© Copyright 2006 Susan Henderson Coaching
360-265-2838
coach@susanhenderson.com
coach@susanhenderson.com
The Successful Dilettante
April 5, 2007 Issue 19 ISSN 19354886
Editor: Susan Henderson, coach@susanhenderson.com
Visit my website at: http://www.susanhenderson.com
In This Issue
1) Greetings/News
2) Susan's Musings - Back to Nature
3) Featured guest: Jennifer Louden
This successful dilettante is a best-selling author of several books, a personal coach, radio show contributor, and columnist for Body & Soul magazine. Check out her interview below to see how she is managing her multiple interests.
=====================================================
Greetings/News
Hello one and all. Glad to welcome you once again and happy to greet new subscribers, as well. Wherever you are I wish you fair skies and warm, gentle breezes upon your face.
=====================================================
Susan's Musings - Back to Nature
Yesterday I chanced upon the most gorgeous potted Hydrangea plants that caused my little heart to skip and sing. The brilliant blue and lilac colors were breath-taking. I have been pining for a blue hydrangea and the timing was perfect for me to discover these when I was sorely in need of an attitude adjustment. I chose the biggest and the best one and plopped it into my shopping cart as I entered the grocery store.
My whole grocery-shopping experience was enhanced by my pure delight in this plant. I slowed down. People were smiling and friendly, commenting on the plant or just chatting up the wonderfully serene woman with the huge blue shrub in her basket. Sometimes, all it takes is a beautiful flowering plant to create a ripple effect of well-being.
The beauty of nature has always had a way of grounding me in both big and small ways. I plan to enjoy this plant indoors until it is time to plant it outside in a spot where I hope to be enjoying and sharing it with others for years to come.
What's that they say? Oh yeah - take time to stop and smell the roses.
Hugs,
Susan
=====================================================
Featured Guest: Jennifer Louden
It is my pleasure to introduce today's featured guest. She is the bestselling author of The Woman's Comfort Book, The Couple's Comfort Book, The Pregnant Woman¹s Comfort Book, The Woman's Retreat Book, and Comfort Secrets for Busy Women. Her newest book entitled The Life Organizer: A Woman's Guide to A Mindful Year is an innovative process for creating a life you love. I had the pleasure of attending a day-long workshop facilitated by Jen a couple of years ago and it was fantastic. She is so warmly present, real and accessible. Read on to see how this multi-talented woman has built her life around all her interests.
SH: Jen, how did you come to enjoy the life you live today?
JL: It’s by reminding myself that whatever I am doing in this moment is exactly what spirit, the light of being, or whatever silly word we put on it, would have me do. My mind has a different agenda, which is very much a dilettante, like - Oh my god, look at that painting! That sucks. You should be fixing that right now. Or - Oh my god, you told your mastermind group that you would be done with this new audio two weeks ago and you haven't even half finished it and it keeps changing and you spent all day yesterday looking for the support pieces for the shrines for your upcoming retreat, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… there goes the mind.
So really the only way that I find any peace with all my interests and desires is to just keep coming back to this moment and remembering that it's all happening in the one. It’s no different. And any division or suffering that I am causing by wanting to do so many things at one time, which of course is physically impossible, is my doing. But even that doing is part of the one so that helps me take my foot off the accelerator
SH: When did you realize that you would be happiest doing a multitude of things?
JL: I believe it was around 2000 or 2001 when I decided I should launch a larger version of what I was doing. So I teamed up with an artist; I went after licensing contracts. We launched what was, at the time, a large content site with the idea of it being advertising-revenue based. I invested about $25,000 of my own money and put in all this time as an administrator.
But I was so unhappy. Part of it was that I made a bargain with my inner self who was saying Hey, it's really time to go through some kind of rebirth. And I literally said Okay I really hear you and I believe you and I'm not ready to do it yet. So lets do this instead. It was really a kind of forced operation. And it also was the understanding that I am not good at doing the same things over and over again. It’s not the way my mind works.
SH: How have you balanced your many interests into a meaningful life and/or career?
JL: When you ask me that question this horrible wave of anxiety comes up. I want to have five different lives. And then I just let go and ask myself what's happening in this moment? Well, I am talking to you and then I am going to go to yoga. And I can only do what is arising in this moment. So that and noticing what gets me out of whack, what gets me out of balance. Like last year I taught a lot of longer, more intense retreats and it was too much, too many people. So this year I am doing less and then wondering if that's too little. And so it's this constantly observing, observing, observing.
