SUSTAINING VITALITY: MANAGING YOUR CHANGING SELF IN A CHANGING WORLD
“I find that having a goal that’s a bit dangerous is important to keep me going. The danger is not necessarily a physical one, but one that pushes me to achieve something new where success is not guaranteed.”
—SIXTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD RETIRED PHYSICIAN ENROLLED AS A UNIVERSITY FRESHMAN FOR A BACHELOR’S IN MUSIC
“My parents both retired and waited to die. This wasn’t the ticket for me. Until my last breath, I want to be engaged in life. So I started taking yoga classes and began a new business helping clients redecorate their homes to be in harmony with their soul’s desire.”
—SIXTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD EXECUTIVE COACH HAVING TO RECREATE A NEW LIFE BECAUSE OF A HEALTH PROBLEM
“I realized eleven years ago that if I suddenly dropped dead in my boots I would feel incomplete. It was then that I decided to sell my law firm and explore what I needed to develop in myself.”
—SIXTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD ATTORNEY WHO FOUNDED A WASHINGTON, D.C., LAW FIRM AND THEN RETIRED TO BECOME AN ARTIST
ASSESSING YOUR PSYCHOLOGICAL AGE
1. How old do you currently feel in terms of your health, mentally and physically?
2. How might you characterize your potential for living zestfully in the future?
Staying Young at Heart and Sound of MindI love the word vitality. It’s a quality I enjoy in others and wish for in myself. Have you ever noticed how a vibrant individual radiates energy that creates enthusiasm in others? The dictionary defines vitality as the “abundant physical and mental energy usually combined with a wholehearted and joyous approach to situations and activities.” A second definition describes vitality as “the nonmaterial force that distinguishes the living from the nonliving.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m hoping that I will be perceived as clearly distinguishable from the “nonliving.” I have known individuals, however, whose energy level is so low that you can barely distinguish them from the nonliving. To me, vitality represents an energizing life force within us that radiates outward to those around you. I’ve seen vitality in people from the age of 9 months to 90 years. Two role models come to mind for vitality in senior life—Maggie and Joe.
I’m going to Maggie’s ninetieth birthday party tonight. Maggie’s invited a few hundred of her closest friends to celebrate this milestone with champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Maggie is a bit of a legend around Shepherdstown. I’d heard about Maggie a dozen years ago when my wife and I moved to town. I first met her when I was out walking one day and encountered this attractive, platinum-haired, and distinguished looking lady who was on a casual walk about the community. She greeted me with an engaging smile, proffered a friendly hello, and introduced herself as Maggie. We chatted a few moments and then continued on our separate ways. But after a few steps she turned back with a grin on her face and said, “Now you can tell people you’ve met Maggie.” Since then, I’ve had the good fortune to meet and talk with Maggie on several other occasions, including the time when she treated Pat and me to dinner at the country club she owns.
You never know when Maggie might appear; she’s always on the go. I was out working in the yard one sunny afternoon when I heard a warm, friendly voice say, “I love to see people out making things pretty.” Conversations with Maggie can run both wide and deep with this wise and worldly woman. So I stopped pulling weeds and asked if she was out inspecting the neighborhood. “Yes, indeed,” she said, “I like seeing what’s going on.” Soon we were talking about life in general. Maggie said she loves her life for many reasons, a primary one being that she loves people, and there are people everywhere. That’s Maggie, and you can’t help but love her. She has a grand life, but not because of a grand lifestyle. Although she is a woman of considerable means, she has weathered many of life’s trying ordeals, including the death of her beloved husband and father of their four children. Yet she always seems to have a glowing countenance that conveys her passionate engagement in life. You can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice, and experience it in her presence. I hope that Maggie is going to be with us for a long time.
Joe is another individual with an energizing presence. Joe’s been a good friend for about 25 years. Joe is one of those people who knows everyone—and everyone knows Joe. I recall being with him on a cold winter’s morning at a remote place on the Maine coast when a lone car pulled up and two guys got out. One of them looked over in our direction and yelled, “Hey Joe!” Turns out they had taken one of Joe’s famous art workshops some years back.
Joe is a master artist, art teacher, storyteller, and community builder. He loves life, enjoys people, and has friends everywhere. In fact, he has so many friends that once in a while his wife wants the two of them to go someplace where no one knows him so she doesn’t have to share him with a multitude of friends. Joe knew the perfect place—Las Vegas. No one could possibly know him there. As they were getting on the plane to Vegas, however, the pilot poked his head out of the cockpit and yelled, “Hey Joe!” Turns out that in times of airline layoffs, this pilot had worked at the local meat market and had been Joe’s butcher.
Wherever he goes, he brings people together. In Shepherdstown, in addition to being a gallery owner, he was also the cartoonist for the local paper and started a Friday artists painting group, of which my wife is honored to be a member. His motto for life is to live light on the planet. He stays flexible and has no trouble moving onto new things when the occasion warrants. “I’ll see you when I see you,” he says. He left a college professorship when he felt the administration had become more interested in dollars than students. He left Shepherdstown when the town’s administration seemed to be more interested in bowing to the demands of developers than in meeting the needs of local residents. When he served on the town council, he was committed to community-oriented values like making the town a friendly place for children, seniors, dogs, and cats.
In his new location he has worked to create an atmosphere where the community supports artists and the artists support the community.
At the age of 76, Joe is as lively as he was at 50. He even looks the same. He is an energy source and coach/advocate who’s constantly involved in causes bigger than himself. He has fun in pretty much everything he does. His humble beginnings never kept him from being successful or joyful. If you ever happen to be in Easton, Maryland, stop in at the Sharp/Mayer Gallery for an engaging visit and visual treat. No doubt you’ll leave with a gorgeous painting and a new friend.
Maggie and Joe have a special kind of vitality that is worth a fortune. They haven’t discovered the fountain of youth, but they know what the potent elixir is for living to the fullest—keeping a youthful zest for life. Although both Joe and Maggie are gregarious extroverts, it’s far more than their friendly nature that’s at the source of their abundant energy. As far as I can tell, they are curious about nearly everything. They never stop learning, and they are truly interested in and care about people. They aren’t afraid to say what they think about matters that are important to them. They have a great sense of humor and love to laugh with people, but never at them. In fact, they would be quick and direct in expressing their displeasure at anyone ridiculing another. They always make time for family, friends, and themselves.
While they enjoy relationships and meeting new people, neither Joe nor Maggie, as my friend John says, “make themselves a bowl of candy for the world to eat up.” They love life but are not afraid of death. They know that life is not a bowl of cherries, but they deal with what comes their way with resilience, grace, and wisdom. They treasure their memories of the past but live their lives going forward and don’t get stuck in the past. They are optimistic and have plans, hopes, and aspirations for the future. They take care of themselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually; and encourage others to do the same. Joe is always recommending self-development books to his art students and friends. Maggie always has a new scheme for making the world around her a kinder, more beautiful place for people, plants, and animals—especially her beloved bluebirds. For me, and many others, these two individuals are inspiring role models for sustaining vitality in the senior years.
