each week.

The first affirmation is for the days and moments when you’re feeling vulnerable and scared. This affirmation is designed as a reminder. The language is gentle and nurturing. “I am learning to create my life.” “Every day I get stronger and stronger.” “I am loved. I am safe. I am blessed.”

The other affirmation is for the days when your energy is high, and you’re feeling stronger. “I create and attract wealth, happiness and success everywhere I go!”

On bad days, affirmations can feel like weapons, not tools. They feel abusive. Gentle affirmations are a necessity for our vulnerable days. That way, on our kick-butt days, we can really crank it up.

6. Get in your body.

Knowing something in your mind is one thing. Moving that understanding into your body is another thing altogether.

As you awaken to new truths, it will be important for you to stay in touch with your body – not just your mind. Your whole being must be engaged in this healing process. It’s imperative that you consistently experience your body.

This means that exercise is your friend! Good, hard, sweaty exercise! Massage, too. Or a yoga class. Sit down to your meals and really taste your food. Hike in the woods. Your body will help you orchestrate your comeback. But you must actively engage it!

7. Immerse yourself in higher voices.

You’re blessed to be living in a time when you can access any spiritual teacher or success guru in the world. Audiobooks, downloads, articles, books and blogs. Give yourself time each day to renew your mind and get stoked by higher voices. It will train you to think yourself into your comeback.

8. Allow space for emotional moments.

Look. There will be emotional moments. It doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to be a drama-queen forever. It simply means that there’s still stuff to deal with. That’s fine. Be very careful because your mind will tell you, “See? This will never go away.”

It WILL go away.  Your mind is impatient, that’s all.

Give yourself space to grieve and let the energies of loss and sadness be there when they need to. If you give them space and let them move through you, then you might be surprised to find they move pretty quickly.

If, however, you try to stuff them down, they’ll probably stick around.

9. Journal Exercise: If I tell this story five years from now…

I have one of the worst break-up stories ever. I traveled all the way to South Africa to be with my boyfriend – only to get dumped in the Johannesburg airport. (And mind you – everyone in my life heard about it, knew about it, and talked about it! It was really embarrassing.)

My translation of it, however, has nothing to do with me being a victim.

About six months before it happened, I started intending a different life. I started writing letters to God in my journal about how I didn’t know how to make any of these desired changes.

Well, here’s how I see it:

A big band of angels heard my intentions, and then visited my boyfriend in South Africa. They found a beautiful blonde Afrikaner woman and placed her in front of him. They said, “Dude. Go for it.”

And then they turned back to me and said, “Here’s your chance. Make the most of it, pal.”

Looking back, it was the most amazing thing that could’ve happened. It was hard and awful. But I was ultimately able to make the most of it by translating it differently.

(It also later became a stage-story that literally launched a new level of my music career because it was one of my funniest and most requested stories.)

So – let’s pretend it’s five years from now: How will you translate this event? How can you milk it for all it’s worth?

How you translate a situation IS the situation. It’s all in your hands. Let yourself have fun with this!

————————————

A comeback is all in your energy. You never lose momentum. You simply have to learn how to move slowly and recognize the progress you make and celebrate your a-ha moments as if they were weddings!

Now, go forth and comeback!

Jill is ready for a comeback.

She has gone through a year of what felt like sheer hell as she watched the proverbial wrecking ball do its thing with her life. No need to give you all the details. A few words will do the trick:

Husband. Best friend. Betrayal. Discovery. Heart-break. Divorce. Disillusionment.

In other words…

The works.

Jill recently told me, “Okay, so the divorce is done. I’m on my own. I want to get back on track. I want momentum again. But I just can’t seem to get going.”

Anyone who has had a major set-back in her life knows this feeling all too well. On one level, you can understand the desire to get moving again. But on the other level, there’s a deeper, more hidden craving:

“I want to stop feeling this pain. I want to forget this happened. I want my heart to stop hurting.”

This is tender territory. You know you’re ready for a comeback. But you’re still drained and haunted by emotions, questions, shame and blame.

This is not a time to rush headlong into new flurries of activity. Awareness, Intention, and Creativity are the energies required now.

