I'm visiting a friend in Florida feeling so grateful that I have people all around the world that I love and appreciate who are genuinely glad to see me and share some of their lives with me. I haven't actually seen this friend face to face for four and a half years, but we picked up right where we left off and have spent the last day and a half filling each other in on major events, recounting challenges we've faced, how we've grown through them, what we've learned, where we see ourselves going from here.
In some ways our lives have paralleled, in other ways we are very different. We do have one common thread--in our early sixties, we are both re-evaluating who we are as women, how we show up in the world, and what we want to do with our time and energy from this point forward. This is right in line with what I realized when I was in Greece last month. We are becoming Life Entrepreneurs, which I'm now seeing as the next step from being a business entrepreneur, as I have been for the last 30 years or so.
Life Entrepreneurship doesn't only apply to women, or business entrepreneurs. I think this is a new wave of thinking that is germain to mid-life and beyond for both men and women, from all walks of life, from a variety of past experiences. People want their lives to mean something--and if you watch Mad Men on TV, you will realize that having a meaningful life was only a remote possibility in the early 60s. We've come a long way from the stereotypical roles of men and women in the workplace--and thinking that men knew best, that the government was to be obeyed, that working for pay was more important than working for something you believed in.
So I'm really just putting a label on something that I've been doing for a while: being a Life Entrepreneur. I look around and see I'm in good company. There are millions around me doing this in one form or another. I plan to spend some time over the next few months exploring, learning more about what it takes to succeed at this, and sharing my insights.
I'm also going to encourage people to see themselves as Life Entrepreneurs, and tap into the creative energy that can allow them to blossom into more authentic lives. After all, a lot of us will still be here well into our nineties. That means we have twenty, thirty, maybe forty years to be productive, engaging contributors to the world we live in. Let's make it meaningful!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Does what people think about us really matter?
As I have written about, I have been going through a very difficult time over the last few months, struggling to recover from a devastating blow that was both financial and personal. My family, my friends, my clients and students have been very kind to me about it--some people letting me cry on their shoulders, others spending time coaching me through tough moments, mainly standing by me and letting me know they care and that they understand what I'm dealing with. None of them has encouraged me to feel as bad about myself as I tended to feel--meaning that I consistently had and have a balance of challenge and support, both internally and externally.
They see me working through this, and they see me learning and growing from it. A few have even expressed that it helped them to see me in so much pain because they felt more connected to me, it helped them break down their "stories" that I had somehow achieved more in life than they--because that just isn't true. Their achievements were simply in a different form.
And that support, that willingness to help me, that steadfast certainty that I will make it through this and grow from it has really made a difference in my life. It does matter what they think of me, because it shows me that inside myself, balancing my self-flagellation and disappointment is also a courageous, strong, capable woman who believes in herself--reflected back to me by those who think well of me, who show me they believe in me.
I realize I sometimes spend more energy collecting evidence from those who agree with my negative self-image (this is my proof that I'm right--I'm a Loser!) than noticing the equal number of people who reflect back my positive qualities. I often say that the world is a great big house of mirrors, some distorted and some clear. Being in crisis is actually helping me find the clear reflections and appreciate them even more.
Another blessing from being challenged. Love that!
They see me working through this, and they see me learning and growing from it. A few have even expressed that it helped them to see me in so much pain because they felt more connected to me, it helped them break down their "stories" that I had somehow achieved more in life than they--because that just isn't true. Their achievements were simply in a different form.
And that support, that willingness to help me, that steadfast certainty that I will make it through this and grow from it has really made a difference in my life. It does matter what they think of me, because it shows me that inside myself, balancing my self-flagellation and disappointment is also a courageous, strong, capable woman who believes in herself--reflected back to me by those who think well of me, who show me they believe in me.
I realize I sometimes spend more energy collecting evidence from those who agree with my negative self-image (this is my proof that I'm right--I'm a Loser!) than noticing the equal number of people who reflect back my positive qualities. I often say that the world is a great big house of mirrors, some distorted and some clear. Being in crisis is actually helping me find the clear reflections and appreciate them even more.
Another blessing from being challenged. Love that!
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Three Weeks of Thoughts......
As I emerge from some very interesting activities over the last three weeks, I marvel that I haven't sat down to record my thoughts for so long. First I attended the Demartini Institute Facilitator Certification Class over the labor day weekend.
It was wonderful to connect with old friends and make new ones. It was inspiring to watch a young woman of 19 break free of six years of drug addiction and blossom into a beginning facilitator of this work. I had the gift of coaching her through her first phase and now get to watch her expand into a productive, contributing, inspired citizen of the world.
I watched people look at their myths and face that those fantasies are the source of their depression and feelings of hopelessness. As long as we keep measuring ourselves against unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others, we keep the cycle of elation/depression going in our lives. Facing the myths and breaking them down is an important step toward reality based thinking. That doesn't mean we give up our dreams--but we can create dreams with measurable and achievable outcomes!
I went to this class right after returning from a trip to Europe, and came home to find a fascinating politial environment. These are all things I plan to write more about, but want to jot down some thoughts that are running through me at this moment.
Protesters--that's what we were called back in the sixties when we tried to stop the Viet Nam War and open admissions to all learning institutions to people of all colors. Now I find that the Protesters are on the far right--raging around about the politics of the new administration and Congress. This seems so strange to me! First they are angry that Obama makes a speech to school children to stay in school and get an education, calling it leftist, liberal dogma. I remember when President Kennedy launched the President's Fitness Program. Everyone got behind it--whether they liked him or not (and believe me, in Dallas, TX, the majority of people did NOT like him.....) because he was the President and there was inherent respect for the office.
Then they march and picket over expanding health care accessibility to the whole population. Amazing!
I believe this is all based on fear. In the sixties we were afraid of living lives like our parents, afraid to conform to what we considered the status quo. This new group of protesters seem to be afraid to lose what they see as their status quo. But are they losing more than they are gaining? Does it really benefit society as a whole to have millions of uninsured people using locally funded emergency rooms for their main source of health care? Aren't we paying for that with our tax dollars? And if they are like me, no longer covered by a company health plan and "high risk" (having an ankle joint replacement put me in that category) then do they actually have the over $15,000 a year to pay for high deductible, high risk health insurance like I am required to pay?
I know my personal experience heavily influences my opinion on this subject, but I never before dreamed that I would be counting the years until I qualified for Medicare. Instead of being dismayed about getting older, I'm wishing those three years were up and I could qualify today!
We have serious problems in our world to deal with, and what I find so interesting is that those of us who already had the experience of thinking that taking to the streets and shouting about our opinions have, for the most part, chosen much more "system" oriented methods to achieve our goals. We built businesses that took into account the personal lives of our employees, not just the bottom line. We became teachers, leaders, political in our daily lives by living and raising families with our values. And what is even more amazing is that we seem to be in the majority for the first time. Not just as party members (many like me still eschew identification with any political party) but as citizens of the world who see that we are in a continual transition to a different form of society--and we're figuring it out as we go along.
I don't love everything that is happening in the government, so what else is new? I do love that we are all having to learn to adapt to change and keep growing.
It was wonderful to connect with old friends and make new ones. It was inspiring to watch a young woman of 19 break free of six years of drug addiction and blossom into a beginning facilitator of this work. I had the gift of coaching her through her first phase and now get to watch her expand into a productive, contributing, inspired citizen of the world.
I watched people look at their myths and face that those fantasies are the source of their depression and feelings of hopelessness. As long as we keep measuring ourselves against unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others, we keep the cycle of elation/depression going in our lives. Facing the myths and breaking them down is an important step toward reality based thinking. That doesn't mean we give up our dreams--but we can create dreams with measurable and achievable outcomes!
I went to this class right after returning from a trip to Europe, and came home to find a fascinating politial environment. These are all things I plan to write more about, but want to jot down some thoughts that are running through me at this moment.
Protesters--that's what we were called back in the sixties when we tried to stop the Viet Nam War and open admissions to all learning institutions to people of all colors. Now I find that the Protesters are on the far right--raging around about the politics of the new administration and Congress. This seems so strange to me! First they are angry that Obama makes a speech to school children to stay in school and get an education, calling it leftist, liberal dogma. I remember when President Kennedy launched the President's Fitness Program. Everyone got behind it--whether they liked him or not (and believe me, in Dallas, TX, the majority of people did NOT like him.....) because he was the President and there was inherent respect for the office.
Then they march and picket over expanding health care accessibility to the whole population. Amazing!
I believe this is all based on fear. In the sixties we were afraid of living lives like our parents, afraid to conform to what we considered the status quo. This new group of protesters seem to be afraid to lose what they see as their status quo. But are they losing more than they are gaining? Does it really benefit society as a whole to have millions of uninsured people using locally funded emergency rooms for their main source of health care? Aren't we paying for that with our tax dollars? And if they are like me, no longer covered by a company health plan and "high risk" (having an ankle joint replacement put me in that category) then do they actually have the over $15,000 a year to pay for high deductible, high risk health insurance like I am required to pay?
I know my personal experience heavily influences my opinion on this subject, but I never before dreamed that I would be counting the years until I qualified for Medicare. Instead of being dismayed about getting older, I'm wishing those three years were up and I could qualify today!
We have serious problems in our world to deal with, and what I find so interesting is that those of us who already had the experience of thinking that taking to the streets and shouting about our opinions have, for the most part, chosen much more "system" oriented methods to achieve our goals. We built businesses that took into account the personal lives of our employees, not just the bottom line. We became teachers, leaders, political in our daily lives by living and raising families with our values. And what is even more amazing is that we seem to be in the majority for the first time. Not just as party members (many like me still eschew identification with any political party) but as citizens of the world who see that we are in a continual transition to a different form of society--and we're figuring it out as we go along.
I don't love everything that is happening in the government, so what else is new? I do love that we are all having to learn to adapt to change and keep growing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
