Why Life Keeps Repeating the Same Lessons Until You Learn
In this episode of Just Call Jenna, Jenna explores why life can seem to repeat the same patterns and lessons through the Law of Rhythm. From ocean tides and changing seasons to the brain’s natural cycles of focus and recovery, she explains that life isn’t meant to move in a constant upward direction. Drawing from her own experience healing after a stroke, Jenna shares how she learned that progress isn’t linear—and that periods that feel like setbacks may actually be necessary seasons of healing, restoration, and growth.
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Jenna encourages listeners to stop asking, “Why is this happening?” and instead ask, “What season am I in?” Whether you’re learning, healing, building, or harvesting, each season serves a purpose. By understanding that rest is productive, emotions provide necessary contrast, and some of our greatest progress happens beneath the surface, we can stop fighting life’s natural cycles and begin moving with them—trusting that no season, high or low, lasts forever.
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Welcome back. Thanks for joining again. Today I'm going to talk about the law of rhythm and how things kind of move in cycles in life and how you can work with it. If you've ever felt like your life was flowing And then suddenly nothing seems to work out. I think we've all been there. Then this episode is really for you.
What we're actually talking about is something universally called the law of rhythm, or the circle of life, the cycles of life, like the tides So imagine you're on a beach, a wave rushes in and surrounds your feet. Suddenly the water pulls back. And if you didn't understand what a tide is, you might panic. That little bit of undertow that kind of feels pulling back. If you've never seen that tide, you might just panic. You wouldn't know what it was. Someone standing beside you will say, Don't worry, it always comes back.
“Don't worry, it always comes back.”
Your life works a lot like that. So like a tide around your feet. It's gonna pull back and then the tide comes back. There are seasons of your life where everything is gonna feel slower. Oh slow slow slow. And then you might question yourself, am I moving fast enough? Are things happening? You might wonder what you're doing wrong. It might just be the season of slowness. You feel like you've lost your momentum. You're just Simply experiencing rhythm.
“It might just be the season of slowness.”
Like the idea of what goes up must come down. Everything has its cycle, right? You plant a seed, it grows into a tree that becomes a fruit, the drops in the seeds, and a new tree comes. Things have their cycle. That's the law of rhythm. It teaches us that everything moves in cycles. Nothing is Stuck. Everything moves in cycles. It has a rhythm.
Day becomes night. Winter becomes spring. Breath is inhale. Exhale, your heartbeat contracts and then releases. All of these things are rhythms. Just doing that simple thing allows me to let not this be such a quick reaction. I've been known to have a nasty math. I can tell people off with the best of them. But just taking that pause and breathing before I respond. That has created a new cycle.
We seem to expect ourselves to always feel productive, always feel motivated, always growing. But nature doesn't ask that of itself, so why should we? Like if you look at Mother Nature or the cycles of the planet, It does not ask things to be sped up, to always be productive, always be motivated, always growing, always on Some seasons are slower so that you can rest and recover. Sometimes you need to take an easy path. An easy path does not mean an easy life. so to speak. But sometimes you gotta take that step back.
“Some seasons are slower so that you can rest and recover.”
In neuroscience of your brain, it isn't designed to operate at maximum output. All day. It needs cycles to rest and recover so your nervous system can actually move between activation and recovery. You actually need to rest and recover Athletes know this, right? They go and they work out hard and then they take the time to rest and recover. Your muscles are usually built in the recovery time. You work them out and that growth happens in the rest and recovery. Your brain is a muscle. It's gonna work a lot like that.
So sometimes you have To do that work, but don't forget to plan the time to rest and recover. That is part of the cycles of rhythm that you're gonna have to work with. You can see it in nature if you don't believe me and think I'm nuts You can actually just look at nature and see those cycles happening. When you're focused and solving problems, your brain uses the networks of it that are responsible for attention and decision making.
And when you rest, a whole other network of your brain becomes active and that's your default mode network. or rest and recovery. This is not your brain being lazy. It's where your brain organizes memories and finds creative solutions and connects things. So for example, we've all seen it done on a computer where you run the defrag program and let it put all the files back together. Your brain sort of has to do the same thing when you're resting and recovering.
So build in time to rest and recover. Stop trying to be maximum output. all the time. If you have a 16-hour day, great, plan a four-hour day tomorrow. You're still gonna keep it moving, but you're planning time to rest. If you're not sleeping eight hours a night, start building in meditation time or quiet time where you're letting your brain still rest. If you can't, you know, sleep all night, which you need to do, your brain has to recover.