From folks like Joe and Maggie and hundreds of other people I’ve worked with and known, I’ve observed seven principles that play a key role in sustaining vitality throughout the senior years. You may come up with some others, but I’m providing these so that you’ll at least have a starting point:
Seven Principles for Senior Vitality
1. Free yourself from fears about death and dying.
2. Manage your mental, physical, and spiritual wellness.
3. Be and remain resilient as you encounter life’s joys and tribulations.
4. Stay engaged in community; belong to something you enjoy.
5. Do something dangerous.
6. Grow into and stay true to your unique nature.
7. View your life as an interesting story. Be the author of your future.
How do you incorporate each of these principles in your life at present? How would you like to integrate them in the future? What other principles would you add?
Desperately Denying AgeChad came to see me ostensibly about retirement, but it soon became apparent that his retirement plans were pretty well crystallized. He was going to spend part of his time consulting in the area of his expertise, allot some time to community work through active engagement in the Rotary Club, and have fun with friends on the tennis court and golf course. It wasn’t retirement in itself that concerned him; it was the changed behavior of his wife. It seems that his 56-year-old wife Susie had taken up biking in a big way. Biking had come to dominate her life to the point of being a fetish. She had taken up bike racing and had become so good in amateur racing in women’s events that she’d moved on to racing with the men. Her weekdays were devoted to training and weekends to racing. Competitive biking had become so important that she did not want her husband to retire for fear that he would disturb her racing regime.
It wasn’t just the racing fetish that bothered Chad so much, however; it was his concerns that she was having affairs, or at least one affair—with one of her male biker friends. Chad’s growing concern was based on telltale signs such as numerous, exceedingly long phone calls to her male friend and her attempts at keeping them a secret from Chad. There were also frequent racing excursions that kept her away for several days at a time, and a sudden interest in the massive use of anti-aging creams. Chad believed that Susie’s affairs and biking fetish were desperate attempts to deny and stave off deeply disturbing fears of growing old. Maybe she thought that by staying in tip-top condition, hiding wrinkles, and proving she was still attractive to men, she could remain eternally young.
As you might imagine, Chad was distraught and anxious to determine what he could do about the situation. He considered acting out of hurt and anger. But after we talked about his feelings and options, he realized that he continued to love his wife, though not her current behavior. He also felt that she was not trying to hurt him personally, but was reacting, instead, to a terrifying fear of growing old and losing her feminine appeal.
As a couple, these two had weathered tough times together through nearly 40 years of marriage. They had raised two wonderful kids, and Susie had been a loving mother. She had also been a supportive wife, up until a few years ago when biking began to consume her time and energy. Chad decided, therefore, to do all he could to save their marriage and to see his wife through the frightful passage into life as a senior. When last I saw him, he had contacted a marriage therapist, and his wife had reluctantly agreed to participate in counseling.
I won’t speculate on the outcome of this situation, and I greatly admire Chad’s understanding and his hopeful attitude about their situation. I would have felt more hopeful if Susie had been more open to counseling and what was really happening in their marriage. But with Chad’s generosity of spirit, love for his wife, and willingness to deal with a tough situation, they might be able to use professional counseling to help them deal with their hurts and fears and recreate a meaningful life together.
Getting old is not for the weak, according to my octogenarian friend who walks five miles a day to keep her limbs limber and her heart pumping vigorously. Where do you find yourself in your journey with aging? Do you fight against aging with a drawer full of anti-aging creams, a haircut that hides your thinning hair, a wardrobe suited for a svelte sex symbol, or a rigorous exercise regime? Or do you give in and just let nature take its course?
It’s a waste of psychic energy to resist aging and deny the inevitability of death. Sooner or later, even the best vehicles of denial will crash head-on into reality. Between denial and helpless resignation, however, there is a balanced middle ground. You can gracefully accept the reality of aging and the unavoidable fact that your body will undergo the physical changes that come with aging. You can compassionately come to terms with the reality that you are not here forever and learn to take more pleasure in the here and now. And you can maintain a diet and exercise program that will help to keep you active and healthy, engage in emotional and spiritual practices that will help you age with grace and beauty, and allow the authenticity of who you are to shine through. If some anti-aging cream or a new hairstyle also helps you to feel good, why not? In other words, plan as if you are going to live to a hundred, but live each day as if it’s your last.
“You haven’t talked about death yet,” says a sixty-something gentleman as we near the end of the daylong workshop I conduct at the World Bank. “I’m afraid of dying, and that’s what’s really on my mind as I face retirement,” he says.
In her excellent book The Art of Growing Old, Carroll Saussy talks about the great paradox most of us grapple with, which is that we want to live long, but we don’t want to get old. Of course, you can’t have one without the other. So how do you address this dilemma? Saussy, a retired pastoral counselor and professor of pastoral theology, says that “the inevitability of death must be looked at head on, embraced until it hurts.”
George, a lawyer who retired to become an artist, says he thinks about death every day. Not as a negative obsession, he tells me, but as reality. Doing that helps him keep focused on what’s really important and appreciate the moment. All we really have is the current moment. Confronting the certainty of our death helps us savor the here and now in a way that nurtures us in graceful aging. But there is another important ingredient for bountiful living in the senior years—hope for the future.
No matter what our age, having hope for the future is what moves us in the direction of integrity versus despair. It is all too easy to fall into despair from watching the daily news, grieving the death of a close friend or family member, or suffering a debilitating health problem. Harboring negative images about mortality can make the prospects of death terrifying. We’re all familiar with the way terrorists use fear to shock us into a state of panic and compliance. But benign individuals and well-intentioned organizations also use fear tactics to manipulate and control us. Religious organizations and spiritual movements may sow as many seeds of destruction as they do of growth. How many of us grew up thinking that we would incur the wrath of God and eternal damnation if we didn’t adhere to a particular doctrine or way of living? How many of us see our life story as a catalog of good deeds that will get us into heaven or a better life next time around? Charitable organizations also try to scare us by trying to convince us that their causes are the world’s most urgent issues and that only our generous contributions can save the planet. How many of us carry around unproductive guilt or anxiety because we believe that everything depends on us and we can never do enough?
In my mind, fear has nothing to do with the intentions of a loving God—or a healthy understanding of death. From my practice over the years, I’ve observed that clients who see God as a loving presence who wants nothing but ultimate good for us and all of creation are much more likely to transform their fears about death into visions of a final transition into the presence of blissful light.
For many years I conceptualized death as an eternal black void, with a body trapped in a coffin buried deep in the ground. That view probably materialized from my fascination with too many Edgar Allen Poe stories. Regardless of the origin or reality of this negative image, its result was even more frightening—I allowed it to keep me from thinking about death. My denial worked for a while, but reality eventually caught up with me and knocked me on the head with the force of a sledgehammer.
During my sixty-ninth year, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed with anxiety one evening. I can assure you, anxiety cannot be denied. It grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let me go. But anxiety, I’ve discovered, is really just the emotional equivalent of an extremely painful toothache. When I have a toothache, I go to a dentist. So when I had this aching anxiety, I went to a therapist. Unlike a dentist dealing with a toothache, however, a therapist can’t numb your pain and drill out the painful emotional cavity. She can only hold your feet to the fire, and that means helping you confront, head on, the reality that’s the source of your pain.
It turns out that the onset of my anxiety occurred at the same age that my father was when he died of colon cancer. My anxiety began right at the same time of year that he learned his cancer was inoperable and that he had only a few weeks to live. My anxiety ended the day after the day that was the anniversary date of my father’s death. The interesting thing is that I was unaware of the coincidence of my anxiety with the dates of my father’s terminal illness. But my subconscious mind remembered. And a latent wisdom awoke me to my suppressed fears about death by getting my conscious attention through anxiety-inducing panic attacks.
