Monthly Archives: August 2009

How to Change Your Life – and Make Midlife the Best Time of Your Life

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         A long time ago someone gave me great advice. They said, “Look back rather than ahead when you want to see what you have accomplished. If you want to know how to change your life, it can’t be because you are looking ahead and feeling like something is missing. Midlife is a pivotal time in a woman’s life.  It’s an opportunity to say, “I’ve come a long way. and give yourself a pat on the back – wherever you might be.”  The mere fact that you want to learn how to change your life, means you are ready for something new.  It doesn’t matter where you have been, you are here today to tell it, and that’s a victory.

It’s hard to measure progress when you are always looking at how far you still have to go Adapt the spiritual truth that ‘there is no where to get to and you’ll never get it done.’  I have found that to be one of the most powerful messages of my life.

Most of us spend so much time focusing on what we don’t yet have that we fail to appreciate all that we do. Midlife is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on all the Good that has been in our lives and to see which of the things we want to keep and which we want to release. This could be people, beliefs or things.

 Focus on your assets and abilities and not what you are calling your flaws.

I used to think I needed to be good at everything and berated myself for the things I didn’t do well. One Midlife message I give myself continually is – if you don’t like it, don’t do it – find someone who does and hire them.

The principle that “What we focus on increases” applies particularly to our emphasis on what’s not up to our standards in our own character. I never met anyone who changed by being corrected. Praising good behavior yields more good behavior. It’s true with children. It’s even more true with ourselves.

Make a scrapbook of your life – and write what you appreciate about each year that has passed.

A few years ago, I did a year long workshop where one of the assignments was to make a book of our lives. We were asked to put at least one picture for each year, and where we didn’t have real pictures, to put something from a magazine that represented who we were at that time. Then, we were told to list the people who had been part of our lives and all the events that took place that we now considered significant.

I went all the way out with this project – creating a scrapbook filled with stickers and stencils and beautifully colored papers. I never thought of myself as an artist, but this book is something I will treasure as much as any work of art.

I called in family to help

I shared parts of my life that I had never shared

I discovered things about myself and about my beliefs.

Make a decision about what you want to throw away and what you want to keep.

Years ago, when I was moving from California to Florida, a good friend shared some advice that helped me let go and move on.  With each item I wanted to pack she’d ask, “Is this who you are today?” And, if my answer was no, we either tossed it or gave it away.  That goes for people and places as well as for things.  When we let go of what no longer serves us, we make room for the new. 

I have lots of experience with this and lots more spiritual tips that have supported me in the many changes I have made in my life.  I’d love to share some of them with you so you too can learn how to change your life. Join me now for a FREE bi-weekly newsletter on Midlife by going now to www.reinventmidlife.com  and then I hope to be hearing your ideas on my blog as well.

Grow Old with Dogs

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When I am old…
I will wear soft gray sweatshirts…
and a bandana over my silver hair…..
and I will spend my social security checks on
wine and my dogs.
I will sit in my house on my well-worn chair and
listen to my dogs’ breathing.
I will sneak out in the middle of a warm summer
night and take my dogs for a run,
if my old bones will allow…
When people come to call,
I will smile and nod as I show them my dogs…
and talk of them and about them…
…the ones so beloved of the past and the ones so beloved of today….

I will still work hard cleaning after them, mopping
and feeding them and whispering their names
in a soft loving way.
I will wear the gleaming sweat on my throat, like a
jewel and I will be an embarrassment to all…
especially my family…
who have not yet found the peace
in being free to have dogs as your best friends….
These friends who always wait, at any hour, for your footfall…
and eagerly jump to their feet out of a sound sleep,
to greet you as if you are a God.
With warm eyes full of adoring love and hope
that you will always stay, I’ll hug their big strong necks…
I’ll kiss their dear sweet heads…
and whisper in their very special company….
I look in the Mirror…
and see I am getting old….
this is the kind of person I am…
and have always been. Loving dogs is easy, they are part of me.
Please accept me for who I am.
My dogs appreciate my presence in their lives…
they love my presence in their lives…… When I am old this will be
important to me…
you will understand when you are old….
if you have dogs to love too

Midlife Crisis or Transition – They’re Playing Your Song

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One of my favorite stories that I believe applies particularly to those of us in midlife, is about an African tribe. It’s all about learning to sing your own song or show your own colors — two of the major themes I speak about in my keynotes to organizations. Here is a place I originally read the story by Alan Cohen. Take it to heart. It’s priceless.

They’re Playing Your Song

When a woman in a certain African tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes out into the wilderness with a few friends and together they pray and meditate until they hear the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration that expresses its unique flavor and purpose. When the women attune to the song, they sing it out loud. Then they return to the tribe and teach it to everyone else.

When the child is born, the community gathers and sings the child’s song to him or her. Later, when the child enters education, the village gathers and chants the child’s song. When the child passes through the initiation to adulthood, the people again come together and sing. At the time of marriage, the person hears his or her song. Finally, when the soul is about to pass from this world, the family and friends gather at the person’s bed, just as they did at their birth, and they sing the person to the next life.

When I have shared this story in my lectures, a fair amount of people in the audience come to tears. There is something inside each of us that knows we have a song, and we wish those we love would recognize it and support us to sing it. In some of my seminars I ask people to verbalize to a partner the one phrase they wish their parents had said to them as a child. Then the partner lovingly whispers it in their ear. This exercise goes very deep, and many significant insights start to click. How we all long to be loved, acknowledged, and accepted for who we are!

In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them. The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity.

A friend is someone who knows your song and sings it to you when you have forgotten it. Those who love you are not fooled by mistakes you have made or dark images you hold about yourself. They remember your beauty when you feel ugly; your wholeness when you are broken; your innocence when you feel guilty; and your purpose when you are confused.

One summer when I was a teenager I went to visit my cousin and her family in Wilmington, Delaware. One afternoon she took me to the community pool, where I met a man who changed my life. Mr. Simmons talked to me for about ten minutes. It wasn’t what he said that affected me so deeply; it was how he listened to me. He asked me questions about my life, my feelings, and my interests. The unusual thing about Mr. Simmons was that he paid attention to my answers. Although I had family, friends, and teachers, this man was the only person in my world who seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say and valued me for who I was. After our brief conversation I never saw him again. I probably never will. I’m sure he had no idea that he gave me the gift of a lifetime.

If you do not give your song a voice, you will feel lost, alone, and confused. If you express it, you will come to life. I have also done a workshop exercise in which everyone in the room is given a piece of paper with the name of a simple song on it, such as “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” In the whole group there are perhaps eight different songs, and a half-dozen people have the same song named on their paper. Each person is then asked to mill around the room while they whistle or hum their song. When they find someone else playing the same song, they stay together until they find everyone who is singing that song. Thus they create small groups that serve as touchstones for the duration of the program.

Life is very much like this exercise. We attract people on a similar wavelength so we can support each other to sing aloud. Sometimes we attract people who challenge us by telling us that we cannot or should not sing our song in public. Yet these people help us too, for they stimulate us to find greater courage to sing it.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn’t. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you’ll find your way home.

Alan Cohen is the author of 15 popular inspirational books, including the award-winning A Deep Breath of Life. For information about Alan’s Mastery Training in Hawaii or to request a free catalog of Alan’s books, tapes, and seminars, call 1-800-462-3013 or visit Alan’s web site at www.alancohen.com. Enrich your abundance by joining Alan for the innovative home-study Year of Living Prosperously. Contact Alan’s office at 455A Kukuna Road, Haiku, HI 96708

Will Your Dream Happen? Two Determining Factors.

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The Teller of Life
A middle-aged man walked into a bank, he approached the teller and asked, “Will you cash this check?”
The teller looked at the check and said, “Well sure, I can cash the check, just put your name on the back of it, hand it to me, and I will give you the money.”
The man stumbled back and said, “Whoa, wait a minute! I don’t want to put my name on the back of that check and hand it to you. You’ll be holding my check with my name on it and you might decide not to give me the money.”

“Well Sir,” said the teller, “How it works is this; you have to put your name on the back of the check before I can give you the money, that’s banking policy.”
“I understand that,” the man replied, “But I want you to understand how I feel. It makes me very nervous to think that you’ll be holding my check and you might decide not to give me the money.”

“Sir, I will give you the money, but you have to go along with banking policy,” The teller said.
The man argued with the teller. Back and forth they went. Finally the frustrated teller replied, “I’m sorry, I am not going to be able to help you, please leave.”
The man left, feeling angered about his failure to get his money.

He walked to another bank, went through the same routine, aggravating another teller, and again was refused service.

The man traveled to a third bank. Again, he refused to sign his name on the check before receiving his money from the bank.

Again, the man argued with the young teller, until finally the miffed teller reached the end of his rope. He reached under the teller’s cage, pulled out a rubber baseball bat, whacked the man on the head and commanded, “Sign the darn check!”
Stunned, the man looked at the teller. The man then picked up the pen, signed the back of the check, and handed it over to the teller. Cordially, the teller handed the man his money.

Money in hand, the man returned to the first bank, walked up to that first teller and he said, “Look! Down the street I got my money.”

“Yeah, but I bet even down the street you had to put your name on the back of that check before you got the money,” the teller replied.

