Surprise at 45 – Middle Aged Motherhood

It’s really strange how some people can live their lives according to the book, and others just wing it.  I have never been one to consistently write down my goals in some journal that I carry around.  Rather, they’re scratched out on the backs of already used index cards, or the back of this year’s address book, which I’m likely to lose before the year’s end.  But my goals, they get accomplished, somehow.  My goals don’t seem to be like those of others’, though.  They are more esoteric, more abstract, than saving for a BMW or paying off my house.

My goals are to live my life outside of the standard order of things.  As I said in my post, Guilt Free Non-Conformity, I really haven’t followed society’s timeline of events for a normal life.  My life really started later than most, at the birth of my first son when I was 32.  That’s when my beauty started to bloom, and I realized that I was a unique human being that didn’t think like others did.  That’s when I started recognizing the people that chose to be sheep rather than leaders, and that’s when I chose to be a leader by example.

So now, at 46, I find myself living totally outside of the box yet again.  My second child is due, completely unexpected and most certainly welcome nonetheless, in May 2012.  My plans for retirement are coming along fine, but it’s not the type of retirement that most people are planning, when they are too old to enjoy themselves.  Of course, on a humorous note, much of my retirement will be spent at Little League games, cheering on my son/daughter as he or she runs the bases.  Graduation for this little angel will be in 2030 (OMG!!!) and hopefully there will be great strides in the field of plastic surgery by that time so that I don’t look so much like Grandma while I sit in the audience of proud parents.  And of course, with a younger husband, I will still be called a cougar until the day I die, even when he’s 80 and I’m 89.  (If you would like to read about my pregnancy, you can visit my sister blog at Surprise at 45)

There are days that I feel the guilt of being non-conformist–mixed in with morning sickness it’s not an easy cocktail.  I know that there are friends who judge me for it, and have backed off because they just can’t relate.  To them, I say that I can think of no other way for me to live.  As I believe in multiple lives, I can say that this one, because of my choices to take the path less taken in many instances, is the best life yet.

Supporting Something that Ends up Hurting You

There are people that you meet that influence your life in some sort of small way.  And then there are people that you meet that change you in enormous ways.  Usually this is unexpected, and you really may not know that you are being affected in such a large way until that relationship changes and you are disconnected from that person.  That distance gives you time to think.

This happened recently when one of my dearest friends moved far away.

Our relationship started as a professional one, where I hired her to train my horse, and me, on how to get along nicely with others.  In the meantime, we grew together as friends, sharing a love for horses, life and the common struggles that women endure in these times.  But her life here was a troubled one;  she could never fulfill her true dream in this place and time.  She made the decision to accept an offer 1500 miles away;  one that would bring her closer in alignment to her goal of training and showing high echelon Saddlebreds in the show circuit.

Now me, as a good friend, I should have supported her.  But did I?  No.  I didn’t.  I projected my sadness and disappointment and–OK I’m saying it–envy–that she was one step closer to her dream, and she was leaving me in the dust both professionally and by abandoning (from my perspective) our friendship.  I was so self-absorbed that I couldn’t be happy for my best friend.  She was so fantastic both as a trainer and as a friend that I still can’t find a replacement for either of those holes she left in my life.

So from this experience comes the realization that friendship really does include that cliche “If you love someone, then let them go.” I am trying hard to support her in her quest to be a star trainer.  In fact, she came home with blue ribbons galore at last weekend’s show.

I should have been there to cheer her on.

To Filter or Not to Filter Your Discussions

So here I am in a conundrum.

A lot of things have happened in the last few months.  My home life has changed dramatically, and I have learned more about myself and listening to my gut feeling this year than in the previous 44 before.  Since there are a lot of lessons to be learned from my experiences, I would love to write about the feelings I encountered during the process.  But the Internet, she hides my words from no one.  And I was concerned that people who are already hurt will read my words and hurt even more.

But family and friends, they chided me, with wrinkled brows and stern faces.  “You can’t filter your feelings.  Say what you have to say,” they said.  Not one of my friends thought that the world would benefit from a censored perspective of my experiences, simply for the sake of sparing the feelings of one.

So from here on in, it’s coming as it really happened.  And to those whose feelings may be bruised, I’m sorry in advance.

Guilt Free Self Confidence

Here is an example of one of my new Guilt Free Life cards, which will be released in a bound mini-book in late 2011. It’s a 24-page “feel-gooder” that won’t be horribly expensive, but you can throw it in your purse or car and glance at one of 22 different reminders of how to live guilt free every day. I will be offering free downloads of the cards here and there so that you can print them out before the book is released.

You can download this one here.

The Difference between Blame and Responsibility

People like me are perfectionists;  and when we make a decision about something, and it doesn’t come out well, we perfectionists like to beat ourselves up about what we did wrong.  I am one to take responsibility for my actions, sometimes to the point of virtual self-flagellation.  Because perfectionists believe that we should have headed these bad decisions off at the turn, before we went careening off the cliff of despair into no man’s land.  We should have had enough intelligence to analyze both sides of the situation, create pro-and-con lists, extrapolate the consequences of each decision and visualize the outcome to our benefit.

