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About Jennifer Louden:
Jennifer Louden is a personal growth pioneer who helped launch the self-care movement with her first book The Woman’s Comfort Book. She’s the author of 7 additional books on well-being and whole living: The Couple’s Comfort Book, The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book, The Woman’s Retreat Book, Comfort Secrets for Busy Women (The Comfort Queen’s Guide to Life in hardcover), The Life Organizer, and A Year of Daily Joy. There are about million copies of her books in print in 9 languages.
Jennifer has spoken around the U.S., Canada and Europe, written a national magazine column for a Martha Stewart magazine, been profiled or quoted in dozens of major magazines, and appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, even on Oprah.
Jennifer has been teaching retreats and leading workshops since 1992, and creating vibrant on-line communities and innovative learning experiences since 2000. She married her second husband at 50, and is the very proud mom of Lillian and very proud bonus mom to Aidan.
Her latest book is A Year of Daily Joy: A Guided Journal to Creating Happiness Every Day. “This lush journal’s powerful prompts and quotes – organized by monthly themes like courage, authentic, and faith – along with stunning National Geographic photos will inspire mindfulness and joy into your daily life. Positivity in practice!”
We talk all about the book, along with her life journey, her evolving career and endeavors, and how she lives her own life “on purpose.”
For more information on Jennifer, visit: http://jenniferlouden.com.
Episode Summary:
In JUST the first 20 minutes of this great, wisdom-filled conversation, Jennifer and I discuss:
- Her new book: A Year of Daily Joy: A Guided Journal to Creating Happiness Every Day.
- Re-inventing herself after years of being known as the Women’s Comfort Queen: “It’s a process of learning to let go of my first life and embracing this life. It’s a long process. I didn’t think that letting go would be as tough as it is.”
- “I don’t know if it takes courage as much as steadfastness to do that, because in the times that I changed directions or innovated or reconfigured, I always thought , ‘That’s it. That’s done.’ But the old way of being- whether that’s a way of eating or a way of being in your creative life or being in a relationship – it pulls back at you like the tide.”
- Why she initially said ‘No” when approached by the National Geographic Society to collaborate on her latest book.
- The crucial importance of Mastermind Groups (she checks in with hers daily): “I’m deeply influenced by Buddhism. I’ve never taken vows and I don’t have a traditional teacher, but I meditate and I read and I think it’s the most elegant philosophy in the world. And in that is the Sangha. You take refuge in a group of like-minded, heartfelt individuals.”
- “We’re blind to ourselves. And we’re going to visit the same patterns again and again our whole lives. So we need people who care about us and love us but don’t have skin in the game like a partner or a kid or even a coach sometime… plus who can afford a coach all the time!”
- Her long-time craving for community: “I want to belong because it’s hard for me to belong. And so it’s been especially healing for me to be a part of this group for as long as I have. Because that has been so healing to the story… the internal story that I don’t belong.”
- My interview with Jeffrey Davis where he discusses his journey from lone wolf to collaborating in business. Jen’s shift: “For me in my business, the shift was learning to ask for the support that I need. I was often shy about hiring the right people and asking for the support that I needed.”
- Self-awareness, noticing your personality patterns, and the Enneagram. “Seeing my compulsive patterns through this lens continues to change me.”
- “Everyone has to find their own mirrors that work for them. I know that’s a very obvious idea but I really want to state it. Because I’ve lost so many years trying to adopt someone else’s idea because it worked for them.”
- Suffering a Vulnerability Hangover and “just wanting to be done! You mean I have to keep doing it?”
- Another key reason why she agreed to do the book: “It really goes back to one of the central things that I give people and that I’m obsessed with in my own life: ‘How do we stay awake and aware and on purpose?’ And a book like this helps people do it.”
- “You can also just use the book as a reminder. My very first book The Woman’s Comfort Book was published back in the days of snail mail. I would get a letter or two or three a week. And so often people would say about that book, ‘Just seeing it reminds me to take care of myself and calms me down.'”
- What are some other things that people can do to stay present?
- “I think the biggest tool I use is anything I can do to break the trance. The trance is the conversation in my head that takes the form usually of ‘Oh no, Oh no, Oh no!’; ‘I’m behind!’; ‘I didn’t do that right!’; ‘Why did I say that in that conversation?’; ‘I have too many things to do today!'”
- So WHAT are those tools that she uses to break the trance? Listen to the full episode to find out and MUCH more!