EeGADS, it was HOT in Texas last week! If you can believe it (and I know those of you who were there DO!) it was a record 107 degrees on Thursday, the day of our Boggy Creek Farm celebration of food, drink and successful midlife makeovers!
But that did not stop almost 50 women from braving the heat to partake of the amazing produce from Boggy Creek Farm, drizzled with flavorful estate grown olive oils by Piche, washed down with the frosty, summer cocktails made withPaula’s Texas Spirits’ orange and lemon ‘cellos. Between the cool drinks, the nice shade, a big fan of Carol Ann’s and ducking into the air conditioning to sample the food, we all managed to stay plenty cool enough to thoroughly enjoy ourselves!
Red, yellow, and green tomatoes, squash and zucchini carpaccio, laced with ribbons of olive oil, and sprinkled with sea salt and pepper. Tiny, tender, ripe figs stuffed with goat cheese and splashed with olive oil. And Mary Beth’s light and flavor packed gazpacho….divine! And in keeping with the fresh, what’s-in-season-now theme, Paula concocted libations made with cool cucumbers, basil and Paula’s Texas Lemon, and tart rhubarb sweetened and smoothed over with citrus-y Paula’s Texas Orange.
It was a feast. A feast of delicious, simple food.
No need to fire up the stove, no need for complicated recipes Just find the fruits and vegetables that are in season, serve them fresh with oils, cheeses, salt, pepper and maybe a crusty loaf of bread and you are set. In fact, in their remarks, I was struck by how Carol Ann, Mary Beth, and Paula were similarly motivated by this idea of good fresh food, simply served. Even Paula’s ‘cellos are made with fresh oranges and lemons, not the artificial flavors found in other ‘cellos.
And, a number of women told me how inspirational it was to hear these women’s midlife stories about how their businesses got started. Each of them had started by doing something she loved, and the passion eventually grew into a business. Carol Ann’s eloquent advocacy for locally grown produce, bursting with ‘life’ and nutrition due to the naturally enriched soil in which it is grown has made a believer out of me.
In fact, supping on several of her tomatoes drizzled with Mary Beth’s oils at home on Friday night, I, for the first time in years, had trouble going to sleep. This, after an exhausting week and a busy single day between the event and leaving early Saturday morning for a little vacation. It wasn’t a ‘too tired to sleep’ kind of thing either. I was just awake, alert and felt like I could put in another day! I think her tomatoes must be bursting with life and energy to keep Allison Allen awake after a tiring week! Maybe these three ladies should combine forces….Mary Beth’s gazpacho, pureed out of Boggy Creek tomatoes, with a splash of Paula’s Texas Lemon? Now that would be an energy drink I could get behind!
Many many thanks to our sponsors Boggy Creek Farm, Paula’s Texas Spirits, and Piche for generously sharing their passions and the fruits of their labor with us. A special thank you goes to my cousin, Lynn Helms, who shot all our lovely pictures (except the tomato basil madala). If you ever need pictures or a website, she’s your gal!
And a big thanks to all of you for making it such a success!
MORE magazine just published an article by Dr. Susan Love about the $1 billion dollar stimulus package for the National Cancer Institute. Although she’s been in the field of cancer research for more than 30 years, she was still frustrated and surprised to learn that virtually none of that money would be going towards cancer prevention research.
Maybe I should be, but I’m not even that surprised. I hate to be cynical but one big reason our health care system is so broken is that it incentivizes the wrong things. The big pharmaceutical companies who wield a LOT of money and influence make their profits by selling drugs and treatments that treat chronic diseases.If the incentives changed to move people towards prevention and wellness, they wouldn’t be selling so many prescriptions for treating heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. It’s easier to fight tooth and nail anyone trying to change things and keep raking in the profits than it is to figure out how to do things differently.
Even doctors make their money treating disease, not preventing disease. Even though many deplore the focus on disease, I’m not sure they can even fully imagine a system that rewards them for keeping patients well. Could it be because the insurance companies aren’t on board with that idea? Our health care system is built around people staying ill. An old boyfriend who is a very successful (and cynical) entrepreneur always told me whenever I would wonder why some unjust or ridiculous situation was the way it was, “Follow the money.” I’m sorry to say, I’ve concluded he’s often right about that.