So, let’s start with a few reminders. These are the bigger ideas to remember as you move through your day.

This isn’t what you are “supposed to believe.” (i.e., Another thing to beat yourself up about.)

This is the level of Intention. (i.e., The deeper truth you choose as guidance, even when you’re not necessarily feelin’ it yet.)

Six Reminders about Set-Backs

1 –The Daytime Television World-View Doesn’t Promote Healing.

If you live in the Daytime Television World-View, then you see Jill as the victim. (Or “Good person.”) You see her husband as the perpetrator. (Or “Asshole.”)

While this world-view might land Jill a guest spot on Dr. Phil, it won’t help her move forward or heal. That’s because labels, judgments, should’s, and shouldn’ts keep us from showing up as Creators in our lives. They are pronouncements, which by their very nature, are designed to keep us “reacting” at all times.

The truth is that in this situation, people behaved unconsciously – and most likely, the unconscious behavior began years before the actual fall out.

This doesn’t mean that Jill won’t feel like a victim at times. Or that you “shouldn’t” get resentful, or jealous, or angry.

However, the deeper healing will come when, at some level, you remember that out beyond the Drama Triangle (victim, perpetrator, rescuer) there’s a deeper learning, and that you actively played a creative role in this situation. When you can accept that (without self-judgment), you can begin to heal, let go, and experience transformation.

Feeling better is temporary. Transformation is forever.

2 – You’re not going to get back to your “Old Self.”

Sometimes during set backs, we just want things to be the way they used to be. We want our Old Self back.

But think about this. Your “Old Self” was the self that was living so unconsciously that this situation was created in order to wake her up!

You don’t want “Old Self.” You want EXACTLY who you are now. Warts, bruises, disillusionment, and all. These things transmute into wisdom. A New Self. A Wiser Self.

She is there, waiting for this stuff to fall away so she can rise up.

3 –Repressing Emotions Keeps You Stuck

Even when the worst is over, the nature of emotion is that it can creep up and take over at unexpected, and often inconvenient times. Bitterness, shame, self-hatred, jealousy, anger. All of it is a part of the human buffet of emotional ranges in painful situations.

Now, it’s not that you should let these things rule your life from here on out. But if you try to push them down, then the creative energy that is meant to propel your life forward, is actually working so hard at repressing these emotions that its ability to help you heal is diminished.

4 – Time May or May Not Heal All Wounds. Time is YOUR Choice.

“Time heals all wounds.”

Really? Does it? Cuz most of us know at least a few people for whom time has only deepened their anger or resentment. And we also know some people who healed so quickly and moved on with such velocity that it seemed almost like denial.

The issue is not “time.” The issue is you. You can heal in an instant. Or you can take some time. But the truth is that you choose how much time. Don’t be a victim of time.

5 – After a Set-Back, We May Often Become “Addicted to Reaction.”

Jill said, “I want to get back on track, but all I seem to do now is spend my time putting out fires.”

This told me everything.

When we spend any prolonged amount of time in a place of reaction, it is very easy to forget how to get back into the energy of Proactivity (or Creativity). Remember, Reactivity is the opposite of Creativity. And Creativity is the energy that has the power to heal, transform, change, and uplevel our bodies and lives.

Often, when a set-back seems to destroy someone, it wasn’t because of the set-back itself. It was because the person never consciously moved herself back into her Creative or Proactive space. She stayed stuck in the energy of Reacting to her life.

One of the first places to begin your comeback must be re-introducing creativity and proactivity back into your being – little by little.

6 – Mental Awareness is one thing. Body awareness is another.

You can mentally understand each of these reminders. You can even tell yourself you’ve got it down. (“I already know that!”)

Well, yes. You might.

However, it can take some time to EMBODY the mental awareness that seems so obvious and true. For instance, most of us were socialized to view tough situations from the Daytime Television World-View. We were steeped in the victim/perpetrator/rescuer mindset. So, turning that around will probably take a bit more than just mentally understanding it. We will have to experience it and embody it. (This is why it will be important to include your body in your comeback. Not just your mind.)

———–

Even though we’re placing the idea of a comeback in the context of a potentially traumatic situation, you can also use these same principles for small set-backs. After a week-long illness, an intense travel schedule, or when a problem employee quits suddenly.