In therapy I had the opportunity to address my fear of death and to reframe the way I had conceptualized death. I learned not to see death as an eternal black void but simply as a transition to another realm. A source I found to be helpful in reframing my image of death was the work of Brian Weiss, featured in his books Many Lives, Many Masters and Message from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love. Weiss, a psychiatrist practiced in hypnotherapy, has worked with hundreds of clients who, under hypnosis, have experienced regression into past lives. I’ve also had the opportunity to be in an intensive weeklong workshop with Dr. Weiss and observe the stunning results that come from his work with dozens of individuals under hypnosis.
Thanks to the combination of therapy and a reformed concept of death, I no longer fear death as I once did. Nor do I try to avoid thinking about it. In fact, I think about it every day. It helps me focus on my priorities relative to the most precious commodity of all, my time remaining. I’m not anxious to die, and I hope to have a lot of living still ahead. It’s just that death does not have the hold over me it once did. I still find myself having low levels of fear about death upon occasion, and what helps me then is what I’ve learned from therapy, meditation, and yoga. Engaging in these has helped me learn to focus on breathing deeply, staying grounded in the here and now, and paying attention to what my feelings are trying to tell me. With these practices, I find that my fears tend to evaporate.
Many of our fears are really nothing more than fantasies of the mind. Mind fantasies can work wonders when used positively to envision exciting new possibilities about the future, but the mind can also take us into the dark side of fear-based thinking. One anti-fear remedy is living in gratefulness. We can’t hang onto fear when we relax, bring our attention to the here and now, and concentrate on being grateful for what we have in the moment. Taking up some kind of meditative spiritual practice can also help free us from our fears, both conscious and subconscious. In fact, my friends who work with the dying tell me that we can become so free of fear that our final transition becomes one of peaceful joy.
Managing Your Well-BeingIt’s so easy to get hooked into the old stereotypes about aging. Maybe you remember the one about “acting your age.” What would you think, for example, about an 80-year old woman skipping down the street? Insane? Dementia kicking in? That’s what my 80-year-old mother did when my kids and I would visit her in Florida. There was just one thing to do—we skipped with her!
There was a lot of kid in my mother, and she skipped well. She also lived well. Mom passed on at the age of 92 the morning after getting a group of folks together to sing Christmas carols at the local care center, where she was known as “The Angel.” The night before her death, she had also driven an elderly friend around town to see the Christmas decorations. She died the next morning from a massive stroke. But she didn’t pass on before getting up on her last morning to shower, dress, and make the bed. My brother found her in her little apartment. She was lying peacefully on the carefully made bed and had an ever-so-slight a smile on her face. I like to think that her last smile was a note of appreciation for a life well lived and a life gracefully departed—in the way in which she wanted. In the refrigerator we found a freshly made Jello salad, which along with strong coffee, is one of the basic food groups in Minnesota. We had the Jello for lunch the day after her funeral. She left that, no doubt, as a departing gift. Another gift she left us was how to die well. Thanks, Mom! You are a role model for what Helen Harkness describes in her book Don’t Stop the Career Clock as the ideal life—“to live long and full-out and then die fast.”
Aside from suicide, we don’t, as far as I know, have a choice about how long we live or the manner in which we die. But we do have a choice about the way we live our lives. Our choices may, to some extent, influence how long we live and possibly how we die—we still don’t understand all the connections between mind and body. But what we do know is that our choices clearly determine how well we live.
Zack, a dear friend of mine in his late sixties, blames the choices he made in earlier life for what he now suffers. He is grossly overweight and suffers from congestive heart failure. Zack is one of the smartest people I know. He is widely read, has a brilliant mind, and radiates with wisdom gleaned from decades of working with people and asking hard questions of himself and others. At the moment Zack is in the hospital in a life-precarious situation. In a recent conversation, he shared with me two things worthy of contemplation, one a regret and the other a hope. The regret dealt with diet and exercise, two areas in his life he hasn’t managed well. While he continually filled his mind with good stuff, he filled his body with junk food, and he was averse to physical exercise. Over the years I’ve been on work-related retreats with Zack. While the rest of us were out walking, jogging, or enjoying nature, Zack stayed behind and sprawled out on the couch to munch chips and read the latest psychology or organizational development book.
Zack now laments the poor choices he made about physical health management but is unable to undo his past. However, Zack remains a role model for dealing with a severely debilitating health condition. He tells me that he’s not afraid of dying and has pretty much made his peace with that. What scares the hell out of him, however, are thoughts about being physically incapacitated and unable to continue with the career coaching he so dearly loves. His focus, as you might imagine, is on the nonphysical aspects of life enhancement. Zack is a master at helping individuals to break through mental barriers to intellectually exhilarating lives. Sadly, he never broke through his own barriers for engaging in physical fitness programs.
Like most mental health professionals, I advocate a whole-person approach to vitality and well-being. This whole-person approach is what I call a PIES approach to life. PIES is an acronym for our Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual well-being. Our health is basic to everything we want to do or be in our new life. We don’t want to undermine the fullness of life by undervaluing the vehicle that enables us to launch and live out our vision.
Of course, there are things we cannot control. We had no choice over the genes we inherited. Some of us inherited fatter genes than others, some balder than others, and some more susceptibility to an ailment of some kind. But we can still accept and appreciate what we’ve been given and be good stewards of our gifts. Stephen Hawking, the renowned British physicist and author of A Brief History of Time, is an example of someone living a full life with a crippling disability. Dr. Hawking came down with ALS, an incurable crippling neurological disease, during his third year at Oxford University. Soon he was paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. In spite of his severe disability, however, he has gone on to become one of the most famous astrophysicists of our time. About his disease, Hawking says, “I am quite often asked: How do you feel about having ALS? The answer is, not a lot. I try to lead as normal a life as possible, and not think about my condition, or regret the things it prevents me from doing, which are not that many.”
I love to see the fully matured faces, lifelines, and real hair color of my senior brother and sister travelers. Something seems out of place when I see heavily colored hair on a seventy-plusser. I love the naturally platinum hues in my wife’s lovely hair and hope she will never tamper with her gift by trying to return it to the deep brunette color of her youth. I’m of the opinion that what looks great in youth is great for youth, and what looks great as a fully blossomed, mature adult looks good for a mature adult.
But, no matter what my perceptions may be, it’s what makes you feel alive and fulfilled that matters. If cosmetic surgery of one kind or another makes you feel better, why not enjoy the benefits of new developments in the field. I just don’t think it works to try to make yourself look younger so that you can then pretend that you are. Why sacrifice wisdom and maturity to pretend that you are someone who hasn’t already graduated from the vanities and challenges of an earlier stage of life? We get wiser and smarter when we get older, so let’s own it and flaunt it—with an appropriate modicum of modesty, of course! After all, we don’t want to make all those young kids out there jealous of our wisdom of the ages or the freedom we have achieved to be who we really are or the opportunity to do what we really want. Let’s face it—we have earned it. Love and embrace who you are and who you are becoming. Let go of who you aren’t. And remember to manage your PIES well.
