The Fourth Quarter Begins!
My birthday is this month. Normally I don’t think much about my birthdays but this one is special to me. It’s the first day of the last quarter of my life, my 4th quarter. I’ll be 75. I’ve always said that I plan to live to 100. So, here we are and it’s great. When I used to do counseling as part of my Authentic Health business, one suggestion I’d often offer would be for the person to consider what their 100 year old self would think about this or that life decision. I’d encourage them to befriend their 100 year old self since that self can offer a different view of life.
I thought it might be fun for my 100 year old self to get a glimpse into my very much younger 75 year old thinking. So, I’m writing out a few thoughts. Hopefully, she approves. (This causes me to chuckle.)
I speak only for myself and not for any particular group.
As we age, we are closer to death. Getting closer to death offers the gift of realizing that we want to use our short time here wisely. To me, wisely means directly, specifically aligned with one’s values. You can call that purpose if that feels right to you. I have committed my life, especially over that past 25 years, to taking actions that support the UU (Unitarian Universalist) principle: ‘Treat ALL PEOPLE with respect and dignity”. That settled DEEPLY into my mind, heart and soul. I made decisions that go directly against societal norms because I could see that those norms did not align with this principle. By doing so, I have learned many, many, many lessons that I could never have learned if I didn’t put myself in unfamiliar situations with people who would normally be outside my ‘culturally approved’ circle. I cherish those people and those lessons. That said, it wasn’t always comfortable or easy and I have lost important relationships due to some of these decisions. That has created the most heart breaking experiences in my life. However, that horribleness has also taught me another important lesson. I cannot control anything outside of myself. After careful self examination, I’ve confirmed my values and am grateful that I had the strength to make my life decisions support those values, I can only accept the saddest parts of life. I accept the permanent sadness. I accept that I am never able to control others.
Here is what I know is true for my 75 year old body. I have no illnesses, chronic or otherwise. I’ve only spent one night in a hospital in my entire life and that was when I gave birth and they forced me to stay. I don’t share this to brag. Instead, I intentionally want younger people to know that the stereotypes are just that. As with every age and every grouping of people, people are different from each other. I’m still strong and flexible. While I’m not as strong and flexible as I used to be, I know that is only because I haven’t put as much energy into that as in years past. But, because I am now more aware of ageism and the need to model healthy options, I’m considering being more consistent about doing some of the different activities that I used to do. I’d like to model what is possible, not only for me but for everyone who fears aging. Demonstrating things with actions always has a stronger impact that just saying words about whatever you want to support and encourage.
THOUGHTS DIRECTED SPECIFICALLY AT PEOPLE WHO ARE OLDER THAN I AM
First, thank you. Thanks you for bravely paving the way through life in a culture that devalues you only because you have navigated life successfully for a good long time. We all know that some make it through unscathed and live a life of integrity, kindness and compassion. Thank you for your willingness to be vulnerable by sharing your lessons learned with those of us younger than you. Yes, we know that some don’t take the healthy path. Instead they internalize life’s pain and become bitter, cynical and sometimes downright mean. I understand that is an expression of their pain. I am sorry that they have suffered. No matter which path your life has taken, the lessons shared with me have been valuable. Thank you.
THOUGHTS DIRECTED SPECIFICALLY AT PEOPLE WHO ARE YOUGHER THAN I AM
Beware. Beware AND BE AWARE of what your culture has taught you about your future self. You have been taught to fear aging and death. Mocking people older than you has been normalized. When you do that, you hurt yourself.
Please, please take care of yourself. That includes all parts of your experience here. What you do and how you do it now will directly impact your older self.
Of course it’s ALWAYS ok to ask any person of any age if they might ‘need a hand’ with something. But, if they say ‘no, thanks’, back off! Don’t grab the thing from them anyway assuming that you know better than they do about what they can and can’t do. Can you guess how I feel when someone does that to me? Lol Don’t do it.