I will even give these players the benefit of the doubt and say I don’t necessarily think they are consciously thinking of this, they are just playing by the rules in place and protecting their bottom line. However, the bleak economic landscape is littered right now with companies that got complacent and fat because they were so busy trying to protect the gig they had, that they refused to exert themselves to exploit (in a good way) new opportunities that would require innovation on their part.
I refer of course to our major car companies. You can see symptoms of the same thing in the entertainment and movie industries as well. Instead of trying to figure out how to make a killing with the digital revolution, they simply poured all their energy into suing people to prevent them from using the new technologies. CD sales are now in the toilet, so we see how successful they have been with that strategy. About as successful as GM.
Anyway, I think there are many forces that resist a change to focusing on prevention of many diseases, not just cancer. And, we the patients have to bear our part of the blame too. It’s so much easier to take a pill than it is to get out and exercise every day or change our diets.
Then there is the whole issue of women getting short changed by our health care system in so many different ways. Our premiums are much higher, insurance pays for Viagra which has no positive health effects aside from enabling sex but won’t pay for hormone therapies that have documented health benefits, and on and on.
So, you see why I’m not really that surprised that Dr. Love would find no money for prevention in that billion dollars. I think it’s the kind of change that has to be demanded from outside the industry.
That would mean it has to come from us.
As luck would have it, Dr. Love has a call to action. She has joined forces with the Avon Foundation to form an Army of Women, a group dedicated to research on the causes and prevention of breast cancer. The goal is to enlist a million women to participate in the research. So if you’d like to be part of the change we’d like and NEED to see, check out the Love/Avon Army of Women.
Is it a newsflash to anyone that reinvention is the BIG nerve for women in midlife? It seems like every woman I talk to is either feeling vague yearnings for something different, or already has the change in mind she’d like to make. Whatever end of the spectrum you’re on, actually tackling it can seem daunting. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a major career shift to something more fulfilling, or just wanting to make some life adjustments so life is a better fit for who we are at 48 than were at 25, many of us aren’t sure where to go from there.
My good friend Sue Cullen and I have designed a special experience for women who are ready to actively work on this. Blooming In Midlife: Design A Future That Fits is designed to help women make steady progress towards any goal, big or small, that they set for the course.
The 8 session course will provide support and encouragement over a period of weeks through close collaboration with Sue and me, and with other women who are also on a quest to make the next half of their life the best half.
Sue has done a lot of work with women using What Color Is Your Parachute?, the definitive career changers guide. I took a look at the book recently and did some of the exercises myself to get some clarity around my own reinvention. Even though I’ve done a lot of introspection, I learned alot I didn’t know, and that was just doing them curled up on my sofa by myself. So I KNOW that Sue has some great group exercises and tricks up her sleeve that will go far beyond that.
And, I’m being kind of silly, but CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? The visual model Parachute uses is a 6-petaled BLOOM! Sue and I thought that was just too much of a coincidence to pass up on.
Those two sessions will help everyone get clarity around their unique, core job strengths, values, and life mission. Sue has found that most people simply can’t articulate what these are when asked. So we wanted to start by helping people get really clear on those as the foundation for the next 6 sessions.
Sue or I will work one on one with everyone then to help our seekers integrate the insights from Sue’s exercises and turn them into a realistic goal for the course. And then, we’ll be using a tool I worked with when I taught at St. Edward’s University in the Organizational Leadership and Ethics Master’s program. It is specifically designed to help people work their way through problems with no clear solution. I call these ‘hairball’ problems because who knows where they begin or end, or what lies within them?
And, what could be more of a hairball than trying to figure out what to do with the next half of your life, I ask you?? This tool uses the intelligence, questions, and support of small groups to help the problem holder, the reinventor in this case, gain insights and design action steps that will help her reach her personal goals.
My students invariably found this process to be an enormously powerful and insightful tool. They carried the skills they learned to their professional and personal lives with great success. You’ll probably never approach a problem in the same way again, AND your hairball will much more manageable.
