Young Mom Who Co-owns a Film Production Company Shares Mantra to Peace Amid Chaos

After the challenging 2020 marred by the CCP virus pandemic, people everywhere seem to long for a stress-busting mantra leading to a chaos-free, peaceful life. A young Swedish entrepreneur who went through a host of issues in her early twenties shares the passkey to make radical life-transformation possible.

Andrea Elvhage, 39, the co-owner of Fenix Film production company, from Gothenburg, Sweden, shared with The Epoch Times how she discovered “peace amid chaos” and improved the troubled relationship with her own self, thereby harmonizing her outer and inner worlds.

“I was hot-tempered,“ Andrea said. ”I thought this was normal.”

“I smoked a lot and developed a smoker’s cough,” she said. “I coughed a lot in my sleep and therefore didn’t sleep well. People commented all the time that I looked tired.”

Andrea Elvhage, 39, the co-owner of Fenix Film production company. (Supplied)

The young business developer, who is proud of her Swedish, Portuguese, and a little French legacy, shared that back in her 20s, she stressed a lot, was underweight, and was always running behind time.

Gradually, she found her health declining, and she developed gastritis.

“At one point my gastritis was so severe that it felt I had swallowed razor blades when I was eating, with sharp pains in my solar plexus,” she said. “I had back pain every day when coming home from work.”

With each passing day, Andrea realized that she couldn’t be in such bad shape at such a young age.

“To stop stressing for me was fundamental,” Andrea said.

Finding Peace Amid Chaos

With the need to bring a “radical change” in her lifestyle, Andrea began re-evaluating everything in her life, and the relationship she had with her own self.

Luckily for Andrea, help came in the form of a book that one of her old friends bought in an antique book store.

Owing to her keen interest in philosophy, Andrea is quite acquainted with Eastern philosophy as her father is a practitioner of Zen Buddhism, and she too has practiced martial arts for several years. Her friend thought she should read Falun Gong, the introductory text of the spiritual practice of Falun Dafa.

“[My friend] said that ‘I should read it since it introduced a practice that was a combination of exercises for the body, as well as the philosophic part about introspection,’ which he knew I was very interested in,” Andrea recalled.

Andrea said as she continued to read the book, she found the answers to many of her life questions and problems. Soon, she began practicing the five sets of exercises of Falun Dafa.

Andrea practicing the fifth exercise of Falun Dafa. (Courtesy of Tobias Elvhage)

Andrea said she strived to apply the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance to her daily life. Transitioning from a chaotic mindset to a more peaceful one, Andrea began to notice changes in herself.

“I got rid of the back pain,” Andrea said. “As I became calmer, gastritis also disappeared. I stopped smoking.”

“From being underweight, I regained normal weight in the first 3 months of practice,” she recalled.

“The calmer I have become the more connected I feel with nature,” Andrea said. “Sometimes in mediation, I feel like every cell in my body is so peaceful.”

As a previously quick-tempered person, Andrea said her spiritual practice opened up a new path for her, leading to a better life and harmonious relationships.

“As I continued to practice, I realized that I don’t have to be this way. Today I and my husband seldom have quarrels.”

Andrea practicing the exercises of Falun Dafa. (Courtesy of Tobias Elvhage)

Apart from living by these three core moral principles in her interactions with other people, she stresses the significance of having compassion and tolerance for oneself.

“It’s not always this peaceful moment, it can also be a moment where uncomfortable feelings arise within like sorrow, grief, or anger ... it’s a feeling I have to deal with.  So, it’s an opportunity to look deeper,” Andrea said.

On finding the cause of a problem within, Andrea says that one moment of peace leaves priceless cues to harmonize the relationship she has with others and with herself.

“It’s the most rewarding feeling you can have,” she said.

Andrea says she has learned through her own experiences that it’s in the most challenging situations that we tend to learn something more about our own selves and grow and become stronger individuals, but this is possible only if we decide to set our hearts and have the vigor within us to carry it out.

“With hardships, there often comes an opportunity to grow, refine our character, learn about ourselves, and become a better person,” she added.

Optimizing Work-Life Balance

From juggling with her priorities as a mother of a little boy to taking care of the house to managing work as a successful professional, Andrea states that balance and planning are essential to leading a happy and fulfilling life.

“When I feel unbalanced, nowadays, I usually remind myself that I can take responsibility for my imbalances and unresolved feelings,” she said.

“That’s when I need to meditate a little more,” she added. “Then, I naturally feel more balanced again and can have a more harmonious response to myself and people around me.”

Andrea with her son and husband, Tobias, the co-owner of Fenix Film. (Supplied)

Andrea and her husband, Tobias, founded their film production company, Fenix Film, in 2010.

Since its inception, they have produced branded entertainment programs for television, TV documentaries, live-event broadcasts, and developed documentary-style commercials.

In addition to working on some really interesting projects, Andrea said they aim to give a voice to the voiceless, suppressed people.

She said: “Something we’re both passionate about is to, via film, bring attention to the human rights atrocities that are going on in China, with the persecution, torture, and killing of innocent prisoners of conscience like Falun Gong practitioners and Tibetans.”

Falun Gong practitioners march from the U.S. Capitol to the Washington Monument commemorating the 20th anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, in Washington, on July 18, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Falun Gong, a spiritual system practiced freely and openly the world over, has been violently suppressed since July 1999 in China, the land of its origin.

Former leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Jiang Zemin launched a brutal persecution campaign against Falun Gong, viewing its peaceful nature as an ideological threat to the party’s authoritarian values of class struggle and hate. In the last 21 years, countless Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested, imprisoned, and tortured, with some even having their organs harvested.

Andrea said the reason why the CCP is bent on persecuting innocent spiritual followers didn’t really make any sense to her.

“How can you torture and kill people because they want to live in accordance with universal principles like Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance?” Andrea said.

“It was so strange to me, I thought, ‘my father is a Zen Buddhist and I practice Falun Dafa. We both meditate and put a focus on improving our character, if we both were Chinese living in China, I would be persecuted.’”

To expose these gross injustices, Fenix Film has since produced more documentaries and short films about human rights and freedom of speech. These productions have delivered truth, uncovered the lies, and brought hope to thousands of people globally.