If you're an insomniac, I have one in my family who sleeps less than three hours a night. So building in recovery time. There is a time during that person's day where they just lay there in quiet for an hour, even if they don't fall asleep. But that is what you need to do So maybe you've noticed that sometimes your best ideas come in the shower or the joke about I got my best idea on the toilet. That's actually because your brain is resting and recovering. There is a default mode network that's in there.
And so When you turn off productivity and you let your brain rest, the creative side can come back out. If you've ever done like an art class or something that's creative that way. And then you go later, your brain is able to be more productive. For me, this podcast is a creative outlet where I'm putting things out there and It is kind of allowing the logical, productive side of my brain to be more effective tomorrow because I'm letting the creative side play today.
After my stroke, I thought that healing would happen in some sort of a straight line or a linear fashion. You know, I'm here and I'm gonna get to here. Every day I Expected to see improvement. I expected to move further down the line. But some days I could think clearly, and other days I felt like I was getting worse. Some days felt like one step forward, two steps back.
I couldn't remember simple words some days. I had to start Describing things, even now to this day. Sometimes I'll think about things and I have to start describing the object so somebody will give me the word. It's that feeling of your brain, like when you walk into the kitchen and you're like, why am I even in here My brain goes like that often. So nowadays if I don't write it down, it doesn't happen.
But I used to think that healing was very lineary, like linear. I used to think that that's how it happened It had to go in a straight line. A, B, C, that was the rules, but it doesn't work like that. I judged myself on a difficult day and I would feel like I was sliding back. If I judged myself on a day where I was firing on all cylinders. I would be like, yes, I'm the champion of the world.
But there's part of the cycles of that. That's the rhythm of healing. Some days are gonna be good and some days are gonna be tough. There's a rhythm to that. I think you just have to understand that there's a cycle. Some days are gonna be two steps forward, one step back. Some days are gonna be one step forward, two steps back. There's a rhythm to it.
“That's the rhythm of healing. Some days are gonna be good and some days are gonna be tough.”
I think a lot about a quote by Martin Luther King that's If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. And when you can't walk, crawl, but never stop moving forward. And healing, rhythms, they all kind of work like that Keep it moving. Keep it moving forward. Keep going in the direction you want to go.
“Keep it moving. Keep it moving forward. Keep going in the direction you want to go.”
But part of the rhythm is stop beating yourself up for having a bad day. Bad days are going to happen. Go for more often than not. We see rhythm everywhere in life. Growth happens during rest Think about planting a garden. I always use that example because I'm a gardener and I loved a garden.
But you don't plant the seeds on a Monday and then dig it up on a Friday going Hey, they didn't bloom. They didn't break the ground. Nothing happened. Because you understand that there is a time buffer there. Why haven't they bloomed, you might ask yourself? Well, because that's not their cycle. There's a rhythm to it.
I plant in the spring to harvest in the fall. Or I plant in the fall to harvest in the spring. There's a time. We give nature or we give gardens that time. Why aren't we giving it to ourselves? You're like that. You have to give yourself some time Most of us are giving up before we even get to the goal because we're not understanding the rhythm. Plan for that rhythm. Think about that rhythm. Understand.
“Most of us are giving up before we even get to the goal because we're not understanding the rhythm.”
Now there's always outliers. You can go statistic-wise. I did that when starting the podcast. I looked up statistics of what is the average outlier. Now sure, I love that I've had more growth than expected, but I'm not a viral sensation yet. I appreciate all of you listening and learning because That's my goal, but it's finding out what are the rhythms of that, what are the cycles.
And when I started this, it was about what are the cycles? What are the averages? What am I likely to experience? A little bit of research, but not so much that it stopped me from starting, but it was understanding there's a cycle. When you go to, you know, for example, you go get a loan to buy your house There's a cycle.
There's a certain process that has to follow. You do not turn in your application today and fund tomorrow. It's usually 30 to 45 days. There's processes that have to happen When you apply for insurance claims, right, they don't happen on day one. You apply today, and there's a cycle that has to happen We see rhythm everywhere in our lives, not just nature. There has to be some sort of a rhythm to it.
So why do we fight the rhythms? Well, because our brain loves certainty. It wants to know what's gonna happen now, now, now. But you're nervous. system will feel safe when things are predictable. And so you're fighting yourself all day long. Predict it. Understand what's the averages.