What’s going to be really exciting is seeing the power of the group in action and what providing support over a period of time will accomplish. I expect close friendships to develop, to see women learning as much from the others’ problems as they learn from their own, and a wonderful collaborative environment.
I’m stoked! (Do people still say that?) For more information and details, click here.
Ladies! I just spent a mind bender of a weekend at a seminar that was about the psychology of real estate investing. It turned out to be as much about how wealthy people think about their money as it was about investing in real estate. And I found that even though I’ve been exposed to some very wealthy people as role models (why didn’t more rub off dang it!), I didn’t really understand many of the concepts this guy taught.
Women and finances are a subject near and dear to my heart. I worry about us. Most people aren’t educated about wealth period, and women are even less educated because we so often let our husband take responsibility for it, or we’re too intimidated to do much more than save money.
One of the big things this guy pushed was that most people don’t get wealthy by saving. Can you put away a percentage of your income and get ahead, yes. But you’re not using leverage at all that way (see below) and you’re really limiting the upside for yourself. How many of us are planning for our retirement with this as a significant piece of our strategy?
Uh oh.
Here are a few more things I learned:
Leverage: the ability to do more with less. This is the mother of it all, the foundation of wealth building. I thought about this in the context of being a solo-preneur who is out on their own doing consulting or something else where you are paid by the hour, maybe a high rate, but still it is contingent on your individual work. Wayne’s point was about building a business that leverages other people and uses systems and policies so well that anybody could come in and run the business. A business like that is something someone would pay a premium for. That’s basically the franchising concept, isn’t it? The multi-level marketing industry (Amway and Mary Kay are examples) is also based on leveraging. Again, very thought provoking.
Luck: Destiny not personally guided. Is it good to have? Yes. Can you count on it to pay your bills, get ahead, etc.? No.
Wealth: Ability to survive ? number of days into the future if you couldn’t sell assets, work, or lower your standard of living. My personal wealth quotient was sobering.
Asset: These are what ‘feed’ you, i.e. generate money. Things like cars, jewelry, furniture, etc. are not assets as Wayne sees it, although most banks would call them that. They consume money without generating money.
Liability: Something that ‘eats’ you. Debt for things like boats, jet skis, jewelry, etc take money away without generating cash. And, this got my attention, it’s money that now is NOT available to invest or save in something that IS income producing. Oops, hadn’t thought of that.
Credit: Ability to repay. Many people think this is the ability to borrow, but Wayne says lenders look at it as your ability to pay them back.
There was so much more but these are the ones that really got my attention and my thinking juices flowing. I realized how much of my thinking was different than this. Wayne was saying anything BUT don’t have luxuries, don’t enjoy the fruits of your labor with consumables (cars, jewels, etc). No, you should have what you want, but his rule is that he always has to produce the cash flow from an asset to pay for those kinds of things. That way someone ELSE is basically paying for the asset that is producing the cash flow, AS WELL AS the ‘dooda’. Ha, now that’s leverage.
I’ve known for a long time that smart wealthy people don’t ‘consume’ willy nilly. The ones I know are very careful with their dollars, they push to find the lowest price, they don’t waste money on buying the most expensive just because they can. They have cash flow producing assets that provide for these things and even if they are buying a top Mercedes, they are hard bargainers. They look at money as a wealth building tool and if it’s tied up in things that are depreciating or wasted frviolously, they aren’t leveraging it (there is that word again).
Hope this wasn’t boring, it really made a big impression on me. I already have noticed myself thinking differently about things.
What do you think? Do you already know this stuff? Or, is it news to you?
I’ve been a little preoccupied these days with the process of reinvention. Could it be because I am STILL trying to figure mine out? Well, yes dammit! HelLOOOA, Fairy Godmother, where ARE you, dang it, when I need you?
Like many of you, I’ve seen The Secret, and read The Success Principles, and plenty of self-help gurus about the Law Of Attraction. The L of A in essence says that if you want something badly enough, focus your energy and attention on it, persist, and keep holding it out as a detailed vision to guide you, you will create it. If you want it badly enough, work hard enough at it while always believing it’s as good as in the bag, it will happen.