If you don’t have a PIES management plan, develop and implement one today. Please take my friend Zack’s advice to heart and assume responsible management for your health and vitality. Be on the lookout for those who can not only be role models for good PIES management but also give you some good tips along the way. One tip that I’ve discovered is yoga. It’s a great physical, mental, and spiritual discipline. It may not be for everyone, but I’ve found it to be a grand enhancement to my health maintenance plan, thanks to my wife, who encouraged me to take it up. Having done just one hour’s worth of yoga this morning with a terrific teacher, I’m feeling great right now and want to share this source of vitality with you.
Another tip, especially if you need help in creating your PIES plan, is to visit the physical fitness center at your local college or health club and search the Web for sites providing information about whole-person vitality. One such Web site is the following: www.bluezones.com. While at that site, you can take the “Blue Zones Compass,” which is an assessment for calculating your life expectancy based on your current habits. It’s definitely an eye-opener and a motivator for developing good health management practices.
PIES are good for you, especially the kinds that involve sustaining vitality throughout your senior years. Here are a few suggestions for creating and managing your PIES:
Physical Wellness Create a physical fitness plan and follow it rain, shine, or bad hair day. Even something as gentle as a 40-minute walk three times a week has proven health benefits. In Don’t Stop the Career Clock, Harkness cites research showing that older adults who walked just 30 minutes for six times a month had a 43 percent lower death rate than those who were sedentary. In spite of that, according to Harkness, 3 in 10 adults who are 65 and older do no physical activity.
If you schedule your physical maintenance plan and make it fun, your chances of sticking with it are much greater. A mistake that some folks make is to create an arduous plan with intentions of getting into some kind of near Olympian condition, which usually falters somewhere along the way for various reasons. You’re much better off doing something that’s reasonable, manageable, and enjoyable.
There’s a group of women in our neighborhood who gather at a certain times each week to walk. I often see them going by, and they all look like they are enjoying themselves. They walk, talk, and laugh a lot—all of which are added health benefits to any health wellness plan. If one of them is not there at the specified time, they go to the door and get her.
Do what you must to persist in your plan. If you need to join a gym and pay monthly fees for the service as an inducement to exercise, consider it one of your most astute investments. My wife and I have found that being in yoga classes induces us to keep a regularly scheduled commitment to yoga practice. If you’re like us and find that you tend to put off exercising on your own, you might want to enroll in a class or regularly scheduled activity.
Many colleges and universities have established physical exercise programs for seniors conducted by health professionals. I’ve heard seniors describe these programs—which may include anything from folk dancing to water ballet—as nothing less than “scheduled fun.” Some folks even move to retirement communities attached to colleges and universities so that they can take advantage of physical fitness programs as well as a wide array of other interesting PIES management opportunities.
Intellectual Wellness There is growing evidence that remaining intellectually engaged keeps the brain tuned-up, the mind humming, and Alzheimer’s and dementia at bay. What are you intellectually curious about? Have you always wondered what the Crusades were really about? Have you yearned to learn Chinese and explore the Great Wall? Can you name the greatest musical composers of all time and play selections from their greatest works in your mind?
If you’ve always been intellectually curious about something, now is your opportunity to pursue it. There are countless ways of doing that, including distance-learning resources via the Internet, college and university adult learning centers, and programs offered through organizations such as Elderhostel, the Omega Institute, Canyon Ranch, Ghost Ranch, and The Creative Problem Solving Institute. You can also keep your mind honed by teaching a favorite subject in a formal setting or coaching others in informal gatherings.
Learning is one of those human capabilities upon which advancing age interposes no limits. According to a CNN news item, 88-year-old Rose “Mama G” Gilbert, the oldest teacher in the Los Angeles School District, is still turning students onto literature, poetry, and life. To remain fit for her passion in energizing young minds, Mama G. lifts weights and does yoga early every morning.
A retired executive, 66-year-old Donald M. completed a credentialing program at a training institute for life coaching. Now he coaches and mentors managers on how to deal with a multitude of problems, such as working with difficult employees, getting a new initiative through bureaucratic hurdles, and managing heavy workloads. No matter what you’re curious about, there are countless ways to continue learning and growing mentally. Whether it’s learning about a new field or staying ahead in a field of particular interest, life is more zestful when your mind is functioning in high gear.
Emotional Well-Being Life in the fifty-plus years takes on new challenges that emotionally impact us. Yesterday I was talking with 74-year-old Kate. Her husband was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, dramatically changing their relationship and the freewheeling lifestyle they had been enjoying. Another seventy-something friend fell into deep depression when his wife informed him that she was leaving him for a younger man and a more adventurous life. What do you do when your 30-year-old daughter is diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer? Where do you go when you’re a sixty-something minister whose disillusionment and anxiety have led you to a complete loss of faith? At one time or another, we all have to deal with difficult issues such as these. We know that somewhere in all those uncertain tomorrows the Grim Reaper lurks.
Coping with serious emotional stressors in the fifty-plus years takes a higher order of psychological management skills than earlier life required. Some of us were fortunate in inheriting genes for coping with difficult life issues with resilience, grace, and resourcefulness. Unfortunately, most of us come ill prepared for dealing with the serious issues that living in the senior years forces us to confront. In our youth we may have been too consumed with the demands of daily life or too afraid of life’s darker side to develop the skills we now need for managing serious issues and their concomitant emotional distress.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had access to graduate courses on the emotional side of aging? Such courses could teach us to understand, appreciate, and manage both sides of aging—the plus and the negative. How, for instance, do we go about building up our spiritual muscles so that when we enter a time of trial we have the strength to deal with it? Where can we get training in higher-level emotional management skills? What are the best resources for developing hope, optimism, and compassion?
Some of us may have been fortunate enough to have encountered people and programs along the way that have helped us develop the vital life skills we need for our senior years. But most us will probably need to learn these things on our own. Fortunately, we live in an age when we have ready access to great books (some of which are listed in the reference section), wise mentors, radio/TV/Internet programs featuring behavior management gurus, adult education opportunities, and professional psychologists and pastoral counselors.
Regardless of which path you choose, the important thing to remember is to get started now. Don’t wait until you are in the throes of a crisis. Improving your emotional management skills now will help you lessen the debilitating impact of the difficult issues you must face in the future and maximize the zestful potential that your senior life still has to offer. In creating your plan, I highly recommend that you seek assistance from an astute mentor whose wisdom comes from the crucible of life.
Spiritual Well-Being Why are you here? What is your purpose in life? Where did you come from, metaphysically speaking? What happens when you die? What keeps Earth spinning on its axis and or the human heart pumping? Where do dreams come? Where is God? Questions like these often perplex young children.
I remember as a child looking up into the night sky trying to understand where the universe began and ended and what kept the stars and planets in their orbits. Once I asked my mother where God came from, and she said that God has always been and will always be. But I never could get my mind around a concept like that. While some of us are comfortable knowing that there are things that can’t be explained, others like myself find things of a mystical or mysterious nature to be wonderfully intriguing but, at the same time, woefully unsettling. Questions about the cosmos, the spiritual, and the nature of life never left me, but in my young adulthood, I was so preoccupied with the daily grind of life that I had little time for thinking about them. Then as I entered my senior adulthood, I found my thoughts once again awash with questions about the grand mysteries of the universe.
