“...I am less defended now, less armored, less closed in. I tell the truth more deeply and more clearly. I fear less. I love more. I am changed at depth. And I’m still blossoming.” BettyClare Moffatt, Soulwork: Clearing the Mind, Opening the Heart, Replenishing the Spirit, Wildcat Canyon Press & New World Library (c) 1994
I am definitely inspired by the above quote by BettyClare Moffatt. When you have a minute, tell me if this is true for you....
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
ARE YOU HAVING FUN YET?
"We are all little girls in aging bodies. No matter how old we are, we are still that little girl that skipped rope, roller skated on the sidewalk, skinned knees, wore braids with barrettes or ribbons,and ate ice cream bars from the ice cream man...” Jo Schlehofer, Celebrate the Older You.
Did you know that the average number of times an adult laughs in a day is fifteen and that kids laugh as much as 50 times a day!? When was the last time you had some good, old-fashioned fun---the kind that makes you want to laugh?
I remember my grandmother skipping rope when she was in her sixties---just for fun. Remember skipping without a jump rope? Skipping burns almost as many calories as running and it’s probably more fun. I even read somewhere that you can join a skipping club! If you can’t skip, perhaps you can ride a bike. On a vacation to Hilton Head Island with some girlfriends, we rented three wheelers with wire baskets to hold stuff and road around the island for a day like little kids!
If you aren’t a naturally happy person with very little effort, you can actually cultivate pleasure. Creating pleasure is not beyond your control. If you take having fun and creating pleasure seriously, you will find ways to reorient your inner compass and change your thoughts and feelings. With a little effort you can shift your entire mood.
Rebecca Latimer wrote a great book called, You’re Not Old Until You’re Ninety where she says “Somewhere along the way I picked up the idea that if I refuse negative thoughts and emotions, if I smile rather than frown, laugh rather than cry, my mood changes entirely.” I believe her.
I’m not talking about activities you could do in your sleep. And eating doesn’t count unless you are truly immersed in the act of cooking, serving, and tasting. The pleasure in most rote activities, if there is any, wears off in about ten seconds. They just don’t get you to the state of sustained well-being I would call pleasure. Try cultivating activities that result in a state of sustained well-being. Experiment with activities that require considerable attention, like learning to make jewelry, painting a mural, taking your grandchildren to Hershey Park. You lose yourself, forget about time, and come back feeling refreshed.
Before writing this, I spoke with several inspiration people: a 62 year old woman I spoke to gets up at 6:15 A.M. to knit and listen to classical music before she starts a busy day of volunteer work; a 55 year old runs marathons on the weekends for the sheer exhilaration of it; and one 82 year old takes piano lessons for the “high” of it.. Have fun, just for the sake of having fun. If you don’t feel talented or have the strength to run in a marathon, blow bubbles, the kind in the plastic container with the little wand inside. The benefit is that you inhale oxygen which is good for the brain. Play with pipe cleaners or one of my personal favorites, Play-Doh (it’s also good for exercising arthritic hands). Draw with crayons, paint with water colors and by all means, think about getting a glue gun!
"When I was thirty, I had no clue. If I’d known how much fun, what freedom, would be found in these September years, I would’ve lied about my age and gotten here sooner." Lynne Zielinski, Chocolate for a Woman’s Spirit
Did you know that the average number of times an adult laughs in a day is fifteen and that kids laugh as much as 50 times a day!? When was the last time you had some good, old-fashioned fun---the kind that makes you want to laugh?
I remember my grandmother skipping rope when she was in her sixties---just for fun. Remember skipping without a jump rope? Skipping burns almost as many calories as running and it’s probably more fun. I even read somewhere that you can join a skipping club! If you can’t skip, perhaps you can ride a bike. On a vacation to Hilton Head Island with some girlfriends, we rented three wheelers with wire baskets to hold stuff and road around the island for a day like little kids!