Sounds really good, and empowering to boot!
Well, I am not buying that hook, line and sinker these days. I’ve been doing that now for almost two years. Have I had some success? Definitely! Do I see more success with it in the future? Definitely! Have I even come close to supporting myself with the perfect job I’ve designed for myself? Nope. Do I see it happening in the near term? I’m not hopeful.
I do believe in the law of attraction principles as a necessary part of manifesting your reinvention dreams. But, hard work, positive thinking and focus are only part of the story. For example, if you’re looking to create a business for yourself out of your passion, then your passion needs to be an idea that people are willing to pay you for in great enough numbers (and enough dollars and cents) that you can support yourself. Maybe your passion isn’t a viable business idea. Or maybe it could be if you had a long enough runway to make it happen. Maybe you have to do it part time for a while to give it a chance. Maybe you can make a modest living with it and you’re OK with that.
What this adds up to is that your level of success is determined by what you want or need from your dream.
A big question on my mind is how much financial security does it make sense to sacrifice in pursuit of your passion? I have friends who are taking big risks with that by making some big entrepreneurial or creative bets. I’m taking risks myself but am starting to question the wisdom of that approach. A big life dream requires a sacrifice or deferral of something, time, money, lifestyle. Only you can say to what degree you’re willing to sacrifice any or all those things, but what is certain is answering that question requires serious thought, not simply magical, or wishful, thinking.
So, if you conclude your passion isn’t likely to produce enough to take care of your financial needs and responsibilities, should you throw it over? Absolutely NOT. First, none of the self help gurus I know have said it’s a requirement to go bankrupt to create what you love. Second, you can still do what you love, but maybe it needs to be a sidebar for you, something you do on the side. Maybe it will earn you some extra money, or maybe not, but in the meantime, it’s your PASSION, it’s feeding your spirit!
I recently read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and it was so timely for me in pondering how the above applies to my own situation. What stood out for me was that the path to one’s ‘personal treasure’ or dream is full of winding paths, detours, delays, rabbit trails, etc. And that each of those seemingly random or disappointing things offer lessons that can actually play an important part in ultimately finding your treasure. You never leave off of seeking your treasure, but how you come to it is likely to look very different from how you envisioned it.
Even though I’m feeling somewhat disillusioned (or maybe just gaining deeper insights) with the L of A, I also am feeling comforted. I have a renewed appreciation for the journey I’m on which I’m usually not all that patient with. After all, one of my biggest dreams is becoming the kind of person who can persist and figure out how to get to her dream despite the detours, rabbit trails etc. I AM figuring it out, I’m just not there yet. I guess Fairy Godmother is working her magic, it’s just a little slower than I expected.
I’m really curious about y’all’s stories on this. What failures or successes have you had?
I’ve always been healthy as a horse. Knock on wood, Universe, I’m not taunting you here, but I’ve never had the flu, had a stomach virus only once, rarely am plagued by allergies (which is saying something in Austin), and my blood pressure stays its same old low self even when I’m losing my mind. The only pill I’ve ever taken regularly is birth control pills.
So you can imagine what a shock it is for me to suddenly find myself using all kinds of maintenance meds and routines for this and that. Some of them are completely preventive, some are experiments to treat vague, ambiguous symptoms. And, some are just because they are supposed to be good for me.
Look at this ridiculous list of things I take or use every day: bio-identical hormones, two calcium supplement pills the size of small golf balls along with a vitamin D drop in a glass of water every morning, estriol cream to keep vaginal atrophy at bay, Femdophilus to keep my vaginal fauna and flora balanced, and a teaspoonful of very grapey tasting Vivix which is a resveratrol product that is supposed to trigger my anti aging genes. I’ll spare you a few other little maintenance routines that have taken hold of my schedule and those don’t even count the creams and potions for my face and skin.
Good LORD! How did this happen? I don’t know what I’d do if I had some chronic health issue. Aside from being middle-aged, I mean.