A spiritual practice involving disciplined meditation, contemplation, or prayer may serve you well, both in finding your purpose in life and in coming to terms with the great mysteries of life. Whether you are a devout Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Neo-Pagan, or committed atheist, finding a core purpose can be energizing and empowering, enabling you to live your life as a sacred journey.
My wife Pat serves as a role model for someone with a purpose bigger than the self. As mentioned previously, in her early fifties, she felt called to the ministry and undertook a mid-life career change from public relations to ordained ministry. She enjoyed serving as the associate pastor at a local church, but three years later felt a calling of another kind. Today, at the age of 62, she still enjoys serving in various capacities as a minister-at-large in our presbytery, where she serves on various committees and does guest preaching. But her calling these days goes beyond her formal ministerial duties to other ways of ministering—including grandmothering, painting, and writing.
You can often find her in her studio painting colorful abstract florals and landscapes that, she hopes, celebrate the beauty and mystery of creation. Or you might find her deep in work on a book based on a collection of 300 letters from her Civil War ancestors—who were in touch with the sanctity of life and death on a daily basis and knew, regardless of what they faced, that “grace can do the work quickly.”
But sacrificing yourself to a cause from guilt, following a path that works for another, or blindly adhering to an unexamined prescription for the perfect life are all unlikely to bring authentic spiritual development. You can learn techniques, develop practices, and study a wide array of materials to nurture your spiritual growth, but you also want to listen to your internal wisdom so that as your spiritual journey unfolds, you know that it is yours, and not someone else’s.
You can use the following example of a PIES management plan as a guide for developing your own plan. Be sure to use this only as a guide, however. Otherwise, it simply won’t work because it won’t be yours.
I strongly recommend developing your own plan in writing and posting it in a visible place as an ongoing reminder. You might also want to discuss your plan with others. When you make your intentions clear to others, you strengthen your commitment to following through on your plan. Keeping a plan secretly in mind tends to keep it more tenuous and more likely to slip into the realm of good intentions—as opposed to a working plan of action.
Physical
• Diet: I’ll eat healthy, putting only that in my mouth that nurtures my body and mind. No junk food. Six to eight glasses of water every day. Alcohol in moderation, one to two glasses of wine a day, possibly three on social occasions.
• Exercise: Walk a minimum of 45 minutes three times a week, or substitute with a one- to two-hour bike ride, or one-hour workout at the gym. Yoga one hour, twice a week.
Emotional
• Mindset: It’s my intention to live in gratitude for the countless blessings in my life.
• Relationships: I treasure my wife and family and will always work to be an affirming, a supportive, and a loving presence in their lives. Friendships are also important—I will make time at least three times a month to enjoy and support these relationships.
• Personal Growth: I acknowledge having developed a productivity-driven obsession, which all too often results in being short-tempered and cranky with my wife and others. I’m aware that my relationships are more important than the immediate task at hand. I’m ready and willing to let go of the obsessions that are not serving me or others well, freeing myself to live more fully in the joy of the moment.
Intellectual
• Professional: I will remain active in my life-coaching work by staying up to date with the latest literature in adult development and the psychology of positivism and by attending professional meetings and maintaining a part-time practice.
• Personal Growth: I’ll pursue my interest in history and world religions by reading biographies of noteworthy individuals and taking courses in world religions at the local university. I will continue to actively participate in our book discussion club.
Spiritual
• Personal Growth: I’ll continue in my regular yoga practice and support of our local church. I’ll also meditate for 20 minutes, three-times a week, and take more time to stop and smell the roses.
• Goal: I’m committed to supporting my family and friends with humor, heartfelt appreciation and role modeling a life well lived. Professionally I’m committed to helping my clients discover and apply their true potentials. I intend to leave this world, when my time comes, with few regrets and a lot of joy in having lived a fulfilling life.
Being ResilientIn the fifty-plus years change begins happening on many fronts, some of it planned but a lot of it out of the blue. David knew 10 years ago when he accepted the position of university president that he was going to retire at age 65. What he hadn’t planned on was that leaving this job, to which he’d become quite attached, was going to be excruciatingly difficult. Nor did he know that the dream home he and his wife had purchased in Florida would be nearly blown apart by rampaging tornadoes.
We never know what’s around the corner, as one of my clients once remarked. He had been looking forward to retirement when he and his wife would finally get to see the world. But all his plans went down the drain when his wife suddenly died of cancer. Ruth was looking forward to more togetherness with her business-owner husband when he sold his enterprise. But she ended up feeling abandoned and dismayed when he switched his workaholic habits to a part-time enterprise and full-fledged involvement with the Fraternal Order of the Freemasons. Pam was planning to leave her corporate position at age 58 to set up a consulting practice with her husband. But then he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and she had to stay on the job until full retirement age.
Let’s face it, we are all going to suffer setbacks; we are all going to be bent, stretched, and in some ways “reformed.” It’s when things get challenging that we find and discover our mettle; we either flexibly rebound or remain permanently bent. Can you spring back from life-bending situations, or do you need a perfect environment to go on? How resilient are you now, and how resilient will you need to be to cope with the challenges you’ll have to face in the future?
The fifty-plus years are filled with ongoing changes and transitions, which tend to grow in magnitude the older we get. Some of these can be expected and prepared for, such as retirement, the death of parents, marriage of children, birth of grandkids, appearance of age spots, and turning 70. Others we hope never happen to us (cancer, death of a loved one, separation or divorce, serious accidents, or becoming a caregiver to an ill spouse). Then there are those things that we may try to ignore—aging bodies, unsettling inner awakenings, terrorist attacks, or fears about death and serious illness. We may also encounter unexpected good fortune—such as becoming queen of the golf course, falling in love with beautiful grandchildren, a problem child evolving into a grand human being, discovering and manifesting a hidden talent, or finding and marrying a long-lost love. Regardless of our circumstances, as we enter the fifty-plus years, we want to be equipped with the mental disposition, strategies, and skills for coping with change and transition.
If you are already a highly resilient person, congratulations! You’re ready to capitalize on the joys of senior life and are well equipped to weather tough ordeals with courage and grace, possibly even growing wiser and stronger in the process. If, however, you feel the need to beef up your “bounce-back” capabilities, here are a few suggestions for doing so:
• Remember that you’re not being picked on when “bad” things happen to the good person in you. Don’t allow yourself to fall into the victim mode when bad things occur. Instead, deal with them head on. We all face ordeals of one kind or another. If you suffer a loss, grieve it, manage what you must, and then move on. If you get tennis elbow, take up billiards. When your beloved dog dies, have a dog funeral, bury it, and go find another canine friend. If your kids or grandkids have to deal with hard times, recall your own bad times in life and how you grew from them. People who don’t learn to confront and manage difficult times may also not be as capable of appreciating the good times. When your face develops character lines, look for the beauty and wisdom etched in those lines. Know that ordeals are going to happen, they are going to be painful, and you have the God-given capabilities to deal with them and to bounce back. You are made of resilient materials, mind, body, and soul. Don’t let your mind tell you differently. Let your inner wisdom carry you through life’s trying times.
