Doggone it!  It’s time to make those New Year’s resolutions.

Some will resolve, “Absolutely, 2010 will be the year I lose weight, exercise more, spend less, stop smoking, end the family feuds and finish all the half-finished projects.”

Not me. Since I’ve worked like a dog for years, I’m resolving to live the awesome life of a dog.

Dogs are valued as loyal companions, members of the family and best friends. Doesn’t get much better than that, yet the canine species has also mastered the art of living in the now. Think of the freedom of being concerned with nothing more than the here and now.

There is one exception to a dog’s here and now lifestyle -- they bury bones and remember exactly where they’ve buried them. Is that an investment in the future, or what?

I like that idea. It makes me wonder what I love enough to bury in the back yard for safekeeping. Remembering where it’s buried will be the biggest challenge.

Speaking of memory, I am reminded of a small magnet that’s stuck to my refrigerator door. It reads, “Never trust a dog to watch your food.” I think it’s me you can’t trust to watch your food, so I’m giving up any, and all, resolutions relating to food.

Dogs love to go for walks. Most prefer pausing at fire hydrants and bushes that are marked with messages from every terrier, boxer, collie, poodle, pit bull and mutt in the neighborhood. I’m going to enjoy leaving my messages alongside theirs.

Sniffing to their heart’s content is vital to the life experience of dogs. They don’t hesitate to stick their noses in your crotch, either, but don’t worry, when I assume the life of a dog, I’ll refrain from such behavior and keep my sniffing to the roses, pine needles and cedar boughs.  Admittedly, my nose will perk up when passing the local bakery.

Applying dog commands to my life will be interesting, particularly sit and stay. When boredom sets in, which often signals that it’s time for a snack, sit and stay will be useful.

Let’s discuss the issue of treats and bones. Most dogs are quite selfish and not at all willing to share their treats and bones. I think I’m going to enjoy asserting myself with an occasional growl when someone attempts to steal my treats.

I’ll give up the human habit of chewing the fat and take up chewing a bone instead. Sounds like a weight loss program to me.

Dogs are consistently loyal, dependable, and willing to express unconditional love, 24/7. I’m willing to take lessons. Yes, I’ll gaze into the eyes of those I love, but shaking my boodie as often as my dog wags his tail will require some practice.

Dogs love to be together, romp together and travel together. They are pack animals. I like this quality. It’s different from our American culture that promotes self-sufficiency and independence.

I appreciate how easily dogs work things out. Prancing, sniffing, dodging, crouching, ears perked up, hair on end -- most of them don’t take each other very seriously. They adjust quickly and carry on with life. Respect seems to be encoded in their genes.

In dog years, I’m nine, so I’ll command a little respect in the pack. I’m sticking with the idea that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.

Yes, I might roll over, but please, no agility courses. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I’m already hounded enough. And, don’t call me a hot dog, either.

What about barking? There are the yappers, and then there’s the neighbor’s dog that barks and snarls every time I walk by. He’s tethered to a tree. Maybe that’s why he snarls. I’m sure I’d bark and snarl, too, if someone tied me up.

Give me the life of a dog like my dog, any day. Yes, I’m willing to trust, like he does, that I’ll be fed and doors will be opened for me. And I look forward to finding the best sunny spot in the house and basking there for hours.

But, please don’t apply the flea repellant. It wears off with time, and so do resolutions.