I’ve come around to the sad truth that I’m a little like my Subaru Outback wagon with 104,539 miles on her. She still looks pretty darned good, runs pretty darned well, and there is no reason she won’t be a 200,000 mile car. Her air conditioner rocks. The radio still sounds pretty good and the leather now has a nice patina. Despite years of dog in the back seat, she still smells OK.
But, recently I had to get her timing belt changed out. There is the matter of a leaky oil gasket that needs replacing soon, and those axel boots that sling some grease on some very hot piece of metal that emits a really stinky smell. She has a few minor dings from shopping carts in the parking lot and a small chip in her windshield. A couple of new tires are in her future too.
You know, nothing dire, nothing that keeps her from running pretty well, but just pesky maintenance things that need to be done if she’s to live and run well to her full 200,000 miles.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have our very own Click and Clack for midlife? Someone who thrives on trying to figure out our more mysterious and vague symptoms merely from a description and some amusing sound effects over the phone? Someone who could diagnose with precision and accuracy those things that aren’t drastically wrong, but just aren’t quite right? Keep us on our maintenance schedule? And, someone who tactfully humors us when we sound like idiots?
OMG, y’all! I’m probably sounding like a broken record with my obsession with women’s colonies and my latest variation on that theme, a vintage trailer court. But, I just have to share this because it was such a delightful surprise!
Tall Slow Talkin’ Texan and I took a little field trip last weekend to see Tiny Texas Houses in Luling, Texas. I had seen an article a year and a half or so ago about this guy down in Luling who builds beautifully detailed, tiny homes from salvage. I know, ‘salvage’ sounds like it could mean ‘scary’, but just take a look at these photos to see what it really means. Anyway, we were looking for something fun to do that would involve a short road trip and this fit the bill.
I don’t know what I expected, but as TSTT and I walked through the 5 or 6 models Brad Kittel has on his property, I become more and more intrigued. And then, as one of Brad’s right hand guys walked us through 3 structures they had under construction, TSTT and I fell in love with them. They are building a little wedding chapel along with a bride’s room and a groom’s room. And these are the most charming little buildings you will ever see.
We are talking small here, some as small as a few hundred square feet, and the biggest being perhaps 400 square feet. All of them are unique structures built using lovely rich old wood, windows, doors, and fixtures Brad collects from all over the world. Many of them have porches added to expand the living space. Of course screened in porches are available too.
As an example, the inside of the bride’s room used old 6-panel doors turned sideways for wainscoting and an old turquoise sink from the 20s or 30s. In keeping with a bridal theme, they have whitewashed the entire inside and will be painting the floor turquoise to match the sink! Can you imagine how darling that is?
A very novel, and appealing, aspect of them is that they are completely portable. I mean you wouldn’t want to pick them up and move them willy nilly because it does cost to transport them, but they are built like brick outhouses (whatever those were) and structurally, they are built to be moved around. And, in spite of their diminutive size, you would be amazed to see how well designed they are to make use of every available inch of space.
You see, Brad is on a mission. He works with those who want to live much smaller and more affordably, but in a high quality house that will outlast them. One of the first things out of his mouth when we met him was how women in particular are in a tough spot. We live longer than men, and many of us aren’t as financially secure as men in general. We all know that story. Brad points out that, especially with our recent economic woes, Boomers in general may not be able to, or want to, afford their big old homes. His Tiny Texas Homes provide an alternative.
Right now, the homes range in cost from the $30,000s to the $90,000s depending on size and detailing. They are highly insulated so their energy costs are very low. They are very green because almost all the materials are recycled. That also means they don’t give out the toxic fumes that new building products do. And, they are visually quite beautiful because of the old woods and attention to details.
And I know it won’t surprise you to know that he has envisioned making a community out of these little homes. Complete with a communal building. Sound familiar? He has some pretty innovative ideas on how you could build water collection and septic systems so as to minimize cost and maximize efficiency.
Of course, these could be used for guest houses, studios, offices, and the like, but the possibilities for communal living are intriguing to say the least. I keep thinking that if you had a piece of land, one of these would be a very cost effective way to put a vacation house on it. And with the tiny footprint, you could really let the land speak for itself.