• Remind yourself that life can be like a rollercoaster ride with joyous glides, tough uphill climbs, and flat stretches in between. There is great wisdom in the old adage that we must take the good with the bad. Resign yourself to life, not from life. Don’t allow yourself to check out by giving in to your “shoulds” or the belief that life is either all good or all bad. Life is much more than either. It is a fascinating journey, with some days exploding in volcanic emotion, and others crystallizing one molecule at a time at deep subterranean levels. It’s all a part of life. I believe that we are all meant to be a part of an awesome journey. So strap yourself in and relish every bit of it—rain or shine, smooth or bumpy, there will never be a ride that takes you as fast or slow or as deep or high as the roller coaster of life.
• Maintaining a cosmic sense of humor is an essential ingredient of resilience. Those who can laugh at themselves and see humor in the things of this world don’t tend to take themselves too seriously and don’t remain stuck in a down place too long. Admittedly, it is exceedingly difficult to see humor in human tragedy or in the midst of all the sobering things that happen in your life. I’m not talking about telling jokes when your heart is breaking. I’m talking about the ability to step outside of yourself, especially during difficult times, to see things from a broader perspective. It’s easier to weather life’s twists and turns from such a vantage point. Life is a stage and we are all players on the stage of life. For a play to be substantial enough to engage your attention, however, it must have comedy and tragedy, possibly because we come equipped with the ability to both laugh and cry. Even Walt Disney’s classic kids’ movies featuring Bambi, Snow White, and Cinderella have both joy and pain to sustain interest. But a life focused on just one or the other—tragedy or comedy—has no life in it at all. It’s just tedious boredom. Remember that in good drama, whether it’s comedy or tragedy, the characters learn and grow. When life serves up tragedy, be there with it, and then, after the tears of despair have begun to recede, look beyond your gaping wound and use a detached perspective to start regaining your sense of comedy. After all, comedy, in the classical dramatic sense, is not just about something being funny. It’s really a form of drama that ends with the community coming together in a new way, often through the marriage of key characters. What pieces of your life can a community of friends or colleagues help you knit back together? Who is your audience? Every play needs an audience, including your own. But you may need to develop greater abilities for moving from an actor on the stage to an audience that appreciates your performance. Learn to be both an actor on your stage of life and an audience that applauds the way your life is playing out. After all, you are the chief scriptwriter of your play, and you want to feel that it is definitely worth the price of admission.
• Another key to resilience involves relationship and community. By nature we are all relational, even the strongest of introverts. We are all community oriented in one way or another. Having relationships and being in a community fosters resilience. But for a community to nurture and expand your resilience, it must be supportive.
Belonging to a CommunityMy wife Pat and I currently live in a golf course community. You can look out the window at any time of the day and see people walking their dogs, riding bikes, chatting with friends, cruising around in golf carts, or casually strolling by, waving and talking with neighbors. This is a friendly place, with friendly people. We gather as a community several times a year for a barbecue, to celebrate somebody’s birthday at our clubhouse, or use holiday events to have a street party. There are always golf tournaments taking place, and you see folks heading off to them with big smiles on their faces. There are bridge groups, tennis teams, and garden clubs if you’re interested. Or you can just sit on your deck and wave at neighbors passing by.
This is a community of people who enjoy being together, who take advantage of the many opportunities for social interaction, and watch out for each other. When an elderly neighbor’s driveway gets snowed in, other neighbors suddenly appear to shovel it out and then mysteriously disappear back into the winter mist. When someone gets sick, word in the community goes out and food shows up at their door. A community newsletter keeps us informed of who the top golfers and tennis players are, what’s happening with future plans for the neighborhood, and what events are coming up. When a neighbor passes away, we grieve and share fond memories of their grand life. You can hang out alone here to enjoy solitude in front of your fireplace or have a beer with friends at the club. I play pool on Thursday afternoons with an “old codgers” group, and Pat paints and lunches with an art group on Fridays. It feels like home here. People here have a sense of belonging to something, something that’s bigger than themselves.
Being in affiliation is one of the basic human needs. It provides us with a sense of belonging, of being with others in a community with common values and interests. One of the well-known dangers of aging is becoming isolated and lonely. It’s tempting at times to lapse into solitary pursuits and become a couch potato or computer nerd. Of course, solitary time is also a basic need, even for extroverts, and an essential ingredient for self-realization. But for each of us, there is a happy balance between solitude and companionship. Too much alone time can lead to a cycle of diminishing horizons and energy. Eventually our shrinking circle of contact becomes a black hole imploding in upon itself in an ever-intensifying density that leaves no space for the light to get in. Living in community expands our horizons and keeps our energy fresh and bright.
In addition to living in a supportive community, there are countless other ways of being in community. You might want to become engaged in a professional association, get involved with a local chapter of an international organization such as Rotary or Kiwanis, join the Purple Hat Society, sign on for a book or garden club, or volunteer for a charitable or religious organization that resonates with you.
Many churches and other places of worship offer services and programs especially designed for seniors. Our church, for example, has blood pressure clinics, workshops on writing living wills, and an adult education program that includes presentations and discussions on a wide array of spiritual and theological topics. Another local church advertises in our town paper that it offers “something for everyone in the family.”
If you’re not one who has been previously been inclined to join a community, you might want to revise your views about that as you get older. The dictionary defines community as “a group of people with a common background or with shared interests within the society.” Back in my hometown in Minnesota, there is a Norse Club. Can you guess what kind of background and interests folks in that club share in common? If you feel that managing your portfolio is consuming more and more of your time, you can turn that interest or need into a communal experience by joining an investors club—with real people, not cyberspace groupies. If you like to read a lot, you could become a reader for those who are visually impaired or children at your local grade school or library. Whether your interests lean to the social, political, religious, intellectual, creative, or physical—get out and get involved. Don’t grow old alone. You’re far more likely to feel vim and vibrant if you are a part of a community.
Setting Dangerous GoalsAs we enter our senior years, some of us need goals to motivate us. Others need to be free from a goal-directed life. If you were born to be spontaneous, like a butterfly flitting on the breeze, retirement may be your key to the kind of freedom you’ve always dreamed about. If that’s the case, give yourself permission to do what you want and go where you please. Jump full-fledged into the free-flowing river of life. If, in contrast, you need something to go for, a target to shoot at or a new mountain to climb, you’re going to need to set goals—but not just any goals.
Rob, a retired physician, advocates setting goals that involve danger. Having enjoyed a highly successful career in public health that often took him into harm’s way in places like East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), Haiti, and the remote areas of Indonesia, he experienced real danger many times. But the kind of danger he refers to is not physical. He recently enrolled in a university music program to earn a bachelor’s degree in music. Although he loves music and has a well-trained voice, he is finding that his coursework is more challenging than he anticipated. In fact, he’s found a course in musicology to be particularly arduous. He’s also discovered that being the oldest person in the class (including the instructor) provides no guarantee of success. With a wry grin he says that he probably got one of the lowest grades in class on a recent exam, but he didn’t fail. His real success, however, was that he was willing to give it his very best effort with no assurance of making the grade. That’s what living dangerously means to this intrepid medical doctor who devised treatments that saved thousands of lives in medically impoverished areas of the world. His next dangerous assignment: passing voice and instrument recitals.
I asked Rob what he intended to do with his developing musical expertise. He already sings in a men’s a cappella group, a university choral group, and a church choir. But he looks forward to writing music for others and learning to play the piano well enough so that someday he can “play in a little bar somewhere.” His joy, he says, is not so much in achieving a goal as it is in the chase. He could fail the next quiz, discover that he doesn’t have the requisite talent, or develop a case of laryngitis, but without the risks, he would miss out on the exhilaration.