SH: How to you manage your time? Do you make a plan?
JL: I really do use our life organizing process from my book The Life Organizer. On our website, www.thelifeorganizer.com, I printed out the 52 weeks of questions from the book. I bought this cool 3-ring notebook and dividers--and hole-punched a bunch of plain white paper. I try to keep everything in one place instead of like a lot us do where we have 16 notebooks and sketchbooks going and we can't find anything. I cart it around with me even though it is huge. I even have a section for audio products and other stuff. I do have a separate sketchbook for art stuff though. I am not a big on journaling right now, but if I want to record dreams or something I do it in my computer.
The way I organize my time is to just check in and use the body and use the heart as the opening to ask what am I needed to do today.
SH: Have you had any mentors who have influenced you?
JL: Oh yes! Currently, I am just eating up a spiritual teacher named Adyashanti's work. And in fact have signed up for a lottery to go to one of his retreats. I am listening to a lot of his tapes. He hasn't written a lot, which is good for me because I think it is better for me right now to take things in an auditory way. [www.adyashanti.org]
Mark Silver, who I have worked with for six months, is a wonderful resource for doing business from the heart. He's a fourth generation entrepreneur and a master Sufi teacher. He combines clearness about business with a very high level of "in-touchness" with the reality of spirit. So his conversations have been super helpful. [www.heartofbusiness.com]
SH: What advice or tips would you like to share?
JL: The most important thing is the way that you are right now is so utterly and completely okay. My invitation is to end the war with yourself about how many interests and passions you have. Just bathe yourself in the acceptance of how wonderful it is that you are never going to run out of things that you want to do in this life.
Look at it as the gift that it is and then think about the fact that you are a physical human being in a body and therefore you do have limited time and energy and so you might want to think of the three or four pots on the stove idea. I think of it as I can only stir so many pots at a time and all the other pots can be listed in my someday file.
************************************************
Jennifer Louden is a best-selling author, certified coach, monthly columnist for Body+Soul magazine, a regular guest on Martha Stewart¹s Living Sirius channel, and creator of learning events and retreats around the country. She's devoted to nurturing women to express their true creative power so they can help change the world
Share a cup of virtual tea with Jen at www.jenniferlouden.com and www.comfortqueen.com and www.thelifeorganizer.com
=====================================================
© 2006-2010 Susan Henderson Coaching, All rights reserved
April 5, 2007 Issue 19 ISSN 19354886
Editor: Susan Henderson, coach@susanhenderson.com
Visit my website at: http://www.susanhenderson.com
In This Issue
1) Greetings/News
2) Susan's Musings - Back to Nature
3) Featured guest: Jennifer Louden
This successful dilettante is a best-selling author of several books, a personal coach, radio show contributor, and columnist for Body & Soul magazine. Check out her interview below to see how she is managing her multiple interests.
=====================================================
Greetings/News
Hello one and all. Glad to welcome you once again and happy to greet new subscribers, as well. Wherever you are I wish you fair skies and warm, gentle breezes upon your face.
=====================================================
Susan's Musings - Back to Nature
Yesterday I chanced upon the most gorgeous potted Hydrangea plants that caused my little heart to skip and sing. The brilliant blue and lilac colors were breath-taking. I have been pining for a blue hydrangea and the timing was perfect for me to discover these when I was sorely in need of an attitude adjustment. I chose the biggest and the best one and plopped it into my shopping cart as I entered the grocery store.
My whole grocery-shopping experience was enhanced by my pure delight in this plant. I slowed down. People were smiling and friendly, commenting on the plant or just chatting up the wonderfully serene woman with the huge blue shrub in her basket. Sometimes, all it takes is a beautiful flowering plant to create a ripple effect of well-being.
The beauty of nature has always had a way of grounding me in both big and small ways. I plan to enjoy this plant indoors until it is time to plant it outside in a spot where I hope to be enjoying and sharing it with others for years to come.
What's that they say? Oh yeah - take time to stop and smell the roses.
Hugs,
Susan
=====================================================
Featured Guest: Jennifer Louden
It is my pleasure to introduce today's featured guest. She is the bestselling author of The Woman's Comfort Book, The Couple's Comfort Book, The Pregnant Woman¹s Comfort Book, The Woman's Retreat Book, and Comfort Secrets for Busy Women. Her newest book entitled The Life Organizer: A Woman's Guide to A Mindful Year is an innovative process for creating a life you love. I had the pleasure of attending a day-long workshop facilitated by Jen a couple of years ago and it was fantastic. She is so warmly present, real and accessible. Read on to see how this multi-talented woman has built her life around all her interests.