And, besides all that, they are just the cutest things!
So, at the risk of beating a dead horse, I’m just adding that into the mix.
OK, I’m feeling a bit more energetic today. And, sex is usually good to catch my interest, don’t know about you.
A week or two ago, I talked with Shelley Imholte, a sexologist, who works quite a bit with midlifers. As you might imagine, she has seen and heard about everything under the sun. We were discussing topics for some articles she could write for WomenBloom.
Of course, I thought the topic of erectile dysfunction would be good since I have to think that is a problem that frequently, er, raises its head at this time of life. And, I think it can be really awkward for a couple to discuss since it most likely involves some embarrassment on the male side of the equation. Easier just to pretend it isn’t happening than talk about it.
What I didn’t realize though, is that ED is often part of a vicious cycle that involves premature ejaculation. For a man, sex is a delicate balance between getting excited enough to achieve an erection, but not getting SO excited that he ejaculates too soon. And, since we women are usually quite a bit slower to the finish line than our guys, the mismatch can become more apparent as a man gets older and occasionally finds it harder to achieve an erection. It takes more to become erect, but he may become too excited to keep from climaxing. Say it happens once or twice, then he begins to get worried that it will keep happening and before you know it…uh, Houston, we have a problem.
I don’t need to tell you the problems this could cause if the woman is still interested in sex. If she can take it or leave it, well, then maybe it doesn’t matter. But, my own way of thinking is that it is still an important piece of maintaining intimacy in a relationship. If the problem starts with ED, then clearly a visit to the doctor is in order. ED can be an early indicator of some serious chronic diseases so best to check up on it. If premature ejaculation is the problem, Shelley has some ways to address the psychological issues it creates.
It’s pretty obvious that Americans are result oriented folks. What’s the bottom line, we want to know. Cut to the chase, we say. You can say that what’s important is the journey, not the destination, but when it comes to sex, that isn’t how most of us behave. It’s the Big ‘O’ we’re gunning for. And, Shelley points out, in midlife we aren’t always as comfortable with our bodies as we once were. “Lights out, let’s get this done” may be the common approach for many of us. But, we may be short changing ourselves and creating unnecessary pressure that can lead to problems.
We forget that physical pleasure doesn’t begin and end in our genitals. Shelley likes to start with helping folks rediscover the pleasures of the WHOLE body. Reconnecting to other pleasure centers can slow things down, deepen the experience and get minds off the rush to finish. Then the sex usually gets a lot better. Duh.
And, Shelley is constantly amazed at how we somehow think sex is ‘natural’, that we should just ‘know’ how to be a wonderful lover. Obviously some parts come naturally, but there are so many things we can learn that enrich the sexual experience, and make it infinitely more pleasurable.
Interestingly, Shelley also says if she can get couples communicating better outside the sack, with more give and take, and non-reactive language, the sex inevitably gets better. Imagine that! Nah, ya can’t think the bedroom ever becomes the repository for every slight, resentment and hurt feeling generated in the relationship! Right.
Shelley says she marvels at how deeply intertwined religion, cultural expectations and sexual mores are. So many religions hold that sex is only for reproducing, or that it is somehow ‘unclean’. Those values and attitudes are not conducive to deeply satisfying, intimate and yes, playful, ’sex for the sake of sex’ lives. She also points out that some cultures place very heavy reproductive expectations on young couples. No baby within a few years and they are in hot water with their families. That kind of pressure can lead to sexual dysfunction problems even in young couples.
So, there you are. It got me thinking about my own sexual attitudes and behaviors. Any revelations there for you?
Ya know, every once in a while you just run out of gas. I have a post I want to write about my conversation with a sexologist a week or so ago who had such interesting things to say about her work with midlifers. But, frankly, I’m just not up to it today.
So, I’m just going to wimp out, be light and put up this video that a friend sent me that I thought was pretty funny. I don’t know about the topic being the source of our society’s moral decay, but Sister Myotis does echo some of the thoughts I’ve had.
Come ON, be HONEST! They are danged uncomfortable. I have tried a number of them, and they simply are not comfy. Not to mention some of the other points she amusingly makes. Eek.