Ambitious goals, especially in senior life when so many of us are looking forward to leisurely rewards for our years of labor, push us to take risks and explore new territory. Since nothing in life is assured, anyway, why should we be afraid of putting ourselves out there in dangerous endeavors? As Rob says, we just might find out that we have what it takes and succeed in getting to a new place in life. Then what? There’s always another “mission impossible.”
Advancing in the Path of Your True NatureThroughout this book I’ve promoted the concept of self-realization as essential to fulfilling your individual uniqueness. Cellular biologists might take exception to the concept of individual uniqueness because they know that the whole of human kind is far more alike than different from the perspective of our genes. Yet we also know that each of us has a DNA code different enough to enable the FBI to determine whether we committed a particular crime. But it’s not our unique DNA code to which I refer—it’s something far more intangible than biochemical differences.
The kind of uniqueness I’m referring to can’t be analyzed by a blood test or microscope. The kind of uniqueness I’m referring to has more of a psychological essence than a physiological presence. Although we do attempt to gauge our psychological state with various kinds of mental health and personality assessments, there is no psychological instrument that can fully define our uniqueness. Psychometric surveys are based on the assumption that humans share an array of measurable commonalities. But the human psyche is a subjective domain, so how can we ever know if we have identified all aspects of human nature or something as ethereal as the human spirit? Another problem with assessments is that their results depend on self-reports. But how can you report a subjective experience with objective precision?
That being said, it’s important to remember that many assessments can be useful in helping you see the various psychological attributes that comprise your psychic array. You might find that an assessment such as the Myers Briggs, for example, can help you understand why you tend to be more extroverted than introverted in the way you relate to the world, or more concrete than abstract in your thinking, or more spontaneous than planned in your approach to life. Such self-knowledge is often quite helpful as you pursue your unique path of self-realization. But there is no assessment capable of defining the full realm of all of your individual uniqueness. To do that would require an individually designed assessment for every individual. Self-discovery, therefore, is an ongoing process, and self-realization is a journey that never ends, perhaps extending even beyond our last, grand transition.
Our social welfare and the common good both demand that we honor our similarities and differences. Our basic similarities enable us to function together regardless of the language we speak—Japanese, English, Mandarin, or Russian. Our differences, however, have often taken us to the brink of annihilation. Is there anything that can actually enable us to live together in appreciation of our similarities and differences while maintaining our common welfare and individual uniqueness? There may be hope on the horizon—and the hope is actually evolving from an increasing number of seniors on the planet.
With so many humans around the globe entering the senior stages of life and bringing forth their wisdom of the ages, it seems conceivable that we could be at the dawning of a new era of planetary enlightenment. Admittedly that notion has not been validated by “a roundup of the late world news from the usual unreliable sources,” as poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote in A Coney Island of the Mind. In spite of the negativity in the news, however, with millions of people advancing into senior life in an interconnected world, doesn’t it seem possible that mature wisdom could be on the verge of blooming all over the earth? Isn’t it possible that the current paradigm of fear and mistrust could give way to a convergence of the wisdom of the ages?
The first half of life for most of us is spent in “fitting-in.” The second half frees us to tap the earthly wisdom that comes from deeper self-knowledge. The first half of life involves concentrating on our “sameness.” The second half gives us the opportunity to celebrate our unique differences and realize our full potential. What better gift can we share with the world?
Hopefully this book has provided ample opportunity for clarifying a vision for what your senior life can be in your journey toward self-realization. No doubt your vision of the future will be unique to you. No one else can develop or replicate it. If you are a Mystical Intuitive, you will choose a different path than a Coordinator-Organizer would. If you fit in the Gray Eminence category, you are likely to pursue a different direction than a Seeker-Explorer would. If creativity is one of your top values, your commitments will be distinctly different from someone whose top values focus on staying loyal to tradition. But despite their differences, each path is, to use another Ferlinghetti line, “a renaissance of wonder.” And, unlike the poet, we don’t have to sit around and wait for it.
Some of us re-invent ourselves with a carefully organized plan. But sometimes forces beyond our control wash us up on unknown shores. The latter mode was how Roberta (Rahbi) Crawford came to her current life work.
Rahbi is a highly trained classical musician with two master’s degrees in music and additional advanced musical training. She is an experienced orchestral and choral conductor, a composer, and a performer. At an earlier stage in life, Rahbi was pursuing the goal of becoming the first female conductor of a major symphony orchestra. It turns out, however, that her body prevented her from continuing in that direction. Today, instead of being an orchestra conductor, Rahbi, at the age of 60, is a different kind of musician—a certified Tama-Do practitioner. She is a sound-healing performer who uses music to heal the body as well as to please the ear.
Earlier in life Rahbi was a traditional music teacher, but in her forties became incapacitated with severe chronic fatigue. Her ailment alerted her to the realization that her health could no longer tolerate a standard teaching career. She needed to change career directions and pursue her childhood dream. As a child she liked to watch Leonard Bernstein on TV as he conducted the New York Philharmonic orchestra, and she yearned to become a conductor herself. But with no female role models for that in the 1950s, her aspirations seemed more like pipe dreams than realistic goals. But then women began moving into all kinds of professions from which they had previously been excluded, and she began working on a doctorate in orchestral conducting, a quest that actually seemed to improve her health. Her dream came to an abrupt ending, however, when she was literally unable to turn the page of her musical score during a recital. Something in her body simply would not let her hand turn the page.
What do you do when a dream comes suddenly to an unfulfilled ending? Rahbi fell into a state of deep depression and disillusionment. She felt betrayed by her failed dream and totally confused. All she could do was to play a Native American flute and agonize over what went wrong—why her body had refused to cooperate at a critical moment. Eventually her flute-playing began to regenerate her severely deflated spirits. She began to understand that it was wisdom from her unconscious that had stopped her from going forward with her former aspirations. She realized that orchestral conducting was more of a childhood whimsy than a path to self-realization. She really had no desire to spend days studying musical scores composed by others. Nor did she want to spend hours rehearsing music so it could be played exactly as the composer supposedly intended. A conventional path was not for her; her mind-body simply was not going to allow it.
The gift of a book by Fabien Maman, The Role of Music in the Twenty-First Century, changed her life. Maman created the Tama-Do process, which applies the outcomes of his research with various principles of Oriental medicine into a healing practice. This book struck such a deep a chord with Rahbi that she went off to France to study with Maman and eventually launched a new career as a musician-healer and certified Tama-Do practitioner. Rahbi offers her therapeutic services through concerts, workshops, healing circles, and individual healing-sound treatments. She uses a wide variety of musical instruments, including Native American flutes, quartz crystal bowls, and her own voice, to enhance inner peace and resonate with internal harmonic rhythms. You can learn more about Rahbi at www.mwt.net/~makesmusic.
For Rahbi, finding her own path involved exploring, experimenting, improvising, trusting her feelings, and persevering. When you trust your inner guidance, she says, you may not get what you thought you wanted. But what you do get may be something infinitely better. For her, fulfillment came from following the less traveled path. In doing so, she learned how to create and share her own unique music.
