Tag: middle age

Soothing Sunday

Fortune for the day -“They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them.” – Bhagavad Gita

Good, beautiful Sunday morning. It’s a lovely day here. The sun is shining, the lake is still, the air is calm. It’s like the day is quietly, patiently inviting us to become part of it. Sundays are soulful here at Adulting – Second Half. Sundays are our poetry workshop days. I share a poem and I ask you to share some of your poems in the Comments section. A few of my braver readers have shared such gorgeous poems in the past. Please share yours, too. In the words of Peter McWilliams:

One of the great joys of life is creativity. Information goes in, get shuffled about, and comes out in new and interesting ways. . . . It doesn’t matter that you don’t know how to do it “perfectly.” . . . Does it give you joy? Does it give you satisfaction? Is it fun? Does it make you feel more in touch with the creative flow of life? . . . . Then do it.

Here’s my poem for today:

The Lake

The lake is like watching a reflection of my emotions,

Sometimes so quietly still, almost to the point of solid nothingness,

Sometimes so turbulent, I dare not venture too far in,

Sometimes a surprising disturbance, the unexpected jumps out,

Creating ripples, not in great haste, to disappear.

The lake appears so very deep, yet it has its shallows.

The lake houses a lot of life in its teeming depths,

It’s not nearly as placid as it seems, underneath it all.

Whether tranquil or churned up, the lake is truly beautiful.

The lake is complicated and simple, all at once.

Being, reflecting, moving, idling, housing, holding, drowning.

Sometimes a sanctuary, sometimes a death trap.

Always there, but never the same.

The lake of my emotions.

Attendance Excuse

Fortune for the day – “With true friends, even water drunk is sweet enough.” – Chinese proverb

My daughter stayed home from school yesterday. She wasn’t sick. She didn’t have anything special outside of school, to attend. She wasn’t ill-prepared for a test. My daughter is not a senior and it was not a “senior skip day.” My daughter stayed home from school because someone had made a shooting threat to her high school, over social media. We live in Florida and the demographics of our high school are very similar to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the horrific Parkland shootings occurred two years ago on Valentines Day. Despite our school principal sending an email of “assurance” that there would be extra police protection on campus, a lot of parents made the same decision that we did, and they, too, kept their children home from school. My daughter’s friend texted her that there were four kids in her first period class. Thankfully, blessedly, no incident occurred and supposedly arrests have been made, concerning the threats made on social media, but sending our children to school was not a risk many of us parents were willing to take. It’s hard to walk the fine line between not living in fear and anxiety, yet accepting the cold, hard realities of today’s world. I don’t know the answers to this terrible violence problem that we have in our country, so for me, right now, this problem remains solidly in my prayer box. And in the meantime, I will control what I can control. My daughter stayed home from school yesterday, for no other reason than we feared for her life and for her safety.

“There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.” – Napolean Bonaparte

“Violence isn’t always evil. What’s evil is the infatuation with violence.” – Jim Morrison

“In violence we forget who we are.” – Mary McCarthy

“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolute night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.” –  Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands.” –  Ernest Gaines    

The Honey On Top

I told my husband that football season is over, and thus, it is “movie season.” We have watched a movie practically every night this week. I love it. My husband kindly goes along with it, as I did, watching a lot of football, this past fall. The other night, we watched the heart-wrenching film, Honey Boy, based on Shia LaBeouf’s childhood experiences with his alcoholic father. It’s a tough watch, but it’s a good one.

What a like about books and movies is that almost always, besides being entertained and/or emotionally engaged, I also glean some sort of practical knowledge, to put into my proverbial tool box, which I carry around with me, while experiencing my life. So, the handy dandy tidbits that stuck with me from Honey Boy, are two items that the Shia-based character learns in rehab. One, is to hug yourself. I know, it sounds silly. It looked silly in the movie. I remember hugging myself as a kid and moving my hands up and down my back, as a prank, making it look like I was making out with someone, when I was viewed from behind. I don’t know about making out with yourself, but apparently, hugging yourself is a “real” thing. There is scientific proof that hugging yourself releases “feel good” hormones that help to ease your current pain or stress. Go ahead. Give it a try right now. No one is looking. Awwww! This is soon to become a habit, right?

The second tip is that when you feel yourself emotionally overloaded, a quick way to get back to center, is to force yourself to name four things in the room or area that you are currently in. It’s a quick and easy way to stop your mind from racing with escalating thoughts, which in turn, are provoking turbulent emotions. It’s your own personal “time out”, when you feel yourself losing emotional control. Desk. Candle. Clock. Screen. So easy, so simple, so useful.

These two suggestions were worth my time and money spent on the movie, even if I had not cared for the movie, at all. Everything has its worth, if we look for it. Here’s the fortune for the day:

“Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.” – Colette

Template for Being

My friend sent this to our group chat this morning. I am going to make this my “template for being”, for the rest of 2020. This is the perfect year to become your own best friend. One time when I was muddling around with a tough decision, one of my dear friends said to me, “What advice would you give to me, in this situation?” That was a huge perspective changer. I am much softer, kinder, more compassionate, forgiving and understanding with my friends and my family, than I tend to be with myself. We work hard to be “good” in relationships, but we often leave the most important relationship out of that equation. Our most important relationship is with ourselves. No one will be with us longer, on this Earth. And if that statement still feels/sounds/seems too “selfish” understand that it follows that we cannot love others any better than we love ourselves. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. I am guessing that Jesus wanted us to love our neighbors a whole lot better, than the conditional, demeaning, cold, harsh way that we sometimes treat ourselves. It also follows that if we don’t learn to love ourselves, we are starving for love, so we try to suck it dry from other people/things/experiences outside of ourselves. We soon find that our neediness, or that “giving to get”, doesn’t work in the long term, and we start resenting the very people and objects we claim to love, and thus, a vicious cycle continues.

Be your own best friend for the rest of this year. Make a Valentines pact to fall in love with yourself. When you listen to your inner critic, ask yourself, “Would I speak to my best friend this way?” When you make a health/life/relationship choice, ask yourself, “Would I advise my best friend make this choice?” When you give the gift of time, money or service, ask yourself, “Is my motivation to give here, clearly altruistic, or am I secretly trying to manipulate getting one of my needs met from outside sources (and if so, can I find a way to meet these needs myself)? Am I keeping expectations chained to this “gift”?” When you let other people dictate how your life should go/be/look like, ask yourself, “Would I want my best friend to give his or her power away? Would I want my best friend to be a victim?” People don’t realize that if we all experienced our own lives, acting as our own best friends, the world would be a happier, healthier, more loving, giving place than it has ever been before. The following verse from the Bible is read to us at practically every wedding that we ever attend. Try to look at it in the context of loving yourself. It takes on a whole, interesting new meaning and depth, doesn’t it?

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No fortune for today, pure Love is our greatest fortune.

Make Your Soul Grow

Fortune for the day – “In all things, give thanks.” – Apostle Paul

I didn’t watch the Academy Awards last night. I typically don’t watch the awards shows. I always figure that I can find out who the winners were and look at the beautiful fashions worn by the celebrities, the next day. Instead, my husband and my daughter and I, actually watched the movie, Joker, for the first time. I think that Joaquin Phoenix justly won the award for best actor. That was one intense movie.

I’m very excited to watch Parasite tonight, the Korean film that became the first foreign film ever to win an academy award for Best Motion Picture. I haven’t heard much about the film, which I think is the most delicious way to go into any film, or any kind of experience, for that matter. No expectations, no pre-formed opinions, no suppositions made by someone else’s judgment and assessment, is the best way to go into just about anything, I think. Then, the most fun, is afterwards, comparing each others’ reactions to an experience, in order to see what insights were matched and what observations might have been missed.

In reading about the Academy Awards this morning, I was particularly impressed with the fact that supposedly the writer and creator of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, spent most of his speech talking about everyone else who had inspired him in his film making career. He said this in his speech:

‘. . . .there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart, which is that “The most personal is the most creative.” ‘

Boon Joon Ho credited that saying to famed director and screen writer, Martin Scorsese. What an eloquent, succinct way to describe the truth. When we are fully and purely our deepest selves, we are our most creative. When we are willing to share our personal creations, they become part of this world. Our creations become part of this inner-connected Life – this Life which we are all in the process of co-creating.

I also listened to my most dutiful, practical self this morning and I stuck to my routine of exercising before reading and writing. While I was planking to SNL videos, I enjoyed some sketches featuring Ru Paul, the world’s most famous drag queen. I later watched some footage of Ru Paul being interviewed about his many Emmy wins for his long standing TV show and spin-offs. He said this:

“I didn’t choose the game, the game chose me.”

I think when we let the game choose us, in the most personal surrender possible, that is when our most pure, fabulous creativity outpours from our deepest, innerconnected reservoirs. How amazing this world would be, if we all gave ourselves permission to be truly and fully, our own personal selves and shared that most personal creation with the world around us.

positive quotes, To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.

Soul Sunday

Fortune for the day -“One who seeks knowledge must desire from a young age to hear the entire truth.” – Plato

Sundays are poetry workshop days, here at Adulting – Second Half. I hope that you are sitting comfortably, maybe even cozily wrapped in a blanket. I hope that you have a delicious, warm cup of tea or coffee, readily available, in order to warm your hands, and your heart. I hope that, in this very moment, you feel surrounded by peace, comfort, acceptance and love. I hope that, right now, in this very place in time, you are in your sacred space.

Here is my poem for today, and as always, please feel the courage, the inclination, the vulnerability and the inspiration, to share your own poems in the Comments section. One day, I hope that this poetry workshop of ours, is “Standing Room Only.” It’s our creative impulses, that come out from within the deepest part of ourselves (without demeaning censure coming from ourselves or from others), that drive this world forward – a beautiful world, which we are all co-creating together. Be free. Be open. Be real. Be alive. Don’t waste another second, in a precious day of your life on anything less than your purest, kindest authenticity. You, and our world, will be uplifted for your effort, and yet also the effortlessness it takes for you to be, your purest, truest self.

Melange

If my things were to represent my mind,

My mind would be chaotic, and in disarray.

Jumping from lucky symbols, to memories captured in the form of photographs,

Piles of inspirations, and numbered orderly logs, laid out in disorderly fashion.

Objects that touched my heart, at the very instance that I laid eyes on the piece,

For no particular rhyme or reason, perhaps just deeply primal.

The compilation of it all, makes no sense to the untrained eye.

But to me, it is a beautiful, nonsensical pattern,

A medley, an assortment, that makes perfect sense.

The inner me, coming forth in physical form.

Amusing, interesting, cluttered, muddled, yet clear.

A hodgepodge in harmony.

Nothing to Prove

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Once again, Think Smarter (Twitter) nailed it. I think that one of the biggest traps most of us fall into, at least at some points in our lives, is the need to be “right.” I admit that I fall into this trap quite often. One time, someone very wise said to me, “What does “right” even mean?” When you think about it, you could take just about any subject in the entire world and you could find people who whole-heartedly, with every ounce of their beings, believe that they are undoubtedly RIGHT, at the complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

When I was still a kid, my mother had a long, drawn out jury duty. Of course, she was not allowed to discuss the case with anybody, including her fellow jurors. She really clicked with one juror and they had lunch together throughout the trial. She said that they only thing that they ever discussed during the trial was just how completely obvious that they each thought the verdict was (without discussing the actual verdict), in this particular case. Imagine to my mother’s total surprise, that when it came to casting their votes, that they both voted for the completely opposite verdict.

When we get stuck on our need to be right or we have a strong need for others’ approval for what we are doing, we give away our peace and we give away our power. I think that my husband has figured out that when my scary, fiery temper comes out, he can extinguish it immediately with, “You are right. I am sorry.” (I am willing to bet that half the time, he really doesn’t even think I am right, but let’s keep that to ourselves, dear husband) What else can I say to that response? And why don’t I do some introspection as to why it is so important for me to be right? What does that really get me?

I only have the power and the responsibility to decide what is right for me, and then to create the boundaries around myself, to protect my way of life. That’s a big enough onus, in itself, for me to handle. Sometimes “just my life” is a lot to handle. At the same time, I am the only one who gets to decide what is right for me. No one gets a vote in that, unless I specifically ask for someone’s input. And even then, other people’s advice is just up for my consideration. Otherwise, as the saying goes, “What other people think about me, is none of my business.” In the end, I decide what is right for me. I believe that this is the Divine Design. We were each given one body, one life, one set of circumstances to deal with in this lifetime, and that is very complicated, in itself. It is all that one adult person can handle.

I read something recently that when people are acting in ways that are driving you crazy, or you seeing them heading for a train wreck decision, and you so sure that you can school them on the “right” way, take a pause. Take a pause, take a breath, and then just say to yourself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if this driver used his turn signal, or the PTA members weren’t so petty, or this clerk was polite . . . . . . ?” Then, do what you can do, to extricate yourself from the situation, conversation, expectation, etc. and then go on calmly, with your own precious day, which is a rare, priceless unit, making up the totality of your own single precious life. As as hard as it can be, choosing peace over being “right“, is the healthiest, most serene way to live.

Fortune for the day – “The journey is the reward.” – Chinese proverb

You Are The Sky

Fortune for the day – “All things grow with time except grief.” – Jewish Proverb

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Today, I woke up feeling really good. After a few nights of really good sleep, my energy is starting to come back. My daughter and I sang along to songs today, on the way to school, and we laughed at each other’s goofy renditions of the songs. It feels good to feel good. Yet, honestly, it’s hard to feel good on a consistent basis in this very fast-paced world, a world that offers up a constant onslaught of information (real or fake or misinterpreted or emotionally charged or all of the above, or who really knows?) coming at us, at every level. We learn about the hardships and tragedies of everyone we care about, at the flick of the open button on Facebook or our text chats or emails. We feel the anger and divisiveness and righteousness, rolling out at us like a raging fire, from our TV screens or our computer screens, when we watch the news channels’ reactions and Twitter feeds, about last night’s state of the union speech. It’s hard for anyone to stay above the crazy storm of emotionality that fills our world these days, and that storm is hard on all of us – physically, mentally and spiritually. The growing, ferocious storm sucks us in, and it drains us of our vitality and of our strength.

For today, I think that I am going to very deliberately handle anything that pulls up an emotional charge for me, in a very conscious, considered manner. I will let myself briefly feel that feeling that got churned up inside of me, and then I will put the situation into my prayer box with a knowingness that it’s all going to be okay. It always is. It’s all going to be okay. I believe, with my whole heart, that Forces bigger than me have this whole Life thing all figured out, and I must walk the talk of my faith. I will let that faith tinge every reaction which I have, to any bit of the storm onslaught that comes my way. My compassion for myself and for others will be filled with a confident faith. My awe for the beauty of the natural world will be filled with a confident faith. My desire for those whom I love and care about to have peace and healing, will be filled with a confident faith. My guilt-free laughter will roar with a confident faith. My gratitude for another day of miraculous life will be filled with a confident faith. I will go to sleep easily and soundly tonight, because I will have let myself feel good all day long. These good feelings will allow me to fall asleep soundly, because like a squirrel collecting his nuts, I will have created a pile of well-being for myself, all coming from the Source inside of me and surrounding me – my over-spilling, confident faith.

Soul Sunday

Fortune for the Day – “Joy and sorrow are the shade and light of life; without light and shade no picture is clear.” – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Readers, Sundays aren’t just for football. (But hey, Happy Super Bowl Sunday!) Here at Adulting- Second Half, Sundays are reserved for the poetic side of ourselves. Every Sunday, I share a poem and I ask you to share your poems in the Comments. It’s a nice way to dive into the heart a little bit, before the often analytical work week begins.

Life is Love

Perhaps one of the sweetest gifts of aging,

Is a paused appreciation,

Of just about everything.

A wisdom, a hilarity, a knowing,

A peacefulness,

Comes in at the lulls,

more than it every came before.

In the paused moment,

Gazing at the wonder of it all,

Choosing to put the internal narrator on mute,

Even for the slightest moment,

Brings beautiful calming clarity.

The slowing down that comes from growing older,

Inevitably brings more gifted pauses,

All to remind me of one truth,

Life is Love.

These Shoes Weren’t Made for Walking

Fortune for the day –“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese proverb

This fortune is really apropos because last night I chose to wear these exotic looking, high-heeled bootie shoes, that are probably meant to just remain on a shelf, like beautiful works of art. And last night, we walked. A lot. And I complained. A lot. It was a wonderful, fun, funny, exhausting evening and my feet still hurt. That’s all I have to say for today, friends. I’ve got to rest everything today. Especially my feet.

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