You know, more often than not, how do I get in the middle? How do I figure out on average 80% of this? Well then I'm gonna try to hit here. And this is the cycle. Sure I'm gonna hope for the best and hope that I'm gonna turn in my loan application today and fund in 15 days instead of 30. Absolutely hope that for you.
But understanding that most of them are gonna take 30 days that tells you what's predictable. Your brain will go and predict that. Your nervous system will actually feel safe with that predictable. And then you can work better with the rhythms.
When life slows down, the brain starts creating stories. I'm failing. I lost my chance. All this, all that. I'll never get back to where I was Slowing down is not failure. It's preparation. It's part of the cycle.
“Slowing down is not failure. It's preparation. It's part of the cycle.”
You know, not everything in life is a relay, but even then you have a relay team of four people No one person is running at full capacity the full time. We're handing off the baton and running at different things. Or if athletes, like I used to be a swimmer when I was younger, you know, you had rest in between your swims If you were swimming three or four times that day, you had rest breaks in between. You had times to go cool down and let your body recover so you could be at peak performance. That's part of rhythm.
Your brain loves recovery. We don't often think about our brain recovery. We think about our body recovering from working again after Athletes understand that recovery is part of training. No athlete would work out at max capacity every single day because their performance improves during their recovery time. You see it when they take ice baths, get massages, go see sports, injury people. Athletes recover. Your brain needs to recover the same way.
Sometimes the more productive you are, you're actually causing yourself more harm. So sometimes the most productive thing you can do is actually Stop trying to push so hard. Stop trying so hard. Maybe that's actually you being productive. And we don't think about that. I think every motivation in the world we live in is now, now, now, max capacity. Full throttle, go hard, but you actually have to recover. You have to stop.
“Sometimes the most productive thing you can do for your healing, your growth, your brain is just Stop trying to go so hard.”
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do for your healing, your growth, your brain is just Stop trying to go so hard. Sleep will actually strengthen your memories. It's been scientifically proven. Again, if you can't sleep Go find some quiet time and downtime. But rest regulates the nervous system. Quiet moments will actually help your creativity.
You know, if you have to think about right brain, left brain You have to let that one side of your brain relax so the other side can turn on. You can't run all day long at one and not the other, or what happens? You're completely off balance. You're gonna look like a V8 commercial in your brain. Have you had your V8 today? I don't think you probably want to do that.
So one of the reasons for our suffering in life, as I've seen with multiple clients and even myself more importantly, is that we mistake a season for a destination. You're having a bad day. Imagine if I had a mistake in the recovery in my stroke as my life is always going to be this way. I would have never healed. I would not have said, okay, it's possible to get better. There was a lot of rest and recovery.
I would push and then rest. push and then rest and it took time but that's part of the season so again I think one of the biggest mistakes that we make in life is that we just mistake Mistake a bad day for a season. Sometimes you're gonna have bad things, right? Sometimes we have to learn our lessons. Sometimes you have to fail so you can appreciate the win.
Hustle But neuroscience proves it. It proves that rest and recovery is needed. So one bad conversation is not a relationship falling apart. Remove always and never from your vocabulary. I say that a lot. I tell my daughters that. Just remove it. Stop saying always and never. Just let it be a little bit closer to the center.
“Give yourself room. Give yourself room to make a big mistake. Give yourself room to grow. Give yourself some space.”
Give yourself room. Give yourself room to make a big mistake. Give yourself room to grow. Give yourself some space. Stop being obsessed with max productivity All the time. There is a season to be max productive and there's a season to rest and recover. You gotta start scheduling the rest and recovery in your life with as much intention as you do the hustle.
The brain loves patterns. In neuroscience, it's called predictive processing. Your brain actually becomes more efficient by doing this So if you're in a difficult season, your brain will start predicting that tomorrow will be bad too. It will be more like today. But the law of rhythm reminds us that everything will change. Everything has a different place in the cycle.
And one of the best things you can do for yourself is just schedule some rest and recovery. Schedule some downtime. Put it on your calendar just like you would lunch with a friend or a concert. Schedule time for yourself. You deserve it.
How to work with rhythm? Instead of asking yourself, why is this happening? Maybe ask yourself, what season am I in? Think back to my stroke recovery about that. Thinking about the season when I was learning to walk one driveway at a time. That was the season I was in. I was not in the season of let me walk around the block. That was too far out, but I knew that to be able to walk around the block, I had to get one driveway at a time. and learn to do it without holding on to a walker or a cane.
“Maybe ask yourself what season am I in? What am I supposed to learn?”