If you’re on the path of change, it’s usually wise to make changes gradually, in stages. Corporate executives and ministers in new situations have learned that attempts to change too much too fast can result in disasters that last. Incorporating a new vision in a church or a business setting generally works best when change is made incrementally, with all affected parties being thoroughly educated and frequently consulted about what’s coming and why. Similarly, when implementing a new vision in your life, you may be more successful in planning it in small steps that keep all interested parties in your life informed and engaged in a collaborative effort.
Bradley was eagerly looking forward to his retirement when he could devote more time to his many interests. His wife Janet, however, was happy for Bradley, but had serious concerns about how his new life might impact her well-established routine. Janet, who had retired from a teaching position a few years earlier, was quietly dreading Bradley’s forthcoming, full-time presence in the house.
Janet was a strong extrovert and had developed an active social life in the community. She also had a comfortable routine around the house. She liked her lifestyle and feared that it would be uprooted when her introverted husband came home from his last day at work. She was afraid that he would want more togetherness than she did and would make demands on her time that would disrupt her household routines and interfere with her moments of quiet solitude. Although she was an extrovert, she also relished her “time-out” for reading and meditating.
In a casual conversation with good friends about retirement, Janet finally confessed that she had some concerns about Bradley’s upcoming retirement. Prior to that, she’d been reluctant to share her concerns for fear of hurting Bradley’s feelings and undermining his excitement about retiring. Fortunately, one of the friends, who happened to be a professional counselor, helped them address Janet’s concerns. That discussion led to some intelligent decisions about how to deal with Janet’s concerns without squelching Bradley’s excitement.
For one thing, they realized that it would be important for them each to have their own space. Bradley would convert one of the bedrooms into his private office. There he could manage the finances, play the stock market, and amuse himself by playing computer chess with Internet chess masters from around the world. Bradley also promised to stay clear of the kitchen, Janet’s private domain and her working studio for expressing her culinary artistry. For the hour of quiet reading and contemplation that Janet treasured before the evening meal, Bradley readily agreed to honor that by staying out of the living room so she could enjoy her peaceful respite without distraction. They also set aside half an hour for cocktails together to discuss the day’s events, after Janet had the meal in the oven.
Their agreement on these rather simple things resolved the anxieties Janet had about Bradley’s retirement. They established new routines that helped them to make a smooth transition to this new chapter in their life together. It turns out that Bradley found any number of interesting things to do in creating an enjoyable schedule of his own. And their willingness to openly discuss their individual needs and to creatively identify things they enjoy doing separately and together has resulted in their both feeling fulfilled with their lives.
Creating your personal space can be an important step for traveling your unique path. A personal space is a safe place where you can be you. For that to happen, it’s best if it can be a private space, where no one enters unless invited. But it doesn’t have to be big or fancy. It could be a cubbyhole that serves as an office, a workshop, studio, private garden, or an out-of-the way corner that reflects the unique way that you see yourself and the world.
Authoring Your StoryHow interesting are you as a person? If you were writing a book about your life, what would you entitle it? What would be some of your chapter headings? Would you come out as a hero or an antagonist? Would you be a leading or a supporting character? Is your book of life preordained, or do you feel empowered to author your future chapters?
Your life tends to become more interesting and meaningful when you view it as a fascinating story. Many therapists and pastoral counselors who work with dying people help them conceive of their life as a story. Doing that apparently helps them frame their lives within a meaningful perspective. Conceptualizing your life as a story or book may help you see how you’ve been part of something bigger than yourself. Sharing your life story can also help you pass on an appreciation of a life well lived, with new chapters still to unfold. Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes in The Gift of Story: A Wise Tale about What Is Enough that “none of us will live forever,” but “the stories can.”
Estes also reminds us, “There is no right or wrong way to tell a story.” So if you haven’t already imagined your life as an interesting story, it’s time to start. One way to do that is to look for the narrative threads that have enabled you to weave a rich tapestry of experience. Where are the colorful passages? What patterns or images stand out in relief to all the other millions of little stitches?
There will never be another tapestry exactly like yours. You are a one-of-a-kind. Your story has never been told before. And it never will be unless you take hold of the many “yarns” you’ve been given for creating a bold, original piece of truth and beauty.
In thinking about your life as story, what do you see as some of the major themes in your past? What motifs—or minor themes—contrast or complement your major themes? Recently I worked with a client who was stuck on the theme of trying to prove herself intellectually and professionally because she saw her life largely as a series of past failures or false starts. Her obsession with this one dominant theme had effectively undermined her sense of self-worth. Even though she had an MBA from a highly regarded business school, was the sole survivor of a corporate reorganization, and had just earned a large pay raise, she kept reducing her life story to a theme of failure. She couldn’t forget the time she received a mediocre score on her graduate record exam. She wouldn’t let go of her disappointment at the loss of a good job with Enron when it collapsed. And she kept replaying a single, sting-ingly unflattering comment made to her by a highly stressed manager. Her negative mental perspective was unwarranted and unproductive, to say the least. So I worked with her to recast her life story. Instead of entitling her past life as “a series of false starts,” she reframed her experience as “major life-learning events.”
Choose the words you use to describe and explain yourself with care. The negative worldview that derogatory words connote may sabotage your future. Most of us have experienced more than enough ordeals to make it all too easy to become victims of the past rather than proactive authors of the future. Your personal history primarily resides in only one place, your head. Your interpretation of your history becomes your perceptual reality. I’m not advocating that you gloss over your challenges and shortcomings. The last thing you want to do is to lie about your past. To the contrary, you want to take care that your perceptions are founded upon an authentic history. Giving your past a narrow focus with a negative spin is anything but truthful. The truth is that all life stories have elements of good and bad. And all life stories have interesting dimensions. So be authentic and show that you are indeed a well-rounded character who is multi-dimensional and has a story worth hearing.
Is your book of life full of self-reinventions, or have you been on a steady course of progress and achievement? Would your work, profession, and organizational titles be key features of your story, or would family, recreation, and community become the prominent themes? Does your book portray you as a hard-nosed, strong-willed, achievement-oriented character, or a daffy, comedic entertainer like Lucille Ball? Have you come from humble beginnings and pulled yourself up by the bootstraps, or does your story spotlight the silver spoon you inherited? Have you been a ray of sunshine or a cloud of doom? In your mind, does your life feel more like a thrilling roller coaster ride, or a long, arduous trek through never-changing landscape?
In Larry McMurtry’s novel Somebody’s Darling, one of the characters says, “Life ought to be like a good script. The incidents ought to add up, and the characters ought to complement one another, and the story line ought to be clear, and after you’ve had the climax it ought to leave you with the feeling that it has all been worth it.”1 In other words, as Dan P. McAdams writes in Stories We Live By: Personal Myth and the Making of the Self, “good lives, like good stories, require good endings.”2
You are now in a unique place in the story of your life. You have a wealth of personal history, but you haven’t finished your story yet. It is my hope that working through the process in this book has enriched and clarified your personal narrative. One thing that is clear to me from all the life stories I’ve heard over the years is that you don’t have to stick to the story line you’ve scripted so far. Just as good historians use new information and insights to revise their understanding of the past, you can use your new, expanded concept of your self to revise your past life story. You can then envision new scenarios for your future. Ultimately, only you can write your life story.
Will you be pleased with your story when all is said and done? Make your answer to that resoundingly affirmative, and so it shall be!