I wonder if Sister knows Aunt Pearl and Vera Carp in Greater Tuna?
OK, so the title and photo are really just continuing to put the idea out there. Just doing a little manifesting…
You know, the thing that got me so jazzed about doing WomenBloom was that I was seeing all these midlife women around me doing such very cool things. Not famous women, as inspirational as some of them are, but the women at work, girlfriends, women at church or in the grocery store. Like the ones that were at our midlife reinvention discussion group the other night.
Listening to this room full of Bloomers kindled my passion anew. We had a wonderfully engaged turnout, about 22 women, and even though we went over our time, there was obviously a lot more we wanted to talk about. A big thanks to Susan Post at Bookwoman for letting us use the store. They have a wonderful selection of books for and about women.
Lin Scheib, who is herself in the middle of a transition to being a life coach, made a wonderful discussion guest, sharing some great pearls of wisdom as well as donating one of her pretty necklaces and a 30 minute coaching session as a door prize. Congrats to Holly De Leon of Senior Work Solutions who won the drawing!
I knew when one our first arriving Bloomers told me she was recently divorced and was refurbishing her own Shasta travel trailer which she fully intended to use regularly that we were in for a fun and thought provoking evening! And so we were. BTW, do ya dig the photo? Couldn’t resist the picture here since the women’s trailer court idea was so hot!
Just a few of the topics we discussed:
• Courage and fear, how to overcome the fear of making a change
• Whether we give in to the lure of following our passion, or give in to practical matters like supporting our families
• Letting the worry of what others might say stop us from leaving our safe and secure for something more exciting and fulfilling
• Planning versus leaping
• Paying attention to seemingly random opportunities that fall in our way
A couple of women talked about being laid off for the first time ever because of the economic downturn. They shared stories about their internal conflict between using it as an opportunity to make a complete change to work they loved, or succumbing to practical matters (like being a single mother raising kids still at home) and going for the ‘safe’ bet of looking for the same kind of job. Not an easy call. It takes real courage to fight the fear of being true to ourselves, while balancing it with level-headedness to fulfill one’s family responsibilities.
Or, the story another woman told of having been very professionally successful, financially secure, kids pretty much grown. She felt a strong pull to do something else, something that really got her jazzed, but she worried that her kids and everyone else would think she’d lost her mind to leave such a well-paying job. She was having a hard time even imagining what she could do, or finding the strength to break through the inertia to even figure it out.
There were a few stories of being recently divorced and moving away, or quitting a job to move to Austin and feeling it was the right thing to do even though it was a little scary. We had differing views on how much planning to do before leaping, or whether you make the leap and have faith that the net would appear. There was interesting conversation around being open to seemingly random coincidences that turn out to be major turning points, or at least clear guideposts that lead you along a certain path.
Another woman told the story of how she planned for 8 years to move from Florida with her kids, to Austin. Talk about a lesson in planning and perseverance to make something happen!
Everyone was in a different place on the path, but the common denominator was the courage everyone displayed beginning with having the guts to even ask the question, “What do I want the next evolution of myself to look like?” Even letting yourself ask the question takes guts because then you open the door to possibilities that may rock your life’s boat in some way. It’s scary, AND exhilarating all at the same time.
So what part of the above resonates especially with you? Where have you found YOUR courage?
As I approached my 50th year, my mid life crisis began. It was a good thing, it lit a fire. I have lots of good years left but no time to waste! I made some dramatic changes that included creating WomenBloom, a website and online community for women in mid-life. My goal with this blog is to create a kind of bazaar for ideas, items, people, conversations, and resources that we can use to make the most of middle age!
EeGADS, it was HOT in Texas last week! If you can believe it (and I know those of you who were there DO!) it was a record 107 degrees on Thursday, the day of our Boggy Creek Farm celebration of food, drink and successful midlife makeovers!
Paula’s Texas Spirits’ orange and lemon ‘cellos. Between the cool drinks, the nice shade, a big fan of Carol Ann’s and ducking into the air conditioning to sample the food, we all managed to stay plenty cool enough to thoroughly enjoy ourselves!