Wedged safely between the screen door and the front door, I shouted a very offensive word at a neighbor boy. I must have been no more than four or five years old, and definitely angry about something.
    In a flash, my mother picked me up, tucked me under her arm, marched to the kitchen sink, and before I could say “boo,” she had a bar of soup in my mouth.
    “Don’t you ever say that word again,” she said with a force I still remember today.
    I did learn that the taste of soap is terrible – not something I would ever want in my mouth again. But, I can’t say that the soap completely cured me of ever using certain words when angered. What I definitely learned is that I wouldn’t want to be within earshot of my mother if I ever decided to use that particular word again.
    Our lessons begin the day we’re born and continue throughout life. Some are more painful to learn than others.
    When I was a college student in southern Wisconsin, a new friend from Attleboro, Mass. invited me to travel to visit her family over spring break.
    Arriving in Boston, the plan was that we were to rent a car and her parents would reimburse me at the end of our stay. I was the one “of age,” so I signed the rental contract at the airport.
    Young, innocent and trusting, I didn’t give it a second thought. When the five day vacation ended, my friend’s parents said they would drop us at the airport and return the rental car. Since they were going to pay for it, I assumed there’d be no problem.
    Three weeks later, I received a phone call from the rent-a-car agent, wondering where the car was.
    “What?” I gasped in disbelief. I didn’t have a clue where the car was, but you can imagine how quickly I dialed my friend to find out what was going on.
    Her parent’s car had needed repair, she said, and they decided to keep the rental car until the repairs were made. Not to worry, she assured me. They would return the car and pay for it.
    The car wasn’t returned for another 15 days – 35 total rental days! – and the saga still wasn’t over. When the time came, they couldn’t pay the charges. The contract was in my name; legally I was responsible.
    As a college student, I didn’t have that kind of extra cash. My parents bailed me out, and I made payments to them for months thereafter.
    My friend quit school and returned to Attleboro. It was a sad and disappointing situation, but I learned some painful lessons: Don’t assume that adults -- even the parents of friends -- are responsible people. Never sign a contract unless you have the money to back it up. Don’t assume that friends will help you out. Don’t assume anything.
    And you? What big lessons have you learned in life?
    Most of us have fallen in love and suffered at least one broken heart. What was that lesson?
    Some say they learned never to love again and are certain the opposite sex is untrustworthy. Others learned that a partner can’t possibly meet all of one’s needs, so it’s important to have a few interesting friends to hang out with when your partner doesn’t share your interest in fishing or walking or playing bridge.
    And, there are those who learned to work with relationship challenges, nurture each other, and enjoy a meaningful, lifetime relationship. Who teaches whom when it comes to love?
    What about your trade, your craft? Who taught you your skills? Who taught you to appreciate art and beauty, to love music and respect nature?  
    Mr. Meythaler taught me how to type very fast in his high school class. When I needed a job during college, I was hired by a printing firm as a typesetter. The owner said, “I’ll teach you a trade so that you will never want for work.”
    I had no idea at the time that the writing, graphic design, and publishing skills he taught me would still, to this day, provide me with creative outlets. Rarely do we know, at the beginning, how deeply some lessons will effect our lives.
    Same goes for parenting. What most of us know about parenting as new parents pales to what we learn from our kids over the course of a lifetime.
    Children are living lessons in spontaneity. Forget planning. They live every uncertain moment with a spirit of wonder while we adults struggle to maintain control and some sort of schedule.
    Children try new things and are forever testing the waters. They don’t restrict themselves, but somewhere along the path of growing up we decided that, if we’re going to be adults, we can’t just jump in and participate unless we’re somehow  “qualified.” We have to get a degree or a certificate or a license to play. Interesting how those things happen, isn’t it?
    I’ve learned a lot about playing from my golden retriever, Rumi. He’s a master teacher, giving me lessons on the importance of taking lots of walks, learning to sit and stay (is that called commitment?) and expressing appreciation. I’ve yet to master the tail wagging, but it’s his unconditional love that provides me with the greatest lesson of all.
    No question, cats are great teachers, too – the art of sitting and gazing out the window, purring when contented, taking frequent cat naps and doing yoga stretching are among the valued lessons from our feline friends. Oh yes, there’s independence too.
    It’s Mother Nature, though, who drives home lesson after lesson, repeatedly humbling us with her power and presence. Yet we seem to be slow to learn.
    We build houses on cliff sides, river banks, deltas, and beaches. Then, when the bluffs erode, the water rises and the hurricanes roar in, we’re somehow surprised and stunned. Why do we need to keep repeating the class in rebuilding? Clearly, we aren’t getting a passing grade on Mother Nature’s repeated tests.
    All kinds of people seem to believe that our finite planet has limitless resources. If one oil field, or one water well dries up, we have the notion that we can keep on drilling and moving from here to there without connecting the dots of supply and demand. How many oil fields, water tables, wells and rivers need to dry up before we learn the lesson?
    Perhaps it’s finally dawning on us that the Earth is not a straight line that leads to infinity. She is a living sphere, an organism, that some call Earth and others call Gaia. The living body beneath our feet pulsates, belches and overflows. She trembles, shakes and cracks. She sparkles, feeds and breathes.
    Her soils and seas are mighty, yet fragile. We are facing serious, unprecedented lessons as toxic waste, toxic herbicides, and trash flotillas in the sea are choking off the source of food for us and other creatures.
    And, if we keep abusing and exploiting this Being beneath our feet, bleeding her dry of natural resources, our inattention will have a staggering price. We may be able to rebuild houses, but like all living organisms, if we don’t learn the lessons Mother Nature keeps trying to teach us, we will suffer the consequences.
    On a smaller scale, I notice the wild blackberry branches that creep through fences from my neighbor’s yard, winding their thorny tentacles into my greenhouse. Their lesson: life can get prickly if we don’t pay attention.
    Maybe it’s time that we pay closer attention to the lessons of the Earth. We call her Mother, but often treat her with disrespect. We say we love her, but we use up everything we can lay our hands on and then trash and burn the rest as we go.
    I know that it’s painful to look at our negligence. We all want to feel good, and if the Earth, our home planet and greatest teacher, is telling us to pay attention, are we willing to become learned students?  If not now, when?

