Category: Staying sane (Page 3 of 12)

How will today change you?

01/15/2018 / Laura

Life is busy. Life is difficult (as Scott Peck reminded us.)

Life is unpredictable. Life is filled with too many lists.

Too many emails.

Too many distractions.

Too many thefts of our time, our minds, our need to actually live the moment. Weeks fly by and we can’t remember what we did. Yesterday goes by in a flash and we aren’t even sure what we had for lunch.

Yet I’m sure in every 24-hour period, there are countless opportunities when we can think of another person. Be kind to a stranger. Refrain from scowling at a bad driver. Actually notice how the sun is reflecting off a flower petal.

Remember that we are alive, we are fragile, and we want every second to count. Especially as we grow older…we boomers and beyond understand how rich life can be if we are present.

Quaker poet Jeanne Lohmann invites us to pause and just be alive in her wonderful poem, “Questions Before Dark”:

“Questions Before Dark”

“Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down,

consider your altered state:

has this day changed you?

Are the corners sharper or rounded off?

Did you live with death?

Make decisions that quieted?

Find one clear word that fit?

At the sun’s midpoint did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites the possible?

What did you learn from things you dropped

and picked up and dropped again?

Did you set a straw parallel to the river,

let the flow carry you downstream?”

Jeanne Lohmann

So many good things here. We do, especially as boomers and beyond, live with death. Our friends, our families, our own mortality. But I don’t see this as a depressing thing; more as a call to life.

Especially when she quickly brings up the idea of “bewilderment”.

To me, that’s a wonderful way to describe the natural world around us. So many miracles. Yet unless we make a conscious effort to see them, we walk right past them.

I love the idea of contemplating how each day changes us. As Buddha said, we never enter the same river twice. And there’s a lot to be said for occasionally noting where we are on our journey.

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”

Parker Palmer

Do you have the time?

01/08/2018 / Laura

Time is so precious. We understand this so much more as we age. I think when most of us were much younger, we saw the future as a very long road stretching out before us to infinity, with no end or at least one that wasn’t anywhere in sight. We “had” time to play, to make and lose friends, to eat what we wanted, maybe drink too much, not exercise enough, and whatever struck our fancy because, after all, we “had” time.

Then a few years went by.

We saw a few strange marks on our faces (“are those wrinkles? Can’t be.”) We couldn’t stay up quite as late, but we sure tried. We noticed how some friends seemed to drift away, yet we didn’t work too hard to get back in touch. After all, we were now working hard on getting things right: our marriages, our careers, our portfolios. The other things, like peace of mind or emotional health? Oh, there’d be plenty of time to worry about that later.

And since we were never really going to grow old, it didn’t matter anyway.

Then a lot more years went by, and very quickly. Much too quickly.

Yet now we are more content with who and what we are because we recognize—this is who we are. Spending a few hours with a good friend is priceless. Reading a really engrossing novel is fulfilling. Watching a grandchild or great niece or nephew giggle is a joy, because we know how quickly they will grow up. Watching a spectacular sunset fills us with awe and isn’t something we take for granted. We are still on our path, but we recognize we’re closer to the end…at least on this planet.

We see how fast time goes by now.

Or did it always?

It’s bittersweet. And depending upon your beliefs, it could just be the beginning, with another path awaiting our spirits that won’t be revealed until we leave our achy joints and bad feet behind. But regardless of where your heart lies, it’s good to just be where you are, in every moment. And if it’s not a good place, then give yourself permission to make it so.

Because a moment is just that—and it’s gone so fast. As boomers and beyond, we know how to make the of them. 2018 is a great time to start.

“Time is the wisest counselor of all.”

Pericles

Embracing The Big Love Around Us

09/06/2017 / Laura

Are you getting in your own way of happiness?

It’s so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day frenzy of just being human. From the moment the alarm sounds, we’re often on a race to hurry up and get to a desk where we can stop for a few minutes and then hurry up and get on the phone, to a meeting, across town to the bank, stop by the post office, pick up the kids, bathe the dog, hurry back home to be sure we’re in the kitchen so we can hurry up and get dinner on the table and sit for a few minutes before hurrying up to binge-watch the new series and finally, hurry to bed so we can start it all over again the next day.

Somewhere, along the way, we pass ourselves. Some part of us is looking out the window. Or noticing how the light is bouncing off the leaves as the season changes. Or remembering how glorious it felt to hike that trail on a cool fall morning or run through leaves giggling.

But we don’t have time to stop. And oddly, that’s a comforting thing.

We have our duties. Our roles. Our safe little worlds with no surprises. Even though sometimes, it feels like the walls are about 3 inches away, and getting closer.

And closer.

So that soon, our world is very, very small. And that candle inside us that used to shine so brightly and lead our way when we were first dreaming of what our lives can be…that candle is struggling to stay lit. It’s an inertia that slowly creeps through your bloodstream like a silent snake…robbing you of your curiosity. Your desire to know more, to explore unknown places and have adventures. Little by little, it seeps your energy. Like the death eaters in the Harry Potter stories it seems to hover overhead and suck the very life out of you.