You might think that the book Younger Next Year is for ‘older’ people. If so, you’d be WRONG! The book is about how to PREVENT decline. The way you do that is to start now and create a way of living that will keep you strong and healthy for a long, long time.
It’s very easy to avoid the reality of death, but don’t do that. Some of the best lessons are behind the door of truth about how temporary our opportunities to contribute are. No matter what, work to uncover your values and LIVE them. That’s it. That’s what everything is about. The end.
Day 2: November 11, 2016
725 days until we take back the Senate & House
1453 days until we take back the Presidency
Friends, yesterday I spoke with some of you about my plan to do one thing every day to make sure that we do not have to spend more than four years with that man “leading” our country. Every morning I will post a call to action. They will range from armchair activism, to volunteer opportunities, to reading materials so that we can become more educated on the issues, etc. I know that your lives may prevent you from participating in all 1453 action items, but do what you can. Or do something totally different from my suggestion. Just do something.
TODAY’S CALL TO ACTION:
Tweet Donald Trump and RESPECTFULLY ask that he demands his supporters stop the terrorization of LGBTQ, Muslims, African Americans, Asians, Mexicans, and Women. He wanted to lead. Well…
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Thank you teachers
Without the willingness of teachers to work hard at finding ways to impart skills and knowledge, we’d all be starting at square one which is a daunting thought. So without hesitation my gratitude goes out to all teachers.
However, sometimes it’s not obvious where the line is between teachers and learners. Not all teachers stand in front of classrooms. Not all teachers even see themselves as teachers, but they are.
~~ If we pay attention, children can teach us to be authentic and to live in the now. These important lessons are quickly forgotten as we grow older.
~~ Incarcerated people have allowed me to see that we all have good and shadow sides. I’ve learned about the often invisible privilege that some have and others are denied. I know on a visceral level now that hurt people hurt people. Watching people struggle with the harm done by being institutionalized and by being subjected to extreme isolation has taught me much about abuse of power and about human vulnerability. Reliance on assumptions can be unlearned in this environment because there reality is rarely as it appears on the surface. From these teachers it’s possible to learn to remove the filters and truly see.
~~ Family has taught me about the balance between nature and nurture. Previously I wanted to believe that nurture had more of an influence than nature and now I know that’s not always the case. Acceptance of all is a powerful lesson.
~~ People with mental illness due to severe childhood abuse are the living examples of the human development theory taught by classroom teachers. Allowing one’s self to get close to the extremely intense pain they endure requires learning empathy and boundaries. That in turn provides many powerful learning moments. Not only can these teachers demonstrate that a sense of worthiness and an ability to trust others is developed in early childhood, they can also be living proof of the resiliency of the human spirit.
Who I am rests on the foundational parts of me originally gifted by all the many classroom teachers who skillfully created lesson plans and lovingly delivered all this content. I thank you for your dedication. Your contributions are invaluable.
The passion and commitment of many non-traditional teachers have supported the healing of my heart and the growth of my spirit. Whether your wisdom was delivered in a workshop, a conversation, a book, a youtube video, a blog post or any other format matters not. You have lifted me up and I am grateful.
From all the rest of my unlikely teachers I am grateful to have had real life opportunities to also practice being compassionate, humble and nonjudgmental.
All of these teacher’s contributions allowed me to learn one of the greatest lessons: that everyone is a valued teacher and everyone is a potential learner. I am grateful to be an active participant in this circle.
And where shall we go from here my beloved teacher and learner community?
Paradox happens
So much goes in and at some point it’s satisfying to see what can come out. Shared knowledge and competing theories bombard our worldly brains daily. All of it is diluted and agitated as is clothing in a washing machine. Some bleed and forever ruin others. Some become dull with each repetition of the wash cycle. Perhaps the real value goes unnoticed as the tainted water drains away from each load. The spin cycle borders on violent – all supporting the intention of keeping things clean, odor and stain free. What if we’ve been scammed into believing half truths about the meaning of beautiful or even clean? What if there is beauty along with shadow in all of us and but we have never been taught how to see it all clearly and how to appreciate it.
Drawn to the Paradox Playground, it’s appropriate to feel both excitement and dread. Will the lessons there hurt too much? What if the fear slams eyes shut and ears fold into themselves? Will it then be dark and completely silent making it impossible for anything of value to break free of the logjam? Or will stepping away from the limitations of human senses open the way towards the complete truth? Will there be relief from the relentless stream of incongruent thoughts and feelings? Will it be lonely there or the opposite?
There’s only one way to find out. We need to go and find out. We’ll be gentle.
Family can be the place of unconditional love and acceptance. The connections between family members are straightforward. This one is the parent and this one is the child. This one is the sibling and this one is the cousin. In the cleanliness of a tidy genealogy chart everyone knows the importance of their spot on their chart. Without filling their charted position , others below them wouldn’t exist. This alone gives some a sense of purpose. It can give meaning to lives.
Family can also be a place of disastrous devastation since our sense of worth is determined by the treatment we receive from adults as infants. No need to list the many ways children are harmed by family. There is only a need to note that it happens.
Paradox of family. It’s not either or. It is what it is. It is all of being. It is the Primary Paradox Playground since it is the first place where what feels good and what hurts must be held at the same time. Paradox’s Potential arrives here first. There are always a wide range of apparent choices when it comes time to react: shame, compassion, revenge, healing, kindness, rage, resentment, guilt, love, victimhood, and empowerment. These choices aren’t either or. Typically it’s a turbulent and jostling journey in and out of every choice and every role. The pile of chips in the rage pile may overtake the pile of chips in the empowerment pile. But maybe that rage can be redirected onto itself and the entire pile tossed into its own funeral pyre leaving primarily healing, kindness and compassion. We all experience all of it and then, if we are open to learning, we can end up farther down the path and into the light. No one is immune from the struggle of paradox.
Hey! Wait! Let’s not let our visit to the Paradox Playground turn into a carnival-like whack-a-mole blame game. Instead, hold out both of your hands palms up. If we can see and feel that we each hold what appear to be opposing truths within ourselves and that we juggle those constantly, maybe we can have more compassion for ourselves and others. Let’s see…
Almost all of us have a mixed up, paradoxical attitude about change. Sometimes we think that change isn’t possible. How many times have you heard, “That’s just the way I am.”? We might feel stuck doing things the way we have always done them. Then, aren’t we also often hoping for change with each sometimes insatiable desire for new things, new experiences, and new opportunities? We can find ourselves sometimes hoping for change and fearing it at the same time. We want to believe that change is possible because that means that our lives can be better. But, we can also resist change, even change for the better because of comfort with the familiar.
Are your hands still held out with palms up? Put desire for change in one hand and resistance to change in the other and then juggle! You got it!
Even our most preciously held values are toys in the Paradox Playground. I’ll use myself as an example but I’m guessing that if you look honestly and closely enough you’ll be able find plenty examples in your own life. Some years ago, I became disillusioned with a group that taught the importance of treating all people with respect and dignity. My disillusionment stemmed from observing some of the group leaders only being comfortable with people of a certain social status. It became clear to me to that many weren’t walking their talk. Filled with disappointment, I left the group for about a decade. Eventually I returned for short visits but it took several years of wrestling with my disillusionment with some of the privileged people there before I could see the paradox I had created within myself. I was judging them for judging others. I was doing to them exactly what I was upset with them for doing to others. Oh drat! Good old self-righteousness blinded me to my own paradoxical conundrum.
Hands out with palms up please… Put your values in one hand and put your self-righteousness in the other and juggle away. You don’t think you’ve ever done anything like this before? Maybe you haven’t yet found a way to remove the blinders. That’s ok. Someday, hopefully they will drop away.
Shall we poke around the Paradox Playground just a little more? Sure, why not!
How about this time we just deal with you and you? It simplifies things when fewer people are involved, right? Have you ever felt a need to stay calm and be relaxed? It seems that it shouldn’t be so hard to just relax. But, have you also noticed that the harder you try to relax, the more tense you get? Straining to find serenity doesn’t make any sense but that’s often exactly what we do.
Hands out with palms up please. You know what to do by now. Juggle away!
So how do we deal with all these internal and external paradoxes? We don’t need to whack-a-mole or juggle them. Once we see them, we can own them. What if there really is something that comes off in the wash after we have isolated our personally owned paradoxes. We have dirty clothes in one hand and clean clothes in the other. On the surface it seems that when we put the dirty, soiled clothes in the washing machine and end up with clothing that seems presentable, that’s good but the paradox remains. Without acknowledging the paradox we find that the constant need to juggle and agitate things in life is incessantly and uncomfortably nipping at our heels. What if holding the paradox in each hand without juggling and without agitating was an option? What if by doing that we found value in what normally is sloughed off and is usually ignored like the washing machine water?
The gift is the awareness of the many paradoxes that we hold. If we bring awareness and acceptance to these many paradoxes, then calm has a lot better chance of arriving naturally. Holding each truth with honesty frees us to calming experience peace without agitation
Paradox happens.
Visiting the lullaby
Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines. Sonnez les matines.
Ding ding dong. Ding ding dong.
Breath rising and falling. Blades of the fan slowly journeying round and round in search of a destination. Eyes and ears wide open ready for the next repetition. Lulled and soothed by the familiar words, the same inflections. Comforted with the expectation that the bells will ring and all will be fine. Frere Jacques almost missed the moment of his commitment but the bells still rang. And rang. And rang. Swaying to the reliable sound of the bells felt delicious. Full body bell ringing. Familiar sounds like arms wrapped around sadness, loneliness and bewilderment. Frere Jacques to the rescue!
LESSONS LEARNED ON THE RACQUETBALL COURT
I’m new to racquetball. The first time I ever played was 6 weeks ago. But I love it. Today while I was playing I was totally in the novice racquetball zone.
Life lessons were streaming through my mind as I hit the ball against those lovely blank walls. You can read these tidbits as if they only apply to racquetball if you’d like, but in my mind they were synonymous with major life lessons.
1. You don’t have to know all the rules to get the goodies from playing.
2. If you hit the ball really hard, it might feel fantastic but it flies back at you really hard and this makes the next shot nearly impossible to make.
3. It is better to play by yourself at least until you feel confident that you can have a certain amount of control of your hits. Then, only play with someone else if you feel like it.
4. Sometimes it’s good to miss because then you can get a minute to breathe before it’s time to hit the next ball coming at you!
5. If you hit the ball too high, it bounces back way too high to hit.
6. If the ball comes back too low on the floor, it’s best to just pick it up and start again.
7. If you keep playing, you’ll get better and better and better.
8. You don’t have to compete to have fun.
9. If you practice focusing on what you’re doing, you’ll hit better and you’ll hone your concentration skills at the same time.
10. If you hit the ball with medium force, it’s easier to return and easier to control.
11. Sometimes it feels GREAT to just smash the ball has hard as you can and it doesn’t really matter what happens next.
12. Just because you can hit a blue ball against a blank wall over and over and over is a good enough reason to do it.
13. You don’t have to chase the balls that you’re pretty sure you’re going to miss because after they hit on the back wall, they usually eventually bounce near you.
MY GENTLENESS RESTS ON MY STRENGTH
This morning I decided that I wanted to start and end my day with a statement of intention. I wanted to take one of my specific goals and incorporate something into my day to increase my awareness and focus on that goal. As do most people, I have several goals. After some reflection I chose the statement, “My gentleness rests on my strength.”
For the past few years I’ve been working diligently on my physical strength. At the same time, I’ve devoted more and more time to developing myself spiritually. I want to put some awareness to integrating those efforts.
As I have enjoyed watching my body transform into that of an athlete, it has become more and more clear that the stronger I feel in one area the more my confidence and strength grows in other areas.