Yet other obligations get in the way, and usually there’s not enough time to complete a full analysis of our decision before making one. So when it goes wrong, our minds come back to our lack of research and preparation for the decision.

So how do you react to your bad decision? There are two paths you can take: responsibility for the decision, or self blame for its outcome. It’s your choice, and I’m sure that you have taken both roads at one time or another.

Blaming yourself for not preparing properly incites that crippling, hand-wringing guilt that serves no one. Most likely you will replay the situation over in your mind, glaring at yourself for your stupidity every time you catch yourself in a mirror.

On the other hand, taking responsibility for your decision–no matter its outcome–does serve you. It reminds you that you are human, that you made the best decision that you could make in the time frame you were given. It allows you to cache the experience in your memory for next time, and sets precedent for future decisions. This is the healthier path every time.

Think of this: when you make a good decision, do you take responsibility for that? Many may say that it was luck, or providence, or coincidence. But in truth, it was just you, and you can give yourself a mental pat on the back. You don’t replay it in your mind over and over as you do after a decision with a negative outcome (if there really are any negative outcomes, since all actions can be viewed as lessons). You revel in it; you may even smile.

Let’s try taking responsibility, rather than self blame, for each decision and its consequences, no matter whether the outcome is perceived as good or bad. This is the way to a guilt free life.

Realizing you are not the Center of the Universe

Yesterday, January 18, 2011, was a day of epiphany for me.

You see, until yesterday, I thought I was the center of the universe.  I existed to be the focus of attention at a party, the witty joke-deliverer, the one who made people laugh.  The one who was chosen for extra special assignments, for the writing jobs because of my excellent word choice.  The problem-solver.  The representative.  The level-headed one that could lead the group to success.

And yesterday, I gave up that role to others.  And with it, I gave up my self-perceived and  immense responsibility for saving the world.  I am free to live my life as a regular person.  I can enjoy my family, and can sit on the couch for four hours knitting without guilt.  I can draw a picture if I want to, or write a poem without the need to publish it and receive accolades from all that read it.

I am free!

At the ripe age of 45, I have realized that it’s not necessary to carry the world on my shoulders.  I can be a normal person without the need to be an overachiever.  What a relief and what a breath of fresh air.

So today, when things got rough, and I would normally have stepped in and led the team without being asked, I sat on the sidelines and observed.  I pictured myself as the wizened Eskimo elder, knowing that I could solve the problem but not forcing the solution on others.  I let them solve the problem, and when they looked to me for confirmation that their decision was a viable one, I simply nodded my head and let them take the credit.

What bliss.

Are You TOO Guilt Free?

Yesterday, my son called me a bitch.

Now, other people have done that in my younger years, but back then I had earned that label.  Nowadays, however, I think I may be on the lenient side of things, and let a lot of inappropriate actions and words by others just roll off my back.

Well, folks, that doesn’t work with kids, apparently.  Because they are watching you, and modeling you, and their behavior is learned from yours in a really big way.

I guess it started when I was working nights, and as I lay comatose in bed after being on my feet all night, my little tyke would crawl out of bed and switch on a DVD.  One morning, he tapped my shoulder as I slept, and said, “MOM!  The Matrix is everywhere.”  I should have taken this as a sign that perhaps I should be more careful about what he had access to, and to be fair to myself, there was no porn or other REALLY inappropriate materials in the house.

And after all, they are going to learn it soon, anyway, right?  Right.  They are going to learn it.  And they are going to look to you for your judgment on that material.  If you glaze right over the violence and the trench coat-wearing virtual mercenaries, then your kids are going to think that these types of movies are the norm, when indeed they should not be–at least for kids.

So being called a bitch was simply a symptom of the bigger problem–that I was too lax in my household, and that my quest to bring up an individual rather than a little carbon copy of myself went too far to the other extreme.  And I created an individual to which nothing was sacred.

According to Elaine Sihera on the Helium.com blog:

Children in homes where the parents do not treat each other with any respect, and where language is abusive, critical or inappropriate, tend to use those examples as their guidelines and behave accordingly. Parents teach their children not only through what they say, but most importantly, through what they DO. Children will pick up inappropriate and ambiguous behaviour when they have been set the wrong examples. The parents might not want that to happen but that is the only outcome where there is no other model to copy.

So, yes, it is possible to be TOO guilt free.  Remember that you are a model for your children, and being too lax is just as detrimental to their growth as being too strict.  Let them grow by feeding them the good stuff in the right portions.

Can we Manifest Guilt?

Does thinking guilty feelings manifest more in the future?

The Law of Attraction exists to deliver to us the things on which we focus.  Visualization can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on how you use it.  As masters like Abraham advise us that the Law is here to provide for us anything we need to fulfill our life’s goals of experiencing God’s magnificence and the gift of free will, the Law makes no judgment of good–or bad–in what we request.

So if you are consistently focusing on, let’s say, your sickness, and ignoring the rest of your body which is in total health, then you will bring about more sickness until it becomes your complete reality, taking over the healthy areas of your body.  Alternatively, if you focused on the healthy parts of your body, showing gratitude for that health despite the small area of you which is resisting it, then the Law will deliver more health–eventually healing whichever ailment you may have.  The Law doesn’t care if it is delivering you what you consider to be GOOD or BAD–it only delivers to you what you ask for.  And whether you are focusing on your sickness–or your health–you are asking for more of the same.

So why would anyone ever focus on the negative?

Look around you and ask yourself if you know many people, if any, who don’t.

We all know those people who love to talk about their most recent ailment, whether it be a perpetually bad knee or the constant migraines, or that their husband is a fat slob, or that they just can’t seem to lose weight.  They relish in the audience they receive, despite the fact that no one they speak to really wants to hear about it.

And guilt is about as negative as it gets.

Guilt is something no one wants.  Aside from your passive-aggressive grandmother who layers it on like cream cheese icing if you don’t visit often enough, there is no room for guilt in anyone’s lives.  So why do we feel so much of it?

We feel guilt because we think we should have done something differently from what we actually did.  And the Law says that our actions are based on focused thoughts and their resultant feelings.  So my deduction here is that we did something that we KNEW we shouldn’t have done, and now we feel bad about doing it.

We were focusing on the negative.  We did what we knew we shouldn’t have done.  And now we feel guilt.

So next time you feel guilty, look backward (but only briefly!) to your thoughts and feelings about what you were thinking when you didn’t do what you knew you should have done.  Note these feelings, and then move on.    If you continue to focus on your guilt, then the Law will bring you more of what it thinks you want.

And don’t forget to visit your grandmother once in a while.

Learning Not to be Offended by Others’ Habits

The increasing popularity of electronic cigarettes led me to read more about the safety benefits of using them vs traditional tobacco cigarettes.  In a statement last January, Dr. Jonathan Winickoff of Harvard Medical School called the Crown7 “a thousand times safer than cigarettes.”  You can see the article here: ‘Just like the real thing’: Businesses push ‘e-cigarettes’.  My topic here isn’t whether e-cigarettes are or are not safer than tobacco, but rather how people judge those who smoke at all.

Reading the comments left on the site after the article, the page was laden with forked-tongue remarks about how weak and pathetic smokers are.  These people have decided that if you smoke, you have decided to purposely disgrace humanity with your presence in the form of second-hand smoke and tar-stained hands.  You were created to offend others simply by your habit.  Where is the compassion for those who may be struggling with a habit that’s tougher to kick than heroin?

Again, my argument here is not whether second-hand smoke is dangerous (although several recent studies have claimed that the dangers are not as real as once thought), but rather why people must feel offended at the choices of another.  Of course, smokers–along with drinkers, and those who shove down three cheeseburgers at McDonalds, and those who crack their knuckles, and those who drink wine and get behind the wheel of their car, or those that slip out an expletive now and then, or those caught by surprise by public flatulence–should keep their habits to themselves.

How many of us does that leave, then, with no habits that may offend someone?

And why are people looking so hard to be offended?  Is it because they want to elevate their own self-worth by attempting to diminish another’s?  Are we projecting here?

Simply put, if one is content with oneself, then there is no need to be offended by another’s behaviour–ever.

Choose Death and You Distribute Guilt

Recently an acquaintance chose to end her own life.  She had tried for many years to do so, and her family scrambled each time she disappeared to find her before she succeeded.  This time they failed to locate her in time, and she ended her own life locked in a hotel room.  Whether it was depression or mental illness I don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that her death affected everyone who knew her in some way.  For her family members, of course it was devastating.  To others more distant, there must be an odd curiosity as to how, or why it happened, and speculation as to what she encountered or felt during the act.

I am not here to judge; living a guilt-free life means that one can choose one’s own death if she chooses that option.  But if you’re in this same situation, please heed my words:

Guilt travels.

What I mean here is that leaving this life may seem like an escape to you, but consider what you will be leaving behind.  Of course you will leave grieving family members, but also you will leave them with unanswered questions that could never be answered in a suicide note.  You will leave guilt, my friend.  Guilt that lingers in your family members, your friends, and others you may not even know you’re affecting.  They may replay the events of the past in their heads:  Why didn’t I get her some help?  Why didn’t I lock her in a room until we could get assistance?  Why didn’t I ensure that she had someone to talk to, no matter the cost?

Now an adult knows that no one can really stop one who wants to end her life if she really wants to end it, but that, my friend, doesn’t stop the guilty emotions from surfacing in the ones you leave behind.  And if you want to leave this world to inflict guilt on others, know this:

You’re going to come back with the same lessons you have to learn in this life…and you’re going to have to face them again.  So you may as well face them now.

So, if dear friend, you are considering the act of suicide, please seek help from someone…anyone…for you are not alone, and you never were.  And send guilt –not your spirit–where it belongs–out of this world.

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