What If Nothing’s Wrong? Finding Order In Chaos

When I was in the depths of darkness—navigating single parenthood, $90,000 in debt, and feeling the pain of my life not being anything like I imagined—if someone had looked me in the eye and said, “Lola, everything is in order,” I might have thrown something at them.

And yet, over time through my own practice of truth-telling, surrender, and sitting in the messiness of my life, I have learned to see a higher order at work. The relationship ending, the financial collapse, the heartbreak—it was not punishment. It was initiation.

Everything Is In Order is one of my core values and a guiding context for how I live and how I lead. Though there is mystery, chaos, and heartbreak throughout our lives, something greater is always at work. We can trust that.

From Chaos to Clarity

Looking back, I can see the exquisite order in so many moments that once felt unbearable:

• As a teenager, lonely and scared, I became pregnant at eighteen. That detour from my family’s expectations shaped me into a fiercely committed young mother.
• By twenty-two, I was a single mom working desperately to survive, losing and finding myself a million times over. Those years formed my resilience and my devotion to raising extraordinary humans.
• In my twenties and thirties, I experienced a volatile relationship, the grief of financial collapse, and the disorientation of leaving a fifteen-year corporate career with no plan.

Each time I shed an old identity, something new was born. What felt like chaos at the time was, in hindsight, a carefully woven path that led me closer to my essence.

I will never forget sitting in the front row of a hotel ballroom in Palm Springs the first time I heard Michael Beckwith speak. His presence changed my life. Within months, I was studying everything he pointed me to, like my life depended on it—a commitment that lasted three years and eventually led me to Bodhi Center.

My years at Bodhi were a crucible. They required facing my own shadow, and letting go of who I thought I had to be. Eventually I became the CEO and Spiritual Director of Bodhi, which was both exhilarating and excruciating—every late-night meeting, every hard conversation, every leap of faith was shaping me.

Looking back, I can see that it was all in order, preparing me for the work I do today and building the leadership capacity I now bring to every client and community I serve.

The Irritation—and the Invitation

When your life is on fire, hearing that “everything is in order” can sound incredibly dismissive or tone-deaf. That is not my intention.

Embracing this value is not about bypassing pain or pretending everything is fine. It is about remembering that there is intelligence in the unraveling. Something is always being re-ordered, even if we cannot yet see it.

Trust me, we live in an organized universe—whether we like it or not.

When I was sitting on the floor of my tiny apartment surrounded by overdue bills, wondering how I was going to feed my kids, I had to choose to trust that life was not falling apart—it was falling into place.

Trusting the Non-Linear

Reality is not linear. The thing that feels like the worst thing might actually be the doorway to liberation.

We are seeing this on a collective level right now. The political and cultural climate is loud, divided, and often exhausting. It would be easy to wish it all away, to long for “simpler times.” But disruption is not a mistake—it is the medicine.

Everything that is being surfaced—our collective fear, rage, and shadow—has to be brought into the light before it can be transformed. If all we had were leaders and circumstances that kept us comfortable, we would never have to confront what is festering beneath the surface.

This is the hard truth: discomfort is not here to punish us, it is here to grow us. The chaos is calling us to become more conscious, more courageous, and more responsible for the world we are co-creating.

The same is true inside your business or organization. When a team hits friction, when conflict erupts, when a leader is under pressure—those are not signs that something is “broken.” They are signals that something new is trying to emerge. If you rush to smooth things over too quickly, you miss the opportunity for transformation.

Wise leaders know that the very mess they want to escape often contains the breakthrough they are longing for—stronger culture, deeper trust, better strategy. Your work is to stay present long enough to let the reordering take shape.

Leaders who embrace this value stop fighting reality and start working with it. They become curious:

• What is this here to teach me?
• What is trying to emerge through this moment?

This context shift for leaders opens the door to creativity, resilience, and deeper trust—in themselves, in their teams, and in the process of life.

How to Trust that Everything is in Order? Get Curious.

If you are in a season of life that feels chaotic, try this:

• Take a deep breath and whisper: Everything is in order.
• Ask: What if this is not wrong? What if this is for me, not against me?
• Listen for what begins to surface—not as a quick fix, but as an unfolding.

Clarity may not come today. But over time you may see that the very thing you thought would break you was the thing that remade you.

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