If you aren’t a naturally happy person with very little effort, you can actually cultivate pleasure. Creating pleasure is not beyond your control. If you take having fun and creating pleasure seriously, you will find ways to reorient your inner compass and change your thoughts and feelings. With a little effort you can shift your entire mood.
Rebecca Latimer wrote a great book called, You’re Not Old Until You’re Ninety where she says “Somewhere along the way I picked up the idea that if I refuse negative thoughts and emotions, if I smile rather than frown, laugh rather than cry, my mood changes entirely.” I believe her.
I’m not talking about activities you could do in your sleep. And eating doesn’t count unless you are truly immersed in the act of cooking, serving, and tasting. The pleasure in most rote activities, if there is any, wears off in about ten seconds. They just don’t get you to the state of sustained well-being I would call pleasure. Try cultivating activities that result in a state of sustained well-being. Experiment with activities that require considerable attention, like learning to make jewelry, painting a mural, taking your grandchildren to Hershey Park. You lose yourself, forget about time, and come back feeling refreshed.
Before writing this, I spoke with several inspiration people: a 62 year old woman I spoke to gets up at 6:15 A.M. to knit and listen to classical music before she starts a busy day of volunteer work; a 55 year old runs marathons on the weekends for the sheer exhilaration of it; and one 82 year old takes piano lessons for the “high” of it.. Have fun, just for the sake of having fun. If you don’t feel talented or have the strength to run in a marathon, blow bubbles, the kind in the plastic container with the little wand inside. The benefit is that you inhale oxygen which is good for the brain. Play with pipe cleaners or one of my personal favorites, Play-Doh (it’s also good for exercising arthritic hands). Draw with crayons, paint with water colors and by all means, think about getting a glue gun!
"When I was thirty, I had no clue. If I’d known how much fun, what freedom, would be found in these September years, I would’ve lied about my age and gotten here sooner." Lynne Zielinski, Chocolate for a Woman’s Spirit
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
UNFINISHED FAMILY BUSINESS
“Everyone has a stack of painful memories, rejections, disappointments, ridicule, sorrows over what might have been...we have a choice about whether we forgive others including our parents and heal ourselves or let the hurts go on festering.” Betty Nickerson, Old & Smart: Women and Aging
One of the blocks to successfully moving into the second half of our lives is unfinished family business. A friend of mine, a more than middle-aged woman, has not spoken to her parents or siblings since she graduated high school. I don’t know what caused the breach--but I have other friends who are very close to severing family ties because they get continuing aggravation instead of the understanding and support they need. However, leaving family issues unresolved can keep you stuck in the draining negative energy of the past. When you’re over fifty you’re going to need all the energy you can muster..
If family members can’t give you the support you need in an area that is sensitive to you, try to find some aspect of your life you can comfortably share with them. In some cases where a bridge can’t be built, you may have to create a new “family”. It’s never too late to do so. Weathering the storms of life isn’t easy and loving relationships can be a lifeboat---a lifeboat you can build by choosing less dysfunctional family members.
For example, I enlisted a new family for myself when I realized mine wasn’t capable of giving me what I needed. When I was developing my new family, I never directly asked anyone to fill the roles. I learned about each person’s background, and developed a plan to strengthen the relationship. When I found I could trust these new “family” members, I invited them into my life, sharing intimate details with each.
Although her circumstances were different than mine, consider what Roberta Russell says in her book, R. D. Laing and Me: Lessons in Love, where she describes how she re-created a family after losing her family to divorces and death. “I carefully chose six people for my new family. One was a great teacher...another, an excellent father...and so on. I worked hard to give them what they needed--and to establish trust. Being reliable was key.”
After you’ve managed to assemble a new, more functional family where you feel strong and safe, you might be best to acknowledge your anger and disappointment with your original family. This is key to moving into a healing process with them. Many years ago my therapist helped me honor my anger to make meaning of it all, and ultimately move toward forgiveness. Allowing room for anger allowed me to move to a place where where forgiveness and understanding could be born.