Joan had been diagnosed with cancer in 1998. I was part of a Bay Area volunteer team that offered free support services to people like Joan who had received a life-threatening diagnosis. My role was to show up at Joan’s home on Wednesdays at one o’clock, to sit and offer her a listening ear as she lived with her diagnosis and the treatment that followed.

We sat on her overstuffed sofa, together, every Wednesday for nine months. She on one end of the sofa, me on the other, our legs crossed like meditating Buddhas, we faced each other week after week. I listened as she journeyed through terror, hope, frustration, more hope, anger and more, so much more.

As volunteers we were trained not to give opinions, interject our spiritual beliefs, or offer false hope. Joan presented challenge after challenge; she demanded to know what I believed. At times, I felt shaken to the core with her need to know what I believed about God, how I made meaning of life and was I living the life I wanted to be living.

We were both the same age, both single moms, both raised in southern Wisconsin – and then brought together by this life circumstance in Marin County, California.

I remember one particular Wednesday when she was overly testy. Her angry, forceful words went something like this:  It’s easy for you to show up every week and be happy. You’re not the one with the diagnosis. You’re not the one who’s going to die.

I remember aching inside. Aching for her and aching for myself. What did either of us know about life? Or, for that matter, about death? In that moment, however, I managed to tap into a place of universal wisdom, and my words flowed with a confidence that had nothing to do with me.

The message was something like this: Joan, we were all born with a diagnosis. We’re all going to die. The thing is, we don’t know when or how. I could drop dead the moment I leave your house this afternoon. You could have a heart attack or choke to death – completely unrelated to cancer. What this is about is that you received a wake-up call and we’re here together figuring out the best way to live every day, every moment that we have before we die.

A palpable silence followed as we both took in the words that had poured out. Something shifted in that moment. From then on, our time together was entirely focused on the quality of each day and each hour we spent together.

Sometimes our conversations turned toward gratitude – gratitude for what we had experienced in life up to that moment – the good, the bad and the absurd. We talked about people who had touched our hearts, people who challenged us and people who were pains in the you-know-whats. We laughed and we cried.

Together we were learning how to live. What I know today is that Joan and I were cultivating gratitude. Our hearts were filled with love, forgiveness, joy, and incredible hope for humanity. We were grateful for all of it, including our discussions grappling with cancer and death.

As the days became months, Joan started to slip away. Although there were times of pain and struggle, she focused her attention on all that she was grateful for. She enjoyed the beauty of her home. She basked in the pleasure of a newly found inner silence. As she forgave herself for self-loathing and forgave the resentments of others, she was glowing from the inside. It was a beautiful process to witness.

Joan taught me how to live and how to love life. She gave me the gift of appreciating every precious moment. Together we cultivated gratitude.

When Joan died in the spring of 1999, her journey to death had taken nine months from her diagnosis of cancer – the same amount of time it takes for a full-term baby to be born.

Life is an incredible journey. I encourage you to cultivate gratitude before death comes knocking at your door.

Now it’s spring – the season of birth and renewal. It’s the perfect season to look for the gift that resides in everything that shows up in life.

The Japanese language has a word, on, that translates as a sense of gratitude combined with a desire to give something back for what we have been given. This experience begins with expanding awareness. Notice the beauty in nature. Notice the kindness of others. Notice honesty, even if it’s painful. Notice the light in your beloved’s eyes. Notice laughter, friendliness, generosity, children at play, well-worn lines in the faces of our elders – everywhere we look there is something to be grateful for, even the tough times.

It’s spring. Time to cultivate gratitude.

