Tag: inspiration

The Follies of Freedom

It’s a really awkward transition in life, when you all of the sudden realize that you can, and you should, put the focus back on yourselves, after raising a family. It’s all new territory. We raised kids for 26 years. (Our four kids are all adults now, ages 20-28) Our primary focus, decision making, and financial commitments were all centered around our family life. And now, just as our adult children are embarking on their young adult lives, we are also embarking on the same kind of freedom of choice, similar to what they are experiencing. And so are our friends and our contemporaries.

It’s fun and inspiring to watch our friends and family and contemporaries in their surprised giddiness, enjoying their new found freedom. It’s enlivening to watch “our people” move to new states, move to different houses, take vacations by themselves, put less focus on their jobs, enjoy rekindled or new-found romances, and focus more on their own re-discovered hobbies and interests. It’s delightful to get to experience our adult children as interesting adult contemporaries with their own lives. It’s a relief to no longer have the everyday family responsibilities, and to no longer have to make choices about other people’s lives, besides your own lives.

In my experience, it takes a while to realize that you are “there.” You’ve crossed the finish line, only to enter into your second lap of life. You feel a little guilty and giddy and amazed and grateful and confused and daunted and relieved. It’s a heady mix.

We parents are so used to taking care of other people other than ourselves, it feels strange to no longer have to do this. (I write this realizing that many of us empty nesters are having to caretake older parents, and sometimes grandchildren and so this freedom of responsibility is not quite over for many. I don’t mean to come across cavalier.) Still, when you realize that you do have more freedom than you’ve had for a long, long time, you almost feel incredulous. You almost feel like you need permission. I have the same feelings now that I had when they handed us our first child, and they wheeled me out of the hospital door to our waiting car. “Really? We can just take this baby home? You’re entrusting us with this whole other human life? Really?” I have the same feelings that my twenty-something kids seem to have, when it dawns on them that my husband and I have no “real say” (nor a desire for a “real say”) in how they choose to live their adult lives. They’re adults. The keys to their lives have been handed back to them. They seem puzzled, pleased and scared. This freedom of choice is exhilarating and a little fearsome and daunting at the same time. If I were a mind reader (and we mothers really are kind of mind readers of our kids, right?), I could see their thoughts as being this: “Oh wow, what if I make a wrong decision? This is all on me now. Where do I even begin?”

Facts are, the best part of this second go-around of freedom in our adult lives, is that we better understand, that there really are very few “wrong” decisions in life. When one of my friends recently purchased a second house, I asked her if she was worried about making the wrong decision. “No,” she said. “If it isn’t right, we’ll just sell it.” Those of us in these middle years, have usually bought and sold at least one home in our lifetimes. We get that there will always be places to live in and different environments to experience. We middle-agers get that even our worst decisions, have provided us with guidance and wisdom to put towards moving forward on our paths. We understand that nothing is truly insurmountable because we have a lot of experiences under our belts, that once seemed insurmountable, until they weren’t. Perhaps the only wrong decisions, are not making any decisions at all.

If you are feeling like me, and you feel like you almost need permission to be a little “self-focused” in this new phase of life, here it is: Permission granted. Great job on raising your family! It is not an easy task. You did well. It is time to celebrate “you”. It is time to love on “you.” It’s time to wind the circle of focus back on to your own life, and to rekindle the parts of you that may have gotten lost or neglected along the way. Go for it! As the favorite Dr. Seuss book goes, that so many of us read to our children, so many times, “Oh baby! The places you’ll go!”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2677. Do you think you can learn something from everyone you meet?

What He Said

Another busy day ahead, so I’ll just share this quote, in this online thought museum, which I call my blog:

“The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.” – George Bernard Shaw

The only constant is change. You are changing every single day, just as everything on this earth is in a constant state of metamorphosis. Don’t you want to be a conscious part of your own change and growth?? Don’t expect things to stay the same. They don’t, and nor do you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2648. Do you have much of an ego?

Shiny New Things

I’ve been researching a new project in the last couple of weeks. Who knows if anything will come from it, but it has been so energizing to explore something new. I wake up excited and early and raring to go. And feeling this new passionate aliveness and inquisitiveness makes me realize how long it has been since I have felt this way. And feeling this new energy coursing through my body, makes me understand how important it is to always be exploring new things for ourselves. It is this yearning and this desire that makes life move forward. It is curiosity and taking action on our curiosities, which keeps us young and energized and engaged with living our lives.

