Chaos to Calm

Chaos to Calm

Feeling tired, stressed and out of control? Are you overscheduled, overwhelmed and suffering from low self-confidence?

Chaos to Calm is the essential handbook for life from Australia's leaders in wellness education, Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell. Through its simple step-by-step approach, Chaos to Calm shows you to how to take back ownership of the things in your life you can control to live a more fulfilling life.

Chaos to Calm helps you reject the distractions that cause chaos in your life – the ones that create time famines and disconnect you from yourself and others.

Prompted by Shannah's own struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome, brought on by her demanding around-the-clock roles of management, PR and sponsorship working with up to 100 world-class athletes, Chaos to Calm brings with it the important reminder that we all need to take the time to breathe.

From practical advice and exercises on how to manage stress, declutter your home and beat procrastination through to getting a better night's rest and making the time to eat well, Chaos to Calm teaches you that having time to yourself and a life outside of work is not selfish, it's self-care.

With tips to encourage regular thoughts of positivity, gratitude and mindfulness, Shannah and Lyndall can help you to break out of old habits, create new ones and crucially, set boundaries and learn to say no more often.

Chaos to Calm is packed with advice and tools that will show you how to switch off, take control of your health, your finances, your wellbeing and ultimately your happiness by committing to what is essential in both your personal and professional life.

By coming together to create The Essentialists, Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell work to engage, educate and empower individuals, teams and organisations with essential life and wellness skills. Dubbed the 'Thelma and Louise of wellness", between them they have more than three decades of presenting and executive coaching experience across public and corporate sectors globally. They are committed to educate, engage and empower through their unique wellness programs and life coaching; challenging their clients to question the pursuit of 'success" at all costs.

Shannah Kennedy is a leading Australian business and life strategist to CEO's, business owners and athletes and is the author of The Life Plan and Simplify, Structure, Succeed. As an Advanced Certified Life Coach and Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner, Shannah works with a diverse range of executives, entrepreneurs and sporting leaders. Recent clients include Macquarie Bank, Mortgage Choice, Intrepid Travel, Sussan Group, QBE and CBA.

Lyndall Mitchell is a coach, wellness expert, and founder of the Aurora Spa Group, Australia's pioneering, award-winning urban spa. She is a leading coach, speaker and consultant with more than 20 years' experience and expertise in the health and wellbeing industry. Through her spas, coaching and speaking, Lyndall helps clients achieve their biggest, best and happiest version of themselves.

Chaos to Calm
Penguin Australia
Authors: Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell
RRP: $35.00

Interview with Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell

Question: What inspired you to write Chaos to Calm?

Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell: After the great success of The Life Plan, it was time to put together an essential book of skill sets with more how-to information and affirmations - which people always ask for! Lyndall and I coach a great range of executives and business owners and most are not equipped with stress busting skills, and lack the inner confidence to lead with a calm demeanour. Many are sleep-deprived due to no technology boundaries, have habits that do not support a healthy foundation in order to thrive and most lack basic life skills, vision and pure clarity about what they are doing. Chaos to Calm is an essential handbook for life of skills that are not taught, but are the foundation of owning self and evolving as a human being. In a world of human disconnect it was imperative that a book come to the shelf with a very simple strategy, explanation and how-to of essential life and wellness skills.


Question: Can you talk us through your struggles with chronic fatigue?

Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell: Adrenal burnout was a result of ignoring all the warning signs of having no self -are and self-preservation skills whatsoever. A sufferer of FOMO (fear of missing out) and being a high and over achieving Type A perfectionist, I found that setting boundaries and having little vision or clarity on my own set of values cost me my health. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is incredibly painful and debilitating, yet you look quite well, so it is very depressive struggle. I spent almost a year in bed and another 4 years to really conquer it and rebuild my body, internal system and mind set. I never put my mental and physical health first, it was always last on the list. I would always push the envelope, at work, gym, going out and recovery time was not an option. Now I am a JOMO (joy of missing out), can say no quite easily, and have a great foundation of health and wellbeing habits that allow me to thrive both personally and professionally.


Question: Can you share your top three tips to managing stress?

Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell: 1 BREATHE – Create space and take time to breathe. We have on average 17K breaths per day and no one takes one seriously. They fuel our body, mind and nervous system. Taking a breath is like putting your phone on the charger, which we would never forget to do! Our bodies need some space; for clarity, for repair, for sanity.

2 CLARITY – Ask yourself what is essential right now. Do what is only essential and get your priorities in order. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves by overcommitting and overscheduling. Create some space for yourself to reset your mind and body and take some rest.

3 BOUNDARIES – take the next six weeks of your diary and set some boundaries on technology use. When will you switch on in the morning and when will you switch off at night? Remove all technology from the bedroom and have 1 hour free of it before sleep time. This will give you a chance to lower cortisol (the stress hormone) in the body.


Question: How can we learn that taking time for ourselves is not selfish?

Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell: Successful people put their health and wellbeing first so they are able to give to others from a full tank, rather than an empty resentful one. Putting our own self first, and focusing on a little self-care will enable us to have more meaningful and fulfilling relationships both personally and professionally. I always ask the question to myself 'are you happy not caring for yourself? - is that attitude really serving you? The best version of yourself comes from a place of a great, strong foundation of self-care.

Interview by Brooke Hunter

 

Chaos to Calm
Penguin Australia
Authors: Shannah Kennedy and Lyndall Mitchell
RRP: $35.00