So, with these things in mind, we will begin Part 2 of How to Turn a Set Back into a Comeback with a To-Do list of actual steps to take as you begin your comeback.

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Jennifer was a student in my Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program. One whole week of this program is devoted to Wealth Mindsets. And during our group coaching call, I asked Jennifer about her Money Conversation.

“Money Conversation?” she asked.

I told Jennifer that your Money Conversation is what you tell yourself about money at any given moment on any given day. Usually, it’s happening in a lot more given moments than we ever imagined possible.

I asked Jennifer to take the coming week to actively and consciously notice her inner Money Conversation.

The next week, she showed up on the call with one statement:

“Wow! Am I f#%ed up!”

Everyone laughed.

She went on to share that her thoughts about money were constant.

“Constant!” she shouted. “At my office, at the grocery store, pulling up to the gas station, meeting my girlfriend for dinner. It’s scary! I always tell people ‘I’m not that into money’ but I obviously we can now all see that THAT’S not true!”

I congratulated her.

After all, awareness is everything. And being aware of your “Money Conversation” is the best place to start. Most people don’t even realize how many thoughts they have about money and wealth (or lack thereof) day in and day out.

When you drive four exits away from your house to get gas because it’s 8 cents per gallon cheaper. When you mumble “Bite me” to the guy who passes you in the BMW – but you don’t notice when the woman in the Ford Focus speeds by. When you longingly walk by the tulips at the grocery store but don’t spend the extra $10 on yourself because you “can’t afford it.” When you hold your breath as you’re logging in to on-line banking.

Like Jennifer said: It’s constant. Surprisingly constant.

So, what good does it do to pay attention to your Money Conversation?

For starters, when you begin to tap in to that conversation and add a level of consciousness or awareness to your Money Conversation – something magical happens: You stop being a victim of your thoughts. You move away from the place where thoughts just happen – and into a place of creating new possibilities.

Now, it doesn’t mean you rush out and buy the tulips and get your own BMW. (After all, that’s just reacting to your thoughts!)

But you can catch it and slowly turn it around. I suggest people begin simply. Once you hear your Money Conversation, stop. Take a breath. Ask yourself: “Do I want to create the reality that this belief or this thought is bound to create?”

If the answer is No, then ask yourself very kindly: “What would be a better conversation to have here?”

And then, slowly, start to turn your Money Conversation around. It will feel awkward and like a lot of work at first. But this is a process. And it’s the start of a whole new way of being with the money that is an inevitable part of your life.

Today’s post was written by guest blogger, Sue Ludwig. Sue is the President and Founder of the National Association of Neonatal Therapists.  She is a consultant to neonatal intensive care units around the country, a national speaker, and a published poet. She lives in Ohio with her husband and two children.

If you’ve never stepped foot in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), you might be tempted to think it’s a bustling place filled with baby noises like fussing, crying, and cooing.

You’d be wrong.

Mostly the babies are quiet. There are monitors, pagers, and ventilators beeping. Phones ringing. Staff and parents talking. But a noticeable lack of fussing coming from the babies. It’s hard to cry loud with small lungs.

So how is it that these fragile, nonverbal, babies have so much to teach me?

Well, like any of us, I learn in direct proportion to how much I pay attention. And by how much I intentionally engage in my work versus just going through the motions.

When you pay attention, these babies speak volumes.

Here are 10 lessons I’ve learned from the babies in the NICU:

1. Being born early does not mean less human, less valuable, less worthy – ONLY less prepared.

Pregnancies are full term by 37 – 40 weeks. So when a mother has her baby at 25 weeks gestation, no matter what I tell her, she often feels shame that her baby is still “in the process” of developing.

Well, who isn’t?

A few years ago I was writing up research for publication. I thought I was a decent writer. After spending countless hours writing this paper, my mentor came back and basically told me to start over.

I sobbed on the spot from exhaustion and the shame of feeling inadequate for this work. I was ashamed to still be developing as a writer.

Here’s the thing. We’re always in process! We are each starting over and over again in an endless cycle of learning and development.  No guilt, no blame, no shame. (Especially when you’ve done all you can to bring your baby safely into the world!)