When we were raising our big family, it was important for me to put my focus on my family. Raising our family was not just my passion, but essentially, it was my true career. I was a stay-at-home mom to our four children (and our constant menagerie of animals). But they’re all grown now and it is not healthy for our relationships going forward, for me to keep an intense focus on their lives. I have dropped the reigns. It’s time for me to take a hold of that intense energy of mine, and put it to use for me, and for my husband, and for these exciting next chapters, in this new phase of life.

If we aren’t intentional about where we put our time and our focus, that’s when we can get into trouble. We are going along in our ruts, plowing along with our many obligations, staying in our comfort zones, and then something new and shiny, comes into the mix, and that precious feeling of excitement and freshness can sometimes lead us down dark alley ways. But if we are intentional, and we are honest with ourselves, we can consider where life is feeling a little stale or rote or even unhealthy, and then we can choose to infuse new energy and healthy new explorations into these particular areas of our lives. We can enjoy the magical feeling of new goals and the excitement of working towards and achieving these new goals. We can stop numbly going along our long-tread usual routines, unintentionally using only quick fixes/distractions to make us feel better along the way. (i.e. sugar, shopping, doom-scrolling, alcohol/drugs, getting overly involved in drama with friends and family/politics, etc.) Typically, intentional choices serve us so much better than our unconscious, unintentional diversions.

When I am starting to feel restless and bored and frustrated, I look at my life like it is a pie chart. These are the types of categories that are typically suggested to use for your own life’s pie chart:

Career/Work/Vocation

Home life

Health and fitness

Recreation and hobbies

Friends

Family

Relationship/Romance

Personal growth/Spirituality

Self care

Vacation/Travel

If you were honest with yourself right now, and you made a pie chart of your life, where would that largest percentage of your pie chart land? Is there an area in your life, where your inner self has been quietly screaming for you to change things up, and to give it more time and focus? Does your pie chart look balanced? Can you take some time/focus from one area of your pie chart and add that precious time to another area that feels lacking? Which part of your pie chart do you yearn for something new? Which part of your pie chart would you like to infuse new energy and excitement and fresh new plans and goals?

I saw a post this morning on X, where a woman posted a picture of her friend finishing up one of his crocheted rugs. It was a beautiful rug and her friend, a middle-aged man was clearly engrossed in creating it. She posted the picture because she said that her friend was embarrassed by his new hobby, and she was afraid that he would stop doing it. She sees how much he loves his new hobby and the creations that come out of it, and she doesn’t want him to lose his passion. She asked people to like the picture, in order to encourage him. The post (not even a day old) has 36,000 likes and over 5,000 comments stating things like the football player, Rosey Grier, apparently loved to crochet and to do embroidery, and many people calling this woman’s friend nothing short of a “badass artist.” (one person asked to purchase his pattern) Another commenter spoke of a huge, muscled-up security guard in her hometown who loved to design and to sew frilly, fancy dresses for his granddaughters. Many commenters stated that they felt inspired to try a new hobby, by seeing this post.

Life is energy. Energy moves things forward. What area of your own life needs an infusion of energy and enthusiasm? How can you make that happen? Where would you like to feel excited and engaged again? What baby steps can you take towards that excitement and engagement?

Bye, bye now. Wouldn’t this be a good time to go make a pie (or a pie-chart)?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2200. What is a recent compliment you’ve received?

Mindset

“The enemy is not a person. The enemy is a mindset.” – Daniel Lubetzky (founder of KIND bars)

I have always said that conflicts and wars are never going to cease, until people start looking at things in different ways. Beliefs are entrenched in us from childhood on. We live our lives based on our beliefs, but rarely do we examine our beliefs. Usually, we subconsciously act in ways that will enforce our beliefs. We live in places and we mostly interact with people who normalize our own beliefs. We are often scared to examine our beliefs for fear that we might have been mistaken, or that our beliefs are just conditioned from other people’s beliefs, and these beliefs aren’t actually our own, at our deepest cores. And then where does that leave us without the current framework of our entrenched beliefs?