This awareness causes me to reflect on a eureka moment from decades ago. I used to love fire walking. A group would get together monthly to enjoy some singing and other fun bonding activities. The evening would start with the building of a bonfire. Towards the end of the evening there were embers left in the fire pit. These were raked out so they were spread evenly on the ground. Then one by one people would walk or run barefoot through the embers. No, no one ever got burnt. Honestly, there’s no magic to fire walking. It’s just physics. It’s possible to walk on hot embers and it really doesn’t hurt. It’s scary the first time but soon becomes exhilarating. I have very fond memories of running again and again through the coals. We’d end the evening in a circle listening to each other share feelings about the experience. Over and over people said, “If I can walk on fire, I can do anything.” EUREKA! That was one of the special experiences that taught me that I can accomplish difficult things. I can walk on fire. I can be a very physically strong 65 year old. I can feel confident and comfortable working with incarcerated people. I can live through extreme emotional trauma and still really like who I am. I can travel to a distant, unknown culture and create a successful business with the people there. I can create a holistic healing business and help people find their way to wellness. I’ve done those things because I chose to tap into my strength.
Now I know that I can apply my strength to my spiritual goals. I want to more consistently bring and spread love and kindness in my day to day life through gentleness. I want to be able to stay calm and grounded when around people whose values clash with my own. I want to bring comfort to ease human suffering. I want to have compassion for people who suffer. If I can walk on fire, I can do these things.
Starting today I will begin and end every day with these words: MY GENTLENESS RESTS ON MY STRENGTH.
Since this song set the tone for the fire walking event and because they are so meaningful to me, I want to share the lyrics to below.
How could anyone ever tell you
You were anything less than beautiful
How could anyone ever tell you
You were less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice
That your loving is a miracle
How deeply you’re connected to my soul.
Namaste
THE SPIRITUALITY OF FITNESS
Last year we started a fitness support group at our church. Many people welcomed the idea and talked about their desire to become more fit. Still, many people found it difficult to maintain the motivation to participate regularly. That’s not a new challenge for a fitness group and we wanted to see if we could find solutions that would be helpful. Since being connected to our church community, I thought that it might helpful if people could see the connection between fitness and their spiritual goals. But, honestly, the words to explain that connection didn’t come to me right away.
Since then my broader study of yoga has helped. Previously I knew that yoga was a specific spiritual practice in itself. Now, it’s a little clearer to me that any fitness program is or can become a spiritual practice.
The key to this understanding came from Pandit Rajmani Tigunait’s book
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CONCERNED TO COMMITTED, TALK TO ACTION, CYNICISM AND IDEALISM
I wonder what moves people across the line from concerned to committed, from talk to action, from individual expression to organized and collective action. People can do great things when they are committed to positive action. But what is positive action?
Often it seems there is a battle between cynicism and idealism. All breakthroughs, from inventions to social leaps forward, begin with the assumption that change is possible. If cynicism wins in that battle between cynicism and idealism, creative thinking, the belief in the possibility of change and the desire to act for improvements is destroyed. So, it is important to reject cynicism and to choose to embrace hopefulness and idealism.
What does idealism mean? It means to believe that it is possible to live by a set of specific values and ideals. Idealism does not mean naiveté or even simple optimism. It is having your life’s decisions driven by your ideals. Bull-dog grip idealism means refusing to give up those values, goals and dreams. It is to persevere in spite of the struggles, the challenges and the unrelenting chanting of the cynics.
Gandhi’s teachings encourage us to become the change we want to see.
At Justice Works!, the criminal justice reform non-profit I lead for twelve years, we spoke often of our founding principles and our values. Our work was to replace the societal myths and societal secrets with solutions based on the same values that we espoused and worked so diligently to live by; safety, justice, empowerment, accountability, and collaboration. Our message consistently repeated – sometimes movingly, often quietly, always insistently – “Things aren’t what they could be, things aren’t what they should be, we can do better, and we must try.”