2. We each communicate differently.

It’s easy to judge another person when she communicates differently, slower, or in a different dialect than you.

The babies have taught me to listen first, assume nothing, and leave judging for the Olympics. And more importantly – that I am responsible for half of every interaction with someone. So if I am busy thinking about what the other person should be doing or saying, I am likely not present for my end of the communication.

3. Small and feisty goes a long way!

Visit a NICU sometime to watch this one in action!

4. Environment Matters.

Loud noises are stressful. The babies respond to this stress by being startled frequently, spending less time in a deep sleep, and having changes in their heart rate and other vital signs.

What about your environment?

When you walk into the door to your home, do your surroundings add to your stress or decrease it? Is it cluttered, do you have space, do you have freedom to move? Are the sounds pleasant, or are they just noise?

The environments we create for ourselves directly affect our mood, our productivity, and our well-being. The babies have taught me that we thrive in an environment that serves us.

5. Connection heals.

There’s nothing better for a baby than loving connection with her mother and family.

Recently a mother in our NICU held her tiny baby on her chest. The baby was still on a ventilator. This is known as “Kangaroo Care” or “skin to skin” holding.  This mother, like so many before her, said that this was the only activity that truly allowed her to feel like a mother since her baby was usually in an incubator. Babies breathe and sleep on their mothers amazingly well even in this fragile state.

We are meant to be in connection with others.

Separation from that connection leaves us more vulnerable and less likely to maintain health. When our connections are loving and consistent, we thrive. Often when we feel vulnerable, angry or sick it’s because we’ve stepped away from the connections that heal us.

6. Eating Should Be Enjoyable!

In the NICU we’re obviously concerned with how much weight babies are gaining. In our quest for improving weight gain, we often overlook the significance of the actual experience the baby has while eating.

We pay too little attention to the fact that feeding is a bonding experience – social and nurturing. But we know that many premature babies nationwide have issues with feeding long after they’ve left the NICU. I believe that part of the problem is that hospitals often view feeding more like a medical intervention than a nurturing experience.

We should enjoy eating! But we often forget it’s a nurturing experience for our bodies and feed only our emotions or are completely distracted while we eat, giving no attention to the experience or the food.

Babies have taught me that eating should not be automatic. It should be intentional and engaging.

7. Tenacity is an inside job.

About a decade ago a boy in our unit was born weighing just about a pound. He had significant lung disease months later when he was discharged home. Now, at age 9 he is the fastest boy on his soccer team.

Who’d have thunk?

He taught me that tenacity isn’t definable at the surface. It’s something deeper, more elusive than brawn and background. It comes from inside. You know you are stronger than anyone would guess. Even when you weigh just a single pound!

When I reflect on that boy’s strength I think, “Who am I to think I can’t achieve something?”

8. Comfort and sleep are crucial to healing.

9. There are times for fighting and times for letting go.

For a premature or sick baby, most days are about fighting and growing.  They are about one more hurdle, one less tube, one more step toward home. And most babies win that fight.

At other times, when all that medicine and love have to offer is not changing the tide, the nurses and doctors do the impossible job of helping a family lovingly let go.

On the letting go days, I know only to go home and hug my own children in humble gratitude. Loss is a powerful instructor. Life is precious, yes.  And the babies teach me that it is hard to comprehend the gravity of that truth until we are asked to let it slip away.

10. Fragility and strength are not necessarily opposites.

If you look around the NICU and witness these tiny babies defying what seems reasonable for such a small person, you observe that fragility is often just strength’s first teacher.

I have rarely witnessed a population of patients that inspire such loyalty in their caregivers. Across the country I’ve noted that the NICU team appears, in my experience, to love this work.

Maybe because we have the best teachers.

Click here to download your free Word-of-the-Year Discovery Tool!

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Picture this:

You’re going on a road trip.

You get in your car.

You punch your destination address into the GPS.

You hit “ENTER.”

Outta nowhere, your GPS speaks up:

“GEEZ-ZUHS!  Do you have any idea how LONG that’s gonna take?

And seriously – how EXACTLY do you think we’re gonna get there, huh?

Look at where you are now.  Look at it, will you please?!