I’ve written before about the time period in my early forties, when the life of our family “blew up.” We were “the poster kids” for the Great Recession. For years, we had gone along in our lives, in one entrenched way, and I honestly had convinced myself that it would not have been possible to take another direction, even if we wanted to change things up. I believed that we were “stuck” in one town, in one underwater house, in one stressful way of life, with very few options. And then the Universe forced our hands, and all of the sudden there were many options, which we didn’t even realize were available possibilities. We ended up here in Florida, in a better living situation, in every facet of our lives.

A wise friend of mine recently told me that before she makes major decisions or changes in her life, she opens up the proverbial file cabinet in her mind, and explores her beliefs about the situation in a detached manner. She writes them down and really explores if these old beliefs are actually true and make sense for the situation. She then writes down new beliefs that could be truer to her needs and her wants in the present time. My friend doesn’t beat herself up for beliefs that may have limited her in the past. She moves forward with a healthier, more open, more considered mindset.

What do you feel absolutely sure about but wish that you didn’t feel sure about it? Usually these are negative beliefs about health, finances, world problems, politics, relationships, your career, where you live etc. Open up that file folder in your mind, and really explore this belief. Byron Katie devised what she calls “The Work.” Use these four questions as a template to explore your beliefs. You may be shocked with the insights you glean about beliefs that you have been carrying with you for a really long time.

  1. Is it true?
  2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
  3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
  4. Who would you be without the thought?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2796. What excuse do you tell yourself far too often?

Inside You

I was reminded of this proverb shown above, this morning while perusing the internet. What are you letting inside that doesn’t deserve a welcome mat? Another proverb says, “Wherever you go, there you are.” So even if you are Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos or Taylor Swift, and you have homes and planes and yachts all over the place, at your immediate disposal, you can only be in one place, at any one time . . . . your own body, which houses your restless mind.

Dr. Nicole LePera recently posted this on X: “If your home is a place of peace, you’ve broken the cycle.”

Is your home a place of peace? I’m not talking about your bricks and mortar home. I’m talking about inside of you. Your body and your mind is your true home.

What is a peaceful place? A peaceful place is one of security, comfort, acceptance, and easy-going, light flowing energy. In a peaceful place you don’t expect to have to walk on eggshells, nor pretend to be someone or something that you are not. You don’t feel tension or trepidation in peaceful places. You don’t feel judged or condemned in peaceful places. Rarely do you feel the need to escape from peaceful places. Peaceful places tend to be our ultimate sanctuaries. Peaceful places make us feel like everything is alright.

Is your body/mind a peaceful place to be? Because if it isn’t, there’s nowhere else to go. You can try to escape it with mind-numbing activities and addictions, but you are still there. Even if it feels like you’ve escaped it for a moment, you are still there.

What if your soul/spirit/highest form of yourself was the keeper and captain of your mind/body? And all that your soul/spirit/highest form of yourself wanted, was for your mind/body to be a place of peace? What would be needed to keep your mind/body a sanctuary of peace? Who/what would be invited in, and who/what would be kept out? What thoughts and actions would become rituals to keep your mind/body peaceful? What thoughts and actions would be shown the door?

What if you were able to walk through life, shielded by the beautiful energy of your own place of peace, in every single moment, no matter where you happened to be? What if the waves and storms outside of you, try as they may, could not “rock the boat” of peace inside of you?

Ultimately, anything that we want outside of ourselves, is because of the feelings that we believe that these things will bring inside of ourselves. What if that thinking is all backwards? What if those feelings are available to us, right now, inside the quiet, peaceful sanctuaries of our own hearts? What if all of what we have brought in from “the outside” is drowning and overwhelming us, like a ship taking in too much water from the ocean around it? Is it possible that a simple, peaceful sanctuary of observance and curiosity, has been inside of us all along, but it has been overtaken by too many outside influences? Is it time to let “all that stuff” that doesn’t serve, drain out?

Ultimately a ship at sea, leaves for its voyage, with the captain knowing that there will be all sorts of weather, and unforeseen adventures along the way, but the ultimate goal is to arrive at its destination, with all of the cargo and crew, safe and intact. A ship at sea, has a good captain, who follows the inner navigation system closely, so that even when all that can be seen is ocean and sky, the captain of the ship, intimately and deeply understands that the destination will be seen on the horizon one day. In the meantime, the captain’s goal is to keep the ship afloat as a dry, safe sanctuary of peace, as it carries on with its journey through the vastness surrounding it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2283. Are you a good singer? (It really doesn’t matter. Just sing.)