______________
Copyright 2009, Ruth Marcus

I was making my monthly run to that big membership box store when I experienced one of those rare parking lot moments. The guy in the next space rolled down his car windows to make sure his dog had fresh air. The dog was stretched out in the back seat, and the guy clearly wanted to impress upon his dog that he must stay in the car. The dog owner got out and walked backwards to the curb, shaking his finger for emphasis and commanding, “Now you stay. Do you hear me? Stay!”
    Then another driver got out of an adjacent car and scratches his head at the fellow who’s giving the order to “stay,” and says, “Man, just put your car in park.”
    I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing, and in that unexpected moment of spontaneous hilarity, I was reminded once again of how important it is to laugh. It feels so-o-o good. There’s plenty of everyday humor all around us if we are willing to be present, to listen, look and see the humor in any situation.
    Now, more than ever, with all of the challenges we face – from the economy to ecosystems to healthcare – laughter can provide us relief.
    One of my favorite humorists is Swami Beyondananda. He suggests that we begin making changes by starting a new political party, the Right-To-Laugh Party, to encourage peoples of the world to laugh together instead of crying separately. I think he’s onto something.
    This enlightened swami wants us to heal conditions like “Deficit Inattention Disorder, Truth Decay and the deadliest one of all, an unchecked Military Industrial Complex.”
    When we’re surrounded by a sea of bad news, Swami reminds us that we can’t use more energy than what we have in reserve. “We cannot charge energy on our Ascended Master Card and repay it next lifetime.” We must face our situation -- facing it with plenty of humor brings new ways of seeing what otherwise might seem overwhelming.
    Taking a cue from the Swami, I doubly appreciate why it took Buddha forever to vacuum his sofa. He didn’t have any attachments.
    Whether it’s a simple knock-knock joke based on puns or words misused or misunderstood, seeing the absurdity in everyday situations not only feels good but also is good for what ails us. Just as our bodies need us to tune into the importance of walking every day, our mental health needs us to be on the lookout for everyday chances to grin, chuckle and laugh.
    You may recall the story of author Norman Cousins who overcame a serious chronic disease by laughing at his favorite comedy shows such as Candid Camera and Marx Brothers movies. He also hired a nurse to read funny stories to him -- and found that ten minutes of hearty laughing could provide him two hours of pain-free relief. Soon he was off painkillers and other medications. Check out his book, Anatomy of an Illness, for more details on his laughing therapy.
    Perhaps it’s useful to ask, do we laugh because we’re happy and healthy, or are we happy and healthy because you laugh? Let’s take a closer look.
    Laughter provides instant stress relief and an antidote to most suffering. Instead of spending millions on expensive prescription drugs, we’d do well to consider using this built-in coping mechanism. Finding ways to apply big doses of grins, giggles and laughter instead of downing prescription cocktails could eliminate all kinds of problems and leave us with many good side effects.
    Fifteen small muscles squeeze your face into a smile, increasing the blood flow, bringing a happy glow to your face when you laugh. Your mouth opens and letting out those great ha-ha-ha’s increases your intake of oxygen in huge gulps. Laughter oxygenates all your organs, boosts your immune system function by elevating health-enhancing hormones like endorphins while reducing stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine. No wonder laughing gives you a general sense of well-being.
    There’s more. Laughter elevates your vocal response to infectious hysteria. It wrestles your vessels, causing the diaphragm muscles to pump down and up, giving them a good workout. All that air exchange enriches your body’s blood oxygen level.  It’s an inner trip to the gym without running two miles for a workout.
    Think about it. The moment laughter bubbles up, irritations and resentments slip away. It has no negative side effects. Can you imagine an entire community enjoying laugh fests – everything from deep, belly-shaking laughter to giggles and smiles galore? That’s what one person imagined in 1995.
    Dr. Madan Kataria, a Bombay physician, believes that laughter is good for the heart and soul. He founded the International Laughter Club movement knowing that laughter is a universal language with the potential of uniting humanity. Dr. Kataria encourages all ages to spread out their arms and laugh for no reason.
    Reminders are everywhere. Santa ho-ho-ho’s himself down the chimney. Alfred E. Neuman has that eternal grin. The Dalai Lama giggles his way to enlightenment and the Laughing Buddha is reminding you to laugh, laugh, laugh. Even the digital smiley-face icons remind us to put on a happy face. And LOL, acronym for Laughing Out Loud, pops up endlessly in text messages and emails.
    All you have to do is tap into it. Humor tickles each of us differently, and there’s plenty to go around. You can even jump start laughter by tickling your willing but unsuspecting partner under the arms, under the ribs and under the neck. Giggling and wiggling are good for body, mind and psyche.
    A good laugh at your own expense can be a humbling, humanizing and richly entertaining experience.  No need to always take yourself so seriously.
    When my granddaughter was barely three, I’d walk around the house with her, pointing to objects and asking, “What color is this?” She’d respond, then I’d praise her correct answers and continue with my self-created lesson in learning colors. It didn’t take long before she turned my little efforts upside down. “Grammy,” she asked, “why don’t know your colors?” Ah, the gift of humor from the words of a child.
    I love the story of the heart surgeon who was waiting to talk with the service manager at a motorcycle repair shop. A mechanic, removing a cylinder head from a Harley engine, recognized the surgeon and called out, “Hey, Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take valves out, fix ‘em, put ‘em back in, and when I finish, it works just like new. So, how come I get such a small salary and you get the big bucks, when we are doing basically the same work?”
    The surgeon paused, smiled, leaned over and said, “Try doing it with the engine running.”
    Humor has proven so useful in treating people’s illnesses that there are clowning programs that bring laughter and joy to the bedside. These programs train Clown Doctors and provide good humor services to hospitals, nursing homes and rehab centers.
    No question, the more you laugh, the more you elevate everyone’s mood. Laughing is a social activity – a great pastime to share with friends. Games like charades, bunco or croquet on the lawn create a light-hearted mood and bring joyful laughter.
    You can easily incorporate laughter into your daily routine by watching 30 minutes of comedy each morning – reruns of I Love Lucy, Friends, or Laurel & Hardy. Watch feel-good films – Groundhog Day, Little Miss Sunshine, and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Listen to audio recordings of your favorite stand-up comedians as you commute to work – Lily Thomlin, Woody Allen, Drew Carey and hundreds of others.
    You’ll often find holy hilarity in your newspaper or Sunday church bulletins, too. I enjoy spotting humorous errors and typos: “Thursday night, potluck supper. Prayer and medication to follow.” Or, “A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.” I especially like these two: “Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday. Please use the back door.” And, “The new tithing campaign slogan: I Upped My Pledge. Up Yours.”
    When you find yourself all too serious and want to encourage more laughing in your life, spend more time with kids – yours or a friend’s, or better yet, your grandkids. An average six-year old laughs 300 times a day while an adult laughs only 15 to 100 times.
    Don’t be afraid to be spontaneous and silly. It’s a great idea to prepare yourself with humor tools -- cartoons, jokes, signs and even props. Rubber chickens, anyone? Or how about a whoopee cushion or Grouch Marx glasses, complete with nose and mustache? Have fun. Whistle a happy tune. Take up clowning. Or, make-up silly songs to suit a special occasion. Image a kindergarten class singing “row, row, ho-ho-ho; gently down the stream; giggly, wiggly, sniggly hee; happy all are we” as they travel on the ferry to Seattle.
    Laughter is the best medicine. So, go ahead -- laugh. Laugh a lot!

It seems like everyone’s abuzz – talking, arguing, getting worried, upset or distressed. We, the people, are approaching Election Day. Most of us feel comfortable when we’re preaching to the choir -- our friends. But when we face someone from the opposite political camp, our dreaded differences emerge.

We put on super-duper election glasses, that, unlike 3-D glasses that combine multiple images into a larger view, afford us only one view – our own.

And once we put on these glasses, we end up with what I call broken eyes – blurred and blinded vision, limited to seeing only the party or candidate of our choice.

We become animated and disgusted when someone rants against our favorite candidate. We are disappointed and outraged when we discover that someone we previously assumed was on our side is actually supporting the opposite party.

The closer we get to Election Day, the more impaired our vision becomes. Our ability to see beyond our position diminishes and some of us create a trail of enemies who were once called friends.

How on earth does this happen? What causes this symptom of broken eyes?

It’s our belief system, “I’m right and you’re wrong.” Pathetic as it is, we allow ourselves to get pumped up with adrenalin as we collectively rear up, like masses of dinosaurs, eager to push each other into extinction rather than see anything other than our position.

Yes, our eyes are broken. We can’t see that we are our own worst enemy. Wrapped in our sense of right-ness, we create polarities that compromise the health and goodwill of our communities. What appears as irreconcilable differences are, in fact, symptoms of our unwillingness to find common ground, to become aware of alternative solutions, and to develop new skills to communicate successfully.

Instead of grappling with broken eyes in our super-charged political arena, let’s look at an ordinary couple, together for 20 years, disagreeing about how to spend their tax refund.

Partner Number One wants to put the tax refund toward a new truck and says, “Sweetheart, a truck is a practical investment.  I can use it for work, and you can use it to bring home the groceries.”

Partner Number Two responds, “I have wanted a new washer and dryer for the past three years. You want clean clothes, and my idea will save energy and water, so it’s an investment for our whole family. No way are we using that money for a truck!”

Their eyes are broken. They can’t see beyond their own position. They are unwilling to listen. They are locked into the belief that it’s either an either/or choice -- it must be one way or the other.

When our differences collide, we become defensive and resistant. We dig our heels in, believing that we’re right, or deserving, or smarter or more powerful than our partner who quickly becomes our opponent.

Yes, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, partners of all kinds become opponents in a nanosecond when it comes to dealing with differences.