This bulldog drive for idealism works. In 1989, there were 69 democracies in the world, today there are 167. Rugged idealists from Lech Walesa, to Vaclev Havel, to Corazon Aquino, to millions of everyday people who took to the streets are the behind this march to democracy. The Berlin Wall came down without a single shot being fired. The Soviet Union disintegrated, and Eastern Europe was liberated. Nelson Mandela went from prisoner to president in a remarkably peaceful revolution. Peace came to Northern Ireland in a Good Friday agreement. For the first time in human history, a majority of people on our planet live under some form of democracy.
In the past 20 years there has been an explosion of growth in civil society. In the U.S., we have gone from 464,000 non-profits in 1989 to 1.1 million in 2002. Worldwide, the number of civil society organizations has grown by at least 43% over the past ten years.
Still challenges continue. We’ve witnessed the terrible day of September 11, the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq war, genocide in the Sudan, AIDS, terrorism, persistent global poverty, the ongoing struggle for peace in the Middle East, and more.
This is the time for action! But, how do we move from concerned to commitment and from talk to action? How do we strengthen idealism and discourage cynicism?
Idealism inspires action and change. Cynicism leads to apathy and fear. Idealists act. Cynics re-act. Idealists create. Cynics tear down. Idealists say, “Let’s go! How can I help? I have an idea.” Cynics respond: “It’ll never work. Why bother?”
When Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus, she was practicing bull dog idealism. When the abolitionists insisted that slavery was morally wrong and had to end, they were practicing bull dog idealism. When the Suffragists fought for women to be treated as full citizens and equals by having the right to vote, they were practicing bull dog idealism. When Nelson Mandela repeatedly refused early release during 27 and half years of prison, he was practicing bull dog idealism. When students sat in at lunch counters, boarded buses for freedom rides, launched the anti-Vietnam war movement, marched in Tiananmen Square, and rose up in Soweto in 1976, they were all practicing bull dog idealism.
When we live our everyday lives according to our values and when we participate in social justice actions. We are practicing bull dog idealism.
And I hope that many will step it up and practice even more. Why? It’s because idealism seems to be in retreat here in America. We may be the richest country in the history of the world, but the census tells us more Americans are living in poverty – thirty seven million with more than 13 million of them, our children, living in poverty. 3.5 million people, with well over one million of them children, will be homeless in a given year in America. Virtually every day the paper is filled with new stories of senseless acts of violence. It has to stop. Around the world, the situation is much worse. 842 million people across the world are hungry, and six million children die every year as a result of hunger. About 1 billion people – one fifth of the world’s population – currently live on less than $1 per day. These numbers are not just statistics. Every single one of them represents a human being, a fellow citizen of our planet, who is struggling. They are people who need our help. I am hoping that we can find new and better ways to build prosperity, opportunity, and most of all liberty and justice for all. The solution is not a political ideology; the solution is us, as many of us as possible. Ideally we can encourage many of our citizens and the companies we engage with to join us in service. It is anyone who steps forward to be a bull dog idealist.
Gandhi also said that there were three keys to building a democratic society: the ballot, the jail and the spinning wheel or the spade.
The ballot is the basic rights – especially the right to vote – that you get by being a citizen in a democratic society.
The jail is your right to protest. It is your right of civil disobedience. Your right to put at risk the most precious thing you have in a democracy – your freedom, your liberty – in protest over some law that you think is fundamentally unjust. By doing so, you can arouse the consciousness of the citizens in the democracy to change the law.
But, Gandhi said that it was the spinning wheel or the spade that was actually the most important of the three to make a democratic society work. For Gandhi, the spade was the willingness of citizens to get out there and do the day to day work that it takes to build a democratic society; to form associations, to teach people to read, to build houses for the homeless, to care for needy children, to help feed the hungry, and to empower citizens. Gandhi believed this one – the spade – was the most important because it engages citizens directly in their democracy.
In the coming days, weeks, months and years, I hope that more and more people will dig a little deeper, and find it in their souls to work harder to make our great democracy stronger. Do it in large or small ways that work for you. Don’t judge yourself or others for their choices regarding what type of actions to take. Instead, suggest, encourage, support, and be your values every day.
AUTHENTIC TALK 