Who do you think is gonna pay for us to get all the way over THERE?

I don’t know why you’re even bothering, really.  I mean, you’ve never gone there before!  How exactly are you going to pull this one off, missy?

Have you Lost. Your. Freakin’. Mind???”

——————-

Ask yourself this:

If every single dream, goal and vision ever created by anyone began with INTENTION…

And if you KNOW you can create your desires and dreams with INTENTION,

(If you’ve been reading this blog for four years – then by now you DO know that!)

…then why continue to ask HOW it’ll happen?

You’re more advanced than a GPS.

You don’t need to know HOW.

It’ll be shown to you one road at a time.

Today’s post is by Jennifer Louden. Jen is a best-selling author of six books including The Life Organizer. She has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and is a national magazine columnist and radio show host. With over 875,000 copies of her books in print, she now speaks regularly to ten of thousands of women nationally.  She is most proud of raising an amazing teenage girl.

Sometimes, depletion happens because life happens: you adopt twins, launch a business, your best friend gets cancer, your father dies.

You deal, you get exhausted in the process, then you recover.

But there’s another, far sneakier and deadly, form of depletion I want shine a light on today.

This is the kind of depletion that you perpetuate because you’re afraid if you stop, you’ll be freed up to take action on your heart’s desire.

Only you don’t actually believe you have the goods, the talent, the energy to create your heart’s desire.

So you stay scattered or overcommitted or unfocused and viola! You never actually have to pursue your dream.

This kind of depletion can eat up your years of your life, your health, and even your desire to have a heart’s desire!

What’s especially insidious about this kind of depletion is you are busy. You may even be taking steps toward what you want—only you never seem to get very far because they aren’t quite the focused, bold or committed steps you need to take.

Life becomes a numbed out, depressing, gray grind.

And no amount of rest or massages or vitamins seem to help.

So what does?

Claim It

Start tracking the moments in which you keep the cycle going – when you allow a client session to go long, when you Twitter rather than paint, when you don’t tell anybody about the event you’re putting on.

Claiming is NOT an invitation to pummel yourself. Self-cruelty keeps the cycle going. Instead, see this as essential fact gathering. Facts are the way out of the overdoing / scattered doing fog that drains you. For change to happen, you first have to see the choices you are making. Keep a running log for two weeks.

Resourcing

Make a habit of being fed by and resting in something larger than yourself.

You need not believe in God or a higher power to do this. You did not create the gravity that is holding you to the earth or the oxygen you are breathing. Make a practice of noticing what is supporting you and letting it. Draw on it, breathe it in, rest into it. Experience this with your body rather than your mind.

You are never alone and you are always supported. Start experiencing that truth daily with your body and heart. Let it humble you and dissolve your “I have to do everything alone” story.

Go on Retreat

I’ve seen thousands of people shift the cycle of depletion and sometimes, end it entirely, by going on a retreat. I’ve heard from many more thousands who are too afraid or busy to retreat – too afraid their lives will change if they do, too afraid of being alone with themselves, too afraid of staking a claim to their own sovereignty.

These stories and these fears are far, far more frightening than anything that will ever happen to you on retreat. They’re the dragons you must slay to claim your life. They will never go away until you say, “I don’t believe you and you can’t stop me from venturing into my own heart.”

What More Would Be Possible?

My sweetheart asked me this question one day. “How many more people could you help if you got out of your own way?” I wanted to slug him, and isn’t that always a sign to pay attention? Do a free write for 5 minutes listing all the things that might be possible, the people who might be impacted, if you were rested, filled up and trusting yourself?

Plan your Day the Night Before

When you’re running on fumes, you live in reaction mode. Reaction mode drains you. When you decide how you want to focus your time and attention before your day starts, you lay claim to your right to choose your life. This doesn’t mean you won’t encounter resistance, fail to stick with your plan, or get interrupted. That’s life, not a sign you should quit. Keep your plan simple but specific and do it the night before!

Do the Highest Value Action First

When planning your day, focus on the biggest impact action that will move your dream forward and do that first. Meditating for 20 minutes, writing your novel for 30 minutes, exercising, calling a meeting planner about a speaking gig, reviewing your budget – focus in on what is often the scariest, but most powerful, action.