SH: Jen, how did you come to enjoy the life you live today?
JL: It’s by reminding myself that whatever I am doing in this moment is exactly what spirit, the light of being, or whatever silly word we put on it, would have me do. My mind has a different agenda, which is very much a dilettante, like - Oh my god, look at that painting! That sucks. You should be fixing that right now. Or - Oh my god, you told your mastermind group that you would be done with this new audio two weeks ago and you haven't even half finished it and it keeps changing and you spent all day yesterday looking for the support pieces for the shrines for your upcoming retreat, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah… there goes the mind.
So really the only way that I find any peace with all my interests and desires is to just keep coming back to this moment and remembering that it's all happening in the one. It’s no different. And any division or suffering that I am causing by wanting to do so many things at one time, which of course is physically impossible, is my doing. But even that doing is part of the one so that helps me take my foot off the accelerator
SH: When did you realize that you would be happiest doing a multitude of things?
JL: I believe it was around 2000 or 2001 when I decided I should launch a larger version of what I was doing. So I teamed up with an artist; I went after licensing contracts. We launched what was, at the time, a large content site with the idea of it being advertising-revenue based. I invested about $25,000 of my own money and put in all this time as an administrator.
But I was so unhappy. Part of it was that I made a bargain with my inner self who was saying Hey, it's really time to go through some kind of rebirth. And I literally said Okay I really hear you and I believe you and I'm not ready to do it yet. So lets do this instead. It was really a kind of forced operation. And it also was the understanding that I am not good at doing the same things over and over again. It’s not the way my mind works.
SH: How have you balanced your many interests into a meaningful life and/or career?
JL: When you ask me that question this horrible wave of anxiety comes up. I want to have five different lives. And then I just let go and ask myself what's happening in this moment? Well, I am talking to you and then I am going to go to yoga. And I can only do what is arising in this moment. So that and noticing what gets me out of whack, what gets me out of balance. Like last year I taught a lot of longer, more intense retreats and it was too much, too many people. So this year I am doing less and then wondering if that's too little. And so it's this constantly observing, observing, observing.
SH: How to you manage your time? Do you make a plan?
JL: I really do use our life organizing process from my book The Life Organizer. On our website, www.thelifeorganizer.com, I printed out the 52 weeks of questions from the book. I bought this cool 3-ring notebook and dividers--and hole-punched a bunch of plain white paper. I try to keep everything in one place instead of like a lot us do where we have 16 notebooks and sketchbooks going and we can't find anything. I cart it around with me even though it is huge. I even have a section for audio products and other stuff. I do have a separate sketchbook for art stuff though. I am not a big on journaling right now, but if I want to record dreams or something I do it in my computer.
The way I organize my time is to just check in and use the body and use the heart as the opening to ask what am I needed to do today.
SH: Have you had any mentors who have influenced you?
JL: Oh yes! Currently, I am just eating up a spiritual teacher named Adyashanti's work. And in fact have signed up for a lottery to go to one of his retreats. I am listening to a lot of his tapes. He hasn't written a lot, which is good for me because I think it is better for me right now to take things in an auditory way. [www.adyashanti.org]
Mark Silver, who I have worked with for six months, is a wonderful resource for doing business from the heart. He's a fourth generation entrepreneur and a master Sufi teacher. He combines clearness about business with a very high level of "in-touchness" with the reality of spirit. So his conversations have been super helpful. [www.heartofbusiness.com]
SH: What advice or tips would you like to share?
JL: The most important thing is the way that you are right now is so utterly and completely okay. My invitation is to end the war with yourself about how many interests and passions you have. Just bathe yourself in the acceptance of how wonderful it is that you are never going to run out of things that you want to do in this life.
Look at it as the gift that it is and then think about the fact that you are a physical human being in a body and therefore you do have limited time and energy and so you might want to think of the three or four pots on the stove idea. I think of it as I can only stir so many pots at a time and all the other pots can be listed in my someday file.
************************************************
Jennifer Louden is a best-selling author, certified coach, monthly columnist for Body+Soul magazine, a regular guest on Martha Stewart¹s Living Sirius channel, and creator of learning events and retreats around the country. She's devoted to nurturing women to express their true creative power so they can help change the world
Share a cup of virtual tea with Jen at www.jenniferlouden.com and www.comfortqueen.com and www.thelifeorganizer.com
=====================================================
© 2006-2010 Susan Henderson Coaching, All rights reserved