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ If you are around my age (53) and you miss your grandparents, check out this 94-year-old “granfluencer”, Grandma Droniak. In her own words, she “slays.” https://www.tiktok.com/@grandma_droniak?lang=en And if you don’t like her outfit for the day, you can leave. (again, her words)

+ I can’t believe that I haven’t seen Inside Out 2 yet. I adored the first movie. My daughter and I have watched it together several times (and cried every time we watched it). Anyway, this chart is an excellent way to get a better idea of how to name the feeling or feelings which you are feeling. With the unofficial start to fall in my household, I am feeling a mix of ecstacy, melancholy and intrigue. (and perhaps even a little bit of surprise).

+ We’ve had a lot going on the past week or so, and so I told my husband that this weekend’s plan is taken directly from a Spanish proverb:

“How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward.”

+ And another great chart is below that I saw on LinkedIn. I like this comment about the chart by Sam Young (It has a “Dad joke” feel to it): “In the end, it all comes down to the human sole. Everyone needs just a little bit of heeling..”

+ I read something yesterday about the fact that as exciting as it is to watch the Olympic athletes, the performers and the presenters, the Olympics would not happen if a million different “little people” both employed and volunteers (cooks, traffic planners, towel changers, medal organizers, ticket box workers, construction workers, camera crews, launderers etc.) didn’t do their jobs properly. We are all part of the ant colony, friends and every job matters. The show does not go on when all of the pieces aren’t in play. You matter. So does everyone else.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2719. What do you love most about where you live right now?

Monday – Funday

credit: @woofknight, X

The Olympics closing ceremony was yesterday. Weren’t the Olympics great this year? The little ones start back to school today, in our neck of the woods. I heard the school busses making their rounds. We picked up our daughter at the airport last night, who flew in after her study abroad experience that she had this summer in Europe, and she already headed back to her university this morning, for sorority rush events. Our visiting adult kids left yesterday to go back to their own lives and schedules and I . . . . am exhaling.

Despite knowing that we have at least a couple more months of hot and sticky summer weather to endure, from a lifetime of living by the rhythm of school schedules, it definitely feels like I have yet another summer underneath my belt. I have experienced 53 summers in my lifetime. You enter into every summer with excitement and anticipation for plans of fun and leisure and relaxation and reunions and vacations and casual celebrations, and then it kind of takes you by surprise when seemingly all of the sudden, summer’s over. We had been planning my daughter’s summer in London for a long time. Everything went without a hitch. I am so grateful. I’m so relieved. And I am so happy to have her back in our country. And I honestly can’t believe that this long anticipated experience is now just a lovely memory in the past.

Someone once told me that aging is like a toilet roll. “The closer you get to the end,” he chuckled, “the faster it goes.” I thought that this was hilarious when I first heard it (when I was a bit younger). Now, I’m just aghast at the truth of it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2473. What new memories do you want to make?

Powerful

“You have no idea how long something you say can stay in someone’s mind.” – Scarlett Leithold

This is so true, isn’t it? What swirls around in your mind (good and bad) from things that were said to you days ago, weeks ago, even decades ago? As someone who is blunt and emotional and who doesn’t always weigh her words as carefully as I should, I pray that it is mostly the good things that I have said bluntly and emotionally, that are swirling around in my people’s heads.

Words are powerful. When I learned how to drive, my dad would say that he is handing me a loaded weapon, when he handed me the car keys. Words are so often used as weapons. We walk around with the ability to brandish these weapons, instantly, at any moment. And they can be weapons that act like shrapnel from bullets, which can’t ever be completely removed from someone’s emotional body.

At the same time, words can be healers. Words can inspire and give hope and help to find meaning in what sometimes seems meaningless. No matter how they are used, words are powerful.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2501. What do you like to do at the park?

Fuggy Friday

“Fuggy” is a word. Look it up. Fuggy is just like muggy, but with an “F”. I just learned the word “fuggy”, myself, a few moments ago, when I looked up synonyms for “humid.” Above is one of my favorite people whom I follow on X. He is a comedian named “OMGITSWICKS” and he makes fun of Florida, like only a true, “born and raised” Floridian can do. He recently said that we Floridians consider tropical storms to be just “rain with a name.” And, he’s right.