“Well yeah I did,” the man said, “But you see, no one ever quite explained it the way they did.”
The Teller of Life
Factor 1: Are You Harnessing The Law of Specificity?

We can have any life we want, but we must first know what it is we want. The Law of Specificity states; to activate our dreams we must be clear about the life we’re designing. It does us no good to write a check to Life that says, “Dear Life, I want a good life. Please give me a happy life.”
Life does not know how to cash that check any more a builder knows how to build a “good house” or a “happy house”.

If you asked a contractor to build you a really happy house, the contractor would look at you and say, “You’ve got to tell me what you mean by happy house. You’ve got to describe it. You’ve got to give me a picture called a blueprint.”
Life is delighted to cash any check you wish. Step one is deciding what you really want, and designing it with crystal clarity; create your blueprint.

This is the law of specificity.
Factor 2: Will You Sign Your Name To It?

When building our dreams, we’ll often go to the teller of Life and ask, “Will you please give me what I want?

In essence, Life says,” ok I’ll give you your dream, but first put your name on the check.” Put yourself-your whole self-into a vibrational match with what it is you say you want.
You must commit to your dream. Put your name to the dream and the doors of creation will open.
Many of us reply, “Whoa, wait a minute! I don’t want to put my name on the dream–I don’t want to put my full self in. What if it doesn’t work out?”

“I want to know that it’s all going to be okay. I want to know where all the pieces are going to come from. I want to know exactly how it’s going to happen. I want to have it, and then I’ll put my full self in. Then I’ll put my name to it.”

Every one of us has been given a sacred name. That name is “I am”.

Our sacred name, the name that we lay on the altar of the Universe, that alter of I AM–whether it’s I am limited, or I am free, whether it’s I can, or I can’t–is shaped in the thinking chamber within us.

Every one of us lives in this divine Presence, Power, and Thinking Substance that shapes itself through our thinking. When we sign our name to the life we want–thus getting in harmony with our dream–we send a magnetic signal to the Universe at which point a strange and magnificent thing begins to happen.
Through the harmonic Laws of Vibration and Attraction; resources, people, and circumstances begin to show up in our life. The law begins fulfilling the dream we’ve designed. As sure as a teller will give you your money after you’ve signed the check, the Universe will give you your dream, once you’ve put your name to it.

The two questions I have for you are…
1. What life do you really want?

2. Are you willing to sign your name to it?

Dream Big Today!

Mary Morrissey

To receive a complimentary Dream Building gift from Mary Morrissey click here:

http://www.marymorrissey.com/mary-morrisseys-dream-building-kit

Midlife Crisis – Choose to be Happy Instead

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“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
~ Abraham Lincoln

One day recently, I woke up feel less than joyfully connected to life. Nothing special caused this feeling. I just didn’t focus on anything in particular and so, old ‘stuff’ began to creep into my consciousness and I let myself feel bad. And, then, I went about doing my routine shopping, banking and other sundry tasks, driving in my ‘mid-life convertable’ – when suddenly, I heard the guy in the next car singing at the top of his lungs, “It’s a Wonderful World”. Hmm. It didn’t feel like that to me and I began to realize that that truck driver was an angel messenger to me that day.

A Guru in a Truck
I could never see myself driving a truck, but this guy surely seemed happy in his chosen livelihood. It gave me pause to consider the attitude I sometimes bring with me to my work. I have often heard it said that the “altitude” of our attitude has everything to do with our state of happiness and here was living proof.

By the time we reach midlife, we, baby boomers have at least wondered if happiness is the cause of a positive attitude or if a positive attitude is the cause of happiness. I suppose it doesn’t really matter as long as we are clear that, in either case, it is an inside job. That was the teaching I received that day: Happiness is a choice we make on a daily basis and it is not based on what’s going on “out there”–it’s based on what’s going on “in here”…within our minds and hearts.

The lesson my truck driving guru brought to me is simple but not always easy to practice if our tendency is to look to the world for our happiness: We bring happiness with us wherever we go. Happiness is not something that happens to us, it happens through us when we consciously choose to make space for it to do so.

Happiness Happens
For the truck driver, “Happiness Happens” wherever he goes, because he brings it with him. How about you? How much happiness will happen in your life today? In other words, how much happiness will you bring with you the next time you walk out the door of your home or, for that matter, in that door? Is your home a place of happiness for you? What are you telling yourself if it is not?

Sure, you may feel a few aches and pains as you get older, you may even be worried about money running out before your time does. We get in life what we focus upon. If we focus on what is missing, we’ll get more of that.

What are you Singing today?
Perhaps now would be the perfect time to pause and consider the fact that we have been given another precious day of life on this earth. Choose to make a space to let happiness happen through you this day. Who knows, you may even feel like singing “What A Wonderful World”!