342. When the Heart Finds Its New Rhythm

"A heart out of rhythm has a way of revealing a life out of rhythm."

Guided by insights from Tom Rosshirt's Chasing Peace: A Story of Breakdowns, Breakthroughs, and the Spiritual Power of Neuroscience, we explore the connection between breakdowns and breakthroughs. We talk plainly about the difference between happiness tied to outcomes and peace rooted in a state of mind, and we practice language that helps dissolve the ego without erasing identity. From breathwork and boundaries to nervous system care, prayer, and honest community, this conversation offers practical routes back to rest—rest that isn’t a day off but a daily way of being.

We also return to a theme close to my heart: honoring maternal presence as a powerful, often untapped force inside families, churches, and communities. When we mother across ages—biologically or spiritually—we model repair, stability, and hope. My prayer, as I head into a procedure to restore sinus rhythm, is simple: that our hearts would find a God-breathed rhythm, and that our lives would beat with grace, peace, and love. 

Chapters

• 0:06 Stories That Stir a Calling
• 1:00 Unleashing Maternal Presence
• 1:12 Health Update: Atrial Flutter Journey
• 2:27 Cardio Version and Next Steps
• 5:36 Living From Rest, Not Rush
• 6:30 Chasing Peace: Key Insights
• 9:13 Breakdown vs Breakthrough
• 11:29 Happiness or Peace
• 12:58 Dissolving the Self-Image
• 15:09 The Longing To Be Special
• 17:24 Choosing Peace Through Love