Wonderful creative soul, the truth is you won’t be able to give birth to your heart’s desire exactly the way you envision. Every creator holds a vision in his or her heart’s eye that is rarely exactly realized. It’s true, you may not have all the talent or smarts and energy you wish you had. You know what? It doesn’t matter. What does matter is you keep moving forward on what you most treasure. What is born and the most importantly, the process of birthing your heart’s desire, contains all the meaning and joy and renewal you crave.

Step out of the cycle of doubt and perfectionism and doing and come play with me!

If not now when?

Love yourself INTO action and OUT OF depletion with Jen Louden and 13 other world famous teachers… without even getting out of your pj’s!

Jennifer’s book, The Woman’s Retreat Book, was featured on Oprah. Now, Jen has created a Valentine’s Day weekend VIRTUAL RETREAT designed to give your creative heart a boost and your mind a rest!

The retreat package includes:

• A copy of “How To Retreat,” an eBook that helps you let go of the fear and shows you how to create the time.
• Gentle ‘Get Ready’ emails – to help you prepare for your self-caring-est weekend ever.
• Exclusive access to a members-only blog, where you will get untold amounts of support and encouragement, PLUS…
• 13 heart-expanding mini-retreats with world-renowned authors and healers.
• Easy-to-download recordings and transcripts of each mini-retreat – so you can come and go as you please.

If you sign up before February 5th, you get a $50 discount! So click here to come retreat with us!

Last Spring, at my annual Ob-Gyn check up, my doctor noticed something in my left breast that made her brow crinkle up.

“Nothing to be too concerned about, but I’d like you to get a mammogram just to be sure,” she said.

Only problem is this:

When your doctor crinkles her brow while she’s grabbing your breast, it’s hard to hear the part about not being concerned.

So, during that 3-week mammogram waiting period, here’s the temptation:

Call everyone.

Get them to console you. Make them be just as scared as your most scary voices. Call your mother. Relax into the sound of her shock and sympathy and worry.

I know that temptation all too well.

Even worse, I know my mom all too well.  Much as I adore her, my Mom would call her best friend, who would then call her two daughters and her best friend, who would send out an email to pretty much everyone in the local catholic diocese.

It would become a Wildfire of Worry.

Ernest Holmes, founder of Religious Science, was an ardent believer in the power of our thoughts.  In other words –

EVERYONE is a practitioner.

By that, he means that the power of prayer in the form of thought is in everyone. Thoughts are major energy. Thoughts become things.

So, for instance, if you tell me that you’re scared you’ll lose your job, and I get worried for you losing your job, and I share it with all my friends – then I add my energy to that thought form in the Universe.  (Ernest would call this “malpractice.”)

So that day at the Ob-Gyn, as I stood in the parking lot, I made the choice to stop and shift the energy in my head to become something different:

Deliberate.

First, I gave myself permission myself be a little scared.

After all, we’re bombarded by the fear of the “C” word in every media outlet around.  We women are taught to be terrified of our own breasts at a very early age.  (Some women have mastectomies in their 30’s based solely on the “runs in the family” fear!)

Second, I reminded myself of my favorite affirmation.

It’s the one that makes me strong, and keeps me aligned with what I most know to be true:

“My body is wise. My body knows exactly what to do.”

Third, I called my husband.

He is a master of keeping his thoughts in a grounded conscious place.

After that, I told my two best friends, who also know the power of their own thoughts and words.

That’s it.

I deliberately chose not to tell anyone in my family.  I wanted clean thoughts and clean energy surrounding the next three weeks. My job was to honor that desire.

Everything turned out fine. The mammogram was clear. All was well.

Now, I’m not claiming to have the magic pill here.  But I did share this experience with several of my coaching groups over the summer.  I’ve since heard back from several women who later had similar experiences, chose not to spark the “wildfire of worry,” and created their own affirmations or used mine.

In fact, as they’ve supported each other, one affirmation has risen to the surface as the favorite for everyday use, for building trust in our bodies, and overall lightening up of the fear.

“Happy Healthy Boobs!”

Feel free to use it, and become a practitioner yourself!