January 25, 2016
Woke up this morning to some simple thoughts on aging and what aging has done for me, aside from providing a profound awareness of the impermanence of everything in my life, even life itself.
Whether I like it or not, it’s earned me the title wise old crone, which to my horror is what the feminist writer Christiane Northrup and the brilliant Carl Jung have called people of my age. Gag me! I will, however, stick with the idea of having garnered some wisdom.
I’ve learned to lean into instead of run away from discomfort.
I’ve learned that sometimes the awareness of impermanence can be a life raft when I’m not sure I can take what life has handed me.
I’ve learned that I won’t always get what I want, and most of the time if I didn’t get it, I really didn’t want it as much as I thought I did.
I’ve learned that when I stop sharing what I think I know, and use that freed up time and energy to listen better, I get more and more valuable stuff to write about in my blog. (Which suggests that I didn’t learn everything I needed to know in kindergarten!)
And finally, I’ve learned that loving may be more important and more satisfying to me than being loved–although I appreciate and want both! I can almost guarantee that I won’t feel loving or loved when I steadfastly hold on to a belief, bias, resentment or grudge to which I am overly attached. When I treat my ideas and beliefs like facts they end up distancing me from my connection with you. As I’ve said a bazillion times, life’s too short to be purposely making myself miserable. Especially if it means reducing the experience of love in my life.
So I’ll continue leaning in, looking for the benefits of impermanence, appreciating what I have, shutting up, and loving as much as is humanly possible. It never ceases to amaze me that I haven’t mastered this stuff. I write about it to remind myself to keep it top of mind. I wonder if you find reminders helpful? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below, an email, or a share.
Much love,
Your comments are always great reminders. It amazes me how often I have to relearn or remember all of this.
Big GAG me too. That name crone needs to be replaced . I’ll have to think about what would work.
ps. I just asked Bones and he didn’t know what a crone is! Lucky to be with this man.
Ps I broke my ankle and all of the meditation things I’ve learned are really needing to come into practice.
Let me know if you come up with a word that doesn’t trigger the gag reflex!:) And yes! I’m totally with you in that every single time life hands me something I didn’t expect (or want), being able to meet it with some greater degree of acceptance and openness has been a life-saver. I actually don’t know how I’d be navigating things without it.
thank you Robyn. I love reading thoughts like this that are always a great reminder about what’s really important and that life is too short. I’ve also learned in the past that sometimes getting what (I thought) I wanted, was the worst thing that happened to me, but also offered the greatest lesson.
You’re right Julie! Same goes for me!