Yet, all it takes is a minor shift and the polarization dissolves. Sometimes the shift comes from a third party with a great idea. Sometimes, simply the passage of time provides a salve to soften people’s positions. And, sometimes we decide that our relationship is worth more than winning the disagreement.

Voila! Three weeks later, this imaginary couple’s 12-year-old son sits down for dinner and says, “Guess what? I learned about investing in the future in our math class today. Let’s buy heifers to help people who are a lot poorer than we are. It’s called The Heifer Project.”

The son’s enthusiasm breaks the gridlock between his parents. They agree that this is an interesting way for their family to invest the tax refund and serve others.

Broken eyes are mended when we let go of attitudes like “I want what I want when I want it” or martyr-like resignations such as “It won’t make any difference anyway.”

When we are willing to admit that we have dug in our heels insisting on being right, when we are willing to admit that we have made decisions based on self-interest and greed, or when we are willing to admit that we have strayed a bit from telling the truth, we are well on our way to mending broken eyes.

The mending begins with each one of us. The election process offers a special opportunity to see ourselves more clearly. Broken eyes go beyond party lines. They are the eyes with which each of us views the world. Are we willing to try regaining a vision that embraces and heals humanity? I think it’s time.

 

Copyright 2008, Published September 24, 2008
Ruth Marcus' book and free daily inspiration are available at www.DrRuthMarcus.com.
 
 
 
 
 