A beautiful essay on the OnBeing Studios blog, “Beyond The Myths We Tell Ourselves, Big Love is Waiting” offers some wonderful insight. (OnBeing is an amazing multimedia project featuring a nationally broadcast public radio show, a portfolio of podcasts, and a digital publishing platform reaching millions of people each week.) Author Ali Schultz reminds us we are “not Atlas supporting the world; the world is supporting us.”

Schultz goes on to say:

“When I step out from the house of cards I’ve built for myself, I feel love. Big love.The clear path to such love requires excavation. We must, as Rumi notes, remove all of the blocks we’ve placed in our way to keep us from it. Somehow, somewhere, in all of our evolutionary neurological wiring, our wires have crossed so that we fearing being loved more than being safe, small, sure, busy, and turning away from the big open arms of life. We think we’ve got it all figured out. While our gifts for self-preservation and survival are strong, all we’ve figured out, really, is how to make sense of the world into which we were thrust, or find ourselves. Great skills, no doubt. But if we rely on them solely, we guard ourselves from another way of being with the world.”

“The big open arms of life.” What a wonderful image. So why are we so afraid to let go….to give up the control we mistakenly believe we have, and just let the energy and inspiration around us fill us?

Is that we don’t think we’re worthy? Or that we can’t remember how to find that energy? Are we giving into society’s obsession with youth and forgetting that we, baby boomers, anyone over 50, are the ones best equipped to recognize just what the universe can do for us…and know we have had it inside us all along?

More words from Ali Schultz:

“Perhaps the biggest form of self-denial is turning away from the grace that’s always there for us, right now here in the present, and has been with us throughout the arc of our history. Without a story to perpetuate or mental mazes to get lost in, you stop perpetuating the story, the delusion, that you’re alone holding it all together yourself. And, then, you can feel life rush in and join you in conversation. When you open to the world, big love is waiting for you.”

Taking a risk is scary. Changing your life is scary. Even just deciding you are going to realign your daily priorities can be scary, because others are going to react to what you are doing.

But you know what?

What’s scary can also be liberating. Exhilarating. It can lift you up like a cool autumn breeze invites an eagle to soar to newer heights.

Maybe we can each stop carrying our world, give our backs a rest, and wait for the world to rush in. What a delightful thought that is.

“That is the mystery of grace: it never comes too late.

Francois Mauriac

We are all “The Hero”

07/03/2017 / Laura

I saw The Hero this weekend, a new movie starring Sam Elliott. That’s probably enough said, as Sam Elliott is one of my favorites, and not just for the obvious physical appeal. It goes a lot deeper, as each of his many roles has demonstrated, but none more than this one. Especially for boomers and beyond, this one resonates deep.

Without giving away spoilers that aren’t already in the movie’s trailer, Sam plays a veteran actor of western genre movies who gets some bad news about his health. Understandably, he begins examining his life, attempting to reach out to those he’s loved, trying to rekindle a dwindling career, and frankly just make sense of it all.

Who among us, as we age, hasn’t wondered how we would feel if we got a depressing diagnosis? Maybe some of you already have. Maybe a loved one has. It really simplifies things really fast.

Watching the movie, I was struck by many things.

How fast your life goes by.

How suddenly you walk into a room and you are the oldest and often by many years.

How simple things are now harder, not matter how in shape you are or how many crossword puzzles you do.

How the mirror isn’t your friend anymore.

Dang but inside, you’re about 45. Ready to chart a new course. Start a new love affair. Travel the world.

But first, maybe just sit down and take a breath. Or even a nap.

Sam shows every emotion in this film. Fear, tenderness, embarrassment, frustration, anger, resolution. A lifetime. He feels he’s only done one good thing in his career. Yet as the film unfolds, it’s clear he’s touched many lives and had an impact he may never fully realize.

I want to think that’s true for each of us. Because aging can feel scary. Lonely. Like your once ever-expanding world is suddenly getting so much smaller. Your real friends, fewer. Your joyful moments, only now and then. And it’s too easy to think we haven’t amounted to much.

We don’t feel like heroes. But don’t you believe it. We ARE.

We’ve made others smile. Held someone’s hand to cross the street. Taught valuable lessons. Sang over a few hundred birthday cakes. Been there through disasters. Comforted grieving spouses. Helped our children learn patience. Showed what true friendship means. Taken care of our frail parents. Worried over a sickly pet.

We may not feel like our life matters, but maybe that’s the nature of life. To not get to know the ending until afterwards. Like someone who leaves a movie early and misses the gem after the credits.

It’s there. But only for those who are still around.

Our role is to keep going forward.

I suggest you go see The Hero. There’s a scene in the movie that speaks to the idea that everyone is a star, everyone is a hero. That’s something we all can use.

Cause we’re still rockin’ it.

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh