Category Archives: mindfulness

Place Holder: Elizabeth Lesser’s Wisdom

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From Elizabeth Lesser’s FB post

Hiya, friends! There’s a lot going on right now and my relationship with this blog is evolving… transforming? Not sure when I’ll be back with anything of my own that’s worth sharing. I’m confident it will all come in its own time.

Meanwhile, please enjoy Elizabeth Lesser’s Facebook post from today, which speaks directly to my soul. Maybe you’ll resonate as well, and it can bring you comfort and peace as it does to me.

ODOMOBaaT, my peeps. Until next time.

***

I still have abiding hope for our times. I have it because I am a student of history and I know that human communities have struggled through other desperate times: famines, disasters, droughts, floods, and plagues; the fires of war, genocide, slavery, despots, and dictators. Like the mythical phoenix bird, we have risen from the ashes many times before. Eras of destruction have been followed by those of recovery and peace, creativity and great leaps of ingenuity.

I was born in the 1950s, an era that came out of the global brokenness of World War II. To many, the 50s were a time of healing and rebuilding and stability. But to others, they were a time of racism, sexism, and stifling conformity. The 50s gave birth to the 60s which, on the one hand, brought freedom, justice, and liberating creativity, and on the other hand went too far and too fast for many. It has always been thus—cultures swinging back and forth between brokenness and breakthrough. Humanity winding its way through growth spurts and amnesia, destruction and advancement, but always moving, always changing, and, from my point of view, always being offered a choice: to languish or to rise, to perish or to mature into a more magnificent expression of life.

Can we rise? I am eternally optimistic that we can. I have seen people change; I have changed myself. I know it is possible. Even neuroscience is confirming this. Brain scientists once believed that by early adulthood the physical structure of the human brain was fixed. But newer research has revealed that our brains never stop changing—that from childhood on, new neural pathways are formed when we learn new information, change old patterns, or confront physical and emotional trauma. This is called neuroplasticity, and it confirms for me that we are equipped to respond creatively and constructively to stressful and difficult times—that it is possible for all of us, as a species, to create new pathways in our collective brain.

Sometimes it feels way too exhausting to keep carving those new pathways! But I like the way the poet Rumi gently chides me to keep on going, to stay optimistic, to head toward what’s possible:

Drum sounds rise on the air,

and with them, my heart.

A voice inside the beat says,

I know you are tired,

but come.

This is the way.

The Menopause Inflection

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From overlook on Ptarmigan Trail, Silverthorne, Colorado. Left to right: Buffalo Mountain, Red Mountain, Silverthorne Peak

What does the graph of your life look like? 

I imagine we’d all put something related to time or age on the horizontal axis, but what goes on the vertical?  What is meaningful to you, that is worth measuring, over a lifetime?  Joy?  Financial success/accumulation?  Education? Learning?  Status?  Growth?  Contribution?

For a long time I conceptually contrasted puberty and menopause, seeing the former as an exponential acceleration in growth and the latter a rapid decline, like the two stems of a broad arch, an upside down parabola.  This past week during a patient interview, however, a wholly different perspective dawned on me.  Menopause may signal the end of child-bearing years, of youth.  Some may perceive it only as a global decline—the unmistakable physical sign that we are now closer to the end of our life than the beginning.  But what if it’s also a new beginning, life expectancy not withstanding?

My patient and I discussed the trade-offs we are called to make throughout life—career, relationships, geography, etc.  What do we get in return for trading away our reproductive years?  For me the greatest payoffs are wisdom and confidence.  After about 5 decades of living, learning, and being in relationship with self and others, I welcome this phase of life with keenness and joy.  What a relief to have my personality and values established, to know what I stand for.  How rewarding to feel that I can walk into any room and talk to anyone, knowing fully and without question who I am, without having to compare myself to anyone around me.  How fun to find opportunities for continued learning around every corner, in domains I never thought I’d encounter, or even knew existed!  Everything I have experienced, learned, and struggled through until now comprises a thread in the tapestry of my life, and the picture gets more dense and colorful with each passing day, year, and decade.

The life graph of learning and personal growth is most interesting to me.  Superimposed on the graph of challenge and pain, I might see the lines travel in parallel trajectories—no surprise.  As the years pass, though, I see a net positive slope, a steady climb of the most meaningful curves, and menopause perhaps as a milestone inflection point, beyond which the ascent may well progress with fewer stutters and regressions, as wisdom and confidence accrue, and mission/cause come into greater focus and clarity.

I choose to see and draw my life graph this way.

Why not keep climbing until the end and go out at a peak? 

Gotta go now, I’ got work to do.

Mantras for 2022

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What words encircle your consciousness this year?

Maybe you don’t roll with words?  What ideas, feelings, sounds, or other sensations, then? 

When you get still, where does your energy settle, and what aspirations arise?

I share some of mine here; I’d love to read some of yours in the comments!

“Stop Shoulding All Over Yourself”

As I get older, I reach for larger, stronger mental shovels to evict certain voices from my mind.  “New Year’s resolutions are useless, don’t bother” (see evidence to the contrary). “Get up early and write in the morning, it’s the only way.”  Do this, do that, think this, feel that.  I’ve internalized enough societal standards and constraints, some helpful, many not.  Every year of adulthood also solidifies my own core values and goals, which themselves drive me forcefully—not enough, never enough, must be better, always more.  In the end all the ‘Shoulds’, both external and internal, can feel heavy.  I know who I am, I know what’s important to me.  I’m a lifelong learner.  I progress because it’s my nature.  I do what I need to do and I’m good at it; I am enough.

Competence and Confidence

So many recurring challenges—this past year especially, but just generally in life, right?  When I look back only at the past weeks or months, it’s too easy to judge myself harshly and wonder, am I really enough?  Look at all the mistakes I keep making, over and again!  But when I breathe slowly and deeply, looking back farther on the long arc of learning, I see unequivocal progress.  “If it’s important, it will be repeated,” they always told us in medical school.  Life lessons always seem to come around again just when I need them.  With every iteration, when I can be fully present, tame my feral emotions, and call forth skills already learned, my ability deepens, even shines.  Every such instance prepares me for the next trial.  This is the benefit of mid-life: seeing clear evidence of advancing competence, and feeling the confidence to own it.

Transform the Story

The first and most important lesson I learned from coaching was to recognize the stories I tell.  All of our perceptions are, in very large proportion, formed in advance by our past experiences, biases, and expectations.  “Reality”, how we make meaning, is far more subjective than we realize (ha!) or admit, and I’m convinced that most human conflict arises when we deny awareness and acceptance of this.  I’ve gotten pretty good at noticing and moderating the stories I tell in new and low stakes encounters.  But in longstanding, intimate relationships and high stakes situations, I am often still chained to my deep, often negative, and ultimately self-defeating stories.  Ironically they are stories about others which, when I’m honest, are actually projections of my own concealed wounds.  How fascinating…and worthy of the work to disassemble, to free myself and my loved ones from these abstract cages of invented being.

Lightly, Lightly, Ever Lightly

*deep breath*

It’s all so much, this work, this drive, this constant striving in potential and possibility.  There is a role and a place for the Shoulds; the challenges all make me stronger; and the old stories all served a purpose once.  To grow is to shed, break, and deconstruct, and also to synthesize, integrate, and reform, ad infinitum.  It can and does often feel pretty heavy.  But now, this year, I choose lightness instead.  I have only this one life, yes, and it is finite.  There is only so much I can do…  And that’s still a lot, and I’m still young yet!  I’ got time, I’ got this; and even if I don’t, damn, I’ve done a fair bit already.  If it all ended today, of course I would have serious regrets.  And I’ve done my best; I’ve never stopped trying.  What more could I ask of myself?

Any and every moment can carry all hope, could make or break everything (really?), and could have nothing to do with anything–who knows in that moment?  I’m learning and doing every day anyway; why apply unnecessary pressure?  No, I’d rather have more fun in this time that I have.  So I’ll keep doing what needs doing.  I just don’t have to take it all (or myself) so damn seriously.

Oh and ODOMOBaaT, of course.  That just goes without saying.