Conscious Path on Aging

“Breath is a bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

What happens when consciousness takes us over some rather rough terrain — we build a bridge.

I am turning 60 the end of this year. Cultural norms suggest that I look at aging from a negative perspective. I am choosing to build a bridge over these cultural norms to create my own reality in aging.

Realities vary from person to person depending on our past experiences, on what we have been told and on what we believe. A few years ago when I talked with a friend about not knowing how to feel about turning 60, she suggested that I look on it as a positive experience. She was 64 at the time and said that her 60’s had been the best decade of her life. Since then, she stopped smoking, joined a gym, is eating better and she bought herself a two seated, convertible sports car. I am into it, let’s celebrate!

My conscious path is creating a reality for aging that includes keeping my body, mind,  emotions and spirit strong, healthy, flexible and pain free. My path of aging is way above preconceived notions of aging. I am using a conscious path to create a reality that bridges who I am now to who I want to become. My vision of my future self, my intentions, my behavior and my beliefs all support this strong, healthy, graceful and sparkling older woman. Stay tuned and see where I am going while creating your own vision of where you want to go. Let’s build a Bridge! What do you think?

More about the bridge pictured: The Millau Viaduct is part of an expressway between Paris and Barcellona. It is the tallest bridge ever built, almost a quarter of a mile high, taller than the Eiffel Tower. The roadway itself is almost 800 feet off the ground!

Being the change

“We are the change we want to see in the world.”

Barrack Obama

Yes, this quote is similar to Ghandi’s “Be the change you want to see in the world.” And, I find both inspiring; so much so that I am working to make some life-style changes that affect how I am moving, how I am eating, how I am thinking and how I am aging.

Helen is a delightful example of a woman who can do anything, play extremely varied parts well and look beautiful in the process. Add another person to list of my role-models.

What change do you want to see in the world? I want to see people staying healthy and vibrantly alive — beginning with me of course !  I want to see all of us living joy, passion and absolute delight in our lives. The truth is, I know that all of this is possible when we take the steps to make it happen: when I am/we are the change!

Obama won with a platform foundationaly rooted in change, hope and a commitment to personal responsibility. Whatever we want to see happen, we can be the change we want to be in the world. Let’s go for it!

Continued Amazement

Everyone is the age of their heart.

Guatemalan Proverb

I love to collect role models for how I envision growing into an even more vibrantly alive, older woman. I have created a marvelous list and it is growing daily. This morning my friend Beth told an  inspiring story about how Dave Brubeck loves to play the piano and to perform. It excites and thrills him. Dave is 88 years old and still performing.You go Dave!!!

I am continually amazed at how strong and vital people stay when they are doing things that they love. I wonder, do our hearts stay young when they are filled with joy and a passion for what we are doing? I know that when I am doing something I love time stands still and my body is often humming with happiness.

I am going to take a lesson from Dave, how about you?

Blessings! C~

Creative Aging

The future is not someplace we are going, but one we are creating. The paths to it are not found, but made  . . . .

John Schaar

What pictures do you carry in your mind about how you will look, feel and behave when you get older? What does 75 look like? This picture to the left is Gloria Steinem at 75. What do you  want to do as you age? What abilities will you hold onto as you age and which of them will be gone?

Our marvelous mind holds many stereotypes, including stereotypes about the process of aging.  What is your vision for aging? Are you happy with it, OR would you like to re-create the stereotype of yourself as an older person? Linked to the stereotype is a ’self-fulfilling prophecy’. We become what we believe and what we see. What do you see?

We have the ability to create our future — how we age, what we can do in the world, how active we are, how happy we are . . .moving beyond simply being to being happy, joyful and playful.

Care to create together? Much of my focus now is on helping people, me too, become engaged with their own aging process.  I love the prospect of this challenge and look forward to your comments. Aging happens minute to minute. We create our future selves by  each small choice, by how we think and by what we expect. Let’s expect the best. Join me in playing with the process!

Something new

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Eins

I created this mask as I was beginning to discover and to speak my own truths. It has been a few years now and the truths seem to keep coming. Maybe truths come as we have the ability to understand them.

It seems that to some extent I have been doing just as Einstein says, the same things over and over again, and expecting different results. Fortunately, we have the ability to change our actions. I am excited about living my truths differently — same truths,  just doing things a little differently with new and bolder expectations.

I hope to create more often; to talk with you more often; and to be fully alive to what I want in life and to do the things to make those things happen.

Life is an exciting adventure. All I have to do is be open to it and take the actions that help to make it so.

Blessings! C.

Commitment to Joy and Delight?!!?

As a professional life coach, it seems to me that too many people are striving at all costs for success in business. Financial success is an excellent goal. I am wondering about the ‘at all costs’ part and what it means to the joy and delight in people’s lives.

This year I am making a commitment to joy, delight, happiness and fun; and to making a financial success of my business. I love new recipes! How about a new recipe for 2009?!!? How about a personal recipe for success that includes a commitment to joy and delight. My new recipe for 2009 includes a healthy focus on having fun, laughing a lot and playing as often as I can. How are we doing with our new Year’s resolutions?

Personally, I did not do any resolutions this year. While they may be a good thing, I tend to forget them. This year I am working on an evolution, maybe even a revolution. I am making a commitment to evolve into a mindset of balance, joy and delight. (Recently, I heard delight defined as joy activated; fun hug?) Should need be, I am very willing to have a joy and delight revolution. Care to joyn the revolt? It will not be like the Boston tea party, but it will be a lot of fun !

Could it be that if we place more emphasis on joy in our lives that we might have more energy and more drive for to help us succeed financially too? I am trying it and I will let you know.

Stay tuned, come back and I hope to come back soon too.

Blessings!  C.

Daring to Dare

“I believe the most important single thing, beyond discipline and creativity, in any artistic work, is daring to dare.”

Maya Angelou

Could it be that our life is an artistic work? How is it that too many of us loose the ability to ‘dare’, even to dare ourselves, after we move out of childhood? No this is not about taking risk, though that is part of it. This is more about living outside of the box, outside of that comfort zone that we have created for ourselves. The reality is that since our beginning every experience, every person, everything said be it praise or criticism help to make us who we are today. Each experience helps to build that box, our norms, beliefs and values, and the comfort zone, in which we live. Now, we are told to “think outside the box” — to be creative, to find different solutions, to make new and exciting choices. WHAT?!!?

Maybe before we can do that we need to know first that the box exists and then to explore it a bit. How does your box fit you now? Are there some things that we need to let go of, that no longer fit? Dare we choose to take steps to think and live outside this box we have built for ourselves? I dare you! In fact, I double dare you. Remember as a kid, didn’t a ‘double dare’ mean that the the person who dared would do it first? Well, that is what is happening here.

At a meeting last week, one friend challenged/dared another to take just 10 minutes to paint every morning; saying that it would open up new possibilities. This sounded like a good challenge, so I made a commitment to myself: every morning using my art journal and a box of oil pastels. I draw/scribble without thinking a lot, then write down what comes to me. I just let anything come and each morning it has been about that box. Amazingly, last night and this morning I broke through the box that I have been working on for 58 years. Of course, the work is not done; but with creativity and discipline I am excited to take the dare and forge onward. Exciting stuff!!!

Have a great day! C~

Exciting times

We need to find the courage to say NO to the things and people that are not serving us if we want to rediscover ourselves and live our lives with authenticity.

Barbara de Angelis

Like spring and the coming of warm weather, I have found my way back and it is wonderful!!!

It feels like I have returned from an extended stay away. The last several months I have been inundated with commitments, people and responsibilities that have kept me away, separated from myself. It has been a gradual return trip and I am back in full form — a wonderfully intense, and sometimes goofy, character who is not afraid to say what is on her mind, who has delightfully creative thoughts, who takes marvelous care of herself and, yes, the one who lights up the room when she walks through the door.

It is so exciting to get back more fully into my authentic self — the one who says NO to the things that really do not serve me no matter what they may claim and YES to those things that energize and excite me. Spring is more than springing into action out there with gorgeous flowering trees, flowers and my friendly frogs and turtles are coming back too. New life is abounding and so is my excitement with life.

Blessings friends! Come as often as you dare. I hope to be blogging often along with my other writing.

Enjoy the glory of this beautiful day!

Cheryl

Fighting the Gremlin

It’s hard to fight the enemy who has outposts in your head.

~Sally Kempton

Did you ever notice that there is this little negative voice inside your head, especially when you want to make a change in your life? It may tell you something like ‘You’re not good enough!’ or ‘You look stupid, what will they think of you?!’ or simply ‘How dumb, that won’t work!’,

These little gremlin voices sabotage different areas of our lives, both personally and professionally, with their negative talk. I have noticed that saboteurs take on different personalities depending on the situation. Our saboteurs may not seem dangerous, but they can sure slow us down in realizing our dreams or making any forward movement.

Want your saboteur, that little gremlin voice, to let go? In working with my clients, I have found that being playful is often more successful than fighting. Get it involved somewhere else. You could dream up a marvelous vacation and send it away for awhile. Take it to its favorite restaurant and leave it there. Show it a great movie, then leave the room.

Whether you are fighting your gremlins or playfully letting them go, good luck!

A wild ride . . .

Train your head and hands to do, train your head and heart to dare. -Joseph Seamon Cotter, Jr.

Do you ever have times in your life that feel like you have been on a wild ride? Well, that is how my life has felt for the last few months, especially the last few weeks. I have been in a certification program for my coaching practice. It was wonderfully rigorousssss!!! Combined with everything else in my life, Oh my goodness!

I must say that I must relish the wild ride. It seems that I want to experience life, and all the many opportunities that it has to offer, fully — often with fierce abandon. Life really is good, even when it challenges me to stretch way beyond my comfort zone.

When talking with a friend some time ago about my intention to do real heart work and to open into all that the Universe has to offer, she told me to prepare for a wild ride and to hold on. Well, she was right; it has been a wild ride. Fortunately for me, the ride is not over. Living life fully is not for the timid. It may not be a roller coaster ride on tracks already laid, but more like taking new steps again and again out into uncharted territory. What an exciting adventure life has to offer!

Blessings!

Cheryl