It’s easy to chirp that it’s a marvelous Monday, a terrific Tuesday and a wonderful Wednesday, but how do we honor turning fifty? The big five-O, the second half of life -- is it overrated or far greater than we could have imagined?
    Growing up, every time someone celebrated a fiftieth birthday, I repeatedly heard phrases like, “It’s all down hill from here” countered with an enthusiastic, “Life begins at fifty!” Although I was struck by these obvious contradictions, some part of me recognized there were lessons to be learned -- if only because these opposing notions were repeated so often.
    One sounded a clear warning: Live a good life before fifty, because after that things will become quite dismal. Of course, if I chose to believe the other aphorism, I could look forward to life getting a whole lot better after fifty.  I preferred the latter.
    How often do we reflect on the impact of such sayings? Do we approach the second half of life with trepidation? Or with excitement, anticipating something mysterious and wonderful to come at the half-century mark?
    Once we’ve reached this milepost, we allow ourselves to notice changes in others as well as ourselves. Sometimes it’s physical and sometimes mental. Vision diminishes. Backs seem to ache more often and indigestion becomes an irritant. Waistlines expand while hairlines recede. When our memory slips, we find minimal comfort with others sharing similar experiences.
    Often, turning fifty is life tapping us on the shoulder, saying, “Wake-up. Pay attention. Time is fleeting. This won’t last forever.” Some take another decade or so before heeding the warnings. Sometimes only a friend being diagnosed with a serious illness, or dying unexpectedly can make us wake-up. It’s easier ignoring life’s many reminders that we are, in fact, mortals.
    This turning fifty -- or sixty -- business is all about what we believe about aging and how we deal with uncertainty and change in our lives.
    We’re lured with the promise of beauty creams to diminish the crow lines around our eyes and constantly reminded that sit-ups and weight lifting, along with a morning walk, can diminish an expanded waistline. And, eating fresh veggies and fruits will hopefully keep our tickers ticking longer as the years tick away.
    Facing the reality of one’s aging body can trigger emotional resistance and fear. My hope is that we can take aging lightly and use healing laughter to ease the inevitable transitions.
    Couples who have been married for umpteen years wake up and wonder, “Who is this person that I’ve been married to for all this time?” With the nest emptied and the focus shifted from parenting and providing, couples need to question the basis of their couple-dom -- which is not the same thing as men questioning their virility or women wondering what happened to their sex appeal or their sexual appetite.
    Reexamining one’s marriage can provide meaningful insight. By being honest with each other, talking about the highs and lows of life’s journey, and sharing new hopes and dreams, relationships can deepen and become refocused and revitalized.
    Others may come to realize that they spent decades simply going through the motions of marriage as their kids were growing up. Once that truth is acknowledged and out in the open, is there enough common ground to support staying together -- and a willingness to find mutual interests? Staying married and staying miserable is certainly a formula for going downhill quickly.
    The years after fifty are rich with challenging transitions. Some people let go of successful careers and flounder because they no longer know who they are without their work life persona. Answering the question, “Who am I without my job?” is a major hurdle for many. This personal redefinition is a sorting process that requires patience.
    Jobs and careers are often the source of stimulation as well as the vital affirmation that we are needed – that we are important. Can we rediscover other ways we can involve ourselves and use our talents and life experiences? Mentoring, tutoring, serving on boards, joining organizations and participating in local government offer a variety of new directions we can take to fulfill our needs.
    Sometimes people wake up after fifty and realize they have spent thirty-something years working at something that brought little, if any, satisfaction. They become disgruntled, bitter and resentful, feeling they’ve wasted their lives. Others choose the high ground and decide they’ve been given another chance and pursue another career that had long been quietly calling to them.
    You are never too old to go back to school and experience a major boost of renewed energy and enthusiasm. Remember: Your participation expands the range of experience and enriches every discussion. And even if your teacher is young enough to be your grandchild, remember that we are all teachers for each other.
    Don’t let ageism stop you. Yes, we live in a country that constantly focuses on remaining young. But notice that whenever you feel sorry for yourself you are surrounded by people who support your misery. Like attracts like, so if you whine and complain, others will be there to support you with their own whining and complaining.
    However, start believing that good things can come from challenging situations and you will begin to attract people who think similarly. This process is uplifting and encouraging.
    Yes, we may have made poor choices previously, but at any point in our lives we can make new, positive choices. The first choice: Being kind to ourselves and forgiving ourselves for those mistakes and poor choices. This self-acceptance attracts happiness -- and also attracts other people who want positive things themselves.
    When just one person changes in a positive direction, everyone around them is influenced to change too. If you don’t believe it, try it!
    Life after fifty offers a second chance. Sometimes it’s as simple as improving your bridge or golf game. For others, it’s giving creative expression to the artist within. Grandma Moses waited until her 70s to express her creativity through painting.
    With self-publishing growing easier every day, there is no reason for you to put off writing that mystery that’s been in your head for years. Others may be longing to write a novel or a personal memoir. Two friends, one in his 80s and another in her 90s, recently published books. What a joy it is to watch them share themselves in such an intimate and meaningful way.
    Now for the big questions that percolate up in later life and make most people cringe: Am I prepared to die? And what does that mean? In our culture, it’s uncomfortable talking about death. Yet, talking about death offers a big relief. We admit our mortality and become willing participants in one of life’s most significant processes.
    Facing the inevitability of death opens the door to being willing to manage our affairs. Start by preparing a will, healthcare instructions, and documents to guide your family through the process of wrapping up a lifetime of legal details and material possessions.
    Write your obituary. It’s an incredible process to review who you are, where you’ve been, and what’s really been important to you. Leave directions for how you would like to see your life celebrated by those you leave behind.
    Ease the grieving process for your family and friends by putting your house in order now. There is a peace that comes from making these basic preparations prior to death -- peace of mind for our families and ourselves.
    Burying our heads in the sand, numbing ourselves with alcohol and food or popping pills, hoping to dull the challenges of aging, are options that many choose. Going downhill may be where we’re all headed -- but we do have some choices about how we make the journey.  
    For me, an important choice is deciding to be happy. Was it Abe Lincoln who said, “Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be?”
    Henry David Thoreau observed, “Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
    Maybe, after all is said and done, it’s about the mystery. Maybe it’s about humbling ourselves before the grand sweep of life -- the ever-changing process from birth through aging to death. Or maybe it’s about embracing and celebrating the wonder and awe of it all.


Copyright © 2008

In a split second, these words can change your life: Trust, Broken Trust. Forgiveness. Each evokes deep emotion and may imprint your life forever.
    Who broke your heart? What friend ended a relationship for no apparent reason? Did a business partnership go sour? Did a relative recommend that you relocate and things didn’t turn out?
    What happens after trust is broken? Are you willing to forgive and trust again?
    Psychiatrist Alfred Adler recommended, “Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words.” Thoreau said, “I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.” And, Shakespeare advised, “Love all, trust a few.”
    What are your thoughts about trust? What makes a person trustworthy? Are you always as trustworthy as you’d like to be? Trust, after all, provides the underpinning of all relationships and every transaction that you enter into. It impacts every area of your life.
    Trust makes us vulnerable. We open ourselves up to believe in another person, and broken trust is what makes us curl up like a potato bug in a nano second when a glimmer of distrust or a shadow of doubt enters the picture.
    Each one of us has our own definition of trust that we use in endless ways every day. Climbers trust their crampons, fishermen trust their nets, and ballerinas leap into their partners’ arms trusting that they will be caught. We even want to trust our elected officials to represent us.
    When it comes to trust, keeping your word seems to be the crux of it, yet actions, not words, demonstrate trust.
    When you don’t show up, your words of promise become like cellophane — transparent. Others can see through the words to your actions which are incongruent.
    You promise your beloved, “until death do us part.” Then comes a cheating spouse, or an unexpected, sudden death that shatters your sense of trust. You feel betrayed and wonder, “How could this happen?”
    This question is not uncommon when it comes to broken trust. Some of you may have asked that question when a trusted friend assured you that living in a rural community would be blissful. You packed up your life and gladly left the freeway bottlenecks, the noise, and the fast pace of urban life.
    Oops!  One day you find out that rural life is full of surprises: The well is drying up, the underground oil tank sprung a leak, and your investments aren’t providing what you had expected. How could these things happen when your trusted friend assured you that rural life would be blissful?
    Trust, all too often, seems to have a hidden component. We venture into trusting as if it were some mystical condition that insulates us from using all of our senses — including our ability to think things through.
    Sometimes people trust with complete abandon: “Heck, what do I have to lose?” Then the next thing they know, they are shocked to find themselves loosing nearly everything. How could this have happened?
    When trust is broken, we want to hold that person accountable for the pain that we experience. The degree to which we have invested trust shows up in the vocabulary we use to describe it. Our pain is described on a scale that ranges from frustrated to disappointed to betrayed to devastated.
    It is not uncommon for people to want to “get even” or “pay back” the pain of broken trust — a sign of how challenging it is to manage the emotional response to betrayal.
    Accountability, or an admission of guilt, is what we want. We want the betrayer to fess up, confess, bow down, and pay penance. We repeat the story over and over like a broken record, each time concluding in despair, “I can’t believe this happened!”
    Shock and anger, grief and sadness are all natural responses when we feel our trust has been betrayed. But when we get stuck in a loop and fail to move on, our well being is compromised.
    What can be done to move through broken trust, and on to forgiveness? Will we ever trust again? Will we ultimately be able to forgive?
    Is it possible that these stages are the “seasons” of the heart — A natural learning process that either steeps us in loving and appreciating more deeply or turns us into curmudgeons who bitterly refuse to trust anybody ever again?  
    To trust once more requires facing the pain and finding new insight that will bring us to forgiving and moving on.
    Self-inquiry is one of the most powerful tools for freeing yourself from suffering. With the care and tenderness of an archeologist unearthing a great “find,” gently questioning yourself can lead you to a deeper understanding of who you are and the reasons that you chose to trust.
    Sometimes we trust another person for our own selfish benefit or because we are needy. Sometimes we rush in “where fools fear to tread,” acting recklessly with complete abandon. And, sometimes we trust our sexual appetite and forget that we have intelligence and values — both that easily become compromised.
    Ask yourself questions like these: What was I thinking when I trusted this person or this endeavor? Did I have my eyes wide open or was I wearing blinders? Were there telltale warning signs that I ignored? Did I make up excuses to justify the relationship? Did I lie to myself because I was afraid of the truth? If I had told myself the truth, what would have been different? Was I avoiding confrontation at the expense of not expressing my needs and concerns? What part of this am I responsible for? And what have I learned that can make me a wiser person when all is said and done?
    The process of self-inquiry is an act of love — a means of befriending yourself. In the process of unearthing your own truth you learn to trust yourself more and more. When we discover small ways that we betray ourselves or minimize who we are, we bring light to where the shadows of doubt live.                                                                
    By noticing when we undermine our own integrity, compromise our values, and live with diminished self-worth, we free ourselves from the burden of dishonesty, self-betrayal, and self-doubt.
    Self-inquiry is intended to be a gentle truth-telling process that guides you to see and appreciate your humanness. A process of forgiving yourself, being kind to yourself, and nurturing a new and genuinely trusting relationship with yourself. This is a process of developing a compassionate heart — the antithesis of self-loathing.
    Telling the truth is the path toward befriending yourself. It is accepting your shortcomings and errors, learning from them, and moving on so that you become more trusting and trustworthy.
    Broken trust will never “feel good,” but rather than continuing to feel devastated, you will begin to realize that everyone falls short at times, including yourself. Instead of spiraling into ongoing resentment, you can acknowledge the “ouch” and move on.
    Forgiveness becomes a part of what you are willing to do because you have forgiven yourself for your own shortcomings. This freedom makes it easier to forgive others.
    You eventually realize that your happiness does not depend on trusting another. It depends on trusting yourself. It depends on you becoming both the ballerina who takes the leap and the dancer who does the catching. In so doing, you are learning the art of trusting and being accountable.
    To trust or not to trust? I offer the words of Cardinal de Retz (1614-1679), “A man who doesn’t trust himself can never really trust anyone else.” And that goes for a woman, too.
 
Published in Living on the Peninsula, February 2007

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