What does it mean to forgive? Webster defines it as “to give up resentment against or the desire to punish; stop being angry with; to give up all claim to punish or exact penalty.” If we are to forgive we must first surrender the right to get even. We then cease defining the one who hurt us in terms of the hurt that was caused. Keep in mind, there is nothing in Webster’s definition about the need to reach approval of the injurer’s actions. If we forgive we can also reach a point where we wish our injurers well---this act of forgiveness then becomes some kind of miracle after we’ve made meaning of the situation.
Being able to let go of negative feelings towards others is highly dependent on our ability to let go of negative feelings toward ourselves. When we have developed the ability to let go our own past mistakes, to acknowledge our humanness, it is almost magical how effortless it becomes to let go the mistakes of others.
No family connection of any kind would last if the silent reparative force of forgiveness were not working almost constantly to counteract the corrosive effects of resentment and bitterness. The wish to repair a wounded relationship, whether it takes the form of forgiveness, apology, or some other bridging gesture, is a basic human impulse. Forgiveness is not just a by-product of growth: The struggle to forgive can promote growth and give us back some of the energy we’ll need to get on with life!
One of the blocks to successfully moving into the second half of our lives is unfinished family business. A friend of mine, a more than middle-aged woman, has not spoken to her parents or siblings since she graduated high school. I don’t know what caused the breach--but I have other friends who are very close to severing family ties because they get continuing aggravation instead of the understanding and support they need. However, leaving family issues unresolved can keep you stuck in the draining negative energy of the past. When you’re over fifty you’re going to need all the energy you can muster..
If family members can’t give you the support you need in an area that is sensitive to you, try to find some aspect of your life you can comfortably share with them. In some cases where a bridge can’t be built, you may have to create a new “family”. It’s never too late to do so. Weathering the storms of life isn’t easy and loving relationships can be a lifeboat---a lifeboat you can build by choosing less dysfunctional family members.
For example, I enlisted a new family for myself when I realized mine wasn’t capable of giving me what I needed. When I was developing my new family, I never directly asked anyone to fill the roles. I learned about each person’s background, and developed a plan to strengthen the relationship. When I found I could trust these new “family” members, I invited them into my life, sharing intimate details with each.
Although her circumstances were different than mine, consider what Roberta Russell says in her book, R. D. Laing and Me: Lessons in Love, where she describes how she re-created a family after losing her family to divorces and death. “I carefully chose six people for my new family. One was a great teacher...another, an excellent father...and so on. I worked hard to give them what they needed--and to establish trust. Being reliable was key.”
After you’ve managed to assemble a new, more functional family where you feel strong and safe, you might be best to acknowledge your anger and disappointment with your original family. This is key to moving into a healing process with them. Many years ago my therapist helped me honor my anger to make meaning of it all, and ultimately move toward forgiveness. Allowing room for anger allowed me to move to a place where where forgiveness and understanding could be born.
What does it mean to forgive? Webster defines it as “to give up resentment against or the desire to punish; stop being angry with; to give up all claim to punish or exact penalty.” If we are to forgive we must first surrender the right to get even. We then cease defining the one who hurt us in terms of the hurt that was caused. Keep in mind, there is nothing in Webster’s definition about the need to reach approval of the injurer’s actions. If we forgive we can also reach a point where we wish our injurers well---this act of forgiveness then becomes some kind of miracle after we’ve made meaning of the situation.
Being able to let go of negative feelings towards others is highly dependent on our ability to let go of negative feelings toward ourselves. When we have developed the ability to let go our own past mistakes, to acknowledge our humanness, it is almost magical how effortless it becomes to let go the mistakes of others.
No family connection of any kind would last if the silent reparative force of forgiveness were not working almost constantly to counteract the corrosive effects of resentment and bitterness. The wish to repair a wounded relationship, whether it takes the form of forgiveness, apology, or some other bridging gesture, is a basic human impulse. Forgiveness is not just a by-product of growth: The struggle to forgive can promote growth and give us back some of the energy we’ll need to get on with life!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
