Reflections from a midlife journey
Learning to live with death
It’s been quite the month and didn’t turn out at all as I had anticipated. Even though July tends to be a rough month for me, I was looking forward to what lay ahead. Perhaps I was lulled into a false sense of confidence because, last year, July passed with relative ease.
But no. This year, the July funk hit early and hard. The July 4th holiday was one of the most melancholy I’ve experienced. By the 5th, though, the funk already seemed to be passing, much to my relief. That relief was short-lived.
Blessing the in between
I was recently doing some housekeeping on my website and ran across this quote from John O’Donohue:
“… endings can be such a relief. When we suffer, we long for it to end. When we are in pain, time crawls. It also darkens and imprisons our imagination; consequently, we are unable to see beyond the suffering that plagues us. Often the greatest gift in such a situation is when someone manages to persuade the eyes of the heart to glimpse the vaguest brightening. Then the imagination takes hope from that, and constructs a path of light out of the darkness. Such endings offer great promise and bring us to the edge of new possibility. They are nascent beginnings. This is one of the fascinating characteristics of consciousness. Unlike the world of matter, in the world of spirit a whole territory that has lain fallow can become a fertile area of new potential and creativity. Time behaves differently in the domain of spirit.”
I believe that the words we need always find us when we most need them. I needed these words because this is where I find myself now.
Surrendering to the magic of what wants to be
Another birthday is in the books and, as usual, it had its ups and downs. This year came with a theme, though, a magical message that stayed with me on the days surrounding and including my birthday:
Less effort, more surrender.
The choice is yours
People pleasing vs. integrity and authenticity. It’s an ongoing struggle, especially if you’re highly sensitive and empathic. And yet if you resist making the difficult choice, at some point, the choice will be made for you. Chances are you may not like the outcome.
In your own time
This is my least favorite time of year, the transition from winter to spring. (Or “sprinter,” as I call it.) Just because the calendar says it’s spring, doesn’t make it so. I didn’t wake up the morning after the vernal equinox to find the landscape transformed—the trees fully leafed and buds all abloom.
Transition and transformation don’t work like that—in nature or in life.
I choose me
Throughout my life I had been pressured to be different than how I was. In one way or another, who I was wasn’t good enough, didn’t measure up, or didn’t fit in. For a long time I resisted, which caused no end of frustration to those who thought I should be different. I fought the good fight for decades but over time, after giving in a little here and giving up a littler there, my battle lines had been severely compromised. I was exhausted from the fight and I gave in.
A cry for love
I went into last month feeling heavy and burdened. After taking on a lot of new things over the summer, I felt like I just wanted a month off. I was feeling squeezed, constrained, and lifeless. Some things that started from a place of joy no longer felt that way. I couldn’t remember why I was doing them; only that I should. I began looking around desperately for anything that would make it all—make me—feel better.
Inch by inch
I went into October feeling antsy, dissatisfied, and easily frustrated—a bit uncomfortable in my own skin. I know these feelings. When they surface is usually when I start thinking I need to get out of town. I need a change of scenery. My desire really isn’t to escape my physical surroundings but to escape my internal expansion.
Growing pains
Preferences. We all have them. And those preferences, from the seemingly insignificant and mundane to the profound, shape our identities and how we see ourselves. As we change, our preferences change. But holding onto old preferences stifles our growth.
Embracing the new year
The holidays were quiet for me, a gift in itself. It gave me time to reflect on the year that was ending—what did and didn’t work for me, the joys and dissatisfactions of my life right now, and what I want to let go of and what I want to let in in 2018. I also went back and read my new year’s post from last year to see how my year tracked with my intentions. Connect more deeply with myself. Yes. Continue letting go. Yes. Focus on delight and things that fill me up. Mmm … yes and no.