So sometimes you have to ask yourself what season instead of going with the victim mindset of Why is this happening to me? Maybe ask yourself what season am I in? What am I supposed to learn? Maybe you're in the season of learning, or maybe you're in the season of healing. Building, harvesting. Each season or rhythm has a purpose. That is why experience is such a great teacher.
The mistake we make is comparing our winter to somebody else's summer. Like we do that all the time as humans. Comparison is Awful for your self-esteem. It actually damages how you feel about yourself because you start comparing where you're at with where somebody else is Like maybe it's your first day of work and you're comparing yourself to the guy who's been there twenty years. Well you don't have any of that experience.
So you're actually limiting yourself and talk Working down to yourself without you even realizing it because you're comparing to where someone else is. Instead of going, hey, it's my first day. What do I need to learn? Asking for information and being inquisitive versus being experienced and telling people how they should be doing the job or how to be more efficient. So you have to think about what season you're in and stop comparing your winter to somebody else's summer. That's the worst thing you can do for yourself.
“So you have to think about what season you're in and stop comparing your winter to somebody else's summer.”
If you're in summer, great, you're in summer. If you're in winter, then you're in winter. Learn what season you're in and learn how to work with it. Here's one small shift you can make. The next time you feel slow, don't just assume that you're behind. I know I'm super guilty of that. But ask yourself, what is this season teaching me?
Sun always follows the man. Your nervous system will always seek some sort of a balance, which is really a rhythm. Cause I think balance is ridiculous. Like you might balance once, but to balance more often than not Rhythm, routine, those are important. Your brain is often doing its deepest work when you can't see the results. Think about that For a minute.
Your brain is doing the most work when you're not seeing it or when you're not aware of it. Sleep, rest These are super important. So again, what's that small shift? When you feel like you're slow, when you feel like things are not working out, just worry about, okay, you're in a season and how can you prepare for the next season? Just prepare for the next season because the tide will turn, the sun will follow the moon The spring will follow the summer. Your brain will work things out when it's resting.
“The law of rhythm reminds us that life isn't happening to us. It's actually moving through us.”
The law of rhythm reminds us that life isn't happening to us. It's actually moving through us. If you think about it like a wheel, right? It has to turn. So there will be highs and lows. That's just part of life But neither one lasts forever. You're not supposed to feel happy every day. You're not supposed to be a peak performance all the time. You're not supposed to be resting all the time.
So let's say that again. Joy, grief, excitement, fear, peace. anger. Every emotion serves a purpose. You're not supposed to be at a high high all the time or a low low all the time. You are supposed to move through them. And instead of resisting the rhythm, which I think society teaches us to do. Learn to dance with it, like you would dance to your favorite song.
Not all the same note. Your favorite song has, you know, rhythms to it. You're gonna life is the same. Learn to dance with life like you're dancing with your favorite song. Put on a song and dance with it if you have to to f feel the rhythm. Stop fighting the natural cycles of life. You will keep exhausting yourself if you're fighting uphill all the time.
Stop trying to force growth and let peace happen. Let the rhythms of things happen. High highs, low lows. Joys, griefs, that's all part of life. Just learn to work with it, recognize the season you're in, and stop blaming yourself and saying always and never. It's always gonna be like this. This never happens for me.
Imagine you were driving a car with only a gas pedal. You'd crash. You'd never have a way to brake. You need the brake to s Stop the car. Likewise, if you only felt happiness, you wouldn't recognize gratitude. You wouldn't recognize what to be grateful or appreciate peace. Contrast actually gives life meaning. That's part of the reason why there's these rhythms and cycles.
Your brain was designed to adapt. Your nervous system was designed to find balance. Or like I say, routine. And sometimes the greatest progress is happening beneath the surface where you can't see it. Don't always worry about what you can be aware of. Recognize the season you're in, and remember to schedule time in your life. for peak performance, but just as much time for rest and recovery.
Thanks for joining today. Remember, karma's real, energy is contagious, check your vibes. I now have my workbook available for purchase on my website. Justcalljenna.online There's a shop button. You can purchase the workbook that shows you seven days of how to start resetting your stress level. It's downloadable You're not getting some book. You can just download it and print it on your printer or use it on your phone.
For many of my listeners, I've been getting emails and comments about people asking how to get started without choosing to have coaching or lifelong sessions if you will, purchase it. It will give you the momentum to get started. And then if you need more support, please reach out to me All my contact information is on my website.
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