Before I get to my main favorite for today on, Favorite Things Friday, I want to write down what I have been pondering lately. If you look at any of my all-over-the-map musical playlists, the accounts which I follow on X (people on the left, people on the right, witches, artists, buddhists, Christians, therapists, actors, mystics and a gay furry) and my eclectic array of unusual collections all over my house and yard, you might question my sanity. For those of you who follow astrology, I am a Sagittarius sun sign, with Gemini rising. That helps to make sense of me, right? I’m an adventurer. I’m insanely curious. I love anyone who makes me laugh. I’m open-minded, and I am open to changing my mind. I believe that I have my own personal politics, and my own personal religion (more like spirituality.) I am hopeful and optimistic. I love to read and to learn. To me there is nothing better on this earth (besides my family) than animals and nature. I have friends in every category imaginable. I abhor snobbery. I think that it’s incredibly limiting. I am willing to make an effort to like anyone until I see them treat others badly. If you are manipulative, disdainful, deceitful, mean, cruel, disrespectful, bullying etc. to others, that’s when my walls go way, way up. Otherwise, your beliefs are your beliefs. I respect your right to your beliefs, to your interests, to your passions, to living your life as you see fit, as long as you do not cause pain to others. And all that I expect from you, is that you extend that same respect for me. (my sister-in-law used to say that you can generate the Ten Commandments all down to one commandment: “Don’t be a dick.”) Why have I been pondering this? I think that it’s because with all of the divisive politics and horrible wars going on, and the cancel culture running rampant, and things going on with some personal relationships in my life, I needed to ask myself, “What do I stand for?” And the conclusion that I came up with is that ultimately, I stand for kindness, and I stand for freedom. I stand for the golden rule. And in my life, I have witnessed so many different people, from so many different backgrounds, races, religions, sexual preferences, political parties, etc., ultimately stand for the same things. Kindness. Freedom. These people do unto others as they would have done to them. I suppose, ultimately and optimistically and hopefully, I believe that most of us strive for, and stand for “Love” in its highest, most unconditional form.

Okay, off of my soapbox: Here’s today’s favorite: Invisible Glass Glass Cleaner The back of our house is almost entirely sliding glass doors and we have three dogs. Nose prints. Nose prints. Nose prints. Cleaning glass is the bane of my existence. This is the first glass cleaner that has “streak-free” written on it’s can, and actually is streak-free. I purchased this recently on Amazon and it has quickly become my new holy grail of glass cleaners.

Have a great weekend, friends. Thanks for taking a little trip inside of my head. I think that’s really what this blog is for me, “a head trip” and mostly, “a heart trip.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2785. What instantly melts your heart?

The Little Blue Heron

I just took the dogs out and the little blue heron was sitting out there waiting for us. He comes to our backyard often, picking various perches to look for food. The little blue heron is never excited to see the dogs. He stubbornly holds his position until the last minute that one of them almost reaches him, and then he flies off, loudly squawking his disapproval and disgust. I smile to myself every time I see him. My husband always says that the little blue heron is his dad paying us a visit.

My husband’s father passed away when my husband had just turned 30. We received one of those awful “middle of the night calls” (the kinds of sickening calls that you wish were only true in movies) with the news that my father-in-law had passed from a sudden heart attack. He was 59.

My father-in-law was a complicated man. My husband had a complicated relationship with him. But my husband was his only son of five children, and I never doubted my father-in-law’s love and pride for his son. When my husband was earning his MBA from a prestigious, challenging university during night school, while supporting our family of me and our two young sons with his day job, my father-in-law sent a regular stream of handwritten letters and newspaper clippings, as a form of pride and cheerleading and support.

My husband and our two middle sons took off from work/school today, to go fishing together. I just waved them off, feeling their excitement and anticipation reverberating in my own heart. My husband often fished with his own father when he was a boy. Maybe when the little blue heron flew off just now, he was heading out to sea. Maybe the little blue heron has “a boy with his own boys” to look after today. Perhaps they need the little blue heron’s pride and cheerleading and support.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

379. Who knows you better than anyone else?