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

As I've listened to the stories of thousands of women of all ages, in all kinds of stages through the years, I've kept their stories locked in the vault of my heart. I feel as if they've been walking around with me all through these years. They've bothered me, they've prodded me, and sometimes kept me up at night. Ultimately, they've increased my passion to reframe and reimagine the powerful positions of mother and matriarch within the family system. I'm a problem solver, so I set out to find a way to perhaps change the trajectory of this silent and sad scenario about a dynamic yet untapped source of potential and purpose, sitting in our homes and churches. It is time to come to the table, heartlifters, and unleash the power of maternal presence into the world. Welcome to Mothering for the Ages, our 2025 theme here on today's Heartlift. I'm Janelle. I am your guide here on this heartlifting journey. I invite you to grab a pen, a journal, and a cup of something really delicious. May today's conversation give you clarity, courage, and a revived sense of camaraderie. You see, you're not on this journey alone. We are unified as heartlifters and committed to bringing change into the world. One heart at a time. Hello and welcome to today's Heartlift. I'm Janelle, your guide for today's conversation. I'm placing my hand over my heart, which is beating out of rhythm. And I just wanted to have a little heart to heart today. If you are new, I have been experiencing what they call atrial flutter. Initially diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, but later came to see that it is actually called atrial flutter. So I'm 10 weeks in this process, and it is still out of rhythm, but tomorrow, drum roll please, I am scheduled for my cardio version, phase one of returning my heart to natural sinus rhythm. And my prayer is that my heart will be shocked back into its God-breathed rhythm, the one that God breathes into me. When I was actually conceived. Maybe not in the truest physical sense of the word, but maybe figuratively or metaphorically. Well, this process, this whole entire invitation to my heart being out of rhythm, finding the right doctors, which they call electrocardiophysiologists, the electricians of the heart. I've learned that when you have a heart problem, it's either an electrical problem or a plumbing problem. Well, mine is an electrical problem, and I did find the right EP electrophysiologist, and I waited a little longer than I wanted to, but I have heard that I did the right thing. And so tomorrow, when the show is actually aired, I will have experienced what they call a cardioversion, where they shock your heart back into its natural sinus rhythm, or sinus rhythm, as they say. Phase two is an ablation, which uh I will be having, but because it couldn't be scheduled until actually beginning of 2026, I need to go through this cardioversion in order to get my heart back into rhythm because you don't want your heart to be out of natural sinus rhythm. It will start to remodel. It's actually something called heart remodeling. So you can see that this journey has been a new journey for this girl who calls herself a professional heartlifter. And it's been a deep dive into the physical aspects of a heart. I call myself an experiential writer and an experiential teacher. So typically, my my writing, my books, my courses come from my own personal experience. Well, here I am again, being invited by God to dive deeper into the workings of the heart, both physically, metaphorically, literally, all the things. And I feel God inviting me into understanding what it means to really live a life from a place of rest. As I've said, not just taking a nap, not just taking some me time, not just getting a massage or perhaps taking a vacation, but living and moving and breathing from a place of rest, undisturbed peace, calm, ease. So I have read several books over these last ten weeks and spent a great deal of time highlighting, writing, researching, journaling, figuring it out. And one of those books is called Chasing Peace, a story of breakdowns, breakthroughs, and the spiritual power of neuroscience. And so today I just wanted to read to you a few thoughts from this treasured book that I have found. The author Tom Roschert writes, We break through only after we break down. And we break down only after we've spent years building up. Okay, I'm gonna repeat it. We break through only after we break down, and we break down only after we've spent years building up. Straight from my journal, I I read, God, in your mercy, you are breaking through my life. I am most grateful. He writes, Ross Shirt writes, peace and happiness. Peace is different from happiness. Happiness is a material pursuit. Peace is a spiritual state. Happiness is getting what we want. Peace is wanting what we get. Happiness is becoming who we want to be. Peace is becoming who we are. Peace is becoming who we are. He writes, this is how I'll use these terms in this book. Happiness comes when my self-image and the story I see for myself line up with the world. The precious moments where there is nothing I want that I don't have. Peace is the same feeling. There's nothing that I want that I don't have, but it's not tied to events. Peace is a state of mind. So it can go on and on and on. And I journaled these statements. Peace is a state of mind. Peace is becoming who we are. Peace is a spiritual state. Peace is wanting what we get, or I add what I already have. The outcome of our lives, he writes, I believe, comes in how we handle the breakdowns and whether we see them as a chance for breakthrough. Page seven. I have literally had to meditate on that for days. How we handle the breakdowns. This in my life has been a breakdown, a very serious breakdown. My heart is breaking down. God has my attention, and I know that he has my attention for me, for sure, and for my family, and for my legacy. But because I am a teacher and I feel this in my bones, I have a sense that he wants me to take the time to stop and stop long enough, no matter how long that takes, to digest what he's teaching me, so that perhaps if he allows, I can teach it to others. And heartlifters, you are my others. You are who I care deeply about. Outside of my family and those closest to me, I do care about you. I want you to have a meaningful, beautiful, loving, caring, secure, safe life. Rossert continues, true happiness includes peace. If happiness doesn't include peace, it's just a good mood. When I use the term happiness, he says, in a spiritual sense, I mean happiness through peace. And I want you to really lean in here. Because what he said next in this book to me was pivotal. This book is about the shift, this book for chasing peace, from seeking happiness by achieving the self-image to finding peace by dissolving the self-image. There are several words I will use in this book, he writes, to refer to the state we enter as we surrender the self-image. Peace, joy, grace, love. This state is where I believe we're all headed. But I don't think that seeking peace and joy and grace and love is how most of us start out. We first seek happiness by creating a story of who we want to be and trying to achieve that in the world. At least that's how it was for me, he writes. And then I add it in the margin, or by trying to achieve what others wanted us to be or become. He writes, when I look back on my greatest happiness and sadness, they correspond with my success or failure in sustaining my story of myself. You see, I'm adding this. We all have a story. My second book, Overcoming Hurtful Words, Rewrite Your Own Story, is all about how to rewrite your story, or perhaps how to reconnect to your God-breathed story. That would really be a better subtitle now that I've lived long enough through that book. Because I encourage through that book to reconnect to your Genesis 2.7 beginning. When I've been able to live up to my self-image and be recognized for my gifts without straining over the effort, he writes, I felt happy. When my self-image gets overwhelmed and I appear to be those things I hate and have worked hard to avoid, I get depressed. And this is the most embarrassing insight. The deep cause behind my story making and the happiness and sadness that comes with it is nothing more than my longing to be special. That's our lean-in. We all want and long to be special. That's all. I'm just a little boy trying to live a story that makes me the hero so I can be loved. It doesn't matter what the identity of the story is. My motive, I would even add my hidden unconscious motive, is to be separate and superior and special and secure. When I took on the self-image of being spiritual, I was trying to put myself above people who sought fame or wealth or power. I thought I'm laughing my way past the material success trap they're wasting their time on. No, I wasn't. He's so honest. He's just so honest. I concluded from Ross Schert's work that the breakdown that I am currently in is clearing a path to true, deep, lasting peace. Because I know that what I am really, I think, finally acknowledging and seeking is to understand the deep, deep love of God. Because when I understand the deep, deep love of God, I will experience my truest essence. Anything else that will come forth in my life will be a bonus. Any new experiences, any new opportunities, any new roads and pathways will be a bonus. Heartlifter, I want for you today true peace and happiness. And we know here that all starts at the foot of the cross, accepting the sacrifice that Jesus made for us, receiving the great love of his sacrifice, and allowing it to permeate and pour over us from the top of our heads to the soles of our feet. Today, as I move forward into receiving my restored heart rhythm at the hands of a skilled doctor and surgeon known as an electrician of the heart. I want you to know that those few seconds when I lay down and they start the drip of the general anesthesia, you are going to be on my mind. And I am praying for all of us as women who have people in our spheres of influence and our intimates that need us, that we will all find our God-breathed heart rhythm. And that it will beat with the grace and the peace and the love and the deep understanding of God's love. I am praying when I awaken tomorrow, after that surgery where they are going to shock my heart, that my heart will beat in sync like never before with my father's heart in heaven. And I want the same for you. I love you, heartlifter, and I hope you know how much God loves you.

unknown: 17:57

Until next time.